Will Snowden Be the First Test Case of N.D.A.A. Extraordinary Rendition From Ecuador?

Will Edward Snowden become a test case for the National Defense Authorization Act provisions of 2012 and 2013 that allow arrest and detention of U.S. citizens abroad? One wonders how that act would conflict with any extradition treaties or lack thereof such as with Ecuador where the N.S.A. contractor fugitive seems to be trying to go.

Maybe Mr. Snowden meant well, certainly the fugitive Julian Assange of wikileaks looks upon the filching of classified data as beneficial in some way, yet to who?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23031801 Snowden's flight route to Equador?

http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Issues/2012_NDAA/

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/06/24/wikileaks-defends-nsa-whistleblower-condemns-prism-digital-surveillance/

The United States has a history of problems of the sort such as the inventor of the machine gun-Maxxim had. He thought that it would end all war because it was just too effective act killing soldiers. Sometimes spies divulge government secrets, or rather, whistle blowers divulge government secrets because they feel that it is for the greater social good. Even cold war era communist sympathizers had at times similar opinions such that it would be good to balance out secret weapons parity by providing plans to the enemy. Well, who can say how that works out. What is know is that if one swore an oath to keep secrets and broke that oath one has a bill to pay, and Mr. Snowden instead of seeming like a flake should have stayed during the hot summer of global warming in the states to face the music. At least the other misguided soul-Corporal Bradley Manning did not flee to the pristine wilderness of Siberia for summer fishing and winter hiding out in a spa.

Non-Academic Philosophy and Challenges of Relevance

Independent thought without academia may be easier than within. I am thinking more about the corporatist and networked impact of which academia is ancillary. It is about schoolwork and study after all more so than holistic analysis or criticism of all that exists. Sartre left academia at The University of Le Havre  to write 'Being and Nothingness' and 'The Critique of Dialectical Reason'. While at Le Havre he wrote 'Nausea'. His thought developed after going out in the world.

Perhaps academic philosophy tends toward history of philosophy and logic as rigorous science approaches better suited toward student and bureaucratic processes. I agree that very spaced out pedagogical method would be unhelpful for instructing those seeking to learn about philosophy. Social institutions tend almost necessarily to conformity and failure of self-criticism. The broadcast media-government-corporatist-military/industrial complex is an organic entity for-itself   that would be concerned about black marks and brownie points while the world was in global warming and mass extinction danger.

Philosophy in the corporatist era of academia may develop some of the same constraints on free thought and for its expression as existed in the former Soviet Union.  It is not just philosophy that is limited either, political expression by corporate and academic employees is also subject to pressurization.

Non-academic philosophers have the challenge of developing good ideas and expressing those to a mass audience well enough to change political practices. Maybe Condi RIce with that 165 I.Q. unwilling ton stand for Vice President of the United States was like Jacque Cousteau too aware that humanity seems to have a self-determined course toward dystopianism.

Philosophy has tremendous depth in its history. Its nature is in proverbs as well as Coppleston or Russell's history of the subject, in thought of Strawson, Quine, Paul TIllich or even B.F. Skinner. One of the new challenges is to keep human thought including philosophical and metaphysical ideas meaningful in a social context where evolutionary biologists may regard humanity as just bioforms with phenomenal chemical thought structures permutating. That sort of implicit institutional irrationality lends itself readily to new age fascism and the evolution of immorality. In the age of paradox irrationality may be institutionally rational. The influence of Derida, Dewey and Skinner and deconstruction of human reason leaves us perhaps with a quantum approach to contemporary history and philosophy of faith.

Warburton has raised the bar a little on creative philosophical thought within and without academia. After learning of the comments I decided to name my new book of philosophical essays 'The Myth of Non-Academic Philosophy'.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/gary-clifford-gibson/the-myth-of-non-academic-philosophy/ebook/product-21069679.html;jsessionid=DD11F90BC2A9A31C448441FC26D5BF88

U.S. Syrian-Iranian Policy Is Difficult to Understand

The administration of the U.S. Government has offered the Assad Alawite Government of Syria a generous offer of surrender, Sect. of State Kerry said that they would need only mutually agree on an interim government I would suppose before an election of the Muslim Brotherhood into total power. How one wonders could Assad demure on that?

