Noah Shachtman takes a decidedly negative view of the prospect of Blackwater getting kicked out of Iraq:

Sure, Blackwater as a corporate entity probably won’t be roaming the streets of Baghdad or Mosul for much longer. But the individual mercenaries who’ve been working for years in Iraq, serving as a Praetorian Guard for the State Department’s diplomats — those guys likely will be able to stay. …

If Blackwater is no longer allowed to operate in Iraq, a lawyer steeped in the field tells Danger Room, there’s no legal reason why the other two firms can’t scoop up Blackwater’s employees. “State simply issues a new task order to DynCorp or Triple Canopy, who turn around and hire some or all of Blackwater’s employees,” he says.

Which could prove to be more than a little problematic. More than any other private military firm in Iraq, Blackwater had a reputation for recklessness and violence.

I’m not terribly familiar with the other two companies - DynCorp or Triple Canopy - running the security show, but it stands to reason that the Iraqis have sent a pretty strong message about Blackwater’s shoot-first-and-never-ask-questions attitude.  Blackwater’s employees may very well get scooped up DynCorp and Triple Canopy, but those respective corporate headquarters want to guard against any possibility that their gravy train meets a Blackwater-style demise. 

In other words, corporate interests will prevail.  Preserving the business contract means not ticking off the Iraqis, so I’d guess the new hires will be trained to be more cautious with the trigger.

Statements like these make me wonder why the questions even need to be asked:

A reporter asked for Morrell’s reaction concerning news reports that say a military judge at Guantanamo today ordered that legal proceedings be continued against accused al-Qaida terrorist Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. …

“But the bottom line is, we all work for the president of the United States in this chain of command, and he has signed an executive order which has made it abundantly clear that until these reviews are done all [legal activity at Guantanamo] is on hiatus,” Morrell said.

Um, yeah.  Is this a case of a reporter trying to find an angle for a story, or are there serious grumblings within the Pentagon about Obama’s executive orders?

Is, apparently, quite small.

“We are asking the coalition forces for air support, especially in [medical evacuations], should we need them,” Iraqi army Col. Abdalah Ramadan Atia said. “However, the coalition will have very little involvement in this operation [election security]. We have experience from the 2005 elections. The units are trained and prepared.”

So not only are this weekend’s provincial elections a test of Iraq’s nascent democracy, but-should violence break out-could serve as a test of the Iraqi military and security services’ readiness.

As a rule of thumb, I like to think that our economic stimulus package should provide government money to fund jobs that create things Americans need.  (Of course, I realize that the bill is probably overloaded with pork, but, at least in the abstract, some pork projects do keep money flowing to jobs that build things we need.)

But what about weapons systems?  They’re needed to defend the country, right?  Shouldn’t the stimulus package provide money for them?

Of course, it’s a bit of a gray area.  Following my rule of thumb, I’d argue that it’s okay to spend stimulus money on useful, relevant weapons systems, but that the economic crisis also provides the country a unique opportunity to break with the iron triangle of Congress, the Pentagon, and private industry and move towards more sensible military spending.  (And if you want to read a good idea on how to start, read Jordan Tama’s article on that very subject.)

SecDef Gates is definitely on board with a more frugal procurement attitude, saying just this week to the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Chief among institutional challenges facing the Department is acquisitions. … Entrenched attitudes throughout the government are particularly pronounced in the area of acquisition: a risk-averse culture, a litigious process, parochial interests, excessive and changing requirements, budget churn and instability…

That’s why the F-22 always gets my back up a bit.  The controversial aircraft is facing a crucial production decision by the Obama administration by March 1.  It’s undoubtedly a great plane, but is it useful for our current 21st century defense needs? Read the rest of this entry »

The Palestinians don’t have much going for them - Hamas and Fatah are probably permanently split; both factions are weak militarily and diplomatically; and Israel is probably set to elect an ultra-hawk to the prime minister’s post in about two weeks.

Palestinians are almost out of leverage, and running out of hope.  Obama’s words on al-Arabiya are certainly a positive step, but they haven’t yet been translated into actions.

That’s why Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ statement really caught my eye:

“We will do all we can to prove Israel committed crimes that would make your skin crawl,” Abbas said, referring to the Geneva Conventions. “We want the world to give us justice for once.

Think about it - if the Palestinians (read: Abbas) can show, ideally via a UN resolution, that Israel committed war crimes during their 22 day offensive into Gaza, that gives Abbas a) significant leverage and political capital within the international community, and b) raises his stature at home.

Palestine would then have an internationally recognized condemnation of Israel’s heavy hand.  Wavering international patrons would all be more sympathetic to a Palestinian cause that had suffered documented war crimes.  Abbas could pressure them to press Tel Aviv to make concessions on a number of vital issues - border crossings, settlements, financial assistance.

In the process, Palestinians would recognize that Abbas, not Hammas, brought about these potential successes.

It might not be much, but it’s about all Abbas has.

Read Gordon Adam’s piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to get a sense of just what the Obama administration is up against regarding long-term national security planning:

During the Bush administration, funding for the Defense Department, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security more or less doubled. But in all three cases, the goal of the budget increases wasn’t to create functioning, efficient, and effective bureaucracies. Instead, it was to push a political agenda–at the cost of effective management. As a result, all three departments emerge from the last eight years less focused, less disciplined, and less effective.

Beyond the substantive need to change U.S. foreign and national security policy, the challenge the Obama administration now faces is how to restore focus, discipline, and balance to the institutions that shape and implement these policies. To do so, the new administration will need to focus diplomacy and foreign assistance on long-term strategic goals, rebalance the toolkit of statecraft, and bring coherence to a widely dispersed set of institutions.

Adams lays out a comprehensive list of what to watch for in the respective departments.  Here are a few cherry-picked crucial ones: Read the rest of this entry »

Take a minute to read up on the downfall of Iceland’s government.

The story has everything you could want in a government dissolution - economic implosion; not one, but two all-too-convenient cases of cancer; rotten egg throwing; riots; and now an openly-lesbian, brain-tumor-ridden hier-apparent!

Or, as Wonkette brilliantly sums up:

And all it took for the gays to reach this special moment in history was for literally every straight person in Iceland to turn down the job.

(and thanks for the Wonkette link, Mike…)