Mike Vickers is a busy man
Please see this must-read article in today’s Washington Post on what Mr. Michael Vickers is up to these days. The answer, it seems, it just about everything, when it comes to current U.S. military operations and planning.
Michael Vickers is the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict & Interdependent Capabilities). He is also the legendary Special Forces and CIA case officer who managed the U.S. paramilitary support operation in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the largest covert action in CIA history.
According to the Washington Post article, Mr. Vickers’s current responsibilities include planning America’s global counter-terrorism campaign, retooling U.S. conventional forces for the future, and planning the modernization of U.S. nuclear forces and strategies. With such an expansive portfolio of duties, one wonders what the rest of the Pentagon does all day.
Mr. Vickers is a highly experienced veteran of both covert operations and Washington intrigue. It is thus interesting that he granted this interview to the Washington Post. Usually nothing but trouble follows in the wake of these stories. On this point, I’ll have to assume that Mr. Vickers has yet another plan brewing.
Michael Vickers is the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict & Interdependent Capabilities). He is also the legendary Special Forces and CIA case officer who managed the U.S. paramilitary support operation in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the largest covert action in CIA history.
According to the Washington Post article, Mr. Vickers’s current responsibilities include planning America’s global counter-terrorism campaign, retooling U.S. conventional forces for the future, and planning the modernization of U.S. nuclear forces and strategies. With such an expansive portfolio of duties, one wonders what the rest of the Pentagon does all day.
Mr. Vickers is a highly experienced veteran of both covert operations and Washington intrigue. It is thus interesting that he granted this interview to the Washington Post. Usually nothing but trouble follows in the wake of these stories. On this point, I’ll have to assume that Mr. Vickers has yet another plan brewing.
posted by Westhawk at 10:56 AM
2 Comments:
Comes across as another Washington idiot feeding at the fire hose of $$ being wasted on the "war on terror".
The article says, “Today Vickers's plan to build a global counterterrorist network is …. focused on a list of 20 "high-priority" countries, with Pakistan posing a central preoccupation for Vickers…. The list also includes Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Yemen, Somalia and Iran, and Vickers hints that some European countries could be on it. Beyond that, the plan covers another 29 "priority" countries, as well as "other countries" that Vickers does not name.”
Washington’s approach to the Islamic world seems to be military force (vis-à-vis Iraq, Somalia, Hamas); military dictatorship (vis-à-vis Pakistan, Israeli control over Palestine); and no compromise (vis-à-vis Hezballah, Hamas, Islamic Courts Union, Iran). Is this approach working or do we need a fundamentally different way of behaving toward the world?
If an organization exists that wants to create a war of civilizations between Islam and the West, then it will thrive in Moslem societies that have been wrecked and perceive the West to be responsible. A vacuum exists in such societies – a solution vacuum, a social services vacuum, a security vacuum. If these vacuums are not filled by responsible, caring government, they will be filled by extremists. War just makes the vacuums larger and more vulnerable to extremist pressure.
In the modern, highly connected, and highly ideological world, war between the West and Moslem societies aggravates the problems Western proponents of violence claim to be resolving. War breeds extremism.
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