Subject: RE: Pentagon hunting for a home for Africom
From: "Brian R. Lang" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:15:03 -0500

Hunter:

We may be about two more days on the contract. We are running it through a securities lawyer who probably will make a change here or there. What lawyer doesn’t? I thought my comments to the contract had been deemed acceptable, but Dad wants to run it by a firm downtown to make sure you are totally protected (as well as we). 

 

 

________________________

Brian R. Lang

Senior Vice President

Guardian Realty Investors, LLC

301-770-5933 (t)

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From: Hunter Biden [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 1:43 PM
To: Brian R. Lang
Subject: Re: Pentagon hunting for a home for Africom

Perfect- just wanted to make sure all was good and you incorporated any changes additions you wanted.

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 29, 2010, at 1:32 PM, "Brian R. Lang" <[email-masked]> wrote:

	My Dad should have it to you either today or tomorrow. Hope that is okay?

	----------------------------------
	Sent via Wireless email
	Brian R Lang
	301-770-5933
	202-536-7288(c)
	
	This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. 

	
	----- Original Message -----
	From: Hunter Biden <[email-masked]>
	To: Brian R. Lang
	Sent: Mon Nov 29 12:22:20 2010
	Subject: Re: Pentagon hunting for a home for Africom
	
	Speaking w/ Dan Pedroty/ AFL tomorrow. Are we settled on agreement?
	
	Sent from my iPhone
	
	On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:34 AM, "Brian R. Lang" <[email-masked]> wrote:

	
	        Thanks Hunter. Hope the Thanksgiving holiday was a good one. Family dynamics are always super!
	       
	        Any luck with afl?

	        ----------------------------------
	        Sent via Wireless email
	        Brian R Lang
	        301-770-5933
	        202-536-7288(c)
	       
	        This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named.

	       
	        ----- Original Message -----
	        From: Hunter Biden <[email-masked]>
	        To: Brian R. Lang
	        Sent: Mon Nov 29 10:19:32 2010
	        Subject: Fwd: Pentagon hunting for a home for Africom
	       
	        See below

	              

	       
	       
	                < <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/26/AR2010112604889.html> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/26/AR2010112604889.html> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/26/AR2010112604889.html> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/26/AR2010112604889.html

	       
	                Pentagon hunting for a home for Africom

	                The Pentagon is reopening a worldwide search for a home for its Africa military command, which still lacks a permanent headquarters three years after it was created.
	       
	                Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the Obama administration's nominee to take charge of the U.S. Africa Command, or Africom, told a Senate committee last week that he would launch the search if he is confirmed. The command is based in Stuttgart, Germany, partly because African leaders strongly objected to the prospect of an expanded U.S. military presence on their continent.
	       
	                "I think I should approach this, if confirmed, essentially with a blank piece of paper," Ham told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
	       
	                Among the options, Ham said, would be to move Africom headquarters - and its 1,500 jobs - to the United States, where lawmakers are already eyeing the post as a economic boon for their districts.
	       
	                One possibility is southwestern Virginia, where state officials have seized on it as a potential consolation prize for the anticipated loss of the U.S. Joint Forces Command.
	       
	                In a cost-cutting move announced by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in August, the Pentagon is planning to shutter the Joint Forces Command, which is based in Norfolk and employs about 6,000 government workers and contractors.
	       
	                In a meeting Tuesday < <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112307505.html> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112307505.html>  with Virginia lawmakers who are lobbying him to preserve the Joint Forces Command, Gates said he was open to the possibility that the state be considered as the new home for Africom.
	       
	                "Secretary Gates agreed to include Norfolk in any future review to decide on a permanent home for Africom headquarters," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.
	       
	                Gates tried to take the sting out of the expected closure of the Joint Forces Command by telling the Virginia delegation that not all of its 6,000 jobs would be eliminated. "Functions determined to be of importance and retained will likely remain in the Norfolk and Suffolk area," Morrell said.
	       
	                The Bush administration announced in 2007 that it would create Africom to improve military relations with countries that historically have gotten short shrift from Washington. The decision was spurred, in part, by concerns that Islamist extremists could find a refuge in poor, loosely governed areas of the continent.
	       
	                The announcement, however, drew criticism at home and abroad. Diplomats complained that the Pentagon was militarizing U.S. government relations in Africa. And many African countries, citing memories of colonial oppression, recoiled at the idea of a large U.S. military footprint in their backyard.
	       
	                A U.S. delegation that visited Africa in June 2007 to seek a home for the command headquarters got a chilly reception, < <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/23/AR2007062301318.html> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/23/AR2007062301318.html>  even from allies otherwise on friendly terms with the Pentagon.
	       
	                "The African countries looked at it as a threat," Maj. Gen. Abdeljebbar Assaoui, Morocco's director of intelligence and counterterrorism, said at a security conference this month at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md. "It was made very clear that no one wanted the presence of any foreign military, especially the U.S., anywhere in Africa."
	       
	                Former U.S. officials acknowledged that the home-hunting process was mishandled.
	       
	                "AFRICOM is doing good things today, but unfortunately it got off to a horrible start," said Carlton W. Fulford, a retired Marine Corps general who served as director of the Defense Department's Africa Center for Strategic Studies from 2003 to 2006.
	       
	                "It is a textbook case of how you can get off on the wrong foot if you're not good with public relations and explaining who you are and what you do, and we didn't," he said.
	       
	                Previously, military relations with Africa were the responsibility of the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, so the Africa Command made its tentative home there, too.
	       
	                In October 2008, Gates called off the search and said the Pentagon would wait until early 2012 to decide on a permanent headquarters. The current commander, Gen. William "Kip" Ward, subsequently said he expected the headquarters to remain in Stuttgart indefinitely.
	       
	                Pentagon officials have not said why they are reopening the