I didn’t quite believe Marc Thiessen could actually wrote in his book that no one was ever tortured at Guantanamo Bay until I saw Jane Mayer debunk the claim, but one of the people tortured at Guantanamo, Mohamadou Walid Slahi, won his habeas case today. I spoke with his habeas attorney about the still-classified ruling. [...]

It’s a sign of how sharply the Overton Window has moved rightward over Israel-Palestine that Tzipi Livni’s speech to AIPAC felt like a breath of fresh air. Why? Because Livni didn’t need any cajoling to talk about the “Zionist vision of a secure, Jewish democratic state.” She emphasized the need for a peace agreement with [...]

Interested in a longer, more analytical take on Secretary Clinton’s AIPAC speech? Funny, I figured you might. While you check this out, I’ll be checking out Tzipi Livni’s speech, as Livni has a clear political interest in hugging both the U.S. and the peace process tighter than her political rival Benjamin Netanyahu. Update, 2:50 p.m.: [...]

Yet again, he goes after Gen. Petraeus, who has indicated he has no interest in responding to this frivolous poltroon. If you were determined to drive an unnecessary wedge between America and Israel, mischaracterizing and attacking the views of the U.S.’s most respected military officer is the perfect way to go. People at AIPAC take [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 224-10 March 22, 2010 DOD Identifies Navy Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a sailor who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Chief Petty Officer Adam Brown, 36, of Hot Springs, Ark., died March 18 in Afghanistan. He was assigned to an East Coast -based SEAL Team. For further [...]

Covered her speech here, here, here and here. Caught up with J Street for a response here. I don’t honestly know what I expected, as I wrote this morning. She had a deft moment where she reversed the typical construction on the right for why it’s bad for the U.S. to link the Israeli-Palestinian conflict [...]

This is not a fair fight. The takedown is not so much for me to excerpt, because its full force comes from its accumulated weight — though Jane’s Peter Clarke quote is a not-in-the-face! moment — so instead I’ll just quote her incisive kicker: By holding no one accountable for past abuse, and by convening [...]

This is a guest-post from Erin Polgreen, with whom I’ve recently been talking about Millar’s writing in advance of the upcoming Kick-Ass movie. For me, Kick-Ass — a great if, as we’ll see, problematic comic — represented a refreshing reversal for Millar: violent and wonderfully meta, but finally rid of Millar’s retrograde views of women. [...]

Apparently there are people out there even more hysterical than Abe Foxman over Gen. David Petraeus’ thoroughly uncontroversial observation that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sets the “strategic context” for the Middle East. (By the way, a close reading — actually, just a barely-awake reading — reveals that Petraeus was mainly making a point about problems the [...]

For the first time since I’ve been in Washington, I’ve wanted to cover a speech made at the AIPAC annual conference. These are the first considered remarks made by the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government since the Biden Jerusalem Insult. What Secretary Clinton will say, and how Prime Minister Netanyahu will at-least-implicitly respond, will [...]