Sic Semper Tyrannis

Andrew Card - A dangerous Boy Scout

Remember this man?  He was White House Chief of Staff.  He was an Eagle Scout.  He was head of the White House "Iraq Group," the collection of courtiers, party hacks, and sycophants who were put in charge of selling the idea of war with Iraq to the American people.  By fair means or foul, they proceeded to do that, driving the propaganda machine forward with relentless zeal, clearing human obstacles away like brush on Caesar's "ranch."  The only truth that mattered for them was the pathetic, ignorant, simplistic drivel that Bush, Cheney and Rice spouted continuously to the servile media.

Today on the MSNBC "Morning Joe" show, Card was asked by Pat Buchanan if the American people did not have the right to be informed in advance of deliberations that might lead to a new war.

Card's reply was that the citizenry have a right to be informed only if that does not limit the president's freedom of action in deciding how to defend us (America.)

There you have it.  The man was the president's chief of staff and he thinks of the presidency as a nearly unlimited monarchy.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Card

The Republican "Brand" as metaphor.

"Complaints about vacuous official rhetoric and the "dumbing-down" of presidential speeches, news conferences and interviews are standard fare. Lim found strong evidence to support those complaints, not just in his interviews with retired speechwriters but in the presidential texts themselves.

In what must have been a heroic effort, he applied standard techniques of content analysis to state papers of every president from Washington to the second Bush. His tool is something called the Flesch readability score -- a measure of the average number of words per sentence and the average number of syllables per word. The higher the Flesch score, the simpler to get the meaning.

Applied to the annual State of the Union addresses, the average score has doubled from the first few presidents to the last few. Those "messages were pitched at a college level through most of the 18th and 19th centuries," Lim says. "They have now come down to an eighth-grade reading level." The same trend, but more pronounced, is found in inaugural addresses. Their average sentence length has dropped from 60 words to 20.

Simplification has its advantages, if it serves to increase public comprehension. But it comes with a huge risk: The complexity of real-world choices can be, and often is, lost."  Broder

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"Levelling" has become the Zeitgeist.  Actually it has been the goal of many for a long, long time.  The numbers in the study mentioned above illustrate that trend over centuries.  "Elitist" has become a term of absolute condemnation.   The downward drift in general education is now undeniable.  College audiences are now so poorly informed about general culture that even the simplest references to popular literature, film, etc. are greeted by blank stares.  Many audiences at college lectures are difficult to talk to because everything one says is "news to them."

A classics professor once told his class in my presence that there no longer existed the possibility of the creation of an American national epic poem, something like the Iliad, Aeneid, the "Divine Comedy," "John Brown's Body," etc., because the declining cultural level and the lack of common values among the "American people" had destroyed the basis of wide comprehension and acceptance that would be needed for such an effort.  That was fifty years ago.  What would he think now?

Today, outside the elites of a few universities, we have little in the way of intellectual life in this country.  We also have little in the way of political life.  NBC's Political Director just referred on MTP to the "Republican Brand."  My.  My.  Marketing rules.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/27/AR2008062702770.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_poetry

10 pounds in a 1 pound bag

I was in New York City for a few days on business and took the opportunity to talk to a friend who knows his way around the financial world.  Inevitably the talk turned to the current crude price crisis. 

This is a potentially catastrophic situation.  If the price of crude continues to drive upward, we are all looking at the prospect of a radically altered world in which our daily lives will be very different and much more limited and in which the international scene will shrink in importance as countries turn inward in the search for stability and resources.

My friend is going to assemble the opinions of his knowledgeable contacts for a post on this subject but for the moment I would offe the following opinion.

The oil spot and futures markets are limited in size, limited by the actual amount of crude available within the timescape of the contracts.  Investor money from institutions, pension funds, hedge and index funds , etc. is pouring into those markets as it flees from other investments that are not appealing at the moment.

An old army saying held that it is not possible to put 10 pounds of stuff in a 1 pound bag.  Nevertheless, that is what all that investor money is trying to fit into at present.  Is it really a surprise that prices are steadily rising?

A solution to this problem is not apparent.  Since this is a process detached from short term supply, it would seem that there is no upside limit to how high the price per barrel may go. 

Someone had better do something soon.  pl

The Addington/Yoo Show Yesterday

"Think of Addington as the id of the Bush White House. Though his hidden hand is often merely suspected -- in signing statements, torture policy and other brazen assertions of executive power -- Addington's unbridled hostility was live and unfiltered yesterday.

He sat slouched in his chair, scratching his mustache, as Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Constitution subcommittee, warned about "the unaccountable monarchy" before offering Addington five minutes to make an opening statement. Addington spoke for a minute and 12 seconds -- most of which was devoted to correcting two errors in Nadler's introduction.

"Is that the entirety of your statement?" the chairman asked.

"Yes, thank you," Addington replied. "I'm ready to answer your questions." "

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Caliban maybe?

Although Addington is rumored to be a neighbor, I have never seen his "unbridled hostility" stalking the streets of our neighborhood.

The Congress in its particular human components is often less than impressive, but the institution is an essential part of the scheme of government that has kept people like Yoo and Addington from running this country as they please.

The arrogance with which these nasties behaved before a committee of the people's tribunes is appalling.

Milbank apparently was appalled as well.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/26/AR2008062603456.html

FISA and All Those Numbers

(I'd like to thank Col Lang for inviting me to be a guest author. One thing I've learned the last year or so coming here is that wisdom may be nothing more than recognizing how wrong we all can be sometimes, and accepting it when we are. I cannot count how many times I've commented here only to find within hours, days, weeks, or sometimes months that I was completely wrong! So, I'm starting with something safe (chuckle). Cheers...CWZ/Bob Devine)

The "lefty" blogosphere has lit up like a Christmas tree with the latest FISA legislation battle.  Many of you have probably read about using prepaid (disposable) cell phones to evade those allegedly illegal wiretaps.  When I first read about the supposed “warrantless” wiretaps the first thing that popped into my mind were the prepaid cell phones.

Since this is a topic dear to my heart – telecom Signals Intelligence – I’d like to add my two cents. Most importantly, I’d like to explain what I think is happening inside the SIGINT community in response to the technical challenges facing the government with these cell phones. My guess is that they are the centerpiece of the FISA controversy.

