Just in time for Obama’s Afghanistan speech, a new report has been released on the war in Afghanistan:
As Christian Brose says, “This is brought to you by none other than those war-mongering neo-cons from the Center for American Progress.” This report only confirms my suspicion that nobody takes progressives very seriously on foreign policy — not Obama, certainly not Clinton, and not even Podesta, who employs a good number of them. Podesta is obviously committed to implementing a progressive domestic policy, and he saw to it that some of the top people at CAP working on those issues ended up inside the administration (Melody Barnes comes to mind). But on foreign policy, the progressives have been completely shut out in favor of a realists with roots on the center-right. And now CAP is putting out documents calling for a huge increase in troop levels in Afghanistan and a long-term commitment to bringing democracy and stability to that country through force of arms. That’s a great idea, but it’s not progressive.
