Suggested Short-Quiz Answers

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Suggested Short-Quiz Answers

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To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Bcc: Our Email List of Approximately 150
Sent: October 30, 2010
Subject: Suggested Short-Quiz Answers - Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward


Dear Friends,

Our next meeting is WEDNESday evening, November 10th at the Salt Lake Public Library. Our focus will be Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward (available at your local library or from Amazon.com for $15.00 + shipping).

It is the latest of many books by Bob Woodward - Pulitzer Prize winning Columnist and Associate Editor of the Washington Post who, as a young reporter, teamed with Carl Bernstein, another young Washington Post reporter, to break the Nixon Watergate story and then to pursue it with the help of Deep Throat until Nixon was forced to leave office.

Woodward's latest book was released September 27th and rocketed straight to Number One on the NY Times Bestseller List. Its title, Obama's Wars, refers to (1) his decision at the beginning of his Administration to surge American troop strength in Afghanistan by 21,000 and then, after an extended period of re-evaluation, to surge American troop strength in Afghanistan by another 33,000, bringing it from 47,000 at the beginning of his Administration to a total of 101,000, and (2) his decisions to increase the number of drone attacks inside Pakistan by a factor of more than 10 while pressuring the Pakistani Army to provide the "boots on the ground" to support his new war in Pakistan.

Bob Woodward's new book is obviously timed to influence President Obama's Review of American Policy in Afghanistan which is scheduled to commence in December and which was announced at the same time as his second American troop surge in Afghanistan.


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APOLOGY

For this e-mail being sent after dawn -- because, when in Utah, it is imperative to attend Ballet West, best ballet company outside NYC/Europe, and their opening-night performances always require intense and lengthy celebrations afterwards!!!


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SUGGESTED SHORT-QUIZ ANSWERS - OBAMA'S WARS BY BOB WOODWARD

Question 1

How many Pulitzer Prizes has Bob Woodward won?

Answer 1

Two = coverage of the Watergate scandal and coverage of the 9/11 attacks.

Question 2

How many nonfiction books authored by Bob Woodward became NY Times No. 1 bestsellers?

Answer 2

Obama's Wars is his 12th.

Question 3

What did President Obama recently tell Bob Woodward was his (President Obama's) greatest concern, both as a candidate and since becoming President?

Answer 3

A terrorist attack on the U.S. using nuclear weapons.

Question 4

Was/Is there good reason for this concern?

Answer 4

As we have studied many times in the past (1) Osama bin Laden issued long ago a Fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans (the number of Arabs he calculated had been killed by the U.S. or its allies), (2) the Founding Dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government wrote a book on how to deal with Osama's Fatwa by controlling nuclear material, (3) it has often been pointed out that this approach is wishful thinking because, for example, the old Soviet Union's missing 178 suitcase-size nuclear weapons contained a considerable amount of recycle-able nuclear material and have long since been universally agreed by experts to be in the hands of terrorists, and (4) this issue has been the subject of intense concern for every recent Chair of the Sen Fgn Rel or Sen Armed Services Committees with, indeed, Sen Fgn Rel Chair Joe Biden writing an Op Ed piece for the Wall St. Journal during the 2008 Presidential campaign arguing that all nuclear material has "DNA" indicating where it was produced and the U.S. should announce to the world that if it is ever subject to a nuclear attack from terrorists, the U.S. will annihilate with nuclear weapons the country of origin of the nuclear material used against the U.S. (causing some wags to point out that if the U.S. itself is the country of origin, the Biden Doctrine would obligate us to commit nuclear suicide!!!).

Question 5

Are the Tribal Regions along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border part of either country?

Answer 5

Yes and No. Pakistan, for political reasons, will often protest American drone attacks in Pakistan's Tribal Regions. But in September 2006 Pakistan "signed a treaty ceding full control of FATA's North Waziristan region to Taliban-linked tribal chiefs, creating a kind of Wild West for al Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents attacking the U.S. forces in Afghanistan" (Obama's Wars, p. 3).

Question 6

How many terrorist training camps run by the Al Qaeda network are located in the Tribal Regions?

Answer 6

More than 150.

Question 7

How many U.S. drone attacks in the Tribal Regions of Pakistan were conducted before President Bush left office? How many since President Obama assumed office?

Answer 7

There were 43 during the last 5 years of the Bush Administration (the attacks started in 2004).

There have been 144 during the first 18 months of the Obama Administration.

Question 8

If the U.S. government ever captured Osama bin Laden, do you think it would admit it?

Answer 8

Al Qaeda is a loosely-knit worldwide franchise. Indeed, the Christmas Day bomber on the Detroit-bound airliner last December and this week's bombs sent via UPS to the U.S. were conceived, planned and directed from Yemen.

How would the U.S. Government ever be able to continue anti-terrorism efforts on the scale needed if it ever admitted it had captured Osama???

Question 9

How many so-called failed states are there in the world today where the Al Qaeda network already exists or would be welcome?

Answer 9

Quite a few, starting with Yemen and, Osama's old base, Somalia.

Question 10

Does it appear that the U.S. government, reading between the lines, is agreeing to the conversion of the Pakistani Government back into a military dictatorship in return for military cooperation in the Tribal Regions.

Answer 10

Yes.

Question 11

Is the presence of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia (combined with the latter's non-democratic government) the greatest recruiting tool for the Al Qaeda network?

Answer 11

Probably.

Question 12

Is General David Petraeus a registered Republican? Is there a fear at the White House that he will become a Presidential candidate in 2012?

Answer 12

Yes. Yes.


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We hope to see and hear all of you on Nov 10th!!!

Your friend,

John K.

PS - To un-subscribe, please press "reply" and type "deletion requested."

PPS - Our sister organization, Drinking Liberally, usually meets twice a month on Friday evenings for socializing with like-minded individuals from 6:30 pm > 9:30 pm at Piper Down (1492 South State Street).

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