THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2024 15 T his weekly podcast covers issues at the intersection of national security and the law. Hosts Quinta Jurecic and Scott Anderson are fellows in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. Jurecic is also a senior editor at Lawfare, and Anderson is a senior fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School and a former attorneyadviser in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser. The hosts have a knack for explaining complicated topics in an approachable and even humorous way. Recent episodes include the “Dry January” edition, in which the hosts discussed the dangers posed by a cross-border attack that killed a senior Hamas official in Beirut, and December’s “Arose Such a Clatter,” in which they discussed recent attacks by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, along with the election of populist economist Javier Milei as the new president of Argentina. Podcast of the Month: Rational Security (bit.ly/Rational-Security-podcast) The appearance of a particular site or podcast is for information only and does not constitute an endorsement. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that while any employees who participated in the attacks must be held accountable, their actions shouldn’t cloud the work of UNRWA, which she called “the only organization on the ground that has the capacity to continue to provide that assistance. And their personnel have done extraordinary work—they’ve literally saved thousands of lives.” Of the 12 employees accused of taking part in the attack, Guterres said nine had been immediately terminated, one was confirmed dead, and “the identity of the two others is being clarified.” According to State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel, 23 U.S. citizens have been killed in the Israel-Gaza conflict since fighting broke out on Oct. 7, including a 17-year-old Palestinian American from Louisiana, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, who was fatally shot in the occupied West Bank on Jan. 19, and 21 members of the Israeli National Police (INF). According to The Washington Post, at least 32 Americans were killed by Hamas The aerial bombardments have rendered our jobs impossible. The withholding of water, fuel, food and other basic goods has created an enormous scale of need that aid alone cannot offset.” U.S. Troops Killed, Wounded in Jordan Three American servicemembers were killed and at least 34 injured in a Jan. 28 drone attack in Jordan. The attack on Tower 22, a U.S. military outpost in the northeast corner of Jordan on the border with Syria, was the latest in a series of attacks carried out by Iranian proxies in the region. Since the start of the Israel-Gaza conflict on Oct. 7, 2023, there have been more than 160 attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria. Project 2025 Aims to Dismantle “Administrative State” On Jan. 21, The New York Times Magazine published a long-form interview with Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation president since 2021. Heritage’s “Project 2025” aims to, in Roberts’ words, “destroy the administrative state,” in part by instituting “Schedule F,” removing employment protections from the federal workforce and creating a system that allows any administration in power to hire and fire federal employees at will. When asked to elaborate, he said that “people will lose their jobs. Hopefully their lives are able to flourish in spite of that. Buildings will be shut down. … Most importantly, what we’re trying to destroy is the political influence [the administrative state] has over individual American sovereignty, and the only way to do that, or one of the ways to do that, is to diminish the number of unelected bureaucrats who are wielding that power instead of Congress.” during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and at least 10 Americans are believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7— two of whom were later released under a hostage exchange deal. Several U.S. government contractors have also fallen victim to the violence in Gaza. USAID contractor Hani Jnena, along with his wife and two daughters, was killed in an airstrike on Nov. 5, The Washington Post reported. An employee of Save the Children was killed on Dec. 10 along with his wife, four children, and several members of his extended family. “The U.S. concern about these [humanitarian worker] casualties remains almost purely rhetorical. There is no policy leverage being put behind it whatsoever,” Refugees International President Jeremy Konyndyk, a former Biden and Obama administration official, told the Post. On Dec. 11, 2023, the leaders of several NGOs, including Mercy Corps and Save the Children U.S., penned an op-ed for The New York Times, writing in part: “Most of our organizations have been operating in Gaza for decades. …
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODIyMDU=