Friday, December 28, 2012 9:45:40 PM
How did we get here? .. bits and pieces, and more in every link, but one .. chuckle ..
Committee on the Present Danger [ 1st met 1950 ]
"in the 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s (decade)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_the_Present_Danger
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Missile gap
Fact vs. fiction
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11-10-57, issued in December 1957, predicted that the Soviets would "probably have a first operational capability with up to 10 prototype ICBMs" at "some time during the period from mid-1958 to mid-1959." After Nikita Khrushchev claimed to be producing them "like sausages", the numbers started to inflate. A similar report gathered only a few months later, NIE 11-5-58 released in August 1958, concluded that the USSR had "the technical and industrial capability ... to have an operational capability with 100 ICBMs" some time in 1960, and perhaps 500 ICBMs "some time in 1961, or at the latest in 1962." None of these estimates were based on anything other than guesswork.
Beginning with the collection of photo-intelligence by U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union in 1956, the Eisenhower administration had increasing hard evidence that claims of any strategic weapons favoring the Soviet Union were false. Based on this evidence, the CIA placed the number of ICBMs closer to a dozen. Continued (sporadic) flights failed to turn up any evidence of additional missiles. Curtis LeMay argued that the large stocks of missiles were in the areas not photographed by the U-2's, and arguments broke out over the Soviet factory capability in an effort to estimate their production rate.
Joseph Alsop even went so far as to describe "classified intelligence" as placing the Soviet missile count as high as 2,000 by 1953.
It is known today that even the CIA's estimate was too high; the actual number of ICBMs, even including interim-use prototypes, was 4 ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_ga
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Neoconservative Think Tank Influence on US Policies
Paul Wolfowitz
Project: Neoconservative Influences on US Policies
Open-Content project managed by blackmax
1965: Former RAND Analyst Gathers Young, Nascent Neoconservatives
Albert Wohlstetter in 1969.Albert Wohlstetter in 1969. [Source: Bettmann / Corbis]Albert Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, gathers a cadre of fiery young intellectuals around him, many of whom are working and associating with the magazine publisher Irving Kristol (see 1965). Wohlstetter’s group includes Richard Perle, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Paul Wolfowitz.
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=neoconinfluence&neoconinfluence_prominent_neoconservatives=neoconinfluence_paul_wolfowitz
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PNAC role in promoting invasion of Iraq
Commentators from divergent parts of the political spectrum––such as Democracy Now! and American Free Press, including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams and former Republican Congressmen Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley––voiced their concerns about the influence of the PNAC on the decision by President George W. Bush to invade Iraq.[47][48] Some have regarded the PNAC's January 16, 1998 letter to President Clinton, which urged him to embrace a plan for "the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power,"[11] and the large number of members of PNAC appointed to the Bush administration as evidence that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion.[40][49]
The television program Frontline, broadcast on PBS, presented the PNAC's letter to President Clinton as a notable event in the leadup to the Iraq war.[50]
Media commentators have found it significant that signatories to the PNAC's January 16, 1998 letter to President Clinton (and some of its other position papers, letters, and reports) included such later Bush administration officials as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Richard Armitage, and Elliott Abrams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#End_of_the_organization
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Team B: The trillion-dollar experiment
Two experts report on how a group of Cold War true believers were invited to second-guess the
CIA. Did the "outside experts" of the 1970s contribute to the military buildup of the 1980s?
http://www.proudprimate.com/Placards/teamb-cahn.htm
===== .. touch of domesticity ..
Context of 'July 14, 1970: Nixon Approves ‘Huston Plan’ for Domestic Surveillance'
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a071470nixonapproveshuston
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Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, and former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, working on issues of international economic development, Africa and public-private partnerships, and chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council.
He is a leading neoconservative. As Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was "a major architect of President Bush's Iraq policy and ... its most hawkish advocate." Donald Rumsfeld in his interview with Fox News on February 8, 2011 said that Wolfowitz was the first to bring up Iraq after the 9/11 attacks during a meeting at the presidential retreat at Camp David.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz
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Yemen - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemen
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Yemen: reported US covert actions 2001-2011
March 29th, 2012 | by Drones Team | Published in Bureau
Stories, Covert Drone War, Covert War on Terror - the Data
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/03/29/yemen-reported-us-covert-actions-since-2001/
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Anwar al-Awlaki death: US keeps role under wraps to manage Yemen fallout
Operation to track and kill Awlaki understood to have been led by CIA and elite joint special operations command, but details scant
• Anwar al-Awlaki, top US target, killed in Yemen
• Wesley Clark: the US is winning against al-Qaida
• Al-Qaida's inner circle: where are they now? – interactive
Dominic Rushe, Chris McGreal, Jason Burke and Luke Harding
The Guardian, Friday 30 September 2011 19.31 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/30/anwar-al-awlaki-yemen
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Stepped-up U.S. assistance for Yemen makes it an inviting terrorist target
Officials have said the attack is likely the work of al-Qaida. The terrorist network has grown in Yemen because the country hasn't had an effective government for an entire year. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
By Robert Windrem - NBC News - 21 May 2012 7:11pm, EDT
A terror attack Monday on a Yemeni military parade rehearsal that killed scores occurred amid increasing cooperation between the Yemen and U.S. governments, with the latter stepping up assistance to the Yemeni military and regularly targeting purported terrorist cells with drone strikes.
The cooperation reflects a growing belief in U.S. national security circles that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemeni al-Qaida affiliate, is now a bigger and more dangerous threat than the central al-Qaida group in Pakistan. (AQAP on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack on the military parade and a shooting that targeted U.S. military trainers in the country. There were apparently no injuries in the second incident.)
The cooperation is not limited to counter-terrorism. The U.S. is openly helping the new Yemeni government in counterinsurgency efforts against an AQAP-affiliated group, Ansar al-Sharia, in the south of the country. The assistance includes “a small contingent” of military trainers and intelligence officers assisting the Yemeni forces.
The presence of the American personnel in Yemen is raising concerns that Washington risks opening another front in the war against al-Qaida before it has fully extricated itself from long, bloody conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the AQAP’s successes in recent months give Washington little choice but to increase support for the new Yemeni government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/05/21/11798293-stepped-up-us-assistance-for-yemen-makes-it-an-inviting-terrorist-target?lite
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General Wesley Clark - U.S. Foreign Policy Was Hijacked - April 10, 2011
Wesley Clark - October 3 2007 - Commonwealth Club California - Wesley Clark
( US 4 Star General ) US will attack 7 countries in 5 years.(Posmedprod.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha1rEhovONU
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Wesley Clark for President? Another Con Job from the Neo-Cons
Wesley Clark for President? Another Neocon Con Job
by WAYNE MADSEN - September 17, 2003
http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/09/17/wesley-clark-for-president-another-neocon-con-job/
Andrew Sullivan .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sullivan - sees Wayne Madsen as a conspiracy theorist ..
"In June 2012 Madsen self-published his sixth book. The book purports to be an expose of
Barack Obama's rise in American politics and the CIA's role in his attaining the Presidency.
He has been described by Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic Monthly as a conspiracy theorist. ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Madsen
This one .. Wesley Clark Goes From 4-Star General to Reality TV Punchline
By Spencer Ackerman - 08.13.12 12:02 PM
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/wes-clark/
was recommended by Andrew Sullivan here
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/reality-television-goes-to-war.html
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From Kosovo to Iraq - What a difference an administration makes - by Bill Barnwell
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=42959618
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It is complicated .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45336174 .. the first link in there though makes one thing clear ..
The Military-Industrial Compex is Ruining the Economy
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45325522
as we all know.
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EXCLUSIVE: To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them
By Faiz Shakir on Jul 31, 2008 at 1:16 pm
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/07/31/26940/cheney-proposal-for-iran-war/
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Drone strikes: a scandal … or just a sideshow?
Human rights groups say drones are loathed in both Pakistan and Yemen, but many locals in tribal areas welcome them
Jenny Holland - guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 October 2012 10.32 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/drone-strikes-sideshow-pakistan-yemen
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US drone strike near Yemeni capital kills AQAP commander, 2 fighters
By Bill Roggio - November 8, 2012
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/11/us_drone_strike_near.php
Bill Roggio - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Roggio
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Sidelined Neocons Stoke Future Fires
by Jim Lobe - October 8, 2004
Sidelined by their failed predictions for Iraq and President George W. Bush's efforts to reassure voters he is not a warmonger, prominent neoconservatives and their Christian Right allies are nonetheless trying hard to prepare the ground for future U.S. adventures in the Middle East.
[...]
Led by arch-realists Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, the State Department gradually wrested control over policy toward Syria and Iran. With U.S. troops bogged down next door, a policy of confrontation, as advocated by neocons, not only risked another war, the realists argued, but could also invite more damaging efforts by both Damascus and Tehran to destabilize Iraq.
Wary engagement with both countries has thus become official policy.
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=3735
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Will Obama End the War on Terror?
Daniel Klaidman - Dec 17, 2012 12:00 AM EST
Zero Dark Thirty spotlights America’s finest hour in the battle against al Qaeda.
But can Obama finish the forever war? The debate over drones—and getting out alive.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/16/will-obama-end-the-war-on-terror.html
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Villagers join al-Qaeda after deadly US strike
Sudarsan Raghavan - Date December 27, 2012
http://www.smh.com.au/world/villagers-join-alqaeda-after-deadly-us-strike-20121226-2bwg7.html
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U.S. drone strategy in Yemen is fraught with peril
Sorting out the guises, tribal intrigue and cross-allegiances in the Arab nation
is a huge challenge for Washington in its effort to assassinate terrorists.
A painting of the black flag brandished by the militant group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula marks the wall of Adnan Qadhi's house in the Yemeni village of Beit al Ahmar. Qadhi was killed by a U.S. drone strike in November. (Adam Baron / McClatchy-Tribune / November 25, 2012)
Related photos » http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0111-drone-warfare-pictures,0,4207328.photogallery
By Jeffrey Fleishman and Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times
December 25, 2012, 6:07 a.m.
AL SARRAIN, Yemen — The U.S. drone flew over a cluster of mud houses on a ridge and, according to Yemeni officials, locked onto Adnan Qadhi, a mercurial man of many guises, including radical militant, peace mediator, preacher of violence and army general.
Villagers said Qadhi climbed out of his utility vehicle the night of Nov. 7 to make a cellphone call shortly before the missile struck. His photo — broad face peering from beneath a tilted red beret, stars on his epaulets — now hangs in a small grocery store in a land where farmers work narrow fields below the villas of politicians, tribal leaders and a former president that rise like fortresses on nearby hilltops.
Some here call him a martyr, others a fanatic. But the life and death of Qadhi, a senior officer in the 1st Armored Division who preached holy war in mosques and donned government-issued fatigues, epitomizes the political instability, tribal intrigue, crisscrossing allegiances and radical Islamist passions the United States must sort out when targeting militants in Yemen. At times, Washington risks being drawn into internal conflicts and becoming increasingly despised in the Arab world's poorest nation.
PHOTOS: A new breed of drones - http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0111-drone-warfare-pictures,0,4207328.photogallery
Extremists here have a history of shifting tactics and circumstances. They were pressed into service by the government of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh when needed, then arrested and jailed when the political winds changed. Later they vanished from prisons by the scores, set loose across tribal lands. Yemeni security officials say that era is ending, and they're stepping up military offensives to rout extremists — fighters from Libya, Somalia and other nations, and assassins on motorcycles intent on killing intelligence officials.
At the same time, the Obama administration has intensified airstrikes against the Yemeni group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which plotted in 2009 and 2010 to blow up American airliners. A 2011 drone attack killed Anwar Awlaki, an American-born Muslim preacher and militant recruiter. Weeks later, a U.S. airstrike killed Awlaki's 16-year-old son, who tribesmen and relatives say had no links to terrorism.
