Sic Semper Tyrannis

Anwar al Awlaki Reported Killed

 
Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

The NY Times is reporting that Anwar al Awlaki has been killed by a hellfire missile strike.   According to the Times the death has been confirmed by Yemen's Defense Ministry, as well as that of several of his bodyguards. (hat tip to Steve Benen at Washington Monthly) 

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

op-ed by Major Lujan, US Army

 
 
"...optimism in Afghanistan should not be mistaken for naïveté. We’ve paid a terrible price for the gains we’ve made, and Afghans know we’re leaving. Insurgents still control many areas and are certain to attempt a counteroffensive as foreign troops withdraw. My optimism is rooted instead in an intangible metric, gleaned from the thousand cups of tea we drank and the hundreds of patrols we walked: the Afghans have the will to win, with or without us."

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

What Major Lujan wants is what I have advocated from the beginning.  I understand this to be a US effort based on expertise, not on massive, brute force.  Unfortunately it takes a long term commitment to accomplish basic change in Afghan society or any society. It takes the kind of time commitment that you see in my short story, "The Dancing Carabao."  At the time represented in the story (1924) the US had been in the Philippines for 25 years.  The process of change had been bloody at times but the relentless effort to better the lot of Filipinos was a "generational commitment."  We stayed another 22 years before departing voluntarily in 1947.  Such a time commitment is unthinkable in the US of 2011. It was unthinkable in the US of 2001. BTW, I consider the US project in the Phillippines to have been a considerable success, not perfect, but considerable.   Filipinos did not become Americans but they  had I believe, been helped by our presence.pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/opinion/this-war-can-still-be-won.html?_r=3&ref=opinion

National Journal Blog - 26 September 2011

 
After Palestinian Statehood Bid, What's Next for the U.S.? - National Security Experts.

DEAFENING SILENCE by Harper

 
The deafening silence in Washington on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ heroic defiance of the Obama Administration’s efforts to kill of the Palestinian bid for United Nations full membership leads me to an obvious conclusion:  The White House has put tremendous pressure on everyone within their reach to go silent.  No doubt, similar efforts from AIPAC and others are bolstering this top-down effort to pretend that last week’s events in New York never happened.  Of course a few brave voices like Henry Siegman did not buy into the omerta, but the vast majority of people who should have commented on the Obama capitulation to Bibi Netanyahu have so far towed the line.  

            This is both unfortunate and foolhardy.  The die has been cast, and there will be a vote—sooner or later—at the UN Security Council.  It may, if the Obama Administration has its way, take months for that showdown vote to occur.  But it will occur, and likely, in the meantime, the PA will win General Assembly approval for non-member observer state status.  This will give the Palestinians access to the International Court of Justice and other UN bodies.  I know that senior Israeli Defense Force officers are very unhappy at the prospect of having to restrict their overseas travels, based on pending complaints and threats of arrest or interrogation. 

            The behavior of President Obama in New York—his patronizing scolding of the Palestinians in his address to the General Assembly, his pressure on Security Council member states like Nigeria, Gabon and Bosnia Herzegovina, to abstain from a Security Council vote on Palestinian full UN membership, and worst of all, his groveling with Bibi—cannot be swept under the rug.  An apparently deep rift has opened between Washington and Paris, after French President Sarkozy offered an alternative mediation to Washington’s hardline stance against any Palestinian action at the UN.  President Obama, according to my White House sources, pitched a fit that the French are suggesting that all roads to Middle East peace do not pass through Washington.  Europe is deeply divided over the fate of Palestine.  Saudi Arabia stepped in on the eve of the General Assembly to provide the PA with $200 million and a promise of further Gulf states aid, thus offsetting the Israeli freeze on tax payments to the PA and the anticipated U.S. Congress cut off of aid. 

            The next step is uncertain, but clearly the events in New York City last week and this will be looked back upon as a watershed.  The U.S.-led Middle East peace process has been shown for what is has been since at least the day that Bill Clinton left office, and maybe earlier:  all process and no peace.  Abbas has, for the moment, emerged from the shadows of the late Yasser Arafat and established himself as a leader in his own right.  It was a deft political move. The PA and Fatah are strengthened.  All of the good will that President Obama garnered from his Cairo speech in 2009 and his address to the same UN General Assembly in Sept. 2010 has been squandered, ostensibly in order to retain a few Jewish votes and the hope of continuing AIPAC largess.  I doubt he will realize either. 

