Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Israeli Defense Chief Says Iran Postponed Nuclear Ambitions" NY Times

"Asked why Iran would have decided on such a conversion, Mr. Barak said it might have taken Israeli and American warnings seriously, might have wished to delay a confrontation with Israel until after the American presidential elections, or might have been seeking to convince the agency of the sincerity of its peaceful intent. Iran has consistently denied it intends to build a nuclear weapon and has denounced Israel’s assertions as warmongering."  NY Times

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The Israeli/AIPAC insistence that MAD will not work against Iran has been based on the notion that the Iranian leadership is made up of religiously fanatic madmen who seek martyrdom for their country and who do not think logically.  Both the Iranian action in this instance and the Israeli acceptance of it deny the reality of the Israeli/AIPAC opinion.  pl  

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/world/middleeast/israel-says-iran-has-postponed-nuclear-ambitions.html?ref=world&_r=0

 

New Athenaeum Post- Pets And Hurricane "Sandy"

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2012/10/aspca-how-to-prepare-your-pets-for-hurricane-sandy.html

The Katrina (or name a half dozen other recent natural disasters) photos like this one never fade from memory.  Please do feel free to contribute your own suggestions for keeping pets safe from Sandy in this comment thread or over on TA.

-Maureen Lang

Could Benghazi have been saved that day?

Let us have a discussion on the subject of whether or not reinforcements were realistically available during the attacks.  pl

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/26/panetta-on-benghazi-attack-could-not-put-forces-at-risk/

"It's time for us to stop being terrorized" Paul Mulshine

"The media — and the leaders of both parties — are not doing us any favors by overusing the term "terrorist," said Pat Lang, an author and former Vietnam Green Beret who has years of experience doing intelligence work in the Mideast.

"It implies a kind of national hysteria over the idea that anyone who attacks us is a truly fearsome opponent," Lang said. "The whole al Qaeda thing has been hyped to just ridiculous levels.""  Mulshine

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Absolutely!  Think back to what a really big war was like.  pl

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2012/10/its_time_for_us_to_stop_being.html

Open Thread - 27 October 2012

I am doing rotisserie on a couple of ducks today.  I generally give good rotisserie.  I brined these overnight in water, orange juice, salt, sugar, some peppercorns.  2 hours on spit.  pl

Hurricane "Sandy"

pl 

"What Is Going On in Syria?" by Father Paul Stenhouse

"Unless defections from the 600,000-strong, predominantly Sunni, Syrian army reach significant proportions—which is unlikely—the rebels seem to be pinning their hopes of toppling the regime on enticing foreign powers to enter the conflict on the ground and in the air. In other words, replaying the Libyan scenario. But—as many are starting to realise—Syria is not Libya; nor is it Iraq. Assad is not friendless as was Gaddafi. No one claims that the Assad regime as it stands is a democracy, but it was and is moving towards one. On the other hand, the much publicised efforts its opponents inside and outside Syria are making to demonise Assad and his government have to be seen for what they are: exaggerated and often spurious claims aimed at drawing ill-informed foreign powers into a conflict that will probably draw the whole region into a wider and bloodier one." Father Paul Stenhouse

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You heard it here first.  pl

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/4/what-is-going-on-in-syria 

 

John Brennan and the engine of death

"The “playbook,” as Brennan calls it, will lay out the administration’s evolving procedures for the targeted killings that have come to define its fight against al-Qaeda and its affiliates. It will cover the selection and approval of targets from the “disposition matrix,” the designation of who should pull the trigger when a killing is warranted, and the legal authorities the administration thinks sanction its actions in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond. “What we’re trying to do right now is to have a set of standards, a set of criteria, and have a decision-making process that will govern our counterterrorism actions — we’re talking about direct action, lethal action — so that irrespective of the venue where they’re taking place, we have a high confidence that they’re being done for the right reasons in the right way,” Brennan said in a lengthy interview at the end of August." Karen de Young



 -----------------------

"a lengthy interview..."  What are they playing at?  Interviews are not granted on subjects like this without a specific goal.   Ah, the election, yes that is what they are playing at.   Given the president's apparently desparate situation it seems likely that the Post was encouraged to get this series out on the street NOW!

I knew Brennan when he was a very junior CIA analyst working in Saudi Arabia for Alan Fiers.  Remember him? He seemed incredibly solemn and resolute.  What he was resolute about was unclear (to me).  The women in the embassy had aerobic dance classes in a little building on the embassy compound.  I remember seeing him in there running and hopping with them (and his wife).   My, how people do rise in the world!  Apparently he is quite religious?

I have to say that I agree with much of what he is said to be doing.  The neocon imperial wars are ending (unless Romney is elected).   The war against foreign terrorists of every stripe who seek to attack us must continue.  Brennan's plan is to consolidate and systematize procedures so that the anti-terrorist war is both effective and controlled by centralised authority.  At the same time he wants to get CIA DO out of the business of executing violence and back altogether in the business of espionage and black propaganda.  He wants to return all policy driven external violence performed by the US Government to the department of Defense.  IMO, this is a good idea.  CIA is too "loose" an organization to have that kind of function.  The complex bureaucracy of the military and the civilian world of OSD are better places for that function to reside.  Supervision is a lot tighter.

In one of the debates,  BHO said "people like me should be reined in."  He is right.  It looks like Brennan in trying to do that on an institutional basis.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-veteran-john-brennan-has-transformed-us-counterterrorism-policy/2012/10/24/318b8eec-1c7c-11e2-ad90-ba5920e56eb3_story.html

Benghazi fever on the right

It is being said over and over again that the Obama Administration deliberately obfuscated what happened in the attack on the consulate in Benghazi.  Day by day a trickle of old e-mails, partial early reports and developing assessments are hailed as "proof' that something shameful happened and is happening in the US Government, something hidden.

The truth is that early reports and judgments of traumatic, sudden events like this are usually incorrect and need to be developed and "straightened out" with the passage of time and completed investigations.

Complicating the situation in Benghazi was the location there of a CIA base covered as other than that.  These people were working on the very problems that eventually resulted in the attack and the deaths.  Not surprisingly, the CIA has not been desirous of the revelation of the presence and status of its employees and so the declarations to the press have not been accurate in that regard.

None of this matters to the "Friends of Trump" 1% crowd who will build any kind of sandcastle that they can that might influence a few more cretins in the battleground states to act out their racism in the polling booth.

The media is cooperating in this psywar campaign.  Does this mean that they have decided Romney will win?  pl

 

