It is difficult for any intelligent moral citizen to stand by and watch their country self-destruct. Between the ideological idiots on the extreme right and the mere idiots on the extreme left, America is in a pickle. Elsewhere I have posited a solution for 2012.
Here I am obliged, from a sense of duty to the Republic that has been betrayed by our serving flag officers and senior executives, to point to and then demolish a book that is beneath contempt among real professionals, but all the rage among the loosely-educated and macho-shit crowd–this sadly includes a number of ranking Special Operations Force (SOF) officers that should know better. It came out in early 2010 and crap from this book is now making the rounds among the wing-nuts of the right and the uniformed officers that have never actually done any form of successful clandestine intelligence or counterintelligence. I refer to Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack.
Here is a copy of the garbage that is circulating now via email among military officers:
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's chief military officer says the nation is facing an increased threat of being drawn into conflicts at its borders that may grow into an all-out nuclear war.
Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff, pointed at NATO's expansion eastward and said Thursday that the risks for Russia to be pulled into local conflicts have “risen sharply.” He added, according to Russian news agencies wires, that “under certain conditions local and regional conflicts may develop into a full-scale war involving nuclear weapons.”
Some background on this old report…..this conference has been going on for some time, fluctuates between Garmisch and Moscow…The US has offered to host it but has been consistently turned down. China showed up two years ago and the next conference (2012) is scheduled to be in Beijing…..if the US cannot, with is efforts in technological development, host a cyber conference it is indicative of what the rest of the world thinks of us….
As Washington airs plans for a new “cyber command,” a top Russian official discusses the threat of cyberweapons.
Phi Beta Iota: The lack of intelligence and integrity in the US Government is chillingly deep, especially within the US secret intelligence, and nowhere more irresponsible than within the National Security Agency/US Cyber-Command – both oxymorons. The Chinese are all over NSA and Cyber is not a Command.
It always amazes me how the world's politicians and media spend most of their energy debating geopolitical prospects that are not going to happen, while ignoring major developments that are happening.
Here is a list of the most important coming non-events that we have been loudly debating and analyzing: Israel is not going to bomb Iran. The euro is not going to disappear. Outside powers are not going to engage in military action inside Syria. The upsurge of worldwide popular unrest is not going to fade away.
Meanwhile, to minimal serious coverage in the media and on the internet, the Nord Stream was inaugurated in Lubmin on Germany's Baltic Coast on Nov. 8 in the presence of Pres. Medvedev of Russia and the prime ministers of Germany, France, and the Netherlands, plus the director of Gazprom, Russia's gas exporter, and the European Union's Energy Commissioner. This is a geopolitical game-changer, unlike all the widely discussed non-events that are not going to happen.
Turkey-Iran: A senior Iranian official recently said Iran is willing to share its nuclear technological capability with neighboring, friendly countries, which could include helping Turkey build an atomic power plant.
For years Turkey has tried to build a nuclear power plant, but no Western country has been willing to help, the official said, adding that this is true for other countries in the region. Iran is also willing to cooperate with Brazil in the nuclear field, he said.
Comment: Energy policy provides a basis for an expansion of Iranian influence and presence in the Middle East and Brazil.
Phi Beta Iota: The insanity of US foreign and security policy is breath-taking, and only explainable in the context of an out of control government that is advancing pathological short-term corporate interests. Brazil does not need Iran's help on nuclear energy. What is interesting here, in combination with the French-German-Russian Axis [and more distantly, India-Pakistan and China-Asia] is the isolation of the US Government – the world is beginning to isolate the pathogen.
he Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC) is in panic city over what promises to be cosmetic cutbacks in the growth of the defense budget. The courtiers in Versailles on the Potomac, like the obedient editors of the Washington Post, are dutifully pumping out baloney about how dangerous it will be to cut the defense budget. The fact that the Pentagon cannot even account for all the money it receives is unimportant; after all, cutbacks in social security and medicare will pony up enough money to keep the MICC's party going, while the so-called deficit hawks impose austerity economics on the people (in the name of reducing federal debt — think of this as ‘not letting them eat cake') so the Federal Reserve can continue propping up the toxic private debt of the insolvent financial sector. And besides the Post needs the advertisement money from Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Northrup-Grumman.
My good buddy Mike Lofgren, who just retired with his sanity intact after working on Capital Hill as a Republican staffer for 28 years — no small achievement I might add — does not think much of whining in the Georgetown salons. Here's why (see CP op-ed below):
Chuck Spinney
BTW … the war between the MICC and Social Security and Medicare that is now being joined has very little to do with the so-called War on Terror — In fact, it is occurring right on schedule, if you doubt this, read this Op-Ed I wrote on this subject, in Sept 2000, one year before 9-11.
The Washington Post Boards the Pentagon Gravy Train
Over the last five years, we’ve spent money on the military – in real, inflation adjusted dollars – at a higher rate than at any other time since World War II. That includes the late 1960s, when the United States simultaneously faced a competitor with 10,000 nuclear weapons and sent a half million troops to Vietnam. The Pentagon is spending recklessly at a time of fiscal crisis when America’s debt has been downgraded for the first time since formal credit ratings began in 1917.
Yet the Washington Post has joined the hucksters of the military-industrial complex in forecasting imminent doom if one cent is cut from Pentagon budgets. Supposedly, the Defense Department has already cut $465 billion from its budget, and further cuts would be ruinous. But those $465 billion in cuts are fake, mostly paper “savings” pocketed by the president from adjustments to unrealistic past projections of the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and from other baseline manipulations.
