digest commentary [inserts italicized]

GEOSTRATEGIC AGENDA, NOT POLITICIANS, DRIVES U.S. BIPARTISAN IMPERIALIST 'CONTINUITY'
"Preventing the Re-Emergence of a New Rival" still drives U.S. bipartisan global domination geostrategy and shifting tactics -- its interconnected domestic and international 'soft' and 'hard' power policies, politics, and 'news' propaganda. Its world-destroying hegemonic drive derives from U.S. capital's need to 'eat or be eaten' by rivals or revolution in order to survive -- not from the selected figurehead executors of the strategies and tactics created by ruling class think-tank architects and strategists (Brzezinski, Kissinger, et al. see for ex. CNAS.org).

[insert] From Pentagon's Plan: 'Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival'
NYT March 8, 1992
Excerpts from the Pentagon's Feb. 18 draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999 addresses the fundamentally new situation which has been created by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the internal as well as the external empire, and the discrediting of Communism as an ideology with global pretensions and influence. The new international environment has also been shaped by the victory of the United States and its coalition allies over Iraqi aggression -- the first post-cold-war conflict and a defining event in U.S. global leadership. In addition to these two victories, there has been a less visible one, the integration of Germany and Japan into a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic "zone of peace." http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE1D7173AF93BA35750C0A...

China and Russia are the major capitalist rivals whose growing national strength, as well as bloc-building weaken U.S. domination. U.S. enemies, who impede or threaten this war-mongering domination, are 'terrorists'. Its 'war on terrorism' having strategically boomeranged, the U.S. used the always handy electoral con-game to shift gears into fascism with friendlier face to seduce its rivals into cooperation and to pacify working and oppressed peoples and nations as the capital crisis is ever more extremely manipulated to strengthen U.S. finance capital at their expense -- maybe a financial 911:

[insert] Stock market "capitulation" needs shock trigger
"We need to see an event that would shock everybody - a big U.S. bank failure, or a country in Europe going broke," said Mark Bon, fund manager at Canada Life. Bon said positive factors that would need to be in place for any strong rebound included an improvement in consumer or business confidence indicators, some merger and acquisition activity, successful rights issues and a belief among investors that company profits had bottomed out. "We would have a sharp sell-off triggered by an event, and then a turnaround as people reversed their short positions and bought into a rally"...
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE51P2SJ20090226

[insert] CIA Adds Economy To Threat Updates
The daily White House intelligence report that catalogs the top security threats to the nation has a grim new addition, reflecting the realities of the age: a daily update on the global financial crisis and its cascading effects on the stability of countries through the world.
The first Economic Intelligence Briefing report was presented to the White House yesterday by the CIA, the agency's new director, Leon Panetta, revealed at a news conference. The addition of economic news to the daily roundup of terrorist attacks and surveillance reports appears to reflect a growing belief among intelligence officials that the economic meltdown is now preeminent among security threats facing the United States.
"We've seen the impact of a worldwide recession occur throughout the world," said Panetta, who described the agency's newest product at his first news briefing since his confirmation. Instigated at the request of the White House, the daily report will ensure that U.S. policymakers are "not surprised" by the aftershocks from bank failures and rising unemployment, he said. The spy agency is following worrisome trends in many corners of the globe, from East Asia to Latin America. In private meetings yesterday, Latin American intelligence officials warned their U.S. counterparts of a crisis spreading throughout the hemisphere, particularly in Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela, Panetta said. "Clearly, it's related: What happens in the economy, and what's happening as a result of that, is affecting the stability of the world," [read: u.s. dominance]...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR200902...

[insert] Propping Up A House of Cards
... new plan to save A.I.G., the third since September. So far the government has thrown $150 billion at [AIG] the company, in loans, investments and equity injections, to keep it afloat. It has softened the terms it set for the original $85 billion loan it made back in September. To ease the pressure even more, the Federal Reserve actually runs a facility that buys toxic assets that A.I.G. had insured. A.I.G. effectively has been nationalized, with the government owning a hair under 80 percent of the stock. Not that it’s worth very much; A.I.G. shares closed Friday at 42 cents. Donn Vickrey, who runs the independent research firm Gradient Analytics, predicts that A.I.G. is going to cost taxpayers at least $100 billion more... by which time the company will almost surely have been broken into pieces, with the government owning large chunks of it. A quarter of a trillion dollars, if it comes to that, is an astounding amount of money to hand over to one company to prevent it from going bust... the government feels it has no choice: because of A.I.G.’s dubious business practices during the housing bubble it pretty much has the world’s financial system by the throat.. A bailout of A.I.G. is really a bailout of its trading partners — which essentially constitutes the entire Western banking system...
Here we are now, fully aware of how these scams worked. Yet for all practical purposes, the government has to keep them going. Indeed, that may be the single most important reason it can’t let A.I.G. fail. If the company defaulted, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps would “blow up,” and all those European banks whose toxic assets are supposedly insured by A.I.G. would suddenly be sitting on immense losses. Their already shaky capital structures would be destroyed. A.I.G. helped create the illusion of regulatory capital with its swaps, and now the government has to actually back up those contracts with taxpayer money to keep the banks from collapsing..
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/business/28nocera.html?pagewanted=prin...

