Sic Semper Tyrannis

Everglades Challenge 2012

"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

Lately we have been especially busy posting and commenting on the antics of grifters, cowards and idiots in both the political and corporate worlds. I guess that's the nature of the game, but I think we deserve a break... or at least a little vicarious diversion.

I would, once again, like to invite the SST Committee of Correspondence to follow this year's running of the Everglades Challenge which begins this Saturday morning. I discovered this event several years ago and have put participating in it on my bucket list. The event is organized by a colorful group of adventurers who call themselves the Water Tribe. The Everglades Challenge is an unsupported, expedition style adventure race for kayaks, canoes, and small sailboats. It starts at Fort DeSoto in Saint Petersburg, Florida and ends at Key Largo. The distance is roughly 300 nautical miles depending on one's course selection. There is a time limit of eight days. Updates on the progress and tribulations of the participants will be posted on the Water Tribe website.  

This year I will be following the adventures of Scott Widmier of Kennesaw, Georgia. His boat, dubbed the ECDuck, is a Puddle Duck Racer (or PDRacer) specifically built for this race. His Watertribe nickname of Plumcrazy is well deserved. The PDRacer is only slightly more technically sophisticated than a 4X8 sandbox with a sail. Puddle Duck sailors as a whole are an interesting breed as evidenced by the tale of the Puddle Duck fleet in the 2008 Texas 200. If Scott completes the gruellng  Everglades Challenge in the ECDuck, he will be a legend among both the Watertribe and the PDRacer communities. No matter what the outcome, the story of this intrepid band of brothers and sisters is both interesting and uplifting.

Enjoy,

TTG

 

McCaffery says Israel may attack Iran with nucs.

McCaffery's PPT is presumably proprietary in nature since he briefed NBC as a consultant.  That means it is copyrighted.  Therefor, I will not quote it.

McCaffery judges that Israel may use nuclear weapons against Iran.

The military logic behind his judgment that Israel may use nuclear weapons is clear.  As I have repeatedly said, Israel is not capable of doing more than "moderate" damage to Itan with conventional weapons.  Therefore, they are pushed in the direction of nuclear weapons by their probably incorrect belief that Iran will be an existential threat to Israel based on; nuclear capability against Tel Aviv and Haifa,  parity of geo-political power with Israel once it has deliverable nuclear power, and a diminishing level of support for Israel arond the world except in the US where the sheeple still believe Israel to be America's friend.

The implicit (or explicit) threat of Israeli use of nuclear weapons is  certain to be a factor in the US-Israeli discourse on the subject.  pl

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/28/gen_mccaffrey_privately_briefs_nbc_execs_on_war_with_iran/singleton/

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

 

 

"Tough Senate Bill Takes Aim at Iran" The Forward

We will now see who truly controls American foreign policy in the Obama Administration era.  pl

http://forward.com/articles/151846/?p=all

Dr. Brenner on "Stratfor"

Curiosity prompted me to peruse some of the material placed on the web today by Wikileaks.  My curiosity was whetted by Startfor’s location only a mile or so from the University of Texas.  Moreover, a few students of mine have penetrated the inner sanctum as interns.  Here are my impressions based on my examination of the material and the testimony of those interns.  They concentrate on Stratfor as a phenomenon rather than on the substance of the leaked documents which are pretty anodyne.

 

Stratfor is a sleazy outfit. It was established as a money machine by George Friedman and a former Texas Congressman (now out of the picture) who served at one time on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. His being the co-founder along with the presence in the vicinity of numerous retired military people and civilian officials helps explain the selection of Austin as the company’s home.  They hustle; everything they do smacks of a hustle.  They exploit the student interns while playing on their desire to partake of the mysterious and the romantic.  Those they do hire for regular positions get the skimpiest of wages.  Expertise and languages are little valued.  Their hallmark tool is an electronic pair of scissors. One student had spent four years as an interrogator for the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He served as an employee of a contract firm there. His first assignment as a junior member of the Stratfor team was to prowl around the Rio Grande Valley looking for stuff on the drug cartels; he never had been there before.

TIP's Global Language Manual

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

COL Lang asked me to take a look at The Israel Project's (TIP) 2009 Global Language Manual that came up in the comments to his recent News of the Day post.  I think there are two different issues with TIP's manual.  The first is that we really do not know everyone they distributed this to.  The Bio page for TIPs president indicates that she meets regularly with Israeli leaders and works regularly with other pro-Israeli organizations.  As the Jerusalem Post seems to confirm and indicate that the TIPs manual was presented to Israeli leadership by its author, we can reasonably conclude that it has been accounted for in Israel's diplomatic and information operations.  

The bigger question, which is harder to answer, is who exactly this strategic communication initiative is aimed at.  It does not seem as if it will change many minds in Europe, the Middle East, or the non-Arab Muslim world.  Rather it really seems aimed at American audiences, specifically politicians, the think tank crowd, and both Jewish and Christian Americans who view Israel positively, but might need to have their positions butressed and reinforced.  Overall I really think it is intended for elected officials, their staffers, the think tankers, and the professional Jews and Christians we see on TV, hear on talk radio, and read in print - individuals who may not, and in the case of the professional Jewish and Christian Americans, clearly do not really represent the much more diverse views of these issues than we are repeatedly led to believe.

The second issue is one I have made here before: the professional political and campaign operatives that have achieved a high profile here in the US working for either Democrats or Republicans do NOT just work here.  They also work on campaigns in Canada, Britain, Israel, and other countries.  That's why, if you follow news from these places, we are seeing more and more that the rhetoric, strategies, and tactics uses, as well as the policies proposed, are all beginning to look more and more similar.  Just this AM I read a piece that I found over at Ballon Juice (SST is on their blogs that they read, so I return the favor) that indicated that Canadian election officials are looking into a dirty tricks robo-calling initiative that benefited Canada's Conservative Party.  This is something that is widely done here in the US and in almost every case that is an attempt to disrupt an election it winds up tied back to consultants to Republican candidates or to conservative causes (these types of calls, as part of a whispering campaign that also included flyers, killed Senator McCain's chances in SC in 2000 by insinuating that the daughter he had adopted from Bangladesh was really an out of wedlock daughter that was the result of an adulterous affair he had with an African-American woman.  

