[T]he Office of the Historian has also collaborated with the Center for Army Lessons Learned and the Office of Provincial Affairs of Embassy Baghdad to capture the experiences of State Department officers working on the frontlines of expeditionary diplomacy at Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Iraq.
Now, where is HO going to find people who have experience in military-embedded PRTs in Iraq, and are eager to go on the historical record about what they saw and did there? Ideally, people with a flare for pithy description.
That's a tough one. Hmmm.
17 comments:
TSB: I suppose if it takes Juan Cole
years to put the facts together coherently about the past 30 years of R wing shenanigans maybe I should not be so outraged by our ruling elite. Do you see any errors in this concise
comment re: dealing with Iran? gwb
Iran Business Partners: Cheney & Reagan, not Just the Koch Brothers
http://www.juancole.com/2011/10/iran-business-partners-cheney-reagan-not-just-the-koch-brothers.html
Here is the answer to my question about Amb. Ford TSB: (just had to go to London for the news) The troglodytes in the Senate held up Ford for 18 mo's because he is anti-Assad. So Recip has to go it alone.
gwb
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/04/bashar-al-assad-syria
Great Post TSB! Very pity stuff indeed! When Jethro.. I mean Jeb takes over in 2016 we should have that OIL A FLOWIN pretty good and
GWB will be vindicated! gwb
DAKOTA'S BACK! (in Kabul) YAHOOOO!
great post re: replacement team in Farah. gwb
GWB,
On the Koch Brothers (and everybody else) doing business with Iran, I read the Bloomberg piece and thought it was about a 5 on a 1-10 scale of interesting stuff. Doing business freely and lawfully - as it was at the time - through foreign subsidiaries is a Libertarian position, so I'm not surprised at all. They are far from alone; I'll bet we buy lots of Iranian oil via Venezuela (CITGO) despite our embargo on Iran.
Cole takes that and throws in so much more on top that he seems to be constructing a conspiratorial Unified Field Theory to explain everything back to the beginning of time.
Thanks TSB for that divergence of opinion. It is tho, the 1st time I've ever understood the Marc Rich pardon.
In case you missed it, here is my vote for the best daily show segment of the year. Police Capt. Anthony Bologna brings law and order to the mean streets of NYC. gwb
http://www.observer.com/2011/09/daily-show-takes-on-occupy-wall-street-inspector-anthony-bologna/
TSB: You don't see those accusations that Karzai is paranoid and over medicated so much anymore. gwb
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/plot-to-kill-afghan-president-karzai-foiled/2011/10/05/gIQAlQvnNL_story.html?hpid=z4
TSB: I reviewed the Rich deal and agree that J Cole is being sloppy. Rich avoided US taxes on his profits although he never appeared anywhere to renounce his citizenship. (post-legal for sure) Good Call! gwb
About the Rich pardon, the thing that I found exceptionally sleezy about it was that Rich never formally requested a pardon. That step would have triggered a DOJ review and recommendation. Eric Holder - the Deputy Attorney General back then - handled it below the radar, and Clinton signed it at midnight on his last day in office.
BTW, a WaPo columnist see Holder the same way I do:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/01/AR2008120102403.html
I saw that! And Holder has fast and furious fur all over him. gwb
TSB: Today Juan Cole has me intrigued again and again it involves Eric Holder: "Palin was Right About those Government Death Panels"
Posted on 10/07/2011 by Juan
He suggests there seems to be a secret NSC group that decides who can be targeted for assassination. That way Holder can sign off on it and our "fearless leader" avoids any responsibility. Check this if you have time? It makes sense to me.gwb
Reuters quotes a Democratic Senator on the Intelligence Oversight Committee as its source, and I notice that no one in the administration has disputed the story.
The POTUS has to sign an executive 'finding' before a targeted killing can take place overseas (in compliance with the Ford administration executive order against assasinations), and this NSC panel appears to be the bureaucratic mechanism for getting that signature. Since Obama prefers to kill Al Qaeda figures rather than capture and interrogate them, this is all perfectly logical.
Hey, it must be legal otherwise Eric Holder would arrest somebody.
Yes, but Cole's point is that in the case of an American citizen "POTUS" prefers to have clean hands. That leaves us with a group of un-elected and unknown citizens (who keep no records) deciding to eliminate other US citizens because they are a "threat" ?? Sounds pretty "post 7th amendment" to me. gwb
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090504201257AAhbdJi
That NSC group can't decide anything, except what names and recommendations to send to the President. They report, he decides.
So long as Obama is going to order targeted killings under his general war powers (I don't think it's the best strategy, but he didn't ask me), then I think it's a good thing for him to have a structured process for getting advise and counsel.
Being a military and not civil action, the constitution doesn't restrict him. So long as this is happening overseas, okay. But, of course, the last time a President decided the battlefield was inside the United States, we called it a civil war.
TSB: 3 Ft. Hood Brigades announce they will be home for Christmas! (If
my former mates at SRP will only forego their vacation plans again to process them!) Iraq says bye to 42,000 US troops. gwb
http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=61400
TSB: Re: "Values Voters" From my association with southern baptists in Texas I'm pretty sure they think mormonism is a cult. They also think and practice segregation. Also, the invisible guy won the straw poll over that black pizza guy who thinks it's our fault we aren't rich! And if we really want Sarah to run we need to pray and send her more money! gwb
It was pretty amazing that Ron Paul won the Value Voter straw poll. Just more for the media to ignore, I suppose. But it seems to show that the endless-war-against-terrorism lobby has much less influence over values voters than I would have thought.
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