Foreign Policy

On Thursday, October 29, over 20 organizations (including my employer, Advocates for Youth) that work across the spectrum of global health advocacy and practice came together on Capitol Hill in partnership with the Congressional Global Health Caucus to offer support and recommendations for Members of Congress and the Obama Administration on how to best realize the goals of President Obama’s Global Health Initiative, announced last May with the release of his Fiscal Year 2010 budget request.

During the briefing, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-4-MN) (Appropriator and Founding Chairman of the Congressional Global Health Caucus), Rep. Diane Watson (D-33-CA) (Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Democratic Chair of the Congressional Women’s Caucus) spoke to their commitment to the United States’ engagement with the rest of the world through investments in global health.

Rep. Watson put this messaging in context when she noted that throughout the war in Iraq, the United States has spent approximately $15 billion per month. “You do the math,” she said, emphasizing the disparity between our expenditures on military engagement overseas and our expenditures on global health (which are by no means small, but in comparison to the military, are quite meager). Rep. Watson stressed the need for the United States to engage with the world not with a gun but with a supportive hand, noting especially the need to “train and educate young people,” while Rep. McCollum noted the need to offer young women access to education and health care services so they can make responsible decisions for their future.

These points could not be more important to note in the entire reshuffling process that’s occurring right now in U.S. foreign assistance—from the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) at the State Department, to the President’s Study on Development (PSD) and the President’s Global Health Initiative (GHI) at the White House, to the re-write of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 being ambitiously undertaken in the House and Senate. With so many moving parts, all with the intent of ensuring that U.S. engagement with low and middle income countries is responding to so-called “21st-century challenges,” policy makers must seize this opportunity to engage the world’s three billion young people under the age of 25 in their efforts to make the United States’ foreign assistance have a sustainable and deeply-seeded positive impact for the long term.

The engagement of Millennials in the United States in the future direction of U.S. foreign policy and global health policy is crucial. Young people in the United States, especially students, many of whom have taken to degrees or minors in international affairs and/or global health, have been a driving force in raising the profile of global health policy and programs among fellow Americans in recent years. (See organizations such as the Student Global AIDS Campaign, Global Justice, University Coalitions for Global Health, Globe Med, among many others.)

In addition to those studying the subjects, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the number of American students studying abroad increased 150 percent from 1996 to 2006, and the number remains on the rise (though it has been constrained by a decreasing dollar value and increased higher education costs). Further, others fortunate to secure financial means to do so have participated in international volunteer trips and have contributed to development of healthcare infrastructure and provision of services in their volunteer work. Having been privileged enough to study abroad myself, this experience can transform one’s notion of what is “foreign,” making it clear that no matter where one was born, without health, it is very difficult to fully realize one’s dreams or one’s rights.

For many Millennials, it should be noted, these opportunities—both to study international affairs/global health and/or participate in study/volunteer/work abroad programs—are out of reach, due to any number of obstacles. And for many young people, the challenges faced by their local community—ranging from lack of access to education, healthcare, and civic engagement, among others—can be more pressing than anything beyond our country’s borders.

However, even these Millennials constitute part of the majority of young people who are making an indelible mark on the legal and philosophical and civic fabric of the U.S. approach to health policy through a strong belief in access to health care as a human right, not as a luxury good. According to a 2008 American National Election Study (ANES), “60 percent of 18- to 29-year olds support universal health care, compared to 48 percent of all other eligible voters.” In this sense, they are joining the leagues of young people around the world for whom healthcare is not perceived as a privilege, but as a right. This marks a sea change in American political thought and represents the emerging vision of the world that Millennials are building.

That vision for universal access to quality, affordable health care is the basis of the recommendations laid out by the civil society organizations at Thursday’s briefing. (The details of the briefing panel and the full report and recommendations made by the civil society group are available at The Global Health Initiative.) To date, U.S. financial contributions to global health have been larger than any other country on earth in absolute terms. Through U.S. leadership, our country has helped turn the tide in access to healthcare services, information, and education in many places on the planet.

