Recommended Reading
Pundita –You didn’t actually think Obama would let Greenwald testify to Congress about NSA, did you? and Let’s roll: Some legislators mount desperate campaign to save the U.S. republic
Raúl goes on to speculate about other possible reasons for the President’s ploy. My take is that Obama had already lost face with Liberals over drone war and related issues. And I don’t think there is one genuine Leftist or civil libertarian in the world who has any illusions left about what Obama is.
Yet it was the American Leftist, law professor and political scientist Stephen F. Diamond who alone pegged Obama during the Democratic presidential primary campaign in early 2008. After studying Obama’s political career up to that point he said that Obama was no Leftist; that he was an authoritarian — although what specific type, he wouldn’t speculate at that early stage.
“Isn’t that just like a Leftist,” I observed sarcastically at the time. “When one of their own turns out to be a monster they say, ‘Oh that’s not a real Leftist.'” But I listened to Steve despite my grumbling, and made sure Pundita readers heard what he had to say. I am very glad I did.
The American democracy may be strong enough to survive the Obama presidency, but there are many younger democracies that can count themselves lucky he wasn’t born there.
The secret origin of Doctrine Man!
Not the Singularity (Steve Hynd) – NSA Surveillance Didn’t Help Identify New Alleged Al Qaeda Threat and ( Matthew Elliot) – Weekend NSA Reader
BLACKFIVE – Brian Stann – The Dark Side of a Warrior
Slightly East of New – Incestuous delusion
Dr. Tdaxp –Pimps, Hos, and When to Get Out of the Ghetto
Nick Carr – PRISM and the New Society
Bruce Schneier – XKeyscore and Scientists Banned from Revealing Details of Car-Security Hack
Presentation Zen –Good science makes for good story
Eric Drexler – Transforming the Material Basis of Civilization:
The Long Now Foundation blog – Language may be much older than previously thought
Aeon Magazine – Out of the Deep
Studies in Intelligence –Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf
NRO – Jeb’s Education Racket
Democracy Journal – An Elite Deserving of the Name
Reason – Thanks to NSA Surveillance, Americans Are More Worried About Civil Liberties Than Terrorism
Recommended Viewing:
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T. Greer:
August 6th, 2013 at 8:07 am
Ugh. Chinese internet ate my really long a detailed reply on the Clausewitz article. I blame the CCP.
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In lieu of leaving a long comment myself, I direct the readership’s attention to another worthy article, this one published on Al Jazeera’s opinion pages:
“Creating a military-industrial-immigration Complex”
Todd Miller. Al Jazeera Opinion. 3 August 2013.
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Money quote: “In this, the bill only continues in a post-9/11 tradition in which our southern divide has become an on-the-ground laboratory for the development of a surveillance state whose mission is already moving well beyond those borderlands. Calling this “immigration reform” is like calling the National Security Agency’s expanding global surveillance system a domestic telecommunications upgrade. It’s really all about the country that the United States is becoming – one of the police and the policed.”
seydlitz89:
August 6th, 2013 at 11:38 am
zen-
Thanks for the heads up on the Gentile article. He’s always got something relevant to say.
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As to Olson’s piece, granted he does have a lot of hands on experience regarding strategic failure (as a former chief staffer to Paul Bremer’s CPA in Baghdad), his handling of a simple concept like “ideal types” is simply sad.
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Which only reinforces something I came to understand some time ago. To present a coherent critique of Clausewitz requires one to be essentially a Clausewitzian (Colin Gray does this in his classic Modern Strategy pages 100 – 112). This brings the whole argument down to earth leaving one with the conclusion that strategic theory (based on Clausewitz’s general theory) is what we have and barring a better theory there is no reason to junk it. The latest rash of Clausewitz bashing only indicates to me the level of strategic confusion among some US military/government academics (who are expected to train officers as “strategists”?) which in turn mirrors our current level of strategic dysfunction in policy formulation/understanding/analysis. I don’t expect this to change anytime soon unfortunately . . .