National Interest USA

The US has adopted a tough new policy aimed at protecting its interests in space and denying “adversaries” access there for hostile purposes.

The document – signed by President Bush – also says “freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power”.

The document rejects any proposals to ban space weapons.

But the White House has said the policy does not call for the development or deployment of weapons in space.

However, some military experts warn that by refusing to enter into negotiations on space weaponry, the US is likely to fuel international suspicions that it will develop such weapons.

The 10-page strategic document states that the US national security “is critically dependent upon space capabilities, and this dependence will grow”.

“The United States will preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space… and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US national interests,” it says.

Satellite fears

The document also sets out US commercial ambitions, saying it is committed to encouraging and facilitating a growing entrepreneurial space sector.

It is the first revision in US space policy for 10 years, and it is a forthright one, the BBC’s Nick Miles in Washington says.

It addresses concerns voiced in a 2001 Pentagon report that said technological advances would enable potential enemies to disrupt orbiting US satellites, our correspondent says.

Unclassified details of the policy published on the internet say space capabilities, including spy and other communication satellites, are essential for national security.

But the White House said the policy was not a prelude to putting weapons in orbit and that there was no shift in US policy.

“The notion that you would do defence from space is different from that of weaponisation of space. We’re comfortable with the policy”, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

President Bush authorised the policy in August but it was not released until October.

During the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan proposed a defence shield using laser or particle beam technology to “intercept and destroy” incoming nuclear missiles.

The Strategic Defence Initiative, or “Star Wars” programme as it came to be known, was abandoned in 1993.

A National Interest Waiver, or NIW, is an employment based second preference petition. 

A person qualifies for this benefit if he/she falls within the second preference employment based category, namely a person in the professions who either holds an advanced degree or is considered possessing exceptional ability in the sciences, business or arts. 

Normally, these applicants are subject to the labor certification requirement.  However, an exception exists if their employment is in the “national interest”. 

Thus, a beneficiary of a successful NIW is exempt from the requirement that his or her employer first obtain an individual labor certification from the Department of Labor.

EAST

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Mayor Anthony Williams withdrew his application to join the Order of Malta after members of the Catholic service society complained he shouldn’t be allowed to join because he supports abortion rights and protections for gay unions. Williams’s critics used Internet blogs to voice their concerns, but order president Noreen Falcone said anonymous postings with incomplete information were unfair to Williams and his sponsors.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Judicial Nominating Commission is expected to send the names of three to five finalists for state Supreme Court chief justice to Gov. Don Carcieri on Tuesday. The commission interviewed six candidates last week. The court’s current four justices are vying for the top spot, along with U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente and Superior Court Judge Francis Darigan. Carcieri’s selection must be confirmed by the General Assembly.

SOUTH

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Alabama farmers can continue selling homemade jams, jellies and cakes at farmers’ markets. State health officials stopped sales of homemade goods last summer, but new rules will allow such food with a label or sign saying it was prepared at a location that isn’t inspected. Home-canned foods still won’t be permitted because of the botulism risk.

ATLANTA (AP) — Tax assessors in metro Atlanta are expecting an onslaught of requests to lower property values due to the economic downturn, setting up a possible domino effect of decreased values for entire communities. That could mean lower tax collections for local governments that are already strapped for cash. DeKalb County appraiser Hank Ruffin his office has received more than four times the normal amount of requests for adjustments.

MIDWEST

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A tombstone furnished by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was placed at the grave of Civil War-era soldier Peter New. A handful of people watched its placement at his previously unmarked grave in Haven of Rest Cemetery. New was part of the U.S. Colored Troops and joined the Army a month after the war ended, most likely replacing white soldiers.

Obama called the war one of necessity, so why is he so reluctant to increase troop levels? Brian Katulis and Gabriel Schoenfeld debate.

The United States absolutely has a vital interest in making sure that Afghanistan doesn’t slip into further chaos. The Bush administration took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan, and as a result, the situation there deteriorated. The fundamental question isn’t the end goal; the real policy debate is about the most appropriate and effective means toward the end of stabilizing Afghanistan and achieving the goal outlined by President Obama: “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.”

At this stage, Obama’s reluctance to increase troop levels is not only appropriate but necessary. Asking tough questions about additional troop requests is appropriate given the serious questions about our partners in Afghanistan. Any possible new counterinsurgency strategy in dealing with Afghanistan is dependent on having a government there that not only has legitimacy in the eyes of its people but shares the same goals that we have.

