Reply #97: Tony Blair Democrat??

[DulceDecorum]

BRIAN LAMB, HOST: Let me ask you about the most political statements you make in your book.
BARNETT: OK.
LAMB: At one point, your wife is afraid you`re becoming a Republican.

(Great example in the book of how someone would say something to me the day before I wrote a chapter and it would end up there. After a while, I realized I needed to stop talking to people about the book as I wrote it—except for my wife, of course.)

BARNETT: Right.
LAMB: What does that mean? Are you not a Republican?
BARNETT: Well, I`m a registered Democrat. I tend to vote Democrat. It`s an odd thing to be a Democrat who works with the military, which is overwhelming Republican. I`m comfortable in that -- in that milieu because I like to be the skeptic in the room. I like to be the contrarian. And if you`re going to be a contrarian in the military environment, you`re probably going to have to be a Democrat. But that`s the family background I come out of. I had a grandfather who ran as a Progressive.

(Not true, as my Mom corrects me: Grandpa ran for Congress (Green Bay district) as a Democrat and lost to a Progressive, although he beat the Republican.)

LAMB: In Wisconsin.
BARNETT: In Wisconsin, for the Senate. And so that`s the kind of background I come from. I will tell you, though, I tend to describe myself more like a Tony Blair Democrat. I tend to get lumped in, because of the work I`ve done with this administration -- and I`m not a political appointee, I`m just a government worker who was elevated for 20 months to a certain position in the office of the secretary of defense and therefore became known for that.
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/published/bn.htm

I do hope that this excerpt,
is not "quoted out of context."

Entering Stage Right—Bush vows a "safer world"
Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 3 September 2004
Watched Bush's film and then most of his speech last night and have to admit: this guy is neither out of touch like "41" nor ready and willing to lose this election like his old man did in '92. From a historical standpoint, I liked Bush's framing of today as being similar to the years following the end of WWII more than I did Kerry's framing of today from the perspective of Vietnam. I realize both reached back to history that serves them best personally in the race, but I think Bush's choice sits better with most Americans because it recalls a bold time, a bold vision, and a bold president.
On the other hand, the GOP convention did project much less passion than the Democratic one did. Yeah, the Republicans really want four more years, but the Dems really REALLY want Bush out.
And yet, as I predicted, already Iraq fades more than most expected as THE issue of the campaign. And with the various new struggles emerging (e.g., Russia's dark days with terrorism, France banning head scarves and telling terrorists they won't give in, the Nepalese rioting against Muslim churches and business after the beheadings in Iraq, South Korea now admitting it's dabbling in nuclear weapons grade uranium, Iran acting tough vis-à-vis the IAEA), Bush's promise to be more straightforward and bold comes off better than Kerry's calculated nuancing. Frankly, that line about Kerry asking the UN for permission to use U.S. military force sticks in too many people's minds, reminding people of how Clinton's team let security matters linger unresolved for so long through his two terms. Bush's team is moving troops, shifting bases, and holding firm in Iraq, whereas Kerry's team is reduced to saying things like, "we wouldn't move so fast," "we'd do it more carefully," "we'd put off that decision for a later date." None of that really comes very well, in my mind.
Yes, I think the Dems would do better across the board in running the country, and I will vote for Kerry, but I suspect just enough of the undecideds out there will see a fairly scary world right now requiring a fairly bold president, so I think Bush and Cheney will squeak by. And the polls suggest that. Bush had a slight lead going into the convention, which isn't how a wounded president (like "41" in '92) looks when he's getting ready to be unseated.
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives1/000773.html

Here’s what this splitting of the U. S. military means to the American people: The National Security Act of 2005 tentatively sits on the far side of this national election. I fully expect that if Bush is reelected, this piece of legislation will be profound, moving America down the pathway of seriously reordering its national-security establishment for the better. Does that mean a Kerry administration wouldn’t do the same? Not at all. In fact, that administration may well be the far better choice to pull off such a dramatic reorganization, given the growing distrust of many Americans and the world regarding the Bush administration’s integrity on matters of security.
My point is not to tell you how to vote, but simply to make sure you ask the right questions. If you think “preemptive war” and all that violence in the Gap are going to go away simply by voting Bush-Cheney out of office, you’re kidding yourself. The next administration is going to have its hands full with international-security issues no matter how much it may want to focus on other things. So don’t let either ticket off the hook on how it proposes to reshape our national-defense establishment for the big tasks that lie ahead.
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/published/esquire2004.htm

If you think “preemptive war” and all that violence in the Gap are going to go away simply by voting Bush-Cheney out of office, you’re kidding yourself.
-- Thomas Barnett

Why I prefer Zell Miller.
Trojan-horse Zell miller took votes away from Bush.
Stealth-bomber Thomas Barnett is giving them back.
With Democrats like Thomas Barnett .......