The Long War Journal, a website that tracks U.S. drone activity, reports that since 2002, America has launched 57 airstrikes in Yemen, killing 299 militants and 82 civilians. The number of strikes has risen dramatically from four in 2010 to 40 so far this year.
FULL COVERAGE: Drones - http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-drone-sg,0,2856368.storygallery
"Why do these Americans come and interfere in Yemen?" said Radhwan Dahrooj, the grocer in Al Sarrain. "Why do they kill our people? If they have charges against someone why do they not arrest him and bring him to justice?"
Qadhi was sentenced to prison four years ago for plotting an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Sana, the capital, that killed at least 16 people, no Americans among them. With the help of clansmen and army officials, he was released shortly afterward and resumed his old life: militant and officer in the 1st Armored Division, led by Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin Saleh Ahmar, a commander described in a 2005 U.S. diplomatic cable as "dealing with terrorists and extremists."
When uprisings against President Saleh swept the country in 2011, the brigade mutinied and battled with competing tribes and security units for control of Sana.
What began as a peaceful revolution against Saleh tipped the nation — already fighting a rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south — into deeper turmoil. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its affiliate Ansar al Sharia exploited the unrest, taking over territory in the south. That gave Qadhi an opportunity to expand his militant ambitions even as he slipped into another of his guises, currying favor with the government by mediating a truce between Yemeni officials and an Al Qaeda faction.
The U.S., which this year has given Yemen $337 million in military and security aid, would not confirm that a drone targeted Qadhi. Yemeni officials and villagers, who heard a plane circling that night, said a U.S. airstrike killed him not far from his home in Beit al Ahmar. Though Qadhi was an active Al Qaeda recruiter and often accused Washington in his sermons of wanting to keep Yemen divided and in chaos, it is not clear what specific danger he was seen as presenting to the United States.
Washington has no precise rules on the criteria for targeting militants with drone strikes. But President Obama has said that an extremist must present an imminent threat to the U.S. or its allies, as Yemen's Al Qaeda branch is considered to do, and that arrest would be impossible.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official said Qadhi's arrest for the 2008 embassy attack would not have been enough to put him on an assassination list. White House counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan has said that militants battling solely to overthrow the government in Sana are not targeted. But Qadhi's 1st Armored Division was certainly a threat to the Yemeni government and the country's stability.
Yemeni officials said the nation's new president, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, approved the strike against Qadhi after determining that an attempt to arrest him in his neighborhood could have led to more deaths. The officials said they were unaware of intelligence linking Qadhi to any active plot.
The danger in the drone program is the potential for U.S. intelligence and airstrikes to be manipulated by Yemenis seeking to weaken the competing clans and political factions. For example, Obama and his top generals felt misled in 2010 when Obama signed off on an airstrike against a senior militant that killed six people, including the deputy governor of Mareb province. The strike was based entirely on intelligence provided by the Yemenis, who had not told the U.S. that the governor would be there, a former senior U.S. official said.
Since Hadi took office in February, the cooperation and trust between the Yemeni government and the U.S. has vastly improved, U.S. and Yemeni officials say.
There are many potential drone targets. For decades, young men have left Yemen to become foot soldiers and bomb makers among the militants in Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Iraq and Libya. Some of them have come home.
One was Rashad Mohammed Saeed, who left at 15 and became a confidant of Osama bin Laden, fighting beside him in Afghanistan. He returned to Yemen around 2000 and in an interview said he had put aside his weapons to start the Renaissance Union Party, made up of former militants who run for parliament seats.
Like militants in other countries, he is struggling to reconcile a decades-long philosophy of violence and the more peaceful, and successful, political approach — at least in Tunisia and Egypt — of the protest movements that ignited the so-called Arab Spring. He worries about what many here describe as an incessant invisible buzz in the sky.
"We have entered politics. Do you think the U.S. will leave us alone to choose our own leaders and way of life?" Saeed asked. "Our party is close to Al Qaeda. We're trying to get them to lay down their weapons. Yemen doesn't need this violence now. We just need protection from drones. I may be a target myself."
Hadi, who took over when Saleh stepped aside amid international pressure, has praised the drone strikes as a key to defeating terrorists. That has upset tribal scions who see their internal problems as being exploited by American interests.
"The drones have not killed the real Al Qaeda leaders, but they have increased the hatred toward America and are causing young men to join Al Qaeda to retaliate," said Ahmed al Zurqua, an expert on Islamic militants. "President Hadi is distorting and violating Yemen's sovereignty by cooperating with the Americans."
The American attacks "are giving Al Qaeda immunity. The drones are killing innocent people," said Sheik Abdrabbo Qadhi, a member of the parliament and no relation to Adnan Qadhi. "Al Qaeda is telling Yemeni that they are fighting these infidels and they're telling our people that our state is helping the infidels."
The sheik, pistol at his side, clicked his cellphone and held up a text message that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had recently sent to lawmakers: "You members of the infidel parliament.... The swords of justice will behead all of you."
PHOTOS: A new breed of drones
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0111-drone-warfare-pictures,0,4207328.photogallery
"We want to uproot Al Qaeda," he said, "but we have to do it ourselves."
That has not happened, nor is it likely to.
The militants also face problems of their own making. In the spring of 2011, Al Qaeda and Ansar al Sharia exploited Yemen's political tumult, temporarily taking over towns and villages in Abyan province in the south. The militants assassinated security chiefs and enforced a Taliban-like Islamic law. Al Qaeda provided temporary electricity and other services, but its medieval system of justice by amputation and whipping quickly lost it support among the tribes.
"Abyan was really the graveyard of Al Qaeda. People saw what the militants really were," said Brig. Gen. Yahya Saleh, head of Central Security Forces. "Summary executions and chopping off of hands, this is not justice."
Yet "Al Qaeda is not finished," he said. "The war goes on. They have no central leadership. If they can flourish in a place, they will. Their ideology makes them strong. If one leader is killed, another one rises."
