Hillary Clinton lends her voice to teens troubled by bullying for being or being perceived as ‘gay.’ This is a great American lending her powerful voice to the “It Gets Better” project.

The situation in Pakistan appears to have reached a point where a positive feedback loop prompts continued escalation on both sides. The US sees drone attacks as its primary weapon and has stepped up such attacks in the belief that they will create more security for military actions in Afghanistan and disrupt planning of terrorist attacks on the West. Instead, the attacks appear to enrage the surviving targets, recruit more to their ranks and lead to more attacks.

Is it rule of law hypocrisy week? A few days ago, the Obama State Department announced sanctions against Iranian officials for human rights violations — kidnapping, imprisonment, beatings, torture — perpetrated against Iranian protesters. This week, ignoring it’s own drone bombing campaign, the US is fretting over so-called “extrajudicial killings” allegedly carried out by the Pakistani Army.

Finally, the Obama Administration and human rights advocates agree that when government officials condone, order or engage in kidnappings, renditions, blackmail, beatings and torture, those officials should be held personally accountable and sanctioned under international law . . . As long as they’re Iranians.

In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, General Petraeus reiterated his anti-corruption push, in which he tells his troops to be careful where they spend their money. With the latest stories from DC that show folks like Blackwater/Xe, KBR, and other US contractors getting off the hook, you have to wonder if the strategy of “Do As We Say, Not As We Do” will ever work. And if it won’t, then why do we continue to spend money and lives to keep pursuing it?

Discussion of Alyssa Ayres, new appointment in the State Department, in the area of India policy, with a focus on globalization.

Blackwater lied to the government over three hundred times about breaking export control laws, and still managed to sweet talk its way into new contracts.

Sounds like epic parent fail to me.

Last week, the United States government transferred an Algerian national, imprisoned for the last eight years at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, back to his home country.

The majority of Americans want the Obama Administration to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, CBS News reports. But if General Petraeus has his way, the State Department will designate part of the Afghan Taliban as a terrorist organization.That would undermine peace moves in Afghanistan, the New York Times reports – peace moves that the Administration told Newsweek that it supports. Petraeus’ move would undermine not only a timetable for withdrawal, but the “serious drawdown” in July 2011 that Vice President Biden told Newsweek we can “bet on” and Speaker Pelosi told the Huffington Post she expects.

On Monday, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) announced she would not support foreign aid for Afghanistan until she was assured that the Afghan government had put an end to corruption.