VoxOp
OBAMA'S DEFENSE TEAM
"In Washington, the truism of the moment is that President-elect Barack Obama has cleverly set out to create a "team of rivals". . . The conversations may grow heated, but the best ideas will survive and yes men will be shown the door.
"It's a nice concept, but doesn't always work out so neatly in real life. George W. Bush had his own team of rivals, after all, and they turned out to be all rival, no team."
JOHN BARRY, DAN EPHRON, and RICHARD WOLFFE, www.newsweek.com
"The message that comes out loud and clear from President-elect Barack Obama's announcement of his proposed national security team is that the new administration is determined to repair America's battered reputation with the outside world.
"Hillary Clinton, the new secretary of state, learned the importance of building international consensus through the work of her husband when he occupied the White House. Similarly General James Jones, the new national security adviser, is a distinguished former NATO commander who understands both the strengths and limitations of working with allies.
"America may remain the world's leading military power, but the lesson of the past seven years is that it cannot overcome the many challenges it faces on its own. To make the world a better and safer place, America needs all the friends it can get - a fact the new Obama national security team appears to grasp."
CON COUGHLIN Blogs.telegraph.co.uk
MUMBAI ATTACKS
"Most of our major military efforts since 2001 have initially involved rather more concrete enemies, whom we have fought in specific places, using traditional means. The initial assault on Afghanistan was in fact a proxy war, not a postmodern, post-globalization game of tricks and mirrors.
"Only later . . . did we find ourselves contending with groups invariably described as 'shadowy,' with enemies who melted in and out of the civilian population, with terrorist cells that might be connected to Al Qaeda, to Pakistan, to Iran - or might not.
"Only now . . . do we fully understand the degree to which the very word Taliban is misleading: Though the term implies a definite group with clear goals, American commanders in Afghanistan now understand very well that what they call Taliban is also an amalgamation of insurgents, some of whom fight for tribal interests, others for money, and only some for a clear-cut ideological cause.
"Perhaps the Mumbai gunmen will, like some of the Afghan Taliban, also turn out to be members of a homegrown, locally based, ad hoc organization, with its own eccentric goals and training methods. Or perhaps they really will turn out to belong to a definite group with a clear ideology, which would, of course, be easier all around. Surely the point, though, is that we should be well-prepared to deal with either - and wary of mistaking one for the other."
ANNE APPLEBAUM www.slate.com
"Terrorism cannot operate in a media-free zone. In Al Qaeda's world, if a tree falls with no video feed, the tree never fell. Car bombs and suicide bombers had begun to bore the target audiences, so common have they become; besides, they're over quickly and . . . dominate . . . only one news cycle. But a three-day takeover of a prominent financial district generates many headlines over many news cycles. In the jihadis' world, that's a cause worth dying and killing for."
RICHARD MILLER, foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com 