The dissonance between the sentiments President Obama expressed in his Afghanistan speech and his plans begs the question of how much control he has over his own foreign policy.
Even if we reach the end of the tunnel of one war, there will be a tunnel to a new war awaiting us. Russ Wellen at the Foreign Policy in Focus blog Focal Points.
When Barack Obama ordered an additional 30,000 troops into Afghanistan in 2009, he further stipulated that a withdrawal begin in July 2011 and continue until completion by 2014. As promised, the first drawdown of the 100,000-strong force is scheduled to take place next month. This withdrawal comes at a peak of anti-war sentiment.
The United States is not facing up to the massive health-care and mental-health problems caused by traumatic brain injuries in our recent wars.
The day after Barack Obama took office, he signed a series of executive orders mandating the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as the global network of secret, CIA-run “black site” prisons. In addition, he committed the United States to observe the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture. More than two years later, the Obama administration has not followed through on most of these promises, even reversing several commitments.
To get elected to the Senate, you have to meet certain requirements. You have to be at least 30 years old, a U.S. citizen for nine years, and a resident of the state you represent. Based on Jim Webb’s recent performance, I would like to propose a fourth requirement: you have to be a novelist. If we had 100 novelists in the Senate, the body might finally be able, like Webb, to distinguish fact from fiction.
The people of both Afghanistan and Germany want Germans out of Afghanistan.
The New York Times backs the administration and Gen. Petraeus’s policy of softening up the Taliban with a pounding before talking with its representatives.
It was a primitive form of surgery. Almost ten years ago, the United States and its allies stuck a knife deep into Afghanistan in an attempt to remove two malignancies, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. One of those, Osama bin Laden’s crew, is nearly gone. The Taliban, after going into remission for a brief period, has come back.
The knife remains in the patient. With bin Laden gone, the debate has intensified: what to do with the knife?
If getting the Afghanistan peace process going involved taking out Osama bin Laden, well, in the cynical world of the “Great Game,” to make an omelet, you have to break eggs.