The Second Dumbest Thing You Will Read About the War In Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

This one comes from Mark Sedwill who is the Senior Civilian Representative with NATO in Afghanistan and the former British Ambassador to the country. According to Sedwill:

In Kabul and the other big cities actually there are very few of these bombs. The children are probably safer here than they would be in London, New York or Glasgow or many other cities. It's a very family-orientated society. So it is a little bit like a city of villages.

Truly the mind reels. It's really a wonder that Sedwill forces his own daughter to live in London, rather than her reside in a safer city like Kabul. When I was Kabul recently I couldn't travel anywhere but in an armored vehicle with body armor and I regularly saw police and military checkpoints dotting major roads. I'll be honest; I haven't seen many of those in New York recently (although in fairness I haven't been to London in a few years).

And as Justin Forsyth of Save the Children notes, "Afghanistan is the worst place on Earth to be born a child -- one in four children living there will die before they reach the age of 5." 

It seems these days that US and NATO officials are in a race to see who can make the dumbest, most incoherent argument about the situation in Afghanistan today. At least the Americans are smart enough to go off the record.

The Dumbest Thing You Will Read About the War In Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

The week after the Tet Offensive, in February 1968, reporter Peter Arnett recorded a conversation with a US military officer in which he described the destruction of the provincial capital of Ben Tre as necessary because "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

It was a quote that came to symbolize the degree to which the US war in Vietnam had become increasingly divorced from reality. Well it seems the war in Afghanistan has produced an anonymous quote that matches it.

"In another recent operation in the Zhari district, U.S. soldiers fired more than a dozen mine-clearing line charges in a day. Each one creates a clear path that is 100 yards long and wide enough for a truck. Anything that is in the way - trees, crops, huts - is demolished.

"Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?" a farmer from the Arghandab district asked a top NATO general at a recent community meeting.

Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs. By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said.

Yes, it seems a foolproof way to connect the Afghan people to their own government - blow up their houses and fields and then force them to seek redress. What could wrong there? This is not even to mention the fact that, let's say said Afghan civilian whose house has been destroyed by American bombs travels to see the district governor to demand compensation. Does anyone expect that said district governor will provide the sort of diligent and responsive public service that we are so used to here in the United States - or in one of the world's most corrupt country will demand nothing in return for this good deed except the knowledge that an ordinary Afghan feels increased confidence in their government and its public servants?

Jackson Diehl Meet Jon Kyl; Jon Kyl Meet Jackson Diehl Posted by Michael Cohen

Jackson Diehl has a particularly strange op-ed in the Washington Post today that complains President Obama's foreign policy is stuck in the past because he currently seems focused on two issues that were fairly prominent in 1983 - the Middle East Peace Process and international arms control (namely the New START treaty).

Let's dispense with the obvious point - this is a silly argument. Did Jackson Diehl miss that whole war going on in Afghanistan or that President Obama just traveled to the NATO Summit in Lisbon to discuss said war? For Diehl to argue that the Arab Israeli conflict or arms control are front and center in Obama's foreign policy. Honestly what planet is Diehl living on?

But this isn't even the worst part of Diehl's argument. This is:

That doesn't mean the START treaty is worthless. The Senate ought to approve it if only to ensure the continued monitoring of Russian missiles. But does it merit dispatching the vice president and the secretaries of state and defense to Capitol Hill for a desperate (and uphill) lobbying offensive? It's hard to see why.

"It's hard to see why?" Really? It's hard for Jackson Diehl to understand why the Administration has had to expend serious political capital to pass the START treaty? How about the fact that a treaty, which is fairly uncontroversial, is being stridently opposed by the Republican Party? Has Diehl just missed the whole drama where Republicans, led by Jon Kyl, have threatened to weaken US national security by failing to pass an agreement that is essential to improving US-Russian relations and critical to the President's non-proliferation agenda. For example, Diehl could read in his own paper about just this obstructionism: here and here. Or he could read here about how our European Allies are increasingly concerned that failure to pass START will harm efforts to put pressure on Iran or negotiate deals with Russia to curb shorter range missiles. 

You know, THAT might even make a good topic for an op-ed.

Honestly, it is so much to ask for the leading foreign policy columnist of the Washington Post to actually read his own paper?

 

Sunday Summary: The New START Debate Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

With the substantive debate over New START concluded some time ago, the only question left to answer is whether or not the Republican party will sacrifice American national security for cheap political points.

