The 9/11 Conspiracy Facts

[Darth Rotor]

Ok, fine; I could of course equally say that your statements are smothered in post hoc derationalisation. Let's go ahead and see what you have got.

??

Ok, so they were opposed to Clinton's strategy and had something different in mind, involving, partly, more funding, right...

Yes. If you were around in the mid 1990's, and in the military, as I was, and paying attention to the partisan squabbling over budget matters as the deficit was being roped and branded, you found that some Senators and Congressmen on both sides of the aisle had reservations about how deeply Paneta drove Clinton's wedge into the low slope drawdown of Powell's base force, and how rapidly the slope of drawdown increased beyond the initial Cheney / Bush drawdown initiated in late 89/early 90.

The theme was "Defense budget cut was too deep, need to recapitalize or we will have a hollow force." PNAC was not alone in agreeing with that. Their paper is not evidence of a plot, but a reflection of a widely held opinion that Clinton had gone overboard on cuts, while at the same time increasing the wear and tear on operating forces with frivolous deployments to places like Bosnia. If you note the process they undertook to write the piece, they consulted a host of military and defense experts while doing their analysis.

You have just given a background on the political thought that was swirling around the RAD doc in the 90's, and then you state that my conclusions are intellectually dishonest.

Given your position that the Pearl Harbor illustration was evidence of a plan, rather than a piece of political analysis of what it takes to get America on a war footing, I find your position unsupported by anything other than a post hoc rationalization. If you read the report from front to back, the tone is hardly one of hopeful anticipation of a new Pearl Harbor event.

1stly, you try to argue that such a conclusion, as to the desirability for such a transformation to happen soon, cannot be justified, since it shows "a profound misunderstanding" of military civilian patterns. I'm sorry, i do appreciate your diligence and courage in replying to my post at length, but this has zero substance. You have to show why people would want a world changing, peace bringing, democracy, love and happiness exporting change to happen in decades, rather than soon.

Given that I was someone who disagreed completely with the idea of the US continuing to play "world's policeman" while maggots at the UN cried about dues, and when we undertook multi billion dollar operations in Africa for "no credit to peacekeeping funds," I have no desire to defend PNAC's vision of a more vigorous engagement policy. I considered it ill advised when it came out, and was far more interested in a "let them play" policy that allowed civil wars to run their course, as America's civil war was allowed to run its course with little interference from foreign powers.

Again, the PNAC initial statement of principal was in 1997, and the RAD paper was begun in 1998.

Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

(Signed by the usual suspects: Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz)

2ndly, you state "LIHOP? Maybe". If I have you right, you believe that 911 was "maybe" an inside job?

I have not ruled out, in my own mind, the low probability chance that a deliberate indifference/negligence was undertaken as a matter of policy vis a vis terrorist and criminal activity. Much of my evidence for this is indirect, the well known complaints of Scheuer and Clarke, and others, about issues being brought up and not acted on between January and Sept of 2001.

I can't prove it, but I can't rule it out completely. Given that the evidence is locked inside the intentions of policy makers at a very high level, I don't expect to be able to dig it out, seeing as how this indifference/negligence would be grounds for serious charges regarding 9-11 events. No one who knows is going to talk anyway, out of fear. I wonder at the utility of this "independent" investigation you suggest. Who is going to make anyone talk? Notice how they lawyered up over the Plame case?

But you dont support the idea of an indepedent investigation to ascertain this??

Please don't try to put words into my mouth. Thanks. Where did I ever say I don't support such an investigation? I note that the official 9-11 investigation chaired by Lehman was beset by the contamination of political agendas.

For someone who spends much time arguiing the importance of various rhetorical features, it is actually hypocritical.

Since you have built your house on sand, that the Pearl Harbor reference was a sign of intent, rather than analysis, I find it hard to find this objection credible.

More to the point, I dont understand your point. Why was Rumsfeld not interested in US strategy? Why would he be killing people "for his own ends"? Where does 1998 come into this?

The base motivation for the position paper was made public in 1997-1998 in the statement of principles. The RAD paper represented a detailed elaboration on the original theme, based on research begun in 1998, and published after a long process in 2000.

The Project for the New American Century was established in the spring of 1997. From its inception, the Project has been concerned with the decline in the strength of America’s defenses, and in the problems this would create for the exercise of American leadership around the globe and, ultimately, for the preservation of peace.
=====
With this in mind, we began a project in the spring of 1998 to examine the country’s defense plans and resource requirements. We started from the premise that U.S. military capabilities should be sufficient to support an American grand strategy committed to building upon this unprecedented opportunity. We did not accept pre-ordained constraints that followed from assumptions about what the country might or might not be willing to expend on its defenses.

From PNAC's own words. 1998. The opportunity referred to was "being the sole superpower" and all that rot.

But no. The point I was replying to was the assertion that these guys couldnt be wickedly intelligent (i.e. pulled off 911), and then bumblingly stupid (RAD).

Yet they refer to Pearl Harbor also in the Naval Strategy section:
In PNACspeak:

Absent a rigorous program of experimentation to investigate the nature of the revolution in military affairs as it applies to war at sea, the Navy might face a future Pearl Harbor – as unprepared for war in the post-carrier era as it was unprepared for war at the dawn of the carrier age.

If you want to contest this, you very simply have to show that they did not want such a revolutionary transformation to happen as soon as it feasibly could, but rather wanted to wait a few decades.

False dichomoty. You seem to ignore the context of the paper, to inform Presidential level policy making, which for their purposes, GOP, would be either one term or two: That's a 4 or 8 year time horizon, NOT "a few decades." The also discuss, in the body of the work, the lengthy procurement process that hampered "rapid" change, and "revolutions" in military affairs, a sound byte that ignores how military change is most often evolutionary, not revolutionary. Just because PNAC wanted the change to be fast does not mean such is possible, given Congressional processes.

Nevertheless, we believe that, over time, the program we advocate would require budgets roughly equal to those necessary to fully fund the QDR force – a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product. A sensible plan would add $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually through the Future Years Defense Program; this would
result in a defense “topline” increase of $75 billion to $100 billion over that period, a small percentage of the $700 billion onbudget surplus now projected for that same period. We believe that the new president should commit his administration to a plan to achieve that level of spending within four years.

In any event, your demand is irrelevant. The broad strategy for transformation was spelled out as a strategy, in language consistent with the mid to long term timelines consistent with procurement programs. The tone of the entire paper reflects that. Your cherry picking is an attempt to present a different tone.

Paradoxically, as American power and influence are at their apogee, American military forces limp toward exhaustion, unable to meet the demands of their many and varied missions, including preparing for tomorrow’s battlefield. Today’s force, reduced by a third or more over the past decade, suffers from degraded combat readiness; from difficulties in recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines; from the effects of an extended “procurement holiday” that has resulted in the premature aging of most weapons systems; from an increasingly obsolescent and inadequate military infrastructure; from a shrinking industrial base poorly structured to be the “arsenal of democracy” for the 21st century; from a lack of innovation that threatens the technological and operational advantages enjoyed by U.S. forces for a generation and upon which American strategy depends.

Whether it was intended to embarrass Clinton is neither here nor there; the Pearl Harbour notion is what matters here.

Pearl Harbor was mentioned twice, in two different contexts. In both cases, it was to use a historical example of either mobilization of public will, or of Naval Forces improperly configured to handle a new style of warfare. (Which was a bogus reference, since Billy Mitchell had already demonstrated the vulnerability of ships to aircraft in the late 1920's. )

I assume you work with the military in some capacity, but none of what you say is germane to the point I'm afraid.

I spent 25 years as a Navy pilot and later on, staff officer.

I'm pretty sure this has been dealt with in the original post, with details of the weapons/equipment that have been developed since 911, but would you go into detail as to what you mean by "toys"?

All of them, but in particular UAV's, whose origins go back to the DASH of the 1960's. Stryker was already in the pipe. JSF was already in the pipe. F-22. V-22. Nothing significantly new has hit the battlefield since 2000 beyond advantages accrued by increased processing power, and continual improvements in C2 capability, that I can discuss in a non classified environment. You can call the proliferation of small UAV's in Iraq at the tactical level an evolutionary change that was, again, in the pipe in the 1990's as part of Force XXI.

A variety of innovations in EW I am not at liberty to discuss. Sorry. I signed the NDA's,l and unlike Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage, I give a crap about OPSEC. Still.

Since your sole point seems to be "Pearl Harbor" there isn't much to contest, other than your attempt to spread misunderstanding of a strategy proposal. You will note that the CV elimination, and JSF elimination, did not happen for the usual Congressional/political/Pentagon reasons: not everyone agreed with this Brave New World of the PNAC folks, who tended toward silver bullet advocacy: Neither in Congress, nor in the Military.

Right, but the number is still up, as I have stated, from 1.41-1.43

BFD. In a war, end strength rises less than two percent. How is that significant?

A global war against an implacable, unbeatable, invisible, ubiquitous and ever renewing enemy is the perfect environment for such to happen.

It was an opporunity to weight the US Forces more toward Light and SOF, until Iraq was invaded. Had the WoT remained just that, and an Afghan nation building exercise at the same time, you might have had a point, as Rummy's obsession with SOF and tech would have had lots of space on his point papers and procurement priorities. By taking on Iraq, the cruel reality of full spectrum warfare, and the inherently human nature of war, returned to the fore, and quite frustrated Rummy's attempt to transform the military.

the last half of your sentence is important- who is a terrorist? Anyone Bus wants to label as such. Olmert? no. Ahmadinejad? Yes. It is not about right and wrong, terror or anti terror. Those who labelling as terrorists will be propitious to the US geo politic will be labelled as such, those who dont, wont.

In the language of the 1990's defense thinking, extra national political entities who use armed force, and the threat of armed force, to achieve a political end.

What is your definition of a terrorist?

Yes, it was overtly a peacetime document, except for the sentence that states that were there to be a catastrophic and catalysing event, such changes would happen a lot quicker.

Except that you ignore the other use of Pearl Harbor, in the completely Naval context, and show that your cherry picking is simply that: grasping at straws.

You'll have to explain METT-T

Mission Enemy Terrain Troops - Time

Conceptual framework for "what situation am I in, what is on hand to solve it, and how much time do I have." Military jargon, sorry.

I am not arguiing that RAD makes 911 an inside job, I am arguing that it states the propitiousness of a new PH to policy; i.e. it would grant the "excuse" for the neo cons to pursue essentially the policy laid out in RAD.

That is your post hoc reading into the document. Pearl Harbor was used to illustrate, as a threshold, given the political climate of the US in the late 1990's, and Viet Nam as a marker, how big an event had to happen for the American public to back a significant defense build up in the short term.

