Attention to the Unseen

Spencer Ackerman writes: It is true that Zawahiri, like bin Laden, like his other colleagues in al-Qaeda’s 9/11 era leadership, chose violence and bear inescapable moral responsibility for murdering nearly 3000 of my neighbors here in New York. He used religion as a mechanism to justify violence and beatify the violent—you can find this all through his 2001 book Knights Under The Prophet’s Banner. It’s also worth noting that Biden’s recent abject performance before Mohammed bin Salman, his declaration in…

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Hassan Hassan writes: It says something about the state of jihadism today that more counterterrorism analysts hung on every word uttered by Ayman al Zawahiri than did the terrorists he ostensibly commanded. The killing of the former leader of al Qaeda by a CIA drone attack in a house in Kabul, Afghanistan, is a symbolic victory for President Joe Biden. Zawahiri is said to have played a central role in the planning of the 9/11 attacks and generally to have…

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The New York Times reports: They have handed out Russian passports, cellphone numbers and set-top boxes for watching Russian television. They have replaced Ukrainian currency with the ruble, rerouted the internet through Russian servers and arrested hundreds who have resisted assimilation. In ways big and small, the occupying authorities on territory seized by Moscow’s forces are using fear and indoctrination to compel Ukrainians to adopt a Russian way of life. “We are one people,” blue-white-and-red billboards say. “We are with…

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CNN reports: Days after Moscow launched its bloody war on Ukraine, a Russian cargo plane stood on a Khartoum runway, a strip of tarmac surrounded by red-orange sand. The aircraft’s manifest stated it was loaded with cookies. Sudan rarely, if ever, exports cookies. A heated debate transpired between officials in a back office of Khartoum International Airport. They feared that inspecting the plane would vex the country’s increasingly pro-Russian military leadership. Multiple previous attempts to intercept suspicious Russian carriers had…

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Joe Cirincione writes: International relations scholar John Mearsheimer is brilliant, provocative and deeply insightful. I have had the pleasure to know him and to have lectured to his class at the University of Chicago. On Ukraine, however, he is dangerously wrong. In numerous essays and articles, Mearsheimer focuses his fire on U.S. and NATO policies for causing the Ukraine war and for its continuation. His speech, “Why Is Ukraine the West’s Fault?” has been viewed more than 27 million times….

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