Michael Ledeen has come out and said what’s been circulating on the grapevine about the release of the Qods detainees in Iraq to Iran. “I’ll Give You Dozens of Terrorists, You Give Me One Journalist, OK?” Ledeen writes:
It’s a bit more complicated than that, but the bottom line is that we are turning loose Iranian terrorists in exchange for the release of Roxana Saberi, plus, probably, three British hostages. The first payment arrived today in Tehran, to a triumphant reception. Ugh. The terrorists in question are officers in the Iranian Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guards Corps. They were captured in Irbil, Iraq, in January, 2007, as the “surge” was getting under way. …
But then Roxana Saberi was thrown into Evin Prison in Tehran, and the Obama Administration started negotiations with the mullahs. I have been told that the key office in the American Government was Vice President Joe Biden’s, and that the Swiss Government (our official liaison to Tehran) played an active role. In early May, the deal was arranged: more than thirty Iranian “VIP” detainees would be released (first to the Iraqis, then to the Iranians), and then, in the fullness of time, several hundred (repeat, several hundred) others of less importance. Within days, Iraqi leader Maliki flew to Iran to work out the details. Saberi was quickly released, and the triumphal return to Iran for the Five was scheduled for shortly after the Iranian elections. …
The British hostages are yet another complicating factor. The Iranians held five of them, civilian workers rounded up in Iraq. The Iranians demanded the release of some of their terrorists in Guantanamo, and various other humiliating acts by the British Government, including, at last report, public endorsement of Ahmadinezhad’s “reelection.” As the negotiations played out, the Brits made a series of gestures to Hezbollah, and asked us to release various Iranian prisoners, from Guantanamo to Iraq (Qazali apparently being one such). Last time I checked, two of the unfortunate British souls turned up dead. Perhaps the failure to accept Iranian conditions explains the recent vitriol against the British government.
It may be argued that critics don’t know the “whole picture”; that the President with all his sources of secret intelligence, has reasons of his own for releasing the Qods, which if we but knew would explain everything. Maybe. But there’s another explanation which also fits the facts. Maybe the Obama administration is just going through the complicated dance of containing Iran to satisfy some constituents while trying to mollify Iran, to satisfy other constituents; with a lot of little side deals thrown in for extra measure, just to keep the special pleaders happy. War — if you can call it that — by lobbyist and committee. It is erroneously believed that politicians want definite outcomes like “victory”. That would be too simple. Politics doesn’t do poster colors, only shades of gray. It is already being openly said in Britain that Gordon Brown is simply pretending to fight the War on Terror. Open disgust is rife within the British Army, according to distinguished military historian Max Hastings, who says that Brown’s government is being accused of simply keeping up the appearances of fighting in Afghanistan while in reality abandoning it. Hastings writes:
At the heart of the Army’s anger is a belief that, because Gordon Brown has never been enthusiastic about either the armed forces or the wars to which Tony Blair committed them, he is trying to conduct operations at bargain-basement prices. Soldiers pay with their lives for his cynicism. No prime minister likes having to pay bills for wars, which are always hugely expensive. But historically, governments which have committed the nation to fight have accepted the cash consequences of doing so. …
Soldiers are robust about casualties, even the painful losses of recent days. ‘Risking our lives is what we get paid for – sometimes we must expect to lose them,’ as one put it to me at the weekend.
But it is another matter to be obliged to shed blood because ministers grudge mere cash for equipment, helicopters and troop numbers – and to feel that the Ministry of Defence has been entrusted to third-rate politicians.
‘What we are saying to the Government’, in the words of a senior officer, ‘is that it must resource this war properly, and start sounding as if ministers believe in it.
‘If they do not, then why should our chaps at the sharp end be taking the losses and sending mates home in body bags?’
What fool would fight wars without wanting to win them? Who captures prisoners in order to release them? Too bad we can’t ask Robert Strange McNamara, who died only recently. He might have known the answer. Maybe winning is so yesterday. Perhaps everything is about sending messages., trading signals. In the calculus of politics lives and money are fungible. You can trade one for another. The objective function that must be maximized is votes. In fact, the BBC says “Brown is also coming under increasing pressure from Labour backbenchers to scale back his planned multi-billion investment in Trident to help deal with Britain’s escalating debts.” It’s entirely possible that in the aftermath of an unanswered nuclear strike on Britain, the first question that will be asked among surviving politicians in the bunker is how to win the first post-apocalyptic election. For politicians, winning is not the most important thing; it’s the only thing. That means compromises; Roxani Saberi’s release means votes! Perhaps the saddest thing about history is that political dealmaking maps so poorly into the binary world of battlefield life and death.
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138 Comments
1. Bob Murphy:Brown’s antics have ignoble precedents in the British Labour Party, looking back to the 1930s and their pacifism, their refusal to invest in their own defence and their appeasement of Hitler at a time when his armed forces were weak but growing quickly.
They even refused to back the French when Germany illegally re-occupied the demilitarized Rhineland.
These tendencies and the Labour party’s class warfare view of history have sabotaged the UK defence-wise and economically (through their nationalisation of industry after the war for a century.
It’s certainly nothing new. Tony Blair was the exception (militarily), Brown is the rule.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:09 am 2. Bob Murphy:BTW, even going back to the 60s when I was in the US Army in Germany, the British Army of the Rhine had appalling equipment. Too bad. Their soldiers were very good. So that too hasn’t changed.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:11 am 3. Lifeofthemind:What galls the British Left is that they know better. They wallow in their shame.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:39 am 4. lc:They can never forgive those who came before for demonstrating that they can do better.
He knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing – said about McNamara in a previous (excellent) post and thread, and fitting here in talking about Brown, and, hmmnn, others. What lies underneath, however apt the observation, is gross incompetence (also brought out about McNamara). Reality and true costs (usually paid by someone else) cannot be forever deferred.
Is there some dialogue on these issues which I am missing? What do these clowns think they can gain? Why do they do these things? Have they even offered an explanation, or rationale for their policies?
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:41 am 5. blogstrop:You’d better make sure you have a country that the army wants to fight for. That will not be a country that devalues and slurs its armed forces, and which embraces political posturing which is poltically correct and anti-war. Remember that those who will supplant your cosy system are neither PC nor anti-war. They might be anti real war, and go for asymmetric, where they have more chance of media coups, and can trade on the uncertainty of uniformed forces as to who is friend, who is foe.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:49 am 6. blogstrop:Don’t bother me with comments about “civilian” casualties unless you are addressing a conflict where all combatants wear uniforms. These days, it’s just too hard to confront the USA (or Israel) in a conventional war, so they resort to the other then whinge about the consequences. Media services all around the world obligingly propogate propaganda to the effect that there are brutish western armies breaking the ethnic arses, robbing them of their liberation, disenfranchising them of their imaginary utopias.
More on this from Melanie Phillips, who quotes from a speech by Colonel Richard Kemp.
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:24 am 7. ledger:Do these Islamist fighting groups ignore the international laws of armed conflict? They do not. It would be a grave mistake to conclude that they do. Instead, they study it carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy’s main weaknesses.
“…Maybe the Obama administration is just going through the complicated dance of containing Iran to satisfy some constituents while trying to mollify Iran, to satisfy other constituents; with a lot of little side deals thrown in for extra measure, just to keep the special pleaders happy. War — if you can call it that — by lobbyist and committee…” –R.F.
I think the big 0 is a poor negotiator and even worse at fighting a real war.
I also think the big 0 is beholden to various unfriendly state actors.
The problem with this current “prisoner exchange” is that it is very lopsided. It’s a bad way to fight a war. Our Troops will be dishearten by Zero’s actions.
It is well known that these Qods were directly involved in complex attack on American soldiers Kabala. The attack was designed to capture American soldiers to be used a bargaining chips. But, the American soldiers fought back and were killed.
Now, it seems that the big 0 has given the very same kidnappers exactly what they want (Iranian terrorists released) and cut them loose.
This is troubling news. It also gives one an idea of how little the big 0 values American Troop’s lives compared to a news reporter.
Here are the background facts.
“On January 20th, a team of twelve [Qods] men disguised as U.S. soldiers entered the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Kabala, where U.S. soldiers conducted a meeting with local officials, and attacked and killed five soldiers, and wounded another three. The initial reports indicated the five were killed in the Karbala JCC, however the U.S. military has reported that four of those killed were actually removed from the center, handcuffed, and murdered.”
[See below for links]
‘”The five detainees are connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – Qods Force (IRGC-QF), an organization known for providing funds, weapons, improvised explosive device technology and training to extremist groups attempting to destabilize the Government of Iraq and attack Coalition forces,” noted Multinational Forces Iraq in press release announcing the arrest in mid-January 2007…[Qods] was directly implicated by General David Petraeus as being behind the January 2007 attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, as well as other high-profile terror attacks in Iraq. Five US soldiers were killed during the Karbala attack and subsequent kidnapping attempt. After US and Iraqi security forces closed in on the assault team, the terrorists executed the five US soldiers.’
‘Laith was later released as part of negotiations to free five British contractors taken captive by Qais’ group shortly after their leader had been detained. The League of the Righteous responded to Laith’s release by turning over the bodies of two of the hostages and demanding the return of all of the group’s leadership before releasing any other captives. The two hostages were murdered months before their bodies were turned over to the British.’
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/07/us_releases_iranian.php#ixzz0L8f6swOZ&D
The big 0 stinks!
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:13 am 8. Lifeofthemind:High crimes and Misdemeanors.
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:23 am 9. E. Nigma:All enemies, foreign and domestic.
The pattern has long been set for such in the Middle East. How many times have the Israelis done the same; exchanged many prisoners captured in various acts of insurrection and terror in exchange for one or two Israeli soldiers.
There is another kind of response possible, but this sort of “enabling” response by the Obama Administration only guarantees that more of the same will happen. I wonder what the Iraqis truly think about this?
What a collection of gutless sail-trimmers.
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:25 am 10. wretchard:What the heck are they doing? The Washington Post described the grueling life of aides at the White House.
Can this frenzy be an indicator of a dysfunctional White House more than one which is on the ball? Why are autos the business of the White House? What happened to the Cabinet? How did the Executive Office get to take on so many functions? Why all this activity at the center?
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:41 am 11. wretchard:By 5:30 a.m., the White House Bulletin — a compilation of political clippings from newspapers and Web sites — appears in inboxes and on BlackBerrys, demanding attention. — from the comment above.
Who selects this ‘important stuff’ to act on? On what is this frenzy expended? What is the lineage of this ‘important stuff’?
People are looking to get a message out. Sean Murphy thinks that one trajectory of blogging is as a kind of second channel for industry which can capture somewhat of its advertising budget. Comments he regards as a proxy for influence. “How the hell can I sell a blog channel when the site has only 3 comments?” he asks (I paraphrase). I wonder how many comments, or user validation, the ‘political clippings from newspapers and Web sites’ got?
There’s also the belief at Sean Murphy’s that legitimate reporters are the last source of original data. I suppose that is to some extent true. Now I happen to think this is not entirely true because some new facts (or at least leads) actually come from harvesting conversations (think Iran). Some news also seems to appear out of nothing. When Christopher Hitchens was attacked by the Syrian Nazi party there were a number of news stories, some in reputable outlets which covered it. Do you know what was interesting? Not a single one of the persons present during the attack, Hitchens, Foreman or Totten, was interviewed. Yet the news appeared without a single reporter calling an eyewitness.
That’s a datapoint. What can we learn from it? Where does information come from? Who decides things are important? To what extent does user reaction (as exemplified in comments) suggest something is important? Suppose a thread of conversation is detected wafting on the airwaves, never mind for the moment from whom. Say it had an arbitrary origin. Is there some way to prosecute leads that emerge more spontaneously in the conversational universe of the Internet and turn it into verifiable fact? What is fact, and how does one verify facts? The question is not as easy as it seems. There are a lot of facts out there that aren’t, I think, but how can I tell?
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:50 am 12. MikeSylwester:The USA ended its war in Iraq on November 4, 2008, when the voting population elected Barack Obama to be President. US forces are leaving Iraq, and in the process we are turning our captives over to the Government of Iraq, which will make the decisions about whether to release those captives.
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:51 am 13. Lifeofthemind:Wretchard,
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:32 am 14. The Old Guy:There are bears in the woods. That is known to other bears and to the birds and the bees and the forest ranger. It is not known to the granola munching yuppie but it does not change the fact that there are bears. Put it another way, did anyone you know vote for Richard Nixon? Can Pauline Kael and her twenty best friends decide for the rest of us that there are no bears and that Hitchens only tripped while intoxicated? Once they get to make things up, votes found for Franken or Michelle Obama is beautiful or Bush lied, then every supposed fact is an arbitrary construct. We are in the deconstructionist wilderness ruled by an ignorant and arbitrary aristocracy. This is Hell.
Obama at al are going to get a lot of people killed – both Americans and others.
He may actually kill more non-Americans with bad economic policy – in particular energy and farm policy – than anything else. Higher US energy prices, higher fertilizer prices, choosing organic over abundant supply, generally reduced economic growth here – will all lead to higher food prices and reduced economic growth overseas. Hundreds of millions will remain in deep poverty. The people on the margin in Africa and elsewhere will starve. Probably millions of them.
A weakened US military and an apoligetic foreign policy will embolden bad actors abroad. Iran and perhaps North Korea are cases in point. Perhaps even Chavez in Ven. Sudan writ large, or perhaps worse – say an Iranian nuclear strike on Iraq and/or Saudi in a few years.
Finally, he invites mass casualty attacks on the US – because someone out there will believe that they will get to count coup politically against the US rather than invoke the 3 Conjectures scenario.
But hey, its for the children.
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:45 am 15. Dave the Kapampangan:Nanny Obananarama says:
“Since I want power over everything, I simply command my bleary-eyed staffers to control EVERYTHING from banks to automobiles. If micro managers of the Soviet planned economy could succeed, my staffers can, too! Plus, they’re young and tough and good-looking, like myself.”
“War is such an outdated concept, isn’t it? To me, it’s more like shopping. The American public has infinite money, and I get to spend it to purchase influence. If the influence or hostages cost MORE and MORE, I pony up. Money is no object when it is infinite.”
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:49 am 16. michael hoskins:W @ 10. I remember a conversation with a resident at a local hospital. He was complaining/ bragging about his 90 hour weeks. His bubble burst when I told him I did not want him as my physician after his first 40 or so hours, I felt that my family was paying for his mind, at full function.
This of course begs the question, what kind of decisions are these people making on the 24th hour of the 7th day? (When the biggest crisis occurs). Further, how much of the frenetic pace is spent in gathering information or learning about the issue? This is why we hire/use/consult people already versed in the subject. Duh.
All of this is a direct indicator pointing to his Oness’s frequent miscues and naivte. OJT at this level is very scary.
LOM at 13…This is Hell, for sure…where we are RULED rather than led….
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:50 am 17. Lifeofthemind:OT, The CME Group Twitters a link to The Becker-Posner Blog regarding Cap and Trade. There is also a good thread on the Senate filibuster rule and other topics there. Worth following.
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:58 am 18. Tony:Who decides which things are important? The Jacobins decide, err, rather, the Democrats. For example, now that foreign and domestic policy is going to hell, it’s time to prosecute the Bush Administration for fighting Al Qaeda after 9/11.
The WSJ reports that Initiative at Heart of Spat With Congress Examined Ways to Seize, Kill Terror Chiefs.
Back in 2006, when things were darkest in the war in Iraq, I would ask my friends for examples of when surrender worked out well for society. My liberal friends didn’t answer of course, history is too fungible too nail down – they have Heisenbergian effect on facts, facts change when liberals look at them. But my conservative friends offered an answer: surrender worked fine for the Vichy government. Not so well for French Jews and other minorities, but it was better than war for some.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:04 am 19. Lifeofthemind:Tony,
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:19 am 20. Mark:Surrender worked out very well for German and Japanese society. It was the best thing that ever happened to them. Obama’s problem is that he can’t surrender to the Americans.
Blogstrop writes: “You’d better make sure you have a country that the army wants to fight for. That will not be a country that devalues and slurs its armed forces, and which embraces political posturing which is poltically correct and anti-war.”
One suspects that morale at the CIA will continue to fall. And if the Cabinet-level agencies see the White House taking on agency responsibilities, morale won’t be rising at those agencies either.
Obama may continue to bash Bush and Cheney. But I don’t think the diversion will yield much of a dividend. Obama has already played quite a few cards, and now he’s playing the same ones again. It would be getting boring, except the blood he is letting from the body politic is our own. Not surprisingly, the economy and the polls are getting increasingly anemic.
The FBI and CIA can bide their time. Leaks will happen.
Obama and his sandbox friends show their inexperience in trying to consolidate power and planning in the West Wing. Community organizers never want to lose control of the message and the action.
Someday a scholar will write a book on “George W. Bush: MBA President.” Thomas Lifson at “American Thinker” pointed out in 2004 that Bush’s MBA training provides a lens on the Bush presidency. Consider the contrast with Obama management:
“A second broad and important lesson the President [i.e., Bush] learned at Harvard Business School is to embrace a finite number of strategic goals, and to make each one of those goals serve as many desirable ends as possible. The truism of this lesson is that if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. If you can’t focus on everything, then you need to be able to focus on those few goals which will have the broadest impact, leading to a future capacity to attain other desirable ends. No exact number of goals is the limit, but three is an awfully good number to aim at. Those goals should be mutually consistent, so that the step—by—step accomplishment of each one aids in the achievement of the others.”
See more of the article at
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:20 am 21. Tony:http://www.americanthinker.com/2004/02/gwb_hbs_mba.html
Excellent point, Life o’!
I was thinking of surrendering when you can still fight back, like US in Iraq in 2006, or US now. Once all your cities are burned down, armies and navies destroyed, people starved … THEN surrender is a no-brainer. I just don’t understand why it would have been a good idea for us to surrender to Al Qaeda and the insurgents in Iraq in 2006, as President Obama demanded, and as so many of our Democratic brethren agreed.
For that matter, I don’t even understand how surrendering our unrivaled dominance in missile defense is a good idea. I do understand how our surrender sounds like a good idea to Russia, Iran, North Korea….
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:39 am 22. Doug:trish said…
“In re the Iranians:
The Iraqis have the same problem we do, which is the detention of those captured on the battlefield.
Different standard of evidence applies when they’re rolled into the general judicial system.
We gave them what we had.
They had to let them go.
Just so you know.”
—
My currently active question:
Why did they have to be rolled into the general judicial system?
I’ll report, you decide!
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:49 am 23. Doug:I love a sunburnt country
It has been a great week for students of culture, multiculturalism, thought control and the nation’s theatre of the absurd.
Although we keep going back to Orwell’s Winston Smith and his battles with the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Plenty and all things to do with Newspeak and the Thought Police, there really is no better refuge in English literature than 1984 — that is, if you want to maintain your sanity. Remember 1984’s most enduring motif — Ignorance is Strength. It might also work as Strength is Ignorance — in government circles.
The week got off to a ripper of a start. At the Ministry of Love, aka The Attorney General’s Department, Citizen McClelland launched — or to use his words “rolled out” — Project Lexicon. This is a planned attempt to re-educate Australians in the use of language. That is the English language — as it is used to describe terrorists.
Apparently to use such words as “terrorist”, “jihad”, “martyr” and “the war on terror” is likely to offend Muslims, or at least give them bad press — so the Ministry of Love is about to teach us how not to offend Muslims. To use Orwell’s example, any words that might suggest that terrorists, jihadists or Muslim religious fanatics are, to put it mildly, crazed killers, is according to Senator McClelland — doublespeakungood.
The fact that something over 95% of acts of terrorism are committed by Muslims, cannot be reduced to another Orwellian notion — minitrue.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:50 am 24. Doug:Tony,
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:52 am 25. Doug:It also sounds good to KOS, Huffpo, Harvard, Mr. and Mrs Dohrn…
Lifeof…
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:58 am 26. Barry Meislin:Oblahblah has plans for Americans…
We surrender to the Nation of Islam.
The current US administration is attempting the most audacious political program ever devised in the history of mankind (no wonder those staffers get hardly any sleep):
To disprove P.T. Barnum’s adage that “…you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
Truly, absolutely, incredibly audacious.
Jul 13, 2009 - 8:06 am 27. Subotai Bahadur:I find the overall exchange offensive and horrifying for the reasons stated above, but also because of its nature. Not matter that Roxana Saberi is a US national [and simultaneously an Iranian national]. Her career has been as a “freelance journalist” for BBC and for National Public Radio. She is on the other side. Her de facto goal is to damage the United States at every opportunity. We have traded [and will trade more] captured enemy agents in order to retrieve and “save” yet another enemy agent from a situation that was created and manipulated by an enemy government.
Subotai Bahadur
Jul 13, 2009 - 8:29 am 28. Tony:Doug @ 24,
Throughout the 20th Century America led the world economically, militarily and most importantly in protecting and spreading personal liberty.
That’s why God invented 21st Democrats – to keep us modest.
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:02 am 29. Blindman:Can this frenzy be an indicator of a dysfunctional White House more than one which is on the ball?- Wretchard
It is probably best to first recognize that people who are in charge of everything are in charge of nothing. That being stipulated, in a society that distinguishes between being in charge of something and being responsible for everything there is a whirlpool of spectral possibilities that blind one to the best answers. Sorting out those things is what an executive must do.
At some point there is an overload of information. It cannot be processed or analyzed until it is reduced to a digestible sample. At that nexus you have a problem with the quality of the samplers and then the analyzers.
What the West Wing actually does is bypass the executive branch and recreates its own executive branch in the oval office. That poses a problem with the granularity of that information. So basically although you can’t accuse the Whitehouse of being out of touch it can be said that they are rapidly becoming out of focus. They really can’t see what they are doing and where they are going.
The solution of working harder makes the problem worse. Reminds me of General McClellan 1861. Pompous of me I suppose.
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:15 am 30. NahnCee:“A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing …”
I’ll leave it to you to name the idiot.
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:51 am 31. Barry 0351:The female side of the administration is in charge, the fem side doesn’t have a plan, has no idea what to do, and will not listen to anyone’s advise! so the fem side sits on it’s hands and cries while blaming everyone but the enemy for the situation.
Jul 13, 2009 - 10:15 am 32. Starko:lead, follow, or get outa the way.
Wretchard @original post, @10, @11:
A reasonable theory about Obama’s calculus for trading Qods guys for one journalist- he thinks he can have it all. He thinks he can win the war with no marginal U.S. casualties *and* get the journalist. This is the vanity of power and politics, and he’s not the first.
