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George Bush with his militaristic policy in Iraq and other countries is really the one who pushing a conflict. Try to find anyone non-American who feels sympathetic to USA. Quite a challenge, heh...

let me get this straight - arkin's somehow responsible for reminding people about war games? well that's just great! actually, that's like me saying the cold war ended when i got out of the navy twenty some years ago. it goes on, folks. everyone has a dog (or dogski)in this fight, as the saying goes. skip putting country names to this - all pols do it to look patriotic, all generals do it to justify budgets and okay, maybe do some 'just in case' planning, all defense contractors really dig it, and the rest of us world inhabitants go about our business. as an old pre-glastnost soviet buddy told me, russia is just another third world country but with nukes. in the end, that and national greed scare the living crap out of me.

comrade arkin posts anti-russian cheap propaganda
shame for the civilized world

That's just stupid to write about it. I guess Americans are missing those times when Russia and America were at cold war. Give me a break. We are not gonna bomb you or something. We just don't care about it. Russia is not that superpower it used to be. We have our own problems. You should be afraid of China. Otherwise your country will turn into UNITED STATES OF CHINA.
Take care and god bless.
Maximus

Unbelievable!
How many people are against U.S.A.
I don't agree with every too strong ,too unpolite, not politically correct post written here,
i.e.: I agree with myself only.
:-(((
best regards
Fabcellit alias Fabrizio Celli.Forlì

В Америке такая же банда старых тупорылых динозавров тратит казенные деньги на всякую дрянь.Между тем,китайские товарищи,ведомые мудрыми руководителями КПК скоро всех нас сделают.Мы-как стадо,а за них партия думает!

Have Americans ever been on the Moon? If they have, why do they rely on Russian space technology to reach international station (which actually is Russian product as well)? The nation that set foot on the terrestrial satellite many times in 1969-72 can't even produce something to take off. Incredibly strange.

Osama Bin Laden is Prophet.

www.subbionic.com

This is just another variation on the Dr. Strangelove theme.

I have friends in the engineering/defense community that yearn for the bad old days of the Cold War when sinecures (oops, technical defense jobs) were plentiful putting together schemes that would make even Rube Goldberg turn green with envy.

There are also think tanks and assorted other "industries" that thrive on this mutual paranoia. That's OK as long as our taxpayers are not wasted on their hare-brained schemes.

As to building high-tech defenses against China - why bother - they have already taken us over economically via their trojan horse named Walmart.

please, don't bomb us, we do have right attitude! bomb italy, or north korea. north korea is huge

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2005/usa-invade-p1.php

Remember how Hitler, Napoleon and other finished their games...

It's just a WAR GAME nostalgia thing---the VP is still waiting for his 'red phone' to ring!

Those poor NEO-Cons just miss their Fake Fuzzy Russian Bear Red Slippers for sure!

And how can Dick Cheney sleep soundly without the Green Glow Blips and Beeps from those old Sweep Scopes Nightlights as the scanned the skies for Incoming Russian IBCM?

Can US Ambassador Bolton please take off his shoe and bang it on the table at the
UN a little more nostagia?

I hear tell when the Neo-Cons go, they want to have a red, white and blue light show and to be 'buried above ground and under glass' so the GOP faithful can have 'an attraction' to visit...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"Dick Cheney's Song of America"

The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination.

It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage.

It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.

By David Armstrong

Harper's Magazine, 0017789X, Oct 2002, Vol. 305, Issue 1829

Few writers are more ambitious than the writers of government policy papers, and few policy papers are more ambitious than Dick Cheney's masterwork. It has taken several forms over the last decade and is in fact the product of several ghostwriters (notably Paul Wolfowitz and Colin Powell), but Cheney has been consistent in his dedication to the ideas in the documents that bear his name, and he has maintained a close association with the ideologues behind them. Let us, therefore, call Cheney the author, and this series of documents the Plan.

The Plan was published in unclassified form most recently under the title of Defense Strategy for the 1990s, (pdf) as Cheney ended his term as secretary of defense under the elder George Bush in early 1993, but it is, like "Leaves of Grass," a perpetually evolving work. It was the controversial Defense Planning Guidance draft of 1992 - from which Cheney, unconvincingly, tried to distance himself - and it was the somewhat less aggressive revised draft of that same year. This June it was a presidential lecture in the form of a commencement address at West Point, and in July it was leaked to the press as yet another Defense Planning Guidance (this time under the pen name of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld). It will take its ultimate form, though, as America's new national security strategy - and Cheney et al. will experience what few writers have even dared dream: their words will become our reality.

The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.

The Plan is disturbing in many ways, and ultimately unworkable. Yet it is being sold now as an answer to the "new realities" of the post-September 11 world, even as it was sold previously as the answer to the new realities of the post-Cold War world. For Cheney, the Plan has always been the right answer, no matter how different the questions.

Cheney's unwavering adherence to the Plan would be amusing, and maybe a little sad, except that it is now our plan. In its pages are the ideas that we now act upon every day with the full might of the United States military. Strangely, few critics have noted that Cheney's work has a long history, or that it was once quite unpopular, or that it was created in reaction to circumstances that are far removed from the ones we now face. But Cheney is a well-known action man. One has to admire, in a way, the Babe Ruth-like sureness of his political work. He pointed to center field ten years ago, and now the ball is sailing over the fence.

Before the Plan was about domination it was about money. It took shape in late 1989, when the Soviet threat was clearly on the decline, and, with it, public support for a large military establishment. Cheney seemed unable to come to terms with either new reality. He remained deeply suspicious of the Soviets and strongly resisted all efforts to reduce military spending. Democrats in Congress jeered his lack of strategic vision, and a few within the Bush Administration were whispering that Cheney had become an irrelevant factor in structuring a response to the revolutionary changes taking place in the world.

More adaptable was the up-and-coming General Colin Powell, the newly appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, Powell had seen the changes taking place in the Soviet Union firsthand and was convinced that the ongoing transformation was irreversible. Like Cheney, he wanted to avoid military cuts, but he knew they were inevitable. The best he could do was minimize them, and the best way to do that would be to offer a new security structure that would preserve American military capabilities despite reduced resources.

Powell and his staff believed that a weakened Soviet Union would result in shifting alliances and regional conflict. The United States was the only nation capable of managing the forces at play in the world; it would have to remain the preeminent military power in order to ensure the peace and shape the emerging order in accordance with American interests. U.S. military strategy, therefore, would have to shift from global containment to managing less-well-defined regional struggles and unforeseen contingencies. To do this, the United States would have to project a military "forward presence" around the world; there would be fewer troops but in more places. This plan still would not be cheap, but through careful restructuring and superior technology, the job could be done with 25 percent fewer troops. Powell insisted that maintaining superpower status must be the first priority of the U.S. military. "We have to put a shingle outside our door saying, 'Superpower Lives Here,' no matter what the Soviets do," he said at the time. He also insisted that the troop levels be proposed were the bare minimum necessary to do so. This concept would come to be known as the "Base Force."

Powell's work on the subject proved timely. The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, and five days later Powell had his new strategy ready to present to Cheney. Even as decades of repression were ending in Eastern Europe, however, Cheney still could not abide even the force and budget reductions Powell proposed. Yet he knew that cuts were unavoidable. Having no alternative of his own to offer, therefore, he reluctantly encouraged Powell to present his ideas to the president. Powell did so the next day; Bush made no promises but encouraged him to keep at it.

