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purplechoe
02-23-2010, 02:07 AM
http://FFF.org
http://Antiwar.com
http://CampaignForLiberty.com

Everyones talking about the political upset at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) over the weekend, where Ron Paul won the presidential straw poll.

A panel that wouldnt have been allowed at CPAC a few years ago was well-attended at this years conference: Youve Been Lied To: Why Real Conservatives are Against the War on Terror.

Co-sponsored by the Campaign for Liberty, Ladies of Liberty Alliance, and the Future of Freedom Foundation, it was attended by over 300 people. The speakers were: * Karen Kwiatkowski — retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel * Philip M. Giraldi — former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, current Francis Walsingham Fellow at The American Conservative Defense Alliance, and weekly columnist for Antiwar.com * Jacob Hornberger — founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation * Bruce Fein — former associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration

YouTube - Antiwar Panel at CPAC 2010 (Part 1 of 2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyRAFiSDvCE)

YouTube - Antiwar Panel at CPAC 2010 (Part 2 of 2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uExXVvud-ww)

purplechoe
02-23-2010, 03:43 AM
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski244.html


American Military Policy and the War on Terrorism

by Karen Kwiatkowski

This speech was part of a panel sponsored by the Future of Freedom Foundation, Campaign for Liberty and the Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA) held on February 20th at the 2010 CPAC. The panel presentation was titled "Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terror."

The phrase "war on terror" has been used to justify trillions of dollars in spending, hundreds of thousands of new government positions, and thousands of new government contracts. At the same time, the "war on terror" has produced very little in terms of new technology or enhanced security, has vastly increased the degree of national centralization, and has created many new permanent trees and branches in the gnarled world of federal and state institutions.

The Congressional Research Service reported in September 2009 the cost of the "War on Terror" since 9/11 at almost one trillion dollars. But they looked only at the cost of the three military operations launched in response to 9/11. They counted only the war in Afghanistan (9 years running), the war in Iraq (7 years running), and the overall effort to secure US military installations around the world – not our borders at home, but our forward deployed empire.

While it is very costly, in both dollars and in terms of rule of law, the war on terror is not a real war, in the sense that conservatives understand it. Yes, our nation was assaulted, and on 9/11, our nation was undefended and vulnerable. Our very expensive armed forces and our very expensive intelligence apparatus failed to prevent or to predict what happened on 9/11. A conservative reaction would have been to assess the situation from the perspective of what we had done or not done, as much as to seek to avenge the attack. A wise and thoughtful response would have been to unleash a criminal investigation, at home and internationally, and to pursue the perpetrators, as we examine the institutional failures and policies that made our country vulnerable.

Instead, even though we had a so-called conservative president, we did not proceed as conservatives. We did not hold accountable or fire anyone in our government, or our defense and intelligence institutions. We did not closely examine our own foreign policy or our extensive intelligence and military activities overseas, particularly the Middle East. We did not even devote sufficient time and energy to investigating the crimes committed and the people behind those crimes. Instead, our so-called conservative president, with the backing of so-called conservative people, reacted pretty much as that other party we have been rightfully criticizing here at this conference.

What we are talking about today is our reaction to 9/11 – because that is really what the war on terror has been – a reaction, not a strategy.

This reaction, like most poorly thought-out reactions, has been anything but conservative.

Furthermore, it has led to conditions and changes in this country that are anything but those a true conservative would desire or hope for: Massive growth in spending, new permanent and centralized government institutions, and worst of all, an incredibly stupid militarization of the pursuit of terror.

It is the stupidity in the strategy that I want to briefly review. And to do this, no one here needs to understand the least bit about military history, tactics and strategy. You do not need to know about the Chinese general Sun Tzu, because apparently no one leading the Pentagon is reading him.

Sun Tzu understood that understatement and deception is necessary in war.

He said, "Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate."

Instead, our approach has been to almost randomly identify countries and governments and very publicly, go after them. The only mystery of our military and foreign policy since 2001 is in the minds of the American people, who do not understand why the war isn’t won yet, and why the enemy seems to be expanding, getting smarter, and hating us more.

Sun Tzu said, "If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril." He was right about that – but in fact you wouldn’t know it from the obscene confidence and outright idiocy put out by the Pentagon, and eagerly embraced by two presidents, one a so-called conservative, the other, a left-wing socialist.

We – as conservatives – ought to care about getting back to an old kind of normal – not creating a new normal of unconstitutional government, unsupportable debt, and endless war. We should want victory in the "War on Terror" but understand that victory must include a return to small government republicanism. Sun Tzu wrote, "He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious."

But as I said, those creating, pursuing, advertising and selling the so-called War on Terror have not read Sun Tzu, and cannot be bothered.

Von Clausewitz is another strategist we study in the military finishing schools. One thing Clausewitz knew, that conservatives also know – is that, "The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they are embarking." But instead, we are still debating the question of "What is this war on terror?" More and more we are asking, why isn’t it working, and when will it end.

Instead of Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz our strategy has been more theatrics than tactics, and running on a script written by those who stand to benefit from more government, and more government spending, than those Americans who are fundamentally conservative and who in their hearts, do value the Constitution – which is to say – the majority of Americans.

From a Pentagon standpoint, it was fortunate that the Pentagon was one of the 9/11 targets. Had the Pentagon not been targeted, and had it emerged unscathed on 9/11, it is likely that serious questions would have been asked about why the premier and best-funded military, with the best and most highly funded intelligence agencies in the world, was a blind paralyzed sitting duck on 9/11.

Instead, no serious or probing questions were asked about the appropriateness of our massive military-industrial complex. After 9/11 the so-called conservatives in charge – instead of taking wise counsel – did what any decent Democrat would do. They threw unlimited piles of money at a largely undefined and misunderstood problem.

Some in the GOP are still wondering why the Tea Party movement evolved. Didn’t people already have a conservative political party representing their interests? Well, the GOP promotion of the war on terror using big contracts and bigger government, trampling the constitution, all in the name of fear and empire – none of this approach was conservative.

Beyond being anything but conservative, the war on terror as we have conducted it since 2001 is simply not succeeding. In many of our overseas battlefields, we are creating and growing new terrorists, and smarter terrorists. We are increasingly exposing our own weaknesses in terms of occupation and counterinsurgency, and even as we institutionally learn from our mistakes, it is always too slow, always after the fact.

We – as conservatives, no less – seem to be supporting a vague and extremely Clintonesque policy of global nation building. We keep hoping that putting another one of our crooked guys in charge of a country will work, and we keep hoping that military and economic blackmail can keep the locals in line. That’s just idiotic.

It may be that our military policy is not designed to reduce terror at all, but is instead simply designed to evolve hand-in-hand with the so-called "war on terror," in order to maximize the opportunity for growth of American intelligence and security institutions. Permanent institutional growth.

...continued at the above link...