[insert] Latest Citigroup Rescue May Not Be Its Last
By any measure, the federal government’s latest rescue for Citigroup is perhaps the most daring attempt yet to... shore up this $2 trillion behemoth... But it almost certainly won’t be the last... Citigroup’s core problem — tens of billions of dollars of toxic assets — remains. So the government may need to convert more preferred stock, or inject more money directly...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/business/28citi.html?th&emc=th

[insert] Obama Calls His Budget Sweeping, Needed Change
http://www.nytimes.com/
Saying he would defend his plan, President Obama cast himself as a populist crusader willing to do battle with special interests....
The address hinted at the strategy the White House intends to employ to push for the spending plan released last week, a return to a more traditional Democratic approach of positioning the party as fighting against the rich and powerful...taking on entrenched interests in the form of banks, insurance companies, large agribusinesses, oil and gas companies and others....

Reflecting the inseparability of imperialism and zionism, and israel's indispensable role in this do-or-die period for U.S. imperialism, there is the strongest zionist gang ever in the 'new' administration.

[insert] Israel's Likud resists "two-state" commitment
On the eve of a first visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, an ally of U.S. educated Benjamin Netanyahu made clear on Sunday the incoming prime minister would not commit Israel to Washington's goal of a Palestinian state. Silvan Shalom, a senior figure in the right-wing Likud party and foreign minister until 2006, said that Netanyahu would engage in a dialogue with the Palestinians and expected to work closely with the Obama administration in the United States.
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE5201RB20090301

[insert] 1996 A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm
Policy blueprint for incoming Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu prepared by U.S. Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000.

It's critical to understand that U.S. aggression, sweet talking desperate moves signal its strategic vulnerability --- and the worlds' strategic opportunities.

.........................

The Geopolitical Great Game: Turkey and Russia Moving Closer
By F. William Engdahl
February 27, 2009 "Globalresearch" -- Despite the problems of the ruble and the weak oil price in recent months for the Russian economy, the Russian Government is pursuing a very active foreign policy strategy. Its elements focus on countering the continuing NATO encirclement policy of Washington, with often clever diplomatic initiatives on its Eurasian periphery. Taking advantage of the cool relations between Washington and longtime NATO ally, Turkey, Moscow has now invited Turkish President Abdullah Gul to a four day state visit to discuss a wide array of economic and political cooperation issues.
In addition to opening to Turkey, a vital transit route for natural gas to western Europe, Russia is also working to firm an economic space with Belarus and other former Soviet republics to firm its alliances. Moscow delivered a major blow to the US military encirclement strategy in Central Asia when it succeeded earlier this month in convincing Kyrgystan, with the help of major financial aid, to cancel US military airbase rights at Manas, a major blow to US escalation plans in Afghanistan.

In short, Moscow is demonstrating it is far from out of the new Great Game for influence over Eurasia....
The Russian aim is to use its economic resources to counter the growing NATO encirclement, made severe by the Washington decision to place missile and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic aimed at Moscow. To date the Obama Administration has indicated it will continue the Bush ‘missile defense’ policy. Washington also just agreed to place US Patriot missiles in Poland, clearly not aimed at Germany, but at Russia.

Following Gul's visit, some press in Turkey described Turkish-Russian relations as a ‘strategic partnership,’ a label traditionally used for Turkish-American relations. Following Gül’s visit, Medyedev will go to Turkey to follow up the issues with concrete cooperation proposals. The Turkish-Russian cooperation is a further indication of how the once overwhelming US influence in Eurasia has been eroded by the events of recent US foreign policy in the region.
Washington is waking up to find it confronted with Sir Halford Mackinder’s ‘worst nightmare.’ Mackinder, the ‘father’ of 20th Century British geopolitics, stressed the importance of Britain (and after 1945 USA) preventing strategic cooperation among the great powers of Eurasia. http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22119.htm
F. William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press) and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (www.globalresearch.ca ). His new book, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press) is doe for release in late Spring 2009. He may be reached via his website: www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

"Russian bomber neared Canada before Obama visit"
Canadian Defense Minister MacKay told news conference Russia had not warned Canada the flight was coming, a statement that a Russian government source in Moscow dismissed as farcical.
http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSTRE51Q2W220090227?feedType...

Gates says Russians seeking role in world affairs
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he isn't sure at all what the future holds for Russia. Gates has had a longtime interest in Russia — he has an advanced degree in Russian and Soviet history. Gates says Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin seems to want to assert Russia's role on the world stage by blocking what it doesn't like and by insisting the U.S. consult with Russia if the U.S. wants Moscow's cooperation.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i02mDbhO6UzoafntDlfVHj...

