"Petraeus and Panetta: Foiled at the Start." According to this article, both of them

[Cal33]

will be facing unending opposition not only from the CIA and the Pentagon, but also
from both the Repubs. and Dems. of Congress. The CIA is said to have more internal
factions and "tribes" squabbling and fighting among themselves than the Afghans do.

Obama's order of some two years ago concerning the investigation of how our various
intelligence agencies are doing their jobs, and how to improve them, is getting
nowhere at all. The various internal factions are each going their own way.

This reminds me of what had been said about WWII. If our army and navy had been
more cooperative with each other, and there had been less of the jealous internal
friction between them, WWII could have ended at least 6 months earlier, saving
the lives of many thousands of our own soldiers and sailors.

It all sounds so self-defeating! Do we ever get over our own childish
selfishness, and are we capable at all of learning from past mistakes? Are
we doomed to keep on making the same mistakes for ever and ever?

http://2012indyinfo.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/petraeus-and-panetta-foiled-at-the-start/

[dkf]

1. I think this goes to how little power the top really has.

All the organizations have their own resistant structures which makes things amazingly inefficient.

Probably the only leverage they have are the purse strings.

[Cal33]

4. Yes, I agree. I've always thought the oft-repeated statement that the American

president was "the most powerful man in the world" an over-exaggerated
hyperbole of American journalism. It's pure BS.

[Angry Dragon]

2. I feel that most problems in politics today could be solved

by using some basic rules:

1. follow the money
2. off with their heads
3. to the stocks with them

[Cal33]

8. These basic rules of solving problems sound very much like the ones

the Neocons and Teabaggers love to use. :)

[Cal33]

14. These rules seem to be the ones the Neocons and Teabaggers

normally use. They're right up their alley.

[pretzel4gore]

3. Doesn't anyone realize the 'Cold war' and Iron Curtain were

rightwing ruling class tricks used to cause USSR to go bankrupt fighting US (after losing 20 million people/$128 billion in WW2 fighting against HITLER)? To think the reactionary right is in any way honourable is to overlook so many facts- the 'Berlin Wall' was put up in 1961 during JFK admin to stop Germans in USSR part of 'allied control zone' (Germany under allied governance) from going west and taking everything not nailed down? Look in dictionary and you see 'EAST' and 'WEST' Germany never even existed until 1970- 25 years AFTER WW2 over, yet we engaged in an undeclared 'cold war' against our own allies! Even the term 'Cold war', wasn't that a way to avoid involving western militaries in real shooting war against an enemy which the western soldiers actually admired until a generation of anti communist propaganda turned them...blah blah blah.
The lies are so vast it is scary....911 might well have been an inside job, just like JFK murder obviously was (the rightwing even makes movies about the conspiracy)

[Cal33]

5. Humans have 7,000 years of written history. During that time, there

have been only some 250 years where there had been no major war going on somewhere on this planet of ours.

The reason is always the same: The most selfish, greedy, conscienceless and aggressively ambitious
people are usually the ones who get to the top of the heap. A high percentage of royalty were sociopaths.
In the first 6,750 years they were the kings and emperors of the nations of the world.

Our nation was the first to start the world's modern democracy. Most of the rest of the world found
domocracy fascinating, and followed suit. But, being human, things began to degenerate with time.
Where can the seats of money and power be found today? In business corporations and politics. So
present-day sociopaths and Al Capones can be found in concentrated numbers in these two institutions.

And that's why wars are still going on, and always will. Sociopaths, by nature, gravitate to positions of
money and power, where they think they have the best chances of satisfying their lust for them. But
they're mistaken, of course. Their lust can never be satisfied. They'll always want more. We have
7,000 years of history to prove that their lust is not satisfiable.

Sociopaths make up only about 2% of the world's general population, but they cause at least 90% of the
world's problems. A mighty little atom, eh? -- as far as trouble-making is concerned, anyway.

[tritsofme]

6. Wow, a Soviet apologist.

Haven't seen one of those in a while. Make sure to send my regards to Uncle Joe.

[pretzel4gore]

7. you're a member of doomed species

living on a dying planet. Maybe a little truth would have saved the tens of $ trillions wasted stopping humanity from fixing up the problems besetting us last hundred years, instead of throwing a fortune away fighting 'cold wars' against our wartime allies....btw, did anyone ever vote for the 'cold war'? And if we caused the Iron Curtain (by using nukes on defeated Japan in '45 and scaring USSR armies into remaining in Europe though they could not afford it- much less afford the rebuilding costs for postwar East Europe!)...if WE were cause of Iron Curtain, and USSR was the victim, doesn't that disturb you? The USSR collapsed nearly 20 years ago now. And the USA today is almost totally reactionary rightwing ....The revolution ended with the USSR, forever...see 'communist' China, or Vietnam, if you don't believe that.

[tritsofme]

12. These silly little theories are just as wacky now as they were 30 years ago.

This was really a treat. Thanks!

[Odin2005]

10. Oh look, an unreconstructed Stalinist.

I bet you think Stalin was a saint, too. :eyes:

[tritsofme]

13. He was just misunderstood. Uncle Joe was really a swell guy you know!

[Odin2005]

9. The CIA higher-ups = WASP good-ol'-boys club.

[Cal33]

11. There are some 3 million Americans of Middle-East origin. I remember

reading that at the start of the Afghan/Iraq war, the CIA didn't have any
agents who could translate information and news from Arabic into English!
This was a self-made handicap!