Giuliani like Bush, is a Failed Terrorism Fighter

In n the book Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 (HarperCollins, 2006) Village Voice senior editor Wayne Barrett and CBSNews.com senior producer Dan Collins cited several of what they presented as Giuliani's terrorism-related failures before, during, and after September 11.

Barrett and Collins wrote that when Giuliani heard about the disaster on 9-11, his "original destination" was the "much-ballyhooed command center he had built in the shadow of the Twin Towers," in the 7 World Trade Center (7 WTC) building (Page 6). However, when Giuliani arrived, then-New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik "decided it was too dangerous to bring the mayor up to the command center he had so carefully and expensively built" (Page 340). In settling on the downtown location, Giuliani "overruled" warnings from Howard Safir, a previous police commissioner, and Lou Anemone, chief operating officer of the New York police department, not to put the command center at 7 WTC and rejected "an already secure, technologically advanced city facility across the Brooklyn Bridge" (Page 41). Later on 9-11, the 7 WTC building collapsed.

HBO host Bill Maher told Matthews that "the reason why [Giuliani] was on the streets that day is because his office was blown up," and said, "All of the experts told him to move the command-and-control center out of the World Trade Center. He put it in the World Trade Center." Maher added: "He's not a terrorism fighter. He has no credentials in this. In fact, he failed the one time he had an opportunity, just like [President] Bush."




With a political career sinking under the weight of marital scandal and health concerns, Giuliani saw his personal fortunes rise when he showed leadership after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. But journalists Barrett and Collins take issue with the new heroic image of the former New York mayor and possible presidential candidate. This absorbing and detailed investigation examines the day of the attack (when the fire and police departments were in their usual contentious mode), the lessons that were not learned from the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and the political aftermath of 9/11 for New York and Giuliani. Despite his much-vaunted leadership and talk of his prescience to develop a response team after the 1993 attack, Barrett and Collins maintain that Giuliani failed New Yorkers in myriad ways, including an ill-advised attempt to lobby to change city election laws to leave him in place as mayor and concealing environmental reports on Ground Zero. Given the status Giuliani has attained since 9/11, this controversial book will be in demand. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

George Tenent is still at the Center of the Storm

The man of the moment as we end the month of April is George Tenent who recievd 4 million in Advance for his new book Center of the Storm.

I covered the New York Times Book review in the last post. Here are two short videos that cover the reaction to the book (below).

The MUST SEE is Tenents 60 Minute interview which you can see here over at Crooks & Lyers : http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/29/george-tenet-breaks-his-silence/

These other two videos really give such a biased view of this man that when you see him explaining himself it is quiet awakening. He makes his dedication to `his officers' quite plain. He admits mistakes and tries to rationalize what occured from his perspective. He is frighteninglly annimated in this confrontational interview.

How he sees the chain of events.

1. CIA knew about Bin Laden and were activelly trying to attack where he belived Bin Laden was based both during the Clinton Administration and the Bush administration.

2. Bush gave him thge OK to attack Aphganistan. The first US war lead by the CIA- wehich he feels was successful.

3. Bin Laden Escaped.

4> Desperate times called for desperate measures ( why we tortured people)

5. Richard Perle was the first one he heard blame Iraq for 9/11.

6. There was very little debate aboutr attcaking Iraq.

7. Tenent and the CIA knew that Saddamm didnt have nukes and let it be known, and stopped the comment from being used in two Presidential speaches.

8. Tennet did not read (as he should have the President's State of the Union adress- but passed that task down to flunkiew who did not catch the misstatement.

9. The CIA made an educated guess about the Chemical weapons- and they were wrong. Sorry. (Especially to Collin Powell).

10 Joe Wilson wrote his famous editorial about there being no Uranium coming from Africa- and the White House attacked the CIA by outing Wilson's wife Vallery Plame. That was wrong and inexcusable.

11. The bad guys were Condelica Rice and Dick Cheney.

1.. Someone mis-quoted Tenent on the `slam dunk statement" as a set up to Bob Woodward.

13. Bush gave him the meddle of Freedom because of the CIA's work in Afghanistan and not Iraq, and he did question whether or not to take it.

BELOW IS A NEWS VIDEO THAT COVERS THE 60 MINUTE EPISODE - BUT IT IS NOT THE EPISODE)



Keith Olberman interviews Larry Johnson regarding George Tenet's new book, At the Center of the Storm. Covers the White House response to his book. And, interestingly covers Democrat Senator Dick Durben's complicit role as a member of the intelligence committee hiding the truth at the time (because the truth was secret) and then proudly boasting he- who knew more facts than others- voted against the war.

Video: The creation of the fake link bewtween 9/11 & Iraq

On June 20th, PBS aired the Frontline documentary "The Dark Side," about Vice President Dick Cheney's role in the War on Terror. Cheney's desire to attack Iraq and connect it to al Qaeda after 9/11 (despite a complete lack of evidence and the warnings of various counter-terrorism experts in the CIA and State Department) is discussed in this clip:

Video Documentary part 3 :PNAC/Neocon Crusades - Pin 9/11 on Iraq

1. Cheny convinced Bush to attack Iraq
2. Paul Wolfowitz pushed for regimne change in Iraq constantly
3. The neoconservitives knew that there was no link between 9/11 and Iraq
4. Ricahard Pearl said on news interview that Saddam was responsable for 9/11- when he knew there was no bases for that statement
5. The administration knowinglly lied to the public- well organized and repetitive propoganda similiar to the German Nazi tactics. it was the Nazi Gerbals who said: If you repeat a lie often enough, people swallow it.
6. The administration had a two part plan - A. Get rid of weapons inspectors who keep saying that Iraq has no WMD and B> Find wepons
7. Bush Administration went on a smear campagien against Hans Blix - who angrilly left his post ( read his commnts here)

posted by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)

Video, Documentary: PNAC/Neocon Crusades - Who Pulls the Strings?

Notes on this section of the documentary.

1. Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearl and Bernard Lewis push the neocon agenda.
2. Richard Pearl, though he has an office in the Pentagon near Donald Rumsfeld and has access to top security documents- is just an average citizen.
3. Bush gets his information from what people tell him
4. Bush didn't have a passport till he was President- doesn't know the world
5. The neocons believe that they are justified in supporting any Democratic revolution in the world
6. The neocons wanted to crush Saddam Hussein for the benefit of Israel
7. The White House on 9/11- on the day- called Richard Clark and said: Pin it on Iraq

posted by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)

Reading: Petrodollar Warfare

The invasion of Iraq may well be remembered as the first oil currency war. Far from being a response to 9/11 terrorism or Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, Petrodollar Warfare

argues that the invasion was precipitated by two converging phenomena: the imminent peak in global oil production and the ascendance of the euro currency.

Energy analysts agree that world oil supplies are about to peak, after which there will be a steady decline in supplies of oil. Iraq, possessing the world's second-largest oil reserves, was therefore already a target of US geostrategic interests. Together with the fact that Iraq had switched to paying for oil in euros-rather than US dollars-the Bush administration's unreported aim was to prevent further OPEC momentum in favor of the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency standard.

Meticulously researched, Petrodollar Warfare examines US dollar hegemony and the unsustainable macroeconomics of 'petrodollar recycling,' pointing out that the issues underlying the Iraq war also apply to geostrategic tensions between the United States and other countries, including the member states of the European Union, Iran, Venezuela and Russia. The author warns that without changing course, the American experiment will end the way all empires end-with military overextension and subsequent economic decline. He recommends the multilateral pursuit of both energy and monetary reforms within a UN framework to create a more balanced global energy and monetary system-thereby reducing the possibility of future oil and oil currency-related warfare.

A sober call for an end to aggressive US unilateralism, Petrodollar Warfare is a unique contribution to the debate about the future global political economy.

William R. Clark is manager of performance improvement at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research on oil depletion, oil currency issues and US geostrategy received a 2003 Project Censored Award and was published in Censored 2004. He lives in Columbia, Maryland.

The Rise and Fall of Chalabi: Bush's Mr. Wrong - Newsweek: World News - MSNBC.com

 

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War News Index

Newsweek

Chalabi is an expert manipulator who knows how to work the press as well as congressmen, lobbyists and think-tankers. He began coming up with Iraqi defectors who told reporters stories of Saddam's allying with terrorists and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. After lurid stories appeared in the press (and softened up bureaucratic skepticism in the government), Chalabi would pass on the defectors to American intelligence agencies. Thus, in December 2001, Chalabi produced a defector who told The New York Times that he had seen biological- and nuclear-weapons labs hidden around Baghdad, including one underneath a hospital. The defector later became a source for the Defense Intelligence Agency. To Vanity Fair, Chalabi peddled another defector, a supposed former general in the Iraqi secret police, who told of terrorists-in-training practicing to hijack passenger aircraft at a secret base near Baghdad. (The defector, Abu Zeinab, was dismissed by the CIA as a "bullsh----er," according to an intelligence source; newly coached by the INC, he went back to the CIA and was again rejected.)
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When American spooks proved resistant, Chalabi cozied up to their counterparts in foreign intelligence services. To the Germans, Chalabi provided a source code named "Curveball" (appropriately, as it turned out), who told of Saddam's building mobile bioweapons labs. Another defector sent to the DIA by Chalabi supported Curveball's tale. DIA labeled this defector a "fabricator" and attached a warning notice to his report, but the notice was so highly restricted that other intelligence officials never saw it. Both defectors' reports—apparently pure fiction—worked their way into official pronouncements and became part of the Bush administration's building case for war. Months later, when Colin Powell was feeling burned for having dramatically presented "facts" to the United Nations Security Council that turned out to be shaky at best, the secretary of State privately, but bitterly, blamed Chalabi.

Powell also faults the neocons in the Bush administration who swallowed Chalabi's phony stories and pushed them into speeches by the president and vice president. With his clever sense for bureaucratic gamesmanship, Chalabi fed the neocons' hunger for raw intelligence. If the CIA and other spy services weren't going to come up with the goods on Saddam, then Chalabi would. He found a receptive audience in the office of the vice president and at the Pentagon. I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the veep's chief of staff, and Wolfowitz were eagerly looking for links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. With his media friends, Chalabi hyped a story, often cited by the neocons, about a secret meeting in Prague between Muhammad Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, and a high-level Iraqi intelligence officer. (After months of investigation, the CIA and FBI determined that the meeting had never taken place.)


Much of Chalabi's dubious intelligence was funneled to the DIA through top Pentagon civilians. Under Secretary Feith himself signed a long and detailed summary of the intelligence linking Saddam to terrorists and WMD. The Feith memo, stamped secret, submitted to Congress and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine last summer, reads like a conspiracy theorist's greatest hits. Interviewed last week by NEWSWEEK, Feith was a little defensive about his relationship with Chalabi. "The press stories would have him as my brother. I met him a few times. He was very smart, very articulate," Feith said. Feith allowed he has always been drawn to the stories of exiles who come back to save their countries. But he rejected the idea that he had been Chalabi's tool or dupe.

Over at the State Department and CIA, career bureaucrats viewed Chalabi with a jaundiced eye. State Department auditors found that Chalabi had not always kept the most meticulous records of the funds flowing into the Iraqi National Congress. Diplomats suspected Chalabi was using taxpayers' money to fund his own war-propaganda campaign, which was barred by law. In the summer of 2002, the State Department moved to cut off Chalabi's funding, but he was rescued by his friends at the Pentagon. That fall the Defense Department began picking up the check using secret intelligence funds. All told, Chalabi's INC has been paid about $33 million by State and some $6 million by the DIA. (Not all of Chalabi's intelligence operation was dodgy; last week, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers told Congress that some of the information turned over by the INC had saved the lives of American soldiers.)

With his eye on Saddam's soon-to-be-empty throne, Chalabi took an active interest in planning for postwar Iraq. In retrospect, his involvement was unfortunate. At best, it contributed to government paralysis and fed a standoff between the ever-feuding State and Defense departments. Chalabi's closest ally, Richard Perle, vigorously denied to NEWSWEEK that the neocons wanted to "install" Chalabi as the new head of Iraq. "No one installed by the United States could survive," said Perle. But the neocons did want to help train and equip Iraqi exiles loyal to Chalabi who could be airlifted into Iraq and take over as a security force (or as Chalabi's private army, depending on your point of view).

