Category Archives: Military

#Langley Has The Last Word:#ForeignPolicy On The#CIA

A Foreign Policy essay makes the case that the CIA is, effectively, running American foreign policy. It concedes what seems obvious: Despite a budget of billions ($14.7 billion in 2013, “up from the $4.8 billion in 1994”), the agency “was notoriously wrong about Saddam Hussein’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, a cataclysmic mistake that eased the path to the Iraq War,” and it failed “to help detect or prevent the 9/11 plot.”

Some salient points:

* The agency has “a direct line to the White House for open-ended covert programs.”
* It has “explicit permission to use [drones] in larger areas of Pakistan than before.” “‘The CIA gets what it wants,’ Obama has told his aides.”
* “Through … machinations, the spy agency has managed to weaken or eliminate crucial counterweights to its own power.”
* “Since its creation in 1947, the CIA has steadily evolved from an agency devoted to its mission of spying on foreign governments to one whose current priority is tracking and killing individual militants in an increasing number of countries.”
* “… from drone strikes in the Middle East to the network of secret prisons around the world and the torture that occurred within their walls—[all] originated at Langley.”
* “… the agency had waded even more deeply into the dark world of assassinations by hiring outside contractors associated with Blackwater, a firm synonymous with abuses in Iraq, to kill individual militants on the ground.”
* “In Pakistan alone, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates, CIA drones killed as many as 960 civilians between June 2004 and April 2015, including up to 207 children.”
* The CIA’s has just about direct access to the White House. It “answers to no one except the president.”
* “… much of its workforce has been plugged into ‘the Ivy League, Eastern power structure of American politics.’ … its alumni are in key positions throughout the U.S. government.”
* Obama has embraced “the Bush-era CIA abuses,” this, presumably, includes torture, rendition, etc.

Since its creation in 1947, the CIA has steadily evolved from an agency devoted to its mission of spying on foreign governments to one whose current priority is tracking and killing individual militants in an increasing number of countries.

READ “Mission Unstoppable.”

Oh, Please: #SeymourHersh Is Old-School Reliable

Bush, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Journalism, Military

‘Whoring and Warring In the Military: What’s New?’

Military, Morality, The State

“Former CIA Director David Petraeus has been sentenced to two years probation and handed a $100,000 fine for leaking classified information to his biographer and former mistress.” (FoxNews)

What exactly did Petraeus do? Here’s the chronology in “Whoring and Warring In the Military: What’s New?”

There’s David Petraeus, former CIA director, formerly a four-star general who cultivated his own celebrity. There’s his mistress-cum-stalker, the bombastic, narcissistic Paula Broadwell, who despite—or, rather, because of—her pockmarked character has been propelled to prominence by the country’s elites. There’s Petraeus’ even skankier BFF (Best Friends Forever), Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, and her dysfunctional twin. Primped like street walkers, the twins can be seen in pictures, flanking their BFF and his ungroomed, graying wife, Holly Petraeus.

The fawning press takes the position that this—the flotsam and jetsam of American society—is indeed an aristocracy of talent and merit. Broadwell, they tell us, was soul-mate and intellectual companion to our grandiose general. Their mating was a meeting of minds. Woe is me!

In the tradition of this “meritocracy” is U.S. Marine General John Allen. Mentored by Petraeus, Allen is the top American commander in Afghanistan, and candidate for supreme commander of NATO. Allen and Kelley were caught in flagrante. As a shrinking segment of America toiled to support these ponces in-style, the two had been exchanging 20,000 to 30,000 steamy, pixelated pages over the course of two years.

On behalf of the twin sister of the Tampa tease, Allen and his mentor Petraeus went so far as to join forces and intervene in a (no doubt sordid) child-custody dispute, heard in the District of Columbia Superior Court.

Petraeus’s paramour blew her cover as the lover some months back. The pushy, dumbbell-obsessed lightweight is said to have threatened the cheap-looking BFF (Kelly). One source dismissed the threat as a mere “cat fight”; the other hyped it as a “stay away from my guy, or else” broadside. (And the difference between these “barbed” observations?)

Described by ABC’s Brian Ross as a “name-dropping, social-climbing, bored socialite, who ingratiated herself to the brass through parties and favors,” the Tampa tease’s grating self-importance played out on a 911 call, in which she demands protection from the media. “‘Cause I’m an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability” she told the dispatcher in Kim-Kardashian twang.

