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Obama Seeks To Cut Troop Level In Afghanistan To 5,000 By End Of 2015

Obama Seeks To Cut Troop Level In Afghanistan To 5,000 By End Of 2015

By Christi Parsons and David S. Cloud, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is planning to leave 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the U.S. ends its combat mission this year, but will quickly cut that number roughly in half by the end of 2015, a senior administration official said Tuesday.

Obama plans on consolidating U.S. troops in Kabul and at the Bagram Airfield. Under the plan, by the end of 2016 the U.S. will draw down to “a normal embassy presence with a security assistance office in Kabul, as we have done in Iraq,” the official said.

After more than 12 years of war, the U.S. is open to supporting two “narrow missions” in the country — training Afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations against what remains of al-Qaida.

In remarks later Tuesday, Obama is expected to say that the plan is contingent on the signing of a bilateral security agreement with the new Afghan president.

President Hamid Karzai has refused to close a deal that would protect the rights of Americans remaining in the country, but White House aides say Obama is heartened by the promises of the two main Afghan presidential candidates to sign the agreement quickly if elected.

The troop levels for January 2015 track what the Pentagon has requested in recent months. Military officials say a presence of 10,000 troops is necessary to protect training, counterterrorism and intelligence gathering.

The drawdown schedule would bring U.S. troop levels down to below 5,000 by the end of 2015, a steeper decline than many in the Pentagon favored. There are 32,800 U.S. troops in the country.

The plan would keep at least some troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2016 to help Afghan troops hold off what is expected to be a resurgence in the insurgency.

The U.S. forces are expected to be in the south and east of the country, as well as in Kabul and at Bagram air base, north of the capital.

Troops from other NATO countries are expected to have responsibility for the north and east of Afghanistan. But exactly how many troops other countries will contribute and how long they will stay remain unknown.

Obama’s announcement comes as the White House is trying to refocus a somewhat scattered foreign policy agenda. White House officials say the president plans to try to clarify his top priorities in a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Wednesday.

The remarks will describe the president’s vision for his remaining years in office and also seek to push back against those who say Obama has bounced from crisis to crisis without a consistent approach to U.S. intervention — sending mixed messages to allies and foes.

The criticism has largely focused on Obama’s handling of conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere. Obama’s plans in Afghanistan will serve to put greater public focus on a region the White House believes is more stable. Obama came into office promising to wind down the war in Afghanistan and is on track to leave the White house in 2016 with a minimal force of U.S. troops there.

AFP Photo/Aref Karimi

U.S. Senate Weighs NASA Decision To Restrict Ties With Russia

U.S. Senate Weighs NASA Decision To Restrict Ties With Russia

By Mark K. Matthews, Orlando Sentinel

WASHINGTON — The granddaughter of former President Dwight Eisenhower — the man who founded NASA at the start of the Cold War — on Wednesday warned that NASA was making a “counterproductive and damaging” mistake by restricting ties with Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

Speaking before a U.S. Senate panel, Susan Eisenhower, a longtime NASA adviser, said the administration erred last week when it cut off most ties with Roscosmos, Russia’s space program, in response to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, a former territory of Ukraine.

“Rolling back space cooperation could be counterproductive and damaging to our national security and long-term space agenda,” said Eisenhower, referring to new restrictions on NASA travel to Russia and contact between U.S. and Russian scientists.

The major exception to NASA’s blockade of Roscosmos is the operation of the International Space Station, where two NASA astronauts currently are living alongside three Russian cosmonauts, as well as a sixth astronaut from Japan.

But Eisenhower said even this exception had pitfalls.

“Where does work on ISS begin and where does it end?” she asked in prepared remarks. “This could be of major significance if there is an emergency in space that impacts the community beyond the operational side of the ISS.”

One NASA official who also appeared at the hearing conceded that Eisenhower had a point, but said the level of safety onboard the ISS remained unchanged — at least for now.

“It’s not a concern at this point. We have a very strong relationship with Roscosmos and our partners and doing day-to-day operations in a very effective manner,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations, in an interview.

“But I think we need to be aware of what Susan (Eisenhower) said and make sure that we are continually vigilant.”

Asked whether NASA made the right call in restricting ties, Gerstenmaier — a longtime NASA veteran who frequently works with Russia — declined to elaborate, but he noted that “there are huge advantages to our cooperation in space.”

NASA is in the process of reviewing some of the other partnerships it has with Russia to determine if other exemptions are warranted. Gerstenmaier said Wednesday that NASA will allow its people to participate in a space research conference this August in Moscow.

In her testimony, Eisenhower said that restricting communication between scientists could backfire on the U.S. because the Russian scientific community was among the country’s “most progressive” political sectors and the one that is open to finding common ground.

“We want to make sure that we express our displeasure with Russian behavior and do so in a way that will count with the regime and not punish our friends,” she said.

The only two senators to attend the hearing were both from Florida: Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Marco Rubio.

