Surprises in the Benghazi Talking Points
May 14, 2013 6 min. read

  On Friday, ABC News published all 11 versions of the Benghazi talking points that were written by the CIA at the request of Congress and used by Ambassador Susan Rice on several TV talk shows on Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012. It was widely reported for months that the original talking points had been edited […]

Read more
Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s Day of Dissonance
May 13, 2013 10 min. read

Last Wednesday was a day of extremes for the former Secretary of State, who was in Beverly Hills to pick up a public service award from a private foreign policy organization.  There her tenure at the State Department was lauded as activists from a group called “Ready for Hillary 2016” gathered nearby to round out the […]

Read more
The Congo and Why Obama Should Repudiate Clinton Policies
March 20, 2013 18 min. read

by S.N. Sangmpam One item that dominated American politics after President Obama’s re-election was the opposition by Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham to Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., as Obama’s presumptive nominee for Secretary of State.  They opposed her on the ground that she misled the public about the attack […]

Read more
Benghazi, Adequate Security, and Reporting What You Know before You Know It
February 10, 2013 12 min. read

Hillary Clinton’s testimony before Congress the other week brought the country’s attention back to the Benghazi attack of Sept. 11, 2012. It is a topic that I find fascinating, less for what it says about U.S. foreign policy than for what it says about domestic politics and the processes of perception and interpretation. In this […]

Read more
“Hillz” Highlights: Reflections on Hillary Clinton’s Four Years as SecState
February 6, 2013 7 min. read

Last Friday, Hillary Clinton left her post as Secretary of State as one of the most traveled secretaries of all time.  She’s leaving with an approval rating of 70%, higher than any outgoing secretary of state measured since 1948, with the exception of Colin Powell.  Clinton has said she’s going to catch up on 20 […]

Read more
Shades of Grey in U.S. Policy towards North Africa
February 4, 2013 6 min. read

“The United States is struggling to confront an uptick in threats from the world’s newest jihadist hot spot with limited intelligence and few partners to help as the Obama administration weighs how to keep Islamic extremists in North Africa from jeopardizing national security without launching war. We want to put up a map here and […]

Read more
Same month, same airport, same Benghazi? A prince returns
December 3, 2012 5 min. read

  Going home. The resonance of that phrase is universal. The happy homecoming. The poignant or sad one. The unsure one. The second chance one. For His Royal Highness Prince Mahdi Al-Senussi that ultimate appellation of his “going home” remains to be determined. Forty-two years to the month that Prince Mahdi was forced to leave […]

Read more
Confusion in Benghazi
November 23, 2012 11 min. read

With the election behind us and David Petraeus having testified in closed House and Senate hearings, we may hope for a more measured and less emotional examination of the events in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. In a previous post, I looked at some of the background behind the issue of post security. In […]

Read more
Security in Benghazi
October 30, 2012 11 min. read

  There seem to be two enduring issues surrounding the attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. The one that has received the most attention is the election-year hysteria over a supposed administration effort to cover up the fact of an attack. I shall return to that one at […]

Read more
Biden’s Comments on Benghazi Attack Sparks New Debate
October 12, 2012 4 min. read

In their sole debate before the election, Vice President Joe Biden and GOP challenger Congressman Paul Ryan sparred for 90 minutes on the direction of U.S. policy, both for foreign and domestic.  Last night’s debate was a stark contrast to last week’s meeting between the two men at the top of the tickets, with Biden […]

Read more
Time to Reflect on the Price of Freedom
September 12, 2012 2 min. read

Sometimes you have to do quite a bit of searching to find a good topic for an article. Sometimes the topic finds you. Since my blog is about democracy, I would be remiss if I did not mention the events that transpired on the evening of Sept. 11, 2012 in Libya. As are most, I […]

Read more

Popular from Press