The problem is, there is little evidence of funding going to transformative change, but an immense amount of men and material and wealth being expended on a war that has, once again, hampered Rummy's desired transformation.

Please tell me how the militarisation of space, the use of cyberspace as a defense tool, the global posture review, are eroding the US as a military capability.

They are not, the war in Iraq is, but those features were all part and parcel of the Clinton era defense policies, absent some of the detail on space mmilitarization IIRC. I'd have to reference some old papers on international space agreements to discuss the details, but that is rather off topic to your contention, that Pearl Harbor as an illustration is evidence of much of anything.

Errr... 1stly the paper was written in 2000.

Not quite. It was published in 2000, the project was begun in 1998, so 1998/1999 is the contemporary political context.

The comment does indeed imply that absent a new PH it would be hard to get the US behind a war;

No duh, it was like stating that Texas is next to Mexico. Viet Nam for fifty, Alex, though PNAC was somewhat wrong. The Kuwait/Iraq War of 1990-1991 did not require a Pearl Harbor.

Hence if a war would speed these changes, a new PH would be propitious to policy.

But the war has not demonstrably sped those changes. Rummy tried to do this on the cheap crap, tech heavy, troop light, and it bloody well didn't work. He wanted to reduce the CV frce, and cancel JSF. DID NOT HAPPEN. Do you notice results much? The Army and Marines are bellowing for more troops, not less, as the transformative model demands.

Again, it does not necessarily follow that this outcome was intended. The Pearl Harbor example was, in analysis, an event that would make easier a re prioritizing of money to the defense budget, which otherwise, as noted in the body of the paper, would take the usual tooth pulling and hard work of the normal peacetime Congressional/political process.

No, because to take an example, "forward basing and presence" is not an examply of RMA, but is of the WOT

Wrong! It is an example of US Foreign Policy, and security posture, since the end of WW II.

DR

 

[mjd1982]

But how do you KNOW that it's racism and not FACT if you DON'T CHECK ?

If someone came to you and said that, proportionally, black people commit more crimes in the US than other "races". Would this be racial slur ? Well, I sure don't know if it's true or not, but we hear that, don't we ? So, in order to know if it's true, should we simple "decide" that it's racism or not ? Or should we have a look at the statistics and see ? It may be true and STILL have nothing to do with skin colour; maybe poverty has something to do with it. But you'll never find out if you just ignore the statement.

NOTE: That was just an example I made up, Mjd. Don't go and try to call me a racist.

No one said that these Afghans were dishonest. He said that hospitality took precedence over honesty, and that a host is bound by honour to defend his guests, no matter what. Do you understand what this entails ?

Good. So you agree that taking one stereotypical view of a group, and applying it to all members of such group, is racist and thus inadmissible to serious debate.

I hope you will refrain from using such tactics again.

 

[mjd1982]

I hope counterpunch never claims that "mjd1982 is a child molester" and gets picked up by other journalists without proof or references. Otherwise you're done for.

They would be unlikely to do this, since thy are a reputable publication.

LIHOP = LET it happen on purpose. LET IT.

If LIHOP is the case, then 911 was an inside job, and Bush Cheney et al will all face firing squads; no different to if it was MIHOP

 

[mjd1982]

Stop it. Just stop it.

I haven't posted here for a couple of weeks because of a death in the family.

I am sorry to hear that.

I am currently going through the phase that makes even the most noble human endeavors seem pointless and stupid...so you can imagine how I feel about this thread right now.

There are two possibilities: First, you don't really believe what you say you believe, and are just doing this to get attention. I'm leaning towards this explanation, especially given the recent "SylviaRox" episode in another thread.

I am sorry for your bereavement, but I dont think this part dignifies response

Second, you are sincere and really think a new investigation is called for. If this is true, then by all means, START YOUR INVESTIGATION.

Again I'm sorry for about circumstance, but this is not a good point. What would I do in an investigation?

Stop brandishing your sniping, cowardly insults

where has this happened?

and stop waiting for the same government that you feel is covering it up to grant judicial powers to some fantasy organization with better investigatory resources than the FBI.

Why am I waiting for them to do that? I am stating the necessity of an investigation to occur, not waiting for Bush to investigate himself.

A very bad point, I'm afraid.

 

[mjd1982]

So Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, and Bill Clinton are all aware of this offer? And passed it on to the Bush administration? So are they complicit in the conspiracy? Or being deliberately misleading in their comments?

Why would they be aware of this offer? I have told you before, the overwhelming activity/negligence in its regard took place under Bush, hence why the article is targeted at him, not Clinton.

This should not be hard to understand.

 

[nicepants]

His claims are supported by documentation which, though we do have not seen, is confirmed by 2 of the most reputable journalists in the US, to be valid support of his claims.

You have not answered my questions.

1 - Who are "the most reputable journalists in the US", and how is this determined?

2 - Who are the specific journalists you're referring to who "confirmed" this?
2.1 - And links to where they confirmed same.

3 - Why haven't we seen this documentation to back up his claims?

 

[Augustine]

Why would they be aware of this offer? I have told you before, the overwhelming activity/negligence in its regard took place under Bush, hence why the article is targeted at him, not Clinton.

This should not be hard to understand.

