...it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on

[fastpat]

Karen Kwiatkowski writes a telling article yet again. This woman is fantastic.

Without Reservation

by Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D., Lt. Col. USAF (ret.)


posted 13 Feb 06

All the King's Men

The latest ripple of dissent in Washington, D.C. comes from Paul Pillar, former CIA National Intelligence Officer for Near East South Asia from 2000 to 2005. Pillar writes in the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs that regarding Iraq,

Damaging ill-will. Intelligence work politicized. Funny, this sounds a lot like what the former assistant to Secretary of State Colin Powell said late last year. Retired Colonel Larry Wilkerson related how Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld �somehow managed to hijack the intelligence decision making process.� Wilkerson stated in his October 2005 coming out speech at the New American Foundation,

The case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my study of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process. What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy didn't know were being made.

Actually, it's not funny at all. Paul Pillar at CIA and Wilkerson at State both echoed observations published in July 2003, when I reported what I had seen while serving in the Pentagon Office of Secretary of Defense Near East and South Agency policy directorate. I spoke then of the functional isolation of career experts, and of operational deference to ill informed and ideologically blind but -politically correct- Bush appointees. I wrote of groupthink and cross-agency neoconservative - cliques. - The December 2003 issue of The American Conservative ran a detailed three part series that explained exactly how things worked in Pentagon Near East South Asia policy making. Salon.com also ran a shorter version of this report a few months later.

So I was not shocked when Knight Ridder, that last bastion of tough, old-school investigative reporting in America, ran a story last week detailing abusive personnel practices and - a political vendetta against career Foreign Service and Civil Service (personnel) by political appointees,-

Reorganization - badly needed in many instances in the CIA, State Department and the upper reaches of the Pentagon - was pursued as a convenient way to eliminate intellectual adversaries who got in the way of the neoconservative agenda. Anyone who dared to speak out became political road kill.

One might ask, what is the neoconservative agenda, and why does it matter? Isn't it as good as any other for this country, especially now? In this very column, the neoconservative policy, in the Middle East at least, has at times been framed as a simple elaboration and extension of the old Carter Doctrine.

Neoconservative-sounding military and economic interventionism cloaked in the goodthink of universal democracy and human values has been called forth by the White House in previous sequences of the American story. The post-Cold War years happen to be only the most recent incarnation of this outward-looking, globally hungry philosophy.

So what's wrong with the Commander-in-Chief ensuring his foreign and war-fighting policy makers share his vision, his world view, and do his bidding as he sees it? Is there anything inherently wrong with this -three bags full- approach to foreign interventions, foreign wars, and global pursuit of Presidential interests?

Sadly, the answer is no, there is not. The will at the pinnacle is dutifully enforced in dictatorships, totalitarian regimes, oligarchies, single party governments as existed in old style Communist countries, or in absolute monarchies. This is what we are experiencing in Washington today. Loyal political operatives' policy wonks driving the governing system expect reward. They expect to be strategically positioned, preferably close to centers of power. Dissenters and naysayers can expect to be ousted, and even punished.

As Thucydides observed, - The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.-

Of course, constitutional republics - by definition incapable of empire and reluctant to place excessive power in a single individual - have never been part of this happy family of dictatorships, single party systems, autocratic states, and monarchies.

Complaints, after-the-fact of political and institutional malfeasance throughout the executive branch in Washington are useful for historical analysis. They produce records that comprise the post-crime scene forensic evidence of an American republic recently deceased.

Here's how it happened historians will say. A great nation's foreign policy was politicized, personalized and rendered trivial through extensive use of apparatchiks and an American-style nomeklatura. The king's opponents were removed, bypassed and eliminated. They suffered personal attacks calling them traitors or worse, home-grown policy terrorists.

Today, the American president drifts inexorably towards a disastrous, illegal and unnecessary military confrontation with Iran, driven by artificial national security machinations. As with the illegal, artfully contrived invasion of Iraq and its subsequent occupation, Bush will once again pursue the kind of -creative destruction- associated with neoconservative theorist (and Karl Rove pal) Michael Ledeen.

