The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Stability Operations for Dummies: The Role of the Prvate Sector in Iraq (YouTube Briefing) Doug Brooks, founding President of the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) has a video circulating that offers the soft sales pitch for outsourcing “contingency support.” It is all positive and completely avoids all of the negatives, such as: 1. Pillaging and …
Continue reading “Worth a Look: Contractors in Stability Operations”
Chuck Spinney sends: In my opinion, this is an extremely important piece of writing and needs to be read very carefully. The author of this article built an international reputation for excellence during his reporting on the Iraq War, and now he is positioning himself to do the same on Afghanistan. Conflating al Qaeda with …
Continue reading “Journal: US Begins Regional War on Pashtun”
Clinton And Gates: No Deadline On Afghan Withdrawal — We Swear! Chuck Spinney Sends…. In today’s cameos [summary attached below] on the Sunday talk show circuit, Defense Secretary Gates (no doubt the Surge’s wily deus ex machina) and Secretary of State Clinton (Gates’ transparent accomplice) stated again that there is no deadline for a withdrawal of US …
Continue reading “Journal: Withdrawal? We Don’t Need No Stinking Withdrawal…”
Chuck Spinney Sends…. Last night President Obama crossed the Rubicon and made the Afghan War his war. Will this decision come back to haunt him? Juan Cole argues that this is likely to be the case, because Obama’s escalation decision is based on a flawed analogy. Reasoning by analogy is powerful albeit particularly dangerous form of …
Continue reading “Journal: Flawed Analogies Bush the President?”
Chuck Spinney sends…. The Afghan debacle is becoming a case study of how political debate in Versailles drips in a naturally self-organizing way to protect the dysfunctional status quo. As I indicated yesterday and in September, the fundamental flaw that set the stage for the current policy making fiasco was the unexamined analytical hole in …
Continue reading “Journal: Versailles on the Potomac Implodes…Again”
Obama and the Triumph of the Will The Afghan War Question By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY November 12, 2009 In the opening lines of the oldest treatise on the conduct of war, Sun Tzu said that the question of war is vital to the state, and therefore, it is imperative to study it. This timeless advice …
Continue reading “Journal: Chuck Spinny on Collapse of Reason”
Chuck Spinney Sends… As someone who has lived in Turkey for most of the last two years, I have watched the development of her foreign policy with great interest, not to mention a good deal of confusion It is hard to make sense out this rapidly-emerging, vibrant country of 70 million, increasingly well-educated, industrious people. …