The State Department stood against this plan. A team of diplomats and Arab experts worked up a 15-volume Future of Iraq project that Defense Department officials dismissed as overly academic and "nonoperational." At Feith's office in the Pentagon, charged with postwar reconstruction, the Future of Iraq documents were consigned to the dustbin. When various Iraqi-exile groups met outside London in the fall of 2002 to try to compromise on a post-Saddam government, the outcome was the mild anarchy of dueling press conferences to announce vague and uncertain plans.

Doomed by bureaucratic infighting and a notable lack of enthusiasm among the community of potential freedom fighters, the plan to build an Iraqi-exile force fizzled. Something like 100 Iraqi men showed up to be trained as soldiers at a camp in Hungary. Nonetheless, Chalabi and his INC entourage were airlifted into southern Iraq by the Pentagon shortly after the American invasion in April 2003.

As soon as Saddam's statue was toppled, Chalabi moved into Baghdad to become, in effect, the new nation's first warlord. He set up office in the Baghdad Hunting Club, a comfortable, vaguely colonial-sounding establishment in a posh neighborhood, and then moved his operation into an edifice with outlandish pagoda-style turrets and vast corridors, known as "the Chinese House." Through associates, he took over the old Finance Ministry and later his clan set up one-stop shopping for foreign companies that wanted to do business in the new Iraq.

Chalabi was not universally endorsed in the upper echelons of the Bush administration. True, when President Bush went to the United Nations last September to proclaim a free Iraq, the man sitting in Iraq's seat at the General Assembly was Ahmad Chalabi. But when Chalabi was first flown into Iraq by the Defense Department, national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice was visibly startled when reporters gave her the news that Chalabi was on the ground and had rounded up a 700-man local army. Even Rumsfeld was less than a totally committed Chalabi partisan. "Why do people keep saying that Chalabi is my candidate?" Rumsfeld would wonder aloud at meetings of the Defense Advisory Board, according to Perle, who was a member. But a quick and sure Chalabi takeover offered Rumsfeld the one thing above all he wanted: a fast way to get American troops out of Iraq. No fan of "nation-building," Rumsfeld wanted a new Iraqi government that could take over and run the place.

Video: Loose Change Part 2

Loose Change Part 2

Video: Loose Change part 1

Loose Change Part 1

Evidence that the U.S. Government Planned & Executed 9/11

Another Well done 9/11 conspiracy film.

Bill Clinton's Anti-Terror Efforts

Bill Clinton's Anti-Terror Efforts
02:28
Rather than be ashamed of my voice, I've decided to let it out and talk about things that matter to me. Today I discuss Bill Clinton's efforts against terror during his term. Here is the Transcript of my speech. All of my sources are listed Rather than be ashamed of my voice, I've decided to let it out and talk about things that matter to me. Today I discuss Bill Clinton's efforts against terror during his term. Here is the Transcript of my speech. All of my sources are listed at the bottom. Please visit them. Thank You.

Hello, I am going to talk about Former President Clinton and his anti-terrorism efforts from 1993--2001. Clinton tried to fight the growing presence of Al-Queda and Osama Bin Laden, almost to the point of obsession.

However, he received great opposition from Republicans in Congress and The Pro-Republican Media. Because of the scandle he endured with Monica Lewinsky, many people forget that he did quite a bit of good during his Administration.

Of course, almost all of his efforts were destroyed by Right-Wing Politicians.

During his term, Clinton sent legislation to Congress to TIGHTEN AIRPORT SECURITY. The legislation was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the airlines.

Clinton sent legislation to Congress to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF TERRORIST FUNDING. It was defeated by Republicans in the Senate because of opposition from banking interests.

Clinton sent legislation to Congress to add tagents to explosives, to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF EXPLOSIVES. It was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the NRA.

Here are some things, however, that DID occur during Clinton's term.

He developed the nation's first anti-terrorism policy

He brought perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing and CIA killings to justice.

He attempted to kill Osama bin Laden and disrupt Al Qaeda through preemptive strikes

He tripled the budget of the FBI for counterterrorism and doubled overall funding for counterterrorism.

He also intercepted several planned attacks on the U.S. and stopped cold several acts of possible terrorism including;

The planned attack to blow up 12 U.S. jetliners simultaneously.

The planned attack to blow up UN Headquarters.

The planned attack to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

The planned attack to blow up Boston airport.

The planned attack to blow up the US Embassy in Albania.

All of these plans were defeated by The Clinton Admininstration, and several more.


In August 1998, President Clinton ordered missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan in an effort to hit Osama bin Laden, who had been linked to the embassy bombings in Africa (and was later connected to the attack on the USS Cole and 9/11). However, The missiles reportedly missed bin Laden by a few hours

Bill Clinton was aggresive in his campaign against Terrorism, and tried his best to protect America by tracking and investigating Al-Queada threats.

In Congress, however, Clinton was rejected by the Conservative Right, and his 1996 Omnibus Terror Bill, which included many of the Anti-Terror measures we now take for granted after 9/11, was defeated to the point of uselessness from attacks from the Right.

In conclusion, take a moment to look at the links I have provided, and think about the many good efforts put forth by Former President Bill Clinton. Good-Bye.


