After months of talks, President George W. Bush finally announced the “security cooperation” plan for Mexico. On October 22, he sent a request for $500 million in supplemental aid for 2008 as part of a $1.4 billion dollar multi-year package.
Investing public dollars in health care, education, mass transit, and construction for home weatherization and infrastructure all create more jobs than investing an equivalent amount in either the military or personal consumption. According to our just-released study, each billion dollars of government spending allocated to tax cuts for personal consumption generates approximately 10,800 jobs. Investing the same amount in the military creates 8,500 jobs. Investing it in health care yields 12,900 jobs; in education, 17,700 jobs; in mass transit, 19,800 jobs; and in construction for home weatherization and infrastructure, 12,800 jobs.
On July 25, The New York Times reported that President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki often discuss, among other things, religion during their frequent teleconferences. As an official who sits in on the discussions explained, “It is an issue that comes up between two men who are believers in difficult times, who are being challenged.”
In July 2007 the General Accountability Office (GAO) found that nearly 200,000 U.S. weapons were unaccounted for in Iraq. The GAO blames poor accounting and distribution records for the missing weapons, and other reports have revealed that U.S. weapons have turned up in the hands of Iraqi insurgents and criminals. A month later, U.S. General David Petraeus urged the United States to increase U.S. weapons sales as soon as possible. For the Bush administration, this illogical policy makes sense as a piece of its larger strategy for the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Since Sept. 11, 2001, the administration has supplied billions of dollars worth of weapons and military assistance to countries it is calling its allies in the “war on terror.
The United States sells death, destruction, and terror as a fundamental instrument of its foreign policy. It sees arms sales as a way of making and keeping strategic friends and tying countries more directly to U.S. military planning and operations. At its simplest, as Lt. Gen. Jeffrey B. Kohler, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, told The New York Times in 2006, the United States likes arms deals because “it gives us access and influence and builds friendships.” South Asia has been an important arena for this effort, and it teaches some lessons the United States should not ignore.
At the Istanbul Biennale, antiwar artists shock and awe, but why is their work so alluring?
A U.S. Army captain in Africa waxes philosophical. It’s like the old saying, he opines; "give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he’ll eat forever."
Most readers of the September 7, 2007 Washington Post who stayed with the news (i.e., non-sports, non-fashion, non-entertainment) sections of the paper probably went to the story headlined: "Petraeus Open to Pullout of 1 Brigade." Nothing remarkable about that; given that General David Patraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, were due to testify before Congress starting Monday September 10.
Instead of charting a new direction for U.S. policy in Iraq, President Bush’s speech to the nation last evening was an impassioned plea to the American public to stay the course. But much of Bush’s argument for staying the course was based on spin instead of reality. In this edition of Annotate This… Stephen Zunes and Erik Leaver analyze Bush’s statements and offer an alternative interpretation of the situation on the ground.
The current democratic surge in Pakistan has shaken the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf to its core. This surge was sparked in March when Musharraf fired the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Ninety thousand Pakistani barristers, drawn from more than 120 districts, took to the streets. This in turn converted the country’s pent up passion for democracy into a revolt against Musharraf.