MichaelW on May 09 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Foreign affairs, Media, MichaelW's Page
It should be clear by now to anyone who frequently reads blogs that the MSM is not terribly accurate in its reporting, nor does it seem to have any intention of getting better at it. Whether you think the media leans left (as I think it demonstrably does) or right, there is no denying [...]
Joshua Foust on May 08 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Notes on the war
One thing I’ll never understand about the military is how it looks to failed wars to prove the truthiness of its current strategy. What baffles me more is how earnest scholars, like Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations, manage to revel in such silliness. Surely he knows what a failure is? To whit: [...]
Joshua Foust on May 06 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, History
Published first at Registan.net, this is the culmination of some research I’ve been doing into the nature and history of Pashtun tribal militancy. It draws from a mixture of out-of-print ethnocgraphic and geographic surveys, as well as contemporary news accounts, and tries to make the case that much of the turbulence there is really not [...]
Joshua Foust on May 03 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Media, Military Matters, Notes on the war
This is the latest post in a running commentary on a new meme to emerge from the PR folks in Afghanistan: the security benefits of building roads. The argument, advanced by a few American reporters and one David Kilcullen, is that building paved roads reduces the IED threat and contributes to the security necessary for [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 30 2008 | Filed under: Developmental economics, Foreign affairs
Cross-posted from Registan.net, your one-stop shop for news and analysis of going on in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Thirteen months ago, I noted the problems caused by the U.S. State Department having dramatically different divisions than the military COCOMs.
The DoD considers Pakistan part of the Central Command, or CENTCOM (which includes the Middle East [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 28 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Media
Question the timing! That old mantra from the halcyon days of 2002-4, when the Left would be mocked by the Right for wondering about the suspicious timing of terror alerts, is universally applicable to the Presidency. In the case of the Syrian nuclear facility—the underlying story of which isn’t significant—what the intelligence community is choosing [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 27 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Josh's Page, Notes on the war
I honestly don’t have the time to reformat everything for several cross-posts, so this is a summary of posts at my other blog, Registan.net, where I’ve been discussing some interesting topics related to counterinsurgency and reconstruction in Afghanistan, as well as media and culture issues.
First up is a critical review of a new essay by [...]
MichaelW on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Media, MichaelW's Page, Notes on the war
This is a positive development:
Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc has agreed to return to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s cabinet after a nine-month boycott, several Sunni leaders said on Thursday, citing a recently passed amnesty law and the Maliki government’s crackdown on Shiite militias as reasons for the move.
The Sunni leaders said they were still working [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Notes on the war
Whatever could this guy be going on about?
“Saddam had his big castles; they symbolized his power and were places to be feared, and now we have the castle of the power that toppled him,” says Abdul Jabbar Ahmed, a vice dean for political sciences at Baghdad University. “If I am the ambassador of the USA [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 23 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
For at least a decade, there has been a running joke in the world of intelligence contractors that perhaps 90% of what the CIA does could be done for 1/10 the cost and 10x the effective accuracy by private, open-source agencies. The superiority of open source analysis is not really in question, though there are [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 22 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Military Matters
Cross-posted to Registan.net, which is “All Central Asia, All the Time.”
Last year, Georgia was abuzz with accusations against Russia for its military jets supposedly violating its airspace and possibly even attacking radio stations. Now, Georgian officials are hopping mad over accusations that Russia shot down one of their surveillance drones. They even have video:
The video [...]
ChrisB on Apr 22 2008 | Filed under: Chris' Page, Foreign affairs, Humor
9/11 Conspiracy Theories ‘Ridiculous’ al Qaeda says - The Onion April 2nd
Al-Qaeda accuses Iran of 9/11 lie - BBC April 22nd
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Joshua Foust on Apr 21 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
“Chris Bartlett” is the pseudonym of a good friend of mine currently teaching English in a random city in Central China. He has contributed before his observations of life in the People’s Republic at my only begotten personal blog (kept online for its years upon years of writing). Here, he discusses what it feels like [...]