Oy vey... Today's News of the Weird from the Middle East

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

This afternoon one of my colleagues came into my office and was very keen on having me look at something.  That something is this article from the Economist.  The article reports that an Israeli woman named Gita Boaron is claiming that her great-grandmother was Qhattafi's grandmother, which, according to both Judaic Law (as membership in the Am or People is transmitted maternally) and Israeli Law (the right of return regarding Jews and Israeli citizenship), makes Qhattafi eligible for Israeli citizenship.  Oy vey indeed!

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

FTL? Beam me up.

 
""You could say it's peanuts, but it's not. It's something that we can measure rather accurately with a small uncertainty," Ereditato told The Associated Press.

If the experiment is independently repeated - most likely by teams in the United States or Japan - then it would require a fundamental rethink of modern physics."  Forbes

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

Ahah!  I knew it all the time!  Einstein?  There always seemed to me to be flaws in his equations. 

All of us Asimov, Pournelle and Drake readers will be vindicated.  I want to ship over in "Hammer's Slammers," or "Falkenberg's Legion," or maybe those Germans in one of the David Drake books, you know, the Panzer guys.

Sigh...  pl

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/23/science-eu-breaking-light-speed_8697484.html

Is Zionism a Positive Expression of Jewish Nationalism? By Norton Mezvinsky

 
            Before answering the title question, I shall briefly comment upon nationalism generally and then discuss definitions and significant aspects of Zionism. 

            From one perspective nationalism appears to be a complex term. The varied definitions and many analyses attest to this. From another perspective, however, nationalism is a relatively simple term. The right of self-determination should allow individuals who do not oppress others to proclaim a nationalism for themselves and to establish a national group. This holds for both Jews and non-Jews.

            During the last two centuries Jews have discussed and disagreed with one another about their own definition. The major issues have been: What is meant by the term the Jewish people? Are Jews a national group or a religious community? Have Jews remained an identifiable and distinguished group because of God, anti-Semitism, and/or something else? Political Zionism emerged from all this discussion and inner controversy as the pragmatically primary advocacy of Jewish nationalism. Its crowning glory came in 1948, when the state of Israel was established with a political Zionist character.

Siegman on Palestinian Independence

 
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/palestinians-declare-independence-us-5919

Zelikow is back at the PFIAB

 
http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=15988

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FC31Aa01.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbak9KOINgo&feature=player_embedded

Zelikow's re-appointment to the "President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board" (PFIAB) is testimony to the enduring power of AIPAC in Washington.  On this board Zelikow will have access to ALL the deepest secrets of the US intelligence community.  pl

 

Why is the government still killing people?

 
Last night Georgia killed a man whose accusers had mainly recanted their testimony and who died still protesting his innocence.  I guess I am just a "softy," but that offends me.  I don't question Georgia's right to kill people.  What I do question is Georgia's common sense.

Texas executed a white man last night for dragging a black man to death behind a pickup truck.  It would be easy to say "well, the bastid deserved it."  It would be far too easy.

Killing is final, too final.  Will anyone have remorse if the man who died in Georgia last night is someday proven to have been innocent?  I hope so.

War, or "near war" is bad enough.  I lived by the sword.  Cold blooded killing of prisoners by governments is too much.  pl

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/22/national/main20109976.shtml

Perry should register under FARA

 
"Appearing with American Jewish leaders and Israeli political figures at a hotel in midtown Manhattan, the Republican presidential candidate decried the Obama administration's approach to the Middle East as a "policy of appeasement" and "a dangerous insult" to Americans and Israelis alike. He called for a policy tilted toward Israel and to "reconsider" U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority.

"There is no middle ground between our allies and those who seek their destruction," said Perry, who is being advised on foreign policy by some of the leading neoconservative voices of the George W. Bush administration. "America should not be ambivalent between the terrorist tactics of Hamas and the security tactics of the legitimate and free state of Israel.""   SFGATE

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

I take it back.  There is nothing I like about Perry.  Does that mean I am going have to vote for BO?  Ugh!

