Harvard's Stephen Walt: 'The Myth of American Exceptionalism'

At Foreign Policy.

I saw this a couple of weeks back and wasn't the least bit surprised, especially since I learned that Walt was a featured speaker at communist Code Pink's Jew-hating anti-AIPAC conference in May. I considered writing a full take-down, but thought better of my time. Besides, Walt gets hammered in the comments:

Typical Revisionist Thinking

As an American, I have absolutely no qualms with the content of this article. That said, we all need to take a deep breath and realize that this is just another contribution to the millions of pages of standard revisionist political thinking in the US. And it seems like every time another page or two is written, the author and/or his/her readers act as though they have just unearthed a treasure trove of hidden truth that typical "brainwashed" Americans have never heard before.

There is nothing in this article that is not taught in every basic US history class (at least at the university level), that has not been widely reported in the US media, or that is not a common topic in US political discussion. As much as people outside of the US like to think of Americans as lost in a world of false euphoria stemming from their very "Americanness," the harshest critics of the United States, much like this author, are to be found right within the US itself, teaching at its universities, publishing articles in its journals and newspapers, lecturing at events, and participating in public political discussion. Believe me, as a nation, we are quite sober and objective.

This is a full-length feature in the magazine's November/December issue, and it might be useful for international relations course syllabi. Or, well, perhaps as part of a debate on exceptionalism. Either that, or as a museum piece of elitist (egghead) political science, worth a read for its curiosity value (at the link)

Muammar Gaddafi Allegedly Sodomized After Capture

It's pretty awful, but seriously? Folks are going to get worked up about this? The dude promised to go "house to house" to cleanse the "greasy rats" from Libya.

There's commentary at CBS News, "GlobalPost: Qaddafi apparently sodomized after capture." (Via Memeorandum.)

Or go straight to the source, "Gaddafi sodomized: Video shows abuse frame by frame (GRAPHIC)."

How Many More People Does Obama Need to Kill to Get Reelected?

See James Taranto, "Lethal Weapon '08: Who'd have thought Obama would kill more Arab tyrants and terrorists than Bush?"

Gaddafi Killed by Shot to the Head

Well, you think?

It's not like it took a forensic medical examiner to figure it out.

See CBS News, "Autopsy: Qaddafi was killed by shot to head." (Via Memeorandum and Doug Powers at Michelle's.)

Hillary Clinton Warns Iran on U.S. Withdrawal From Iraq

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows. Here's she's seen with Christiane Amanpour, where she announces that "no one should miscalculate our commitment to Iraq, most particularly Iran":

See New York Times, "Clinton Defends Iraq Withdrawal Plan."

Successes Overseas Are Unlikely to Help Obama at Home

Not only will there be little gain politically, but we could be witnessing a weakening strategic situation in the Middle East. Lots of instability across the region combined with a declining U.S. presence. This is a major transformation in international politics, but the concerns are at home, and Obama needs some successes on that front. See NYT:

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s announcement that the last American soldiers will leave Iraq by the end of this year capped a momentous week in which he could also take credit for helping dispatch one of the world’s great villains, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Conventional wisdom holds that none of this will matter to Mr. Obama’s frayed political fortunes, which will be determined by the economy rather than the notches he is piling up on his statesman’s belt.

Yet Mr. Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq — a campaign pledge kept — and the successful NATO air campaign in Libya — with no American casualties, and at a tiny fraction of the cost of Iraq — allowed him to thread a political needle: reaffirming his credentials as a wartime leader while reassuring his Democratic base that he is making good on the promises that got him elected.

This one-two punch may also strengthen the president’s hand against his eventual Republican opponent, according to Mr. Obama’s supporters, by depriving Republicans of a cudgel typically used on Democratic presidents, that they are weak on national security. The swift and fierce criticism of his Iraq decision by the Republican candidates shows how reluctant they are to cede this advantage to him.

“There is an aggregate effect to all the president’s foreign policy successes,” said Bill Burton, a former White House aide who is a senior strategist at Priorities USA Action, a political action committee backing the Obama campaign. “The notion of who is a stronger leader will be deeply influenced by the promises the president kept.”

Gaddafi Wearied of Life on the Run

At New York Times, "In His Last Days, Qaddafi Wearied of Fugitive’s Life.

And at Telegraph UK, "Gaddafi's final hours: Nato and the SAS helped rebels drive hunted leader into endgame in a desert drain."

RELATED: At London's Daily Mail, "Rebel fighter answered Gaddafi daughter's desperate phone call and told her: Old Fuzzhead is dead."

