Clipmarks | masbury's 'foreign policy' clips

Foreign policy experts: Get US out of Iraq.

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:41:16 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Annual survey of experts from left and right.

REPORT: 69 percent of foreign policy experts favor redeployment from Iraq.

Today, the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy released their annual “Terrorism Index,” a survey of more than 100 U.S. foreign policy experts, conservatives and liberals alike, on developments in international affairs. Some highlights:

– 80 percent say that the U.S. has focused too much on the war in Iraq and not enough on Afghanistan.

– 69 percent recommend that the majority of U.S. forces in Iraq be redeployed in the next 18 months, up one percent from last year.

– Zero percent say Iraq is most likely to become the next al Qaeda stronghold; 51 percent say Pakistan will be.

– 81 percent say U.S. policy towards Iran has negatively impacted national security.

Tags: war, iraq

Speculation focuses on Biden for VP

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:14:47 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Hmm. Widely admired by independents. Decades of hands-on foreign policy experience (and following Cheney, who is Republican evidence that Vice Presidents can loom large in foreign policy). A senior senator. A very tough guy, who'd gladly shred McCain's PR.

Clip Source: politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com

Obama VP buzz squarely on Biden

(CNN) – When Joe Biden returns to Capitol Hill Monday from his two-day trip to embattled Georgia, vice presidential speculation will rest squarely on him.

The longtime Delaware senator and former presidential candidate has long been considered to be on the shortlist for Barack Obama's running mate, but his quickly-planned trip to Georgia Saturday night at the behest of that country's president left Washington buzzing he is the most likely choice.

If Biden does aspire to be on the Democratic presidential ticket, the trip couldn't have come at a better time — reinforcing his lengthy resume on matters of foreign policy and reminding voters, and Obama, he is well respected by foreign leaders half a world away.

Tags: biden, obama

War and foreign policy [truly outstanding!]

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:33:37 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: The best lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan are not about Bush failures, nor about a need to change the military, but rather about the nature of foreign policy; challenges the shibboleths of left and right. Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, retired from the US Army with the rank of colonel. This piece is adapted from his new book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.

Clip Source: www.atimes.com

The four lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan boil down to this: Events have exposed as illusory American pretensions to having mastered war. Even today, war is hardly more subject to human control than the tides or the weather. Simply trying harder - investing ever larger sums in even more advanced technology, devising novel techniques, or even improving the quality of American generalship - will not enable the United States to evade that reality.

the problem lies less with the army

than with the requirements that we have imposed on our soldiers

America doesn't need a bigger army. It needs a smaller - that is, more modest - foreign policy, one that assigns soldiers missions that are consistent with their capabilities. Modesty implies giving up on the illusions of grandeur to which the end of the Cold War and then 9/11 gave rise. It also means reining in the imperial presidents who expect the army to make good on those illusions

Tags: foreign policy, war

Two US-Russia policies: Rice vs. Cheney

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:30:52 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Work through issues or return to Cold War?

Clip Source: www.democracynow.org

we have two foreign policies. We have the State Department foreign policy, Condoleezza Rice, who often speaks of the need for a cooperative relationship with Russia, with working out these complicated issues, and we have a neoconservative foreign policy emanating from the Vice President’s Office, which isn’t interested in cooperation, which is interested in confrontation and in reviving the Cold War. And I think that they go to the countries on the border of the Soviet Union and encourage them to take a confrontational line and seek out leaders who are willing to speak this way. This is not where the rest of Europe is inclined.

It’s my impression that neoconservative circles in Washington have been egging Saakashvili on, have been telling him that he had much stronger support in Washington for this move, for this attack he made last week into South Ossetia, than he really did

And Saakashvili has been talking directly to McCain

Tags: foreign policy, georgia, russia

You're In Danger

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:43:24 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: John McCain would ramp up all the worst traits of the current administration

Clip Source: talkingpointsmemo.com

You're In Danger

Andrew Sullivan is right about this. This is something that transcends whatever immediate campaign tactics or even strategy Barack Obama may be pursuing. It goes beyond him. It goes beyond the Democrats. The whole country needs to wake up.

The foreign policy of the last seven-plus years has been an unmitigated disaster for the United States by virtually every measure. And John McCain would ramp up all the worst traits of the current administration. His instincts are always toward force and the people advising him come squarely from the Cheney wing of the current administration. In comparison to Bush he's not just more of the same. There's every reason to believe he'd be much worse.

The current situation in Georgia and his response should make clear to everyone how dangerous a president John McCain would be.