For this clown (RP) to appear with a group of Israel-first "Americans" and actual members of Izrul's (RP pronounced it that way) parliament was just insuffereable in the context of the UN meetings underway.  I acknowledge that Manhattan is a borough of Tel Aviv, but this level of disrespect to the US head of state while diplomacy is actually in progress over Palestinian statehood was so wildly transparent as a "sellout" for Jewish and Evangelical votes that it sets a new standard for political chicanery.  pl

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/20/MN0B1L76LO.DTL#ixzz1Yaxb3rTo

 

"HOW OBAMA CAN WIN BY LOSING" By: Robert K. Lifton

President Obama can win the election in 2012 by losing the fight to Republicans for  his jobs bill and related tax measures.  If the Republicans were to defeat the American Jobs Act presented by the President as a plan to save existing jobs and create new ones, then the upcoming presidential election will likely see the President identify the Republican candidate, whoever it may be, with the Republican party and run against the Republican House and Senate members led by House Speaker, John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell.  Looking at the recent polling data from the N.Y. 

Times/CBSNews poll, this can be a very effective political campaign, even though at first blush the President’s support looks like it is weakening.

"Dangerous" to whom?

 
"Speaking at a Likud supporters’ rally in New York City, Perry said that he was “indignant of the Obama administration and their Middle East policy of appeasement that has encouraged such an ominous act of bad faith. Simply put, we would not be here today at this very precipice of such a dangerous move if the Obama policy in the Middle East was not naive and arrogant, misguided and dangerous.”"  JPost

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

Is Rick Perry running for the Knesset?  Or, is he seeking the position of right hand man to Jesus when the Rapture comes?  Or, is he just seeking to follow the counsel of his Middle East Ziocon adviser, Douglas Feith?

Obama is vunerable among Jewish Americans.   Some have come to believe that  he might actually not be completely at the beck and call of his big money supporters and insufficiently fearful of AIPAC, Israel's organized pals in Washington.  And then, there are all the "mouth breathers" out there in he population who are not smart enough to think for themselves about "Izrul!"  After all, didn't Paul Newman found "Izrul?"

Too bad about Perry, Obama is a lousy president, self-obsessed, vulnerable to flattery and indecisve.   There are many things about Perry that I like, but not enough to put up with his sell out to the Likud.  pl

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=238743

Turkey is a NATO member state.

 
"Obama’s meeting with Erdogan on Tuesday is crucial. He can take a few important steps. He should immediately deploy 6th Fleet ships from Norfolk to the Eastern Mediterranean to signal that the United States will not tolerate even inadvertent naval clashes. He needs to make clear to Erdogan that the United States will not side with Turkey against Israel and that Turkey’s current strategy risks undermining regional stability."  Abramowitz and Barky

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

So, the US should prepare to fight Turkey at sea in defense of the Israeli blockade of Gaza?   Interesting.  Well, "what's theirs is theirs and what's ours is theirs."  That's easy to understand.  Stupid, but easy.  As usual the friends of Israel think that America's assets should be at Israel's disposal.

This week we will veto Palestinian membership in the UN and then these two Americans instruct us that we should "sort out" the Turks.

1- Turkey is a real ally 2- Israel is not an ally at all.  If you think it is, then show me the instrument of alliance.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-must-deal-with-turkey-israel-crisis/2011/09/16/gIQAnlcWYK_story.html

We should give Israel our veto in the UNSC

 
"...Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has. With most of the Arab world in upheaval, the “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the United States would increasingly be seen as toxic by the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, who demand justice for the Palestinian people."  Turki bin Feisal

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

Prince Turki is well known to Americans who deal with the Middle East.  He has a long record of close cooperation with the US Government.  He is US educated and is as comfortable in the US as anyone from abroad can be. His anecdotes of life at Lawrenceville as a boy are hilarious.  He does not enjoy telling us that we are about to lose his country as an ally. 

Saudi Arabia has long contemplated the ever more obvious tranformation of the US into what amounts to a client state of Israel.  In the last few years the nearly absolute control of Amerucan foreign policy, personnel appointments and diplomacy by Israel has reached such a level of certitude in every day matters that people are afraid to question this control in fear for their livelihoods. This is to be seen in the government itself, in the "think-tankeries" of the magalopolis and in journalism. 

