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democracyarsenal.org - 35 hours ago
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democracyarsenal.org —
Until recently, I have maintained an attitude of
resolute optimism about the myriad challenges of today's world.
I told myself, that in trying times, politicians around the globe will surely summon their inner statesmen and women and commit ...
(more)
We Interrupt This Optimism...
Comments
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Matthew Yglesias
found this 35 hours agofound this
Sometimes it's worth putting American foreign policy - and the
military decisions we have made and continue to make since 9/11 - in a
proper and sobering context. Eight years and two months since
America was attacked on September 11th, and 3,000 Americans were
killed, the United States has ...
World
Bud Day
Homeland Security
9/11
United States
Washington, D.C
Over at the American Prospect Tim Fernholz makes a smart argument : As the debate over Afghanistan has progressed, voices within the
administration, military commanders like Gen. Stanley McChrystal,
former officials like Gen. Colin Powell, and pundits like Fred Kaplan
have argued that the ...
World
Afghanistan
Tom Price
Courtesy of Andrew I see that Afghanistan just beat out Somalia as the most corrupt country in the world (by the way, this is two points worse than last year). This sort of reminds me of the old joke about Alabama's state motto - "Thank God for Mississippi." But let's not cower in ...
World
Somalia
Afghanistan
After interviewing Anne Marie-Slaughter, the head of policy planning at the State Department, about the growing diminishment of USAID's effectiveness and influence Matt Yglesias make the correct point that part of the development agency's problem is that it doesn't have the prestige or ...
White House
For the first time in 8 years, America is actually going to bring the 9/11 terrorists to justice. Whether transferring them to NYC for trial, or sending them to Illinois for possible detention, the Obama administration will hold terrorists accountable for their heinous act. It will also make ...
Congress
Mark Kirk
Barack Obama
al-Qaeda
Guantanamo Bay
9/11
democracyarsenal.org - 6 days ago
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democracyarsenal.org —
As President Obma urges China to be a
"source of strength for the community of nations" --
i.e. help with the heavy lifting on international challenges such as global warming and nuclear proliferation -- Chinese leaders prefer to ...
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Rising China: Not Ready For Its Close-Up
The LA Times reports this morning that:
"A near-empty prison in rural Illinois has emerged as "a leading option" to house terrorism suspects currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an Obama administration official said Friday."
Apparently the state of Illinois built ...
White House
Guantanamo Bay
Courtesy of Mike Crowley at the Plank, I thought Marc Ambinder's take on who leaked the Eikenberry memo is pretty interesting: But I do have a hunch that the leak today that our ambassador to
Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, a retired Lt. General and commander in
Afghanistan, is wary in the ...
World
Afghanistan
Barack Obama
Apparently a few folks in the armed forces are miffed that Karl Eikenberry - our Ambassador in Afghanistan who deals with President Karzai on a regular basis - hasn't jumped on the COIN bandwagon: The public disclosure of his views has heightened existing tensions
between senior military ...
World
Afghanistan
General David Petraeus
One of the elements of our national debate on Afghanistan is how occasionally constricted that debate often seems to be. Take for example Helene Cooper's article today in the New York Times about diminishing US leverage over the Karzai regime - and this quote from Ronald E. Neumann, the former ...
World
Afghanistan
Earlier tonight I was preparing to come home and write a long and
anguished blog post about how President Obama was on the verge of
sending his presidency off a cliff by approving the dispatching of
30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. So you can imagine my gleeful
surprise when I came home to ...
World
Afghanistan
Karl Rove
Is it just me but don't you get the sense these are some lonely days for Barack Obama in the White House Situation Room. Every
day it seems comes a new "leak" that the President is on the verge of
sending between 30,000 and 40,000 troops to Afghanistan. First came McClatchy over the ...
World
Afghanistan
In a statement that may not come as a huge surprise to regular readers of DA I'm a bit of a policy wonk so when I see innovative ideas like the recent one floated by Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraqis Reconstruction, I become quite pleased - particularly since I sort of made ...
World
Iraq
Afghanistan
If the New York Times is to be believed things don't look good on the Afghanistan front: Advisers to President Obama
are preparing three options for escalating the war effort in
Afghanistan, all of them calling for more American troops, as he moves
closer to a decision on the way forward in ...
World
Barack Obama
Afghanistan
[With apologies for the truly awful rhymes in the title.]
I wanted to offer a compendium of pieces that have caught my eye in the past couple months, all with the common theme of offering strategic approaches to a number of the knottiest problems on the current agenda.
Speaking of knotty ...
World
Pakistan
Iran
Israel
Barack Obama
Benjamin Netanyahu
I really liked Scot Wilson's WaPo piece yesterday on President Obama's foreign policy worldview. The article highlights what I consider the United States' central foreign policy challenge: getting other nations moving in the direction we desire. As NSC communications strategist Ben Rhodes put ...
World
Iran
Just heard on NPR this morning about plans for a "general election" in Myanmar.
World
Myanmar
Bud Day
democracyarsenal.org - 19 days ago
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democracyarsenal.org —
Hamid Karzai is a gangster. What else can
you say about the guy? He goes and basically
tries to steal the first round of the Afghanistan presidential election - the UN, NATO and the US freaks out and demands he stand for a runoff with Abdullah ...
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Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Hyman Roth Version
Retired General Eugene Habiger (USAF) has a great op-ed in The Hill . Gen. Habiger is one of the military's most experienced nuclear experts. He was, among other impressive posts, Commander in Chief of United States Strategic Command, where he was responsible for the military ...
