On August 2, 2010 the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) announced they would hold a joint cooperative air defense exercise with the Russian Federation Air Force (http://www.norad.mil/News/2010/080210.html). This is the first ever air defense exercise between Russia and NORAD and will include U.S., Canadian, and Russian participants operating from command centers at Elmendorf Air […]
How much more of the $378 billion transmitted via the casa de cambios and inserted into Wachovia accounts represents criminal revenue is anyone’s guess, because no further inquiries into the origin of these funds has been undertaken.
The WikilLeaks aftermath continues, and the FPA’s Afghanistan blog keeps us updated. The Afghanistan writers and I took opposing sides on this issue last week and seemed to be able to remain in the mindset that this is an issue about which reasonable people can disagree. But one of Mike Mullen’s quotes from last week […]
The bank, now a unit of Wells Fargo, leads a list of firms that have moved dirty money for Mexico’s narcotics cartels–helping a $39 billion trade that has killed more than 22,000 people since 2006. –Michael Smith, Bloomberg Markets Magazine, July7, 2010
Last week the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence did not violate international law. Read the opinion here. This came as no surprise since international law is largely silent on secession, and as John Cerone wrote at Opinio Juris: Similarly, if I were to stand in my living room […]
This is the second blog I’m writing on insights gained during my participation in a series of three bloggers roundtables sponsored by the Department of Defense. On July 21, 2010, I had the opportunity to interview Capt A. Heather Coyne the Community and NGO liaison officer for NATO Training Mission Afghanistan. The job is a […]
Yesterday, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution to make access to clean drinking water and sanitation a human right. The vote was 122-0, with 41 abstentions. Why is this a bad thing? Check out the United States’ justification of its abstention, from the UN’s summary of the proceedings: The representative of the United States […]
Patrick Frost of the FPA Afghanistan blog took a strong stand against the WikiLeaks revelations yesterday, condemning The New York Times, Guardian, and Der Speigel. I debate him in the comments section. Stop by and join in if you feel inclined. The revelations in the leaked documents were not revelations. As Robert Gibbs noted yesterday: […]
Last week I had the opportunity to participate in three separate Bloggers roundtables on Afghanistan sponsored by the Department of Defense (DoD). The roundtables were a forum designed to provide access to key officials involved in NATO’s training of Afghan Police and Army forces. Participating via a teleconferences from Afghanistan were Dr. Jack Kem, deputy […]
What will Jerusalem be like in twenty years? Today, the city is divided into predominately Jewish west Jerusalem and predominately Palestinian east Jerusalem. East Jerusalem itself is striped with both Palestinian and Jewish neighborhoods. Quality of life in different neighborhoods varies dramatically, but it is safe to say that Jerusalem’s Jews enjoy a far greater […]
It’s been a tough few days for the U.S. Intelligence community. Last week the Washington Post ran a series called “Top Secret America” and this week the media is filled with stories of 92,000 classified documents released by some web site. The documents cover events in Afghanistan from 2004 – 2009. I’ve blogged before about […]
Relations between North and South Korea (ROK) continue to simmer in the aftermath of the sinking of the South Korean warship, Chenoan, in which 46 sailors lost their lives. This week during a visit to South Korea, Secretary of State Clinton announced new sanctions against North Korea targeted at sale and purchase of arms and […]
An important story as been hanging out in the news for the past couple months and it’s time I wrote about it. Barney Frank is on a serious campaign to get the U.S. to curb military spending. Earlier this year he convened a Sustainable Defense Task Force to find ways to do it. Read their […]
At Informed Comment yesterday, Tom Engelhardt ripped counterinsurgency (COIN) a new one. He writes that we should “start talking about the madness of making counterinsurgency the American way of war.” The Counterinsurgency Field Manual is a blueprint for civilian-killing and failure, he argues, and he concludes: …[L]et me offer my one-line rewrite of their 472 […]
What’s been striking is not so much the content of what he’s said but the fact he can say it at all The semi-retired Cuban leader got some attention and aroused a good deal of surprise in recent weeks with intemperate remarks about Iran and Korea, suggesting that the United States was pushing the crises […]