doom and gloom
Mar. 15th, 2006 09:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaLast night Britt and I went to hear Bob Baer speak - he's the former CIA agent who wrote See No Evil, the book that the movie Syriana was based on (and we bought it and got it signed - I'm about 3 chapters in), and he happens to live in Silverton, which is about 50 miles north of here. Totally excellent but kind of scary.
What he ended up doing was giving a brief outline of his life and work with the CIA, and then opening up to questions. The place (a small theater) was full, and most of the questions were thoughtful and informed - I have to say I am way proud of my community for having so many educated people who follow current events. The main things I came away from his talk with were:
- The CIA is practically obsolete right now, because the administration ignores their intelligence in favor of what they want to believe.
- Going to war in Iraq was an incredibly stupid move. If we pull out now there will likely be a civil war in which a million people will die. If we don't pull out now there will likely be a global war in which the shit will seriously hit the fan, possibly in a nuclear way. He sees the "Muslim Brotherhood" strengthened through Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan taking on Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and there's 70% of the world's oil, and the US can't cope with that. His recommendation: immediate pullout, and fund research into alternative fuel with the priority of a Manhattan Project.
- "Absolutely we were better off with Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq. People prefer tyranny to chaos."
- There is no "Iraqi Army." Plans to hand off power are bogus. He thinks Iraq should be split into 3 parts a la the partitioning of India, with Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish territories.
- Iran's president Ahmadinejad is a complete nutjob who believes in "the endtime", and our actions in Iraq have helped bring him to power. He's not going to stop until he gets nukes, and he's the kind of guy who would use them. So we're probably going to go to war in Iran, but that's a complex problem right now because we don't have the force to do it, they have a real army, and a lot of their nuclear facilities are e.g. in universities.
Anyway, it was fascinating, and Baer's an engaging speaker, but wow, there's a powder keg out there, which of course we were aware of, but it seems a bit distant when it's just what you read in the paper and in news magazines.
Therefore, I'm going skiing.
What he ended up doing was giving a brief outline of his life and work with the CIA, and then opening up to questions. The place (a small theater) was full, and most of the questions were thoughtful and informed - I have to say I am way proud of my community for having so many educated people who follow current events. The main things I came away from his talk with were:
- The CIA is practically obsolete right now, because the administration ignores their intelligence in favor of what they want to believe.
- Going to war in Iraq was an incredibly stupid move. If we pull out now there will likely be a civil war in which a million people will die. If we don't pull out now there will likely be a global war in which the shit will seriously hit the fan, possibly in a nuclear way. He sees the "Muslim Brotherhood" strengthened through Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan taking on Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and there's 70% of the world's oil, and the US can't cope with that. His recommendation: immediate pullout, and fund research into alternative fuel with the priority of a Manhattan Project.
- "Absolutely we were better off with Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq. People prefer tyranny to chaos."
- There is no "Iraqi Army." Plans to hand off power are bogus. He thinks Iraq should be split into 3 parts a la the partitioning of India, with Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish territories.
- Iran's president Ahmadinejad is a complete nutjob who believes in "the endtime", and our actions in Iraq have helped bring him to power. He's not going to stop until he gets nukes, and he's the kind of guy who would use them. So we're probably going to go to war in Iran, but that's a complex problem right now because we don't have the force to do it, they have a real army, and a lot of their nuclear facilities are e.g. in universities.
Anyway, it was fascinating, and Baer's an engaging speaker, but wow, there's a powder keg out there, which of course we were aware of, but it seems a bit distant when it's just what you read in the paper and in news magazines.
Therefore, I'm going skiing.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-15 04:42 pm (UTC)I think we will pull out. And let it go to shit. Kind of what Israel did with the West Bank. the ole 'um, ok, you can have it!" move.
War with Iran will come so quick we have time to protest.
Wish I could join y'all on the slopes, it's been 3 years and I still haven't skiied (the $100 tab for lift+rental sorta of scares me)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-16 02:49 am (UTC)The thing is, it would go to shit without our help. But we've provided all sorts of weapons...
We got weekday passes this year, and bought gear at the Hesperus ski swap. So it's not too bad!
whoops
Date: 2006-03-15 04:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-15 05:17 pm (UTC)But Iran says they are not trying to get nukes. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-16 03:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-15 07:19 pm (UTC)I'm sympathetic to this point of view for a number of reasons, but I'm at a loss to figure how it would happen. My impression (from reading and hearing a number of news sources) is that partitioning the Shia from the Sunni would be nasty because of the number of places where they more or less cohabit and because of some Rwanda/Burundi-style tensions where the minority suppressed the majority for so long there won't be anything like stability post-partition until there have been waves of reprisals.
And Turkey isn't exactly warm to the idea of there being a Kurdistan anywhere, since it has its own Kurdish minority along the border with Iraq which would undoubtedly agitate to join without migrating.
I don't see a path to partition that doesn't involve one and possibly two civil wars.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-16 03:15 am (UTC)Then again, India and Pakistan have been simmering at each other ever since their partition. And Israel's steps toward creation of a Palestinian state haven't slowed the violence there either. None of this happens easily, it seems. /platitude
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-21 11:15 pm (UTC)I love this. Can any of us cite ANYTHING the CIA has gotten right, in say, the last 10 or 15 years? Either intelligence or analysis may be submitted; ANYTHING in either category will be acceptable. They have been superlative only for leakages, so presumably if they had a success (again, the judges will accept entries in either category) we would have had it emblazoned in all the papers.
I put them in the same category as the UN. Disband and re-start from scratch. It couldn't hurt.