Center for a New American Security

we was

we was robbed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZlMwO4u_ok&NR=1

Hollywood still thinks it

Hollywood still thinks it can only make successful films with big stars, even when they are totally miscast. I can give Clint Eastwood the benefit of the doubt though, Gran Torino used unknown actors and Letters from Iwo Jima was in Japanese. Tough role for Morgan Freeman- Mandela is so well known/ loved, as is his accent.

Did they seriously cast

Did they seriously cast Morgan Freeman as Nelson freakin' Mandela? Seriously? I mean, it looks like a good movie, but come freakin' on! Most predictable, obvious, and hackneyed casting choice of all time.

this looks great. yeah,

this looks great. yeah, right.

mAtt dAmOn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLG3S5WzHig

It should have been Winnie

It should have been Winnie Mandela on the terrorist watch list for her love of "necklacing" and the torture & murder of a 14 year old.

The film sounds great to me.

The film sounds great to me. I was living in South Africa at the time and remember the electric shock to the nation that SA's win in the 1995 World Cup provided.

Not to be pedantic, but it's "Pienaar," not "Peinaar" ...

NATO or Europe?

NATO or Europe?

For those of you who obsess

For those of you who obsess about strategy, here's a great insight from a Mr Edward Luttwak, who might know something about it...take as the model not Rome but Byzantium. Makes sense to me as I have long thought that we were neither Greece nor Rome in terms of who we might be as Empire, but Byzantium (other parallels too). For one thing we are closer to Byzantium in character than either Greece or Rome, and have similar problems.

The Byzantine Doctrine

Luttwak on Byzantium

From Luttwak @ FP

Byzantine Doctrine

I. Avoid war by every possible means, in all possible circumstances, but always act as if war might start at any time. Train intensively and be ready for battle at all times -- but do not be eager to fight. The highest purpose of combat readiness is to reduce the probability of having to fight.

II. Gather intelligence on the enemy and his mentality, and monitor his actions continuously. Efforts to do so by all possible means might not be very productive, but they are seldom wasted.

III. Campaign vigorously, both offensively and defensively, but avoid battles, especially large-scale battles, except in very favorable circumstances. Don't think like the Romans, who viewed persuasion as just an adjunct to force. Instead, employ force in the smallest possible doses to help persuade the persuadable and harm those not yet amenable to persuasion.

IV. Replace the battle of attrition and occupation of countries with maneuver warfare -- lightning strikes and offensive raids to disrupt enemies, followed by rapid withdrawals. The object is not to destroy your enemies, because they can become tomorrow's allies. A multiplicity of enemies can be less of a threat than just one, so long as they can be persuaded to attack one another.

V. Strive to end wars successfully by recruiting allies to change the balance of power. Diplomacy is even more important during war than peace. Reject, as the Byzantines did, the foolish aphorism that when the guns speak, diplomats fall silent. The most useful allies are those nearest to the enemy, for they know how best to fight his forces.

VI. Subversion is the cheapest path to victory. So cheap, in fact, as compared with the costs and risks of battle, that it must always be attempted, even with the most seemingly irreconcilable enemies. Remember: Even religious fanatics can be bribed, as the Byzantines were some of the first to discover, because zealots can be quite creative in inventing religious justifications for betraying their own cause ("since the ultimate victory of Islam is inevitable anyway …").

VII. When diplomacy and subversion are not enough and fighting is unavoidable, use methods and tactics that exploit enemy weaknesses, avoid consuming combat forces, and patiently whittle down the enemy's strength. This might require much time. But there is no urgency because as soon as one enemy is no more, another will surely take his place. All is constantly changing as rulers and nations rise and fall. Only the empire is eternal -- if, that is, it does not exhaust itself.

Yeah Diablotakahe, They did.

Yeah Diablotakahe,

They did. And will. Problem is we are being bankrupted.

"OK. We fucked up the energy industry, housing, banking (yes - but we'll save them, and ourselves)...now let's fuck up medical care.

Fnord kindly google "rust belt". Everything they touch, they fucking destroy. Then they put you on welfare, then you have your cities that were rich powerhouses decline by 50% in population...it's about 1% a year at least, then they discover thousands (76,000 in Detroit) of abandoned structures. Then they literally put you and what you did under the ground. And plant grass over it!! You never happened. It's "Green".

I'm from the fucking rust belt. I know fucking well what their plan is...destroy the status quo. But don't worry! We'll replace it with...welfare.

And China.

Elf, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr

Elf, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr never saw an American job that was not fit to be outsourced to India, China., Mexico. Same goes with Clinton, he signed NAFTA. Both parties fuck the regular Joe.

