KING NOTHING & THE DECLINE OF EMPIRES

From the group Metallica ... While I'm not a fan of Metallica (my son shared this with me), "King Nothing" is a music video that hits on many of the topics we've been discussing in my International Relations class. Specifically, we've been focusing on the rise and decline of empires, and how empires over time have consistently pursued conflict and war (i.e. what ends up being hegemonic war) when they sense their hold on power is slipping away. Things don't go well towards the end.

Fair Warning: While some of the clips in the video may be a bit strong for some, the "King Nothing" message is provocative and offers some insight into why we're not safer after conducting our War on Terror ...



- Mark

SOME 9/11 THOUGHTS

 "The opportunity of defeating the enemy

is provided by the enemy himself."

- Sun Tzu, approximately 500 B.C.

Ted Koppel has an interesing article in the Washington Post that wraps a couple of thoughts together. First, it prompts us to consider what the following have in common.

* Saddam Hussein has developed weapons of mass destruction.

* Saddam Hussein has developed, or is in the process of developing, nuclear weapons.

* There's a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

* The rise of a national security state and a swollen national security apparatus.

* Overblown hysteria  over a proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan.

* A minister in Florida threatening to burn copies of the Koran, which alienates even our friends in the Muslim world.

They are all tied together because they are the product of a fear and hysteria-drenched mind set that has engulfed large segments of the American population, including much of our political leadership. Some of it is warranted in a post-9/11 environment. Much of it is also political pandering.
 
Still, as I pointed out in 2003, this may also be playing right into what Osama bin Laden wants for America - the gradual unwinding of our social, moral and political fabric. Fear, paranoia, and petty grandstanding all serve this agenda. So does the creation of an inward-looking national security state that seems to care little about what over-hyped security, and ill-advised war, really costs.
 

 
Indeed, as Ted Koppel points out, in a 2004 video message bin Laden boasted about leading America on the path to self-destruction.
 

All we have to do is send two mujaheddin . . . to raise a small piece of cloth on which is written 'al-Qaeda' in order to make the generals race there, to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses.

Koppel adds that after spending of a few hundred thousand dollars, then training and sacrificing 19 of his best foot soldiers, that bin Laden:

... has watched his relatively tiny and all but anonymous organization of a few hundred zealots turn into the most recognized international franchise since McDonald's. Could any enemy of the United States have achieved more with less? ... Could bin Laden, in his wildest imaginings, have hoped to provoke greater chaos? It is past time to reflect on what our enemy sought, and still seeks, to accomplish -- and how we have accommodated him.

I couldn't have said it any better.

- Mark

BEWARE OF TERRORIST MOSQUE BABIES ... AND OTHER GOP DISTRACTIONS

Do you want to know what the political strategy for the Republican Party is this November? Check this out ...

That's about it. The GOP knows they can't run on their "let's-cut-taxes-and-deficits-will-disappear" record in November. The truth behind that lie has been exposed. Their record on two failed wars is nothing to write home about either.

And forget about bringing George W. Bush back to campaign for candidates. Even die-hard republicans know that he's an embarrassment. History will show his presidency to be a train wreck of epoch proportions ...

The goal of the republican party this November is to distract and trot out false threats that have little to do with what actually confronts our country. The goal is to encourage Americans to forget about the Bush years, and to remind Americans that they need to fear what the GOP fears ... which is pretty much their own shadow.

In this case their shadows are being followed by a spooky set of foreigners, led by Terrorist Babies, Undocument Workers, and non-existent mosques being constructed in lower Manhattan. Think about it. How many times over the past month have you been told to be afraid of this guy ...

And, of course, we know many terrorists (and their babies) crossed the border from Mexico 35 years ago in order to fly airplanes into buildings. You know, the guys that looked like this  ...

You would think that after years of being lied to by George W. Bush (are we still looking for those WMDs?), and being told to be afraid "or else", that Americans would be used to hearing about false enemies built on a pack of lies. Apparently not.

Instead, we're treated to the idiocy of Newt "I'm-Working-On-Wife#4" Gingrich, and assertions that building an Islamic community center (it's not a mosque) two blocks away from ground zero is akin to the nazis building a center close to a cherished Jewish site.

