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A record 82 treason cases were opened so far this year, a Russian outlet claimed But the actual number is likely to be 'many times higher', the outlet has alleged Paranoid Vladimir Putin's security forces have massively increased the number of suspected 'traitors' they have arrested for treason. Now literally everyone can be accused of treason,' said the report. 'Even likes on Instagram and subscriptions on Telegram [messenger service] can lead to a criminal case.' Lawyer Yevgeny Smirnov, from human rights project Department One, said: 'Do not forget that the very content of the state secret is a state secret....

President Biden on Wednesday announced $800 million in new lethal aid for Ukraine, bolstering U.S. support to the ex-Soviet nation as it ends the third week fighting Russian forces. The latest tranche — part of the nearly $14 billion Congress appropriated for Ukrainian aid which Biden signed into law a day prior — brings the U.S. government’s total pledge of military assistance for the embattled nation to $1 billion in the past week and $2 billion since Biden took office. ...

...In an opinion piece posted Monday morning criticizing the Biden administration’s move as “too arrogant,” Chinese commentator Hu Xijin nonetheless offered that, “as a major military industrial power, Russia does not need to ask China to provide substantial military assistance for the limited scale war in Ukraine.” “Moreover, China is not obligated to promise nor to export arms to Russia,” Hu said in a video circulated by the state-sponsored English-language Global Times, for which he was executive editor until December. Though not a direct mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, the news agency is aligned with its views and seen...

....As Russia stepped up its assault on Kyiv, the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia announced they would travel to Ukraine’s capital Tuesday on a European Union mission to show support for the country “The aim of the visit is to express the European Union’s unequivocal support for Ukraine and its freedom and independence,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said in a tweet....

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and State Department struggled Tuesday to clarify President Barack Obama's suggestion that last month's deadly shooting at a kosher deli in Paris was random, despite the administration's earlier assertions that the attack was anti-Semitic. Obama, in describing terror threats during a lengthy interview with the online news site Vox, said the American people were right to be concerned "when you've got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris." Administration officials at first defended Obama's comments, with White House spokesman Josh...

Via Mediaite, an easy lay-up here for a guy who (a) warned the world about Saddam’s WMD threat more than once as president, (b) cautiously declined to take a firm position against the war at the time, and (c) is of course married to someone who cast a vote in the Senate to invade.But never mind that. This is an interesting counterfactual: What would have happened to Iraq during the Arab Spring and Syrian uprising if Saddam had endured? Clinton implicitly assumes that ISIS advancing on Baghdad is the worst possible outcome of the past 10 years, which is...

Asked if he had any “regrets” about not leaving a residual force in Iraq, Obama advised reporters to “Keep in mind, that wasn’t a decision made by me. That was a decision made by the Iraqi government.” Back in 2011, Obama proudly touted the small number of troops remaining in Iraq as one of his foremost accomplishments. “When I came into office,” he boasted at the time, “I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end. As Commander in Chief, I ended our combat mission last year and pledged to keep our commitment to remove all our...

After years of delays, former Blackwater Worldwide security guards are going on trial in the killings of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of at least 18 others. Over the next few days, a jury of 12 residents from the District of Columbia will be chosen from a pool of 150 people to decide the guards’ fate. …

More than 150,000 people have been forced to flee Iraq's second city of Mosul after Islamist militants effectively took control of it. Troops were among those fleeing as hundreds of jihadists from the ISIS group overran it and much of the surrounding province of Nineveh. Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki responded by asking parliament to declare a state of emergency to grant him greater powers. The US said the development showed ISIS is a threat to the entire region.

Are we at war? I remember the Congress voting to authorize GWB to go into Iraq, but I’ll be hornswaggled if I can remember any authorization for Afghanistan. If not, how can Bergdhal be a POW? I’m confused. Can anyone explain the nitty-gritty here?

BAGHDAD: A senior Iraqi official claims Al-Qaeda fighters hunkered down in a city they seized late last month west of Baghdad have enough heavy weapons to allegedly take the country's capital. Senior deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Asadi said Monday that Iraqi forces are fighting "fierce battles" against heavily armed militants to recapture parts of Ramadi, the capital of the western Anbar province, and also the nearby city of Fallujah. He says the weapons in Fallujah that are in the hands of Iraq's Al-Qaeda branch and other Sunni militant groups battling the Shiite-led government are "advanced and huge and enough to...

January 9, 2014 Iraq: The New Liberal Killing Field Allen West As President Obama returned from a well deserved two-week vacation in Hawaii – ok, being quite facetious here – I wonder if he did any reflection between rounds of golf?Regardless, I have been reflecting upon the words of George Santayana, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” because as President Obama returns to Washington DC he is playing his part in a repeat of history. After the fall of South Vietnam came the rise of Southeast Asian communism. Cambodia was embroiled in a five-year...

President Barack Obama said on Monday the massacre of 16 villagers by a U.S. soldier raises his determination to get American troops out of Afghanistan, while a U.S. official said the accused staff sergeant previously had suffered traumatic brain injury. Sunday's shootings triggered angry calls from Afghans for an immediate American exit. Obama said there should not be a "rush to the exits" for U.S. forces who have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001 and that the drawdown must be carried out in a responsible way. The accused U.S. Army staff sergeant walked off his base in the southern province...

The first rule in warfare is aim. Target selected, target engaged, target destroyed. The same rules of selecting and maintaining a clear aim apply when the military is sent on humanitarian missions. For example, we are going to Libya to remove a dictator who is killing pro-democracy demonstrators. An example of how to miss the mark? We are going to Libya to bomb stuff, but we surely are not there to remove the illegitimate and flamboyantly dressed leader. Because regime change is bad. Very bad. We wouldn’t dream of it. The hypocrisy meter is off the charts. Bombing Gadhafi was...

Remember when a crusading president, acting on dubious intelligence, insufficient information, and exaggerated fears, took the nation into a Middle Eastern war of choice? That was George W. Bush in 2003, invading Iraq. But it's also Barack Obama in 2011, attacking Libya. For weeks, President Obama had been wary of military action. What obviously changed his mind was the fear that Moammar Gadhafi was bent on mass slaughter—which stemmed from Gadhafi's March 17 speech vowing "no mercy" for his enemies. In his March 26 radio address, Obama said the United States acted because Gadhafi threatened "a bloodbath." Two days later,...

A coalition of the United States and four other nations launched military action against Libya on Saturday, officials said, as the West tries to force Muammar Gaddafi from power. A U.S. official told reporters on condition of anonymity that a coalition including the United States, France, Britain, Canada and Italy had begun launching strikes on Libya designed to cripple Muammar Gaddafi's air defenses. At least some Arab nations are expected to join the coalition later, the official said.