Less encouraging was the reaction of Paul Wolfowitz, the undersecretary of defense for policy. A lifelong proponent of the unilateralist, maximum-force approach, he shared Cheney's skepticism about the Eastern Bloc and so put his own staff to work on a competing plan that would somehow accommodate the possibility of Soviet backsliding.

As Powell and Wolfowitz worked out their strategies, Congress was losing patience. New calls went up for large cuts in defense spending in light of the new global environment. The harshest critique of Pentagon planning came from a usually dependable ally of the military establishment, Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee. Nunn told fellow senators in March 1990 that there was a "threat blank" in the administration's proposed $295 billion defense budget and that the Pentagon's "basic assessment of the overall threat to our national security" was "rooted in the past." The world had changed and yet the "development of a new military strategy that responds to the changes in the threat has not yet occurred." Without that response, no dollars would be forthcoming.

Nunn's message was clear. Powell and Wolfowitz began filling in the blanks. Powell started promoting a Zen-like new rationale for his Base Force approach. With the Soviets rapidly becoming irrelevant, Powell argued, the United States could no longer assess its military needs on the basis of known threats. Instead, the Pentagon should focus on maintaining the ability to address a wide variety of new and unknown challenges. This shift from a "threat based" assessment of military requirements to a "capability based" assessment would become a key theme of the Plan. The United States would move from countering Soviet attempts at dominance to ensuring its own dominance. Again, this project would not be cheap.

Powell's argument, circular though it may have been, proved sufficient to hold off Congress. Winning support among his own colleagues, however, proved more difficult. Cheney remained deeply skeptical about the Soviets, and Wolfowitz was only slowly coming around. To account for future uncertainties, Wolfowitz recommended drawing down U.S. forces to roughly the levels proposed by Powell, but doing so at a much slower pace; seven years as opposed to the four Powell suggested. He also built in a "crisis response/reconstitution" clause that would allow for reversing the process if events in the Soviet Union, or elsewhere, turned ugly.

With these now elements in place, Cheney saw something that might work. By combining Powell's concepts with those of Wolfowitz, he could counter congressional criticism that his proposed defense budget was out of line with the new strategic reality, while leaving the door open for future force increases. In late June, Wolfowitz, Powell, and Cheney presented their plan to the president, and within as few weeks Bush was unveiling the new strategy.

Bush laid out the rationale for the Plan in a speech in Aspen, Colorado, on August 2, 1990. He explained that since the danger of global war had substantially receded, the principal threats to American security would emerge in unexpected quarters. To counter those threats, he said, the United States would increasingly base the size and structure of its forces on the need to respond to "regional contingencies" and maintain a peacetime military presence overseas. Meeting that need would require maintaining the capability to quickly deliver American forces to any "corner of the globe," and that would mean retaining many major weapons systems then under attack in Congress as overly costly and unnecessary, including the "Star Wars" missile-defense program. Despite those massive outlays, Bush insisted that the proposed restructuring would allow the United States to draw down its active forces by 25 percent in the years ahead, the same figure Powell had projected ten months earlier.

The Plan's debut was well timed. By a remarkable coincidence, Bush revealed it the very day Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait.

The Gulf War temporarily reduced the pressure to cut military spending. It also diverted attention from some of the Plan's less appealing aspects. In addition, it inspired what would become one of the Plan's key features: the use of "overwhelming force" to quickly defeat enemies, a concept since dubbed the Powell Doctrine.

Once the Iraqi threat was "contained," Wolfowitz returned to his obsession with the Soviets, planning various scenarios involved possible Soviet intervention in regional conflicts. The failure of the hard-liner coup against Gorbachev in August 1991, however, made it apparent that such planning might be unnecessary. Then, in late December, just as the Pentagon was preparing to put the Plan in place, the Soviet Union collapsed.

With the Soviet Union gone, the United States had a choice. It could capitalize on the euphoria of the moment by nurturing cooperative relations and developing multilateral structures to help guide the global realignment then taking place; or it could consolidate its power and pursue a strategy of unilateralism and global dominance. It chose the latter course.

In early 1992, as Powell and Cheney campaigned to win congressional support for their augmented Base Force plan, a new logic entered into their appeals. The United States, Powell told members of the House Armed Services Committee, required "sufficient power" to "deter any challenger from ever dreaming of challenging us on the world stage." To emphasize the point, he cast the United States in the role of street thug. "I want to be the bully on the block," he said, implanting in the mind of potential opponents that "there is no future in trying to challenge the armed forces of the United States."

As Powell and Cheney were making this new argument in their congressional rounds, Wolfowitz was busy expanding the concept and working to have it incorporated into U.S. policy. During the early months of 1992, Wolfowitz supervised the preparation of an internal Pentagon policy statement used to guide military officials in the preparation of their forces, budgets, and strategies. The classified document, known as the Defense Planning Guidance, depicted a world dominated by the United States, which would maintain its superpower status through a combination of positive guidance and overwhelming military might. the image was one of a heavily armed City on a Hill.

The DPG stated that the "first objective" of U.S. defense strategy was "to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival." Achieving this objective required that the United States "prevent any hostile power from dominating a region" of strategic significance. America's new mission would be to convince allies and enemies alike "that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."

Another new theme was the use of preemptive military force. The options, the DPG noted, ranged from taking preemptive military action to head off a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack to "punishing" or "threatening punishment of" aggressors "through a variety of means," including strikes against weapons-manufacturing facilities.

The DPG also envisioned maintaining a substantial U.S. nuclear arsenal while discouraging the development of nuclear programs in other countries. It depicted a "U.S.-led system of collective security" that implicitly precluded the need for rearmament of any king by countries such as Germany and Japan. And it called for the "early introduction" of a global missile-defense system that would presumably render all missile-launched weapons, including those of the United States, obsolete. (The United States would, of course, remain the world's dominant military power on the strength of its other weapons systems.)

The story, in short, was dominance by way of unilateral action and military superiority. While coalitions - such as the one formed during the Gulf War - held "considerable promise for promoting collective action," the draft DPG stated, the United States should expect future alliances to be "ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted, and in many cases carrying only general agreement over the objectives to be accomplished." It was essential to create "the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S." and essential that America position itself "to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated" or in crisis situation requiring immediate action. "While the U.S. cannot become the world's policeman," the document said, "we will retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends." Among the interests the draft indicated the United States would defend in this manner were "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism."

The DPC was leaked to the New York Times in March 1992. Critics on both the left and the right attacked it immediately. Then-presidential candidate Pat Buchanan portrayed candidate a "blank check" to America's allies by suggesting the United States would "go to war to defend their interests." Bill Clinton's deputy campaign manager, George Stephanopoulos, characterized it as an attempt by Pentagon officials to "find an excuse for big defense budgets instead of downsizing." Delaware Senator Joseph Biden criticized the Plan's vision of a "Pax Americana, a global security system where threats to stability are suppressed or destroyed by U.S. military power." Even those who found the document's stated goals commendable feared that its chauvinistic tone could alienate many allies. Cheney responded by attempting to distance himself from the Plan. The Pentagon's spokesman dismissed the leaked document as a "low-level draft" and claimed that Cheney had not seen it. Yet a fifteen-page section opened by proclaiming that it constituted "definitive guidance from the Secretary of Defense."