Gaddafi Stole a 'Staggering' $200 Billion in Libyan Assets

At LAT, "As Libya takes stock, Moammar Kadafi's hidden riches astound":

If the values prove accurate, Kadafi will go down in history as one of the most rapacious as well as one of the most bizarre world leaders, on a scale with the late Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire or the late Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.

Yeah, and some dude at The Guardian is bawling about how Gaddafi didn't get a "private" death. Like he deserved it, idiot.

Gaddafi's Burial Delayed

At Sydney Morning Herald, "Gaddafi on display in freezer as row rages over killing," and Washington Post, "Libyans line up to see Gaddafi’s body on display; groups call for probe into death."

Israelis Divided on Prisoner Swap

At Wall Street Journal, "Most Back the Exchange With Hamas, But Others Petition Court to Halt Move":

TEL AVIV — The initial phase of an Israel-Hamas prisoner swap began on Sunday, as mediators finalized the details of a controversial exchange to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli Sgt. Gilad Shalit, held prisoner for five years by Gaza-based militants.

Israel's prison service gathered 477 Palestinian prisoners at two jails for exit interviews and medical examinations before their release, scheduled for Tuesday, as several private citizens and a group representing victims of terror attacks in Israel submitted petitions against the releases to Israel's Supreme Court. The court has refrained from intervening in similar cases in the past.

Late Saturday, Israel's prison service published the names of the 477 prisoners—many of whom were involved in deadly terror attacks against Israelis over the past decade—starting the clock on a 48-hour period for legal challenges to the release. A total of 1,000 Palestinians are to be exchanged under the deal, which doesn't include Marwan Barghouti, a West Bank militant leader serving five consecutive life sentences after being convicted in Israeli court for masterminding the murder of civilians. The remainder of the 1,000 will be released at a later, unspecified date.

Continue reading.

It's heartrending. People want Gilad to come home. But the deal is going to weaken Israeli security. What a price to pay.

RELATED: At New York Times, "In Israel, Swap Touches Old Wounds." (Via A Soldier's Mother, "A Child's Murderer.")

AUDIO — Rush Limbaugh Rejects Obama Administration's Uganda Mission to Remove Lord's Resistance Army

Here's the audio on YouTube (transcript here):

Rush does not mention that L.R.A. is a gross violator of human rights. See Human Right Watch: "CAR/DR Congo: LRA Conducts Massive Abduction Campaign." And again at New York Times, "Armed U.S. Advisers to Help Fight African Renegade Group." And from March 2010, "Fleeing Rebels Kill Hundreds of Congolese." No doubt L.R.A. is a pretty atrocious outfit. The Bush administration had been supporting the Uganda army's campaign against the group. And here's a scholarly source as well, from Frank Van Acker, at African Affairs, "Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army: The New Order No One Ordered."

But listen to Limbaugh. His argument is internally consistent: He opposes sending more troops to the region in what may escalate to an open-ended commitment. Rush compares Obama's authorization of force in Libya. The administration promised the mission would be measured in "days, not weeks." That was 7 months ago. No president in the post-Vietnam era has been this reckless on war powers. See, "Obama's Illegal War." And Rush Limbaugh's reference to Christians is an attack on the administration's hypocrisy. We've done nothing to help Christians in Egypt, so Limbaugh snorts:

Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. It means God. I was only kidding. Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That's what the lingo means, "to help regional forces remove from the battlefield," meaning capture or kill.

So that's a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and -- (interruption) no, I'm not kidding. Jacob Tapper just reported it. Now, are we gonna help the Egyptians wipe out the Christians? Wouldn't you say that we are? I mean the Coptic Christians are being wiped out, but it wasn't just Obama that supported that. The conservative intelligentsia thought it was an outbreak of democracy. Now they've done a 180 on that, but they forgot that they supported it in the first place. Now they're criticizing it.

That's the context.

But idiot progressives are spinning this as backing terrorists. See Matthew Yglesias, "Rush Limbaugh Endorses the Lord’s Resistance Army." Well, no he does not. He's not endorsing any action in Africa, actually. He's arguing a realist position that our interests aren't threatened. He's attacking this administration's ad hoc foreign policy, which is classical wag-the-dog interventionism. And he's attacking the euphoria over the "Arab Spring" in Egypt early this year, which has now deteriorated into ethnic cleansing. But radical progressives hate Limbaugh so much they refuse to place his commentary in the proper context. Typical.

Added: From Blake Hounshell, at Foreign Policy, "Rush Limbaugh on Lord's Resistance Army: "Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians."

Obama Administration to Deploy Military Advisors to Uganda

This is out of the blue, or something.

