According to the AFP, Nigeria has “branded new security measures for passengers flying to the United States unfair and said they amounted to discrimination against its 150 million people.” Nigeria, home of failed underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is one of 14 countries from which all air travellers to the U.S. will be “subjected to extra checks including body pat-downs.” I tend...

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar and Bryan A. Tollin Ali Ezzatyar is a U.S.-trained corporate lawyer currently practising in Paris. He has taught courses in Political Economy in the International and Area Studies Department of the University of California at Berkeley and has previously published articles about Iran in the L.A. Times. Bryan A. Tollin is a corporate lawyer currently practising in New York City. He...

Just as English is an acquired language, “American football” is an acquired sport for me. However, unlike English (in which I have become somewhat proficient), after many years of trying, I still don’t fully understand this “fútbol Americano.” Don’t get me wrong; just as I have come to love my adopted country, I have come to love American football, albeit it has been a very intriguing relationship. My...

For being the world’s only Superpower and global empire, we certainly are a pathetic, fearful, demented, wimpy, and easily frightened group. Our shores are filled with Chicken Little’s screaming about Al Qaida and airport security at the drop of a terrorist’s underwear. Now let’s get a grip on our emotions running amok and start thinking as rational human beings. I’m ashamed of many Americans in politics...

That is the question Matthew Yglesias poses, now that advocates for torture are promoting its use for routine intelligence-gathering as opposed to the original rationale that torture should be limited to the mythical “ticking time bomb” scenario (emphasis is mine):

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Dealing with climate change may be the most important issue for human progress but 2010 is likely to see it move to the backburner because creating jobs is better politics in the US, Europe and elsewhere. President Barack Obama’s presence surrounded by 5 cabinet members, many senators and tens of top journalists at the recent Copenhagen conference failed to persuade major players like the European Union, China...

NBC News reports that the suicide bomber responsible for killing seven C.I.A. agents in Afghanistan was a double agent working for Al Qaeda:

I always wonder what those who hold the view that homosexuality is wrong, a crime against God and nature, want. If it’s really that bad shouldn’t it be punished? It seems to me a binary choice, accept it and hold it to all the rights and obligations of society, or… The title of this post is from Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity, as quoted in this important NYTimes story on the role...

‘THE TRAVELS OF THE MAGI’ A little over a week after the alleged terrorist attack aboard an American aircraft, a pattern is emerging. While European writers tend to think new U.S. rules for passengers are ineffective if not absurd, many Arab columnists believe that the suspicious aspects of the case suggest that some kind of plot to demonize Muslims and extend the war on terror is involved. For...

Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

For West Asia, 2010 has not begun well. The mess in Iran is increasing by the day and holds peril unprecedented for the entire region. If the government, however reprehensible, falls into disarray the real possibility arises of a huge arc of violent political and civil instability stretching through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Palestine to Israel. The possibility of a new American war is small but...

RealClearWorld’s Kevin Sullivan explains why HERE.

The United States, Great Britain, and Spain have closed their embassies in Yemen, pointing to threats from Al Qaeda amid signs that the perception of Yemen has now shifted so the country is being clearly perceived as a growing threat as an Al Qaeda base. Spain’s embassy staff will remain working, although its embassy will be closed to the public Monday and Tuesday. The Christian Science Monitor reports: The...

With all apologies to Dean Martin, the people in Britain don’t seem to be exactly thrilled with mother nature at the moment. People normally used to “brisk” are finding themselves dealing with conditions more often found in the parking lot outside of a late season Buffalo Bills football game. But everybody deserves a shot at a winter wonderland once in a while, don’t you think? Britain...

For some, exasperation with new U.S. rules for passenger aircraft is running high. Why? Because, according to German columnist Andreas Theyssen, by almost any objective measure, the new regulations being imposed won’t do a thing to make flying any safer. For Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, columnist Andreas Theyssen writes in part: There are many ways to encapsulate the state of the world....

Boxers or briefs…but someone was briefed: that’s the gist of yet another investigative tidbit from Newsweek, this time via reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball who have learned that White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan learned about Al Qaeda’s underwear explosive tactic in October: White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was briefed in October on an assassination...

Adding on to Dr. Steven Taylor’s fine post highlighting some of the more irrational responses to Mark Hosenball’s Newsweek article about the intelligence briefing Pres. Obama received three days before the Christmas Day attempted airline bombing, here is a much more thoughtful and sensible piece by the always-worth- reading Spencer Ackerman:

Was this sheer incompetence – or is there something else going on? The scale of the intelligence mistakes surrounding the case of suspected Christmas Day underwear bomber Omar Farouk Abdul Muttalab are such, that many people, particularly Muslims, suspect that there is some “hidden force” behind the story. According to columnist Hilmi Al Asmar of Jordan’s Ad Dustour newspaper, that...

How many times have we heard this? North Korea calls for an end of hostile relations with the United States in a New Year’s message pledging to make the Korean peninsula nuclear free. Makes me wonder if the official issuing the statement carried by the government’s Korean Central News Agency, state radio and television had celebrated too far into the early morning hours of the new year which I guess...

In his weekly Radio/You Tube address President Barack Obama focuses on national security, terrorism — and the Christmas Day attempted underwear bombing which he places squarely at the door of Al Qaeda:

A new Newsweek report suggests that the terrorism issue which has been pitchforked into the headlines, partisan talk radio and partisan weblogs will be pitchforked even further into prominence through 2010 — all the way to election day: according to the newsmagazine, President Barack Obama got a pre-Christmas briefing “about possible holiday-period terrorist threats against the US.” The Newsweek...

THE NOSE OF AHMADINEJAD SAYS: ‘ELECTIONS’ THE CAPTION READS: ‘OPPOSITION’ This article from Iran’s state-controlled Kayhan newspaper is as close to a public admission of a challenge to the regime’s authority as we’ve seen from the mullahs that run the country – and it’s striking. For Kayhan, columnist Kian Mokhtari writes in part: There’s no denying...

It seems every time I dial an 800 number, the first response from the automated voice asks if I want their menu in English or Spanish. It is such a frequent request that I press 1 before the recorded voice finishes its instructions. This ritual doesn’t annoy me. Not even close to the frustration of selecting the menu items in which invariably I press the number to speak to a live operator, which oftentimes...

Apparently I am not the only one who has taken umbrage at Dick Cheney’s shameful attack on President Obama, using the Christmas Day attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253 strictly for political gain. Among Cheney’s outrageous accusations was his “As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war.” In a Washington...