U.S. Says Iran Has Enough Material for Nuclear Bomb
The Obama administration is deep into a series of foreign and national security policy reviews, including how to manage relations with Iran, which overlaps with how Washington deals with other foreign partners and rivals. For example, a view is emerging within the administration of a possible way to link a compromise on missile defense with Russia to diplomatic progress halting Iran’s nuclear program.The United States says its planned missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic are needed against a potential Iranian nuclear attack, while Russia vehemently complains that those systems are designed to thwart the Russian arsenal.
Administration officials may propose that if Russia wants the United States to rethink its plans for building two missile defense sites in Europe, then the Kremlin must do more to help halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program.... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/washington/02military.html?_r=1&hp=&pa...

1997 A Geostrategy For Eurasia, by Zbigniew Brzezinski ( Obama foreign policy advisor)
Foreign Affairs,76:5, September/October 1997 Council on Foreign Relations Inc.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/9709brzezinski.html

1997 THE GRAND CHESSBOARD: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives
Zbigniew Brzezinski
http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic-Imperatives...
"In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial
geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." - 40

"...the issue of how a globally engaged America copes with the complex Eurasian power relationships - and particularly whether it prevents the emergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power -- remains central to America's capacity to exercise global primacy." - xiii

"A geostrategic issue of crucial importance is posed by China's emergence as a major power. The most appealing outcome would be to co-opt a democratizing and free-marketing China into a larger Asian regional framework of cooperation." - 54

"A genuinely populist democracy has never before attained international supremacy. The pursuit of power and especially the economic costs and human sacrifice that the exercise of such power often requires are not generally congenial to democratic instincts. Democratization is inimical to imperial mobilization." - 35

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat. Such a consensus generally existed throughout World War II and even during the Cold War." [emphasis mine] - 211

"In the course of the next several decades, a functioning structure of global cooperation, based on geopolitical realities, could thus emerge and gradually assume the mantle of the world's current "regent," which has for the time being assumed the burden of responsibility for world stability and peace. Geostrategic success in that cause would represent a fitting legacy of America's role as the first, only, and last truly global superpower." - 215

Brzezinski, Kissinger, & Scowcroft on Charlie Rose
June 15, 2007 ·
Some Brzezinski comments from Charlie Rose interview with Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, and former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski at an event organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

We shouldn`t overdramatize the current disagreements with the Russians. They are real, but they`re not really all that threatening. And the notion that we`re moving back to some Cold War I think is really an exaggerated judgment. There are disagreements, but there are many overlapping interests, and this is the way we`re playing it. And ultimately, this is also the way the Russians are playing it. In the longer run, I happen to think that Russia really has no choice but to become gradually more associated with the Euro-Atlantic community. Because if it isn`t, then it`s going to find itself essentially facing China all by itself, facing the Euro-Atlantic community all by itself. And while it is awash with liquidity because of its present ability to export a lot of energy, that is actually a transitional arrangement. It`s not going to last forever. There are already some indications as to what the time limit on that might be. And with its declining population, with people moving out of the Far East, with an enormously powerful China in the east, I think the real destiny of Russia is to become closer to the West.
And I happen to think that as the Ukraine moves to the West, towards the E.U., eventually towards NATO, it will pave the way also for Russia moving towards the West. Because it will become a logical extension of the same process, and it will eliminate any imperial ambitions. Because without Ukraine, Russia`s imperial aspirations are essentially nostalgia, but it`s not a real policy.... if NATO hadn`t expanded we would have a no-man`s zone between the E.U. and NATO and Russia, and that would be very dangerous...
Now, what about the missile defenses? I frankly think that this was undertaken in a clumsy way, that this is a premature idea, that there is no real urgency about it at this stage, and for us to have pushed it the way we did, essentially engaging in conversation with the Czechs and the Poles about it, before either a serious discussion with the NATO or with the Russians, was not the best way to handle this problem....

China: I think a great deal depends on how the United States resolves the dilemmas that it is currently facing regarding the problems that we talked about earlier. And if we can surmount them in the course of the next several years and adopt a policy that doesn't result in the United States being stuck into some prolonged adventure, then I think the American-Chinese relationship will probably go on relatively stably, because the Chinese themselves are cautious, calculating and have a sense of patience, and also awareness of their inherent weaknesses as well as of their successes. So they're not in a rush to become the dominant global power... the problems could become acute if the United States falters and gets actually bogged down into some much more consuming misadventure. Then I think the sheer attrition of American global domination will create circumstances in which the Chinese will be tempted to reach out for more influence, including in regions in which we have special interests, such as the Middle East, from which they already obtain a great deal of their energy. And that region will be seeking some new superpower patron...

