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Sunday, November 18, 2012




Memorandum to POTUS
Subject: Appointment of SecState-Susan E. Rice? 
Issue: Recent allegations concerning possible WH ‘interference’ in Benghazi Affair places an undue burden on your second term requiring excessive political capital to be dispensed on Ms Rice’s nomination.
Ms. Rice, despite an impressive personal history of education-National Cathedral Girl’s School  Valedictorianno minor point as well as attendance at Stanford University and Oxford makes her appear highly  erudite and knowledgeable. 
But quite frankly, Mr President,  I have friends and family (women) who attended National Cathedral School and Stanford and I would happily attest to the fact that none is suited to be SecState.  So in terms of education, there really is very little here to qualify her for SecState. 
It is documented that Ms Rice has a very mercurial temperament not suitable to the Senior StatesPerson for the USA.  As you well know, she was described ‘as blustery’ when she was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. 
Example: as the UN Envoy she wrote on Twitter ”Disgusted that Russia and China prevented the U.N. Security Council from fulfilling its sole purpose.”
Even I can do better controlling my own brash, insolent behavior (well, …maybe not but) I would never nominate myself as Sec State let alone UN Envoy.
Frankly,  as a former DAS under Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Bush Sr, I am not clear how any one of those great SecStates put up with my ‘Rice-like’ behaviors.  So I can’t condemn her for behavior which I, supposedly a mature psychiatrist,  demonstrated—demanding, insulting, arrogant and ‘damn-the-torpedoes’ attitude. 
  But in my defense, if there is any, I was really in and out of State to ‘accomplish’ strategies and tactics and negotiations that in retrospect may have require more tact on my part.
  I must say though, I do sympathize with Ms Rice on the abysmal handling and malignant negligence that President Bill Clinton demonstrated in his allowing 800,000 Rwandans to be slaughtered.  But I blame that on Clinton’s basic ‘cowardice’ and ‘Hillary’s manly  advice not to get her Bill involved in a ‘genocide’.   Rice was furious as she should have been.  But it would have been more impressive if she resigned on her differences from a morally impoverished sociopath like Bill Clinton.  From that point of view,  Ms Rice appears to be politically too ambitious and eager for her ‘raisin in the sun’. 
Mr President, the US is in a state of international crises spanning from the Middle East to Asia.   Ms Rice has never been involved in those areas of the world and her lack of poise, knowledge and expertise makes her both a political and an intellectual liability. 
Constructive Alternatives: 
Mr President, as you know, it is always easier to eliminate a candidate for Sec State but I want to offer you the perfect candidate who is a seasoned, knowledgeable and highly trusted Professional Diplomat which is quite frankly what this country needs for now. May I take the liberty, of course without his permission or knowledge to nominate, Career Ambassador [the highest rank in the US Foreign Service] Thomas R. Pickering who had been UN Ambassador from 1989-1992.  At that time, the NY Times declared Pickering to be “arguably the best-ever US representative to that body”. 
 I have worked with him over twenty or more years in many incarnations and I have never met a better candidate for Sec State than Ambassador Pickering
But please do not take my word for it despite the fact that I may have been the first Conservative Nixon Republican who voted for you!
Let’s go over his incredible resume and compare
  Before joining the State Department, he served on active duty in the US Navy from 1956-1959. Then he remained in the Navy reserve as LT Commander. His military service would make him unique in that our military officers feel much more comfortable with someone who has voluntarily served our country. We have not had a SecState since James Baker who has served in the military.
Most importantly, his four decades in the Foreign Service included Ambassador to Russia [1993-1996]; India[ 1992-1993]; Israel [1985-1988]; El Salvador[1983-1985]; Nigeria [1981-1983]; and Jordan [1974-1978].  He was also Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 1997-2000 . 
  As a former participant with Israel in a multitude of negotiations including helping to design the Camp David Peace Accords [to which you should really consult President Jimmy Carter who deserves sole credit for it rather than Bill Clinton], I can personally testify that no other FSO or American could have dealt so skillfully with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir [ex-Chief of Mossad -- a failed Jewish businessman  can you believe that? -- and a former terrorist in the Irgun Zvai Leumi].
Not surprisingly,  King Hussein of Jordan for whom many of us in the State Department admired for his sagacity and temperance declared Pickering as “the best American Ambassador I’ve dealt with”.  
