Sic Semper Tyrannis 2008

"Jackson Circle" Sidney O. Smith III

"Some at Sic Semper Tyrannis have asked about the successful rise of David Addington -- Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff and the leading apostle of the unitary executive theory. I’ll leave it to others to offer high octane legal insights, but Jane Mayer, in her excellent article “The Hidden Power”, goes into great detail when describing Addington’s approach. And, after reading her article, if someone asked me to choose one sentence to write on a chalkboard to sum up Addington and his weltanschauung, then I would offer the following: Addington doesn’t believe in the US Constitution.

What else does anyone really need to know? If you want an academic description, I suppose one could say that Addington’s intent to destroy the US Constitution is the source of his praxeology and thus drives all of his actions. One therefore can analyze his work based upon the assumption that he wants to decimate the US Constitution so as to create an imperial presidency. But, in simpler terms, this description of Addington simply sums up his "m.o.", or for those who believe he should face prosecution, his “mens rea”, that is, his “guilty state of mind”.

Of course, if you want to take it a step further and construct an argument against the views of Addington, then you must first decide the venue and audience. And because the tempo and motif of Sic Semper Tyrannis is one of The Butcher’s Cleaver and the Confederate Secret Services, I suggest tailoring such an argument with the specific intent of triggering a particular “collective memory” of anti-imperialism -- a collective memory long forgotten. By relying in part on the insight of Dr. Christine Helms that the "collective memory is a toolshed" that may lead to social change, the hope is that the revival of this specific collective memory will help end the days of Addington and Cheney as a political power. .."

Sidney O. Smith III

Download jackson_circle.pdf

America the Illiterate

Over the last couple pf years, I have been spending a lot of time teaching, perhaps "trying to teach" might be more adequate an expression.  I never liked teaching particularly.  I was twice named best classroom teacher of the year at West Point.  I never liked it particularly.  A pose?  You will make your own judgment.  Nevertheless, circumstance has caused me to return to this activity.  I need not explain the circumstance.

My recent exposure to adult American students associated with universities and the military makes me think that Susan Jacoby is largely correct in believing that we Americans are becoming more and more ignorant even as we become more and more proud of our ignorance. 

What passes for education these days is largely devoid of the kind of cultural depth and richness of knowledge of the human experience that I associate with real education, as opposed to vocational training in; marketing, communications, journalism, business administration, etc., ad nauseam....

And then there are the social "sciences."  These are ritualistic disciplines in which the devotees worship such gods as Weber, Durkheim and the like in pursuit of the ability to discern the esoteric meaning of data involving peoples the world across.  For the political "scientists" the quest always seem to be to explain why the apparent data does not reflect "inner reality."  Thus, for the social sciences trained geniuses of the Coalition Provisional Authority, it was perfectly clear that the Iraq visible to the naked eye was only masking the real Iraq that would emerge when the visible shell was smashed.

College students today do not read unless forced to do so.  They do not watch old movies.  They do not have intellectual bull sessions.  They are too busy learning vocational skills to do that.  In high school, the vast majority of them were too busy building their "resumes" to do any of those things.  Ah yes, their parents encouraged that.

Senior military officers in this country have largely become anti-intellectual people who cringe from the idea of independent thought and who, in the main, seek to intimidate their subordinates into accepting politically driven depictions of reality even when the evidence of their eyes shows that reality sent down from above is nonsense.  As an example of that, senior officers in Iraq continued through '05 to threaten the careers of subordinates who insisted that US forces faced a full blown insurgency.  The seniors should not be blamed too much.  They are too poorly informed to know better,

We have largely lost the ability in the US to see events in the context of human experience over the millennia.  That experience is called "history" and since "history" is one of the humanities, its name is dirt in America.  "Literature" for Americans is the trash on the best seller lists, Clancy, etc.

God help us.

You foreigners should not feel too good about this.  Look around you.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502898.html

"The Butcher's Cleaver" Now for Sale

Please visit the web site for my novel "The Butcher's Cleaver."   It is now for sale on-line at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and iUniverse.com

pl

www.rosemontbooks.com

For sale at these lnks:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-0278800-4247125?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Butcher%27s+cleaver&x=11&y=11

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=The+Butcher%27s+Cleaver&z=y

http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-47476-4

In the UK the book can be bought on-line at "Foyles" and at "WHSmith."  In Australia and New Zealand "Fishpond.com" carries the book.

A review of the book recently appeared in the Defense Intelligence Agency newspaper:

Download DIAReview.pdf

"Dead Certain" a review by Richard Wolffe

"Draper emerges with a treasure trove of detail and anecdotes, but he often doesn't delve -- or isn't allowed to delve -- into the deeper questions. Early in his book Dead Certain, he tells the story of Bush's failed bid for Congress in 1978. Against all the best advice, Bush decided to run against a conservative West Texas Democrat, Kent Hance. He lost badly, but not embarrassingly. Explaining his decision to Draper, he said, "You can't learn lessons by reading. Or at least I couldn't. I learned by doing. I knew it was an uphill struggle. But see, I've never had a fear of losing. I didn't like to lose. But having parents who give you unconditional love, I think it means I had the peace of mind to know that even with failure, there was love."  Wolffe reviewing "Dead Certain."