ALSO:
Assad end may be near, but Syrian crises will continue
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-syria-after-assad-20121224,0,6766392.story?track=rss
French president says Algeria suffered under 'brutal' colonialism
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-france-algeria-francois-hollande-colonialism-20121220,0,1547980.story?track=rss
Tensions high as vote on proposed Egyptian constitution continues
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-egypt-constitution-vote-continues-20121222,0,35597.story?track=rss
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-yemen-drones-qaeda-20121225,0,136579,full.story
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Yes, Drone Strikes are Legal and Moral
October 26, 2012 By David French
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82330787
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NYT - Page 1 of 9 - Obama leadership in the war against AQ
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76038803
in reply to page 9 - Letter to President Obama on Yemen: More Aid, Fewer Drones, Please
Posted on 06/27/2012 by Juan
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77040870
===== .. one opinion re broader pastures ..
Context And Accuracy
George F. Kennan's Famous "Quotation"
by Gilles d'Aymery
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. ... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. ... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. ... We should cease to talk about vague and ... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
—George F. Kennan, Policy Planning Study 23 (PPS23), Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1948
(Swans - March 28, 2005) You've all seen this quotation cited countless times on Web sites, listservs and other mailing lists, from the left to the right, and everything in between. Simply google George Kennan, PPS23, and you'll get an idea... Problem is, it's a truncated quotation, patched together from various parts of the original text with ellipses, and taken out of context. It is more than time to debunk this little assemblage. One should not have to resort to this kind of fabrication, either out of sloppiness or willfulness, to elaborate on conjectural analysis. To use and reuse this misquotation does a disservice to all.
[...]
What did Kennan actually write? (Note, I've bolded the passages used in the quotation)
VII. Far East
My main impression with regard to the position of this Government with regard to the Far East is that we are greatly over-extended in our whole thinking about what we can accomplish, and should try to accomplish, in that area. This applies, unfortunately, to the people in our country as well as to the Government.
It is urgently necessary that we recognize our own limitations as a moral and ideological force among the Asiatic peoples.
Our political philosophy and our patterns for living have very little applicability to masses of people in Asia. They may be all right for us, with our highly developed political traditions running back into the centuries and with our peculiarly favorable geographic position; but they are simply not practical or helpful, today, for most of the people in Asia.
This being the case, we must be very careful when we speak of exercising "leadership" in Asia. We are deceiving ourselves and others when we pretend to have the answers to the problems which agitate many of these Asiatic peoples.
Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.
For these reasons, we must observe great restraint in our attitude toward the Far Eastern areas. The peoples of Asia and of the Pacific area are going to go ahead, whatever we do, with the development of their political forms and mutual interrelationships in their own way. This process cannot be a liberal or peaceful one. The greatest of the Asiatic peoples-the Chinese and the Indians-have not yet even made a beginning at the solution of the basic demographic problem involved in the relationship between their food supply and their birth rate. Until they find some solution to this problem, further hunger, distress, and violence are inevitable. All of the Asiatic peoples are faced with the necessity for evolving new forms of life to conform to the impact of modern technology. This process of adaptation will also be long and violent. It is not only possible, but probable, that in the course of this process many peoples will fall, for varying periods, under the influence of Moscow, whose ideology has a greater lure for such peoples, and probably greater reality, than anything we could oppose to it. All this, too, is probably unavoidable; and we could not hope to combat it without the diversion of a far greater portion of our national effort than our people would ever willingly concede to such a purpose.
In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to "be liked" or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and -- for the Far East -- unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
We should recognize that our influence in the Far Eastern area in the coming period is going to be primarily military and economic. We should make a careful study to see what parts of the Pacific and Far Eastern world are absolutely vital to our security, and we should concentrate our policy on seeing to it that those areas remain in hands which we can control or rely on. It is my own guess, on the basis of such study as we have given the problem so far, that Japan and the Philippines will be found to be the corner-stones of such a Pacific security system and if we can contrive to retain effective control over these areas there can be no serious threat to our security from the East within our time. Only when we have assured this first objective, can we allow ourselves the luxury of going farther afield in our thinking and our planning.
If these basic concepts are accepted, then our objectives for the immediate coming period should be:
(a) to liquidate as rapidly as possible our unsound commitments in China and to recover, vis-à-vis that country, a position of detachment and freedom of action;
(b) to devise policies with respect to Japan which assure the security of those islands from communist penetration and domination as well as from Soviet military attack, and which will permit the economic potential of that country to become again an important force in the Far East, responsive to the interests of peace and stability in the Pacific area; and
(c) to shape our relationship to the Philippines in such a way as to permit the Philippine Government a continued independence in all internal affairs but to preserve the archipelago as a bulwark of U.S. security in that area.
Of these three objectives, the one relating to Japan is the one where there is the greatest need for immediate attention on the part of our Government and the greatest possibility for immediate action. It should therefore be made the focal point of our policy for the Far East in the coming period. .. http://www.swans.com/library/art11/ga192.html
===== .. some stepping stones ..
Friendly Dictators - Written in 1995
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2844.htm
===== .. oops! almost forgot .. this one from Andrew is kinda cute ..
The Medals They Carried, Ctd
I noticed your image .. http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e2017ee513cfb6970d-popup
highlighting the glaring disparity between Eisenhower's and Patraeus' uniforms. And then
I realised something; I've seen this officer before, but in a much more satirical format:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/11/the-medals-they-carried-ctd-4.html
===== .. in conclusion ..
From Ted Kennedy's book available today True Compass on the war in Iraq:
I withheld my final judgment on the prudence of the Iraq war until I went back to the Senate in September 2002. There are no more important votes that a senator makes than on issues of war and peace, and I wanted to understand the issue fully before reaching a final decision. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I listened carefully to the testimony of the witnesses.
