Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel who held key roles in government, including serving as Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005. Wilkerson played a role in preparing US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation in 2003 at the United Nations in making the case for [...]
Search Results for: 2003-12-08
This Day in History: The Law of Gobblers and Other Tasty Sides
It is Thanksgiving Day. The aroma of turkey; of dressing; candied sweet potatoes; green bean casserole; cranberry sauce; freshly baked yeast rolls; giblet gravy, and of pies emanating from the kitchen fills our nostrils. Home is the place to be today. But have you ever given thought to the law of the gobbler? This Day in [...]
Facing Trump II: America's Urgent Obligation to Rethink Nuclear Command Authority
“The man who laughs has simply not yet heard the horrible news.” Berthold Brecht An Existential Task Until the end of his presidency – and even after his open complicity in subverting the United States Constitution on January 6, 2021 – Donald J. Trump held effectively unchecked nuclear command authority. Now, after multiple criminal [...]
Sudan's Rapid Support Forces Militia Must Be Stopped: A Brief History of Atrocities
The conflict that erupted in April between the Sudanese National Army and the Rapid Support Forces wreaked havoc on Sudan, and has ultimately taken an appalling toll. Thousands were killed and millions displaced. Buildings were burned and infrastructure lay in ruins, instilling fear of a spiraling descent into a full-scale civil war. Even before the warfare [...]
“The Worst Does Sometime Happen”: Avoiding a Nuclear War Over Ukraine
Abstract: Earlier, as part of Russia’s escalating aggression against Ukraine – an aggression that now includes armed attack on a nuclear power plant – President Vladimir Putin placed his nuclear forces on high alert. Correspondingly, the United States should now recalibrate how best to “play” the increasingly complex “games” of military nuclear strategy. Most worrisome, [...]
Harper Collins settles libel suit with Abramovich over book 'Putin's People'
Harper Collins settled a libel suit Wednesday with the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. The book “Putin’s People,” authored by Catherine Belton, was published in 2021 in paperback format. The book dealt with KGB’s influence in Russia in the context of Putin and his influence on the West. Abramovich filed a libel suit against HarperCollins Publishers [...]
Picture a swarm of drones entering a village programmed to fly without a human operator with instructions to shoot or immobilize anyone it deems to be holding a weapon. While this might sound like a scene from Lana Wachowski’s latest Matrix film, the technology to build these killer robots is already here. Unless states act [...]
Natural Law and the United States Constitution: Still Vital Connections
Abstract: Ideas of Natural Law were crucial in drafting the US Constitution. These seminal ideas were made known to document “framers” largely by way of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. The Commentaries represent the truest philosophic origins of America’s legal system. In these dissembling times of recurrent political manipulation, Blackstone’s work warrants [...]
California dispatches: the gubernatorial recall election is here and the stakes are very high
With this post, JURIST launches a new series of dispatches from major US states written by JURIST staff “on the ground” in those jurisdictions. JURIST Operations Director Ram Eachambadi files this report from Los Angeles. Election day in California is here, thanks to the approximately 1.5 million signatures on a petition—a mere 12% of the [...]
Law and Strategy after Afghanistan: The United States, Israel and Iran
Abstract: Following US withdrawal from Afghanistan, America’s security focus will turn more expressly to Iran. The core problem with America’s Afghanistan withdrawal was not one of timing or tactics, but of original misconception. In essence, the “Afghanistan Problem” stemmed from an initially underestimated and misunderstood military operation. Looking ahead, Afghanistan’s incoherent conclusion means, inter alia, [...]