Roundup: Media's Take

Karl Rove: The Missing Word in Our Afghanistan Strategy

[Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007.] What President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron didn't say during last week's joint news conference may have mattered more than what they did say. The omissions could lead to a grave setback in the war on terror and deadly results for the Afghan people. The president and prime minister declared their solidarity on the Afghanistan

Achy Obejas: Yes, Virginia, There Is Racism in Cuba

[Achy Obejas is an author whose most recent book is Ruins, a novel about Cuba in the Special Period. She was born in Cuba and came to the United States by boat in 1963. Since then she has returned to Cuba innumerable times. She writes about Cuba for The Root and other U.S.-based publications.] In 1998, when President Bill Clinton was allowing Cuban artists to travel relatively easily in and out of the United States, I invited a well-known Cuban visual artist to visit my graduate cla

Erwin Chemerinsky: Afghan War Documents Point to Overuse of Government Secrecy

[Erwin Chemerinsky is dean and a professor at the UC Irvine School of Law.] The most important lesson from the release of tens of thousands of pages of classified information about the war in Afghanistan seems to be getting lost: Far too much information is classified, often simply because it is embarrassing to the government. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that there "weren't any new revelations in the material,"and nothing has been identified that is likel

Charles Crawford: Belgrade must accept history and finally confront need for action on Srebrenica

[Charles Crawford is a former UK ambassador to Belgrade.] Belgrade is having a gloomy time in foreign courts. First the International Court of Justice last week gave an advisory opinion on Kosovo's 2008 independence declaration which was widely seen as a significant victory for Kosovo. Now Judge Timothy Workman has not so much quashed as squashed Serbia's attempt to get former Bosnia leader Ejup Ganic extradited to Belgrade to face war crimes charges arising from the i

Simon Jenkins: A history of folly, from the Trojan horse to Afghanistan

[Simon Jenkins is a journalist and author.] Is it the death of war? In Vietnam the horror of fighting was brought to TV screens in real time. Such was the reaction that American citizens withdrew their consent. In the 1980s computers were said to have restored the aloofness of battle by enabling armies to fight and defeat an enemy by remote control. They could locate the foe, direct fire and drop bombs with pinpoint accuracy. That thesis is now threadbare. There is no s

Will Heaven: The history of British India will serve David Cameron well – as long as he doesn't go on about it

[Will Heaven is the Telegraph's Deputy Blogs Editor, specialising in politics and the internet.] The Prime Minister has been swotting up on his Eastern history. In Turkey yesterday, he spoke of William Harborne’s journey there on behalf of Elizabeth I. “As a nation we sought the opportunity for our merchants to trade. More than 400 years on, I follow him… at least in part for the same reason.” Lovely. But I hope Mr Cameron knows that if he tries that rhetoric in India,

William Voegeli: Why Liberalism Is Dangerous

[William Voegeli is a contributing editor of The Claremont Review of Books and a visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College’s Salvatori Center.] In early June, George Will devoted one of his syndicated columns to a favorable discussion of my book, Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State. Three weeks later, Michael Lind of the New America Foundation devoted his weekly column in Salon to attacking Will for endorsing Never Enough and thereby supporting “the Orwellian project

Christian Caryl: Afghanistan Isn't the Graveyard of Empires

[Christian Caryl is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy. His column, "Reality Check," appears weekly on ForeignPolicy.com.] It's the mother of all clichés. Almost no one can resist it. It's wielded by everyone from thoughtful ex-generals to vitriolic bloggers. It crops up everywhere from Russia's English-language TV channel to scruffy Pakistani newspapers to America's stately National Public Radio. The Huffington Post can't seem to live without it, and one recent book

Doug Kendall: Strange Brew: The Tea Party Mocks the Founders' Stance on Armed Rebellion

[Doug is the founder and President of Constitutional Accountability Center (fomerly Community Rights Counsel), a think tank, law firm and action center based in Washington, DC. CAC promotes the progressive promise of the Constitution's text and history.] Perhaps the single most disturbing thing about the rise of the Tea Party as a growing force in American politics is the frequency with which the movement’s most notable figures have rallied the faithful with talk of armed rebellion

Michael Lind: Are the American People Obsolete?

