5 posts tagged “foreign policy”
Palin Gets Afghanistan Commander's Name, Strategy Wrong
(This is all snipped from the Huffington Post, please go there and read the original article. I've snipped this extended bit just in case the link eventually dies)
Palin thinks our commander in Afghanistan is someone named "McClellan." It is, I believe, McKiernan. And Palin is DEAD WRONG. He absolutely said that tribal involvement in Afghanistan COIN strategy would not work.
McKiernan: "I do think there's a role for traditional tribal authorities and tribal structure in Afghanistan, in the rural areas especially, to play in a community-based sense of security, of connection with the government, and of environmental considerations. But I think that has to be led, that tribal engagement, it has to be led by the Afghan government. I specifically tell my chain of command in ISAF [International Security Assistance Force, the name for NATO's mission in Afghanistan] that I don't want the military to be engaging the tribes to do that. It has to be through the Afghan government to do that. But of course, there's danger in that. There's always, "Is this particular tribe, is it being reached out to for all the right reasons?" That has to be watched very closely."
McKiernan: "First of all, please don't think that I'm saying there's no room for tribal engagement in Afghanistan, because I think it's very necessary. But I think it's much more complex environment of tribal linkages, and intertribal complexity than there is in Iraq. It's not as simple as taking the Sunni Awakening and doing the Pashtun Awakening in Afghanistan. It's much more complex than that."
UPDATE: Ilan Goldenberg sums up the foreign policy portion of the debate:
- Palin mispronounced our commander in Afghanistan, Dave McKiernan's name and also claimed that he supported the idea of using the Iraq surge as a model for Afghanistan even though just yesterday he said he did not.
- In response to a question on Iran and Pakistan Palin answered by starting to talk about Iraq. Similar to McCain's obsession on Iraq with complete neglect for all other national security priorities.
- Palin promised that the Middle East peace process would be a top priority for a McCain administration. But McCain's own advisors last week said that it wouldn't.
- Palin was unable to distinguish any specific difference between Bush and McCain on any foreign policy issues. Joe Biden made that point very clearly.
- Sarah Palin seems to rely quite heavily on her notes and on a very limited set of talking points. She has been dodging questions all night long.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace uttered a âœcarefully wordedâ statement revealing that the Pentagon had no plans to fully withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq if legislation passes Congress mandating troop redeployment:
Royal Dutch Shell is patenting a technique to convert shale to petroleum at a cost of only about $30/barrel. If it works, the world's single largest source of oil would be... the United States. Talk about your mixed blessings -- the U.S. will be able to independently manage its energy supply, enabling us to cut down on the influence of big oil in setting American foreign policy....but it could also be the harbringer of another dry spell for energy research...which would mean that we'd be pumping all kinds of hydrocarbons into our atmosphere. Bad for "US" in general. ::sigh::
At least plasmafication plants are coming along nicely, with net-positive energy plants being installed in south Florida and New York. I can't wait to see the sudden cut in the amount of "smug" production as all the landfills disappear back into the energy grid, validating most of Heinlein's thoughts on Natural vs. Man-Made/Artificial substances (that there is no fundamental difference in the end; we are a part of nature and we create using nature's tools--thus we can't make anything not of nature--so that the responsibility lays upon us to understand nature and how it works instead of acting as luddites and vilifying anything "unnatural" before really understanding it or its impact on the universe around us).
Here is the latest magazine du jour --an incredible read with thoughtful analysis. Witty, interesting writing--not dry, like you'd expect. It has really given me a deeper perspective on current events (well, events in the past few months, it is only published every other month).
Anyways, if you want to hear about the world beyond the realm of the "soundbite", I highly recommend perusing this magazine ($20/yr, $35/2 yrs) -- It's the NewScientist for multinational issues.