The "Israel Power" now demands an American veto of Palestinian UN membership in the Security Council.  Such a veto will lose us Saudi Arabia as an ally.  People like Turki do not make such threats idly.  For an Arab, especially a Saudi, to make such blunt statements as those in his NY Times op-ed is a difficult thing.  His willingness to do that is indicative of despair.

We are told by the US Government that we will veto the application because we love peace and that UN membership for the Palestinians would be an obstacle to peace.   Such pronouncements reduce the American citizeny to the status of mushrooms, a rabble to be kept in the dark and fed horseshit. 

The truth is that our Israeli masters fear and hate the Palestinians as tribal enemies and do not intend to ever deal fairly with them.  All else is lies and mirrors.

In humble service to the hegemon we will vote this week to destroy whatever hope there might be for American influence in the Islamic World.  After that we should prepare for whatever new wars Israel may want us to fight for them.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/opinion/veto-a-state-lose-an-ally.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Turki&st=cse

Well This Explains It...

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

In the comments to my most recent Sharia Law is Not Closer to America than It Appears post, DanM brought Spencer Ackerman's** recent reporting on some really factually inaccurate training materials pertaining to Islam that were, apparently, used at the FBI.  After looking through the training slide decks, I have got to say they are a mess!***  And that we need to bring the links to the reporting out of the comments and up where everyone can see it.  The apparent good news, which Spencer reports in his article and links to, is that Senators Lieberman and Collins seem to take these problems seriously and have made it clear they intend to fix it if the relevant agencies do not do so themselves.  But the poor quality information that Spencer has reported is being provided to Federal law enforcement, perhaps explains some of the confounding and very public terrorism prosecutions we have been witness too over the past decade as reported on by Petra Bartosiewicz at Harpers.  

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

** Full disclosure: I once wrote a guest post for Spencer Ackerman.

*** As someone who has briefed, lectured, and presented on Islam, Islamic theology and dogma, and the connections between Islam and a variety of types of political violence and conflict to a number of different US Army elements, I can honestly say that these are some of the worst materials on the subject I have ever seen.  

National Merit Scholars

 

The National Merit Scholar Program is pure meritocracy in action.  Once upon a time I was a semi-finalist in this countrywide contest.  Once a young person scores high enough on the tests in this competitive program to be named a semi-finalist, then the essential criterion for award of moneys becomes need.  This is an excellent process by any measure for judgment.

Semi-finalists who do not receive significant funding in this program are the targets for scholarship money and management training programs from all across the great world that waits beyond high school graduation.

It is interesting to compare the number of semi-finalists in this article who are from very expensive private schools to the number of those who, for example, attend Thomas Jefferson High School in Northern Virginia.  This is a public school.  pl

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/2011/09/areas-national-merit-semifinalists

Sharia Law is NOT Closer to America than it Appears... Part IV: This Club has an Exclusive Membership

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

At Salon's War Room, Justin Elliott brings a report on a Lebanese American who is trying to establish a Republican Muslim club in FL.  As SST readers can no doubt imagine, this has been met with, shall we say, skepticism by some Republicans in FL (there are even more, and more inflammatory, links in Elliott's reporting, I'm not putting them here, if you want to click through to Salon and then click through fair enough).  Apparently the fear of a MUSLIM AMERICA is so upsetting to some Americans that it has garnered Governor Perry some negative campaign publicity from everyone's favorite Islamophobes and deep thinkers, as well as a Muslim running for a GOP spot in VA's House of Delegates from one of the same deep thinkers.  It has even led the Orthodox Jewish Candidate trying to hold Congressman Weiner's seat in NY for the Democrats to trail in the race, and combined with concerns over Democrats (because of President Obama) not being supportive enough of Israel has led Mayor Koch to endorse the Republican Candidate.  And what really gets me is that the guy who wants to form the Republican Muslim club indicates in Elliott's report that he agrees with Congressman West on many of his views, not just those on Islam.  That's after Congressman West sent him a less than pleasant letter, as a reply to a letter asking him to stop demagoguing on the Islamaphobia and shouted him down at a town hall meeting earlier this year (video at the latter link, as well as Elliott's report).  This reminds me of Hannah Arendt's remarks about Leo Strauss: “he wanted to join a party which wouldn’t have him because he was a Jew.”  And that's the irony in America ten years after the events of 9-11: Muslim Americans have, in many ways, become the Jewish Americans of the late 19th to mid 20th Century America...

*Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

Rappahannock Oysters

 
I bought a couple dozen of the "Olde Salts" today, took them home and shucked them.  We had them tonight with home made horseradish sauce, lovely.  The two young fellows selling them are the owners of the place.  I have no commercial affiliation with their company.  pl

http://www.rroysters.com/

Lebanon/Hizbullah?

 
I am attending a discussion on these two entities next week.  Does anyone have any thoughts or current references they would like to point out to me?  pl

Flotilladamerung...

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

It looks like the next round of flotilla disputes between the Israelis and the Turks is just about ready to kick off. (Hat tip to Zandar) And this time, provided the reporting is correct, the Turks are not going to just send the relief ships.  Just one more problem set to worry about as Septemeber rolls on.  We should all keep good thoughts that cooler heads prevail and that, if they don't, Turkey doesn't invoke its Article 5 rights under the North Atlantic Treaty.  Then again, that might prove very, very interesting...

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

Richard sale post on TA

See this new post on literature and the young.  Here is the link for those who cannot find the "Athenaeum" button to the right.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2011/09/to-a-young-reader-.html

  pl

The "New Egypt"

 
"In Washington, the White House said in a statement that Mr. Obama had “expressed his great concern” about the embassy situation in his conversation with Mr. Netanyahu. The statement said Mr. Obama had called on the government of Egypt “to honor its international obligations to safeguard the security of the Israeli Embassy.”

The attack on the Israeli Embassy, and reports of a hands-off attitude by Egyptian security forces for most of the riot, have added new strains to relations between the two countries at time when they have ebbed to a low not seen in the three decades since they signed the Camp David accords."  NY Times

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What a bad man Husni Mubarak was/is!  He kept the mob from trashing Israel's embassy.  For shame!  Now, the liberated masses can act out their inner angst!  At last!

Mubarak stole all that money that they haven't found yet, but, they will, they will.  Never fear.  His thievery made Egypt poor, somehow...

I had some doubts about whether or not the "Arab Spring" would produce a better world, but now I see the truth.

(All that was ironic.)  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/world/middleeast/11egypt.html?google_editors_picks=true

Nozette Court Documents

 
Download Nozette_forfeiture_order

Download Nozette_plea_agreement

Download Nozette_plea_factual_basis

"9 September 2011 

Attached are papers filed in connection with the plea of Stewart David Nozette to count 3 of the superseding indictment filed on 17 November 2010-- 

1.  The plea agreement.

2.  The factual basis for the plea.

3.  The agreed judgment of forfeiture of $9,600. 

A sentencing date has not yet been set.

The sentence is an agreed specific sentence, so he should be given it, with credit for time served since 2009, unless he "cooperates" so much that they may agree to a lower one.The next status conference is set for 15 November 2011.

 

Robert W.........

San Antonio, Texas"

 

Nozette convicted of attempted espionage.

 
"Stewart Nozette is expected to serve a sentence of 13 years in prison after making a plea deal with prosecutors.

He has been in jail since his arrest in 2009 after a sting operation by an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer.

Nozette, 54, was accused of seeking millions of dollars to sell secrets"  BBC

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

it appears that justice has been done.  pl

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14825820

"Unter Vier Augen" by Basilisk

 
It was in the time of Gorbachev; for those of us who labored in the vineyards of what was laughingly called “intelligence” in West Berlin, it was a time of utter confusion.

The new Soviet leader had come, as far as we were concerned, out of nowhere. He had already said things never heard from any other Soviet leader, and worse yet for our business, he had withdrawn tank divisions from the five Soviet armies that surrounded us and another tank division each from Hungary and Czechoslovakia.  

We had heard it before—thin out one army in order to bring more tank regiments into the adjoining army, or empty a garrison to allow the introduction of some new missile, radar, or gimcrack, but when the divisions began to pack up and actually leave the forward area, we were, in the words of our British colleagues, “gob smacked.” 