MichaelW on Apr 21 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, MichaelW's Page, Military Matters, Notes on the war
I was pleasantly surprised, and mildly irritated, to see that Condi Rice basically called Muqtada al-Sadr a coward while she was in Baghdad recently (via: Instapundit):
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 17 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
Over at Jezebel, my friend Moe scored a great interview with Sarah, an American woman who relocated to Yemen to work at a newspaper there.
No talking in the street, no laughing…what if you just went into the middle of the street and laid a really loud fart? Do you get caned for laughing, like in [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 17 2008 | Filed under: Developmental economics, Economics, Foreign affairs, regulation
Posted first at Registan.net
When last I touched on the global food crisis and how it is impacting Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia, I noted that countries continuing to ban wheat exports would make the problem worse by restricting the global market, driving up prices even more, and limiting national coping mechanisms. One of [...]
MichaelW on Apr 17 2008 | Filed under: Blogs, Domestic Politics, Foreign affairs, Libertarianism, MichaelW's Page, Military Matters, Notes on the war, Philosophy
There seems to be some confusion on the part of some as to exactly what sort of place ASHC is:
I was rather surprised to read this dubious and scornful appraisal of Michael Yon’s Wallstreet Journal editorial at A Second Hand Conjecture, a heretofore conservative site.
The post Mick Stockinger is referring to was created by Joshua [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 14 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
Neither George Snuffalufagus nor National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley seemed capable of distinguishing between Tibet and Nepal this weekend. Given that one is a Buddhist monarchy democratizing in fits and starts with a Maoist insurgency gaining a permanent foothold, and another one is a formerly Buddhist monarchy overrun five decades ago by Maoist foot soldiers… [...]
Lance on Apr 11 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Lance's Page, Military Matters, Notes on the war
I was sent this via e-mail from my Uncle Pat, also known as Colonel Alfred H. Paddock. Uncle Pat is a story in and of himself, but I’ll tell you a little more about him after the e-mail. Let it suffice to say for now that Pat is one of the most experienced and knowledgeable [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 10 2008 | Filed under: Developmental economics, Economics, Foreign affairs
Cross-posted to Registan.net, which also has lots of other commentary, news, and analysis from and about Central Asia.
Paul Krugman had a mostly-good column in the New York Times the other day, exploring the world food crisis. After digging through his typically overheated political boilerplate, one finds he narrows down the crisis into several unavoidable and [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 07 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
I don’t know anyone else here, but I think it’s hilarious that every single stop of the Olympic torch is plagued by almost violent anti-China protests. It is about time people freak out about the slave labor, the political reeducation camps, the quite illegal forced repatriation of North Korean refugees (and subsequent public executions), their [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 07 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Notes on the war
Lost in the hoopla over the intra-Shia fighting in Iraq is a rather fundamental question: is it even a good idea? Is it something we should be poking our fingers into? Augustus Norton, a professor of International Relations at Boston University, is not so sure:
I remember sitting in Beirut with an old friend about the [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 06 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web, Foreign affairs
One Free Korea notes that one of the most valuable commodities to emerge in North Korea, despite the crashing food situation, is weirdly enough, lame-o soft-core (straight, obviously) porn. And we thought we were in a recession.
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Joshua Foust on Apr 06 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
Posted first on Registan.net, where there is lots of other commentary on Central Asia and the Caucasus. There is also an intense discussion in the comments section. Click the Registan.net link above to view those comments..
Benjamin Friedman, of the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, DC, thinks we shouldn’t “pull an Iraq” in [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 05 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web, Foreign affairs
David Axe wants us to remember the very large role we had in throwing Somalia back into hyper-violent chaos.
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Joshua Foust on Apr 02 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web, Foreign affairs
Our super-sensitive Pakistan policy continues. Not only are we trying to bomb the place as quickly as we can before the new civilian government kindly asks us to respect their sovereignty, we’re now actively discrediting the very men we hope will keep relations between our countries cordial.
Way to go, Bush White House! How’s that Caspian [...]