National Security Structure Is Set: Under Obama, Council Will Grow
By Karen DeYoung
Friday, February 27, 2009; A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR200902...
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/ppd/index.html
President Obama's first presidential directive, outlining the organization of his national security structure, adds the attorney general, the secretaries of energy and homeland security, and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to the formal National Security Council. The four-page directive sketches wide input to NSC meetings, providing for "regular" inclusion of senior trade, economic and science advisers.... International economic, homeland security, counterterrorism, science and technology advisers are to become "regular members" when their issues are "on the agenda of the NSC," the directive says....
The document puts national security adviser James L. Jones firmly in charge of setting the NSC agenda and communicating Obama's decisions to the others. Jones will determine when to call White House meetings of policymaking "principals" and will police implementation of assigned tasks....

"I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger " National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/jones_munich_conferenc...
Gen. Jones's Remarks to the Munich Security Conference By James Jones National Security Adviser Obama Administration
Hotel Bayerischer Hof Munich, Germany February 9, 2009
http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/173

Death To Afghanistan
By Margaret Kimberley
28 July, 2008
Black Agenda Report
...America has been in the process of destroying Afghanistan for nearly thirty years. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter, had the brilliant idea of flooding Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan with guns and money, all in order to counter the Soviet presence. Brzezinski, like many of his discredited foreign policy colleagues, is now advising the Obama campaign. As always, Ph.D.s who create deadly blowback, such as on September 11th, are always employable, no matter how often they guess wrong or how much destruction they create around the world. Serving the interests of the corporate class means always having a gig.
Many of the so-called warlords in Afghanistan who are now resisting America's presence were once on the CIA payroll themselves. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was a Carter and Reagan era favorite, receiving arms and money and even visiting the United States in 1985 but he is now calling for attacks on American troops.
The embarrassing existence of Hekmatyar and friends will do nothing to stop the war of terror inflicted on innocent human beings. Everything old is new again in foreign policy. No one is willing to point out that discredited strategies have risen from the dead. One of Obama's advisors, Susan Rice, invokes the name of Ronald Reagan in a complimentary way. "[S]upport for the Afghan resistance to Soviet aggression was the right decision in the 1980s." Her boss has said on more than one occasion that he will have a foreign policy like Reagan's, so his promise to repeat the corruption of the past should not come as a surprise.
The troop draw down in Iraq will not end the terror of occupation. That terror is not only caused by bombs and bullets, but by no bid contracts, private mercenaries, theft of resources and destruction of infrastructure. The endless Iraq occupation and the escalated Afghanistan occupation will bring more harm to the region than Bush could have dreamed. One uninformed but optimistic Iraqi had this to say about Obama. "He is much better than others because he is black and black people were tyrannized in America. I think he will feel our suffering. No he will not. Anyone who feels suffering doesn't want to be president of the United States. Spreading the suffering is the first item on the job description.

The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser
Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? [...] http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5304.htm

another major u.s. war criminal adviser: gaining cooperation from major rivals...'for your own good':
A Strategy for Afghanistan
By Henry A. Kissinger
February 26, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR200902...
The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point. The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally -- threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk.

Heretofore, America has pursued traditional anti-insurgency tactics: to create a central government, help it extend its authority over the entire country and, in the process, bring about a modern bureaucratic and democratic society. That strategy cannot succeed in Afghanistan -- especially not as an essentially solitary effort. The country is too large, the territory too forbidding, the ethnic composition too varied, the population too heavily armed. No foreign conqueror has ever succeeded in occupying Afghanistan. Even attempts to establish centralized Afghan control have rarely succeeded and then not for long. Afghans seem to define their country in terms of a common dedication to independence but not to unitary or centralized self-government.
The truism that the war is, in effect, a battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan population is valid enough in concept. The low standard of living of much of the population has been exacerbated by 30 years of civil war. The economy is on the verge of sustaining itself through the sale of narcotics. There is no significant democratic tradition. Reform is a moral necessity. But the time scale for reform is out of sync with the requirements of anti-guerrilla warfare. Reform will require decades; it should occur as a result of, and even side by side with, the attainment of security -- but it cannot be the precondition for it.

The military effort will inevitably unfold at a pace different from the country's political evolution. Immediately, however, we are able to make sure that our aid efforts, now diffuse and inefficient, are coherent and relevant to popular needs. And much greater emphasis should be given to local and regional entities. Military strategy should concentrate on preventing the emergence of a coherent, contiguous state within the state controlled by jihadists. In practice, this would mean control of Kabul and the Pashtun area. A jihadist base area on both sides of the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border would become a permanent threat to hopes for a moderate evolution and to all of Afghanistan's neighbors. Gen. David Petraeus has argued that, reinforced by the number of American forces he has recommended, he should be able to control the 10 percent of Afghan territory where, in his words, 80 percent of the military threat originates. This is the region where the "clear, hold and build" strategy that had success in Iraq is particularly applicable.

