Revolt of the Generals
Richard J. Whalen
16 October 2006 The Nation
Some of the officers from the first generation of the volunteer Army, now mostly retired, are speaking out and influencing their active-duty colleagues. Retired Lieut. Gen. William Odom calls the Iraq War “the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States” and draws a grim parallel with the Vietnam War. He says that US strategy in Iraq, as in Vietnam, has served almost exclusively the interests of our enemies. He says that our objectives in Vietnam passed through three phases leading to defeat. These were: (1) 1961-65, “containing” China; (2) 1965-68, obsession with US tactics, leading to “Americanization” of the war; and (3) 1968-75, phony diplomacy and self-deluding “Vietnamization.” Iraq has now completed two similar phases and is entering the third, says Odom, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Sunni death squads are today’s Khmer Rouge, the Shia are the Cambodians, and China is still China but stronger thanks in part to the re-ordering of the Middle East, a project with an ultimate goal of bringing China to heel.
Striking the US where it hurts
By Victor N Corpus
19 October 2006 Asia Times
Victor N Corpus is a retired brigadier general of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP); former chief of the Intelligence Service, AFP; and holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
A noted Chinese theorist on modern warfare, Chang Mengxiong, compared China’s form of fighting to “a Chinese boxer with a keen knowledge of vital body points who can bring an opponent to his knees with a minimum of movements”. It is like key acupuncture points in ancient Chinese medicine. Puncture one vital point and the whole anatomy is affected. If America ever goes to war with China, say, over Taiwan, then America should be prepared for the following “acupuncture points” in its anatomy to be “punctured”. Each of the vital points can bring America to its knees with a minimum of effort.
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A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad:
Asian Workers Trafficked to Build World’s Largest Embassy
David Phinney 17 October 2006
Workers accuse the Kuwait contractor building the US embassy in Baghdad of smuggling low-paid South Asians into Iraq and labor trafficking. Still, the US State Department casts a blind eye on the complaints as it rushes to complete its most ambitious project ever. [More]
Don’t look back
William Blum 19 October 2006
The cartoon awfulness of the Bush crime syndicate’s foreign policy is enough to make Americans nostalgic for almost anything that came before. And as Bill Clinton parades around the country and the world associating himself with “good” causes, it’s enough to evoke yearnings in many people on the left who should know better. So here’s a little reminder of what Clinton’s foreign policy was composed of. Hold on to it in case Lady Macbeth runs in 2008 and tries to capitalize on lover boy’s record. [More]