Tags: mccain, politics, foreign policy

Georgians expected US to come to their rescue

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:49:42 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: "feckless policy-making" from the US emboldened Georgia to provoke the Russians

Clip Source: talkingpointsmemo.com

What pretty much everyone who's paying attention can see is that the US casually made a bunch of promises and representations to the Georgians which we were obviously neither prepared to or interested in backing up. As Fred Kaplan noted in his piece in Slate yesterday, what's both tragic and almost comical is that a lot of Georgians actually expected that we'd come to their defense militarily if got themselves into a real shooting war with the Russians. They've clearly paid a steep price for that cheap talk. Meanwhile, McCain's response is to up the ante with more bluster and nonsense, apparently not getting what happened in the first place.

I would really recommend Greg's post to everyone. This whole crisis, both in what has aptly been called the feckless policy-making that went into it and the aftermath, puts McCain's shaky grasp of foreign policy in really sharp relief.

Some shrewd analysis of the Georgia crisis from Greg Djerejian.

Tags: georgia, mccain, foreign policy

"Dangerous and unstable"

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:45:46 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: "The people that are pulling McCain's strings are the people who want to push us into a new Cold War with the Russians"

Clip Source: talkingpointsmemo.com

watching John McCain speak about the Georgian crisis

should deeply worry anyone interested in a sane US foreign policy

The people that are pulling McCain's strings are the people who want to push us into a new Cold War with the Russians

McCain is going out of his way to cast this as a replay of 1938 and 1939. Is it really in our interest to get into a renewed Cold War with Russia right now? Do we have the military resources for a proxy/advisor war in the Caucasus at the moment?

It's sort of funny when he's just an unhinged senator. But think for a moment where we'd be if this man were president right now

This man takes the counsel of the people who got us into the Iraq War. On foreign policy, he is in league with the people who were so extreme they've now largely been kicked out of the Bush administration. People like John Bolto

This man is simply too dangerous and unstable to be president. People need to wake up and get a look of the preview he's giving us of a McCain presidency.

Tags: politics, mccain

Georgia: Where US loss of moral authority matters

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:50:12 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Bush rebukes; Russians point to US invasion of Iraq

Clip Source: www.dailykos.com

Bush today:

"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state.... Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century.... We have no doubts about it. This is a deliberate attempt to destroy an entire country and change the regime."

Right. Invading a sovereign state to destroy a country and change the regime isn't acceptable in the 21st century. Good to know.

Charles King, Russia expert and professor in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University, in an interivew with Glenn Greenwald:

there's that exchange in the UN where the US ambassador to the UN said that Russia had intended 'regime change' in Georgia, to which the Russian ambassador replied that that was an American concept

The U.S. has no moral authority, Bush's having "looked into Putin's soul" notwithstanding.

Tags: bush, georgia, foreign policy

US has more military musicians than it has diplomats

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:02:54 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: “There is no battlefield solution to terrorism,” the report declares. “Military force usually has the opposite effect from what is intended.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The United States has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats

Incredibly, the most eloquent spokesman for more balance between “hard power” and “soft power” is Defense Secretary Robert Gates

the United States is hugely overinvesting in military tools and underinvesting in diplomatic tools. The result is a lopsided foreign policy that antagonizes the rest of the world and is ineffective in tackling many modern problems

“One of the most important lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that military success is not sufficient to win,”

the entire American diplomatic corps — about 6,500 people — is less than the staffing of a single aircraft carrier group

Our intuitive approach to fighting terrorists and insurgents is to blow things up. But one of the most cost-effective counterterrorism methods in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan may be to build things up, like schooling and microfinance. Girls’ education sometimes gets more bang for the buck than a missile.

Tags: foreign policy, war, iraq

Iraq may end year with $79B surplus

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:01:42 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: And the USA?

Clip Source: www.democracynow.org

Audit: Iraq Could Have $79B Surplus

New projections from US government auditors show high oil prices could leave the Iraqi government with a $79 billion surplus this year. Democratic Senator Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services Committee is leading calls for the Iraqi government to begin paying a higher share of Iraq’s reconstruction costs. The US has already spent more than $40 billion on Iraqi reconstruction, with large amounts going to private American corporations.

Tags: foreign policy, iraq

IMF policies well intentioned, but disastrously dogmatic

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:31:34 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Over dependence on "market signals" left them in the dark about real results on the ground

Clip Source: blog.beliefnet.com

the IMF is not a vast conspiracy of evil, cigarette-smoking men. It's a large, overly influential group of people who earnestly push policies that are often disastrous.

