Proven provider John McCreary predicts that next year will
provide the real test of the Obama administration's foreign policy:
Yemen-US-al Qaida:
Yemeni casualty reports are that the US missile attack in Abyan Province killed
one senior al Qaida leader and suicide bombing planner plus a dozen of his
followers, but the commander of al Qaida in Yemen escaped. Four al Qaida are wounded and in custody from
the US missile attack on the training camp in Aden Province.
The attacks might give pause to the
terrorist web posters and cause some analysts to rethink their assessment of
the strength and determination of the US Administration. The NightWatch view
remains that what comes next will be the true measure of the Administration,
now that the year of attempted reconciliation initiatives is ending with little
to show for it.
If the missile attacks are any
indication, North Korea, Iran and others need to pay closer attention and not
close the ledger just yet.
I think he is right. We'll have a good sense by the end of
the year where post-American Afghanistan and Iraq are going. Pakistan may
provide some fireworks. Iran and North Korea will have been weighed in the
balance and found wanting.
there will be no more milestones of meaning to measure accomplishment. The long war has been defined by the speech at Oslo. Persistence will be determined by the competence we show in managing our resources and investments. Treason will be found in the tax loop holes, bonuses and other forms of pillage, patronage, waste and ponzi that will weaken us.
If blessed the President will continue in the manner of the stoic Marcus Aurelius and the ethicist, Reinhold Niebuhr. Continuity is now the standard, testing is over the decades to come, not just a single year.
Pacem in Terra ... let us dream that this Messiah will grow within us now that we have health care.
I don't know about Aurelius or Niebuhr. I am not a Christian and have never found sense in Christian philosophy. Hadrian's limitation of Rome's penchant for war and imperialism, as I understand him among Roman emperors, is greatly appealing to me. Bertrand Russell's ethics promotes happiness on this earth far more than any Christian's concern with the hereafter.
There is much irony in your message: "continuity is the standard"! Yes, continuity and expansion on the "wisdom" of GWB!!!
We must pray that the Messiah that will grow within us is not malignant.
'09 was largely about big ticket items that played out FAR TOO LONG for the administration's liking. I don't know whether they were strategizing or just plain ignorant in assuming that both houses would pass a health bill by the August recess.
Since the pressure of Copenhagen is gone, the next big item is financial oversight reform, and then the congressional elections. Foreign policy may see a mid or late-year push on the Israeli settlement issue and diplomacy to pressure Iran.
But I think the bulk of the administration's energy and capital (knowing Emmanuel) will be spent containing an almost assured Republican resurgence in Congress. Maybe not retaking a majority, but definitely a resurgence.
Obama will also have to deal with a bought and paid for war monger press that will constantly push for more and more war in 2010 and beyond. Take a look at this article regarding the death of real defense reporting, and how defense reporters have succumbed to the gilded cage out of greed. These pentagon guided think tanks are carefully crafted info operation propaganda shops designed to push our country to total war with the world. As I said in another post, there are no journalistic standards left in America. Our journalists have sold out for the almighty dollar. Cowardice and greed reign at the key board. A new type of click has formed, similar to the Soviet Writers Guild. How can any president stand up to this kind of well funded deception campaign and communicate effectively with the people? Mr. Ricks, have you no shame? "What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver." Matthew 26:15
Think-Tanks and the Reporters Who Heart Them: by Nathan Hodge
"Now it’s nearly 2010: Print is dying, newsrooms are shrinking and the media industry is generally in the toilet. The relationship between reporters and think-tanks, at least in the national-security arena, is starting to shift. Think tanks are starting to become full-time patrons of the news business, and they are bankrolling book projects, blogs and even war reporting.
The Center for a New American Security, for instance, has funded a string of first-rate defense reporters through its Writers in Residence Program. The latest launch: The Fourth Star, by Washington Post reporter Greg Jaffe and former New York Times reporter David Cloud. CNAS also signed up New York Times reporters Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt to work on a joint book project, titled Counterstrike. Longtime Post reporter Tom Ricks, who published The Gamble this year, is a senior fellow at CNAS. (Ricks worked on Fiasco, his previous bestseller, while in residence at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.)
CNAS isn’t the only refuge for national-security reporters these days. New York Times military correspondent Michael Gordon, co-author of Cobra II, is listed as a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War. James Mann, author of The Rise of the Vulcans and a bunch of other noteworthy books, was senior writer-in-residence the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Think tanks have hired some excellent in-house military affairs bloggers. And for-profit publications are pairing up with the non-profits on projects like Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, billed as a partnership with the New America Foundation."
"Tom Ricks, now a senior fellow at CNAS, also weighed in on my comment about the potentially awkward situation of reporters sharing cubicles with policy wonks. “I wasn’t sure what the argument of the piece was,” he wrote. “Your ‘awkward’ seems to imply that reporters (which I am not anymore) might curtail comments or criticisms for fear of crossing the person in the next office. That’s hardly the case at CNAS, where we have had some pretty robust disagreements about Iraq, Afghanistan, and other issues. CNAS doesn’t take institutional positions, so that is hardly a problem.”
I think I know what Ricks means when he says he’s not a reporter anymore: It means he’s not a newspaper reporter, which requires rigorous separation from opinion writing. But like it or not, Ricks still breaks news on his blog..."
Nice orewellian prose, but I'm not fooled. CNAS is a propaganda operation directed against the American people, and guided by the pentagon. At least Mr. Ricks admits he's no longer a reporter and has now settled into his gilded cage at CNAS. Money has a certain smell...
Yes I agree with your title of this article that year of 2010 is very important for the US president Obama and his party for the foreign policy But i hope that Obama will success in this test.................Dual Action Cleanse Review
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