"Critics Warn Withdrawal From Afghanistan Paints Entirely Accurate Picture Of U.S. Government"

"'The collapse of a nation following its occupation by the United States sends the international community a message that we're a big powerful country that goes around the world blundering into lengthy imperial misadventures,' said Douglas Reisenthaler of the nonpartisan Institute for Federal Policy, one of many detractors who argued that by exiting Afghanistan, the U.S. military was giving the completely spot-on impression that America invades foreign countries on dubious grounds, enters aimless, prolonged conflagrations that it refuses to leave out of pride, and then retreats after a humiliating defeat."

From The Onion.

"I Do Not Regret My Decision"

"Biden even said that it was 'wrong' to put Americans in harm's way to do a job that Afghanistan wouldn't do itself, and positioned himself as being a leader who was willing to make the difficult call to leave Afghanistan that a generation of Washington officials were incapable of doing."

Nick Niedzwiadek at Politico reports President Joe Biden remarks about the American evacuation of Afghanistan.

And David Rothkopf at USA Today says that "Biden critics are getting it mostly wrong."

"An Augury of the Anti-Liberal Politics and Virulent Nationalism That Would Soon Reach Around the World, Even to America"

"Two decades after September 11, we're no longer those Americans who believed such things would never happen to us, and who, when they did happen, went boldly overseas to rid the world of monsters. Experts now see white-nationalist terrorism as a greater domestic threat than Islamist terrorism. The new fight is for our own democracy. It will require all the restraint and purpose and wisdom that we struggled to muster when the enemy wasn't us."

George Packer at The Atlantic writes that 9/11 "was the first sign that the 21st century would be a period of shock and disaster."

And Calvin Woodward, Ellen Knickmeyer, and David Rising of the AP discuss the event's impact.

"We Can and We Must Pursue a Different Option"

"Neither do we want a foreign policy that is based on the logic that led to those wars and corroded our democracy: a logic that privileges military tools over diplomatic ones, aggressive unilateralism over multilateral engagement, and acquiescence to our undemocratic partners over the pursuit of core interests alongside democratic allies who truly share our values. We have to view the terrorism threat through the proper scope, rather than allowing it to dominate our view of the world. The time has come to envision a new form of American engagement: one in which the United States leads not in war-making but in bringing people together to find shared solutions to our shared concerns. American power should be measured not by our ability to blow things up, but by our ability to build on our common humanity, harnessing our technology and enormous wealth to create a better life for all people."

Bernie Sanders in Foreign Affairs writes that "[t]he American people don't want endless war."

"The Nation's Only Existing Memorial to Its Middle Eastern Wars"

"Those whose names are engraved on the wall in Marseilles died in service to their country. Of that there is no doubt. Whether they died to advance the cause of freedom or even the wellbeing of the United States is another matter entirely. Terms that might more accurately convey why these wars began and why they have persisted for so long include oil, dominion, hubris, a continuing and stubborn refusal among policymakers to own up to their own stupendous folly, and the collective negligence of citizens who have become oblivious to where American troops happen to be fighting at any given moment and why. Some might add to the above list an inability to distinguish between our own interests and those of putative allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel."

For Memorial Day weekend, Andrew Bacevich at MintPress News writes about visiting the Middle East Conflicts Memorial.

"An Important If Not Urgent Question"

"It's fitting that Putin's campaign to reimpose official lying would culminate in a glorification of the catastrophic Afghanistan war. And clearly, that campaign has swayed the mind of the president of the United States."

David Frum at The Atlantic wonders why Donald Trump is spreading Russian propaganda.

"Soldier Excited To Take Over Father's Old Afghanistan Patrol Route"

"At press time, a tear fell from Corcoran's eye as he hugged his dad goodbye in the very same manner he remembered his father doing to him when he was a toddler."

From The Onion.

Rollback or Containment?

