Iraq
Zbigniew Bzrezinski Holds Forth on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan
Former Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Bzrezinski has moved far to the left over the past several decades — and in particular over the last eight years, when he’s become downright combative — and so today it’s interesting to hear him talk about four distinct but somewhat linked issues: Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. [...]
Feinstein on Panetta
Beef officially squashed. Here’s what Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said about CIA director-(quasi-)designate Leon Panetta to reporters outside the Senate floor this afternoon:
“I’ve known Leon for 20 years. He is smart, he is credible, and he is truthful. And I believe he will surround himself with very qualified intelligence professionals in the top positions, and [...]
What The Bush White House Considers Exculpatory
White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and national security adviser Steve Hadley somehow got it into their heads that insisting George W. Bush is a hands-on and pro-active leader is a wise legacy-building move.
This must be that famed strategery.
If Bush was an informed and judicious decision-maker then, the economy/Iraq/torture/Katrina/politicization of the Justice Department/you-know-the-litany are [...]
Big Day in Iraq
The United States has officially handed over control of the “Green Zone” back to the Iraqis. From The Washington Post:
When the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, the U.S. returned the palace to the Iraqi government and relinquished formal control over the Green Zone, a heavily fortified six-square-mile enclave on the Tigris River where key U.S. [...]
The Third Lebanese War Won’t Be in Lebanon
There’s no sugarcoating this. Israel is looking like a country that is quickly losing its mind. Consider this statement:
In an interview Tuesday, Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said Israel’s main goal is to “destroy completely” what she called a “terrorist gang.”
I truly truly hope this is empty rhetoric. Because the evidence is accumulating that Israel is determined [...]
Nir Rosen on Private Security Contractors in Iraq
Great Daphne piece, right? For more on private security contractors in Iraq, check out The National in Abu Dhabi, where my friend Nir Rosen recounts his time with the new wave of mercenaries:
But like the jihadists, security contractors are also setting their sights on the new frontier in Afghanistan, where the resurgent Taliban and the [...]
Are Iraq Contractors Subject to U.S. Law?
The Department of Justice announced to great fanfare that it had indicted five Blackwater guards for their role in a Baghdad shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead last year. Their lawyers claim a strong defense: that US law does not apply to them.
Some Christmas Reading
My somewhat estranged blog-comrade LT Nixon points to a number of cool milblogs. My pick of his list: Fobbits Need Ice Cream Too, whose logo is LOLworthy. (A Fobbit, for the uninitiated, is a soldier/marine/airman/sailor who doesn’t go off his or her base. Forward Operating Base = FOB; creature of the FOB = fobbit.) Blogger [...]
A Tale Of Two Paragraphs That Sum Up The Bush Administration
Both of them are from an Agence France-Press write-up of an interview with Secretary of State and worst-national-security-adviser-of-all-time Condoleezza Rice. First:
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Monday that the Bush administration fell short of goals it had set for itself but maintained that history would prove it right.
Second:
The war on terror has failed to [...]
Problems Both Semantic And Substantive With Respecting The SOFA
Something that really shouldn’t be ignored in any debate about honoring the Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq: some of its most basic terms are tremendously unclear. F’r instance: in a war without a front line, what’s the difference between a combat troop and an adviser?
