Archive for the ‘American Foreign Policy’ Category

Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 7:37pm

“Five Days in Pyongyang” – A Good Friend’s Account of his Trip to North Korea

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy

Please check out these two outstanding articles in National Review Online (Part I and Part II) written by my good friend, Reggie Gibbs.  His account is truly fascinating.

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 at 4:12pm

Obama, White House officials: al Qaeda a ‘racist’ organization–really, ya think?!

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, Terrorism

Al Qaeda–racist?  Really?  Apparently, the Obama administration has just now reached this conclusion, nearly nine years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  ”In short,” one administration official explained, “al Qaeda is a racist organization that treats black Africans like cannon fodder and does not value human life.”  Yes, al Qaeda does not value human life.  And yes, it is happy to treaty people like cannon fodder.  My question is:  what are people doing in the administration who are just now realizing the truly despicable nature of this organization? Should they really be serving in important national security positions?  Rarely do I find myself speechless but this is one of those times.

Friday, July 9th, 2010 at 2:23pm

Mattis is a Great Pick to be CENTCOM Commander

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy, Iraq

U.S. Marine Corps General James N. Mattis, who currently serves as the commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, has been selected to lead U.S. Central Command.  This is an outstanding pick by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  Mattis is an exemplary general officer and a true strategic thinker.  Not surprisingly, the mainstream media is beating up on Mattis for some comments he’s made in the past about warfare.  His remarks were candid and, unfortunately, have been taken out of context.  One misleading headline reads:  “James Mattis: ‘It’s fun to shoot some people.’”  Here’s the context for the quote:    

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years, because they didn’t wear a veil.  You know guys like that ain’t…

Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 10:16pm

John Kerry’s Misinformed Position on the New START Treaty

Yesterday, Senator John F. Kerry wrote an op-ed in response to Mitt Romney’s piece published earlier this week in which the former governor argued against ratifying the New START Treaty.  Kerry’s op-ed was not only hyper-partisan but, as The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano notes, quite inaccurate as well.  Kerry’s op-ed was little more than partisan drivel.  It lacked any sort of serious analytical rigor.  I would expect a better quality of analysis and thought from the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 7:36am

Romney on the New START Treaty

It’s hard to pick President Obama’s worst foreign policy mistake.  As far as I’m concerned, his general conduct of American foreign policy has been subpar and a bit too Carteresque.  According to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney the New START Treaty is a leading candidate for this administration’s worst foreign policy mistake.  In an op-ed in yesterday’s WaPo, Romney presented a very clear argument in opposition to the New START Treaty.  I agree wholeheartedly with his advice that the treaty, in its current state, should not be ratified by the United States Senate.  Romney argues, “He [Obama] acceded to Russia’s No. 1 foreign policy objective, the abandonment of our Europe-based missile defense program, and obtained nothing whatsoever in return.”  I…

Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 10:18am

Steele’s Failed Critique Highlights Division Among Conservatives on War Strategy

In 2006, I was really pulling for Michael Steele in his battle to win a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland. Unfortunately, Ben Cardin won and Steele wound up running the Republican National Committee. Steele’s odd remarks about the war in Afghanistan have led to a growing number of calls for his resignation among prominent conservatives. The war in Afghanistan was definitely not a war of President Barack Obama’s choosing, as Steele suggested in his remarks at a Connecticut fundraiser. This factual inaccuracy made the rest of Steele’s comments seem off-the-wall, but it appears as though he was trying to challenge the president’s strategy for prosecuting the war. He just failed miserably:

Well if he’s such a…

Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 2:45pm

Don’t Be Facebook Friends with a Spy

It appears as though accused Russian spy Mikhail Semenko was an active social networker.  Semenko and his comrades are a case study in espionage 2.0.  He had accounts on LinkedIn and Facebook.  He even ran a blog on the Chinese economy.  What are the lessons here?  Well, first, you should know who you’re connected to on these social networking  sites.  A Facebook news feed could have been a great source of intelligence for Semenko, if he was friends with the right people–say, a congressman on the right committee who posts a little too much on his Facebook account or even a mid-level civil servant working in a sensitive national security position.  It seems hard to believe, but…

Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 9:29pm

Focus Group with Frank Luntz in Old Town Alexandria

I’ve seen Frank Luntz on TV a bunch of times and I’ve always found him to be a pretty interesting guy.  He’s definitely passionate about what he does.  Last week, I participated in a focus group with Frank at his office in Old Town Alexandria.  I was one of about 30 participants who showed up for the 3-hour session.  The subject of the evening was Israel.  It was a pretty interesting experience.  Before we started, they gave us sandwiches from Panera.  I had the smoked turkey, which was pretty solid.  Then we filled out a pretty lengthy questionnaire, watched a series of informational videos, news clips, and speeches.  We got to use those cool dials, or “Perception Analyzers,” Frank uses on TV…

Friday, June 25th, 2010 at 1:15pm

Fran Townshend Speech at National Defense University

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, Terrorism

I heard Fran Townshend, the former Homeland Security Advisor to George W. Bush, speak the other night at National Defense University at Ft. McNair.  I was fortunate enough to get an invite through my affiliation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and their Nuclear Scholars Initiative program.  She gave a solid speech about the continued threat of terrorism and how it’s important for the government to clearly communicate threats to the American people.  People get anxious when they’re kept in the dark and only told bits and pieces of a story, she argued.  She also provided some lessons she learned navigating the sprawling national security bureaucracy both as a civil servant and a high-level political appointee.

I asked her during…

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 2:39pm

Red Dawn Remake with People’s Liberation Army!

So it looks like the classic 1984 war film Red Dawn, starring Patrick Swayzee and Charlie Sheen, is being remade.  This time, though, the Chinese will be the invaders.  If you haven’t seen the original, you should definitely check it out. Red Dawn was listed as #15 on National Review Online’s list of the Best Conservative Movies.

I’m really fired up for this film.  While I’ll miss Swayzee and Sheen, I have high hopes for Connor Cruise, Tom Cruise’s son. More specifically, though, I’m glad that China’s growing military power is starting to get some attention in the popular media. Defense analysts and a handful of policymakers have been watching China’s…

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