At New York Times, "Armed U.S. Advisers to Help Fight African Renegade Group":‎

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday that he had ordered the deployment of 100 armed military advisers to central Africa to help regional forces combat the Lord’s Resistance Army, a notorious renegade group that has terrorized villagers in at least four countries with marauding bands that kill, rape, maim and kidnap with impunity.

The deployment represents a muscular escalation of American military efforts to help fight the Lord’s Resistance Army, which originated as a Ugandan rebel force in the 1980s and morphed into a fearsome cultlike group of fighters. It is led by Joseph Kony, a self-proclaimed prophet known for ordering village massacres, recruiting prepubescent soldiers, keeping harems of child brides and mutilating opponents.

“For more than two decades, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa,” Mr. Obama wrote in a letter to Congress announcing the military deployment. “The LRA continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.”

The decision by Mr. Obama to deploy armed military advisers into the region was welcomed by human rights advocates who have chronicled the atrocities committed by Mr. Kony and his subordinates. But it also raises the risk of putting American military personnel in harm’s way in another region while the United States is winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Well, it's certainly fits the progressive rationale for foreign military intervention: human rights. But 100 "advisers"? Sounds like how the Kennedy administration sent advisers to Vietnam and we ended up with 500,000 troops in country by the end of 1965. And boy, it's that some creepy group, the LRA. I'd be interested to hear some of the internal White House debate on the mission.

Anyway, see Rush Limbaugh for the critique, which I'm not necessarily endorsing, "Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians." (Via Memeorandum.)

Gilad Shalit and the Price Freedom in Israel

More on the Shalit release, from Caroline Glick, at Jerusalem Post, "A pact signed in Jewish blood":

"The deal that Netanyahu has agreed to is signed with the blood of the past victims and future victims of the terrorists he is letting go. No amount of rationalization by Netanyahu, his cheerleaders in the demented mass media, and by the defeatist, apparently incompetent heads of the Shin Bet, Mossad and IDF can dent the facts."

RELATED: At Legal Insurrection, "“What happens after the next soldier is kidnapped?”"

Neoconservatives Still Dominate GOP

From Robert Merry and Robert Golan-Vilella, at National Interest, "The Neocon GOP: By Design or Default?" (via GSGF). And this doesn't sound fully accurate, considering Romney's statements in his foreign policy speech the other day:

The presumed frontrunner, Mitt Romney, seems particularly lacking in any coherent philosophical framework. He attacks Obama for the speed of his Afghanistan drawdown, for example, without offering a timetable of his own. (He says he would go with the recommendations of his generals.) He supported America’s role in the NATO intervention in Libya but criticized the way it was handled. His website calls for U.S. leadership in creating a “global military alliance of democracies dedicated to ensuring security and protecting freedom.” This scheme, expropriated from Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and the writings of polemicist Robert Kagan (also a Romney adviser), would be a recipe for an expanded American role in the world in the name of humanitarian principles—pure Wilsonism.

But Romney is relentless in his hostility toward China. He says that on his first day in office he would unilaterally slap trade sanctions against that Asian nation in retaliation for its currency policies (likely result: a devastating trade war), and he says Obama “caved” to Beijing by not selling the most sophisticated U.S. fighter jets to Taiwan. In his more general foreign-policy pronouncements, extolling “American greatness” and calling for a new “American Century,” Romney sounds rather like George W. Bush.

And frankly, I like Michele Bachmann's foreign policy:

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is an interesting case. She advocated aggressive action against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, saying, “We must defeat them in their backyard.” And she wants no cuts in the defense budget. But she seems cautious on questions of where and when America should intervene in the world. She says she would confine such interventions to instances when the country’s vital interests were at stake. Hence, she opposed the Libyan intervention as having no relation to the country’s well-being. And she is wary of democracy promotion in general. Indeed, she criticized Obama not for abandoning Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak too soon but for abandoning him at all. “We saw President Mubarak fall while President Obama sat on his hands,” she said. She later suggested the Arab Spring (which she, interestingly, sees as a disaster rather than a trend to be applauded and encouraged) emerged in part because Obama had demonstrated weakness in not being sufficiently supportive of Israel in the ongoing maneuvering between that country and the Palestinians.

I should have update on developments with GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD. I'm waiting to hear back from Courtney.

Israel and Hamas Agree to Gilad Shalit Release

At NYT, "Israel and Hamas Agree to Swap Prisoners for Soldier."

And at Israel Matzav and Yid With Lid.

The Iranians 'Tricked and Misled Us'

At Der Spiegel, "Interview with Former Nuclear Watchdog Olli Heinonen":

SPIEGEL: Mr. Heinonen, if you consider your time as the United Nations' atomic "watchdog," do you look back in anger? Or did you succeed in making the world safer from nuclear bombs?

