The New York Times takes a look at the president’s change of approach on counterterrorism. I would have more to say about it but my MacBook Air decided to die today and all I have to work with is an old iPad. I can’t really write with this keyboard.
Suffice to say that the president has been working on changing our counterterrorism policy for a long time and it isn’t an easy process.
What do you think?
My worst day post 9/11 was on the one year anniversary. By that time I was confronted by the fact that Bush, the Congress and most of the nation had no idea how to respond properly to the attacks without doing more damage than the terrorist could do.
It was massively depressing and I feared for my kids.
If Obama can actually convince enough people I might have hope again. Ike couldn’t do it though.
Maybe no one could have done it in Ike’s time, given the seemingly unavoidable Cold War ramp-up of the following 30 years. I’m assuming by “it” you mean reduction in our sky-high military spending levels and the influence of the military-industrial complex generally.
Things are different now. There’s much less of a justification for America having a gigantic military. So the structural incentives favor reductionists much more.
In the decade after Reagan left office, US military spending dropped by 30% in constant dollars.
This can happen.
Yes that, but also that the nation gets over its collective paranoia, bloodlust, and self absorption to reach out an open hand and mind to the world rather than a fist.
I don’t think the link works correctly.
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In terror shift Obama took a long path by Peter Baker
Sorry. Damn iPad autocorrected my HTML.
Surprise, surprise … picked right article
I’m on a 2004 aluminum powerbook g4 that inadvertently fell off the bed yesterday. Apple stuff is way cool but not as durable as it once was.
I hope that you can resolve your laptop issues shortly, BooMan.
Most laptops aren’t durable, unless you’re talking panasonic tough books. Granted apple has worse quality control and durability than some brands, and several brands business lines… but durability and laptops don’t really go hand in hand.
The toughbooks though you can run over with a car!
Didn’t you just buy the Air not too long ago?
might still be under warranty, at least for the parts.
Imma smartypants has been writing about the shift since 2009.
I don’t know who that is, but the changes outlined in this speech do indeed represent a continuation of a change in course that bas been consistently carried out since he took office. You just have to look at his actions in total to understand what each one means.
Here’s her blog, it’s very good
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/
Yes, I agree you have to look at his actions and the language that his administration has used. They have studiously avoided using the “war on terror” language.
Barack Obama is a remarkably thoughtful and self-aware person, which is even more remarkable given the profession he chose (and succeeded so spectacularly in).
We’re fortunate to have someone of his character as President.
if you’re looking for a cheap short term solution, there’s a lot of nice keyboards for ipads out these days. You can also use an apple bluetooth keyboard with your ipad (if you had one for an apple computer).
There is one important factor in this shift that gets only a cursory mention in the article: the policy worked.
Al Qaeda, which in early 2009 was back to being as strong as it was on 9/10/01, has been reduced to a shell during this presidency.
There is a huge amount of institutional change that the President is going to have to force by folks like McCain and Graham just to accomplish his very modest vision.
What is required will likely go untouched because it is as sweeping an institutional change in our national security institutions as the Truman administration accomplished. The difference, and this makes it much more difficult, is that the change needs to scale back the size of the institutions so that they can more effectively function with respect to the outside world, trimming back the bases of turf battles and duplication and over-classification and over-collection of data that bogs down the US defense establishment. It is in spite of this gargantuan lumbering need for consensus that the President has accomplished what he has.
There are still troubling bows to neo-liberal economic aid and over-reliance on military instead of diplomatic approaches. And there is not yet a discussion of how to disincentivize terrorism by taking away some of their issues. And that is where the GOP Christianists and law enforcement profiling are a major handicap.
And at some point someone has to confront the GOP and Fox with their nod-nod, wink-wink stance to right-wing domestic terrorism, threat, and intimidation of opposing views.
There is much to do. I will be watching what the administration does to implement its vision. And hoping that at some point we can have the conversation about national security that has been overdue for 50 years.
Andrew Bacevich Weighs In
Well … if Obama can do the change for the better then good for us. Let’s just hope for the best.
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