Apart from the fact that not all muslims are terrorists, we need to consider what it means that republicans and conservatives want to turn the proposed community center in Manhattan into a wedge issue. To be sure, people on the left like Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) have jumped on the "let's be afraid" bandwagon. But we need to remember that Harry Reid is in the middle of tough election, where the nut jobs (i.e. the Tea Baggers) are out in force. 

The reality is that the GOP wants you to forget how their failed policies gave us the Bush Debacalypse, which we see in two failed wars, a collapsed economy, and political incompetence of the highest order. This is why the GOP wants you to stare into the political equivalent of this ...

Go ahead and stare.

And then go ahead and focus on a non-existent Manhattan mosque that will surely house undocmented terrorist babies from Mexico. But stare into the optical illusions first. At least it will challenge your senses into considering the deceptive force of optics.

But beware. Following the GOP's lead on things like terrorist babies in non-existent mosques will only lead you down a crippling mind path sure to make you crazy stupid. Oh, look, a shiny spoon.

- Mark

TWO MORE ARRESTED IN PAKISTAN

We know that we're getting some great intelligence from the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab. He's talking, in part, because his parents got him to speak because they believe in the U.S. legal system (and not because of the threat of torture). Then came the arrest of Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s military commander and the deputy to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the movement’s founder. This capture came as a result of a joint operation by the C.I.A. and Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, ISI.

This morning the NY Times is reporting that over the past few days two senior Taliban leaders - also known as "shadow governors" in their northern Afghanistan regions - were arrested inside Pakistan. I'm just wondering how long it will take Fox News and/or the Republicans to spin this success into their now predictable Miranda warning death spiral.

Seriously. We could capture or kill every al Qaeda member, and their copycat wannabes, and Fox News would probably run with the headline, "Obama Asleep at the Wheel ... al Qaeda Masterminds Still Hiding in Hitler-like Bunkers?"

- Mark

EXPLAINING SEN. BOND'S RAMBLING ON MSNBC

Missouri Senator Kit Bond (Republican) makes the argument that President Obama's handling of terror suspects is making us less safe. You be the judge as to strength of Senator Bonds' argument.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What's clear is that Senator Bond needs to familiarize himself with some of the bigger Supreme Court cases surrounding the issue of prosecuting enemy combatants, and what's been happening in recent cases (he also looks a bit lost from time to time, but I'll leave that for another day).

Both Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) make it clear that (1) U.S. citizens classified as enemy combatants (Hamdi) can not be held indefinitely without due process protections, which include the right to counsel, (2) the executive branch can't control all aspects of a trial concerning enemy combatants (evidence gathering, prosectution, appeal, etc.) with military commissions not sanctioned by Congress, and (3) Geneva Convention protections apply to enememy combatants.

While Hamdi v. Rumsfeld has little to do with one of the cases Sen. Bond discusses - the Christmas day bomber - it is instructive for what it tells us about the rule of law in America, even when it comes to enemy combatants. Primarily, Hamdi suggests that we don't lose our heads because a group of crazies attacked us. It also tells us that we can follow the rule of law even when the going gets tough.

At the heart of Senator Bonds' remarks is his concern that the Christmas day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, will use civilian courts as a soapbox from which to recruit other would-be terrorists in America (because we all know how effective the Charlie Manson trial was in furthering his Helter Skelter delusion). Senator Bond seems to forget that our court forums aren't at the heart of what drives the al Qaeda nut jobs. There are a ton of books and articles written that make this clear.

Worse is Senator Bond's claim that reading Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights made him clam up. This, according to Senator Bond, makes America less safe. If we are to accept the FBI's account of things - which I'm inclined to do - Senator Bond is not telling the truth. Put another way, he's lying. According to FBI Director Robert Mueller, who testified in front of Congress, the FBI agents who interrogated Abdulmutallab did not advise him of his Miranda right until after he made it clear that he wasn't going to cooperate with any more questioning.

Just as significantly, Abdulmutallab began to testify after his relatives talked to him and convinced him to cooperate. They did this not because they feared that Abdulmutallab would be tortured. Rather, according to a senior administration official, they helped investigators because they had faith in the U.S. legal system:

One of the principal reasons why his family came back is because they had complete trust in the US system of justice and believed that Umar Farouq would be treated fairly and appropriately ...

