It’s the never-ending war on drugs, of course. Steve Chapman at Reason has a nice take: By now, it should be clear that using force to wipe out the drug trade is a task on the order of bailing out the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon. Law enforcement can interdict shipments and imprison dealers, but…Continue Reading…
What an irony: In Afghanistan, the U.S. military, in order to achieve a larger strategic victory in Marja, the former Taliban stronghold, is ignoring the vast opium fields in their midst. As this NYT story from yesterday reports: “Marja is a special case right now,” said Cmdr. Jeffrey Eggers, a member of the general’s Strategic…Continue Reading…
Here’s another dispatch from a decades-old war, in which the policy and politics never change. You couldn’t read this kind of story in the country where the war is raging, because of a virtual news blackout, enforced by fear of vicious reprisal. So what does that mean for the people caught in the crossfire? As…Continue Reading…
I’m all for the U.S. improving avenues of cooperation with Mexico, especially if that helps ameliorate the miserable conditions of border communities. But in this post over at Natural Security, Will Rogers overreaches when he suggests that environmental initiatives with Mexico aids U.S. national security interests along the southern border. That can hardly be the…Continue Reading…
The allure of technology is so great as the Ultimate Answer that politicians, policymakers and engineers continually chase after it the way a drug addict chases after that first high. And so, speaking of drugs, we learn today that a squad in the Homeland Security Department is trying out all manner of hi-tech gimmickry to…Continue Reading…