I was struck by the consistent drumbeat of opposition to the rush to war by respected military leaders--General John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe; marine general Joseph Hoar, former commander in chief of Central Command. I will never forget what General Hoar in particular said in response to my question about urban warfare. He said that Baghdad would look like the last fifteen minutes of the Spielberg movie Saving Private Ryan. .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=41464537
Just a bit on how we got here. Which, of course, gives a little hint on where we are going ..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82841438
whether we like it or not .. even if we don't really know .. it's rough, but... :)
Committee on the Present Danger [ 1st met 1950 ]
"in the 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s (decade)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_the_Present_Danger
=====
Missile gap
Fact vs. fiction
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11-10-57, issued in December 1957, predicted that the Soviets would "probably have a first operational capability with up to 10 prototype ICBMs" at "some time during the period from mid-1958 to mid-1959." After Nikita Khrushchev claimed to be producing them "like sausages", the numbers started to inflate. A similar report gathered only a few months later, NIE 11-5-58 released in August 1958, concluded that the USSR had "the technical and industrial capability ... to have an operational capability with 100 ICBMs" some time in 1960, and perhaps 500 ICBMs "some time in 1961, or at the latest in 1962." None of these estimates were based on anything other than guesswork.
Beginning with the collection of photo-intelligence by U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union in 1956, the Eisenhower administration had increasing hard evidence that claims of any strategic weapons favoring the Soviet Union were false. Based on this evidence, the CIA placed the number of ICBMs closer to a dozen. Continued (sporadic) flights failed to turn up any evidence of additional missiles. Curtis LeMay argued that the large stocks of missiles were in the areas not photographed by the U-2's, and arguments broke out over the Soviet factory capability in an effort to estimate their production rate.
Joseph Alsop even went so far as to describe "classified intelligence" as placing the Soviet missile count as high as 2,000 by 1953.
It is known today that even the CIA's estimate was too high; the actual number of ICBMs, even including interim-use prototypes, was 4 ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_ga
=====
Neoconservative Think Tank Influence on US Policies
Paul Wolfowitz
Project: Neoconservative Influences on US Policies
Open-Content project managed by blackmax
1965: Former RAND Analyst Gathers Young, Nascent Neoconservatives
Albert Wohlstetter in 1969.Albert Wohlstetter in 1969. [Source: Bettmann / Corbis]Albert Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, gathers a cadre of fiery young intellectuals around him, many of whom are working and associating with the magazine publisher Irving Kristol (see 1965). Wohlstetter’s group includes Richard Perle, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Paul Wolfowitz.
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=neoconinfluence&neoconinfluence_prominent_neoconservatives=neoconinfluence_paul_wolfowitz
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PNAC role in promoting invasion of Iraq
Commentators from divergent parts of the political spectrum––such as Democracy Now! and American Free Press, including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams and former Republican Congressmen Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley––voiced their concerns about the influence of the PNAC on the decision by President George W. Bush to invade Iraq.[47][48] Some have regarded the PNAC's January 16, 1998 letter to President Clinton, which urged him to embrace a plan for "the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power,"[11] and the large number of members of PNAC appointed to the Bush administration as evidence that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion.[40][49]
The television program Frontline, broadcast on PBS, presented the PNAC's letter to President Clinton as a notable event in the leadup to the Iraq war.[50]
Media commentators have found it significant that signatories to the PNAC's January 16, 1998 letter to President Clinton (and some of its other position papers, letters, and reports) included such later Bush administration officials as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Richard Armitage, and Elliott Abrams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#End_of_the_organization
=====
Team B: The trillion-dollar experiment
Two experts report on how a group of Cold War true believers were invited to second-guess the
CIA. Did the "outside experts" of the 1970s contribute to the military buildup of the 1980s?
http://www.proudprimate.com/Placards/teamb-cahn.htm
===== .. touch of domesticity ..
Context of 'July 14, 1970: Nixon Approves ‘Huston Plan’ for Domestic Surveillance'
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a071470nixonapproveshuston
=====
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, and former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, working on issues of international economic development, Africa and public-private partnerships, and chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council.
He is a leading neoconservative. As Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was "a major architect of President Bush's Iraq policy and ... its most hawkish advocate." Donald Rumsfeld in his interview with Fox News on February 8, 2011 said that Wolfowitz was the first to bring up Iraq after the 9/11 attacks during a meeting at the presidential retreat at Camp David.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz
=====
Yemen - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemen
-----
Yemen: reported US covert actions 2001-2011
March 29th, 2012 | by Drones Team | Published in Bureau
Stories, Covert Drone War, Covert War on Terror - the Data
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/03/29/yemen-reported-us-covert-actions-since-2001/
=====
Anwar al-Awlaki death: US keeps role under wraps to manage Yemen fallout
Operation to track and kill Awlaki understood to have been led by CIA and elite joint special operations command, but details scant
• Anwar al-Awlaki, top US target, killed in Yemen
• Wesley Clark: the US is winning against al-Qaida
• Al-Qaida's inner circle: where are they now? – interactive
Dominic Rushe, Chris McGreal, Jason Burke and Luke Harding
The Guardian, Friday 30 September 2011 19.31 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/30/anwar-al-awlaki-yemen
=====
Stepped-up U.S. assistance for Yemen makes it an inviting terrorist target
Officials have said the attack is likely the work of al-Qaida. The terrorist network has grown in Yemen because the country hasn't had an effective government for an entire year. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
By Robert Windrem - NBC News - 21 May 2012 7:11pm, EDT
A terror attack Monday on a Yemeni military parade rehearsal that killed scores occurred amid increasing cooperation between the Yemen and U.S. governments, with the latter stepping up assistance to the Yemeni military and regularly targeting purported terrorist cells with drone strikes.
The cooperation reflects a growing belief in U.S. national security circles that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemeni al-Qaida affiliate, is now a bigger and more dangerous threat than the central al-Qaida group in Pakistan. (AQAP on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack on the military parade and a shooting that targeted U.S. military trainers in the country. There were apparently no injuries in the second incident.)
The cooperation is not limited to counter-terrorism. The U.S. is openly helping the new Yemeni government in counterinsurgency efforts against an AQAP-affiliated group, Ansar al-Sharia, in the south of the country. The assistance includes “a small contingent” of military trainers and intelligence officers assisting the Yemeni forces.