In the rest of the country, our military strategy should be more fluid, aimed at forestalling the emergence of terrorist strong points. It should be based on close cooperation with local chiefs and coordination with their militias to be trained by U.S. forces -- the kind of strategy that proved so successful in Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold in Iraq. This is a plausible approach, though it seems improbable that the 17,000 reinforcements President Obama recently committed are enough. In the end, the fundamental issue is not so much how the war will be conducted but how it will be ended. Afghanistan is almost the archetypal international problem requiring a multilateral solution for a political framework to emerge. In the 19th century, formal neutrality was sometimes negotiated to impose a standstill on interventions in and from strategically located countries. This provided a framework for defusing day-to-day international relations. (Belgian neutrality, for example, was not challenged for nearly 100 years.) Is it possible to devise a modern equivalent?

In Afghanistan, such an outcome is achievable only if its principal neighbors agree on a policy of restraint and opposition to terrorism. Their recent conduct argues against such prospects. Yet history should teach them that unilateral efforts at dominance are likely to fail in the face of countervailing intervention by other outside actors. To explore such a vision, the United States should propose a working group of Afghanistan's neighbors, India and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Such a group should be charged with assisting in the reconstruction and reform of Afghanistan and establishing principles for the country's international status and obligations to oppose terrorist activities. Over time, America's unilateral military efforts can merge with the diplomatic efforts of this group. As the strategy envisaged by Petraeus succeeds, the prospects for a political solution along these lines would grow correspondingly. The precondition for such a policy is cooperation with Russia and Pakistan. With respect to Russia, it requires a clear definition of priorities, especially a choice between partnership or adversarial conduct insofar as it depends on us.

The conduct of Pakistan will be crucial. Pakistan's leaders must face the fact that continued toleration of the sanctuaries -- or continued impotence with respect to them -- will draw their country ever deeper into an international maelstrom. If the jihadists were to prevail in Afghanistan, Pakistan would surely be the next target -- as is observable by activity already taking place along the existing borders and in the Swat Valley close to Islamabad. If that were to happen, the affected countries would need to consult each other about the implications of the nuclear arsenal of a Pakistan being engulfed or even threatened by jihadists. Like every country engaged in Afghanistan, Pakistan has to make decisions that will affect its international position for decades.
Other countries, especially our NATO allies, face comparable choices. Symbolically, the participation of NATO partners is significant. But save for some notable exceptions, public support for military operations is negligible in almost all NATO countries. It is possible, of course, that Obama's popularity in Europe can modify these attitudes -- but probably to only a limited extent. The president would have to decide how far he will carry the inevitable differences and face the reality that disagreements concern fundamental questions of NATO's future and reach. Improved consultation would ease this process. It is likely to turn out, however, that the differences are not procedural. We may then conclude that an enhanced NATO contribution to Afghanistan's reconstruction is more useful than a marginal military effort constrained by caveats. But if NATO turns into an alliance a la carte in this manner, a precedent that can cut both ways would be set. Those who tempt a U.S. withdrawal by their indifference or irresolution evade the prospect that it would be the prelude to a long series of accelerating and escalating crises.
President Obama said Tuesday night that he "will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world." Whatever strategy his team selects needs to be pursued with determination. It is not possible to hedge against failure by half-hearted execution.