I still wonder about U.S. foreign policy on the Middle East. Why is it that we stimulated and supported escalation of a revolt against the government of Syria? It doesn't especially seem to be in Israel's best interest and the first answer that comes to mind is that the administration is worried about Iranian nuclear weapons development and hope that some sort of Shi'a domino downfall would knock the Iranian revolution down. That seems like a long shot.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23012637

So far as I know U.S. problems with Iran began after the nationalization of the British oil fields in Iran after the Second World War. Iran had a democracy then and they still have-one of just two functioning ones in the Middle East. Of course we returned the fled Shah of Iran to power and legend has it forced out Mossadegh the Prime Minister. Subsequently we then built up a military for the Shah of the Peacock Throne and developed relations with a very cruel Savak secret police agency of Iran that were globe ranging repressing dissidents. The U.S.A. developed large corporate resource extraction interests and of the course the military industrial complex got good arms sales, and all that was sold to President Eisenhower as a bulkhead against communism. Yet we have seen that Iran has no tendency to become communist-even purging those well-meaning anti-souls.

So during the Iranian revolution the student radicals captured the U.S. embassy, as a temporary measure yet didn't kill anyone-such innocent days. One imagines that Saul Olinsky and or the Weather Underground or even perhaps a returned from Vietnam radicalized John Kerry if Iranian would have joined in that event. The long, slow burning institutional grudge of the U.S. government cannot forgive the Iranians for their trespass, yet Hillary Clinton should have-the State Department was very slow in rescuing the Ambassador in Benghazi as if it weren't to important.

It might be the development of nuclear weapons that is of ongoing concern since former President Amadhdinijab has left office. He did like to twit the U.S. Government yanking its chain with threats on Israel and the Great Satan of course-a true populist exploiting patriotism. Even so Iran does have legitimate defense concerns. Saudi probably has a nuke or two, Pakistan has dozens or hundreds and both nations are Sunni while Iran is Shi'a. Neither is it likely that Iran has forgotten the Iran-Iraq war when Saddam used Iranian corpses to make bridges for his tanks. There were more than a million casualties in that war.

Probably the better way to get along with Iran is restoration of as normal of relations as possible. Usually people on good terms with a fair amount of transparency don't wake up and decide to surprise nuke a neighbor or two especially if it guarantees a mass retaliation.

Iran has defense concerns from the Sunni world and an urban populace that has a tendency for westernization something like that of Turkey. Iran in some respects can adjust its democracy like that of Canada of the past. Iran's Council of Experts is comparable to Canada's Privy Council that is now mostly anachronistic yet formerly was more powerful than parliament as in Iran today. As times change the quantification and allocation of power to various institutions shifts without need for revolution. The Democracy of the United States is somewhat different than either and more of a Republic or really a corporatist entity with pretensions of global universal hegemony through Wall Street. Normalization of relations with Iran-just diving in is likely to be the logically best way to direct U.S. foreign policy.

Another concern of Iran is globalism. There are of course various megalomaniacs of all stripes seeking world dominion. AL Gore has a recent book named 'The Future' that outlines an emerging networked globe marketplace evolution. Not everyone shares that goal or thinks it would be good of course; many have ecosphere reform ideas that fit with economic reform while keeping strong individual boundaries as if they were local gauge symmetries letting democracy and development exist nationally. Iranian Shi'a leaders may be slow to want anything to do with the corporatist world seeking to restore plundering of natural resources supremacy and degradation of morality. The homosexual elite of the Obama administration may hate the Islamic folkways and Sharia proscribed homosexuality. Arnold Toynbee noted that of all social institutions people will defend their religion most strongly especially since it is a matter of eternal fate.

Stimulating the Syrian war was not a good idea and it's difficult to say where it will lead except that tens of thousands more are likely to die. When the war ends there will be thousands of new highly experienced terrorists and professional revolutionaries experiencing unemployment and new local purges of Shi'a, Alawite or Sunni. Probably the next President of the United State will have to deal with issues generated from the conflict. Certainly a Christian influence on Syrian events seems to be minimal.

