Foreign Policy

The long road home from Afghanistan, American foreign policy going forward

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us-forces-afghanistan-AP-640x480David Hudson at the White House blog writes, Bringing the War in Afghanistan to a Responsible End:

[Tuesday] afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, President Obama talked briefly about the United States’ next steps in Afghanistan, and how “we will bring America’s longest war to a responsible end.”

Over the last several years, we’ve worked to transition security responsibilities to the Afghans. One year ago, Afghan forces assumed the lead for combat operations. Since then, they’ve continued to grow in size and in strength, while making huge sacrifices for their country. This transition has allowed us to steadily draw down our own forces — from a peak of 100,000 U.S. troops, to roughly 32,000 today.

The President announced today that 22,000 more troops will return home by the end of the year, ending the U.S. combat mission in December 2014.

“When I took office, we had nearly 180,000 troops in harm’s way,” President Obama said. “By the end of this year, we will have less than 10,000.”

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Questions for Martha McSally: Are you a Neocon war monger like your endorser John Bolton?

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In this continuing series, “Questions for Martha McSally,” we pose questions to
the McSally campaign about her positions on current hot topics — I am
not going to give her a free pass until after the GOP primary like our local media did in 2012 — and neither should you.

us-forces-afghanistan-AP-640x480Martha McSally, is running her third campaign for the congressional seat in CD2, but in all of this time she has never been called upon to address her views on foreign policy or national defense.

If you check Project Vote Smart, you get “We do not seem to have anything yet for this candidate.” If you check ThePoliticalGuide.com, all they have is  boilerplate empty platitudes and bumper sticker slogans supposedly taken from McSally’s campaign web site:

Forward Thinking National Security

We face powerful and determined threats across the globe. I have spent my life defending America from these threats, and I’m not about to stop now. We have to be discerning of their intent and capabilities; we must be decisive about the course we take. America cannot allow our enemies unfettered access to the vast ungoverned regions of our planet. We must clearly define our national interests, craft the strategy to safeguard those interests, and then focus our resources to ensure the safety, security, and future prosperity of our nation.

McSally’s own campaign web site still does not have a section for McSally on the issues, but only describes the “three pillars of my campaign” as “economy, leadership, government overreach.” There is nothing at all about foreign policy or national defense issues (other than the A-10 Warthog).

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#Benghazi! Committee off to a bad start

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The Tea-Publicans appointed to the House Select Committee on #Benghazi! are reportedly all lawyers, including its chair, Trey Gowdy (R-SC). Apparently they are not very good lawyers, as Steve Benen explains. Asked and answered:

In U.S. courtrooms, there’s an objection called “asked and answered.” Roughly speaking, if an attorney has a witness on the stand for an examination, asks a question, and gets an answer, counsel can’t keep asking the same question. Opposing counsel will object.

I’m wondering if Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) is familiar with the objection.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said on Sunday morning that, as chair of the newly created select committee on Benghazi, one of the biggest questions he would like to ask former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is why the United States was still there.

Cartoon_12.9“Why were we still in Benghazi? The British ambassador was almost assassinated. Our facility was attacked twice. There were multiple episodes of violence. We were the last flag flying in Benghazi, and I would like to know why,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

The problem is not with the question itself, which is clearly a legitimate point of inquiry when coming to terms with what transpired in Libya 20 months ago. Rather, the problem is that plenty of other lawmakers have thought of this before and the question has already been answered clearly, though Gowdy, for some reason, doesn’t know that.

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Arizona’s angry old man gets his comeuppance

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mcain grimaceArizona’s angry old man, Senator John McCain, the armchair Neocon war monger who advocates for wars from his perch on the set of the Sunday morning bobblehead shows, and is a critic of anyone who disagrees with his alleged “genius” in matters of war and foreign policy — Senator “Surge” has always been wrong, about everything — got his comeuppance on Tuesday. Kerry And McCain Swap Teddy Roosevelt-Themed Insults:

Things got heated between Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Secretary of State John Kerry at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that featured dueling Teddy Roosevelt quotes.

First, McCain blasted Kerry for taking what he considers tepid measures against Russia.

“My hero Teddy Roosevelt used to say talk softly and carry a big stick,” McCain said. “What you’re doing is talking strongly and carrying a very small sick. In fact, a twig.”

When it was his turn to speak, Kerry took issue with the Arizona senator’s pessimistic outlook on negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

“We’re talking! The option is, you go to war,” Kerry said. “A lot of people are ready to drop bombs all the time. We can do that. We have the ability.”

A nice dig at Senator “Surge” and his constant war mongering. “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran…”

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John McCain is wrong about Reagan

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“Don’t call yourself Reagan Republicans,” McCain said on the Senate floor. “Ronald Reagan would never – would never let this kind of aggression go unresponded to by the American people.”

John McCain was commenting on the Russian occupation and likely annexation of Crimea from the Ukraine. His Reagan triumphalism is not supported by the facts or history.

The Ronald Reagan mythologized by the conservative media entertainment complex is nothing at all like the real man or his times. Let’s run through just a few of the major foreign policy events during the Reagan presidency.

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