"Seven Psycopaths" a review by Alan Farrell

Seven Psychopaths. Directed by: Martin McDonagh (who also wrote it, thus becoming, I believe, an auteur--variously pronounced--a temptation to avoid and the only thing than which could be worser than is child molester and not much worser at that) Starring: Who doesn't it star? Colin Farrell; Christopher Walken; Sam Rockwell (fresh off his stint as the wheelchair ridden, avatarized space-Marine from the movie of the same name as); Woody Harrelson; coupla tight jeans, high cheekbones, pouty lips fee-male act-trices of the feminine gender who appear in the newspaper adds (and whose names if not whose contours I forget) but pretty much non-presences--aside from the obvious--in the evolving action; Flenser, the shih-tzu, trained--so they say--by Barbra Streisand, who treats us to one of her rare cameos as the flaking, sun-washed, used-to-be diner from the old days, yet not without charm.
Once again, Hollywood, not content to tell a plain old vanilla (the word of art is linear) story (that is, start at the beginning and end at the end), drags us on an odyssey (I say "odyssey" since in theory at least and maybe the protagonist--if not the audience--learns something en route) abrupted in time, disjointed, multiple ending-ed, and, to this reviewer, totally incomprehensible...as to what went on and for Pete's sake why. All these guys are terrific: Colin Farrell's dumb Mick of In Bruges; Christopher Walken's silky menace from The Rundown or anything else, notably Pulp fiction; Woody Harrelson's rogue cop in Rampart or demented zombie-slayer in Zombieland; Flenser the shih-tzu's recent turn as Iago in the Broadway production of Macbeth (or the other one if Iago's not in Macbeth). To leave them trying to make sense of a mishmash like this is to reach for the sun; alas, to read some of the reviews out there from the heavy-hitters, it is an aspiration nearly achieved. It may well be that the Lumpenproletariat, in the face of the artfully-disguised and foggily-impenetrable, suspects--as before a Pollock painting--that it had better appear non-plussed or else admit to Phillistinitude since everybody else appearing non-plussed and publicly so. That kind of instinct grégaire I can understand... without admiring it. Human enough. Onliest drawback is that even mitigated warmth in response to a thing like this gonna encourage more of same down the road. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be dished.
Time out of joint. Been done, and to some effect, I don't say no: Lucky Number Slevin, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (reviews attached...maybe), Rashomon. The play within a play, too: most notably in the disastrous Adaptation (review attached...maybe). Talking to the audience is as old as Terrence and Plautus, theatrical device. Shakespeare, too. And doesn't that boatman guy from Man for All Seasons cough it up straight to the spectators? Risky business at best and require real art... and the right vehicle. Likewise, black humor of the blood-splatter, stiff-a-minute type has had its day, starting, I suppose, in The Trouble with Harry and on through The Big Hit and to Grosse Pointe Blank. Yuck a minute cadaver giggles. Urf. Urf. This movie proposes to stir all these ingredients into the gruel, then serve up an overcooked, overheated dollop, but in a paper plate that soon soak through and leave the stuff to drip scalding onto our collective and communal lap. Ouch!
Sooooo... Colin Farrell (Marty), an inspiration-blocked (quelle noveltude!) screenwriter, labors at a production he has titled without yet text Seven Psychopaths. His chore now (lubricated liberally since we all know that both the Irishman and the artist swill the stuff and maybe if only us lunks swillt more of it, we wouldn't be such lunks, but that's another story) will be to conjure up the seven and work them into some sort of tapestry, the underside of which we are invited to contemplate for 90 dreary minutes. As luck would have it, a heptad of dementia (and seven of them at that!) presents itself in a series through a series of random encounters on his doorstep, starting with an Avenger (the Red Something-or-other, Psychopath #1, as spare funereal script on the screen announces so you don't miss it, you dummy) who guns down malefactors on to Psychopath #2 (Rockwell) and #3 (his bud, Walken) who steal exotic pooches only to return them to their distraught owners for reward and then to Psychopath #4 (Harrelson), some kind of bush-league don, violent and brutal yet tenderly-disposed toward his little Froufrou (or something), the shih-tzu. One guy is actually two psychopaths, economy that spares us yet another dispiriting characterization and perhaps yet another quite decent ac-toor nibbling on scenery. A fella can see right off a way to organize all this weirdness: friends of writer steal the dog from wrong owner, arouse wrath of truant, humorous chases, evasions, confrontations, outwittings and on and on, up credits. Sorry. Nothing that simple. We lard this thing with alternate endings, substories, parallel plots about one and then another clutch of avengers (small -a), inter-racial marriage, mistaken identity, flashbacks, flashovers, flashbys, and a long-rambling discursus on the cine-mah of violence and chaos-theory and what really happened to Amelia Earhart? As Marty sinks into dissipation and despondency, his characters usurp the plot, highjack his screenplay, divert the action along oblique lines, escalate the catastrophe (not sure you can do that since the one go up and the other down, but, hey...), all churning toward a big Walpurgisnacht and Hollywood resolution where--sorry to ruin it--everybody dies. You know that when writers kill off everybody, it's on account of they've hatched a circumstance they have no idea how to disentangle inside any sort of organic logic. Soooo...
After In Bruges, I'll forgive Colin Farrell for most anything. Still, I'm thinking: Get representation, buddy!

"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  

 

"Horses and Bayonets."

USS Lamson, a US Navy ship of the era to which Romney referred. (1916)

As we all should know, national popular vote polls are legally meaningless since the US constitution dictates that elections for president and vice-president are in the electoral college by electors chosen by the states however they choose to do so.  This is system will not change.  A change would require a constitutional amendment ratified by 2/3 of the states.

The states are more or less free to decide the manner of their choice of electors.  Currently only Maine and Nebraska use something other than a "winner take all" method in the popular election in the state concerned.  The two exceptions choose electors on the basis of the popular vote in each US House of Representatives congressional district.  How they apportion the two electoral positions derived from the the state's US senators is not clear to me.  Close popular elections in several states can easily result in the election of someone other than the candidate who, across the country, had the most citizen votes.  This has happened several times and may again this time.

The purpose of this indirect system of election was and is to emphasize the continuing federal nature of the United States.

Who won the debate on foreign policy?  I think that the president easily mastered his opponent in this contest.   Aside from the "horses and bayonets" moment, the most interesting thing said was Romney's insistence that a psyops effort should be mounted to change the mind of the Muslims about Islam.  I wonder if he actually understood what he had been briefed to say.  pl 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/23/us-usa-campaign-poll-idUSBRE89K0A920121023

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

 

An Expert Artisan's View: Ephraim Halevy on Iran and the Foreign Policy Stakes in the US Presidential Election

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

On Sunday, the Al-Monitor published a very in depth and timely interview between reporter Laura Rozen and former Mossad Director and Israeli National Security Advisor Ephraim Halevy.**  The interview covers many important foreign policy issues, specifically dealing with Iran, how to approach one's adverseries, and the impact of Israel's concerns with Iran on the US presidential campaign and US foreign policy.

Some of the most important take aways were his remarks about how one should deal with one's adversaries:

    " Therefore, I realized that dialogue with an enemy is essential. There is nothing to     lose. Although the claim was, if you talk to them, you legitimize them But by not     talking to them, you don't de-legitimate them. So this convinced me, that we all     have been very superficial in dealing with our enemies. [...]

    Not everything you try succeeds. But you have to be willing to try. If you fail 10 times,     and succeed once, the success outweighs the failures.

    What happened: In order to meet public opinion, both Israel and the US governments     have tied our own hands. There is a law [...] which prohibits US officials from talking     to Hamas [...] In the end, you create an inherent disadvantage for yourself."

He also has some really important thoughts in regards to leadership at the strategic level in regards to operations, such as the one to kill/capture bin Laden:

     "I think nobody who has been involved in ordering the use of force can forget the     angst, the days and nights of concern, as to what and how it can be done.

    Romney has said, Anybody could have decided to finish bin Laden. Even [Jimmy]     Carter. This again  was a mistaken concept. President Obama didn’t just decide [one     day to kill bin Laden]. The operation to end the life of bin Laden necessitated     multiple points of decision by him. I know from operations I have been involved with     on a smaller scale.

    They are very intricate. You don’t just give the order and wait in your office for     commanders to come three months later and say it’s done. No. This kind of operation,     which is accident prone, hands on operation, one has to make one decision after the     other […] It took courage and cool headedness and leadership. Anyone who says it     was an easy thing to decide, doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. [Such     comments] show a total lack of understanding of what this kind of operation means.

    Once I was in charge of an operation and Netanyahu was Prime Minister. One day,     because of the intricacy of what we were doing, I talked to him 10 times on the phone     […] Ten times. It was a Friday, a day I will not forget.

    This kind of operation, every minute, an issue comes up, that sometimes requires a     decision on the political level.

    The Libya story, the way it’s being used, is a sordid manipulation. […]"

And he discusses something near and dear to my heart, which is trying to understand the identities of those we have to engage with - allies, competitors, and especially adversaries:

    "Over the years, both because of personal contact with some key figures on the other         side […] I realized, in order to be effective with one’s enemies, you have to have two     essential capabilities: To overcome by force if necessary — and/or to withstand their     force if necessary. And do everything you can to get into their minds and try to     understand how they see things, what their concerns are — their dreams,     aspirations, hopes, feelings are. And where if at all there is room for common ground     of one kind or another.

    I think that what we have had over the years is an abundance of one side, and a dearth     of the other.     There has been a big emphasis, and rightly so, [on overcoming     adversaries by force]. But we have paid little attention [to understanding one’s     enemies.] And I have always had the feeling to look for ways and means of creating     channels for dialogue. I was involved in channels of dialogue in one way or other,     in major and minor roles, as of 1973-1974, when I served here in Washington, D.C., as     Mossad station chief."

The whole interview is excellent.  Ms. Rozen did a great job, so click on over and read the whole thing!  It'll be far more informative on anything at the debate, in the Spin Room, or in the coverage over the next week...

* 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.

** Hat tip to Tom Levenson over at Balloon Juice

"A republic if you can keep it..."

Republics may or may not be democratic.  They may be more or less democratic.  They are not monarchies, although monarchies may be democratic.  My father delighted in telling people (often me) that the United States was not a true democracy.  He considered true democracies to be governments ruled by mobs of the ignorant.  He said that the United States was a federal republic with a limited form of democracy.  For him the constitution of the United States was the bulwark of this federal republic against mob rule.  On this, he and I are still in agreement although he is long gone.

We have always had a certain element in the population who want unlimited democracy in the US, a democracy run on the basis of an even more generous franchise, abolition of the electoral college, reduction of the state governments to administrative districts along the line of French departments, one law code for the whole country, and allocation of senators by state population size.

The 24/7 news media are in favor of most or all of these things.  Their incessant and usually mindless propaganda for their favorite "hobby horses," drives the ignorant sheeple toward the slaughter pens set up on electoral days.  The advertising industry functions in this process in the same way that sheep dogs move the mutton toward the knife.

The American people (if there is such a thing) have been endlessly dumbed-down in schools where "all the children are exceptional" except for the truly exceptional who attend different schools that are either private or resident within public schools.  The rest have grown to something called adulthood on a diet of; action movies, reality TV,  social media half thoughts, hip-hop, etc.  As a result the average potential elector has almost no span of attention, little knowledge of anything but the trivia of their daily lives and an inability to find almost anything on a map.