In the case of this report, TIP has employed Frank Luntz, DPhil (his doctorate is from Oxford, I think in government, which is what they call political science).  Dr. Luntz has been the go to messaging specialist for the Republican Party and a number of conservative causes and institutions for about 20 years now.  One of his earliest pieces of work, related to the Contract with America, was developing the language that Republicans should and should not use, specifically the language that was to be employed to market it (and beat Democrats and Democratic initiatives and allied organizations up with).  The problem is that Dr. Luntz's methods and results have come into question.  He has been censured by both the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the National Council on Public Polls.  Given the concerns raised over his methods, it is hard to know whether his messaging advice will work, because there is no way to know if the data it is based on is, if I may use the term, kosher.**

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

** Dr. Luntz's work for Republicans and conservatives has, as the reporting at the links note, been contested, as utilizing flawed methodology, data, or both.  That said his recommendations have been repeatedly and consistently followed and applied by Republicans for over twenty years very successfully.  Some of this is the ability of Republicans and conservatives to select a message or messages and then do a tremendous job staying on them over and over again (abetted by a news media that seems less and less interested in news and more and more in access and perqs).  Even if the theme or meme does not seem to be going anywhere, like Solyndra, they still hammer it over and over, and as a result have so moved the social, political, economic, and religious framing of ideas in the US (the so called Overton Window), that the center is now so far to the right in the US that Republican stalwarts of the 1970s and 1980s would be considered, at best, Republicans in Name Only (RINOs).

"Afghanistan The Death of a Strategy" Cordesman

We will evidently not fight to the last cheerleader.  pl

Download Afghanistan The Death of a Strategy

National Journal Blog - 27 February 2012

Col. W. Patrick Lang Responds to Should the U.S. Arm the Opposition in Syria??.

pl

Culture and US Army Professional Military Education

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

As a result of several comments regarding the recent events in Afghanistan, COL Lang asked me if I would be willing to do up a post about what the Army is doing in regard to culture in its professional military education (PME).  While I have some idea of what the Marines and Air Force do, I am really not able to speak in depth about their programs and will stick to the Army's, which is what I know best.

The US Army formulated the Army Culture and Foreign Language Strategy (ACFLS) a little over three years ago in order to address the recognized shortfall of cultural capabilities within the general purpose force of the Army for its ongoing operations; not only for Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the Philippines and for potential future operations as well.  The ACFLS designated the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) as the proponent and ordered it to establish an office to begin implementation - currently known as the Army Culture and Foreign Language Directorate.  This included staffing of culture and foreign language advisors (CFLAs) and establishing a way forward for culture in Army PME.  

Syria and the Islamists

The emerging alignment against the Syrian government:

- Mildly Islamist Sunni Turkey.

- Wahhabi Islamist Sunni Saudi Arabia

- Sunni Al-Qa'ida

- Sunni Hamas (in spite of the Israeli agitrpop about Iranian support).

- Sunni Wahhabi Qatar.

- Sunni fighters from Libya

- The US Government and MSM

Alignment supporting the Syrian government:

- Iran

- Hizbullah

- Russia

- China

Get the picture?  Are you sure you want a different governmemt in  Syria or do you want a reformed government?  If you like Egypt, you are going to love post-Baath Syria.  pl

Afghanistan ─ Reality and the way out (FB Ali)

Watching the United States stumble from one bad policy into another over the 10 years of the Afghan war, one went through a whole gamut of emotions ─ bemusement, puzzlement, anger, sorrow ─ but ending up with bewilderment overpowering the others. How could this great empire, with all the resources of knowledge, experience, intellect, research and analysis at its command, get it so consistently wrong? How could this “greatest democracy in the world” allow special interests to take over its policy-making to the grave detriment of the true interests of the country and its people?

Part of the answer was provided by Andrew Bacevich in a recent article. He wrote: "Strategy is a quintessential American Century word, ostensibly connoting knowingness and sophistication. Whether working in the White House, the State Department, or the Pentagon, strategists promote the notion that they can anticipate the future and manage its course ...... Strategy is actually a fraud perpetrated by those who covet power and are intent on concealing from the plain folk the fact that the people in charge are flying blind”.

Another part of the answer comes from what happened to Bacevich. A former army officer, now a professor of history and international relations, he is one of the sanest people in America writing about current affairs. In recognition of that his writings were always welcome on the OpEd pages of the principal newspapers and in periodicals ─ until he started pointing out the folly in many of the policies being pursued by the US. He was then dropped like a brick. The only ‘experts’ who are now featured in both the MSM and scholarly journals are those who push the reigning narrative. Presumably, they are the only ones now read or heard in the corridors of power.

That is why it was such a pleasant surprise to come across an article that offered a remarkably clear-eyed view of the reality of the situation in Afghanistan today, and proposed a way out for the United States.

News of the Day.

Republican Debate - The notable event was the continuation of the Zombie Media/AIPAC (Likud) attack on CJCS.  John King specifically asked one of the dweebs (not Paul) what he would do about Dempsey's attitude.  Gingrich responded to the dog whistle in Adelson's mouth and said that Dempsey's attitude was incomprehensible to him.

Iraq- 5 killed today in the paradise the neocons made. "And the beat goes on..."

Afghanistan - 2 US soldiers killed in Qur'angate riots.  IMO what we are seeing is the result of all the Muslim bashing the troops have been exposed to in the last few years.  The depiction of Islam as a "cult" of the devil by people who have been contracted by DoD to teach about these countries was bound to have a bad effect over time.   Once again, the Qur'an is regarded by nearly all Muslims as the UNCREATED word of God.  How many times must this be said before the idea soaks in.  The evangelicals and a lot of the social scientists do not want to hear that.   The evangelicals simply hate those they see as the enemies of their faith and the social scientists want to "what is REALLY going in here?"  These people undermine the message of tolerance that must accompany the NATO presence in Afghanistan.  pl

Iran - Revisited re-published 21 February, 2012

Last Spring Larry Johnson and I wrote the enclosed article for the "National Interest."  It examined options for different kinds of military action against Iran and the broader implications of such actions.   Half a year has passed and the Baker-Hamilton group have labored and brought forth their "mouse."  The president of the United States and his Secretary of State have expressed themselves in the last days as opposed to discussions with Iran over the Middle East crisis unless Iran fulfills in advance the American policy demand to halt its fissile material enrichment program.  The Iranians apparently decline to do so.

