Tom Hayden: Obama spoke directly to public opinion when he refused to leave “immediately,” on the grounds that Afghanistan will need “an opportunity to stabilize,” an observation which the vast majority of Americans will accept, for now.
Cut Carriers Now
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Ivan Eland: With yawning American budget deficits and a $15 trillion national debt, it would save significant amounts of money to reduce the number of carriers and carrier air wings well below the excessive 11 and 10, respectively.
Libya Victory Portends Endless Intervention
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Ivan Eland: NATO’s “victory” in Libya has sown many seeds of possible future calamity. But none is fraught with as much danger as providing a new “war on the cheap” model for Western nations that have fallen on hard economic times.
Central Africa: Another Potential Quagmire on the Horizon
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Ivan Eland: The Central Africa case demonstrates how militaristic U.S. foreign policy has become, since the administration, seeing a nail because it has a big hammer, came up with the military option to satisfy the ambiguously worded law.
Green Industry Has Failed? Tell That to the Marines!
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Mario Rivas: You tell the Marines that the green revolution has failed and they’ll tell you that the Marines don’t know how to fail.
What Will It Take to Bring Obama Home? Civics 101
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Sharon Kyle: Progressives are asking what it will take to get the President to support the issues he ran on. My answer, the country needs to take Civics 101.
The Second Coming of Petraeus
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Ivan Eland: With the justified firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his replacement with Iraq water-walker David Petraeus, it’s as if people are hoping for a second coming of Jesus in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the replacement may be similar to the second coming of the water-walking Joe Gibbs as coach of the Washington Redskins.
Pay for the War, or Just Call It Off?
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Finally, the worst option is for the government to run the presses and print money. Wars tend to cause inflation, and printing money makes things worse.
Afghanistan: War Theatre of the Absurd
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Now, paying off the opposition does seem to have calmed things down in parts of Iraq (recent Baghdad bombings notwithstanding), and thereby provided us with an opening to carry through with the agreement we made with the Iraqi government to get our troops out of there. Maybe it can work in Afghanistan too.
Empathy for ‘Adversaries’
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There are notorious dictatorships and terrorists in the world, but their threat to the United States has been exaggerated as an excuse to fulfill the foreign policy agendas of certain politicians, bureaucracies, or interest groups.
Obama Needs to Expand on His Good Instincts in Foreign Policy
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Because he wanted to get out of Iraq and because Republicans always score points by calling the Democrats soft on national security, Obama evidently felt he had to be in favor of some war and thus reluctantly succumbed to pressure to augment U.S. forces in Afghanistan. If he had been smart, on his second day in office, he would have instead announced the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Friday Feedback: Repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970
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Only a clause about interstate commerce provides the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) with any pretext of constitutionality. The effect of the CSA on interstate commerce is to fatten outlaws and endanger homeland security while the treasury bleeds.
The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure: From the Vietnam to the Afghan Quagmire
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In a recent interview, Richard Holbrooke, White House Special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan and a key architect of President Obama’s “surge” strategy, declared the War on Drugs in Afghanistan to be a failure.
Apology For Slavery: How Convenient, But What Does It Really Mean?
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The U.S. House of Representatives issued an apology for slavery last week. Something some people have waited for some 10 lifetimes, something others thought would never happen, what was once a significant event that would lead to progress in Racial Americana went largely under-reported.
Why I Support Barack Obama
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I started this campaign season as a Kucinich supporter. As it became clear I’d have to select one of the leading Presidential candidates, I began to look earnestly for differences between them. I listened as emphasis was placed on “experience”, “two different Americas” and “Hope.” From my vantage point, the positions taken by the three [...]
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Friday Feedback: Same-Sex Marriage Ban Bigotry
This week, Reggie Brown comments on Sheria Reid’s article, “Same-Sex Marriage Ban: Bigotry Isn’t Only a Southern Brew” which addresses the banning of same-sex marriage in 31 states.