“Peter Rabbit” By W. Patrick Lang

 
             This is a true story.  It is a kind of “war story."  “Basilisk’ asked me to tell you this story.  We were out wandering around the Virginia countryside in the rain yesterday.  “Harper” joined us for lunch at a country inn.  We have those. 

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

            In the middle of the Vietnam War, I was in an Army school for captains and majors.  It was a long course, nine months long.  There were about 100 officers in the class.  Nearly all had already served one 12 month “tour” in the war.  They were all intelligence officers but as lieutenants or captains they had served with infantry or other combat arms battalions, or in SF or so far out in the “boondocks’ that what branch one belonged to did not matter much. 

            They were all going back to the war as soon as they graduated and were not very tolerant of people they thought of as “REMFs.” (rear echelon mother-fuckers- this is necessary vulgarity)  they had seen a lot of death,  had inflicted a lot of death and were going to do it again.  There were not a lot of West Point grads in the group. 

IMO Perry won.

 

"Morning Joe" was in full cry this AM.  The desperation of the attempt to give the victory to Romney over Perry was amusing to see.  Surely, Perry lost was the theme, surely! 

No.

What is apparently obscure to the coastal crowd is how much Perry's positions and manner appeal to all those millions of Americans who are not liberals.

Romney is a businessman who think corporations are human.  He remains a Mormon and as such will be rejected by many evangelicals, hard shell Baptists, etc., and he is boring.

IMO Perry is likely to win the Republican nomination.  pl

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/08/2396063/fact-checking-rick-perry-and-mitt.html

Of Uniforms and "Scholarships"

 
"PLease make a new thread about the uniforms. I've been wondering about this since a West Point Cadet appeared onstage at my son's HS graduation last June in "full dress camoflage", describing the "scholarship" to West Point as being worth $300,000. I wanna gripe about it some more."  Elkern

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Elkern would like a discussion of the inappropriateness of wearin field uniforms in other settings.  I agree with his unhappiness with this.  On the second point, appointment to a service Academy; West Point, Annapolis, Air Force, Coast Guard is not a "scholarship."  t

The cadet is a member of the regular forces and receives pay according to his grade as a cadet.  The other expenses of his/her education/training are borne by the services as with any other training cost.  pl

Bethlehem U. people attacked.

 
"Dear friends,

This kind of stuff rarely makes the news in the USA.

chm (Father Charles H. Miller) 

If you're having trouble viewing this email, you may see it online.

 

Share This:

This e   6 September 2011 Bethlehem, Palestine   Dear Alumni and Friends of Bethlehem University,   Generally, I am delighted to write to you with some encouraging news about happenings at Bethlehem University. Today, however, I have some disturbing and unfortunate news to share with you. A Bethlehem University Professor and Student Survive Two Separate Attacks by Israeli Settlers  In the early morning hours of Monday, 5 September 2011, while travelling in the West Bank between the Palestinian villages of Al-Lubban and Turmos Aya and near the Israeli settlements of Ofarim and Bet Ariye along the Nablus-Ramallah, Dr. Adwan Adwan, a faculty member in the Arabic Department at Bethlehem University, was the victim of a violent attack by some 20 Israeli settlers who threw rocks in his face, injuring his head, shoulder, and stomach. His car was blocked by a pile of burning tires when he quickly came under what he said felt like a well-orchestrated ambush. Dr. Adwan eventually was able to speed away from the scene and get himself to a hospital for treatment. "I felt lucky to escape with my life," he says.

National Journal Blog - 5 September 2011

 
What's Next for the Pentagon Budget? - National Security Experts.

pl

 

Goldberg says Israel is an "ungrateful ally," AND he says it in Bloomberg.

 
 
 
"It was an extraordinary scene: President Barack Obama, sitting impassively in the Oval Office in May as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured him, at considerable length and at times condescendingly, on Jewish history, Arab perfidy and the existential challenges facing his country."  Goldberg

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

Does this mean that Jeffrey Goldberg and the mayor of New York City are "self hating Jews?"  No, it does not.  If i am not mistaken, Goldberg is an IDF reservist, not a US reservist, an IDF reservist.