But we have also faltered in a few ways as our global health policies and programs have evolved:

1. our policies regarding that immense funding have, in certain instances, fallen prey to petty battles for political capital usually stemming from politically controversial issues within U.S. politics—notably resulting in policies which limit provision of sexual and reproductive health care and which limit comprehensive sex education for young people;
2. global health programs are appropriated by Congress according to different issue sets and conditions such as maternal and child health, reproductive health and family planning, HIV and AIDS, neglected tropical diseases, healthcare workforce, etc. While all of these issue areas and specific conditions need particular attention, people’s lives, just like ours here, do not revolve around one health condition—and therefore we have to ensure U.S. global health programs are linked on the ground to provide integrated service delivery;
3. given the amount of money we spend engaging with low- and middle-income countries, the proportion of our funding spent on global health is but a miniscule fraction of what we spend on other efforts to engage with the world, especially the military. This does not mean military spending is not important, but that investments in global health aimed at the reduction of despair and empowerment of local individuals and communities may support and actually reduce the need for military interventions over the long term through constructing environments where people are not driven to violence for survival.

These faults are not unfixable. And in fact, a high-profile Senator from Maine said it well in reference to her vote on the proposed healthcare reform legislation in the Senate, “the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of action.” Millennials get this. And we get that if we want our world to be more equitable, more secure, and more empowered when we’re no longer 18-29 year-olds, we have to act now to improve our policies and seriously invest in what works.

Originally posted on Amplify

Last week I wrote about the House passing the Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act. Because I failed to detail the bill then, I want to now examine the ramifications of the legislation's passage this week, reiterating why it is so important to today's young people.

According to the Institute of International Education, there are three times as many foreign students studying in the United States as there are Americans studying abroad. And those Americans who do study overseas can't help but go to the beautiful cities/cultures they're exposed to in today's media - cities with economies that are functional and developed. (I certainly am not implying that this is a wrong choice, but merely noting that it's natural for students to want to see romanticized cultures described to them for most of their lives.) The Paul Simon legislation not only seeks to balance those Americans studying abroad with the number of foreign students studying in the United States (it will do so over ten years), but it also wants to diversify locations across the world. Europe and Australia might still be popular, but hopefully options in underdeveloped countries in Africa and Asia will grow in popularity as well.

Of course, the legislation's main benefit to students and institutions, as cited last week, is the funding commitment. More opportunities will be offered to students should the bill be signed into law by President Obama, thanks to the injection of millions of dollars into the process. In return for the funding, though, institutions will be expected to examine common barriers to students studying abroad on their individual campuses and finding solutions for those problems.

If passed, the legislation would create other initiatives that fortify the U.S.'s presence in the world, especially among young people. In addition to study abroad provisions, the legislation adds 1500 Foreign Service Officers and modernizes the diplomatic corps. From a House Foreign Affairs Committee press release:

Among other significant measures in the bill are provisions that:

• strengthen the arms control and nonproliferation capabilities of the State Department

• reform the system of export controls for military technology and improve oversight of U.S. security assistance

• ensure that the United States will meet its financial commitments to the United Nations (U.N.) and other international organizations

• allow financing the refurbishment of helicopters for U.N. peacekeeping missions in Darfur, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other peacekeeping missions authorized by the U.N. Security Council

• establish the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation as a new executive branch corporation to expand dramatically the number and economic diversity of U.S. students studying overseas

• substantially increase the budget of the Peace Corps to support President Obama’s goal of doubling the number of Peace Corps volunteers, and authorize a plan to use short-term volunteers to respond to humanitarian and development needs

• broaden the Merida anti-drug trafficking initiative to include the Caribbean, and improve monitoring and evaluation of Merida programs

• and increase resources and training for enforcement of intellectual property rights, especially in countries identified by the U.S. government as lax in enforcing those rights.

NAFSA has been doing a fantastic job of outreach and education on this bill. Their release on the House's passage of the bill can be found here. NAFSA has made an online guide to the bill, while also creating a Facebook group to track its progress with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where it heads next.

There's no doubt young people would benefit from this bill, especially given how much it does target multicultural, compromising, and pragmatic millennials. There's no reason for the legislation to run out of time this session. We'll keep an eye on this as it moves on to the Senate. In the meantime, be sure to take advantage of NAFSA's coverage above.

While it should not surprise the most intense political observers, the Republican Party has lost the faith of young voters in yet another category.

A National Journal piece this weekend analyzes poll data from a Democracy Corps survey conducted from May 10-May 12.

The poll's central finding is that in the wake of President Obama's election, the traditional Republican advantage on national security issues has evaporated. Asked May 10-12 which party is better at handling "national security," 43 percent of respondents said Republican and 41 percent said Democratic -- a statistical tie.