"Rather than assuming an offensive posture, the West should revert to a defensive one. Instead of attempting to impose its will on the Greater Middle East, it should erect barriers to protect itself from the violence emanating from that quarter. Such barriers will necessarily be imperfect, but they will produce greater security at a more affordable cost than is gained by engaging in futile, open-ended armed conflicts. Rather than vainly attempting to police or control, this revised strategy should seek to contain.
"Such an approach posits that, confronted with the responsibility to do so, the peoples of the Greater Middle East will prove better equipped to solve their problems than are policy makers back in Washington, London, or Paris. It rejects as presumptuous any claim that the West can untangle problems of vast historical and religious complexity to which Western folly contributed. It rests on this core principle: Do no (further) harm."

Andrew J. Bacevich in The Boston Globe argues that American and European leaders "have enmeshed the West in a war that it cannot win and should not perpetuate."

"Should Obama Pardon Bush?"

"ACLU director Anthony Romero offered a different approach: instead of prosecuting, Obama could pardon a highly visible group of Bush administration officials - including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Bush and Cheney themselves. Romero mentions three important instances of 'preemptive pardoning,' when presidents have issued pardons in order to heal a national division: Lincoln and Andrew Johnson's pardons of Confederate soldiers, Ford's pardon of Nixon, and Carter's pardon of Vietnam draft-dodgers. The latter two are widely seen as having been politically costly, and Ford's pardon of Nixon even as a serious lapse in executive accountability. Writing last year about the political use of pardons, Leon Neyfakh suggests that a number of twentieth century presidents have used pardons to signal disagreement with existing policies."


Julia Azari at The Washington Monthly explores the question.

"They Have Learned Nothing and Forgotten Nothing"

Michael Lind in Salon and Ross Douthat in The New York Times warn Americans to stay out of Libya.

Guns or Taxes

"So far, Republicans have been able to delude voters and perhaps themselves that the budget can be balanced without higher taxes, and by cutting only domestic discretionary programs. When reality finally sets in and they have no choice but to accept that this is impossible, establishment conservatives like Brooks, Feulner and Kristol must decide which is more important to them: opposing all tax increases or preserving the defense budget. We will then find out if they genuinely care about our national security or are what Thomas Paine called summer soldiers and sunshine patriots."

Bruce Bartlett at The Fiscal Times criticizes Republican calls for high defense spending.

"We Can Understand That There Will Be War, and Still Strive for Peace"

"But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions--not just treaties and declarations--that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest--because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity."

The New York Times prints President Obama's speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Biased toward Complexity"

"All presidents have to adjust to these realities when they move to the White House. The only surprise with President Obama is how enthusiastically he has made the transition. He’s political, like any president, but he seems to vastly prefer the grays of governing to the simplicities of the campaign."

In The New York Times, David Brooks praises President Obama's governing style.

"I Do Not Make This Decision Lightly"

"This review is now complete. And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan."

The New York Times prints President Obama's speech about the war in Afghanistan.

"A 'Leftism of Style'"

"Bérubé's story begins in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Hundreds of thousands of Americans united to protest what they considered unnecessary military aggression. Skepticism was expressed by every strain of leftward thought--from dovish independents (Lincoln Chafee) to libertarian socialists (Ed Herman). And yet, none of the individual messages were reflective of the group as a whole. The anti-war movement became associated with inflamed smash-the-state rhetoric and even its moderate voices were written off as 'dirty fucking hippies.' Left became a term of derision, and to be against the war was to be anti-American. As Bérubé describes, hawkish Democrats suddenly carried liberalism's banner; center liberals were dubbed radical; and radicals became the center of attention. The 'Manichean Left' is to thank for this--and it didn't have to be this way."

Alexandra Gutierrez reviews Michael Bérubé's The Left at War in The American Prospect.

Base-Less

"Not even another 9/11-scale terrorist attack would succeed in launching al-Qaeda's revolution. The years since 9/11 have seen events in Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan escalating Muslim hostility toward Israel, the U.S. and those Arab regimes deemed too willing to do Washington's bidding. But even so, al-Qaeda remains a marginal factor. Bin Laden may have imagined that 9/11 would anoint him the head of a resurgent caliphate in the making, but instead it has reduced him and his movement to a life of duck-and-cover in Pakistan's wild frontier—and a political address otherwise known as oblivion."

Tony Karon in Time declares Al-Qaeda to be a failed movement.