Austin Bay from Creators Syndicate

Behind the Colombia-Ecuador-Venezuela Border Fracas for 03/05/2008

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The real news behind South America's latest border fracas is Colombia's looming victory in its own narcotics-powered civil war.

This is a victory Colombia's chief international antagonist, Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez, fears — for several calculating reasons.

Let's start with Colombia's slow and grueling democratic accomplishment. On Feb. 5, hundreds of thousands of Colom ...

Updated: Wed Mar 05, 2008

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Al-Qaida's Fading Victory: The Madrid Precedent for 03/12/2008

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Al-Qaida's terror attacks on March 11, 2004 (just prior to Spain's national elections), sought to establish the "Madrid Precedent," a strategic extension of what al-Qaida's planners in their "Letters to the Africa Corps" had called the examples of Mogadishu, Somalia, and Beirut, Lebanon. Stated crudely, Beirut (U.S. Marine barracks, 1983) and Mogadishu ("Blackhawk Down, ...

Updated: Wed Mar 12, 2008

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War Stories and Cameras for 03/26/2008

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

John Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" yarn ignited the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Whatever your memory of the 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry's sudden silence about a wartime Christmas "seared" in his memory was a rare example of a citizens group (the Swifties) publicly backing down a powerful U.S. senator and a major-party presidential candidate.

Kerry's full qu ...

Updated: Wed Mar 26, 2008

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Whittling Away at Sadr for 04/02/2008

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

After his outlaw militiamen raised white flags and skedaddled from their latest round of combat with the Iraqi Army, radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr declared victory.

He always does. He understands media bravado. He wagers that survival bandaged by bombast and swathed in sensational headlines is a short-term triumph. Survive long enough, and Sadr bets he will prevail.

This tim ...

Updated: Wed Apr 02, 2008

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Petreaus' Anaconda for 04/09/2008

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

It's a shame Sen. Carl Levin failed to take the time to call public attention to Gen. David Petraeus' "Anaconda Strategy" chart. Petraeus briefly referred to the chart during his initial testimony this week before Levin's Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Anaconda Chart is a complex graphic that depicts an intricate, multi-dimensional war. It's tough to describe even with a ...

Updated: Wed Apr 09, 2008

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Food Crisis: The Maze Behind Maize for 04/16/2008

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I enjoy baking, and "scratch" cornbread is my favorite kitchen oeuvre. I use stone-ground corn meal, and the product is gluten-free — nix on the cup of wheat flour you'll find in many recipes.

My cornbread hobby isn't the only reason I watch the price of corn. Gauging Mexican political stability is another. Corn (maize, as the Mexicans correctly call it) feeds Mexico. Whe ...

Updated: Wed Apr 16, 2008

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Back to Basra: Challenging the Blunderbusses for 04/23/2008

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Remember the Iraqi government's Basra offensive, launched a month ago and quickly declared a failure by an overwhelming majority of the talk show and editorial commentators? "Basra Blunder" was the headline of a column that received wide distribution; the column described Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as an inept, impulsive figure "in way over his head."

Today, ...

Updated: Wed Apr 23, 2008

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Darfur: Facing the Peacekeeping Conundrum for 04/30/2008

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

So far, theatrical protests of the Beijing Olympics by Hollywood stars and sign-waving demonstrators have failed to stop the genocide in Sudan's Darfur region or restore Tibetan independence.

The sensationalist media love the fracas, since harassing Olympic torchbearers creates great video.

"Publicity politics" leveraging shame and moral outrage and calling for action ca ...

Updated: Wed Apr 30, 2008

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Michael Yon's "Moment of Truth in Iraq" for 05/07/2008

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Michael Yon is one of those unusual Americans who emerge in wartime to do the jobs that need to be done. The job he is doing is covering combat in Iraq at the gritty, confusing and valiant level of close combat, and doing so with honesty, passion and professional expertise. His new book, "Moment of Truth in Iraq," testifies to that.

Yon isn't World War II's Ernie Pyle, he's the ...

Updated: Wed May 07, 2008

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Limited Options in Burma for 05/14/2008

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

How many people have died in Burma (Myanmar) since Cyclone Zargis struck the South Asian nation on May 3? Last Tuesday, Burma's dictatorship officially put the death toll at 34,000, with another 30,000 missing. The United Nations estimated 60,000 dead. Western governments and media argued 100,000 dead might be a better figure, once the statisticians account for casualties caused by disease and ...