Keith_Indy on Apr 02 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Keith's Page, Military Matters
Fred and Kimberly Kagan have a decent analysis of what we do and don’t know about the situation in Iraq.
Just the highlights (as I see them)
Do Know
* The legitimate Government of Iraq and its legally-constituted security forces launched a security operation against illegal, foreign-backed, insurgent and criminal militias serving leaders who openly call for [...]
Joshua Foust on Apr 01 2008 | Filed under: Election 2008, Foreign affairs
What to do when no one on the presidential ballot is a conservative? Conservative historian Andrew Bracevich—who has been opposed to the war since the start yet nevertheless lost a son in Iraq—says the war is reason enough to vote for Barrack Obama.
>Above all, conservatives who think that a McCain presidency would restore a sense [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 31 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web, Foreign affairs
Young Tibetans, seeing the fruits of decades of non-violent protest against Chinese occupation, are giving that whole pacifism thing a second thought. This is bad news, though it does highlight the inability of non-violent civil disobedience to tackle unsympathetic autocracies.
China, meanwhile, continues to treat Tibetans of all stripes really poorly. At some point, something must [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 25 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
Posted first on Registan.net
According to Jane’s, Iraq is more stable than Afghanistan. While normally I’m all about anything to draw attention to the place, this just feels wrong: while Afghanistan very well might be in the academic sense more chaotic, in the sense of having a national government that can extend its power to all [...]
MichaelW on Mar 25 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, MichaelW's Page, Notes on the war
Al Qaeda’s efforts in Iraq have been less than successful over the past year, due in large part to the Anbar Awakening and the related Councils of Concerned Citizens/Sons of Iraq movements, and the support offered those movements by Petraeus’ COIN methods manifested by the “surge.” Essentially, as Tigerhawk predicted a while back (and [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 24 2008 | Filed under: Economics, Foreign affairs, Notes on the war
Posted first on Registan.net, this is the latest in a series I’ve been writing there for the past two years on the many problems with our counternarcotics operations in Afghanistan, and how bad policy has fueled the insurgency to record strength.
Over at Abu Muqawama, Kip has posited a very interesting hypothesis:
Already in the 2007 annual [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 22 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Military Matters
Posted first on Registan.net.
While I cringe at the idea of missile strikes in Pakistan—no matter the attention or care paid, there will be innocent people killed in the process (especially when a target is missed and vows increased attacks)—it is also useful to point out the risks of house raids. I tend to prefer raids, [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 19 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web, Foreign affairs, Military Matters
Stewart Koehl writes about how a clever lobbying campaign on the part of Lockheed Martin is undermining a decades-long arms alliance with Sweden. Yes, Sweden, card credit hsbc philippinebusiness card credit find smallbank card credit login orchardcard consolidation credit debt keywordcard credit free onlinecard credit debt reduction solution,debt reduction solution credit cardcard credit fraud report,card [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 19 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Foreign affairs
John McCain, whose foreign policy genius is his only real selling point this election (given his self-stated discomfort with domestic policy), confused al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Shiite militias Iran has backed at a press conference the other day.
While that in and of itself wouldn’t be too big a deal save exemplifying the sad [...]
MichaelW on Mar 18 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Foreign affairs, MichaelW's Page, Notes on the war
The inestimable Oliver Kamm provides a glimpse at the value our British friends find in a potential John McCain presidency:
Two points about McCain stand out. He’s not a conservative and he’s been right all along about Iraq. These are the reasons I favoured him from the outset for the Republican nomination. Indeed McCain has been [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 18 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Military Matters
Posted first on Registan.net.
Yesterday, I expressed skepticism about the “decapitation” strikes the U.S. military carries out in Pakistan (and also Somalia, Yemen, and so on). One issue I skirted around was the messy problem of sovereignty: in a very real sense, we don’t have the right, no matter who is there, to launch an attack [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 17 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Military Matters
Posted first on Registan.net.