But let me be clear. This is just my speculation based on my experience. I don’t know for sure.

Prepaid cell phones are needles in a haystack. The smart criminal will buy one with cash, activate it from a pay phone, buy a few more minutes with cash at any 7-11, use it a few days, and then toss it in the trash. It’s the volume of telephone numbers that make them so hard to find, as well as their mobility.

The Oil Meeting at Jeddah - 2

"Producers and consumers should ``wrest control'' of trading in the oil by agreeing to restrict prices, Chidambaram told energy ministers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according to speech notes e-mailed from his ministry.

Crude oil touched a record $139.89 a barrel on June 16 as investors bought commodities to hedge against a weakening dollar and concern mounted that demand is growing faster than supply. Chakib Khelil, president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said today there isn't a supply shortage.

``Surely demand and supply cannot explain what has happened over the last 12 months,'' Chidambaram said. ``Oil prices were $70 a barrel in August 2007 and how is it that they've doubled when there has been no dramatic change in demand?''

Oil prices surged as financial institutions invested in the commodity through ``unregulated and highly opaque'' transactions, he said. "  Bloomberg

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Chidambaram is a socialist to be sure, but his emphasis on the role of "concern" in this matter is well placed. Engdahl's article is good background on this whole business. pl

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a1soSwhkWDkI&refer=asia

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8878

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._William_Engdahl

The Oil Meeting at Jeddah

"Saudi Arabia will press consumer nations at an oil meeting in Jeddah this week to take action to curtail the speculation it sees as a major factor behind high oil prices, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

"Governments have a role in organising (oil) markets and structuring them in a way that prevents speculators behaving in a manner that has led oil prices to reach their current levels," Deputy Oil Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman was quoted as saying in the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat daily.

The prince was discussing a paper Saudi Arabia will present to an unprecedented meeting of consumer and producer countries in Jeddah on Sunday. He said the Saudi paper had been prepared in coordination with the oil producer cartel OPEC. "  Reuters

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We are about to enter a period in which a major lesson will be taught to the world regarding the fact that market prices are more a product of mass perception and a form of hysteria than they are of "hard data."

Greed feeds greed.  Prices in oil have been rising because there was money to be made in the atmosphere of "casino" gambling fostered by the impatience of the young and ruthless adventurers who dominate the derivatives markets.

In the "make or break" games that are played in those markets perception is more important than reality.  The impressions made on each other by "players" at lunch in restaurants where the amount of the check would feed families for weeks or months in the developing world are more important than any statistics on supply and demand.

The US government has now focused on the men in mega suits from Italy.  Some have been indicted, others will walk the "perp" walk in a process of reduction of the the risk of unrest that has been the unintended effect of the functioning of unrestrained commodity futures markets.

The Saudis are going to lend a hand in that process this weekend.  The amount of the increase in their production is not significant as an incremental rise in the world's oil supply.  Its significance lies in their stated intent to cripple the process of parasitic speculation in a vital commodity.  pl

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL2132604120080621

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aMTWS1Pzs0Jc&refer=home

Overflight Clearance for an Israeli strike at Natanz

"The exercise involved Israeli helicopters that could be used to rescue downed pilots, the newspaper reported.

The helicopters and refuelling tankers flew more than 1,400km (870 miles), roughly the distance between Israel and Iran's main uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.

The New York Times reported that Israeli officials declined to discuss the details of the exercise.

A spokesman for the Israeli military said the air force "regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel". "  BBC

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We went over this once before in a study of what Israeli routes would likely be in an attack on Natanz.  Rick Francona has looked at this on his blog.  He is a skilled and experienced air force officer and I trust his judgment as I always did.

My thoughts on the overflight clearance issue:

"Overflight Clearance" is the granting of permission for one country's military or civilian aircraft to fly over and through the air space of another sovereign political entity.  For one country to overfly the territory of another without permission is a clear violation of international law which invites engagement by air defense forces of the country overflown or any country that has effective authority to grant or deny overflight permission.

"could be used to rescue downed pilots"  Really?  Where?  Routes to and from Natanz would have to cross some combination of the territories of Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or Turkey.

Jordan and Saudi Arabia are extremely unlikely to grant overflight clearance for this purpose.  Presumably this would include Search-Air Rescue (SAR) missions over their territory as well as the strike itself.  Egress from Iran after a strike might well involve Israeli aircraft with combat damage or mechanical problems.  Downed aviators in Jordan, Iraq or Saudi Arabia would be a distinct possibility.  Are the Israelis envisioning fighting their way into and out of these countries on SAR missions?  Would the United States, Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Iraq allow damaged Israeli aircraft to land on airfields in Iraq or these other countries?

Is Turkey going to grant Israel overflight clearance for a routing of the strike or SAR that would enter Turkey at its Mediterranean coast near Iskendurun, turn east to reach Iranian kurdistan, then south to Natnz and return by same route?  Opinions?

Is a Syrian route a realistic possibility?  Certainly the Syrians are not going to grant such overflight permission.  Was the "celebrated" Israeli mission in Syria a while back a test to see how difficult it would be to use Syrian airspace?

Finally, there is the issue of whether or not the Israelis would have overflight clearance for Iraqi airspace at all.  At present, the US exercizes airspace control for Iraqi airspace under the authority it has from the UN for the coalition's operations.  This authority from the UN is to expire soon.  Because of this (and other reasons), the US is seeking acceptance from the Iraqi government for two agreements. One is a SOFA agreement and the other amounts to a mutual defense and cooperation pact.  Among the things the US wants under these agreements is a continuation of its authority over Iraqi airspace.  The Iraqis are reluctant to concede this as well as a number of other points.

I wonder why.  pl

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7465170.stm

Who are the Target Audience?

"US military officials on Wednesday accused a Shiite militant group of carrying out a truck bombing in northwestern Baghdad on Tuesday evening that killed at least 65 people, the deadliest attack in the capital since March.

