The Subprime Crisis and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11 2001_2612
The time has come for the public to do its own intelligence on treason and fraud. This second part of the report names many names, including Henry Kissinger. The two reports together, in our judgment, amply justify a public demand for a Grand Jury to indict all named individuals.
From a Source in Moscow (First Two Paragraphs Only)
Russian trade ministry officials are reporting to Prime Minister Putin today that China is preparing to plunge the United States and European Union into the “dustbin of history” as major World economic powers over their, the West’s, deliberate collapsing of the present Global economic system in order to install their long sought after New World Order.
Full Story Online
China’s intent to carry out on their threat, these reports say, began this past week when, as perhaps best stated by one American financial analyst, China told the West to go “straight to hell” when the Chinese stated they would deliberately default on Trillions-of dollars in US backed debt security instruments called OTC because they were fraudulently created by Western bankers and as such are now considered an “act of war”.
As President Obama decides whether to send more troops to Afsghanistan, we should remember that most of the conventional pessimism about Afghanistan is only half-truth.
Remember the mantra that the region is the “graveyard of empires,” where Alexander the Great, the British in the 19th century, and the Soviets only three decades ago inevitably met their doom?
In fact, Alexander conquered most of Bactria and its environs (which included present-day Afghanistan). After his death, the area that is now Afghanistan became part of the Seleucid Empire.
Centuries later, outnumbered British-led troops and civilians were initially ambushed, and suffered many casualties, in the first Afghan war. But the British were not defeated in their subsequent two Afghan wars between 1878 and 1919.
The Soviets did give up in 1989 their nine-year effort to create out of Afghanistan a communist buffer state — but only because the Arab world, the United States, Pakistan and China combined to provide the Afghan mujahideen resistance with billions of dollars in aid, not to mention state-of-the-art anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.
While Afghans have been traditionally fierce resistance fighters and made occupations difficult, they have rarely for long defeated invaders — and never without outside assistance.
A good example of why learning from the past can be useful.
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October 31, 2009
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Chimera of Victory
By GIAN P. GENTILE
If history is a guide, then the recent suicide bombings in Baghdad show that the insurgency in Iraq is far from over. Contrary to much of what is written and said, victory is not near and the notion that the “surge” of troops was some great, decisive military action that set the stage for political reconciliation is a chimera.
It was a chimera for the French in Algeria that their bloody counterinsurgency there defeated Algerian nationalists. After the war, which lasted from 1956 to 1961, a myth started to build in the French Army and then found its way into American Army thinking, where it lives on today, that the French military operations defeated the insurgents.
If one takes the “battlefield” to include all challenges, not just the challenge of a battle in a singular time and place, then this search is the mother of all searches.
We like to use the analogy of sailboat racing, something we learned from a video, DVD: THE ART OF RACING SAILING. This DVD begins with an inspection of the hull of the sailboat out of the water and the point is that the race is often won or lost BEFORE THE RACE EVEN BEGINS. If you have failed to assure a correct hull; if you have failed to train, equip, and organize the right forces for the right mission, if you have failed to understand the historical, cultural, and geographical reality you are entering into a context with; then no amount of excellence on the field itself will prevail.
One of the great things about being the touchstone for public intelligence is the contacts that are made by students, officers and enlisted personnel serving in the field, and so many others.
While we were in Denmark, an officer now serving in Iraq sent us some questions that we answered to the best of our ability. The questions alone are listed here. For the answers, click on the cover.
1. We never should have invaded Iraq. I have a less developed opinion on Afghanistan, but if I had to say one way or another, that was probably a mistake as well.
Do these mistakes fall solely on the Bush administration?
Was the administrating that incompetent or did they have an immoral and selfish reason such as fleecing the U.S.?
Was it shortsighted political gain objectives with an underestimation of the downside?
We will have at least double the amount of dead service members before these conflicts are over as were killed during the 9/11 attacks. I read somewhere that we have 75,000 amputees due to the two conflicts not to mention the amount of PTSD. Who has the blood on their hands? Certainly nobody is willing to admit mistakes.
I don't understand how Cheney can even think about spouting off after how the conflicts have gone. Where is the cost vs gain analysis?
2. Once we did invade, we didn't have a solid plan and we didn't bring nearly enough troops if we planned on staying. Was this mainly Rumsfeld's fault?