This dovetails well with his approach to healthcare and many other issues, and his growing reputation for trying to “split the baby”. It also dovetails with his staff’s desire (or commandment) to know/control everything in terms of information flow.
Jul 13, 2009 - 10:22 am 33. exhelodrvr:wretchard,
Your description of the work schedule does sound like a dysfunctional organization; a lack of prioritization/lack of “a person in charge”/probably a lot of duplication of effort/probably a lot of working at cross-purposes.
Unfortunately, that corroborates what we see at the upper levels, with the conflicting messages that Clinton and Obama, and Biden and Obama send out, and with items such as the incredible slowness with staffing Geithners’ department.
Jul 13, 2009 - 10:49 am 34. Peter Boston:Getting the USA to release the Qods guys adds no small amount of cache to the mullahs in their fight against the Iranians. What better way to demonstrate who has the most influence on the mind of POTUS?
I suppose that the catch-and-release negotiations had been going on before the July elections but even if Obama thought the release was good for the USA he could have delayed it or extracted something more from the mullahs.
I hope that we can have a more public discourse on what the meaning of “in the best interests of the United States” is to this Administration.
Jul 13, 2009 - 10:50 am 35. ws1835:Spot-on comments!!
The prevailing theme of all-encompassing, personal control fits perfectly with Obama’s personal history and explains the outrageous numbers of formally acknowledged ‘tzars’ and the numerous instances where Cabinet level officers have been overridden after the fact by White House spokesmen on policy statements/proposals.
I think we have elected our first ‘dictator’ in terms of mindset. Literally every policy decision is now running through the White House. Why bother having a Cabinet? Obama has a tzar to do the job. To my memory, even FDR had a larger and more broadly distributed group of advisors and did not try to personally direct every level of the operation from the West Wing.
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:19 am 36. RWE:While at the Pentagon I found a curious lack of interest in reality in DC, especially when it came to resources.
Congress says to give a favored Pork program an extra $10M. Where to take it from, because they very deliberately did not tell us which program to cut? “Well,” Mr. Murtha replied “There is $500M in that kind of money in your budget. Find it somewhere.”
Do this. Do that. And right away! Work late. Work very late. You can’t appreciate this attitude until they have kicked two guys upstairs (both of whom who got their stars), given you their workload on top of your own 12 hour a day job – and then be lectured about yes, things are tough, but that is no excuse. Get it done, all of it. And right away.
17 years later I still daydream about quitting that job, telling them to stuff it….
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:37 am 37. Roderick Reilly:#10 Wretchard:
We here in the belly of the beast (Washington, DC) are the Department of Circumlocution (Little Dorrit — Dickens) writ large. We are the process triumphing over results that you’ve blogged about in the past.
It’s even worse than it appears on the surface: much of Washington is ill-equipped to handle the enormous tasks it has taken on. In order for the government to be able to fullfill all its obligations completely, the budgets would have to be 20% to 50% greater than they already are, depending on the agency or need. The feds can only collect around $2.5 trillion annually from the American economy and people, but spends $4 trillion-plus now and for the foreseeable future. Many federal worker tasks contain unfunded mandates that require more people and other resources than are — or will be allotted. We’re trying to do $5 trillion dollars worth of work for $4 trillion dollars with only $2.5 trillion in “generatable income.”
What this means folks is, we will disappoint the American people. That is virtually guaranteed.
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:42 am 38. veracious:I agree with blindman@29: What the West Wing actually does is bypass the executive branch and recreates its own executive branch in the oval office.
It is a key element of the current political blitzkrieg, the old structures are bypassed (trivialized) so all control leads to White House O.
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:43 am 39. Roderick Reilly:In an earlier post about the Qods releases, I tried to give “Realpolitik” a pass, since we insist that Iraq is a sovereign country; but a pattern seems to be emerging where the hard-earned gains of our military and intelligence services are being pissed away. I imagine that Iran — especially after the post-election disturbances gave it an excuse to go even harder-line — is going to continue arresting “foreign agents” it can barter for release of its terrorist assetts. I wonder if the recently-released Washington Times reporter was also a bargaining chip?
It’s a great bargain for the Iranians, when a single innocent dupe they detain is worth us releasing several of their well-trained and very guilty operatives.
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:49 am 40. Roderick Reilly:The latest directive from those bleary-eyed zombies at the White House is that the federal hiring process must be speeded up drammatically. Somehow a cumbersome beast that used to take many months to bring someone new on through the civil service machinery is supposed to do the same in 45 days. Just like that. There is confusion as to whether that means 45 calendar days or 45 workdays. That’s a crucial 3 week difference, but it will still fly up against a wall of indifference and inertia; and not to mention federal unions (ironically, hard-core Obama loyalists).
In a typical federal agency, there is the equivalent of an “underground economy,” where higher-level bureaucrats find ways to get around the cumbersome official requirements. This is expedience that eventually breaks down when the Lords of Inertia discover the irregularities, and proceed to bring things back into line to crush initiative and spirits. By the way — no surprise here — many bureaucrats love crushing initiative and spirits, as it serves their purpose of maintaining their meal ticket into cushy retirement.
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:04 pm 41. The Old Guy:I’m reminded of the transition from Republican to Imperial Rome. The theme of increasingly centralized and near absolute power, and that courtier was the highest level to which most aspire. All that really mattered was the Emperor’s desires and his favor.
Hardly new observations, and probably not so different that the Russian court around the Czar, or the French court around Louis, etc. – but it seems not quite what Jefferson had in mind for the United States.
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:12 pm 42. RCM:Of all those staffers working incredible hours…I wonder which ones might be doing it just to write the blockbuster, “The Obama Whitehouse”, and be putting in their dues to, well, become rich?
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:31 pm 43. Marie Claude:surrender worked fine for the Vichy government. Not so well for French Jews and other minorities, but it was better than war for some.
If I follow your logic, only Jews are important, tht is plus with homosexuals and gypsies, the rest of the french, I repeat 100 00 sodiers died in mai 1940 around Dunkeerke to save the Brits asses, yes they escaped t’em, 350 000 other french civils under bombings, resistants and of army died until the end of the war. Jews, only 350 000, 75% of them were protected, hidden by the French population.
Now go learn historical facts, instead of repeating the propaganda launched by the brillant pervert spirits that surroundered Bush pre 2003 war, yes they reinvented WWII too
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:38 pm 44. Marie Claude:a belgian think-tank explains the conspiracy against the French, not really glorious for your former administration, and the sheep that followed their falsh interpretation of history
http://tinyurl.com/m9xcrb
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:46 pm 45. RCM:Roderick Reilly @ 37:
Obama recently asked for $17.4 million for “enforcement” activities for the Internal Revenue Service.
In the tax business at the middle class and below, we are already seeing an incredible ramp up in CP2000 letters; some have morphed into full desk audits (not something you ever want to get an invitation to). All of the letters I have seen are for folk making less than $75K…you know, the ones that can’t afford legal representation. There’s more “bang-for-the-buck” at that level of income and without lawyers, the cases come to fruition much sooner.
Enforcement is really escalating…
Of course, the Boss needs the money. But the folk are not so stupid about why the enforcement is on the rise, and lots of them voted for Obama.
Nevertheless, “…breaking up is hard to do…”
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/n/neil_sedaka/breaking_up_is_hard_to_do.html
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:53 pm 46. Tcobb:Please–most of you people are just projecting. You assume that Obama is involved in some sort of thought process when it came to to providing what to do when someone is taken hostage by radical Islamists. Obama did what Obama does–when in doubt you ask yourself “What would an enlightened European bureaucrat do?” Its far easier than thinking. That’s what you do when there is no difference between yourself and your own reflection in the mirror.
Never ascribe thinking to Obama’s actions when mimicking euro or UN -ocrats produces an identical answer. And then the real question becomes–does he ever really think about anything?
End Question.–program terminates
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:03 pm 47. Sean Murphy:RE: comment 11 from “Wretchard”
The blog post that is referenced is a conversation between myself and Ed Lee. All of the points that you are ascribing to me are actually questions from Ed or points by Ed. I know that some bloggers write about imaginary conversations but I can assure you that Ed is quite real and can be found here http://www.leepr.com/ I would also add that our conversation was in the context of the EDA industry, which is a tiny subset of what’s going on in all of high tech, much less the world.
I don’t think EDA bloggers can capture much advertising directly and I am against posting ads on blogs (at least in EDA) where the opportunity for monetization is minuscule and the dilution of your message is significant.
It was Ed who was looking at comments as a proxy for influence. My response was “Comments are not always a proxy for influence. But I do think we will see certain bloggers essentially initiate ad hoc forums with their posts.” which I think is more about sparking a conversation or at least taking part in it.
Wretchard remarks “There’s also the belief at Sean Murphy’s that legitimate reporters are the last source of original data.” Which I can’t understand since I can’t find it in the text. What he may not be aware of this that there are a handful of journalists covering EDA, perhaps 1/5 to 1/10 of the number from ten years ago: as a class established journalists are providing very little reporting in EDA. But there is a lot of “community of practice” communication that’s engineer to engineer in forums like the Verification Guild ( http://www.verificationguild.org/ ) that acts as original reporting, or at least new information from working engineers.
I find Richard Fernandez’s analyses consistently insightful and still re-read the “Wedding Party” series periodically to understand the sensemaking functions of modern journalism and how they are likely to evolve. I mean no disrespect but I think he mis-read the post he is critiquing, if it was him posting as Wretchard in comment 11.
I also apologize for wandering even more off topic, this exchange more properly belongs to the http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/07/12/left-brain-right-brain/
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:17 pm 48. F:Subotai @ 27: I could not agree with you more. Right on!
Regarding the work schedule at the White House: I have worked in Washington and very briefly for ONDCP when it was housed in the OEOB next to the White House. I can vouch for the fact that there is a mentality of “be the first to show up and the last to leave.” What does not come through this is that all the time spent in the office is not productive time, and especially not productive for the national good. There’s the 25 minutes spent reading the newspaper, the 45 minutes gossiping over coffee, time spent chewing the fat with co-workers in your or their office, the two hour lunch break, etc., etc. The SHOW of being in the office is the essential thing.
This technique was really perfected by the civil servants I met when I would call on various government offices in Zaire in the late seventies. There, the custom was to arrive more or less on time in the morning and hang one’s coat on one’s chair. That signified you were “on seat.” After that you could leave for several hours, only to come back for lunch, put in an hour’s work, then leave again for an afternoon siesta. Around 4 or 5 in the afternoon you would return, put your coat on and leave — total productive time around 2 hours. It was not unheard of for one person to hold down two civil service jobs simultaneously this way — all you needed was two coats (actually, they were the abacos, literally “down with suits” made popular by President Mobutu) that you could leave on two different chairs. A tailored abacos was not cheap, but it was a small investment for two civil servant salaries. At least that was the case in the days when civil servants were being paid. Later, when they were not, a lot fewer abacos hung on chair backs.
Bottom line for me is I am not impressed by the number of hours a person spends in the office as much as I am by how much the actually accomplish. This White House appears to be focusing on the former, not the latter. Or at least the journalists who write glowing reports on their work habits are focusing on the former.
F
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:20 pm 49. PA Cat:Or at least the journalists who write glowing reports on their work habits are focusing on the former.
Given the MSM’s history of spin and outright fabrication when it suits them, I find myself wondering whether this dispatch from Cloud Cuckoo Land was written by Jayson Blair.
