74 posts
The Torture Mentality As I pointed out recently, it's difficult to keep up with the denial, obfuscation, and sheer, tendentious illogic of torture apologists. Even now, despite Bush-era DOJ memos acknowledging that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183… Continue reading
Politicizing Criminality Just got back to Tokyo after another week on the road for Fault Line promotion. No time to write while I was traveling, but I did have a chance to read a number of establishment opinion pieces about torture. They were so alike in… Continue reading
Privileging the Posterior As Ian Fleming's Auric Goldfinger said, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." So when I heard Rush Limbaugh's recent comments about British Prime Minister Gordon Brown getting "anal poisoning"… Continue reading
Criticize Govt = Hate America? Back in Tokyo after three weeks on the road promoting Fault Line, drained as usual after these things but happy. Not much of a break this time, either, with the Japanese version and the Rain Fall movie coming out this month, but… Continue reading
Detainees and Prisoners Yesterday (the 14th) the Obama administration announced a new policy to govern the holding of terror suspects. Here's what Attorney General Eric Holder announced: "As we work towards developing a new policy to govern detainees, it is… Continue reading
Fault Line is Here! Fault Line, my first standalone thriller, launches today, so I thought it would be appropriate to include some thoughts from a recent interview on the book's origins and its political milieu. The tour is taking me to Phoenix/Scottsdale,… Continue reading
Still Winnable, Give or Take Five Years Today I read the always-insightful Andrew Bacevich's review of David Kilcullen's "The Accidental Guerilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One" (h/t Andrew Sullivan). Kilcullen is certainly an expert on the… Continue reading
Secrecy and Lies Since Wednesday, I've been following the story of how the United States has apparently threatened to stop sharing intelligence with Britain should a British court release details of the torture of British resident Binyam Mohamed by American… Continue reading
Gaza, the Inauguration, Etc. Thanks for all the mail, everyone, and I miss you too. As I mentioned in my first post-election post, I've been trying to blog less so I can focus more on the next novel. The election was hugely distracting and now I'm trying to… Continue reading
Czar Kudzu Recently I've noticed a trend where the government, apparently dissatisfied with normal channels, insists on coming up with some special means for accomplishing what the normal channels were always intended to do. I first started ruminating on this… Continue reading
The True Price of the "Dark Side" In the course of researching my next novel, I just binged on three excellent documentaries: Standard Operating Procedure, which examines the events at Abu Ghraib through photos, video, and interviews with many of the soldiers… Continue reading
The Myth of Equivalence There's been a lot of lively conversation about the election on my website discussion board, some of which caused me to write the following post on the reflexive notion of political equivalence. I have as little patience with people… Continue reading