Five Sigma (a poem)

The facts of contemporary history were unevenly distributed
theoretical functions of state 
transformed into Utopia of global networks
gauge symmetry rotations 2/3rds of the way to happiness crashed
like a polar cap melting down
when even frogs were in decline

The rotational symmetry of the political world dark and deep
currents of transformation rise
while the world's fast asleep
when hallucinukes float through the keyholes
cascading waters surging forward
bosons forced through field dreams

Assemblies of atoms stay solidly together
running through time in all kinds of weather
particles swollen in fields with gravity pulling together
sunshine and rain sites of blue whales
Sampson and Armstrong sorting through lunar shale

Bone thugs beat a symbolism of signs
in a race to the bottom gathering dusty brine
constructing all things for a network of hives
counter-cyclically encompassing all things alive

With the immoral; compass inevitably pointing wrong
Them is a lost direction
Of dance in a song.

Intro to Quanta of Contemporary History

Can contemporary history be developed as a nexus of discrete essays regarded as individual quanta that might thereafter be sorted into groups and transformed through various field symmetries into distilled subject-meaning units? We wonder if elements of linguistic philosophy especially the ontological relativity of W.V.O. Quine and tool paradigms of quantum physics could be applied to history writing?

The world political and social culture is a vast template for analysis. It seems that world the political economy and ecosphere is too complex to fit within competent political management. Thus a more impartial quantum approach to history writing capturing some real-time opinion and ideas apprehended by the historian, as philosophical commentator might be worthwhile.

Perhaps the quantum unit template of contemporary history is old tradition in modern history compilation with techniques well developed, yet perhaps not. This is my initial approach and for due to various constraints will be limited. I will apply this method to my next contemporary history volume, Quanta of Contemporary History.

Quantifying contemporary history as units of event-process phenomena in a given space-time nexus can paint a mosaic for the contemplative reader of what sort of things occurred and were of interest. In the world today all issues seem inter-related or contingent. Not only are simultaneous histories developed like space-time coordinates in a field addressed with general relativity, there is a transcending monist continuum in which all the events of the year are embedded. We wonder how general relativity and the independent values of space-time apply within the finite mass of a Universe with an overall monistic history of expansion and realize that it is to an observer traveling through the cosmos that relativistic space-time differentials occur. Only for an historian or reader of contemporary events would the complete complex of events arise as a mosaic of discrete, individual quanta units of history.

Ideas too form quanta units of contemporary history. Ordinary citizen analysis and awareness of a vast national and global field of event-process contribute to the development of democratic opinion formation and even expression of political interest and will in public forums such as online Internet sites. It is challenging today to record what ideas or worldview any individual has or had regarding contemporary history. This volume essentially portrays my own ideas written over the past ear on various emergent subjects of interest.

It is too easy for the privileged to cross over the border these decades as if it has no reality. Since the first Boeing jetliner in 1958 the ease of global travel has increased. With the Internet and e-commerce globalists have a difficult time knowing where borders are.

A world without borders for corporations does not necessitate a world of peace, democracy or individual civil with liberty and justice for all in a good environment. The rise of advantage for globalists coincides with a decrease in individual economic liberty and the growth of networked ad hoc collectivism through Wall Street. Political free expression and local political control declines in a neo-corporatist global economic environment. Politics going against the mainstream tends to be repressed. Political lemmings rush headlong toward eco-disasters the market is unwilling to recognize ahead such as global warming and mass species extinction.

Fortunately for those inclined to disfavor nationalism U.S. politics has developed a contemporary application of Darwinism that helpfully obfuscates the nagging idea of nationalism and national interest. Evolution theory has developed in politics as a buzzword for fate.

Evolution political theory is a blind historical force determining political development rather than intelligent design inclusive of the well being of all U.S. citizens in the U.S.A. today. It is a convenient excuse enabling the concentration of wealth and political power in privileged elites. Political evolution theory applied as an equivalent of the oriental joss (fate) may be satisfactory for select scientific classes of epistemological extremists on the left and right with a point of view of human mind upgraded in the worst of B.F. Skinner's behaviorist paradigm of human organicism. The human body in that paradigm is meat and mind is no more than a bio-chemical apparition within.