Jul 13, 2009 - 2:14 pm 50. blert:Actually this ‘management’ style by chaos is entirely the style of the Gonnabee.
DeLorean ran his shop in just the same manner.
The quality of the decisions is invariably magical towards infantile.
The WaPo portrait brings up memories of the Geneen style: over promote and over pay young pliant tools and burn them out upon the millstone.
It’s the style of the autocrat, the despot.
In other news, 0 is wiping the web clean: his webprints are being purged systematically.
Calling Winston…
The memory hole needs a flush.
Jul 13, 2009 - 2:44 pm 51. blert:Doug…
Without the Tamils the islamists must surely now have a ‘market share’ beyond 99%.
Jul 13, 2009 - 2:46 pm 52. Alexis:wretchard:
I think the apparent frenzy in the White House is a bad sign. Leaders in the executive branch of government need time to think. When an office is filled with exhausted staffers with overloaded schedules filled with pointless meetings, people are prone to making mistakes.
One of the biggest mistakes a bureaucracy can make is infighting. The more overloaded a bureaucracy, the worse the infighting. This is one reason to cut layers of bureaucracy to a minimum whenever one can; one competent bureaucrat can often do a better job accomplishing a task than ten staffers because more people will merely spend more of their time bickering over how it ought to be done than accomplishing anything. Ambitious staffers living in cramped quarters while having a lot of time to make mischief is a recipe for perpetual intrigue where rival empire builders fight for bureaucratic supremacy.
The greatest impediment to the Obama administration accomplishing anything it sets out to do is probably White House infighting. I’m reminded of how rival guerrilla organizations would fight one another in The Life of Brian.
Congressmen and Senators need to do their jobs and do their jobs well. They ought to be reading laws carefully before they vote on them. They ought to be taking their responsibilities of oversight seriously. Instead, they spend most of their time raising money.
The image one sees from the outside is a Beltway ruled by the Red Queen. Yet, I would be happier knowing that at least some of our political leaders would have time to think, to ponder, to even daydream at times. It is possible to “hurry slowly”, to get things done without making a big show of how hard one is supposed to be working.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:19 pm 53. Roderick Reilly:#51 to reinforce what Alexis is saying:
A reminder that the size of the White House staff exploded from the 60 under Bush to the 160 under Obama. More people wanting to be “chiefs and not indians,” more hoops to jump through, more confusion and morale problems at various cabinet-level agencies whose decision-making process has been stunted or compromised, or countermanded by someone in the White House.
Even little agencies, like the one I contract to, are trying to do more and more and more, and have tripled the numbers lawyers in the general counsels office for no discernible good reason at all. More and more meetings, more and more e-mails and more and more projects, and more and more beffudlement and exhaustion. There is little time left over to do actual stuff of substance, what with all the new ideas and initiatives being tossed into the mix. And again, too many chiefs and not enough indians: whereas before we could do our tasks and meet our goals largely unfettered, we now have to go through an increasingly longer gauntlet of naysayers, quibblers, and downright ignoramuses.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:34 pm 54. tharkun:27. Subotai Bahadur:
I find the overall exchange offensive and horrifying for the reasons stated above, but also because of its nature. Not matter that Roxana Saberi is a US national [and simultaneously an Iranian national]. Her career has been as a “freelance journalist” for BBC and for National Public Radio. She is on the other side. Her de facto goal is to damage the United States at every opportunity.
What would you suppose the odds are that Saberi was willingly complicit and that the whole affair was a deliberately staged ploy? Do we have any evidence she was actually suffering in a hellhole prison cell, and not some comfy guest quarters, except when visiting media and/or so-called humanitarian types were allowed to see her?
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:37 pm 55. Roderick Reilly:#45 RCM:
Yes, enforcement is up. Now we’re fighting with the Swiss who believe we are asking them to give up part of their sovereignty to accommodate our need to catch 52,000 “tax cheats.”
Stupid governments do not appreciate the notion of tax havens or other special economic oases. The biggest economic oasis is America. The Euros were only kidding when the wanted us to “harmonize” with their social democracies, but Obama and the Democrats didn’t get the joke. Europe is starting to really worry about what Obama is doing to their chief source of exports. The Russians and the Chinese have already weighed in. They all really, really do believe in American exceptionalism, and wish that Obama did too.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:47 pm 56. Charles:For drop dead beautiful check out this NASA picture of Anak Krakatau now erupting
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:53 pm 57. Doug:Swearing can make you feel better, lessen pain
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:08 pm 58. NahnCee:“…have tripled the numbers lawyers in the general counsels office for no discernible good reason at all.”
Are they black?
Did they donate to Obama’s campaign?
Did they register other voters under the aegis of ACORN?
Did they go to school with Michelle?
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:13 pm 59. PA Cat:56 Doug
I wonder whether the researchers studied the effect of specific languages on the benefits of swearing. Cussing in German does more for my morale than cussing in English. One of my good friends swears by (pun intended) the use of (modern) Hebrew for therapeutic cussing.
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:14 pm 60. Doug:My wife loves it when I cuss in French:
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:36 pm 61. noprisoners:She knows I’ll soon surrender.
(For Marie!)
Roderick Reiley@52:
Two words: Cloward-Piven.
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:40 pm 62. Bob Murphy:43. Marie Claude
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:45 pm 63. Bob Murphy:“surrender worked fine for the Vichy Government”.
Only for as long as it suited France’s new masters, Marie.
And it freed up German troops for the Eastern Front, not only the ones that would have been needed to roll up the useless French Army but the troops that would have been necessary to keep order in the rump of France.
Useless? Sure.
Proved useless decisively when Hitler and a mere 5,000 troops, unaccompanied by tanks and with no air cover, illegally re-occupied the Rhineland on France’s border, thumbing their nose at the biggest and best equipped army in Europe.
Hitler had acted in defiance of the advice of his own military who well knew that France could easily throw them out. In fact the German generals had given their troops orders to retreat should the French attack.
And they anticipatd that a defeat of Hitler’s bluff would have resulted in a coup to throw the Nazis out of government within weeks.
Hitler himself later said, “If the French had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with shame and disgrace, for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even a moderate resistance”.
The “constable” of France, General Gamelin refused to throw the krauts out telling Premier Albert Sarraut that the French Army was “une force purement défensive” and suggested the French Government protest to the League of Nations.
So from that the French heroically held the Wehrmacht back at Dunkirk? I hardly think so.
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:47 pm 64. Doug:Read Heinz Guderian’s account of what happened.
And remember that the RAF basically held air superiority over Dunkirk which cramped old kamerade’s style.
A lot.
Men Without Testicles
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:54 pm 65. whiskey:Marie Claude — Surrender was the means to an end — mainly creating under Vichy France the “Revolucion Nationale” or National Revolution that attempted to roll back everything since the French Revolution. It was a profoundly reactionary attempt to re-enact French Nationalism under the Nazi yoke, and destroy any reformer, political classical liberal, individualist, anti-collectivist, communist, Jew, humanist, and so on. Dirigsme was created during Vichy.
De Gaulle argued for a fighting retreat, through the South, a Dunkirk in the South embarking on the French fleet at Marseilles and fighting on in North Africa. Even Yugoslavia, or Greece, fought more, longer, and harder than the French. Because the French so desperately wanted to surrender, in order to enlist the Nazis help in crushing their own opponents.
That is why Gordon Brown, and Obama, and in fact the Left all over the world hopes and prays that a nuclear attack can be done on America or Britain without any nukes. So that we are forced to surrender, and Bill Ayers concentration camps (or Alcee Hastings, who has a bill in Congress to intern all Second Amendment proponents, abortion opponents, and the like) can be set up. Gun Owners, NASCAR fans, rednecks, country music fans, uncool people of all kinds can be sent to the Dead Kennedy’s “California Uber Alles” prophecy. Except President Brown is replaced with even more SWPL President Obama.
Disarmament is deliberate. So that surrender can be forced, a Vichy America or Britain, to destroy political opponents. Most of the West, particularly those of the Left bent, including Women, Gays, Blacks, and Hispanics cannot wait to surrender and engage in all out destruction of their enemies: White Men, cultural conservatives, and the like.
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:58 pm 66. Bob Murphy:11. Wretchard
Re your prescient points about net sourced info of arbitrary origin.
Cast your wonderful brain back two years, Wretch, when few people even knew your real name and your prognostications had to float or sink on their intrinsic merits.
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:58 pm 67. Doug:I am a journalist (a specialised one)and Google is my (and your) friend.
It has never been easier to grab a concept, a claim, a key word, a notion expressed in the anonymity which I love on the net, consider it, its ramifications or potential ramifications and, if apparently worthy of the time, do key word searches and delve down level after level (if necessary)until you have grabbed the essence of the notion, from sources at cross purposes each with their own vested interests.
Soon I or anyone has a working hypothesis and then some fine tuning, a draft article or blog entry, and then jump on the phone to a primary source for validation or at least consideration.
Or throw it out in front of a brilliant bunch of characters with breathtaking diversity of skills and experience on BC to see what they hav to say. Kind of like you do.:)
It doesn’t matter where the original information, the genesis came from, only that it came up for exposure.
The fact that it came up might be in part due to the anonymity/protection of the net.
Origin unimportant.
What we do with it from there is important.
TV Correspondent Bob Woodruff Returns to the War Zone
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:09 pm 68. Doug:Bob,
Thanks for reminding me of this:
What I’ve Learned About Blogging So Far
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:17 pm 69. Tony:Steven Pressfield
Okay, in the interest of bonhomie here at the Belmont Club, let’s accept there were good reasons and outcomes for the Vichy. Any other examples of the good results of surrender?
Let’s close our eyes and imagine all the good that would have flowed around the world by now if only George Bush had seen the wisdom of Senator Obama’s surrender strategy in Iraq in 2007… and how much more the world will benefit from more of now President Obama’s strategy. Appease our enemies, oppose our allies, weaken ourselves … worked for the Vichy, might work for us!
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:18 pm 70. Doug:and this:
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:18 pm 71. blert:Killing Rommel
The Long Range Desert Group
(Pressfield)
62 Bob…
The French really did provide blocking cover for the British at Dunkirk…
They also retreated over the mole, too.
However the French sailed down the coast and rejoined the fight for France.
The RAF was driven from the skies over Dunkirk. As it was the RAF had fallen critically low on Spitfires which would be critical for the Battle of Britain. Churchill had over committed the RAF as it was — and got beaten up for its troubles.
Here and there the RAF made appearances over the beach but in no way could you say they provided combat air patrol. The Spitfire was just as range constricted as the BF-109. The GAF had a huge numbers advantage over Dunkirk as most squadrons were not permitted to enter the fight.
To an astonishing degree the British got out because Hitler himself let them go. He ordered his panzer corps to stand still at the height of the withdrawal!
Strange, but true.
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:24 pm 72. AWH:What I see in Obama is a serious lack of historical perspective. I wrote a brief post on my blog about this and related it to Liz Cheney’s op-ed from the WSJ talking about his inability to stand up to lies about America (notably the Russian version of how the cold war ended).
I don’t know whether or not he’s simply ignorant of history or doesn’t have the courage to tell the truth when confronted with these things on foreign soil. Neither option says anything positive about the man.. indeed, both are frightening in their own way.