Look, if Senator Bond is concerned about Miranda rights, interrogation techniques, and how we go about securing information, he needs to refamiliarize himself with the Shoe Bomber case of Richard Reid (among others). He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison by a civilian court on the intelligence he offered up after he was was read his Miranda rights. Reid's conviction happened during the Bush administration. Hundreds more have been prosecuted under similar circumstances in civilian courts as well (during the Bush administration).

At the end of the day, we need to remember that there are terrorists and other criminally crazy thugs who don't want to be captured in or by the United States. This happens for a reason. Drug kingpins (like Pablo Escobar) and others undertand how competent and tough our legal system is, and they make extraordinary efforts to avoid capture and extradition to the United States. Republicans don't seem to appreciate this, which is puzzling for many. But not me.

In my view the Republicans fear using our civil court system to try suspected enemy combatants not because of traffic jams and the expenses tied to a trial, as they claim. These are red herrings. Rather, they understand that the more success we have in civilian courts, the more people will understand that their militarized position and fear mongering doesn't always hold water. This makes them less relevant. The fact that they can't scare America into being afraid like they are, quite frankly, scares them.

I'll leave it at that for now.

- Mark

DICK CHENEY: SUFFERING FROM "POLITICAL TOURETTES"?

MSNBC's Ed Schultz and Rep. Eric Massa (a former naval commander) go after Dick Cheney (and the Republican Party) for being cowards. Dick Cheney, according to Rep. Massa, suffers from political tourettes syndrome.



Rachel Maddow also goes after Dick Cheney for being the hypocrite and coward that he is.



Why Republicans respect and follow Dick Cheney is a mystery to me. Why Americans believe that Republicans have a handle on war and terror - after watching President Bush and VP Cheney wage war like the political incompetents they are - is simply befuddling.

- Mark

UNDERSTANDING THE C0NSERVATIVE FEAR MONGERER

I've been gone for a couple of days. Grading and turkey have kept me busy. So I'll start back with "This Modern World" cartoon.

Those of you who follow my blog know that I haven't written too much about the Attorney General's decision to try some of the 9/11 conspirators in New York. This cartoon captures the moment (click on the cartoon to enlarge).

Simply put - and as I have pointed out many times on my radio program - conservatives and Republicans have no other meme except for "be afraid because I am." I know, it's pathetic but they're the bedwetters ...

- Mark

NATIONAL SECURITY, OR CYA?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserted today that the C.I.A. had "misled" Congress about its techniques. At the same time Pelosi acknowledged she learned that the CIA had subjected suspects to waterboarding in 2003.

Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, comments yesterday should help open Pandora's Box on the relationship between torture and the Bush administration's real goals behind torture (if the press can piece together the pieces):

... what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 -- well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion -- its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

In a few words, when it comes to torture, the Bush administration may not have been so concerned about national security as much as they were in CYA mode.

- Mark

UPDATE: It appears that evidence for using torture to uncover a "Saddam-Al qaeda" link has Sea Legs ...

*Two U.S. intelligence officers confirm that Vice President Cheney’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner, a former intelligence official for Saddam Hussein, who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection.

*The former chief of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, in charge of interrogations, tells The Daily Beast that he considered the request reprehensible.

TORTURE & WAR IN IRAQ

According to McClatchy News the Bush administration "applied relentless pressure on interrogators" to torture detainees in part "to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime." You can find the Armed Services Committee Report here.

In a few words this means the Bush administrtion did not torture simply to secure information "to keep us safe" (a lie for another day). Rather they tortured because they desparately needed to find a link between Sadaam Hussein and al Qaeda because they screwed up on the WMD claim. Think about what this means. Because the Bush administration screwed up and believed what serial liar Ahmed Chalabi and other neo-con "sources" had to say about Iraq they felt that they needed to torture to come up with quick information to justify starting a war in Iraq.

- Mark

EXPLAINING OBAMA'S NEW IRAQ TIME TABLE

President Obama has extended his own time table for taking combat troops out of Iraq. He also plans on leaving between 30,000 and 50,000 of our military personel for training and other purposes. Some have expressed disappointment that we're not pulling out entirely. The disappointment is misplaced. Here's why.

President Obama is not President Bush. Unlike President Bush, who reacted like Homer Simpson pursuing a couple of hornets through the woods, President Obama isn't going to simply take a whack at the hornet's nest that is the Middle East. He's thought this trough. He's no Homer Simpson.


This is what President Obama sees, and understands ...