The accusation was startling because the bombing in the Hurriyah neighborhood had the hallmarks of earlier large-scale attacks in predominantly Shiite areas that had been attributed to Sunni insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

A U.S. military spokesman said intelligence reports indicate that Haydar Mehdi Khadum al-Fawadi, the leader of a Shiite "special group," planned the bombing in an effort to fuel animosity toward Sunnis in the largely Shiite district. The U.S. military uses the term special groups to describe what it says are smaller Iranian-backed militias.

The bombing followed aggressive U.S. and Iraqi military operations against Shiite militias and the so-called special groups in Baghdad. If residents could be convinced that Sunni extremists are still killing Shiites indiscriminately, they might also be convinced of the ongoing need for protection by militiamen."  Washpost

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In recent years the idea of lying to gain a propaganda advantage has become a popular concept among some people in the US armed forces.  That is a bad idea for many reasons.  To begin with lying is, in itself, a bad idea.  Abandonment of the truth is a corrupting and corrosive concept, a step on a path that leads to an inability to believe the statements of one's own people even within the armed forces.  Armies operate on a belief in the integrity of comrades.  Without that, only a fool will accept the risks involved in trusting the guidance given by one's superiors.  There are other reasons.  In the end the truth will normally become evident and when it does, the trust necessary to maintain the support of one's own public for a war effort is destroyed.  How foolish it is to risk that. 

Nevertheless, our neocon Jacobin "friends" love the idea of deception and manipulation and their influence on the armed forces expressed through the civilian government has corrupted the basic belief in truthfulness as the best policy.   Unfortunately, it is now plausible that the claim of Iranian responsibility for this attack on a predominately Shia market place in Baghdad may be a crude lie intended to support a propaganda campaign.  Is the claim of Iranian responsibility true?  Unfortunately, the "coin" of credibility has been spent to such an extent that the claim itself can not be believed without real proof.

Has the US government ever sought to manipulate opinion by deliberately using half truths or whole untruths?  Yes, it has, but the targets have by law been limited to foreign populations.  The danger inherent in doing such a thing has always been reflected in US public law.  We need to return to this policy.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/18/AR2008061800344.html

"Speculators accused of dictating oil prices"

"Just how much oil prices are being driven by speculation became clearer yesterday as regulators revealed that Wall Street dealers, hedge funds, pension funds and other speculators hold 70 percent of the leading oil futures contracts traded in New York.

The price on those contracts continued to defy gravity yesterday, with premium crude closing near $134 a barrel despite trends that in the past would have weighed down prices, including falling demand for oil in the United States and a strengthening U.S. dollar. Oil's seemingly relentless rise in the face of these trends has prompted charges that speculators have taken control of the market.

The latest estimate of how large the investor involvement in the market has become was provided by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission this week to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The commission previously said speculators constituted only 37 percent of the market, but at the committee's behest, the new estimate includes for the first time the 40 percent of oil futures contracts held by Wall Street dealers who have taken advantage of a regulatory loophole for "swap dealers" provided by the commission.

"Even 70 percent may represent a low-ball figure," as it includes only trading in the most popular crude-oil contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange - the benchmark premium crude West Texas Intermediate, said Bill Wicker, spokesman for committee Democrats. "  Washtimes

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I offer the opinion that the "fundamentals" of supply, demand and all the other undergraduate economics concepts that we all remember from long ago do not adequately explain the pricing process that now prevails in the oil and financial markets.

Investment in oil futures is not criminal.  It is not conspiratorial.  It is merely another aspect of the oh, so clever greed game played in the markets of New York and London.  Having operated on the fringes of that society of global "crap shooters" for a couple of decades, it seems very clear to me that all the expensively dressed and self assured youngish men who inhabit the hedge funds, etc. view the oil futures markets as just another sandbox to play in on the road to "making it big."

Yes.  There are long term supply problems in energy that must be solved soon.  No.  This years craziness in the price of oil is not a clear reflection of that problem.  pl

http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/jun/18/speculators-accused-of-dictating-oil-prices/

"Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble..."

OK, folks. let's start a pool on where the price is going.  Remember, the argument is not about long term supply and demand.  The argument is about this year.  pl

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/28315/Get-Used-to-Oil-Volatility----the-Bubble-May-Last-Longer-Than-Expected?tickers=STO,USO,OIL,DUG,XOM,COP,CVX

Hudna? - At Last

"Tuesday the two sides agreed to a six-month deal. He voiced confidence the latest violence would not hold up the start of the agreement to end constant bloodshed. "Implementation of the truce will begin at 6 a.m. (4 a.m. British time) on Thursday," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to announce an accord. A ceasefire would aim to end rocket and mortar bomb attacks on Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and Israeli raids in the territory. Israel has said it would continue preparations for broad military action should a truce fall apart. A senior Egyptian official was quoted by Egypt's Middle East News Agency as confirming the Palestinian official's information. A Hamas source had said announcement of a deal would be made by Egypt. Israel stopped short of confirming the timing of what it said would be an informal arrangement to halt fighting." Reuters

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The picture is of Omar Suleiman, the senior Egyptian official who negotiated the truce.

As I have written and said many times a truce of this kind is the only way to begin a process of gradual confidence building while moving forward in what may be very long negotiations.  Such a truce can be extended any number of times.

Let us hope that both sides have the good sense to observe this terms of this opportunity for actual progress.  pl

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL1760197120080617?ageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

King Abdullah and the speculators

"Saudi Arabia, Opec's largest oil producer, moved to take some of the heat out of rising fuel prices yesterday with plans to increase production next month.

The Saudi move followed a weekend of talks between the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon; the Saudi ruler, King Abdullah, and the country's oil minister Ali al-Naimi.

The news is expected to help depress the crude oil price, which hit a record high of $139 a barrel last week, ahead of an unprecedented meeting of oil producers and importers to be held in the Red Sea port of Jeddah on Sunday."  Guardian

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Sooo, the Saudi king is going to increase production at the margin on crude oil going into the spot market and this is expected to lower the market price on deliveries of crude to refiners.  That, in turn, is expected to cause a failure in confidence in the whole nasty complex of capitalist hedge fund managers, index fund managers, bankers, advisers to same, and individual mega-investors.  It is hoped/believed that this failure in confidence will cause the players to lose faith in their ability to pass the risk along to the greater fools waiting somewhere in speculator limbo.  After that set of developments the price per barrel is supposed to fall, a lot.  I believe this to be true.  We will assemble here afterwords to gloat, or not. 

