Unfortunately she is not being very well served by her staff. The Taliban have executed multiple complex attacks this year, all indicating that they have moved into Phase III of an insurgency. That happens when an insurgent feels they stand a good chance of obtaining their goals.
The linkage between AQ and the Taliban have been exposed as weak at best. AQ was allowed into Afghanistan because of a request for sanctuary under Pashtunwali. The IC has not figured that out yet since they have very little understanding of Afghanistan……
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned Taliban fighters in Afghanistan that they face a stark choice between war and peace, as US military pressure on them mounts
Phi Beta Iota: This is sad. Even if she knows this is idiocy mouthed for domestic campaign contributor constituencies, it further reduces global estimates of US intelligence (zero) and US diplomacy (not). We hope President Barack Obama is giving deep thought to changing his entire Cabinet. State used to have a moderately intelligent INR that could overcome the total ignorance of the secret world, but evidently they have either lost their innate intelligence or lost their access to the Secretary.
Phi Beta Iota: It is actually much worse than that. Our estimate of the cost of US being best pals with 42 of 44 dictators is closer to 500 billion, and that is a very conservative estimate. The cost is roughly divided between US taxpayer money being given away for the wrong reasons, and the “true cost” to the world–and ultimately to the USA–of an unethical, uninformed, unstrategic foreign policy that is in no way, shape, or form focused on creating a prosperous world at peace. Not to be naive, we realize that we have a government Of, By, and For the Banks and their Corporations. That is what needs to change, non-violently, on the basis of Internet Freedom and Freedom through the Internet. In passing, we are not amused when people steal our ideas and offer to help the US Government do for $3 million what we are doing for free. Three Internet Freedom URLs with links below the line.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed on Tuesday to invest $25 million for developers to build tools that will let online dissidents get around “thugs, hackers and censors.” It’s her attempt at giving teeth to the so-called “Internet Freedom Agenda” that she unveiled last year.
Very heavy interview with Turkey's Foreign minister : Beginning at 9:40, the issue of Israeli intransigence on negotiations. No “mainstream” pick-up anywhere I can find.
Turkey's line in the sand. Cannot be walked back. I believe this to be a notice to US in the face of the wikileaks palestinian docs which revealed the US duplicity, in which EVERY nation under the influence of the US vis-a-vis negotiations was made to look like stooges. None, more so than Turkey. I believe that this interview ends that subordination.
As the Middle East undergoes historic transformation and upheaval one country is quietly enjoying levels of prosperity and stability that can only be envied by its neighbours – Turkey. And, in its ninth year of rule by the AK Party, the country is perceived as having successfully combined democracy and Islam.
But under the AKP Turkey has done more than improve its system of governance. It has also reached out to the Middle East in a way that no previous Turkish government has.
But as Western governments can tell you, getting involved in the Middle East is not always easy. One man more than any other is responsible for Turkey's drive to engage: Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister.
He talks to Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught about the recent developments in the Middle East and explains why he is hopeful that change and stability will work together in Egypt and serve as a positive example for other countries in the region.
This episode of Talk to Jazeera aired from Monday, February 14, 2011.
Phi Beta Iota: Turkey and Iran are both inevitable leaders in their region and across their considerable diasphoras. There is NOTHING the US can do about it because the US is financially, morally, and practically bankrupt. It is going to take a quarter century to recover from the craven criminality that has chracterized the two-party tyranny and their Wall Street and corporate masters. The world is not stupid–they understand the inherent goodness of the American people and of America the Beautiful, but they also wonder why a public once famed for its independent intelligence can now be confused with a herd of sheep.
Summary: State still loves dictators, has no idea what is going on with the young and the restless. Intelligence is no where to be found. Bottom line is that the President, who appears to have had the right instincts, is being undermined by a government that can only be considered to be uninformed and incoherent.
Phi Beta Iota: From David Abshire to Jim Locher to Tony Zinni and Robert Steele, we have long known of the strategic vacuum surrounding the President. You cannot be an effective President (theatrics aside) without getting a grip on reality, having a Strategic Analytic Model, and demanding Whole of Government harmonization deeply rooted in 360 degree multi-cultural intelligence. None of that exists today within the US Government.
US admiration for its soldiers may be deep and widespread, but interest in what they are doing is shallow and fleeting
article
by Gary Younge
Published on Monday, January 31, 2011 by The Guardian
Most of the stories told about Benjamin Moore, 23, at his funeral started in a bar and ended in a laugh. Invited to testify about his life from the pews, friend, relative, colleague and neighbour alike described a boisterous, gregarious, energetic young man they'd known in the small New Jersey town of Bordentown since he was born. “I'll love him 'til I go,” his granny said. “If I could go today and bring him back, I would.”
Grown men choked on their memories, under the gaze of swollen, reddened eyes, as they remembered a “snot-nosed kid” and a fidget who'd become a volunteer firefighter before enlisting in the military. Shortly before Benjamin left for Afghanistan, he sent a message to his cousin that began: “I'm about to go into another country where they hate me for everything I stand for.” Now he was back in a flag-draped box, killed by roadside bomb with two other soldiers in Ghazni province.
North Korea-China: North Korea will develop the islet of Hwanggumpyong on the Yalu River Delta linking Sinuiju with the Chinese city of Dandong as a special economic zone in cooperation with Chinese businessmen, Chosun Ilbo reported 18 January. North Korean Cabinet already approved a law on the development that will be announced in March or April.
Comment: This is another example of Chinese business tutelage for North Korea. All other special economic zones have either failed for lack of investors or been troubled by North Korean government meddling. In the last category are the Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast and the Kaesong joint industrial park, north of Panmunjom.
One would surmise that a joint venture with the Chinese would be relieved of the unpredictability of North Korean leadership whims, which have undermined the profitability of the joint ventures with the South Koreans. More importantly, every Chinese economic lifeline tossed into the North Korean economic morass is a burden on China and a restraint on North Korea.
The Chinese are moving slowly, but steadily based on their understanding of the magnitude of North Korean economic mismanagement. Thus far, they appear to be helping North Korean enterprises that have prospects of profitability, such as textiles, and Chinese enterprises that benefit from North Korean geography, such as ports and infrastructure on the Sea of Japan.
North Korea never has been self-reliant and its condition of dependency on the global economy has steadily deepened under Kim Chong-il. The Chinese appear determined to salvage what they can and rebuild the rest of North Korea in a different, more sustainable direction, slowly, by converting some North Korean activities into extensions of China's economy.
Phi Beta Iota: The Chinese are out-thinking and out-maneuvering the USA on all fronts, and in a fascinating twist, may be egging the USA on to the same military-industrial death march that led to the end of the Soviet Union. The above development should be studied in relation to WASHINGTON RULES: US-Korea-China-NK NAFTA. In both instances, leaders are making strategic moves for reasons they consider valid, but that have nothing to do with the well-being of their respective publics.
For years, Alison and I have been hearing glowing reports of Tunisia from fellow sailors. We finally sailed there and spent five weeks in Tunisia last summer (August and early September). To our surprise, the local people struck us as the least welcoming of those in the Arab countries we have visited over the last five years (which included Morocco, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon).
In general, the living conditions in the towns seemed poorer and in some cases more squalid than in the other countries we visited. Syria, for example, is much poorer than Tunisia, with half the per capita GDP, but I did not sense the widespread squalidness in 2008 that we saw in Tunisia in 2010. But, we were only in Syria for a few days and saw only the western part north of Damascus. Tunisian people seemed more religious and mosques seemed more crowded than in the other Arab countries we visited, but I saw nothing suggesting radicalization. In retrospect, it did seem that there were more police in evidence in Tunisia than in the other Arab countries and that people were more fearful of the police, although I did not draw that conclusion at the time. Bottom line: I saw nothing that suggested Tunisia was on the cusp of a political meltdown — I simply did not like the place as much as the other Arab countries I visited — which was quite surprising, given our expectations.
But, as the attached report by Professor Juan Cole shows in Attachment #1 below, there there was a lot of discontent bubbling beneath the surface. Moreover, as opposed to this dumb tourist, our diplomats on the scene appreciated the drivers of the discontent. But, once again, the US government in Washington chose to ignore the warning signs and support a corrupt status quo. And once again our government was blindsided by an inordinate fear of radical Islamism, and in so doing, may have helped to create conditions favoring its spread.
Robert Fisk, in Attachment #2 below, The Brutal Truth About Tunisia, places the American and European propensity to ignore warning signs, and then being blindsided by developments, into a regional perspective. He is, therefore, not sanguine about the future.
The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten released a series of US diplomatic cables from 2006 on massive and pervasive corruption and nepotism in Tunisia and its effect on economic development and social problems. The cables show that the United States government was fully aware of the dangerous and debilitating level of corruption in Tunisia, and its anti-democratic implications.
Bloodshed, tears, but no democracy. Bloody turmoil won’t necessarily presage the dawn of democracy
By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent
Independent, 17 Jan 2011
The end of the age of dictators in the Arab world? Certainly they are shaking in their boots across the Middle East, the well-heeled sheiks and emirs, and the kings, including one very old one in Saudi Arabia and a young one in Jordan, and presidents – another very old one in Egypt and a young one in Syria – because Tunisia wasn't meant to happen. Food price riots in Algeria, too, and demonstrations against price increases in Amman. Not to mention scores more dead in Tunisia, whose own despot sought refuge in Riyadh – exactly the same city to which a man called Idi Amin once fled.
Phi Beta Iota: For some time now, since reading Ambassador Mark Palmer's superb inventory of all the dictators on the planet, we have been concerned about the degree to which the US Government, “in our name,” actively collaborates with and even funds dictators, not just in the Middle East but everywhere. In fact, only two are criticized: North Korea and Cuba. It can fairly be said that US diplomacy and national security are neither strategic nor moral, at the same time that both are arguably not in the best interest of We the People.
