“It remains true that the greatest injustices proceed from those who pursue excess, not from those driven by necessity.”

Aristotle, quoted by a 'Favorite Architect' from another era

Back in 1992, Charles Dunlap published in Parameters, the U.S. Army War College Quarterly Magazine, “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012”. In that pre-web era, this item caused a justifiable sensation. Dunlap, expressing concerns echoed by Charlie Moskos and other astute students of civil-military relations at that time, noted that:

The letter that follows takes us on a darkly imagined excursion into the future. A military coup has taken place in the United States--the year is 2012--and General Thomas E. T. Brutus, Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces of the United States, now occupies the White House as permanent Military Plenipotentiary. His position has been ratified by a national referendum, though scattered disorders still prevail and arrests for acts of sedition are underway.

A senior retired officer of the Unified Armed Forces, known here simply as Prisoner 222305759, is one of those arested, having been convicted by court-martial for opposing the coup. Prior to his execution, he is able to
smuggle out of prison a letter to an old War College classmate discussing the “Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012.”

In it, he argues that the coup was the outgrowth of trends visible as far back as 1992. These trends were the massive diversion of military forces to civilian uses, the monolithic unification of the armed forces, and the insularity of the military community. His letter survives and is here presented verbatim. It goes without saying (I hope) that the coup scenario above is purely a literary device intended to dramatize my concern over certain contemporary developments affecting the armed forces, and is emphatically not a prediction.

-- The Author [Charles Dunlap]

Dunlap's vision reflected the estrangement of the Cold War miltiary facing partial de-mobilization after December 1991 when confronting an indifferent civilian world anxious to move on. The explicit rationale for Dunlap's warning — a post Cold War military asked essentially to take on new non-military missions in the civilian space — may not seem directly analogous to today.

Dunlap's exercise is worth recalling for three reasons: (a) the military, even more than in 1992, is being asked to assume a staggering array of responsibilities outside its immediate warfighting mission under the rubric of the 'Long War'; (b) the delegitimation of civilian political leadership and competence is exponentially more widespread; and (c) Dunlap's essential insight of a military estranged from the civilian world rings even more true in 2006.

Not only has the religious/cultural (and even socio-economic) divide widened between the military and civilians (as revealed briefly in developments at elite institutional training arenas such as the Air Force Academy, etc.). The sacrifices being demanded of the military as an institution are reaching a grotesque disequillibrium compared to the encouraged indulgence of the peace time civilian world.



Like Dunlap, the Stiftung believes the value of 'The Officers' Coup of 2012' is not its predictive element but its capacity to provoke careful consideration. OIF's failures as a politiical, strategic, diplomatic, economic, cultural and post-initial operational phase roll of the dice are undeniable. It is not too soon to begin taking stock to assess its impact on civilian military relations.

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A meeting can be more than a meeting. So it appears in this case.

The Bush administration is quietly exploring ways of recalibrating U.S. policy toward Russia in the face of growing concerns about the Kremlin's crackdown on internal dissent and pressure tactics toward its neighbors, according to senior officials and others briefed on the discussions.

Vice President Cheney has grown increasingly skeptical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and shown interest in toughening the administration's approach. He summoned Russia scholars to his office last month to solicit input and asked national intelligence director John D. Negroponte to provide further information about Putin's trajectory, the sources said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has sought to balance worries over Russian democracy with a pragmatic partnership on mutual issues such as Iran's nuclear program, responded by calling her own meeting with outside advisers a week ago. Some involved in the administration deliberations saw the move as an attempt to counter Cheney.

Where to begin? On the geostrategic level, a re-apparaisal of Russia makes sense *if* the U.S. had a coherent and overarching vision of a future global framework and how U.S. and Russian power trajectories fit within. Beyond empty bromides of 'freedom', 'GWOT' and the like. And beyond the immediately tactical and transactional - help on Iran, etc.

The Great Game across Central Asia continues, as does the soft rollback of the 'Near Abroad' of Russian security-cum-Imperial periphery. Partly by design and partly by happy circumstance, the U.S. has established a cordon sanitaire through Ukraine down to Georgia. But responsible Statesmanship would be to use current (and temporary although not necessarily fleeting) U.S. power to build a durable and sustainable framework.

To be surprised or suddenly disturbed by increasing 'Revanchism' (in the classical sense) in Moscow given these developments suggests either disingeniousness or naivete. The Stiftung offers this view with not a little personal experience on the ground 'Over There' during the Cold War and its aftermath. Only those stoned on the Kool Aid of the 'Last Man' liberation theology (or drinking their own bathwater in other respects) would be caught unawares of eminently predictable Russian reactions.

On the purely internal Washington chatter level, this tug of war offers some amusement. Condi has marketed successfully her modest skills as a Soviet and Russian specialist into an outsized public reputation. And she, like Madonna in another context, enjoys the ferocious devotion of certain subgroups who feel marginalized in policy circles. Yet she is not a systematic thinker and after a year shows no real direction, no focus and no real capacity for crafting either.

As Sebastian Mallaby noted (and discussed with wicked humor over at Global Paradigms), the prospects for Rice to be a late bloomer are not good. So we must make do with what we have.

The temptation on some other blogs the Stiftung reads now and then seems to be to impose simplistic templates on things — Cheney 'bad', ergo Rice 'good', etc. Would that things were so. It may be that Rice's limited strategic thinking but real tactical 'people' skills and her relationship with the President are most useful to the Nation in a 'reactive mode', responding to more fully developed and coherent systematic thinking developed by others. In this case, a tug of war may be actually the best hope for something beyond the tactical to emerge. (Recognizing the risks of what 'tug of war' did for a moribund Iran policy, of course).

On a related note, however, Russian self-esteem took another hit this past week. This image was plastered all over Moscow in banners promoting the Russian 'Defender of the Motherland' military holiday. Note that the Russians inadvertantly featured the battleship U.S.S. Missouri all over Moscow as a 'defender' of the 'Motherland' (rodina). Read the link, adjust your tie (if you have one), recall the late Rodney . . . and maybe have some sympathy. Remember, perhaps one day, all this, too (gesturing to the Imperial City) shall pass. History tells us it always does.

Sometimes events arrive with such stunning poetic symmetry the Stiftung wonders (even if only for a nanosecond) whether the Universe speaks to us every moment of the day with mischevious humor. Usually such thoughts come unbidden when a flat tire occurs on the way to a family holiday gathering. But not always.



In the WaPo Book World today, a review of the new Extinction, How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago by Douglas Ervin caught our eye. Joshua Foer, the reviewer, says:

Though the dinosaurs might find it crass to say so, the late Cretaceous cataclysm that did them in was a planetary bad hair day compared to the mass extinction that occurred some 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. The Permian event is probably the closest that life on Earth ever came to being completely extinguished . . .

Just what caused this apocalypse is one of science's great unsolved riddles. Over the years, a cottage industry of Permian speculators has pointed the finger at just about every conceivable culprit. The list of indicted suspects includes — take a deep breath — plate tectonics, volcanoes, glaciation, a meteor, a supernova, a massive methane burp from the depths of the sea, oxygen-deprived oceans, an overly complex global ecosystem that collapsed under its own weight and, most fantastic of all, a buildup of cancer-inducing dark matter in the Earth's core. Dream up a way of killing off life on Earth, and chances are some reputable scientist has already proposed it as a cause of the Permian extinction.

The Stiftung was intrigued enough to venture out and examine the book in the wilds of a strip mall Barnes & Noble. And then the Universe spoke later this evening.

On television there was this quite compelling CSPAN AfterWords with Jim Pinkerton interviewing Bruce Bartlett about Bartlett's new tome, Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.



Pinkerton, as you may know, in addition to his column for Newsday and Tech Central Station, is a Fox News Contributor, and served in the Reagan and Bush Administrations. As Director of Research for the Bush '88 campaign, Pinkerton and Lee Attwater are credited with steering Bush 41 to victory (and working closely with a certain namesake son).

Bartlett was a domestic policy advisor to Ronald Reagan and served in the Bush 41 Treasury Department. Bartlett, also a syndicated columnist, was associated with the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free market think tank in Dallas, Texas. That is, until he was fired in 2005 for criticizing President Bush. Apparently writing this book was a 'firing offense'.

So together, these two have serious street cred in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. And for one glorious hour, the fossil record of what happened to 'rational conservative thought' since 2001 and to the Reagan legacy was examined with calm and almost forensic care.

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The President's visit to Southeast Asia may be noteworthy for what is not accomplished as much as anything. As one astute Indian observer of the South Asia scene observed in Washington before the Imperial entourage President left, the issues of importance on the ground in South Asia are simply not on Washington policy radar.

Whenever there is a discussion on Mr. Bush's forthcoming visit to India and Pakistan, the questions that are raised are not concerning the kind of agreements he should sign in New Delhi to convince the skeptics in the Indian public that Dr. Manmohan Singh's overtures to the US and his ill-concealed support to Washington DC on the Iran nuclear issue have been worthwhile. They are concerning Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

While it is true that a former RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) officer (Indian Intelligence) will naturally focus on the local rivalry with Pakistan, the point above nonetheless has merit. The American policy making community remains locked in the tired and hollow GWOT (tm) rut even now. A metropole cannot expect to exert influence across the globe for long if it remains oblivious to rising agendas, trends and future capacities at the increasingly dynamic periphery.

And the Indian concern about Musharaff is not completely misplaced. Even factoring in the local rivalry issue, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about betting all chips on Musharaff. But of even more immediate concern is whether the Indian government will survive the Bush visit. As UPI's Martin Walker reports this morning, the Administration has pushed the Indian government into an overt crisis:

President George W. Bush's India visit next week is threatened with disaster after a revolt by Indian nuclear scientists, senior officials and politicians against the Indo-American nuclear cooperation agreement that Bush plans to sign in New Delhi.

After angry scenes in the Indian parliament Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been warned by the left-wing parties in his ruling coalition that they will bring down his government by voting with the opposition against the nuclear agreement with the United States.

The hostility to the agreement has brought together an unprecedented alliance of critics who say that it is deeply damaging to Indian national interests, and will in effect curtail the future of India's independent nuclear deterrent.

Nicholas Burns, negotiating the deal in New Dehli in advance of the President's visit, apparently was caught flatfooted by the furor. At issue was the American attempt to separate Indian civilian nuclear activities from their military infrastructure and seek civilian compliance with IAEA verification frameworks. Until that is done, American commercial and technological benefits under the treaty will be withheld.

Frankly, verification and Indian participation are good policy choices, but it appears this bifurcation strategy of the Administraton was not an overt negotiation position from the start. Thus, Burns and company are perceived to have inserted this requirement as a near fait accompli on the eve of the state visit. The IAEA issue is not a simple question of verification or not. Key sensitivities are involved, such as Indian desires to protect their research and development into thorium as an alternative to uraninium, etc. The American negotiations unfolded in a manner that allowed a broad political spectrum in India to unite and threaten to topple the government. Their claim that American furtiveness demonstrates the Administration is determined not to treat India as an equal partner resonates. Walker closes by noting:

It is difficult to exaggerate the depth of feeling among senior Indian officials who oppose the deal. They are suspicious of American motives, and they are now starting to question the goodwill that President Bush insists he is bringing to the long-term strategic partnership. “We have been promised a great deal by President Bush in cooperation on space technology and on access to dual-use technology but so far we have seen zero from the American side,” complained another senior official.

The evolution of American recognition of Indian strategic importance since even 2002 has been remarkable and encouraging. It was not that long ago that India was viewed in the strategic competitor/threat category by important voices in the Administration. Now, from questions on Iran, Iraq, China, energy and technology, Indian importance and contributions are recognized. Not only within the framework of the GWOT (tm) canard, but also regarding the future of the overall Eurasian balance of power.

Is verification a goal worth negotiating for? Undoubtedly. Is balancing Indian concerns with Pakistani non-compliance with IAEA, etc. tricky? Absolutely. Tough calls for a Leader and a team 'that doesn't do nuance.'

The tone deaf politics of the port debacle, Harriet Miers, EOVP doings down to the present day, NSA warrantless surveillance, and post April 2003 Iraq are of a piece. Together all show that the Administration largely abandoned the pretense of participatory politics and their accompanying discipline. Instead, voice has been given to the Movement's true Self.

Can it return to politics? And does it have the will to do so?

At heart, the explanation for the Administration's difficulties circa 2006 may be as much pyschological as institutional/structural. Not to venture casually into Krauthammer territory — or even offer a Fristian distance-video-diagnosis. As the late Hunter Thompson said, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. We do not pretend to approach the credentials of those two.

But as you likely know, we contend that the Administration is best understood as a Counter Enlightenment ideological Movement. The psychology of the Movement and its leadership therefore is of paramount importance.

Joachim Fest once wrote of the pyschological dimension at work when a subversive Movement evolves from four phases: a fringe rage, to contestant in the game for political power, to governance and finally to War. We think there are interesting psychological parallels in Movement dynamics.

In the early phases, the Movement is largely undisciplined, with vitriolic fringe sects and sub-Movements. As the entity participates (and succeeds) in mainstream political discourse (you noticed that now familiar word 'mainstream', eh?), message and organizational discipline sets in. In a still functioning and stable domestic political environment, this would be akin to what we have witnessed 2001-2006. In a more fluid and de-stabilized era, it might require institutional and personal acts against political figures to reassure still needed constituents from the 'mainstream' order. We are not there.

Fest notes correctly (in our judgement) that war, however, serves to liberate Movements from the discipline and to-them-dreary pretense of politics. The 'Emergency' which served as pretext for the Movement to succeed in politics is now the demonstrable real thing. Earlier suppressed and hidden ideological imperatives, denied to placate the 'mainstream' are now given active voice. And a Movement once unshackled by 'War' and 'Emergency' is not likely willing to disown its true Self, and return to the hollow game of pretense and diminish itself in the by now all too familiar, 'smaller' and discarded game of political participation.

This of course explains the Adminsitration's obsession with both Lincoln and Churchill. Two leaders who in the Administration's hagiographical imagination surmounted mere legality, democracy and petty political discipline.

And it also explains this comment by Brent Scowcroft: “I consider Cheney a good friend—I’ve known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don’t know anymore.” Revealing both about Cheney 'unbound' by politics and expressing his true Self, and the myopia of people, refusing or unable to understand the ideological in their midst.

Can the Administration return to politics? Will it want to? It will mean accepting a diminished Self and the partial abandonment of its fully voiced true beliefs to accomodate real political discourse. In the American context, it will mean a return to separation of powers, compromise over issues such as the ports, NSA warrantless surveillance, etc. A heavy price for this crew. It will also mean jettisoning its false binary thinking of 'forward or back', 'victory or defeat' mindset. (It is worth remarking that one of the favorite phrases of a certain Movement historical figure was 'there are two possibilities' — to the point his entourage took to mimicking his 'forward or back' 'victory or defeat' mantra even when choosing dinner menus).

Of course, on the plus side, term limits and the calendar of electoral politics are correctives that did not exist to reign in Movements in historical elsewhen. And there is always the Legacy issue to consider — a factor that weighs heavily on incumbents.

Bush the Movement Leader and War President? Or Bush the politician? We know where the smart money would bet.

Dear Reader, please bear with the Stiftung as we experiment a bit today. Tweaking graphics and load times. UPDATE: Post as promised follows:



One ramification of the American specialization society is that each narrow silo of expertise seeks to interpret and explain phenomena within the narrowcast prism of its shared vernacular and the developed neural pathways of training and cognition. This leaves us as a society potentially vulnerable to and ill-equipped to explain broad ideological developments — think of the blind encounter with the trunk, leg, tail, etc.

The elephant? The Administration as the first Post Modern ideological phenomenon in American experience. By Post Modern, we mean the specific and technical appellation of embrace of irrationality, romanticism and myth.

Across the board we see the Administration's pursuit of a Post Modern agenda — from foreign policy, law and regulation, science and technical policy, finance. And a Post Modern Power ultimately places value in controlling psychological narrative over objective, on-the-ground empiricism. Thus Katrina, Iraq, etc. are not mere crises of 'competence' but emblematic of Post Modern Power.

The narrow silos of American experience and specialization such as foreign policy, defense policies, law, etc. have each sought to explain and debate the Administration within their vernacular and experience base. Not surprisingly, the explanations failed and the debates lacked impact. Most importantly, each silo failed to recognize the Post Modern phenomenon as a generalized challenge.

No one has asked the question: 'Can America succeed as a Post Modern Power?' So it naturally goes unexamined and unanswered. As do corollaries such as 'What are the costs?'

The most blatant example of this is foreign policy of course. There, informed opinion as represented by a figure at The National Interest insists in 2006 that the debate over American Power must occur within the choice of 'Realist' or 'Neocon' — there can be no third way (see Feb. 20th item). Gvosdev is not alone. Wilkerson, Pillar and others do the same when analyzing the Administration: assuming the interpretive prism of their experience defines the debate — and thus it is no suprise that their solution is more of what they know — increased and 'reformed' bureaucratic processes. What unites Gvosdev, Pillar and Wilkerson is that all of them do not realize the implications of a Post Modern view of American Power.

Similarly, the Rumsfeld pursuit of a Post Modern agenda at OSD eludes most observers. There, his irrationality, romanticism and myth are harder to detect, being cloaked in their seeming opposites: 'transformation', technology such as netcentric warfare, data links, persistent intelligence and SATKA, etc. But the very use of technology is itself of the myth and romanticism of stand off, precision kinetic Force. And so, the inconvenient reality of messy heavy non-agile combat, language, culture in Iraq is simply ignored.

As mentioned supra, the same phenomenon occurs at NASA and NOAA regarding climate change, at DoJ and the judicial branch, in administrative regulatory acitivites, at EPA, how energy conservation became a national priority because it filled a health care gap in a speech, etc.

The Stiftung reads The National Interest and has since Bob Osgood and Robert Tucker helped launch it. So we do not mean to be unfair to Nikolas Gvodsev in particular. (Although it would be nice to see new lifeblood and expertise than the same old Eurocentric/Russianist perspectives in place).

But the truth? The Administration rendered the fiat of 'there is no third way' moot years ago with its Post Modernist agenda. Notwithstanding what John Mearsheimer may say in the pages of the The National Interest. While neoconservatives played an important role in the Administration's policy, they were but one strand among many in the power structure that were and still are pushing a similar ardor for Belief over the empirical world.

The question of the Administration, American Power and 'what comes after' is beyond the current confines of a debate by the Usual and Aspiring Suspects. A Post Modern agenda with its priority on psychological dominance and control of belief systems — the life blood for irrationality, romance and myth — is wholly apart from the experience of either Realism (such as it is) or even Neoconservatism.

So we pose the questions again — 'Can American succeed as a Post Modern Power?' 'And at what cost?' 'And can we recover?'

Appropos of the item below, Scooter's website is up and running:



And lest we forget, here is a close up of the Advisory Committee (emphasis added):

Two minor stars of the AgitProp firmament offer us rare glimpses into how absurd intellectual postures hold up under unrelenting and sustained blows of cognitive dissonance imposed by unforgiving Reality. The results, Dear Reader, are not pretty.

We speak, of course, of that garrulous refugee from personal hygiene and sobriety, Christopher Hitchens, known as 'Hitch' in the rugby scrum and in Sully's fulsome rhetorical embraces. He is joined today by the formerly stolid, unimaginative, and dare we say plodding Francis Fukuyama. Goofus and Gallant of the Neocon Highlights reader.

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Why do some people who blog feel compelled to mythologize themselves and what they do?

If you are here, probably you agree with the Stiftung that blogs are a stimulating and informative (addictive?) means of communicating. Great stuff.



But that is distinct from the trope of blogs as 'revolution'. So we actually enjoyed this item from the Financial Times mocking Gawker's fluffing by Vanity Fair. A great quote:

Still, blogging would have been little more than a recipe for even more internet tedium if it had not been seized upon in the US as a direct threat to the mainstream media and the conventions by which they control news. And one of the conventions that happened to work in blogging’s favour was the way the media take a new trend and describes it as a revolution. The surge of hype about blogging was helped by the fact that many of the most prominent bloggers were high-fliers within the media establishment - such as Andrew Sullivan, a former editor of The New Republic, or Mickey Kaus of Slate, the online magazine Microsoft sold to The Washington Post Company just over a year ago . . .

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The Stiftung finally got around to collecting some of the images we make for more orderly presentation. And herewith the new Gallery!



Most of the 80 plus images presented were created specifically for this blog and you, Dear Reader. A few pictures are included untouched by the Stiftung but we used and simply like them.

Our favorite? That would be hard to say. A number of them seem to stand the test of fleeting Time — Jane Curtain's dumbfounded look at Emily Litella, Cheney and Tenet in their pas de deux, Condi's U.S. commemorative postage stamp . . . the question posed by 'Ume ka?', etc.

We hope you have enjoyed them as much as we did making them.

P.S. The animations didn't make the Gallery initial processes (we will try and fix that). So to see Joementum, Malkin baying at the Moon, Three Penny Opera, and Goss Ultraviolet in action, you will need to revisit the actual posts for the moment.

UPDATE: We have Goss Ultraviolet and Malkin now animating correctly. More to come.

Tom Engelhardt over at Salon has an interesting reminder about the permanent U.S. strategic infrastructure footprint in Iraq. Back in 2003, he notes that the Administration was more open about its strategic footprint designs in Iraq. The Stiftung can confirm when making the rounds in OSD at that time there would be discussion about the forward infrastructure envisioned as necessary to entrench U.S. power in the heart of: (a) Islam; (b) the world's petroleum reserves; (c) Chinese containment, etc.



Now, not so much.

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Good news for Rationality and empiricism. And no, it has nothing to do with WWF-esque posturing in the blogosphere.

The ripple effect from Judge John E. Jones' decisive rout of the 'Intelligent Design' claptrap last December is beginning to take effect. You will recall Judge Jones' exhaustively laid bare the clumsy deceit, animal cunning, ineptitude and spandex emotionalism of the “ID” proponents seeking to install “ID” in the Dover County School System.

Now, relying in part on Judge Jone's pathbreaking work, the Ohio Board of Education voted 11 to 4 Tuesday to toss out a mandate that 10th-grade biology classes include critical analysis of evolution. As important, the Board also tossed the accompanying model lesson plan which highlighted ID. The ID contingent is adopting yet another stealth technique, trying to undermine evolution with the attack of 'negative implication' using “critical analysis” verbiage. (See 'The Attack of Negative Implication').

While we hope the quote by Eugenie C. Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, is correct, we have our doubts. He apparently 'called the Ohio vote “a significant victory” and said it should give pause to school districts and states considering changes in how evolution is taught.'

Rather, the Stiftung suspects that “ID” proponents may be more accurate seers at the moment. One of “ID”'s proponents in Ohio takes the long view.

Deborah Owens Fink, who along with Mr. Cochran voted against eliminating the critical-analysis language, said after the meeting that the vote was just another round in the culture war, not a knockout. “There are no permanent victories in politics,” Ms. Fink said. “You do not get paradigm shifts overnight. Whether the ultimate victory is today or it's tomorrow or it's two years from now, people demand that they get open discussion of this issue.”

Price can afford to be sanguine as the next challenges to “ID” come in anti-Rational bulwarks such as Kansas and South Carolina. But even so, in the end, Price, The Discovery Institute, Pat Buchanan, Dobson et al. will likely abandon the covertly dishonest legal path either way. If they succeed in Kansas and South Carolina, it will merely enbolden them. Should they be frustrated, they will brazenly demand achieving their rollback through pure Macht and rage. In neither case will they be willing to return and lurk in the shadows. Even now their fury at the judicial branch for remaining an obstacle to their radicalization continues unabated. Expect further efforts at de-legitimization of the judicial branch ahead. ID proponents are hinting at this even more confrontational strategy already.

A comfort to their temporary setbacks is that they have 3 more years of the Administration appointing to the federal bench. True, Judge Jones in Dover was a Republican and a 43 appointee (and thus a pleasant surprise). But his 'failing' to follow the ideological imperative and endorse Creationism will be a lesson to the Administration — more careful vetting.

This is our 'Long War'.

A sign of contemporary Amercan decadence is how much of American society no longer understands that it even has an ideology, or what its principles were or are. Core precepts of rationality, empiricism and individualism animating the American liberal democratic experiment are either assumed away or ignored. Conscious ideology and values long surrendered to a haze of atavism, consumption, indulgence and exhaustion.

So it is perhaps no surprise that the Bush Administration has been so successful in its efforts to destroy the tottering liberal democratic experiment from within. Easy pickings.

Readers of this site know our thesis: the Administration is a front for a patient coaltion long hostile to the Enlighenment. Its ostensible targets are excess, ala the Janet Jackson moment, etc. But those are propoganda tools and show pieces — the goal was and is to roll back time and political consciousness. The roll back destination and purpose varies with each component strand in the Administration's ideological base — but all strands share a malignant hostility to rationality and the American Present.

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Like battered children returning to the abusive parent for validation and denied affection, there remains a quasi-permanent chorus of Wishmongers in the Imperial City who cheer any perceived sign of “Realism” from the Administration. Global Paradigms identifies some of the latest noises from the battered.



As just one example of how long this chorus has been singing off key, the Stiftung remembers sitting down with a semi-prominent blogger, policy entrepreneur and card carrying member of the Wishmonger Chorus in early 2003 over dinner. He triumphantly declared the neocon moment “over”. Powell had been “unleashed”. (The mind boggles at what precisely that would mean — gelatinous reputation-enhancing self serving posturing in motion?). And so on unto the present day.

The Wishmonger Chorus were wrong then. They are wrong still.

The neocon virus is alive and well within the Administration and the Republican Party. In fact, its success is that most spouting the neocon formulations among the leadership and among the base do not even realize the source of their world view and policy preferences.

Moreover, the radicalism of this Administration transcends the neocon strand. This simple truth eludes the Wishmonger Chorus — most notably their embrace of the erratic (and perhaps unhinged) Larry Wilkerson, whose desperation to claw his way back for another 15 minutes of low level fame might well include a stint on Survivor: Foggy Bottom or even American Idol.

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The Paul Pillar piece from Foreign Affairs is one of the most aggravating items the Stiftung has read recently. Pendantic and unconsciously retro, it arrives and lands like a wet noodle thrown against a wall, only to slither and slink to the floor.

Voila.

Pillar begins thusly:

The most serious problem with U.S. intelligence today is that its relationship with the policymaking process is broken and badly needs repair. In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized. As the national intelligence officer responsible for the Middle East from 2000 to 2005, I witnessed all of these disturbing developments.

So what? News to Mr. Pillar — we know this. We have known this for 3 years.

The problem with Pillar and the rest of the pre-2003 Intelligence Community hunkering down trying to survive is that they cling to the notion of an intelligence product cycle and policy maker resting on a shared value system of liberal democractic (small 'd') empirical rationality. Pillar assumes “this is the way it is supposed to be” like the sun rising in the East.

Pillar does not understand that he and this mindset represents the ultimate enemy of the Administration within the government. Pillar is an iconic stand in for the unconscious Rationalist, assuming that liberal democratic empiricism and belief in rationality is “the way the world works.”

This is an ideological regime. Committed to revolution here at home and abroad. And it is determined to destroy and uproot liberal democratic empiricism to be replaced by Belief, Authority, Hierarchy and Obediance. Welcome Mr. Pillar to the Counter Enlightenment. Why he expects the intelligence community to escape this revolutionary ideology escapes us.

If the Stiftung is harsh on Pillar, it is not that we don't agree with his dry recital of how the intelligence cycle was designed to function in an empirical, rational world. That cycle, while never perfect, represented an idealized state worthy of striving. But we are fighting off an ideological assault on the foundations of our society, Mr. Pillar — this is more than about the intelligence product cycle. To the extent Pillar helps the 4 people left in the world who actually read Foreign Affairs and don't know already what he is saying, it is, as the Kool Kids say, “all good.”

But we as a Nation are long are past the crisis of what he describes. Our issue is how to confront and stop a regime here at home committed to dismantling centuries of commitment to empiricism and rationality. Particularly when the Administration has radicalized and mobilized the dormant and latent irrationality and bigotry of a substantial portion of the Republican base captured by “Movement” adherents. For Pillar to appear in 2006 and tell us the Adminsitration used and uses intelligence for AgitProp deserves a “Hello McFly??!” rap on his forehead.

Count us underwhelmed. Too little, too late.

Rumsfeld and Condi, take note: your Imperial fantasies may not be shared by current friends across the Pacific.

In his first public speech since retiring in 2002, Australia's Admiral Chris Barrie, former Australian defence force chief, said that China's growing influence will force Australia to form stronger ties with Beijing over the next decades and likely distance itself from Australia's traditional ally the United States and the Anzus alliance.



Barrie noted that Australia's small population — it will be only 28 million in 2050 — would render it a “relatively insignificant country in the Asia Pacific region”.

Barrie further predicted that as Australia grows closer to China, Australians likely will feel “resentful and untrusting” of traditional alliances, including ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-United States), leading to its possible fracture. One key tension that could destroy Anzus is the issue of Taiwan. .

He said, “And I can see a day when Australians will say to themselves, 'You know we've got to balance what we do with the United States with what we do with China'. It's not enough to say, all the way with the United States.”

The Stiftung would only note that the current hyper-militarization of American foreign policy overall, and across the Pacific Rim especially, (paralleled by our domestic society) will only strengthen the likelihood that Barrie's projection will come to pass. U.S. presence and influence in the region is sustainable over the long haul by our economic, cultural and diplomatic viability. Oh well.

Given this stunning erosion of our financial and economic position since 2001 — trillion dollar surpluses squandered — and nothing to show for it, how unrealistic is it to foresee both India and China begin playing the U.S. off each other as the 'Sick Man of the Pacific', albeit still armed to the teeth.

Sadly, the Administration has bet all our chips on black — force and coercion. Yet the game has changed. They have mortgaged our soft power assets heavily for their bet. And the table will only be red. We still have time to mitigate some of their recklessness, although alot of capital has been lost and can not be recouped.

David Ignatius says some important things today in the WaPo. Stunned, the Stiftung glanced out the window to see the Porcine Southern Air Force All Star Review flyby. The sun positively glinted off them as they soared in performance. (As all fans of the Pundit Almanac [online edition] know, this presages another month and half of winter.)

Ignatius is less sycophantic to his Community sources than usual today. So let's take advantage and see what he says. Here, he correctly notes that how the NSA issue is resolved will determine whether we remain a nation of laws or of men.

But from this promising insight, he backslides, perhaps reflexively, into the old canard of the utterly bogus strawman. He constructs false equivalence between the WH and some unspecified liberal groups. This strawman allows him the critical distance to tut tut all involved.

As quickly as you can say the words “Karl Rove,” the debate over the National Security Agency's anti-terrorist surveillance programis degenerating into a partisan squabble. Rather than seeking a compromise that would anchor the program in law, both the administration and its critics are pursuing absolutist agendas — insisting on the primacy of security or liberty, rather than some reasonable balance of the two. This way lies disaster.(emphasis added)

In Ignatius' world, 'quickly degenerating' as a modifed gerund has a weird time lapse quality to it. The White House attacked its critics (of both parties) immediately when the story broke in December. It said critics were aiding the enemy. Almost 60 days ago. One wonders what color sky the Porcine Southern Air Force All Star Review sees out the cockpit.

But this logical and rhetorical error aside, Ignatius recovers. He notes that the Adminisrtation demands an “absolutist” position of Executive omnipotence. And he acknowledges that Cheney and Addington are the malignant force driving this position.

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Where are the strawberries???

My officers are plotting against me. Plotting! Make him walk the plank!

Few things are as scandalous as the Administration's indifference, disregard and willful disrespect shown for the people of New Orleans, Alabama, Mississippi and the rest of the Gulf Coast obliterated by Katrina. This is not a Democrat issue. Or a Republican issue. It goes to the core of our civil society.

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Close proximity to a President's delusions can be fatal for underlings. A President can survive, at least temporarily. But the direct underlings taking a hit off the delusional hooka — they are not always so fortunate.

Poindexter. Haldeman. Erlichman. Mitchell. Tenet in a different way.

Some who a resist a President suffer immediate damage. But some also emerge in historical light partially vindicated. Take Richard Helms, for example. Now a gray figure. He caved to the White House on Chile. He is also credited for resisting other schemes, especially before and during Watergate.

The down market situation of lesser figures, farther removed from the Oval Office itself, is a different matter. They can and do leverage noteriety into a huckster's meal ticket: Liddy and North, etc.

So where does that leave Michael Hayden, former NSA Director and now facto factotum for John Negroponte? In last week's episode:

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Oh to have drinks again with John Lehman. How he must have watched Tweedledee and Tweedledum before the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual dog and pony show yesterday. To breathe in the spectacle of Lehman's pique, rage, bewilderment, and ultimate contempt would be still an 'E ticket' ride. Lehman's doubtless withering critique would be spat out in staccato bursts, like Lewis Black on ibogaine and pale ale.

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How to explain the compulsive need to gush PR lauding Condi?

As Exhibit A, we have Condoleezza Rice Completes Washington's Geostrategic Shift, by one Dr. Michael A. Weinstein for PINR Dispatch.

The Stiftung reads PINR now and then. But this item deserves extended comment.

Here, Weinstein seemingly boldy asserts that:

Rice's announcements culminate a major revision of Washington's overall geostrategy that has been in the making since 2004 when the failures of the Iraq intervention exposed the limitations of U.S. military capabilities and threw into question the unilateralist doctrine outlined in the administration's 2002 National Security Strategy.

If by this, Weinstein asserts that Rice has modulated U.S. policy to reflect a weaker geopolitical hand, it would be accurate and unexceptional. But Weinstein goes further.

He claims “[t]hat picture [of the 'Wolfowitz Indiscretion' qua U.S. policy 2001-2005] changed in 2005 when Rice became secretary of state and moved to fill the policy vacuum by implementing her realist vision based on classical balance of power.”

If only it were so.

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