A couple of things... 

- This declaration by the Saudis means that the Saudi gremlins (something like the gnomes of Zurich but more colorful and with bigger boats at Nice) believe that they can affect the price by doing this.  It is intuitively obvious that they thought that all through the time that they assured the cretins in the Bush Administration that they could not possibly increase oil production since they were already at the top of their production limit.  I seem to remember that some of you believed that.

- Believing that, they still did not choose to increase production enough to take the steam out of the commodity/financial market upward spiral in price.  That spiral gained speed as marginal scarcity fed the greed and confidence of the players.

- Now they are going to boost production because the accelerating rate of destruction of the world economy threatens everyone, including them.   Even 300 foot yachts can be threatened by instability.

-  Why did they play this game?  The Saudis are angry with us and have been for some time.  They are tired of being treated like poor relatives at the family reunion.  They are tired of being ignored in the matter of policy with regard to Shia triumphalism, Iran and the Palestinian question.  The Saudis don't care about that last one?  Only a neocon or a State Department hack toadying his way towards promotion would even try to believe it to be true that the Saudis do not care about Palestine or Jerusalem.  Ask the Saudis.

Foreign policy doesn't matter to the "little people?"  Ask yourself if that is true next time you fill up mama's Explorer. pl

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/16/oil.saudiarabia

“the necessity to forgive.” McCain

Mr. McCain’s 1974 thesis, though, also revealed a welter of other emotions about his years as a prisoner of war, including a deep anger at those he considered collaborators, a tough-minded disdain for public hand-wringing about captives like himself, and a sharp impatience with the American government for failing to “explain to its people, young and old, some basic facts of its foreign policy.” But at the same time, Mr. McCain also urged that any military survival training should include lessons in what he called “the necessity to forgive.”  NY Times

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The Senior Service Colleges (War Colleges) are year long mid-career courses for the most promising officers.  Selection for attendance is by national board and the selection rates for officers are very, very low.   McCain as Lieutenant Commander was quite young to go to one of these as a student, but the Navy does things its own way.  There are some civilians from other parts of the government in each class.  They are there for "broadening" and to provide some successful civil servants for the officers to interact with in an educational environment.  Some of the officers have spent their careers to that point in regimental duties and know few civil servants.  Attendance at such a course is a major "gate" in a career and is as much therapy and a chance for familiy repair as a chance to do research.  A War College "thesis" is often as much a way to get things out "on the table" as anything else.  I would judge this one to be that.

He seems to be much the same man now.  There is a certain rigidity about him, and an inability to deal with new paradigms of thought that I find worrisome.  He seems locked into a paradigm made up of World War II, the Cold War and Vietnam.  This is a problem.  That paradigm is no longer supported by reality.

The Soviet Union is no more.  The takfiri jihadis are not the Soviet Union.  They do not have the capacity to destroy the United States. There is no Al-Qa'ida equivalent to the "Red SIOP."  Why is there not such a plan?  Simple.  They lack the weaponry and always will.  They are a regional threat in the Middle East.  They are losing both in terms of physical destruction of their assets and in their appeal to Sunni Muslims.  Muslims are not fools.  Al-Qa'ida's cause has been demonstrated to be a very expensive adventure in medieval thinking. Iran is not Hitler's Germany nor Mao's China re-born.  Once again, Iran is a regional threat which should be dealt with through aggressive diplomacy and minimalist police and special operations.

McCain does not seem to be able to grasp the complexity of that set of ideas.  He often lapses into confusion over the basic facts of the situation regarding the Middle East and sometimes seems to resemble the intellectually isolated souls across the country who insisted during the primary season that Obama is a Muslim because for them he fits neatly into the category of "other" and therefore must be one of them "Ayrabs."  When told that Obama says he is a Christian, such people often replied with something such as, "Well, he's a Muzlim (sic) to me."

“the necessity to forgive.”

Someone will tell us who it is that he wanted to forgive.  The collaborators?  Some of us are not particularly good at "forgiving."  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/us/politics/15pows.html?hp

The Iraq Agreements - 2

"On Iraq, Bush brushed off criticism that a long-term security deal between the United States and Iraq was faltering.

"If I were a betting man, we'll reach an agreement with the Iraqis," Bush said. "Of course, we're there at their invitation. It's a sovereign nation ... We're going to work hard to accommodate their desires. It's their country."

The deal would provide a legal basis for the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq after a U.N. mandate expires. Bush said the agreement would not commit future U.S. presidents to any troop levels in Iraq and would not establish permanent U.S. bases.

Bush's upbeat assessment came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared Friday that talks with the U.S. on the deal were deadlocked, as Sunni and Shiite preachers spoke out against a plan that would enable American troops to remain in Iraq after year's end.

Al-Maliki said negotiations will continue, but his tough talk reflects Iraqi determination to win greater control of U.S. military operations after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year. Failure to strike a deal would be a major setback for Bush ahead of the November presidential election."  AP

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No.  Failure to strike a deal would be a major setback for McCain.

A policy wonkista asked me at a meeting last week (I know.  I know.  I was there too.  So what does that make me?) if the Iraqis could not simply say no and set a date at which they want the US to have its forces out of the country.

The answer is - yes.  They could do that.  They could do it if they could muster up the courage and unity to do it in spite of their massive internal devisions and the blandishments of people like Petraeus, Crocker and Satterfield.  You can be sure that a myriad of seductions is being served up for the purpose of getting an agreement before the end of the summer.

At the same time voices from across the region and the Islamic World are whispering in silence that to agree to long term "partnership" with the Americans is treason to Islam and to the Arab People.  The implied long term price for such "treason" will be perceived as high.

I would bet on the effectiveness of the blandishments, rather than the whisperings.  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080614/ap_on_re_eu/bush_europe

Wesley Clark's opinion on McCain

"During a debate last year, McCain criticized Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for earmarking federal money for a Woodstock museum to honoring the three-day 1969 rock concert. "I wasn't there, I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event," he joked. "I was tied up at the time."

The campaign promptly turned the quip into an ad that included footage of McCain as a POW.

