There are specific reasons why the Islamic States performs well militarily in Iraq and Syria. What’s happening in those two countries is that the armed forces are losing. The Islamic State is winning nothing. Its victories are being handed to it, over and over. Like The Andromeda Strain, the Islamic State can exist only under…
Who really ordered US special forces into Syria?
May 16, 2015
Last night the US Army Combat Applications Group (CAG)—known popularly as the Delta Force—killed Islamic State emir Abu Sayyaf in eastern Syria. The special forces carried out what’s called an air assault: They were flown in by Black Hawk helicopters and V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. This was an incredibly risky operation. The goal was to…
What if YOU were the murder victim?
May 15, 2015
Today Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for his role in the Boston Marathon bombings of April 15, 2013. People on Twitter told me that they oppose the death penalty because it’s immoral. Opposition to the death penalty is perfectly legitimate for a variety of reasons, but if you think capital punishment is immoral, then…
Memento mori
May 10, 2015
A memento mori is a work of art that reminds the viewer that we all die. Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about death, most likely because of the threats I get. The level of physical danger I face isn’t clear, but I live as though every second could be my…
I hope Israel never gets afraid
May 9, 2015
On April 20, 2014—the birthday of Adolf Hitler—there was a gigantic explosion on a missile base near the Faj Attan neighborhood of Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. I was contacted by the Iranian and Arab press and asked if I would give interviews on what I think is a new weapon that the Israelis, Saudis,…
The Islamic State versus Hamas
May 7, 2015
On April 1, 2015, the Islamic State assaulted the Damascus suburb of Yarmouk in Syria. As is always the case with Palestinians, the press refuses to tell us the reality of the situation. The British newspaper the Guardian calls Yarmouk a Palestinian refugee camp, but in a later piece describes it as “a bustling southern…
Yemen explosion explained?
May 5, 2015
In 2008 I read about a weapon that made me laugh hysterically. It seemed almost too grotesquely lethal to be real. But it’s not only real, a variant of the weapon may be what caused the massive Yemen explosion that I wrote about here and here. It was only today that I remembered this weapon….
