The best places to meet the world’s most interesting national security and foreign policy personalities are no longer Washington or London or Paris. Rather, highest on the list are Beijing, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha. Many years ago, I met Lt. General Asad Durrani in Beijing thanks to a conference organized by Australia’s Monash University.
The U.S. Helsinki Commission, co-chaired by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), has been quiet about the bashings of gay people and their family and friends at gay pride marches in eastern Europe and the Baltics, according to the Council for Global Equality.
I love Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish feature, The View From Your Window, which I occasionally copied (with his permission) at The Washington Note. (click image above for larger version) But now at Andrew’s former home among The Atlantic‘s “Voices”, I am going to post occasional photos that intrigue me as “The Other View”.
Now that General David Petraeus has mothballed his uniforms, turned the ISAF command in Afghanistan over to General John Allen, and taken Leon Panetta’s chair at the CIA, the next to last big name who fought for primacy in DC’s Afghanistan policy wars is, for the most part, off to other pastures.
In the case of the United States — which has been indisputably the reigning global superpower for six decades — there are signs — ranging from the tumult in the Middle East to a humiliating war in Afghanistan to a downgrade of US sovereign debt — that America is at a key inflection point in…
Later today in Washington, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation will release a proposal and report titled “The Startup Act’. it’s not legislation but rather a package of proposals designed to facilitate growth of young firms, which interestingly, are responsible for “all” new net jobs created in our economy in recent years.
Over the last couple of years, I have been increasingly impressed by the work and thinking of Georgetown scholar and now outgoing Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs Arturo Valenzuela. I didn’t start there.
Part of the annual foreign policy ritual in Washington is that the US President, Vice President, and leading Members of Congress make major campaign and fundraising speeches, sign on to resolutions, and pledge unconditional support to Israel, often referring to it as “the only genuine democracy in the Middle East.
Christopher Hitchens just pulled all the sticky veneer off of a cancerous Pakistan-US relationship — that has been going into the muck not just since we learned that Osama bin Laden was living somewhat pleasantly just down the street from Pakistan’s West Point but much before, particularly when A.Q.
Watching on a long flight the other day the classic 1966 Sergio Leone spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly I couldn’t help but think that Afghanistan would make a great backdrop for a remake of the Clint Eastwood classic.
