The New Republic Online

T.A. Frank in the New Republic Online | 'The Mugabelogue'

Communications — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:22:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Who's interested in Zimbabwe, and why? How should Westerners understand the situation there? And could this all be Jimmy Carter's fault? T.A. Frank and James Kirchick discussed the situation over IM...

T.A. Frank: For me, what's grimly riveting about Zimbabwe--as opposed to other nations under tyrannical rule--is that it's had such a fast and senseless decline. Sure, it's probably worse to be in North Korea, but yesterday in Pyongyang was the same as today. Zimbabwe, by contrast, was a highly developed, prosperous country until even a decade ago. Mugabe took the "jewel of Africa" and obliterated it ... LINK

The Hugh Hefner Of Politics

Ron Tang — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:52:00 -0400

I ask Taylor Marsh whether she really keeps a gun to protect herself from her detractors, as she claims on her website. So, she escorts me into her bedroom to show the proof: an HK 9mm handgun. "I know how to use it," she says, pointing the weapon briefly in my direction (it's unloaded) before walking over to the other side of the bed. There, she holds up her husband's firearm, a Ruger Mini-14 rifle. "I am just reviled everywhere," she declares with more than a hint of pride.

She's proud because, in all honesty, being hated has been good for… more

Afghanistan

Articles — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:56:00 -0400

In the current issue, I write about Afghanistan’s shaky future as the country tries to overcome years of violence and a devastating dependence on opium trade. The books and testimony below help to illustrate a place whose history is fraught with tragedy -- but where a cautious hope for a better life is beginning to take hold.

Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban (Penguin, 2006).As the Taliban fell in late 2001, Sarah Chayes was covering Afghanistan for NPR Subsequently she worked for an Afghan NGO doing reconstruction work. Living in Kandahar for four years,… more

Coalition Unwilling

Articles — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:10:00 -0400

For all the bluster about the United States’ democratization policy, military action remains America’s principal weapon for confronting Islamist extremism. In many parts of the world, U.S. forces have teamed with the security and intelligence services of Muslim states to "take the fight to the enemy" and root out common foes. Muslim regimes from North Africa to Asia had been feeling the heat well before September 11 from Islamist groups that had labeled them apostate. Afterwards, joining America’s "coalition of the willing" provided these governments with an excuse to escalate their struggles -- together with a powerful ally -- against… more

Pay to Play

Articles — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 19:48:00 -0400

"The billion-dollar election." Get used to that phrase, because you’ll be hearing it a lot over the next year and a half. That’s the total that all candidates for the presidency are expected to spend on their campaigns between now and 2008. It’s a staggering figure that critics will surely cite as evidence that money has thoroughly corrupted politics. Newt Gingrich shocked the bluenoses back in 1996, when he said that there was too little money in politics, not too much. The price tag this time around will be sure to give them apoplexy. Maybe, though, Gingrich had it right.… more

New Republic Credits New America with Individual Mandate Reforms

Communications — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 21:04:00 -0500

New America in the News:

In 2004, John Edwards was just another Democratic presidential candidate offering just another incremental plan to help make health insurance more affordable. It was a perfectly laudable plan -- one that would have made life better for millions of Americans struggling with the cost of medical care. And for that, surely, he deserved plenty of credit. Still, it wasn't as ambitious a scheme as the ones several of his rivals had put forth. Indeed, it would still have left some 10 to 20 million people -- up to half the uninsured population -- without health coverage...

Now Edwards is running for president. Only, this time, he's promising to be a different sort of candidate--one who stands apart from his competitors by taking bolder, more unconventional policy stands designed specifically to push the boundaries of debate...

On Sunday, he began yet another effort to set himself apart -- this time by becoming the first major Democratic presidential candidate to embrace the idea of universal health insurance and offer a plan for getting there. As he explained in a telephone interview yesterday, this decision reflects both a worsening of the nation's health care problems and his own maturation as a candidate...

Edwards's method of achieving universal coverage is to establish what wonks call an "individual mandate" -- a model for reform that has recently become trendy among health care economists on the center-left. (Yes, I just used the words "trendy" and "economists" in the same sentence.) Since getting a big push from the Washington-based New America Foundation a few years ago, individual mandate schemes have found advocates in former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (who passed such a plan for his state) and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (who has proposed such a plan for his)...

For the complete article, please visit The New Republic website.

Terrorism is No Longer a Male-Only Preserve

Articles — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 21:38:00 -0400

Their arrest last month hit front pages around the world. Married for only three years and with an eight-month-old baby, they are now in British police custody, suspected of plotting to bring down several U.S. passenger jets over the Atlantic -- a plan that, had it succeeded, could have killed thousands. Ahmed Abdullah Ali, 25, is charged with conspiracy to murder. Historically, Islamist jihadis have kept spouses, siblings, and relatives in the dark, but not in this case: Abdullah’s wife, Cossar Ali, 23, is charged with failure to disclose information about the plot.

If they are convicted, the Alis would… more