Iraq government authorities released word a few hours ago that General Ali Hassan al-Majeed, aka “Chemical Ali” and Saddam Hussein’s cousin, had been executed over the weekend. Ali had received four death sentences from Iraq’s courts.
(Alongside U.S. Army officers, a Civilian Response Corps member from the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction & Stabilization, center, participates in discussions with Pashtun tribal leaders in Khost Province, Afghanistan.
I am in Chestertown, Maryland this morning enjoying a bit of a break from DC — planning a retreat to discuss alternative US policy options in Afghanistan. Chestertown is an old colonial American town with great character and characters.
This is a guest note by Constanze Stelzenmüller, a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin and former defense and international security editor at the German weekly, Die Zeit
On the book jacket/inside flap of Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy, Nobel Laureate (too) and New York Times opinion leader Paul Krugman calls Stiglitz an “insanely brilliant economist”.
(Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy) GlobalPost‘s John Aloysius Farrell has a fascinating survey up of perspectives on Obama’s year in foreign policy. Read the entire piece, but I’ve put some of the zinger quotes below — including my own.
This is a seven minute clip of a high substance, politically significant exchange with Nobel Economics Laureate Joseph Stiglitz — who hopes that Obama’s economic team will soon — finally — learn from the serious mistakes they have made. Stiglitz says that there is a major battle of ideas underway.
I just received the seriously disturbing news that FDIC chair Sheila Bair, one of the few national economic leaders who worked hard to curb the excesses and corruption of Wall Street and stand by middle class interests, may have run into some conflict of interest problems.
(Jonathan Guyer for The Washington Note) — The Washington Note
(photo credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) I wrote this article today for Salon.com reviewing President Obama’s performance over the past year. I hope you’ll read the entire piece — but here’s the intro plus a bit more: Great Challenges Make Great Leaders Yes, Obama inherited a presidency in bad shape.
