NO April Fool

Nor limited to Just Foreign Policy. Nor flight of fancy.

While I have yet to absorb the second link, I have clicked yes on the first. Here are two more that I unembed.(Hawks and Doves)

For now, down periscope, as I submerge for more local events.

Meta4who?

Sounds familiar if not on this blog.

Hail to the Troops!

Iraqi Exit Bracketed.
Mission Accomplished Redux.
[Correction: pottery barn not bard but...
(8-19-10/continued) links added retro(per)spectively.]

A common thread

No Truman, No McArthur.
Rose Garden
Announcement
The Exit* Strategy?

* somewhere it is suggested that this was McChrystals exit strategy, and I would say one that furthers the President's Afghanistan Exit Strategy.

The Truman Crack? There are limits to what a President can do...legally, but too often politically as well.
[6-24-10 update ** Chain of Command and McChrystal(Military/**MSNBC/Grist)labels added and thread of BP or D-Day? or deeper Ctrl F ?]

Hardball

Follow-up to the Tool Shed 10 AM (PST)today:

Military style: Rumsfeld v. Gates
I don't know if I will find the quote but Rumsfeld noted his style of management as heated or open to heated dialogue. I will only contrast this with what I feel is a more healthy debate. Of course there is no debate as to whom is in charge. (Yeah right!) But I feel that reading between the lines is not so much the problem as actually reading some lines. The short answer? Not. I feel that the actual strategy may be not as much a push back to the administration but a pulling forward (see "shared responsibility) in support of a more robust change. It should also be realized just who are rationals actor and who are less so. I won't characterize any groups by even saying "them" or "us" but I mean those that see violence as the primary tool. And what is military strategy is no longer just in the shadows.
[footnote: chain of command ]

THIS AFTERNOON:
Maj. General Eaton: "healthy debate"[*]
White House Leaving Afghanistan not an option.

Not to mention:
the leak last month.
[*][6-24-10: McChrystal(Chain of Command) labels added]

Cost of Course

From no less than David S. Broder, no lefty
The costs of carrying on in Iraq and Lebanon
"The point is that history and economics have their own logic."

As Reagan would say: "There you go again." Well I use this to refer to my post which I just lost as time expired.
[NOTE: After doing all this work, a second time, I then notice that the lost post is up. LESSONS OF WAR. Sorry for the redundancy, and it is unedited, but I will leave it up as I must go off in another reality or discipline.] [a navigation aid: use CTRL F in these links to save "hard work".]

My point: Reality is about many disciplines, not just discipline. Hmmm, I've never been to the point before, maybe there is something to beginning from scratch.

In this case economics over just the economy. Work not just hard work.

Well this does not mean that I won't have tangents, in fact that is what linking the fields implies.

My second or original point, is that economics has more to do with history than winning. Actually I may be getting farther from the course I took in the lost post. But two examples are Vietnam and Afghanistan. We lost one and are losing the other. We are doing business with one and the other beat the Soviet Union, and we are still losing.

Then there is the "pottery store" or simple minded advice that still is in play and not fully understood.

This is where I have more experience that I even knew, forgetting that my first job was printing store signs. I also have wandered a few shops or two and feel that it was "You break it, you bought it." Doesn't that flow better both literally and economically. Despite the fact that it is not the Pottery Barn policy, it is ironic or not that Thomas Friedman is involved in this. Only a sloppy or slanted writer would confuse the credit to his words. As far as I can tell, the course often depends on reading signs. and getting their meaning straight. Owning something is a whole lot better sounding than whatever work it takes to get it.

I don't know if you get this sign but the post was a whole lot shorter and straighter than the one lost.

Maybe Woodward and Russert got it, but Powell probably used too many words for Bush. See Wikipedia
[8-19-10: labels and link added]

Lessons of War

From a less than left writer David S. Broder no less:
The costs of carrying on in Iraq and Lebanon
"The point is that history and economics have their own logic".

As noted before(I will have to find where)economics may be more a factor in history and war than winning. (Well, I never put it that way exactly.) There are those that ignore the importance of economics in reality(as in all the various fields or disciplines of study), but do tend to focus on just a winning economy. That may be a little closer to the point, and if not even less understood.

Here are two examples: a.) We are now doing business with Vietnam. Versus not with North Korea. b.) Reagan's words tore down the Berlin Wall, or Afghanistan broke the Soviet Union.

Again it may not be clear to those that see winning a military war as the only way to win. Money is power, but not everybody wins.

War is hard work. Peace is hard work. Facing realities is hard work.
Enough from me, before I give you more hard work.

By the way. "You break it, you bought it." comes to mind. Besides that fact that pottery bard[*] does not have that policy, I don't know if a point has been made that it is misquoted as "You break it, you own it".
{Use Ctrl f to find each quote in each article) Many do not want to face who pays.

[* 8-19-10] Noting typo