Ads for Very Worthy Causes

(By Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, and Robert Chesney) Lawfare readers will have noticed, by now, that we have installed a small quantity of advertising on the site. The purpose of these ads is to generate a revenue stream as the blog grows in readership to donate to charities whose work is thematically related to the subject of the blog. How much the Lawfare Official Advertising for Charity Fund (the LOAC Fund, as we hereby name it) raises will depend entirely on how many people read the blog and respond to our advertisers. We will try to keep the ads unobtrusive but visible enough to be effective. For the coming year, we have designated two charities as the recipients of 50 percent each of the LOAC Fund's proceeds. The first is the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation, which was founded in 2001 "to provide educational support to the children of CIA officers killed in the line of duty" and now also provides "educational support to the spouses of CIA officers killed in the line of duty, and the children and spouses of officers who die on active duty as a result of accident, illness or other causes." The devastating attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman a year ago, the subject of this recent story, is a reminder of the extreme danger in which CIA personnel sometimes work. Unlike military personnel, their protected identities can make their families difficult subjects for philanthropy. Speaking of military personnel, the LOAC Fund's second charity is Fisher House, which "donates 'comfort homes,' built on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers" to enable family members of service members "to be close to a loved one at the most stressful times--during the hospitalization for an unexpected illness, disease, or injury." Annually, "the Fisher House program serves more than 11,000 families, and ha[s] made available nearly three million days of lodging to family members since the program originated in 1990." We encourage Lawfare readers to think about these causes in their end-of-year charitable activity. And throughout the year, please be tolerant of--and responsive to--our ads. They are doing good.