You are just pissed that Obama may curtail the Forever War, Long War, GWOT or whatever the fuck they are calling it now. But to quote Sean Hannity, do not let your heart be troubled. Obama will send more troops to Astan, maybe not 40k, but he will send more.

Under Obama, the drone attacks in Pakistan have increased, 120k troops are stil in Iraq, and GITMO is still open for business.

Same shit, just a different President. While Obama will soon allow the sodomites to openly prance in the military, not much will change. We are still an Empire, we still police the world, and we will continue to decline. Relax, they are all the same.

I think it's important to

I think it's important to note that when people refer to torture being a recruitment tool for terrorism, this is still only in reference only to a small subset of society.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8336343.stm
http://images.google.com.au/images?q=Palau

@ outsourced visitor. Yep.

@ outsourced visitor.

Yep. And we need those jobs back. Sadly we can't really seem to build anything solid (material) in this country anymore, between the bureaucrats and the lawyers paralyzing the process, the unions getting greedy all too often, and then there's my personal current favorite hate - Gaia worshippers - who just want it all to disappear as a religious matter.

So yeah, they let the companies run and outsource. Salvage op/damage control.

To be clear, Free Trade is a lie. For it's not "Free". It's a private company attempting to compete with Fascist consortium's overseas that literally own the country and the workers. Of course slaves are cheaper.

Yeah on that it's always same policies.

What's disturbing is this guy's rather ham fisted, Nixonian tactics towards Media that question him, the semi takeover Chicago style of the Financial and Auto industry, and these bizarro world nuts he appoints as "Czars".

Now do I think they're Nazi's? No. They don't have the sand. It's more like if the Reds on the College English Dept and Diversity Studies Dept staged a coup. Rather pathetic really, although they can and will do damage.

But understand all these industries they touch are going to be forever dysfunctional, or like so many other industries we used to have just vanish. Most especially Health Care. Listen to Madhu kids. She knows.

You know the story about nobody flies from the USA to England or Canada to get health care? We will be.

Because they are going to "change" the status quo and ...destroy private practice and private medicine and insurance.

But that's all OK cuz we have all these wonderful plans now just let us....NO.

Nope. Won't happen. Never happened.

Elf's razor applies. If you want to know what people or organizations are going to do in the future, the only reliable methods of prediction are what have they done in the past. Done, not said or intended.

Intentions mean shit.

What they will do is seriously damage or destroy industry or sector of the economy they touch. They call this "changing the status quo".

Then when it gets hard, and they realize they are trying to make bricks without straw, or in this case an National Health System with no doctors...a Pharma industry that at best will be..the Fannie Mae of Pharma. A rising biotech sector that is now revolutionizing medicine...that's gone because 70% of it starts as small business and small business is going to disappear...so there goes medicine and R&D..

They'll walk away and move on to the next cause.

Which based on a process of elimination will sooner or later be the "human capital" industries that got all you little snarky yuppie shits that put this fraud over on us...your turn. Let's see you get rich quick when a govt board has to approve your products content. In fact will be involved and require approval from said morons at every step of development and production.

Which in the case of the entertainment, media, and marketing industries will be sweet irony.

In the case of the tech industries...let not your heart be troubled. We can always go to India or China. The latter in particular will welcome the talent - they've been doing such since the warring states period.

I foresee a day when a greatly reduced American President tells the Greatly Increased Chinese and Indian Heads of State that American ingenuity will enable american to rise again. And they tell him..well excuse us, but our Americans are smarter than your Americans.

MATT DAMON! (Sorry just

MATT DAMON!

(Sorry just couldn't resist that)

Fnord, That's nice. So the

Fnord,

That's nice. So the world works for no profit, hmm. Like your employer no doubt? I think the no profit state was tried..

And I also think you are sitting on a giant oil well ...and you drill baby, you drill. Baby.

We also sit on giant oil wells. But we have Sister Nancy pants suit Pelosi and the rest of the paid to be Luddites abusing the system so we can't drill. Now there's a religion by Odin- environmentalism.

Which causes a similar digging in and irrationality on the free market side. They're really not a "religion" so much as they are an anti-religion. That religion is statism. Plus we know firsthand just how fucked up our govt is, and that's when they're even trying. It's almost better for us that they spend most of their time goldbricking as civil servants and taking bribes as elected officials. My God I can't imagine the damage they'd do in a full days work.

Just went over to my local municipal govt the other day. Much bigger building(s) than the other one. Less people working - in a sort of sleepwalking way.

The other town was poorer and more modest, but they had a smaller staff and worked harder.

Not finding any links to your phyle concept ---would appreciate. It does sound interesting.