Eloquent reminder from Erica Payne: Consider this: We are the world’s only superpower. We have 309 million citizens and control 3.79 million square miles of land. At $14.3 trillion, we have the world’s largest economy. We make up two-fifths of the world’s military spending. It is virtually impossible for our enemies to beat us physically. [...]

Quote of the day comes from David Rivkin in Charlie Savage’s excellent NYT piece about Justice considering using State Secrets to stop Anwar al-Awlaki’s father’s lawsuit: The government’s increasing use of the state secrets doctrine to shield its actions from judicial review has been contentious. Some officials have argued that invoking it in the Awlaki [...]

The CIA sent around this message from Director Leon Panetta in advance of the 9/11 commemoration tomorrow. While he doesn’t come out and tell his non-Muslim countrymen to back away from the surge in suspicion of their Muslim neighbors, the message still comes through. For instance: The diversity of talent that we send into the [...]

Speaking of the non-existent/invented-by-me-in-a-moment-of-cheekiness campaign to return Jack Goldsmith to the Office of Legal Counsel, check out Goldsmith’s detentions-dilemma op-ed in the Washington Post. Befitting this blighted world, Goldsmith endeavors to find some pragmatic ways out of the terrorism detentions stalemate. Among his basic tradeoffs: keep Guantanamo open and lose the military commissions. If the [...]

I’d like to welcome my good friend Eli Lake to the liberal blogosphere. He’s got an excellent piece out today tracing all the ways — state secrets, Guantanamo, Patriot, surveillance, etc. — that the Obama administration has opted to embrace the expansive wartime authorities that the Bush administration claimed, rather than abrogate them. If you’re [...]

But maybe you’re the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainsville that just can’t resist a public religious desecration. And so: The U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Monday criticized a Florida church’s plan to burn copies of the Quran on September 11, warning the demonstration “could cause significant problems” for American troops overseas. “It could endanger [...]

Leave it to Josh Foust to tease out the implications of some of my reporting better than I did. Not only is ISAF re-highlighting its (apparently) civilian-casualty-free airstrikes, but it’s also letting the public know more about special-forces activity than it (I gather) ever has. Last month, Gen. Petraeus shared with me some rather detailed [...]

Good for Ben Wittes, Jack Goldsmith and Robert Chesney. They’ve started a national security blog. Like Adam Serwer, I learn from their perspectives frequently, and especially when I don’t agree with them. It’s always valuable to read the work of obviously brilliant people whose views diverge from your own. Like this post, for instance, in [...]

Via the good transparency people at Public Intelligence, here’s a presentation from the Justice Department about paths to domestic radicalization. There’s only so much one can tell from briefing slides. But the slides provide an important context: the conspiratorial nature of those who enlist. Notice the “Cosmic Crisis” framework, something that should gladden the heart [...]

Victor Davis Hanson makes a point worth addressing: Obama warns against “open-ended wars,” as if they are almost animate things. But wars end, not when they reach a rational, previously agreed-upon expiration date, but usually when tough, specific wartime choices are made that lead to victory or end in defeat. One party must decide – [...]