Letters to the Editor
The Mayaguez recapture was not ‘successful’
Brent Scowcroft was certainly the model of a fair-minded and judicious national security adviser, but it was wrong to say that the military recapture of the American merchant ship Mayaguez in 1975 was “successful.” Forty-one service members lost their lives in storming Koh Tang Island, where the Pentagon wrongly believed 39 crew members were being held.
Trump’s war on whistleblowers
Donald Trump, campaigning in Iowa in 2015, said that “I’ve had a lot of wars of my own. I’m really good at war.” For the past three years, we have witnessed Mr. Trump’s wars on governance, science, national security policy and public service. For the past several days, we have witnessed a new war — a war on whistleblowers that will make it particularly difficult for others to come forward in the future.
NY Times Letter to the Editor
The Democratic debates have virtually ignored numerous national security issues, particularly the bloated defense budget; the overzealous tempo of military deployments; the overabundant overseas bases; the unnecessary modernization of our nuclear weapons; and the troublesome decline of arms control and disarmament. The United States has become the dominant arms merchant in the international arena and has downplayed the important instrument of diplomacy.
Loyalist intelligence directors are a liability – Washington Post: Letter to the Editor
The July 29 front-page article “Coats to resign as spy chief” stated that intelligence directors have “not been such vocal political supporters of a president.” Well, President Ronald Reagan’s intelligence director was William J. Casey, who was a campaign manager for Reagan in 1980 and a zealous supporter of the president. As CIA director, Casey was responsible for the cherry-picking of intelligence on the Soviet Union that exaggerated the power and influence of Moscow and missed the decline and ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Casey example is an important reminder of the danger of appointing a loyalist such as Rep.?John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.) to be director of national intelligence.
Recent News and Latest Book
The Strategic Nightmare That Follows the “Forever War”
One of these days, the “forever war” between Russia and Ukraine will be over, and the serious challenge of dealing with the strategic triangularity of the United States, Russia, and China will begin. The Biden administration has complicated this task by pursuing a strategy of “dual containment,” believing that the United States can “contain” both Russia and China. Unlike the Soviet Union of the Cold War era, China cannot be “contained.” It is a global economic and political power as well as a formidable military power in the Indo-Pacific region.
When Difi Took on the CIA Over Torture
Very few senators have been willing to tackle the excesses within the intelligence community, but Senator Dianne Feinstein (D/CA) has been a heroic exception to that rule. Liberals and civic libertarians were a major part of Barack Obama’s constituency when he ran for president in 2008, and they had a right to expect his administration to investigate the CIA’s program of torture and abuse.