And this week, the campaign is running a new ad called "Safe" that displays black and white photos of McCain's father and his grandfather — both admirals — followed by images of the wreckage of his shot down A-4E Skyhawk and of a wounded McCain imprisoned in Hanoi.

"Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war. When I was five years old, my father left for war. My grandfather came home from war and died the next day. I was shot down over Vietnam and spent five years as a POW. Some of the friends I served with never came home. I hate war. And I know how terrible its costs are. I'm running for president to keep the country I love safe," McCain says in the ad, speaking directly to the camera."  AP

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John McCain is an admirable man.  There are many such who wore the uniform of the United States in adverse circumstance.  Jim Webb, Chuck Hagel, Daniel Inouye, Bob Dole...  Shall I go on?  How many names would there be?  How many million names?  In their new found love of soldiers Americans ascribe something almost sacramental to the experience of military service.  This is unexpected.  There has emerged a kind of reverence for those who have served which is unfamiliar to the veterans of earlier generations.  I am old enough to remember the aftermath of World War II.  Veterans of that war were treated with respect, but not with veneration.  Perhaps there were too many of them for that. 

McCain's brief experience as a junior naval aviator and his extended suffering in North Vietnamese hands seem to be thought by many to be serious qualifications for the ultimate job of making national level policy decisions about the country's security.  Television newsies gush about his empathy with soldiers and understanding for the horrors of war.  Sentimentality abounds in these discussions.  Sentimentality is good in Valentine's Day cards.  It is bad in picking a president for the country and a commander in chief for the armed forces.

Now Wesley Clark has challenged the reality of the level and extent of McCain's real experience of command responsibility in the life and death business of leadership in war and peace.  McCain never commanded anything but small naval aviation units in war and a middling sized squadron command in peacetime.  He was a prisoner of the wretched North Vietnamese.  He was abused by them in violation of international law.  We Americans owe him a debt of gratitude for that.   The "job" of POW does not involve a lot of command responsibility except with regard to one's own conduct.  McCain has spent a lot of time in the Congress.  The Congress has many vital functions.  Command is not one of them.  McCain never exercised command authority over anything but his own office when in the House of Representatives or the Senate. 

When Clark says that McCain does not have significant  command experience he is undoubtedly correct.   One might say that Senator McCain has thought about national security issues a lot.  I am sure that is true, but it is not necessary to have served in the military for one to have thought about national security issues.

Abraham Lincoln had a few month experience as a militia officer.  Franklin Roosevelt had been a civilian Secretary of the Navy.  Thomas Jefferson never served in the military.

There is no reason based on historical evidence to think that Barack Obama would not run a creditable administration in regard to national security.  Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman found George Marshall to help them with their burden.  Let us hope that Obama is looking for his Marshall.  pl

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g_04MU_tdKQBoTxdnni_wNUYeoewD9180MG00

Obama's Chances

"But in the end, Obama wheezed across the finish line. He lost nine of the last 14 primaries, and although Democrats are uniting behind their nominee, there is a lot to make them nervous about Obama's ability to beat rival Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, in the fall.

Leon Panetta, who served as White House chief of staff under former President Bill Clinton, says Obama still faces problems with swing voters in swing states.

"By virtue of having lost some of those big states and some of those very important constituencies that are important — Latino, white, rural, a lot of the blue-collar women's vote — he can't afford to not get those votes back in the Democratic Party. … Those fault lines have cost the Democrats, I think, seven of the last 10 presidential races," he says.

"If they open up and stay unhealed, then there's no question that he ultimately loses," Panetta adds."  Mara Liasson

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If you think that smoldering resentment towards the trashing of the United States by the Bush Administration will necessarily elect Barack Obama to be president, then I think you are wrong.  His appeal is more limited than his urban, liberal, coastal, and black admirers are willing to admit to themselves.  The country remains very nearly evenly divided in basic sentiment no matter how much the Bush Administration and things like the "K Street Project" have angered many citizens.

Control of Congress is a different matter.  "Throw the bastards out" is likely to be the thought of the day on 4 November.  An even more strongly Democratic Congress is probable.

The presidency is another matter.  Many Americans have been propagandized into seeing the president as a temporary king, the CEO of America, the father, the Commander in Chief.  This last in spite of the fact that the president is CinC of the armed forces, not the United States.

As a result, many people think they are electing a semi-divine being to rule them from the Olympian setting provided by the White House, Air Force One, the Secret Service, etc.  People going to meetings with POTUS (What an ugly term!) are told not to speak unless spoken to.  The John Adams view of the image of the presidency has at long last prevailed.  Will "court" uniforms come next?  The presidency is thought by many to be effectively all-powerful.  It is said the new president will change this, or that, or perhaps that.  The idea that the presidency is limited in its power has become an unfamiliar concept.

As a result, the fear of electing the "other" is stronger than ever.  This is a fear of consenting to rule by an alien being.  Obama is a bit exotic, a creature of the intelligentsia, someone who does not seem inclined towards plebeian ways.  He has a strange name.  He has strange associations.  His rhetoric is, if anything, too good, too skilled.  And then, there is the undeniable blackness of the man.

Thomas Jefferson was a man for the people, not a man of the people.  So was Franklin Roosevelt.  Perhaps Obama would be the same.

Unless he manages to communicate that as a probability, I would rate his prospects as no more than 50%.  He should choose a Vice-Presidential candidate carefully.  That person will have to "translate" Obama to the men and women in whose hands his fate will rest.  pl

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91366795

Is "the press" really free?

"Three years into the Iraq war, Richard Engel was holding down the fort as NBC's Baghdad bureau chief when a top producer in New York, M.L. Flynn, told him there was "tremendous pressure" in the newsroom to lighten up his coverage."

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"It was all about getting good-news stories out there," Engel says. "There was a collective impression that all the journalists were getting it wrong. It quickly spread to the blogosphere and the world of punditry. It seemed orchestrated."

Despite the feedback, Engel says NBC executives never directly pressed him to change his approach to the violence in Iraq. But in recent weeks he has found himself under assault by the White House over the editing of an interview with President Bush-- the same president who had once invited him to the Oval Office to seek his advice about the interminable conflict."