That contrasts with the 14-point advantage (49 percent to 35 percent) that Republicans held last August in a Greenberg-Rosner poll, and the 29-point edge (54 percent to 25 percent) that they held six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Moreover, the latest survey indicates that Democrats now hold sizable leads over Republicans on several components of national security, such as diplomacy. Asked which party is superior at "improving global respect for America," respondents gave Democrats a whopping 36-point edge. On "working with our allies around the world," Democrats ended up with a 27-point margin.

The new Democracy Corps poll also found that Democrats hold advantages -- albeit slimmer ones -- on the questions of which party would do a better job with "the situation in Afghanistan" (12 percentage points) and "the situation in Iraq" (10 points).

While the GOP still has a decent foothold among youth with regard to national security issues, currently statistically tied with Democrats, their disadvantage is clear. Their huge momentum loss from 2003 to now has to be depressing in its own right, but on top of that, the Millennial worldview has changed. Millennial views of national security are steeped in multilateralism, with diplomacy at the forefront. And as indicated in the excerpt above, Democrats dominate similarly-focused survey categories.

This has to be encouraging news to the Truman Project, an organization that trains progressive youth to lead on matters of national security. On its website, the Truman Project notes that it has trained youth who have now gone on to positions of importance, such as military leaders, campaign advisers, and congressional staffers.

Thanks to its hard work, the Truman Project and other organizations targeting progressive youth have assisted in developing a generation of Millennial activists creating positive change. As a consequence, the Republican Party is contracting with no apparent clue of how to stop it.

In his weekly address to the nation yesterday, President Obama stated that the ways of Washington are changing. What's particularly heartening is that the change can be seen in a variety of areas. One such change is a program Sec. of State Clinton announced at NYU's commencement ceremonies on May 13th at Yankee Stadium.

The program would encourage millennials to flex their diplomatic muscles.

Virtual Student Foreign Service (VSFS) Internships, announced by Secretary Clinton at the 2009 New York University commencement speech, are part of a growing effort by the State Department to harness technology and a commitment to global service among young people to facilitate new forms of diplomatic engagement. The VSFS Internships will be developed over the next year and will seek to harness the energy of a rising generation of citizen diplomats.

Working from college and university campuses in the United States, American students will partner with our embassies abroad to conduct digital diplomacy that reflects the realities of our networked world. By combining the talents of young people across America and the right technology, we can forge the solutions that our century demands.

What a difference a new administration makes. This effort highlights the hallmarks of millennials -- technology, service, and a participating in constructive dialogue among diverse groups of people. It also takes advantage of the enthusiasm of millennials for working through institutions to pursue a common good. Finally, this trains young people already interested in foreign service early in their careers, encouraging more effective service later in life. Another win-win situation for youth and the future of the country.

Yes, quite a scary title, but stick with me. Hannity is disturbed by President Obama's comments at a town hall event on Friday in Strasbourg, France. Obama called on Americans to stop ridiculing Europe as many have increasingly over the past eight years, while simultaneously calling out Europe's tendency to blame much of the world's woes on the United States. Thanks to Think Progress, here's the rundown of what was said:

That evening, Fox News’s Sean Hannity truncated Obama’s speech, cutting out Obama’s criticism of Europe’s anti-Americanism. Hannity was apoplectic that Obama would “blame America first,” declaring the president was just like the Dixie Chicks. What’s more, he insisted, the speech was proof of Obama’s “deep resentment” of America:

HANNITY: You know, I’m going to — I resent this. When you consider…all we have done just in the last century alone to save Europe from themselves. I resent this. I think it’s outrageous, the media’s ignored it. But don’t you think this is like the Dixie Chicks? […]

HANNITY: But didn’t we see all of this in the campaign? As I was bringing up — didn’t Reverend Wright give us a little insight into his thought process? Didn’t, you know, Michelle Obama, America is a downright mean country. … But I’m thinking, didn’t we get some insight? When you sit on a board and give speeches with Bill Ayers, didn’t this — Do you think he harbors deep resentment that he just hides? Because I believe he does.

As painful as it might be to watch that video (I can't stand Sean Hannity anymore than you can), I think we can get something out of this. Let's first explicate what Hannity said.

We can start with the word "resentment." Webster's Dictionary gives us the definition of "resent": "to feel or express annoyance or ill will at." So Sean Hannity believes that, at best, America annoys President Obama, and, at worst, Obama wishes the United States ill will. Hannity's rhetoric is obviously divisive here. By expressing his belief that the president wishes for America to fail, Hannity telegraphs to us that he believes himself to be in line with America's values. By accusing President Obama of not investing himself in the United States and its long-term health, Sean Hannity is implying that he knows what it takes to make that investment.