Powell took a more forthright approach to dealing with the flap: he publicly embraced the DPG's core concept. In a TV interview, he said he believed it was "just fine" that the United States reign as the world's dominant military power. "I don't think we should apologize for that," he said. Despite bad reviews in the foreign press, Powell insisted that America's European allies were "not afraid" of U.S. military might because it was "power that could be trusted" and "will not be misused."

Mindful that the draft DPG's overt expression of U.S. dominance might not fly, Powell in the same interview also trotted out a new rationale for the original Base Force plan. He argued that in a post-Soviet world, filled with new dangers, the United States needed the ability to fight on more than one front at a time. "One of the most destabilizing things we could do," he said, "is to cut our forces so much that if we're tied up in one area of the world ..... and we are not seen to have the ability to influence another area of the world, we might invite just the sort of crisis we're trying to deter." This two-war strategy provided a possible answer to Nunn's "threat blank." One unknown enemy wasn't enough to justify lavish defense budgets, but two unknown enemies might do the trick.

Within a few weeks the Pentagon had come up with a more comprehensive response to the DPG furor. A revised version was leaked to the press that was significantly less strident in tone, though only slightly less strident in fact. While calling for the United States to prevent "any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our interests," the new draft stressed that America would act in concert with its allies - when possible. It also suggested the United Nations might take an expanded role in future political, economic, and security matters, a concept conspicuously absent from the original draft.

The controversy died down, and, with a presidential campaign under way, the Pentagon did nothing to stir it up again. Following Bush's defeat, however, the Plan reemerged. In January 1993, in his very last days in office. Cheney released a final version. The newly titled Defense Strategy for the 1990s retained the soft touch of the revised draft DPG as well as its darker themes. The goal remained to preclude "hostile competitors from challenging our critical interests" and preventing the rise of a new super-power. Although it expressed a "preference" for collective responses in meeting such challenges, it made clear that the United States would play the lead role in any alliance. Moreover, it noted that collective action would "not always be timely." Therefore, the United States needed to retain the ability to "act independently, if necessary." To do so would require that the United States maintain its massive military superiority. Others were not encouraged to follow suit. It was kinder, gentler dominance, but it was dominance all the same. And it was this thesis that Cheney and company nailed to the door on their way out.

The new administration tacitly rejected the heavy-handed, unilateral approach to U.S. primacy favored by Powell, Cheney, and Wolfowitz. Taking office in the relative calm of the early post - Cold War era, Clinton sought to maximize America's existing position of strength and promote its interests through economic diplomacy, multilateral institutions (dominated by the United States), greater international free trade, and the development of allied coalitions, including American-led collective military action. American policy, in short, shifted from global dominance to globalism.

Clinton also failed to prosecute military campaigns with sufficient vigor to satisfy the defense strategists of the previous administration. Wolfowitz found Clinton's Iraq policy especially infuriating. During the Gulf War, Wolfowitz harshly criticized the decision - endorsed by Powell and Cheney - to end the war once the U.N. mandate of driving Saddam's forces from Kuwait had been fulfilled, leaving the Iraqi dictator in office. He called on the Clinton Administration to finish the job by arming Iraqi opposition forces and sending U.S. ground troops to defense a base of operation for them in the southern region of the country. In a 1996 editorial, Wolfowitz raised the prospect of launching a preemptive attack against Iraq. "Should we sit idly by," he wrote, "with our passive containment policy and our inept cover operations, and wait until a tyrant possessing large quantities of weapons of mass destruction and sophisticated delivery systems strikes out at us?" Wolfowitz suggested it was "necessary" to "go beyond the containment strategy."

Wolfowitz's objections to Clinton's military tactics were not limited to Iraq. Wolfowitz had endorsed President Bush's decision in late 1992 to intervene in Somalia on a limited humanitarian basis. Clinton later expanded the mission into a broader peacekeeping effort, a move that ended in disaster. With perfect twenty-twenty hindsight, Wolfowitz decried Clinton's decision to send U.S. troops into combat "where there is no significant U.S. national interest." He took a similar stance on Clinton's ill-fated democracy-building effort in Haiti, chastising the president for engaging "American military prestige" on an issue" of the little or no importance" to U.S. interests. Bosnia presented a more complicated mix of posturing and ideologics. While running for president, Clinton had scolded the Bush Administration for failing to take action to stem the flow of blood in the Balkans. Once in office, however, and chastened by their early misadventures in Somalia and Haiti, Clinton and his advisers struggled to articulate a coherent Bosnia policy. Wolfowitz complained in 1994 of the administration's failure to "develop an effective course of action.' He personally advocated arming the Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs. Powell, on the other hand, publicly cautioned against intervention. In 1995 a U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign, combined with a Croat-Muslim ground offensive, forced the Serbs into negotiations, leading to the Dayton Peace Accords. In 1999, as Clinton rounded up support for joint U.S.-NATO action in Kosovo, Wolfowitz hectored the president for failing to act quickly enough.

After eight years of what Cheney et al. regarded as wrong-headed military adventures and pinprick retaliatory strikes, the Clinton Administration - mercifully, in their view - came to an end. With the ascension of George W. Bush to the presidency, the authors of the Plan returned to government, ready to pick up where they had left off. Cheney of course, became vice president, Powell became secretary of state, and Wolfowitz moved into the number two slot at the Pentagon, as Donald Rumsfeld's deputy. Other contributors also returned: Two prominent members of the Wolfowitz team that crafted the original DPG took up posts on Cheney's staff. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who served as Wolfowitz's deputy during Bush I, became the vice president's chief of staff and national security adviser. And Eric Edelman, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush Administration, became a top foreign policy adviser to Cheney.

Cheney and company had not changed their minds during the Clinton interlude about the correct course for U.S. policy, but they did not initially appear bent on resurrecting the Plan. Rather than present a unified vision of foreign policy to the world, in the early going the administration focused on promoting a series of seemingly unrelated initiatives. Notable among these were missile defense and space-based weaponry, long-standing conservative causes. In addition, a distinct tone of unilateralism emerged as the new administration announced its intent to abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in order to pursue missile defense; its opposition to U.S. ratification of an international nuclear-test-ban pact; and its refusal to become a party to an International Criminal Court. It also raised the prospect of ending the self-imposed U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing initiated by the President's father during the 1992 presidential campaign. Moreover, the administration adopted a much tougher diplomatic posture, as evidenced, most notably, by a distinct hardening of relations with both China and North Korea. While none of this was inconsistent with the concept of U.S. dominance, these early actions did not, at the time, seem to add up to a coherent strategy.

It was only after September 11 that the Plan emerged in full. Within days of the attacks, Wolfowitz and Libby began calling for unilateral military action against Iraq, on the shaky premise that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network could not have pulled off the assaults without Saddam Hussein's assistance. At the time, Bush rejected such appeals, but Wolfowitz kept pushing and the President soon came around. In his State of the Union address in January, Bush labeled Iraq, Iran, and North Korea an "axis of evil," and warned that he would "not wait on events" to prevent them from using weapons of mass destruction against the United States. He reiterated his commitment to preemption in his West Point speech in June. "If we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited too long," he said. "We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge." Although it was less noted, Bush in that same speech also reintroduced the Plan's central theme. He declared that the United States would prevent the emergence of a rival power by maintaining "military strengths beyond the challenge." With that, the President effectively adopted a strategy his father's administration had developed ten years earlier to ensure that the United States would remain the world's preeminent power. While the headlines screamed "preemption," no one noticed the declaration of the dominance strategy.

