Reorienting National Security Priorities

Below is my plan for reorienting American security priorities, which I think are currently misaligned, often conflicting, and outdated.  This is not a plan for innovation, or financial reform (which is one of the most pressing national issues), or for progressivism.  It’s a plan to increase the long-term durability of homeland security.
Politics, as I’ve learned [...]

US Forces “Volunteer” to Leave Iraq

It’s interesting to live through the times of American occupation of Iraq.  What the Bush Administration sees as a necessary move, not without its faults, that has eventually led to a nascent democracy, is nothing short of tragically comic.  What we see as “giving peace in the Middle East a chance” will in future history [...]

Interesting Economic Datapoints

So I’m done with this semester and I was just watching C-SPAN2, which was covering the Senate vote on the automaker bailout.  The vote failed 52-35 or so.  Dow futures were down -325 around the time of the vote.
I am still cash but am getting a bit more antsy to buy than I was before.  [...]

Emergence of New Systems

Last week the National Intelligence Council released its 2025 Global Trends report and naturally our Georgetown MSFS program was pretty interested in looking at it.  The report considers what the major themes and trends will be of the next couple decades and assesses how they will affect different countries, power structures, and ideologies.
It must have [...]

How Bush and Obama Have Shaped My Last Eight Years

Thankfully, the eight years of Bush rule are almost over.  It has been a dark period for the American soul, spirit, and Dream.  Here is a synopsis of the Bush presidency years as seen through my life, documented through my web site and blog.
Pre-Dubya
In 2000, my mind certainly wasn’t thinking about international terrorism, financial crises, [...]

Is the US in Decline?

Georgetown’s foreign policy discussions lately have been in love with the question of whether the US is in decline. For the most part, I think most of the experts I’ve listened to have fallen on the side of “not really”.
I tend to agree. My attempt to understand what’s been going on is this: [...]

Bob Baer on “Fresh Air”

My mom and a classmate recommended that I listen to Baer speak on NPR. It’s a long interview, but well worth it. Listen here.
He talks mainly about Iran but it has implications in a lot of different areas. A lot of what Baer said challenged what I thought about what’s going on [...]

The Debate on Pakistan

Last night I watched the presidential debate.  Whatever.  But one part that really pissed me off was when Obama and McCain talked about Pakistan (here’s a transcript).
First off, McCain mispronounced or did not know the new Pakistani president’s name, Zardari, as “Kadari”.  While McCain knew a lot of past leaders in the old NATO playground [...]

Quotes from “Inside the Jihad”

I’m reading an excellent book, Omar Nasiri’s “Inside the Jihad:  My Life with Al-Qaeda”, for Michael Scheuer’s class about a guy from Morocco who ends up being a spy within a mujaheddin cell in Belgium and then goes through terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and other terrorist hotspots, finally writing a book about the dilemmas [...]

Michael Ware on Iraq

Michael Ware, perhaps one of the best journalists covering the Iraq occupation, explains what’s going on right now.  By the way, his US-led Sunni execution squads may be part of what Bob Woodward provocatively suggested when he said the US has new techniques for hunting Al-Qaeda.