Tuesday, January 8, 2013
A Special Project with the New America Foundation
President Obama nominates Brennan as CIA director
Charting a course
President Barack Obama on Monday nominated his chief counterterrorism
advisor, John Brennan, as director of the CIA, where Brennan would
help determine the future of an intelligence agency that has become
increasingly involved in paramilitary activity (
NYT,
Post,
CNN,
Politico,
AP).
Brennan has been a vocal advocate of both the legality and morality of
drone strikes, and advised Obama through the ramping up of the drone
program in Pakistan in 2009 and 2010.
Bonus Read: Peter Bergen and Jennifer Rowland, "John Brennan, Obama's drone warrior" (CNN).
Two U.S. drone strikes on compounds in North Waziristan killed eight
suspected militants early Tuesday morning, in the fourth and fifth such
attacks of the new year (
AP,
ET).
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry summoned the Indian deputy high
commissioner on Monday in order to lodge a formal protest over what the
Pakistani government is calling an unprovoked attack on an army post by
Indian soldiers who crossed the Line of Control separating Indian- and
Pakistani-controlled Kashmir (
AP,
Dawn,
). Indian authorities claim that their soldiers were responding to
shelling by the Pakistani Army that hit a civilian home on the Indian
side.
The deans of twelve of the top
public health universities in the United States sent a letter to
President Barack Obama on Monday condemning the CIA's use of a vaccine
ruse during the hunt to find Osama bin Laden (
NYT).
News of a Pakistani doctor working for the CIA severely hampered
public health efforts there, and may have exacerbated suspicions that
health workers are spies for the West. Nine polio vaccine workers were
killed in targeted attacks last month.
Insider attacks continue
In a statement released Tuesday, ISAF officials said "a suspected
Afghan soldier opened fire first at Afghan troops and then at British
soldiers" in the southern province of Helmand, killing one British
service member before being killed himself in return fire (
AJE,
Guardian).
Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in an interview with the
Associated Press on Monday that the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy
worked in Afghanistan, but that the United States has an "emotional
responsibility" to provide Afghans with long-term security support (
AP).
And Douglas Ollivant, a Senior National Security Fellow at the New
America Foundation, discussed the financial cost of a post-2014 U.S.
military presence in Afghanistan (
TIME).
Drones no match for Fatburger
Rising anti-Americanism as a result of the drone campaign in Pakistan
appears to have done little to spoil the appetite Pakistanis have for
American food (
Bloomberg).
The president of Fatburger North America Inc. said at the opening of a
restaurant in Karachi, "In food, people don't look at relations
between countries. They just want to eat it."
Alex Wong/Getty Images
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