The presence of the American personnel in Yemen is raising concerns that Washington risks opening another front in the war against al-Qaida before it has fully extricated itself from long, bloody conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the AQAP’s successes in recent months give Washington little choice but to increase support for the new Yemeni government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/05/21/11798293-stepped-up-us-assistance-for-yemen-makes-it-an-inviting-terrorist-target?lite
=====
General Wesley Clark - U.S. Foreign Policy Was Hijacked - April 10, 2011
Wesley Clark - October 3 2007 - Commonwealth Club California - Wesley Clark
( US 4 Star General ) US will attack 7 countries in 5 years.(Posmedprod.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha1rEhovONU
-----
Wesley Clark for President? Another Con Job from the Neo-Cons
Wesley Clark for President? Another Neocon Con Job
by WAYNE MADSEN - September 17, 2003
http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/09/17/wesley-clark-for-president-another-neocon-con-job/
Andrew Sullivan .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sullivan - sees Wayne Madsen as a conspiracy theorist ..
"In June 2012 Madsen self-published his sixth book. The book purports to be an expose of
Barack Obama's rise in American politics and the CIA's role in his attaining the Presidency.
He has been described by Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic Monthly as a conspiracy theorist. ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Madsen
This one .. Wesley Clark Goes From 4-Star General to Reality TV Punchline
By Spencer Ackerman - 08.13.12 12:02 PM
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/wes-clark/
was recommended by Andrew Sullivan here
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/reality-television-goes-to-war.html
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From Kosovo to Iraq - What a difference an administration makes - by Bill Barnwell
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=42959618
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It is complicated .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45336174 .. the first link in there though makes one thing clear ..
The Military-Industrial Compex is Ruining the Economy
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45325522
as we all know.
=====
EXCLUSIVE: To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them
By Faiz Shakir on Jul 31, 2008 at 1:16 pm
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/07/31/26940/cheney-proposal-for-iran-war/
=====
Drone strikes: a scandal … or just a sideshow?
Human rights groups say drones are loathed in both Pakistan and Yemen, but many locals in tribal areas welcome them
Jenny Holland - guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 October 2012 10.32 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/drone-strikes-sideshow-pakistan-yemen
=====
US drone strike near Yemeni capital kills AQAP commander, 2 fighters
By Bill Roggio - November 8, 2012
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/11/us_drone_strike_near.php
Bill Roggio - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Roggio
=====
Sidelined Neocons Stoke Future Fires
by Jim Lobe - October 8, 2004
Sidelined by their failed predictions for Iraq and President George W. Bush's efforts to reassure voters he is not a warmonger, prominent neoconservatives and their Christian Right allies are nonetheless trying hard to prepare the ground for future U.S. adventures in the Middle East.
[...]
Led by arch-realists Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, the State Department gradually wrested control over policy toward Syria and Iran. With U.S. troops bogged down next door, a policy of confrontation, as advocated by neocons, not only risked another war, the realists argued, but could also invite more damaging efforts by both Damascus and Tehran to destabilize Iraq.
Wary engagement with both countries has thus become official policy.
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=3735
=====
Will Obama End the War on Terror?
Daniel Klaidman - Dec 17, 2012 12:00 AM EST
Zero Dark Thirty spotlights America’s finest hour in the battle against al Qaeda.
But can Obama finish the forever war? The debate over drones—and getting out alive.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/16/will-obama-end-the-war-on-terror.html
=====
Villagers join al-Qaeda after deadly US strike
Sudarsan Raghavan - Date December 27, 2012
http://www.smh.com.au/world/villagers-join-alqaeda-after-deadly-us-strike-20121226-2bwg7.html
=====
U.S. drone strategy in Yemen is fraught with peril
Sorting out the guises, tribal intrigue and cross-allegiances in the Arab nation
is a huge challenge for Washington in its effort to assassinate terrorists.
A painting of the black flag brandished by the militant group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula marks the wall of Adnan Qadhi's house in the Yemeni village of Beit al Ahmar. Qadhi was killed by a U.S. drone strike in November. (Adam Baron / McClatchy-Tribune / November 25, 2012)
Related photos » http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0111-drone-warfare-pictures,0,4207328.photogallery
By Jeffrey Fleishman and Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times
December 25, 2012, 6:07 a.m.
AL SARRAIN, Yemen — The U.S. drone flew over a cluster of mud houses on a ridge and, according to Yemeni officials, locked onto Adnan Qadhi, a mercurial man of many guises, including radical militant, peace mediator, preacher of violence and army general.
Villagers said Qadhi climbed out of his utility vehicle the night of Nov. 7 to make a cellphone call shortly before the missile struck. His photo — broad face peering from beneath a tilted red beret, stars on his epaulets — now hangs in a small grocery store in a land where farmers work narrow fields below the villas of politicians, tribal leaders and a former president that rise like fortresses on nearby hilltops.
Some here call him a martyr, others a fanatic. But the life and death of Qadhi, a senior officer in the 1st Armored Division who preached holy war in mosques and donned government-issued fatigues, epitomizes the political instability, tribal intrigue, crisscrossing allegiances and radical Islamist passions the United States must sort out when targeting militants in Yemen. At times, Washington risks being drawn into internal conflicts and becoming increasingly despised in the Arab world's poorest nation.
PHOTOS: A new breed of drones - http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0111-drone-warfare-pictures,0,4207328.photogallery
Extremists here have a history of shifting tactics and circumstances. They were pressed into service by the government of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh when needed, then arrested and jailed when the political winds changed. Later they vanished from prisons by the scores, set loose across tribal lands. Yemeni security officials say that era is ending, and they're stepping up military offensives to rout extremists — fighters from Libya, Somalia and other nations, and assassins on motorcycles intent on killing intelligence officials.
At the same time, the Obama administration has intensified airstrikes against the Yemeni group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which plotted in 2009 and 2010 to blow up American airliners. A 2011 drone attack killed Anwar Awlaki, an American-born Muslim preacher and militant recruiter. Weeks later, a U.S. airstrike killed Awlaki's 16-year-old son, who tribesmen and relatives say had no links to terrorism.
The Long War Journal, a website that tracks U.S. drone activity, reports that since 2002, America has launched 57 airstrikes in Yemen, killing 299 militants and 82 civilians. The number of strikes has risen dramatically from four in 2010 to 40 so far this year.
