November 30, 2009 10:53AM # A Few Foreign Policy Items By [Justin Logan](https://www.cato.org/people/justin-logan) --- SHARE 1\) Commandant of the Marine Corps announces part of justification for sending more troops to Afghanistan: “[where we have gone, goodness follows](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/28/AR2009112802454_pf.html).” Pat Lang is [displeased](http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/11/some-things-on-which-to-meditate.html). 2) [Glenn Greenwald](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/29/friedman/index.html) observes that in *Foreign Policy* magazine’s survey of leading public intellectuals who write about foreign policy, the United States is tied with Somalia and Iran for second place in the category “[Most Dangerous Country in the World](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/29/the_fp_survey?page=0,8).” 3) Afghanistan is an ideologically cross-cutting issue. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D‑OH) praises Cato’s Afghanistan study on Fox News’ On the Record, saying > …I’m against any further taxes to pay for this war. But I think it has to be pointed out, this isn’t a left-right issue. I mean, here’s the Cato Institute, hardly a left-wing organization, wrote a piece called “[Escaping the Graveyard of Empires](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10533),” and they have a plan, and I’ve met with them, that gets us out of Afghanistan, with advisers and a new approach to intelligence and also a new drug policy. Meanwhile, the liberal Center for American Progress has produced a [statement on Afghanistan](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/cap_statement.html) that offers some empty rhetoric about an exit strategy but contains no actual plan–or even a call for a plan–for exiting. Instead, their proposal for when to leave is limited to calling for a multinational effort that merely will “have all Afghan forces in the lead within four years, or the 12-year mark of our engagement.” CAP is also offering a [pretend plan to cut the Pentagon budget](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ideas/2009/11/113009.html), urging Obama to spend more than $600 billion on defense for each of the next several years. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).