In case there was any doubt about the administration's intentions, the Pentagon's new DPG lays them out. Signed by Wolfowitz's new boss, Donald Rumsfeld, in May and leaked to the Los Angeles Times in July, it contains all the key elements of the original Plan and adds several complementary features. The preemptive strikes envisioned in the original draft DPG are now "unwarned attacks." The old Powell-Cheney notion of military "forward presence" is now "forwarded deterrence." The use of overwhelming force to defeat an enemy called for in the Powell Doctrine is now labeled an "effects based" approach.

Some of the names have stayed the same. Missile defense is back, stronger than ever, and the call goes up again for a shift from a "threat based" structure to a "capabilities based" approach. The new DPG also emphasizes the need to replace the so-called Cold War strategy of preparing to fight two major conflicts simultaneously with what the Los Angeles Times refers to as "a more complex approach aimed at dominating air and space on several fronts." This, despite the fact that Powell had originally conceived - and the first Bush Administration had adopted - the two-war strategy as a means of filling the "threat blank" left by the end of the Cold War.

Rumsfeld's version adds a few new ideas, most impressively the concept of preemptive strikes with nuclear weapons. These would be earth-penetrating nuclear weapons used for attacking "hardened and deeply buried targets," such as command-and-control bunkers, missile silos, and heavily fortified underground facilities used to build and store weapons of mass destruction. The concept emerged earlier this year when the administration's Nuclear Posture Review leaked out. At the time, arms-control experts warned that adopting the NPR's recommendations would undercut existing arms-control treaties, do serious harm to nonproliferation efforts, set off new rounds of testing, and dramatically increase the prospectus of nuclear weapons being used in combat. Despite these concerns, the administration appears intent on developing the weapons. In a final flourish, the DPG also directs the military to develop cyber-, laser-, and electronic-warfare capabilities to ensure U.S. dominion over the heavens.

Rumsfeld spelled out these strategies in Foreign affairs earlier this year, and it is there that he articulated the remaining elements of the Plan; unilateralism and global dominance. Like the revised DPG of 1992, Rumsfeld feigns interest in collective action but ultimately rejects it as impractical. "Wars can benefit from coalitions," he writes, "but they should not be fought by committee." And coalitions, he adds, "must not determine the mission." The implication is the United States will determine the missions and lead the fights. Finally, Rumsfeld expresses the key concept of the Plan: preventing the emergence of rival powers. Like the original draft DPG of 1992, he states that America's goal is to develop and maintain the military strength necessary to "dissuade" rivals or adversaries from "competing." with no challengers, and a proposed defense budget of $379 billion for next year, the United States would reign over all its surveys.

Reaction to the latest edition of the Plan has, thus far, focused on preemption. Commentators parrot the administration's line, portraying the concept of preemptory strikes as a "new" strategy aimed at combating terrorism. In an op-ed piece for the Washington Post following Bush's West Point address, former Clinton adviser William Galston described preemption as part of a "brand-new security doctrine," and warned of possible negative diplomatic consequences. Others found the concept more appealing. Loren Thompson of the conservative Lexington Institute hailed the "Bush Doctrine" as "a necessary response to the new dangers that America faces" and declared it "the biggest shift in strategic thinking in two generations." Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley echoed that sentiment, writing that "no talk of this ilk has been heard from American leaders since John Foster Dulles talked of rolling back the Iron Curtain."

Preemption, of course, is just part of the Plan, and the Plan is hardly new. It is a warmed-over version of the strategy Cheney and his coauthors rolled out in 1992 as the answer to the end of the Cold War. Then the goal was global dominance, and it met with bad reviews. Now it is the answer to terrorism. The emphasis is on preemption, and the reviews are generally enthusiastic. Through all of this, the dominance motif remains, though largely undetected.

This country once rejected "unwarned" attacks such as Pearl Harbor as barbarous and unworthy of a civilized nation. Today many cheer the prospect of conducting sneak attacks - potentially with nuclear weapons - on piddling powers run by tin-pot despots.

We also once denounced those who tried to rule the world. Our primary objection (at least officially) to the Soviet Union as its quest for global domination. Through the successful employment of the tools of containment, deterrence, collective security, and diplomacy - the very methods we now reject - we rid ourselves and the world of the Evil Empire. Having done so, we now pursue the very thing for which we opposed it. And now that the Soviet Union is gone, there appears to be no one left to stop us.

Perhaps, however, there is. The Bush Administration and its loyal opposition seem not to grasp that the quests for dominance generate backlash. Those threatened with preemption may themselves launch preemptory strikes. And even those who are successfully "preempted" or dominated may object and find means to strike back. Pursuing such strategies may, paradoxically, result in greater factionalism and rivalry, precisely the things we seek to end.

Not all Americans share Colin Powell's desire to be "the bully on the block." In fact, some believe that by following a different path the United States has an opportunity to establish a more lasting security environment. As Dartmouth professors Stephen Brooks and William Woblforth wrote recently in Foreign Affairs, "Unipolarity makes it possible to be the global bully - but it also offers the United States the luxury of being able to look beyond its immediate needs to its own, and the world's, long-term interests. ..... Magnanimity and restraint in the face of temptation are tenets of successful statecraft that have proved their worth." Perhaps, in short, we can achieve our desired ends by means other than global domination.

[News Complier Source: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1544.htm ]

Россию снова боятся. Это радует.
Верной дорогой идем, товарищи!

Russia will soon rise up and find a new tsar. then we will defeat USA and the Jews in Israel!! A 21st century Pogrom is needed involving ICBM's!

"Your will pay for stabbing serbian peoples by muslim's cavemen".
You could move muslemes out from the country, but you chose to start a genocide. You killed 8000 peaceful albanianes in Srebrenice in 1995y. You are ordinary caveman and killer. http://www.gazeta.ru/lenta.shtml?415146#415146 "В Боснии найдено массовое захоронение жертв резни в Сребренице. Об этом сообщили представители местных властей. В 1995 году около 8 тысяч мусульман были убиты в Сребренице боснийскими сербами. Большинство останков были обнаружены в нескольких десятках массовых захоронений в районе Сребреницы. На кладбище в пригороде Сараево уже захоронены останки более 1300 человек " For this you was punished. It is you christ-hater and bloody bustard. You produced evil, violated Christ-laws and you was punished. Thanks God.

The problem is precisely the fact that these games have been played for generations by both parties. The question is why they are still being played in such form. The point of this article is not to evaluate the games themselves, but to assess the ultimate reason for these games. I would like to add another component and that is the effect of these games on Russia-US relations at a popular level.

In relation to the first point it is fair to conclude that the reason for such scenarios is to justify defence spending and no more than that.

In relation to the second I would like to suggest that war games like these, in the conditions of global media network, produce an immediate negative effect on the trust between the two nations. I will explain why.

