Family Security Matters Briefings - 10/2/08

Lobbyists, Earmarks and Gridlock - an Unholy Trinity
By KT McFarland

America has some pretty serious problems these days - Wall Street is in freefall, the dollar is in the gutter, people are losing their homes, unemployment looms on the horizon - and these are just our economic problems. We haven't reinvested in our infrastructure for decades and our roads and bridges, highways, the electrical grid, our public works facilities are crumbling. Our health care system is staggeringly expensive yet still doesn't cover all Americans. Our education system isn't training our young people for the next generation of jobs, and American preeminence in the world - be it military, economic, financial - is on the slide. Politicians on both sides of the political aisle blame each other. Our candidates say it's because we lack strong leaders, but what they mean is if we just put them in charge things would be different. [more...]

AFRICOM: Ready to Roll
By J.Peter Pham, PhD

A year and a half after it was first announced by President George W. Bush, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) becomes fully operational as the Pentagon's sixth regional combatant command yesterday. The new structure replaces an antiquated structural framework inherited from times when the continent was barely factored into America's strategic calculus and thus military responsibility for Africa was parceled out between the European, Central, and Pacific Commands in a bureaucratic version of the colonial scramble. As one who has used this column to advocate for AFRICOM, hail its creation, and continually defend the initiative, I cannot but be elated by the milestone. [more...]

The Devil in Miss Jones: 'The Jewel of Medina' Exposed
By Adrian Morgan

Over this weekend, the London home of a publisher was subjected to a gasoline attack. Dutch-born Martin Rynja owns publishing company Gibson Square Books which prints "books that are able to contribute to a current debate." Rynja had announced on September 3rd this year that in October he would be publishing a controversial novel, called The Jewel of Medina. The author of the book is American journalist Sherry Jones. In 2007, Random House had purchased the rights to publish this book and its sequel for $100,000. The book would have been published as an imprint of Random's Ballantine Books. The Jewel of Medina is Jones' first published novel. In May, Random House decided to pull out of the contract. [more...]