Secretary of State John Kerry: Please Try To Recall the Implicit Wisdom Of 1950’s Rock ‘n Roll Hit: ”Step By Step We Fell In Love…..”
In Sunday’s NY Times article entitled “Following A Star, Kerry Applies Personal Touch” by Michael Gordon, the journalist captures the frenetic, disheveled approach of the new Sec State.
In essence, Kerry will attempt to solve three major foreign policy crises in one single frenetic stroke based principally on his ‘personal touch’, whatever that means?
As if the Palestinian-Israeli issue were not enough, Kerry also decided to break the “Gordonian Knot” on the Syrian Crises while at the same time ‘laying to rest’ the problems of Afghanistan and the Taliban.
Whew!!
I was exhausted after reading that article. I was truly in awe of ex-Sen John Kerry whose bloated sense of self has never impeded his lack of accomplishments.
I was exhausted after reading that article. I was truly in awe of ex-Sen John Kerry whose bloated sense of self has never impeded his lack of accomplishments.
But this threesome of Syria, Israel-Palestine and Afghanistan makes me wonder if wishful thinking hasn’t become pandemic in the Obama administration.
I think the most sagacious, prescient words were spoken by a statesman, Strobe Talbott, whom I have long admired and thought that he should have been the SecState several administrations ago.
Here is what Strobe, the head of the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Board and President of the Brookings Institution said about this administrations confusing foreign policy:
“If you are really going to pivot to Asia, you cannot leave the Middle East in flames. With regard to Egypt, the Arab-Israel Peace process, Syria, Iraq and Iran---all that has to be manageable”.
“If you are really going to pivot to Asia, you cannot leave the Middle East in flames. With regard to Egypt, the Arab-Israel Peace process, Syria, Iraq and Iran---all that has to be manageable”.
Who's is going to tell Kerry it ‘ain’t so’?
Kerry believes that his “personal charm” or “charisma” or “aura”—call it whatever you may want! For “self-delusion” is the privilege of the “privileged class” of which Kerry wants everyone to understand---‘he was born and bred to become SecState.’
BTW, at best one can only really hope to obtain one treaty at a time in one administration at a time.
The Camp David Peace Accords can be attributed to the quiet, forceful, perseverance of a President Jimmy Carter and his Sec State Cyrus Vance.
There was no grandstanding allowed!
Very talented FSOs like Frank Wisner, Chas Freeman, and many other career national security professionals from the CIA to the military were all involved in one concerted major effort to insure that Menachem Begin could trust Anwar Sadat to relinquish the Sinai in return for an ethereal peace.
Carter did it. How? To this day, it’s still a mystery to me and I think the foreign policy community as well.
Carter had none of the charisma, charm or ‘aura’ that Kerry attributes to himself. But Carter was modest, sincere, persevering and quiet.
There was no braggadocio about him or his professional team.
Also Carter never left the WH, and assigned the work to Cyrus Vance, discreet, modest, stately, and effective.
Jump decades later to an initiative that was started by Dr Richard Solomon as Assistant Sec State for East Asia and the Pacific, to bring peace to the war-torn South East Asia area--- and if possible bring some form of ‘democracy’ into Cambodia.
Solomon was supported again by a very discreet, incredibly modest but very forceful SecState James Baker.
For the most part, Sec State like Kissinger could run the entire State Dept with only three people. But he allowed the FSO’s to participate in some of his foreign policy endeavors.
But again, Sec State Kerry, everything that was done in Cambodia was done ‘step by step’. First an idea, next planning. Then strategies and tactics were developed with back-up plans. But throughout the entire three year process, not one word of ‘wishful thinking’ or ‘self-delusion’ was even tolerated.
Ergo, the Cambodian Peace Treaty was the only treaty that Sec State James Baker has presided over in his tenure.
So what’s the moral?
Shut your mouth!!
If you think that you can charm Putin, then I will be the first one to buy you a Tsarist War Bond.
If you think that you can charm Putin, then I will be the first one to buy you a Tsarist War Bond.
Please, Sec State Kerry, I want to see this ‘slight of hand’!
As for your ability to charm, the opthamologist Alawite leader, Bashar Assad, I really want to see that!
Bashar’s genetic code has been tried and tested in the infernos of Hafez Assad, as ruthless and cunning a warlord as I have ever had the pleasure not to meet.
But I have met the Assad regime interrogation units, and they are very, very effective in what they have to do. I did not discover anyone who had a scintillating personality or could be convinced of reason.
They pretty much held to the Maoist philosophy that “all power comes from the guns”.
Hey, if you can stop their bullets with your smile, logic and gift of persuasion---go for it, Superman!!!!
I have also fought against the Salafists, and if you can charm those rascals, good luck!
As for me, I am regressing back to the wisdom of the inane words of that one hit wonder—“Step By Step, we feel in love…”
After thirty years in national security, I found that dealing with one problem at a time was more than enough.