From 1978-1981,  Pickering served as Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs before he became Ambassador to Nigeria and then Ambassador to El Salvador, where there were ‘attempted assassination threats’ against Pickering  from the right wing politicians. 
He is fluent in French, Spanish, and Swahili languages. And he has a working knowledge of Russian, Hebrew and Arabic.
Mr President, he is the LeBron James of Diplomacy
Ms Rice should not be dismissed but rather, she might serve as your next National Security Advisor while Tom Donilon,  John O. Brennan, and others in the WH take  a much needed respite from ‘screwing up’ our foreign policy.  She needs some more time in the oven before she is ready…better for the country, better for the world, better for you and better for her (you pick the order of importance).
The choice is yours of course.
  But one thing I have learned working for five previous Presidents: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush Sr,---this second term is a chance to correct the mistakes you made in the first term. Of course we don’t need to go over them here.  Most importantly, you need to demonstrate to the American people (all of us) that you UNDERSTAND how important it is to work with congress (especially the senate) in terms of foreign policy- this is not a one man show, don’t destroy your legacy…be smart and use the talents of the elected team in this game.
  Most importantly, Mr President, you now have to consider how you want future generations to regard you as the first African-American President in the glorious history of this country.
  Your legacy will not be written on the basketball courts playing with your buddies, including Ms. Rice, but on what you accomplished domestically and internationally. 
To make my point a little more blunt, let me say that each of the POTUS who I had served had made their mark on history.
Nixon, despite the Watergate disaster, he had a ‘grand strategy’ for working with and against the Soviet Union and China. No personal blemish can take his foreign policy accomplishments away from him.
  Ford, took over the Presidency at a very tumultuous time when ‘all hell could have broken loose’ but he gave back this nation it’s rightful sense of dignity and propriety. He is in my opinion a very underrated president. 
 As for Carter, whom you and your colleagues seem to denigrate, there is much you can learn from himNo man has created more peace in this past fifty years, than Jimmy Carter who singlehandedly orchestrated and placed himself in ‘harm’s way’ to negotiate what then seemed like an impossible task: The Israeli –Egyptian Peace Treaty.  He was also wise enough to fire over four thousand CIA operatives who were as Eisenhower correctly stated to Allen Dulles, creating ”A Legacy of Ashes”. 
  Ronald Reagan was well read about Foreign Policy way before he came into the WH.  So within one hundred days,  he initiated the ‘take down of the Soviet Union’ . But strategists like me were first sent to Rand in Santa Monica to develop the Political /Psychological Blueprints in conjunction with an ‘effective, committed, non-contracted CIA’. 
Bush Sr was a very modest man and never really talked about his accomplishments in foreign affairs.  So I will take a few minutes to explain that although Reagan had initiated the Soviet Union Regime Change, it was really Bush Sr and his exceedingly talented team of Baker and Zoelleck who completed that initiative. 
Similarly that same team along with a professional Diplomat by the name of Chester Crocker,  spent over eight years of his professional life to affect the elimination of Apartheid in South Africa
  You see, Mr President, it’s not people like Clinton—Hillary or Bill or even Susan Rice –that really move the  insurmountable mountains like ‘the elimination of Apartheid’.   It’s quiet diplomats like Chester Crocker and a professional team from State and England [which also deserves a heartfelt gratitude for their reconciliation efforts] who make history. 
  But these professionals including Bush Sr, don’t talk about their accomplishments. He and Brent Scowcroft and others on his team—Don  Gregg , James Lilly, Paul Redman, and many others, were simply professionals who just did their jobs as ‘good americans’. They were proud to be silent heroes
  It’s the insolent, irreverent ones like me,  who were fortunate enough to have worked with such great men.
Now, it’s your turn, Mr President. 
Are you going to reach out and write the next chapters for the history books so that your lovely daughters can one day say at Stanford University, to their  respective friends  ‘you see what my father accomplished as POTUS!’
IF not for them, please make your wise choices for us, all the people of the United States and for world peace.
What better way to honor the life/death of slain Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens than to appoint a career foreign service officer like Thomas R. Pickering.
It’s that simple!!!
Good luck!