These people are ripe for exploitation by a regime that could be modeled on Orwell's "1984."  (He was a British author who lived in the 20th Century)

We no longer deserve a republic.  IMO an election in which Romney wins the national popular vote and BHO the electoral college would be intensely entertaining.  We had  that in 2000 until SCOTUS spoiled the fun.  Pete Williams, the NBC courts reporter correctly says that such a thing would not be a "constitutional crisis."  It would simply be the system at work.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_presidential_candidates,_2012

 

COIN failed again! Get over it!

"We will bear the heavy burden of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan for years. U.S. soldiers will continue to serve in the region, assisting Afghan (and sometimes Pakistani) security forces against threats to the stability of both nations, conducting raids on insurgents and terrorists and preventing a broader war in South Asia. This is what success looks like in such wars." John Nagl  

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This book was Nagl's dissertation paper.  It appeared in print just at the moment that "the generals" were seeking an explanation for their own ignorance of anything other than conventional warfare.  He was lucky and has been riding that "hobbyhorse" ever since.  Nagl's fate as something other than a minor professor at a minor college or a minor headmaster at a private day school hangs in the balance dependent on the judgment of history on the COIN (nation building) doctrine that he has counseled for over a decade.  He cites VN as an example of the failure that follows upon a failure of will.  There is a certain truth to that.   The US concluded a phased withdrawal from VN in 1973.  A ceasefire was in place and remained in place for two years.  All that remained of the US presence in VN were a mere two thousand advisers to the RVN forces.  They were assigned to the Defense Attache Office.  After two years the Congress of the United States passed a decree that forbade any further assistance to the RVN under any circumstances.  This decree reflected American public opinion in an atmosphere in which a soldier could not walk down an American street in uniform without seeing people turn away.  The Communist Vietnamese "took the hint" and attacked into a morale vacuum created at least in part by Congress's action.  The United States was not "driven from VN."  There were no American non embassy people there to drive out.  Does Nagl know better?"  Or is he simply so desparate to be justified that he would deliberately deceive?  He cites Germany, Japan, South Korea and Bosnia as examples of countries that have required a virtually eternal American presence for strategic reasons.  He expects us to accept these examples in comparisons made with Afghanistan.  He (and his neocon friends) made the same argument with regard to Iraq until the Maliki government "disinvited" us.  His Cold War and Balkan examples fall flat.  The US never  fought in Bosnia except for a few air strikes.  There has not been war in the other places for fifty or sixty years.  The American presence there was decided upon in conditions of peace.  The neocons like to claim that Germany was in a state of resistance during the Allied Occupation.  Nonsense!  Germany in those days was as quiet as a church.  I lived there as a child at the time and wandered the streets of Bremen and Frankfurt with my German and American friends.   In contrast, there is war, probably eternal war, in Afghanistan.  War is what the Afghans do best.  They are in the process of rejecting our (NATO's) presence as an alien "protein."  To "win" and transform Afghanistan into a simulacrum of the US would be a work of ages.  Nagl evidently thinks that would be a good idea.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-look-of-success-in-afghanistan/2012/10/19/94673f98-1a0b-11e2-aa6f-3b636fecb829_story.html

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"In 2009, when the White House approved plans to build a combined Afghan force of more than 300,000, the principal concern in Washington was the cost to sustain it once most U.S. troops depart, not the ability to assemble it. The sustainment cost is now projected at $4.1 billion a year, more than twice the Afghan government’s overall annual revenue. Much of that price tag will have to be borne by the United States, which already has spent almost $50 billion over the past decade to build the force. U.S. and NATO commanders say the Afghan army and police are progressing well despite an array of challenges that include Taliban intimidation, the lack of an existing officer corps, and rampant illiteracy, which makes it difficult to train soldiers in specialty skills." Washpost  

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

What collection of idiots decided that it was a good idea to build a force bigger than Afghanistan could ever possibly afford without US money?  Ah!  Nagl's idiots.  pl

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/afghan-security-forces-rapid-expansion-comes-at-a-cost-as-readiness-lags/2012/10/20/38af200a-16cb-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_story.html?hpid=z1

We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us: The Responses to Green on Blue Problems in Afghanistan

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Several weeks ago the Washington Post** reported on one of the responses to the Green on Blue attacks in Afghanistan.  While the way this is labeled is not exactly right, as green on blue would be Afghan civilians attacking the US military (we use green for the population/host country nationals), blue, obviously for the military and in this case specifically the US and coalition forces, the problem does exist and does need to be addressed.  What the article tells us is that a guide has been developed for Afghan soldiers to teach them "...the strange ways of the American soldier. The goal is to convince Afghan troops that when their Western counterparts do something deeply insulting, it's likely a product of cultural ignorance and not worthy of revenge."

Given my understanding of how we interact with the Afghan National Security Forces, I have a hard time believing that they came up with this on their own.  My informed guess is that we came up with this.  This screams "thought up by someone who is in charge of mandatory, quartely training by powerpoint!"  This also tells me that we have given up, at least for Afghanistan, on trying to come to terms with our cross-cultural competency (3C) problems.  3C is all the rage in both the corporate and military worlds.  And it is important, the problem is that we have over ten years of research on it - some good, some meh, some bad - and it all focuses on the precursors to actually being cross-culturally competent.  The focus is on predicting who will be good at it and then trying to figure out what kind of training and education will get them to comptency (read that as proficiency).  We do not pay much attention to actually certifying anyone as cross-cultural competent in terms of being able to actually perform.  What the approach outlined in the WaPo artile indicates is that if we cannot get this right among ourselves, cannot police ourselves up so we do not do stupid things that cause blowback from the Afghans, we might as well mandate that the Afghans learn it.  That way, the next time there is an incident, and there will be, its not our fault - the Afghan's have the cross-cultural sensitivity manual and training, its their fault for not being understanding of our inability to get this right...  Whoever came up with this has got to be the same type of person  that thinks that going through a pdfed powerpoint on "bath salts" once a year is going to solve the problem of military personnel huffing the stuff...

October Surprise?

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Not sure if this is the October Surprise anyone was expecting, but since it involves Iran, there would be a certain symmetry to it.  The New York Times has reported that Iran and the US have agreed to direct negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.  Iran is insisting that these occur after the election so that they know who they are negotiating with.  This, of course, makes sense given the statements of Governor Romney, his campaign, and his advisors regarding Iran and its nuclear energy program.  The speculation in the article is that should Governor Romney get elected that neither the US nor Iran will want to actually have these talks.  This is an excellent example of how personalities and relationships matter.  The Times reports that this development is the result of very quiet, very low key diplomacy by the Obama Administration over the past three plus years coupled with the increases in economic sanctions.  That these efforts appear to be bearing fruit is a positive sign, but Iran's guarded response demonstrates that they have received the messages from the Romney campaign regarding potential, future policy towards Iran and the Middle East.  This too is an excellent example of how hard it is, given the nature of the US political system and the way it interacts with our news media (such as it is...) to use the information portion of national power.  It does not matter if an administration is disciplined and focused when there are over 500 other elected federal officials in Congress and often dozens of potential presidential candidates, given that we are now running two to four year presidential campaigns, hundreds of authoritative analysts and advisors and commentators (and I mean that loosely in both command of the facts and actual quality of analysis) all with their own messages being blasted out 24/7.  It seems like the Iranians have learned a lesson from President Reagan - "trust, but verify".

* 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.

No limits on building in E. Jerusalem - Reuters

"Israel's foreign minister on Saturday dismissed criticism by the European Union of Jewish settlement on occupied land the Palestinians seek for a state, advising the 27-nation bloc to attend to its own problems instead."  Reuters

................................................

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied a newspaper report on Friday that said he had agreed in principle to hand back land annexed from Syria as part of secret U.S.-mediated peace talks that broke off last year."  Reuters

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

Israel bestrides the world.  Anyone who thinks that the present Israeli government is in the least interested in an equitable settlement with the Palestinians has only to contemplate these statements.  What is revealed here is a crafty use of half truth and deception used for tactical reasons to obtain the long term goal of unlimited Israeli power in the ME.

