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Foreign Policy & War

TGIF: No Intervention in Syria

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If after the debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya (dare I say Vietnam?) some people still want the U.S. government to intervene — further — in the war inside Syria (but fueled by outsiders), we must conclude, not that they can’t learn the lessons of recent history, but that they won’t because doing so would be contrary ... [click for more]

Saber Rattling in Korea: Cui Bono?

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North Korea has announced plans to restart a nuclear reactor that will enable production of weapons-grade plutonium. The announcement coincides with Pyongyang ratcheting up its rhetoric, issuing threats to wage atomic war against South Korea and Japan, and even to target American cities with long-range nuclear missiles it does not yet possess. For decades, North Korea has used its ramshackle ... [click for more]

The Disasters that U.S. Intervention Created

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Americans have forgotten about the Iraq war, which began 10 years ago this week, and the Afghan war, the longest in American history, but the U.S. government is still throwing its weight around in both countries. The Iraq war, the pretext for which was nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, officially ended in 2011 with the withdrawal of virtually all of ... [click for more]

Timbuktu Not out of Reach of U.S. Troops

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Although it is a real city north of the Niger River on edge of the Sahara Desert in the West African country of Mali, Timbuktu has long served as a metaphor for an exotic, mysterious, and distant land. To travel from “here to Timbuktu” suggests a long, arduous, and adventurous journey to a place far away. Timbuktu has both economic ... [click for more]

Drone Trust the Government

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“Covert” drone warfare requires a level of confidence in politicians that they will never deserve. In the Kentucky Resolutions, the 1798 protest against the Alien and Sedition Acts, Thomas Jefferson wrote, It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of ... [click for more]

Hagel’s Retreat

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Some observers are mystified by Chuck Hagel’s pathetic showing at his Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, but there should be no mystery about it. He performed as he did for one simple reason: He wants to be the next secretary of defense, and he (along with the White House) must have calculated that standing up for his past positions ... [click for more]

The New Scramble for Africa

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The deployment of French troops to Mali has put that large and impoverished African nation in the media’s spotlight. We are being told France’s intervention, which the US military is supporting, is necessary to prevent the country from being overrun by Muslim fanatics and terrorists. However, the intervention by a former colonial power into the affairs of yet another African ... [click for more]

The Ominous U.S. Presence in Northwest Africa

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Ominously but unsurprisingly, the U.S. military’s Africa Command wants to increase its footprint in northwest Africa. What began as low-profile assistance to France’s campaign to wrest control of northern Mali (a former colony) from unwelcome jihadists could end up becoming something more. The Washington Post reports that Africom “is preparing to establish a drone base in northwest ... [click for more]

Mali: Here We Go Again

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In testimony before Senate and House committees, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enthusiastically endorsed increased U.S. intervention in Africa. When government officials seem incapable of learning obvious lessons from the recent past, maybe their incentive is not to learn but to keep doing the same destructive things. President Obama’s inaugural speech contained this line, which has gone quite ... [click for more]
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