Former Pentagon analyst and TIME cover man Chuck Spinney talks to a retired Army officer about a long e-mail from a colonel on the ground in Afghanistan:
“I talk to Soldiers and Marines of most ranks on a weekly basis, many of whom have just returned from Afghanistan. Not one says we are winning. They think Afghanistan is a waste of our
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Obama met Monday morning in the Situation Room with his national security team for his monthly assessment of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This month’s meeting serves to kick off several weeks of debate over the pace of the draw down of U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan, which Obama has said will start in July.
Joe, …
My esteemed colleague Mark Thompson and the New York Times are both reporting this morning on the ongoing debate about how fast to leave Afghanistan–although I don’t think anyone is talking about actually…leaving, at least not …
Given the lingering hangover effects of Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrogant visit upon his American supporters–bitterness (toward Obama), smugness, delusion–the recent testimony of just-retired Mossad Chief Meir Dagan has provided a needed corrective. Like most recent Mossad chiefs, Dagan is a realist. He sees the big, long-term picture. And …
In the latest issue of the New Yorker, Sy Hersh has a long story on what he says is a discrepancy between the intelligence community’s most recent estimate of Iran’s nuclear goals and the Obama administration’s assessment of and reaction to Iran’s intentions.
The central argument of the story is:
Greg Sargent has an interesting post about Jewish Democratic money sticking with Obama, despite the concerted efforts of Bibi Netanyahu and the Republican party to distort his position on the Israel-Palestine peace negotiations. Obama is not in favor of a simple return to the 1967 borders; he is in favor of new, defensible–an important …
President Obama doubled down on the Army Monday, picking an Army general as chairman of the Joint Chiefs — after picking another one to run the CIA, and a third — a one-time low-level Army lawyer — to run the Pentagon. There may be lots of red, white and blue around the capital today, but it felt more like red, white and Army green. …
The latest from my insane Orwellian state : Florida Governor Rick Scott, now down to 29% in the polls, signed a budget on Thursday that slashed education spending, although not quite as dramatically as he had hoped. The sign on stage read: “Less Waste, More for Education.”
There are continuing ruffles and trifles about whether President Obama said anything at all different about the borders of a Palestinian state. Much of it is either meta-talmudic picky (Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post) or poisonously disingenuous (the ever-bilious Charles Krauthammer). Kessler’s gripe is that Obama is the first …
As Swampland’s new South Beach correspondent, I plan to abuse my power every now and then to highlight the infuriating insanity of my adopted state. I kicked this off a couple weeks ago with a post on Florida’s more-booze-for-the-drunk approach to growth management. Today, to continue this auto-dependent, dumb-growth, …
He’s the pseudonymous gay officer currently serving in the U.S. military under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and blogging his experiences over at Battleland. From his first post, describing a briefing he attended on instituting repeal of DADT:
As with any other conversation about gays in a setting where I am not “out,” I found myself
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Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued their icy relationship in front of the cameras Friday after what the President somewhat ruefully called “prolonged” talks, suggesting that Bibi had delivered one of his trademark multi-part lectures on the requirements of Israeli security. The two were correct and diplomatic, …
I’ve already registered my skepticism that not much will come of Obama’s assertion yesterday that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”
The statement is not, as many are claiming today, a demand for a return to pre-1967 borders: 1967 lines refer at most to the deployment of …
