When President Obama told the media why he had released his long-form Hawaiian birth certificate, all I could think of was Pakistan.Yes, Pakistan, where no conspiracy theory is too bizarre and you’ll hear that 9/11 was a Zionist plot ― and Osama bin Laden a U.S. agent. Ordinary Pakistanis turn to conspiracy theories to explain the overwhelming problems that face them. But those unhinged theories d

May 5, 2011

VIENNA ― In a study released in early April, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatovi, reported that 57 journalists are currently in prison in Turkey, mostly on the basis of the country’s antiterrorism laws. With 11 more Turkish journalists also facing charges, the total number could soon double the records of Iran and China,

May 5, 2011

You’ve no doubt been hearing the harrowing warnings about what might happen if Congress refuses to lift the federal government’s debt ceiling, as some conservative Republicans have threatened.If the federal government gets anywhere near defaulting on its debts, President Obama warned this month, that “could plunge the world economy back into recession.”Even House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, O

May 4, 2011

When President Obama visited El Salvador in March, he offered an acute analysis of the danger represented by homegrown criminal gangs and international narcotics cartels. This is a shared problem with a shared responsibility, the president declared.Nice speech, but where’s the beef? The unrestricted flow of drugs into the United States via Central America ― or Mexico, or the Caribbean ― represents

May 4, 2011

Pop quiz: Who is Fred Karger?I doubt you’d know. Sounds like a guy who’d sell you Sheetrock or life insurance.And yet, the folks who run the South Carolina Republican Party are very interested in Fred Karger ― so interested, in fact, that they want him on stage on Thursday as a presidential candidate in the first Republican debate of the 2012 campaign, slated for airing on Fox News. They’ve invite

May 4, 2011

Are we at a hinge of history? When I heard the news about Osama bin Laden and saw the cathartic outpouring of pride in this country, my mind went back not just to Sept. 11, but to a couple of other dates that mark the course of global events, pregnant with promise or peril.We won’t know for years the consequences of the killing of bin Laden for U.S. foreign policy; they might be transitory. But th

May 4, 2011

If President Benigno Aquino wonders why the Philippines isn’t shaking its junk-bond status, a visit to the local supermarket might set him straight.There, he will find that food prices are surging and pushing growing numbers of his people into extreme poverty ― the less-than-$1.25-a-day kind. The Manila-based Asian Development Bank says as many as 64 million more Asians may suffer this fate in 201

May 3, 2011

Global warming has made the protection of the environment a moral ― even a near-sacrosanct ― issue in the developed world. Environmental concerns have reached such a level that the creation of plants or industries that may do Mother Nature damage is being put on the backburner by governments, even in the implementation of economic development projects. In a country like Taiwan, it’s a problem of c

May 3, 2011

The dramatic news about Osama bin Laden’s death, especially when taken in combination with the ongoing “Arab Spring,” offers a remarkable window of opportunity for U.S. policymakers seeking to encourage what President Obama has called an “alternative narrative” for a disaffected generation in the Islamic world.For years after Sept. 11, 2001, military and counterterrorism efforts dominated the U.S.

May 3, 2011

The death of Osama bin Laden rightly brings to Americans a sense of justice, even revenge. But the death of the world’s most wanted man is more than payback for the past.It instead suggests that ideology may be changing in the Arab world. Bin Laden’s ideology of death ― for Americans, Europeans, Arabs and others ― was a reaction to the misery to which many Arabs were consigned in the modern world.

May 3, 2011

The Emperor and Empress, who have been visiting evacuees from areas hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake, visited quake-hit Miyagi Prefecture on Wednesday.It was the Imperial couple’s first visit the Tohoku region since the March 11 quake. They are also scheduled to visit Iwate and Fukushima prefectures shortly.Their words must be a great encouragement to people in or from the quake-hit areas, e

May 2, 2011

Over the years, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has served in a variety of capacities in national security for administrations of both parties. He has been a steady hand and he will be sorely missed.But his intention to leave this year was well-known. What was surprising about Wednesday’s news was the sweeping nature of the national-security shuffle expected to be announced by President Barack Obam

May 2, 2011

“Command influence is the mortal enemy of military justice.”Robinson O. Everett, former chief judge of what is now the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, wrote those powerful words in 1986. They underscore the importance of banning the power inherent in command from military courtrooms. Congress wrote such a ban into the Uniform Code of Military Justice more than 60 year ago, recognizing that

May 2, 2011