Is it part of the agenda that Israel should continue to control the US political process?  Answer that for yourself.  pl

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/20/us-palestinians-israel-eu-idUSBRE89J08S20121020

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/12/us-israel-syria-idUSBRE89B0O320121012

 

Open Thread 20 October, 2012

I was out of town yesterday on the Cedar Creek battlefield with Harper and Mrs.  Harper.  I need a rest from all that hard fighting.  We also went to Crabill's meats in Toms Brook and returned with a cooler of goodies.  The Crabill in Charge told me that they now have a contract to supply meat products to some of the WholeFoods stores in our region, so quality should go up.   pl   http://crabills.com/

Halloween Story by Tyler on The Athenaeum

pl

 

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/

 

New Athenaeum Post

New post is up over on The Athenaeum:

"A Bit of Halloween History, Poetry, Music, & Ephemera"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2012/10/a-bit-of-halloween-history-poetry-music-ephemera.html

"Holy Warriors" by Aron Lund

"This climate of sectarian polarization has triggered a slow but certain "Islamization" of the armed movement. Ultraconservative Salafi-jihadis, in particular, have made rapid inroads among the rebels. They tend to organize in small, close-knit groups, but their ideological impact is visible across the rebel movement, with other factions increasingly adopting their religious discourse. Even the most well-known insurgent alliance, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a loose umbrella term used by several inter-related insurgent networks, is hardly the secular movement it is portrayed as in the West, where it is represented by a small coterie of exiled military defectors. In Syria, the main body of FSA networks has come to resemble a Sunni sectarian movement, which is increasingly influenced by Islamist ideology."  Aron Lund in FP

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

The revolt in Syria has ALWAYS BEEN a Sunni sectarian rebellion against a government that represents the interests of Syrians who wish to live in a multi-confessional country that is essentially secular.  pl  

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/15/holy_warriors?page=full

Marshall Would Have Been Proud--by Foresman

Mother Jones is not a magazine known for highlighting the good works of institutions such as VMI. More often than such institutions would be in Mother Jones "progressive/liberal/populists" crosshairs.  That is not the case in a recent article regarding the Romney speech at VMI.  As COL Lang has suggested in earlier post VMI would be a good host but would do nothing to give an appearance of support for a particular presidential candidate.

I have no doubt that the VMI graduate who organized the appearance, believed that it was right and proper.  I know him, he is a fine young man, but like many of us in our youth, he allowed his exhubrance to get in the way of common sense. 

There is a good reason for the military to remain impartial--regardless of who is elected, that person will be the Commander in Chief as specfied by the Constitution of the United States.  The military's alligence is to the Constitution, not a particular political candidate.  Unfortunately this message and responsibility is often lost on some who serve in the military; or some who use their retired rank to indicate support for a particular candidate.  Neutrality is the best course; to be partisan will ultimately erode the special trust and bond between those serving in uniform and the American public.  Foresman

Overrun in Benghazi

 
 

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday said the first line-of-duty death of a U.S. ambassador since the Carter Administration was on her. "I take responsibility," Clinton told CNN's Elise Labott during a brief trip to Lima, Peru. "I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision.""  The Atlantic

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

Hillary Clinton properly took the rhetorical "spear" for this.  As she says, she is responsible for everything that happens in her department of the US Government.  As she also said, there was very little chance that POTUS or VPOTUS would have known anything of the details of security in Benghazi unless something spectacular occurred before the fact to alert them.  The assumption would have been made by them that State Department administrative services would respond to incidents as appropriate.  Does that seem odd?  It should not.  The US Government is too big and wildly articulated for it to function any other way.  State Department security consultants had recommended greater security.  Security consultants always recommend greater security.  Those recommendations justify their contracts.  Whether or not work gets done in hardening particular facilities is largely a matter of available budgeted funds.  Priorities have to be set in an environment of world-wide threat and a Congress that has always liked to pare down State Department requests for money.  This is in notable contrast to the largesse heaped on Defense and the intelligence community.  Bottom Line:  Some mid level person in the State Department probably gave more work in Banghazi a lower priority than proved prudent. Whoever made that decision should be held accountable for it, not because of some lack of virtue in the decision, but rather to make others more alert to such situations.

The Romney campaign is doing everything it can to make a moral issue of this unfortunate event.  How sad!  They should listen to the appeals of Stevens' father for a dignified response.

Will this be a significant factor in the outcome of the election? I doubt it.  The American electorate is actually too smart to be deceived on this.  pl

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/the-amazing-story-of-what-happened-in-libya/263597/#

Rice reveals that Hizbullah helps Syria

 

"U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told the U.N. Security Council's monthly meeting on the Mideast that Hezbollah leaders are also continuing to plot new measures with Iran to keep Assad in power.       

Rice's comments — and those of Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor — gave the clearest indication that Hezbollah, which fought a war against Israel in 2006 and is a major political and military force in Lebanon, is sending an increasing number of fighters to help the embattled Syrian regime.       

Syria's ruling Alawite minority is an offshoot of Shiite Islam and has had close ties to Iran and Hezbollah which are Shiite-dominated. Assad has long helped Iran aid Hezbollah and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, in destabilizing Lebanon and threatening Israel's security and U.S. interests in the Middle East. "  NY Times

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

This is truly comic.  Susan "Meet the Press" Rice is still riding high.

Hizbullah is a major component of a stable government in Lebanon.  It was elected to the number of seats in parliament that give it that power a number of years ago and the political science seminar crowd that makes up the US foreign policy establishment has resolutely opposed the Lebanese government ever since.  BTW, when did Hizbullah last fire rockets or anything else into Israel?  If memory serves, it was in 2006.

In Syria the US seeks regime change without UN authority.   The allies of the US in this endeavor are; Turkey (Sunni ruled), Egypt (Sunni ruled), Saudi Arabia (Sunni ruled), Qatar (Sunni ruled) Al-Qa'ida (Sunni fanatics) and NATO.

On the other side, the government of Syria (Alawi, Druze, Shia, Sunni and Christian in orientation), Iran (Shia ruled), Iraq (Shia ruled) and now apparently Hizbullah (a Shia militia)

So, the US has become the ally of Al-Qa'ida and the Wahhabi Saudis against a multi-confessional government and its Shia allies.

How clever we are!  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/10/15/world/middleeast/ap-un-un-mideast.html?ref=world&_r=0

"Moon may hold vast reservoir of water" Bell Jar

"The newly released study has found that water was most likely formed on the surface of the Moon by the constant stream of charged particles ejected from the Sun. The finding “represents an unanticipated, abundant reservoir” of water on the moon, according to researchers from three U.S. universities, who formally reported their results Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience."  Bell Jar

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

I remember this.  Robert Heinlein wrote about this 60 or 70 years ago in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."  In his novel, Luna has been colonised and Terra is the colonial overlord exploiting the mining products of the Loonies.  The big rocks mined are filled with lithium and other rare earths.  They are shot back to planet earth with a mass driver (someone will explain).  The rocks land in the Pacific Ocean somewhere where they are retrieved, for...?

The inevitable revolt takes place on the moon and freedom rings forth through the maze of tunnels that these people live in.  The best part of the book was the obsessive, inevitable meditation by Heinlein on the various forms of marriage among the Loonies.  As a teenager this certainly seemed the most interesting part to me.  The most exotic of these forms was the "line marriage."  Look it up.

So now it is known that there is a lot of water of the moon.  The sky is the limit.  pl

http://www.belljarnews.com/2012/10/15/study-moon-may-hold-vast-reservoir-of-water-lunar-base-may-be-possible/

"Will ye no come back again?"

 

"The signing of an agreement between the UK and the Scottish governments on the terms of
the independence referendum is a milestone. Both sides appear ready to accept
the outcome. It would feel more historic if the vote were going to happen any
time soon, rather than in 2014. But the vote will be the first time that
Scotland has voted on its national status in the democratic era. It may lead to
the further splintering of the UK. It would change the lives of everyone in
these islands. There is no doubt that the Scottish people voted for this process
to begin. By handing the Scottish Nationalists a majority of seats at Holyrood
last year, they put the future of the union unequivocally in the arena."  The Guardian

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

Would the Stuarts return?   My Jacobite ancestors would have been pleased.  Are there still Stuart pretenders?  The Langs went from the Great Glen to the Pale in Ireland to avoid taking the oath to William of Orange.  They were freeholders.  After a hundred years they moved on to good agricultural land along the St. Lawrence in New York State and then to Wisconsin in pursuit of more of the same.  The far West beckoned.  They seemed to have believed that San Francisco was the equivalent of the Grey Havens.

Divide the UK?  Why?  Is it for a bigger slice of North Sea oil income?  Is it the ancient discomfort and dislike of the Sassenach that is the true cause?

From an outsider's point of view it would hardly seem worth doing in terms of material gain.  Presumably both countries would remain in the EU customs union and NATO.  Border controls have been reduced to nearly nothing. Would the Windsors remain the sovereigns of an independent Scotland.  I cannot imagine Scotland as a republic.  I cannot.