But claiming that you can deal with all the problems at the same time seems to me a ‘bit grandiose’ and ‘defensive’.
But claiming that you can deal with all the problems at the same time seems to me a ‘bit grandiose’ and ‘defensive’.
In other words, if you don’t accomplish one successfully, then all bets are off.
It’s called ‘a rationalization’ for FAILURE.
Good luck JK! I am sure that your ex-FSO father would be proud of you.
If your father can’t love you as much you do yourself, than who can?
My last Churchill quote for a while (promise) but it was Winston Churchill who said:
“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
Kerry is a gigolo; gigolos are narcissistS; Kerry is a prototype. there is functional obsolescence in employing narcissists.
ReplyDeletewriting about that lying deceitful jerk is a waste of relevant space.
here is an interview which is timely, not obsolete.
http://www.hagmannandhagmann.com/1/post/2013/06/interview-with-yoda-from-the-magnified-view.html
Here is an up to date article on what portends for life in America...without a lawful framework used as the basis for LIBERTY.
Be sure to read the links in BLUE.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_Next_NSA_Spying_Shoe_to_Drop%3A_%E2%80%9CPre-Crime%E2%80%9D_Artificial_Intelligence/26721/0/38/38/Y/M.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CodmlmxpZeQ
Delete1.Regarding WHY Camp David "succeeded"....
ReplyDeleteIt was of course dead on arrival and Carter was making no progress at all. To save the day in the last hours Carter simply bribed both sides with money. Israel would get an additional billion each year added to the billion they were already getting. Egypt would be guaranteed a minium of one billion each year which their military could use any way they wanted (much landed in their personal Swiss bank accounts).
Who could refuse?
That structure persists til this day such that every year Israel is guaranteed 3 billion and Egypt 2 billion. Similar arrangements have been made with Jordan and they are guaranteed one billion in current dollars.
No "magic" there.
2.Frank Wisner, Jr.'s career at State...
He looks just like his father, who was Frank Wisner Sr, who was the mastermind of all of CIA covert action from the beginning of CIA until he had a "nervous breakdown" in Rome during the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. Wisner Sr. was basically a madman who steared and created the covert action Directorate of CIA into an unaccountable, murderous bunch of evildoers who unnecessarily committed genocide, torture, plunder and rape the world over as well as murdered John Kennedy in 1963 thereby succcessfully committing a coup in their own country. Frank Wisner Sr. blew his own head off with a shotgun after numerous electroconvulsive therapy treatments.
3.As for John Kerry...
a.His real name might be "Kerry" but that's a con perpetrated by his grandfather to convince the Boston public that he was Irish when in fact their family is a Jewish family which immigrated from Vienna, where they were shoe retailers.
b.I think we should give the guy a chance. In Congress he's always been among the most well-informed on foreign policy issues. His staff is all Harvard-MIT trained international relations people and they are good. He's been waiting for a chance for a long time to have an imprint on foreign affairs and now he's got a shot, of sorts.
God knows he's more informed than Hilary Clinton, and if he's organized he just might be effective. I know he's got a lot of talented people woriing with him. The other factor working in his favor is that Obama doesn't give a shit about foreign affairs so Kerry can do what he likes. Additionally Obama looks up to people at Harvard who think well of Kerry, so that's a plus for Kerry as well.
If Kerry had been President Professor Nye at Harvard would have been SecState, so this is almost the same thing, and that's not bad.
4.On the negative side Kerry voted for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq even though when he was younger he organized against Vietnam. So he aint no saint either. He's a part of a very compromise generation.
you cannot post comments on the subsequent posts.
ReplyDeleteToday, the MUSIC DIED- the day in American History when, like the Greek City of Sybaris, America Fell into the Black Hole of Amorality:
In 510 BC the city of Sybaris was conquered by its neighbor Croton and its population was driven out.
Sybaris amassed great wealth thanks to its fertile land and busy port. Its inhabitants became famous among the Greeks for their hedonism, feasts, and excesses. They were renowned for the splendour of their attire. The wealth and power of Sybaris was greatly envied and admired by the rest of the Hellenic world. It minted its own coinage and pioneered the concept of intellectual property.
The destruction of Sybaris was seen by some ancient writers as divine vengeance upon the Sybarites for their pride, arrogance, and excessive luxury. The words "sybarite" and "sybaritic" have become bywords for opulent luxury and outrageous pleasure seeking.
The ruins of the Sybaris became forgotten as they were buried by sediment.
America as was created by the Constitution has been destroyed. We are on the Eve of Destruction and will so implode and decay as all previous civilization have run their course.
Bye Bye American Pie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih7N9_VUU4U
John KERRY HAS A LOT TO GAIN IF THERESA DIES OR IS INCAPACITATED.
ReplyDeleteCould there be a nubile ingenue waiting in his SENATE OFFICE?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=black%20widow