Posts by Spencer Ackerman
Poll shows growing Muslim antipathy to Obama foreign policy
“Many Arabs and Muslims are disappointed that Obama has not lived up to his promises, especially on the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Marc Lynch, a George Washington University professor and the co-author of a recent study of Obama’s global engagement efforts.
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal is now in the defense bill
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White House to unveil ‘grand strategy’ on national security
John Brennan has a tough rhetorical job ahead of him Wednesday morning. Speaking to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Brennan, President Obama’s most influential terrorism and intelligence adviser, will attempt to reconcile the harder edges of Obama’s escalation in Afghanistan and his enthusiastic embrace of drone-enabled assassinations of terrorists with the broader approach to grand strategy that the White House will finally unveil this week. Some wonder if that reconciliation is even possible.
Is ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ headed for the scrapheap?
Less than a month after the Pentagon leadership warned it would unwise to abandon the military’s ban on open gay service this year, a fast-moving legislative effort this week has opponents of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” feeling like the law might finally be on the scrapheap.
Holder defends 9/11 civilian trials, defuses critics
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Gates sharply limits ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
In a major victory for opponents of the military’s ban on open homosexual service, Defense Secretary Robert Gates significantly revised how the Pentagon will implement the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, effectively making it difficult to remove a soldier, sailor, airman or marine who does not out himself or herself as gay.
‘Urban myth’ behind Graham’s support for 9/11 military trials
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s rationale for why Khalid Shaikh Mohammed needs to be tried in a military commission and not a civilian court has to do with the procedures in the commissions for protecting classified information. But the revisions to the military commissions approved by Congress last year removed any significant difference between how classified information is handled in military and civilian venues. Accordingly, Chris Anders, an ACLU lobbyist, says Graham’s position was founded on “one big urban myth.”
Blackwater took hundreds of guns from U.S. military, Afghan police
Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, an individual claiming to work for the company evidently signed for a weapons shipment using the name of a “South Park” cartoon character. And Blackwater has yet to return hundreds of the guns to the military.
Plan to coordinate civil and military affairs gets chilly welcome
Just as the U.S. government’s Iraq reconstruction watchdog formally unveils a proposal to revamp the integration of civilian and military activities in combat zones, opposition from the State Department and the Pentagon threatens to scotch the whole effort.
Top Pentagon officials forcefully back repeal of military’s gay ban
The Pentagon’s top civilian and military leadership made an unequivocal and at times emotional appeal Tuesday to end the decades-long ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, and spelled out a year-long process for securing uniformed and congressional support to change the policy.
