[iwar] [fc:The.PowerPoint.That.Rocked.the.Pentagon]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-08 08:19:02


Return-Path: <sentto-279987-5145-1028819924-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com>
Delivered-To: fc@all.net
Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Thu, 08 Aug 2002 08:20:08 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (qmail 24259 invoked by uid 510); 8 Aug 2002 15:17:26 -0000
Received: from n25.grp.scd.yahoo.com (66.218.66.81) by all.net with SMTP; 8 Aug 2002 15:17:26 -0000
X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-5145-1028819924-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com
Received: from [66.218.66.97] by n25.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 08 Aug 2002 15:18:45 -0000
X-Sender: fc@red.all.net
X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com
Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_7_4); 8 Aug 2002 15:18:44 -0000
Received: (qmail 87817 invoked from network); 8 Aug 2002 15:18:44 -0000
Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m14.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 8 Aug 2002 15:18:44 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.72.152) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 8 Aug 2002 15:18:43 -0000
Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g78FJ2R17879 for iwar@onelist.com; Thu, 8 Aug 2002 08:19:02 -0700
Message-Id: <200208081519.g78FJ2R17879@red.all.net>
To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List)
Organization: I'm not allowed to say
X-Mailer: don't even ask
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3]
From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet
Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 08:19:02 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:The.PowerPoint.That.Rocked.the.Pentagon]
Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=5.0 tests=DIFFERENT_REPLY_TO version=2.20
X-Spam-Level: 

The PowerPoint That Rocked the Pentagon
The LaRouchie defector who's advising the defense establishment on Saudi Arabia.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, August 7, 2002, at 4:49 PM PT

<a href="http://slate.msn.com/?id=2069119">http://slate.msn.com/?id=2069119>

Diplomatic china rattled in Washington and cracked in Riyadh yesterday when
the Washington Post published a story about a briefing given to a Pentagon
advisory group last month. The briefing declared Saudi Arabia an enemy of
the United States and advocated that the United States invade the country,
seize its oil fields, and confiscate its financial assets unless the Saudis
stop supporting the anti-Western terror network.

The Page One story, by Thomas E. Ricks ("Briefing Depicted Saudis as
Enemies: Ultimatum Urged To Pentagon Board," Aug. 6), described a 24-slide
presentation given by Rand Corp. analyst Laurent Murawiec on July 10, 2002,
to the Defense Policy Board, a committee of foreign policy wonks and former
government officials that advises the Pentagon on defense issues. Murawiec's
PowerPoint scenario, which is reproduced for the first time below, makes him
sound like an aspiring Dr. Strangelove.

Just who the hell is Laurent Murawiec? The Post story and its follow-up,
also by Ricks, do not explain. The Pentagon and the administration insist
that the presentation does not reflect their views in any way. The Rand
Corp. acknowledges its association with Murawiec, but likewise disavows any
connection with the briefing. (Neither Murawiec nor Rand received money for
the briefing, Rand says.) According to Newsday, Defense Policy Board
chairman Richard N. Perle, a former Pentagon official and fulltime
invade-Iraq hawk, invited Murawiec to brief the group, so Perle can't
exactly distance himself from the presentation. But he can do the next best
thing‹duck reporters' questions. Murawiec also declined reporters'
inquiries, including one from Slate.

The first half of Murawiec's presentation reads calmly enough, echoing
Fareed Zakaria's Oct. 15, 2001, Newsweek essay about why the Arab world
hates the United States. Its tribal, despotic regimes bottle up domestic
dissent but indulge the exportation of political anger; intellectually, its
people are trapped the middle ages; its institutions lack the tools to deal
with the 21st-century problems; yadda yadda yadda.

But then Murawiec lights out for the extreme foreign policy territory,
recommending that we threaten Medina and Mecca, home to Islam's most holy
places, if they don't see it our way. Ultimately, he champions a takeover of
Saudi Arabia. The last slide in the deck, titled "Grand strategy for the
Middle East," abandons the outrageous for the incomprehensible. It reads:

    * Iraq is the tactical pivot
    * Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot
* Egypt the prize

Egypt the prize?