Perhaps, in the end, forensic examination of our doomed national foray into absolute executive power will provide historians with a laugh or two. As undeniable evidence of our own national stupidity mounts and becomes increasingly frightening, we read that Vice President Dick Cheney shot and wounded 78-year old Harry Whittington, as he fired his shotgun into a flock of scattering birds.

We hope that both Mr. Whittington and our Republic will survive their encounter with the scatter shot policies of the current regime.

- 2006 Karen Kwiatkowski

Dr. Kwiatkowski can be reached at karen@militaryweek.com.

[Joeaksa]

...it has become clear that

Also, its become very clear that you and reality are not one...

All it takes is a few minutes to look at www.militaryweek.com and even a blind man can see which direction this site leans. Another liberal tool it seems...

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
...it has become clear that

Also, its become very clear that you and reality are not one...

It's clear that is your fond dream, but that's all it is.

All it takes is a few minutes to look at www.militaryweek.com and even a blind man can see which direction this site leans. Another liberal tool it seems...

Translation: militaryweek.com doesn't goose step as well as I'd like.

You need to get a grip on reality, Joseph, militarism is going the way of the dodo bird, and not a moment too soon.

[Rodeo]

Good piece. Not that we needed any more confirmation of what Bush admin insiders have been saying since Paul O'Neil. The list is as impressive as it is troubling: Paul O'Neil, Richard Clark, General Shinseki, Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell (in his usual wimpy manner), and now Paul Pillar.

All high level, competent men with the same basic message. There are a handful of people that make policy in Washington, the two most prominent being Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Even the president seems to be along for the ride most of the time. They seek no advice from the agencies and people that know far more than they do, and anyone that gets in thier way becomes "political roadkill."

The results of this secretive, insular, and fundamentally un-democratic manner of governing can be seen every day as the caskets return from Iraq, and as our federal tax dollars continue to pour out to make Iraq safer for the Islamic theocracy that is poised to accept the keys, as soon as we have had enough of this insane war.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Rodeo
Good piece. Not that we needed any more confirmation of what Bush admin insiders have been saying since Paul O'Neil. The list is as impressive as it is troubling: Paul O'Neil, Richard Clark, General Shinseki, Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell (in his usual wimpy manner), and now Paul Pillar.

All high level, competent men with the same basic message. There are a handful of people that make policy in Washington, the two most prominent being Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Even the president seems to be along for the ride most of the time. They seek no advice from the agencies and people that know far more than they do, and anyone that gets in thier way becomes "political roadkill."

The results of this secretive, insular, and fundamentally un-democratic manner of governing can be seen every day as the caskets return from Iraq, and as our federal tax dollars continue to pour out to make Iraq safer for the Islamic theocracy that is poised to accept the keys, as soon as we have had enough of this insane war.

Thank you, well said and accurate.

[Seahawk]

Doing taxes today...my preferred method is to sprint and drift , work and surf.

So I read about Kwiatkowski...I've got to say that Pat's earlier posts of her writing were not her best. She was trying to pull far too many analogies through a PhD driven knothole.

That said, when she (much like Pat) stops being pregorative and churlish, there is value added in her writings. Her internet interviews are interesting, as are her views on Luti, but she would be far more effective with less vitriol.

[Mulhollanddose]

Interesting how those that are most full of it have the tendency to have the most to say...needless to say this is the case with this female. She has been demonstrated wrong yet she persists in her erroneous conclusions, just like a woman concealing her true objectives of misleading to further her socialist utopia of servitude for all.

[Rodeo]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
Interesting how those that are most full of it have the tendency to have the most to say...

Looking at your 3,500 plus posts, I finally agree with something you have said

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Seahawk
Doing taxes today...my preferred method is to sprint and drift , work and surf.

So I read about Kwiatkowski...I've got to say that Pat's earlier posts of her writing were not her best. She was trying to pull far too many analogies through a PhD driven knothole.

That said, when she (much like Pat) stops being pregorative and churlish, there is value added in her writings. Her internet interviews are interesting, as are her views on Luti, but she would be far more effective with less vitriol.