In other words, we go from today's limited-access Internet to an Evernet with which we will remain in a state of constant connectivity. We will progress from a day-to-day reality in which we must choose to go online to one in which we must choose to go offline. This is not some distant fantasy world. Almost all the technology we need for the Evernet exists today. It mostly is just a matter of achieving connectivity.
The rise of the Evernet will be humanity's greatest achievement to date and will be universally recognized as our most valued planetary asset or collective good. Downtime, or loss of connectivity, becomes the standard, time-sensitive definition of a national security crisis, and protection of the Evernet becomes the preeminent security task of governments around the world. Ruling elites will rise and fall based on their security policies toward, and the political record on, the care and feeding of the Evernet, whose health will be treated by mass media as having the same broad human interest and import as the weather (inevitably eclipsing even that).
Eventually, the Evernet and the Pentagon will collide, with the most likely trigger being some electronic Pearl Harbor, where DoD is unmasked as almost completely irrelevant to the international security environment at hand.<20>

The result? DoD will be broken into two separate organizations:

The Department of Global Deterrence (DGD), to focus on preventing and, if necessary, fighting large-scale conventional and/or weapons-of-mass-destruction-enhanced warfare among nation-states
The Department of Network Security (DNS), to focus on maintaining the United States' vast electronic and commercial connectivity with the outside world, including protection and large-scale emergency reconstitution of the Evernet, and to perform all the standard crisis-response activity short of war (with a ballooning portfolio in medical).
In effect, we will split DoD into a warfighting force (DGD) and a global emergency-response force (DNS), with the latter aspiring to as much global collaboration as possible (ultimately disintermediating the United Nations) and the former to virtually none. To put it another way, DGD is deterrence; DNS is assurance.
Who gets the "kids" in this divorce?
DGD includes:
U.S. Army (ground & armored)
U.S. Air Force (combat)
U.S. Navy (strategic)
DNS includes:
U.S. Army (airborne)
U.S. Air Force (mobility and space)
U.S. Marine Corps
U.S. Navy (rest)
Air/Army National Guards.<21>
DNS also picks up the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Information Agency, U.S. Customs, and a host of other specialized units from other federal agencies (e.g., Justice, Treasury).
DNS will discard the traditional notion of military service separate from civilian life. For most personnel, it will adopt a consultancy model, whereby the agency rents career time versus buying entire lifetimes (essentially the National Guard model). DNS's officer corps will remain career managers, but with frequent real-world tours of duty in technology, industrial, and business fields. This organization will be networked in the extreme, because networks will be what it is all about. This means no separate legal system and the end to posse comitatus restrictions.
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/published/ladod.htm

TITLE 18
PART I
CHAPTER 67
Sec. 1385. - Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus
Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1385.html

In other words,
Barnett wants the military to police y'all.
In order to do this, the Constitution must be repealed.

Barnett points out that the American social political reorientation has already started, and that our new organizing construct rests on two key documents: The PATRIOT Act of 2002 and the 2002 National Security Strategy. The PATRIOT Act might be described as a legislative assault on the Constitution, approved sight unseen by the Congress. The National Security Strategy introduced the radical concept of pre-emptive executive war. The sleeping legislative and aggressive executive are complemented by a silent judiciary which, in an interesting way, is represented by what Barnett calls a "real answer man," Attorney General John Ashcroft. An "answer man" is a "new source of authority within the government … armed with extraordinary legal powers, which might strike many citizens as threatening their basic civil rights." The idea here is that in a post 9-11 environment, we needed new domestic rule-sets. Barnett shares his observations because he had predicted this exact scenario long before 9-11. Perhaps he picked up this idea after studying Germany in the 1930s.
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives/000369.html

Naturally,
Thomas Barnett is himself
a yellow-feathered chickenhawk
who will courageously sacrifice
YOU
and YOUR sons and daughters.