The conventional wisdom among neoconservatives who advocated an invasion of Iraq is that Bush administration incompetence explains what has gone wrong. The problem, they say, lies in the execution of what they still maintain was a noble idea: that invading Iraq would put anti-American forces in the Middle East on the defensive and initiate the spread of democracy through the enhancement of U.S. dominance of the region. This collective washing of hands culminated in a series of interviews with well-known neoconservatives in the January 2007 issue of Vanity Fair. Those interviewed pointed towards the Bush administration’s operational mistakes and bureaucratic [...]
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — U.S aid to Colombia, the largest recipient of U.S aid in the Western Hemisphere, is set to pour in at the same levels as in previous years. But with a Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress, the focus of that aid may shift more toward social spending and away from military spending. In the 2008 budget request, the Bush administration asked for $586 million for Colombia, a slight decrease from $587 million in 2006. The bulk of aid is earmarked for the Colombian armed forces, with 76 percent allocated to counterinsurgency and anti-narcotics operations and the remainder [...]
WASHINGTON — “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” may have prompted Americans to run and find Kazakhstan on a map. But another recent development appears to have a growing number of Washington insiders talking seriously about political discord in the massive former Soviet republic. A rising young Kazakh politician visited Washington recently trying drum up support from U.S. policy makers and journalists for his newly established and reform-minded Kazakh political party — the official registration of which he claims is being obstructed by his country’s “draconian law on political parties.” The second largest of [...]