Goldberg is worried that wide spead Israeli and other Zionist disdain and lack of concern for all who are not of their tribe has found a voice and a face in Bibi that threatens to finally disrupt the dog-like devotion that Gentile Americans generally display toward Israel.

I am not among those who think that the Arabs, Iranians or other Middle Easterners are any better from the US point of view.  All these groups/countries have what can only be described as "transactional" relations with the US.  Any thought that there are feelings of affection toward the US in "the region" is just silly.  Well, there might be a few people...

Natanyahu's abuse of American hospitality was abominable.  He displayed his opinion of Obama and of us all.  The vendu MSM and congress were remarkably silent over this insult.  They had heard the dog whistle blow.

Obama is in a sadly amusing political position.  He is largely a creation of liberal Zionist money, but even he, and his kennel mates in the administration, find Bibi's public contempt hard to bear.  Perhaps a tickle under the chin would help.

Rick Perry has sworn his fealty to the Zionist project.  He awaits the Rapture.

Woof!    pl

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-06/robert-gates-says-israel-is-an-ungrateful-ally-jeffrey-goldberg.html

 

 

From Redhand's Comment

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

On Saturday, in comments to my post on Additional Thoughts on the Gilded Age, Redhand put up a link to a very interesting story/confessional from a recently retired, and very senior, Congressional Republican staffer.  I saw and read the story before Redhand put it into comments, and had been mulling over whether to do a separate post on it for the beginning of the week.  The link deserves to be in a post of its own, not in comments, so hat tip and thanks to Redhand for bringing it to everyone at SST's attention.   

One of the things I found interesting about the story is where it appeared.  I got the link from the Ballon Juice gang, but I think its very important that we take a second and think about where this was published.  While I have no major issues with Truthout, let's be honest: its not the NY Times, The Atlantic, Harper's, The New Yorker, or several other very well known pubblications with both online and in-print coverage.  While James Fallows at The Atlantic did direct his readers to the piece, I have to agree with Steve M. that because of where this is published, as well as its content, it is very likely to wind up in a sort of main stream news spam filter.  Basically, its going to get a lot of play on a place like SST that is concerned with effective and functioning policy and governance (domestic, foreign), a variety of similar sites, and then a range of what is called the leftist, liberal, and/or progressive blogosphere.  So moving it up to the front page here, so it gets a bit more wider notice, is I think the right thing to do.  Finally, for anyone interested in more information on the GOP as a political/ideological movement in the way that Mr. Lofgren describes, I recommend the Stiftung Leo Strauss website (where someone named Redhand seems to comment...).  The proprietor, a beltway insider, does his best to both explain and channel the Straussian/neo-Con ideology and world view that seems to have infested much of today's GOP (he also has at least one COL Lang quote on his random quote generator).  He does a very interesting job and here's the link to his posts on what he calls The Movement.   I think many here at SST will find them interesting and illuminating.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarilly reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

Maybe a last straw for Syria

 
Unbeknownst to many, Syria is a significant oil producer.  A lot of foreign exchange is earned in that trade.  Oil men in the supply chain have grown rich, rich beyond the dreams of we ordinary men.  Think 300 ft yachts at anchor at Nice.  Think villas on the ridges at St. Paul de Vence.

The Syrian military is approaching the point of division in this long struggle against the Sunni zealots (and others).  If the government runs out of money...  pl

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-09/05/c_131100688.htm

 

A Few Additional Thoughts on the Gilded Age

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

COL Lang's recent post on attempts by the GOP to return America to a new Gilded Age excellently picked apart what is being proposed and why.  I wanted to follow up with some additional information I have come across and took note of in case I had reason to use it.  The first is an excellent article in The Atlantic from last winter.  The article, by Chrystia Freeland, a business correspondent, delineates how the wealthiest of Americans have essentially detached themselves from the rest of us.  They have fully embraced the concept of globalization by recognizing that they and their capital can go anywhere, therefore they don't really need the US or the rest of us Americans.  In doing so they have broken the last bits of the economic portions of the American social contract.  Essentially all of the rest of us are just disposable.  This, as I've mentioned before in regards to military service, is at the heart of the book AWOL and Freeland's article makes a more general and economic complement to that argument.  And Timothy Noah (before Slate let him go...) did an outstanding multipart series on income inequality.

