Outside the Beltway

While President Obama has had some amusing gaffes on his trip to London, including getting the year wrong in the guest book and an awkward toast to the Queen, his speech to Parliament today hit all the right notes.

Marc Thiessen claims Khalid Sheikh Mohammad mocked the CIA interrogators who waterboarded him.

John McCain thoroughly dismantles the argument that Osama bin Laden’s capture vindicates the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Did a deal between the U.S. and Pakistan during the infancy of the war against al Qaeda play a role in the raid against Osama bin Laden?

Pakistan is trying to explain how the world’s most wanted man was able to hide in plain sight for six years, and failing badly.

One U.S. Senator wants to bring elements of the TSA’s security theater to America’s rail system.

In a move sure to satisfy Deathers as much as a contemporaneous newspaper story satisfied Birthers, al Qaeda has released a statement confirming that Osama bin Laden is dead.

The free world rallied around the United States after the 9/11 attacks–but not all back the killing of the man who ordered it.

Safia bin Laden says that her infamous father was caught alive by U.S. forces and murdered in cold blood.

There’s not much movement in the President’s job approval numbers.

The debate over “enhanced interrogations” has been renewed by the bin Laden mission, but whether it “worked” or not isn’t the question.

The question of how the world’s most wanted man could’ve hidden in plain sight in Pakistan continues to be asked.

The myth that the U.S. armed and trained Osama bin Laden in the early 80’s is rearing its ugly head again.

Gary Weddle, a schoolteacher from East Wenatchee, Washington, has cut his beard after waiting almost ten years for Osama bin Laden to be killed.

Changing our relationship status to Complicated.

Osama bin Laden is dead, but he’s succeeded in changing America for the worse.

And when did it know it?

How exactly was the most wanted man in the world able to hide in this house without anyone in Pakistan knowing about it?

I don’t feel the jubilation that came with Saddam Hussein’s capture in December 2003. Sadly, I know better this time.

The NYT says it’s time for U. S. advisers and military air traffic controllers on the ground in Libya.

The U.S. seems to be on the verge of changing war strategies in Libya, even as it becomes clear that these rebels aren’t necessarily our friends.

As allied involvement in Libya’s civil war increases, there are signs that the rebels may not be able to close the deal.

Ten days after sending American forces into kinetic military action in Libya, President Obama addressed the nation to explain “what we’ve done, what we plan to do, and why this matters to us.”

Senator Joe Lieberman said today that we should intervene in Syria using the same rationale we did for Libya. Because, you know, what’s the big deal about a fourth war?

The Doo Wa Diddy Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

Who wants that job? (And is willing to work that hard to get it?)

The uprisings in the Arab world have led some to suggest that the Middle East isn’t “ready” to be free. They’re wrong.

Nine years into a war that seems to be without end, it’s time to declare victory and go home.

DHS Secretary Napolitano issues some vague warnings to Congress.