By next year, a residual force of 9,800 u.s. troops will remain in Afghanistan, down from 33,000 this year and 100,000 in 2011, according to drawdown plans announced by President Barack Obama. At the time the president announced that policy in late May, the cost of the two big foreign policy initiatives of the […]

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  George Orwell wisely observed that our understanding of the past, and the meaning associated with it, directly influences the future. And as the unprecedented public feud between the CIA and Congress makes clear, there are still significant aspects of our recent history of state-sponsored torture that need examination before we put this national disgrace […]

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In a new decision in support of the NSA’s phone metadata surveillance program, U.S. district court Judge William Pauley cites an intelligence failure involving the agency in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks. But the judge’s cited source, the 9/11 Commission Report, doesn’t actually include the account he gives in the ruling. What’s more, experts […]

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(Source: Mashable) It makes sense that we are indignant (though perhaps not indignant enough) about the scandal of illicit spying by America’s National Security Agency. But we should not be surprised. We should have seen this coming. Our reaction recalls Nietzsche’s reproach of people who spend their lives being surprised to discover things they had […]

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Citing concerns about linking to classified material, Johns Hopkins University asked a professor this morning to remove a blog post discussing  last week’s revelations about the NSA’s efforts to break encryption. The post had linked to government documents published by ProPublica, the Guardian, and the New York Times. Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins, which is short drive from the […]

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