Washington buzzes with rumor (and sometimes better than rumor) to the effect that President Bush will not leave office without "neutering" the Iranian nuclear program.  His determination to unseat the present Iranian government in favor of one that he finds more "modern," humane, and democratic seems to remain undiminished.  He, and his "team" apparently remain convinced that the Iranian masses are a "captive people," awaiting the call to revolution, westernization and globalization.  This view of the need to liberate Iran as part of the Bush "Freedom Agenda" certainly affects the administration's view of the need to "put paid" to Iranian nuclear ambitions.

There is growing desperation in the White House and in the Republican Party.  There is a fear of being remembered as "losers" on a cosmic scale.  There is also a great denial of the consequences of preemptive war against the Iranians and there is also the ever present urging of Israel to "deal with" this problem. 

On balance, it seems to me that the graph line of the probability of US military action against the Iranian nuclear facilities and state before the end of the 2nd Bush term has turned upward sharply.

I would place it at over 50%.  pl

Download lang_johnson_tni_83.pdf

As you can see, we have been "here" before.  pl

Can Israel Strike Iran? - re-posted 22 Feb, 2012

 

http://francona.blogspot.com/2006/03/iran-israels-air-strike-options.html

"Theoretically, the Israelis could do this, but at great risk of failure. If they decide to attack Natanz, they will have to inflict sufficient damage the first time - they probably will not be able to mount follow-on strikes at other facilities.

When all the analyses are done, there is only one military capable of the sustained widespread air operations required to eliminate Iran's nuclear weapons research program - the United States. Again, a diplomatic nightmare, but certainly a military possibility."  Rick Francona

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

Rick and I worked together for a long time when he was my deputy in DIA.  I trust his judgment .  Pat Lang

I decided to re-post this because of the current furor.  Submarine launches in the Gulf and a re-fueling /recovery base in the trans-Caucasus should be added to the list.  pl

The CFR vs Martin Dempsey

First thing I saw on the box today on my way out the door with the dogs was Richard Haas on "Brewed by Starbucks" attacking Dempsey's judgment. This was on the issue of whether or not the Iranian government is a "rational actor." His main argument was that Iran is assisting the Syrian government and that this shows that they/it are not rational actors. Well, if the Syrian "resistance" is mainly Sunni jihadis, how is it irrational for Iran to help the government against them? BTW, he also bitched about Dempsey's lack of deference to the Israeli government. We can expect pressure by the zombie media and the part of the Israeli parliament that sits in Washington for Dempsey's removal. Let's see if Obama is so gutless as to do that. He sent Depsey to tell the Israelis what he did. Let us say for a moment that the AIPAC/Likud crowd succeed in getting rid of CJCS, do they think he would be quiet thereafter? Oh, yes, Barnicle, the ancient plagiarist is clearly, in the words of one here, a "shill." He had his talking points this AM and he stuck to them.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_N._Haass

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

 

"Death Piled Hard" Now Available.

The second novel in the "Strike The Tent" trilogy is now available for purchase at; iUniverse, Barnes and Noble and Amazon. The cover painting, "The Fifes and Drums" is by Keith Rocco.

The first volume, "The Butcher's Cleaver" is available from the same booksellers.

These books are available in electronic formats to include "Kindle' from major vendors. pl

Download Rosemont.Butcher's Cleaver-LO

http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/wgo/podcasts.html

Defending Martin Dempsey

I  anticipate a continuing attack on General Dempsey, the CJCS by AIPAC/Likud and their Zombie media clients.

He will have a great deal of trouble defending himself in what is essentially a political arena.

We do not have such a problem.  To paraphrase Sheridan again, "If you love your country, come up to the front..."

Telephone, e-mail, letters to the editor.  Use everything availble.  pl

Latest on IRMEP/AIPAC Court Actions

Chief Judge Washington, Associate Judge Blackburne-Rigsby, Senior Judge Ferren overrule AIPAC and allow IRmep's damning 76-page brief in Rosen V. AIPAC to be filed in the DC Court of Appeals: 

"AIPAC is an organization that has long 'had it both ways' in functioning as an agent of the Israeli government without registering, influencing funding flows to political candidates while claiming charitable tax-exempt status, and rewarding employees who obtained classified information--until they are criminally indicted."

Syria: A Slow Cooking Insurgency

What is really going on in Syria? There are no shortages of hysterical opinions. Rebel spokesmen claim that Assad is being aided by IRGC and Hezbollah forces. Assad's spokesmen claim the rebels are no more than armed bandits and thugs aided by western intelligence agencies and al Qaeda terrorists. The truth is certainly a lot more muddled than any of these opinions. As General Dempsey said, "… I would challenge anyone to clearly identify for me the opposition movement in Syria at this point." In my last stab at describing the Syrian insurgents, I noted the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Syrian National Council (SNC) who laid claim to representing and leading the armed insurgency, in the case of the FSA, and the protest movement in the case of the SNC. Both these groups are operating in Turkey. Recently a third group surfaced when a former FSA spokesman announced the formation of the Higher Military Council. This lack of unity and outright rivalry sounds like the Libyans' present dilemma where local militias remain independent and largely unresponsive to any central authority. Luckily, at least in my opinion, all the competing entities claiming they speak for the insurgents and protesters inside Syria are not in Syria.

The clearest answer I have found to the question of who are the rebels is in the writings of Nir Rosen who spent two months in Syria late last summer. The armed insurgents refer to themselves as muqawama or resistance. They are young and organized at the local level. Rosen describes them as using classic insurgent techniques of providing services to the population much as Hamas and Hezbollah do. We often hear of them protecting demonstrators from regime intelligence and security forces. There are not that many defectors among these local armed insurgent groups. In addition to the armed resistance there is a much wider protest movement organized and led on a local level. The leaders of these protest movements are older, wiser and stay in the shadows. They do coordinate actions with their counterparts in neighboring towns. These local movements generally support the SNC, but the SNC does not direct the local protest movements. There is no central or unified leadership for the armed revolution.