16 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. What a great recommendation! I think he would be the best possible choice. It’s unfortunate though, that the nomination of Rice will most certainly elicit more bi-partisan bickering and demonstrate this administration’s desire to staff itself with unqualified stooges. I agree on your Carter statement as well. I have always thought that he was quite the peacemaker who has not received due recognition.

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  3. House Keeping:

    "We have not had a SecState since James Baker who has served in the military."

    Dr. Pieczenik, you don't respect Colin Powell, but he most definitely did serve in the military (you don't subscribe to Freud and neither do I, but I'd say the omission was a Freudian slip :-) ).

    As for your recommendation of Thomas Pickering for Secretary of State, I whole heartedly agree.

    The current foreign policy direction is problematic at best and Susan Rice would continue that direction. Given Ms. Rice's impolitic, bellicose statements, would she be able to effectively guide U. S. foreign policy in a direction where more cooperation is elicited from foreign nations?

    This is a question which must be answered by President Obama: What is the basic foreign policy objective of your administration in a second term?

    1.) Reduce tension in our international diplomatic relations.

    Or,

    2.) Increase tension in our international diplomatic relations (for supposed future potential diplomatic gains).

    (The theory that fostering short-term international tension or regional tension in order to reach a long-term benefical international structure with reduced tension and stability has not been working. The geo-political theory that fostering 'Chaos' so a subsequent new 'Order' can be built which then leads to a more stable world structure is crashing on the rocks of experience. Neoconservative counsel whether from its Republican Party variant or its Democratic Party variant is destructive to the United States' vital national security interests.)

    Who is appointed Secretary of State goes a long way to signal which direction the president wants to take in his second term.

    The appointment of a professional diplomat with experience reducing international tension would send an initial, powerful signal and then their subsequent work product, if successful at reducing international tension, would benefit the United States diplomatically, militarily, and commercially, the world over.

    (Yes, our military is over-stretched right now, as evinced by the military suicide rate and other indicators -- our general officer corps in the military is aware of this situation.)

    Thomas Pickering could accomplish such a set of policy objectives.

    Susan Rice would continue the U. S. down a well-worn path of international discord and ultimately diminished diplomatic, military, and commercial standing in the world. Is there evidence to support the proposition that Susan Rice could be instrumental in reducing international diplomatic tensions?

    America has enough domestic challenges on her plate already.

    The best foreign policy at this juncture would be a quiet foreign policy.

    Thomas Pickering offers the best chance at achieving that policy objective.

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    1. thanks for the correction on Colin Powell, yeah, forgot about him...

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  4. Watching SHOWTIME's Oliver Stones's "Untold History of the US"...how the International bankers and Wall Street Lawyers rose to power in the US after WWII..and how we got in the mess we are in today.

    Tonight, Pt 2:
    How Truman fell into POTUS after 88 days as VP, talking to FDR only 2x. He grew up with the stigma he "was meant to be a girl" with "flat eyeballs" and his ridiculous ascension to POTUS (AFTER FAILING IN ALL OF HIS BUSINESSES)with anti-wallace vengeance and backroom deals at the brokered Chicago convention. Becoming POTUS validated his unabating obsession for paternal acceptance..an interesting psychoanalysis for you Dr. P.

    I was around then, although incommunicado, cruising to Iwo Jima at the time, so much of this is quite informative. (no instant email then)

    Harry was my hero, however. The GI Bill advanced me to Law School after the War with only 2 years at Brown.(I signed up for the Reserve promising I could finish school at least until the year's end. 3 weeks later I received notice of an automatic deferment because I was a physics major, but because I enlisted prior, I was called up and off I went.)..and he recognized Israel in May, '48 as an independent State.

    Next week: "The Bomb" was UNecessary.

    How about a review, Dr. P.? There is his book of the same title to complement the documentary.

    On Demand if you missed it.