FULL COVERAGE: Drones - http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-drone-sg,0,2856368.storygallery
"Why do these Americans come and interfere in Yemen?" said Radhwan Dahrooj, the grocer in Al Sarrain. "Why do they kill our people? If they have charges against someone why do they not arrest him and bring him to justice?"
Qadhi was sentenced to prison four years ago for plotting an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Sana, the capital, that killed at least 16 people, no Americans among them. With the help of clansmen and army officials, he was released shortly afterward and resumed his old life: militant and officer in the 1st Armored Division, led by Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin Saleh Ahmar, a commander described in a 2005 U.S. diplomatic cable as "dealing with terrorists and extremists."
When uprisings against President Saleh swept the country in 2011, the brigade mutinied and battled with competing tribes and security units for control of Sana.
What began as a peaceful revolution against Saleh tipped the nation — already fighting a rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south — into deeper turmoil. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its affiliate Ansar al Sharia exploited the unrest, taking over territory in the south. That gave Qadhi an opportunity to expand his militant ambitions even as he slipped into another of his guises, currying favor with the government by mediating a truce between Yemeni officials and an Al Qaeda faction.
The U.S., which this year has given Yemen $337 million in military and security aid, would not confirm that a drone targeted Qadhi. Yemeni officials and villagers, who heard a plane circling that night, said a U.S. airstrike killed him not far from his home in Beit al Ahmar. Though Qadhi was an active Al Qaeda recruiter and often accused Washington in his sermons of wanting to keep Yemen divided and in chaos, it is not clear what specific danger he was seen as presenting to the United States.
Washington has no precise rules on the criteria for targeting militants with drone strikes. But President Obama has said that an extremist must present an imminent threat to the U.S. or its allies, as Yemen's Al Qaeda branch is considered to do, and that arrest would be impossible.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official said Qadhi's arrest for the 2008 embassy attack would not have been enough to put him on an assassination list. White House counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan has said that militants battling solely to overthrow the government in Sana are not targeted. But Qadhi's 1st Armored Division was certainly a threat to the Yemeni government and the country's stability.
Yemeni officials said the nation's new president, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, approved the strike against Qadhi after determining that an attempt to arrest him in his neighborhood could have led to more deaths. The officials said they were unaware of intelligence linking Qadhi to any active plot.
The danger in the drone program is the potential for U.S. intelligence and airstrikes to be manipulated by Yemenis seeking to weaken the competing clans and political factions. For example, Obama and his top generals felt misled in 2010 when Obama signed off on an airstrike against a senior militant that killed six people, including the deputy governor of Mareb province. The strike was based entirely on intelligence provided by the Yemenis, who had not told the U.S. that the governor would be there, a former senior U.S. official said.
Since Hadi took office in February, the cooperation and trust between the Yemeni government and the U.S. has vastly improved, U.S. and Yemeni officials say.
There are many potential drone targets. For decades, young men have left Yemen to become foot soldiers and bomb makers among the militants in Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Iraq and Libya. Some of them have come home.
One was Rashad Mohammed Saeed, who left at 15 and became a confidant of Osama bin Laden, fighting beside him in Afghanistan. He returned to Yemen around 2000 and in an interview said he had put aside his weapons to start the Renaissance Union Party, made up of former militants who run for parliament seats.
Like militants in other countries, he is struggling to reconcile a decades-long philosophy of violence and the more peaceful, and successful, political approach — at least in Tunisia and Egypt — of the protest movements that ignited the so-called Arab Spring. He worries about what many here describe as an incessant invisible buzz in the sky.
"We have entered politics. Do you think the U.S. will leave us alone to choose our own leaders and way of life?" Saeed asked. "Our party is close to Al Qaeda. We're trying to get them to lay down their weapons. Yemen doesn't need this violence now. We just need protection from drones. I may be a target myself."
Hadi, who took over when Saleh stepped aside amid international pressure, has praised the drone strikes as a key to defeating terrorists. That has upset tribal scions who see their internal problems as being exploited by American interests.
"The drones have not killed the real Al Qaeda leaders, but they have increased the hatred toward America and are causing young men to join Al Qaeda to retaliate," said Ahmed al Zurqua, an expert on Islamic militants. "President Hadi is distorting and violating Yemen's sovereignty by cooperating with the Americans."
The American attacks "are giving Al Qaeda immunity. The drones are killing innocent people," said Sheik Abdrabbo Qadhi, a member of the parliament and no relation to Adnan Qadhi. "Al Qaeda is telling Yemeni that they are fighting these infidels and they're telling our people that our state is helping the infidels."
The sheik, pistol at his side, clicked his cellphone and held up a text message that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had recently sent to lawmakers: "You members of the infidel parliament.... The swords of justice will behead all of you."
PHOTOS: A new breed of drones
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0111-drone-warfare-pictures,0,4207328.photogallery
"We want to uproot Al Qaeda," he said, "but we have to do it ourselves."
That has not happened, nor is it likely to.
The militants also face problems of their own making. In the spring of 2011, Al Qaeda and Ansar al Sharia exploited Yemen's political tumult, temporarily taking over towns and villages in Abyan province in the south. The militants assassinated security chiefs and enforced a Taliban-like Islamic law. Al Qaeda provided temporary electricity and other services, but its medieval system of justice by amputation and whipping quickly lost it support among the tribes.
"Abyan was really the graveyard of Al Qaeda. People saw what the militants really were," said Brig. Gen. Yahya Saleh, head of Central Security Forces. "Summary executions and chopping off of hands, this is not justice."
Yet "Al Qaeda is not finished," he said. "The war goes on. They have no central leadership. If they can flourish in a place, they will. Their ideology makes them strong. If one leader is killed, another one rises."
