The Washington Times (Continuación)

MundoAsia

Serious challenges from China are reducing U.S. influence abroad, and America needs to shake up and focus its national security institutions on this problem, says a veteran Republican international relations expert and scholar. Beijing's robust economic and market growth under an authoritarian government is gaining ground as a model for developing nations in the Third World, with China as a sponsor. This, in the words of Stefan Halper, is a key part of a process that is "shrinking the West."

Mr. Halper, director of the Atlantic studies program at Cambridge University and a distinguished fellow of the Nixon Center, noted in an interview that China is using its huge currency reserves - about $2 trillion, earned from its burgeoning exports of recent years - as a strategic instrument.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONU

Last week, Israeli Ambas -sador to the United States Michael Oren was heckled relentlessly and interrupted vociferously by members of University of California at Irvine's Muslim Student Union. Such negation of civility, discourse and decorum, which was noisily and gleefully celebrated by still other members of this group, is often defended by solemn-sounding references to United Nations' resolutions.

This case was no exception. In a subsequent statement, the Muslim Student Union said it opposed having university departments sponsor a speaker representing a country that "is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined" - which is, in fact, the case.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Not even 30 inches of snow falling on Washington has discredited claims of "global warming," the belief that human activity is appreciably warming our planet. Of course, a single snowstorm does not disprove global warming. Weather is not the same as climate. But even after a decade of unexpectedly cool temperatures, global-warming alarmists still show no skepticism. Skepticism is a core value of science.

In "1984," George Orwell wrote about Big Brother (government) being so powerful that it can persuade people to believe things contrary to their senses. It even can convince them that two plus two is not equal to four.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

On a recent visit to Australia, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus downplayed the threat posed by China's rapid modernization of its military forces, highlighted in Australia's 2009 Defense White Paper. With no discernable threat, China's unprecedented force modernization program has grown at a double-digit rate for the past 10 years.

Though China professes that the modernization of its military forces threatens no one and is only for defensive purposes, it is classic Chinese subterfuge. Every new weapons system it has acquired or developed is designed specifically to target or intimidate U.S. military forces. For example, China's development of an anti-ship ballistic missile is designed to target U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional

In the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt, much was made about the need for our intelligence community to do a better job of "connecting the dots" to stop terrorists before they board planes bound for the United States. After weeks of mixed messages, self-examination and congressional investigations, the Department of Homeland Security recently unveiled its budget request to Congress for the coming year. Because budgets reflect priorities, I had hoped to see that the near-miss on Christmas Day had served as a wake-up call to get serious about stopping these killers before they strike again.

I was greatly disappointed.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

It was a cold autumn day in 1978 in Los Angeles when I saw on the evening news that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had gone to the Paris suburb of Neauphle-le-Chateau from exile in Iraq. To a young student activist in the anti-shah movement, it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime. Having studied theories of social change as a sociology student at UCLA, I really wanted to be part of the revolution that was about to sweep my country.

I took the next available flight to Paris, where I stayed for two months at Khomeini's makeshift "headquarters," helping out as an interpreter.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Can you name the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century? No, it wasn't Hitler or Stalin. It was Mao Zedong. According to the authoritative "Black Book of Communism,"an estimated 65 million Chinese died as a result of Mao's repeated, merciless attempts to create a new "socialist" China. Anyone who got in his way was done away with - by execution, imprisonment or forced famine.

For Mao, the No. 1 enemy was the intellectual. The so-called "Great Helmsman" reveled in his bloodletting, boasting, "What's so unusual about Emperor Shih Huang of the Chin Dynasty? He had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars."…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Iran's nuclear activities - this week ramped up with fresh plans to expand uranium enrichment - and its sponsorship of international terrorism pose an ever-growing threat that must be dealt with by the international community. A year after President Obama took office, his administration talks little of a policy of rapprochement toward Iran, and indeed, he has decided to strengthen the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf to counter what he clearly sees as a heightened threat. However, both the European Union and the Americans have wasted much time pursuing a policy of appeasement, which clearly has failed. If we had listened to the right people, we might not have wasted that time.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

The Battle of Wanat, Afghan istan, in July 2008 was a tough pill to swallow. We lost nine men and 27 wounded at a remote outpost in Nuristan province when a platoon from the 2nd Battalion (Airborne) of the 503rd Infantry Regiment was attacked by more than 200 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters as they were constructing a new combat outpost (COP). It was even more painful, as the unit was less than two weeks from finishing a brutal, 15-month deployment that saw an average of three troops in contact incidents daily.

There have been multiple investigations and reports on the battle, including one that was just finished.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

At the Jan. 28 London confer -ence seeking interna -tional support for Afghanistan, British Prime Minister Gor -don Brown announced the creation of the "Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund," which would finance the reintegration of Taliban and other Afghan insurgents who lay down their weapons and swear allegiance to Afghanistan's constitution.

Principally, the fund would pay for work-related training and provide stipends to the former insurgents as they labor to enter the legitimate Afghan work force. Approximately $140 million has been committed to the fund already. With an estimated $1 billion needed to pay for this program over the next three years, the fund has just 14 percent what's required to achieve its goals.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalTerrorismo Internacional

Here is a cruel but unavoidable reality that no politician wants to acknowledge: We can never make air travel 100 percent secure. The goal is to achieve a level of security consistent with protecting our values, our economy and our interests.

