Washington Babylon

Update: Several readers have emailed to say that I was unkind to Kessler, and that his book is more nuanced in its discussion of Hamas and Hezbollah than what ran…

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Until recently, I thought the odds that the United States would attack Iran were less than fifty-fifty, but the chances of a military confrontation are clearly growing (as my colleague…

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The newspapers are full of stories about the successful alliance struck between the American military and Sunni tribes in Iraq, and how said alliance augurs well for the future. “In…

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Ken Silverstein is on assignment and will return soon.

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Add another neoconservative adviser on the Middle East to an already impressive roster–Daniel Pipes signed on with Rudy Giuliani’s campaign today. I’d heard Pipes was advising Giuliani and asked him…

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It’s the dog days of summer and my colleague Scott Horton is all over the Fredo Gonzales story, and I’d prefer not to write much about the sordid bathroom antics…

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“The Republican Party is in desperate straits. How else to explain that Rudy Giuliani–a former mayor with no foreign policy experience–is the Republican front-runner, largely based on his supposed foreign…

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Check out this article by Henry Siegman, former head of the American Jewish Congress, in the current London Review of Books. Excerpt: The Middle East peace process may well be…

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According to a Reuters story from earlier this month: A Middle East tour by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has confirmed to democracy activists in the Middle East what…

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Boeing and the Coast Guard have sent letters in response to my post last week, “Confessions of a Defense Junketeer.” In that piece I reported on a junket Boeing recently…

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Marc Lynch has brought to my attention Benjamin Barber’s astonishing op-ed in the Washington Post about Libya and Colonel Qaddafi. Barber, the author of “Jihad vs. McWorld,” has found a…

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If you haven’t heard, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs has canceled a talk scheduled for next month by Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, co-authors of the now-famous study…

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I recently spoke with Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center EPIC, who told me about a story that has not received enough attention. It involves the…

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Yesterday I posted an item regarding writer David Axe’s reflections on the Pentagon’s blogger outreach program. I’ll follow up today with his observations about a recent Boeing-sponsored junket for journalists,…

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Last month, I wrote about (1 2 3) the Pentagon’s “Surrogates” program, which works with selected military analysts, bloggers, former defense officials, opinion-makers, and others who are almost all highly…

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A few days ago, I took issue with a Washington Post op-ed by Michael Tomasky that argued against publicly discussing the possible impeachment of President Bush on the grounds that…

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I came late to the piece by Michael Tomasky in last Sunday’s Washington Post that argues against the impeachment of President Bush or Vice President Cheney–or even discussion of the…

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Back in May, I requested an interview with Congressman John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and received a quick “yes” from his office. I was told that conducting…

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Make sure to check out Doonesbury this week for a series about lobbying on behalf of dictators–a topic dear to my own heart. “Dad, the billings from our new Rogue…

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I regularly receive press releases from one of the two major political parties lambasting the other, and I generally don’t pay them much mind. But the National Republican Congressional Committee…

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Some years ago I wrote an article for Harper’s entitled “The Radioactive Boy Scout” (which became a book of the same name) about a Detroit-area teenager who conducted remarkable experiments…

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I’m on assignment, technically on break from blogging, but wanted to briefly comment on a post Wednesday by Noah Schactman at Danger Room. In it, Schactman said it took him…

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Steve Braun is a national correspondent with the Los Angeles Times, currently covering the 2008 presidential campaign. He has covered national affairs since 1993, based first in Chicago and then…

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There have been a series of accounts out of Ethiopia recently that describe a nasty situation there, including a Human Rights Watch report earlier this month that said the Ethiopian…

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A number of the bloggers who participate in conference calls organized by the Pentagon’s public affairs office have objected to recent stories I’ve posted about the project. “There is, Black…

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Randy Scheunemann, a lobbyist for the government of Georgia, has sent a letter criticizing my recent story on the trial of Maia Topuria. The letter appears below. I asked Lawrence…

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Earlier this week I wrote a story about a program run by the Pentagon’s Office of Public Affairs. This program seeks to bypass the mainstream press by working directly with…

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The Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan will be holding parliamentary elections this August and is hoping to make a positive impression with the international community about its progress towards democracy. If…

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