Why appeal to the rights of private property, when you enjoy the prerogatives of celebrity?

As for Broadwell’s romp through elite institutions stateside and abroad: A graduate of West Point, Broadwell holds degrees from and a research associate’s position at Harvard. She was made a poster girl for “Inspired Women Magazine.” By invitation of our country’s cognoscenti, Broadwell took her groupie tour to C-SPAN’s Book TV, and on the speaker’s circuit. (Bristol Palin is there too, commanding between $15,000 and $30,000 a pop.)

Richly revealing is the Ph.D. in “Petraeus” on which Broadwell is “working.” Broadwell’s “thesis” tells you all you need to know about intellectual life in the West. This Anatomy-of-a-Leader dissertation was green-lighted by the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, no less, where Broadwell was accepted as a Ph.D. candidate.”

Read the rest.

March Madness À La Myron Pauli

Bush, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Military, Terrorism

MARCH MADNESS À LA MYRON ROBERT PAULI

If there’s an activity that is definitely hazardous to my mental health, it is following the news. News item #1: The Army wants to courtmartial Generalissimo Bowe Bergdahl. He was a Private First Class when he apparently deserted but received “automatic promotions” to Sergeant since. Given enough time, he will be a Four-Star General! I stupidly asked: “If the Army promoted him twice, does this not indicate ‘reasonable doubt’ as to his desertion?” only be told that “automatic promotions” are the law!! Maybe it is me (who cites Grover Cleveland “public office is a public trust”) that doesn’t understand how Major Nidal Malik Hasan received the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal (thank you, Nidal) as well as two National Defense Service Medals.

As for our hero Nidal: None of the psychiatrists who served with him either sensed something wrong or could do anything about him. According to Wikipedia, Chief of Staff General Casey of the Army observed: “‘real tragedy’ would be harming the cause of diversity, saying, ‘As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.” Several months later, in a February 2010 interview, Casey said, “Our diversity—not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.” Not only is Nidal still alive (he should have been shot after his first shot by troops bearing arms, but that is another craziness), but he has been writing letters to ISIS from prison!

In Catch-22, Joseph Heller had a character named Milo Minderbinder who wound up having the Air Force bombing both sides in order to collect more profit. When the Iraq-Iran war broke out in 1980, I joked that under the CENTO Treaty (Baghdad Pact – the Middle East version of NATO), the US was obligated to fight for both Iraq and Iran. Well, as of this week, America’s now fighting WITH Iran against the ISIS Sunnis in Tikrit and fighting WITH Saudi Arabia against the Houthi Shiites in Yemen.

Of course, Iraq got completely destabilized by George W. Bush trying to bring “democracy” to Shiite-majority Iraq while Yemen got destabilized when Barack Obama tried to bring “democracy” to Sunni-majority Yemen. But, to quote Madeline Albright, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” – even on both sides!

And Congress voted 338 – 48 to ship heavier weapons to Ukraine in order to help stick it to nuclear armed Big Bad Vlad Putin. I’m not sure where this insanity is going to end, up but I am imagining Major King Kong of Dr. Strangelove suiting up to ride that bomb down on Russia waving his cowboy hat and shouting yeehaw!

And while the Iranians, Saudis, and Ukrainians are “protecting our freedom,” I can at least salute the ACLU for defending a black pro-life conservative being silenced by “trademark infringement” for non-commercial speech calling the NAACP the “National Association to Abort Colored People.” The case went to Justice Raymond A. Jackson who decided that this criticism of the NAACP was NOT parody (because he said “it wasn’t funny”), but was “trademark infringement.” Justice Jackson is a distinguished jurist whose sister-in-law, Elaine R. Jones, was President of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (“surprise, surprise, surprise” said Gomer Pyle about this ubiquitous conflict of interest). Naturally, Justice Jackson could not recuse himself from this case because if 300,000 black babies were not aborted every year, one of them could grow up to be Justice Jackson! As for the silenced Ryan Bomberger, who objects to aborting 55 percent of all black fetuses; he clearly is a RACIST!

Lastly, the Republicans are holding up the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be Attorney General. For doing this filibuster, they are RACIST, according to Senator Durban and the Democrats who held up the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the Federal District Court for two years via a filibuster. I have to confess that I am looking forward to Attorney General Lynch. I can envision the headline: “Justice Department adopts Lynch rules.”