I met with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday and with other key U.N. leaders to discuss Haiti’s immediate and long-term needs. Those who are still alive under the rubble must be found. The bodies of those who have died must be taken away. Power must be restored and roadways cleared. But what Haiti needs most is money for water, food, shelter and basic medical supplies to bring immediate relief to those who are homeless, hungry and hurt.
The Clinton School Speaker Series are always relevant and interesting, but none is perhaps more timely than the speech delivered recently by Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger on the role that contractors play in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is the author of “One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy,” and has quickly become one of America’s leading authorities on the topic.
Within weeks of her speech President Barack Obama increased troop deployments to Afghanistan, bringing the number up to 100,000 American troops in that conflict. A new Congressional Research Service study outlines that 50-55% of the total workforce in Afghanistan will be made up of contractors. While that number is down from 62%, contractors still outnumber troops there.
If you don’t think paid contractors is a matter worthy of national discussion, review the never ending saga of Blackwater.
On December 11, 2009, In Politics, World Affairs, By Blake
Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger has a new book titled, “One National Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy”, which discusses the role that private contractors play in American foreign affairs.
Writing in The New York Times yesterday, Thomas Friedman observed,
As we debate how many more troops to dispatch to Afghanistan, it might be a good time to also debate just how far we’ve already gone in hiring private contractors to do jobs that the State Department, Pentagon and C.I.A. once did on their own. A good place to start is with the Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger’s new book on this subject, “One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy.”
Professor Stanger will be in Little Rock on November 11th to speak at the Clinton School of Public Service. Her speech begins at noon and is free to the public.
Take an hour and attend. It will be well worth your time.
On September 11, 2009, In World Affairs, By Blake
Follow @TolbertReport on Twitter for more reflections on 9-11. For me: I was in my second year of law school in Fayetteville, Arkansas and I awoke to news reports that something – they weren’t sure what – was happening at the World Trade Center. I watched as a second plane flew into the tower, and then it became clear that this was not an accident: terrorism was at work. I remained attuned to television coverage trying, desperately, to reach many of my college friends living in New York. A Middlebury friend and law school classmate who now serves in Iraq came over to my apartment and we worked cell phones and e-mail as best we could. After many hours we determined that everyone we knew was safe and physically unharmed, although the emotional aftershocks would be felt for sometime.
Arkansas native and former White House chief of staff Mack McLarty and former Florida governor Jeb Bush along with Edward Alden have penned an op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times advocating a bipartisan blueprint for immigration reform. Mr. McLarty and Mr. Bush are co-chairmen of a Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy. Mr. Alden is a director with that group.
They write,
Congress and the Obama administration should move ahead on three fronts: reform the legal immigration system so that it responds more adroitly to labor market needs and enhances U.S. competitiveness; restore the integrity of immigration laws through more effective enforcement, especially at the workplace; and offer a fair and orderly way to allow many of those currently living here illegally to earn the right to remain legally.
There are two objections to pushing ahead with such measures now. First, with a deep recession and unemployment nearing 10%, encouraging more immigration seems to make little sense at the moment. That is why the U.S. needs a more flexible system that is responsive to changes in the economy. Family reunification remains a basic and valuable goal, but employment-based immigration and temporary-worker programs should be allowed to fluctuate with economic cycles, rather than being subject to rigid quotas. That means numbers should go up when the economy grows but fall during recessions.
Second, some argue that this formula repeats the mistake of the 1986 reform law, which did nothing to stop illegal immigration. But the circumstances now are very different. In 1990, the U.S. had fewer than 3,000 Border Patrol agents. Today, there are almost 20,000 agents, a near doubling in the last four years alone. The Department of Homeland Security is also investing heavily in surveillance and other technologies to increase control over the borders.
Tina Brown of The Daily Beast has a piece today on her Web site about the role Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plays in President Barack Obama’s White House. In response to recent oversees trips by the president to Russia and Cairo, Ms. Brown recognizes Ms. Clinton’s notable absence. Furthermore, when Ms. Clinton does play a substantial role in the decision-making process her efforts are largely unrecognized.