Drone Attacks Inside Pakistan Will Continue, CIA Chief Says
Panetta Calls Strikes 'Successful' at Disrupting Insurgents
By Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR200902...
CIA Director Leon Panetta said yesterday that U.S. aerial attacks against al-Qaeda and other extremist strongholds inside Pakistan would continue, despite concerns about a popular Pakistani backlash."Nothing has changed our efforts to go after terrorists, and nothing will change those efforts," Panetta said in response to questions about CIA missile attacks, launched from unmanned Predator aircraft. Although he refused to discuss details of the attacks -- and the CIA will not confirm publicly that it is behind the strikes -- Panetta said that the efforts begun under President George W. Bush to destabilize al-Qaeda and destroy its leadership "have been successful. "I don't think we can stop just at the effort to try to disrupt them. I think it has to be a continuing effort, because they aren't going to stop," Panetta said in his first news briefing since taking the job. The CIA has launched about three dozen Predator strikes in Pakistan since late last summer, two of them during the Obama administration.
Panetta's comments came as senior Pakistani and Afghan leaders held lengthy talks here with each other and with their U.S. counterparts. Obama administration officials said that the unprecedented consultations were as important as any substantive agreements that may emerge from them.
The talks, quickly arranged during the first overseas trip of special U.S. envoy Richard C. Holbrooke this month, include the foreign and defense ministers of both countries, along with Afghanistan's interior minister and Pakistan's intelligence chief. The Pakistani army chief of staff is also here on a separate visit to his U.S. military counterparts.
In addition to bilateral sessions, the Afghan and Pakistani delegations met jointly yesterday with the National Security Council and attended a dinner hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. They will hold another trilateral session today. "We have two goals," a senior administration official said. One is to receive their input for the Obama administration's ongoing strategy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said. "But it's also to hear commitments -- the Pakistanis on taking on terrorists themselves, and the Afghans on cleaning up their government." "There are not too many brand-new ideas," the official said....
In a series of interviews yesterday, Qureshi said that Pakistan objected to the Predator strikes and that he has asked the United States to supply his country with drones to carry out its own missile attacks against extremists. Pakistan has also requested other sophisticated weaponry, including Cobra attack helicopters, communications and night-vision equipment. Although the drones are unlikely -- and both U.S. and Pakistani officials say they are privately in agreement on continuation of the CIA strikes -- the administration and Congress are likely to approve more military assistance along with a multibillion-dollar aid package.
Legislation introduced in the Senate last year by Vice President Biden, and soon to be sponsored by his successor as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), and Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), ranking Republican, calls for about $1.5 million a year in economic and development assistance for Pakistan over the next five years.
A report released yesterday by the Atlantic Council said that at least double that amount is needed from the United States and the international community if Pakistan is to be brought back "from the brink." Pakistan, it said, "is on a rapid trajectory toward becoming a failing or failed state."
In a report last year, under the leadership of James L. Jones, who is now the national security adviser, the Atlantic Council warned that the West was "not winning in Afghanistan." Those words were repeated yesterday by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in his first major foreign policy speech since losing the presidential election to Obama in November. "Let us not shy from the truth," McCain said in an address to the American Enterprise Institute, "but let us not be paralyzed by it either." McCain chastised "some [who] suggest it is time to scale back our ambitions in Afghanistan -- to give up on nation-building and instead focus narrowly on our counterterrorism objectives, by simply mounting operations aimed at killing or capturing terrorist leaders and destroying their networks."...(all emphases added)

Benjamin H. Friedman, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, writes in World Politics Review that the projected increase shouldn't come as a surprise. "Many Americans believe that Barack Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress will lower defense spending and restrain the militaristic foreign policy it underwrites," Friedman notes. "The coming years should destroy that myth."
Backgrounder: The Fine Print on Defense Spending, CFR, http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/world/slot1_20090226.html

A Balanced Strategy
Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age
By Robert M. Gates
From Foreign Affairs , January/February 2009
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20090101faessay88103/robert-m-gates/a-bala...
The United States cannot take its current dominance for granted and needs to invest in the programs, platforms, and personnel that will ensure that dominance's persistence.... Other nations may be unwilling to challenge the United States fighter to fighter, ship to ship, tank to tank. But they are developing the disruptive means to blunt the impact of U.S. power, narrow the United States' military options, and deny the U.S. military freedom of movement and action....
The United States' ability to deal with future threats will depend on its performance in current conflicts. To be blunt, to fail -- or to be seen to fail -- in either Iraq or Afghanistan would be a disastrous blow to U.S. credibility, both among friends and allies and among potential adversaries.
In Iraq, the number of U.S. combat units there will decline over time -- as it was going to do no matter who was elected president in November. Still, there will continue to be some kind of U.S. advisory and counterterrorism effort in Iraq for years to come.
In Afghanistan, as President George W. Bush announced last September, U.S. troop levels are rising, with the likelihood of more increases in the year ahead. Given its terrain, poverty, neighborhood, and tragic history, Afghanistan in many ways poses an even more complex and difficult long-term challenge than Iraq -- one that, despite a large international effort, will require a significant U.S. military and economic commitment for some time....
Since 9/11, and through the efforts first of Secretary of State Colin Powell and now of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the State Department has made a comeback. Foreign Service officers are being hired again, and foreign affairs spending has about doubled since President Bush took office. Yet even with a better-funded State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, future military commanders will not be able to rid themselves of the tasks of maintaining security and stability. To truly achieve victory as Clausewitz defined it -- to attain a political objective -- the United States needs a military whose ability to kick down the door is matched by its ability to clean up the mess and even rebuild the house afterward.
Given these realities, the military has made some impressive strides in recent years. Special operations have received steep increases in funding and personnel. The air force has created a new air advisory program and a new career track for unmanned aerial operations. The navy has set up a new expeditionary combat command and brought back its riverine units. New counterinsurgency and army operations manuals, plus a new maritime strategy, have incorporated the lessons of recent years in service doctrine. "Train and equip" programs allow for quicker improvements in the security capacity of partner nations. And various initiatives are under way that will better integrate and coordinate U.S. military efforts with civilian agencies as well as engage the expertise of the private sector, including nongovernmental organizations and academia....
In world affairs, "what seems to work best," the historian Donald Kagan wrote in his book On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, ". . . is the possession by those states who wish to preserve the peace of the preponderant power and of the will to accept the burdens and responsibilities required to achieve that purpose." [emphases added]

"Pentagon pulls Strategic Communications machine offline"
In response to: "Wikileaks cracks NATO's Master Narrative for Afghanistan" http://wikileaks.org/wiki/n1
Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled "NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative", details the "story" NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving to, journalists.
The encrypted document, dated October 6, and believed to be current, can be found on the Pentagon Central Command website "oneteam.centcom.mil": [UPDATE Fri Feb 27 15:18:38 GMT 2009: the entire Pentagon site is now down--probably in response to this editorial] http://oneteam.centcom.mil/isc/Shared%20Documents/NATO%20Master%20Narrat...

