The greedy battle for Iraq’s ‘Hearts And Minds’

[markfreeman]

I like that article. It is one thing to go over the and get out the regime...its an entirely different thing to continue the garbage we are doing. And if we are staying over there get someone in there who knows a little accounting 101.

Mark

[jmm99]

Here I was, happily listening to Dropkick Murphys, when I came upon these:

From Mother Jones, The Only State Dept. Employee Who May Be Fired Because of WikiLeaks (by Andy Kroll, Sep. 27, 2011).

From Pacific Free Press, The Accidental Spy: The Only Employee at State Who May Be Fired Because of WikiLeaks (by Tom Engelhardt, Sep. 27, 2011).

From TomDispatch, Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, WikiLeaked at the State Department (by Peter Van Buren, September 27, 2011).

Van Buren's blog, We Meant Well.

A 14-page excerpt from the book.

For a $100 donation to TomDispatch, you get a autoed copy of the book - or for $100 to Amazon, you can buy quite a few Dropkick Murphys CDs.

Regards

Mike

[Steve the Planner]

jmm:

Forgive my dragging you into legalese, but its seems to me that had Van Buren brought legitimate claims of waste, fraud and abuse, instead of just righting about his wacky adventures related to them, he would have full whistleblower protection.

The explanations by Tom Englehardt (American Empire Empresario) seems to co-mingle individual constitutional protections, press rights, and governmental employee duties (of one with a clearance) pretty freely and incongruously.

Why wouldn't State ask a cleared employee, for example, who writes the blog bearing his name which references a secret cable? What they do about it is a separate issue than whether they should investigate it. No?

[jmm99]

or a whistleblower analysis here.

I'd suspect (not a legal opinion) that Peter Van Buren does not really feel threatened by the loss of his job at State. Using Wikileaks in a headline is simply good attention getting. Mr. Englehardt writes politics, not law.

I'd view all of this as pretty much politics as usual for the (mostly) guys who write at Antiwar.com (Kelley, however, being one of the gals). That is not a left-wing site (though some left-siders dwell there); but a Randolph Bourne brand of libertarianism and non-interventionism. These folks (the columnists) are not political babes in the woods.

I was reminded of Scott Ritter (not one of my favs as a person) when I read the 14-page excerpt from Van Buren's book. In any event, I don't think Mr. Van Buren is much interested in reforming State from within.

Bourne was an interesting "anti-warist" of the early 1900s - now enshrined by a think tank. Coincidentally, I've been studying the volume from the Holmes SCOTUS History series dealing with the "Insular Cases" just after 1900. There were as many conflicting policy and legal constructs re: military occupations and nation-building then as there are now.

Regards

Mike

[Steve the Planner]

I got the creepy feeling reading the excerpts that I was reading were a compendium of different articles (the list is in the back of the book) that some smart editor had amassed but needed a "personality" to tie it all together---which was Peter van Buren's role.

The first time I had that creepy feeling was a few months ago when I checked out his blog, and there was a weird statement about how the blog was authored under Van Buren's name but written by some unspecified people. (Same thing DSS was looking at, I guess).

Weird, but, like you said, there is no effort to reform anything, change anything or explore possible changes----just a lot of: Let's make fun of it all and get fun, notoriety and profit.

I penned a few drafts in the past about the Iraq civilain program but found two things: (1) There was no way to do it without appearing so wholly negative (to a reader wrapped up in the actual chaos) that you couldn't carry on to a useful point (for which there are many; and (2) you couldn't do it without injuring many people, most of all those Gold Star parents and wounded vets.

This is exactly what I assumed an editor with no skin in the game would turn all of this into for his commercial advantage.

I hope Tom Englehart (Oh, I mean Peter van Buren) makes plenty of money so that, at least, he doesn't have to do it again.

[jmm99]

... (1) There was no way to do it without appearing so wholly negative (to a reader wrapped up in the actual chaos) that you couldn't carry on to a useful point (for which there are many; and (2) you couldn't do it without injuring many people, most of all those Gold Star parents and wounded vets.

re: both Iraq and Astan. I've had those thoughts here at SWC to some extent; but more so in face to face with the youngsters (that's anyone under 50 ) going to or come back from.

At times, the best COA is this:

Smaller Cup of Shut.jpg

HT to Steve Blair for the link to the large version.

Regards

Mike

[Steve the Planner]

Ok, so I stuck my neck out in a more public space: Foreign Policy.

So the good, the bad, and the public has said their piece.

Now, for the real audience, and the many more things I can always learn from you.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...en_%20donnelly