Global Paradigms

Representative-elect Chris ("Let's Win the war first") Carney Called to congragulate Chris Raised money for Chris And he is Chris Carney (seen above), the representative-elect from the 10th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. According to the New York Times' James Risen: In early 2002, Mr. Carney, a Naval Reserve officer, was assigned to work in a tiny intelligence unit created by Douglas J. Feith, then the under secretary of defense for policy, to search for links between terrorist groups and their possible state-sponsors, most notably Iraq. After the 2003 invasion, the Feith unit, the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, was caught up in the debate over the Bush administration’s handling of prewar intelligence, and the office was investigated by a Senate committee and an independent presidential commission. In the summer and fall of 2002, Mr. Carney was at the center of the storm, briefing George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and Step...

I'm not an "Intelligence analyst" and I don't play one on television. But I urge you to study the following items: 1. Seymour Hersh new piece in The New Yorker, "The Next Act: Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more?" 2. Tony Karon's "Israel's Domestic Political Games Raises the Danger of a U.S.-Iran War." 3. Aluf Benn's "Olmert's Drums of War" in Haaretz . 4. Bush:I would understand if Israel chose to attack Iran. 5. Michael Oren's op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on November 16 which is only accessible to subscribers. So here are a few interesting quotes: Much like 1967, Israel faces a Middle Eastern leader who has repeatedly sworn to wipe it off the map, and to that end is assiduously trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Like Nasser, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can cripple Israel economically by keeping it in a state of alert, driving away foreign investment and tourism. In the absence of interna...

Dr. Strauss from Stop the Spirit of Zossen emailed a long and very insightful indictment of Condi's role in the Iraq. According to Who Lost Iraq? which was published in US News : President Bush's acceptance of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation was intended to signal a change in course on Iraq. But many national security experts say that Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser at the time of the invasion, and the National Security Council share much of the blame for the problems in Iraq. "She did not perceive, and the National Security Council did not assess, what is in the United States' interests and what is in the interests of our enemies," says retired Lt. Gen. William Odom, an outspoken critic of the war who served as military assistant to Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser. "Once you make that basic mistake, there isn't any way to make the war come out good. It's all over...

Bush goes to Vietnam, four decades after dodging draft By Sebastien Berger in Hanoi Last Updated: 2:22am GMT 17/11/2006 Bush to face the ghosts of America's last failed war Thirty-one years after the US army left Saigon, President Bush flies in for a visit dogged by the unlearned lessons of history Suzanne Goldenberg Friday November 17, 2006 The Guardian

I'm beginning to reassess just a little bit my excitement about the Baker Commission. It seems to me that "we" have been paying too much attention to the glass-is-half-full side of the "study group," that it's a victory for the "realists" and a defeat for the neocons and that it will give Bush a political cover for changing the course in Iraq, negotiate with Iran and Syria, etc. Well ... with all the "Not-so-fast" warnings with regard to withdrawal from Iraq coming even from some of the "good guys," I'm now concerned that Baker and Company are also going to provide a political cover to Democratic war critics who are hesitant about pressing Bush to get out of Mesopotamia. That could turn out to be the glass-is-half-empty side of Baker-Hamilton. Or is it going to be Baker-Hamilton/McCain-Lieberman, that is, a mushy bipartisan consensus in Congress in support for cosmetic changes in the Iraq policy and perhaps even backing for...

Michael Wolff explains in Survivor: The White House Edition in the new issue of Vanity Fair. (It's not the piece about the neocons bad-mouthing Bush). It's the "third act" of a failing war and "everybody's positioning himself for the end."

Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush has campaigned in one Presidential contest (2004) and two Congressional races (2002 and 2004) as a victorious “War President.” Bush and his Republican allies in Congress have been swimming towards one electoral victory after another by comparing the White House occupant to Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt that was supposedly leading the American people and the Free World in a global struggle against the terrorist network led by Osama bin Ladin and (allegedly) Saddam Hussein and the Axis of Evil rogues nations (Iraq, Iran, North Korea) attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to attack American and the West. The rising sense of nationalism that had swept America after 9/11 has helped Bush and the Republican Party rally the American people around the President, the Flag and the Judeo-Christian Civilization standing up against “Islamo-Fascism,” “wimpy” Europeans, and the “weak,” ...

Just make sure that Bush looks like that when the results come out.

The Prophet Jeremiah:A self-hating Jew Baruch Spinoza: A self-hating Jew David Mamet: Not a self-hating Jew I'm a great fan of David Mamet's films and have seen The Spanish Prisoner and House of Games several times. So I was a little disappointed reading the review of Mamet's new book, The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews. According to the reviewer David Margolick, The book’s title refers to the character in the Passover Seder who distances himself from his people. “What does this ritual mean to you?” he asks tendentiously. For Mamet, he represents a disease among Jews, too many of whom are negative, weak, defeatist, ignorant and ungrateful. They hate their own history and traditions, loathe the state of Israel and are far too prone to trade their precious birthright for the closest cause or cult. Margolick didn't like the book and I agree with most of what he writes here: He has a peculiar knack for finding the most egregiously misbehaving Jews:...

Business Times - 03 Nov 2006 Will US trade policy stall? Increasing Democrat control may weaken pro-free trade forces By LEON HADAR IN WASHINGTON THAT the US midterm elections could result in the Democrats regaining control of Congress is causing some concern among pro-free trade proponents in Washington. After all, the Republicans on Capitol Hill have been leading the push for trade liberalisation in recent years, while many Democratic candidates for the House and the Senate have been campaigning on platforms that criticise globalisation with some of them favouring higher tariffs for imported goods. Indeed, pro-free trade Republican Senators from Ohio, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island, and Missouri are now facing strong challenges from Democratic candidates who tend to be more skeptical - of not protectionist - on the issue of free trade. Hence the expectation in Washington is that the most likely consequence of Democratic control of Capitol Hill will be growing pressure ...

Two of my recent pieces from the Business Times of Singapore are pasted here: Business Times - 01 Nov 2006 Will US polls end with a big bang? A Democrat win won't mean Bush will change Iraq policy and withdraw troops By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT A VETERAN British political journalist who has covered all the US presidential races since 1992 is in Washington this week to report on the mid-term Congressional elections that will take place in less than 10 days. 'This is the first time in my career that my newspaper has assigned me to do stories on non-presidential elections in the US,' he told me over lunch in a restaurant on Capitol Hill. 'There is a feeling among my editors that although the elections on November 7th are basically of local nature, they could have a major impact on US foreign policy, and in particular on what's happening in Iraq,' he explained. 'My bosses seem to believe that if the Republicans end up receiving a major blow next month...