Worthy Fights

“Worthy Fights” is Panetta’s addition to the Cabinet bookshelf, and it’s very readable, with the  descriptions of personalities and events that distinguish this genre at its best.

Panetta confides that he thought 44 was wrong on some key decisions, just as Gates and Clinton did in their memoirs. Which makes one reader ask: Why did these officials continue to serve a president with whose policies they often seemed to disagree? Retrospective candor is fine, but wouldn’t it have been better to speak out at the time and perhaps even resign on principle? The country would have been poorer without their service, but we need officials who will tell the truth publicly, in real time, before they make the book deal.

Panetta’s summa came in 2009, when 44 tapped him for the unlikely role of CIA director. The new president understood that the agency needed a skilled politician to rebuild its standing, and Panetta was an inspired, if surprising, choice. He quickly allowed himself to be co-opted by the agency’s prickly career officers (who excel at that, and at tormenting directors who refuse the chalice). He then went on a jihad against the CIA’s enemies, starting with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had made the mistake of calling Panetta a liar. She never did that again. Panetta recounts the “ugly struggle” with Dennis Blair, the retired admiral who, as director of national intelligence, was Panetta’s nominal boss and mistakenly thought he could impose the chain of command on a veteran Washington infighter.

Panetta’s CIA career reached its peak with the discovery and assassination of Osama bin Laden in his lair at Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. It’s an extraordinary story, and it has never been told better than here. Panetta was rock-solid at the final hour, telling the president, “If we don’t do it, we’ll regret it.” But 44 was decisive earlier on, advising in early March, after he decided on the airborne assault, “We need to move very quickly.”

Panetta’s account of his 18 months as defense secretary is almost an anticlimax after the CIA chapters. The Pentagon was, as Panetta might say, just too damned big. The intelligence agency, by contrast, was a secret family that engaged his heart and mind. It’s interesting that the two signature CIA directors over the past 30 years have been Panetta and George Tenet — both hot-blooded personalities so different from the archetypal Ivy League WASPs of the agency’s founding generation.

What has already made news is Panetta’s criticism of 44. It clearly troubled Panetta, who loved his time in Congress, that 44 “was believed not to have found his time as a senator very rewarding and to be disdainful of Congress generally.” He writes that 44’s “decision-making apparatus was centralized in the White House” far more than that of any other administration he had seen, reducing the importance of Cabinet posts.

The comments on Iraq and Syria are blistering. As Panetta saw it, the White House was “so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw [in 2011] rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.” 44’s departure left Iraq to its sectarian misleaders and prefigured the disastrous explosion this year of the Islamic State.

As for Syria, Panetta says that 44 “vacillated” on his “red line” pledge to take military action against chemical weapons in 2013. He writes, “The result, I felt, was a blow to American credibility.”

Panetta says he admires the president as “a realist and a pragmatist,” qualities the two men share. But he observes that 44’s penchant for “playing it cool” has a severe downside: “On occasion he avoids the battle, complains, and misses opportunities.” From Panetta, who comes across in this book as a man who has never shirked a fight he thought was right, that’s a harsh critique.

Pic - "Panetta is a scrappy, profane, devout, Italian-All American, Catholic mensch."

Speaking Truth To Wussies

Oh the Humanity!!

Great Satan's avuncular Veep spoke truth and really p.o.'d some of our valuable fickle on again off again 'Allies" and have hurt their feelings LOL

“What were they doing? They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad — except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”

“Now you think I’m exaggerating? “Take a look! Where did all of this go?”

“All of a sudden everybody’s awakened because [of] this outfit called ISIL [or ISIS], which was Al Qaeda in Iraq,” said Biden. He sketched the organization’s history: it was “essentially thrown out of Iraq” but “found open space in territory in eastern Syria,” then it worked with the al Qaeda subsidiary al Nusra, which the United States “declared a terrorist group early on.” And, still, according to Biden, “we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them. So what happened? Now all of a sudden — I don’t want to be too facetious — but they have seen the Lord, [and] the President’s been able to put together a coalition of our Sunni neighbors, because America can’t once again go into a Muslim nation and be seen as the aggressor. It has to be led by Sunnis to go and attack a Sunni organization.

“The Vice President made clear that the United States greatly values the commitments and sacrifices made by our Allies and partners from around the world to combat the scourge of ISIL, including Turkey,” said the U.S. read-out on the phone call. “The two leaders reaffirmed the importance of Turkey and the United States working closely together to confront ISIL,” it concluded.

Yeah, it’s a bitch being Joe Biden. But somebody’s got to try to tell the truth sometime.

Pic - "Apology Tour"

Turkey's Pakistanization

Ah yes - seems only yday, when tripping about with mom and a teen in the family way was seen...

"Remember when we talked about choices? Well, see that girl? She made BAD choices"

Not unlike the inexplicably strong on paper, weak in real life Ottomans.

See,

Last week, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared that Turkey is ready “for any cooperation in the fight against terrorism.” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu argued that Islamic State militants pose a greater threat to Turkey and the Muslim world than to the West.

Turkey’s dilemma is far more grave than its leaders realize. Indeed, Turkey’s current situation resembles the early years of Pakistan’s sponsorship of the Taliban. The Islamic State is recruiting militants in Turkey. And failure to clean its own house now could lead Turkey down the path of “Pakistanization,” whereby a resident jihadist infrastructure causes Sunni extremism to ingrain itself deeply within the fabric of society.

Although Turkey now recognizes the threat — the Turkish government voted to authorize military force in Iraq and Syria on Thursday — it has yet to come to terms with its own responsibility for helping to create it.

Turkey claims that radical groups grew stronger because moderates seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria were not given adequate aid. But that is not the whole picture. As Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., the former American ambassador to Turkey, has pointed out, Ankara supported radical groups, including the Nusra Front. Indeed, during the early days of Syria’s civil war, jihadist groups funneled fighters and resources through Turkey into Syria.

Turkey’s intervention in the Syrian civil war parallels Pakistan’s support of the Taliban to affect the course of the Afghan civil war. But the jihadism abetted by Pakistan did not remain across the Afghan border. Turkey may now be witnessing the beginnings of a similar blowback.

The Turkish government’s decision to turn a blind eye to Islamic State activity within its borders has similarly led to the extremists’ increasing influence in certain areas of Turkey’s major cities. The recent and unprecedented arson attacks on Shiite mosques in Istanbul may indicate that Turkey is entering this second phase. Turkey is home to only a small Shiite community; but Turkey’s Alevis, a heterodox Muslim sect often regarded as heretical by Sunnis, constitute about 20 percent of Turkey’s population.

A campaign by Sunni extremists against the Alevi community could lead Turkey into a Pakistan-like vortex of sectarian violence and radicalization. The present government’s own politics of polarization, illustrated by Mr. Erdogan’s baiting of the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu due to his Alevi background during Turkey’s recent presidential election campaign, may further inflame sectarian tensions. And Islamic State militants will not hesitate to exploit the Sunni-Alevi fault line in Turkish society.

Pakistan’s final and most dangerous stage of extremism occurred when the flow of militants and resources was reversed. As the Taliban conquered most of Afghanistan, it provided training camps and other logistical support to its allies, making it harder for Pakistan to control militant organizations inside its borders.

Turkey has not experienced this stage yet. But the Islamic State may find fertile recruiting ground among Turkey’s 1.3 million Syrian refugees. And Turkish citizens may be drawn into the orbit of militancy just as segments of Pakistan’s population have been.

If the Islamic State’s Turkish networks remain intact, Turkey runs the risk that homegrown militants will be empowered by the return of fighters from Islamic State territory in Syria and Iraq.

Pic - "Today Kobani, tomorrow the Ottomans"

NoKo Coup!

Juche!

The starving slave underground rocket factory with a nation state attached may be enjoying a coup d' etat!

Pongyang has been placed on lockdown, according to The Telegraph, raising fears of a possible coup. The lockdown may also be the result of attempted defections or a purge of North Korean leaders. Reports of the lockdown first surfaced on Tuesday, in a report in New Focus International. 

“This sort of action suggests there has either been an attempted coup or that the authorities there have uncovered some sort of plot against the leadership,” said North Korean expert Toshimitsu Shigemura. “If it is a military-backed coup, then the situation in Pyongyang will be very dangerous, and I have heard reports that Kim has been moved out of the capital.”

Kim Jong-un hasn’t been seen publicly for over a month, as The Inquisitr has previously noted. His sister, Kim Yo Jong, is reportedly in charge of North Korea while he undergoes medical treatment, according to the International Business Times. It is unclear whether or not his medical issues are part of the reason for the lockdown in Pongyang.   

KCNA, North Korea’s state run media, announced that Choe Ryong-hae, vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission, and another senior agency member, Jang Jong-nam, were being transferred to other duties, which analysts believe amount to significant demotions, according to The Telegraph. 

Ceremonies held on October 10 to celebrate the founding of the Korean Worker’s Party will be closely watched by neighboring nations interested to see whether or not Kim Jong-un will appear in public.  

Pic - "If it is a military-backed coup, then the situation in Pyongyang will be very dangerous"

 

The Trouble With Yemen

Houthi Hanky Panky!

The capture of Yemen's capital by rebels with ties to Iran has jolted Saudi Arabia, prompting a scramble by Riyadh to prevent its Shi'ite Muslim rival from exploiting the takeover to make trouble in the kingdom's backyard.

