"Sometimes we outsmart ourselves"

Yes, that was something I pointed out on the first day of this blog's existence in November 2004. I put up three posts on that day: one of them a sendup of the Chinese military's new obsession with a college degree; one to contrast the morals-based American viewpoint with the amoral 'multipolar' foreign policy initiatives of the West Europeans; and one to warn Washington's Cold War holdovers that in this fishbowl era it was critically important to play it straight. 

One can indeed be too clever by half -- a warning that American defense strategists and administrations have ignored since the end of World War Two. As to where being that clever led, one place was Vietnam. The complete story of the Vietnam War is still not fully told but last week John Batchelor, with the help of a documentary producer and a man who had 'eyes on the ground' in the runup to Tet, presented some little-known history to John's radio show audience. ("Agents Unknown:" A Vietnam War military intelligence analyst, adviser, and operative for the U.S. Army, CIA, and South Vietnamese intelligence services tells his story.)

Their discussion does not make for easy listening. As John said about the documentary, "It's not a popcorn movie." But Americans, in particular, should steel themselves and take heed. (JB Show Podcast Part 1 and Part 2.)   

Turning to the mess in the Middle East made by smarty pants in several governments, on March 5 a Middle East old hand, Colonel Pat Lang, who also had eyes on the ground in Vietnam, wrote up some of his recollections for his Sic Semper Tyrannis website (What is HAMAS?) in response to a discussion at Al Masdar News:

I was the head of liaison between DoD (DIA) and IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] General Staff intelligence for nine years (1985-1994).  As such I was the "minder" for the IDF reps in Washington based in their embassy.  The CIA tried continuously to acquire this task but without success.  They were not content to nurture their longstanding relationship with Mossad, the Israeli civilian intelligence service.  In Israel, IDF intelligence is the senior service and the national estimator.

The brigadiers who seriatim were the chief military attache in the embassy spent a lot of time in my office consulting, being given guidance as to their sometimes arrogant and unacceptable behavior with regard to the DC police, and just chatting.  There were a lot of lunches and dinners with wives.  It was a very friendly set of relationships.  I used to take them to WBS battlefields both for the educational benefit for them concerning the US and to have a day in which to study them as individuals.

One day, sitting in my Pentagon office, the head man from the embassy began to tell me of his concern with regard to what was happening in the 2nd Intifada, then ongoing.  He told me that Israel had sponsored the growth of Hamas as a rival to the PLO, then in exile in Tunisia, believing that a religiously based resistance movement would attract many Palestinians, splitting them off from the PLO and generally weakening the Palestinian resistance.  Instead, the al-Qassem Brigades of Hamas were proving to be daunting opponents in the rebellion. "Sometimes we outsmart ourselves," he said with a sad smile.

He was a very skilled man.  He was one of a small number of IDF officers trained as an Arab affairs specialist from secondary school onward. At one point he was Military Governor of the occupied West Bank.  I believe him.  pl

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