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Posted on November 21st, 2008
by Kelley Vlahos |
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“It kind of sticks out there like a sore thumb”
— Paul Light, NYU professor, on the questions regarding gun ownership being put to potential Obama appointees.
Posted on November 20th, 2008
by Leon Hadar |
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I haven’t read yet the Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World that was issued by the National Intelligence Council. But if this is an exercise in futurology, it had to be prepared in 2003, before the U.S. had experienced several geopolitical (Iraq; Afghanistan; Iran; North Korea) and geoeconomic (the current financial crisis) setbacks, because many of the “predictions” are already here with us, like, you know, now. For example:
Although the United States is likely to remain [remains?] the single most powerful actor, the United States’ relative strength — even in the military realm — will decline [has declined?] and U.S. leverage will become [has become?] more constrained.
Or this:
[The] international system — as constructed following the second World War — will be almost unrecognizable by 2025 [2008?] owing to the rise of emerginpowers, a globalizing economy, an historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from West to East, and the growing influence of nonstate actors.
In any case, could someone explain to me who are the mystery men and women who will continue expecting and seeing the U.S. playing a global leadership role in the world in 2025.
Despite the recent rise in anti-Americanism, the U.S. probably will continue to be seen as a much-needed regional balancer in the Middle East and Asia.The American military will continue to be expected to play a leading role in the war against global terrorism, though the United States as a whole will be less able to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships.
Sounds to me like they’ll still be with us in 2025. Some things don’t change.
Posted on November 20th, 2008
by Patrick J. Buchanan |
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Who killed the U.S. auto industry?
To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog SUV’s no one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans, and Koreans prepared and built for the future.
I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists, and muckrakers who have long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack industries that won World War II. Read more…
Posted on November 20th, 2008
by Sean Scallon |
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Devils Night was the way Halloween was described in Detroit back in the 1980s when arsonists torced abandoned properties. Twenty years later the bonfire of the inanities returns to Motor City as Republicans begin the process of taking the “Mo” out of ”Motown”.
So people are holding it against the execs of the Big Three because they all flew their Lear jets to D.C. O.K. but then please explain to me why AIG execs can spend your taxpayer dollars and mine on weekend retreats at posh resorts and hunting lodges and give their equally incompetent management bonuses and still get an extra $65 billion from the Fed to blow right through while the rest of us are bashing the auto industry asking for $25 billion loan combined just to stay afloat?
Apparently we have reached the point in this country where making things no longer are is important as pushing money around at the click of a switch. All of us have warned that if the Big Three go under, we’re in danger of losing 3 million jobs and a good chunk of our manufacturing base and we’ll still pay with our tax money for all the autoworkers pensions the feds will now be responsible for. But apparently that’s less of a concerns, at least to Henry Paulson, George Bush II and Republicans in the Senate, than watching AIG crash and burn. Why?
Posted on November 20th, 2008
by Kelley Vlahos |
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In true Bush form, the administration has decided it is not going to let our elected officials actually see the draft security Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that lays out the conditions under which some 140,000 U.S troops and tens of thousands of American contractors can operate in Iraq beginning Jan.1. The agreement — contrary to the rosy picture offered by the press earlier this week — is still a source of grave tension in Iraq, evidenced by the brawl that shut down parliament yesterday.
Coming out of an election stupor in which many Americans were erroneously convinced that The Surge had transformed Iraq into a kind of benign third world landscape awash in wreckage but nonetheless “moving forward,” a lot of people won’t know or perhaps care, about the SOFA. They hardly know that, according to reports of journalists who have had the documents translated, that the Iraqis distrust us so much they are insisting we start getting out by June 2009, completely out by 2011 — including any “residual force” Obama was imagining during the campaign. They want limited jurisdiction to prosecute our troops and contractors for crimes and demand that our military ask permission before they arrest anyone or launch operations. Under no circumstances would the U.S allowed be to use Iraqi soil to launch attacks on another country, and permanent bases are out (somewhere, Richard Pearle is weeping).
Meanwhile, the Bush Administration continues the paternalistic approach. Elected officials charged with their constituents’ best interest have been kept entirely out of the loop. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — who Obama is apparently considering to keep on through next year — and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have been on the Hill “briefing” lawmakers in closed door sessions. Massachusetts Rep. Wiliam Delahunt told Voice of America News, “There has been no meaningful consultation with Congress during the negotiations of this agreement and the American people for all intents and purposes have been completely left out.”
Congress has been complaining about this for over a year. The Bush Administration just responds in typical fashion — by ignoring them. And by lobbing gems such as these:
The Pentagon’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said that American commanders were satisfied with the conditions set in the agreement, including deadlines for withdrawal and constraints on operations.
“I’m not going to get into this — the specifics of this — other than to say that how this agreement is implemented will be worked out between our commanders on the ground and the Iraqi leadership,” he said. “And both seem to be very confident that it provides the framework for them to continue to do all that still needs to be done.”
So just get back to your shopping, leave the big stuff to us. Pathetically, there is a much more open and vigorous debate going on in the Iraqi parliament about the fate of our forces. Perhaps after Jan. 20, when Congress can finally get out from the kids’ table, they can get back to doing the peoples’ business.