From your article, Mohabbat's allegations:

In the summer of 2000, on one of his regular trips to Afghanistan, Mohabbat had a summit session with the Taliban high command in Kandahar. They asked him to arrange a meeting with appropriate officials in the European Union, to broker a way in which they could hand over Osama bin Laden . Mohabbat recommended they send bin Laden to the World Criminal Court in the Hague.
Shortly thereafter, in August of 2000, Mohabbat set up a meeting at the Sheraton hotel in Frankfurt between a delegation from the Taliban and Reiner Weiland of the EU. The Taliban envoys repeated the offer to deport bin Laden. Weiland told them he would take the proposal to Elmar Brok, foreign relations director for the European Union. According to Mohabbat, Brok then informed the US Ambassador to Germany of the offer.
At this point the US State Department called Mohabbat and said the government wanted to retain his services, even before his official period on the payroll, which lasted from November of 2000 to late September, 2001, by which time he tells us he had been paid $115,000.
On the morning of October 12, 2000, Mohabbat was in Washington DC, preparing for an 11am meeting at the State Department , when he got a call from State, telling him to turn on the tv and then come right over. The USS Cole had just been bombed. Mohabbat had a session with the head of State's South East Asia desk and with officials from the NSC. They told him the US was going to "bomb the hell out of Afghanistan". "Give me three weeks," Mohabbat answered, "and I will deliver Osama to your doorstep." They gave him a month.
Mohabbat went to Kandahar and communicated the news of imminent bombing to the Taliban. They asked him to set up a meeting with US officials to arrange the circumstances of their handover of Osama. On November 2, 2000, less than a week before the US election, Mohabbat arranged a face-to-face meeting, in that same Sheraton hotel in Frankfurt, between Taliban leaders and a US government team.
After a rocky start on the first day of the Frankfurt session, Mohabbat says the Taliban realized the gravity of US threats and outlined various ways bin Laden could be dealt with. He could be turned over to the EU, killed by the Taliban, or made available as a target for Cruise missiles. In the end, Mohabbat says, the Taliban promised the "unconditional surrender of bin Laden" . "We all agreed," Mohabbat tells CounterPunch, "the best way was to gather Osama and all his lieutenants in one location and the US would send one or two Cruise missiles."
Up to that time Osama had been living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from Kabul.
In the wake of the 2000 election Mohabbat traveled to Islamabad and met with William Milam, US ambassador to Pakistan and the person designated by the Clinton administration to deal with the Taliban on the fate of bin Laden. Milam told Mohabbat that it was a done deal but that the actual handover of bin Laden would have to be handled by the incoming Bush administration.
On November 23, 2000, Mohabbat got a call from the NSC saying they wanted to put him officially on the payroll as the US government's contact man for the Taliban. He agreed.

So, are you still claiming the Clinton administration (Clinton, Albright, Berger, Clarke) was completely unaware of this offer? How can that be?

(Unless, of course, the offer DIDN'T EXIST )

 

[jab712]

Stop brandishing your sniping, cowardly insults

where has this happened?

I suppose cowardly is just a matter of opinion.

You have gotten warnings from the moderators. Must I show you these again? One just happened on the previous page.

http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showpost.php?p=2736197&postcount=1690

You keep suggesting that everyone "keep up". Yet, you can't even "keep up" with yourself. Don't come back and say irrelevant, pointless, or whatever. You asked for it, you got it.

 

[mjd1982]

??

Yes. If you were around in the mid 1990's, and in the military, as I was, and paying attention to the partisan squabbling over budget matters as the deficit was being roped and branded, you found that some Senators and Congressmen on both sides of the aisle had reservations about how deeply Paneta drove Clinton's wedge into the low slope drawdown of Powell's base force, and how rapidly the slope of drawdown increased beyond the initial Cheney / Bush drawdown initiated in late 89/early 90.

The theme was "Defense budget cut was too deep, need to recapitalize or we will have a hollow force." PNAC was not alone in agreeing with that. Their paper is not evidence of a plot, but a reflection of a widely held opinion that Clinton had gone overboard on cuts, while at the same time increasing the wear and tear on operating forces with frivolous deployments to places like Bosnia. If you note the process they undertook to write the piece, they consulted a host of military and defense experts while doing their analysis.

I'm sorry, I presume you have not been on this thread before, but i will state my position pretty clearly on RAD since there appear to be crossed wires here.

The RAD document illustrates that PNAC, composed significantly of members who were to assume important positions in the Bush admin on and up to 911, deemed a catastrophic and catalysing even, a new PH, to be propitious to policy, that policy of military radicalisation as outlined in RAD. This policy is now, to an overwhelmingly accurate degree, now being pursued under the banner of the WOT. I do not state that RAD constitutes a plan; it merely gives us a framework within which to analyse the behaviour of Bush et al in the lead up to 911, given that they had deemed such an even to be propitious.

Given your position that the Pearl Harbor illustration was evidence of a plan, rather than a piece of political analysis of what it takes to get America on a war footing, I find your position unsupported by anything other than a post hoc rationalization. If you read the report from front to back, the tone is hardly one of hopeful anticipation of a new Pearl Harbor event.

as above

Given that I was someone who disagreed completely with the idea of the US continuing to play "world's policeman" while maggots at the UN cried about dues, and when we undertook multi billion dollar operations in Africa for "no credit to peacekeeping funds," I have no desire to defend PNAC's vision of a more vigorous engagement policy. I considered it ill advised when it came out, and was far more interested in a "let them play" policy that allowed civil wars to run their course, as America's civil war was allowed to run its course with little interference from foreign powers.

