Center for a New American Security

I swear, the only reason I voted for Obama was in the hopes that he'll do something really transgressive at the inauguration, like lead us all in The International or turn the entire event into a piece of performance art.

The cellphone bandwidth in DC will likely be taxed pretty heavily, but that will not stop your favorite blogger from trying to send updates via Twitter from the inauguration, where I'll be wearing a beret, a Che t-shirt and the "Veterans for Obama" button Phil Carter gave me.

http://twitter.com/abumuqawama

I'll be blogging again tomorrow.

Here, though, is your piece of comedy for the day. Oops!

Charlie has, like, a million tabs open in her fancy Google Chrome browser.  Here's a snapshot of what she's reading.

...it must be true? Reports are out that Hillary Clinton will accept Barack Obama's offer to be Secretary of State. So far, no additional stateside sourcing.

Let Charlie channel AM's skepticism of what the British generously call "reporting." (No offense, Londonstani.) Stay tuned.

Does President-elect Obama read this blog, too?!? AM and Charlie are fairly sure that no one loves the SecDef like they do.

To our stateside readers:  we want to hear about your voting experience today.

That's Phil sitting at the top of my version of nytimes.com right now.

First, thanks to Troy for his continuing coverage of all things South-ish Asia. And don't miss the Stateside coverage of the recently leaked NIE draft. One bit from the NYT story that caught Charlie's eye:

The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in
Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the government of
President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence by militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan....Beyond the
cross-border attacks launched by militants in neighboring Pakistan, the
intelligence report asserts that many of Afghanistan’s most vexing problems
are of the country’s own making, the officials said.

That struck this blogger as plausible...but she's no expert. What say you?

Second, Charlie got a request via email for some Saudi resources this week. Seems prudent to post the replies for the collective readership to review:

First from AM:

I am no expert on Saudi Arabia. But Thomas Hegghammer is the brightest young
scholar on jihadi movements in Saudi Arabia. Many of his articles can be learned
monograph on Saudi succession.

And from Carlos:

The chapter in Judith Miller's God has Ninety-Nine Names is good, and with
the rest of the book there might be a shot at other context.

I happen to think the opening stuff in The Age of Sacred Terror is pretty
good, though the context is a little wider than Saudi Arabia.

And there is Sandra Mackey, The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom. Dated, but still good basics.

Finally Charlie apologizes for being largely MIA over the last couple weeks. She's been crushed with work and obsessed with the financial crisis / election (actually much more the former than the latter). The long term impact of the budget crunch, liquidity crisis, and likely erosion of American economic power has serious implications for our foreign and defense policies. She just hasn't figured them all out quite yet.

But if you think the American public is fickle and short-sighted in the best of times, you ain't seen nothing yet. It's going to be increasingly hard to justifying long-term occupations overseas...not to mention Army and Marine plus-ups (that budget money is going to go to big ticket hardware items like ships and planes, the kinds of things that create jobs in congressional districts).

Check out Charlie's alter-ego's thoughts on tonight's debate over at Intel Dump.

And check back later tonight for reactions from her (and likely also, The Bateman).

Update: Ok, so they did get to foreign policy (after 45 minutes of the most stultifying economic policy discussions Charlie has ever seen). There were no major gaffes. (Though undecided voters seem to think Obama was the "winner.") And even if this election isn't decided on foreign policy, it's clear that these two candidates are much better versed than others in recent memory. Charlie, however, is somewhat more persuaded by Fred Kaplan's assessment:

Scored on debaters' points, the match was close. Judged on the substantive issues, especially on which candidate has the more realistic view of the world, Obama won hands down.

Read the rest of his column to find out why.

For all our loyal (American) readers--in uniform and out--who will be overseas on election day in November, do yourselves a favor and register for an absentee ballot.  (The Marines seem to think the deadline is 7 September.)

Check it out.

Charlie still isn't thrilled with his "surge" answer, but he seems to have a better understanding of the strategic situation in Afghanistan than the average Bush administration appointee (low bar, we know). Good for S&S on pushing the presumptive nominee on the GI Bill and its effect on recruitment and retention. And finally, Obama's remarks on the VA display a level of familiarity not usually found amongst presidential candidates...this is going to make for an interesting race.