Sorry to miss blogging yesterday. I had been on a good run with daily posts, and while I did twitter, for most of you, that doesn't count.
I had a super-impressive weekend. It was my fourth straight weekend out of town starting with NYC to DC to Iowa/Chicago to NYC/NJ. Every day this past weekend was jam packed with shows, meetings, and incredibly cool conversations. I spent a good amount of time on the campus of Princeton University (my first time ever) hanging with a friend at the Woodrow Wilson School of international relations and public affairs. Talk about deep chatter.
You ever have such a good conversation with a friend that you had to take notes? Yeah, it was that good. Here are just some of the things we talked about this weekend:
- Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq (aka PRTs, like Poor Righteous Teachers)
- The U.S. military's new Africa Command (AFRICOM) which scares the hell outta me, but I'm told it may be better than letting the Chinese set the terms there.
- Why America doesn't crack down on Darfur. We have serious intelligence interests with the Sudanese government
- The Drury Univ. panel with Cindy Sheehan's and. Col. Michael Meese (ret.). Cindy's voice is really annoying BTW.
- The role of military contractors in Iraq and why it may not be fair to call them mercenaries
I'll try to save some of the notes for this week's podcast. I have some smart ass friends yall.
Oh, and all weekend I've been screaming about this (just like I did about Colin Powell): George Tenet needs to STFU!! (Note: for those who don't follow politics and war as obsessively as I do, this punk ass wrote a book blaming the war on Cheney manipulating the intelligence. Hello??? Mr. head of the central INTELLIGENCE agency? WTF?).
I am so sick of these former administration people whining after the fact. How can the head of the CIA act like he didn't know what was up? Why do I care that he feels bad now? I cannot take it. When he had the power to complain, the power to stop a war, he did not, but now that things are irreversibly jacked, he wants to point fingers at everyone but himself.
Mr. Tenet, you are not helping. None of the American people had the information you had at the time, though many had justifiable suspicions. It was your responsibility to pull the plug. Don't come at me years later saying you were wronged and no one listened. Did you try to tell the American people? Did you resign? No. You did not, Mr. Slam Dunk! So I don't want to hear your whining, Mr. Congressional Medal of Freedom! And I damn sure don't want you making millions off this wack book and the lecture circuit acting like you weren't as wrong as everyone else who started this war.
YOU CANNOT BE A MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK IF YOU PLAYED IN THE GODDAMNED GAME!!!
and that's that. Oooooh, just let me get on one of those Sunday morning talk shows. I'll show em what's up.
Technorati Tags: africom, darfur, george tenet, Iraq, princeton, PRTs, blackwater, sheehan, war