War

Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war veteran and the CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, explains that Chuck Hagel is the "wrong pick at the wrong time" to lead the Defense Department:

When Senator Barack Obama was running for president back in 2008, he accused the Bush administration, his opponent Senator John McCain, and their supporters of taking their eyes off the ball by fighting a war in Iraq and ignoring the “necessary war”—the war in Afghanistan. Well, four short years later, by Obama’s lights, Afghanistan is no longer the necessary war but a war to be ignored, a war to be “ended” regardless of the strategic consequences of doing so precipitously.

The White House revealed yesterday that there "approximately 166 detainees at Guantanamo Bay" right now. The news was in Obama's "war powers resolution" letter, which is meant "to keep the Congress informed about deployments of U.S. Armed Forces equipped for combat."

In response to North Korea successfully launching a rocket earlier today, the Iranian regime sends its congratulations.

What is strategy, after all? The public talks about war as if it were a game of chess or Risk or Sid Meier’s Civilization. But the real meaning of strategy, as opposed to tactics, is the capacity to determine what to do in a world without guidelines, not how to optimize resources toward well-defined objectives. Thus, the problem with armchair strategy, even when those armchairs are in the Oval Office, is the assumption that satellite imagery and GPS tracking have eliminated fog and friction.

The Wall Street Journal editors write:

The Spirit of America announces the launch of the 68,000 Remember campaign:

Iran is claiming to have successfully "hunted" an American drone, according to a piece in the regime organ Fars News Agency. The propaganda outlet claims that this is the first time Iran has shot down an American drone.

When Mexican president Felipe Calderón leaves office on December 1, his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, will inherit a country with rampant corruption and high levels of drug-related violence. Of course, when Calderón entered the presidency six years ago, he himself inherited a country with rampant corruption and high levels of drug-related violence.

A week after the ceasefire concluding Israel’s eight day campaign against Hamas, Operation Pillar of Defense, there is some debate as to who came out on top. The way one judges the outcome seems to depend on: one, what you make of the ceasefire agreement; two, what role you think that Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi played; and, three, other less tangible factors.

The Chinese military claims for the first time to have landed a plane on an aircraft carrier, the state media outlet Xinhua reports.

China has successfully conducted flight landing on its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, naval sources said," says Xinhua.

The Israeli army has issued a warning to journalists: Stay away from the terrorist group Hamas. The warning was issued on Twitter:

Warning to reporters in Gaza: Stay away from Hamas operatives & facilities. Hamas, a terrorist group, will use you as human shields.

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) November 20, 2012

The warning comes after several targeted attacks hit high-level targets seeking refuge in the same building holding journalists.