Another excellent piece, especially now that one of the major GOP candidates for the party's presidential nomination has said that corporations are people, is a lecture given by Harper'scontributing editor and law professor Scott Horton that was reprinted in (at least the online version) of Harper's.  Professor Horton's presentation takes a look at the corporation through the eyes of James Madison and presents a stark contrast to how many in America, and certainly the (conservative wing of the) Supreme Court based on recent rulings, view and should understand corporations. 

Finally, just a couple of links to some chart heavy sites dealing with how Americans are compensated for their work, facts about US inequality, debunking some major tax myths, historical top tax rates.  New gilded age indeed...

*Adam L. Silverman, PhD is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

 

"Carolina in the Mornin'" re-posted on The Athenaeum

 
A lot of you read "Sharpsburg."  Perhaps you will like this.  pl

There is Nothing More Dangerous than a Democracy when it is Scared...

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

When I was an undergraduate, the political science professor who I thook the political theory core from (ancient, modern, feminist, and nietzchean) used to say that the closest thing that political science had to an axiom was that "nothing was more dangerous than a democracy when it was scared".  As we approach the tenth anniversary of the events of 9-11 we have begun to see both straight reporting, analysis, and opinion pieces that look back over the past decade in something of a retrospective manner.  This past week two of these types of pieces (one straight reporting and one op-ed) caught my eye and I think, in many ways, they bear out the truism shared with a class of 18 and 19 year olds in the late 1980s.  

The first piece, in the LA Times, looks at the costs of homeland security spending over the past decade, how much of it there is, if it makes sense the way we are spending it and using it, and if it is actually making us safer.  One of my favorite portions is the quotation from Professor Mueller at Ohio State about the odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack: 1 in 3.5 million.  For those wondering how Professor Mueller gets that number he lays it out in his book on US responses to the 9-11 attacks: Overblown.  Professor Mueller's book is excellent and I highly recommend it.  And for anyone wondering, I calculated an odds ratio similar to the one he presents back in 2003 using an open source data chronology of terrorism posted online (total number of incidents, over the time span in days from the first recorded incidents to the day I did the analysis, calculated against the adjusted population figures).  That one focused less on the odds to an American, just the overall odds.  Basically the chance is extremely unlikely, though it does go up if you reside in conflict areas.

The second piece, which is a full retrospective op-ed, is by Frank Rich.  Mr. Rich's column ponders who has won?   Just something for us to ponder as we move into the final week of the decade that began on 9/11/01.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

The Libyans Deserve Our Neglect. NJ Blog - 1 September

 
Col. W. Patrick Lang Responds to How Has the Obama Administration Handled the Crisis in Libya? ?.

pl

"Sharpsburg" posted at "The Athenaeum"

 
See button at right.  pl

Allawi wants new elections.

 
It is necessary, and achievable, to insist on full and proper implementation of the power-sharing agreement of 2010, with proper checks and balances to prevent abuse of power, and full formation of the government and its institutions on a nonsectarian basis. Malign regional influences must be counterbalanced. Failing these steps, new elections free from foreign meddling, and with a truly independent judiciary and election commission, may be the only way to rescue Iraq from the abyss.  Allawi

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

My resolve to take a vacation did not last long.  Nevertheless I think this is so importants a statement by Ayad Allawi that I must make sure it is highlighted. 

There is all kinds of interesting news today in the Post.  TTG and I are vindicated by a story that affirms our belief over the months that the Qathafi government was a hollow shell.  and then there is another story concerning Israel's resignation to the impending admission of Palestine to the UN as a member state.  That will have a major impact as Israel becomes vulnerable to condemnation for "crimes" against a member state.  Sanctions will be a possibility as well as indictment of individuals at the ICC. 

Allawi wants implementation of last years power sharing agreement in Baghdad.  Good luck to him!  Maliki holds most of the cards and will never give "consensus" candidates the Defense and Interior (police) ministries.     ALL WE DID IN IRAQ IS SUBSTITUTE ONE SECTARIAN TYRANNY FOR ANOTHER. pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-us-and-the-world-can-help-iraq/2011/08/30/gIQAIPZxsJ_story.html