* The al Qaeda nutjobs in Iraq - who were NOT there before the war - are predominantly Sunnis.

* Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, has helped out Shiite extremists in Iraq (which John McCain didn't know).

* Many of the Sunnis are coming from states that are supposed to be our allies, like Saudi Arabia (which is predominantly Sunni).

* Sunnis think Shiites are apostates.

What all of this means is that if we leave Iraq, and take out all of our military personnel, the Iranians would step in to help the Shiites. The Saudis have told us that they would then have to help the Sunnis in Iraq (in part because the Saudis know that by keeping the Sunni nut jobs in Iraq they aren't going after their corrupt and kleptocratic regime). We might then see a full scale regional conflagration, which the Saudis have suggested would happen.

And I haven't even mentioned the Kurds in northern Iraq who have been perhaps our best allies in Iraq, but have few friends in Turkey (and Iraq).

Now do you understand now why I made the George-Bush-Homer-Simpson-hornet's-nest reference? What a mess.

Look, at the end of the day there are no good options in Iraq. We can't afford to stay there with present troop levels for 100 years, like John McCain suggested on the campaign. President Obama's best option lies simply with keeping a lid on things until we're on the path towards energy independence ...

- Mark

RICHARD A. CLARKE, DIRECTOR OF CIA?

From a policy perspective, I'm completely in favor of this: Richard A. Clarke for Director of CIA.


Author of Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, former counterterrorism czar, Clarke was perhaps the only guy in Washington D.C. who knew what was happening on 9/11.



Richard A. Clarke is so respected that when his book came out, where he essentially said the Bush administration didn't know what the hell they were doing in the War on Terror, the republican-led Congress did nothing. Even Karl Rove and his slime machine goons from the right left him alone. He knew too much.

Anyone who has has read his book understands why he would be a good pick.

- Mark

AL QAEDA [HEARTS] McCAIN?

According to the Washington Post, it appears that Al Qaeda wants John McCain to win. He's good for recruitment and helps their larger cause. Here's what the terrorists are saying ...

"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.

And why do they want the McCain-Bush policy approach to continue? Because President Bush and the Republicans have taken our country into an Al Qaeda trap they believe has "exhausted" our resources and "bankrupted" our nation's economy" (although, to be fair, Wall Street is helping out here too). They want this to continue.

Apparently, Al Qaeda thinks a terrorist strike "might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world" - further bloating our national debt.


So, Al Qaeda thinks that getting the U.S. into a prolonged war is good because it will bankrupt the nation? All they need is a wannabe tough guy war monger in the White House, and a few well placed terror attacks. George W. Bush, it turns out, was the perfect stooge. Who would have thought?

Oh yeah, me. In this Bakersfield Californian article, over five years ago.

- Mark

PAKISTAN'S MUSHARRAF RESIGNS

With the threat of impeachment hanging over him Pakistan Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf has resigned. This is good news.

While the administration claimed that he was an ally in their War on Terror, Musharraf never came close to catching Osama bin Laden (and more likely allowed him to roam freely), was less than concerned about the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, cracked down on the democratic impulse in Pakistan by going after political enemies, went after judges and the court system for their role in questioning his policies, and did little when A.Q. Kahn was caught selling nuclear secrets to North Korea, Libya, and Iran.

Perhaps more importantly, Musharraf did little to curb the growing Taliban presence in Pakistan. Today, the Taliban has been "rejuvenated" and "now virtually control Pakistan’s tribal region bordering Afghanistan."

Fortunately, after jumping from single digits in Pakistan's parliament to 56 seats in 2002, Pakistan's religious right has fallen on hard times (6 seats today). But Musharraf had little to do with their poor electoral showing earlier this year. The religious far right was criticized for not bringing home the bacon for their constituents, and for being too cozy with Musharraf in his on-again, off-again War on Terror in Pakistan's tribal regions.

I'll have more to say about this on Saturday.

- Mark

BUSH'S MILITARY TRIBUNAL REBUKED

In what the Miami Herald called "a stunning rebuke" of President Bush's crown jewel case for his military commission tribunal, a six-person jury made up of senior U.S. military officers rejected the Pentagon's request to give Osama bin Laden's driver 30 years for providing "material support" to al Qaeda.

