In the wake of Barack Obama’s election, the extent to which he has continued many Bush administration counterterrorism policies has surprised many, especially when looking not only at the continuation and expansion of tactics such as drone strikes, but also at the degree to which the administration has used tools such as the state secrets…

This is a guest note by Eric Schwartz, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration at the Department of State. Schwartz previously headed the Connect US Fund. He sends regular reports of his overseas work on humanitarian matters, and TWN is pleased to share them here.

(click image for larger version) Jonathan Guyer is a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force and the official cartoonist of The Washington Note. He blogs at Mideast by Midwest. He has just returned from Tanzania. Here’s a cartoon I drew on BP’s mess.

As I write this, it is 3:40 am in Buenos Aires where the Argentine Senate is debating a same sex marriage equality bill.

Tom Toles (c) 2010 The Washington Post. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Pursuing al Qaeda, a.k.a. Moby Dick.

I write this as a political independent who finds strengths and weaknesses in both of America’s major leading parties, but just as I observed during the battle against John Bolton’s Senate confirmation vote to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations, Democrats often declare defeat when they are ahead, and Republicans declare victory even…

You really think you can dance WIN THIS WAR?? — Anthony H. Cordesman, the CSIS Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy (not really; just hypothetically) Anthony Cordesman is not the warm and fuzzy type. Jack Webb’s Joe Friday in Dragnet was a barrel of laughs compared to CSIS’s most severe, anti-glad handing war strategist.

At the Aspen Ideas Festival 2010, at which I had a terrific time and had some of my own perspectives on policy matters stretched in new directions, I met this fun, woods and water loving dog — named Sugar Bear something-or-other.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

This is a guest post by Anya Landau French, who directs the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative. This post originally appeared at The Havana Note.