International Political Will

Almost a full eight years into the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, there are still three institutional sources of violence in the country: the Taliban, the warlords, and the foreign occupation. Each of these institutions feed off each other, generating a vicious cycle that Afghanistan appears unable to break.
The only winning strategy in Afghanistan is reconstruction. [...]

The stupidity and arrogance of our government has never ceased to amaze me, but the latest dust-up over secret CIA plans to assassinate Al Qaeda leaders is truly Orwellian.
Apparently, long ago, in an administration far, far away, some Bush adviser actually had a brain. Imagine this: instead of dropping bombs from unmanned drones on remote [...]

Why would Afghan elders “tip off the Taliban” that U.S. soldiers were in their village?
On Monday night, NBC Nightly News had the perfect opportunity to answer this question that is at the root of our military failures in Afghanistan. They had the chance to produce a piece of journalism that could have helped shape U.S. [...]

I’m still tentatively problamistic about President Obama – not optimistic, not pessimistic - just assuming the most probable outcome. I won’t say I’ve become disillusioned yet, but Obama is definitely not bringing the kind of change we voted for, especially when it comes to foreign policy.
Obama’s policy on Iraq is virtually identical to what Bush’s [...]

Why aren’t we bombing Mexico with unmanned Predator drones?
If the Obama administration truly believes that dropping bombs from remote-controlled aircraft onto villages on the Afghan-Pakistani border is a good idea to combat the Taliban, why not do the same to fight the drug cartels in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez?
It seems that Mexico - where the [...]