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Let’s calm down for a moment and in Mark’s spirit, think about what’s really going on here. In 2008, there were about 800 million commercial (scheduled carrier) airplane trips from, in, and to the US, on about 11 million flights. In the decade since 2000 (traffic has been up and down, of course), let’s say [...]
Archive for the ‘Terrorism and its control’ Category
January 2nd, 2010
Keep him off the flight, just on the information available? Maybe not. But screen the hell out of him at the airport? Absolutely!
December 30th, 2009
Category: Terrorism and its control
Josh Bernstein points out that the Underpants Bomber case and the Shoe Bomber case were virtually identical, except that the Shoe Bomber case occurred on George W. Bush’s watch, and the Democrats decided to pass up the opportunity to demagogue the issue. Steve Benen adds that two of the four organizers of the latest [...]
December 29th, 2009
Category: Terrorism and its control
Republicans hold up TSA nomination,then complain about lack of air security.
November 15th, 2009
Category: Terrorism and its control, Watching Conservatives
Closing Gitmo would improve national security. Guess which party is against it?
September 5th, 2009
Category: Terrorism and its control
Can the Attorney General of the United States and his subordinates use a pretextual “material witness” warrant to ruin an innocent man’s life, and do so with complete immunity? A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit says “No.” Dunno about you, and of course I don’t know the precedents, but on grounds of mere justice I’m with the majority, especially since the DoJ seems to have practiced deception on the magistrate who issued the arrest warrant.
August 31st, 2009
Category: Defense and national security, Foreign Policy, Terrorism and its control, The permanent campaign
George Will is going to call for a ground troop pullout from Afghanistan. Is he right?
July 21st, 2009
Category: Terrorism and its control
Richard Clarke made sense in Saturday’s WSJ in an extended piece that went behind three current surface controversies involving the CIA. Clarke endorses a “truth commission” as a step toward creating a political space for a more sophisticated discussion of what we expect from intelligence in a democratic society.
July 9th, 2009
Category: Terrorism and its control
Lawful and unlawful combatants can both be detained for the duration of the conflict. Unlawful combatants can also be tried, and if found guilty can be (1) treated as criminal rather than PoWs and (2) held past the duration of the conflict.
July 8th, 2009
Category: Terrorism and its control
A prisoner of war has rights that a convicted criminal (e.g., a terrorist) doesn’t. He’s entitled to much more civilized conditions of confinement. So the fact that a war-crimes acquittal doesn’t lead to the release of the detainee doesn’t make that war-crimes trial a “show trial.”