[Michael Lind is policy director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation.] Have the American people outlived their usefulness to the rich minority in the United States? A number of trends suggest that the answer may be yes. In every industrial democracy since the end of World War II, there has been a social contract between the few and the many. In return for receiving a disproportionate amount of the gains from economic growth in a capitalist econo

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Conversation on Race

[Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle.] ...Expecting an American conversation on race in this country, is like expecting financial advice from someone who prefers to not check their bank balance. It's not that the answers, themselves, are pre-ordained, its that we are more interested in questions than answers, in ver

Jonah Goldberg: The New Journalism

[Jonah Goldberg writes a column for the LA Times.] "The high standards and wise judgments of people like Walter Cronkite once acted as a national immune system, zapping scandal mongers and quashing wild rumors," wrote former "green jobs czar" Van Jones in the Sunday New York Times.... I must say, I find such nonsense exhilarating and exasperating. Jones' nostalgia for Cronkite — truly one of the most overrated national icons of the 20th

Donald J. Kochan: Benjamin Franklin on Wealth

[Donald J. Kochan is an associate professor of law at Chapman University School of Law in Orange.] On this day 226 years ago — July 26, 1784 — Benjamin Franklin considered whether society was in need of a "remedy for luxury" in a letter to his trusted advisor, Benjamin Vaughn. In it, Franklin methodically argued against such a need. The current growing clamor for the regulation of wealth makes Franklin's thoughts on the matter relevant today. Consider Presiden

Eamonn Fingleton: How to Lose an Empire ... America goes Ottoman shopping

[Eamonn Fingleton is the author of In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Dominance.] Here's an economic history test: 1. Which Great Power pioneered the secular trend towards freer international trade? 2. Which Great Power first resorted to spiraling foreign indebtedness to pay for its wars? 3. Which Great Power first permitted large-scale foreign direct investment in its domestic industries and infrastructure?

Bret Stephens: From WikiLeaks to the Killing Fields

[Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.] Innocent civilians become the tragic casualties of war. Insurgents plant thousands of IEDs. Special-ops teams hunt down insurgents. The Taliban may have a few Stinger missiles. Pakistan plays a double game with the Taliban. The U.S. government can't keep its secrets. The New York Times has about as much regard for those secrets as a British tabloid has for a starlet's privacy. The Obama administra

Gideon Rachman: Somali lessons for Afghanistan

[Gideon Rachman is chief foreign affairs commentator at the Financial Times.] Whenever western leaders ask themselves the question, why are we in Afghanistan, they come up with essentially the same reply – “To prevent Afghanistan becoming a failed state and a haven for terrorists.” Until Afghanistan is stable, so the argument goes, we cannot risk withdrawal. Yet there is very little evidence that Afghanistan is becoming more stable. On the contrary, the fighting is inte

Con Coughlin: Wikileaks Afghanistan ... What do the leaks really tell us?

[Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's executive foreign editor]. When, at the height of the Vietnam War in the 1970s, a disaffected Pentagon analyst published explosive details about how the White House was running the campaign, US military commanders soon found themselves being forced into ordering a humiliating retreat from the war zone. The Pentagon Papers, which were leaked to the New York Times in 1971 by Daniel Ellsberg, a Democrat-supporting defence expert, lifted th

Ronald Brownstein: The Gray And The Brown

[Ronald Brownstein writes for the National Journal.] In an age of diminished resources, the United States may be heading for an intensifying confrontation between the gray and the brown.... Over time, the major focus in this struggle is likely to be the tension between an aging white population that appears increasingly resistant to taxes and dubious of public spending, and a minority population that overwhelmingly views government education, health, and social-welfare

Michael Levy: Truman and Lessons for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

[Michael Levy is Britannica's Executive Editor. He received a bachelor’s degree (1991) in political science from the University of North Carolina and a doctorate (1996) in international relations and comparative politics from the University of Kentucky.] Leadership is doing the right thing, even when it’s not popular. Indeed, especially when it’s not popular. And, 62 years ago today, on July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman showed true leadership, doing something tha

Jonathan Raban: Britain: A False Dawn?

[Jonathan Raban’s books include Surveillance, My Holy War, Arabia, Old Glory, Hunting Mister Heartbreak, Bad Land, Passage to Juneau, and Waxwings. He is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature, the PEN/West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, and the Governor’s Award of the State of Washington. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and The Independent. H