As I alluded to earlier, reports of al Qaeda fighters and foreign intelligence agencies operating with the Syrian insurgents are greatly exaggerated. Some inconsequential number of foreigners may have joined the protesters and insurgents, but the reports are largely regime propaganda and conspiracy theories. Foreign contact in the form of political, logistical and military support is probably limited to the FSA and SNC based outside Syria. However, foreign interest in supporting either regime change or regime survival is real. This situation is bound to change as all outside interests figure out what they are willing to pay to get what they want.

Should we arm the rebels? General Dempsey recently stated that, "it's premature to take a decision to arm the opposition movement in Syria." I agree. We should be identifying and contacting the local protest movements and their leaders inside Syria… groups such as the Homs Revolutionary Council.  This is the preparation and initial contact phases I described in my post on UW. At some point, I believe soon, we should move to advise and support the resistance inside Syria. Help the rebels create safe havens for the protest movement. A military stalemate may be a better solution at this time. Let's not call for a direct violent overthrow of the Assad regime. I'm sure Assad and those around him have visions of ending up displayed in their local grocer's freezer section with knives up their arses and bullets in their brains if they don't prevail over the rebels. They will naturally do all in their power to avoid that fate. A military stalemate and continued outside pressure, coupled with encouragement, on the regime may allow the protest movement and the regime to yet find a political solution… if one is still possible. 

TTG

"GOP: Home of Family Values" Richard Sale

By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars and Traitors. 

What is first needed is an historical sketch.

Belonging to a superior social class in Europe rested on family, lineage, and vast holdings of property. The wealth that resulted gave social prestige. Wealth was simply an enabler. In Europe, its possession did not make you a gentleman. 

Flash forward to America. 

The key to power in America was money and the possession of huge amounts of it.  After the Civil War, money was the key to ascending the social ladder, and getting a fortune was not a matter of polite duels between nimble rapiers but of brass knuckles. It was a high stakes game. Success meant glory; failure, bankruptcy and oblivion. Respect for the rule of law was ignored as irrelevant. When Jay Fiske and JP Morgan found themselves in control of the two ends of the Susquenna Railroad, they resolved the conflict by mounting locomotives at each end and then ramming them headfirst into each other. And even when one party lost, it retaliated as best as it could by ripping up tracks and destroying trestles as they went.

Competition between companies meant no quarter given and none asked. In one case, a persistent opponent of Standard Oil was blown up by dynamite.  Some organizations resorted to kidnapping. There were other incidents of moral charm as well. When a great blizzard blew down telephone poles in New York, Jay Gould, a ruthless master of money markets was forced to send his financial dispatches by messenger. His competitors kidnapped the boy, substituted a look-alike, and for days, Gould was dismayed to find his moves were known days in advance.

Apparently Something is Rotten in the State of Maine... Congressman Ron Paul Edition

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

There is two sets of very different news about Congressman Paul's run for the Republican nomination making the rounds right now.  The first comes to us from Maine, where it appears the Maine Republican Party may have rigged that state's caucuses.  What seems to have happened is that they zeroed out votes in places where Governor Romney did NOT or was NOT winning and as a result he won the state by 194 votes.  Brad Friedman, who has been all over every report of possible voting irregularity for as long as I can remember, also has all the coverage on this one.  He also has coverage over the mess in Iowa too!

The second piece of interesting Congressman Paul for President news is his campaign's strategy for actually gathering up delegates to the GOP nominating convention in Tampa this summer.  Basically the Paul Campaign has been quietly rolling up delegates while no one was looking.

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

Martin Dempsey on Everything

CJCS had a chat this AM with Fareed Zakariya.  How did this guy get to be Chairman?  It must be Panetta.  He must have experienced a "Road to Damascus" moment like that in which FDR decided that George Marshall would be Army Chief of Staff.  I had hardly heard of Dempsey over the years.  The view and sound of him was obscured by the dust and noise thrown up by the self promotion campaigns of people like McChrystal, Petraeus, Rodriquez and Odierno.

Wow!  He can walk and speak English properly at the same time.  He speaks in whole sentences instead of the chopped up lingo that a lot of generals use as a defence against possible future blame.  He sees the world with a remarkable depth of knowledge as a base.  He is not afraid of the Israeli/AIPAC menace.  He is properly deferential to elected government.  He isn't looking for a fight with anyone.

My!  My! Hallelujah!  Zakariya looked relieved to have an adult as interlocutor.  Thank you.  Thank you, whoever you were who chose him.  pl

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/17/watch-gps-martin-dempsey-on-syria-iran-and-china/

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

 

An Inside the Media Tent Look at Iran Reporting: What Matt Taibbi Said

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

In light of Harper's recent post about the death of truth in media, as well as the SST's community ongoing interest in Iran and the politics and policy pertaining to it, it is always good to see what members of the news media have to say about what is actually going on in terms of the reporting.  There was precious little of this in 2002 and 2003 as US policy towards Iraq was being set, and what little there was got those who voiced it fired.  Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has done everyone a huge service by providing an insider's view of what is going on with the reporting regarding Iran:

"As a journalist, there’s a buzz you can detect once the normal restraints in your business have been loosened, a smell of fresh chum in the waters, urging us down the road to war. Many years removed from the Iraq disaster, that smell is back, this time with Iran.

You can just feel it: many of the same newspapers and TV stations we saw leading the charge in the Bush years have gone back to the attic and are dusting off their war pom-poms. CNN’s house blockhead, the Goldman-trained ex-finance professional Erin Burnett, came out with a doozie of a broadcast yesterday, a Rumsfeldian jeremiad against the Iranian threat would have fit beautifully in the Saddam’s-sending-drones-at-New-York halcyon days of late 2002."

Click on through and read the whole thing.  Its worth the time.  For a real treat google "matt taibbi tom friedman book review" - you will laugh till it hurts!

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

Comment Threading, etc.

