By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
CIA Director David H. Petraeus has resigned due to having had an extramarital affair, ending the government career of one of the nation's highest-profile leaders in the decade-long war on terror and adding a question mark to the list of vacancies in President Obama's post-election Cabinet reshuffle.
Western nations preparing to withdraw from combat in Afghanistan increasingly are alarmed by Afghan security forces turning their weapons on allied troops, attacks that the Taliban claim as proof of their sway over local troops.
Has the endgame on the Iranian nuclear program finally arrived? Is a deal in the cards? A broad swath of the foreign-policy cognoscenti, including Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, the National Interest's Paul Pillar, The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, Esquire's Richard Barnett and a host of others, seems to think so.
Taliban militants threatened to behead Americans in Afghanistan, as gunmen opened fire Tuesday on a memorial service for civilians killed by a U.S. soldier and protests erupted over a series of U.S. actions that is spreading outrage throughout the country.
"The overall combat effectiveness and ability of the ANA to operate independently is obviously a focus of major concern and effort. But in terms of outright frustration, I would think the tenuous loyalties of members of a force that is supposed to be our ally would rank most highly," he said.
"Probably the biggest area of frustration is the continued lack of trustworthiness of many members of the Afghan National Army [ANA], as demonstrated by the disturbing frequency of green-on-blue violence," said Paul Pillar, a CIA veteran and former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia.
