I didn't know Blair was Panetta's boss. I did hear that it was Blair who nominated Chas Freeman. I was dissapointed that Freeman backed away from his defense of Tiananmen.
There's a more widely known narrative of a turf war between people commonly dubbed "neoconservatives" and the State department and CIA (with the latter often operating through or under cover of the former). The military had been taking on more of State's role, eclipsing it in budget and manpower. Cheney's assassination squads were drawn from Special Forces and operating through the U.S embassy without notifying the U.S ambassador. Philip Giraldi is ex-CIA and has a lot of sources there. He wrote about the hit squad here:
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2009/07/14/cia-hit-teams/
Someone here advocates the we get rid of the State department because of it's recent decline:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/09/11/hitting_bottom_in_foggy_bottom
NGO weenies worried about the shift in power from the State department to military:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41490
This statement from Giraldi reads as false on several levels:
" The perpetrators in Kenya also quickly discovered that white boys born in the American south sporting crewcuts and speaking no foreign language had difficulties in blending in as foreign businessmen."
I trust I don't have to explain why.
I'm not that aware of Giraldi, but it's hard to take him seriously as a source after reading that.
I listened to much of Robert Kaplan's "Imperial Grunts" recently, where he spends a lot of time talking about special forces. He notes that they grew long hair & beards and adopted local dress to fit in with Afghans. Pretending to be a businessman doesn't seem that big a stretch.
Giraldi said through googling you could find media reports about the arrest and the ambassador bailing them out. Through Wikipedia I found that our ambassador in 2002 was Johnnie Carson (not the talk-show host of course), but googling didn't turn anything up.
Giraldi predicted the coup in Honduras, and it was based on that that I think he knows what he's talking about. On the other hand, he didn't seem entirely serious when he said it.
I didn't know Blair was Panetta's boss. I did hear that it was Blair who nominated Chas Freeman. I was dissapointed that Freeman backed away from his defense of Tiananmen.
There's a more widely known narrative of a turf war between people commonly dubbed "neoconservatives" and the State department and CIA (with the latter often operating through or under cover of the former). The military had been taking on more of State's role, eclipsing it in budget and manpower. Cheney's assassination squads were drawn from Special Forces and operating through the U.S embassy without notifying the U.S ambassador. Philip Giraldi is ex-CIA and has a lot of sources there. He wrote about the hit squad here:
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2009/07/14/cia-hit-teams/
Someone here advocates the we get rid of the State department because of it's recent decline:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/09/11/hitting_bottom_in_foggy_bottom
NGO weenies worried about the shift in power from the State department to military:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41490
Posted by: TGGP | November 07, 2009 at 11:24 AM
This statement from Giraldi reads as false on several levels:
" The perpetrators in Kenya also quickly discovered that white boys born in the American south sporting crewcuts and speaking no foreign language had difficulties in blending in as foreign businessmen."
I trust I don't have to explain why.
I'm not that aware of Giraldi, but it's hard to take him seriously as a source after reading that.
Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | November 07, 2009 at 11:35 AM
I listened to much of Robert Kaplan's "Imperial Grunts" recently, where he spends a lot of time talking about special forces. He notes that they grew long hair & beards and adopted local dress to fit in with Afghans. Pretending to be a businessman doesn't seem that big a stretch.
Giraldi said through googling you could find media reports about the arrest and the ambassador bailing them out. Through Wikipedia I found that our ambassador in 2002 was Johnnie Carson (not the talk-show host of course), but googling didn't turn anything up.
Giraldi predicted the coup in Honduras, and it was based on that that I think he knows what he's talking about. On the other hand, he didn't seem entirely serious when he said it.
Posted by: TGGP | November 07, 2009 at 12:28 PM