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"Beyond the physical risks, he also had to defend himself in the media echo chamber. Engel says he and other correspondents once again came under attack in 2006 and 2007 from bloggers and radio hosts who wanted a more positive portrait of the war." Howard Kurtz

*********************************************************************

I think Engel's experience was rather widespread.  "Concerted?"  I can't prove it yet but I would venture to say that the same kind of apparatus that sought to bend the media in many other ways also sought to intimidate journalists often through corporate media headquarters.

How?  A threat of denial of access to government officials, an implied or direct indication of regulatory favor or disfavor, the threat or actuality of granted or denied advertising dollars by sympathetic clients.  Fill in your own list.

Yes.  We have freedom of the news media in the United States.  Unfortunately, this freedom is tempered by the ability of the powerful and wealthy to bend the free media to their will.

This not something new.  Take a look at the way John Adams and the Federalists dealt with media they did not like, the way Wilson dealt with dissenters in wartime and how newspapers hostile to the Union cause were treated by the Lincoln Administrations.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/09/AR2008060902790.html

Avnery Thinks Obama is a faithul friend for AIPAC

"And what was the first thing he did after his astounding victory? He ran to the conference of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and made a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning.

That is shocking enough. Even more shocking is the fact that nobody was shocked.

IT WAS a triumphalist conference. Even this powerful organization had never seen anything like it. 7000 Jewish functionaries from all over the United States came together to accept the obeisance of the entire Washington elite, which came to kowtow at their feet. All the three presidential hopefuls made speeches, trying to outdo each other in flattery. 300 Senators and Members of Congress crowded the hallways. Everybody who wants to be elected or reelected to any office, indeed everybody who has any political ambitions at all, came to see and be seen.

The Washington of AIPAC is like the Constantinople of the Byzantine emperors in its heyday.

The world looked on and was filled with wonderment. The Israeli media were ecstatic. In all the world's capitals the events were followed closely and conclusions were drawn. All the Arab media reported on them extensively. Aljazeera devoted an hour to a discussion of the phenomenon."  Uri Avnery

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

I doubt if I would like Mr. Avnery.  There is a sneering, condescending, politically correct paragraph in this screed devoted to the usual ill informed Israeli opinion on American "genocide" towards the noble red man (somehow the genociders missed those of my ancestors who were NRM) and the unforgivable sin of slavery.  Most Americans do not understand our history on these issues and I have yet to meet an Israeli with any real understanding of American History.  Hell!  Most Americans would have a hard time telling you if the Civil war was before or after the Spanish War.

Nevertheless, Avnery has the common sense to be shocked at the spectacle of American politicians and generals bowing down before a lobby explicitly devoted to the welfare of a foreign state.  It makes him uneasy, as well it should.  This is an unnatural situation and it can not persist indefinitely.  One must ask if Israel is well served in other than a colossal exercise in conceit by this "tail wags dog" folly.

Israeli state survival is a self appointed task assumed by the US.  I have no problem with that.  Groveling before this lobby?  I have a big problem with that.

I see that Arnaud de Borchgrave has similarly held forth.  Great minds, etc.  pl

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1212871846/

http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/06/06/commentary_aipac_and_liege_fealty/38a0/

The proposed security agreements with Iraq.

"The Bush administration is also negotiating a so-called strategic framework agreement with Baghdad, though details of this accord remain unclear. Iraq experts disagree on what is likely to be included in the framework, and administration officials have been vague. The Congressional Research Service's Katzman says he believes the agreement may incorporate some of the more contentious security proposals, such as authorization for the use of force, contractor immunity, and perhaps approval for the United States to continue detaining prisoners. Patrick Cockburn, the Independent newspaper's veteran Iraq correspondent, writes that the agreement being pushed by the United States would give Americans "long-term use of more than fifty bases in Iraq," an assertion Ambassador Crocker calls "flatly untrue." The framework, if signed, would also give U.S. troops "a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government," Cockburn reports. Yale's Hathaway, meanwhile, says public statements by administration officials have led her to believe contentious security details will remain part of the negotiated SOFA. The strategic framework "basically appears to be everything else" outlined in the November 2007 declaration of principles, she says."  CFR Paper

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If rumors are correct, the approaching SOFA and "strategic framework agreement" are documents which essentially would establish an American protectorate (muhamia) over Iraq for an indeterminate period of time.  The language of the agreements would be "gussied up" to look post-colonial but as the old American "saw" goes, lipstick on a pig does not change the nature of the pig.

As in the "good old days," there are ethnic and religious minorities conveniently to hand who will support the agreements for their own reasons.   The Kurds want American protection to continue and the majority of Sunni Arabs have come to understand that at least for a time, the Americans are preferable to Shia Arab rule limited only by the extent of their real coercive power.

The CFR article suggests that the US has already created a similar regime in Afghanistan.  I do not know about that.  Someone will comment on that thought I am sure.

Can such agreements be made by executive agreement without the consent of the senate?  This is a lawyer's question.  Please comment.  pl

http://www.cfr.org/publication/16448/us_security_agreements_and_iraq.html?breadcrumb=%2F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectorate

"Jesse Jackson: Clinton 'power' for ticket"

"The Rev. Jesse Jackson said today that Sen. Hillary Clinton has made "a powerful case'' for her candidacy for vice president.

Sen. Barack Obama should take his time choosing a running mate, Jackson said in an interview with the Associated Press today, but Clinton offers some major advantages.

"As he surveys the field, it must be someone who is compatible with him philosophically, someone who is loyal to his agenda and someone who brings a constituency that matters and the capacity to become the next president, as the Constitution requires should disaster strike," Jackson said, and Clinton meets those requirements. "She may not be the only one who does, but she certainly does.

"She starts with 18 million votes," he said. "She starts having gained a following among Latinos and she has substantial support among African Americans. ... Women will be looking to her place in the scheme of things." "  Baltimore Sun

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Well, there you have it boys and girls...  The Reverend Jesse has spoken.  If you think this man is sticking his neck out for Hilary for altruistic reasons, you haven't been watching him for the last thirty or forty years.  The Reverend Al Sharpton will probably be next, and then Bill Richardson maybe?  What a great chance to jump back into the good graces of his old friends.

