Pacific Standard March-April 2013 Cover

The Changing War on Terror

May 17, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
bin-laden-compound

Is the United States safe enough? That is the fundamental question being asked by the public, policymakers, and members of the Obama Administration after the Boston bombing. What shape is al Qaeda in now and how does it affect those of us living in the United States? While working at the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Counterterrorism Center as an analyst and targeting officer I focused on a loose network in Iraq that eventually grew into the al Qaeda we recognize. From my perspective, we are almost witnessing—today—the reverse engineering of al Qaeda back into its initial state ... Read More

More like this: Politics
Tags: , , , , , ,

The Iraq Sanctions Myth

April 26, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
sanctions-march

Just over 10 years ago the United Kingdom followed the United States into the bloody Iraq War. George W. Bush and Tony Blair justified the invasion mainly with the claim that Iraq possessed, or was in the process of building, weapons of mass destruction. Most people now seem to be aware that this premise was false. Yet a crucial myth surrounding the Iraq War still commands widespread belief—that economic sanctions aimed at Saddam Hussein and his regime killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children in the 1990s and early 2000s. The supposed lethality of economic sanctions was used as an ... Read More

More like this: Politics
Tags: , , , , , , ,

How True is Zero Dark Thirty? A Former Operative Weighs In

January 16, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
ZERO-articleLarge

When Pacific Standard called me to ask if I would write about Zero Dark Thirty, I still had not decided whether I wanted to see it. I was leaning toward no. People who work in intelligence don't generally see movies about it. You can enjoy them only once you've been out of the game for a while, and then only if you don’t take it too seriously. I watch Homeland. It’s fun, because it’s a fantasy. Zero Dark Thirty occupied an odd space. It’s not ridiculous enough to allow complete suspension of disbelief. I get that Hollywood needs to sell tickets, but it’s not accurate enough to ... Read More

More like this: Culture, Legal Affairs
Tags: , ,

Assessing the Legality of Osama bin Laden’s Killing

May 20, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs evoked reactions ranging from spontaneous public demonstrations of joy to serious questions about its legality. Unfortunately, the conflicting factual accounts and cursory legal justification provided by Obama administration officials have proven inadequate to fully resolve these surprisingly complex questions. The first challenge is to identify the applicable legal paradigm, a matter complicated by the United States’ dual-track, post-9/11 approach to counterterrorism, ambiguous “war on terror” terminology and even the ... Read More

More like this: Legal Affairs
Tags: , , ,

Was Osama bin Laden’s Burial Handled Correctly?

May 16, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

It is one of the oldest moral conflicts in world culture: what to do with the body of your slain enemy. The body of Osama bin Laden was buried at sea, according to the White House, apparently in order to prevent his burial place from becoming a shrine. But might the manner of that burial, and the denial of his body to his family, ultimately foster an even greater "martyr" myth? This conflict can be traced back to Greek mythology and the tragedy of Antigone (as written by Sophocles, in the 5th century B.C.). Antigone's brother, Polyneices, rebelled against their city, Thebes, and was ... Read More

More like this: Culture
Tags: , , ,

What Do Osama bin Laden and Paul McCartney Have in Common?

May 4, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

To quote Mark Twain, "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Is anyone expecting Osama bin Laden to send a tape with this message? Will Donald Trump demand a long-form original copy of the death certificate? Comedians aside, will people around the world really believe Osama is gone? Conspiracy theorists quickly voiced concerns about the terror leader's burial at sea, suggesting that the U.S. faked the raid for political purposes and that bin Laden might have already died years ago or might still be alive. Today, President Barack Obama announced he wouldn't release postmortem ... Read More

More like this: Culture, Culture & Society, Skeptic's Café
Tags: , ,

Bin Laden Is Dead: A Study on Violence After the Demise of Previous Terrorists

May 3, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

(With article and data contributions by LaGrange College undergraduates Ashbi Alford, Ryan Bergman, Derecius Cheaves, Katie Hearn, Emmie Trull and Isaiah Whitfield) In the Tom Clancy novel-turned-movie Patriot Games, Professor Jack Ryan (played by Harrison Ford) kills a terrorist in the act of preventing an attack. The terrorist’s brother and his organization spend the entire movie seeking revenge against Ryan, his family and friends. Academics writing before bin Laden’s death on May Day vary in their conclusions about the fallout from decapitating terrorist organizations, as ... Read More

More like this: Politics
Tags: , ,

Academics Debate Whether Osama bin Laden’s Death Will Have Impact on al-Qaeda Leaders

May 2, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

The killing of Osama bin Laden by American special forces is being hailed as an important symbolic victory. But will it lead to the collapse of al-Qaeda, or at least degrade its ability to carry out terrorist activities? Research on terrorist organizations past and present leads academics to different conclusions. But the current consensus is that “leadership decapitation” of such groups is of little long-term value, and may even be counterproductive. “Leadership decapitation seems to be a misguided strategy, particularly given the nature of organizations being currently ... Read More

More like this: Culture, Culture & Society, Findings
Tags: , , ,