CNO Adm Mike Mulllen aboard the USS Pasadena (SSN 752) Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, May 7, 2007
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ben Gonzales
“The ground forces are not broken, but they are breakable.”
The New York Times Magazine (By Ron Suskind, Published: October 17, 2004)By the time you become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, you don't buy into airy-fairy west-coast bullshit about creating your own realities.
Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush
I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
I leave aside here, the very valid Many-Worlds conversation from quantum physics, and the equally valid Autopoetic neuro-biology theories advanced by Humberto Maturana (From Being to Doing) currently doing to biology what Einstein did to physics; making it recursive by demonstrating when an Observer is present, the wave-form function collapses, leaving a world literally caused by the collapsing of the wave-form.
This is not what I'm talking about, and I assure you, it was not what the quote senior adviser to Bush unquote was talking about back in 2004 in The Times Magazine article. I doubt the senior adviser had ever even completed calculus, let alone understood how wave form functions worked. But I'll bet dollars to donuts -- not resorting to cliché, that's an actual bet I'm offering -- the smarmy unnamed bastard believed in the New Age bullshit about literally creating new realities. Either through religious fundamentalism -- quite possibly, or through a weekend "I am responsible for my own experience" LGAT course.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen (nominated June 28, 2007) doesn't buy into "create your own reality" bullshit. He wants something done, he does it himself, gives an order, or makes a request.
He doesn't: "I take responsibility for my space and create a world which works for everyone in which I go deep and produce a result which causes that which I promise to occur reliably, moving the future I've declared into the present moment, thus causing my declared intention to be realized, inside my commitment for being responsible to my oath to the Constitution of the United States of America, which declaration I am continuously bringing forth from the future into the present now, thereby creating new historical realities consistent with my fundamental declaration, responsibilities, and accountabilities."
*grins*
Really, he's not doing that. No one in the Navy does that. Or the Army or Marines.
What CJCS Adm. Mike Mullen is doing, is standing up to Dick Cheney, who does seem to think he can create realities.
First, from the VPOTUS (Very Pompous & Officially The Ugly Sociopath-in-charge)
New York TimesTough talk from a chickenhawk, an an old man with a bad heart and the balls of a coward.
Vice President Dick Cheney issued a pointed warning to Iran on Sunday, calling the government in Tehran “a growing obstacle to peace in the Middle East” and promising “serious consequences” if the government there does not abandon its nuclear program.
The remarks, just days after President Bush suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III,” amounted to Part II of a one-two punch from the administration at a moment when it is trying to persuade its allies in Europe to impose stiffer sanctions on Tehran. Those efforts grew more complicated on Saturday when Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator resigned on the eve of crucial talks with Europe.
“The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences,” Mr. Cheney said, without specifying what those might be. “The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Mr. Bush has repeatedly said the administration would not “tolerate” a nuclear-armed Iran. But during a news conference on Wednesday, the president went further, saying of Iran: “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
That distinction — having the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon, as opposed to actually having a weapon — is one the administration has not made in the past. David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who moderated a panel discussion before and after Mr. Cheney’s speech, said the vice president also seemed to draw a new red line when, instead of saying it is “not acceptable” for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, he said the world “will not allow” it.
“The first is a condition,” Mr. Makovsky said. “The second is a commitment.”
When he could have gone himself -- yes, yes, it is well know, BUT IT DESERVES TO BE SAID OVER AND OVER AGAIN -- Dick "the Coward-Hearted" Cheney cut and run, having "other priorities."
Now he wants to set the middle-East aflame in nuclear fire over a sea of oil, and ka-CHING, watch the oil stocks and his Haliburton shares go straight to the moon, Alice! ...over the burning corpses of the dead.
Fuck that.
The New York TimesThis man and the remainder of the Joint Chiefs, clearly are standing between Dick Cheney, George Bush, and war with Iran.
The new chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, expressed deep concerns that the long counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have so consumed the military that the Army and Marine Corps may be unprepared for a high-intensity war against a major adversary.
He rejected the counsel of those who might urge immediate attacks inside Iran to destroy nuclear installations or to stop the flow of explosives that end up as powerful roadside bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan, killing American troops.
With America at war in two Muslim countries, he said, attacking a third Islamic nation in the region “has extraordinary challenges and risks associated with it.” The military option, he said, should be a last resort.
“We’re in a conflict in two countries out there right now,” he added. “We have to be incredibly thoughtful about the potential of in fact getting into a conflict with a third country in that part of the world.”
READ THE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT.
Hold the line Admiral. Hold the bleeding line.
h/t Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo: New JCS Chair: Cheney's Whacked
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