It was fair to note that these games have been carried out by both parties for years: in fact just before the start of the operation "Shock and Awe" Russia did an exercise between airforce and special forces on the one hand and mobile nuclear missile forces on the other. In this mock conflict the combined forces of airforce, space armed forces, and ground special forces were unsuccessful in localizing and disarming the mobile nuclear component. This shows that Russia's Ministry of Defence is nobody's fool and will exploit a real event like US operation in Iraq to justify its own spending on Topol-M systems.
However, apart from a continuing arms race, such exercises add to mistrust, not at the high command level, but at the level of regular army staff. For while the command might know their real reasons for the exercise, the grunt does not. This perpetrates an image of an enemy that becomes indoctrinated in the officers who will eventually assume higher positions.

Media accessibility is the reason why this problem is so serious. I personally found out about this blog from Redstar daily newspaper which, unlike the on-line access is available everywhere in the Russian armed forces. That means that every soldier has an opportunity to find out about games aimed at thwarting "Russian aggression". That is the reason why such badly disguised scenarios is a serious issue that should not be ignored. One could do the exercise, but there is absolutely no reason to make the potential adversary who does not know better feel threatened - it serves no one any good.

Ну вы задолбали. Что в Расейском Генеральном Штабе в такие игры не играют? надо же какие расияни белые и пушистые.

По поводу Сербии - все претензии к Клинтону и его банде. Ведь вы же все хотели Керри, ну так была бы вам еще одна Сербия, либерасты мастера бомбить из поднебесья в поддержку муслей.

Common, guys. Militaries of both sides have played these games for decades.

To those who does not understand the FUNDAMENTAL difference between the American libs - who bombed Serbia in support of Muslim terrorist insurgence a year after the Muslim terrorists bombed American embassies - and the Merican conservatives - who bomb Muslims in selfdefence: get a frigging clue

I just begin new nuclear wargame. At turn 5 planet Earth will be dead

Funny article, thank you, I enjoyed it. As much as I did a response article at lenta.ru, here is it's last paragraph:
-- ... Like in old good days Russia and US continue preparations for the nuclear war with each other. By american scenario "... Slomonia will lose the war by November 10th and will sue for peace..." Slomonian Strategic Nuclear Forces state the opposite...
And as long as my little Slomonia on top of hundreds other ICBM's has at least three hundred of "Voevoda"(R-36M-2), EACH capable to carry between 14 and 19 warheads to up to 11,000 kilometers range and they get refueled every two weeks to make sure fuel will not degrade, this small planet can rest assured the hands of such Pentagon "computer gamers" will not reach the REAL computers.
P.S. Yeah, and they've just tested Hypersonic Mobil version with multiple warheads and capablility to adjust the course while airborn to avoid being intercepted.

Thanks God most american people do not share such ideas - and those well paid clowns in uniforms can keep playing their games.

Attention to all!
Mars is a well hided death star.

Let's prevently attack them.

P.S.: Marsians have imperator and our scouts talk about some nuclear weapon.

America bring evil in world for money. Kill for black blood of economy - oil. Have MTV and pop-culture. And many other curious features.
Recent it is my favorite country.

Almost forgot i'm not bad in programming. Jews my bots. There is a script i right for their behavior. Calling Torah. That's wy they rule planet Earth. Because this planet,this universe,this radioactive rays,this black holes, technological progress - all this is MINE. And only one thought in your head from christian god - desire to live in safe handsome world. All other is mine.

Mashiah came soon. No, he would be not hellish goatliked creature how you like to draw me. He would be AI. Artifical Human. He will have no desire no passion no soul - just a program that i write. Think about it - why china have such grouwth? Because using of chineise more effective in money. And then will came AI. No desire and great effectivness. For what all you would be needed?
Bugaga!!!

Soon i came. And there i will show what is mercy. Mercy is a total world nuclear war.

very interesting to watch Christians fighting each other...

Slavich, не брини! Пребичемо их!

PS I hope my Serbian is not that bad :-)))

American Bustards. Your will pay for stabbing serbian peoples by muslim's cavemen. You plan is to put this christ-haters in Europe, Russia to weak them and then destroy them. Peacemakers? Bloody bustards... You are killers, but for killing you use the hands of another those who stupid and poor. For what? When job is done and looting of dead corpses produced you president will say - No I get it! Those muslims kill innocent peoples. Let's kill muslim. Empire of Evil not Russia but your state.
You will lose in this dirty games.
If you produce evil, evil will return to you. Law of Karma.
I wish China to economically fuck USA.

2 Petrovich

man, get serious :-)

They don't understand our sarcastic sence of humor and get everything you tell them for real. Trust me, I've seen it myself.

All their stereotypes have been grown for years and years of propaganda full of fear and terror. Russians are comming! Russians are comming! Well, Russians came. So, what? All Americans died because of that fact? Where is Mr. Bzhezinsky with all his hatred he's been promoting for over 40 years? Doesn't it appear to the American public that this polish immigrant can't get over his silly polish pride and keep brainwashing America :-)))
Same as his poor imbecile friends in Bush administration.
I feel sorry for them... I really do.

USA sitizens fear us!
Because it is the way you rulers to control you - give you some-thing, someone to fear.

Almost forgot.
We drink litres of vodka, fight with bears everyday.

Нихуя ни понйал!!!...фсё эта хуйня....пиндосам писдетц!!!...Ура, комрады!!!!!

2 Droog

Dude, I'd believe you are Russian, if you didn't talk bullsh@t. Sell top-secret technology? To whom? To those who can't even build a simple nuclear power plant or launch a piece of metal up into space? But... of cource... I must give them a credit... they have made a huge leap in technology of extending distance of Soviet SCAD missile developed back in 1950 by adding a few fuel tanks :-)))

2 Americans
Guys, we are not going to attack you. We will only strike back. We don't need your soil - got plenty of our own. We don't need your natural resources - we've got more then enough. We don't need your money - in a few years they'll worth nothing. We don't need your women - McDonalds does't make them look pretty ;-) We are neither your enemies nor your best friends. We just don't give a damn if you exist or not. You're on a different planet for us. Only that makes you safe.
And all these war games of your generals is just an attempt to prove the cause of wasting your tax money. They need a virtual enemy to prove it. Check out your movies... Russians, Chinese, Alians... everybody wants to attack poor US people... But who has? Nobody. You army AN NOT protect you. 9/11 proved it. Your NAVY didn't detect a fleet of Soviet Akula subs with SS-N-21 nuclear cruise missiles back in 80th near US Atlantic coast. And that was just an excersice... a prove of concept... a prove that like we say "there is always a screw-bolt with a funky thread on every coon ass".
So guys, don't waste your money. Win the war with Russia? Nah, you're not gonna make it. Not in this life. King of Sweden Charles XII tried - lost his Empire, French emperor Napoleon tried - Russian cossacs took over the Paris, poor sucker Hitler tried - commited suicide... What did it all end up with? After battle of Poltava Sweden were taught to be the most peacefull nation on the Earth - never fought again! Well, seems like they learned that lesson very well. Cossacs in Paris taught French a word "Bistro" (very funny story indeed ;-) ) and Germany has kept a low profile for over 60 years. What makes your generals think that they are any better? Vietnam war? Iraq? We, Russians, just can't get it. Can you?