--------------------------------------------------------------

Wolffe is a very clever man.  He and Olberman "play" well together.  Wolffe remains essentially European in his manifested attitudes.  His casual dismissal of the behaviour of Royal Navy and Royal Marine people in Iranian captivity as "meaningless" had much about it that most Americans would not approve.  We would not tolerate that behavior in our forces.

Nevertheless, his review of this book points to a couple of interestin' thangs about Dubya.

Bush's insistence that he reads a lot and his statement that one can not learn from reading are mutually exclusive, I think.  I am reliant on a few things the Army taught me.  One of these was the Myers-Briggs personality indicator classification system.  This system has been useful to me in understanding people I meet and work with.  Dubya hates tests like that and also hates talk about it.  That is a typical reaction of several of the grous classified under the test.

I don't think he is lying in the ridiculous statement about "learning."  I think that he is (in MB terms) A "Sensory-Perceptive" (SP) type.  This groups typically does not learn much by reading and is quite capable of holding two mutually exclusive views at the same time.  About 50% of the American public belong to this broad group.  Look it up.

Then there is the matter of "unconditional love."  There is very little of that in the world.  Rational beings may SAY that they love without condition, but it is not usually true.  I suppose there are parents who will love a child who is a sadistic child molester and murderer, but they must be few.  In fact, only dogs love unconditionally, at least until they meet Michael Vick.

That kind of statement from Bush reveals how much he needs to be loved.  that probably points to something less than "unconditional love" in his past.  Perhaps that is why he needs to surround himself with adoring women.

This "biography" of Bush reinforces my belief that he will never, never, never give up in Iraq.  Never.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090602376.html

There ought to  be a lot of room in this post for enraged comment by loving parents and defenders of Her Majesty' Forces.

"Fiasco," - A Book Review. W. Patrick Lang

Download fiascoa_book_review.doc

Download fiascoa_book_review.pdf

This review will appear in the next quartely number of "Middle East Policy."  I will post the URL for it when it appears.

Pat Lang

Book Review of "Cobra 2" and the IDA Report. Lang

Download lang_bkrv.pdf

The two books reviewed here bring to mind the remark of Crown Prince Rupprecht (Wittelsbach) of Bavaria who said of the British Expeditionary Force of 1914-15 that they were "an army of lions led by asses."

This will be in the Autumn number of "Middle East Policy" in the book review section and can be seen there or on their site in the last week of September.

http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol13/0609.asp

Pat Lang

"Arab Cultural Awareness" by TRADOC

This little book has recently been published by the US Army.

This is a "pocket" guide for junior soldiers.  It is intended that small groups of soldiers should use this as a reference and in conducting small unit (squad/platoon) training.

On the whole I think it is a useful primer on the Arabs and Muslims.  It contains a few "typos" and minor errors, but this is to be expected.  The guide is properly cautious about the generalizations that must be made to make a book like this useful.

Most importantly, it addresses these populations on the bases of their shared thought and traditions.  This is a major step forward for an army that prefers to think of people, all people, as inter-changeable "parts."

Green Berets, some psychological operations and some intelligence people rise above that kind of de-humanizing thought, but they are an exception in an army that all too often would rather deal with machines.

I congratulate Training and Doctrine Command on this project.

Pat Lang

Download arabculture.pdf

"The Apprentice" A Book Review

Download the_apprentice.doc

Download the_apprentice.pdf

And here for your literary improvement and daily dose of Kultur we present  Alan Farrell's review of Lewis Libby novel of esoteric crapola.

Pat Lang

"Mess-o-potamia" Homage to Jon Stewart

People keep asking me how to "fix" the Iraq mess.  Hey!  I didn't make it a mess.  Those that did should fix it.

Brings to mind the old saw about driving your car off a cliff.  "Once you've done it you might as well enjoy the view on the way down."

I opted out of the policy business after Vietnam and refused to take jobs in that field from then on.  Policy makers are in the business of trying to create some new reality that they fancy.  Intelligence people are in the business of describing reality as it is or as they think it will come to be.

It is very important to keep these two functions separate because if you don't, then the policy guys start making decisions based on what it is they WANT TO SEE in support of their proposed new world.

Now, it is true that some intelligence people get "tapped" as individuals to do things for the government that are more in the nature of covert action, but that is not intelligence.  Intelligence is about information.

Since I am interested in information and teaching the teachable.  I offer the following two short pieces written by T.E. Lawrence, one on British occupied Mesopotamia and the other on the Revolt in the Desert.  There is also a picture of an art deco bronze plaque of him which my wife bought me in Buenos Aires of all places.

Pat Lang

Download a_report_on_mesopotamia_by_t.pdf

Download evolution_of_a_revolt.pdf 

Download Lawrenceinbronze.bmp 

Six of my Favorite Books

"Seven Pillars of Wisdom,"  T.E. Lawrence (preferably the 1922 version)

"A Soldier With the Arabs,"  Lieutenant General John Bagot Glubb  (He was the commander of the Jordanian Army for many years)

"The Last Valley.  Dien Bien Phu and the Defeat of the French in Viet Nam"  Martin Windrow  (Covers the whole French war and the players in depth.  The best on this subject)

"The Killer Angels"  Michael Shaara.  (A Novel - Pulitzer -Gettysburg)

"Lancelot"  Walker Percy  (A Novel by one of America's finest writers)

Pat Lang

"From the Holy Mountain"  William Dalrymple. (A Journey Among the People of a Dying Civilization)