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In Afghanistan, farmers grow poppy for opium, which is later processed into heroin and, ultimately, sold as heroin on the black market. How, when the Quran defines drugs as “the filth of Satan’s handiwork,” does the Islamic populace in Afghanistan justify growing this illicit crop? For one thing, the sale, but not consumption, of opium is acceptable to the locals because it is supposedly consumed by the West–by infidels–and thus furthers the war on them, outlines Gretchen Peters in her book Seeds of Terror: How Drugs, Thugs, and Crime Are Reshaping the Afghan War. Peters has worked for the Associated...

Shortly after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi last September, a phone call was placed from the area. Whoever made the call was excited. "Mabruk, Mabruk!" he repeated, meaning "Congratulations" in Arabic. Two sources with high-level access to Western intelligence services have told CNN the call was made to a senior figure in al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM. There is no proof that the call was specifically about the attack, in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed, but the sources say that is the assumption among those with knowledge...

As each day passes, the lengths to which school districts will go to prevent gun violence has been taken to new levels of maladministration. For example, last Friday an Anne Arundel County, Maryland, student was suspended for “chewing his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun and saying, “bang, bang”— an offense that the school described as a threat to other students, according to his family,” according to the Washington Post. “The boy’s two-day suspension Friday comes at a time of heightened sensitivity about security issues and guns— even pretend guns — in the aftermath of the mass shooting...

The United States and its allies are engaged in a tense and confusing intervention within Syria, where arms and aid are being sent to rebels whose loyalties are under question. As the Washington Post reported on February 23, “A surge of rebel advances in Syria is being fueled at least in part by an influx of heavy weaponry in a renewed effort by outside powers to arm moderates in the Free Syrian Army, according to Arab and rebel officials.” The Free Syrian Army works alongside Al Nusrah, a terrorist organization associated with Al Qaeda. “The new armaments, including anti-tank weapons...

It’s been nearly a year since the death of Osama bin Laden, and the American public has become accustomed to hearing about an al Qaeda no longer under his leadership, be it in Yemen, Mali, or elsewhere. However, even while bin Laden was in hiding, al Qaeda was dominated by his micromanagement skills, whether it was the decision not to institute Anwar al-Awlaki head of Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) or suggestions on how to avoid drone strikes. In his book, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad, Peter L. Bergen argues that al...

In a recent article for the Washington Post, Philip Rucker tries to explain why only some communities seem concerned about sequestration. The sequester “would strike some communities and largely bypass others, cutting across class, politics and geography,” writes Rucker. Ironically, he notes that the “disparity in some ways mirrors the nation’s electoral divide between Democrats and Republicans.” One could read into this that those who elected big spenders are those most likely to be concerned about or affected by the sequester. Government dependence breeds consternation when programs are cut. An interesting thing to note is that Rucker, while happy to...

Three weeks after a 10-year-old Alexandria boy was arrested for showing a toy gun to another student on a school bus, prosecutors dropped charges against the child Tuesday and his record was scrubbed clean. “We did not feel it was appropriate or productive to proceed with criminal prosecution and believe the matter can be best handled administratively within the school system,” said Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney S. Randolph Sengel. The child’s mother, Nakicha Gilbert, said that she was glad her son’s courtroom travails had ended but that “it should’ve never happened” in the first place. The fifth-grader at Douglas MacArthur Elementary...

People with an Associate’s degree may earn less in their lifetime, but they might just be earning more right now. New data shows that an Associate’s degree may impart the ‘middle skills’ which are the ticket to the middle class. “Nearly 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce,” reports Jon Marcus for CNN Money. “In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.” However, “Although these...

The Arab Spring brought a chance for democratization and the toppling of repressive regimes. However, some remain cautious given the ascendance of Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In an incisive article detailing Al Qaeda’s responses to the Arab Spring, Donald Holbrook outlines the opportunities that these revolutions have wrought for al Qaeda in Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, as well the chaos in Syria. Al Qaeda has long promoted revolution through armed conflict, notes Holbrook in his article, published for Perspectives On Terrorism last December. Some argue that the Arab Spring is a repudiation of Al...

At a recent Brookings Institution event, Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow there, offered some cogent observations about how the jihadis view the drawdown in Afghanistan. He said: Part of it I think is simply this: the smell of blood in the water. There is a perception in Pakistan, and a perception in Afghanistan, that the United States is about to cut and run, that we are about to dump this problem. And with that perception is the perception that the jihad is on the verge of its greatest victory ever, that the defeat of the Soviet Union was one thing,...