"All for Scotland's king and lord..."  pl

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/scottish-independence-editorial

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=will+ye+no+come+back+again&view=detail&mid=35C1AB5A973FD754B01F35C1AB5A973FD754B01F&first=0&qpvt=will+ye+no+come+back+again

 

"The White Horse Prophecy" by Clifford Kirakofe

The White Horse Prophecy was attributed to Joseph Smith after his death by a prominent LDS member.  The gist is that sometime in the future the US Constitution would "hang by a thread" and Mormons would join in with others to save it. The White Horse appears to be a symbolic reference to the LDS community.   Back in the 1840s era, there were a number of sects developing here in the US which were not mainstream.  Millennialists like the Millerites are an example.  Back in that day prophecy and interpreting scripture linking it to contemporary conditions was popular.  Today, this is standard fare with the Fundamentalists. Back then sectionalism was a problem in the US and the slavery issue was looming threatening the Union.  Perhaps this is what Smith's followers may have had in mind.   Who knows as they themselves are not agreed about it.  Within the LDS church, the prophecy does not appear to be taken as "canonical" because there is debate about its authenticity and interpretation.  That there is debate within a church on theological matters is not unusual. On the other hand, some LDS members feel strongly that it impels them to defend the US Constitution in troubled times.  Both Romney's father and Romney are on record endorsing this type of interpretation. Some years ago I had an LDS friend and colleague  who was quite conservative.  An academic and a lawyer, he was very strongly pro-Constitution interpreted from a traditional Madisonian perspective.  And he was quite strongly interested in the Federalist Papers and so on.  His views seemed in line with general non-LDS conservative thinking and I detected no hint of a theocratic perspective. It seems to me reasonable that members of any religion in our country who find special reasons or spiritual inspiration to support the Constitution are within their rights.  Proper support and civic activity may well be a positive thing.  One problem, of course, would be if they took this idea in a theocratic direction as that itself would be unconsitutional.  Naturally, Americans do not want a situation in which someone who became president thought of himself as a prophet of some kind.  The closest we have come to this IMO was Woody Wilson, a delusional and easily manipulated type.  GWBush seemed to be in this category also. Presently, the Fundamentalists espousing "Dominionism" have the clearest agenda to impose theocracy.

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

As Col. Lang has said, our country faces a real dilemma given the two candidates. If Romney is elected and does not dump the Neocons, then it will be more of perpetual war for perpetual peace.  If Obama is elected, IMO it will be the same.  Clifford Kirakofe.

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

 

 

 

You are never safe in "the field."

"The fact is, as important as diplomatic security is, it’s also very, very expensive. Sometimes it requires building a whole new embassy -- a daunting project even in far better budget circumstances.

So our diplomats and spies make do.  And, not to make excuses, but the security officers, intelligence agents and analysts working out of U.S. diplomatic outposts in places like Libya have their hands full trying to find out what the enemy is doing.

In the chaos of post-Gadhafi Libya, moreover, do critics really think that the State Department and the CIA should have been sitting on their hands until they got spanking brand-new facilities built for them? "  Jeff Stein

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

Diplomatic and intelligence work in "the field" as opposed to behind a desk in Washington is a risky business.  The work in the field requires access to the local people.  Some of the local people are always dangerous.  The assumption should be made that they are dangerous.  Nevertheless, it is always necessary to have access to the people in order to accomplish one's duty.  There is not enough money available to fortify all diplomatic and intelligence posts even if it were a good idea to do so, and it is not for the reason stated here above.

Could the consulate in Benghazi have been made a more difficult target within the strictures of operational necessity?  It probably could have been made more difficult for the assault force but not difficult enough to have repelled an attack like this by roughly a hundred determined men armed with small arms and RPG rockets. 

Should the USMC security guard system be given the mission of defending our diplomatic premises?  The present mission of these marines detailed to the State Department is to protect the classified information in these premises, not the premises themselves or the ambassador/consul.  Such a change of mission would require a massive change of training for the marines involved and reinforcement to such a level that this would become a major mission, perhaps the major mission for the USMC. 

Someone who calls himself "Anonymous" critiques Stein's analysis in this article.  I believe I know who "Anonymous" is, and if that is his true identity he never served a day in the field in his life.

BTW, Jeff Stein and I served in the same Army intelligence unit in VN, albeit in different parts of the country.  There was nothing "wimpy' about the men in that unit.  Several small detachments of them fought for their lives in facilities just like the one he described.  Some did not survive.  pl

http://spytalkblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-benghazi-debacle-fubar.html

 

Maybe Cantor is the leader?

"... the Israel lobby seems to be breaking openly, between Likudniks and liberal Zionists. This is further evidence of the fact that Walt and Mearsheimer's thesis of the complicity of the Israel lobby in the disastrous Iraq war can now be discussed, because liberal Jews are disassociating themselves from the traditional lobby. Also notice that Alterman bashes David Gregory for calling Netanyahu the "leader of the Jewish people.""  Mondoweiss

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

I think I will just leave this open to discussion.  pl

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/10/jewish-political-community-supported-iraq-war-but-now-divides-between-neocon-funders-and-liberals-alterman.html

The Assad government is defending the minorities. - Clifford Kirakofe

Syria: "The departure of the Assad regime and a new government in Syria run by extremist Salafists, al-Qa'ida or the Muslim Brotherhood is a daunting prospect for the minorities, and for a majority of the Sunni population, who have flourished under the tolerance of the Alawite regime. The US State Department and the West generally are, oddly, not impressed by Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III's statement that "there is more religious freedom and tolerance in Syria than in any other Arab country". Last week I interviewed Mother Agnes-Mariam de la Croix. A highly educated Carmelite nun, she has fled Syria under threat of abduction from her home, the sixth-century Monastery of St James the Mutilated. Her version of the truth about Syria is very different from the version we get from European and American leaders, and from al-Jazeera. According to Agnes-Mariam, the initial uprising was a benign protest against the monolithic and ideological Baathist regime of which, after almost 50 years, people had tired. The protest was helped by some of the very advantages that the regime had delivered, such as equality of religion and a high standard of education, particularly for women. However, the protest had hardly begun before it was hijacked by Islamist mercenaries and turned into violent jihad. This is only beginning to emerge now as people query the number of foreign fighters among the insurgents.

According to Agnes-Mariam, only about one in 50 is actually Syrian. The rest are jihadists from elsewhere in the Middle East and abroad, even from Australia. What is worse, many of these fighters have had support in money and arms and morale from the West. .... Agnes-Mariam and many other Syrians are warning the West against intervention, because the insurgency is now bent on a religious and cultural purge of Syria, and indeed the whole Middle East. Ironically, some of the Sunni Wahhabist ideologues were already ensconced and unwittingly protected by the regime, particularly within the secret service, to counteract American influence during the Iraq invasion. As Stenhouse says: "The Syrian (tolerant) model of an Arab society offends extremist and closed Muslim societies. It now seems to offend the USA and its allies. If they have their way, it will disappear along with the Assad regime.

That will be a sad day for the Middle East, and a worse one for the Western powers, who will have unleashed an uncertain future on millions of defenceless non-Muslims and non-extremist Muslims."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/christians-a-target-for-syrian-rebels-we-back/story-e6frg6z6-1226494303347

The mother superior of a 1500-year-old monastery in Syria warned yesterday during a visit to Australia that the uprising against Bashar al-Assad has been hijacked by foreign Islamist mercenaries, with strong support from Western countries. Mother Agnes-Mariam de la Croix was forced to flee to neighbouring Lebanon in June when she was warned of a plot to abduct her, after she revealed that about 80,000 Christians had been "cleared" by rebel forces from their homes in Homs province. She described on the website of the Greek-Melkite Catholic monastery of St James, the church she rebuilt 18 years ago after discovering it in ruins, how Islamist rebels had gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya in Homs. Then they blew it up with dynamite and attributed the act to the regular army. .... Slowly these groups became identified: some are recruited by and affiliated with al-Qa'ida, some have a Muslim Brotherhood background, some are attached to other Islamist factions. Only about one in 20 of these fighters is Syrian, she said. The rest come from places ranging from Britain to Pakistan, from Chechnya to North Africa. "Many have fought in Iraq, some also in Afghanistan," Mother Agnes-Mariam said. "Now their cause is being recycled to kill Syrians." The two million Christians in Syria - which contains the world's first church - "are sharing Syria's fate", she said. "But as a minority, they are more vulnerable. They have no army. They are caught, like the filling in a sandwich." Her own community of nuns at St James has been mostly trapped in the monastery for 18 months. In the beginning, she said, the uprising embraced values including freedom and democracy. "But it steadily became a violent Islamist expression against a liberal secular society." She described "a hidden will to empty the Middle East of its Christian presence. We don't know why. We have always been the peaceful catalyst bringing diverse communities together." ...

 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/christians-emptied-from-middle-east/story-e6frg6so-1226489418086?sv=c36cd3446fc41dadbcfcf53e6ad0b188

So just what "values" do Romney and Obama and the pro-Israel news media and pro-Israel Lobby think we share with the jihadis?  Clifford Kirakofe

Return to Azawad - TTG

Mali's main Tuareg rebel group said on Sunday [7 October 2012] it was no longer seeking to carve out a sovereign desert homeland, softening its stance as it seeks Western support to rout Islamists that have taken over the region.

In April the MNLA had declared an independent state in Mali's north called Azawad, days after a coup in Mali's southern capital Bamako, but Al Qaeda-linked Islamists later hijacked the rebellion and took control of the vast territory.