The questioning of Barack Obama's patriotism is certainly not shocking given the character assassination John Kerry had to endure from the right in 2004. The conservative machine, fueled by hacks like Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Hannity himself, is disinterested in honest discussions of the issues facing America today (there's not much to work with). Instead, they'd rather discredit the messenger and reap the political benefits, not enjoying widespread support from the American people, but dividing them enough to ensure electoral success, and thus, power. This didn't work for Hannity and Co. in 2008, and so someone's still throwing a hissy-fit in the playpen. But I digress.

I don't believe that simply attacking Hannity for having an opinion is the efficient thing to do here, though it's tempting. We can take Hannity's tirade above at face value and get pissed off, or we can examine what's really being said and represented between the lines. When you do that in this case, things get very interesting.

Like I explained before, in order to make the claim that Obama isn't supporting America enough, Hannity must believe that he has the recipe for the ideal American patriotism. Let's dig in his biography a bit to find out what we all should be doing in order to be the best Americans we can be.

Hannity hosted his first talk radio show in 1989 at the volunteer college station at UC Santa Barbara, KCSB-FM, while working as a general contractor. The show aired for 40 hours of air time; Hannity has since called the show "terrible." Hannity's weekly show on KCSB was canceled after less than a year when management charged him with "discriminating against gays and lesbians." This was after two shows featuring the book The AIDS Coverup: The Real and Alarming Facts about AIDS by Gene Antonio; among other remarks, Hannity told a lesbian caller that "I feel sorry for your child". The station later reversed its decision to dismiss Hannity due in part to a campaign conducted by the Santa Barbara Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Hannity decided against returning to KCSB.

After leaving KCSB, Hannity placed an ad in radio publications presenting himself as "the most talked about college radio host in America." Radio station WVNN in Athens, Alabama (part of the Huntsville market) then hired him to be the afternoon talk show host. From Huntsville, he moved to WGST in Atlanta in 1992, filling the slot vacated by Neal Boortz, who had moved to competing station WSB. In September 1996 Fox News co-founder Roger Ailes hired the then relatively unknown Hannity to host a television program under the working title Hannity and LTBD ("liberal to be determined"). Alan Colmes was then hired to co-host and the show debuted as Hannity & Colmes.

Later that year Hannity left WGST for New York, where WABC had him substitute for their afternoon drive time host during Christmas week. In January 1997, WABC put Hannity on the air full-time, giving him the late night time slot. WABC then moved Hannity to the same drive time slot he had filled temporarily a little more than a year earlier. Hannity has been on WABC's afternoon time slot since January 1998.

Hmm... anything else?

Conservative Cal Thomas and liberal Bob Beckel, in their book Common Ground, describe Hannity as a leader of the pack among broadcasting political polarizers, which following James Q. Wilson they define as those who have "an intense commitment to a candidate, a culture, or an ideology that sets people in one group definitively apart from people in another, rival group."

Ah, right - you have to be divisive as well. To be fair, Mr. Hannity is part of one initiative for the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund:

Hannity has hosted country music-themed Freedom Concerts since 2003, billed to help benefit the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, a charity created by Oliver North to provide college scholarships to children with a parent severely disabled or killed in military action. Appearing artists have included Sara Evans, Martina McBride, Lee Greenwood, LeAnn Rimes, Montgomery Gentry, Darryl Worley, Charlie Daniels, Larry the Cable Guy, and Michael W. Smith.

The Freedom Concerts were held annually in the Northern Star Arena at the Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey through 2006. In 2007, the annual concert was expanded to a summer series held at five locations across the United States, culminating with the September 11 event in New Jersey marking the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Speakers at the September 11, 2007 concert included Oliver North, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and several conservative talk show hosts from WABC Radio.

This analysis demonstrates the values that Sean Hannity believes to be requisite in being a sincere American. Apparently, loudmouth, conservative bigotry is the name of the game. Yet, remember -- Hannity was criticizing our president. For shits and giggles, let's take a look at his formative years.

Of his early childhood, Obama recalled, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind." He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. He disclosed that he used alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind". At the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency in 2008, Obama identified his high-school drug use as his "greatest moral failure".

Reflecting later on his formative years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."

Following high school, he moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to attend Occidental College. After two years he transferred in 1981 to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations and graduated with a B.A. in 1983. He worked for a year at the Business International Corporation and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988. During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000. He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens. Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute. In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time. He returned in August 2006 in a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya.