In its "beta" mode comment threading can be seen if the comment is viewed from within the SST blog.  The problem is that approvals are made from within the Typepad "dashboard" for SST where threading is not visible.  That means an extra step for me, but, no matter. 

In regard to "tompaine" on his placement in a "Jesuit" university.  My conclusion is that he is just  another hasbara operative.  pl

 

 

The Washington Post has always wanted a different Virginia

I arrived in the Old Dominion in 1958 as an 18 year old college freshman.  I knew little about the state except whatever might be implied in Bruce Catton's works or gleaned from the lives of the saints (Washington, Jefferson, etc.)

I quickly came to underdstand that The Washington Post desperately hated Virginia.  That has never changed.  Perhaps the hatred could be overcome if only they (we) were not so damned nearby.

pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/virginia-loves-its-sham-democracy/2012/02/07/gIQAQldaIR_story.html

Let Israel and Iran Deal with Each Other

"when I read the passionate articles and politicians' battle cries calling on us to strike Iran, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. With all due respect to our exaggerated self-confidence, we're out of our league here. And it's no coincidence that the former Mossad chief and senior defense officials are warning our leaders against attacking Iran. Some of them are revealing that Iran has 200,000 long-range missiles, not to mention Syria's large arsenal of chemical weapons, which could fall into the hands of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.

When you read those figures, it's clear that Israel must think twice before taking suicidal steps against Iran. Israel is showing a great degree of arrogance;"  Haaretz

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

"I don't know whether to laugh or cry."  Try both.  Israel is a country that has never fought a first rate enemy except Jordan in the bad old days before "Arabification" of the Jordanian Army.  Even then the small, undersupplied and underarmed Jordanian force fought the Haganah, Palmach and Irgun to a standstill in 1948-49.  In '67 only the total air supremancy provided by Zionist lobbying in the US gave the IDF the "edge" needed to defeat Jordanian 40th Armored Brigade in the West Bank.   Long ago they flew a few aircraft to Iraq and destroyed a couple of above ground buildings at Osirak.  Oh, yes, Sharon violated a UN cease for in Egypt in '73, one that Israel had requested and thus "won" the battle of the Chinese Farm.  On these things rest the Israeli meme of their inheritance of the "mantle" of milary greatness.

Nevertheless, they think they can wage successful war against Iran.  Fine!  Let them, but as the post WW2 Germans used to chant - "Without us."  pl

 

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/striking-iran-s-nuclear-program-is-out-of-israel-s-league-1.413388

Mixed Race in America

"The study finds that 8.4 percent of all current U.S. marriages are interracial, up from 3.2 percent in 1980. While Hispanics and Asians remained the most likely, as in previous decades, to marry someone of a different race, the biggest jump in share since 2008 occurred among blacks, who historically have been the most segregated.

States in the West where Asian and Hispanic immigrants are more numerous, including Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico and California, were among the most likely to have couples who "marry out" - more than 1 in 5. The West was followed by the South, Northeast and Midwest. By state, mostly white Vermont had the lowest rate of intermarriage, at 4 percent.

In all, more than 15 percent of new marriages in 2010 were interracial."  NY Daily News

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

Good.  Race in its sexual dimensions has always lurked in the background as one of the great "dividers" in America.  IMO Yankees are actually more uptight about it than Southerners.  There used to be a lot of people of mixed Black/White descent in the South, especially in the cities.  When I was doing societal research for "Strike the Tent," I frequently saw women who were quite dark looking at records in which there were photographs of light skinned people.  When asked they often said that these were their ancestors.  The circumstances that led to many mixed race pregnancies died out in the 20th century.  Some really light skinned people simply "went white" like Dinah Shore.  Others reproduced with darker people and the whole populaton tended to get darker in the African-American world. 

Now the tide is running in the other direction.  IMO the American of the future is going to look a lot like Soledad O'brien and Harold Ford.  Good!  pl

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/interracial-marriages-u-s-hit-all-time-high-4-8-million-article-1.1023643?localLinksEnabled=false

"Brewed by Starbucks"

"Morning Joe" is becoming a useful indicator of the state of the "fever chart" in New York, Atlanta, Washington and other such centers of Israeli agitprop.

Today, the kaffeeklatch gathered around the stamtisch in MSNBC equivalent of  a Muinch beerhall.  After mutual congratulation concerning the supposed victory of HHS over the Roman Church, the talk went east to exhortation of the viewing sheeple concerning the "imminent" threat posed by Iran to the US, its territory and interests. 

The Abe Lincoln carrier battle group made another transit of Hormuz.  The Iranians sent out an airplane and a patrol boat to look.  Nothing else happened.  Nevertheless, there was rant and rave on the subject of the "probability" of Iranian attack on the US.  This has not happened thus far, unless the fabulous Chihuahua plot is counted, but, no matter.  IT COULD HAPPEN.  After all, the Iranians seem locked in a dumb dance with Israel, a dance of mutual assasination.  "Are we not all Israelis now?"  Bishop Romney, Fra Gingrich and Father Santorum think we are.

Mocha Joe went on at some length about the open wound left by 1979 in the American psyche.  He wheezed and writhed in the agony of shame brought on by the memory of the embassy seizure.  The collection of soccer moms and draft dodgers around the table made threatenng noises toward forces unseen and unknown.  This would be a joke if the technique of the big lie were not so successful.

Once again:

- The US, as opposed to Israeli, IC does not think the Iranians presently have a nuclear weapons program.

- Clapper, the bald old man who is DNI,  told the senate last week that is it is possible that Iran MIGHT think of attacks on the US.  IMO he told them that to sooth the war party over his assertion of the first bullet here.

War seems likely once a pretext is found that will draw in the US.  pl

Comments Re-opened on Obamacare Insurance post.