Good Summer Non-Fiction Reading

Nigel Warburton recently left his position as senior lecturer at the Open University. The philosopher takes a turn at non-Academic philosophy free of the constraints of academia. His recent book Philosophy Bites Back with David Edmonds is at the top of my list of non-fiction. There are more non-fiction books of interest.

The Future by Al Gore leads with the concept of globalism as a stateless .com for the Utopian evolution. Cynics take a different view of globalism. Thunder on the Mountain by Peter A. Galuszka takes a hands on dirty look at big coal and corporate indifference. We don't believe globalism will improve human nature much, but will instead enforce a draconian domination by oppressive elites.

Conscious Capitalism by John Mackey of Whole Foods and Raj Sisodia seek to improve the 'heroic spirit of business' by upgrading their thinking caps through guru'd mentoring. Good luck. It's a good read too.

Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland is subtitled THE RISE of the NEW GLOBAL SUPER_RICH and the FALL OF EVERYONE ELSE. This book sounds like a must-read. Evidently people are interpreting the global elephant of capitalism and corporatism in different ways believing it will run amock and trample every place the grapes of wrath are stored profitably or dump too much fertilizer. 

Jared Diamond wrote THE WORLD UNTIL YESTERDAY subtitled What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies. I like this topic quite a bit and hope to find the time to read the book. In the meantime here are a couple of traditional society tips.

Long ago S.E. Alaska had less water and more land and ice. When the end of the Wisconsin ice age started 16,000 years ago that all changed. Ice started melting and the sea level rose. Though Alaska brown bear genetically have two different lines arriving at different times and being isolated by rising water on islands such as Admiralty, they wern't the only ones affected. Human settlements of S.E. Alaska also changed.

Anthropological pre-history has people boating or walking along the Pacific coast maybe 20.000 years ago to points south with the now submerged land erasing the trail. It is known though that Athabascan tribesmen arrived from the Yukon and Stikine River maybe 5,000 years ago. They built a network of salmon traps in S.E. enabling a renewable harvest. Folklore reports Tlingits (means Sea Lion clan) of the larger Tongass tribe of Athabascans wasted very little of salmon eggs putting some of the egg and roe together in the streams before eating the fish. Salmon roe has vitamins A, C and D with 30% protein and no trans-fat or carbs.

Another fact is that Tlingits were the last tribe to have slaves in the U.S.A. They had traditional war with neighboring tribes such as the Haida executing as many as 70,000 a story goes in the mists of traditional history keeping a single hair count of each dead warrior building up to several inches thick. The Haida lived at Skid Gate in the Queen Charlotte Islands and may have arrived from Hawaii in large canoes manned by 60 warriors and/or women. Hai in Chinese means ocean I think, like Shang-hai means the Shang (original Chinese tribe) ocean. Our blue water navy can learn something from that too maybe.

Alaska News of HAARP, Weather/ Mind Control, Boundary Petitions & U.S. Senate Campaign

The U.S. Senate seat up for grabs in the 2016 Alaska election currently held by Mark Begich-a Democrat, got a new candidate today-Alaska's Republican Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell. Treadwell will join another candidate-Joe Miller (who ran unsuccessfully against party-line-jumping Republican-to-Independent-to-Republican Lisa Murkowsky losing the close election with cross-over Democrats voting for Murkowsky in 2010) in the run against the son of former U.S. Representative Nick Begich who was killed in the K.A.L. 007 shoot-down by a Soviet fighter-jet decades ago over Sakhalin Island.