Because none of the Defense Policy Board attendees are talking candidly
about the session, it's hard to divine what "Egypt the prize" means or if
Murawiec's briefing put it into any context. It sounds a tad loopy, even by
Dr. Strangelove standards. The Post report does mention a "talking point"
attached to the 24-page PowerPoint deck, that describes Saudi Arabia as "the
kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" in the Middle
East. That's extreme talk even by the standards of the anti-Saudi
editorialists at the Weekly Standard and the rest of the invade-Iraq
fellowship.

Who is Laurent Murawiec, and where did he learn to write like this? The
George Washington University Elliot School of International Affairs Web site
lists him as a faculty member, but it lists no current or future classes by
him. The site's biographical page adds that he's a graduate of the Sorbonne
University, that he worked as "A foreign correspondent for a major French
business weekly in Germany" (isn't that kind of vague?), and is the
co-founder of GeoPol Services SA, "a consulting company in Geneva,
Switzerland, which advised major multinational corporations and banks." It
also lists him as a former adviser to the French ministry of defense and the
translator (into French) of Clausewitz's On War.

A sweep of the Web shows that he lectured on Islamic terrorism in Toronto on
March 11, 2002, under the aegis of the Canadian Institute for Strategic
studies. He wrote an article titled "The Wacky World of French
Intellectuals," in the Middle East Quarterly, co-edited a Rand Corp. book,
and made these comments at a Nautilus Institute conference. When he spoke on
panel with Richard Perle at the American Enterprise Institute on Dec. 1,
1999, Murawiec was introduced as having just moved to the U.S. after "a
dozen years" of working as managing director of GeoPol in Geneva, "a service
that supplies advice to European clients, similar to what Kissinger
Associates offers from New York, except without the accent." That is a bit
of an overstatement. A Google search of "Murawiec and GeoPol" produces 12
hits. Compare that to the 10,300 hits on Google for "Kissinger Associates."

Murawiec's résumé would predict many Nexis hits, but a search of his name
reveals just five bylines: Twice already this year, Murawiec has contributed
to the neocon publication the National Interest, on the subject of Russia.
In 1999, he wrote for the Post's "Outlook" section on "internationalism,"
and in 1996 he contributed a piece to the Journal of Commerce on Russia. His
only other Nexisable byline is a dusty one from the Jan. 23, 1985, edition
of the Financial Times, which describes Murawiec as "the European Economics
Editor of the New York-based Executive Intelligence Review weekly magazine."

Executive Intelligence Review, as scholars of parapolitics know, is a
publication of the political fantasist, convicted felon, and perpetual
presidential candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. It's not clear exactly when
Murawiec left the LaRouche orbit. An article by LaRouche that appeared last
year in Executive Intelligence Review calls Murawiec "a real-life
'Beetlebaum' of the legendary mythical horse-race, and a hand-me-down
political carcass, currently in the possession of institutions of a peculiar
odor." In 1997, LaRouche's wife Helga Zupp LaRouche wrote in Executive
Intelligence Review (republished in the LaRouche affiliated AboutSudan.com
Web site) that Murawiec "was once part of our organization and is now on the
side of organized crime." The truth value of that statement surely ranks up
there with LaRouche's claim that the Queen of England controls the crack
trade. To say, zero.

When Murawiec departed LaRouche's company is unclear, but Dennis King,
author of 1989's Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, thinks it
came when many followers split as LaRouche's legal problems grew and
climaxed with a 1988 conviction for conspiracy and mail fraud. "[Murawiec]
was not a political leader," says King, "but a follower who did intelligence
gathering."

Now that Murawiec has assumed such a vocal place in the policy debate, the
man who gave him the lectern owes us the complete backstory. Over to you,
Richard Perle. 

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
4 DVDs Free +s&p Join Now
http://us.click.yahoo.com/pt6YBB/NXiEAA/Ey.GAA/kgFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

------------------
http://all.net/ 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2002-10-01 06:44:32 PDT