Today's Republican Party sees its vision for America crystallized in Sean Hannity, who talks a lot, is divisive, and eventually came up with one idea that significantly helps some Americans. Meanwhile, Democrats have Barack Obama to symbolize their values, someone who is a product of multiculturalism, someone who learned tolerance from a young age, someone who turned down a likely six-figure job to improve the quality of life of others', and yes, someone who happened to experiment with drugs more than 25 years ago.

Sometimes we criticize the right-wing lunacy automatically, without analysis. And sometimes that is necessary. (We can't always be dismantling every assertion spewed from the conservative machine -- it'd take forever.) But sometimes thinking through these illogical rants is quite helpful because they illuminate precisely what we're fighting for. With the largest generation in America's history coming of age and espousing values identical to those found in President Obama's story, it's clear that it's Obama's brand of citizenship and view of America that is ascendant. Unfortunately for Mr. Hannity, Fox News, and the GOP, they're going to get lost in the shuffle until they recalibrate their idea of America.

John McCain has a depth problem.

Over the past few weeks, I have written a few times about McCain's lack of familiarity with technology -- specifically e-mail and the web. In a New York Times interview, the candidate told a reporter that he's working on that whole internet thing.

Q: But do you go on line for yourself?

Mr. McCain: They go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need – including going to my daughter’s blog first, before anything else.

Q: Do you use a blackberry or email?

Mr. McCain: No.

Emphasis added.

But let's not forget another interview Senator McCain gave with the San Francisco Chronicle.

GOP presidential candidate John McCain, fundraising in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the nation's technology capitals, acknowledged Monday that he isn't a "tech freak" or entirely comfortable with the Internet, BlackBerrys or e-mail. But he strongly disputed criticism that he is "out of the loop" as unfair.

As former head of the U.S. Senate Commerce committee, McCain said, he has been a driving force to oversee legislation that helped the Internet flourish - even as he is still learning to get comfortable with it himself.

"Am I a tech freak? No," he said in an interview Monday with The Chronicle. "And I don't like to text message because I'd rather call somebody on the telephone."

"I do understand the importance of the computer. I understand the importance of the blogs," he said.

McCain said he is well aware that technology "does drive the news. It is changing the shape of the news. ... It's changing the information age, and I've got to stay up with it."

He added, "But I am forcing myself ... let me put it this way, I am using the computer more and more every day."

And that's where we were a few weeks ago. A 72 year old Republican candidate that was simply technology deficient. A candidate of the "olden days," as Paris Hilton might say.

But then something troubling happened. McCain gave an otherwise innocent speech in Erie, PA on August 11th regarding the Georgia-Russia conflict. Reports then surfaced linking McCain's speech to the Wikipedia entry for "Georgia." Remarkably similar passages were laid out, side by side, at some websites; this revealed an uncanny similarity, familiar to college professors who have been victims of plagiarism:

First instance:

one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion (Wikipedia)

vs.

one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion (McCain)

Second instance:

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis. (Wikipedia)

vs.

After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises. (McCain)

While the campaign, of course, has tried to muddle this controversy, I think the phrasing similarities speak for themselves. There's no doubt that the source was relied upon; as for whether it was careless research or a calculated effort, we don't really have the ability to know.

But let's assume, at the minimum, that this was a result of careless writing by the McCain campaign. No other act could be further from their campaign message, could it? They are running on the senator's foreign policy experience, his ability to rely on his knowledge of countries around the world and the web of geopolitics linking them. They're also running against someone they portray to be a lazy celebrity. The "life must be grand in the spotlight" McCain ad comes to mind here. Obama, they're trying to argue, is merely a lightweight, an empty suit, who can do nothing more than string words together. But McCain's problem here is that he couldn't even do that.

If one wishes to be viewed as a foreign policy heavyweight, he or she should be able to put their own views into their own words. I, and many other Millennials, want the best person for the job. We don't want someone who can't provide the country with original thought. We're not looking for someone who can't communicate with us at our level. We're looking for someone with depth, who can make sound decisions based on statistics, data, advice from the best and the brightest.

After his interviews revealing technological ignorance, after his attacks on Obama void of any logical justification for his own candidacy, and after this Wikipedia incident, John McCain's lack of depth is becoming quite apparent.

Traveling again today, this time down to DC. If you are in town, come and see me at Busboys and Poets tonight at 6pm.

