Some homework for my next post
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/world/asia/a-growing-chill-between-south-korea-and-japan-creates-problems-for-the-us.html?_r=0

Good news for us old farts...http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/creativity-can-last-well-into-old-age-as-long-as-creators-stay-open-to-new-ideas/2013/11/21/31487172-52ca-11e3-a7f0-b790929232e1_story.html?tid=auto_complete

Getting rid of Holder is a good start.  Many lies, cover-ups started with this man.  Some members of congress are starting to wake up and take action to clean house.  This is constructive.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/14/20-House-members-demand-Eric-Holder-s-impeachment

Three Decades Of Iran/USA Secret Hostilities!   President Ronald Reagan as The American Hamlet!

Please read David Crist’s The Twilight War.

While the Republican Political Cardinals attempt to canonize  former President Ronald Reagan as a ‘Man For All Seasons’,    I had to step back from the Cathedral of Paeans and reflect.   By chance,  I picked up a book entitled The Twilight War: The Secret History Of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict With Iran by David Crist.    Unbeknown to me,  David Crist is currently the historian for the federal government and a frequent adviser to senior USG civilian/military officials.    He was a Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and served one tour in the First Iraq War and two tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

But what really compelled me to write this blog was the incredible amount of information that I had not known about this Crypto-War that the USG has conducted vis a vis Iran.   What was particularly interesting to me were Crist’s descriptions of the contretemps relating to Iran and the furious arguments that senior officials in Reagan’s Administrations had with regard to attacking Iran or supporting the Ayatollah’s enemies.   Yes,  contradictions abounded within the Reagan and subsequent administrations with regard to USA relationships with Iran.

 

The recent,  inevitable denouement with Iran culminates three decades of endless drama encompassing unique and influential game players on both sides of the chess board.    Although I served in the State Department during the Reagan Administration,   I was certainly not exposed to the intense rivalry among Secretary of Defense,  Caspar Weinberger,   Secretary of State George Shultz, and National Security Advisor,  Robert “Bud” McFarlane.    Admittedly,   I was working with another host of characters—Don Gregg [CIA] ; Fritz Ermath [ CIA]; V. P. George H. W. Bush Sr’s office—on a completely different area of  strategic concern --  the dismantling  of the Soviet Union  through Psychological Warfare.   Interesting that none of the these players were mentioned in Crist's book.   Also worth noting:  although I  developed a strategy paper in which I had to incorporate Ronald Reagan’s negotiating style versus the Soviet leader’s modus operandi,  I was unaware of Crist's observation that "Reagan hated personal confrontations."    In his book,   Crist points out this aspect of Reagan that I had not encountered but I had found quite revealing and foreboding.

Crist then goes onto explain that Reagan was unable to made any effective decisions in terms of US retaliatory actions after the unfortunate tragic death of 241 Marines as well as 58 French paratroopers in the Hezbollah bombing of the US Marine barracks on October 23, 1983.     “For the U.S. Marine Corps,   it was the worst loss of life in a single day since Iwo Jima in 1943.”

The US Marines had been mistakenly sent by Reagan into Lebanon as a ‘Peacekeeping Troops’ interceding between the Israeli/Christian Lebanese and the warring factions of Shia,  Druze,  Syrian, Sunnis.     This indeterminate internecine conflict would not be resolved for another decade or so.    In many ways,  as Crist writes,  this was a “needless death” of our brave Marines;  in part,  thanks to the “incompetency” of our civilian leaders [i.e. Reagan] in the White House and elsewhere in the USG.

  In this book,  Crist forges onward,   as any good Marine would do.    He ventures where no one else has dares to go.   He undertakes the impossible mission of attempting to redefine  the universally accepted definition of  ‘terrorism’  from the perspective of the combatant:   “While Israel and the United States condemned these as acts of terrorism,  in truth the attacks were not terrorism.   The founders of Hezbollah had devised the poor man’s smart bomb and aimed it at their opponent's ill-prepared military.”

Crist adds the following quote to make his judicious point:   “If Hezbollah had GPS-guided bombs dropped from thirty thousand feet,  they would not need martyrs”,  said one Lebanese official with Hezbollah.

I remembered that tragic day and I recall how perplexed I felt as to how that tragedy could have happened,   given the sophisticated intelligence that we had in both the CIA/MI.   Nevertheless, Crist highlights a most telling point that I had completely failed to recognize as both a psychiatrist and State Dept. strategist/tactician.    Crist delineates in a very compelling prose the fact that the USA had become what he called,   a “Hamlet of Nations.”

 

Here is what he had delineated most forcefully in the book:
“….in the end,   REAGAN became the AMERICAN HAMLET. [my emphasis].    The debate over responding to terrorist attacks continued week after week in the White House…”

“A shortsighted Israeli policy and American Cold War naivete opened the door for Iran in Lebanon.    Israel’s myopic obsession with destroying the Palestinian resistance spawned a far more dangerous enemy,   while an American government equally fixated with the Soviet influence in the Middle East had led to misguided meddling in a Lebanese quarrel that Washington barely understood.    In the process,   Hezbollah’s success had emboldened Iran on the value of terrorism and the poor man’s precision weapon—the truck bomb---as instruments for successfully beating a superpower.” 