For example, Ms. Brown notes this regarding the president’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan,
Even when there’s legitimate credit to be had, she remains invisible. Contrary to administration spin that Biden played a critical role in the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, the vice president stayed opposed to Obama’s strategy. It was Hillary, sources tell me, whom the president relied on throughout the deliberations with principal national security advisers to support and successfully argue his point of view. The need to paper over the difference between Obama and the vice president meant Hillary’s role went unacknowledged.
Although Ms. Brown wonders how much Ms. Clinton really cares. She writes,
On her State Department plane, Hillary is always eager to throw off her well-groomed public look and sit up front with no makeup, wearing sweats and her bookworm glasses, as she crunches her way through a big fat file of foreign policy memos. She is as formidably well-informed in this job as she was at the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas, doing all the legal backup work for the guys on a big deal. Or when she played the canny sounding board and strategist for Gov. Bill Clinton in his run for president.
Politics being what they are, Ms. Brown wonders how long Ms. Clinton can remain quiet. More aptly, how long will her supporters allow this kind of treatment to continue?
That’s the trouble. You could say that Obama is lucky to have such a great foreign policy wife. Those who voted for Hillary wonder how long she’ll be content with an office wifehood of the Saudi variety.
UPDATE: Thanks to the folks from Newsy for passing along this video on the same topic. Check it out.
On July 6, 2009, In Technology, World Affairs, By Blake
Mark Pfeifle, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, pens an op-ed in which he advocates the Nobel Peace Prize for Twitter and its creators. Mr. Pfeifle’s no slouch. From 2007 to 2009 he was the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and global outreach.
In his piece he argues,
Neda became the voice of a movement; Twitter became the megaphone. Twitter is a free social-messaging utility. It drove people around the world to pictures, videos, sound bites, and blogs in a true reality show of life, dreams, and death. Last month’s marches for freedom and the violent crackdowns were not only documented but personalized into a story of mythic tragedy.
When traditional journalists were forced to leave the country, Twitter became a window for the world to view hope, heroism, and horror. It became the assignment desk, the reporter, and the producer. And, because of this, Twitter and its creators are worthy of being considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.
K. Ryan James elaborates on his own blog,
Without Twitter and other social media, the world would have never known anything more that one candidate accusing another cadidate of election shenanigans. Without Twitter, we would have likely never had the opportunity to know about this YouTube video. Because of this, I agree with Mr. Pfeifle – Twitter is deserving of consideration.
When I was at Personal Democracy Forum 2009 last week in New York I sat in on a panel discussing the impact that social media had in Iran. The impact is real, although Frank Rich of The New York Times, also appearing at PDF, was a bit annoyed at the obsession with social media. There are some 80,000 bloggers in Iran and social media – from blogs to Facebook to Flickr – are influential tools in reaching the elite sectors of Iranian society. It also allowed for participation. People could do everything from identify proxy servers to change their profile pictures.
Previously, fellow blogger, Ms. Adverthinker, and I discussed the role that social media was playing in the immediate aftermath of the elections in Iran.
Say what you will about bloggers (I’m talking to you, Chris Matthews), but The Washington Post has this story about the South Korean blogger who predicted the world financial crisis before the mainstream news reported it. He predicted the collapse of Lehman Brothers five days before it happened. He predicted the sharp decline of South Korean currency a few days before the won imploded against the dollar.His blog generated more than 40 million page views.
In response, the South Koren government has arrested him for spreading “false rumors” pursuant to a little used telecommunications law. He’ll face trial in a month or two. I can’t find the law, but I’m hoping truth is a defense.
On November 19, 2008, In World Affairs, By Blake
Quite honestly, I didn’s realize that pirates still cruised the high seas. Drug runners and other crazy characters, yes, but this story about pirates taking control of Saudi-owned supertanker is wild. The Indian Navy fought a “battle at sea,” according to the New York Times, and sunk the pirates’ “mother ship.” They’re in negotiations now.
You can’t make this stuff up.
On November 4, 2008, In 2008 election, World Affairs, By Blake
Addis, Ethiopia