I'm interested in international relations, American foreign policy, climate change, US presidential elections, public debate, Kansas Jayhawks basketball, film, and major league baseball.
I want to thank the [Japanese] Prime Minister [Shinzo Abe] for being a strong advocate of sending a clear message to the North Korean leader that there's a better way forward than to defy the world.In fall 2002, that same man kept repeating lines like these:
On all issues, there is a --- whether it's this issue or any other issue, is that we will work with our partners to determine how long.
So this is a chance for the United Nations to show some backbone and resolve, as we confront the true challenges of the 21st century. It's a chance for the United Nations to show its relevance, and that's why I gave the speech I gave. But make no mistake about it, if we have to deal with the problem, we'll deal with it.And this, in March 2003:
I think the threat is real. And so do a lot of other people in my government. And since I believe the threat is real, and since my most important job is to protect the security of the American people, that's precisely what we'll do.Maybe the President is learning?
Our demands are that Saddam Hussein disarm. We hope he does. We have worked with the international community to convince him to disarm. If he doesn't disarm, we'll disarm him.
much has been achieved in the past five years. Presidential and parliamentary elections have been held, and some 1,000 schools, clinics and government buildings have been built. In real terms, the non-drug economy has grown at an impressive average of 15 per cent a year. Most Afghans do not want the Taliban back in power. And unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is not verging on civil war.A key problem is lack of international commitment:
But recent trends are discouraging. A strengthened insurgency has made much of the country unsafe for civilian development personnel. Local warlords and drug traffickers are reportedly collaborating with the Taliban against the government. And ordinary Afghans are showing signs of mounting disaffection with their own government's inability to provide security and public services.
If these trends continue, the Afghan mission will fail.
This mission is the most under-resourced international stabilization operation since the Second World War. For example, there were 20.5 international peacekeepers in Kosovo per 1,000 inhabitants, 19 in Bosnia, 10 in Sierra Leone and 3.5 in Haiti. The ratio in Afghanistan is a paltry 1 to 1,000. From the beginning, the operation has been hampered by a lack of international forces to help the Kabul government establish its presence throughout the country.In the op-ed piece, Paris offers a handful of recommendations for saving the Afghan mission, including ways of thinking more creatively about the opium poppy crops, improving police security training, rooting out corruption, building an Afghan army and stopping the flow of Taliban fighters from neighboring Pakistan.
Afghanistan has also received less international aid per capita than many other war-torn countries, including East Timor, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the Solomon Islands.
"This is an issue which threatens the peace and security of the whole planet - this has to be the right place to debate it."Inside the UNSC Beckett was just as direct:
"Climate change is a security issue but it is not a matter of narrow national security - it has a new dimension," she said. "This is about our collective security in a fragile and increasingly interdependent world."The BBC coverage referenced the so-called "Stern report on climate change, which was commissioned by the UK government" and "warned of potential economic disruption on the scale of the two world wars and the Great Depression." A document circulated by the Brits warned about the potential security threat to be posed by 200 million environmental refugees, energy scarcity, and new border disputes caused by physical changes.
...The foreign secretary quoted remarks made by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda that global warming is "an act of aggression by the rich against the poor".
American troops have been sent into harm's way many times since 1945, but in only three cases -- Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq -- have they been drawn into sustained ground combat and suffered more than 300 deaths in action. American public opinion became a key factor in all three wars, and in each one there has been a simple association: as casualties mount, support decreases. Broad enthusiasm at the outset invariably erodes.To date, nearly 3300 US soldiers have died in Iraq.
In Iraq, the American military has lost one for every ten soldiers hit in combat, compared to a one-in-four fatality rate in Vietnam, and one in three during the Second World War.If the current war had occurred thirty years ago, it is quite likely that there would be more than 8000 dead. Within this coming year, America might have been expecting its 10,000th casualty.
public support for a military operation will erode sharply in the face of mounting casualties when the public believes the war is failing but will remain relatively robust when the public believes the war is succeeding. This argument is based on extensive analyses of scores of surveys...It would seem logical that a high number of American war deaths would help foster a perception of failure.
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.However, the story also notes that Vice President Cheney remains a committed propagandist:
The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information.
The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.As has been previously reported, the US could have killed al-Zarqawi before the war -- but his PR value was apparently too high. Alive, he helped justify the war:
"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq."
Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.Oh, and Zarqawi was located in the northern Kurdish part of Iraq before the war, so it was not as if the Iraqi regime had anything to do with his operation.
Boyden Gray told AFP that Washington and Brussels were "exchanging papers for the next EU-US summit and our differences are not that great."Really? Not much difference.
"We were criticised for being much more interested in energy security than in climate change, but both sides of the Atlantic now agree it's the same and it's a constructive change... I don't see that much difference," he said in a phone interview.
European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas...tartly compared these [European] plans with the US voluntary approach.It may not quite fit Robert Kagan's worldview, but I think we know which one is "awake and alert" and which one is sleeping.
"(The US) approach doesn't help in reaching international agreement and doesn't reduce (US) emissions, because they are right now 60 percent above the 1990 level," Dimas said, noting that in 2005, emissions by the 27-member EU were 7.4 percent below the 1990 benchmark.
EU environment ministers have agreed in principle to cut greenhouse emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020.That means at least 27 affluent countries, with a combined GNP larger than the US economy, are moving forward.
The ministers, meeting in Brussels, also agreed to seek a 30% cut worldwide if matched by other developed nations.
