Keep in mind, Rosa Brooks works closely with Ms. Flournoy. Nuf’ said.
“EDITORIAL: A disaster for Defense
It’s like making Jane Fonda senior adviser on Vietnam”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/24/a-disaster-for-defense-its-like-making-jane-fonda-/
I swear before heaven. What this administration has snafued in the past year has undone 200 years. What in G-d’s name will he do to make sure we are snafued for the NEXT 200 years?
Did you notice in the above article, NOTHING was said about reducing casualties to our own troops or THEIR protection?
Meanwhile, zebam rolls on.
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A review of Ms. Brooks’ published work reveals her hard-left, rabidly ideological positions on defense matters. She regularly referred to Mr. Bush as a war criminal, and argues that Bush-era policies on terrorism - which prevented any major attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001 - made America less secure. Referring to Mr. Bush and former Vice President Richard Cheney, she wrote, “They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.” She has called al Qaeda “little more than an obscure group of extremist thugs” and wrongly predicted that the surge in Iraq was “a feckless plan” that would prove “too little, too late.” Putting her in the policy shop “is like Lyndon Johnson making Jane Fonda a senior adviser on Vietnam,” the former Pentagon adviser says. She frequently criticizes what she sees as a pro-Israel bias in U.S. policy.
The immediate worry is the influence Ms. Brooks can have on the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review. The review sets strategic priorities for the department. Strategic documents frequently start as consensus documents in which various components independently submit their take on a given issue, then the differences are ironed out. Who holds the pen is critical at the latter stages of this process. Subtle changes in the language - a word changed here or there, a sentence added or deleted - can have dramatic impact.
We saw this with the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iranian nuclear capabilities. A few sentences in the summary of that document spun it in a way that suggested Iran was not seeking a nuclear capability, when a closer detailed reading revealed that the intelligence community believed Iran could have a nuclear weapon as early as 2010. But the damage was done, and 2010 is coming soon.