Having listened to Tweetie Bird Matthews and his cronies assert confidently that "progressives" have successfully gone over the heads of the Catholic Church hierarchy in the insurance matter, I have decided to re-open the comments on the post on this subject.  Cardinal Dolan will return from Rome in a week or so.  We will see what the bishops and the Republicans wish to do.  Perhaps we should anticipate the founding of a "Reformed Catholic Chirch. of America. "  A renegade bishop can e foundto sonsecrate the first of their bishops.  Oh! I forgot.  You don't understand that.  pl

National Journal Blog - 14 February, 2012

Col. W. Patrick Lang Responds to Will Defense Hawks win the Defense Budget Battle??.

pl

Kolob or Bust

"Mormons believe that when they die if they have been good they might wind up on their own personal planet somewhere to be reunited with their families, including generations of their forebears that they are able to bring into the church by proxy baptism. Hence their intense interest in genealogy. They believe that Jesus Christ, after dying and being resurrected in Palestine, was somehow spirited away to the New World where he preached to the Indian tribes who were actually transplanted Israelites, a contention that is completely unsupported by any archeological or historical evidence. But it must be all true because it was written down on a bunch of gold tablets discovered in upstate New York by one Joseph Smith in 1823, tablets that were translated by Smith from the “reformed Egyptian” language and which later were taken back by an angel. All right, so it’s not exactly your orthodox Christianity but it’s not the cult of Kali either. It’s admittedly the typical stuff that goes into many religions."  Giraldi

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

Theology is in the eye of the believer, but the material here on LDS control of the actions of members should interest the secularists.  pl

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/2012/02/13/the-mormon-thing/

"(AIPAC) is attempting to block a brief filed by Director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) Grant F. Smith"

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire -- The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is attempting to block a brief filed by Director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) Grant F. Smith in the DC Court of Appeals on February 3, 2012. The 78-page IRmep filing asserts "AIPAC has never abandoned its original role as an arm of the Israeli government in the United States." http://www.IRmep.org/ila/rosen 

Citing declassified criminal investigations, IRmep underscores the public's interest in the outcome of the case. "AIPAC's observable standard for employees is 'solicit, obtain and leverage classified information without being criminally indicted.' AIPAC is never held publicly accountable for these types of activities which harm governance and public perception of rule of law." 

Exhibits include State Department files declassified on January 20, 2012 revealing in detail how former AIPAC Director Morris Amitay endangered US national security when he obtained Department of Defense secrets in 1974. The IRmep brief also analyzes ongoing financial damages from a 1984-1987 incident. The FBI investigated how AIPAC acquired an International Trade Commission report full of still-classified confidential business information. 

AIPAC characterized the IRmep brief as "completely inaccurate portrayals of events that occurred decades ago" but seeks dismissal on procedural grounds. IRmep argues for its acceptance even though oral arguments begin February 14, because "AIPAC is an organization that has long 'had it both ways' in functioning as an agent of the Israeli government without registering, influencing funding flows to political candidates while claiming charitable tax-exempt status, and rewarding employees who obtained classified information--until they are criminally indicted." 

Former employee Steven J. Rosen sued AIPAC and its board of directors for defamation in 2009. AIPAC fired Rosen after FBI wiretaps alleged Rosen had received classified national defense information. Rosen was indicted for espionage in 2005 though charges were later dropped. AIPAC claimed Rosen's behavior "did not comport with standards that AIPAC expects of its employees." Rosen immediately appealed after the defamation suit was dismissed in 2011. 

IRmep has previously filed formal complaints seeking the revocation of AIPAC's tax exempt status and registration under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act. In filing the appellate court brief, IRmep's director seeks to protect and advance growing popular demands that AIPAC be properly regulated. Major briefs filed in the Rosen v AIPAC et. al. court case may be viewed online at: http://www.IRmep.org/ila/rosen 

SOURCE Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy 

Full IRmep Filing:   http://irmep.org/ILA/rosen/02032012amicus.pdf

Full AIPAC Filing: http://irmep.org/ILA/rosen/02082012opposition.pdf

News Release: http://tinyurl.com/IRmep-brief Releted Court Filings: http://www.IRmep.org/ila/rosen/ 

 

Roman Catholicism is not Democratic

IMO the Obama Administration was clever in devising book keeping trickery that might have enduced acquiescence in seizure of the religious institutions authority over themselves, but today the WH chief of staff announced to the world that the WH believes it can win all by pitting the nuns who run hospitals and the lay people in general who run other institutions like Catholic universities against the Ordinaries.  If the desired effect is to undermine the authority of the bishops, then the secularists and "modernists" who set this up may well cause a schism in the American Chuirch or a general decline in these universities and hospitals.  Good Luck.  You will need it in November.  Many Americans are not willing to be the property of the federal government.  pl

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

 

The Republican Debates by Richard Sale

By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars and Traitors. 

The great poet Paul Valery once said that politics is the art of getting people to argue, fight and torture each other over something that they know or care about.

What astonishes me always in political debates is the irresistible urge for completely undiscerning people to comment and argue about things they know nothing about. These so-called “public questions,” are the very things that most people (whether Republican or Democrat) are completely indifferent to. Indeed, politics would not be possible except for the indifference of the majority.  Unfortunately, it is always a small, venomous, energetic minority who given a computer or a microphone the sight of a camera, are instantly at the throat of anyone who disagrees with them.

At the heart of every human being is a streak of merciless egotism. Each of us has it in some degree or another. Most of use our manners and good conduct try to hold that egotism in check; we even to try and train it to give way to the needs of others.  Unfortunately in politics, there is no such delicacy. In politics that self-consuming egotism results in the tendency to sneer, insult, libel, slander, to be wildly inaccurate. In politics, is given free rein. Its crimes against others are done in good conscience because they are done in the service of noble ends, a higher collective human good

 

Look for a "False Flag"

"The Trust" was a Cheka run product of the genius of Felix himself and of his "Karla" like crew of henchmen and women.  Through that supposed union of Russian anti-Bolsheviks, the Cheka ran the effective anti-communist activity in Europe for many years.  The inestimable Sidney Reilly was enticed to his death by "the Trust" and there was never a less trusting man than Reilly. 

How much more simple it will be to entice America to a mad gesture in the Middle East than it was for anyone to entice Reilly.  pl

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

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

 

Revise Defense Structure Now!

