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James Scaminaci III

@4GWDOTDOTDOT

8 Nov

@ForeignAffairs

The Inevitable Rivalry foreignaffairs.com/articles/china… via @ForeignAffairs Both articles in Foreign Affairs, by Giddis and this by Mearsheimer, leave unmentioned the role of business elites during a potential conflict or run-up to a conflict. M alludes to it. American capitalists are

2/ heavily invested in China. The PRC accounts for 28% of global manufacturing. Russia is not even in the top 10. During Cold War I, the US rigidly controlled technology transfers to the USSR. Except in nuclear weapons & space, the USSR was not an economic competitor. The PRC has

3/ built-in advantage in having a potentially strong pro-PRC bloc in the US business community. And, in all fairness, if we think we have supply chain problems now with a pandemic, how much worse would it be if the PRC used its industrial leverage in a time of crisis? Both FA

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James Scaminaci III

@4GWDOTDOTDOT

18 Sep

The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine nytimes.com/2021/09/18/wor… After the gee-whiz, isn't this an act of war? How can you argue that Iran's response is not a legitimate act of self-defense? I'm not pro-Iranian. But there are rules of land warfare.

2/ There is international law. Suppose some country decided to assassinate our scientists because they were working on a project that jeopardized a key weapon system of theirs. Would their attack be legitimate? Would we just go, "shit happens, too bad"? Or does the US & Israel

3/ believe one set of rules do not apply to them and the rules only apply to others? If Iran killed one of our most senior generals as retaliation, would we not object? And so what are legitimate weapons now? Well, AI-directed robots. Roadside IEDs. Suicide bombers.

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James Scaminaci III

@4GWDOTDOTDOT

3 Sep

Americans support Afghanistan pullout — but not the way it was done, a Post-ABC poll finds washingtonpost.com/politics/post-… The national security elites, formerly deployed vets, and elite media imagined a perfect withdrawal executed in a tactical vacuum. Hearing all that noise, the public

2/ does not like the final process. And yet, there were Afghan leaders who did not suspect their govt & army would collapse. What did happen is that all the errors the national security elites ignored & lied about, came to the fore during the collapse. So, how do you withdraw

3/ gracefully while controlling at best the airport? Is there a perfect plan for that? What about the previous 4 years when Congress did not speed up the SIV program? What about a State Dept that today still lacks confirmed officials for significant policy areas? Congress should

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James Scaminaci III

@4GWDOTDOTDOT

22 Aug

As Biden Faces a Political Crisis, His Party Looks On in Alarm nytimes.com/2021/08/22/us/… The NY Times pissing its pants. The pandemic is raging because Ds & Rs, Ws & Bs, of various persuasions are not getting vaxxed. The pandemic is raging because of the unvaxxed. That's a message

2/ even Gov Ivey of Alabama is putting out. Get vaxxed. Second, the NY Times acts as if the Democrats have nothing to run on. In FL CD1 Matt Gaetz's first bill was to zero-out the EPA. Pensacola has 6 Superfund sites downtown. We have terrible water. We have ground contamination

3/ from abandoned chemical plants. Perdido Bay is poisoned from International Paper discharges. Biden passed bills to give every family money for children. To build infrastructure. To get broadband to rural areas. Matt Gaetz voted against every Biden bill to improve the lives of

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James Scaminaci III

@4GWDOTDOTDOT

16 Aug

@ForeignAffairs

We All Lost Afghanistan foreignaffairs.com/articles/unite… via @ForeignAffairs This article is very good in hitting the reasons for the collapse. It ends with "all of us," which is not supported by many excellent preceding paragraphs. But this "all of us" theme among the elites is puzzling.

2/ As if every American shares the responsibility--those who work, have children, lost jobs due to Covid, etc. People who do not pretend to have expertise in military strategy or geopolitics or Afghanistan. Let's suppose during the Cold War that the USSR deployed an ICBM system

3/ that suggested we needed a strategic defensive shield. The DOD, think tanks, Congress, the president, corporations, weapons labs, all agreed on the need for a strategic shield. Twenty years later, the defensive shield does not work. It is not deployed. The prospects for

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James Scaminaci III

@4GWDOTDOTDOT

16 Aug

@RadioFreeTom

@RadioFreeTom Here is a scholar-analyst who writes about experts & expertise needing respect and who does he blame for Afghanistan? The American voters. People who have the least expertise in the manner. No, this shitshow is totally on the national security elite in both parties,

2/ political parties, think tanks, Beltway Bandits, and the DOD. This is an elite failure. He pooh poohs The Afghanistan Papers which are built on SIGAR interviews & oral histories of the participants & architects of the war. They knew this will a train wreck waiting to happen

3/ and lied about it to Congress and the American people. DOD sold to the public a bullshit narrative about the Iraqi surge & then sold the same bullshit for Afghanistan. Then, many retired generals went on cable news and sold the same bullshit night after night. No, this

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