  Sound familiar?
  Déjà vu, all over again!!!
Let us remember that anytime a Republican praises Reagan,   lest he/she pause for a moment to understand that by omission of historical fact,   he/she may have committed the greatest of all commissions—lying to the American public for personal gain. 

 

Stop praising the wrong guys!   it will continue to lead to a destructive foreign policy in the Middle East.

We have had too many Hamlets in both the purviews of  'too precipitous action'  [Iraq/Afghanistan]  and inaction.

Whatever pew of the church of politics you might kneel in,  be it Democrat,  Republican,  Tea Party,  or whatever,   please don’t forget to learn about our history toward Iran. 

If nothing else,  spend a few minutes a day and take the time to read,  David Crist’s book,  The Twilight War.

Semper Fei!!!

Here's a link to a book I am reading about our decades long history with Iran.  The Twilight War by David Crist.  I will post my thoughts later tonight.
http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-War-Americas-Thirty-Year-Conflict/dp/B00B9ZCEUO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384461970&sr=1-1&keywords=The+twilight+war

Join The Navy!  See The World!  and PLUNDER the AMERICAN TAXPAYERS!!!

For several decades this blogger has been completely exhausted by the phantom exploits of the Navy’s SEAL Teams daring adventures all over the world.     At some point,  I was waiting for reality to evince itself amidst this barrage of self-love and iconic myths,  like  “Call of Duty”.

Fear not!   My wish for a reality check was amply rewarded.
  As Chairman Mao once said,  rephrasing the psychological dynamics of ‘idealization followed by devaluation’:  The higher the monkey climbs,  the further he falls!

The Navy fell from the heights as dare devils of bravado and death to the prosaic criminal corruption of ‘fleecing the American taxpayers’  on a MASSIVE SCALE.

In an excellent article in the November 11, 2013  Wall Street Journal by Julian E. Barnes,  entitled "Navy Investigating Alleged Ties Between Officers , Contractor",   federal prosecutors have indicted Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless and Vice Admiral Ted Branch for ‘bribery’.

Now what and who can these eminent Naval Staff Officers bribe? 

Mermaids? Whales? Dolphins [often used for intel operations]? 

No,  it’s a lot less fanciful than the Navy’s tales of  imaginary SEAL exploits.

  The federal prosecutors charges that Leonard Glenn Francis,  CEO,  of Glenn Defense Marine,  provided the aforementioned Naval Officers,  as well as many others with money,  prostitutes,  plane fare, and concert tickets in "an effort to learn information about ship deployments and to steer vessels to ports where this firm was in a position to service these vessels at ABOVE MARKET RATES."

Way to go NAVY!!!
How does Glenn Defense Marine Company [GDMC]  and the Navy plunder us,  American Tax Payers?

Since 1995,  GDMC has been CHARGING hundreds of millions of TAXPAYER DOLLARS for "husbanding" Navy ships.

  I know,  don’t get excited, dear readers!
  “HUSBANDING” service to US Navy ship includes fuel,  food provisions,  tugboat services and even port security.

  The following Naval officers , graduates of our ONCE PRESTIGIOUS NAVAL ACADEMY [that had been rife with sex scandals decades before Richard Armitage cleaned that up] include the following SCANDALOUS,  SHAMEFUL names:
[1] Vice Admiral Ted Branch,  Director Of Naval Intelligence;

[2] Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless,  Director Of Intelligence Operations.

Great,  now we have Naval Intelligence satisfying their genitals and their greed instead of using their brains and professionalism to serve this country.

[3] Cmdr Michael Misiewicz,  native of Cambodia,  provided CEO Francis with CLASSIFIED INFORMATION about ship movements. 

[4] Commander Jose Luis Sanchez,  provided Francis with CLASSIFIED INFORMATION in exchange for prostitutes,  luxury travel and $100,000 in cash!   Now Sanchez  should qualify to run for a national office!

Now this next candidate, is a real “humdinger”:

[5] John Bertrand Beliveau II,   a senior naval investigative service agent,  "tipped off Mr. Francis about various inquiries."

Once again, folks, who can trust the fox to watch the ‘hen house’? 

Literally,  the NAVY IS SUNK!!     There is no excuse for any of this reprehensible activity that has transpired over two decades.    That means that the former Chiefs of Naval Operations; the former Secretaries of the Navy;  the Navy Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs; and the former Secretaries of Defense ---could all BE IMPLICATED!!!    Remember that Mr Francis was running this SCAM since 1995.     As far as I am concerned,    there should be massive Court Martials as well as rebates back to the US taxpayers.    The Navy is just one of the branches of the military which has always had a ‘Lilly White Reputation’.

 

As an ex-Naval Officer,   I would request the MAXIMUM SENTENCING of all involved in this crime against the AMERICAN TAXPAYERS.     Furthermore,   I would encourage  the same prosecutors to examine The Marines,  The Army,  The Air Force and any other military outfits,  on or ‘off the books’.   It is time for the American public to understand that we no longer need a defense posture that costs us billions of dollars in wasted money.    It is time to ask ourselves,  what do we really need in terms of national security?
  And,   the first answer that comes to mind—

  A balanced budget… and a growing economy.

  The rest is just wasteful!!!

Get rid of these Admirals,  Naval vessels, and contractors. 

They are the TRUE BARNACLES of AMERICAN PROSPERITY!! 

   

Be posting later tonight,  here is some background
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304868404579192281476982384#printMode