 

Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post:  An unusual split has opened between conservative Republicans and the American military leadership over the U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, with current and former generals urging swift passage but politicians expressing far more skepticism.  Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) "essential to our future security." 

But five Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said in a recent report that New START was "a bad deal." They added that U.S. military leaders had made assumptions about the pact - including that Russia will honor it - that are "optimistic in the extreme."  Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation's grass-roots lobbying arm is targeting Republican senators with mailings warning that the treaty "benefits Russia's interests, not ours."

Retired Lt. Gen. Dirk Jameson, the former deputy commander of U.S. nuclear forces, said Friday that it was "quite puzzling to me why all of this support [for New START]… is ignored. I don't know what that says about the trust that people have and the confidence they have in our military."

 

Leslie H. Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council for Foreign Relations:  Cast aside any doubts. There seems to be nothing Republicans won’t do to deny President Obama a political success at home—even if it means jeopardizing U.S. national security.

 Senatorial Republicans would do well to remember that old and quaint phrase: The National Interest.

 

Getting Schooled on the Future Posted by David Shorr

If you need to replenish your optimism about America's future, then you need to talk to high school students. I spent last Wednesday with students from across Eastern Pennsylvania and Western Ohio, and it did me a world of good. The occasion was the 40th annual World Affairs Institute of the Pittsburgh World Affairs Council and Rotary International, with the theme of "Forecasting Global Trends: Your World in 2020 and Beyond." 

What a smart and impressive bunch. For instance, if you asked me to name a topic that would really captivate teenagers, even smart ones, I probably wouldn't pick global demographic trends. Now, all due credit to my fellow guest speaker Phillip Longman of New America Foundation, who shared a lot of fascinating findings and implications (many of them outlined in his recent Foreign Policy cover story). But even more credit to the students in the audience for their excellent questions; they were deeply engaged and curious.

 

Central and Eastern European Young Leaders Encouraged by New Relationship with United States Posted by The Editors

This guest post by Timothy Westmyer, M.A. candidate in Security Studies at Georgetown University.

The United States and Central and Eastern European (CCE) relationship is evolving into robust and strong partnership based on a common understanding of 21^st century security needs. Earlier this month, I had the privilege of seeing this forward thinking first hand as a participant of the Young Leaders Dialogue with America conference in Prague. However, I left the Czech Republic with an entirely more enthusiastic impression of how my trans-Atlantic colleagues saw President Barack Obama’s outreach to CEE than that expressed by a recent blog post by the Heritage Foundation.

During the conference, I moderated a panel discussion on the New START treaty and the role of Russia and Europe in the global nonproliferation agenda. As one would expect, the conversation turned to the Obama administration’s decision last year to shift toward a more mobile missile defense network in Europe. President George W. Bush spent the better part of his administration creating an artificial premise that the lynchpin of U.S.-CCE relations must be the construction of a land-based missile defense system with various elements stations in the Czech Republic and Poland. 

After a thorough review of these plans, it was clear that technological advancements and expected delays in the Bush administration version made the decision to revamp the missile defense system the right choice for U.S. and European security. The previous system had not yet even begun its initial testing phases and would have left Bulgaria and Romania unprotected, a precarious situation that did not sit well with my colleagues from those countries. The Obama missile defense platform on the other hand, focused on the most pressing threat of short-and medium-range ballistic missiles and could be deployed to protect all of Europe by approximately 2018. That is why NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen characterized this move as "a positive first step." 

Even al-Qaeda's Politics Are Local Posted by Eric Martin

Gregory Johnsen, who is reliably informative on all-things-Yemen, takes issue with an NPR story on the al-Qaeda branch based in Yemen (AQAP).  The thrust of the NPR piece is that AQAP has a particular anti-American tilt due to the fact that many of its senior leaders, or their siblings, have spent time imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay facility.

After correcting the article's errors in terms of properly identifying AQAP's senior leaders (many of whom have no such Gitmo connection), Johnsen makes several very salient points regarding the objectives and outlook of the organization itself: 

AQAP has done much more in the past year besides launching two attacks at the US.

Of course those two attacks have gained the organization a great deal of press in the west, but are they really the organization's raison d'etre?

