“Accepting Peace Prize, Obama Evokes ‘Just War,’” notes the headline in the New York Times, referring to President Obama’s speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. President Obama did indeed invoke the concept of a “just war.” But tellingly, he did not try to argue that the U.S. war in Afghanistan meets the criteria to be…
Under our constitutional democracy, Congress has the power and the responsibility to establish a policy on President Obama’s plans to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and, if Congress opposes sending more troops, to try to block or alter this policy. The question now is whether Congress will act before the policy is implemented,…
Recent press speculation suggests at least even odds that sometime in November, President Obama will give a speech announcing that he intends to send tens of thousands of more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in 2010. Not a temporary “surge,” but a permanent escalation. While certainly it’s good news – at least temporarily – that AP…
President Obama knows better than to agree to General McChrystal’s proposal for military escalation in Afghanistan. He read the book. On October 7, the Wall Street Journal reported that top officials of the Obama Administration, including President Obama himself, had recently read Gordon Goldstein’s book on the path to U.S. military escalation in Vietnam: Lessons…
If there were ever a time when the peace movement should be able to have an impact on U.S. foreign policy, that time should be now. If there were ever a time for extraordinary effort to achieve such an impact, that time is now. The war in Afghanistan is in its ninth year. McChrystal’s proposal…
Top officials of the Obama Administration are divided on the expected request of the Pentagon for more troops in Afghanistan, the New York Times reports today. The military’s anticipated request for more troops to combat the insurgency in Afghanistan has divided senior advisers to President Obama as they try to determine the proper size and…