Begich has a somewhat aloof webpage making it more difficult to send him emails than the Republican congressional delegation. Sen. Begich heated many Anchorage sidewalks when Mayor to melt ice. He also appeared with George Norrie on Coast-to Coast AM to discuss HAARP several times. What the government's hidden program of ethereal transitions was about was the concern. As Senator he hasn't told us if those evil machinations are still sending out possibly bad waves or if tin foil hats are a good enough defense. Maybe HAARP helped spy satellites listen to conversations of extra-terrestrials on Chinese mountaintops. Yek the dreaded possibility remains that Mark sold out to exobiological martinets pulling strings of U.S. political economy from the deep lab at Area 51 and won't disclose the facts he has learned.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2005/10/23 HAARP, Weather and Mind Control

The Treadwell vs. Miller Republican primary should be a good one with the incumbent Begich watching from the sidelines (Begich beat the late Sen. Ted Stevens after he was convicted of seven felonies that were eventually thrown out on appeal) will have to guess if the scion of the Treadwell gold mine family or the Yale Law, Univ of Alaska Fairbanks M.A. in Economics, Bronze Star winning man-of-the-people will be his opponent in 2016.

The Treadwell Mine in Juneau was a fascinating turn-of-the-century development that was state-of-the-art in its day with some facilities for workers and their health. Lt. Governor Treadwell still prefers natural resource development, though it's no longer the turn of the 20th century. There will be 11-12 billion people on Earth by 2100 and global warming controls and mass species extermination reversals are not developing at an adequate pace to work. Politicians should be leaders instead of throwers of accelerants on global eco-flames.

Anchorage Mayor Dan 'Body Count' Sullivan has thrown his hat into the race for Lt Governor. Sullivan's record of making life difficult for the poor of Anchorage let residents watch the annual winter body count of homeless people dying of hypothermia increase to as many as 11. Anchorage is a city were realistic effective policy can be far more important to life than traditional and hardened insider political postures.

The Alaska State Supreme Court threw out the political reapportionment process last month directing it be restarted. We will probably all get new voter's I.D. cards if the cookie cutters can decide how to best gerrymander the districts to let foreign corporations scarf down anything valuable

The Juneau-Petersburg borough boundary issue was decided in favor of Petersburg. The natural boundary would have given Petersburg as far north as Kupreanov Island's north end to Cape Fanshaw. Petersburg instead got the equivalent of a position on Juneau's 30-yard line at Holkam Bay.

http://commerce.alaska.gov/dca/lbc/2012_City_and_Borough_of_Juneau_Annexation/

One wonders if environmental concerns were the reason why? With a far smaller number of people living in Petersburg maybe development of natural resources would be slower than if Juneau got an equal portion of wilderness. Yet the reasoning might be the opposite; Juneau might have more environmentalists than Petersburg making getting easy approvals from the Petersburg borough assembly more attractive to  disposable-ecosphere developers.

http://juneauempire.com/local/2012-10-28/juneau-appeals-petersburg-borough-boundary-approval       

http://www.alaskapublic.org/2013/01/03/petersburg-becomes-19th-borough-in-alaska/

Juneau has a highly visible drive-up glacier, the Mendenhall Glacier, that is in fast melting recession because of global warming. The Mendenhall Valley auto culture is a local focal point pollution source for northern greenhouse gas  emission where one can see the direct damage perhaps working against Juneau's credibility as  conservator of vestigial wilderness in S.E.

Mendenhall Glacier

Road building mania drives many including the Governor and Lt. Governor to seek roads to Haines and adverse impact on whale lifestyles not too numerous wolves, marmots and indirectly human life on Earth. The cheap and easy cookie jar of wild environment drives plundering instead of creative economic invention and renewal of habit on Earth. One would hope these geniuses would develop a green ethic for transplanting to make lifeless exo-planets green and Lush before desertification of Earth kills us all.

Image credit State of Alaska

The city-borough of Juneau is correct in appealing the decision to give the area in red to Petersburg. Petersburg's natural range of influence should end at Cape Fanshaw. The area in red should be set aside for non-development so whales and voyageurs might have relief from the maddening crowd in the few decades of eco-health remaining ahead.

Whale jumps at Faragut Bay April 2013

Internet & S.S.U.T.A. Taxation Status Explained by Rep. Don Young of Alaska

Alaska Rep. Don Young explains efforts to tax the Internet through the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement that 24 states have signed in to.

   " Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 684, the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013.  I appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns with me.

     Under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, a state may not impose tax collection responsibilities on an out-of-state seller that does not have a physical presence in the state.  This interpretation has allowed many online businesses to sell to customers in various states without having to collect and pay owed sales taxes unless the business has an actual building in the states.  In fact, to combat this many states have established laws that require the customer to pay the sales tax to their home state, but the rate of compliance is extremely low.

     The inherent difficulties in collecting state-specific sales taxes led many state tax administrators to form a working group tasked with finding a uniform way to collect sales taxes among the states.  In 2002, the working group produced the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA), which was adopted by 24 states so far.  Alaska has not adopted the SSUTA and does not impose a sales tax on its businesses or purchasers.

     On February 14, 2013, Representative Steve Womack (R-AZ) introduced H.R. 684 to allow states to impose sales tax collection duties on remote sellers if the state has adopted the SSUTA or similar state legislation.  An exemption would be provided to sellers with online gross sales less than $1 million per year.  This means that if H.R. 684 were law, any state which adopted the SSUTA would have to collect sales taxes from its constituents, who purchased products online from an out-of-state vendor, and remit those taxes to the vendor's home state.  Opponents of this legislation argue that the legislation would force online retailers to become tax collectors for the 46 states who collect sales taxes.  Furthermore, they argue that enacting H.R. 684 into law could mean online businesses facing multiple out-of-state audits if these businesses fail to collect the proper amount of taxes.     As more and more purchases are made over the Internet and states experience more and more fiscal troubles, state governments are looking for new ways to collect taxes from sales generated online.  Alaska does not impose a state sales tax and has not adopted the SSUTA.  Therefore, it does not appear that H.R. 684 would affect Alaskans even if it were adopted.  However, if Alaska were to adopt the SSUTA, the idea that H.R. 684 could force Alaskan online vendors to become tax collectors for 46 states is troublesome.  For that reason, I remain highly skeptical of H.R. 684 in its current form."

Israel-Palestine Two-State Solution Officially Dead Says Saeb Erekat

The two-state solution to incessant Palestinian attacks on Israel is officially dead according to Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat. Erekat made the remark in reply to a statement by Israeli Economic minister Naftali Bennet. Deputy Defense Minister Danny Dannon echoed Bennet's recalcitrance on a two-state solution. We thought as much might develop following the brutal Shia-Sunni civil war in Iraq after the 2003 invasion of the coalition of the willing and neo-con bungling of nation-rebuilding.

Gaza's Hamas party has never quit attacking Israel, and as first cousin of the Muslim Brotherhood the two-state solution founded on a secular government in Egypt and a more moderate P.L.O does seem anachronistic. In the current political environment of a destabilized Middle East, with shoulder-fired anti-jetliner missiles purloined from the late Libyan Dictator Moamar Ghaddafi's arsenal possible reaching Al Qaeda of the Nigeria or the Maghreb, and with a recrudescent Sunni collection of visiting terrorist and revolutionaries active in Syria seeking to establish another Muslim Brotherhood branch government Israel is increasingly seeming to be in something like a geopolitical situation like that before the 1967 Middle-East war where a pan-Arabic group  of governments led by Abdul Nasser developed and executed belligerent actions. If Israel were to accept a two-state solution they would in effect simply be cede defense territory before a possible next conflict.  That would not be in Israel's interest.

http://nationaluasi.com/dru/node/1126

While the U.S. administration has said it would start to donate small arms (weapons of war such as assault weapons, grenades, semi-automatic pistols, machine guns and such) to particular illegal combatants in Syria who pro-Syrians might regard as terrorists for eating the intestines of dead government soldiers now and then, the Syrian conflict may continue for a few years with increased support from Hezballah and other neo-Shiite allies of the neo-Shia Alawite Assad Government. With such an alumni of terrorist pros gathering experience in the conflicts of the Middle East Israel will need to increase it's vigilance. After the end of the conflict in Syria pro or con the terrorist underground networks may seek further employment attacking Israel with renewed support from the infusion of small arms and weapons of war loosed during the Arab Spring of Revolt. In time the traditional unifying factor of terrorist networks might resume the trash talk and attack Israel axis of evil.