While many civil society advocates insist the IMF is imposing its will wholesale on poor countries, it insists it's just inspiring them to choose sound policies

IMF's critics, including me, are wrong sometimes in blaming the IMF

Overall, though, the IMF is still disastrously wrong in its unjustified overemphasis on "market signals." Take Malawi's current abundance of grain, which happened largely because the government decided to subsidize fertilizer

Malawi's fertilizer program ran directly counter to the advice of the World Bank

over the last four years, almost all the middle-income countries who had borrowed from the IMF (including 90 percent of its loan portfolio) have run for the exits to escape the IMF's policy,

it is now mostly the world's poorest countries who are dependent on the nice, but wrong, people at the IMF

Tags: imf, foreign policy, poverty

"Hard to Overstate McCain Trainwreck"

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:47:34 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: His one-plank foreign policy is pre-empted by Maliki

Clip Source: talkingpointsmemo.com

Hard to Overstate McCain Trainwreck

The implications for John McCain are hard to overstate, and Matt Yglesias gets it just right:

[McCain had] spent, several weeks with the main theme of his campaign being, quite literally, to criticize Barack Obama for not having been physically present in Iraq recently. This (of course) got Obama to go to Iraq, thus setting up a dilemma. Either Obama would survey the "progress" in Iraq and change his position, thus making him a flip-flopper, or else he would refuse to change his position, thus making him obstinate and out of touch with reality.
But instead of either of those things happening, Obama went to Iraq and Iraqi leaders said he'd been right all along! That's about as close to "game, set, match" as you get in terms of real world events influencing your political campaign. What's more, given the domestic situation and John McCain's inability to talk about domestic issues persuasively, he can't afford to play for a draw on Iraq.

Tags: mccain, obama, elections, foreign policy

Now McCain embraces 16-month withdrawal

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:51:57 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Well, shoot, sounds good enough for him, too.

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

McCain Embraces 16-Month Withdrawal: ‘I Think It’s A Pretty Good Timetable’»

Following Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s declaration of support for a 16-month withdrawal timeline from Iraq, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been struggling to respond. He spent most of this week railing against any “artificial timetable” for withdrawal from Iraq, vaguely insisting that the U.S. will withdraw only “with victory”:

But in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer today, McCain seemed to endorse the idea of a timetable. When asked if Maliki would “persist” in requesting a 16-month withdrawal timetable from Iraq, McCain responded, “He won’t. … I know him.” McCain then praised Maliki’s 16-month timetable:

BLITZER: So why do you think he said that 16 months is basically a pretty good timetable?

McCAIN: He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions

Tags: mccain, obama, foreign policy

State Dept., USAID concerned about AFRICOM

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:38:38 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Why militarization of Africa doesn't look so good to non-military parts of US Govt. A quote from the GAO.

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

Although DOD has often stated that AFRICOM is intended to support, not lead, U.S. diplomatic and development efforts in Africa, State Department officials expressed concern that AFRICOM would become the lead for all U.S. government activities in Africa, even though the U.S. embassy leads decision-making on U.S. government non-combat activities in that country. Other State and USAID officials noted that the creation of AFRICOM could blur traditional boundaries among diplomacy, development, and defense, thereby militarizing U.S. foreign policy... Nongovernmental organizations are concerned that this would put their aid workers at greater risk if their activities are confused or associated with U.S. military activities.

Tags: africom, africa, foreign policy

Iran Literacy Quiz: A Decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:36:57 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: See the answers to these and other questions, as well as supporting material at the link. Those without answers listed are true-false questions.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Iran Conflict Literacy Quiz

1. Iran's leaders have declared their intention to acquire nuclear weapons.

2. Iran is training, arming, financing, and politically supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq

3. Iran's leaders have declared that the acquisition of nuclear weapons would be contrary to Islam

about what proportion of Iranians believe that it is "very important" that Iran master the nuclear fuel cycle?

a) 1%
b) 2%
c) 3%
d) 81%

what proportion of the Iranian population think that Iran should pursue the acquisition of nuclear weapons?
a) 100%
b) 99%
c) 98%
d) 20%

8. Iran's leaders have pledged to destroy Israel.

9. In Iran's government system, the Leader with Supreme authority over the government, especially foreign and military affairs and the country's nuclear program, is
a) Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
b) President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad

10. In 1953, the democratic government of Iran was overthrown in a coup organized by the US Central Intelligence Agency

Tags: iran, foreign policy