On the train down I read tow articles that have been sitting open in my browser, taunting me, for a few days now. Both offer a different perspective on the war and foreign policy that I think are important for us all to comprehend.

The first is an article from the New York Review of Books, The Volunteer Army: Who Fights and Why. The article provides a detailed look at just who our soldiers are and examines their motivations for joining the military. While there are a decent number who cite 9/11 and patriotism, the article makes it abundantly clear that economic and health concerns are a driving force behind the decision to join the military. In a society where entrance to the middle class is getting harder and harder to attain, the military offers a way up for those struggling to escape dead-end economic situations. Or, as the author says:

In today's America, the hunger for a college degree is so great that many young men and women are willing to kill—and risk being killed—to get one.

That certainly puts recent statements by Vice President Cheney about the now 4,000 soldiers killed-in-action in Iraq (he said “they volunteered”) in a new light.

How much of a volunteer are you really if the military is one of the only feasible ways for you to be able to provide money and health care for yourself or your family?

The second story comes from Spencer Ackerman over at the American Prospect: The Obama Doctrine. It’s an important profile of the Obama campaign’s foreign policy team, and how they are offering a new approach that fundamentally breaks with US foreign policy in the last 35 years:

I spoke at length with Obama's foreign-policy brain trust, the advisers who will craft and implement a new global strategy if he wins the nomination and the general election. They envision a doctrine that first ends the politics of fear and then moves beyond a hollow, sloganeering "democracy promotion" agenda in favor of "dignity promotion," to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root. An inextricable part of that doctrine is a relentless and thorough destruction of al-Qaeda. Is this hawkish? Is this dovish? It's both and neither -- an overhaul not just of our foreign policy but of how we think about foreign policy. And it might just be the future of American global leadership.

***

When considering any presidential hopeful's foreign-policy promises, it's important to remember that what candidates say is, at best, an imperfect guide to their actions in office. What proves to be a more reliable indicator of presidential behavior is a candidate's roster of advisers. (If the press had paid better attention, the country would have seen through Bush's pitch about a humble foreign policy and realized that many of his advisers, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, were conspiracy-minded warmongers.) Obama's foreign-policy advisers come from diverse backgrounds. They are former aides to Democratic mandarins like Tom Daschle and Lee Hamilton (Denis McDonough and Ben Rhodes, respectively); veterans of the Clinton administration's left flank (Tony Lake and Susan Rice); a human-rights advocate who helped write the Army's and Marine Corps' much-lauded counterinsurgency field manual (Sarah Sewall); a retired general who helped run the air war during the invasion of Iraq (Scott Gration); and a former journalist who revolutionized the study of U.S. foreign policy (Samantha Power). Yet they form a committed, intellectually coherent, and surprisingly united foreign-affairs team. (Shortly before this piece went to press, Power resigned from the campaign after making an intemperate remark to a reporter.)

They also share a formative experience with each other and with Obama. Each opposed the Iraq War at a time when doing so was derided by their colleagues, by journalists, and by the foreign-policy establishment. Each did so because they understood that the invasion and occupation ran counter to the goal of destroying al-Qaeda. And each bore the frustration of endless lectures on their lack of so-called seriousness from those who suffered from strategic myopia.

Update: One more thing - how does this square with the theory that youth turnout rises during wartime ('72-Vietnam; '92-Gulf War I; '04-Iraq)?
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Gallup has a new poll analysis (hat tip) tracking views on the Iraq war by age cohort. The results show that older Americans are more likely than younger Americans to view the Iraq war as a mistake. Looking at the data, Gallup's results aren't all that shocking. Americans over 50 (Boomers, GIs) are the least likely to view the war favorably, while Late Boomers and Gen Xers - who tended to vote more Republican in their youth - are the most supportive.

When it comes to the Millennials, the pendulum is swinging back towards the viewpoint that the war was a mistake, but just barely. 56% of Millennials surveyed think that the war was a mistake, while 41% do not think it was a mistake. The breakdown by gender shows women are more likely to view the war unfavorably than men (61% vs. 51%).

In the end, I don't think the Gallup poll shines a bright light on anything in particular, at least not by itself. The Gallup question is pretty vague, and as such doesn't get to the heart of Millennials' views on the issue. There's no necessary correlation between not viewing the war as a mistake and being in favor of the conflict. There are tons of reasons that the war might be viewed as a mistake or as the proper course of action. The Gallup data needs to be coupled with the rest of our knowledge of young voters' views on foreign policy and the Bush Presidency: