“I imagine a library atop a remote mountain that collects the essential information needed to re-learn practical knowledge essential to civilization. This depot, open to anyone who journeys there, is the cultural equivalent of the Svalbard seed bank, a vault on the Arctic Circle that holds frozen seeds of crop plants from around the world. The utilitarian documents in this vault would be the seeds of culture, able to sprout again if needed. It would be the Library of Utility, and it would serve as civilization’s backup.”
In other words, someone has sold Obama on Pakistaning the Libyan War, i.e., pursuing a military strategy of relying on drone attacks to a destroy an adversary hiding in the environmental background. What is astonishing is that Obama took the cape, despite the fact that only 12 days earlier, a report in the Los Angeles Times by David Cloud illustrated once again the absurdity of Cartwright's and Gates' claims.
In what may be one of the finest five minute presentations by Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX-14), he summarizes how US sanctions are equivalent to a declaration of war, and goes on to review how we are spending one trillion dollars a year (that we borrow) to militarize the world, in the process driving everyone into the hands of the Chinese.
This does not appear to be a prepared speech–it appears to be statesmanlike common-sense. Phenomenal.
From Afghanistan for ACOS: I have not seen so much BS in a while. The 10th Mountain deployed to Afghanistan without the proper equipment to operate in the mountains. They lacked adequate cold weather gear and our lift capability does not fly well here either. With the exception of 40 year old Chinooks, most can't climb over the lofty peaks that permeate this country.
I attended a farewell for a friend of mine, there were 33 people there, 11 of them in the rank of 06, two in the rank of 08. What these guys did everyday is beyond me, but little work gets done in the palace of King David I can assure you. There are Green Berets out in villages that depend on their families to help them with the Hearts and Minds that Petraeus so often says he is trying to win, but doesn't support. That type of warfare does little to increase the coffers of the MICC….
Chuck Spinney–we read all your stuff and his–has it right: this guy lives in a palace, Versailles on the Potomac, and is totally out of touch with reality.
Phi Beta Iota: It is not at all clear that the new Army Chief of Staff (ACOS) understands that the standard issue weapon is worthless beyond 300 meters, or that his force in combat (4% of the total force) takes 80% of the casualties while receiving 1% of the total military budget. We know what our troops are fighting for–what is this guy fighting for on behalf of his troops?
The disclosure comes after the head of Pakistani intelligence abruptly cut short a trip to Washington this week after meeting with CIA director Leon Panetta yesterday.
Phi Beta Iota: We know that US intelligence is failing to provide more than 4% “at best” of what commander and policy makers need. That makes $80-90 billion a year a hot prospect for cuts. To have this fraud, waste, and domestic abuse compounded by its use–with the willful orders of the White House and the impeachable neglect of the Congress–within another sovereign country whose permission has NOT been secured, suggests that a total draw-down of inept and expensive and offensive US intelligence operations should join the closure of US military bases overseas as part of the total “first phase” of budget cuts. What US secret intelligence does “in our name” dishonors the Republic, it does NOT secure anything.
Members of Waziristan Students Federation chant slogan during a rally to condemn US drone attacks in Waziristan tribal regions, on March 19, in Peshawar, Pakistan. Mohammad Sajjad/AP
Relying on a UN Security Council Resolution, but without asking Congress or the American people, President Obama attacked Libya on 19 Mar 2011. He finally got around to explaining his actions on 28 March 2011 in a nationally televised speech given at the National Defense University. Attached below are two analyses of that speech:
Story 1 by Ed Felien appeared in The Rag Blog on April 5, a spunky left-leaning website based in the hinterlands of Austen Texas. It is harshly critical of the speech by comparing Obama's assertions to conditions in Libya and the tensions within Libya that have created a civil war.
Story 2 by Anne Marie Slaughter appeared in the the New York Review of Books blog on 20 March 2011. The New York Review of Books appeals to a far more high-falutin readership than The Rag Blog, and is a kind of a forum for the panjandrums in what's left of the American Left. Dr. Slaughter gushes over Obama's speech, saying it made an “important contribution to the Libya debate.” She bases her conclusion (“let us protect the Libya's civilians by any means necessary”) by analyzing (a word I use charitably) some impenetrable comparisons of interests versus interests to interests versus values, but curiously, she says nothing about actual conditions in Libya, or who is fighting whom, or why they are fighting.
The contrast between information and puffery in these two essays is stunning and says a lot about what's wrong with the American Left.
Phi Beta Iota: Dr. Slaughter means well, but has drunk the kool-aid. No one in Washington appears capable of reconnecting with reality and using clarity, diversity, and integrity to actually understand how far the US Government has diverged from core values of the Republic, and the public interest. The right/neo-conservatives have cost the US tens of trillions of dollars in fraud, waste, and abuse–Dick Cheney and the Iraq/Afghanistan faux wars on terror being the current classic–but so also has the left/Demopublicans so intent on keeping their own money flowing they have completely lost sight of basic principles of governance. These are all good people trapped in a bad system–all it takes to fix this is ONE LEADER committed to transparency, the truth, and trust. Barack Obama is clearly NOT that leader.