Again, the PNAC initial statement of principal was in 1997, and the RAD paper was begun in 1998.

(Signed by the usual suspects: Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz)

right...

I have not ruled out, in my own mind, the low probability chance that a deliberate indifference/negligence was undertaken as a matter of policy vis a vis terrorist and criminal activity. Much of my evidence for this is indirect, the well known complaints of Scheuer and Clarke, and others, about issues being brought up and not acted on between January and Sept of 2001.

I can't prove it, but I can't rule it out completely. Given that the evidence is locked inside the intentions of policy makers at a very high level, I don't expect to be able to dig it out, seeing as how this indifference/negligence would be grounds for serious charges regarding 9-11 events. No one who knows is going to talk anyway, out of fear. I wonder at the utility of this "independent" investigation you suggest. Who is going to make anyone talk? Notice how they lawyered up over the Plame case?

Ok, so you state that it may have been an inside job, but because an independent investigation might be too hard, you dont support it?

Please don't try to put words into my mouth. Thanks. Where did I ever say I don't support such an investigation? I note that the official 9-11 investigation chaired by Lehman was beset by the contamination of political agendas.

Ok good! Well seeing as a CTer can be broadly defined as someone who thinks there is sufficient evidence of gov comlicity in 911 to warrant a new independent investigation into such, would you thus be a CTer?

Since you have built your house on sand, that the Pearl Harbor reference was a sign of intent, rather than analysis, I find it hard to find this objection credible.

as above, no i dont think that

The base motivation for the position paper was made public in 1997-1998 in the statement of principles. The RAD paper represented a detailed elaboration on the original theme, based on research begun in 1998, and published after a long process in 2000.

From PNAC's own words. 1998. The opportunity referred to was "being the sole superpower" and all that rot.

Right. A theme regarding US strategy. And in terms of the new PH line, who knows when that was mooted?

Yet they refer to Pearl Harbor also in the Naval Strategy section:
In PNACspeak:

Absent a rigorous program of experimentation to investigate the nature of the revolution in military affairs as it applies to war at sea, the Navy might face a future Pearl Harbor – as unprepared for war in the post-carrier era as it was unprepared for war at the dawn of the carrier age.

I dont see what this has to do with anything, sorry

False dichomoty. You seem to ignore the context of the paper, to inform Presidential level policy making, which for their purposes, GOP, would be either one term or two: That's a 4 or 8 year time horizon, NOT "a few decades." The also discuss, in the body of the work, the lengthy procurement process that hampered "rapid" change, and "revolutions" in military affairs, a sound byte that ignores how military change is most often evolutionary, not revolutionary. Just because PNAC wanted the change to be fast does not mean such is possible, given Congressional processes.

The transformations they talk about implementing would take several decades to implement, according to them:

In general terms it seems likely that the
process of transformation will take several
decades

This two-stage process is likely to take
several decades.

Although it may take several decades
for the process of transformation to unfold,

The point about time horizon is very interesting. In realistic terms, yes, they only have 4/8 years to implement this transformation. But, the dastardly nature of the WOT is such that, as explained, it will persist beyond 2009, indeed indefinitely, as Terror can never be vanquished. If the batteries ever start to run thin, and US hegemony looks set to be threatened, all that needs to happen is another inside job attack, say pinned on Venezuelan terrorist, or Iranian, or whoever, and the WOT starts up all over again, This is how a war can last forever, despite its initiators and founding ideologues only being around for 4 or 8 years. This is why the WOT makes no sense; even if 911 wasnt an inside job, they could have called it a War on AQ, or a War on Jihadist Terrorism. The WOT is so flexible and regenerative, that it is the perfect construct, political and not media, note that, to ensure the sustenance of US hegemony through military means throughout the 21st century, just as PNAC has set out to achieve.

In any event, your demand is irrelevant. The broad strategy for transformation was spelled out as a strategy, in language consistent with the mid to long term timelines consistent with procurement programs. The tone of the entire paper reflects that. Your cherry picking is an attempt to present a different tone.

Yes, but as pointed out to you before, and at length in post 493, it makes little sense to believe other than that the originators would have wanted the change to happen sooner rather than later.

Pearl Harbor was mentioned twice, in two different contexts. In both cases, it was to use a historical example of either mobilization of public will, or of Naval Forces improperly configured to handle a new style of warfare. (Which was a bogus reference, since Billy Mitchell had already demonstrated the vulnerability of ships to aircraft in the late 1920's. )

Right, which is more or less my point.

I spent 25 years as a Navy pilot and later on, staff officer.

All of them, but in particular UAV's, whose origins go back to the DASH of the 1960's. Stryker was already in the pipe. JSF was already in the pipe. F-22. V-22. Nothing significantly new has hit the battlefield since 2000 beyond advantages accrued by increased processing power, and continual improvements in C2 capability, that I can discuss in a non classified environment. You can call the proliferation of small UAV's in Iraq at the tactical level an evolutionary change that was, again, in the pipe in the 1990's as part of Force XXI.

A variety of innovations in EW I am not at liberty to discuss. Sorry. I signed the NDA's,l and unlike Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage, I give a crap about OPSEC. Still.

