In a classic Mad Magazine cartoon (that I dimly recall), the Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by a horde of hostile Indian warriors. The Lone Ranger says to Tonto "what do we do, now?," to which Tonto replies, "what you mean 'we,' kemosabe?"

One has the impression that...

Two days ago, Taliban-affiliated forces launched an attack on the national headquarters of the Pakistani Army. The result was a firefight followed by a standoff with hostages that ended earlier today. This attack represents a game-changing moment for Pakistan, and by extension for the US-led coalition in Afghanistan....

This week the leaking of General McChrystal's report - and the subsequent release of a redacted version - has led to a general reevaluation of our strategy in Afghanistan. Most of the attention that has been paid to McChrystal's report has focused on his call for additional forces; on Friday,...

Throughout the Summer, Obama declined to provide any details about his health care plans. The justification was that any plan that would be offered would instantly become a piñata. Unfortunately - as even Obama has admitted - the flaw in that strategy is that in the absence of a real...

Back in the mid-1990s, American seniors were mobilized into action to resist a plan to reform the Medicare system - in fairly modest ways - by scare tactics and misrepresentations. That time, of course, the losers of the exchange were the Republicans, who wanted to look for ways to cut...

Dear Santa,

Sarah Palin, through her attorney, is threatening to sue Shannyn Moore for reporting the existence of rumors about a pending investigation of Palin's dealings with a firm called Spenard Building Supply and various contractors, in connection with the construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex and the Palin residence....

The U.S. has three key interests with respect to Iran: containing its nuclear program, limiting its reach in the Middle East and, quite possibly, extending Iranian influence in Afghanistan in cooperation with the U.S. These three interests have to be pursued against the ever-shifting backdrop of the protests. At this...

The courage and determination of the protesters in Iran are inspiring, and the brutality of the regime's response is revolting. The reminder that, as Fareed Zakaria recently put it, "What you know about Iran is wrong" could not be more timely.

All that being said - with absolute...

As President Obama considers his nominee for the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a lot of the talk is about the desirability of appointing a woman or a Hispanic to the Court. There are two very different arguments that might be behind such an idea. The first...

A year ago, in a blog post at Balkinization.com, Mark Graber discussed John Yoo's role as an example of what he has called "the problem of Constitutional Evil." Graber's point is that the assumption that anything that is "evil" is therefore contrary to the dominant understanding of the Constitutional...

Nothing that the Obama administration has discussed thus far -- not TARP or the purchase of a trillion dollars in government bonds, not a regional approach to peace negotiations in the Middle East, nor the idea of posting all future budgets on the Internet -- has remotely the kind of...

I am starting to be genuinely worried by the potential destructiveness of a growing torch-and-pitchfork mentality that is partly the result of cynical manipulation, partly a result of failures of understanding, and partly the result of perfectly justified by presently misdirected anger.

Start with a legal point. There is no...

When AIG top management approached their staff about foregoing bonuses, the response - as described at The Hill -- was "take a hike." Management, in turn, felt they had not choice but to pay the bonuses. Partly they were afraid of the costs of potential lawsuits for breaching contracts...

At the end of the brilliant 1969 movie The Italian Job - SPOILER ALERT -- (starring Michael Caine, Noel Coward, and Benny Hill, not to be confused with the charmless 2003 remake), our heroes are gathered at one end of a bus that is teetering on the edge of a...

This is a response to the more than 200 comments posted in response to my earlier post, "The Case Against Prosecutions." That post is available here.

First, a personal, rueful observation. There is some sort of law of nature that ensures that if one writes 20 blog posts, the...

There is a lot of talk about the idea that Bush, Cheney, and members of their administration should be prosecuted for violations of American criminal and international law. The arguments in favor of prosecution are straightforward: laws were broken, and the rule of law requires that lawbreakers be held accountable....

It appears that we are close to a ceasfire in Gaza. So there are two questions to be asked at this juncture. Looking back, are the terms of the proposed ceasefire different from the ones that could have been obtained after the first two or three days of the campaign,...

Denunciations of Israel's invasion of Gaza have been widespread, and some of them have used language that verges on the hysterical, using terms like "genocide" (as Mahmoud Abbas did on January 6th in calling on the UN to intervene). The often-heard claim that the IDF is deliberately trying to kill...

Two days ago, a resolution of support for Israel jointly sponsored by Sen.Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was adopted in the Senate by unanimous consent. The resolution includes an uncritical recitation of some classic elements of the basic AIPAC-fueled neo-Zionist pro-Israel narrative that has...

The first thing to understand about what is going on in Gaza is that it is not the result of a sudden decision or an immediate and intolerable provocation by one side or the other; this thing has been in the planning by both sides for months. It was...