Given the date, I thought it would be a good day to go over the differences between the two presidential candidates when it comes to The War on Terror. (If you were hoping that I’d discuss whether or not Senator Obama believes that Governor Palin is a barnyard animal, I’m sorry to disappoint.) The War on Terror covers a pretty broad range of issues, and I’ll try to address most of them; if I miss something, please let me know. Also, these issues are not presented in any particular order.
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Sep 112008
Aug 122008
Russia’s invasion of Georgia looks like it might be played out, finally. War kills a lot of people for no particularly good reason, and this one is no different. Russia is certainly playing the role of the bad guy in this conflict, as well they should. Georgia may have violated an old agreement not to disarm South Ossetia, but Russia’s response has been unnecessarily harsh. Besides, sovereignty–the old notion that states get to govern their own people and police their own borders–is much too established a notion for the world to buy Russia’s argument that Georgia is just getting what they deserve.
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Jul 032008
Right now, the United States is an active participant in two civil wars: Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Sorry for my extended absence lately; I had some family issues to take care of. In any case, one thing that struck me as I’ve been reading the news the last few weeks is the great extent to which American politicians and pundits are demonizing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We need to be very careful which foreign political leaders we choose to demonize, and it seems pretty clear to me that Ahmadinejad just doesn’t make the cut.
For one thing, there is the basic problem with demonizing any foreign leader. Look no further, for instance, than Saddam Hussein. American politicians had spent a decade comparing Hussein to Hitler and calling him evil, and eventually they started to believe it. That demonization, in turn, led to the loss of perspective on American foreign policy with respect to Iraq. Iraq became this great threat to American interests, despite having a small military and a government crippled by UN sanctions and the no-fly zones over significant portions of its territory. Even the WMD arsenals that the Bush Administration claimed they had pale in comparison to the actual WMDs held by Iran, North Korea, or even Syria. But we invaded Iraq, and I think part of the reason we did it was because of the rhetorical hole that American politicians dug for themselves (especially the neo-cons, but there is plenty of blame to go around here on both sides of the aisle and in the Clinton and Bush the Elder Administrations). Saddam Hussein was such a bad guy, that removing him from office became a good in-and-of itself, and we lost perspective of both the costs and of what might come afterwards.
Jun 132007
The Bush Administration announced this morning that it has “irrefutable evidence” that Iran is funneling weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan. As if the Bush Administration needed to give us more proof of their baffling incompetence at foreign policy, even after six years in office.
First of all, let’s deal with the basic truth of the claim. Here are some facts about the situation that you should keep in mind.
1) The Taliban is a group dedicated to taking over Afghanistan and imposing through force of law, and force of arms, a government based on its incredibly inflexible interpretation of Sunni Islam. They think about Shiite Islam in much the same way that the Spanish Inquisitors thought about Protestantism.
2) The Iraqi government is ruled by a group of Shiite Clerics, who for the last twenty years have consistently supported Shiite religious and political movements throughout the Middle East, and who rule their own country by insisting on adherence to Shiite traditions and practices. They have only limited tolerance for Sunni practices and traditions–much the same way that Reformation era Protestants treated Catholicism.
There is zero chance of these groups allying with each other. In fact, in 2000 they came extremely close to going to war–Iran mobilized its military on the Afghanistan border–and Iran was a hugely vocal supporter of America’s invasion of Afghanistan and our overthrow of the Taliban regime.
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