Western and regional powers are now mulling military intervention to retake the zone amid fears an Islamist safe haven could destabilize the region, and MNLA is aggressively seeking backing for a role in the effort.

"We declare a right to self-determination, but that doesn't mean secession," said Ibrahim Ag Assaleh, an MNLA official, following a meeting with regional mediator and Burkinabe President Blaise Compaore in Ouagadougou. (reported by Mathieu Bonkongou for Reuters in Ouagadougou)

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

This is a smart move by the MNLA. It provides an opening for the still amorphous interim government in Bamako to cooperate with the Tuaregs to take on the Salafists of Ansar Dine and AQIM. Without this concession by the MNLA, cooperation would be impossible. No Malian government has acquiesced to the succession of Azawad. Not the present interim government. Not the coup's National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State (CNRDR). Nor did any of the governments preceding the coup. I seriously doubt acceptance of Azawad independence could be voiced by any faction in Bamako with aspirations to eventually lead the country. 

During the late 90s, the Malian government of Dr. Alpha Oumar Konaré made a decision to hitch his country's wagon to the American star. Working with Dr. Konaré's DGSE, Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, we (DIA) formed a closer intelligence relationship with Mali. Separate from this effort, 10th Special Forces Group conducted several MTTs (military training teams) to Mali over the last decade. Maiga later became Mali's foreign minister under President Amadou Toumani Touré. He was one of the ministers arrested during the coup. I have no idea what happened to Maiga since then. I wish the gentleman well. Interestingly, the leader of the coup, Captain Amadou Sanogo, was a participant in our IMET (International Military Education and Training) program. He studied English at Lackland Air Force Base and took courses at Fort Huachuca, Fort Benning and Quantico. 

With the opening provided by the MNLA and our history with the Malian military, I think this is an opportune time for us to do something positive in the region. We do have a vital interest there. The Salafist jihadists are well on the way to establishing a vast base in the area and they are out gunning every other force in the region. Is this an existential threat? Not by a long shot, but if ignored I believe it will eventually bite us in the butt. We should support whatever ECOWAS manages to cobble together to confront AQIM along with any other regional efforts. And we should stop our insane insistence on the election of a new government in Bamako before we do anything. Even Captain Sanogo thinks that is unrealistic given the current dire situation. If we wait, AQIM and Ansar Dine may end up in Bamako and no one will ever see a "free and fair" election. On the diplomatic front we should push the interim government in Bamako and the MNLA into an agreement to at least set aside their differences and cooperate to take on AQIM. 

The Malian army is in tatters and the Tuaregs of the MNLA have been knocked back on their heels. However, the Tuaregs are probably still the most capable force opposing AQIM. AQIM's imposition of sharia law in Azawad is grating on the populace. They are wearing out their welcome , so to speak, and are creating the conditions fro a Tuareg backlash. I would like to see a Special Forces Battalion, perhaps 1/10 based in Stuttgart, get the long term mission to reorganize, train and advise both the Malian and Tuareg forces. Probably a third of the battalion would be on the ground at any one time. Don't recreate a Camp Lemonnier or CJTF-HOA. And for god's sake don't try to recreate a modern army where there never was one. Think of forming a hybrid insurgent - national army rather than a neatly organized series of combat brigades. Use the arms and equipment on hand. Fill the holes as needed. Provide maintenance and ammunition. Teach shooting. Teach combat leadership. Much of the Malian army still uses the SKS. No problem. Von Lettow-Vorbeck's askaris were largely equipped with the 1871 Mauser firing 11mm black powder cartridges and they did quite well in East Africa.

TTG 

On Ole Tailgunner Joe...

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

MS2 in the comments to COL Lang's recent post about Marshall asked about where to go to get started reading about these things.  In regards to the Senator McCarthy material I highly recommend Oshinsky's biography entitled A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy.  I found it very easy to read, well researched, and the author, clearly dealing with a controversial subject, actually manages to show Senator McCarthy's humanity while clearly articulating how far off the rails he had gone.

The transcript for the Army/McCarthy Hearings can be found at this link.

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

"The Choice 2012" A PBS biography

 
 

This two hour production was aired on Wednesday 9 October, 2012.  It was a thorough look at the two men.  I was not comforted.

Romney emerged from this portrait as a self obsessed businessman who wants the presidency as a prize, a symbol of accomplishment in a life dedicated to personal accomplishment and devotion to a church that he avoids discussing.  He has a very exalted view of himself as does his wife.  In one revealing incident recounted in the production, Romney and his wife met with a group of Iowa Republicans in Boston just after he left the State House.  One of the Iowans asked hard questions.  Ann Romney was so incensed at this that she rose, left the room without a word and did not return.  What does this say of the imperial  presidency that might emerge from a Romney victory?  The tale of his always shifting policy positions makes it clear that he is through and through a businessman.  Policy positions mean nothing in business.  Only profits have meaning in business.   If you think that you know what a President Romney might do in a crisis with regard to any issue, you are probably wrong.  In any situation he will sum up his personal "balance sheet" and act on that basis.

President Obama may not be strong enough physically and emotionally to suffer the "blows" that would be his portion in another four year term.  Look how much the man has aged in the last four.  His road to power was a tortured path in which he survived and prospered by his wits as he moved from one elite eductional institution to another in search of identity.  Listenng to him speak to the camera as president of the Harvard Law Review is revealing.  IMO, at that point he was still a white man in a somewhat black skin and his black colleagues on the Review thought the same.  His body language, diction and vocabulary selection were not "black" at all.  It took his deliberate "voyage" into the bosom of his wife's family to achieve what is at least a plausible public persona as a black American, rather than just another mainstream American.  If he is elected, Republican obstructionism will continue unabated.  He is a sensitive, intelligent soul.  He looks exhausted, used up.  pl

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice-2012/

"Looper" a review (or maybe revue) by Alan Farrell

Looper.  Directed by:  Rian Johnson
(and anybody spell his name thataway alert you immediately to be on guard and I
don't care if Mom did give it to you, you coulda fixed it soon as you
became an adult and realized what it said about you for six generations
back).  Starring:  Bruce Willis (and Bruce Willis, actually,
as Bruce Willis but not, if you catch my drift, the actual Bruce Willis);
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (same same); Emily Blunt; Paul Dano; Jeff Daniels.

Aw, man. I couldn't make squat out of Inception. Nor
doodle from The Adjustment Bureau.  Nor bupkis out of Immortality. 
Nor nada on Shutter Island.  And what the hell was Minority
Report all about?  Can't ever seem to  figure out these Back-to-the-Future
things (or why box-office idols lend themselves to this kind of dreck since the
odds are so mortifyingly against you...not to mention against us poor schlubs
who fork over ten bucks to watch them).  I got four-count-'em-four college
degrees, for Pete's sake.  What  the silly hell can Joe Lunchbox be
deciphering from this gibberish? It's as though Donald Duck wrote Being and
Nothingness (which Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski has on his
nightstand, by the bye... I rest my case) , then some fee-male graduate student
turnt in a doctoral dissertation on it.  I topped out with Doc Brown and
Marty my own self.  Lessee... when the photograph fades, it means you
never existed except you did until you went back and changed a cat-whisker some
prior event so even though it was you who changed it, still there is (yet
perhaps never was) a you but possibly not the same you as the you that is (or
was) you and there's why you get all those Boston  Proper catalogues in
the mail addressed to "Resident."  Want me go over that again
real slow? My head hurts. 

The primary draw for this lunker of a flick is that they
made the Gordon-Levitt kid up to look like Bruce Willis as a young man though
we have movies made by Bruce Willis as an actual young man to which this
rejiggered ac-toor bears virtually no resemblance.  Go figure. 
Gordon-Levitt is great, by the way, a capable screen presence though mostly from
comedy, perhaps encouraged by the warm reception he's had for films like Ten
Things I Hate About You (excellent) and Fifty-Fifty (solid) and 500
Days of Summer (well, if you like that kind of thing...  and are a
fee-male woman of the feminine persuasion... and lonely... and beautiful... and
crazy, in case anyone's encountered that particular communion of attributes,
like at the prom, say...) to embark upon an unhappy venture into over-seriosity
or chivvied by an over-aggressive agent to demonstrate his ac-toorship.  Don't
misread me:  He does a creditable job here. Only question is why?

Well, pack for a trip to Dystopia... again.  At least
they're not all wearing leather suits, though that Blunt girl might do justice
to one.  It's years from now (2040-something) though a tenuous
thoroughfare connects this time with that, later, in which time travel is (or
has been... or not) invented and then outlawed so that only outlaws can time
travel (or not). Actually it's not outlaws who time travel but the victims of
outlaws, strapped into a sort of canvas L.L. Bean field coat stuffed with
silver (or gold... the difference is significant) and launched back onto a
Twister (tm) mat where they're promptly assassinated by one of a horde of
"loopers," professional assassins from the past of the future who
deliver past services to future mobsters by deleting the future from the past.
Got it?  Bad news is that eventually the looper becomes compromised and
has in fact to be assassinated from the future but in the present ("closing
the loop," as it's called, hence the eponomynomic).  Alert comes in
the form of a golden shower, so to speak, instead of silver stuffed into the
travel garment of the target.  If I have it right, that entitles the
looper to thirty years of the good life till his future self be shot back into
the past for a future looper to blow away back then (now).  Still with
me?  Who wrote this?

