War

Rep. Keith Ellison is urging members of Congress not to scrap the Goldstone report (pdf) on war crimes allegedly committed during the conflict culminating in December 2008 and January 2009 between Hamas and Israel. A resolution in Congress, backed by Republicans, would condemn the report, written by UN investigator Richard Goldstone, as unfriendly to Israel. [...]

Huffington Post’s Sam Stein is reporting that an amendment to the defense appropriations bill authored by Sen. Al Franken and approved in the Senate two weeks ago may be stripped from the final bill. Thirty Senate Republicans — now commemorated in the satirical web site Republicans for Rape — opposed the measure, which would prohibit [...]

As President Obama and his advisers debate strategy for the Afghanistan war and its related crisis in Pakistan, a factor that so far has not intruded on their discussions is emerging: the antiwar movement is showing signs of strength.

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, perhaps the only Minnesota politician with the word “peace” in his job title, says the Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama is “deeply problematic. It rewards rhetoric over substance.”

Republicans and Democrats have been sniping about the USA Patriot Act ever since Congress passed the law in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks to try to forestall another such disaster. But now, it’s the Democrats who are sniping among themselves about it.

State Human Services Commissioner Cal Ludeman and a dozen other Minnesota health care leaders travel to Germany Tuesday to learn about the government-regulated private health insurance system there that covers everyone. Here’s hoping they get a better reception than Hermann the German gave Tiberius Caesar’s Roman legions 2,000 years ago this month, as re-enacted over [...]

A man killed in an attack in the Somali desert by U.S. Special Forces last week had trained recruits from Minneapolis to join the ranks of the al-Shabaab anti-government terror group, according to National Public Radio.

As University of Minnesota bioethicist and torture expert Dr. Steven Miles was researching the deaths of detainees in U.S. custody, he noticed something strange. Although the Department of Defense had in the past issued press releases when detainees died at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, at some point in 2006, he says, the “entire prisoner death reporting system was turned off in Afghanistan.” Although at that time deaths in Iraq were still being reported, he says, that system was “turned off” at the beginning of 2008.

U.S. Rep. John Kline knows his buttons. As a Marine, he stayed at the side of Presidents Reagan and Carter, carrying the satchel known as the “nuclear football” that holds the how-to kit for pressing the most fearsome button of all. Now he’s once again the go-to guy, carrying the ball for Republicans who want [...]

Repurpose the trade missions, Gov. Pawlenty. Pack your old USO suitcase, Sen. Franken. Minnesota needs its most experienced road warriors for an emergency PR mission to the rest of the world: Neutralize Richard Holbrooke! The U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan has been going around Paris today dissing the Gopher State’s best efforts at [...]