Robert Gates

Can a debt-ridden U.S. still afford to pick up the cheque?

Book by Dick Cheney

The defence minister goes after the Europeans, Turkey, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan

The U.S. Navy may soon allow women to serve on submarines

Because that’s the deal here: if Stanley McChrystal is confirmed as the replacement for David McKiernan as the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, his theatre title will be COMISAF, for Commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, which comprises troops from all donor states including Canada. So Barack Obama just changed our military commander in Afghanistan. Over to Fred Kaplan, who explains why “this is a very big deal,” describes the rift in military doctrine that put McChrystal and McKiernan on opposite sides, and hints at what will certainly be controversy over McChrystal’s background in Special Ops. Afghanistan is now Obama’s war, and ours with it, win or lose.

Rasmussen! The day’s tractations in Strasbourg have been interesting, and I’m sure one day in Peter MacKay’s memoirs (a few chapters after Chapter 5, “Quick! Rent a Dog!”) we’ll read all about them. Two things seem to have happened in the final hour, one public, one private: First, the Americans put word out that they were in “no great hurry” to name a NATO secretary general — which meant there was no way alternatives to Rasmussen could hope for some kind of last-minute, ill-advised, pressure-cooker switch away from the Danish heavy favourite to some dark horse. This was going to get settled the majority’s way, or it would wait — and get settled the majority’s way.

What would a Canadian television host have to say on air to elicit multiple on-camera responses from American defense secretary Robert Gates?

President approves plan to increase the number of troops

Two recent Charlie Rose interviews are worth your attention. Well, lots of Charlie Rose interviews are worth your attention, but two fit in with recent Inkless obsessions. First, Québécois pianist Alain Lefèvre discusses his fascination for composer André Mathieu, who died young (38, in 1968) and composed younger (he was mostly done writing by the time he was 20). International critics have responded enthusiastically to Mathieu and Lefèvre; Lefèvre struggles a bit with his English but nobody can miss how excited he is to be promoting his homeboy around the world. When he describes how he felt to watch a choir in Tucson learning phonetic French to sing the music of a composer who was forgotten even in Quebec a decade ago, it’s quite a moment.