The answer, at least in my opinion, is a strong no. AQAP does want to attack the west - US and Europe as well - but it is also very much focused on the local scene, and this is what makes them so dangerous. In their Arabic material, AQAP spends much, much more time attacking President Salih and the Saudi royal family than they do the US.

They have launched many more attacks against Saudi and Yemeni government than they have against the US - these just tend not to get the press in the US that they do in the Middle East. In fact, I would say (again based on my reading of AQAP's materials in Arabic) that the number one enemy of AQAP is Muhammad bin Nayyif, Saudi Arabia's Deputy Minister of the Interior and the kingdom's counterterrorism chief.

The Ronald Reagan "Smackdown" Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

In case you missed it, Rachel Maddow on New START, The Party of No and the aburdity of what's happening right now in the U.S. Senate.   

Trust, but verify. Trust, but verify. That idea, that approach not only reduced the number of nuclear weapons that we had pointing at each other on hair trigger alerts, it reduced that number by about 17,000 over the past 40 years. It did that through essentially political consensus in washington. When these kinds of treaties that we have with russia get voted on in the senate, they pass by margins like 93-6, by margins like 95-0. but this year, right now in washington, things are different.

This is the year that the republican plan on air pollution, that's called cap and trade became something that republicans are now against. This is the year that the republican plan is an individual mandate of health insurance became something that the republicans are against. This is the year that the republican plan for a bipartisan deficit commission became something the republicans are now against. This year in washington, under this president, there is no idea that is too republican for republicans to be against it. If they think that being against it will hurt barack obama.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

Has the conservative movement STARTed eating its own? Posted by The Editors

With strong military and bipartisan support, Dick Lugar and a team of neocon intellectuals came out swinging today – against their own party. 

"At the moment, the Republican caucus is tied up in a situation where people don't want to make choices," Lugar told reporters in the hallway of the Capitol building Wednesday.

"I'm advising that the treaty should come on the floor so people will have to vote aye or nay [even if there's no deal]," he said. "I think when it finally comes down to it, we have sufficient number or senators who do have a sense of our national security. This is the time, this is the priority. Do it."

"There are still thousands of missiles out there. You better get that through your heads," he said, directing his comments to members of his own party.

This move reminded us of a zombie football movie.  Lugar is the star player on Team Ratify, backed by strong players from the neocon bench --  Max Boot and Bob Kagan.

On the other side, angry coach Heritage Foundation is yelling from the sidelines. Neocons John Yoo and John Bolton are the sassy cheerleaders, rooting on Father of the Fringe Jim DeMint and Bushie Paula Desutter as they throw blocks for Jon Kyl, who just went from being the QB to the football. 

Team Ratify has the entire US military on its side -- and will emerge victorious, but not without a few missing limbs come the next fight.  We're ready for the sequel: Defense Spending: GOP Zombies' Revenge.

Brought to you by Heather Hurlburt, Sara DuBois and Kelsey Hartigan.

How the junior senator from AZ just ensured the Senate will ratify New START Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

In a failed attempt to kick the can further down the road and delay ratification of the New START Treaty, Sen. Kyl just ensured that New START will be ratified during the lame duck session of the 111th Congress.  Kyl’s stunt yesterday pissed off and mobilized a lot of people, namely, Harry Reid. 

Reid just issued a biting statement, confirming that “the Senate will be in session after Thanksgiving and will have time to consider and ratify” New START.  Frankly, absent Kyl's cheap, political stunt, there might not have been as much friendly pressure on Reid to find the floor time.  As Max Bergmann wrote this morning, Kyl actually managed to make himself less relevant-- shifting the attention instead, to Harry Reid and the White House.  Well, here's Reid's answer:

“It is vitally important to America’s national security for the Senate to ratify the new START treaty before Congress adjourns this year.  We need our inspectors back on the ground and the critical information they can provide about Russia’s nuclear capabilities.  Ratification of this treaty would accomplish both.

“This treaty has strong bipartisan consensus in the Senate.  It has been endorsed by the U.S. military, our diplomatic leadership, and scores of former Republican and Democratic national security officials.  So I am puzzled by Senator Kyl’s announcement that he is not prepared to move forward on the new START treaty. 

“The Administration has made it clear it is prepared to work with all Senators to resolve any outstanding concerns, and I appreciate in particular their efforts to reach out to Senator Kyl.   I assure Senator Kyl and others concerned about the fate of this treaty that the Senate will be in session after Thanksgiving and will have time to consider and ratify it.