Read About Bill Clinton's Anti-Terrorism Policy Here (Pre 9/11)
http://www.fff.org/freedom/1196b.asp

Information about Clinton's Omnibus Policy
http://www.neusysinc.com/columnarchive/colm0018.html
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/McCarthyism/BringingBack_M cCarthyism.html

Information about the fictional ABC Documentary "Path to 9/11"

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Fridays%20Child/77

My Other Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/083006J.shtml
http://www.mikehersh.com/Clinton_vs_Terror_Republicans_vs_Cl inton.shtml

Video: Documentary :The Neocon Agenda

Notes from this video:

1. Neocons were the d riving force for war agenda in middle East- Iraq, Iran & Syria
2. Neocons are closely tied to Israel right wing
3. Goal was/is to weaken and destabilize Israels enemies- internal-Palestinians- and external enemies,
4. All were looking for a comprehensive solution for Israel's needs.
5. Iraq hasd been a key geostrategic spot that for that purpose of destabalizing Palestinian support.
6. Neocons tried to promote the idea that it wasn't only Israel in danger, but also the US.
7. Cheney brought the neocons into the Administration in 2001- Cheney was a member of Jewish Institute for National Security affairs and he and his wife were in Neocon organizations(like PNAC)
8. Collin Powell was one of the people who stood against military aggression against Iraq - prior to 9/11
9. Bush was a convert after 9/11
10. The plan was already prepared to attack Iraq- so all that needed to be done was create a compelling reason = weapons of mass destruction.

posted by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)

Is Saudi Arabia the Real Enemy?

“Talibans with Oil and a Good P.R. Company”
The dark kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez

Laurent Murawiec, of the Hudson Institute, is author of the new book Princes of Darkness : The Saudi Assault on the Westi. Formerly an analyst at the Rand Corporation, in 2002 he gave an infamous briefing at the Pentagon to the Defense Policy Board about Saudi Arabia. NRO Editor Kathryn Lopez spoke to him about the book and the kingdom.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Are you a Zionist madman?

Laurent Murawiec: Yes, if we believe the Saudi media, a large segment of the Arab press, and a number of Washington pundits who nobly rose to the defense of the Saudi royals maligned by this impudent writer. If the little boy who says that the king has no clothes is mad, then I plead guilty as charged. Next, I like Israel, too. I think Israel, of all the countries in the Middle, is the most like us, democratic, Western, vibrant. Guilty again. But the "Zionist madman" is only the polite version of what I've been called in the Saudi press and the Arab media, and even some in our own media.

Lopez: Is Saudi Arabia our enemy? Is it fundamentally evil?

Murawiec: Let's look at facts rather than speeches. The Al-Saud family is indistinguishable from the Wahhabi sect. They have been wedded like Siamese twins since 1744. The sect lends Islamic legitimacy to the sword of the ruler, the ruler extends the writ of the sect. The one cannot exist without the other. The Wahhabi creed is a nasty, bigoted belief system. It considers itself the sole repository of authentic Islam, and views all other Muslins as heretics, apostates, and schismatics, hence, deserving of death. It considers Jews and Christians as Satanic enemies that should be killed when opportunity arises. Jihad is integral to Wahhabism. Whenever the Saudi royals have had opportunity to manifest and implement the creed, they have. King Faisal gave his every visitor a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Read the sermons and the fatwas and the schoolbooks that pour out of Saudi mosques, universities, imams, and predicators, from TV and media: "death to Jews, Christians, Hindus, Shiites" is a permanent singsong. That's the Saudi-Wahhabi creed in action. Now, since they have needed us to protect them from regional predators, Iran, Saddam in his time, Nasser earlier and so on, they have honed in a nice trick which allows them to emit friendly noises from one corner of their mouth when they speak English, and in hateful tones from the other, Arabic side. When senior Saudi clerics issue fatwas that call for the killing of Americans in Iraq, when Saudi state TV airs these bloodcurdling calls for jihad against America, how can one but conclude that they are no friends, but enemies? The new Saudi ambassador here, Prince Turki, called our toppling of Saddam "a colonial war." Seventy percent of the jihadis we have captured in Iraq are Saudis. King Abdullah, Prince Nayef the interior minister, Prince Sultan and Turki have all repeatedly stated that Israel was behind 9/11 — not the 15 of 19 hijackers that were Saudis — and behind all terrorist incidents in Saudi Arabia! King Abdullah twice in the last few years threatened the U.S. with a new oil embargo. With such friends, who needs enemies? The Saudi royals? Talibans with oil and a good p.r. company. The regime? It is evil, and therefore it is our enemy, and it behaves accordingly.

Lopez: How do you take the Saudi out of Saudi Arabia?

Murawiec: Let me backtrack: If I'm right regarding the nature of Saudi Arabia, then our policy should be to treat them on their merits and demerits, not on some imaginary and delusional notion that they are our friends and allies. Drive a hard bargain based on our national interest. If you go to the supermarket to buy carrots, you pay good money to buy good carrots. Do you call the manager your friend or your ally? There has been a consistent pattern of Saudi actions, of Saudi strategies, that have been inimical to the United States. Draw conclusions: The Saudis have been given a pass for several decades, no matter what kind of outrage they were committing or orchestrating. The Saudi establishment, their religious establishment, the "charities," the universities, the Saudi NGOs like the World Muslim League, the World Association of Muslim Youth, the International Islamic Relief (on the board of which princes sit, so they're really no NGO but official organizations that claim to be NGOs) they are one of the principal sources of terrorist jihad against the West, at a par with the ayatollahs' Iran. So we should treat them accordingly. There are many actions they should take, and we can monitor their implementation: shut down the madrasas; stop printing and exporting the schoolbooks and other literature that preach slaughtering Westerns as a noble Islamic act; shut up the imams and predicators whose sermons call for murder of infidels and jihad; shut down the so-called charities that funnel funds into international terror, arrest their senior officers, hand out their archives to our intelligence agencies; shut down those branches of Saudi intelligence which are involved in and complicit with terror. That's just a beginning. Good-faith implementation by the Saudi government would help, not the fake decrees that remain dead letter and the platitudinous speeches and the tremolos of eternal friendliness which only exist to be brandished by the Saudi embassy here and their friendly Washington lobbyists. If the Saudis do not respond, they should meet the full wrath of the United States. Why should we accept a "special relationship" which is so lop-sided? Very special indeed: They gain, we lose.

Lopez: The U.S. seems to bend over backward to call Saudi Arabia our friend. Any hope of that changing?