These are practical politicians who are looking ahead to what the next four years will bring.  Firstly, they want their party to be in office.  Without that there will be no patronage, the coin that Washington really runs on.  They calculate that Obama needs her to win.  Then, there is the issue of whether or not as practical political men they can really trust him once the speechifying dies down and the "goodies" for constituents and selves start being passed around. 

For them, "change we can count on" means change that brings power and the rewards that go with it.  Jesse Jackson's statement in this matter has nothing to do wth race and everything to do with political realism.

Jackson is a clever man.

Bill Clinton will make an admirable ambassador somewhere.  pl

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/06/jesse_jackson_clinton_powerful.html

"Not with a bang..."

"Then-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith sent two Pentagon employees to the Rome meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian dissident already dismissed by the CIA as untrustworthy, and several Iranians who were former and current members of the security service. It also involved an unspecified foreign government's intelligence service.

Ghorbanifar used one of those meetings to press for regime change in Iran, and outlined a plan for it on a napkin, according to the report, saying it would cost about $5 million to start.

The report said then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley failed to inform then-CIA Director George Tenet and then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage fully about the meeting, either before or after it occurred. It said, however, that Hadley and the Pentagon did not exceed their authority in conducting the meeting.

It also said that Defense Department officials refused to allow "potentially useful and actionable intelligence" to be shared with intelligence agencies, even the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency.

Senate Intelligence Committee Republicans strongly dissented from the report, calling it a "disappointment" to those looking for evidence that anything "unlawful" occurred."  AP

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If you can remember back that far, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,  the SSCI, began an investigation several years ago into both the quality of the intelligence information that was the supposed basis of the US decision to go to war against Iraq and the use that the Bush Administration made of it in obtaining national agreement for that decision.

At the time the Republicans controlled the senate, and they managed (with the help of a few collaborators) to push through a report that essentially blamed the intelligence agencies for poor work and which carefully made a case (by bullying people in the IC) that no one in the intelligence community had been bullied into doing such poor work.  It was a "put up job."    That was "phase one."

At the same time it had been agreed among the members of the SSCI that there would be a second phase of the investigation which was to examine the use that the Bush Administration made of all that ersatz information.  The Republican chairman of the SSCI stonewalled the work of the second phase until the Republicans lost control of Congress in '06.  With the Democrats in charge the work went forward, and today we have the report.

The Republicans have won.  Nobody cares.  pl 

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jTtPj7wRc_KyOh7m89q1DrCQmkNgD913VMS88

http://intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf

Obama as Mitzvah

"Now, here's a change we can believe in.

A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday -- and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner.

He promised $30 billion in military assistance for Israel. He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force has "rightly been labeled a terrorist organization." He used terms such as "false prophets of extremism" and "corrupt" while discussing Palestinians. And he promised that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

Vowing to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon, the newly minted nominee apparent added: "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel. Do not be confused."

How could they be confused? As a pandering performance, it was the full Monty by a candidate who, during the primary, had positioned himself to Hillary Clinton's left on matters such as Iran. Yesterday, Obama, who has generally declined to wear an American-flag lapel pin, wore a joint U.S.-Israeli pin, and even tried a Hebrew phrase on the crowd."  Dana Milbank

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"Now, here's a change we can believe in."

A politician like all others, he came to make his kowtow before the most powerful lobby in Washington.

Hilary Clinton probably lost the election before the primary process started, not because she is a woman, but because of her vote to enable Bush to intervene in Iraq.  That vote cost it her the support of the anti-war forces in her party and she never recovered from that.  Her vote to label the Quds forces of the IRGC as a terrorist organization and therefore the Iranian government as terrorist only reinforced her alienation from the "progressives."

Some of the people who advised her to make those votes were probably sitting in the audience at the AIPAC convention yesterday.

Two of AIPAC's former "staffers" are under indictment and awaiting prosecution in federal court for espionage on behalf of Israel.  Their lawyers are playing a most skillful game of "greymail" with the prosecutors.  Will these two men ever be tried?  Maybe...

McCain's world view is clear.  The forces of darkness are arrayed against the forces of light.  The forces of darkness gathering behind the Dark Lord, Sauron will march forth from the Iron (or maybe Iran) Gates of Mordor.  They must be stopped, somehow, by a gathering of the knights.  He has seen these dark forces before.  So have I.

Obama said to the AIPAC  devoted that he would do "anything in his power to prevent Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, anything."  Anything is a lot for an American president.  Under the authorities still in force an American president has complete operational control of the strategic nuclear force.  A launch order from him will be obeyed.  Why?  Easy.  It would be a lawful order.  An American president would not do that?  How sure are you?

In the light of the McBush world view and their designation of Iran as a threat equivalent to a super-power, I question anyone's sureties about such a possibility.

If Cockburn has the story right on the SOFA negotiations in Iraq, one must ask why it is that we want all those bases and control of Iraqi airspace.

This fellow Milbank must have what the WASPs used to call "private means."  He is destined to find a home other than the Washington Post.  Perhaps he could start a blog of his own.  pl

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/990490.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/04/AR2008060403508.html

Download Revealed.doc

A visit to the Levant - Kieran Wanduragala

Kieran sent me this letter account of his travels in the Levant some days ago and has today allowed me to post it.  pl

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"Recently I had the opportunity to travel as part of a student-organized delegation of 30 Harvard graduate students (mostly from the Kennedy School, though I'm at the Center for Middle East Studies) to Lebanon and Syria. We met with most of the major players, with whom we engaged in generally quite freewheeling debate. I imagine that the kind of discussions we had were quite rare simply because students have a certain freedom (and allow a certain freedom to the other party) that politicians, diplomats, journalists, and certainly citizens of the countries concerned do not. We were also there at a very historic time for Lebanon (May 19 - June 1), just after the Doha agreement. I thought you might be interested in hearing a few of my impressions.

