Thursday, September 30, 2010

CIA Analysts Shut Out on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern
September 30, 2010

Thumbing through Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, I should not have been surprised that the index lacks any entry for “intelligence.”

Read on.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the question is why?

Why wasn't an NIE done?

I can speculate, but I don't have your insider analytical skills, intelligence or instincts.

From where I'm viewing this unfold (clear across the country on the left coast), everything about this presidential administration and Congress screams, "Why bother? There's no doubt we're remaining in both Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and who knows where else, and all that an NIE will do is raise doubts about the wisdom of that and cause more public unrest."

I'd love to hear Ray McGovern's speculation about why neither Congress nor the President wanted an NIE.

Thu Sep 30, 08:40:00 PM 2010
OLIVE GROVE BOOKS said...

NEW YORK - THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY, a genre spy-thriller by Robert Spirko, was fourth on the best-seller list at Atlasbooks, Inc., a national book distributor, and at Amazon.com.
“Everyone tells me there will never be peace in the Middle East, but I tell them they are wrong. Israel and Egypt have had a peace treaty for 31 years. Jordan and Israel signed a peace agreement 16 years ago. A Palestinian State can be created. It can be done and it will be done,” Spirko reiterates. “Thirty-one years of peace is better than 31 years of war.”
“We’re not talking about a serpent-tongued, false prophet who will negotiate this peace between Israel and the Islamists, it will be done by a U.S. president and those parties involved in the peace process who will finally achieve it through hard work, tough compromises, and by making specific decisions fair to both sides to agree to end the violence once-and-for-all – by those leaders who want a future for their children,” Spirko says.
“Besides, Israel wants a Palestinian state now, too. And, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are supporting it.”
Spirko's key ideas at the 2000 Camp David Peace Talks were to make Jerusalem the simultaneous capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state with congruent borders - one precisely overlapping the other - using two maps - one for the Palestinian state and one for Israel. The city would become an international, undivided open city for people of all religions to visit and the municipality would be governed by a city council of equal Palestinians and Jews with God, Allah or Jehovah as the central sovereign. The Knesset and Palestinian authority would then govern their respective states from that dual capital. In effect, Jerusalem would become a governing district much like the District of Columbia in Washington, D. C. This idea won traction at the 2000 Camp David Peace Talks and was virtually agreed upon, but where the talks broke down and failed was when both sides capitulated to pressures from their own political factions over right of return and reparations. Mr. Spirko has an idea to solve that problem also.
Spirko states, "The chief threat in the region I see right now is the threat to Saudi Arabia by Iran and Al Qaeda. If Al Qaeda were to overthrow the present royal family in Saudi Arabia or attack the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off the oil supply to western nations including Japan and China, it would bring down entire world economies."
“Another looming concern is Iran which wants to develop nuclear weapons to couple with their Shahab 4, 5 & 6 missiles on the drawing boards which have a range to hit London, Israel, all of Europe, southern Russia and the United States. Also, the Iranian government has said it initially had 300 centrifuges to enrich uranium to weapons grade material. They have increased that to 3,000. They will soon increase that again to 10,000 centrifuges,” Spirko says. “They have the additional capacity to add another 20,000 centrifuges in mass production techniques that will enable them to produce at least seven nuclear bombs in about a year. Another point Spirko makes on the Mideast is that, “It is time for the Israelis and Palestinians to return to the Peace Talks, resume where they left off and "freeze in place" the already-agreed-upon negotiating points,” Spirko says.
"And, it's all related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which I said back in 1987 was the crux of my book. It always has been, and always will be until it's settled,” Spirko says. “That linkage is exactly what Osama Bin Laden stated in a taped message aired the weekend before the election in November of 2004, and again just recently. Whether you believe him or not is beside the point. That's what's he told us, and we'd better take that into account."

Thu Sep 30, 10:13:00 PM 2010

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