Salim Hamdan, who made news when the United States Supreme Court said he (and others) was entitled to habeus corpus, was sentenced to 66 months in prison. Given credit for being held the past 61 months, Hamdan is scheduled to be released before President Bush leaves office.

What a joke. The Bush administration set the rules with their Military Commissions Act, had a jury full of military officers, and was able to introduce just about any evidence they wanted (including that which was produced under torture) ... and all they got was a conviction for something Hamdan admitted to from the very beginning - that he was bin Laden's driver.

Somebody call the American Bar Association ... these guys deserve a medal.

- Mark

McCAIN'S CLUELESS ON "THE SURGE"

With all of John McCain's whining about The Surge, I think it's important to remember that The Surge was not responsible for the decline in violence in Iraq. As I posted back in March the decline in violence is a product of four developments.

1. Moqtada al-Sadr's August 2007 cease-fire.

2. The Anbar Awakening, Sept. 2006 (Sunni's say no to Al Qaeda).

3. The physical separation of Shi'a and Sunnis right before The Surge.

4. The Low-Hanging Fruit of Death are gone (Shi'a & Sunnis move out of old "integrated" neighborhoods by August 2007).

To be sure, The Surge helped solidify the gains that would come from these developments. But this makes The Surge a "supporting" rather than determining factor for Iraq's decline in violence.

Still, John McCain seems to think that supporting The Surge is a sign of good judgment on his part (but curiously says little about his support for going into Iraq in the first place). But his worst gaffe yesterday was making the claim that The Surge made the Anbar Awakening possible. Huh? Doesn't McCain know how to read a calendar (we know he can't read a map)?

And foreign policy is supposed to be his strong point.

Fortunately MSNBC has the goods on McCain's time-line blunder.



So let's be clear here. Supporting The Surge does not make you a military genius, nor does it make you presidential.

It only means you're George Bush's lapdog.

- Mark

BONEHEADED MISCALCULATIONS ...

I don't always agree with some of the information and observations I get from the financial news or newsletters I receive regularly, but this one from The Daily Reckoning offers some very sobering observations. Here's a snippet ...

The most boneheaded miscalculation of all time...

“Terrorism will be reduced...weapons of mass murder will be limited, people will be safer around the world, human rights and democracy will be unleashed in the Middle East, and the fragile outlook for world prosperity will be improved... The uncertainty tax on world growth will be lowered too, as will the energy tax from temporarily spiking oil prices.”

This was Larry Kudlow writing in March, 2003.

The spike in oil prices he described took place on March 12th, 2003, pushing the price of a barrel of crude all the way up to $37.83 and the price of a gallon of gasoline to $1.72. Yesterday, oil closed at $137 and gas sells for $4.06.

But Kudlow was hardly alone in his hallucinations. Laurence Lindsey, then George Bush’s senior economic advisor, looked into his own crystal ball and saw nothing he didn’t like.

“Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits... The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil,” thereby driving down oil prices.  

Paul Wolfowitz, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, went on to reassure the nation that Iraqi oil revenues would pay all the costs of reconstructing the country.

Today, we are talking about one of the most boneheaded miscalculations of all time. Almost with a single maladroit stroke, a relatively small group of world-improvers undermined the progress of 9 generations. Five years later, Americans are on the losing end of the “biggest transfer of wealth in history,” as T. Boone Pickens described the oil market of 2008. George W. Bush has the highest disapproval ratings of any U.S. president in history. America’s most profitable industry – finance – has collapsed...its currency has lost a third of its value...and European, Chinese and Indian economists are wagging their fingers saying, “I told you so.”

But here at The Daily Reckoning we always look on the bright side. And the sunny side of this story is that the United States needed to be humbled. After the Soviet Union fell to its knees in 1990, America had a monopoly on worldwide military force. Nature abhors a monopoly; she needed to take the U.S. down a peg. Who better to do the job than this group of neo-cons? They knew no history; nor did they understand economics. They were the perfect people to lead the nation to disgrace and bankruptcy.

Mr. Kudlow continued his miscalculation by referring to a survey, in which 69% of respondents said they would gladly pay $300 for the war.

So far this year alone, the price of crude has risen 40%. It’s now $100 higher than when the neo-cons took America into the Iraq War. Each American uses 25 barrels of oil per year. This is equivalent to a tax of $2,500 in additional energy expense per person...or $10,000 for a family of four, annually. In addition, the war itself is estimated to cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Divide that by the number of U.S. families and you get a figure of $10,000 or more.

