Mike Watkins (who has a new book out on international negotiation) regularly sends us press clippings on the global scene.
Democrats Criticize Pentagon Budget, Anti-Terror War - Washington Post
"If we expect to kill every terrorist in the world, that's going to keep us going beyond doomsday," [Sen Robt.] Byrd said. "How long can we afford this? We went [to Afghanistan] to hunt down the terrorists. We don't know where Osama bin Laden is or whether he is alive or not. We don't know where Mullah [Mohammad] Omar is hiding. . . . When will we know we have achieved victory?"Byrd said the Pentagon has sent him documents estimating that the war would cost $30 billion in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, meaning Congress will be asked to provide an extra $12.6 billion in addition to $17.4 billion in supplemental spending approved last fall.
"We've got a deficit and we know it will exceed $350 billion," [Sen. Ernest] Hollings said. The administration, he said, seems to be arguing, "Since we've got a war, we've got to have deficits -- and the war is never going to end."
Sooner or later, Hollings said, "this town is going to sober up."
US Conference to Form Plan to Oust Saddam - Washington Times
President Bush's inclusion of Iraq in his "axis of evil" has increased momentum within the administration for a policy of "regime change" in Baghdad. The administration has been internally divided over whether to make Saddam the next military front in Mr. Bush's post-September 11 war on terrorism.[Iraqi National Congress] Chairman Ahmed Chalabi told the French newspaper La Croix in an interview published yesterday that the Washington conference was designed in part to encourage Saddam's soldiers to join the opposition or at least not resist an effort to topple him.
He said his group was prepared to carry the fight to Baghdad if the United States supplied the arms and intelligence backing as it did in Afghanistan. . . . "The most important thing is to get rid of Saddam Hussein," Mr. Chalabi said. "Whatever choice is made, we will back it. If the United States decides to do the job itself, that's not a problem."
Charlotte Beers, Americas Image Czar - The Economist
Charlotte Beers's job is to fix America's image overseas. Can the schmooze queen of Madison Avenue deliver?“SHE got me to buy Uncle Ben's rice,” said Colin Powell, America's secretary of state, early last year as he defended his appointment of Charlotte Beers as chief spin-doctor.
Old Rival, Old Times in Afghanistan - Far East Economic Review
The [Afghani] government -- a shaky coalition of rival factions just barely united by their opposition to the Taliban -- was a gamble that depended on international support to take shape and now depends on that support to succeed. By failing to give adequate support, Karzai and other Afghans believe, the international community has played its part in the erosion of the government's authority.Since December, the international community has refused to deploy more international peacekeepers and failed to provide desperately needed cash from the $4.5 billion reconstruction fund pledged in Tokyo in January -- a bureaucratic failure in what is essentially an emergency situation.
The Intensification of Global Instability - Stratfor
Nothing moves in a straight line, and nothing moves in tandem. Nevertheless, if we were envision all these issues continuing to deteriorate, we could easily imagine that six months from now, Japan would be in economic and political chaos, an Indo-Pakistani war would be raging, Afghanistan would be experiencing a civil war of epic proportions, Iran would be fragmenting under internal pressures, the United States would be at war with Iraq, Israel and the Palestinians would be locked in a guerrilla war, the northern tier of Latin America would be in bloody chaos and U.S. forces would still be mired in a global struggle against al Qaeda. Meanwhile, other regions would be falling into chaos.It is therefore comforting to know that simple extrapolation is useless in predicting the future. At the same time, it is hard to locate the countervailing, stabilizing forces. It is difficult to see what force will save Japan from its fate or Colombia from its conflict. The problem with the current wave of instability is that its lack of a coherent pattern or organizing force makes it difficult to perceive the force that will limit the destabilizing process.
| Afghanistan | Iraq |
