by Nick on July 15, 2008
Posted By: Nick
Fascinating read over at The New Republic. Eli Lake writes that Obama’s foreign policy is likely to shape up to be more like Reagan than Carter. The article highlights the fact that Richard Clarke and Rand Beers are senior advisors to the Obama Campaign and are likely to hold important posts in an Obama administration. It also notes that:
Last November at a foreign policy forum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Obama said there may be “40,000 hard-core jihadists with whom we can’t negotiate.” He went on. “Our job is to incapacitate them, to kill them.” In that spirit, he famously announced that he would strike terrorist bases in Pakistan if President Pervez Musharraf ever refuses to move on actionable intelligence against Al Qaeda–a threat that earned him the chastisement of John McCain, among others.
While that situation drew heavy criticism from many directions (including the anti-war base), I firmly believe Obama was right. There’s no excuse for not protecting American national security interests. If that means Pakistan gets pissed off, well, so be it. We can’t sit around and wait for the next terrorist attack just because the Pakistani government isn’t cooperating.
by Nick on July 14, 2008
Posted By: Nick
On Sunday, Taliban militants in Afghanistan attacked a U.S./NATO military base. Nine American soldiers were killed, 15 NATO soldiers (likely Americans) were wounded, and 4 Afghani soldiers were wounded. That the Taliban has been able to regroup to the extent that it feels comfortable attacking a U.S. military base is extremely troublesome. That they managed to inflict the damage they did is even more troublesome. Things are not going well in Afghanistan.
I wrote about Afghanistan last week, and I’m sure I will continue to do so. The fact of the matter is, we have a foolish, shortsighted strategy in Afghanistan that is doing nothing to increase our national security. Iraq distracted us from what should have been our real focus: Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Now they have regrouped and we are beginning to pay the price.
We need more troops in Afghanistan, we need a new, aggressive military strategy, we need to convince Pakistan to take a more proactive stance against the Taliban; and we need these things now. If militants in Afghanistan (likely operating from inside Pakistan) are capable of launching such an attack on a U.S. military base, then what else can they do?
Six and a half years into the war in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is unacceptable. The failure of the Bush Administration to properly execute this war has real consequences that we are now beginning to see.
NYTimes Article
by Nick on July 11, 2008
Posted By: Nick
Little known fact: the United States is actually fighting TWO wars right now. There’s the one we all know about, in Iraq, and then there’s this whole other war in a place called Afghanistan. Amazing, huh?
Well, as it turns out, that other war isn’t going too well these days. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have regrouped in Pakistan and are causing all sorts of headaches for everyone in the region. The NYTimes thinks its about time that sodid something about this problem.
Both countries have a common and increasingly urgent interest in rolling back the power of Al Qaeda and the Taliban and working together to promote democracy and development in Pakistan. President Bush needs to persuade Pakistan’s leaders of that — and he needs to do it now, before Al Qaeda and the Taliban get any stronger.
For 6 years Bush has not done this. I’m sure nothing is going to change for his last 6 months in office. Hopefully the next president will actually do something useful.
