"Debate: Between the lines" by De Borchgrave

"There is nothing the United States can do to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from taking Egypt back to the religious dark ages. We can talk up the rights of women and the need to protect religious minorities but withholding U.S. aid would simply move the Muslim Brotherhood extremists to sever the peace treaty with Israel. The Salafists, a minority radical party with 25 percent of the seats in Parliament, are urging jobless youngsters to go to Syria to join jihad against the Assad regime. Iraq-based al-Qaida terrorists are already in this civil war. Hence the reluctance of the U.S. and NATO allies to become involved on the same side as transnational terrorists." De Borchgrave

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For all you inhabitants of Sunnybrook Farm out there, this pretty well sums things up.  pl

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/de-Borchgrave/2012/10/24/Commentary-Debate-Between-the-lines/UPI-24451351075768/#ixzz2ADz8ogq4  

 

Comments

[The Moar You Know]

Well then we might as well cut them and Israel off at the same time, and let nature do what it will.

The Salafists will eventually have the devil's own time of it in a few decades when the citizenry start to figure out that volunteering to die is not an employment program, and won't put food on the table. Of course, by then the entire Middle East might well be one great big glassed-over crater-shaped parking lot, rendering the point moot.

[Charles]

Col Lang,
Thank you. I got a nice chuckle out of the Sunnybrook Farm quip with my morning coffee. The best humor is grounded in reality. In this case it is also very sad that the leaders of the Republic fall into that category.
Regards,

[William R. Cumming]

So can we conclude that based largely on ignorance the two decade old effort by the USA in MENA largely kicked off by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait has accomplished little of lasting value to US interests?

What now can and should the US do to protect its interests in MENA? Assuming of course that we have interests worth protecting?

[Kelly]

Democracy is a bitch.

[Cliffiord Kiracofe]

Good oped. Nice Rothko.

We should remember that ever since the end of the Soviet Empire in 1992 there have been voices, Republican and Democrat, calling for a new national strategy of prudence and moderation abroad. Many have called attention to the disastrous state of our economy over the past decade.

There are plenty of specialists with knowledge who can deal with these issues. But they are systematically excluded from decisionmaking in Washington because they are not "politically correct."

Naivete and magical thinking inside the Beltway is our undoing...this after two centuries of national experience.

[robt willmann]

Surprise, surprise ... the story of the Benghazi attack and the death of the U.S. ambassador changes yet again. The "annex" or "safe house" was actually a CIA station or base out of which was being run an operation to try to locate, grab, or buy back the 20,000 or so shoulder fired missiles that allegedly "went missing" when Ghadafi went down.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/22/cia-installation-hit-in-libya-terror-attack/

If this version of the story can be believed, no wonder that everybody is lying about what happened.

The article says: "One witness told Fox News that Doherty and Woods [the former (?) Navy Seals killed during the incident] were found on the roof of the intelligence base manning a single machine gun that was caked in blood, suggesting they continued firing after they were hit by a mortar round approximately seven hours after the attack began."

Seven hours after the attack began? Is this Fox News article saying that the attack lasted seven hours or more? You can drive from San Antonio, Texas to El Paso in about that time (500 miles).

And further: "... the number of CIA operatives in Benghazi clearly outnumbered that of the diplomatic staff. It took two military cargo aircraft to lift everyone out of Benghazi when the fighting was over."

Two military cargo planes full of mostly CIA people? Where were they during the attack?

And those 20,000 shoulder-fired missiles that are floating around somewhere? Where were they manufactured, I wonder?

[The beaver]

I believe that the GCC countries (so long they keep protecting each other) will ensure that the MB will not survive inside its borders and will still maintain a pseudo-friendship with the US (they need the US arms to curtail the hope of their internal enemies)

[Al Spafford]

LOL! Col you made my day! I will be driving out to Sunnybrook Blvd in Clackamas, Or, today for some shopping at REI. If I happen to see "the Farm" out there will stop in and check on the inhabitants' drooling there!

[jonst]

interesting historical video....Nasser and the MB.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX4RK8bj2W0

[Babak Makkinejad]

Something cheerful:

http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/649ec3c3aac5fa864e8f93cd39ce5517/Kelly-Brook-attends-The-Royal-World-Premiere-of-Skyfall-in-London/

[mbrenner]

It seems that the great intellectual, as well as practical policy challenge would be figuring out an alternative to our current ad hoc assertiveness. That produces inconsistent policies always cast, though, as representing eternal American values, interests and indispensability. Were we prepared to curb our instinct to interfere and intervene, to accept a more modest sense of what we can achieve, and to qualify the belief in our intrinsic virtue, we'd be better off. But since we could not abandon the field entirely in the Middle East (unlike Central Asia) a serious dilemma presents itself. What should be the pivots of American policy, what criteria to follow for doing what, and with what expectations.

Yes, I forgot that the one thing of importance we should do is alter markedly our relation to Israel. Beyond that?

By the way, it is worth noting the degree to which we are forcing ourselves, again, into Lebanese politics in the most overt and - to our opponents - most offensive way. We're still trying to crush Hezbullah. The Lebanese situation is relatively amenable to this kind of interference. However, we apparently have learned nothing of adverse consequences as registered in Iraq, Pakistan and soon Afghanistan. We seem umable to differentiate, a sign that we act on impulse alone. To official Washington, all the world is Honduras.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

LA Times reports Romney is reaching beyond his gaggle of Neocon advisors. So what? Who knows at this point. If he wins we will have to watch the transition to assess staffing:

"....But Romney also reached out before the speech to the party's most eminent "realists," the ideological rivals of the neoconservatives. He spoke by phone with former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, James A. Baker III and George Shultz, as well as Bush's top diplomat, Condoleezza Rice, and national security advisor, Stephen J. Hadley.

In the end, Romney carefully avoided any direct warnings or aggressive language to suggest he intends to draw America into a new military conflict, a deeply unpopular notion after the two wars started by Bush.

Romney doesn't have a single dominating figure who oversees his foreign agenda, relying instead on a group of about 200 outside advisors, campaign staff and other experts. About two-thirds are veterans of the Bush administration.

Among them are several prominent neoconservatives and defense hawks, including Elliott Abrams, Bush's deputy national security aide; Elizabeth Cheney, a former Bush State Department official and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney; Dan Senor, former spokesman for the U.S. occupation forces in Iraq; John R. Bolton, Bush's ambassador to the United Nations; and Robert Kagan, a Reagan administration aide and conservative intellectual."
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/15/nation/la-na-romney-foreign-policy-20121015

[fred]

Well you can't drive from San Antonio to Benghazi in 7 hours. Why's Fox releasing to the public the location of a CIA safehouse.

As to weapons, Libya just concluded a civil war, it is full of weapons. Don't you think Ghadafi's government had surface to air missles? Certanly with few people on the ground we haven't rounded them all up yet.

[Alba Etie]

Mr Kiracofe
So former Secretary of State Rice is a realist /
What is your opinion of former Secretary of States Colin Powell's endorsing President Obama again ?

[ess emm]

fred said: "Why's Fox releasing to the public the location of a CIA safehouse"

Two reasons.

1. The State Department displayed a satellite photo of the safehouse in their testimony in front of Rep. Issa which was televised on C-SPAN, and

2. The safehouse has already been compromised. Remember that's where two of the Americans were killed by the attackers.

In short, it doesn't matter.