Updated: Wed May 14, 2008

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Memorial Day 2008 for 05/21/2008

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

"We're a military at war, not a nation at war," the lieutenant colonel said ever so quietly but harshly as he leaned across the table at an Austin, Texas-area Rotary Club luncheon.

"We're a military at war, not an entire country," the newly promoted Marine major said vehemently, in the confines of a classroom at the USMC Command and Staff College at Quantico, Va.

...

Updated: Wed May 21, 2008

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Iraqi Democracy, Two Years On for 05/28/2008

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Considering the violent threats, fractured politics and bitter history it confronts, Iraq's democratic government has accomplished much in two short years.

For a variety of reasons — most self-serving, a few disgustingly dishonest — American and European debate over Iraq all too often loses or conveniently discards three pertinent facts regarding the Iraq of May 2008: It has ...

Updated: Wed May 28, 2008

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The Cluster Behind the Cluster Munitions Ban for 06/04/2008

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I have yet to encounter a "surgical" weapon. A weapon exists to kill or damage living beings and material objects. "Surgical" is a questionable word, anyway, when applied to a weapon. It yokes scalpel and dagger. Both cut, but one cuts while performing medical service and the other cuts to harm or slay.

When you need a dagger, however, you really need a dagger. When y ...

Updated: Wed Jun 04, 2008

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Behind Gates' Decision to Fire Up the Air Force for 06/11/2008

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The classic World War II-era poster reminded talkative dock workers that "loose lips sink ships." Well, loose nukes present an even more imposing problem, one with continent-cracking possibilities.

Last week, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates requested and received the resignations of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley, Ga ...

Updated: Wed Jun 11, 2008

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Mugabe the Obscene for 06/18/2008

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

"Frankly obscene," Australia's foreign minister said.

Australia's Stephen Smith was referring to Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe's appearance at a U.N. food conference earlier this month.

Yes, a dictator who uses starvation to scatter and kill his own people making an appearance at an international conference devoted to raising food and feeding the hungry is an obsceni ...

Updated: Wed Jun 18, 2008

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The State Department Confronts the Synergy Crisis for 06/25/2008

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The Internet won't solve the U.S. government's "synergy crisis." However, the State Department's innovative Economic Empowerment in Strategic Regions (EESR), which leverages Internet connectivity, may well help Third World entrepreneurs in hard corners like Afghanistan make business contacts, get MBA-level advice and attract financing.

It is an example of the type of "conn ...

Updated: Wed Jun 25, 2008

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The Hard Thing of Democracy for 07/02/2008

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

A Vietnam vet friend of mine argues that maintaining a democracy requires three things: a passion for freedom, tolerance for diversity and intolerance for threats.

A letter from a reader, responding to a column on Iraq's struggling democracy, suggested I write about the United States' own tortuous path — sketching a nation that began with limited voting rights and confronted powerf ...

Updated: Wed Jul 02, 2008

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Obama's War Change: Hope for Iraq? for 07/09/2008

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

We've now seen enough of Barack Obama's campaign to get an idea of his remarkably agile strategic plan. Obama bills himself as the candidate of "change and hope" — and change is a key component in his plan, if by change we mean radical political flexibility characterized by dramatic shifts in fundamental policy, or quickly substituting today's iron-clad principles for last week' ...

Updated: Wed Jul 09, 2008

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Darfur's J'Accuse! for 07/16/2008

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

For stirring drama from the moral high ground, it's tough to beat Emile Zola's letter of 1898 to France's President Felix Faure.

"J'Accuse," Zola wrote — "I accuse." Zola accused the French government of wrongly convicting Alfred Dreyfus of espionage and treason, and pressing the trumped-up charges because Dreyfus was Jewish.

Moreover, Zola concluded the ...

Updated: Wed Jul 16, 2008

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Iraqi Victory, Defeat for McCain? for 07/23/2008

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

It is ironic, but victory in Iraq could mean defeat for John McCain.

Crown the lucky Barack Obama, bury the courageous McCain — what a fate for a warrior senator who has played a key leadership role in Iraq's emerging victory.

I'll repeat that description: "emerging victory." Terror campaigns and insurgencies end with diminishing codas of violence.

In a rece ...

Updated: Wed Jul 23, 2008

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