The Sunni Muslim country is also concerned that the security deterioration in its southern neighbour, where the Shi'ite Houthi fighters seized Sanaa on Sept. 21, does not benefit another old enemy, al Qaeda.

For the hereditary rulers of Saudi Arabia, a stable, wealthy oil kingpin, the 1,400-km (870 mile) border with turbulent, impoverished Yemen which snakes over remote mountains and desert, has always been a security nightmare.

But with their ability to manipulate events south of the border at the lowest ebb in decades, the kingdom's ruling Al Saud are scrabbling to find Yemeni allies who can restore a semblance of order while remaining friendly with Riyadh.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal warned of "accelerating and extremely dangerous conditions" and said in New York last week that Yemen's violence would "threaten stability and security on the regional and international arena".

In a sign of how far Riyadh is worried about Iran's ties to the Houthis, it and five other Gulf Arab states said after an Interior Ministers' meeting on Wednesday that they would not "stand idly" by in the face of foreign intervention in Yemen.

Riyadh has always wielded greater influence in Yemen than other countries, yet while it remains a big aid donor, the chaos following the country's 2011 uprising has left it with many potential foes there and few trusted friends.

For the Saudis, the risk is not only that Iran could gain a new foothold across the border via its ties with the Houthis, but that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) could take advantage of the unrest to plot new attacks.

"The struggle in Yemen is a threat to neighbouring countries and Saudi Arabia should worry about this. It could become another Taliban land," said Abdullah al-Askar, head of the foreign affairs committee on Saudi Arabia's Shoura Council which advises the government on policy.

The Houthis and other political parties signed a deal last month to form a more inclusive government after days of fighting in suburbs of Sanaa, giving the rebel movement a new and bigger stake in Yemeni politics.

"It takes a real government to take action against militants. Sanaa cannot be left in the hands of the Houthis and the Iranians. Iran should be under international pressure for this. It's really enough. They should stop it," said Askar.

There are longstanding connections between Iran and the Houthis, who have sent leading members to Tehran for training and who have borrowed widely from Iranian revolutionary ideology, but the extent of the relationship is not clear.

Still, what Askar and other Saudis fear is that the Houthis will follow the model laid out by Hezbollah in Lebanon, using popular support among Shi'ites combined with a hefty military presence to dominate politics and project Iranian might.

That would undermine Saudi Arabia's position in what has become an important front of its region-wide rivalry with Iran, mainly contested along sectarian lines, by creating an ally for Tehran in Riyadh's own backyard.

The security threat was underscored in July when an AQAP raiding party crossed the frontier to kill several Saudi border guards and detonate a bomb in a police building.

Saudi Arabia has always mistrusted the Houthis, who emerged early last decade demanding an end to the marginalisation of Zaydi Shi'ites, who make up around a third of Yemenis, and fought a brief border war with them from 2009-10.

Although the Houthi group started as a small-scale protest movement in one part of north Yemen, it rapidly gained in strength by tapping Zaydi grievances and wider anti-government sentiment and by allying with Tehran.

Zaydi theology is very different from the Shi'ism practised in Iran and most other parts of the Middle East, and the sect historically had good ties with Yemeni Sunnis. But one of the Houthis' main grievances was the emergence of the hardline Salafi Sunni strain in Zaydi areas, which they believe was being encouraged by Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis' subsequent fighting with Salafi groups, along with their deepening alliance with Iran and adoption of some of its revolutionary slogans, has since placed Yemen within a wider sectarian struggle fought by proxies of Riyadh and Tehran.

In March, Saudi Arabia banned the Houthis - along with Hezbollah and Sunni Islamist and militant movements including the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda and Islamic State - declaring them terrorist organisations.

"What has happened in Yemen with the Houthis over the past two weeks has contributed to Riyadh's attitude of extreme distrust of Iran," said a diplomatic source in the Gulf.

Riyadh's efforts to counter growing Houthi sway have been complicated, however, by chaos after the ousting of long-serving president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the decline of its own allies in Sanaa and mutual mistrust with its southern neighbour.

Saudi Arabia built a patronage network among Yemeni tribes and politicians under the late defence minister, Prince Sultan, who orchestrated Riyadh's role in Yemen's 1960s civil war.

The most important of his Yemeni allies, Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar, head of the Hashid tribal confederation, died in 2007 prompting a slow decline in the power of his family among the tribes just as the Houthis were on the ascendancy.

It left Riyadh without a trusted ally at the very moment it most needed to project influence amid the political transition from Saleh under interim President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, whose war on AQAP has given him more control over Yemen policy than other princes, has worked closely with Hadi's government, but few people see the transitional leader as a long-term power broker.

