Torture. It's an ugly word. Its mere mention conjures images of sadistic villains in dark dungeons or shadowy terrorists in sparse rooms, illuminated by a single light bulb overhead. But regardless of what mental image, it is usually the evil side that tortures the side of good. In recent years, such thinking has shifted as "enhanced interrogation" has been touted as acceptable for getting answers so that good people won't be hurt. But that still assumed that the purpose of torture is to derive vital information. For example, Jack Bauer, the counterterrorism agent in the television show ... Read More
Rude Awakening for the DREAM Act
September 24, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Arizona became the political epicenter of the immigration debate this year after passing the country’s toughest crackdown on illegal aliens. Amid the fallout, national and international politicians denounced local officials. Sports leagues, whole cities and civil rights groups threatened boycotts. And the U.S. Department of Justice settled in to sue. Less well known is that one bastion of the now infamous Southwestern state — its largest public university — has been leading the call for a new national policy in favor of some undocumented immigrants: children, brought here unwittingly ... Read More
Why Again Are We Asking About ‘Don’t Ask’?
August 10, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The Pentagon has invested considerable money and muscle surveying the troops this summer on their feelings about a potential — err, eventual — repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Last month, 400,000 representative service members were emailed a 103-question colossus. They were asked — according to a copy of what the Pentagon hoped would be a confidential questionnaire — about everything from unit morale to open-bay showers. Troops have until the end of this week to weigh in, although it's unclear exactly what anyone will learn from the data. From the beginning, the entire exercise ... Read More
We Fight for the Oil We Need to Fight for the Oil
July 27, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Researchers and government regulators have long felt they had the life cycle analysis of oil pretty well covered. Crude must be extracted and shipped across the ocean in supertankers or pumped underground through pipelines. It's processed in a refinery, then transported again and ultimately burned in your car. Each step contributes to the footprint of a commodity that generates greenhouse gases well beyond what spits out a tailpipe in the end. Now a pair of researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln want the Environmental Protection Agency to include an oft-ignored indirect source ... Read More
Counterinsurgency Training by ‘Virtual Human’
June 16, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
The path to Bill Swartout's office hints that he's involved in something very ... high-concept. The ground-floor reception area, the elevator and the hallway leading to his office are decorated in a combination of brushed metal and sleek curves that seems to have both futuristic and retro influences. When I ask about the techno-deco look, Swartout mentions matter-of-factly that the interiors here were designed by Herman Zimmerman, a production designer who worked on Star Trek. The office itself sits atop a six-story building in Marina del Rey and has a killer view over Los Angeles; on the ... Read More
Continue to Ask, Pray Tell
February 17, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
When Defense Secretary Robert Gates sat before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month to endorse a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, he cautioned that the military first would undertake a favorite Washington pastime: studying the topic long and hard, probably for about a year. A special "high-level working group," he said, will try to ferret out the true views of military personnel, understand the impact of repeal and its effect on unit cohesion, and plan ahead for logistical policy changes in arenas like housing and fraternization. The department is also asking the RAND ... Read More
Social Scientists Under Fire
February 17, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
In October of last year, a platoon from the U.S. Army's 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, strolled into the village of Baraki Rajan, 50 miles south of Kabul. The soldiers, deployed from upstate New York since January, held their rifles loosely, muzzles pointed down, deliberately not aiming at anyone. That was meant as a signal — a signal that the residents had, over time, learned to read. Afghans crowded around. The men, that is. As usual, women and girls remained inside, out of sight. The soldiers bumped fists with the boys and shook hands with the men and mangled the snippets of ... Read More
A Long March Out of the Closet
February 3, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Speaking at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington over the weekend, President Obama reaffirmed his pledge to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that bars homosexuals from openly serving in the U.S. armed forces. Don't Ask, Don't Tell, engineered as a compromise by a chastened Bill Clinton in 1993 after failing to overturn the outright ban on gays serving in the military, has incited numerous controversies, and keeping gays closeted and fearful of being discharged. Obama's recent sentiment toward the policy isn't surprising: He's been vaguely promising to overturn it since ... Read More
Science, Human Rights and the Military
January 22, 2010 • By • 2 Comments
Neuroscience and national security go together somewhat uneasily. Stick the two in a single sentence, and University of Pennsylvania historian Jonathan Moreno starts getting e-mails from all kinds of people who are sure they've been brainwashed by the CIA. (It might not help his inbox that he wrote a book called Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense.) "It's hard to talk about these issues in part because we have kind of a paranoid popular-culture background," Moreno said. Maybe you've seen The Manchurian Candidate, or, more recently, The Men Who Stare at Goats. Neuroscience and ... Read More
