Familiar names

[we advocate] . ..the spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems. . . our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil."
from the Defense Planning Guidance, 1992, of which Paul Wolfowitz was an architect.

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was founded in 1997 by Robert Kagan (erstwhile Wilsonian Democrat who believed the lesson learned in Vietnam was not to withdraw from the world, but to promote American values and democracy hegemonically throughout the world) and William Kristol. Early members included Donald Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. (Sound familiar?) They signed a document recommending to President Clinton that a change of regime was needed in Iraq. Iraq had been on the mind of Wolfowitz as early as the late 70's when he was an official in the Carter administration. He authored the Limited Contingency Study that argued for an invasion of Iraq to seize and thus control the oil fields of Iraq. And who said oil had nothing to do with the invasion? How convenient was 9/11 for these folks to provide the justification for what they had always wanted to do anyway.

Vietnam by Any Other Name

Bibliography:

In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert McNamara
Dereliction of Duty : Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam by H.R. McMaster (written as a dissertation by a colonel who just finished a tour of duty at Tal Afar, Iraq, the city cited recently by President Bush as a measurable success, it castigates the generals during the Vietnam War who avoided telling the truth to their political superiors with disastrous results.)

Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American by Cecil Currey

American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips

The Assassin's Gate by George Packer

"Changing the Army for Counter-Insurgency Operations" by Brigadier General Nigel Aylwin-Foster. (This article was sent to every general in the US Army by the Army chief of Staff. Much of it was publicly disavowed but privately applauded. It was published in Military Review, a US Army publication. The link is to a pdf copy of the article)

I know the administration and other representing the head-in-the-sand approach to foreign policy remain committed to the idea that parallels to Vietnam are fallacious. I cannot help but being struck - as one who lived through Vietnam as a very draftable college study - by the similarities of language and participants. Just look at Rumsfeld, he even resembles McNamara. Both had similar ideological agendas: to reform the military and make it right and efficient; both used language to obfuscate reality ("They didn't even want to say the 'i' word," 'one officer in Iraq told me' "It was the specter of Vietnam... The next word is 'quagmire.'" **. ; and Rumsfeld is well on the well to being discarded the way McNamara was on the slag heap of history. Whether he'll have the fortitude or guts to do a mea culpa as did McNamara remains to be seen. And this ghastly "Coalition of the Willing" for heaven's sake. Twelve soldiers from El Salvador? Vietnam's obloquy to multi-nationalism all over again

Now that we are building permanent bases in Iraq, the future is dim, I fear. Can we never learn from the past? The Communists in Vietnam knew they would win; all they had to do was wait us out. It was, after all, their country. Sooner or later we would have to leave. The insurgents - oh, excuse me, the "enemies of the legitimate government of Iraq - know that too.

And finally, someone admits this war is just about protecting our supplies of oil. Bravo Kevin. Any moron could see that formed a major undeclared justification, even if most reporters ignored Cheney's comments years ago about it being a way to protect our source of oil.

It's all so sad.

** The New Yorker, April 10, 2006, p. 51

US debt clock running out of time, space - Yahoo! News

US debt clock running out of time, space - Yahoo! News

No comment.

Cheney and Torture

(Interrupting) That's Cheney's pursuit. The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It's about vengeance, it's about revenge, or it's about cover-up. You don't gain intelligence that way. Everyone in the world knows that. It's worse than small-minded, and look what it does.

I've argued this on Bill O'Reilly and other Fox News shows. I ask, who would you want to pay to be a torturer? Do you want someone that the American public pays to torture? He's an employee of yours. It's worse than ridiculous. It's criminal; it's utterly criminal. This administration has been masters of diverting attention away from real issues and debating the silly. Debating what constitutes torture: Mistreatment of helpless people in your power is torture, period. And (I'm saying this as) a man who has been involved in the most pointed of our activities. I know it, and all of my mates know it. You don't do it. It's an act of cowardice. I hear apologists for torture say, "Well, they do it to us." Which is a ludicrous argument. ... The Saddam Husseins of the world are not our teachers. Christ almighty, we wrote a Constitution saying what's legal and what we believed in. Now we're going to throw it away.

Interview with Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, was a founding member of Delta Force, the military's elite covert counter-terrorist unit

Dissolution

I have always been a fan of historical mysteries, particularly those that provide a plethora of authentic period detail, in addition to a good yarn. Sharon Kay Penman is wonderful and Sunne in Splendour, a story built around Richard III, is terrific. Ellis Peters' medieval Brother Cadfael detective stories are wonderful. Now comes C. J. Sansom, whose 16th century hunchback lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake is sent by Henry VIII's Thomas Cromwell to investigate the murder of one of his royal commissioners at a monastery. Tensions are high as Henry attempts to eliminate the power of the Church as the Reformation takes hold in England. Good detective story set in the corruption plagued 1500's.