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:30 pm 73. Bob Murphy:70. Blert
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:55 pm 74. Marie Claude:You’re right, they did provide some blocking cover for the Brits. I’m saying that it was not heroic, given that Hitler had ordered Guderian to halt, because Goering had convinced him that the Luftwaffe could deal with Dunkirk and the evacuation ships and alson Calais, if necessary.
The Luftwaffe, as well as the RAF, was operating at the limits of their range, since the Germans had failed to establish forward bases in the wake of their rapidly moving panzer forces.
Guderian noted in his 1952 memoir of WW2 that at Dunkirk, “Fierce enemy air activity met little opposition from our air force.”
And it freed up German troops for the Eastern Front, not only the ones that would have been needed to roll up the useless French Army but the troops that would have been necessary to keep order in the rump of France.
Useless? Sure.
Cher monsieur, you’re happy not to have lived under german occupation, cuz if france was the favorite vacation for german army (on way back from the eastern front), the Gestapo police was very there, otherwise how do you explain that so many French were tortured, and or shot ? I’m not bringing you new links, I am fed up to repeat the same story to brainwasheds, but if you have a consciousness, you ought to use it, at least for the sake of truth
Besides this was already the discussion there :
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/07/04/at-the-limit-of-honduras/#comments
check the lins I provide, this is a bit diferent from your version, qui plus est, from an American army historian
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:00 pm 75. Bob Murphy:BTW, Blert, Goering also convinced Hitler that the Luftwaffe could resupply von Paulus’ 6th Army when the Soviets initially surrounded them at Stalingrad. They still had sufficient petrol and ammo to break out at that stage.
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:00 pm 76. Tony:That didn’t work, either.
But then, why should that be surprising?
Who did the Germans ever beat? The French, Belgians, Dutch, Luxembourgers, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Danes?
Not a very tough neighbourhood.
Here’s a long, only slightly off-topic capture of the “Unclassified Report on the President’s Surveillance Program” 10 July 2009. It’s not completely off-topic because our liberal brethren paint all of Bush’s intelligence efforts destructive and damaging our “Constitution”, rather than in light of the great good they really acheived.
VI. IMPACT OF THE PRESIDENT’S SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM ON INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY COUNTERTERRORISM EFFORTS
A. NSA’s Assessment of the PSP
The NSA OIG reported that Hayden, referring to portions of the PSP in 2005, said there had probably been no communications more important to NSA efforts to defend the nation than those involving al-Qa’ida. NSA collected communications when one end was inside the United States and one end was associated with al-Qa’ida or terrorist groups associated with al Qa’ida in order to detect and prevent attacks inside the United States. Hayden stated that “the program in this regard has been successful.” During the May 2006 Senate hearing on his nomination to be CIA Director, Hayden said that, had the PSP been in place before the September 2001 attacks, hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi almost certainly would have been identified and located.
In May 2009, Hayden told NSA OIG that the value of the Program was in knowing that NSA signals intelligence activities under the PSP covered an important “quadrant” of terrorist communications. NSA’s Deputy Director echoed Hayden’s comment when he said that the value of the PSP was in the confidence it provided that someone was looking at the seam between the foreign and domestic intelligence domains.
B. DOJ OIG’s Assessment of the PSP
In 2004 and 2006, the FBI’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) attempted to assess the value of PSP information on FBI counterterrorism efforts. Neither of these efforts represented a comprehensive assessment of the PSP’s value. The FBI conducted a more comprehensive survey of the impact of PSP-derived information, also in 2006. The results of these surveys are summarized in the DOJ OIG Report. Based in part on the results of one study, FBI management, including Director Mueller and Deputy Director John Pistole, concluded that the PSP was “of value.”
The DOJ OIG sought as part of its review to assess the role of PSP-derived information and its value to the FBI’s overall counterterrorism efforts. Director Mueller told the DOJ OIG that he believes the PSP was useful. Mueller said that the FBI must follow every lead it receives in order to prevent future terrorist attacks and that to the extent such information can be gathered and used legally it must be exploited. Mueller also stated that he “would not dismiss the potency of a program based on the percentage of hits.”
The DOJ OIG interviewed FBI officials, agents, and analysts responsible for handling PSP information about their experiences with the program. These assessments, more fully described in Chapter Six of the DOJ OIG’s report, generally were supportive of the program as “one tool of many” in the FBI’s anti-terrorism efforts that “could help move cases forward.” Even though most PSP leads were determined not to have any connection to terrorism, many of the FBI witnesses believed the mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile.
However, the DOJ OIG also found that the exceptionally compartmented nature of the program created some frustration for FBI personnel. Some agents and analysts criticized the PSP-derived information they received for providing insufficient details, and the agents who managed counterterrorism programs at the FBI field offices the DOJ OIG visited said the FBI’s process for disseminating PSP-derived information failed to adequately prioritize the information for investigation.
The DOJ OIG also examined several cases that have frequently been cited as examples of the PSP’s contribution to the IC’s counterterrorism efforts. These assessments, more fully described in Chapter Six of the DOJ OIG’s report, generally were supportive of the program as “one tool of many” in the FBI’s anti-terrorism efforts.
In sum, the DOJ OIG found it difficult to assess or quantify the overall effectiveness of the PSP program as it relates to the FBI’s counterterrorism activities. However, based on the interviews conducted and documents reviewed, the DOJ OIG concluded that although PSP-derived information had value in some counterterrorism investigations, it generally played a limited role in the FBI’s overall counterterrorism efforts. The reasons for this conclusion are classified and are described in the classified report and Chapter Six of the DOJ OIG report.
As noted above, certain activities that were originally authorized as part of the PSP have subsequently been authorized under orders issued by the FISC. The DOJ OIG believes that DOJ and other IC agencies should continue to assess the value of information derived from such activities to the government’s counterterrorism efforts.
C. CIA OIG’s Assessment of the PSP
The CIA OIG reviewed the impact of the PSP on the CIA’s counterterrorism efforts.
The CIA OIG reported that senior administration officials considered the PSP to be a valuable counterterrorism tool. In his December 2005 press conference, President Bush also said that there was an on-going debate in Washington, D.C. that criticized his, and previous, administrations for not “connecting the dots” prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001. He went on to say that the USA PATRIOT Act and the NSA program (the PSP) are helping to connect the dots as best as his administration possibly can. During a December 2005 press briefing, Hayden said that information had been obtained through this program that would not otherwise have been available. Senior CIA officials also told the CIA OIG that they had received PSP reporting with information that was previously unavailable. One senior official told the CIA OIG that the program eliminated some of the impediments that the CIA had encountered in accessing and analyzing communications between foreign and domestic locations. Another said that the PSP was a key resource, and without it there would have been a missing piece of the picture.
The CIA OIG determined that the CIA did not implement procedures to assess the usefulness of the product of the PSP and did not routinely document whether particular PSP reporting had contributed to successful counterterrorism operations. CIA officials, including Hayden, told the CIA OIG that PSP reporting was used in conjunction with reporting from other intelligence sources; consequently, it is difficult to attribute the success of
particular counterterrorism case exclusively to the PSP. In a May 2006 briefing to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a senior CIA official said that PSP reporting was rarely the sole basis for an intelligence success, but that it frequently played a supporting role. He went on to state that the program was an additional resource to enhance the CIA’s understanding of terrorist networks and to help identify potential threats to the U.S. homeland. Other officials told the CIA OIG that the PSP was one of many tools available to them, and that the tools were often used in combination.
NSA disseminated PSP-derived information in its normal reporting channels when it could be done without revealing the source of the information. As such, CIA officers, even those read into the program, would have been unaware of the full extent of PSP reporting. In the course of this review, the CIA OIG learned of numerous PSP reports that provided leads. However, because there is no means to comprehensively track how PSP information was incorporated into CIA analysis, officials were able to provide only limited information on how program reporting contributed to successful operations, and the CIA OIG was unable to independently draw any conclusion on the overall effectiveness of the program to the CIA.
The CIA OIG determined that several factors hindered the CIA in making full use of the product of the PSP. Many CIA officials stated that too few CIA personnel at the working level were read into the PSP. At the program’s inception, a disproportionate number of the CIA personnel who were read into the PSP were senior CIA managers. According to one CIA manager, the tight control over access to the PSP prevented some officers who could have made effective use of the program reporting from being read in. Another official stated that the disparity between the number of senior CIA managers read into PSP and the number of working-level CIA personnel resulted in too few CIA personnel to fully utilize PSP information for targeting and analysis.
Officials also told the CIA OIG that working-level CIA analysts and targeting officers who were read into the PSP had too many competing priorities, and too many other information sources and analytic tools available to them, to fully utilize PSP reporting. Officials also stated that much of the PSP reporting was vague or without context, which led analysts and targeting officers to rely more heavily on other information sources and analytic tools, which were more easily accessed and timely than the PSP.
CIA officers also told the CIA OIG that the PSP would have been more fully utilized if analysts and targeting officers had obtained a better understanding of the program’s capabilities. There was no formal training on the use of the PSP beyond the initial read-in to the program. Many CIA officers stated that the instruction provided in the read-in briefing was not sufficient and that they were surprised and frustrated by the lack of additional guidance. Some officers told the CIA OIG that there was insufficient legal guidance on the use of PSP-derived information.
The CIA OIG concluded that the factors that hindered the CIA in making full use of the PSP might have been mitigated if the CIA had designated an individual at an appropriate level of managerial authority who possessed knowledge of both the PSP and CIA counterterrorism activities to be responsible and accountable for overseeing CIA involvement in the program.
D. ODNI’s Assessment of the PSP
Hayden told the PSP IG Group that during his tenure as Director of the NSA, he sought to disseminate PSP information within the IC while also protecting the PSP as the source of the information. Hayden said this policy likely resulted in IC analysts not having a full appreciation of the PSP’s value because they likely did not realize that some NSA reporting was derived from the PSP. NCTC analysts confirmed that they often did not know if the NSA intelligence available to them was derived from the PSP. The NCTC analysts said they understood that NSA marked PSP information in a manner that protected the source of the information.
On those occasions when the NCTC analysts knew that a particular NSA intelligence product was derived from the PSP, the analysts said they reviewed the PSP information in the same manner as other NSA intelligence products and, if appropriate, incorporated the PSP information into analytical products being prepared for the DNI and other senior intelligence officials. NCTC analysts with access to PSP information told the ODNI OIG that they had broad access to a wide variety of high-quality and fully evaluated terrorism related intelligence, including some of the most sensitive and valuable terrorism intelligence available to the IC. In this context, NCTC analysts characterized the PSP information as being a useful tool, but noted that the information was only one of several valuable sources of information available to them. During ODNI OIG interviews, some NCTC analysts and ODNI personnel described the PSP information as “one tool in the tool box” or used equivalent descriptions to explain their view that the PSP information was not of greater value than other sources of intelligence. The NCTC analysts noted that the NSA policy protecting the source of the PSP information would have resulted in them not fully understanding the value of the PSP information.
Hayden said the PSP information allowed IC leaders to make valuable judgments regarding the allocation of national security resources. Hayden described the PSP as an “early warning system” for terrorist threats. Hayden told the ODNI OIG that the PSP was extremely valuable in protecting the United States from an al-Qa’ida terrorist attack. He cited several examples of where he said the PSP information was used to disrupt al-Qa’ida operatives or assist in terrorism investigations.