Heinonen: There are quite a few things I'm proud of. While I was at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), we played a significant role in putting Abdul Qadir Khan -- the most dangerous nuclear smuggler of all times -- out of action. But when I think about the nuclear activities of certain states, for instance Iran's nuclear program, I have to say that we allowed ourselves to be placated too often. We should have done more than carrying out our inspections. Yes, with hindsight you could perhaps even say we failed.

SPIEGEL: You sound worried. Is Tehran really on a direct path to becoming a nuclear state?

Heinonen: It's undeniable that Iran's nuclear program is far more advanced than it was in 2003, when the discovery of the Natanz facility brought it to the IAEA's attention. At the time, uranium enrichment tests were being carried out in secret on a small scale. But at the end of 2003, the Iranians admitted they were also planning to set up a heavy-water reactor in Arak to generate plutonium.

SPIEGEL: In other words, the other ingredient you need to create either nuclear power or an atom bomb.

Heinonen: Iran always told us it was only interested in the civilian uses of atomic energy. I've always had my doubts about that, more so now than ever.

SPIEGEL: Why don't you say what your former boss, Mohamed ElBaradei, said: That you haven't found the so-called "smoking gun" -- i.e. clear proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons?

Heinonen: Before opponents of the Iranian regime exposed the existence of Natanz, those in power in Tehran had kept parts of their nuclear program secret for two decades. Today the facts are as follows: The conversion plant in Isfahan has produced 371 tons of uranium hexafluoride. Some 8,000 centrifuges in Natanz are being used to enrich this raw material. In February 2010, Iran began increasing enrichment to 20 percent. That's a significant step closer to making an atomic bomb because it takes only a few months to turn that into weapons-grade material. And at the beginning of this year, Fereydoun Abbasi was appointed the head of the atomic energy organization in Tehran ...

Continue reading.

I'm reminded of a few years back, toward the end of the George W. Bush administration, when the global left was pushing back hard against a tough inspections regime and there was talk of preemptive war. It didn't happen. But Iran sure seems more powerful today.

Insurgents Strike U.S.-Afghan Outposts Near Pakistan

At NYT, "10 Years Into Afghan War, a Thunderous Duel."

FORWARD OPERATING BASE TILLMAN, Afghanistan — The sun had been up less than a half-hour on the 10th anniversary of the start of the American-led war in Afghanistan when the first rocket struck. Flying in from near the border with Pakistan, it shook this outpost with an explosion that hinted at the long day ahead.

Soon insurgents near the border were firing on four Afghan-American outposts simultaneously — a coordinated barrage and assault that included dozens of 107-millimeter rockets, and at one post, a suicide truck bomber, American military officers said.

Only one American soldier was wounded in the insurgent attack, which the American regional command called the largest in Paktika Province since 2009. His wounds were not life-threatening. But the events on Friday demonstrated that as the war begins its second decade and the Pentagon plans to start sending tens of thousands of soldiers home after a buildup that since last year has made significant gains, the United States remains bedeviled by a bold, resilient foe.

Most of the high-explosive rockets striking the outposts were fired from just inside Afghanistan, suggesting that the attack had been prepared and launched from Pakistan, and the rocket crews withdrew to sanctuaries there as the Americans fired back.

And the relative weakness of Afghan soldiers and police officers living and working on the American-built bases was equally clear.

As the attacks escalated in the morning, only the American military possessed the firepower, communications and skills to fight back in what developed into a long-range, artillery-and-rocket duel — raising once more the familiar questions about how Afghan forces, underwritten at tremendous expense, will fare when the United States pulls back.

More at the top link.

And at USA Today, "Afghanistan: A decade of war."

Pat Condell: The World Needs to Stop Pretending Palestine is About Justice and Human Rights

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

Also from Linkmaster Smith, "Pat Condell Offering Simple, Sad Truth."

Mitt Romney's Foreign Policy Speech at The Citadel (VIDEO)

"It is only American power—conceived in the broadest terms—that can provide the foundation of an international system that ensures the security and prosperity of the United States and our friends and allies around the world."

I was impressed with Romney's foreign policy back in 2008, and I met Romney at the book signing for his autobiography. I admire his values, which really come out here. Bruce Kesler has more, at Maggie's Farm, "Serious Republican Foreign Policy." And at Weekly Standard, "Romney Criticizes Obama at Military College."

War and Sacrifice in the Post-9/11 Era: The Military-Civilian Gap

A new survey at the Pew Research Center:

Only about one half of one percent of the U.S. population has been on active military duty at any given time during the past decade of sustained warfare. Some 84% of post-9/11 veterans say the public does not understand the problems faced by those in the military or their families. The public agrees, though by a less lopsided majority—71%.