Some good stuff from Sic Semper Tyrannis

Common sense reigns on Col. Patrick Lang's committee of correspondence known as Sic Semper Tyrannis.  The Neutralist will comment on a couple.

First up is

South Sudan Another Failure of U S Foreign Policy

by Hank Foresman.  Now I don't know who Mr. Foresman is, but I did try to do a little research.  It appears he had a military career like Col. Lang and has graduate degrees.  At the end of the day, the credentials are not as important as the validity of what he wrote.  I agree with his analysis that Rice and Powers don't get it.  

He praises the older generation of realists such as, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Baker, Sam Nunn, James Baker, and Jeanne Kilpatrick.  To an extent, I agree.  They did have a better connection to what was possible to manage.

Of course, the Neutralist does believe that the short term goal of American FP should be to undo World War I and the long term to position ourselves so that we need not go on foreign adventures.  The aforementioned wise men and woman were not on that team. 

Of course, as usual, my blood boils when I read the I word as in this comment from Col. Foresman,

Hank Foresman said in reply to Alba Etie...
Mr. Etie: I believe we are seeing a more restrained Foreign Policy but one that is still heavily influenced by the likes of Slaughter, Rice, and Power. The Neo-cons are still a prominent force in the loyal opposition but they are increasingly being challenged by neo-isolationists such as Rand Paul and his father and Wyden and others on the left side of the Senate aisle. I am not very optimistic that realism will see the light of day in the near term.

The Rands are Neutralists even if they don't know it.  They are certainly anti-intervionists.

Even more instructive are Col. Lang's comments on the new NIE on Afghanistan.

The Neutralist has no connections and knows no one, but we saw Afghanistan and Iraq coming a cropper before either invasion.