ALSO:
Assad end may be near, but Syrian crises will continue
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-syria-after-assad-20121224,0,6766392.story?track=rss
French president says Algeria suffered under 'brutal' colonialism
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-france-algeria-francois-hollande-colonialism-20121220,0,1547980.story?track=rss
Tensions high as vote on proposed Egyptian constitution continues
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-egypt-constitution-vote-continues-20121222,0,35597.story?track=rss
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-yemen-drones-qaeda-20121225,0,136579,full.story
=====
Yes, Drone Strikes are Legal and Moral
October 26, 2012 By David French
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82330787
-----
NYT - Page 1 of 9 - Obama leadership in the war against AQ
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76038803
in reply to page 9 - Letter to President Obama on Yemen: More Aid, Fewer Drones, Please
Posted on 06/27/2012 by Juan
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77040870
===== .. one opinion re broader pastures ..
Context And Accuracy
George F. Kennan's Famous "Quotation"
by Gilles d'Aymery
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. ... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. ... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. ... We should cease to talk about vague and ... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
—George F. Kennan, Policy Planning Study 23 (PPS23), Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1948
(Swans - March 28, 2005) You've all seen this quotation cited countless times on Web sites, listservs and other mailing lists, from the left to the right, and everything in between. Simply google George Kennan, PPS23, and you'll get an idea... Problem is, it's a truncated quotation, patched together from various parts of the original text with ellipses, and taken out of context. It is more than time to debunk this little assemblage. One should not have to resort to this kind of fabrication, either out of sloppiness or willfulness, to elaborate on conjectural analysis. To use and reuse this misquotation does a disservice to all.
[...]
What did Kennan actually write? (Note, I've bolded the passages used in the quotation)
VII. Far East
My main impression with regard to the position of this Government with regard to the Far East is that we are greatly over-extended in our whole thinking about what we can accomplish, and should try to accomplish, in that area. This applies, unfortunately, to the people in our country as well as to the Government.
It is urgently necessary that we recognize our own limitations as a moral and ideological force among the Asiatic peoples.
Our political philosophy and our patterns for living have very little applicability to masses of people in Asia. They may be all right for us, with our highly developed political traditions running back into the centuries and with our peculiarly favorable geographic position; but they are simply not practical or helpful, today, for most of the people in Asia.
This being the case, we must be very careful when we speak of exercising "leadership" in Asia. We are deceiving ourselves and others when we pretend to have the answers to the problems which agitate many of these Asiatic peoples.
Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.
For these reasons, we must observe great restraint in our attitude toward the Far Eastern areas. The peoples of Asia and of the Pacific area are going to go ahead, whatever we do, with the development of their political forms and mutual interrelationships in their own way. This process cannot be a liberal or peaceful one. The greatest of the Asiatic peoples-the Chinese and the Indians-have not yet even made a beginning at the solution of the basic demographic problem involved in the relationship between their food supply and their birth rate. Until they find some solution to this problem, further hunger, distress, and violence are inevitable. All of the Asiatic peoples are faced with the necessity for evolving new forms of life to conform to the impact of modern technology. This process of adaptation will also be long and violent. It is not only possible, but probable, that in the course of this process many peoples will fall, for varying periods, under the influence of Moscow, whose ideology has a greater lure for such peoples, and probably greater reality, than anything we could oppose to it. All this, too, is probably unavoidable; and we could not hope to combat it without the diversion of a far greater portion of our national effort than our people would ever willingly concede to such a purpose.
In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to "be liked" or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and -- for the Far East -- unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
We should recognize that our influence in the Far Eastern area in the coming period is going to be primarily military and economic. We should make a careful study to see what parts of the Pacific and Far Eastern world are absolutely vital to our security, and we should concentrate our policy on seeing to it that those areas remain in hands which we can control or rely on. It is my own guess, on the basis of such study as we have given the problem so far, that Japan and the Philippines will be found to be the corner-stones of such a Pacific security system and if we can contrive to retain effective control over these areas there can be no serious threat to our security from the East within our time. Only when we have assured this first objective, can we allow ourselves the luxury of going farther afield in our thinking and our planning.
If these basic concepts are accepted, then our objectives for the immediate coming period should be:
(a) to liquidate as rapidly as possible our unsound commitments in China and to recover, vis-à-vis that country, a position of detachment and freedom of action;
(b) to devise policies with respect to Japan which assure the security of those islands from communist penetration and domination as well as from Soviet military attack, and which will permit the economic potential of that country to become again an important force in the Far East, responsive to the interests of peace and stability in the Pacific area; and
(c) to shape our relationship to the Philippines in such a way as to permit the Philippine Government a continued independence in all internal affairs but to preserve the archipelago as a bulwark of U.S. security in that area.
Of these three objectives, the one relating to Japan is the one where there is the greatest need for immediate attention on the part of our Government and the greatest possibility for immediate action. It should therefore be made the focal point of our policy for the Far East in the coming period. .. http://www.swans.com/library/art11/ga192.html
===== .. some stepping stones ..
Friendly Dictators - Written in 1995
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2844.htm
===== .. oops! almost forgot .. this one from Andrew is kinda cute ..
The Medals They Carried, Ctd
I noticed your image .. http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e2017ee513cfb6970d-popup
highlighting the glaring disparity between Eisenhower's and Patraeus' uniforms. And then
I realised something; I've seen this officer before, but in a much more satirical format:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/11/the-medals-they-carried-ctd-4.html
===== .. in conclusion ..
From Ted Kennedy's book available today True Compass on the war in Iraq:
I withheld my final judgment on the prudence of the Iraq war until I went back to the Senate in September 2002. There are no more important votes that a senator makes than on issues of war and peace, and I wanted to understand the issue fully before reaching a final decision. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I listened carefully to the testimony of the witnesses.
I was struck by the consistent drumbeat of opposition to the rush to war by respected military leaders--General John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe; marine general Joseph Hoar, former commander in chief of Central Command. I will never forget what General Hoar in particular said in response to my question about urban warfare. He said that Baghdad would look like the last fifteen minutes of the Spielberg movie Saving Private Ryan. .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=41464537
Just a bit on how we got here. Which, of course, gives a little hint on where we are going ..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82841438
whether we like it or not .. even if we don't really know .. it's rough, but... :)
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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