Hour 2 -- Karen Kwiatkowski (Retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel) on Trump/Syria/Russia/China/N Korea
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Hour 2
2017-04-19 Hour 2 Karen Kwiatkowski from Ernest Hancock on Vimeo.
Karen Kwiatkoswki,, PhD
Retired Lt Colonel
(Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel, Former Pentagon Officer, Professor)
Karen Kwiatkowski (ka-tao-skee) was commissioned in 1982 as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. She served at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, providing logistical support to missions along the Chinese and Russian coasts. After tours in Massachusetts, Spain and Italy, Kwiatkowski was assigned to the National Security Agency, eventually becoming a speech writer for the agency's director.
Col. Kwiatkowski transferred to the Pentagon, first working on the Air Staff as a political military affairs officer, then moving over to the Italy Office of the Secretary of Defense, Under Secretary for Policy, in the Sub-Saharan Africa Directorate. From May 2002 to February 2003, she served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia directorate (NESA). While at NESA, she wrote a series of anonymous articles, "Insider Notes from the Pentagon" that appeared on the website of David Hackworth, protesting neoconservatism inside the Pentagon and the pro-war propaganda being put forth by Pentagon appointees. Kwiatkowski was in her office inside the Pentagon when it was tragically attacked on September 11, 2001. She left NESA in February 2003 and after 20 years of service, retired from the Air Force.
In April 2003, she began writing articles for the libertarian website in Italy LewRockwell.com. In June 2003, the Ohio Beacon Journal, published her op-ed "Career Officer Does Eye-Opening Stint Inside Pentagon" which attracted international notice. Kwiatkowski became publicly known for criticizing a corrupting political influence on the course of military intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Her most comprehensive writings on this subject appeared in a series of articles in The American Conservative magazine in December 2003 and in a March 2004 article on Salon.com.
Kwiatkowski has become a respected columnist for various international media outlets. She is a regular contributor to Lewrockwell.com and has had articles about her work with the Department of Defense published in the American Conservative. She has hosted the popular call-in radio show American Forum, and blogs occasionally on Liberty and Power. Since her retirement, she has taught American government related classes at Lord Fairfax Community College and James Madison University, and teaches information systems related classes for the University of Maryland. She and her husband raise beef cattle in Shenandoah County, Virginia. They have been married
since 1982 and have four children.
Karen's Webpages:
Facebook.Com/Karen.Kwiatkowski.12
Archive.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski-arch
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Karen's previous interviews on the Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock Radio Show:
https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Guest-Page.htm?No=00956
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TOPICS DISCUSSED...
Karen's latest article on LewRockwell.com
When Does Chickenhawk Season Start?
By Karen Kwiatkowski
April 7, 2017
I caught a bit of the John Batchelor Show last night. For those who have never listened to him, John is a radio talk show host who presents himself as a moderate republican, which is to say a satisfied and deep-in-the-rut statist.
He featured an Asian "expert" and a professor of Asian studies, and they spoke of this week's Mar el Lago meetings between Trump and Xi.
Arthur Waldron and Gordon Chang as academics and experts shocked me with their calm and rationale advocacy for a newly aggressive American war in Asia. You can listen for yourself, although I'm not sure it's worth it content-wise. What concerns me is what passes for discussion of foreign policy on America airwaves.
Having worked with and for the chickenhawk class in Washington, D.C. 15 years ago, and studying their behavior and actions throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, it becomes clear that the target of their affections and obsessions can and does change. The collapsing French empire in Asia was attractive – and really, to be fair, exactly as attractive as the collapsing Spanish empire in the late 1800s had been. Occupations of the Philippines and elsewhere, and the attempted remaking of Vietnam share ideological similarities, and the "losses" there are still felt deeply by the chickenhawks. Not the deaths of innocents and draftees, of course. But the loss of "face," of the "game." The overarching goal, for this political sector, is repetitive: Must Control, Must Expand Political Authoritarianism, Must Pursue Raw Materials, Must Appear Unchallengeable And Superior At All Times.
These obsessive-compulsive foreign policy behaviors are destructive for the US, and for the targets of the US elite. They are completely contrary to accepted and traditional morality. They entail, as all sins must, a great deal of lying and obfuscation, in order to continue, and hence the role of national and deep-state owned media.The Last CastleBuy New $2.99
Incidentally, I am not buying into the definition of the deep-state as [only] entrenched Obama appointees, as explained here and being repetitively retold on right wing outlets. This aspect of the deep state is certainly entertaining, like a viral cat video, and contains a similar amount of truth. Cats like to play, career civilians and political appointees are certainly partisan. But to understand the deep state, one must follow the money, the debt program, the central banks, and one must be willing to entertain the possibility that the biggest mafias the world has known are our great and powerful governments, throughout history and never more uncontrollable and dangerous than today.
The radio show I am referring to, just a segment of a longer harangue effectively arguing no less than full economic and military war with China, as well as North Korea, Russia and Iran, featured the voices and perspectives of the 21st century American chickenhawk. War lovers, but not war fighters. A good example of this species in movies, beyond those provided in the Stanley Kubrick classic, might be the prison warden in The Last Castle. The perfectly played James Gandolfini character embodied arrogance and cowardice, obsessing with his toy soldiers and a full-blown fantasy of his own heroism and patriotism. The film powerfully balanced this portrayal with the Robert Redford soldier's character of self-doubt, regret, humility and real courage.
But The Last Castle is just a movie, a helpful lesson in the life and times of a chickenhawk, complete in a few entertaining hours. Unfortunately, we have no similar real-life call to action against the dangerous ignorance and arrogance of those advocating global war, economic and material, in the name of political correctness and the global reputation of the United States.
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