US Politics Opinion: A Few Things the Foreign Policy Debate Will Get Wrong

Many things will likely be talked about at today's debate. While there will be plenty of fact-checking and analysis in the coming days, there will be a few misconceptions spread, awkward truths ignored, and key concepts that one or both candidates are going to get wrong tonight.

Below is a real brief list:

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Syria Video and Analysis: Who Killed These Men and Where is the River Where They Were Dumped?

Warning: GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING IMAGES

The video was uploaded on 31 July. The Arabic caption reads: "Is there any crime worse than killing someone and then throwing the body in the river? Where are human rights? Where is world opinion? Where is Amnesty International?" There is no way to properly verify the clip.

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Morocco Feature: Youth, Protests, and the Economy (Newcomb)

Across the Middle East and North Africa, every regime that has come under pressure has offered one explanation or another for why the protesters' demands are illegitimate. Egypt's and Libya's governments blamed the chaos on foreigners with malevolent agendas. Tunisia's blamed Islamists. In Morocco, the government has added the health of the economy to the list of reasons the protesters are out of line. "In the space of a few weeks, [protests could] cost us what we have achieved over the last 10 years," the country's finance minister, Salaheddine Mezouar,warned last month. The implication, it seems, is that Morocco's economy has achieved quite a lot.

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Afghanistan Lesson: It's Not Iraq (Rosen)

We have been surging in Afghanistan every year since 2005. We have been engaged in counterinsurgency since then as well. More and more of the same failed tactic is not going to work. And there is no strategy. The generals are begging for more time, more reviews and moving the goalposts year after year. How many Afghan and American lives are we going to throw away while we experiment with counterinsurgency in a country of no strategic importance? Pity the Afghans if we impose the Iraqi success on them.

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