MARGUERITE GUZMÁN BOUVARD: That’s right. And before I—after I finished that book, finally the Department of Defense was letting out these statistics. They were not letting them out before. I tried to get them. I called Veterans for Common Sense, Veterans United for Truth. They have 50,000 members. They said, “Sorry, the numbers are not coming out.” And what I did get was that, in every 36 hours, one veteran from the Iraqi or Afghanistani war are committing suicide, and 18 veterans of all wars commit suicide a day. Also—
Phi Beta Iota: “Cognitive Dissonance” is a very important concept when one has integrity and desires to do a self-evaluation of one's priorities, policies, acquisition, and operations.
Invite your attention to attached think-piece from one of Washington think tanks. BLUF: Compendium of several approaches to screw over military Services, particularly Army and Marine Corps. Retirees, particularly working age, also targeted. AF, Navy, SOF, cyber favored. Several 3-stars and 4-stars signed on to this thing; not supportive of former colleagues IMHO.
Phi Beta Iota: The PDF above is actually entitled “A New US Defense Strategy for a New Era.” The following individuals have signed the report: Gordon Adams, Graham Allison, Michael J. Bayer, General B. B. Bell, Richard K. Betts, Barry M. Blechman, Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr., Ambassador Richard Burt, General Games Cartwright, Lieutenant General Daniel W. Christman, Lieutenant General David A. Deptula, Leslie H. Gleb, Jessica T. Mathews, Admiral Bill Owens, and Anne-Marie Slaughter.
As we proved in Vietnam, and are about to prove again in Afghanistan, you can win most battles in a tactical sense but still lose a war at the far more decisive strategic and grand-strategic levels of conflict. (Grand strategy is explained here.) Israel's grand strategy is to establish a Greater Israeli Apartheid State (by annexing Area C of the West Bank and Gazifying Areas A and B) by (1) keeping the US firmly in its camp so (2) it can ignore the growing disgust in the rest of the world. That grand strategy has worked in the short term, most recently by hyping the Iranian threat and now the Gaza mini war to distract attention from the growing encroachment of illegal Israeli settlers in Area C.* But that strategy is turning the world against it (see Israel is all but alone in the Middle East). While recent pronouncements by President Obama and Secretary Clinton suggest Israel's influence in US domestic politics remains as strong as ever, the political sands in the US may be slowly insensibly shifting toward ambivalence, if not outrage, in the United States as well — and, as a practical, the US has enormous problems elsewhere (in Afghanistan) as well as home that may well evolved to take precedence over the US blank check to Israel. So, is Israel on the slippery grand-strategic slope of winning its battles while losing war?
For much of this year, Sgt. Maj. Raymond F. Chandler III, the Army's top enlisted soldier, has traveled to bases around the world with a simple message: “We've allowed ourselves to get out of control.”
(COMMENT: For the past couple of years we have been hearing that despite the exceptional levels of responsibility, operational experience and success, our Soldiers and company/junior field grade officers have acquired in ten plus years of combat experience, the Army's problems are rooted in a lack of garrison soldiering experience. As the theory apparently goes, troops and leaders have been so busy deploying and training to deploy that they haven't had time to spit shine boots, wax floors, paint rocks, bash the square, etc., and, therefore they are not the Soldiers they should be. )
As laid out in the previous article, Anonymous, Karl Rove and the 2012 Election Fix?, it’s possible that Karl Rove used SmartTECH’s servers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to flip the vote totals in Ohio in 2004 and thus steal the election that year for George W. Bush – and just as possible that he tried to do the same thing this year on Romney’s behalf but was thwarted by the hacktivist group Anonymous.
Many people have responded to these claims with a variation on: “That’s impossible. A presidential candidate committing treason? That would never happen, and, if it did, it would be front-page news. Everybody would know about it, right?”
Phi Beta Iota: NIGHTWATCH is the gold standard for political-military analytics. We doubt anyone now serving at CIA or DIA could have drafted this in one sitting without references. Here is the key finding brought forward:
This eight-day war is, thus, a turning point because Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, has proven it can strike at the heart of Israel and still live to tell the tale. This is a breakthrough tactical development. From now on, Israel is on the defensive and the threat will get worse unless a secular revolution occurs in Iran.
Israel-Gaza Strip: The exchanges of attacks have stopped during this Watch. Hamas posted the terms of the ceasefire agreement.
-Israel will cease all its activities against the Gaza Strip in the sea, land and air, including the incursions and assassinations.
-The Palestinian organizations will cease their activity from Gaza against Israel, including the rocket fire and border attacks.
-The border crossings to Gaza will be opened, facilitating the movement of people and transfer of goods. This move will take effect after a 24-hour cooling-off period.
-Additional issues will be negotiated if necessary.
Comment: This is not the durable peace that US officials say is the objective. It also probably is not enforceable by Hamas authorities because they do not control smaller splinter groups that probably will not consider themselves bound. The ceasefire will last becasue the principal parties say so, but Readers should expect violations. Both sides will use the respite to rest and rearm. There will be more fighting, but not for a few weeks.
Special Comment: So what just happened? After eight days of rocket and air attacks, both sides can declare victory of a sort. That is not a good outcome for Israel. The situation is much more complicated and ominous than in many decades.
Intelligence experts discuss strategies for dealing with terrorism. Former Saudi Intelligence chief Prince Turki Al Faisal, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Dobbins and others talk with Reuters columnist David Rohde in a panel called “Countering Terrorist Threats, Real and Imagined” at Rand Corporation's “Politics Aside” conference in Santa Monica, Calif. (November 21, 2012)
Phi Beta Iota: It was not a terrorist attack. It was a commissioned, well-planned and probably state-sponsored attack against a CIA “covert” base, not a diplomatic facility, that was engaged in acts of war against the legitimate Syrian government. The Ambassador was collateral damage. Benghazi is a micro-cosm of everything that is wrong with the US Government in the foreign afffairs arena (starting with delusional amateurs incapable of comprehending that we are our own worst enemy). The Syrian government's roles is being concealed from the public, and NSA is as usual behind if not completely incompetent on the relevant intercepts.
