Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Bulsajo]

An excellent strategic and systemic analysis of the events of the past 4 years by the founder of STRATFOR.

Joo Rip Gwa Rhee recommended it to me. I know for some people that will be an immediate reason to ignore it, but that would be a grave mistake- this is as much a 'must-read' on the subject as any book by Woodward/Clarke/Hersh.

The only criticism I have is a small one, and a common one in systemic analysis- assuming that all actors are at all times completely rational and always make choices which maximize their advantages and minimize their losses. In other words all actors' actions have clear intentions and well-thought out objectives (I.E. the Bush Administration invaded Iraq with the deliberate and calculated primary intention of specifically putting pressure on Saudi Arabia and to increase their basing options in the Middle East).

Anyway, it highlighted some things about Pakistan and the ISI that I didn't know; In many ways it is the logical extension of Steve Coll's Ghost Wars. Ghost Wars' chronicle ends on September 10th, 2001.

I'd be interested to hear what Joo or anyone else who has read it has to say about it.




http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0385512457.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

http://www.stratfor.com/

[Bulsajo]

So no one here has read it?

I just want to comment that scanning news articles day in and day out on the internet can only take people so far in understanding current events. You end up living in a world of moment by moment snapshots.

If you want to discuss what's going on in Iraq and afghanistan and the "War on Terror" there are some books which are must-reads, regardless of your political leanings.

This is one of those books.

Bob Woodward's Bush at War and Plan of Attack are 2 more.
Seymour Hersh's Chain of Command is another, as is Steve Coll's Ghost Wars and Bernard Lewis' The Crisis of Islam.

Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies and Anonymous' Imperial Hubris I would recommend but would also recommend that they be taken with a grain of salt.

If you want to add to this list that's great, but leave please leave off the Bill O'reiley and Michael Moore books.

[bucheon bum]

Mullahs, Merchants, and Millitants: the Economic Collapse of the Arab World by Stephen J. Glain.

Title is pretty self-explanitory. perfect for Bigverne too .

[Bulsajo]

Excellent, thanks for the recommendation: my library has multiple copies and one of them is now on its way to me.
As usual, Harry Potter 2 goes back on the shelf (and it's just as well, I'm going to see the next move this weekend anyway. That's book 4?).

[bucheon bum]

I read Woodward's first book on Bush (at war right?). It was quite good I thought and didn't make Bush sound that bad if memory serves. I've been meaning to read the 2nd one for quite some time.

Another book you might want to read is Jihad by Giles Keppel. He believes Islamic fundamentalism peaked quite some time ago and events like 9/11 are its last grasps for attention and importance.

[Bulsajo]

[bucheon bum]

It was written before the invasion of Iraq. I haven't quite finished it yet, but I don't believe he covers China. He only covers Kashmir when giving the history of fundamentalism in Pakistan.

And yeah, i might have mentioned the book before, I don't know.

[Bulsajo]

Uh, looks like 'Plan of Attack' might actually not be 'better' after all. Read this:

"Woodward joins a decadent dance

Whatever impact the scandal surrounding the leak of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity ultimately has on the Bush administration, it continues to spread through the Washington press corps like a toxic plume."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/cl-et-rutten19nov19,0,7328964.column?coll=la-story-footer&track=morenews

"Moreover, it now emerges, the reporting that went into his last best-selling book, "Plan of Attack," involved the submission of written questions in advance to Vice President Dick Cheney, a fact he never bothered to share with the book's readers."


Other interesting bits:
"This week's casualty was the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, who, as it turns out, has concealed for 17 months the fact that a Bush administration official he still refuses to name to his readers leaked Plame's identity to him before the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby — now under indictment for perjury — named the then-covert agent to New York Times reporter Judy Miller and others.

Woodward's disclosure was motivated not by a sudden pang of conscience, as it turns out, but by the sudden necessity of testifying under oath before a federal grand jury. Along the way, he incidentally revealed not only that he had concealed this information from his editors and readers for fear of subpoena, but also that he had in the interim gone on several television shows to trash the special prosecutor investigating the affair."

and this:


"Who can forget the administration's payment of nearly a quarter of a million dollars in federal money to the hapless pseudo-columnist and television and radio commentator Armstrong Williams, to promote the president's "no child left behind" initiative?

Then there was the distribution to local television stations across the country of federally financed, pre-packaged video reports designed to support the administration's educational and energy policy initiatives. The videos were tricked up to look like regular news feeds and apparently ran on numerous small stations whose viewers never were informed that they were watching government propaganda.

This week, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's inspector general reported that PBS' former chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, appears to have violated federal law by trying to force a political slant onto the network's programming. The inspector's report alluded to e-mails between Tomlinson and a White House official. On Thursday, Bloomberg.com reported that "Presidential advisor Karl Rove" and Tomlinson "discussed creating a 'conservative talk show and adding it to the public television lineup.' " According to Kenneth Konz, PBS' inspector general, Tomlinson and Rove, President Bush's chief political advisor, also corresponded about "shaking up the agency" and "adding Republican staff."

Placed in this context, Woodward, Miller, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and NBC's Tim Russert are less tragic figures in a grand journalistic drama than they are sad — but willing — bit players in somebody else's rather sorry little charade."