POLITICO 12/8-9/12 By Michael Shank At the beginning of this lame duck session, a report was delivered to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Likely few in Washington read it. The U.S. war in Afghanistan wasn’t a big part of pre-election politicking and now, post-election, the […]
THE NEW AMERICAN 05/30/12 By Joe Wolverton, II In Greek mythology, the Hydra was a serpent-like beast that possessed many heads. Perhaps the most frightening quality of this fearsome amphibian was the fact that for each head that was cut off two grew in its place and the breath from […]
ROLL CALL 05/23/12 By Michael Shank Recent Istanbul negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 and this week’s Baghdad negotiations have tempered, albeit temporarily, the cry for war. It was close under President George W. Bush, who rallied regime-changers to invade, but it is worse now. The Pentagon publicly prepares plans, […]
RUSSIA TODAY 05/22/12 Reauthorizing the indefinite detention of US citizens without charge might be the scariest provision in next year’s defense spending bill, but it certainly isn’t the only one worth worrying about. An amendment tagged on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 would allow for the […]
BUZZFEED 05/18/12 By Michael Hastings An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned. The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon, […]
ROLL CALL 11/01/11 By Michael Shank and J.J. Messner With the excitement about Moammar Gadhafi’s downfall beginning to fade, Libya’s new management has begun governing and reconstructing the war-torn nation. Plenty of attention is being paid to the governance angle: Is the National Transitional Council a legitimate, representative body? When […]
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR 07/11/11 By Michael Shank Looking to save the world trillions of dollars? How about investing in peace and nonviolence? Australia’s Institute for Economics and Peace recently released its 2011 Global Peace Index, citing a veritable “who’s who” of peaceful countries. It counted up the savings had the […]
THE GUARDIAN 07/02/11 By Michael Shank With Republicans and Democrats alike split, confusion reigns over two crucial issues: war powers and R2P. It’s time for clarity Last week, as the US Senate picked up the Libya debate where the House of Representatives left off, it was apparent that Libya has […]
WASHINGTON TIMES 03/26/10 By Michael Shank Traveling recently in a congressional staff delegation to Venezuela, I found my experience was not too dissimilar from my previous experiences in Syria and Iran. This is not to say that I am aggregating these three states into some kind of axis-of-evil or rogue […]
WASHINGTON TIMES 12/09/09 By Michael Shank Last month I went to Afghanistan, not with a congressional delegation but on my own. My boss, Rep. Michael M. Honda, California Democrat, is chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Afghanistan Task Force and has a keen interest in rethinking U.S. strategy there. With […]