Debating The "Freedom Agenda"
By Jason Sigger Wednesday Nov 25, 2009 12:00pmIn which Andrew Bacevich schools David Frum on strategic defense policy issues. David Frum asks Dr. Bacevich how he would advise Obama (just around 11 minutes in):
What I would say is, Mr. President, you need to stop having meetings about Afghanistan. You need to start having meetings in which your national security team will help you identify what are the core principles that are informing US strategy that will deal with the problem of jihadism. And Mr. President, if you indeed give into this impulse to obsess about Afghanistan, ... then your administration will continue to have no strategy. You'll have a "Long War," so-called, he certainly going to run for re-election based on his record in Afghanistan, assuming that he does some variant of the options that are on the table, but he won't have a strategy. And I think that that's a tragedy, for the United States of America, at this stage of the game, to not have a strategy.
From his lips to Obama's ears. Highly recommended, if not only to watch Bacevich calmly and confidently destroy Frum, as Frum wriggles uncomfortably in his seat.
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Frum always made me uncomfortable in my seat.
David Frum is unable to understand simple reason. At the very end he admits he didn't understand the proposed suggestions that were very reasonable and he needed more detail to form an opinion. One word. MORON.
He was destroyed. He cannot even acknowledge that Iraq was a mistake on any level. He has no understanding of Korea or Vietnam and seems fundamentally incapable of learning lessons from history, recent or ancient.
... of a spoiled white guy cashing in on his parents achievements ...where will it end.
The big Defense Contractors make good money in the "Stan".
We aren't going anywhere. You guys act like Obama can decide this issue. LOL! He has nothing to say about it. Wall Street wants us there, we stay, it's that simple.
as jeremy scahill helped expose earlier this week
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill
The secret government of the United States is the greatest terrorist organization in the world.
It needs to be dismantled. The NSA, the CIA, the MICC and the machinery of perpetual war.
Chalmers Johnson here
It will end in our bankruptcy.
It would take a civil war to dismantle those organizations. People aren't starving in the streets yet.
It is on its way.
How did the war mongers get in here?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/25/whit...
reminds me of the current onion headline:
Afghan Presidential Election A Celebration Of All Forms Of Government: Democratic, Autocratic, Despotic, Theocratic Ideals On Full Display
We have to remember the concept of 'The Surge' was another political stunt aimed at convincing the American public that King George XLIII was 'doing something' or actually interested/invested in fighting terrorism.
It's from the same people who brought us the 'searching for moral clarity' comedy routine on torture.
It's not about numbers. It's not even 'political will,' because we're pitting industrial-style war strategies against urban insurgency/guerrilla strategies, and seemingly ignoring the fact that we hold neither the initiative or the advantage. We don't even command the battlefield.
our military/black-op actions in af-pak only foster terrorism
The secret government of the United States is the greatest terrorist organization in the world.
i am a pretty big fan of chalmers johnson...
and it would behoove any pol serious about change to understand and address what johnson has been warning us about for years and years now--namely the proconsul-esque military empire, and its deleterious effect on the country's treasury, and the so-called "freedom agenda"
wtf is a normal country in this dy and age?
Denmark, Norway, Finland, Estonia....
you didn't include the USA.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/greenest_coun...
... any portion of my life watching Frum... he is a worm.
Can't do nearly an hour of Frum, who in the video looks like he's asking someone to bail him out of the county lock up.
BTW, I think Frum accidentally went to the brother's department of Hair Club for Men.
Does Frum just cut loose with the most satisfying fart?
I wouldn't blame him if he 'schooled' Frum with a rifle butt to the head, for having promoted what got his son and thousands more US soldiers and a million innocent Iraqis killed.
Something of interest: on 21 August of 2001, weeks before 9/11, a curious article appeared in the WaPo, speaking very blandly about American imperialism, and Dr. Bacevich was a contributor.
Read the damn thing. Read it...and then see how in hindsight these crazy bastards could have been stopped before they let loose the mess we have today.
What struck me was Bacevich's acknowledgment of our assumed continuance of hegemony while asking what form that would take. I have to admit that I'd probably have a real problem with another country possessing that hegemony, but I'm an idealist who wishes that ours was not gained by the militaristic (or other) suppression of others, but rather by the spread of the best of our culture by example of its moral, economic, and humanistic successes. Those latter attributes, sadly, seem to be dwindling, while the former linger.
"I suspect that you and I would differ"...
have got Frum on a short leash because he is so prone to trying to acquire celebrity status and truly he is such a smuck and kiss ass. We Canadians are quite happy that he decided to become an American citizen. The man is shameless. He will do anything to hob nob with the likes of Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, and any of the masters of The Zionist Universe who feed off our nations and promote their New World Order. These are the true terrorists against our liberty.
I have not seen the video yet, so I don't know if he gets into the most obvious and pressing issues that we face: the United State's unconditional support for all things Israel. That is a cancer that destroys almost every thing else that we try to do -- how can we take the moral high ground on any issue when we support one of the century's most obvious and blatant land grabs, along with ethnic cleansing, mass violations of any rules of civilized conduct and general mean-spiritedness. Any pious statement that we make about atrocities in other countries just looks like a sick joke to those who are outside of the US media bubble.
If you really want to see intolrent, insane 10th century-ers who suppress women, plan for violent recreation of an ancient (and mostly mythical) empire and are not at all the people whose fingers that you want on the nuclear button, google "Haredi Violence." The kind of stuff that they do never makes it to US news, but these guys riot because Intel is open on the Sabbath or because a woman is seen riding in the front of the bus. Some of them plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock and place a Jewish temple there (they have laid the cornerstone for it already.) Just the sort of thing we need.
They are currently a relatively small but rapidly growing force in Israel, and wield a political influence way beyond their powers. They are the reason that talks between Israel and Palestine are fruitless. (If you think I am just making stuff up, go to haaretz.com, the equivalent of the NYT for Israel.)
David Frum is the embodiment of "American (western) exceptionalism" in this discussion. His whole approach and angle is a one sided approach of how to deal with others from a higher position, not of equals. He was not talking about anyone else's well being, but rather how to impose western values on other countries (repeat, fail, ad infinitum) in order to create his version of a stable world.
As great as we think our values are, its obviously not for everyone right now. And trying to impose these values is a contradiction of the values in question.
As long as one group of people feel they are better than other groups of people, that group will feel insecure.
... a Canadian-American. Please, you guys can keep him. (I'm Canadian.)
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