"Keane retired from military service in 2003. He now works as a national security analyst for Fox News. He has served an advisory role in the management of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, as a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. In January 2007, Keane and scholar Frederick W. Kagan released a policy paper, entitled "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq",[7] through the American Enterprise Institute that called for bringing security by putting around 30,000 additional American troops there for a period of at least 18 months. In part convinced by this paper, President George W. Bush ordered on January 10, 2007, the deployment of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, most of whom would be deployed to Baghdad, this deployment has been nicknamed the 2007 "surge". wiki on Keane
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I watched this man hold forth this morning on Varney and Company a business and politics show hosted by Stuart Varney a fervently American immigrant from England who apparently never saw a jingo he didn't like.
General Keane is a close associate of the Kagans, Victoria Nuland, Petraeus and the like. He has consistently pressed in policy circles for aggressive foreign policy ventures including the Iraq "Surge" that helped secure the Baghdad area from Iraqi insurgents. In fact the security situation markedly improved across Iraq because Petraeus was smart enough to encourage the work that had been done by Green Berets and junior USMC people in encouraging the Sunni Arabs to abandon support of the jihadi guerrillas.
On Varney's show today Keane pushed for a US policy in Syria that would establish a "security zone" in Syria east of the Euphrates and in the Kurdish areas east of Manbij. He was clear that he believes that this "security zone" should be held indefinitely, in other words, permanently.
He said that such a zone would prevent the western expansion of Iran through northern Iraq and then Syria westward to the Mediterranean thus completing the dreaded Shia Crescent. The fact that the Iraqi sovereign government might object to such Iranian expansion did not seem to occur to him. Perhaps he has taken note of the condemnation by that Shia Arab dominated government of the FUKUS missile strikes in Syria.
To help the FUKUS forces hold this enclave indefinitely, he repeated the notion that the Sunni majority countries in the region should contribute armed forces to the Sunni Enclave. DJT has recently said much the same thing. This raises the possibility to me that his "thinking" on this matter originates with the arch neocons and their favorite vehicle the Institute for the Study of War, a Kagan operation through and through. Well, pilgrims, I am here to tell you that the Sunni Arab countries are not going to do that, Apart from Jordan's small but competent forces, the rest have no armed forces capable of doing anything but oppress civilian populations. Saudi Arabia's indefensible war against the people of Yemen is a perfect example of the military ineptitude of the Sunni Arab states. Repeatedly defeated by the Houthis and the rump of the Yemeni Army the Saudi have resorted to employing African and other mercenaries against the Yemenis as well as pursuing a savage campaign of aerial bombing against Yemeni civilians. Perhaps they were inspired to do this by the courses of study of RSAF officers at the US Air Force "University" at Montgomery, Alabama. the Strategic Bombing theories of Douhet are still much admired there.
Toward the end of his discourse this morning, Keane, came to the crux of his argument. He said that a war is coming in which Iran, Hizbullah and the Syrian government will fight Israel and that the US must be in a position in Syria to defend Israel when that happens. Thus it is revealed that the source of Keane's (and now DJT's) thinking is simply Israel's obsession with the hostility of the Gentile World to include all those Muslims surrounding them. In other words, Keane's neocon pitch is based on Zionist fear.
Keane several times repeated a line to the effect that no US combat brigades or regiments would be committed to the Sunni Enclave. To believe this magical thinking is to believe that no real fighting would eventually have to be done.
I have seen a poll today that indicates that 61% of the American people approve of the FUKUS missile strikes against the fictional chemical weapons target set in Syria. The gullibility involved in that is impressive. pl