Outside the Beltway

Despite our rather obvious problems, we’re in great shape compared to the rest of the developed world and, especially, to even our fairly recent ancestors.

I liveblogged and tweeted my instant, mostly snarky, reaction to the CNN foreign policy debate. Here are some more fully formed thoughts.

I’ll be liveblogging tonight’s Republican national security debate over at RealClearWorld along with a solid team of foreign policy analyst

Why we shouldn’t be surprised that police are using tools of violence against protestors.

Herman Cain has either doubled down on his foreign policy ignorance or proven himself a man of great nuance.

The most disturbing part of Saturday’s debate came when most of the GOP candidates endorsed torture.

Last night, Herman Cain established that he simply isn’t prepared to be Commander in Chief.

Huntsman will gain little if any traction and none of the frontrunners really helped or hurt themselves.

The Secretary of Defense has some words of warning for those advocating military action against Iran.

The CIA’s drone war in Pakistan has gotten so out of hand that the Pentagon and State Department are reigning it in.

Our good friend Hamid Karzai, contemplating a war between the United States and our good allies Pakistan, says that he would of course fight with Pakistan.

Ahead of his big foreign policy speech, Mitt Romney has unveiled his “Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team” which “will assist Governor Romney as he presents his vision for restoring American leadership in the world and securing our enduring interests and ideals abroad.”

Ten years ago tomorrow, President Bush announced that “the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.”

The first two months of Rick Perry’s campaign are a good example of why it helps to start a Presidential campaign early.

Are we placing far too much importance on how someone does in a two hour so-called “debate”?

If you’re interested in knowing how the candidates would handle a foreign policy crisis, last night’s debate was mostly unhelpful.

During last night’s debate, Mitt Romney repeated a charge that has become part of the conservative zeitgeist. But is it true?

Last night’s Republican debate is likely to raise more questions about Rick Perry in the minds of voters.

The U.S. War in Afghanistan sounds disturbingly similar to the Soviet one.

Killing’s our business and business is good.

Are colleges teaching the right lessons about the 9/11 attacks?

Ron Paul is again making the argument that American foreign policy has contributed to terrorism. He’s more right than wrong.

That a popular two-term governor of Utah is being rejected by likely Republican primary voters as insufficiently conservative shows just how extreme American politics has gotten.

The U.S may be on the verge of committing the next decade to the future of Afghanistan.

Honoring the fallen by ensuring that the didn’t die in vain is a recipe for getting more good men killed.

A take on the conflict that’s probably different from the one you’ve been reading.

Once again, the debt ceiling deal is raising questions about the President’s leadership.

News that Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik was a fan of anti-Islamist sites, including Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs has opened a big can of schadenfreude.

Freshman GOP Representative Allen West is a loose cannon and unfit for office.

So the CIA organized a fake vaccination drive in Pakistan in an attempt to get bin Laden family DNA. What could possibly go wrong?

Our good ally Pakistan has publicly ordered us to leave a base used for “covert” CIA drone attacks.

Barack Obama’s leadership style may be his undoing.

A few Republicans have picked up on John McCain’s criticism of critics of the Libya mission as being “isolationist.”