Ooops ...

And on and on it goes. Long story short, even the financial analysts have had it with the Bush administration. And why not? As the articles points out:

When Larry Kudlow, Laurence Lindsey and Paul Wolfowitz were explaining how nice it would be to rough up the Middle East, the average suburban American household spent $1,422 on gasoline. Now, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the sum has risen to $3,196.

Read the entire article if you can (it may have a subscription wall). It explains, without trying, why John "I'm-Bush's-Third-Term" McCain should not president.

- Mark

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

From MilitaryTimes.com ...

First the good news. With recent security advances in Iraq, it looks like the U.S. military is finding more and more weapons caches in public places. Better tips combined with cash rewards are leading to so many successful raids that the U.S. military is on track to find and clear more caches by the end of August than in all of 2007 (no word on whether weapon and ammo counts will be higher too).

Now the bad news. According to John Pike, a military and security analyst, “It seems to me that the amount that has been confiscated is small relative to the amount that might be out there.”

Bad News, II. After reading the story I get the sense that the U.S. Military is little more than Iraq's billion dollar police department.

And now for the real Good News. You, me, and our kids (and grandkids) get to pay for it all.

- Mark

ANOTHER FRIEDMAN UNIT?

I can’t believe Tom Friedman, from the NY Times, is still trying to give advice on Iraq.

As I noted in yesterday’s post op-ed columnist Tom Friedman once beat the war drums about George Bush’s “audacious shake of the dice” in Iraq. In today’s column he's trying to exhort the next president to “think” about Iraq so that we might “salvage” something out of President Bush’s Blundering Wars Project. In a few words he’s suggesting that the next president, or the next couple of years, will determine whether we can leave Iraq successfully.

Has he just created another “Friedman Unit”?

For those who don’t remember, Tom Friedman demonstrated his inability to think things through by arguing on 14 different occassions immediately after the invasion of Iraq that “the next six months” would determine “whether a decent outcome is possible." Not only was Friedman wrong, but his consistently failed apocalyptic opinions led other more astute watchers to ridicule his dire warnings as a “Friedman Unit”, which is generally viewed as any six month period that gets labeled as “crucial” to the outcome of Iraq.

Friedman’s attempt to pin Iraq’s success or failure on the next president – and not George W. Bush – shouldn’t come as a surprise. Failed analysis on the real big things seems to be his calling.

I'll try and post a little more on this later. It helps to explain what's wrong with our national press.

- Mark

ON STRIKING IRAN ...

Last year America’s preeminent intelligence agency – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence – issued its National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (“Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities”) which determined that “Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” in the fall of 2003. Still the Bush administration is bent on making it clear that a military strike against Iran is still possible before the end of President Bush’s second term.

This is important because it means that the reported use of nuclear weapons against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities also remains possible. While there are several very good, and technical reasons, to fear this scenario this interactive clip from the Union of Concerned Scientists explains several of the potential pitfalls of using nuclear weapons (i.e. nuclear bunker busters) to attack Iran. The clip is really worth watching.

- Mark

THE ART OF WAR ... "IF I WAS A TERRORIST"

Over five years ago I wrote this article.

In the article I suggest we should consider that Osama bin Laden might NOT be some deranged lunatic, or an out of control fanatic. I ask, What if he believes destabilizing America only requires pushing the United States into a sustained wartime economic binge? Further, what if he understood that goading the United States into massive budget deficits, which shove trillions of dollars into the global economy, would eventually undermine the value of the U.S. dollar and threaten our economic stability?

This kind of thinking would impress Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War. In the book Sun Tzu argued true mastery of war involves "deception" and the capacity to break the enemy without seeking military battle.

Specifically, Sun Tzu wrote the "skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field."

If this was Osama bin Laden’s thinking, the events of 9/11 were a big score. Today we have record debt, the dollar is in free fall mode, inflation is a coming reality, and inattention to the nation’s economy because of President Bush’s Blundering Wars Project. This has to be pleasing to Osama bin Laden.

All of this helps make this clip – “If I was a Terrorist” – so interesting.



If 9/11 was designed to be the catalyst for a series of responses and events (which President Bush clearly fell into), Osama bin Laden might prove himself to be a Master Student of yet another Sun Tzu maxim: "The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."

- Mark