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In late December, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law, despite having “serious reservations” about provisions allowing those suspected of terrorist connections to be detained indefinitely without trial—...
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During the Middle Ages—the historical context for the rise of what would come to be known as the “just war” tradition—violence under any circumstance was deemed a great evil by the church. In official Catholic teaching, combat was accepted as...
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We expect some hypocrisy in politics, but it was still jaw-dropping to behold Republicans accusing President Barack Obama of politicizing the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.
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Across the globe, from Tunisia to Burma, people are struggling to cast off tyrannical regimes. It is humbling to witness what thousands are willing to risk for a chance at democracy in the countries of the Middle East.
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It was not supposed to end this way. Although President Barack Obama deserves credit for bringing an end to the war in Iraq that he inherited, if he had had his wishes, thousands of U.S.
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The European Union doesn’t know where it stands at the moment. NATO thinks it knows and is gambling.
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Should the president of the United States be able to authorize the assassination of a U.S. citizen anywhere in the world without telling the public why—or even acknowledging that he has done so?
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It was after 1 p.m. when we finally made it to the crowded McDonald’s on Times Square. My parents, two younger brothers, and I were caked with stinging white powder. It had worked its way into our clothing and our pores, and it burned so badly that...
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It might seem odd to apply the term “understated” to a documentary that features gritty combat footage: gunfire- and explosion-wracked images from conflicts that include the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and America’s intervent
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The Afghan government's order a week ago to the United States to close its prison at Bagram Air Base near Kabul, where it holds unidentified prisoners, came as a shock to Washington, although President Hamid Karzai has before invited the United...
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Ten years after the terrible devastation of September 11, we live in sacred time.
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“Justice has been done,” President Barack Obama told the world in announcing that U.S.
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In what is sadly a rare show of national solidarity, former President George W. Bush will join President Barack Obama at “Ground Zero” in lower Manhattan on September 11 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United...
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The October online posting by WikiLeaks of nearly a thousand classified Pentagon documents (the “Iraq War Logs”) shed new light on the vexed issue of Iraqi deaths during and after the 2003 invasion.
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A celebrated declaration is engraved above the portal of Langdell Hall, the central building of Harvard Law School: non sub homine sed sub deo et lege (“not under man but under God and law”). That was the brave admonition of Lord Edward Coke (1552–...
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Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
The United States cannot win the war in Afghanistan. Are we willing to lose it? Evidently not quite yet.
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Almost all the shibboleths of Washington conventional wisdom took a hit in Tuesday's elections. Yet advocates of a single national political narrative clung to the difficulties of two incumbent Democratic senators to keep spinning the same old tale...
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The increasingly dangerous Afghanistan situation is worth analysis at two levels: that of the war itself—the ultimately doomed attempt by the United States to conquer the Taliban insurrection and impose a pro-American government—and that of the...
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Barack Obama is not the man many Americans thought he was. This sudden realization has transformed American politics. The sheer audacity of the successful operation against Osama bin Laden has forced Obama's friends and foes alike to reassess...
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The generation of the Founding Fathers was much attached to religion. They doubtless knew the biblical commandment, “Justice, Justice, shall you pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20). The Preamble to the new Constitution consequently expressed a purpose to “...
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On January 20, the day before the South Carolina primary, the Washington Post published a long story about how political polarization in that state was reflected in—and sharpened by—South Carolinians’ choices of news providers.
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Let us contemplate the joys of being in the political opposition when unemployment in your state tops 10 percent. Kevin DeWine, the affable chairman of the Republican Party in Ohio, has a transparent board behind his desk at state headquarters...