The American Left and the Islamists work together to sabotage American, spreading their social justice (or sharia) values in a way that is inimical to American values, argues Andrew C. McCarthy in his book The Grand Jihad. For the hard left, social justice translates into Marxism and communism. For the Islamist, social justice leads to implementing Sharia and an Islamic state. These two are natural partners, he argues, because of their pursuit of “power” and opposition to American liberties. (McCarthy’s newest book is Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy.) A riveting tale of Islam in America and abroad, in...

America will only achieve the ambitious climate change goals outlined by President Barack Obama last week by encouraging wide-scale fracking for natural gas over the next few years. That is the advice of one of the nation's senior scientists, Professor William Press, a member of the president's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Fracking – known officially as hydraulic fracturing – involves pumping high-pressure water through underground rocks to release natural gas trapped deep underground. It is believed that there are vast reserves of these subterranean gas fields across the US. Thousands of wells have already been drilled in...

Young Americans are faced with joblessness, skyrocketing school loans, and burdensome entitlement programs. Now, health care prices will be rising considerably, threatening “rate shock” on America’s consumers. Aetna is “cautioning that premiums for plans sold to individuals could rise as much as 50 percent on average and could more than double for particular groups such as the young and healthy,” according to the Washington Post’s N.C. Aizenman. For Aizenman, the question is not whether these hikes are justified, but whether young consumers will skip health insurance entirely–and take the penalty instead. “Most of the new rules that could push up...

In a previous blog entry I discussed reasons not to go to law school, namely, the high debt and low employment ratio. It seems that medical students are facing a similar situation, as reported by the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff. “But there’s also a downside to heading to medical school these days: Students’ odds of getting in a residency program are rapidly shrinking — and medical students have begun to live in fear of this very scary chart,” writes Kliff. The chart contrasts medical residency applications rising steeply, with a gradually increasing line of open 1st year residency positions. As...

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama proposed “working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.” This additional preschool access would, of course, be funded through federal and state coffers. President Obama is headed to Georgia today to “formally unveil his proposal for expanding early childhood education,” reports the Washington Post. You can read the President’s proposal here. It calls for a state-federal partnership guaranteeing that all 4-year olds at families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line receive access to preschool, as well as entails a “massively expanded...

A recent article in the Washington Post exposes once again what climate change skeptics already know: the green movement is designed to lower living standards, not just make living more carbon efficient. “One of President Obama’s goals in his State of the Union address was to make American homes twice as energy-efficient by 2030,” writes Brad Plumer for the Washington Post today. “But would that actually curtail overall energy use and reduce U.S. carbon emissions? That’s a trickier question.” “A second way to look at this is that as Americans get richer, we’re inevitably going to want bigger homes and...

As mentioned in previous blog entries, several news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, mentioned that the President, in his State of the Union address, would be addressing climate change. Indeed, in his speech the President called upon Congress to act and create a McCain-Liebermanesque solution while promoting his own executive actions. “I urge this Congress to get together, pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago,” said President Barack Obama. “I will direct my cabinet to come up with executive actions...

The language used in President Barack Obama’s upcoming State of the Union speech may be vague regarding specific climate change regulations, but two media outlets have now confirmed that new coal regulations by the Administration are likely. “In trying to slow climate change, Obama is considering acting through the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new rules governing carbon emissions by existing power plants, according to three people familiar with White House discussions,” states the Washington Post today (emphasis added). According to the Wall Street Journal’s Peter Nicholas and Keith Johnson, “In the run-up to the speech, Mr. Obama has been...

President Barack Obama’s upcoming State of the Union address is supposed to be about jobs and the economy. However, it will also likely carry a “green” message, if Politico’s Andrew Restuccia is correct: “‘You’re going to like what you hear,’ White House aides have told green groups, according to an official at one environmental organization who expects the president to publicly commit to moving forward with EPA climate regulations,” writes Restuccia, who asks in his article, “which Obama will show up on Tuesday night?” The Administration feels that a 2007 Supreme Court decision giving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) authority...

Remember cap-and-trade? Back in 2010, Democrats in Congress had a proposal to set a nationwide limit on U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions and let businesses trade pollution permits. But the climate bill died, and cap-and-trade mostly vanished from discussion. Except in the Northeast. For the past decade, ten states stretching from Maine to Maryland have been experimenting with their own modest cap on carbon pollution from electric power plants. And, this week, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) announced that it would continue to cut emissions by tightening the cap between now and 2020. So how effective has the RGGI program been?...