(2006-07-22) Chet Richards Interview

Interview with Chet Richards. FourGW, etc.

• Containment basically says, "What we want to do is keep the threat level down to something that we can stand ,while staying actively involved in the rest of the world through other means to try to lure people to us."... Well, go back to George Kennan's original idea. That's where the term containment comes from. He said to contain the Soviet Union militarily so we didn't have World War III, but then to try to involve them in as many things as you can. The other thing about Kennan is that by '48 or so, he was saying, "Hey, they're contained. Now we really need to start trying to involve ourselves with them." Everyone ignored him, and he had to spend the rest of his life saying this wasn't the containment he had in mind... Saddam Hussein was so weak, it didn't take very much to contain him.

• We're spending half a trillion dollars, and when you look around, who's it going to defend us from? It didn't defend us from AlQaeda.

• (re risks from private security companies - PMC-s): There is no doubt in my mind that there's going to be abuses. Then again, the Declaration Of Independence lists all the abuses of standing military forces against the people. The thing the Founding athers were just deathly afraid of, and thought the biggest threat to people's liberties, was large standing military forces (Standing Army). Look down through history at all the times that armies have turned against their own citizenry. At least on the private side, they'll have some competition. It's difficult for one of those companies to do too much damage, because companies can bring the abuses of their competitors to the surface. If Black Water starts doing things that are too egregious, there's an incentive for a Triple Canopy to rat them out.