Murawiec: When Franklin Roosevelt met King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud on board USS Quincy in 1945, they struck a deal that made good strategic sense: guaranteed flows of cheap oil against protection. The deal worked for some time, it was reasonable. As the Saudis started undermining it and violating it, it stopped making sense. But oil entails a lot of money and influence: In the period 1973-2002, the Saudis pocketed two trillion dollars worth of direct oil and gas income. Early on, ARAMCO, which was an American company, became a lobbying arm, a p.r. and policy-influence adjunct of the Saudi regime. The Saudi royals have one great talent: survival, and one undeniable art: power. Buying people is a standard Bedouin method. So they became our friends. Add that American strategy in the Middle East was long based on one parameter: Let's be friends with the owners of the real estate under which the oil is. Let's be real nice with dictators and despots. Sunni strongmen buy us stability in the region: Let's love them. This is realism. "It gave us 50 years of peace," as one Realist recently pronounced. They make cemeteries and call them peace. It's like those who said — often the same — that there was no alternative to letting the Soviets get away with everything, or else.

We've been in a slow-motion divorce with the Saudis for four years now. It's the kind of divorce where both sides loudly claim that everything's fine, while the lawyers are busy calculating alimony and the splitting of assets. But we pulled out much of our military assets from Saudi Arabia — they were unhelpful in the run-up to the Iraq war, to say the least, so we moved to Qatar and other places. We revoked the diplomatic immunity of 70 Saudi jihad leaders, Wahhabi agents who operated out of the embassy's "Islamic Affairs" department. The Treasury investigated and exposed, the FBI raided a number of Saudi pseudo-NGOs — the list is long. But the divorce is painstakingly slow. The Saudis always calculate how far they can get away with things they do without getting us enraged. There is great fear in Washington of "provoking the fall of the Al-Sauds and opening the door to bin Laden," as if this alternative was the only one. The president has been less than consistent on the issue: While he's revoked the "realist" doctrine of unconditional love for Sunni strongmen, he still in effect behaves publicly as if some aspects of it were true. It's a pity, as he undermines his own strategic thrust: you cannot combat the jihadis here and tolerate their main backers there.

Lopez: Why didn't 9/11 dramatically change U.S.-Saudi talk?

Murawiec: 9/11 forced our government to notice — how insightful! — that something was amiss on the Saudi side. ...It merely got the ball rolling — we've only seen the beginning.

Lopez: Is "Washington on the auction block" at all overly dramatic?

Murawiec: "If the reputation, then, builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office." Thus spoke Prince Bandar bin Sultan, grandson of Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, and son of the current defense minister, until recently ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States, or rather, as he is known, Saudi minister of American affairs, as the Washington Post reported on February 11, 2002. What more could I say? I have a full chapter in the book documenting those who put themselves on the auction block. The sheer chutzpah of that statement!

Lopez: Shouldn't "Wahhabi" being a household word by now?

Murawiec: Ah, yes, it should be! It is as if we had been fighting World War II and not naming the enemy by its name, and Roosevelt had talked of "violence" instead of "Nazis." I cheered early October when the president said in his speech at the National Endowment for Democracy that the enemy was "Islamo-Fascism" and the ideology of jihad rather than some shapeless, vague, anonymous "terrorism." Well, it took four years, but it happened. Once again, the main suppliers of Islamo-Fascist conceptions, funds and practices in the world are the Saudis and the Iranians. Wahhabism is half the problem. The Wahhabi-Saudi takeover of most of radical Sunni Islam — the Muslim brotherhood, the Deobandi sect, the Tablighi, and others — should make them into a household word for "enemy."

Lopez: Do you think that the leak of that Pentagon briefing was intentional? Or, at the very least, might the administration been grateful someone said it and it managed to become an issue?

Murawiec: Parts of the administration were furious. Colin Powell called Prince Saud, the foreign minister, to express his repentance and make clear that the briefing had nothing, thing at all, to do with U.S. policies. Other parts were glad that a debate that had never arisen outside the Beltway had become a national debate. The leak of the briefing to the Washington Post became significant not because of the novelty of my argument, which a dozen analysts in Washington had made and publicized before me, but because it gained front-page prominence: The briefing had been presented at the Department of Defense, it came after 9/11, which gave it credibility, and the leak spiced it up. It became an issue. Note that much of what I had then said, which many in the media then called "Strangelovian," is now currently stated in the media without anyone batting an eyelid. So it was a good debate whose time had come, through a fortuitous incident.

Lopez: How do you see U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia realistically changing?

Murawiec: Slowly but inescapably. Part of it is that no responsible policymaker should tie his country's strategic fortunes to a sinking ship. The Saudis have just bought themselves a respite — at $60 a barrel, you can buy more people internally and externally than at $20 or 30. Just as Brezhnev's regime and Soviet Communism got a respite in 1973-74 and again in 1978-79 with the two oil shocks: it saved them from bankruptcy and prolonged the terminal agony by a decade and more. Likewise with a dysfunctional Saudi regime, which has spent the last thirty years breeding attack dogs, many of whom then turned into wolves, and has not modernized the Kingdom at all (the oil dependency of Saudi exports was 91 percent in 1973, it was 91 percent three years ago: outside the oil industry, no modernization at all!). Gradually, U.S. policy is changing: by toppling Saddam Bush in effect revoked the doctrine of supporting Sunni strongmen. This was just a start. If your strategy is to help modernize the Arab Muslim world, dictators and despots appear as what they are: a deadly impediment.

Lopez: What should Congress be doing?

Murawiec: The "Saudi Accountability Act of 2005" is a good start: Monitor their every outrage, scrutinize their policy, put their actions under the microscope. Look at international jihad, its funding, its logistics, its propagandists, its religious leaders and cheerleaders, the media, the recruiters, etc. Look at the Saudi element in each and every one of those aspects. Pin it down, publicize it, make a permanent stink out of it. Put pressure on the executive branch to stop tolerating the intolerable. At the beginning of November, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on Saudi Arabia. On the eve of the hearing, the State Dept. suddenly pulled out — they sent no representative at all! Contempt of Congress? Discipline those in our own government who carry their own policy, at odds with that of the president. Stop tolerating that the State Department operates as a lobby for Saudi Arabia.

Lopez: What do you anticipate Saudi Arabia looking like in ten years?