The Pentagon's Central Command (CENTCOM) appears to have taken the whole of "oneteam.centcom.mil" offline.The documents are still all available on Wikileaks:
* http://wikileaks.org/wiki/NATO_Media_Operations_Centre:_NATO_in_Afghanis...
* http://wikileaks.org/wiki/ISAF_Afghanistan_Theatre_Strategic_Communicati...
* http://wikileaks.org/wiki/NATO-ISAF_Afghanistan_Strategic_Communications...
* http://wikileaks.org/wiki/NATO-ISAF_Strategic_Communications_Ends%2C_Way...

U.S. ARMY FIELD MANUAL ON CONDUCT OF 'UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE'
Unconventional warfare (UW) is defined as "Operations conducted by, with, or through irregular forces in support of a resistance movement, an insurgency, or conventional military operations... This definition reflects two essential criteria: UW must be conducted by, with, or through surrogates; and such surrogates must be irregular forces."
Thus, U.S. support of the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s constituted unconventional warfare, as did U.S. support of anti-Soviet mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"The United States has considerable experience in conducting UW," the new manual observes. "The best known U.S. UW campaigns include OSS activities in Europe and the Pacific (1942-45), Philippines (1941-44), Guatemala (1950), Cuba (1960-61), North Vietnam (1964-72), South Vietnam (1967-72), Iraq (1991-96), Operation Enduring Freedom (2001-02), and Operation Iraqi Freedom"
The 248-page manual presents updated policy and doctrine governing unconventional warfare, and examines its "three main component disciplines": special forces operations, psychological operations, and civil affair operations. Appendices include an historical survey of unconventional warfare as well as an extensive bibliography.
The unclassified manual has not been approved for public release. But a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.
See "Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare," U.S. Army Field
Manual FM 3-05.130, September 30, 2008:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-05-130.pdf

NTI suddenly 'concerned'...
U.S. Energy Department Cannot Account for Nuclear Materials at 15 Locations
By Katherine McIntire Peters
Government Executive
NTI
http://gsn.nti.org/siteservices/print_friendly.php?ID=nw_20090224_7895
WASHINGTON -- A number of U.S. institutions with licenses to hold nuclear material reported to the Energy Department in 2004 that the amount of material they held was less than agency records indicated. But rather than investigating the discrepancies, Energy officials wrote off significant quantities of nuclear material from the department's inventory records.
That's just one of the findings of a report released yesterday by Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman that concluded "the department cannot properly account for and effectively manage its nuclear materials maintained by domestic licensees and may be unable to detect lost or stolen material."
Auditors found that Energy could not accurately account for the quantities and locations of nuclear material at 15 out of 40, or 37 percent, of facilities reviewed. The materials written off included 20,580 grams of enriched uranium, 45 grams of plutonium, 5,001 kilograms of normal uranium and 189,139 kilograms of depleted uranium.
Auditors also found that waste processing facilities could not locate or explain the whereabouts of significant quantities of uranium and other nuclear material that Energy Department records showed they held. In another case, Energy officials had no record of the fact that one academic institution had loaned a 32-gram plutonium-beryllium source to another institution.
The audit was a follow-up to a 2001 probe that found similar record-keeping problems. "Key commitments made by the department were not completed nearly eight years after our earlier audit," Friedman reported.
More than 100 academic and commercial institutions and government agencies lease nuclear materials that are owned by Energy. The department, along with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is supposed to track these materials through the centralized accounting system known as the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System, or NMMSS.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative is working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. NTI is co-chaired by Ted Turner and Sam Nunn. The Nuclear Security Project started with the January 4, 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed by former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Senator Sam Nunn. All four authors are leading the Project and NTI serves as the Project Secretariat.
Securing the Bomb 2008, commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, finds that the world still faces a "very real" risk that terrorists could get a nuclear bomb. The Obama Administration must make reducing that risk a top priority of U.S. security policy and diplomacy, according to the report, which is accompanied by a paper offering a specific agenda for the presidential transition and the opening weeks of the new administration.
Read the Executive Summary (319KB) or the Full Report (1.28MB)
Read "Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: An Agenda for the Next President"
http://www.nti.org/index.php