Samir Geagea, the head of the Lebanese Forces and a key figure in the March 14th coalition, was the first person we met. The extent to which his discourse mirrored that of the most extreme elements in the Bush administration surprised me. His talk was full of references to the Global War on Terror, Good versus Evil, Light versus Darkness, and such. After about 20 minutes of somewhat unproductive Q&A (we had not yet learned the art of simply interrupting longwinded and off-topic answers) he veered off into a discussion of his spirituality, which seemed genuine if bizarre, talking about how he "lives in the second dimension". I suppose he did spend 11 years in solitary confinement. None of the LF people were happy about Doha and they seemed to be looking forward to the day it would fail. By chance I ran into Geagea's foreign policy advisor, Elie Khoury, in a cafe. I asked him whether the LF were not placing all their eggs in a very dubious looking basket. He responded that his consultations in Washington convinced him that the next administration would end up pursuing a similarly confrontational policy in the region, whether the president is Obama or McCain. Overall, I was impressed by the LF's PR machine and the way in which their 'youth movement' escorted us around touristic sites in Christian regions while subtly pushing the virtues of their leader and movement. Nonetheless, there was something a bit Lyndon Larouche about the whole setup.

Syria Should Stop Playing Games

""The negotiations in their preliminary stage will be conducted indirectly and do not need a sponsor. But in later stages they would require international sponsorship especially from the United States, a superpower that has special ties with Israel," Al Ittihad newspaper quoted President Bashar Assad as saying.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Washington has not yet been asked by Syria or Israel for a role in their talks and indicated that Washington wants for now to focus on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, which the Bush administration helped to relaunch last year.

In the interview Assad also said that Israel must return all Syrian lands seized in the 1967 Middle East war as part of any peace deal.

Israel captured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau, in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed the area. Many Israelis are reluctant to relinquish the Golan, which overlooks northern Israel and borders the Sea of Galilee, a key source of drinking water.

Assad also denied that his country has a secret nuclear program. In September Israeli warplanes carried out airstrike against a Syrian site claiming that it was designed to produce atomic weapons.

On Monday the International Atomic Energy Agency said Syria would allow in U.N. inspectors to probe allegations that the country was building a nuclear reactor at the remote site.

"The site they attacked wasn't a nuclear site," Assad was quoted as saying. "If there are nuclear programs, why they didn't ask for inspection instead of bombing?"" 

Associated Press

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There are several interesting stories concerning Syria at present.

Most importantly, there is the business of future IAEA inspections in Syria.  So far, Damascus (Assad) has indicated that the IAEA will be allowed to inspect only the site near the Euphrates that the Israelis bombed earlier this year.  That will be a useless gesture helpful only to those who wish to describe Syria as a country seeking to conceal its real intentions and programs with regard to nuclear weapons.  I understand that Basshar Assad has told people recently that such inspections are not helpful because the Iraqis allowed IAEA inspections and the Americans attacked anyway.  That is true, but the fact is that Saddam's government dragged its feet on the provision of access just enough to allow the White House propagandists depicted in Scott McClellan's book to describe the interaction of the inspectors and the Iraqis as "stonewalling."  In fact, it was nothing of the kind, but the American people (the only population that really matters in such things) "bought" the idea with the active participation of the media.

The media are not so much conspirators in such propaganda campaigns as they are merely ignorant and easy to persuade.  Most of the people in the broadcast media know so little of the world that they fall consistently into the group who respond with "Gee whiz, I never knew" to the most basic information.  They may think themselves an elite but in reality they are a bad joke.

Syria!  Watch out!  You should INSIST that the IAEA inspectors go IMMEDIATELY anywhere and everywhere in Syria to look at whatever they want.  You do not have anything that will in any way change your vulnerability to massive destruction inflicted in your country by Israel and the US.  You will never have anything that will change that vulnerability.  Yes, I know all about asymmetric warfare.   No amount of indirect pressure exerted on your present adversaries will prevent them from destroying your infrastructure if they choose to do so.

The temptation to babble on about your national sovereignty and dignity is strong in the Arab World.  I have heard it many times.  Such an approach is suicidal.  That path will lead in the long run to some cataclysmic military event involving the US and Israel.

You can know from the State Department "talking dog" statement above that the US under this administration is not interested in seeking an objective picture of your actions.  It is also not interested abetting your Turkish sponsored talks with Israel.

Therefore, your goal should be to frustrate the hopes of your political adversaries by demanding full media and other coverage of the IAEA's Syria wide inspections.  pl

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gD-E7E_IrcMkCLx2Ouqu6IY9f-DAD912J7E81

"Colonialism or Counterinsurgency"

Download afghanistan_colonialism_or_counterinsurgency.doc

"These converts to the new US doctrine of "modern counterinsurgency" are reading Victorian era guidebooks, consulting "battlefield anthropologists"

(aka Human Terrain Specialists !), and striving to achieve the "developmental asymptote".

What they seem to ignore is that the Afghans (really the Pakhtuns) have been

dealing with invaders for thousands of years. They ambush and kill them when

they can; they make nice and take their money when they must; then turn around and slit their throats when they can again. What they never do is adopt the "civilization" of the invaders, or accept them as masters.

The British ruled (and partly anglicized) the variegated peoples of India, but they failed to overcome the Pakhtuns (in Afghanistan and India's borderlands). That is why they left them alone, and paid good tribute to ensure reciprocal treatment.

The French commander said it best about using counterinsurgency : It means the entire population become the subject of your war, and you either will have to stay there forever or you have lost. Some US officers in Afghanistan

(and, probably, Iraq, too) seem to be quite prepared to stay there forever.

Instead of reading Victorian guidebooks, perhaps they should read the newspapers from back home."

Brigadier (Ret.) Farrukh B Ali"

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Our friend FB Ali has given us this article from the Toronto Globe and Mail. In spite of its formulaic Yankee bashing there are things in the piece that are "food for thought." pl

George Bush and NPD

"DSM Criteria

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following.

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique.
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement
6. is interpersonally exploitative
7. lacks empathy
8. is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes "  Wiki

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Scott McClellan's book, whether you think it betrayal of his lord and master or a belated emergence of pietas, is a summons to examination of the man in the White House.

Willfully ignorant, unwilling to tolerate dissent in discussion, hungry for adulation, cruel to those who are instinctively seen as competition, jealous of other's accomplishments (the ridicule heaped on David Gregory's pronunciation of French words comes to mind), inability to accept criticism, etc.

Is George W. Bush a classic example of the "Narcissistic Personality Disorder?"  There are many such people among us.  We all know some.  Perhaps we are "some."

I invite your discussion.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder