Could the Tsarnaev Brothers Have Been Stopped?

Tamerlan Tsarnaev (l) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Source: Business Insider)

When the news came out shortly after the marathon bombings that Moscow had contacted Washington about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's 2011 trip to the Caucasus region in Russia, I wanted to wait for more information to surface because of the very tense history between Chechnya and Moscow. Vladimir Putin's history with Chechen separatists is long and incredibly complex, to say the least. All of this is a large grain of salt when it comes to Russian intelligence on any Caucasus separatist movement and alleged members.

On top of this, the separatist movements found in the North Caucasus region of Russia have one enemy in their eyes: Russia. It makes no sense, as some were quick to rush to postulate in the aftermath of the Marathon Bombings, that the Chechen separatist movement would attack American targets. There's a litany of reasons why this is true, but the main is that it makes no sense to attack a country who is usually at diplomatic odds with the country you view as your sworn enemy. It'd be like Puerto Rico attacking Saudi Arabia because they want to be independent from the United States.

How to Fix The Republican Party in One Step

The United States Capitol (Flickr/Dray-Dray)

One of the major setbacks of the Democratic Party is that it is a big tent party; too many factions within the party. Looking back at the health care debate it is glaringly obvious that while it can be great to have a supermajority on paper, practically it may not work out as well as perceived. The Blue Dog Democrats immediately come to mind when thinking about internal strife within the party.

This has been the 21st century Democrat's problem: lack of party unity. It's not necessarily the Democratic Party's fault, because in order to have such a large party that aims to be as inclusive as possible you're bound to have some intraparty disagreements. When you have an opponent in George Bush (read: Dick Cheney and Karl Rove) who is able to keep their party in lockstep, convincing the nation to go to war with a country we had no business warring with while eroding civil liberties in the name of safety, it is going to be very difficult to rally any party together to fight it, especially the Democrats. But in 2008 the Dems did just that and then blew it as only the Democrats can.

But they've been handed a bit of luck, as the pre-2006 Republican Party simply does not exist. It is plagued by the infighting that doomed Obama's domestic legislative agenda from 2008-2010. The fact that the two of the past three State of the Union addresses had two Republican responses, one official and the other unsanctioned, is evidence of that on a macro level. The drama around the Boehner speaker vote can point to this on a micro level. Simply put, the Republican party is in crisis.

The worst part of the whole thing for Republicans is that now is the time to reinvent the party, but instead of coming up with a more dynamic platform to speak to the younger generation disillusioned by Obama's Bush-esque foreign policy and drama-filled presidency (whether he is to blame for the latter is another question), they move further to the right. Their 2012 candidates were embarrassing. They chose to put forth Mitt Romney, one of the most boring and out of touch individuals in recent history (honestly, I'd probably rather have a drink with Al Gore, which is saying a lot) and Paul Ryan, who got smoked by a much-ridiculed and jokey VP Biden in an embarrassing debate. Throw in your fringe candidates who were not distanced enough from the party (Richard Murdouck, Todd Akin) and you're bound to lose favor with the nation, even self-described Republicans. We're starting to see this occur.

Here's what the Republican Party needs to do: drop the culture war and stop with the self-victimization over social issues. Obama is not a Marxist, gay marriage will not ruin yours, and as much as it may pain the Republican Party to hear it, separation of church and state is a major part of this country's founding. Until the GOP realizes this, there will be no groundswell movement of young, disillusioned voters to their side of the aisle. Until Rush Limbaugh and Fox News talking heads no longer hold so much power in the party, masses of young people will steer clear from the GOP.

There can be two ways for the current dual-party system to go. One of the parties can adapt and bring in a fed up, young generation of voters and dominate until at least 2020. Or a new party can emerge - maybe a coalition of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats (again, as long as they're not overly focused on some made up culture war) who feel their parties are missing out on a huge opportunity for votes (and they'd be right). If the two parties increase the polarization we've seen in Washington, Juan Linz may have to update his famous piece on presidential democracy. Let's hope we don't get to that point.

Correction 22 February 2013: A previous version of this post said that VP Biden smoked Ron Paul in a debate, when in reality it was Paul Ryan who was embarrassed that night.

2012 Election Primer: Obama and Romney

Obama and Romney (Politico)

So after a bunch of requests (read: 3) to write up an election primer, I decided that it is time to give the people what they want: to know what a random 20-something in New York who thinks he knows more than he does feels is the best candidate to cast your ballot for in November.

