Why Arming the Ukrainians is a Bad Idea →

The Ukrainian calculus is one of immediate desperation. But the United States needs to think for the longer-term. And if U.S.-provided weapons fail to induce a Russian retreat in Ukraine and instead cause an escalation of the war, the net result will not be peace and compromise. There has recently been much escalation in Ukraine, but it could go much further. As horrible as it is, the Ukrainian civil war still looks rather tame by the standards of Bosnia, Chechnya or Syria. Further escalation will mean much more violence, suffering and death in Ukraine.
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In the meantime, to meet a Russian counter-escalation in Ukraine, the United States would have to either escalate the conflict beyond where it was originally willing to go or be forced into a humiliating retreat. Neither is a very attractive or credibility-enhancing option. U.S. policy should work very hard to avoid confronting that unpalatable choice. Otherwise, this dynamic might well draw the United States deeper into what could become a direct confrontation with a seriously pissed-off and still heavily nuclear-armed Russia.

Militants’ Killing of Jordanian Pilot Unites the Arab World in Anger →

There was one sentiment that many of the Middle East’s competing clerics, fractious ethnic groups and warring sects could agree on Wednesday: a shared sense of revulsion at the Islamic State’s latest atrocity, burning alive a Jordanian pilot inside a cage.
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In a way that recent beheadings of hostages had not, the immolation of Lieutenant Kasasbeh set off a regionwide explosion of anger and disgust at the extremists, also known as ISIS or ISIL, or to most Arabs by the word “Daesh.” Even more significant, in a chronically embattled region that bequeathed to the world the expression, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the Islamic State suddenly found itself friendless in the extreme.

Name almost any outrage in the Mideast in decades of them — the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the Achille Lauro hijacking, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the gassing of the Halabja Kurds, the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole — and the protagonists would readily find both apologists and detractors. But with one breathtakingly vicious murder, the Islamic State changed that dynamic, uniting most of the region against it.

US-Thailand Relations and Cobra Gold 2015: What’s Really Going On? →

As Cobra Gold – the Asia-Pacific’s largest annual multinational military exercise – is set to commence on February 9 in Thailand, uncertainty continues to cloud specifics amid strained relations between Bangkok and its ally the United States.
In over 30 years, Cobra Gold, which began as a bilateral drill between the United States and Thailand – Washington’s oldest ally in Asia – has now grown into one of the world’s largest multinational exercises involving some 30 countries. Last year, more than 13,000 servicemembers from the United States, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea participated, with China taking part in humanitarian projects and other nations including Myanmar sending observers.
This year’s Cobra Gold, however, has been mired in controversy. A May 22 coup in Thailand led by General Prayuth Chan-o-cha forced the United States to suspend aid and cancel some exercises and exchanges. After much deliberation, Washington also decided in October to scale down Cobra Gold in 2015 but still keep it going. In doing so, the Obama administration sought to both signal its disapproval with the coup while also preserving a critical engagement that is not only a crucial part of its relationship with the Thai government and the Thai people, but builds trust between the regions militaries and demonstrates Washington’s commitment to the Asia-Pacific.

Egypt confirms death sentences for 183 people →

The men were convicted of playing a role in the killings of policemen in the town of Kardasa in August 2013, during the upheaval that followed the army's toppling of Egypt's former President Mohamed Morsi.
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The attack took place on the same day security forces violently dismantled two massive protest camps supporting Morsi in Cairo, killing hundreds of protesters in clashes.

The December verdict was the third mass death sentence of 2014, and was roundly condemned by rights groups.

"Mass death sentences are fast losing Egypt's judiciary whatever reputation for independence it once had," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director for Human Rights Watch, said at the time.

"Instead of weighing the evidence against each person, judges are convicting defendants en masse without regard for fair trial standards," she said.

In April 2014, Egyptians were shocked when a court passed down 683 death sentences in one trial.

A Texas Law Would Let Teachers Shoot Students Who "Threaten" School Property. Guess Which Students Would Suffer Most? →

...The bill, nicknamed the “Teacher’s Protection Act”, would create “a defense to prosecution for and civil liability of an educator who uses force or deadly force to protect the educator's person, students of the school, or property of the school, and suspension of a student who assaults an employee of a school.” Proposed by Rep. Dan Flynn, the bill is unlikely to become law—but it indicates a twisted pathology in the way we think of schools and students.

The bill is the logical conclusion of a diverse set of American pathologies, including the tendency to classify the protection of property as tantamountto the protection of life, and the use of zero tolerance policies in schools to make them precursors to prison, especially for black students. This law expresses both disturbing habits in two distinct ways.

We Should All Step Back from Security Journalism →

...While it’s not been key to my reporting for the last 18 months, much of my career as a journalist has involved reported pieces on legal and illegal hacking, activist and otherwise.
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Part of Barrett Brown’s 63 month sentence, issued yesterday, is a 12 month sentence for a count of Accessory After the Fact, of the crime of hacking Stratfor. This sentence was enhanced by Brown’s posting a link in chat and possessing credit card data. This, and a broad pattern of misunderstanding and criminalizing normal behavior online, has lead me to feel that the situation for journalists and security researchers is murky and dangerous.
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Barrett Brown crossed lines that journalists shouldn’t cross, and when he threatened the family of a man whom he hated, he crossed a line humans shouldn’t cross. But in holding that he had done something potentially criminally wrong in posting a link, the government has also crossed a line. They threatened a behavior basic to the operation of the net, by conflating pointing at data and examining it, with using that data for fraudulent purposes.

In seeking to punish people who find themselves in receipt of information such as credit card data, or perhaps hack logs and vulnerability information, with charges as if they’d broken in and gotten the information themselves, the government chills the basic techniques used every day to keep us safer and more informed.

As the legal system drifts further out of sync with reality, the danger slowly but surely grows. When many journalists working on national and commercial cyber and security issues, and just about everyone working in security is an unindicted felon, such indictments will drift into the area of political suppression and corporate backlash. This is a process well under way in the American system.

God and the G.O.P. →

A look into the religious feuds within the GOP, e.g.:

If voters didn’t know this side of [Mitt Romney], it was largely because he and his advisers had treated his Mormon faith as a liability, hardly to be spoken of, in part out of fear that it would alienate evangelicals in the Party’s base.

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...There has never been a Catholic Republican nominee for the White House (the Mormons, interestingly, got there first), although there may be one this year, with a field that includes Rick Santorum, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush, who converted to Catholicism, his wife’s faith, some twenty years ago. For them, the issue is not one of religious bigotry, such as John F. Kennedy faced in his 1960 campaign, with insinuations of adherence to secret Papist instructions. In a way, it’s the opposite: the very public agenda of the all too authentic Pope Francis.

How big banks turn prisons into profit centers →

...Cavaluzzi's meal cost about $10. Or as Cavaluzzi puts it: "Everything. It was everything. I was used to making $10 a month."

He made that money as a librarian in prison, where wages start at 11 cents an hour. But those hard-earned dollars disappeared faster than he expected, and when he called Chase, he found out the reason was fees.

"It just seemed a little..." Cavaluzzi trails off. "It was sketchy."

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"There's this split mentality – on the one hand, we are saying we would like to re-integrate people, and on the other hand, we are having lots of policies that undermine their ability to reintegrate," she says.

Still, contracting with private companies that charge inmates for their services is hardly exceptional.