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Tag Archives: afghanistan
Avoiding Needless Wars, Part 7: Afghanistan
Our October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, less than a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, might seem like an unavoidable war because the Taliban had sheltered Osama bin Laden, and we could not afford to risk a repeat of that disaster. But a more careful analysis shows that our Afghan war, like the others examined in this series, could have been avoided. The trick is not to start the analysis in 2001, but in December 1979, when we started to arm jihadists who were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. One of them was Osama bin Laden. Continue reading
A Russian Lesson
RT (formerly Russia Today) has an article today which quotes Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as vowing that Russia will never again make the mistakes that sucked it into Afghanistan … Maybe we can learn something from the Russians? Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged afghanistan, martin hellman, nuclear risk, russia, Sergey Lavrov, stanford, war and peace
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Former General and Ambassador Asks Insightful Questions
Last week, I was privileged to hear my friend and colleague, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, speak on the future of the American military at Stanford University’s annual Payne Lecture. Given that he is a retired three-star general and former ambassador to Kabul, what he said will probably surprise you. Stanford’s news service has a more complete write-up of his talk, but here are the key excerpts: Continue reading
Russia Loves NATO – in Afghanistan
An article in Thursday’s Christian Science Monitor reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is urging NATO to keep troops in Afghanistan beyond the current 2014 withdrawal date in order to maintain some semblance of stability there. Even though Russia is very concerned about NATO expansion elsewhere, this Russian move makes good sense. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged afghanistan, critical thinking, martin hellman, nuclear risk, russia, stanford, war and peace
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Ex-Spymaster on Iranian Nuclear Threat
In a recent interview, retired four-star admiral and former head of the super-secret NSA, Adm. Bobby Inman, portrays a very different Iranian threat from the usual – and a very different approach for dealing with Iran successfully. Continue reading
Why Do the Terrorists Hate Us?
Speaking before a Joint Session of Congress nine days the 9/11 attacks, President Bush asked, “Why do they hate us?” and answered that “They hate our freedoms – our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged afghanistan, Hellman, iran, iraq, Lebanon, nuclear risk, pakistan, stanford, terrorism, terrorist motivation
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Could Afghanistan Lead to a Nuclear Disaster?
While now a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Andrew Bacevich is also a West Point graduate and retired Army Colonel with service in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. Bacevich has an uncanny ability to combine his academic and military perspectives to produce a brilliant, common sense approach to international issues, especially those involving war and peace. In this post, I recommend his most recent OpEd, which appeared today in the LA Times. In it, he relates Afghanistan to Kennedy’s disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion – an event that helped lay a foundation for 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged afghanistan, Hecker, Hellman, nuclear risk, nuclear weapons, pakistan
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