Probably the better time for a two-state solution was before all of the changes of the Arab spring and profusion of terrorists and terrorist weapons throughout the Middle East. In the present destabilized environment Israel will have to hunker down and increase its defense capabilities and border security. Perhaps in a decade or two after the present generation of radicals ages a little it might be a stable and responsible enough environment of political leadership for a two-state solution with some land in Syria or Egypt going to Palestinians in addition to the Gaza and some West Bank properties. It would probably be best though that evolution through twittering and Facebooked friendly relations and business practices develop such that in time the regional exploitation of workers issues wither away.

Afghanistan's Social-Military Development; Michael Hastings & 'The Operators'

When a reporter working for Rolling Stone magazine did a story on then commander of U.S. and ISAF troops in Afghanistan four-star general Stan McCrystal in 2010 the die was cast for revealing the V.P. 'Bite-me' appellation heard round the world, and General McCrystal's resignation was accepted when the pdf report was leaked. The reporter Michael Hastings wrote a fine book on the in-depth development of the story with interviews with the general and his staff in Europe and Afghanistan as well as a wealth of information about the war, the effect on the people of Afghanistan and the costs. The booked is named 'The Operators' after McCrystal's Special Forces and JSOC personal history. Operators are what Delta force personnel are called. Instead of being another truth-better-than fiction action adventure tale one might expect, The Operators is a high-level view of how politicians and generals got it wrong.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/16/afghanistan-drawdown-take-security-lead-from-us-nato_n_3450858.html?utm_hp_ref=world

The Huffington Post blog today has a story on the soon to be announced transition of Afghan security forces taking the lead from American and ISAF forces in Afghanistan, and it seems about time. Hasting's book provides some detail about the Afghan security forces and American political-military management of the war that are a little disturbing. The war for one thing just didn't seem necessary. We sent a conventional Army to fight against a non-existent insurgency. Initially the C.I.A. supported the Northern Alliances efforts to take down the Taliban successfully helped with a few Blue-72 bombs, Special Forces and bucket loads of cash. Only then did the large military build-up begin to take out an Al-Qae'da that were mostly gone and that had been Arabs and international terrorists doing guest training in country.

Hastings writes that the majority of Afghan soldiers and security forces smoke hashish, as does President Karzai. Homosexual exploitation of boys by Afghan security forces is also common. They have a phrase 'boys are for fun and girls are for children' in Afghanistan. We do not need to support such a Muslim society that is implicitly corrupt perhaps through the effects of decades of foreign intervention.

In my opinion the United States can't get anything right economically and uses military power instead of defensible ecospheric economic intervention that survives anyone's terror attacks. There is just no green economic genius in the U.S. military and politicians tend to be clueless about foreign intelligence before intervention militarily.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Operators-Terrifying-Americas-Afghanistan/dp/0452298962

There are plans to build-up warlords to persist regionally after the U.S. drawdown and let the corrupt at least offset development of a Taliban-led fundamentalist state. In such a political climate U.S. Special Forces might interpolate to attack incipient international terrorist training bases theoretically. Billions being spent tends to be the first congressional response to international terrorism defense even if there isn't any good reason for it. It's as if students with the flunking math scores are running the U.S. government and that isn't very helpful to the economic bottom line or dead civilians.

Accuracy is important in chess, and it's important in economics and war as well. U.S. generals like Stan McCrystal don't have the authority to just win the war, and civilian political leaders haven't the competence to run the war if it isn't conventional at least.  That is one present problem for the American democracy. Wrong political choices and management mean wars are badly addressed. Not even the counter-insurgency techniques of General Petraeus (COIN) derived from Galula's doctrine were meaningful for Afghanistan. Insurgent recruitment increased to resist the foreign invaders (U.S.) whenever we killed an insurgent or two. The 'insurgency' was that of natives at home defending against aloof, wealthy killers spending money on defense items like drunken sailors-maybe to find Bin Laden, who was probably allowed to escape from Torah Borah to Pakistan years before.