    On another matter, Obama signed another UNCONSTITUTIONAL EXECUTIVE ORDER on 10-26. Who is controlling his agenda? He is neither diligent enough, nor lucid enough to be so ingenious..more like disingenuous...more BS to void...depriving my posterity of the Freedom I fought for rather than fearing the fabricated CIA-Created and funded Bogeymen:

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/10/26/executive-order-establishing-white-house-homeland-security-partnership-c

    "to maximize the Federal Government's ability to develop local partnerships in the United States to support homeland security priorities. Collaboration enables the Federal Government and its partners to use resources more efficiently.. Partnerships enhance our ability to address homeland security priorities, from responding to natural disasters to preventing terrorism, by utilizing diverse perspectives, skills, tools, and resources."

    http://www.infowars.com/obama-issues-executive-order-merging-federal-and-corporate-effort-in-war-on-terror/
    “Scores of fusion centers around the country are not tracking al-Qaeda, they are tracking and monitoring Ron Paul supporters and dangerous constitutionalists.”

    Obama has already funded a CIVILIAN ARMY IN THE BODY OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT...page 1312:

    "SEC. 5210. ESTABLISHING A READY RESERVE CORPS.
    Section 203 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 204)"
    http://askmarion.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/obama-gets-civilian-army-in-healthcare-bill/
    (THE MOTIVATION FOR A MILITARY SILENT COUP, PERHAPS?)

    Reality bites...

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    1. Indeed, Patriarch: this is Obama's legacy, along with the trashing of the Magna Carta in NDAA 2012. There is no rehabilitation of this president. When you ask who is controlling his agenda, the evidence is that Brennan and the other "choir boys" are pushing for these dictatorial powers, and Obama (being blackmailed over his questionable eligibility?) is quick to assume them. Dr. Pieczenik is correct in pressing for the removal of the choir boys, but it would appear that the failure of the soft-coup has solidified their position. In any case, I doubt it would make much of a difference; examine the history of Obama and you find consistently that the walk is in direct contradiction to the talk.

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    2. Patriarch

      Thank you. You must be 90ish. Blessed be. My intuitive sense has always detected Obama as an actor with a clowns face and reasonably skilled at NLP. He is a fantasist.

      My father fought at the Battle of Hong Kong and spent most of his time in capture as a labor slave in Japan with all the suffering any many could endure. He fought to keep his body weight at 100 pounds knowing what less than would result in. Strangely, he became a stationary engineer and work around steam powered turbines. I have always felt that deep connection to " the bomb ".

      Thanks for your participation.

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    3. 90 in march. still ready to roll, merely a tad slower. no meds except supplements keeps the dr. away. meds are a slow insecticide, balanced meals, and some exercise. bridge maintains my wits and my deductive conclusion competence...a great brain exercise.

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  5. To all my readers/contributors thanks for reading and thank you for the dialogue....makes a much better product!

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  6. Is Thomas R. Pickering related to Timothy Pickering, the third U.S. Secretary of State? From Wikipedia:

    Timothy Pickering (July 17, 1745 – January 29, 1829) was a politician from Massachusetts who served in a variety of roles, most notably as the third United States Secretary of State, serving in that office from 1795 to 1800 under Presidents George Washington and John Adams.

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  7. read an article entitled "shocking truth about retired generals revealed" on the russia today website, totally vindicates what dr pieczenik says about some generals! also im digesting a lot of stuff regarding the israeli\gaza disgusting situation and id like to invite people to look at this, http://youtu.be/-mwkh54zj8.word is that hilary or is it hilarity as we say in england is rushing to isreal for emergency talks! far be it from me to offer up a better idea but wouldnt a certain someone with experience in dealing with these situations be better suited for this task? mrs clintons handling or reaction to the alledged death of gadaffi gives a clear indication of her vocation in these matters! thanks again for an opportunity to express a view dr pieczenik

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    1. Quite. That "We came, we saw, he's dead" line of hers as the murdered corpse of Gadaffi was flashed on the screen was a real classic! She should hang for that. Thank God she's resigning, at least.

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  8. From what I can tell, Pickering may be the best man for the job of Sec State. But first, he is also conducting the Benghazi investigation. I trust that his investigation will be both honest and competent. Note, however, that he was appointed to do the investigation by the Obama administration, in particular by Hillary Killary Hillarity Clinton. That causes some people - mostly Republicans out to Watergate Obama, to discount him in advance. They are hoping the Republicans will come up with something really damaging in the Congressional hearings. They are probably going to put forward the idea that Benghazi was an Iranian operation, and blame the Obama administration's incompetence and cowardice for letting it happen and not trying to save Stevens. On the other hand it may have been an operation of Sunni militant mercenaries that NATO is sending against Syria and Iran. Hillary and Obama may have thought they controlled these forces and did not realize there were forces inside the CIA working against them. These forces could include the "choir boys" Brennan and Donilon. I for one am not prejudging the results of either the Administration or the Congressional investigation. I just hope the truth comes to light.