Perestroika - that was your ultimate weapon. You wanna destroy China? Sell them Glastnost, give them Gorbachev. That'll do it.
Just remember. China is not USSR. If it goes down - the entire World goes down. Hundred millions of hungry and unemployed people start seeking for food, taking over nuclear weapons and blackmailing UN and all world governments. Russians had enough brains to take over all Soviet nukes and keep them protected from angry mob after USSR collapsed and all those wars broke out: Armenia vs Azerbaijan, Georgia vs Abkhasia, Moldova vs Pridnestrovie...
All these wars were stopped by Russians. Ten years passed and Russian peacekeepers managed to handle situation under control.
You haven't heard of these wars? You didn't estimete a possible magnitude? But of course you keep hearing on the news about Kosovo where situation only gets worse. Why? Maybe NATO is not a good peacekeeper? So look up on the Internet and say "Thank you, Russian people!"

And now imagine same sh@t happened in China. US exported there "democracy" and you got "a situation". Civil wars between Center and South, between North-West and North, muslims against buddists, buddist against communists et cetera. What are you gonna do about it? Send in marines? :-))) Or maybe just nuke 'em all? :-))) No can't do. Uh-uh!
There is only one power that can keep them quiet: Chinese Communist party. Worship them! Pray on them! That's your BEST friend. Not your army that can't go to war without airconditioners, afternoon ice cream and a daily shower.
What makes you think you've got the strongest army in the world? Your very well advertised weapons? Like F-117 hit in Yugoslavia by old Soviet airdefense missile? Well, Serbs didn't know it's invisible. That's why they hit it ;-)
Your soldiers joined US Army to get money for college, not to freeze their asses off somewhere in Siberia or to get their ears cut off somewhere near Moscow. Don't touch Russians, we won't touch you. As I said, we live on different planets. We got no beef with you. Just leave us alone.

In a meantime: mind your own business. Fix your budget deficit. Good luck, folks!

will it be like that movie war games with matthew broderick?

Russia is a great country.
Game over.

Russia is a great country.
Game over.

Maybe they are right, after all?

Just recently, Russia tested new ICBM, Topol'-M. And the United States has no defense against this new generation missle I am doubtful that Russia will start a war against US, but they can sell the new technology (which makes the warheads undetectable) to Iran. I wonder if they thought of that.

and by the way, I am Russian.

Additional Info X-Post:
(From links on WAPO)---

A very good NEWS COMPILER SOURCE on the CIA Leak Plame Affair & US Political News:

http://politicalbriefs.com/index.php?cat=92

Additional X-post@ on same topic:

Steve Aftergood's FAS this AM. (02 Nov 05)

SENATE MOVES INTO RARE CLOSED SESSION

In an extraordinary procedural maneuver that exposed partisan
tensions over intelligence oversight, Senate Democrats forced the
Senate into a rare closed session for more than two hours until they
won agreement from the majority to get a progress report on the
status of the Senate Intelligence Committee's long-deferred review
of pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

The Senate floor debate preceding and following the closed session
featured unusually blunt statements on the quality of intelligence
oversight of a sort not usually voiced in official proceedings.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Vice Chair of the Intelligence Committee, said
the Bush White House had orchestrated a deliberate evasion of
oversight responsibilities by the Republican majority.

"It is apparent to me that the White House has sent down the edict to
the majority... that the Congress is not to carry out its oversight
responsibilities in detention, interrogation, and rendition matters,
... as it would bring uncomfortable attention to the legal decisions
and opinions coming from the White House and the Justice Department
in the operation of various programs," Sen. Rockefeller said.

"We have agreed to do what we already agreed to do," replied Sen. Pat
Roberts, the Intelligence Committee Chair, "that is, to complete as
best we can phase II of the Intelligence Committee's review of
prewar intelligence in reference to Iraq."

A task force of six Senators will report by November 14 on the
anticipated completion date of the Intelligence Committee review.

See the full text of the November 1 Senate floor debate before and
after the historic closed session here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2005_cr/s110105.html

"Since 1929, the Senate has held 53 secret sessions, generally for
reasons of national security," according to a 2004 report on the
subject by the Congressional Research Service, whose availability on
the FAS web site was noted repeatedly on CNN during the course of
the secret Senate session.

See "Secret Sessions of Congress: A Brief Historical Overview,"
updated October 21, 2004:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RS20145.pdf

02 November 05 - RE: Additional X-post from yesterday's discussions on this blog.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Excellent Journalists Parry & Amstrong Webcast/Audio Interview today:

"Democrats forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session Tuesday to question intelligence used by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq invasion. We speak with investigative journalist Robert Parry and Scott Armstrong of the Information Trust about how the CIA leak case indictment has highlighted questions about pre-war intelligence."

Source: Ms. Goodman - Democracy Now! @: [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/02/1546206

"Russia Nukes the United States"

Empire srikes back!

NORAD needs more funding; that why all the buzzzz. And also there are really two states that would nuke: US and Israel. US already did so at least twice and wouldn't mind doing so again; there seems to be some obsession about Sino people: first it was Japan, now its Korea... Israel denied that it had nukes for long time but will surely use 'em against Iran.

PS: Would the US nuke us because of the lumber dispute?

Nonsense! That you write, is calculated only for the inhabitant and shows weakness of the USA. The Pentagon tries to calm Americans and to distract from the important problems. It even with Iraq cannot be defined. Similar the Pentagon tried to answer the Russian doctrines with start of nuclear rocket Topol-M yesterday which should punch the American antimissile defense.

"On November 10, Moscow is scheduled to "sue for peace,"

to sue whom? :))

Mr Arkin,

There is a logic error in your article. If you are realistic of what you are talking about, invert the word order in your title "Russia Nukes the United States", otherwise "Top Secret U.S. methods", by virtue of reason, will not have chance to "pravail" but to fall into oblivion. If they do, then it is the United States that strike the first, so it's another story. The nuke war, by definition, can not be won but only prevented.
Please keep off writing official notes for Pentagon in the future:
playing with risky titles does not contribute to peace, but confusing subject and object may lead to a silly war.

Best regards from
good friend Moscow

[[Within the U.S. government, few secrets are more sensitive than the identity of a CIA officer under "non-official cover," or NOC, meaning the agent operates outside government protection, such as posing as a business executive as Plame did.]]

Or, "such as posing as an ambassador as Plame's husband did"?

Just speculatin'...

Could this ALL be smoke, mirrors, and "massively redundant misdirection"?

Wouldn't it be positively hilarious if the REAL spook was "the indignant husband", and the putative "spook" was actually the cover?

If nothing else, I'll need to work this idea into a novel. :)

Nuclear war "possibilities" preclude the dwelling on levels of "probabilities", simply because it is most effective with the element of surprize, ie. precisely when the oponent think of it as a low probability scenario.

Keep it up Arkin!! Your da man!

Why do posters complain about your title and subject? It's silly guys. You should be glad someone is bringing to your attention events you otherwise would not have heard of. The reason most of you even read this post, was the catchy title. So why deride its author? He's got a job, and we're his readers. Do you serioulsy believe this post is going to increase tension with Russia? I mean do you think Moscow wasnt aware of the exercise, and only learned about it from Arkin? Can you be funier?

Let's talk business. The US needs to be prepared for all eventualities, and what I dislike about the exercise, is the puzzling use of bombers, and the assumption of a North Korea-Russia alliance. This is unrealistic and outdated. What we are reading of here, is an exercise of very low probability, and the question raised, is this conductive to national security contingencies.