"The Yemeni situation is so complex that I'm not sure who the friends are who we could work with. But at least we know who our enemies there are, and the Houthis and al Qaeda are at the top," said a Saudi political science professor who asked to remain anonymous.

Yemen's other main political players include a southern separatist movement, which Riyadh distrusts, and the Islah party, which as an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood is regarded as anathema by Saudi rulers.

That might mean Riyadh has little option but to accept the Houthi ascendancy and work with the group.

One other possibility is that the Al Saud could back any attempt by the influential former president Saleh, who once described his success in ruling Yemen as "dancing on the heads of snakes", to return to the political scene, analysts say.

Saleh was never a close Saudi ally and their disagreement over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 even led Riyadh to expel millions of Yemeni workers, prompting an economic crisis that accelerated the country's march to civil war in 1994.

But the dearth of options has led some Saudis to regard the relative stability of his reign almost with nostalgia. "The central state of Yemen is very weak. The army is a shambles and couldn't stand up to either al Qaeda or the Houthis. In the past, Saleh kept things peaceful," said the analyst.

Pic - "Iran, of course, denies any involvement with the Houthi rebels, but such protestations are hollow. The rebels have acquired advanced weaponry that Hizbollah also has. In the past week, five high-level prisoners have been released: three of them suspected members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and two of them suspected members of Hizbollah."

Conflict and the Progress of Civilization

War! What Is It Good For?: Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots by Ian Morris

War is one of the greatest human evils. It has ruined livelihoods, provoked unspeakable atrocities and left countless millions dead. It has caused economic chaos and widespread deprivation. And the misery it causes poisons foreign policy for future generations. But, argues bestselling historian Ian Morris, in the very long term, war has in fact been a good thing.

 War is the only human invention that has allowed us to construct peaceful societies.

Moreover, the march toward a more peaceful humanity from the Stone Age to the 20th century has not been steady but full of wild zigzags. In particular, Morris calls the anarchy of the Middle Ages the culmination of a millennium of "counterproductive wars that followed the breakdown of the ancient empires."

Hard as it may be to believe, in general, imperialism has advanced humanity by making it safer and wealthier, and by aspiring to a universalism beyond tribe and ethnicity. Hitler's attempt at imperialism burnt out after a few years because of his very extremism, whereas Rome, ancient Persia, Venice, Holland, France, Great Britain and America have all fostered, more or less, human development through various kinds of imperialist or imperial-like enterprises. And they have all done so in significant measure through war.

Imperialism has led ultimately to what Morris calls a "globocop," a role that the United States has played, however imperfectly, since the collapse of the Soviet Empire. America may get into Middle Eastern quagmires, but its Navy and Air Force, not to mention the reputation of its land forces and intelligence apparatus, project power sufficiently throughout the world so as to reduce the level of conflict and so far eliminate major interstate war.

The United States, for its part, has become the complex and productive society it is largely thanks to the rigors it has passed through in planning for armed conflict, especially World War II and the Cold War. Morris might have added to his text that mass college education, the explosion of suburban life and civil rights for minorities were all expressions of the further democratization of American life that would have been hard to imagine without the national unity enforced by having to fight the Nazis and the Japanese.

For we still live in the relatively benign aftermath of World War II, in which the greatest interstate war in history has led to 70 years without interstate war between the great powers. The 19th century in Europe, between the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of World War I, was a similar period when many people lost their sense of the tragic only to be shocked by what came afterward. We can only hope that Morris' defense of war actually proves accurate so that we can continue to enjoy relative peace.

Pic - "Father Of Us All"

Wrong Intell?

Oh snap!! Here's a shot of Jager for breakfast!

If 44's Intelligence Posse totally blew the IS chiz - reckon it's also wrong on Iran's new clear chicanery?

There is likely much gnashing of teeth in the intelligence community today in the wake of 44’s interview with 60 Minutes Sunday night. He laid the blame for the rise of the Islamic State at the feet of the intelligence community. “Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” said the commander in chief on national television.

Not true, reports Daily Beast. “One former senior Pentagon official who worked closely on the threat posed by Sunni jihadists in Syria and Iraq was flabbergasted,” writes Lake, then quoting his source: “Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshidding.’”

It’s not a good sign that the president and the intelligence community are at odds over intelligence on the Islamic State.

 

However, there’s an even more serious concern in the offing over the Iranian nuclear program. If, as 44 claims, the intelligence community was wrong about the Islamic State, how can it be trusted to get Iran right? Or, alternately, how can the president be trusted not to blame his own failures on others?

The White House has repeatedly claimed, “We have the capacity to monitor the Iranian nuclear program… We would know if they were to make a so-called breakout move towards developing such a weapon.” 

 

Pic - "Trying to shift the blame for a foreign policy crisis away from the White House and towards the nation's intelligence community."