Anyhow.  Our attention focuses on current Joe, a more
or less capable looper but one afflicted--wordless scenes reveal evident ennui
(French for "eye charged with an inexplicable tear," according to
Baudelaire at any event who invented the stuff, and apt here on account of the
New Way is to drop some sort of narcotic into the eyeball, phenomenon--as a
Bonus Question--prefigured by what cult flick, by the bye?)--with that
againbite of inwit we've heard of and who one day discovers his own self on the
mat next up on the elimination roster.  What to do?  In former Joe's
second of hesitation the later Joe punches his lights out, then lights out for
his part he, too.  We're off.  How to catch the intruder into the
past from the future before in the future he can wreak irremediable harm on the
past (or future) but while still safely in the past?  How, you may ask, do
we work in the high cheekbones, tight jeans, pouty lips floozy?  You may
ask. Answer:  Sarah Conner! And that, Grasshopper, tell you all you need
to know.

Dunno how incomprehensible came to stand in for heavy. 
Perhaps when Oprah became the arbiter of reading. When Wal-Mart opened a book
section.  When Hemingway snagged that Nobel.  Here's a guy loves
Bruce Willis, who admires Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and who, without having any
particular sentiment toward Emily Blunt, is always in the market for tight
jeans (on fee-males, mostly), but who cannot find in this flick anything to
praise.  At the least, wait for video.

Answer to Bonus Question:  Harley Davidson and the
Marlboro Man with Mickey Rourke (before the Fall) and Don Johnson (after
Melanie) where street thugs drop "crystal dream" into their eyeballs.

 

McCarthy, Alsop, Clemons and Ignatius vs George Marshall

In his speech at Lexington, Virginia on the 8th, Romney made it a point to praise General of the Army George Marshall the Nobel Prize for Peace winner who was also Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and head of the American Red Cross.

Why did he do that?  It seems to me that this praise as well as the chosen venue for the speech was calcualted to move Romney's PR and marketing generated image back to the center of the political spectrum where the greatest number of American voters reside. 

George Marshall has been a favorite punching bag for the extreme right in US politics since the 1950s.

After the end of WW2, PresidentTtruman sent Marshall to China to attempt to mediate the ongoing Chinese civil war, a war between the communists and the nationalist KMT government.  At that time the nationalist government was heavily supported by the United States.  Several billion dollars of military aid had been provided.  Fifty thousand US Marines had been landed in China to prevent seizure of key facilities by the communists.  Marshall found that the nationalist government and its forces had been very severely damaged in the struggle against Japan in WW2 and that the communist forces were far more capable.  At the same time he reached the conclusion that the level of money corruption inside the nationalist government was so severe that the money and equipment being provided by the US was serving little useful purpose in defending the country against a communist victory.  On that basis he recommended to Truman that the US should not involve itself more deeply in China's troubles.   Predictably, the communists won control of China.  Chiang Kai Shek, the nationalist president, later said that nationalist China had lost the war because it had "rotted from within."  Marshall had resolutely resisted the idea of direct US involvement with its own ground forces in the outcome of the civil war.  For that he was pilloried by the extreme right; Joe McCarthy, Joe Alsop, the John Birch Society and by others of that ilk as one of the men who "lost China."  This theme has been an ongoing motif of the hard right in the US ever since.  Romney moved decisively away from allegiance with that wing of his party in this praise of Marshall. 

Today, Steve Clemons and David Ignatius attacked Romney's praise of Marshall in separate columns.  These attacks were not on the basis of the old China nonsense.  No.  These attacks were squarely based on Marshall's advice as Secretary of State to Truman that he not commit the United States to recognition of Israel in 1948 (or any other time).  In this advice he was joined by James V. Forrestal, George F. Kennan, Robert Lovett, John J. McCloy, Paul Nitze and Dean Acheson.  Marshall foresaw that the independance of Israel would lead to an unending series of wars, the displacement of vast numbers of people from their native lands and a greatly increased burden of hostility to be borne by the United States on behalf of a small country in a far away place.  Both Ignatius and Clemons acknowledge the results of American recognition but nevertheless assert that Marshall was "wrong."

He was wrong?  How was he wrong in his judgment?  He was wrong?  Ah, he was wrong from the point of view of columnists who know which side of the bread is buttered.  That's how he was wrong.

Romney has portrayed himself as the "next best thing" to an Israeli.  You have to wonder what he thought he was doing in this speech.    He must have known that the Israel first crowd would react.  pl 

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/mitt-romney-george-marshall-and-israel-palestine/263365/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/does-romney-truly-understand-the-middle-east-revolution/2012/10/09/ac623cce-1204-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_blog.html

Romney to speak at VMI today.

My Alma Mater and that of several of us here is hosting a foreign policy lecture by Governor Romney.  The lecture will be to the corps of cadets and is not a public event.  CSPAN TV will broadcast it live  at 1120 Eastern Time.

The address will be in the Hall of Valor in the Marshall Leadership and Ethics Center at VMI.  The room is so named because the upper gallery walls are lined with glass cases in which the military decorations of alumni are displayed.  pl

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

 

"Ted" a review by Alan Farrell

 

Ted. Directed by: Seth MacFarlane, who got that Boston accent from the Mother Ship for sure... and that potty mouth. Just like being there... Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Joel McHale, Giovanni Ribisi (unbelievably, seem to me, the medic from Saving Private Ryan, now transmogrificated to character roles, oh how are Thy fallen mighty!), Mila Kunis (about whom, woof!), the actual Sam Jones (one of the several Flash Gordons, hair still parted in the middle, as embourgeoisement--variously pronounced-- sets in), the voice of Patrick Stewart (Captain flockin' Picard), the voice of Seth MacFarlane (Boston mick if ever there were and Lord love him), Thomas Matthew Walsh (the chief of staff from Veep, the doctor from The Hangover, the maintenance man from Community: if it's hilarious and require a clean-up hitter, he's in it), Tom Skerritt (either clever as a rat or sunken into hard times and bellying up to that Soda Cracker of dubious fame: the one on which he looks like Death on...which...on). Hey. There are nevertheless rules to expletive infixation ("out-f#*#*$*ckin'-standing," "unner-f#*$*%ckin'-stand," "Viet-f@#*#*%*%ckin'-Cong," and on and on). Have to do with the stress accent. Some anal-neurotic out there in Blogland will remember the rules if I can't seem to. It's therefore "Teddy-f#*#*$*%ckin'-Ruxpin" and not "Teddy Rux-f#*$#*%ckin'-pin." But that's the only imperfection in this otherwise perfect little throw-away movie.

Christians in Syria

"Christians in Syria make up about 10% of the population.^[1] The country's largest Christian denomination is an Eastern Orthodox Church of Antioch (officially known as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East),^[2][3][4] closely followed by a Uniate^[5] Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and then by an Oriental Syriac Orthodox Church; there are also a minority of Protestants. The city of Aleppo is believed to have the largest number of Christians in Syria.

The President of Syria has to be a Muslim, as a result of popular demand at the time the constitution was written. However, Syria does not profess a state religion, and does not officially favor any religion over another"  wiki

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

A basis for discussion of the present crisis for Christians throughout the Islamic World.  pl

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

There's a place for Copts today - America

"Bishoy Kameel, a Coptic teacher in Sohag, was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting Islam and defaming President Morsi on his Facebook page. This sentence was confirmed by an appeal court in Sohag, and the whole process happened in a matter of days.

Nageeb Gibrial, Bishoy’s lawyer, told me that the conditions of a fair trial did not exist because of intimidation by Salafists surrounding the court and inside it. Gibrial got permission from the Minister of Justice to transfer the trial to a court in Cairo but it was not implemented by the chairman of the appeal court in Sohag.

Bishoy was put in prison in July 2012. His lawyer presented evidence that the materials on his defendant’s Facebook page were not his, but the court did not consider this evidence.

