This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

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The Strategy Exists

A bit on Obama counterterrorism from cousin Heather (who also happens to be a foreign policy expert).

In Fact, We do Have A Counter-Terrorism Strategy — And Experts Say It’s Producing Results
(Heather Hurlburt, Huffington Post, 30 Dec 2009)

Today John Boehner made the nonsensical claim that the Administration doesn’t actually have a strategy for combating terrorism. Since one of the core elements of the Administration’s strategy has been to go about the business of blocking violent extremists without giving them the gratification of talking about them in public all the time, perhaps it’s understandable that a few of his colleagues could use a little primer as well.

The good news: the US does have a counter-terrorism strategy, and some experts believe its first year has shown results in dismantling terrorist leadership in Indonesia, the Philippines and Pakistan; pushing Al Qaeda into a funding crisis; and helping lower Muslim public support for extremists while improving support for the US.

A Cousin on Foreign Policy Pundits

I try to point out when I see items by relatives or friends. Here is one from a cousin of mine on Huffington Post:

Note to Assignment Editor: Not Your Dad’s National Security Establishment

(Heather Hurlburt, Huffington Post, 5 Nov 2009)

I’m getting a little exhausted with reading assessments of President Obama and his team’s first year that feature ten white men (own it, National Journal), or six male “experts” including the writer, President Obama and John Bolton (that’s you, Politico). Foreign Policy “wins” this sorry competition with a roster that is less than 25% female and 20% minority voices.

So I set myself a little test. Could I come up with a truly great list of names – people whose assessments of the Administration I’d read, and twitter, and link to – that flipped this balance? And, just to make it harder, could I do it without Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice?

I saw this on Facebook from Heather, then I saw it in Google Reader from my Huffington Post RSS feed and marked it as something I wanted to post later, then after that I got a note from my mother also pointing me at it. So I figured I should go ahead and get it posted. :-)

One question though… Heather, where are you twittering? I couldn’t find you with a simple search on Twitter. :-)