E. Intelligence Community Activities Supported by the PSP
Most IC officials interviewed by the PSP IG Group had difficulty citing specific instances where PSP reporting had directly contributed to counterterrorism successes. Although it was difficult for a variety of reasons already discussed to independently identify instances where PSP reporting contributed to successful counterterrorism efforts, there are several cases identified by IC officials and in IC documentation where PSP reporting may have contributed to a counterterrorism success. These cases cannot be discussed in this unclassified report, but are described in the classified report and accompanying individual OIG reports.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/UnclassifiedReportPSP.pdf
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:02 pm 77. Bob Murphy:Marie Claude, I was in the army of occupation of Germany, after a real nation reluctantly entered the perpetual turmoil of Europe’s collective mental dream world/projection and put down the most overtly belligerent nation.
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:10 pm 78. Marie Claude:That’s the one your nation could have dealt decisively with in 1936 if it had had the collective balls and real world integrity to throw a handful of lightly armed German soldiers out of the Rhineland.
That opéra bouffe and its consequences sealed the fate of a nation intellectually emasculated/queered (take your choice) by the Great Terror and socially emasculated by the loss of a generation in WWI at the hands of your eventual masters two decades later.
quant à Whisky, history was your favorite discussion in university bar I guess
WTF Revolution has to do with an occupation?
Simple thing, After Dunkereke De Gaulle wanted to avoid that the rest of the army would be destroyed (90%) the Brits would have suffered the same casualties if they were not allowed to escape.
Now, the 2nd front for De Gaulle was obviously in North Africa, but that didn’t fit Churchill ambition, who wanted to lead the operations and even make of France and GB, one single government., So we knew that it wasn’t for our benefits, history learnt us to not trust a Brit.
If you weren’t interpreting WWII as such an event for your glory, (at least for Europe) and the counter exemple for what you’re living today, you wouldn’t be in such a mess and incoherence, the only thing that you’re gaood at, is blah blah and gargle yourself with a fake legend
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:15 pm 79. Marie Claude:Bob,
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:24 pm 80. Bob Murphy:“That opéra bouffe” I can see from which book you took this expression, and the “intellectualist salt with it
sorry, but la legende telle que vous l’avez rêvée, c’est fini, cuz now the true historical books are going to be edited without your control
73. Marie Claude:
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:32 pm 81. virgil xenophon:ref your statements linked to in 73.
“Maginot Line wasn’t unuseful, German tanks passed through Belgium instead of Alsace-Lorraine.” Hmmmm. Like the German Army had done just 25 years before? Duh! The Maginot Line was the product of slug-like, Constable Plod minds and it created defensive soldiers who were apartment dwellers who could not function or maneuver on the battlefield. Idiot stuff.
The Maginot Line mentality was the reason the French Army lacked the mental wherewithal to send a few infantrymen and artillery batteries to the Rhineland and prevent the chain of events that led to WWII.
And what of the French Air Force? They didn’t do much good, either. Come to think of it neither did the French Navy. 3 out of 3. France, you’re out.
But France’s revenge has been in its toxic and deblitating intellectual projections, a curse on western civilisation.
Once again Whiskey hits the nail on the head (I once opined elsewhere that I thought Whiskey was my long-lost blood brother–existentially at least) about the surrender bit. The left is collectively salivating like Pavlov’s dogs at the prospect. It’s all of a piece–which explains the Obama administrations closing the production-line of the F-22 stealth air superiority fighter, the reduction of R & D funds
for ABM defense and the delay/reduction in field deployments in current systems, and Obama’s give-away to Putin and the Russians
by offering to greatly reduce the number of “dual-use” nuclear/conventional wpns systems without any quid pro quo on the part of Russia. I always said that the West was fortunate that the SU crumbled only historical moments before the “progressive” part of the West was only too willing to lie prone and prostrate itself in abject submission if only a leftist able to politically deliver had been elected rather than Reagan.
I well remember just home on leave in New Orleans from Vietnam on the night of the Nixon election and going to bed not knowing who had won the election and waking up to the news of Nixon’s win thinking: “Thank God, our country has been saved from an ignominious end.” Little did I know that the REAL
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:33 pm 82. aaron:saving elections (temporarily at least) was that of Reagan. and the Republican take-over of Congress in ‘94. Were it not for that, the functional equivalent of “Obama-time” as we are now living it would have been ushered in far sooner–albeit at a slower, less all-pervasive pace. The extent to which the chattering classes on the left–academics, the MSM, Hollywood and self-identified “intellectuals” in general actively hate and despise white conservative males–both political and cultural cannot possibly be over-hyped. And the
transference of BDS to Palin–now renamed PDS–is also cut from the same ideological leftist cloth. Palin clearly must be destroyed as she clearly and unabashedly, happily,loves Alpha males and her lot in life. As such she stands in stark reproof to everything the post-modern, post-colonial deconstructionist adherents of Focault, Derridder, et al., stand for. Palin may be guilty of many intellectual and/or character sins,flaws, and limitations, but surrender–despite what one says/thinks about her current tactical retreat from the left’s onslaught–does not seem to be part of her DNA…..and the left knows this. Hence the constant, unremitting, broad-based full-court press to vilify her and strangle this upstart baby (so deeply imbued by nature with the all-important “Q” PR factor) in it’s political crib, so to speak–before it grows too strong a modern-day St. George-like slayer of leftist dragons for them to resist.
the victor gets to write the history, marie
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:42 pm 83. Marie Claude:Bob, The Maginot line was an investment on the provinces Alsace Lorraine, that the Germans took from France in 1870 and that we regained in 1918. The 2 provinces hadn’t suffered from WW1!because they were german possessions at this time. The ruins happened between Alsace and the Champage Region (included)
The old militaries that ordered Maginot line were also those that had 1870 and WWI in the stomac, so logically for them, the Germans should invade France through the same paths.
Building a Maginot line in the 2 provinces would make sure that they wouldn’t be destroyed in case of a new german attempt.
Naturally they thought about it with the knowledge and the experience that they had.
The only person that wasn’t endorsing that, was de Gaulle, a joung capitaine at the epoque, and a bit rebel, thus not heard.
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:43 pm 84. Bob Murphy:80. virgil xenophon
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:44 pm 85. Marie Claude:I agree that the USSR fell over before our Left could surrender. We were saved by our votes for Reagan.
The flip side of that though is that in the interim another generation has been brainwashed by the academic left and the mainstream media has had longer to anesthesize the American people.
That has broadened the leftist base, might well be responsible for Obama’s election victory, and now allows even more rapid destruction of the bases of our nation under Obama than could have been possible 35+ years ago.
Even if and when we roll him, I am afraid he may well have Trudeau like long term negative impacts on America’s vigor and exceptionalism.
aaron, yes, only in euphory, it’s when passions are down that we can sort the true facts and make a rewritting of the events
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:48 pm 86. Bob Murphy:Marie, DeGaulle was an interesting case. I had several intriguing conversations with OAS officers who were planting bombs and wanted to kill him in revenge for pulling out of Algeria in Strasbourg where I used to spend occasional weekends in the mid 60s. There was a big parachuting centre there, a big French para outfit and some Foreign Legion units.
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:54 pm 87. Bob Murphy:But I can’t forgive him for puling France out of NATO which undermined our whole strategy of resistance should the Soviets have invaded.
They had a 10:1 advantage over us in tanks, we would have been pushed back into France where troops flown in from the US to pre-positioned arms and materiel would have been able to turn the tide, helped by lengthened Soviet supply lines vulnerable to air attack.
He fully understood what he was doing. Once again he was treacherous, as he was to the French paras. I would not have shed a tear if the OAS had got him.
And I’m stil frustrated the USAF wouldn’t let a bunch of us Army types crater the runways at Chatareoux before we left.
We did, however, have our engineers roll up the golf course and take it back to Germany with us.:)
And, Marie, strategically De Gaulle didn’t matter. He was only France’s fig leaf. They certainly needed one.
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:59 pm 88. Walt:What of the deals Obama is making with our enemies? Has he some overarching strategy, something so big, so stupendous, that if it succeeds he will bring everlasting peace to the Middle East and to the world? Or is it just a deal, no different from the deals he did in Chicago? I think that’s all it is. Barack Obama has made deals that advanced his ambitions, and so this is just another deal, a deal he thinks will ingratiate him with the Mullahs in Iran with whom he hopes to strike a grand bargain. It is all of a piece with his vision of himself. Think of the people he has allied himself with on the way up: Professor William Ayers, founder of the radical Weathermen, who planted bombs in the US Capitol but never served a day in jail, and hates the United States to this day; the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, racist anti-white, anti-American hate monger; and his new Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, the man who released Puerto Rican terrorists who bombed a New York restaurant killing many people, and who will very likely shortly name a Special Prosecutor to try the Bush administration for war crimes. These are Obama’s people, and so, apparently, are Iranian killers of American soldiers.
Preacherman scream KKK
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:00 pm 89. Marie Claude:Obamaman say sweetly
Obamaman no hear him say
He listen so discreetly
Professorman hate USA
Obamaman say sweetly
Obamaman say it’s okay
He writes his hate so neatly
Mullahman say kill GIs
Obamaman say sweetly
As long as they’re all in disguise
They’re innocent completely
Mahmoudman say let’s make deal
Obamaman say sweetly
I’ve just the one to make you feel
So full of love repletely
Malikiman say out of town
Obamaman say sweetly
To all the muslims I am bow’n
And moving quite retreatly
To all of them and many more
Obamaman say sweetly
I’m giving you the whole damn store
Now bury us concretely
Bob, de Gaulle didn’t left completly Nato, only the buros and the clerical staff of the organisation, french militaries were sent in all the missions that Nato undertook. He was reproaching that the chiefs were only anglo-saxons. In his mind, and that became our policy, it was better to be alone that having to obbey to a foreign power. This was also the occasion for us to initiate the nuclar program, that is a plus now with the energy supply difficulties.
Algeria issue isn’t so easy to explain, it was a military victory in the first place, but french population of the era had enough to supply a province with its young guis to protect colons that weren’t ready to share power with the local population, and most of it for de Gaulle the calcul in his mind was that this population of muslims was of 10 millions the french colon, 1 million, Mulims with their numourous children would soon overcome this european population., so that ment an eternal war to keep this country under french rules.
Colons of this era weren’t the whites of South Africa that finally shared power with the blacks, who weren’t/aren’t muslims, while Algerians were only muslims. With the best will of the world this would have ended in a conflict, like we have already in our surburbs. These people didn’t/don’t simply feel french, and de Gaulle understood it before all the politicians.
Now, Algeria was a “dechirure” for the persons that had to quit, and could perdon to de Gaulle for having prepeared the independance.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:16 pm 90. virgil xenophon:Many here refer to Orwell’s “1984″–and with good reason. But do not forget the degree to which Huxley’s “Brave New World” is an equal, if not even more appropriate lens thru which to view current events and trends. And the movie “Brazil”–must not forget THAT little gem of a depiction of what the future is in store for us: a Kafka-like living, dysfunctional, totalitarian, faceless
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:19 pm 91. Marie Claude:bureaucratic hell….responsive to no man and on a cruise-control trip in all of it’s own internal, perverted and psychologically twisted dystopian glory….
and couldn’t perdon
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:19 pm 92. twobyfour:Bob/83
Who knows. Take for instance Czechoslovakia, from 60’s to the Velvet Revolution. Population about 12.5 million. Membership of KSC (Communist Party) was at about 1.3 million, slightly more than 10%. Most of the members were members because it was essential for their occupation. No ideological reasons. That did not excuse them, but I am just trying to paint a picture. The intellectuals were anti-communist, whether they had to be in the Party or not, a great majority, in all levels of education, from primary schools to universities. The people experienced the system and bare the top 5%-7% of Party cadres, everyone was pretty much in clear what it is all about. It took only 2 generations to overturn the regime, due to favorable circumstances (Reagan). But if that were not the case, it was bound to happen, even if it took another 30 years. The reason, I think, was that the country once experienced a free political system and it is hard to erase that. People remembered and transferred that knowledge to the young ones. And even those that bought the snake oil for a decade during 50’s woke up quickly, during 60’s.
