Today's Headlines and Commentary

Raffaela Wakeman
Thursday, June 21, 2012, 11:12 AM

A suicide bomber in Afghanistan has killed at least 21 people including 3 American soldiers in an attack on a NATO convoy in Afghanistan, reports Farooq Jan Mangal and Rod Nordland in the New York Times.

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A suicide bomber in Afghanistan has killed at least 21 people including 3 American soldiers in an attack on a NATO convoy in Afghanistan, reports Farooq Jan Mangal and Rod Nordland in the New York Times.

The U.S. military investigation into the Koran burnings by U.S. troops has recommended administrative punishments for seven perpetrators, but no criminal charges, reports the AP, Greg Jaffe in the Washington Post, and David Cloud in the LA Times.

Greg Miller reports in the Washington Post that DNI Clapper has assigned the FBI more duties in coordinating domestic intelligence. The Bureau's highest-ranking field agents will serve as the DNI's representatives across the country, prompting some to suggest that this will lead to more friction between the FBI and the CIA.

That nonbinding resolution opposing a broader role for the U.N. in regulating the internet that we noted earlier in the week was approved unanimously by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Brendan Sasso at The Hill has the story.

David Ignatius' column today reminds us that drones strikes won't replace diplomacy. He concludes that President Obama must "remember that he is diplomat in chief, too."

Omar Khadr, the Canadian-born detainee who is supposed to be transferred to a Canadian prison from Guantanamo, is back in the news as his lawyers are joining forces with a Canadian senator to advocate for his transfer. The Toronto Star's Michelle Shephard reports on their continuing efforts.

Jeremy Herb at The Hill reports on Pakistan’s arrest of a European al Qaeda operative with ties to the 9/11 attacks/

Looks like the CIA might be sending arms to opponents to Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, writes Eric Schmitt in the Times.

A Syrian warplane pilot is said to have sought asylum in Jordan, according to the Hashemite Kingdom's information minister. Neil MacFarquhar and Alan Cowell in the Times cover the story.

As expected, Congress has rejected SecDef Panetta's request to consider closing additional bases in an effort to cut the defense budget. Rowan Scarborough at the Washington Times reports.

Bloomberg is holding a defense conference with some BFDs today to discuss national security threats on the horizon, Carlo Munoz at The Hill tells us.

For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter, visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief, Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief, and Fordham Law’s Cyber Brief. Email us noteworthy articles we may have missed at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com and singh.lawfare@gmail.com.


Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT. Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.

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