Since your sole point seems to be "Pearl Harbor" there isn't much to contest, other than your attempt to spread misunderstanding of a strategy proposal. You will note that the CV elimination, and JSF elimination, did not happen for the usual Congressional/political/Pentagon reasons: not everyone agreed with this Brave New World of the PNAC folks, who tended toward silver bullet advocacy: Neither in Congress, nor in the Military.

As I have said many times, RAD is a strategy proposal, one that will ~save the world for America; it is inexplicable that initiators of such would want such an occurence to wait awhile and then hope someone else would implement it; or that they would not want such to be implemented as firmly and as quickly as possible.

BFD. In a war, end strength rises less than two percent. How is that significant?

Lol, this is exaclty the point! They wanted the end strength to go up, and a war would spur that change!

It was an opporunity to weight the US Forces more toward Light and SOF, until Iraq was invaded. Had the WoT remained just that, and an Afghan nation building exercise at the same time, you might have had a point, as Rummy's obsession with SOF and tech would have had lots of space on his point papers and procurement priorities. By taking on Iraq, the cruel reality of full spectrum warfare, and the inherently human nature of war, returned to the fore, and quite frustrated Rummy's attempt to transform the military.

Hence, maybe, why he was replaced. Nonetheless, many of the elements of the WOT, outlined many times already, have been pursued under the aegis of this war, Iraq or no Iraq.

In the language of the 1990's defense thinking, extra national political entities who use armed force, and the threat of armed force, to achieve a political end.

What is your definition of a terrorist?

I wouldnt go along with "extra national" at all; if a government blows up a civilian building/plane, this is terrorism too.

Except that you ignore the other use of Pearl Harbor, in the completely Naval context, and show that your cherry picking is simply that: grasping at straws.

The fact that PH is mentioned in another context in the doc is completely meaningless; what is your point?

Mission Enemy Terrain Troops - Time

Conceptual framework for "what situation am I in, what is on hand to solve it, and how much time do I have." Military jargon, sorry.

That is your post hoc reading into the document.

No its not. As I have said before, if you want to argue that the neo cons wanted this change that would in their eyes, secure US hegemony for the century to come, to happen slowly, rather than as soon as would be possible and feasible, then i think you have some work to do. Just because we are after the event, you cannot just throw the term "post hoc" at any efforts to use RAD as evidence.

Pearl Harbor was used to illustrate, as a threshold, given the political climate of the US in the late 1990's, and Viet Nam as a marker, how big an event had to happen for the American public to back a significant defense build up in the short term.

Correct! And hence how such would be propitous to policy. Where is the problem here? I cant see whats so hard to understand.

The problem is, there is little evidence of funding going to transformative change, but an immense amount of men and material and wealth being expended on a war that has, once again, hampered Rummy's desired transformation.

Again a matter of execution, rather than design; though I would like to see the specific figures, since I cannot believe that significant amounts arent going into the other programmes mentioned here so far.

They are not, the war in Iraq is, but those features were all part and parcel of the Clinton era defense policies, absent some of the detail on space mmilitarization IIRC. I'd have to reference some old papers on international space agreements to discuss the details, but that is rather off topic to your contention, that Pearl Harbor as an illustration is evidence of much of anything.

It is evidence of propitiousness to policy, nothing more for the moment.

I know that such policies had been mooted under Clinton.

Not quite. It was published in 2000, the project was begun in 1998, so 1998/1999 is the contemporary political context.

Ok, or 99/200

No duh, it was like stating that Texas is next to Mexico. Viet Nam for fifty, Alex, though PNAC was somewhat wrong. The Kuwait/Iraq War of 1990-1991 did not require a Pearl Harbor.

I cant make head or tail of that post im afraid

But the war has not demonstrably sped those changes. Rummy tried to do this on the cheap crap, tech heavy, troop light, and it bloody well didn't work. He wanted to reduce the CV frce, and cancel JSF. DID NOT HAPPEN. Do you notice results much? The Army and Marines are bellowing for more troops, not less, as the transformative model demands.

But we are agreed it should. And the reason for the PH statement is to illustrate that reality, which you have mentioned yourself. This is the point; the execution is irrelevant, particularly under this bunch of bumblers.

Again, it does not necessarily follow that this outcome was intended. The Pearl Harbor example was, in analysis, an event that would make easier a re prioritizing of money to the defense budget, which otherwise, as noted in the body of the paper, would take the usual tooth pulling and hard work of the normal peacetime Congressional/political process.

Hence why it would be propitious to policy. Are we agreed?

Wrong! It is an example of US Foreign Policy, and security posture, since the end of WW II.

DR

In a broad sense yes, but as it was called for in PNAC, and is being done under the Global Posture Review, it is an example of one part of the WOT.

In short, you seem to agree that a new PH would speed the changes, as military changes in a wartime environment are a lot easier to implement than in peacetime. Are you stating that even taking this ease into account, PNAC would rather such changes be pursued in peacetime? I think if you are serious, you do not, and if you do not, you must agree with my assertion that a new PH was deemed propitious to policy. Further, I am not sure that you are too far away from a CT position, given your comments on LIHOP; maybe you can inform me on this.

 

[aggle-rithm]

where has this happened?

From the first five pages of this thread:

Right, so you have just lied through your teeth. No surprise there. Why do you waste your time here?

This has been outlined to you in pretty plain english, and in great detail. Why have you ignored these issues? Pray tell.

ETA: And since you, apparently, don't read very well:



This shouldnt have been too hard, to read, or to understand.