Comments?

Russia has held already many nuke war games over the past 10 years, with Baikonour replacement launches, and what not, on a massive scale...nuking others for good as prozak peace of mind....

It's not their anger which can be controled, which it is, only yours is your responsability...good luck...don't worry about hating Russia, rather more about hating yourself and your country into oblivion...ahahah!

You Americans just don't get it.

YOU WILL BE NUKED...

but that is little damage. The worst part will be the Chinese riflemen coming and herding the rest of you down the mining pits.

Russia and China have so much humint, they don't need sattelites.

Your country is so confederated over your little deodorant and privacy needs, you can't even talk to each other over national world reality issues like adults, so dummed down you are.

The country is split, it will decolonize. We saw already how Louisiana asked Mexico for help because Katrina was too much for the Feds and for whatever loose tie remain between Federal interests and local socialism.

Unless America takes seriously multipolarity tribulation reality, America is toast because "they" do not intend to be the down tribe, just ask Rwanda....but it may be too late.

ZZ,

Thank you, as well.

(Note on Typepad Maintenance. Posting too closely to completion of maintenance will cause all quotation marks in text/post to appear as question marks.)

Another interesting cross-post for Mr. Don Williams in regards to 'national security clearance' terminology; 'need to know' metrics and accessing and distributing classified info.

[On this 'Day of the Dead' and just Post-Halloween, maybe one should say:

"Some Rules of the Road for: Hangin'and Hauntin' in Spooklandia and a Quik Guide of sorts to the Spook-y-sphere for the Un-national security-washed and Un-cleared?"] (YIKKES!!!! The Twists of Tricks and Treats!)

Anyway, X-post info is from Mr. Steve Aftergood's Federation of American Scientists (FAS) newsletter:

"PENTAGON CLEARANCE FOR JUDITH MILLER QUESTIONED

October 26, 2005 - "Secrecy News"

Senator Byron Dorgan, speaking on the Senate floor yesterday,
pondered the rules governing authorized access by reporters to
classified information.

His reflections were prompted by an assertion from New York Times'
Judith Miller that she had held a security clearance for access
to classified information while embedded with a military unit in
Iraq.

That assertion was later modified to indicate that Ms. Miller had signed some kind of non-disclosure agreement.

"How can you give a nondisclosure form to a reporter and then show them secret or top secret material? Take a look at the law, which I will read tomorrow in the Senate. That is not what is allowed," Senator Dorgan said."
See his remarks here: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2005_cr/dorgan102505.html

Oh and about this little the War Game....

How about some 'real politik'reality just out today?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

"Russia, China call for U.S. troops to go

MOSCOW, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- A security bloc led by China and Russia has called on the United States to set a deadline for the withdrawal of its troops from Central Asia.

Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization concluded their meeting in Moscow with the call for a U.S. withdrawal, the South China Morning Post reported Friday.

The newspaper described Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's participation in the meeting as "another step to cement Beijing's influence in the Central Asian region."

During his two-day stay in Moscow, Wen met Russian President Vladiar Putin..."
[Source: UPI, 01 November 2005; http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051028-043805-8415r]
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Also see: The Christian Science Monitor's post: "US undecided on sanctions against Uzbekistan for human rights abuses
Meanwhile, the UN worries about the uprising trial, an opposition leader is imprisoned, and the BBC closes its offices.
By Arthur Bright | csmonitor.com @:
articlehttp://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1028/dailyUpdate.html?s=rel

Thanks ZZ

Cross-posts for Messiers Williams and Redcat posts.

Your posts are well taken, I think you both might find the following interesting:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This past Sunday interview by Mr. Larry Bensky of Pacifica's Sunday Salon of interest:

"In our First Hour...
Indictments?
Grand Jury extension or expiration?, Resignations?

We'll talk about developments in the investigation into who leaked the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Joining us:

Scott Armstrong, investigative journalist and executive director of the Information Trust....

Robert Parry, Investigative Reporter and Author who broke the Iran Contra story Clarence Lusane, Professor of Political Science, American University...

To d/l & listen to the audio cast go to:
http://www.kpfa.org/1pro_bio/1b_sunda.htm

Or Google: Larry Bensky Sunday Salon

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Last Sunday as well, Pacifica's Ian Master of: 'Background Briefing'(1st-hr)/"Live from the Left Coast'(2nd-hr) also did an excellent programme on the Plame Affair interviewing Mr. John Dean and Ms. Laura Rozen of "the American Prospect" on the first hour: "Background Briefing".

The web audio stream has not yet been posted, but will soon be @:
http://www.kucr.org/ian_masters/index.php

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Finally, just this morning, (01 November 05) Mr. Murray Waas, investigative journalist and one of the leading reporters in the CIA Plame leak case.

Mr. Waas co-authored an article in the National Journal on Sunday about David Addington was interviewed in a webcast by
Pacifica's Ms. Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now"! This interview is up and available.

Watch/Listen @: Listen @:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/01/1518210

One text article by Mr. Waas is @: http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1027nj1.htm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And also today, 01 Nov,in the "American Prospect" an article: "Lying Matters" by Mr. Matthew Yglesias

Go to:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10559

I'm just glad we win! A pity about Alaska, but these things are bound to happen.

Jee, Ladies and other-sex (for you, dear feminists valkires), such topic titles just rocks! Ah, sweet music for paranoid ears of many people all around the globe.
Heh.
Take care.

Best regards from Russia

I find it offensive when a comment begins with "Gentlemen". As a woman, I find that Bill Arkin is anything but a fool when he draws attention to the boys playing with their toys. Get a grip, lads, and try disarmament!

Don Williams:

Article asks similar questions per your posts (link to full article: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/102905.html) (Source unknown to me.)

Letting the White House Walk?
By Robert Parry
October 30, 2005

As an outsider to Washington, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald appears to have misunderstood the finer points of how national security classifications work when a secret is as discrete - and sensitive - as the identity of an undercover CIA officer.

In his five-count indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis Libby, prosecutor Fitzgerald leaves the false impression that it was all right for White House officials with security clearances to be discussing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, a counter-proliferation official under deep cover.

Under the rules of classification, however, to see such secrets an official must not only have a top-secret clearance but also special code-word clearance that grants access to a specific compartment governed by strict need-to-know requirements.

In both the Libby indictment and a hour-long press conference on Oct. 28, Fitzgerald showed no indication he understood how extraordinary it was for White House officials to be bandying about the name of a covert CIA officer based on the flimsy rationale that she was married to an ex-diplomat who had been sent on a fact-finding trip to Niger.

Fitzgerald, who is the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, appears to have bought into the notion that government officials had a right to discuss Plame's covert status among themselves as long as they didn't pass the secret on to journalists. Then Fitzgerald didn't even seek punishment for that, limiting his criminal case to Libby's lying about how and when he learned of Plame's identity.

But to veterans of U.S. intelligence, one of the ugliest parts of Plame's outing was the cavalier manner in which White House officials tossed around references to her CIA job to undercut her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for criticizing George W. Bush's case for war with Iraq.

Sensitive Secrets

Within the U.S. government, few secrets are more sensitive than the identity of a CIA officer under "non-official cover," or NOC, meaning the agent operates outside government protection, such as posing as a business executive as Plame did. Lacking diplomatic cover, a NOC faces a far greater chance of execution if caught spying.

"The CIA is obsessive about protecting its NOCs," one angry former senior U.S. official told me after Libby was charged only with perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice. "There's almost nothing they care about more."

Fitzgerald did leave open the possibility there might be more charges against other officials but said he had completed the "substantial bulk" of his investigation. He also discouraged speculation that major new revelations were ahead and even skirted questions about whether an underlying crime had occurred in leaking Plame's identity.

Some Americans, especially Iraq War critics, were deflated by Fitzgerald's insistence that he would prosecute only clearly defined crimes stemming from the Plame case, not venture into a fuller narrative about the Bush administration's justifications for war.

Administration officials are not entirely out of hot water, however, because new disclosures could emerge from Libby's trial or from additional indictments that Fitzgerald might seek before he wraps up his investigation. According to press accounts, Bush's top political adviser Karl Rove remains under investigation for his role in leaking Plame's identity to journalists.

In one of the most mysterious revelations about Fitzgerald's hectic activities on Oct. 28, the day of the Libby indictment, was the New York Times report that the special prosecutor made an unexplained visit to the office of James Sharp, President Bush's personal lawyer. [NYT, Oct. 29, 2005]

Continued - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/102905.html

Your rank bias is showing. It would have been more believable if you skipped the potshots at the "gamers".

Dear Don Williams:
You are confused -- Bush, et. al., were/are not interested in whether Libby leaked. In fact, they are happy that he did his job of trashing a critic.
They didn't need a test to know if he leaked -- as a retired federal PR puke, I can tell you that when you dump on the enemy, you feel so good about it that you tell the boss. And, the boss pats you on the head and says, "Good boy."
But, having had a clearance or two in my time, I have wondered why no one has asked about the "need to know" rule. Folks walking around the White House jabbering about somebody's wife's covert status violates that concept, i.e., why did Cheney, et. al., even know about her? They certainly had no "need to know."

Update to previous question, Mr Arkin.

As I noted, Libby's continued retention of SCI clearances and continued employment in the WHite House for the past two years make no sense in light of what Fitzgerald has reported -- standard security processes would have resolved the matter within weeks of Valerie Plame's CIA employment being revealed. If Libby actually outed Valerie Plame, that would have shown up on the polygraph test he would be been required to take -- in which case, Libby should have lost his clearances absent direct intervention by the President. But if that happened, why
was the Fitzgerald investigation continued?

An alternate explanation --to the one I offered earlier --is that this is all a charade and that President Bush and Dick Cheney knew within weeks what Libby
did in June 2003.

In this scenario, the President chose to halt standard security processes and to divert our attention with a long-drawn out legal process in order to avoid having the truth come out before the 2004 election.

But wouldn't that be grounds for impeachment by the Congress? National Security is governed by laws passed by Congress --not just Executive Orders issued by the President.

Will the Alabama National Guard be leading the attack?
We might have a pilot shortage!

dont tell george bush russia has OIL Mrarkin

i wish this would happen in my life time, an 16 but that is not an exception. i must see the power that russia has in my life time i must see the world cruble on the super powers, i must see the U.S. take on countries it's on size, i must see russia exceed the U.s, i must see every nation bow down to the next great nation, i must see the power of the atomic bomb, i must live, i must see "WORLD WAR III."

Mr. Arkin, does a war game command this much of your column? You should know war games have been done for hundreds of years and a huge one between Russia and China was just completed where they used 10's of thousands of troops and practiced attacking stand-ins for American aircraft carriers. Why do you spend this kind of high visibility column space insinuating American Stranglovian tendencies, when America was the victim of a far larger war game scenario, not 2 months ago.

If anyone is a unreconstructed Cold Warrior, I think its one William Arkin.

One final point Mr. Arkin. Last I counted, there were more countries in 2005 with Nuclear weapons than in 2004. Probably in 2006 there will be more than in 2005. The wheel continues to turn. Presumably you seek some future time when the USA disposes of its thousands of war heads while the rest of the world re-arms, aided by a underground proliferation networks run by North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Russia and China? Come to think of it, maybe its a blessing you are confined to column space rather than decision space.

Right. This is definitely an attention grabber. What about "Joshua still playing" or something.

A question for Mr Arkin:

Why is no one talking about the real issue in the Valerie Plame affair--i.e., Why has Scooter Libby held an extremely sensitive job and high level clearances in the White House for the past two years??

The Ignorant news media seems to think that investigations of SCI security breaches are handled by two year long grand jury investigations --they are not.

You know how SCI info is handled. What's going on? This Valerie Plame "investigation" makes no sense.

Exposure of a covert CIA agent should have kicked off a security investigation. The list of people who could have revealed that information should have been short. Anyone having SCI clearances--including Dick Cheney -- who had knowledge that Libby might had leaked Valerie Plame's name had an affirmative OBLIGATION to report that adverse info to security officers. In the case of WHite House and CIA employees, they stood to lose their own clearances if they failed to report adverse info on Libby.

It should have taken no more than 2-3 weeks to pinpoint Libby and to have demanded that he take a polygraph.

I can see why Fitzgerald's long legal investigation was needed to pursue a criminal prosecution -- but investigating and resolving breaches of security do NOT follow those leisurely processes nor are security investigations constrained by legal rules which govern criminal prosecutions.

Security clearances can be revoked anytime there is a question whether someone is trustworthy. No one has a right to the clearances. While one is presumed innocent until proven guilty in criminal prosecutions, the opposite rule is often followed when it comes to keeping security clearances -- the holder is required to show that he should continue to be trusted with SCI info.

One may refuse to answer questions in a criminal case -- one is REQUIRED to answer questions under a polygraph to keep security clearances.

I can see how Libby could have taken the Fifth and refused to take a polygraph. But at that point --say 1 month after Valerie Plame's name was revealed -- he should have had his security clearances revoked and been escorted out of the WHite House --absent a direct intervention by the President. Why did that NOT happen 2 years ago??

On the other hand, if the President adjudicated the case and decided that Libby had simply made a mistake, then why was the Fitzgerald investigation continued?

The only way this Fitzgerald process make sense to me is if the White House is concerned that Libby has done something else other than outing Mrs Wilson, he has refused to cooperate/provide info about the other matter, and they are using this criminal prosecution as a way to squeeze him to answer questions/cooperate in the investigation of the other matter. But if they had questions about his trustworthiness, they would not have left him in the White House all this time --even under intense surveillance -- would they?

Actually, I think what is "stupid" is pursuing a psychopathic foreign policy that encourages Russia to consider another Cold War -- in self defense.

And the mainstream media headlines that irritate me are the ones that ignore our real problems/issues in favor of the latest from the Michael Jackson trial.

Arkin:

Stop playing with reality and promoting these 'games' of yours. It will only lead to tensions between the West and Russia. Fool.

VH

Eisenhower warned us to be careful of the military-industrial complex. perhaps now it is too late, and the real armageddon, the one where Jesus comes back will in effect be here, and the main cause? american military-industrial power-hungry, money-making corporations and politicians.

Gentlemen:

I find it offensive for you to use a headline like"Russia to Nuke U.S." What are you trying to do stir up war? We glorify war enough without you trying to agitate anymore.

It is stupid to use such headlines. Why do you do it?