IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 624-10 July 16, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualties The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died July 13 in Kandahar City, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked their unit with rifle, rocket propelled grenade, and small arms fire. Killed were: [...]

Yesterday, Sarah Palin tweeted: Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing As it turns out, near North Sixth Street and Kentucky Avenue in Waco, Texas, you can find the Greater Mount Carmel Church. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the Mount [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 622-10 July 16, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Pvt. Brandon M. King, 23, of Tallahassee, Fla., died July 14 at Combat Outpost Nolen, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms [...]

Actually, one more post before the weekend. I’ll be moderating a panel on the Hill on Monday at 10 a.m., sponsored by the pro-Israel pro-peace lobby J Street, on the question of American leadership in ending the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Our exciting panelists: Amjad Atallah Co-Director, Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation; Former [...]

You know what? Instead of getting angry with myself about how I don’t have time to feed my personal blog and it’s 10:15 already and I’ve got nothing posted, I’m taking the day off. Sorry. It’s a big internet out there. May I recommend Danger Room? Home news: I’m going to need to call on [...]

Gulliver should take a bow for this post. And Geoff, you should send the dude a bottle of whatever he drinks. Lots of times we in the press fall into a trap of having an adversarial relationship with department spokespeople. They’re the ones who block and tackle for their principals, who dodge our questions, and [...]

In my inbox: a letter Sen. Graham wrote to Attorney General Holder asking him to stop being cute about the ultimate venue for the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators. “In your testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 14, 2010, you stated that ‘New York is not off the table’ as [...]

If ever you want to see an effort at stripping American identity from American Muslims, this ad denouncing the Ground Zero Mosque is a perfect case in point. In its conflation of Muslims with al-Qaeda, it’s everything Usama bin Laden ever hoped for. The basic critique that the addled conspiracy theorists of al-Qaeda have proffered, [...]

I can’t get over this quote in Laura Rozen’s post about Shahram Amiri: “Amiri made his own decisions,” a U.S. official told POLITICO Wednesday. ”He chose of his own accord to come to the United States and to leave the United States. He provided useful information on the Iranian nuclear program. Now Iran has to manage him. You [...]

I linked to this in a Danger Room post, but Joe Klein has a column reporting that out of frustration, some military and intelligence officials are giving the idea of bombing Iran a second look. Not that they think it’s a good idea! And because no one’s making that case, Joe ends his column on [...]