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  9. Nixon/Kissenger's "detente" was vastly overshadowed by their lunatic exaggeration of the linkage between Moscow/Peking and every communist party everywhere. This MISPERCEPTION is at the root of such over-reactions as Indochina from 1969 through 1973, the Allende issue in Chile, and countless other examples.

    Ford/Kissenger continued this lunatic idea by claiming that the Cubans were acting on behalf of Moscow in their African adventures WHEN THEY CLEARLY WERE NOT. Ford was the well-meaning dunce who gave Cheney and Rumsfeld their shots, and allowed George Bush to conspire with them in burying decades of crime at CIA by exposing and then destoying records, including those of MKULTRA.

    Carter was a sincere person who measured his own integrity by HOW FAR HE COULD PUSH UNPOPULAR POLICIES. This explains his appointment of Paul Volker and his longsuffering attitude toward Iran, both of which led the public to embrace Reagan [who four years earlier was viewed as a far-right radical]. Carter harbored the sinister Brezesinski, who worked with CIA in supporting Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan PRIOR TO THE SOVIET INVASION in December 1979. These covert terror programs WERE THE SOLE REASON WHY THE RUSSIANS invaded, which was for DEFENSIVE AND NOT OFFENSIVE REASONS.

    CARTER'S BUNGLING IS THE CAUSE OF THE THIRTY YEAR AFGHAN WAR!

    LET CARTER BALANCE THAT AGAINST HIS "peacemaking" like the sell-out at Camp David [which gave rise to the Egyptian 'al-qaeda.']

    As for Reagan OH MY GOD...
    Well once the Russians were in Afghanistan he and Director Casey, Jack Devine and their ilk didn't help matters any.

    Nor can we say that Reagan's romantic visions of central American anti-communist fighters were lodged in anything but madness and lunacy. A lot of ordinary people were dismembers, had their eyes cut out of their skulls, sufferred various mutilations, etc. resulting from Reagan's illusions.

    George Bush played a heavy role in the central American carnage. A dullard idiot son of a golf-playing Senator from Connecticut [a New Yorker so to speak] Bush was CIA in the eastern establishment, stripped tie variety who never met a latin despot or right-wing terrorist he didn't like. The attack on Grenada was lunacy, as was the failure to deter Saddam Hussein from occupying Kuwait. The war that resulted, and the sanctions, civil war and other horrors, I lay squarely at Bush's blood-soaked feet.

    Clinton wasn't a "sociopath," but a normally un-interested jerk who feels little empathy or curiosity for others. He's a narcisst -- what's new regarding politicians. I believe he never read his daily briefs and could care less about world affairs. His heart was still in what's going on at the Kiwanis Club in Little Rock.

    W. BUSH was a self-loathing dry drunk seeking to redeme himself to his family through political success. Oh he did that alright. Like puddy in the hands of his Israeli [oh did I say that] staff, he was mysteriously out of touch for hours while on Air Force One during 9-11. In other words a fourteen layer redundant system designed to operate when fully stressed in a nuclear war suddenly collapsed to his staff could take over control. He never knew what hit him.

    Saddam's last words, "Palestine belongs to the Arabs." As to who was behind 9-11 and why it happened [the elimination of the Iraqi Ba'ath] he had little doubt.

    Obama like Bush is a self-loathing child rejected or spurned by his family in youth --- and therefore speaks in public with a dialect not his own. If their respective phoney dialects don't reveal their personal identity pathologies [Bush and Obama's] then I don't know what does.

    Obama is a half-African psychologial cousine of Bush Jr., and with a similarly ineffectual inability to perceive anything accurately or skeptically which is presented to him by anyone..including his foreign policy staff.

    In that regard he ain't no Kennedy.

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  10. I apologize..and meant to say George Bush's invasion of PANAMA was lunacy...not Grenada.

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  11. And before anyone accuses me of left-leanings let me declare that the overthrow of the South African government and what's happened since is a catastrophy for the people of southern Africa. Indiginous Africans are incapable of self-government.

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