[MindBender26]

Center for Defense Information =
Far left lobbying cabal in DC

[El Gato]

Far left lobbying cabal in DC

With a branch in Mother Russia. From their own website:

CDI is part of the World Security Institute, whose divisions include the Center for Defense Information, International Media, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Azimuth Media and International Programs with offices in Brussels, Cairo and Moscow, and projects in China.

[DesScorp]

"Center for Defense Information = Far left lobbying cabal in DC"

That's true, and that's what makes this all the more painful... this group, which is basically dedicated to ensuring that we don't have much of a defense at all, is basically right in everything they say about this project. It's like hearing the unvarnished truth from the Devil himself... how do you react?

[AndyJackson]

Center for Defense Information = Far left lobbying cabal in DC

I'm sorry, but I don't see that. A lot of what I read is dead nuts on accurate criticism. For instance, this piece from Chuck Spinney:

Progress in the GWOT?

More than seven years after 9-11, it ought to be clear from (1) the senseless destruction of Iraq, (2) the deteriorating war in Afghanistan, and (3) the increasing potential for chaos in nuclear-armed Pakistan, that George II has gomered up the so-called war on terror (WOT).

A cold assessment of the motives of our terrorist adversaries ought to have been the basis for our strategy, but in this regard, the American people have been fed only mindless slogans-like the terrorists are evil, they attacked us because they hate our freedoms, they hate our way of life, they kill innocents, they are Islamofascists (whatever that is) out to conquer the world, you are either with us or against us, etc. This rhetoric is not what some call “actionable” information, but it plays well in the Hall of Mirrors that is Versailles on the Potomac./b> [Which is a pretty darn accurate portrayal - AJ]

Not surprisingly, given such a primitive appreciation or our adversary’s motives, our response has been equally mindless, driven more by the hot fire of blind rage than a cold sense strategy and grand strategy. And seven years on, after spending more on the so-called War on Terror (WOT) than we did on the Vietnam War, after gutting of our constitutional freedoms, and destroying our moral authority in the world, not only is there is no light at the end of the tunnel, there is now a definite possibility for even greater darkness.

---

Now I am sure that those statements will hurt and smart - but you know what - those kinds of things are the things that the geniuses in Versailles sur Patomac get paid the big bucks to think about.

In fact, from what I read of Petraeus, he saw the need for the answers to these same questions in planning a counterinsurgency strategy.