Outside the Beltway

With just over a week to go before the 112th Congress convenes, battle lines are already being drawn in battle over the defense budget.

Sarah Palin waded into the foreign policy pool today with a piece about Iran, and it was about as empty as most of the other ideas on Iran that we’ve heard over the last six years or so from everyone else.

Are American diplomats lying to reporters because they figure our citizens can’t handle the truth?

A top Saudi cleric says nothing in the Koran forbids women from driving cars.

The diplomatic ramifications of the latest Wikileaks leaks are just starting to emerge and may place some countries in very embarrassing positions.

Of the five countries that use the death penalty the most, only one is a democracy.

Thanks to a combination of good intelligence and fast action, it looks like the U.S. and UK avoided a serious attack on airliners last week.

If the Obama Administration gets it’s way, your secure Internet communications won’t really be all that secure.

Ted Koppel thinks our actions since 9/11 have helped Osama bin Laden fulfill his goals. He couldn’t be more wrong.

Everyone from David Petraeus to Sarah Palin is speaking out against a nutbag pastor’s Koran burning event. While they’re right, they’re emphasizing the wrong message.

The first ad of the 2012 presidential cycle has aired, by some dentist touting Hillary Clinton. She’s not running. Could she?

Ok, Saudi Arabia has less freedom than the US. Why do some people think that should form the basis of an argument about appropriate behavior in the US?

Some of our politicians and commentators are looking to odd places for guidance over the application of fundamental American values.

Steve Emerson has reportedly found 13 hours of tape of Cordoba Initiative chairman Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and found him to be a “radical extremist cleric who cloaks himself in sheep’s clothing.” Does it matter?

According to John Bolton, Israel has a deadline of August 21st to attack Iran’s nuclear program. This is the fourth deadline he’s set in the last three years.

A major part of the problem with the seeming growing wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in some quarters of US politics is that it seems to equate Islam as “the enemy.” If that’s the case, then US foreign policy has some ‘splainin’ to do.

The GOP is playing a dangerous game with the anti-Islamic rhetoric that it seems to be courting these days.

If it was called the “Burlington Coat Factory community center” would anyone care about Cordoba House?

Every new report out of Iran seems to bring us closer to the moment when Israel has decided it’s heard enough. What happens if that day actually happens ?

Protests against mosques aren’t just limited to Manhattan. And that’s a problem.

Newt Gingrich says that because there are no churches in Riyadh, we shouldn’t allow a mosque in New York.

Despite repeated promises to the contrary, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay will be remaining open indefinitely.