In response to a suggestion I would say that the; Role and Missions of the armed forces, The Unified Command Plan and the National Security acts of 1947 and 1948 have been badly in need of revision for a long time.  I have said that repeatedly.  Nobody cares, least of all those whose actions are driven by personal interest..  pl

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Act_of_1947

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_of_1947

http://www.iwar.org.uk/military/resources/us/national-security-structure.htm

 

 

Open Thread - 11 February, 2012

I am still ill.  Pick a topic.  pl

New Science Post on The Athenaeum

    http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2012/02/lake-vostok-largest-sub-glacial-lake-ever-discovered.html

Now They Tell Us... al Qaeda Is NOT the Threat We've Been Told it is

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

This recent article in the Air Force Times quotes Ambassador Sheehan, the new Assisitant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, and the former head of NYPD's Counter-terrorism Division, as saying: " Al-Qaida wasn’t as good as we thought they were on 9/11.  Quite frankly, we, the American people, were asleep at the switch, the U.S. government, prior to 9/11. So an organization that wasn’t that good looked really great on 9/11,” Sheehan told a room full of special operators in Washington who were attending an annual Special Operations, Low Intensity Conflict Planning Conference.  “Everyone looked to the skies every day after 9/11 and said, ‘When is the next attack?’ And it didn’t come, partly because al-Qaida wasn’t that capable. They didn’t have other units here in the U.S. … Really, they didn’t have the capability to conduct a second attack.”

It is good that a high ranking American official has finally come out and made this statement publicly.  It would have been better if it had been done sooner and had not had to wait for Ambassador Sheehan to return to Federal service.

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

 ------------------------------

This has been Sheehan's position for a long time.  He and and I have discussed it quite a lot.  pl

Davis's leaked Report

Panetta and President Obama should deal severely with the dishonored brass.  pl

http://www1.rollingstone.com/extras/RS_REPORT.pdf

Syria- Who are the Rebels?

IMO we are being lured towards secret support of the Syrian opposition to the Assad government.  There is an assumption that anything and anyone would be preferable for us to the present government.  This is troubling. 

During the Libyan insurgency the canard was about that those rebels were dominated by Islamists.  That never seemed likely to me but perhaps I have known too many Libyans.

In the case of Syria, it seems clear to me that a great deal of the opposition is Sunni mosque centered around salafist leaders.  How much " a great deal" actually is remains a question.  The government should have the CIA talk to its media friends so that we can be better informed.  pl

Failed Afghanistan Metrics - CSIS

A valuable source of data on our currect and past situation in that country.  pl

https://csis.org/files/publication/120209_Afghanistan_Failed_Metrics.pdf

 

 

Palestinian Unity

"Hamas, recognized as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States, appears to be undergoing a worrisome process of legitimization of late.

Over the past few months, Ismail Haniyeh has been meeting and greeting the heads of numerous “moderate” Muslim states, including Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, where he has been received with much pomp and ceremony. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, accompanied by Qatar’s crown prince, Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, was, meanwhile, hosted at the end of January by Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

All of these meetings, even if they have only symbolic meaning, mark a change in the way states in the region view Hamas. In the past, Sunni Arab rulers nominally aligned with the West shunned Hamas. Sunni Hamas was forced to form allegiances with Alawiteruled Syria and Shi’ite Iran."  Jpost

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

Hamas has offered Israel a long term, renewable, religiously sanctioned truce.

The US has Hamas on a "terrorist list?"  This is a policy driven list.  Did God write this list on stone tablets? Groups and countries come and go from the list.  Wasn't Qaddhafi's Libya removed from the list for policy reasons by the Bush Administration?  Do the neocons not seek the removal of MEK from the list for reasons of their own? 

The truth is that Israel does not want Hamas to be part of a coalition with which it would make peace because Israel does not want to make a peace of equals.   What it wants is a peace that involves Israel and the other side a collection of technologically primitive and economically crippled Muslim states that meekly accept the idea of Israeli hegemony in the Greater Middle East.

Note well that the story of this coalition leadership is being largely ignored in the US media.  pl

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=256906

National Journal Blog - 7 February, 2012

Col. W. Patrick Lang Responds to Should the U.S. End the Combat Mission in Afghanistan in 2013??.

pl

Sometimes I Think there is Something Really Wrong with US... Q: Do You Think Jesus Would Vote for the Bill? A: Probably Not, Probably Not... by Adam Silverman

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

If you've got a spare minute head on over and check out this past weekend's This American Life.  Its about Alabama's, strictest in the US, recent anti-illegal immigration law and the current GOP primary debate issue of self deportation.  Now before anyone freaks and screams "states rights!!!" give it either a listen or a read (hyperlink goes to the transcript).  The law was not written in AL or by one of her legislators, rather it was written by a Kansan, who was also one of the drafters of AZ's recent law (which, amazingly, is NOT the most draconian one out there), as well as similar pieces of legislation in a number of other states - and there appears to be an ALEC connection.  Do we need to have secure borders and a rational (economically, politically, and psychologically) immigration policy?  Without a doubt.  Is this the way to do it?  Most likely not.  I think one of the biggest examples of this in the report is when the AL Republican legislative whip that helped get the law passed (a self described devout Christian) has the following exchange with the interviewer:

 

HARPER: TRUTH IN MEDIA IS DYING IN AMERICA

Years ago, I always enjoyed the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour on PBS.  Whether I agreed with the news analysis and commentaries or not, I always had the sense that the personal integrity of the two anchors was on the line at all times, and that there was some greater depth to the coverage than one would otherwise find on the major networks.  This was the pre-CNN and Fox 24-hour news cycle era.
 
It was from this mental image that I watched, in horror, as the same PBS News Hour last night delivered a typical neoconservative propaganda line, under the pretext of giving news.  It was a short news update on the Iran situation, centered on the announcement of new U.S. sanctions against Iran.  In the course of the report, the news anchor slipped in the formulation that the United States and Israel are in full agreement that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon.
 
Hold the phone!  Yes, that has been the persistent mantra of every Netanyahu government mouthpiece for months and months, and it has been echoed in every American neocon propaganda front for even longer, dating back to the bad old days of Bush and Cheney.
 
