Category Archives: National Security

Does Putin Back Hillary?

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Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and Demo­c­rat stan­dard-bear­er Hillary Clin­ton in hap­pi­er times. [Cred­it: thepoliticalcarnival.net]

Per­haps because I’m in Italy, I’ve not been infect­ed by the con­ta­gion that has spread more rapid­ly than the Zika virus: the febrile notion that Russ­ian pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin is sub­vert­ing our elec­toral process in an effort to elect Don­ald J. Trump as president.

Nev­er has such con­spir­a­to­r­i­al spec­u­la­tion mutat­ed so quick­ly into received wis­dom. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Trump and Friends

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Donald Trump's recent foreign policy speech reflects our love/hate relationship with our allies. Credit: businessinsider.com

Don­ald Trump’s recent for­eign pol­i­cy speech reflects our love/hate rela­tion­ship with our allies. Cred­it: businessinsider.com

“Who the f*** does he think he is?Who’s the f***ing super­pow­er here?”  — Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton after meet­ing with Israeli PM Netanyahu in 1996

Don­ald Trump, the GOP’s pre­sump­tive stan­dard-bear­er, shares for­mer Pres­i­dent Clinton’s frus­tra­tion with America’s allies.  And like Clin­ton, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and oth­ers who have occu­pied the Oval Office, Trump isn’t sure what to do about it. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Cruz Missiles

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Ted Cruz, like every other presidential hopeful, vows to destroy the Islamic State. Should we believe him? [Credit: ABC News]

Ted Cruz, like every oth­er pres­i­den­tial hope­ful, vows to destroy the Islam­ic State. Should we believe him? [Cred­it: ABC News]

Ted Cruz says we don’t have a dog in the Syr­i­an civ­il war.  He nev­er­the­less wants to car­pet bomb the civ­il war’s lead­ing bel­liger­ent, the Islam­ic State (IS).  Which just might kill some dogs. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

GOP Debate: Bring Back The CNBC Moderators

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GOP Presidential contenders struggled with substantive questions during last week's debate. [Credit: ibtimes.com

GOP Pres­i­den­tial con­tenders fum­bled sub­stan­tive ques­tions dur­ing last week’s debate. [Cred­it: ibtimes.com]

Don­ald Trump wants a piece of the Key­stone Pipeline.

The issue didn’t come up dur­ing last week’s GOP debate, so Trump didn’t have the chance to elab­o­rate on his dec­la­ra­tion that he would have approved the project only if the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny forked over 25 per­cent of its profits.

“I want a piece of the deal,” Trump told Bret Baier of Fox News.  “When I say I want a piece, I’m now rep­re­sent­ing our coun­try the way I would rep­re­sent myself.” Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Iran Nuclear Agreement: Disagreeing Over How To Disagree

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Secretary of State John Kerry shook hands with Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Sharif on a nuclear agreement earlier this month. But the two don't agree on what they agreed to. [Credit:vocfm.com]

Sec­re­tary of State John Ker­ry shook hands with Iran For­eign Min­is­ter Moham­mad Javad Sharif on a nuclear agree­ment ear­li­er this month. But the two don’t agree on what they agreed to. [Credit:vocfm.com]

The par­ties to the Iran nuclear agree­ment don’t agree on what they agreed to.  Con­gress is strug­gling to agree on how to express its dis­agree­ment with the agreement.

Such is the debased state into which U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy and con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­er­nance have descend­ed. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Why Are We At War With The Islamic State?

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Iraqi security forces and Shiite militia are among the ground troops on whom we rely in our war against the Islamic State. [Credit: Reuters]

Iraqi secu­ri­ty forces and Shi­ite mili­tia are among the ground troops on whom we rely in our war against the Islam­ic State. Their bru­tal­i­ty rivals that of IS. [Cred­it: Reuters]

[The sol­diers] dragged res­i­dents up to age 70 from their homes, beat­ing and curs­ing them with sec­tar­i­an slurs, Abu Omar [one of the sur­vivors] told Reuters by phone.  He said the fight­ers took the men’s mobiles and ID cards, then bound their hands, tying Abu Omar to his 12-year-old men­tal­ly ill son with rope. They did the same with his two old­er sons and three brothers.

The men were led a few hun­dred yards to a field where Abu Omar said more than a hun­dred oth­ers had been gath­ered.  For about two hours, they were forced to kneel and stare at the ground as the fight­ers select­ed their tar­gets and led them to a spot behind a mud wall.

“They took them behind the wall. Less than a minute, then a gun­shot,” said Abu Omar. “All we could hear was the gun­shots. We could­n’t see.”