I began this election season promising myself that I would vote for neither candidate and instead write someone in. President Obama, in my opinion (and I can't explain to you the amount of flak I've received for this) has been an underwhelming president when compared to the candidate he was in 2008. And that last sentence fragment is important: when compared to the candidate he was in 2008. All in all, Obama's done some good things domestically (repealing DADT, his better-late-than-never support of marriage equality, healthcare reform).

That's only one side of the coin, however. I've chronicled my disappointment with President Obama numerous times on this blog (here, here, and here to begin with). One thing that you'll notice about those articles (and most of my gripes about Obama) is that his foreign policy is, in a word, horrible. It is unfathomable to me that those who derided Bush's war mongering will defend Obama for 2012.

Obama is leading this country in the wrong direction, but not in the way that Fox News would have you believe. Precedents are being set in the Obama White House that could have dire consequences down the road.

For one, take the drone program (a program that is technically entirely classified). We have drones flying over many countries - countries with whom we are at war and countries with whom we are not at war. This sets a serious precedent for other countries who may want to fly drones over the United States when they get the same technology we currently have.

Moving beyond the precedent it sets, however, is the diplomatic damage that drone strikes carry given their civilian casualties. We conduct drone operations in countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia; countries we are not at war with. This comes back to the precedent setting: can you imagine if Islamabad began flying drones, making strikes and killing American civilians?

A drone equipped with weapons and a camera (Wired)

But it's not only about the drones. It's about extralegal killings of American citizens in non-war zones. It's about a dubiously legal "kill list," despite a longstanding executive order against such assassinations. It's about not closing what will certainly be viewed as a black-eye on this nation in the form of Guantanamo.

Going back to precedents, Obama seems to be making the same, if not similar, mistakes his predecessors made in Afghanistan. During the Libya non-war, I decried the support for the untrained rebels fighting Colonel Qaddafi. Throwing supplies and intel at a group not ready for it is not good foreign policy. In fact, when I heard that the attack on the late Ambassador Chris Stevens was coordinated I wondered if any of the attackers were former Libyan rebels who had received training or materiel from the U.S. or other NATO nations. We've seen similar problems with green on blue attacks in Afghanistan in which US-trained Afghan forces attack US soldiers.

It is for these reasons that I simply felt that I could not vote for Barack Obama come November. That view is beginning to change, however, and it has nothing to do with anything Obama is doing.

I knew I was not going to vote for the Republican candidate no matter who it was. The post-Reagan conservative is simply too beholden to the religious right (cue the famous Barry Goldwater quote). You look at candidates like Rick Santorum or Rick Perry and you shake your head wondering what has happened to the Republican Party.

Now, Mitt Romney would appear to be the most palatable of the Republican candidates. Having lived in Massachusetts while he was governor and seeing the good things he did during that time (near-universal healthcare, turning around a large deficit), I have been amazed to see Romney backtrack from his accomplishments. In 2008 I asked a good friend his opinion of Romney and he replied that he was spineless and would say anything to get elected. His prescient statement has more than proven true.

We could get into the issues with Romney, but one problem is I simply don't know where he stands on anything. It changes so frequently that it makes Obama's flip-flop on gay marriage look like, well, evolution. Romney simply cannot choose one side of a position and keep it.

One thing I like in a president is transparency (this is another arena in which I've been disappointed with the Obama administration). Needless to say, the fact that Romney refuses to release his tax returns (a tradition started by his own father, to boot) does not sit well. The fact that he and his campaign allowed it to become a months-long campaign issue indicates to me that whatever he wanted to hide in the returns was worth hiding.

I was never going to cast my vote for Romney; that was decided well before he won the Republican nomination. But what Romney has done through his ridiculous missteps - the Egypt and Libya embassy attacks statement, the utter lack of specifics in any of his policy, the 47% irrationale - has made me so angry that I might actually vote for Obama out of spite for Romney. Romney's seeming ineptitude has moved me in such a way that I might actually vote for a president who I think is setting this country up for a very difficult foreign policy environment in the near and long-term future.

So to sum it up: I do not want to vote for Obama, but if voting for neither candidate would give Romney any kind of advantage (no matter how small) it actually may be irresponsible of me, given my worldview, to not vote Obama in November. I felt that the 2008 election was the first one in a while that gave the American people a chance to actually vote for a quality candidate, as opposed to the lesser of the two evils. And I maintain that Obama was a good candidate; he just could not live up to that candidate as president. This election will definitely fall into the "lesser of two evils category." I'm just angry that Romney's horrendous campaign may actually force me to choose one.