Dear Friends: (1) General Charles Krulak is a former Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, and his fellow Marine General Joseph Hoar was Commander of CENTCOM (1991-94) and Chief of Staff of the USMC during the 1991 first Gulf War. ALst week, these two old leathernecks co-authored a powerful op-ed piece that appeared in the …
Category: Foreign Policy
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/05/18/expert-testimony/
May 04 2007
Mercenaries?
Dear Mr. Spencer: I am tardy in responding to your interesting comments about the historical role of Gurkha units in the British Indian Army. In referring to the Gurkha as “mercenaries”, I most assuredly did not intend to impugn their honor or integrity in the slightest — or, in particular, the steadfast loyalty that they …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/05/04/750/
Apr 30 2007
Woolsey disgraces himself again
Dear Friends: Former CIA Director James Woolsey gave a talk at Princeton University last week. I decided not to attend, fearing that I might be unable to restrain myself from causing an ugly scene. But I am extremely pleased and proud to forward to you a letter written to the campus newspaper the next morning …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/04/30/woolsey-disgraces-himself-again/
Apr 28 2007
War games
Fisk on the death of journalism: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-we-are-now-in-the-firing-line-sadly-446522.html or http://bit.ly/bnqdXg or http://tinyurl.com/38h6k57 And here’s one on how surgingly swell things are for the British in Basra: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/serving-british-soldier-exposes-horror-of-war-in-crazy-basra-446395.html or http://bit.ly/bA4W72 or http://tinyurl.com/32duxzw And, if you can find it, the farewell telegram from Sir Ivor Roberts as he left his job as Rome ambassador is quite interesting. Sir Ivor got in trouble …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/04/28/war-games/
Apr 26 2007
The real meaning of “surge”
I have noted from several recent newspaper and TV accounts covering the “surge” in Iraq that a significant percentage of the “Iraqi Army” soldiers engaged in joint operations with the US Army are actually members of Kurdish units — presumably peshmerga militia forces assigned temporarily to Baghdad and the surrounding area as part of the …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/04/26/the-real-meaning-of-surge/
Apr 22 2007
Full-court press
Today’s Washington Post features a defense of the war by Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security, that begins with “As the rubble of the Twin Towers smoldered in 2001…” Talk about connecting the dots… He attacks Brzezinski for being critical of the “war on terror,” then dredges up the Ayatollah’s “revolutionary fanaticism” of the 1970s, …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/04/22/full-court-press/
Apr 08 2007
Blood sport
The math is pretty basic: Jerusalem Post = disinformation. If you read from multiple sources to triangulate a semblance of reality, you can safely eschew the Jerusalem Post, Faux News, Rush Limbaugh, Krauthammer, every other neocon-Jewish (there, I said it) cheerleader for Israel, and increasingly, most of the rest of the American press. For example, …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/04/08/blood-sport/