This atroc­i­ty, which claimed the lives of 72 unarmed peo­ple in a vil­lage in Iraq’s Diyala Province, was not car­ried out by the Islam­ic State (IS). It was per­pe­trat­ed by our allies in the war against IS — Iraqi secu­ri­ty forces and Shi­ite mili­tia. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Tales From The House al Qaeda Built

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Turmoil at the Department of Homeland Security, an agency established in response to the 9/11 attacks, continued last night when Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned under fire. [Credit: cbc.ca]

Tur­moil at the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty, an agency estab­lished in response to the 9/11 attacks, con­tin­ued last night when Secret Ser­vice Direc­tor Julia Pier­son resigned under fire. [Cred­it: cbc.ca]

The house al Qae­da built — a sprawl­ing new head­quar­ters for the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty, an agency cre­at­ed in response to the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks — was sup­posed to open next year.

It’s just a bit behind sched­ule.  Its open­ing is now slat­ed for 2026, 21 years after plan­ning began. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

President’s Iraq Strategy Avoids Doing Nothing … But How Will It End?

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A Libyan rebel for whom we provided air support celebrates in 2011. Today those same rebels have reduced the country to bloody chaos. Will our bombing in Iraq and Syria produce a better result? [Credit: The Guardian]

A Libyan rebel for whom we pro­vid­ed air sup­port cel­e­brates in 2011. Today those same rebels have reduced the coun­try to bloody chaos. Will our bomb­ing in Iraq and Syr­ia pro­duce a bet­ter result? [Cred­it: The Guardian]

The black flag of jihad flies over much of the coun­try.  City after city has fall­en to islamist insur­gents.  Mil­i­tants burn hous­es and attack eth­nic minori­ties and jour­nal­ists.   The pop­u­lar­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment, pow­er­less to stop the onslaught, appeals for out­side help.  Fear­ing that the coun­try is fast becom­ing a “ter­ror­ist hub,” a West­ern gov­ern­ment this week sought to “mobi­lize the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty” to launch a war against the jihadists.

Iraq?  No.  Libya, a coun­try where we con­duct­ed airstrikes in 2011 in sup­port of an odd assort­ment of ground forces that includ­ed more than its share of mis­fits and fanatics.

If that strat­e­gy pro­duced such a mis­er­able result in Libya, can we rea­son­ably expect it to work in Iraq and Syr­ia? Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Iraq: In Search Of An Organizing Principle

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The President has decided to fight jihadists threatening to kill Yazidis with bombs instead of hashtags. But it's not clear why. [Credit: Business Insider]

Sun­ni rad­i­cals are threat­en­ing to mas­sacre an obscure eth­nore­li­gious group known as Yazidis.  The Pres­i­dent has decid­ed to fight the jihadists with bombs instead of hash­tags. But it’s not clear why. [Cred­it: Busi­ness Insider]

“Great nations need orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ples, and ‘Don’t do stu­pid stuff’ is not an orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple.” For­mer Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton.

Anoth­er August.  Anoth­er flir­ta­tion with war.  In the psy­chodra­ma that is the Oba­ma Pres­i­den­cy, our hero vac­il­lates between war and peace, detach­ment and inter­ven­tion, rid­ing out the storm and steer­ing into its teeth.  The rest of us are left to guess whether he will respond to the next human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis with bombs or hash­tags.  There is, as Mrs. Clin­ton notes, no “orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple” to lend coher­ence to our for­eign pol­i­cy. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

President Bush Not To Blame For This Iraq Crisis

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Iraq appears on the verge of civil war and some blame former President George W. Bush. Here's why they're wrong. [Credit: al Jazeera America]

Iraq appears on the verge of civ­il war and some blame for­mer Pres­i­dent George W. Bush. Here’s why they’re wrong. [Cred­it: al Jazeera America]

The Iraq civ­il war did not start under Oba­ma, it start­ed when Bush, Cheney and the neo­cons pulled the trig­ger to invade Iraq … . It was [the] sta­tus of force agree­ment, signed by Bush, that pledged to with­draw all US forces … Giv­en the stag­ger­ing cost of expense and lives we could not stay there “maybe a hun­dred years” as McCain said. Nor could we bleed hun­dreds of bil­lions of dol­lars there every year. Oba­ma promised to get us out of there, and he right­ly did so … To attempt to blame any­one but Bush, Cheney and the neo­cons for the Iraq dis­as­ter is sim­ply revi­sion­ism at its finest. —  Excerpt­ed from a comment on my recent post on Iraq.

The Oba­ma presidency’s lead­ing malfea­sance lies in its belief that find­ing some­one to blame for a prob­lem is as good as solv­ing it.  So it is lit­tle sur­prise that my recent post on Iraq, in which I argued against US mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion, would spur com­ments that for­mer Pres­i­dent George W. Bush is to blame for the renewed fight­ing. Con­tin­ue read­ing →