More than seventy retired military officers wrote a letter to Congress urging that the body not cut the budget for non-military means of executing U.S. foreign policy. The letter, written under the auspices of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s (USGLC) national security advisory group, spoke out against “disproportionate cuts” that would cut civilian programs while boosting military spending, calling on Congress to ensure that “civilian programs have the resources needed to maintain the hard-fought gains of our military.”

The letter (PDF) defending the so-called international affairs budget that covers non-military spending went on:

Development and diplomacy keep us safer by addressing threats in the most dangerous corners of the world and by preventing conflicts before they occur. The State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other civilian-led programs are especially critical at a time when we are asking them to take on greater responsibilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Addressing today’s challenges with civilian tools costs far less than it does to send in the military in dollars and, more importantly, in terms of the risks to the lives of our men and women in uniform. At just over one percent of federal spending, the International Affairs Budget is a strong return on our investment.

The letter comes just a week after Republican Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a budget that called for the international affairs spending to be slashed by 11 percent, or $6 billion, while boosting military spending by at least $8 billion. Ryan’s budget document took shots at the administration, noting in one section that Obama “has chosen to subordinate national security strategy to his other spending priorities.” Speaking to U.S. News and World Report, Russell Rumbaugh, a former senior Senate Budget Committee aide now with the Stimson Center, said:

This reflects more an ideological statement than any real discussion about what the international budget levels should be.

An Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran summed up the Republican plan: “They cut every tool in the president’s toolbox that isn’t a gun,” said Michael Breen, who works with the Truman National Security Project, recounting how it was a foreign language-enabled diplomat — not their own weapons — that once helped him and fellow soliders get out a jam.

The ostensible aspirations of the Ryan plan, meanwhile, are shared by the USGLC letter signatories, who wrote that they “recognize that we must reduce our nation’s debt.” Yet, with non-military spending such a relatively small piece of the pie and capable of a “strong return” on the investment, the ex-military leaders urged Congress to “support a strong and effective International Affairs Budget and oppose disproportionate cuts to this vital account.”

Yesterday, a mutiny among the ranks of the Malian military seized power in the capitol, Bamako. Intially blockading the presidential palace and taking over the state broadcaster, and today closed the country’s borders in the face of international condemnation.

Once established at the broadcast center, the Malian troops, calling themselves the “CNRDR” or National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State, announced that they’d seized control and suspended the consitution.

Watch a video of the coup announcement:

Soldiers’ celebratory gunfire reportedly rang out in the capitol through this morning, apparently defying orders. Reports emerged of looting at the presidential palace. An initial report that the president, Amadou Toumani Touré, took refuge at the U.S. embassy is in dispute.

International condemnation came swiftly. The African Union condemned the coup, as did the European Union.

The U.S. State Department — whose websites’s Mali country profile lauds “excellent and expanding” relations “based on shared goals of strengthening democracy and reducing poverty” — released a statement condemning the military moves and calling for a swift return to constitutional rule:

The United States condemns the military seizure of power in Mali…. We call for calm and the restoration of the civilian government under constitutional rule without delay, so that elections can proceed as scheduled. We stand with the legitimately elected government of President Amadou Toumani Touré.

An American in Mali reports on his blog that the embassy there sent out warning SMS messages. The blogger, anthropologist Bruce Whitehouse, wrote:

Three SMS messages from the US Embassy just received: “continue to shelter in place,” and “please prepare for possible service outages: water, electricity, internet”. Another announces that the airport has been closed.

Touré was expected to step down before elections late next month. Tensions rose between the civilian government and the military over supply levels to battle the Touareg rebellion in the country’s north, and general management of that crisis and a protest movement in the south.

Blogger Alex Thurston, an Africa scholar, analyzed some initial reports, makes comparisons and puts the coup in context. “Looking forward,” he wrote, “the fate of the elections and the fate of the war in the north will be paramount concerns. How will the new leaders (or Toure, if he stays) shift the government’s political strategy in the north?”

Last Thursday, NBC News reported that the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department, conducted a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Former CIA official and visiting Georgetown professor Paul Pillar, citing the U.S. government’s definition of terrorism, observed that “with or without confirmation of details of this story, the assassinations are terrorism.” But numerous right-wing pundits and politicians here in the United States — many of whom regularly decry the use of terrorism as a means to political ends — have celebrated the MEK’s alleged attacks.

Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani declared that the MEK should be the Time Magazine “person of the year” if they were behind assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

An editorial in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post said on Friday that the MEK deserves a Nobel Peace Prize:

Let’s be frank: Were the MeK to play the critical role in derailing an Iranian bomb, it would be far more deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize than a certain president of the United States we could mention.

And Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin justified the MEK’s action and Israel’s alleged role in financing, arming and training the group:

To those who say it is immoral to use those who have employed terrorism, the only reply can be that it would be far worse for Israel’s government to allow such scruples to prevent them from carrying out actions that might stop the Iranians from going nuclear.

Noticeably, the MEK’s defenders chose not to address the NBC report’s other major disclosure. The MEK reportedly worked with Ramzi Yousef, the terrorist behind the first attack on the World Trade Center, to bomb an Iranian shrine, killing at least 26 people.

The NBC report did not go on to substantiate any direct links between the Israeli government and the assassination campaign, and the MEK denied any involvement in the attacks.

Indeed, the MEK’s American supporters find themselves in the increasingly difficult position of lobbying to remove the organization from the State Department’s terror list while openly celebrating the group’s involvement in terrorist attacks.