Obama’s War on Terror May Resemble Bush’s:
In little-noticed confirmation testimony Obama nominees endorsed continuing the C.I.A.’s [rendition] program transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even when arrested far from a war zone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/us/politics/18policy.html?_r=1&partner... http://tinyurl.com/c9phtg

What About Bagram?
By William Fisher
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22112.htm
Obama's Department of Justice said they would adopt the same position taken by the George W. Bush administration - that detainees held at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan have no right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. The U.S. government is holding more than 600 prisoners at Bagram. Some claim they are victims of "extraordinary rendition" by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), while many more say they have been tortured and abused at the facility just outside Kabul.
Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild [said] "The Obama administration is reportedly sending detainees to Bagram instead of Guantánamo. It is alarming that hundreds of people in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan will evidently be denied access to courts to review their 'enemy combatant' designations."...the Obama administration's decision to follow the Bush model, pointing out that this is the second time that's happened during the month since the new president took office...

Lawyer says Guantanamo abuse worse since Obama
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE51O3TB20090225
Following a January 22 order from Obama, the U.S. Defense Department conducted a two-week review of conditions at Guantanamo ahead of the planned closure of the prison on Cuba. Admiral Patrick Walsh, the review's author, acknowledged on Monday that reports of abuse had emerged but concluded all inmates were being treated in line with the Geneva Conventions. "We heard allegations of abuse," he said, asked if detainees had reported torture. "And what we did at that point was to go back and investigate the allegation... What we found is that there were in some cases substantiated evidence where guards had misconduct, I think that would be the best way to put it." ...
In one of the six main camps at Guantanamo, the lawyer said all the detainees he knew were on hunger strike and subject to force-feeding, including with laxatives that induced chronic diarrhea while they were strapped in their feeding chairs."Several of my clients have had toilet paper pepper-sprayed while they have had hemorrhoids," Ghappour said... detainees being abused on the way to meetings with their lawyers -- sometimes so badly that they no longer wanted to meet with counsel for fear of the beatings they would receive, he said. "Some detainees are convinced they are going to be locked up there forever, despite the promises to close the camp," he said.

speaking of state terrorism...from http://www.legitgov.org/
Obama says to forge new anti-terrorism strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/25/content_10891686.htm
President Barack Obama pledged that the United States will continue its previous efforts to fight against foment terrorism. "We will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al-Qaeda and combat extremism," said Obama in his first address to a joint session of the Congress. "I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens half a world away," he said.

U.S. Army To Buy $6 Million Of Riot Equipment
The U.S. Army Contracting Agency based at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has post on the Federal Business Opportunities website requesting the equipment and has received several notices of interest from potential vendors....
The U.S. Army War College in November released a white paper called Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development. The report warned that the military must be prepared for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,” which could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse,” “purposeful domestic resistance,” “pervasive public health emergencies” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.” The “widespread civil violence,” the document said, “would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.”

W. House: DoD Officials Must Vow Secrecy on Budget
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3956514
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hF8az86seaD0xAv7MyQCVe...
The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 defense budget fiscal plan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates set the rule, requiring for the first time that each military and civilian official helping prepare the budget sign a non-disclosure statement, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

Obama seeks $205 billion for Iraq, Afghan wars
Obama requested about $205 billion in war funding through the end of fiscal 2010. Obama's first budget proposal asked for $75.5 billion through September, which would bring total war spending to $141.4 billion for the current fiscal year... also $130 billion to fund the wars for fiscal year 2010, which starts on October 1. Obama asked Congress to increase the Pentagon's regular budget to $533.7 billion next year -- up 4 percent, or $20.4 billion, from its spending plan for the current year, drawn up under the Bush administration.
"In our country's current economic circumstances, I believe that represents a strong commitment to our security," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.
U.S. military spending accounts for roughly half the global total, according to independent experts.
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE51P4J120090226

Combat Forces May Remain In Iraq Long Term
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that a holdover, or "residual," force would number as many as 50,000....assuming there is such a force, it would have three primary functions: Training and helping Iraqi forces; protecting Americans and U.S. assets in Iraq and limited counterterrorism operations in which Iraqi forces would take the lead.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/25/iraq/main4829840.shtml

U.S. Ready to Respond to N.Korea Missile
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=6965611
Admiral Keating Says U.S. Prepared to Shoot Down Missile If Obama Gives OK 26 Feb 2009 In an interview with ABC News, Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Commands, said that the military is prepared to shoot down any North Korean ballistic missile -- if President Obama should give the order. "If a missile leaves the launch pad we'll be prepared to respond upon direction of the president," Keating told ABC News. "I'm not a betting man but I'd go like 60/40, 70/30 that it will, they will attempt to launch a satellite. There's equipment moving up there that would indicate the preliminary stages of preparation for a launch. So I'd say it's more than less likely."