Archive for January, 2010

We write this with a tremendous amount of sadness and solidarity for the victims of the Haitian earthquake, but with overwhelming pride over the extraordinary compassion, skill and dexterity with which the Israeli army, rescue workers, and physicians have flown into that devastated nation, set up life-saving equipment and field hospitals within forty eight hours, and took extraordinary measures to... »

America is not a country which has ever had high regard for intelligence work. The public's image of spies has tended more towards Chevy Chase in the 1985 comedy, "Spies Like Us" than Sean Connery in "From Russia with Love." Indeed America's most famous intelligence officer, Nathan Hale, whose statue resides outside the CIA's Langley headquarters, is primarily remembered for... »

I have been fortunate enough, on more than one occasion, to have met with one of the most revered dissidents in the struggle for human rights, former "prisoner of conscience" Natan Sharansky. He had mentioned to me that there were two essential things that had given him hope through those lonely, brutal years in the Soviet prison of Lefortov. ... »

We recently received this message from Washington Institute Scholar Mehdi Khalaji regarding the arrest of his father today. It is reproduced below: On Tuesday (Janurary 12) afternoon four agents of intelligence ministry went to our home in Qom and arrested my father Mohammad Taqi Khalaji. They searched the home and collected hundreds of his notes, books, personal letters, computer and also... »

Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Co-Chairs Decry Sheikh Issa Verdict in the UAE , Vow to Continue Congressional Efforts to Highlight Human Rights Violations by Unaccountable Royal Family (Editor's Note: This is a press release from the Tomas Lantos Human Rights Commission regarding the despicable acquittal of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, in a rape and torture case in the U.A.E) Tom... »

Omar Farouq Abdelmutalib is a young Nigerian man, son of an eminent banker and former finance minister, educated in London. He went on to attempt to detonate a complicated chemical explosive device hidden inside his underwear in the skies above Detroit. Nidal Malik Hassan is a psychiatrist nearing middle age, a Major in the United States Army, and a resident of... »