Did it suck during the 41 years of commie rule? You betcha, countless ruined lives bear witness. But I can’t imagine a better antidote. I just pray it does not take it but a few years here for people to see through it.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:23 pm 93. Marcus Aurelius:I believe I have noted this before in this forum (if not then perhaps they were comments in the making I abandoned).
At the time the Green Revolution was firing up National Geographic put on a special focusing on Iran’s relations with the West (primarily the USA). One episode noted in the show was Brent Scowcroft making a deal (at least it was Scowcroft who was relating the story) with Rafsanjani to get some US hostages in Lebanon released. Iran sent its emissaries to Lebanon and had a rough time of it but in the end the Hezbolalala guy said “big powerful nations like Iran gets its way”.
However, Scowcroft then brought up to the President that a “payment was due”. However, iran was in the middle of its usual things of blowing up Israeli Embassies in foreign lands, assassinating exiles etc. President Bush and his other advisers thought it unwise to deal with Iran. Quite clearly President Obama is okay with dealing with Iran.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:24 pm 94. Brooks:Marie Claude:
Still upset because your mother and grandmother got their heads shaved after Liberation?
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:33 pm 95. Bob Murphy:88. Marie Claude:
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:37 pm 96. virgil xenophon:Quite correct, Marie Claude, I had forgotten the details.
Thanks for the refresh.
Walt @ 87 and your poem–BOFFO!! (file under: wish I’d said/written that!) And how true, how so sadly, pathetically, all too true…..
BOB Murphy@85: Yes, unfortunately the leftist Gramscian “long march” thru our educational system has done great damage–the extent to which is only now manifesting itself. The lingering of the “Trudeau effect” is a distinct possibility if Obama achieves two terms–and even if he does not I, along with you, apparently, fear the more subtle (and not so subtle as well) undertow effects of the educational systems’ contamination by Gramsci’s adherents.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:38 pm 97. Bob Murphy:91. twobyfour:
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:46 pm 98. Bob Murphy:Good points about the Czechs, 2×4.
I often wondered, when I was in the Army in Europe why we didn’t actively sow more seeds of discord within the Czech and other satellite militaries.
The Soviets were always worried about their loyalties anyway. With good reason.
The amount of goodwill I discovered towards Americans when I was driving longhaul trucks from Europe to the Middle East in the mid 80s was amazing.
As soon as they saw my US passport stamped “truck driver” they were all smiles and I always left them tokens of my appreciation for their bonhomie and good will after they finished checking my truck and manifests.
Hell, they didn’t even hassle me about my Nikon Photomic with telephoto lenses and my “schreib maschine” a battery powered Brother word processor with a built in printe. That’s pretty good for countries where the locals even had to register typewriters with the police.
And they could all tell I was ex-military. It showed and they had no problem with it at all.
In #96 I was writing about driving through East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania, and a couple of other then communist countries.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:49 pm 99. bogie wheel:I can vouch for the fact that there is a mentality of “be the first to show up and the last to leave.”
Back in my days in LaLaLand, there was an anecdote that went around about Jeffrey Katzenberg when he worked at Disney. The story was that he was so obsessive-competitive about being the first at the office that he would, upon arrival, feel the hoods of any other cars in the parking lot to see if they were warm.
When I arrived at Disney in 2000, I asked my boss if that story were true. “Almost,” he replied. “Actually, Jeffrey used to send his assistant to the parking lot to feel the hoods of the other cars.”
Then there was the production exec who made her (young, male) assistants fix her appletinis and massage her feet. Some jobs just aren’t worth the lousy money they pay, you know. People who worked there did not call it Mauschwitz for nothing.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:54 pm 100. elby:Wretch @ #10: Hey, a sleeping potion can save our country! How many years should they be out, before we can fix it? Just think, if all of NYC, LA and DC slept for a few months/ years we could completely rebuild our country!
Jul 13, 2009 - 8:01 pm 101. twobyfour:Iraqi columnist: Thank you, America!
Jul 13, 2009 - 8:05 pm 102. bogie wheel:Just think, if all of NYC, LA and DC slept for a few months/ years we could completely rebuild our country!
I nominate Cincinnati as well. Putting the Reds to sleep for a long spell is the only hope our Pittsburgh Pirates have of not finishing last place … AGAIN.
(You sure about that? –ed.)
Jul 13, 2009 - 8:14 pm 103. Alexis:I regard Algeria as an interesting case of what happens when the tail wags the dog. If the tail wags its dog too strongly, the dog may decide it is better off without a tail.
No king likes a kingmaker, particularly a kingmaker who openly threatens to overthrow the king. The Fourth Republic fell because a military coup overthrew the French government in Algeria and invaded Corsica. The same faction that revolted in May 1958 later threatened to overthrow de Gaulle. De Gaulle didn’t like getting threatened.
The Algeria Lobby lost when it overthrew the parliamentary regime of the Fourth Republic in order to promote a king-like authority. In a parliamentary regime, the Algeria Lobby could defend its interests very well. In a presidential regime, they installed a strong executive they could neither control nor influence.
The Algerian War was a military victory for France. However, France’s exit from Algeria should not be seen as a victory by the FLN, but rather as a rational conclusion to the overthrow of the Fourth Republic by the Pieds Noirs. The Pieds Noirs (or French Algerians) scored an own goal. The French far right (which was strong in Algeria) hated the Fourth Republic so much that they insisted upon overthrowing it even at the price of installing one of their enemies as their new “rex”, a “rex” who would turn against them with a vengeance.
The Algiers Putsch is a classic example of “Be careful what you ask for lest you get it.”
Jul 13, 2009 - 8:37 pm 104. Utopia Parkway:“I’ll Give You Dozens of Terrorists, You Give Me One Journalist, OK?”
We in the West have a very soft spot regarding hostages. The Islamists, who have no hearts, have certainly pressed their gains by taking hostages. The Iranians have done this multiple times with the Europeans. It’s usually been pretty quiet but their terrorists and assassins captured as criminals in Europe have mostly been freed in exchange for hostages.
Hezbolla and Hamas have used, and continue to use, hostages to their benefit. The continuing case of Gilad Shalit keeps Israel on tenterhooks and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Ron Arad is living in an Iranian prison.
The Europeans have often paid the terrorists in Iraq to get their nationals back and I assume that we haven’t forgotten about the Somali hostage game.
This is a weakness of ours and I don’t see an end to it. Obama isn’t the first and won’t be the last to pay the Danegeld.
It’s entirely possible that in the aftermath of an unanswered nuclear strike on Britain…
I think that’s an unlikely hypothetical. Those countries that have the bomb but not much else militarily are the most likely to use the bomb, not the least. Fighting a long expensive war is hard. Pushing the button and destroying the mullahs is easy. I see France and Britain as likely to use the bomb if they were to be provoked sufficiently. They have their pride. And they have the bomb. As long as they have an address to send it to, and they are provoked, they will use it. A weak military coupled with the bomb means they will use it, not sit on it. The US has many more military options than the bomb if we were to be attacked.
Jul 13, 2009 - 8:39 pm 105. Tcobb:A weak military coupled with the bomb means they will use it, not sit on it.
In my opinion, that’s living in fantasy land. If you’re capable of building a nuke you have the resources to have a strong military. The fact that you don’t means that the government in charge is not really serious when it comes to foreign threats. Their idea of retaliation is lodging a forceful protest to the UN. Sad. Pathetic. A Jimmy Carter/Obama reaction.
Lambs can pretend to be wolves, but the real wolves know by the scent who the true wolves are.
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:22 pm 106. Marie Claude:about the diagreements between De Gaulle and the US
Pompidou and the US
a video
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/de+gaulle/video/x8wyik_archives-de-la-cia-sur-de-gaulle-et_news
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:31 pm 107. Marie Claude:Alexis, you’re right this was also the case, but the come-back of de Gaulle in 1958, as wished by the “pieds-noirs” and the army, cuz it was impossible to keep a governement of the 4th republic more than a few month, wasn’t organised without de Gaulle conditions ; the political situation was kind of a mess in 1958, and this was the opportunity that de Gaulle waited for since 1946 to play the major role in our state, but he wasn’t that king you’re referring to, otherwise he wouldn’t have left power in 1946, he was respectful of the population desirs.
5th republic was thought to be fonctional,that none of the following presidents thought to modify.
France is a difficult country to lead, too many parties, too many opposites ideologies, and “too many cheezes and wines” according to Churchill. So we need a strong executive power, like it was during kingdoms, but counterbalanced by a strong legislative power, that guaranties democraty.
Again, if de Gaulle was that king, in 1969 he wouldn’t have left power too, after that a referendum didn’t endorse his new social laws.
I’m trying to find a video, that is very clear on de Gaulle behaviour in Algeria
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:54 pm 108. wretchard:Sean,
Errors noted. I will be more careful reading next time.
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:59 pm 109. Marie Claude:a sight of what the french soldiers had to make in algeria
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/de+gaulle+guerre+d%27alg%C3%A9rie/video/x3ec4z_guerre-d-algerie-la-valise-ou-le-ce
Jul 13, 2009 - 10:04 pm 110. Marie Claude:http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7nitb_algerie-histoire-coloniale-partie-8_news
when de Gaulle took the decision to “forget” Algeria
Jul 13, 2009 - 10:12 pm 111. Marie Claude:http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x61aeg_algerie-histoire-coloniale-partie-1_news
8 videos about Algeria colonial history
(this is n° 1)
you can follow the numeros until 8
Jul 13, 2009 - 10:14 pm 112. Marie Claude:well there are more videos than 8 , up to 11 here
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/Algerie+histoire+coloniale?hmz=736561726368686561646572
Jul 13, 2009 - 10:21 pm 113. PA Cat:Putting the Reds to sleep for a long spell is the only hope our Pittsburgh Pirates have of not finishing last place … AGAIN.
Sympathy and condolences from one who remembers the many years the Phillies rented the basement of the NL East.
Jul 13, 2009 - 10:23 pm 114. Alexis:Marie Claude:
I use the term “king” figuratively, more in the sense of an elective monarchy than in the hereditary sense so often assumed in British and French tradition. The Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania once had an elective monarchy. One could argue that states such as the United States and Mexico have an elective monarchy.
If memory serves me correctly, the Bourbon Restoration and Orleanist monarchies did have strong legislatures.
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:48 pm 115. Chiral:Maybe it’s not a bad deal if we are tracking those we released somehow (with satellites or other methods).
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:53 pm 116. Alexis:Charles de Gaulle was a complicated character. Arrogant, yes. He was also a highly intelligent man who could think strategically. (I base this observation upon my reading of his writings from the 1930’s.)
Yet, despite his talents, Charles de Gaulle’s fury at Anglo-American ties ultimately undermined France’s standing internationally. Historically, the United States tended to favor France above all other European states, especially favoring France over the United Kingdom. French anti-Americanism has ruined a long-standing Francophile bias that had existed in American dealings with France.
