Israel and Iran: It takes one to know one ― or think it knows one. In a story that seems to have gone unremarked upon by other journalists, on March 31 at […]
Israel projects its own nuclear behavior on to Iran
Russ Wellen
Russ Wellen is not exactly a rogue, as in cop or elephant. And, since he didn’t graduate from college, he’s more of an autodidact than a scholar. Come to think of it, though, that would make him a Rogue Scholar. (Usually, punning isn’t among his vices.)
Russ writes about:
1. Nuclear deproliferation.
2. Foreign relations with the Middle East.
3. Understanding what makes Americans tick.
He spends much of the rest of the time trying to figure out what makes his 12-year-old son tick.
"It's hard to tell people not to smoke when you have a cigarette dangling from your mouth."
-- Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
Maliki: one of the wrongest horses the U.S. ever backed
Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki may not be as bad as Saddam Hussein, but he’s only slightly less worse. In yet another definitive piece for the New Yorker titled What We Left […]
Five ways the myth that Iran was developing nuclear weapons was hyped
How an Iranian nuclear-weapons program became accepted wisdom. More and more men and women are either born with a talent for, or are developing skill in, technical matters, especially computer hardware and […]
From Grozny to Crimea: Russia learns to finesse military intervention
Ukraine crisis shows that Russia has come a long way from military operations in which casualties to civilians were of little concern. “Western experts,” reports Michael Gordon in the New York Times […]
Donald Rumsfeld’s biggest unknown: himself
Donald Rumsfeld was less afraid of what intelligence revealed than what it didn’t ― that is, almost everything. The New York Times recently ran a four-part post in its Opinionator section by […]
“Stuck dead”; the adventures of Ben, DDD: Developmentally Disabled Detective
Ben was nobody’s fool. I’m a detectuv. I know what that is ‘cause I saw it on TV. I don’t have my own TV but I do have a tape recorder. I’m […]
Nuclear weapons and guns: comrades in arms
Which is more of a threat to a nation’s safety ― untrammeled gun “rights” or a nukes program? Author’s note: I first published this essay on Kindle in autumn of 2013, then […]
Is Syrian President Assad following the Pakistan model?
Like the Pakistan military and ISI, Assad may be aiding jihadists who operate on his own soil. In an article at Foreign Policy titled The Disappeared, James Traub reports on journalists who […]
What nobody is saying about the cheating missileers
Their perception that they’ve been relegated to an armed-forces version of Siberia is only the tip of the iceberg. Robert Burns of the Associated Press has been the point man on the […]
Ever wonder exactly why the U.S. keeps Israel’s nuclear secret?
Hint: it’s not just the Israel lobby. In a piece titled The truth about Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal at the Guardian, Julian Borger writes about how Israel began its nuclear-weapons program. The […]
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 