Rubio said that Eisenhower brought an “interesting perspective” but that he ultimately supported NASA’s restrictions.

“The geopolitical realities of what we’re facing there (in Ukraine) are significant enough that I’m not prepared to criticize the decision that was made,” he said.

Nelson took a different tack.

“I agree with Susan Eisenhower,” he said.

AFP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov

‘Job Creator’ To Eliminate 30,000 Jobs

Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank, plans to cut about 30,000 jobs over the next few years in an effort to save $5 billion per year. These cuts, many of which the company expects to come through eliminating unfilled positions, will follow up 6,000 job cuts that the bank has already made through the third quarter of this year.

The bank’s plan to cut 10 percent of its workforce is yet another sign that Congress’ policy of corporate welfare is not working. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says that President Obama must lower the corporate tax rate and “be as bold about liberating job creators as he is about shackling them” if he hopes to lower unemployment and stimulate the economy. It’s hard to see what more could be done for a “job creator” like Bank of America, however.

Bank of America received $45 billion dollars of capital investments and emergency funding through the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program, it paid zero dollars in federal income tax in 2009 and 2010, and last year it received a tax refund of $1.9 billion from the IRS despite making $4.4 billion in profits. But despite all of this goodwill from the U.S. government, Bank of America is choosing to eliminate 30,000 more jobs in a climate of over 9 percent unemployment.

It’s about time that we stop showering praise on companies like Bank of America, which receive charity from the federal government and respond by exploiting loopholes to avoid paying taxes, and by cutting jobs at the worst possible time. It’s time to be honest with ourselves: Bank of America is not a “job creator;” it’s a profit-seeking institution without concern for the public good.

Congressional Republicans Plan To Slash UN Funding

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a bill today that would cut American contributions to the United Nations and punish any UN organizations that go along with next month’s planned UN vote on Palestinian statehood. The bill would abolish the compulsory fees that the U.S. currently pays the UN in favor of voluntary contributions, which would vary depending on how the U.S. feels about the direction of UN policy. If the UN doesn’t get at least 80 percent of its overall funding from voluntary contributions, then the bill would require the U.S. to slash its contributions by 50 percent.

The bill would also freeze U.S. contributions to peacekeeping missions until Ros-Lehtinen’s reforms are enacted, and would withdraw the U.S. from UN Human Rights Council. It would also withhold U.S. funding to any UN entities which, in the words of Ros-Lehtinen’s spokesman, “upgrade the status of the Palestinian mission, in advance of the Palestinian Authority’s statehood push at the UN.”

Ros-Lehtinen clearly timed the introduction of her bill to coincide with the upcoming debate on Palestinian statehood. The chairwoman said in a statement that

“The Palestinian leadership’s current scheme to attain recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN without even recognizing Israel’s right to exist has been tried before, and it was stopped only when the U.S. made clear that it wouldn’t fund any UN entity that went along with it. … [M]y bill similarly seeks to stop this dangerous scheme in its tracks.”

How the bill will accomplish this goal is unclear. Ros-Lehtinen’s first problem is that the bill has almost no chance of becoming law. Peter Yeo, the vice president for public policy at the UN Initiative, told Foreign Policy,

“It’s an extremist bill, and as a result of that is has little chance of getting broad bipartisan support. … [Senate Foreign Relations Committee heads] John Kerry and Richard Lugar have been strong supporters of a sound relationship between the U.S. and the UN, and we’ll continue to have strong Senate and executive branch opposition to this initiative.”

Furthermore, the Obama administration has already come out in opposition to the bill, and if it somehow passed through both the House and the Senate, President Obama would almost surely veto it.

Even if it were to become law, Ros-Lehtinen’s bill would be unlikely to accomplish its goals. Rep. Howard Berman, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that the bill would “undoubtedly weaken our influence at the UN and make it harder to counter Palestinian attempts to unilaterally declare statehood.”

It’s hard to argue with Berman’s point; if the U.S. pulls out of the Human Rights Council and slashes funding for humanitarian missions in desperate countries like Haiti and Sudan, our ability to claim moral leadership will be badly damaged.

Overall, the Obama administration has enjoyed a good relationship with the United Nations, as evidenced by the organization’s move to authorize military action against Libya. Jeffery Laurenti, a UN analyst at the Century Foundation, said in a blog post,

“After two years of the closest and most productive cooperation in decades at the UN between Washington and the rest of the international community, it is hard to understand why Republicans in the House of Representatives are determined to poison the well.”

The recent foreign policy successes of the Obama administration may have intensified Republicans’ determination to move in a different direction. A push back toward unilateralism would give the Republican Party an alternative to President Obama’s foreign policy, which they could present to voters. Perhaps that’s why, at a time when many analysts are declaring the dawn of a “new era” in U.S. foreign policy, Ros-Lehtinen and her Republican colleagues seem determined to bring us back to the days of John Bolton diplomacy.