After what I witnessed on the ground in Afghanistan last month as an election observer — the elections were fraught with widespread fraud — I have a strong skepticism that there is a partner that shares our goals. Many of the leaders in Afghanistan’s government have ties to drug traffickers, and the drug trade funds the Taliban insurgents who are fighting the United States and its allies. Afghanistan is also ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world, according to several independent groups, and millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been lost due to this corruption.

Given these realities, it would be unwise for the United States to send more troops before getting a stronger commitment from Afghanistan’s leaders to reduce their country’s drug trade and to fight corruption. And absent a strong commitment from Afghanistan’s leaders, the United States should consider all of its options for keeping Americans safe and develop a Plan B. Full-blown armed nation-building in a country awash in corruption is not the only way to keep Americans safe. We owe it to our troops and taxpayers to look at all options.

Troop levels are one important variable, but those levels are not the only variable to consider when debating how to achieve the goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States has tripled the number of its troops in Afghanistan since early 2007; simply sending more is not a magic cure.

Finally, any strategy must also deal with what is an even bigger challenge, the country to Afghanistan’s east. Pakistan is where key Al Qaeda leaders migrated over the last eight years. Its territory is used by terrorist networks for training and plotting attacks; two recent alleged terror plots in the United States involved people traveling to Pakistan for training.

Obama is doing the right thing in carefully weighing his options in Afghanistan, and as he does so, he should keep in mind the challenges next door in Pakistan. The threats are real, the interests are strong and the real debate is over the means to achieve our goals in both countries.

Brian Katulis is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where his work focuses on U.S. national security policy in the Middle East and South Asia.

As Obama hesitates, victory becomes less likely
Counterpoint: Gabriel Schoenfeld

Thanks, Brian; I completely agree with you about the vital interests at stake in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I am not nearly as sanguine as you are that the Obama administration shares our assessment. Indeed, to judge by some of Obama’s recent pronouncements, a deep fog of war seems to have settled over the White House.

To my mind, our two overriding military objectives should remain as they were: to keep the Taliban out of power and on the run, and to destroy any and all remnants of Al Qaeda. The Bush administration must certainly bear historical responsibility for its shortcomings and mistakes. It did not succeed at either objective over an eight-year slog. But neither did it completely fail.

Yet now we are approaching that dangerous point. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commands U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has just offered a grim assessment: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term [the next 12 months] … risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.” Obama now occupies the Oval Office. If we do fail in Afghanistan over the next year, the responsibility will be his.

As a presidential candidate, Obama called Afghanistan “the central front in the war on terror,” and he pledged to supply the resources needed to turn things around and “defeat” Al Qaeda in a “war of necessity.” Now, as president, the rhetoric has remained the same; but the policy, as it appears to be shaping up, does not match his utterances.

Indeed, it was clear to all concerned when he put McChrystal in command that the president thought a counterinsurgency strategy involving more troops offered the best chance to reverse the deteriorating war effort. Yet by calling at this juncture for a review of his own fundamental strategy and declaring that no decisions have been made, he appears to be getting cold feet.

If Obama reverses course because of the tainted reelection of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the corruption of his government, then he is breathtakingly naive about the nature of governance in that portion of world. To agonize, as you do, Brian, about whether we have a worthy partner in the government of Afghanistan, is to be blithely indifferent to the real choices before us. Abandoning Afghanistan to its fate under the Taliban because its present government is less than pure would be a foreign policy blunder of the first magnitude, with catastrophic effects on Pakistan and the entire region.

Unfortunately, leading Democrats in Congress are suggesting that the United States should cut its losses. Polls show that Obama’s base in the Democratic Party is ready and eager to say farewell to a distant war in a faraway land. I fear that these opinion trends explain what Leslie Gelb, in an important Wall Street Journal Op-Ed article, has called Obama’s shift from “confident policy proclamations” to “temporizing statements.”

The harsh reality is that temporizing statements can themselves do immense harm. One of McChrystal’s observations about Afghanistan is quite pertinent: The “perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents.” Hesitation in the White House is thus a critical element in the strategic equation, one that could lead to a rout.

“On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions who, at the dawn of victory, sat down to wait … and waiting died,” poet George Cecil said in 1923. As Obama ponders away precious time, he should contemplate the poet’s words.

Gabriel Schoenfeld is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a resident scholar at the Witherspoon Institute. His latest book, “Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law,” will be published by W.W. Norton in 2010.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times.