Murawiec: Split in its original component parts conquered between 1910 and 1934 by Ibn Saud as his sword was carving him an empire: Hasa, the predominantly Shiite eastern province with the oil, along the Gulf coast; Hijaz, the Red Sea province open to international trade since the dawn of history; Asir, largely Shiite, brutally wrested from Yemen... and these segments then trying to enter some form of association, perhaps with others in the peninsula. The Soviet Union had been born in 1921, and Yugoslavia too: They were older, when they toppled, than Saudi Arabia now is. The present bonanza is going to give the rulers a false sense of security and power, and they will postpone or eliminate any serious changes. As usual, they will be intoxicated by money and the power it confers. Will they reform? It is rather fatuous to believe that 83-year-old King Abdullah, who has been in power for more than 40 years, and who assembled and led the Saudi national guard — drawn from the Bedouins, the most retrogressive, xenophobic, and backward part of the population, that's his base — is going to be a reformer. Just last February, the minister of education, who had been announced as a would-be reformer, was sacked and replaced by a hard-line Wahhabi. Some reformer, this new king.

Lopez: Why should we trust a Frenchman?

Murawiec: You have to make up your mind: either I'm a mad Zionist, or I'm merely a Frenchman. Or am I both? In that case, I'm really, really bad. In the event, I'm a Frenchman who's very proud of becoming an American.

-----

Laurent Murawiec
From SourceWatch

Laurent Murawiec, whose expertise is in information warfare and revolution in military affairs, is listed as a Senior Fellow by the Hudson Institute and as an "Expert" by the Middle East Forum. Until 2002, Murawiec was a "senior international policy analyst with the RAND Corporation."[1] He is also listed as a "terrorism analyst" by the Jamestown Foundation [2].

According to the Institute, Murawiec "taught philosophy in Paris and was a foreign correspondent in Germany and Central Europe for 'La Vie Francaise', a major French business weekly. He later co-founded and managed GeoPol Services S.A., a Geneva, Switzerland, consulting company that advised multinational corporations and banks. ... Prior to moving to the United States, he was an adviser to the French Ministry of Defense and taught the history of economic planning at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He has taught military analysis and cultural anthropology at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University." Murawiec "earned his B.A., Phil. and M.A., Phi.l from the Sorbonne University in Paris."

Ashcroft's Paradox of Prevention

The main reason this text is inportant in the History of the Iraq war, is that it brings up for the first time the "paradox of Prevention"

This paragraph:

..traditional law enforcement -- prosecution. Prosecution is retrospective; it re-creates a past event. It is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with the benefit of the picture on the box top. Our new, international goal of terrorism prevention, on the other hand, involves anticipation and imagination about emerging scenarios, the puzzle pieces of which have yet to come into alignment. Together, our nations are finding new ways to anticipate these dangerous scenarios and to identify, intercept and disrupt them before they become tragic terrorist realities.

Would be the rationale for the US jailing thousands of people, some in secret prisons, without charges brought against them, without trials or any reepresentation, based on the mere fact that they may in the future possibly be part of a terrorist activity. As in the Science fiction book and movie called Minority Report- the would be criminal is arrested prior to them commiting a crime.

Posted by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)



*EPF116 02/10/2003
Text: Ashcroft Says Information Sharing Vital to Battling Terrorism
(He praised the work of a 90-nation coalition fighting terrorism) (2070)

Attorney General John Ashcroft says a coalition of 90 nations have come together in the fight against global terrorism to support freedom, the rule of law and shared values.

"We have come together because our nations share a commitment to the rule of law, supporting freedom of speech, religious tolerance, political democracy and equality between men and women," Ashcroft said February 10 in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "We have come together because the targets of terrorism are not buildings, people, or even nations. The targets of terrorism are the shared values of free peoples."

Ashcroft said that the worldwide coalition has achieved unparalleled police-to-police cooperation among different national law enforcement agencies.

And chief among cooperation and sharing has been the sharing of vital information, he said. "I have said often that in this global war on terror, the best friend of prevention is information, and the best friends of information are cooperation, coordination and collaboration. Nations that stand on the side of the rule of law have embraced these principles, understanding also that we are bound to encounter occasional difficulties and temporary glitches as we embark on a new quest for international security," he said.

Following is the text of Ashcroft's remarks, as prepared:

(begin text)

Prepared Remarks of Attorney General John Ashcroft
Council on Foreign Relations
February 10, 2003

(Note: The Attorney General Often Deviates From Prepared Remarks)

Thank you. It is truly a pleasure to be here today.

In the early summer of 1941, as London endured the worst bombing of the Blitz, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered this message of solidarity and defiance to the people of Great Britain: "We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees."

Over 60 years later, it is difficult to think of a phrase that better describes the path America has taken against the tyranny of terrorism -- to risk dying on our feet rather than living on our knees. When enemies of liberty struck this nation 17 months ago, we had two choices: either succumb to fanatics or fight in defense of freedom.

America has made the choice to fight terrorism, not just for ourselves but for all freedom-loving people. And all across the world, freedom-loving people have joined the side of liberty, justice, and respect for the rule of law.

The terrorists sought to divide nations -- and indeed they have, though not in the way they intended. Where once we saw a world divided East versus West, today we see a new model of division, not based on ethnicity or geography. The gulf between nations now separates those devoted to the rule of law from those devoted to the tyranny of terrorism. It is the divide of civilization versus chaos.

The acts of terror the world has witnessed have welded a bond, not driven a wedge, among freedom-loving nations. Those who were murdered on September 11 were not only Americans, but citizens from a multitude of nations. In response, a multitude of nations has risen up in defense of freedom and commitment to the rule of law. Our fight, as President Bush noted, is not just America's fight, but the world's fight. In the words of the President, quote, "This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom."

I would add that "progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom" only flourish in rule-of-law, rather than rule-of-terror, environments.

In order to fight and to defeat terrorism, the Department of Justice has added a new paradigm to that of prosecution -- a paradigm of prevention. We are working to bridge the gaps in our domestic law enforcement and security activities with greater cooperation and information sharing. We have broken down some of the artificial barriers separating needlessly our law enforcement and intelligence communities. Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies have united in unprecedented cooperation, committed to a common goal.

