Edward Snowden, by his own account, grew up as a “shape-shifter.” His father worked for the Coast Guard, his mother for the Maryland state courts. But his parents’ appearances in Snowden’s new memoir, Permanent Record, are fleeting and superficial. The more enduring influences on his life—his sociocultural parental units, as it were—were the civil service...
Category: Articles
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Is Israel Targeting Iran’s Top General For Assassination?
That’s the question circulating both in Arab and Israeli media. Israel’s Mossad is the world’s foremost practitioner of assassination. General Qasem Soleimani is commander of the Qods Force, the special operations command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Israel is worried about Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East. Soleimani is Iran’s most effective...
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Impeachment Frenzy Sets Trump Against the CIA
The long-impending constitutional crisis has arrived, courtesy of a CIA whistleblower. If his or her complaint was conceived as a covert political action operation, it could not have been more effective. The nine-page letter did what Robert Mueller’s 448-page opus did not: jump-start the impeachment process. The day after Trump acknowledged he spoke with the...
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A No-Fly Zone Can Limit the Damage Caused By Turkey
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan anticipated strong criticism of Trump for withdrawing US troops and giving Turkey a green light to invade. Erdogan wasted no time after their phone call on October 8, launching air strikes the next day and deploying ground troops before Trump could change his mind. At this stage, the US should take...
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Whistleblowers, Good and Bad
An open letter from more than 100 former national security officials applauds the “responsible whistleblower” who came forward with information about President Trump’s Ukraine dealings. While the identity of the whistleblower is unknown, “we do know that he or she is an employee of the U.S. Government,” the signatories say. “As such, he or she...