But, the truth is:  In October 2011, the National Intelligence Council, the premier agency of the U.S. intelligence community, issued an update to the November 2007 NIE on Iran's nuclear program.  Both the published/declassified 2007 study, and the classified 2011 study reached the same conclusion:  Whatever work Iran was doing on weaponization was halted in late 2003, and has not resumed.  Iran is engaged in enrichment, and is constantly improving their ballistic missile capabilities.  But the vital part of any nuclear weapon program--the actual work on converting enriched uranium into a bomb--has been suspended for almost a decade, and the best U.S. intelligence community estimate is that it remains suspended.
 
This is no light matter.  And this is not something that is based on "leaked" information.  While the content of the updated NIE has not been released in declassified form, as recently as last week, General James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, issued an annual global threat assessment, in which he summarized the NIE findings, noting that there is no evidence that Iran has resumed weaponization.  Nor is there evidence that the Iranian leadership has made a decision to even pursue building a nuclear bomb.
 
Back to my original point:  The media, including the once-respected public broadcasting network, has gone over to the dark side on an issue that is too serious to let pass.  We had the experience in the year leading into the Iraq invasion of a flood of neocon propaganda, about "thermonuclear mushroom clouds" and armageddon from Saddam Hussein's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.  Are we going to allow ourselves to be railroaded again into a war that would have far more devastating consequences than Iraq?  At least some of our taxpayer dollars go to the funding of PBS.  Don't we have a right to expect some degree of accuracy and honesty on matters of war and peace?

"Truth, lies and Afghanistan" by LTC Daniel C. Davis

"I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level."  Daniels

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

Another brave soul.  He knows the price he will pay.  pl

http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030

Illness

I have suffered an attack of "Bell's Palsy" due to a virus infection.  I expect to recover soon.  Dr. Silverman has kindly taken over a lot of the load here until I feel better.  pl

The Pathetic Israel-Iran Rivalry by Richard Sale

By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars 

Richard Hofstadter was a great American historian but was also a master of polemic.  One of his best is The Paranoid Style of American Politics. 

His depictions are telling.  He notes that the “The paranoid spokesman, sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization . . . he does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated — if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes. 

He goes on to say: “In the politics of paranoia, the enemy “ is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman — sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed, he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often, the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing)he has a special technique for seduction (the Catholic confessional)” 

Hofstadter then goes on: “Psychological projection is essential to the paranoid style of politics. It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is, on many counts, the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. Secret organizations, set up to combat secret organizations, give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Clan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy. Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist crusader” openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.” 

Why is all so drearily familiar?

The Chrysler/Detroit/Eastwood Ad

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

 

A couple of the commenters in the Superbowl open thread have remarked on the Chrysler ad featuring Clint Eastwood yesterday.  I watched it, as well as most of the other ads and the occasional bits of football that they broadcast in between them, with an Information Operations (IO) bubba.  Always interesting to see what the messaging professionals think of the professional messaging.  Anyhow it was pretty clear that this was one of the two or three best ads of the night (and I do agree that the Fiat ad was great too).  What immediately struck me was just 1) powerfully done ad, 2) is that Clint Eastwood?  Really?  Given the subject matter of the ad and what I think I know of his politics?, 3) I bet a whole lot of people are going to look at this as a political ad and specifically for President Obama's reelection.

What struck me the most was the politics behind the ad and what it would mean that Clint Eastwood, who is often identified as a Republican, but describes himself as a libertarian had agreed to do it.  As one can imagine, depending on one's political views, not to mention how one feels about  the Obama Administration stepping in and helping to manage Chrysler (and GM's) restructuring, seems to determine one's response to the ad.  Apparently Chrysler and the ad's makers actually tried to play down the politics by using footage of union supporters (with permission), but carefully avoiding footage of signs that would show it was explicitly union.  Karl Rove has weighed in against Mr. Eastwood's participation, so he may be voted off of the Republican Island or made an unperson or something....

So what say you all?  Good, bad, or otherwise on this ad?

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

** Hat tip to the Crooks and Liars folks for the Marketwatch and Nation links and to Digby for the WaPo one.

The Egyptian officers and the NGOs

"The Egyptian investigation into the work of the non-profit groups is closely linked to the political turmoil that has engulfed the nation since the ouster a year ago of President Hosni Mubarak, a US ally who ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years.

Protesters demand that the ruling military council speed up transfer of power to civilians saying that they are an extension of the old regime and that they have mismanaged the country's transitional period. The military took power after Mubarak resigned a year ago. It says it will hand over control after a new president is elected in June.

The military rulers tried to deflect criticism by claiming "foreign hands" are behind protests against their rule, frequently depict the protesters as receiving funds from abroad in a plot to destabilise the country."  Telegraph

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

Egypt again.  Someone asked what this is about.  The revolution was a farce.  That is what this is about.  Mubarak and his family were removed and will suffer the vengeance of the mob expressed through the courts.  That changes nothing.  The national economic product is still too small for the size of the population but that is only the largest part of the problem.  The Egyptian population is, in the majority, Islamist.  That means that they favor the establishment of an Islamic republic in which shariah law predominates in life.  That was clearly indicated in the parliamentary election to anyone who is not fixated on the idea that social  "progress" in the Western sense is inevitable and that the Egyptian masses are waiting to be liberated frm Islam.  The Egyptian military officer class knows this .  It is a semi-westernised cleptocracy which means to maneuver its way to continuing power of the kind that it has exercised since it overthrew the monarchy in 1952.  This is an exceedingly "racy course," since the political Islamists and the liberalised minority seek power themselves.  The military reckons that it does not need the interference of foreign governments and other groups  while it is attempting to save itself and its power.  These NGO groups (including the semi-official American ones) are trying to "level" the electoral playing field in such a way that the path of the Islamists to power is cleared to the goal line. They are not doing this deliberately.  It is an unintended consequence of  the NGOs (and their sponsors') simple minded and naive belief in the universal beneficent effect of fair elections.  This is a wrong idea.  The truth is that free electons are a good idea (like free trade) when an outcome favorable to one's own side is produced.  The Egyptian officer corps is ham-handed, and crude but it knows that its interest does not lie in an Islamist dominated government.  It intends to prevent that occurrence over the long haul and it does not want these NGOs to interfere with its efforts.  They feel that strongly enough to risk losing the American money.  pl

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/9064493/Egypt-names-American-NGO-workers-facing-trial.html