The 2012 election is now in play, and the Republican wing of the war party is gearing up to blame President Obama for America’s failed wars (who, while not entirely blameless, is hardly the architect of defeat) and the accompanying national humiliation. This email is about an opening shot that just appeared in the Weekly Standard.
One of my closest friends, retired Marine Colonel XXX, forwarded the attached analysis of the US defeat in Iraq. (I use the word ‘analysis’ charitably) It was written by Fred Kagan, his wife, and another person, neocons all. The Kagans are among one of America’s most vocal advocates preventative war, especially the invasion of Iraq, and were “architects” of the so-called “surge” (which is Versailles-speak for a relatively modest, time-consuming escalation, whereas in traditional military parlance, the word ‘surge’ implies a massive increase, like a doubling or tripling, of effort over a very short period of time).
FYI, Colonel XXX is no lounge-chair liberal. More than anyone I know, he loves the smell of cordite. He is also an authentic patriot. He was one of the most frequently-deployed Marines in the entire Corps at the time of his retirement. He has served in all sorts of weird places in spooky circumstances all over the globe, including but not limited to Lebanon, Somalia, somewhere in South America, Cambodia, Vietnam, and several tours in Iraq. XXX is also very smart and far-thinking in the quirky tradition of the legendary Marine Pete Ellis (the legendary Marine who predicted the Pacific War after roaming the Pacific in the 1930s; although unlike Ellis, Col XXX is usually sober).
I stress Colonel XXX’s bona fides, because he does not think much of Kagan’s analysis — and his salty words may cause readers to think he is a wise ass or a brainless complainer. I have seen many people make such mistaken assumptions to their chagrin; XXX is not embittered, but he is a wild man, only one with brains. My experience has been that his cryptic language is usually spot on. In fact, in less words than this introduction, Col XXX makes a concise statement of what is so dangerously wrong with the US war machine that is taking our nation off the cliff.
Note, I added few parenthetical comments in bold.
Chuck Spinney
Barcelona, Catalunya
Email from Col XXX
This disaster started long long before Obama got into office (and I am NOT an Obama fan) thanks to Feith-Based Intelligence (FBI) along with the Cheney-Rummy – Armitage – Perle (CRAP) medicine-side show with Wolf-Man, Ashcroft, and
Also, recall our heavy breather stooges lined up at the door of the UN mongering WMD thanks to Chiseler-Chalabi .
Yes, Iran and Pakistan are the snarky beavers in the wood pile and not Iraq or Iraq's proximity. My Iraqi POCs [points of contact] have been telling me for years there is a settling of scores yet to come; blood feuds are ingrained way of life folded into the Sunni, Shia, Kurd divides of Iraq—with or without U.S. presence. The U.S. has succeeded beyond expectations of prolonging the profuse painful bludgeoning that is to come!
So too, Iran may be prepared to rush in…then what ? [CS note: It appears the Obama Administration is trying to deflect domestic political pressures from warmongering factions by planning to increase US troop presence in the Arab Persian Gulf states. So, once again, domestic politics may be shaping foreign policy, in this case, by inducing the Administration to set up new NATO-like alliance structure reminiscent of the ineffectual cold-war era Baghdad Pact/CENTO treaty structure — with or without Iraq — to ‘contain’ a former member, Iran. If true, such a policy initiative is unlikely to work for reasons to those that made the Baghdad Pact/CENTO a joke — too many competing agendas and an inflated, trumped up threat. But repackaging old wine in new bottle and may well plant the seeds for more war/blowback in the future.]
AND….why do people listen to pseudo-gadflys like Kagan, Kagan, and Sullivan. They are living off the DC-BS, never served a day (save serving themselves), pulled a trigger, responded to a disaster or fire, or been in harms way where someone really wants to kill you … not even in the Peace Corps as near as I can tell. Talk about DC elites engineering money aqueducts [to themselves and their friends]!
Did you all want to do the atomic puke after reading this as I did ????
S/f
Col XXX
President Obama's decision to withdraw U.S. troops is the mother of all disasters
By Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan and Marisa Cochrane Sullivan
Weekly Standard, November 7, 2011