But the attempt to bomb Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day provoked what has become a predictable response from our political leaders following a terrorist attack, even an attempted one: Do something, or, more accurately, be seen doing something.

Immediately after the attempted attack, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced a raft of new measures for international flights - including plane-side searches of all passengers and carry-on luggage headed for the United States and prohibiting passengers from holding blankets and pillows during the last hour of U.S.-bound…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalTerrorismo Internacional

The 9/11 Commission recommendations on border and aviation security eerily predicted an attempt such as that made Christmas Day by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. One of the key phrases from the commission's report is that "for terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons." This plot has made clear to the world that while travel documents such as visas are as important as weapons to terrorists, air travel itself is also an essential component of the weapon.

The 9/11 Final Report and our staff monograph, "9/11 and Terrorist Travel," hit all the important points - watch lists, visa adjudication and pre-boarding vetting.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa

The Obama administration has made a major attempt at renewing a cooperative relationship with Russia. At this point, it is less than clear that Russia shares the same "reset"-objective relationship, except on its terms. Trying to appease Russia by capitulating on missile-defense installations in the Czech Republic and Poland only compounds problems we have with Russia in other areas of major interest.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has suggested that Iran could be a litmus test for a renewed relationship. However, Russia's continued blocking, along with China, of any major economic sanctions against Iran because of Iran's development of a nuclear weapons program fails the test.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa

There's an old saying, familiar to historians and foreign policy practitioners, that "geography is destiny." A modern twist to this rule is that demography is no less decisive.

Russia is finding this out the hard way. Over the past several years, under the direction of former President (and current Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin and his handpicked protege, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia may have re-emerged on the international scene with a vengeance. But behind all of the Kremlin's contemporary geopolitical bluster, the successor state of the once-mighty Soviet Union is caught in a demographic and socioeconomic death spiral.

The numbers tell the story.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Andre Maurois once said, "If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny." So seems to be the case with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Last week, the friends and families of Hane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal - three University of California at Berkeley students who ended up hiking on the wrong mountain - did the Google-era thingto mobilize support for the hikers' release - they released a YouTube video. The three students, caught on July 21, were accused of spying and are being held hostage along with hundreds of other political prisoners who could perhaps be used as a future negotiation card.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

China's cyber-attacks on Google these past several weeks were, sadly, mere replays of state-sponsored Chinese attacks on literally thousands of other American and foreign companies, human rights groups, individuals and, yes, even the U.S. government, including Congress.

A University of Toronto study last year identified more than 1,200 networks worldwide penetrated by a single Chinese-government-controlled cyber-intelligence unit. According to a Northrop Grumman investigation of Chinese military cyber-intelligence in October, secret Chinese cyber-units are organized in tight teams, working eight-hour shifts and employing penetration software that only could have come from proprietary source codes of the major American programming companies such as Microsoft and Adobe.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

Al Qaeda's Christmas Day "underpants bomber" has again put discus - sions of intelligence policy and national security organizations, once relegated to obscure academic journals, squarely at dining room tables across Middle America.

Here's some food for thought: White House policymakers and Congress can help develop an increasingly robust national intelligence capacity by investing new money in the pursuit of a centralized open-source intelligence (OSINT) infrastructure.

Investment in centralized, programmatically managed open-source intelligence has been recommended by two major independent commissions as a needed area of doctrinal development and increased capacity for the U.S. national security community.

Among the top 10 recommendations of the Robb-Silberman Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction was that the director of national intelligence (DNI) "should create an Open Source Directorate in the CIA to use the Internet and modern information processing tools to greatly enhance the availability of open source information to analysts, collectors, and users of intelligence."…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

Any day now, President Obama is ex -pected to unveil a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. This so-called Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) follow-on will be ballyhooed as an important step toward the realization of Mr. Obama's goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world. As things stand now, however, that step seems unlikely to be approved by the Senate - let alone translate into an end to nuclear proliferation and the dangers associated with it.

There is no small irony that the prospects for the START follow-on treaty were made worse recently by four men who arguably have done more than any others to lend credence to the notion that a nuclear-free planet would be desirable and realizable: Former Republican Secretaries of State Henry A.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

On the morning of Nov. 1, 1755, one of history's worst sequences of natural disaster struck Lisbon, Portugal. First, with its citizens at Mass, Lisbon was shaken by an earthquake that toppled most of its buildings. Then, an hour later, a tremendous earthquake-induced tsunami crashed into the harbor, followed by two more giant waves that rushed up the Tagus River, drowning thousands who had fled the rupturing roads for the safety of their boats. Further inland, fires broke out that raged for nearly a week.

As many as 90,000 people (in a city of 250,000) perished in the natural catastrophes that destroyed 85 percent of the city, including nearly every major church.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica

"We are at war." So said the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 7, 2010. These four words, a profound statement of the obvious, were belatedly uttered as our commander in chief transitioned from tropical sunsets on his "Hawaiian holiday" to klieg lights at the White House in the aftermath of the Christmas Day "near-miss" terror attack aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 enroute from Amsterdam to Detroit. The phrase was startling - because it wasn't an affirmation of a mindset Mr. Obama brought to office. Rather it was the reluctant admission of facts Mr. Obama has spent a year in office diligently trying to deny.…  Seguir leyendo »