There is a fine line between sympathetic reporting and outright propaganda. I would say this post at Long War Journal crosses that line:
At 9:40 PM local time, US officials declared the group posed an imminent threat to forces inside Afghanistan and the call to strike the compound was made. After the orders [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 17 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web, Foreign affairs
In a recent interview, Republican presidential candidate John McCain blamed Afghanistan’s faltering on the British and NATO. I’m all for questioning questionable decisions by the British, but McCain isn’t doing that: he’s saying that because poppy production in Helmand is higher than ever, the British are responsible for the failure to stem the drug trade.
Of [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 15 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Race, social science
Tibet seems to be ill at ease with the Chinese again. With good reason—the last five decades can be called nothing short of cultural rape. Some of this was partially sparked by an ill-timed outburst from Björk, of all people, who called for Tibetan freedom at a concert she performed in Shanghai.
Agitating for Tibetan freedom [...]
MichaelW on Mar 11 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Media, MichaelW's Page, Military Matters, Notes on the war
Apparently rumors have been swirling around for awhile that Fallon was on his way out. Well, today he resigned and the speculation is that it was over a recent interview he did in Esquire, written by Thomas P.M. Barnett (regarding which Josh noted Fallon’s strange reaction last week). However, you can rest assured [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 10 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Media
Posted first at Registan.net.
A few thousand people in Afghanistan have begun protesting the reprinting in Denmark of cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), as well as a Dutch film that supposedly portrays the Koran as fascist. They are burning Danish and Dutch flags, shouting provocative slogans, and generally behaving as protesters.
Now before we all [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 04 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web, Foreign affairs
Just in case anyone was under the impression North Korea is truly an evil country, and under the further impression the Agreed Framework II will accomplish anything at all, I submit this 1997 Mark Davis documentary in which he gained extremely rare access to the famine-stricken northern part of the country. The worst part? Most [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 04 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
Posted first to Registan.net
Joshua White has a op-ed in WSJ-Asia about the recent elections in Pakistan, and he lends further credence to the undeniable fact that elections have power:
The key to dealing with the religious parties is to continue their integration into the mainstream political process. The good news here is that “democratic Islamists” like [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 03 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web, Foreign affairs
David Axe gets it right:
Here’s why bombing won’t work: Somalis aren’t stupid. They know that the U.S. is behind the Ethiopian invasion. This, in part, drives the present insurgency. Bombing some town to kill a handful of suspected terrorists will only add fuel to the fire, deepening the very hatred that helps create the terrorists [...]
Joshua Foust on Mar 03 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Media
Something has been bugging me a lot lately, but it’s been tough to put my fingers to it. I have been a faithful subscriber to Foreign Affairs for many years; since college I have deeply appreciated the insight and perspective those essays gave on the world. For much of that same span of time, I [...]
Joshua Foust on Feb 29 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
Posted first on Registan.net
No matter what a certain director at a certain think tank-slash-NGO may think, it appears I am not the only one who thought Louise Arbour was a particularly incompetent advocate for human rights:
On her watch, the UN has ended human rights monitoring in Cuba and Belarus and has failed to hold the [...]
Keith_Indy on Feb 28 2008 | Filed under: Developmental economics, Domestic Politics, Economics, Foreign affairs, Keith's Page
A short portrait of President Bush from Sir Bob Geldof, on the Presidents recent trip around Africa. Really shows what we’ve been accomplishing in Africa the last several years.
In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs — and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines [...]
Joshua Foust on Feb 27 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Foreign affairs
Posted first on Registan.net.
Just kidding. But watch her mangle “Medvedev,” like a ninth grader on “Meet the Press”:
Does this mean anything? Not really. But given that both Clinton and Obama admitted to knowing nothing about the man they all recognize Vladimir Putin has hand-picked as his successor, perhaps the routine barbs about George Dubya [...]
Joshua Foust on Feb 25 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
One place I always wanted to see but didn’t get around to when I was in Kazakhstan was the ruins of the Aral Sea. I know a ship graveyard a hundred kilometers from the nearest water sounds like a strange sight to see, but we can write that off as me doing my best Tom [...]
Risk and Return Multinational Force-Iraq QandO