Like many, I was sickened and repulsed by the single still images that came out of somewhere in Syria of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff before each was savagely beheaded by a member of ISIS, or ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), an extremist group so devoted to hate and heinous acts of terror that even...

In war, no one’s hands are clean. Whether by “boots on the ground,” or a bomb dropped by a MQ-9 Reaper drone, the innocent always become casualties. Nonetheless, before I start to unwind my ethical opinion about the use of military drones, I want to begin with a few basic facts. According to a breakdown in The Washington Post by...

Do attacks by armed drones do more harm than good? That’s the question posed in Room for Debate (Sept. 25, 2012), a regular column in The New York Times. “A new study,”Debate writes, “found that because of the many unintended civilian casualties, U.S. drone attacks against terrorist targets in Pakistan have been an effective recruiting tool for extremists, but have not been effective in...

Drones – unmanned aerial vehicles – seem to be everywhere in the news these days. Attending a recent fireworks show, I spotted something with blinking lights sitting in the same position in the sky. After watching it for more than twenty minutes, the blinking object descended into the hands of a waiting operator. It was a drone. In order to...

Shortly after the grenade blast, Marine, Lance Cpl. William Carpenter recalled a loud ringing in his ears and then something warm. “I felt like warm water was being poured all over me from the blood coming out,” Carpenter said. In order to save fellow Marine, Lance Cpl. Nick Eufrazio, Carpenter used his body to repress an enemy grenade. Despite sustaining...

Malaysia Flight 370 has been lost for 12 days and the story continues to drive much of the news cycle. Then there are stories that take decades to resolve. In the case of 24 recipients of the Medal of Honor, some have taken 60 years. Yesterday, President Obama corrected an oversight due to discrimination. The 24 recipients of the Medal...

Three stories appearing in last Friday’s (Mar. 7) New York Times grabbed my attention. “An Army judge on Thursday accepted guilty pleas from Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair to misconduct charges, including possession of pornography and inappropriate relationships with female soldiers. But the general, a former deputy commander of American forces in southern Afghanistan, still faces court-martial on charges that...

Remember these guys? Did they rise to the top of the bottom of the barrel? A look at the Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous over the past year. By the numbers – The Center for Public Integrity offers up a few items from the ridiculous: Number of bills passed by Congress this year that have been signed into law: 58 Number of bills passed in 1948,  » Read more...

On Wednesday I asked if it was ethical to force-feed prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who, by their own volition, refused to take any nourishment. The question was featured in a Room for Debate forum on The New York Times website. I was looking for responses based solely on the ethics of such an action. I pointed out that both the American...

At a White House news conference last month, President Obama said, “It’s not sustainable. The notion that we’re going to keep 100 individuals in no man’s land in perpetuity. All of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this? Why are we doing this?” Obama was talking about the on-going imprisonment of, as of August, 164 individuals at...