Gonzo, you clearly don't know much about Kelley Vlahos - she has produced a number of groundbreaking stories on the treatment of our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan that required hard and innovative work on her part. Logan is a reporter, not a journalist, and she shouldn't be acting as if she actually knows what's going on when, in reality, she is being fed "points of view" by the usual neocon/milindustrialcomplex flacks who promote her career and that of her husband.
Maybe they just want to encourage good behavior after the awful behavior of the past eight years, but if that is so they are likely to be disappointed. What bothers me is that the White House has never solicited any advice from anyone who has opposed the whole misguided imperial agenda. It's all the same hacks all the time recommending more of the same. McChrystal's AfPak plan is little more than a neocon fantasy. Obama must see through it all but I assume he thinks it is easier to go with the flow...
Jeff's metaphor "We’re as likely to turn Afghanistan into a real country as we are to make a herd of cats march in a straight line" was priceless. I have noted that American policymakers have a fundamental difficulty in dealing with reality on the ground regarding the places we invade. They ain't exactly like us and they sure as hell won't do what we tell them to do. Every neocon and politician believes that those funny furriners are just like Americans if they can only be nudged in the right direction. Wrong.
I've had the same experience as Smithboy. Comments that are even mildly critical of Israel somehow never make it through the mediation process at Huffington. I know there are some bloggers on the site who do criticize Israel very effectively, but it seems to me that there is a deliberate policy to let a few comments through to appear to be open minded on the issue while suppressing the rest. Arianna Huffington is a self promoting hypocrite who knows where her money comes from. She switches her political allegiance seamlessly in an effort to make herself a media player. God knows what she really stands for.
Thanks for the article Kelley! What gets me most about the neocon "experts" is how few of them actually have any military experience to draw on. Eliot Cohen, Michael Ledeen, Danielle Pletka, Reuel Gerecht, the three Kagans, Matthew Continenti, Bill Kristol, Victor Davis Hanson...the list goes on and on. Some of them were actual draft dodgers during Vietnam who suddenly have seen the light, apparently. Hanson is the only one who actually produced a serious book and that was on hoplite warfare, written before he had found his way to lotus land. He recent analysis of the Peloponnesian War is laughable. To those who say you don't need to actually serve to understand the military I say bullshit. The military is a unique institution culturally that is impervious to outsiders most of the time. For the Kagans battallions of soldiers are little more than pawns being moved around on a chessboard.
David, I did not ignore the Armenian genocide issue. It was a major part of the interview but when we edited down from 10,000 words to get under our 4,000 word limit we felt there were other issues like treason and corruption that we had to include and were unable to come up with enough space to give the Armenian issue justice. There simply was no room to discuss the details of the Ohio court case filed by David Krikorian or to analyze the voting record of Congressman Dennis Hastert. Yes, I lived in Turkey and like Turks but I am not "pro-Turkish" or I would not have done this interview which is highly critical of Turkey. I do not believe that the Armenian genocide resolution should be passed by our Congress, but that is a foreign policy issue for me as it is for many others and I do not question in any way the reality and horror of the Armenian genocide.
During the Vietnam War I was a flunky intelligence officer whose job was to make the colonels look good by putting together slide shows demonstrating how every month production was up. Numbers, not quality, was what mattered. Slide shows were our version of power point. I often wondered if the Soviets were doing the same thing and whether there was a Lieutenant over on their side who was as pissed off as I was. We would have had a lot to talk about. Point is, the military (and government in general) runs on bullshit and you will always find senior officers who can explain plausibly why things should be done in a certain way. Most of it is self serving. That is what we are seeing in AfPak and Iraq, where we could easily lose both wars and no one will be to blame. If we are ever stupid enough to attack Iran the same crap will be served up after the Mullahs sink one of our aircraft carriers with one of their Chinese made silkworm missiles.
Obama is actually an intelligent guy, unlike his predecessor, and you have to wonder what he actually thinks. I particularly wonder what he must tell his wife at bedtime, "Jeezus Christ honey, I'm going to have to obliterate Kandahar tomorrow morning" or "That bonehead McChrystal is stopping our German allies from having a beer. They'll be out of here faster than shit through a goose." He must realize that the whole national security agenda is a lot of B.S., but maybe he knows this is all Kabuki and it doesn't really matter if he wants to stay in power.
Hey Henry read what the article says - it's not about who is running America, it's about a screwed up foreign policy. I have zero expectations that Obama will do anything and am merely pointing out that if he is really serious he will have to make a major policy move soon. I don't expect him to do anything and am basically setting up a straw man to point out that Obama as an agent of change is pretty much an illusion. Unlike you I have no idea who is running America, but it sure as hell isn't me and my friends here at antiwar. - Phil Giraldi
General who would be King for sure, apologies to Kipling, but it also recalls the Napoleonic wars when the British likened Napoleon to a frog who had inflated himself to become as big as an ox. At least Napoleon knew how to win a battle or two. Our generals are most adept at starting wars that they never can finish, by design one assumes.
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