Oh, sorry, hahaha, yep there it is. That's some grade A debunking. Well done!

For anyone who has a serious point to make in response to my points on Gravy's "critique", I look forward to reading it.

So, well done on your diligence, but the majority of the links you have provided are utterly irrelevant, and the one that is has had all its points, brainless though they are, addressed by me.

Ok, you did! Then, quite simply, you have some pretty severe comprehension problems.
...................
You might wanna sit the next few out my friend.

Please dont post to me again until you start doing some research.

What an excellent command of rhetoric you have. You would have noticed, wereyour reading comp skills above that of a 7 year old......

Ahhh... how true. What a fine intellectual specimen you are proving yourslef to be! Keep it up!

.................

You are a charmingly empty headed one, no?

Oh, and one other thing- HeyLeroy, though I am impressed at your use of a big word like cartography, please learn to read maps before typing it.

 

[HeyLeroy]

I'm bowing out of this one.

mjd1982, the blatant dishonesty inherent in your racism/bigotry accusations shines the harsh light of reality on your underhanded tactics. You're not really interested in honest debate, you're much more interested in 'winning' at any cost. I won't be able to continue in this thread and at the same time abide by the rules of civility.

Someone PM me if he ever makes it around to his crack-pot views on 7WTC.

HeyLeroy out.

 

[MIKILLINI]

Welcome to the new angle, DR, of twoofer circular reasoning.

It's WOCS; War On Common Sense. It's long, drawn out and protracted. Designed to exasperate the persons senses from all the excessive insensible nonsense thereby rendering people to a "Whatever" statement making the CTer believe they had convinced same exasperated person to agree with them.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Clinton had gone overboard on cuts, while at the same time increasing the wear and tear on operating forces with frivolous deployments to places like Bosnia.

"Frivolous"?

 

[Belz...]

Good. So you agree that taking one stereotypical view of a group, and applying it to all members of such group, is racist and thus inadmissible to serious debate.

I hope you will refrain from using such tactics again.

Dear MJD, please read the following VERY carefully:

In the post you were answering to, I was attempting to make you understand the meaning of the Afghan claim by using an analogy. Specifically, I meant to explain to you that if you don't verify a claim, you cannot say whether it is true or not, and therefore you cannot claim that it is a racial slur.

Your post above merely confirms what I've suspected since the OP; namely that you cannot interpret what you read. It is obvious that you either did not read my post, did not understand what it meant, or simply ignored its content.

Such an attitude towards other people's statements make it impossible to engage in a debate with you, since the only voice you are hearing is your own.

They would be unlikely to do this, since thy are a reputable publication.

Circular reasoning.

If LIHOP is the case, then 911 was an inside job

You don't understand the meaning of the word "LET" ? That's hardly surprising.

Mjd, you should take my advice and take English lessons. Your ability to understand what you read is laughable.

 

[tsig]

I'm sorry, I presume you have not been on this thread before, but i will state my position pretty clearly on RAD since there appear to be crossed wires here.

The RAD document illustrates that PNAC, composed significantly of members who were to assume important positions in the Bush admin on and up to 911, deemed a catastrophic and catalysing even, a new PH, to be propitious to policy, that policy of military radicalisation as outlined in RAD. This policy is now, to an overwhelmingly accurate degree, now being pursued under the banner of the WOT. I do not state that RAD constitutes a plan; it merely gives us a framework within which to analyse the behaviour of Bush et al in the lead up to 911, given that they had deemed such an even to be propitious.



as above



right...



Ok, so you state that it may have been an inside job, but because an independent investigation might be too hard, you dont support it?



Ok good! Well seeing as a CTer can be broadly defined as someone who thinks there is sufficient evidence of gov comlicity in 911 to warrant a new independent investigation into such, would you thus be a CTer?



as above, no i dont think that



Right. A theme regarding US strategy. And in terms of the new PH line, who knows when that was mooted?



I dont see what this has to do with anything, sorry



The transformations they talk about implementing would take several decades to implement, according to them:







The point about time horizon is very interesting. In realistic terms, yes, they only have 4/8 years to implement this transformation. But, the dastardly nature of the WOT is such that, as explained, it will persist beyond 2009, indeed indefinitely, as Terror can never be vanquished. If the batteries ever start to run thin, and US hegemony looks set to be threatened, all that needs to happen is another inside job attack, say pinned on Venezuelan terrorist, or Iranian, or whoever, and the WOT starts up all over again, This is how a war can last forever, despite its initiators and founding ideologues only being around for 4 or 8 years. This is why the WOT makes no sense; even if 911 wasnt an inside job, they could have called it a War on AQ, or a War on Jihadist Terrorism. The WOT is so flexible and regenerative, that it is the perfect construct, political and not media, note that, to ensure the sustenance of US hegemony through military means throughout the 21st century, just as PNAC has set out to achieve.



Yes, but as pointed out to you before, and at length in post 493, it makes little sense to believe other than that the originators would have wanted the change to happen sooner rather than later.



Right, which is more or less my point.



As I have said many times, RAD is a strategy proposal, one that will ~save the world for America; it is inexplicable that initiators of such would want such an occurence to wait awhile and then hope someone else would implement it; or that they would not want such to be implemented as firmly and as quickly as possible.



Lol, this is exaclty the point! They wanted the end strength to go up, and a war would spur that change!