The Salafists gathered outside the court building tried to attack Bishoy and shouted slogans such as "death to the infidel." They also threatened to burn Coptic houses and kill Bishoy's family if he was released. It is very difficult to expect justice in this intimidating atmosphere."  Said Shahata

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

Does this require comment?  I think not.  pl

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/4/54512/Opinion/The-misery-of-Copts-in-Egypt--.aspx

Escalation and madness - Clifford Kiracofe

  

Pat, Yes, escalation and madness. It seems that the fog of war has already settled in to some degree.  What scenarios are we looking at here? We have the Anglo-French war against Syria backed by the US ongoing. The Anglo-French and the US are allied to the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and the Qataris who in turn are supporting the Salafi and Wahhabi terrorists inside Syria who move in and out of Turkey for safe haven and staging.  We have Salafi brigades from Libya and Tunisia and so on in the mix in Syria, again moving in and out of Turkey as safe haven. The Turks are in a neo-Ottoman expansionist mode spurred by massive investments from the Gulfis/Wahhabis who have their own global jihad ongoing. Add in the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and its secret and not so secret branches in other lands such as Syria. Now we have an escalation of tension between Turkey and Syria.  Turks attack Syria next?  With NATO or without NATO?  US joins in.  One would then expect a reply from Syria and its allies such as Russia, Iran, factions in Lebanon.  Thus regional war involving Iran? Presumably, Iranians are patriotic folk who will support their government whether or not they agree with it.  This seemed to be the case in the 1980s. Iranians rally to defend their country. There are a lot of them and they have some serious organizations such as the Rev Guards and also asymmetric capabilities. Iran replies by setting the Gulf states on fire so to speak.  Israel cannot defend against CBW.  So nukes not needed and Iran does not have them anyways. In the regional war, if not general war, the Israelis attempt to "transfer" all Palestinians out of Israel and the West Bank.  This engenders still more chaos.  Can Israel and the Zionist experiment survive in such circumstances? And does the Jewish Agency really care as it readjusts its strategic global diaspora management?  Clifford Kirakofe

Martyrs Brigade in Syria has 120 mm. mortars

 
You can pick this thing up after you have fired, toss it in the back of a pick up truck and be far gone before the counter-battery fire arrives whether that counter-battery fire radar is the German "Cobra" or not.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1938_mortar 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyfpHrq8Bw8

"Trouble with the Curve." a review by Alan Farrell

 

Trouble with the Curve. Directed by: For some reason Oscar (Tm)-winning director Eastwood dropped this one in the lap of Robert Lorenz (too much pressure?), primarily a producer (whatever it is they do) on Clint's flicks like Million-dollar, Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, but if was for a fresh directorial viewpoint and a suppression of the occasional ham-handedness of the master, alas, disappointment beckons on account of one inhales the ripe scent of the aforesaid ham and the indelicate caress of the aforesaid hand. Starring: Clint Eastwood (looking, Lord love him, like Death Eating a Sammich--or vice-versa--and Jeeeee-zus, time to soft-peddle those close-ups! Yeeeee-uw! A zoom-in on one of those formerly-taut biceps now flaccid and pendulous puts you off breakfast and befogs memory of a formerly-vigorous idol. The erosion of old-age remains sufficiently insistent out here; doesn't really require an underscore on screen... and for ten bucks at that); Justin Timberlake (who can sing though does and yet doesn't, stuck inside a silly-ass beard for that same "some reason" adverted to above); Amy Adams (Dresden-china doll from whom we mighta got some skin but don't on account of there's no skin in baseball); John Goodman (settling for bulky-guy bonhomie--variously pronounced--cameos these days but at least fat again after a brief flirtation with wraithitude); Bob Gunton, poor guy, stuck in these preposterous bespoked Pharisee roles (check him out in Greg the Bunny for happier days) but always up to it.

"Turkey okays military force..." JP

"Turkey's parliament gave authorization on Thursday for military operations outside Turkish borders if the government deemed them necessary, a day after artillery shelling from Syria killed five civilians in a Turkish border town.

The government had sought parliamentary approval to send soldiers to foreign countries in a memorandum which said that "aggressive action" by Syria's armed forces against Turkish territory posed a serious threat to national security."  JP

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

Whoa!  Is the Syrian Army really this stupid?  NATO is a defensive alliance in which an attack on one country is an attack on all.  The NATO political headquarters in Brussels made it clear in respnse to Turkey's request for a council meeting that the alliance will back Turkey in any such confrontation.  Washington has also made its support of that resolve clear.

Further attacks on Turkish territory or citizens would provide a legal basis for intervention by NATO members in the Syrian civil war.

Get it?  pl

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=286654

"Attention" By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars

When you are a small child, most of what you see will be found to be indistinct, a bewildering multitude of details that are odd, unusual and featureless. William James once said that for a baby all is “one great blooming, buzzing confusion.” The small mind will come to rest only when it finds an interest that allows it to linger. When a child finds an object, a sight, a movement, and object, or even a color, to be interesting, the whole scene comes alive. It is interest that fuels the child’s ability to develop a strong power of attention. Having an interest is a mental affection the child feels for something outside of itself. It is the alliance between attention and interest that impels a child to return again and again to an idea or a sensation, in order to gain further insight and power over what has made it curious. The child’s mind then starts creating meanings and a clearer experience out of chaos.

People sink out of sight in the pedestrian details of their lives. They are captives of repeated falsehoods or distractions that sabotage any settled sense of purpose. An interest secures attention, but to sustain any interest we have to visit it as much as we can. To develop an interest takes time, and an interest has its enemies in restless child’s mind that tempt it away from its task of focusing. The depth of an interest testifies to its genuineness in the child.

"pools of ineptitude, civil liberties intrusions" Washpost

 

"... after nine years — and regular praise from officials at the Department of Homeland Security — the 77 fusion centers have become pools of ineptitude, waste and civil liberties intrusions, according to a scathing 141-page report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on investigations."  Washpost

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

A lot of "loopy" things were done during the hysteria that folllowed that awful day.  Vast amounts of money were "borrowed" by the government.  That money was spread far and wide throughout the government and among contracting companies that serve the government.  Some of it came my way.  I was pleased to accept it.  It was not hard to see then, and easier now that the institutional "empire building" and open handed distribution of "the spoils" of counter-terrorism were excessive and are excessive yet.  The same thing applies to the national defense establishment in general.

We need to "build down" the whole national security apparatus.  There are too many groups doing overlapping tasks.  There are too many "fusion centers,"  CT centers, joint task forces on "this or that."  There are too many contracter employees in the Pentagon doing the work that active duty military people should be doing for themselves rather than spending their time "politicking" for promotion.  CIA?  The "game" has not been different there.

Once again, we should have just one army.  The USMC has grown and "morphed" into a second army for the United States.  Once upon a time, the marines were a small service dedicated to the prosecution of the land aspects of a naval campaign, as well as various small "jobs" like; running naval prisons, guarding admirals from sailors and serving as legation guards in places far away.  In WW2 the Army and USMC were about equally successful in conducting bloody, bloody amphibious landings.  Normandy and Iwo Jima would be examples. 

Today the USMC is larger that the British and Canadian armies combined.  The USMC is now a large land mass operations service.  Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrated that.  We should combine he two services into one.  The resultant savings in the now duplicated education, training and logistics establishments would be large.  Such a merger would also put an end to the endless bickering and hostility that mark today's situation.

Contrary to popular belief smaller is often better, better in the retention of the best and discarding of the worst.  Let's get smaller.  pl

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/dhs-fusion-centers-portrayed-as-pools-of-ineptitude-and-civil-liberties-intrusions/2012/10/02/10014440-0cb1-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story.html

"Artists versus Bureaucrats" once again.

 

Basilisk suggests that this old article of mine has relevance to the present discussion on the importance of expertise as opposed to a generalist managerial background.  This was written before the intelligence community re-organization that created the DNI.  pl

Download Artists Versus Bureaucrats...

 

"US commander in Afghanistan says he is "mad as hell"" Heraldsun

"ISAF commander General John Allen told US 60 Minutes program in an interview recorded before the latest incident, and scheduled to be aired today, that insider attacks were unacceptable.

"I'm mad as hell about them, to be honest with you," he said.  "We're  willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we're not willing to  be murdered for it."

Gen Allen said that just as  homemade bombs had become the signature weapon of the Iraq war, he  believed that in Afghanistan, "the signature attack that we're beginning  to see is going to be the insider attack"."  Heraldsun

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

OK.  He's "mad as hell."  So what?   Perhaps he should move on.  NATO command in Brussels has been suggested as a destination for him. There he will find "natives" who like "frites with mayo" and who are not offended by seeing their colleagues naked in the showers, or by swearing and who may not be offended by personal family questions about their womenfolk.  Belgians are more used to our "brutish ways" and make allowances for Americans, Australians, Germans, etc., well, maybe not the Germans.

Having spent many years learning laboriously a whole and very full menu of do's and don'ts in the Islamic World I find all this to be a sick joke.  The Army and USMC have spent decades and much effort to produce officers who are career specialists in Islamic and Arab affairs.  Such officers don't make stupid mistakes like asking a Muslim to see a picture of his wife or even asking about her (them).

Have any of these specialist men or women been given a significant command in these wars?  If they have I have not heard of the event.  Instead the general officer of the line caste prefers to install in command people like themselves but often incapable of dealing with the "natives."

Allen is "mad as hell?"  Me too, I am mad as hell that this political marine is in charge out there rather than someone competent.  pl

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/five-die-in-nato-afghan-troop-firefight/story-e6frf7k6-1226485474885