American Footprints

This, from an e-mail correspondence with the Wall Street Journal’s Anand Gopal re-printed with his permission, sums up why it is both repugnant yet necessary to attempt to negotiate with certain Taliban factions as part of the effort to establish a durable settlement to the many-sided conflict:

…Mullah Omar…[is] not that far removed from the society he [...]

I tend to come down on the John Cole side of the Cole/Sullivan debate about whether Obama should fire Janet Neopalitano prior to the results are in from the fact finding effort.  Regardless, other than some unfortunate phrasing taken out of context and blown wildly out of proportion, it remains unclear whether she did anything wrong in [...]

After reading this piece from Michael Ledeen and this one from Bruce McQuain, I was meaning to write this Matt Duss post, which Matt has so generously done himself saving me the effort:

In response to the Iranian regime’s violence, the Green Movement protests have grown bolder. The regime now seems stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle, [...]

The overwhelming consensus amongst counterterrorism scholars, experts and practitioners is that intelligence and law enforcement are the most effective tools available in terms of implementing effective counterterrorism policy, and, thus, these options should be relied on primarily. Not only does the military approach and attendant ”war” rhetoric play to the advantage of transnational, stateless terror groups like al-Qaeda, but [...]

Matt Duss on Lieberman’s most recent bout of warmongering with respect to Yemen.  One wonders whether these are the types of dots that Pete Hoekstra demanded connecting:

It’s also very much worth noting that the ranks of Yemen’s Islamic extremist insurgency have been fed by fighters returning from Iraq, bringing with them tactics and experience gained [...]

Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen, who I linked to last week, had fascinating interview with Glenn Greenwald (via Yglesias).  Some excerpts below.  First, the Bush administration, in what is a familiar refrain, putting domestic politicis ahead of policy:

Yeah, I think the track record of US-Yemeni relations here is extremely important. So if you go to November [...]