Karen K. has an interview with Saul Landau at:
http://video.csupomona.edu/HotTalk/KarenKwiatkowski-245.asx

This is streaming video and can be viewed with Windows Media Player.

I think you'll find her very interesting to listen to.

[rcecale]

Originally posted by fastpat
Dr. Kwiatkowski can be reached at karen@militaryweek.com.

Perhaps this was a typographical error. I think they really meant karen@militaryWEAK.com

Randy

[techweenie]

Defending policies that have needlessly killed thousands of American soldiers is a bad position to be put in, but the (dwindling) handful of Bush apologists seem to need to do it every day.

Don't tell them about the Downing Street Memo.

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

[fastpat]

Originally posted by techweenie
Defending policies that have needlessly killed thousands of American soldiers is a bad position to be put in, but the (dwindling) handful of Bush apologists seem to need to do it every day.

Don't tell them about the Downing Street Memo.

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

I'll try to keep it to myself. That's the way of these Trotskyites. Argue that the war is illegal, they say the UN gave permission. Argue that the UN resolution didn't grant warmaking authority, they counter with the UN is corrupt and the US government is sovereign. Argue that Hussein not only didn't have any relationship with Al Queda, he hunted them down and killed them whenever the opportunity presented itself, they counter that a terrorist was found within Iraqi borders, ignoring that 19 of them killed nearly 3000 people in America after operating freely here for over 5 years.

It's difficult to counter people that are essentially dumb as a bag of hammers.

That, however, will not dissuade me from putting out the truth whenever necessary.

[dd74]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
Interesting how those that are most full of it have the tendency to have the most to say...needless to say this is the case with this female. She has been demonstrated wrong yet she persists in her erroneous conclusions, just like a woman concealing her true objectives of misleading to further her socialist utopia of servitude for all.

LOL! I dare you to say just that in a Charloette Bronte reading circle.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by dd74
LOL! I dare you to say just that in a Charloette Bronte reading circle.

I was shooting from the hip, via BlackBerry...It should have read more like this...

"...just like a woman concealing her natural tendency of manipulative misleading; in this case to further her socialist utopia of servitude for all."

[dd74]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
I was shooting from the hip, via BlackBerry...It should have read more like this...

"...just like a woman concealing her natural tendency of manipulative misleading; in this case to further her socialist utopia of servitude for all."

Oh! Well, in that case, you'd be thrown out of a Jane Austen class until the women see the Blackberry. Then they'll think you a man of stature, and you'd consequently be fawned over.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
I was shooting from the hip, via BlackBerry...It should have read more like this...

"...just like a woman concealing her natural tendency of manipulative misleading; in this case to further her socialist utopia of servitude for all."

Typical Trotskyite attempt at labeling others with what they actually are in order to obfuscate issues.

You're not nearly smart enough to pull that off, Americans and America are onto your socialist activities Mul-berry.

it's socialist to go to other countries, conquer them, and try to force your government onto them. It's been the war cry of socialists for most of the 20th century.

Freedom loving Americans, and American traditionalists have always resisted these socialist ideas.

Again, so that it's doubly clear to you. It's a socialist activity to go to a foreign country, conquer it, and impose your form of government on them. That's what Trotskyism was and is, and that's why neo-cons like you are as socialist as any Trostskyite has ever been.

[dd74]

Originally posted by fastpat
It's a socialist activity to go to a foreign country, conquer it, and impose your form of government on them. That's what Trotskyism was and is, and that's why neo-cons like you are as socialist as any Trostskyite has ever been.

Hmmm...I guess it depends upon the century. In the 19th Century the action you describe was called "Imperialism."

In this so-called New World Order, isn't the best way to put country conquests these days is survival of the fittest?

[fastpat]

Originally posted by dd74
Hmmm...I guess it depends upon the century. In the 19th Century the action you describe was called "Imperialism."

In this so-called New World Order, isn't the best way to put country conquests these days is survival of the fittest?

Only if you think naked aggression and murdering people on a collossal scale is the right thing to do.

Do you?