We have thought anew and acted anew in pursuit of this goal, and freedom-loving nations have responded in kind. Since September 11, a coalition of 90 countries has come together in a fight against terrorism that is changing the world. We have come together because our nations share a commitment to the rule of law, supporting freedom of speech, religious tolerance, political democracy and equality between men and women. We have come together because the targets of terrorism are not buildings, people, or even nations. The targets of terrorism are the shared values of free peoples.

It is these shared values -- and the institutions that protect and nurture them -- that are under attack by terrorists today. And as long as nations share a commitment to freedom, equality and justice, we will be -- we must be -- partners in the struggle to defeat those who fear freedom, hate equality, and mock justice.

Over the past year-and-a-half, I have had the opportunity to meet with dozens of foreign leaders to discuss ways to enhance our joint law enforcement capabilities, and have seen firsthand the strong partnerships we have forged with freedom-loving nations throughout the world. Today alone I will meet with officials from two of the world's great powers, China and Great Britain.

Some critics, however, misinterpret or mischaracterize our relationships with our allies, believing them to be strained, damaged, or even non-existent.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, another native Missourian, the reports of the demise of international cooperation in the war on terror have been exaggerated greatly. Today, nearly 17 months after the attacks of September 11, our relationships with our foreign allies are stronger, not weaker. The bonds of sympathy and support hold firm. Indeed, what began as expressions of compassion have been transformed into commitments to action.

Law enforcement agencies across Europe have joined with the United States to form partnerships that have enhanced the security of all our nations. Let me cite a few examples:

-- The United States has forged deep ties of cooperation with Switzerland, including a special "working arrangement" with the Federal Department of Police and the Swiss Anti-terrorism Task Force.

-- Since September 11, we have worked side by side with officials in Germany to track down terrorists. Just last month, German authorities arrested two suspects in Frankfurt as part of an ongoing investigation coordinated by the FBI and German law enforcement.

-- Scores of formal U.S. requests for evidence needed in a wide variety of terrorism investigations -- from bank records to witness interviews -- have been granted promptly by rule-of-law respecting countries across Europe.

-- We have reached landmark information sharing agreements with EUROPOL (European Police).

-- We have established points of contact among American law enforcement agencies and EUROPOL and EUROJUST (European Council unit).

-- The United States has welcomed EUROPOL officers who have been assigned to Washington, and we in turn have assigned U.S. prosecutors to serve as liaisons with EUROJUST.

-- We have collaborated on terrorism threat assessments and identified several European-based terrorists and terrorist organizations.

-- We have cooperated closely to freeze the assets of suspected terrorists and financiers in an effort to cut off terrorists' ability to fund terrorism.

-- We are also in the process of negotiating an unprecedented judicial cooperation agreement between the United States and the European Union.

Our partners in the war on terrorism extend far beyond Europe. We are working hand in hand with law enforcement officials from Pakistan to Colombia, and from Canada to China.

-- Under the leadership of the former Solicitor General of Canada, Lawrence MacAulay, and current Solicitor General Wayne Easter, Canadian law enforcement has been an indispensable and strong partner with the United States. Long before the attacks of September 11, Canada provided consistent and invaluable assistance to law enforcement officials in the United States. And since the attacks, our nations have collaborated more closely than ever to secure our borders and protect our citizens from the threat of terrorism.

-- In December 2001, the United States and the People's Republic of China established a Counter-Terrorism Working Group. As a direct result of the Working Group's efforts, the FBI now has its first office ever in China. And the Department of Justice now has an Assistant United States Attorney assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing as a Resident Legal Advisor.

-- We have cooperated closely with law enforcement officials in Colombia and other South American nations to bring charges against key members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), two guerrilla groups designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations. These indictments strike at the heart of the nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism.

Our worldwide coalition has achieved unparalleled police-to-police cooperation among different national law enforcement agencies. Here in America, we have made great strides toward improving the integrity in our governmental systems that secure freedoms, while remaining true to the rule of law.

-- We are reforming immigration systems by using biometrics, including fingerprinting, to ensure the integrity of the free movement of people in our free countries;

-- We are updating and adapting continuously our counterterrorism and intelligence systems, as well as participating in law enforcement exchanges, to allow for information to be exchanged in real time;

-- And we are improving and securing trade systems to ensure the integrity of the free flow of goods through cargo inspections and container security.

The brief history of the war on terror to this point has taught us we will either stand together to defend freedom, or we will fall together to freedom's enemies. I have said often that in this global war on terror, the best friend of prevention is information, and the best friends of information are cooperation, coordination and collaboration. Nations that stand on the side of the rule of law have embraced these principles, understanding also that we are bound to encounter occasional difficulties and temporary glitches as we embark on a new quest for international security.

In the past, our focus has been on traditional law enforcement -- prosecution. Prosecution is retrospective; it re-creates a past event. It is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with the benefit of the picture on the box top. Our new, international goal of terrorism prevention, on the other hand, involves anticipation and imagination about emerging scenarios, the puzzle pieces of which have yet to come into alignment. Together, our nations are finding new ways to anticipate these dangerous scenarios and to identify, intercept and disrupt them before they become tragic terrorist realities. We are working together as never before to overcome obstacles we confront along the way.

As President Bush said in the days following the September 11 attacks, "The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain." That outcome can already be seen in the liberation of the long-oppressed people of Afghanistan; on the faces of women unveiled in newfound liberty and enrolled once again in schools; in the smiles of children awakened to the potential of life and the promise of freedom under the rule of law.

Forty-two years ago last month, President John F. Kennedy inspired a world confronting the menace of communism -- and relished the opportunity history placed before his generation to see communism defeated. Kennedy said, quote, "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger .... I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation."

These words resonate deeply in 2003. As freedom-loving nations, we now find ourselves in the midst of an historic struggle for the values of democracy. We cannot escape the challenge history has placed before us. It is more than a duty, and more than a privilege; it is the calling of our time. We will rise to this challenge and will answer this call. Let history record that we, together -- this people and this generation -- defended freedom in its hour of great danger.