Posted on November 19th, 2008
by Kelley Vlahos |
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With their prospects for fleecing the U.S government in Iraq beyond 2009 drying up, Blackwater Worldwide is diversifying like mad. First it was flying spy machines, today it’s angling to train soldiers in Darfur and providing sellswords for international shipping companies trying to avoid pirates on the high seas. With a federal murder indictment over the slaying of 17 unarmed Iraqis looming and a reputation for using excessive force, gouging Uncle Sam, and flouting the law, one would think Blackwater would have a credibility problem.
Not when you have the best political connections and lobbyists money can buy — don’t forget John McCain’s own chief strategist Charlie Black was once hired to coach CEO Erik Prince before he testified before congress — plus free advertising with military news outlets and gushing conservative media. Yes, Prince and his little start-up-that-could are well on their way to riding the Global War on Terror gravy train for all it’s worth.
Posted on November 19th, 2008
by Scott McConnell |
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Change we can believe in! Well, maybe a little bit. Washington feels very different. I’m sure there are a lot of things about the Obama administration I will hate. But, for a moment, let’s feel optimistic. Yesterday Trita Parsi’s National Iranian American Council held a big conference on how the new administration might approach Iran. Not at a hotel or think tank, but on the inside, in a beautiful room at Hart Senate Office building, overlooking the Capitol at sunset. Along with a lot of foreign policy realists and Iran experts (a diverse group, but none of the “bomb bomb bomb Iran” variety), there were wise addresses by Senator Arlen Specter, and Cong. John Tierney, as well as by by Sen. Thomas Carper. These guys aren’t necessarily completely on board with all the NIAC proposals but they all acknowledge that the Bush Cheney don’t talk to them and make lots of threats approach hasn’t been working. So yes, let’s talk to Iran. That Obama proposal that McCain (and Hillary too) tried to depict as naive and radical during the campaign is becoming mainstream thinking.
One sign of NIAC’s influence: I get email from a neocon organization that is always going on about how the Persians can’t wait to blow up the world. They were panicked by this meeting, sending out emails asking people to call their representatives in Congress to IGNORE its recommendations. Some of the beltway’s Iranian Chalabis tried to get the meeting cancelled. Call Joe Lieberman’s office! Call Eric Cantor’s office! Make it stop!
But to no avail. Three hundred people, a classy room on top of Capitol Hill, an administration that wants to turn the page. Trita Parsi, author of a brilliant book (and a TAC contributor) and a lot of energetic young Iranian-American men and women, trying to get us into a new era. And Senators and Congressmen willing to listen. The new era can’t come soon enough.
Posted on November 19th, 2008
by Philip Giraldi |
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While I normally think that armed intervention in other peoples’ quarrels generally turns out poorly, there are times when a little overwhelming force can be salutary. The current situation with pirates operating freely out of Somalia, which has no effective government, begs for just such a solution. The pirates use well established and well known bases along the coast. The bases are heavily fortified but would stand no chance against a regular military and naval force. In spite of their vulnerability, they have not been attacked or even seriously threatened.
Under the later Roman Republic, the eastern Mediterranean was infested with pirates, many of whom operated out of Cilicia in Asia Minor. Attempts to root them out failed because they would withdraw inland or move down the coast whenever Roman warships appeared, declining battle and living to fight another day. In 67 BC Pompey was given an unprecedented mandate under the lex Gabinia to assemble a fleet and army to deal with the problem. He divided the entire eastern Mediterranean into thirteen zones and sent a flotilla to each simultaneously so that the pirates would have nowhere to run to. He landed marines at each pirate base to destroy the ships and fortifications, capturing and killing the pirates whenever possible. Those who surrendered he resettled. He ended the piracy problem in only three months and the Mediterranean remained pirate free until the turmoil of the late third century AD. The downside was that the extraordinary command given to Pompey led to other extraordinary commands given to others, Julius Caesar included, which eventually resulted in the end of the Roman Republic. I guess today we would call that blowback.
Posted on November 18th, 2008
by Sean Scallon |
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With an attitude like this, Rich Lowry should wish they elected Democrats more often:
““I’m excited about going forward,” Mr. Lowry said. “There’s a lot of gallows humor. Every conservative I talk to is saying: ‘This is going to be great for you guys. Circulation is going to go up.’ ”
This is from the New York Times article on the Frumpurge. And the numbers don’t lie either apparently. Circulation went from 150,000 to 250,000 in a two-year period after Clinton got elected.
You hear such talk in the talk-radio biz as well. After all, Clear Channel didn’t sign Rush Limbaugh to an eight-year contract recently gambling on a McCain election. They know who butters their side of the bread.
So please, for their sake and that of all conservative media, Vote Democrat!
Posted on November 18th, 2008
by Dennis Dale |
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People who say ‘Where’s the change?’ need only look at the president of the United States . . . the person at the top who sets the tone and the priorities.”
–Obama advisor Anita Dunn, regarding the prevalence of familiar Washington insiders in the incoming administration
Update: Change in Action
