Patterns.

In yesterdays hearings on Benghazi, Gregory Hicks told the House Oversight Committee that the State Department warned him about cooperating with investigators and retaliated against him for challenging the bogus talking points about a “spontaneous demonstration.” Mark Thompson further testified to being cut out of the loop after he insisted that FEST should be activated, [...]

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The only way to win is not to play.

On this point, the CBS/NY Times poll shows a rare cross-partisan consensus, too, although it dims considerably with people paying closer attention to the conflict in Syria.  Despite all the talk of chemical weapons and red lines, only 24% of Americans overall think the US has a responsibility to take action — up from last [...]

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Second look?

“He’s enjoying the hell out of life, “ a close friend told National Journal. “He’s his loosey-goosey self again, the way he used to be.” Various confidants describe 43 as “mellow,” “serene” and “tranquil,” happy with his self-imposed exile from the political grind he never really liked and ecstatic with his new life below the [...]

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Salute

How much do you hate that song, “Call me maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen? Okay… that’s probably unfair. Maybe some of you like it, but I just found it instantly annoying for some reason. But if there was anything that could change my mind on the subject, this is probably it. I came across this [...]

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US handing over last prison.

US Secretary of State John Kerry paid a surprise visit to Kabul this morning, hoping to move forward on a reconciliation process between the Taliban and the Hamid Karzai government.  Kerry arrived as the US armed forces transferred control of the last American prison in the region to Afghanistan: Secretary of State John Kerry paid an unannounced [...]

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Gratitude

It was only last month that we saw Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, ordering US troops out of a key area of his country. There’s clearly something going on with Karzai and his plans for the future, because now he’s claiming that we are somehow in league with the Taliban. Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday [...]

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Subplots.

Not that we expected to find any, and it’s not just the Americans who are nonplussed at the allegations.  The ISAF has yet to figure out what Hamid Karzai was talking about when he ordered Americans out of Wardak province, although the German general at ISAF pledged to work with Karzai’s government to discuss their [...]

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Allegations

I’m not saying things are going to hell in a handbasket yet, but this isn’t a good sign. NBC News is now reporting that Hamid Karzai is directing all US special forces to leave Wardak Province, the location of recent insurgent activity and a trouble spot with the Taliban. The allegations he’s making certainly won’t [...]

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Leverage.

CNN’s Jake Tapper reports that Barack Obama will announce a dramatic drawdown of troop strength in Afghanistan in tonight’s State of the Union speech, a signal that he’s accelerating the end game of the US combat mission. Troop strength will be cut in half over the next year, amounting to a withdrawal of 34,000 troops: [...]

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"I think it’s a good program and I don’t disagree with the basic policy."

I’m trying to be charitable and assume that a lot of this is explainable on the merits, that Democrats have looked at O’s admittedly stellar record of taking out AQ operatives with drones and concluded that it’s the least bad option available in eliminating terrorists before they eliminate towers full of American office workers. But [...]

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Uncommon valor.

No ordinary battle, no ordinary man: Avail yourself of the Army’s online “battlescape” feature, which takes you step by step through Romesha’s actions the day the Taliban attacked — and briefly entered — Combat Outpost Keating in 2009. The base was attacked on multiple sides, U.S. troops were outnumbered roughly eight to one, several buildings [...]

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Transparency.

Amid new controversy over his administration’s targeted killing of American citizens overseas by drones, President Barack Obama has yielded to demands that he turn over to Congress classified Justice Department legal advice seeking to justify the policy, an administration official said. The president’s move comes on the eve of confirmation hearings Thursday for his CIA [...]

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Been there, done that

Yesterday’s column on women in combat elicited a number of passionate responses from both sides. Some of them came from proponents of the move, frequently citing alternate motives on my part. These ranged from “trying to keep women pregnant in the kitchen” and “Republicans want to lock women in the 1950s” to whichever variant of [...]

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War

All this week I’ve been witnessing some of the end zone dancing taking place among various groups regarding the recent decision to allow women to fully serve in combat roles alongside the men. There are many variations on the theme, of course, but the editorial board at the Gray Lady probably summed the general sentiment [...]

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Tone.

A minor classic via Newsbusters. This is stupid, yes, but not for the reason it seems at first blush. I don’t think Jones is saying that NATO troops, who’ve spent more than 11 years killing the Taliban, should fret about hurting their feelings. I think she’s saying that Harry’s already enough of a target that [...]

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Collateral damage.

Because it will never get as much press as the original accusations against Gen. John Allen in the sordid speculation surrounding the Gen. David Petraeus affair, we’ll do our part by giving his exoneration its own post. If you’ll remember, when the FBI looked into the allegedly harassing e-mails Tampa Bay socialite Jill Kelley had [...]

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Retreat.

Originally, the plan was to leave somewhere around 15,000 American troops in Afghanistan to continue training native security forces and provide support for operations.  A few days ago, that number started drifting downward to 2,500, based on leaks from the Obama administration.  Late yesterday, Reuters reported that the actual number may be as low as [...]

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Patience.

Are we surprised?  The Washington Post reports that the White House wants to restart negotiations with the Taliban for a peace deal in Afghanistan, and with a new if uneasy rapprochement with Pakistan, the time might seem ripe.  The Taliban, however, see the timing somewhat differently: The Obama administration has launched a post-election push to [...]

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The threat has not abated.

Just in case anyone wondered whether the threat of home-grown terrorism had abated, ABC News and the LA Times report today that federal agents broke up a ring of would-be jihadis, including a former member of the US Air Force. The group got infiltrated early by the FBI, but at least one of the group [...]

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Oof.

While the Foreign Policy President & friends have assured us that Obama’s policies have indeed made the world a safer, more peaceful place than when he took office, not everybody is convinced. In the Middle East specifically, his timeline for troop withdrawal from the Middle East somehow still feels like it prioritizes merely ending the [...]

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Nation-building.

Hitting the “we need to bring our troops back and start doing some nation-building at home” note that he’s struck several times throughout his presidency (which, by the way, helpfully implies that it’s somehow our defense budget that’s been bankrupting us rather than our entitlement spending, and that if we can just end these wars, [...]

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Inconvenient truths.

Here’s a good catch from the Washington Free Beacon on a point I missed during the debate itself.  Joe Biden attacked Paul Ryan for his votes to support two wars as the reason for the massive deficits we now face.  Biden also claimed to have voted against both.  The only problem with that argument is [...]

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"It will be a constant battle, and it will be for years."

We’re not hearing much about Afghanistan in this election, which seems odd after having two straight presidential elections focus mostly on war and strategies for the projection of American power.  In part, this silence comes from a loose consensus that Barack Obama took the right path in late 2009 in putting more resources into the [...]

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"We have got to do a better job at protecting our troops."

Michael Yon first picked up on this yesterday, and CBS confirmed last night that the US has suspended joint field operations with Afghan security forces in response to a string of “insider attacks” that have killed a number of American and British troops.  Any joint field operations have to have the approval of a three-star [...]

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Target

The BBC is reporting that a recent Taliban attack in Afghanistan had a very specific target in mind… Prince Harry. Prince Harry was at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan during an assault by the Taliban which killed two US marines. American officials said small arms, rockets and mortars were used to attack the perimeter of the [...]

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