Thank you very much.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Elliot Cohen WW IV (World War 4)

WHAT'S IN A NAME

World War IV
Let's call this conflict what it is.

BY ELIOT A. COHEN
Tuesday, November 20, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST

Political people often dislike calling things by their names. Truth, particularly in wartime, is so unpleasant that we drape it in a veil of evasions, and the right naming of things is far from a simple task.

Take the matter of this war. It is most assuredly something other than the "Afghan War," as the press sometimes calls it. After all, the biggest engagement took place on American soil, and the administration promises to wage the conflict globally, and not, primarily, against Afghans.

The "9/11 War," perhaps? But the war began well before Sept. 11, and its casualties include, at the very least, the dead and wounded in our embassies in Africa, on the USS Cole and, possibly, in Somalia and the Khobar Towers. "Osama bin Laden's War"? There are precedents for this in history (King Philip's War, Pontiac's War, or even The War of Jenkins' Ear), but the war did not begin with bin Laden and will not end with his death, which may come sooner than anyone had anticipated--including, one hopes, the man himself.

A less palatable but more accurate name is World War IV. The Cold War was World War III, which reminds us that not all global conflicts entail the movement of multimillion-man armies, or conventional front lines on a map. The analogy with the Cold War does, however, suggest some key features of that conflict: that it is, in fact, global; that it will involve a mixture of violent and nonviolent efforts; that it will require mobilization of skill, expertise and resources, if not of vast numbers of soldiers; that it may go on for a long time; and that it has ideological roots.

Americans still tiptoe around this last fact. The enemy in this war is not "terrorism"--a distilled essence of evil, conducted by the real-world equivalents of J. K. Rowling's Lord Voldemort, Tolkien's Sauron or C. S. Lewis's White Witch--but militant Islam. The enemy has an ideology, and an hour spent surfing the Web will give the average citizen at least the kind of insights that he might have found during World Wars II and III by reading "Mein Kampf" or the writings of Lenin, Stalin or Mao. Those insights, of course, eluded those in the West who preferred--understandably, but dangerously--to define the problem as something more manageable, such as German resentment about the Versailles Treaty, an exaggerated form of Russian national interest, or peasant resentment of landlords taken a bit too far. In the reported words of one survivor of the Holocaust, when asked what lesson he had taken from his experience of the 1940s, "If someone tells you that he intends to kill you, believe him."

Al Qaeda and its many affiliates consist of Muslim fanatics. They will, no doubt, find almost as many enemies among moderate Muslims as among infidels, and show them, if anything, less mercy. One hopes for a wave of revulsion among Muslims who abhor this rendition of their faith, understand the calamities of all-out war waged to erect a theocratic dystopia, and will fight these movements with no less vigor, and no more reservations, than do Christians, Jews, Hindus and, for that matter, atheists.

Afghanistan constitutes just one front in World War IV, and the battles there just one campaign. The U.S. is within range of gaining two important objectives there: smashing al Qaeda (including the elimination of its leadership), and teaching the lesson that governments that shelter such organizations will themselves perish. But what next? Three ideas come to mind.

First, if one front in this war is the contest for free and moderate governance in the Muslim world, the U.S. should throw its weight behind pro-Western and anticlerical forces there. The immediate choice lies before the U.S. government in regard to Iran. We can either make tactical accommodations with the regime there in return for modest (or illusory) sharing of intelligence, reduced support for some terrorist groups and the like, or do everything in our power to support a civil society that loathes the mullahs and yearns to overturn their rule. It will be wise, moral and unpopular (among some of our allies) to choose the latter course. The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government, however, would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden.

Second, the U.S. should continue to target regimes that sponsor terrorism. Iraq is the obvious candidate, having not only helped al Qaeda, but attacked Americans directly (including an assassination attempt against the first President Bush) and developed weapons of mass destruction. Again, American allies will flinch, and the military may shake its head at the prospect of revisiting the aborted Gulf War victory, but the costs of failing to do so, and the opportunities for success, make it good sense. The Iraqi military is weak, and the consequences of finishing off America's archenemy in the Arab world would reinforce the awe so badly damaged by a decade of cruise missiles flung at empty buildings.

Third, the U.S. must mobilize in earnest. The Afghan achievement is remarkable--within two months to have radically altered the balance of power there, to have effectively destroyed the Taliban state and smashed part of the al Qaeda--is testimony to what the American military and intelligence communities can do when turned on to a problem. But the Taliban were not the hardest case, and the airplanes dropping bombs on the enemy in Kunduz and Kandahar are in some cases older than their pilots, and suffering for lack of spare parts.

The combination of precision weapons, Special Operations forces, and sophisticated intelligence-gathering systems indicates the beginning of a desperately needed "transformation" of the American military. But this will require something more than the $20 billion a year in defense spending increases over the budget now in the offing.

Similarly, the creation of a homeland security office without real powers, the reluctance of the government to open comprehensive, formal inquiries into the disaster of Sept. 11, and the absence of big, imaginative programs--mass scholarships for public health programs, for example, or, more ambitious yet, a really substantial program of scientific research to emancipate the West from dependence upon Persian Gulf oil--tell us that Washington is somewhere between a war footing and business as usual.

It is, of course, early yet, and many of the signs--from the B-52s pounding Taliban front lines to CIA teams scouring the Afghan hills, from enhanced spending on vaccines and the Centers for Disease Control to the creation of military tribunals for foreign terrorists--indicate that the government is truly serious. But much remains to be done, beginning with acknowledging the scope of the task, and acting accordingly. Yet if after the Afghan campaign ends, the government lapses into a covert war of intelligence-gathering, arrests, and the odd explosion in a terrorist training camp, it will be a sign that it would rather avoid calling things by their true name.

Mr. Cohen is professor of strategic studies at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

Books by Mr. Cohen





Books including contributions by Mr. Cohen





First Sentence:
WE SHALL BEGIN OUR EXPLORATION of military misfortune by looking at the five explanations most commonly offered by historians trying to account for defeat and disaster on the field of battle