Hence, maybe, why he was replaced. Nonetheless, many of the elements of the WOT, outlined many times already, have been pursued under the aegis of this war, Iraq or no Iraq.



I wouldnt go along with "extra national" at all; if a government blows up a civilian building/plane, this is terrorism too.



The fact that PH is mentioned in another context in the doc is completely meaningless; what is your point?



No its not. As I have said before, if you want to argue that the neo cons wanted this change that would in their eyes, secure US hegemony for the century to come, to happen slowly, rather than as soon as would be possible and feasible, then i think you have some work to do. Just because we are after the event, you cannot just throw the term "post hoc" at any efforts to use RAD as evidence.



Correct! And hence how such would be propitous to policy. Where is the problem here? I cant see whats so hard to understand.



Again a matter of execution, rather than design; though I would like to see the specific figures, since I cannot believe that significant amounts arent going into the other programmes mentioned here so far.



It is evidence of propitiousness to policy, nothing more for the moment.

I know that such policies had been mooted under Clinton.



Ok, or 99/200



I cant make head or tail of that post im afraid



But we are agreed it should. And the reason for the PH statement is to illustrate that reality, which you have mentioned yourself. This is the point; the execution is irrelevant, particularly under this bunch of bumblers.



Hence why it would be propitious to policy. Are we agreed?



In a broad sense yes, but as it was called for in PNAC, and is being done under the Global Posture Review, it is an example of one part of the WOT.

In short, you seem to agree that a new PH would speed the changes, as military changes in a wartime environment are a lot easier to implement than in peacetime. Are you stating that even taking this ease into account, PNAC would rather such changes be pursued in peacetime? I think if you are serious, you do not, and if you do not, you must agree with my assertion that a new PH was deemed propitious to policy. Further, I am not sure that you are too far away from a CT position, given your comments on LIHOP; maybe you can inform me on this.

Boring.

 

[Cuddles]

Man, I'm away for a couple of weeks and you're still talking about PNAC and Pearl Harbour? I'll repeat what I said before.

According to this source spending is currently estimated at about 3.4% of GDP. In 1997 when the statement was published spending was at 3.3% of GDP. Is this really what you consider a massive increase in spending that could only be brought about by a major attack on the US? To contrast this with previous spending, until 1995 the defence budget had not dropped below 4% since 1948. So apparently PNAC orchestrated 11/9 in order to maintain military spending at the lowest level since the end of WWII.

Seriously, please give up with this argument now. You have not just been proven wrong, this entire line of attack involving the PNAC proves your whole argument utterly nonsensical. PNAC did not say they want a new Pearl Harbour, they did not get a new Pearl Harbour and they didn't even get what they said would happen if a new Pearl Harbour had actually happened. No motive, no opportunity and no result. Possibly the most ineffective conspiracy ever. In fact, it's almost as though the conspiracy didn't actually exist.

PNAC did not say they wanted a new Pearl Harbour. They said something on the scale of Pearl Harbour would have to happen for massive changes in the military to happen quickly. This does not mean that they want this to happen.

A new Pearl Harbour did not happen. A military attack by military forces on a military base with a military objective as part of a military war is not even close to the same thing as a civilian attack on civilians with a political objective. Terrorism is not the same thing as war.

The supposd objectives that would be achieved by a new Pearl Harbour did not happen. As demonstrated by the figures I have once again quoted, military spending has remained at its lowest level since the end of WWII.

Seriously mjd, please just stop spouting such utter nonsense. PNAC didn't want Pearl Harbour, they didn't get Pearl Harbour and they didn't get anything that might have happened with a new Pearl Harbour. You have nothing.

 

[Belz...]

PNAC did not say they wanted a new Pearl Harbour. They said something on the scale of Pearl Harbour would have to happen for massive changes in the military to happen quickly. This does not mean that they want this to happen.

Of course they did, Cuddles. That's why they used the word "even"

 

[mjd1982]

From the first five pages of this thread:

Sorry mate, I have sympathy for your situation, but these are neither "sniping" nor "cowardly".

 

[mjd1982]

You have not answered my questions.

1 - Who are "the most reputable journalists in the US", and how is this determined?

2 - Who are the specific journalists you're referring to who "confirmed" this?
2.1 - And links to where they confirmed same.

3 - Why haven't we seen this documentation to back up his claims?

1. By repute
2. Cockburn and St Clair, [url="http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html"the link[/url] has been provided 1000 times, do keep up
3. Journalists dont include links to offline documentation in their articles

 

[mjd1982]

From your article, Mohabbat's allegations:


So, are you still claiming the Clinton administration (Clinton, Albright, Berger, Clarke) was completely unaware of this offer? How can that be?

(Unless, of course, the offer DIDN'T EXIST )

The vague offer to have OBL dealt with, occurring at the end of the Clinton admin, may have been something they were aware of; maybe not. Millam has not come out, in the last 2 1/2 years, to denounce this claim; neither have the NSC. What they would not have been aware of, was the constant badgering of the government by Mohabbat et al, to do something about the Frankfurt deal, when concrete steps had been put in place to deal with it. This is because these were directed to Bush; hence why the article is targeted at Bush, not at Clinton.

Incidentally, you still have not dealt with the claim, put forward by some of your colleagues against my claim, that the Taliban offered to hand OBL to a US stacked court in Saudi. Please give an explanation as to why this would have been rejected, in addition to the above.