Admittedly, the historic American Francophile bias was based upon a false impression of France being the land of Lafayette, a place where French statesmen and Benjamin Franklin would admire one another and lead a fight for freedom. It conveniently ignored the XYZ Affair, French resentment over losing control over Louisiana, France’s invasion of Mexico, Charles Maurras’s diatribes against the United States, and Vichy.
In the long run, Americans have Charles de Gaulle to thank for pulling the wool away from the eyes of Americans. His talk of Anglo-Saxon collusion against France has not only become a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it has also undermined France’s standing internationally. Charles de Gaulle and later Gaullist policy have undermined a certain level of strategic ambiguity that would have been useful for French statecraft.
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:57 pm 117. Alexis:Charles de Gaulle was an interesting character. Arrogant, yes. He was also a highly intelligent man who could think strategically. (I base this observation upon my reading of his writings from the 1930’s.)
Yet, despite his talents, Charles de Gaulle’s fury at Anglo-American ties ultimately undermined France’s standing internationally. Historically, the United States tended to favor France above all other European states, especially favoring France over the United Kingdom. French anti-Americanism has ruined a long-standing Francophile bias that had existed in American dealings with France.
Admittedly, the historic American Francophile bias was based upon a false impression of France being the land of Lafayette, a place where French statesmen and Benjamin Franklin would admire one another and lead a fight for freedom. It conveniently ignored the XYZ Affair, French resentment over losing control over Louisiana, France’s invasion of Mexico, Charles Maurras’s diatribes against the United States, and Vichy.
In the long run, Americans have Charles de Gaulle to thank for pulling the wool away from the eyes of Americans. His talk of Anglo-Saxon collusion against France has not only become a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it has also undermined France’s standing internationally. Charles de Gaulle and later Gaullist policy have undermined a certain level of strategic ambiguity that would have been useful for French statecraft.
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:58 pm 118. Bob Murphy:115. Chiral
Automatic high priority target for the drones I would think.
Jul 14, 2009 - 12:15 am 119. Marie Claude:You got it, Chiral.
Google “Human Body Radar Signature ARL-TR-4403.
Alexis, these monarchies inherited the Napoleon code
Jul 14, 2009 - 12:46 am 120. aaron:116: my comment in a previous thread about RFID’s was meant to suggest that we “label” such valuable targets before sending them like a homing beacon back to their lairs.
i can hope anyways…
Jul 14, 2009 - 12:53 am 121. twobyfour:MC, the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom of 16th century or Czech Kingdom of 15th century?
Even the Holy Roman Empire elected its head (though often formally) since 10th century until the 30-year war in 17th century when absolutism started to come into fashion.
Inheriting Napoleonic code would be bass ackward, don’t you think?
Jul 14, 2009 - 1:45 am 122. Bob Murphy:100. elby:
Jul 14, 2009 - 3:36 am 123. Tony:Jeez, elby, don’t forget my native San Francisco. We might want to put San Fran Nan and Barbara Boxer to sleep for awhile while we’re at it.
Bob @97,
You reminded me of how scary typewriters can be. I was passing through the border between Turkey and Iran in ‘77, where they have a foreboding antechamber you pass through with huge glass display cases. In the cases you see hollowed out leg casts, crutches, other futile subterfuges that poor imbeciles had used to smuggle drugs. Next to these items, you read signs with the victims’ names, home countries and life sentences in prison. But the thing that got their attention was my portable, manual Brother typewriter. Words can be scary to dictators of all stripes. I was separated from the crowd, called into a small room, and got my own special interview.
I explained to them that I wrote children’s stories, of course.
Jul 14, 2009 - 4:55 am 124. CPT. Charles:I wonder if this is a coincidence…?
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Britain_revokes_five_Israeli_arms_export_licences_officials_999.html
They say this the result of the ‘Cast Lead’ op but isn’t it a bit late to be boo-hooing over that ? A nay-sayer might mutter ‘bureaucratic inertia’, but my ‘gut’ tells me other-wise.
I don’t recall a whole lot of ‘friends of Israel’ amongst the Tory ‘far-left’ [which infest Britain's Ministries...].
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
Jul 14, 2009 - 6:31 am 125. CPT. Charles:And while we’re at it, here’s some more possible ‘love’ from DC [can we guess who...?]
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Israel_bows_to_US_pressure_on_Gripen_999.html
I think I can…
Jul 14, 2009 - 7:10 am 126. buck smith:This is the same failed policies pursued by Clinton, Reagan and Carter All of them backed away from confrontations with Islamists. Each time the Islmaists came back at us harder. Down the path Obama is heading lies the events described by our host in the Three Conjectures.
Jul 14, 2009 - 7:23 am 127. Tony:Aye CPT. I guess President Obama has never been robbed before, he doesn’t seem to understand that the more you give up, the more they want. Russia says no Iran sanctions for START deal: report
Jul 14, 2009 - 8:35 am 128. AWH:#124, at least Reagan had some reasons for not pursuing the Islamists as hard as he might have otherwise – namely that some of them were our allies (er, rather the enemy of our enemy) and it made sense to concentrate on the main problem of the time.
No excuse for Carter or Clinton, however. Carter had no greater strategic advantage in mind by getting rid of the Shah, just fecklessness on parade as with all of his foreign policy work.
Clinton is a bit more interesting. Maybe he’s the adult version of this current administration. they willed themselves into la-la land, no doubt, by convincing themselves that there were no remaining threats in the world, but at least he had some ability to act.
I suspect the Obama administration won’t act, even when prompted by the most humiliating insults (see #125, I think the Russians have him figured out), which leads me to think that Georgia may be a foregone conclusion as Obama certainly won’t act in order to save them (maybe he’ll send diplomats to Atlanta…).
It’s entirely possible he wouldn’t act decisively, even if prompted by lower level attacks on us or our forces abroad.
Jul 14, 2009 - 9:20 am 129. Wadeusaf:By what logic does trading one journalist for five or six or more “terrorist ineffectives” happen? I am not convinced that there was no deal, but I am certain the terms were not as Michael Ledeen has stated. It make no sense as a gesture or as a trade, even for president Obama.
I tend to believe the interpretation of status of forces agreement is to blame for this. I think General Petraeus is in agreement with that interpretation of the events opposed to the one as outlined here.
Jul 14, 2009 - 1:03 pm 130. Tony:here
#127 – President Clinton did not act in response to the fatal attack on the USS Cole, a capital ship, an act of war, because it was “too close to the election.”
He’s talking about Al Gore’s election there. He’s frozen, can’t respond to a deadly act of war, because it might affect the polls.
Clinton couldn’t take custody of Osama bin Laden when offered the chance by Sudan because he didn’t have legal grounds to hold him.
Sorry, didn’t mean to go off on a tangent. Is this the same President Clinton who sent scads of rare, expensive SLCM’s to downtown Sudan to blow up a nerve gas factory where Osama and Saddam were cooperating (but Monica Lewinsky wasn’t?)
CNN: U.S.: Sudan plant sample contains VX nerve gas precursor
Soil sample called ’smoking gun’
But then this same President Clinton couldn’t do anything about the USS Cole because it was too close to the election?
How many real wars would we have lost and imaginary wars would we have won by now, if Clinton had responded to the USS Cole the way George Bush responded to 9/11?
Jul 14, 2009 - 4:37 pm 131. Bob Murphy:I’m afraid handing over those Iranian Quods Force killers will result in more ad hoc forced interrogations of high priority targets in the field to get vital information followed by a long step outside the door of a flying Blackhawk.
Jul 14, 2009 - 4:58 pm 132. AWH:I’m afraid that would be my inclination and those of a lot of others, given the wide access to military intelligence and the strategic level understanding of our SOCOM operatives in the field.
Catch and release is not the way to fight this war and it will engender effective, if undesirable, real world solutions to the problem of what to do with captured high level targets.
We need their information but we don’t need them on the loose again.
If the official system is dysfunctional…
#129 – the purpose of my post wasn’t to defend Clinton. As I said, “No excuse for Carter or Clinton, however.” The differences between Clinton and Obama are twofold:
1. At least Clinton had the excuse that it was a widely held belief (albeit a stupid belief in my mind) that the world was no longer a dangerous place when he took over.
2. I think Obama has even less backbone and ability to act than did Clinton. Frankly, I give 50/50 odds that he’ll either be totally frozen in the first real crisis, or could just flip out and have to be held secluded while someone else manages the crisis.
You are correct, though. Clinton could have prevented a lot of what’s happening in the world if he’d had the foresight. Unfortunately surrounding yourself with hacks like Warren Christopher and Madeliene Albright doesn’t give you a lot of options when it comes to thinking outside of the box (btw, my wife took a class with Albright at Georgetown and to this day claims she was the stupidest of her professors).
Jul 14, 2009 - 5:33 pm 133. buddy larsen:i thought she handled North Korea brilliantly, with that provision mandating those video camera installations in the NoKo nuclear processing plants. of course it would have worked out better if she had thought to include language whereby the cameras had to be plugged in, but what the hey.
Jul 14, 2009 - 6:35 pm 134. Craigicus:Could part of the deal be this gas pipeline that makes Mother Russia want to vomit?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KG15Ak01.html
Pipeline deal is sweet music for Iran
By M K Bhadrakumar
How a trans-Caspian gas pipeline project came to be named after the 19th-century Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi’s famous opera Nabucco remains obscure. The opera is based on a Biblical story about the tragic plight of persecuted Jews exiled from their homeland by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Maybe, the opera’s enchanting story of love and struggle or its tendency toward melodrama was considered an apt metaphor for the acute Caspian energy rivalry.
Moscow often poured scorn on the Nabucco project’s dim prospects by drawing apt allusions from Verdi’s opera. In the latest parody, an expert commentator in Moscow ridiculed that the “chaotic chanting” by Europeans in support of the project reminded him of the haunting chorus of Hebrew slaves from Verdi’s opera – “beautiful, yet altogether gloomy and hopeless”.
But he was mistaken, as on Monday a galaxy of European statesmen gathered under chandeliers in the banquet hall of the newly built Rixos Hotel in Ankara, Turkey, to sign an inter-governmental agreement formally launching the Nabucco project. United States President Barack Obama’s special envoy on Eurasian energy issues, Richard Morningstar, was in attendance at the ceremony, affirming in unmistakable terms that Nabucco is every bit an American political venture.
(see link above for complete story..)
Jul 14, 2009 - 6:56 pm 135. Tony:131: Clinton avoided active Defense, today’s Democrats criminalize it.
130: followed by a long step outside the door of a flying Blackhawk.
As I heard it, it was a Huey, and only the first two of the lucky three departed the aircraft.
Jul 14, 2009 - 7:27 pm 136. Bob Murphy:Right, Tony. The last one didn’t take the long jump because he started singing. It’s not as messy as torture but it gets the job done when you need information.
Jul 14, 2009 - 8:25 pm 137. RCM:PA Cat @113 and Bogie:
I feel your pain…Cleveland Indians. Even though I left Ohio for boot camp in 1969, they are – will always be – my team. Michigan of course, exists to torment expat Buckeyes.
Punishment gluttony.
Jul 14, 2009 - 10:21 pm 138. buddy larsen:Bob Murphy/135; the principle involved is same as “No need to outrun the bear –just outrun your mate!”
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