Category: Peace Intelligence

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Journal: Obama, Palestine, & Forces of History

Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

One of President Obama's unintended achievements has been to bring the moral bankruptcy of the Orwellian-named Middle East Peace Process into sharp relief: By trying to bribe Netanyahu into returning to the bargaining table with an offer of 20 additional F-35 Fighters in return for a 90 day extension of a phony settlement freeze, and then seeing Netanyahu stuffing it to Obama, theater of the absurd came into full view.  Perhaps, however, the crisis is darkest before the dawn.  Jeff Halper (bio), an Israeli activist with American roots, lays out the possibility that Obama's failure inadvertently opened the door for what would certainly be a messy and painful, but possibly successful game-changing scenario for way out of this intractable conflict.

I admire Halper and his good works, but I am not so optimistic.  All revolutions are pathways into the future  fueled by any interplay of chance and necessity; and therefore, their outcomes are, by definition, unknowable: apartheid in South Africa may have produced F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandella; but in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), it produced  Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe.  In Israel, apartheid has produced Binyamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and a unifying mixture of neofascism and narcissism on one side, but no one of Mandella's moral stature or even an opposing unifying ideal on the other.  That said, Halper's essay is very important and worth thinking about.  Chuck

Jeff Halper

Palestine 2011
By Jeff Halper
November 25th, 2010

Phi Beta Iota: This is an EXTRAORDINARY piece of balanced thinking, relevant to all who wish for peace and shared prosperity in the Middle East and elsewhere.  Gaza is Ground Zero for the moral and intellectual failure of US “national security” and foreign policy, and this one article puts it all into focus.

Read original article recommended by Chuck Spinney….

Jeff Halper is the Director of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

Also recommended by Chuck Spinny:

The Drums of War Are Heard Again In Israel, By Ilan Pappe, GlobalResearch, 27 December , 2010

See Also:

Continue reading “Journal: Obama, Palestine, & Forces of History”

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Journal: Taliban Reflects on Departure of US from AF

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, IO Sense-Making, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Earlier Reports:

• Part one: The London cab driver who fights for the Taliban

• Part two: Five days inside a Taliban jail


Talking to the Taliban about life after occupation

Special report: In the last of his series from Afghanistan, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad asks Taliban leaders past and present what kind of regime they would run – and whether there is a chance of negotiated peace

The administrator

In the south-eastern city of Khost, the everyday business of the Taliban administration carries on across the street from the fortified, government-run city court and police station.

Read rest of this long provocative article….

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Journal: Wind Power Boondoggle–and the Information Operations (IO) Challenge of Energy and Time in Relation to Policy, Acquisition, and Operations

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, History, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Key Players, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Strategy, Threats
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

My good friend Robert Bryce, author of the must-read Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green' Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future just launched this little torpedo.

A Wind Power Boonedoggle

T. Boone Pickens badly misjudged the supply and price of natural gas.

By ROBERT BRYCE, Wall Street Journal, 22 December 2010

After 30 months, countless TV appearances, and $80 million spent on an extravagant PR campaign, T.

Boone Pickens has finally admitted the obvious: The wind energy business isn't a very good one.

Read full article….

Click to Enlarge

Phi Beta Iota: Buckminster Fuller and Russell Ackoff nailed it–everything has to be evaluated in relation to energy source and cost and time cost, and you have to focus on doing the right things, not doing the wrong things righter.  Where Mr. Pickens went wrong was in sticking with the centralized ownership concept.  Wind power and solar power are best for localized applications.  The central grid–the Industrial Era top down control grid, is DEAD.  Similarly, water and sewage should not be centralized grids demanding massive investments in collection and processing.  The graphic to the right shows corruption in the center–when analytics and decision-making lose their holistic integrity, they inevitably fail to achieve the desired outcome while creating cascading costs everywhere else.  Military spending in the USA is at the beginning of a nose dive–our military leaders would be wise to get a grip sooner than later, and “beat the dive” by making evidence-based decisions (Advanced IO) sooner than later.  Now a really advanced thought: 21st Century national security is about eradicating corruption at home and abroad–this makes possible the creation of a prosperous world at peace.  The breadth of that challenge is in the graphic below.  That is an IO challenge, not a kinetic challenge.  IO must be co-equal to kinetics beginning immediately.  In our humble opinion.

Click to Enlarge

See Also:

Journal: ‘Systemic Corruption’–Daunting Challenge in Globalized Era

Reference: Frog 6 Guidance 2010-2020

Reference: Transparency Killer App Plus “Open Everything” RECAP (Back to 01/2007)

Reference: Cultures of Resistance–A Look at Global Militarization

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Reference: Logistics Oversight as an Information Operations (IO) Mission

Articles & Chapters, Computer/online security, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Threats

David IsenbergDavid Isenberg

Posted: December 21, 2010 11:59 PM

Huffington Post

Can't Anyone at DoD Do Oversight? Anyone at All?

The perennial issue regarding private military security contractors is the degree to which they are subject to effective oversight. In that regard there is only one item in today's news worth looking at. That is the report issued by the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, chaired by John F. Tierney (D-MA). The Majority staff report is titled, Mystery at Manas: Strategic Blind Spots in the Department of Defense's Fuel Contracts in Kyrgyzstan. The report culminates an eight-month investigation into the Department of Defense's multi-billion dollar aviation fuel contracts at the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan.

Reminding one of the famous line by 1st Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder in Joseph Heller's famous Catch-22 novel, “We're gonna come out of this war rich!” the report found that to keep U.S. warplanes flying over Afghanistan, the Pentagon allowed a “secrecy obsessed” business group to supply jet fuel to a U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan, turning a blind eye to an elaborate fraud involving fuel deliveries from Russia.

. . . . . . .

But the fuel was being bought by the Pentagon for shipment to the American airbase in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, and from there on to Afghanistan, the report said. Once Russian officials discovered the true identity of the recipient, they cut off supplies, creating a major logistical headache for United States military commanders.

That breakdown forced a major redrawing of supply routes into Afghanistan for jet fuel, which is in chronically short supply in landlocked Afghanistan. It also touched off a major behind-the-scenes diplomatic effort by the Obama administration to rebuild the fuel lines.

Read the complete very well-presented and documented article….

Phi Beta Iota: David Isenberg, author of Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq, has become a valuable oversight contributor with respect to the out-of-control acquisition system on top of the out-of-control Private Military Contractor (PMC) system.  When reliability and redundancy matter, any military force that does not understand its supply chain timelines, costs, and geospatial realities down to the RFID level, as well as the vulnerabilities to disruption, is begging for a major hit.  The Information Operations (IO) domain appears poised for a major advance, integrating intelligence, logistics, operations, and civil affairs information in a manner never before attempted–with the supplemental value of placing Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in proper relationship to Cyber-Security, i.e. 70-30 or thereabouts (some would say 80-20).  Make this multinational, and it will be a game changer.  This is one reason the Office of the Inspector-General is one of the fifteen slices of HUMINT that must be managed by IO.

See Also:

Continue reading “Reference: Logistics Oversight as an Information Operations (IO) Mission”

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NIGHTWATCH Extracts: Koreas, Iran, Sudan

05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, IO Sense-Making, Peace Intelligence

South Korea: For the first time in seven years, South Korea has lit a 100-foot tower in the shape of a Christmas triee with 100,000 Christmas lights and topped it with a cross, along the Demilitarized Zone. A choir sang Christmas carols. The tower and carols could be seen and heard in North Korea.

. . . . . . .

Afghanistan-Iran: Iran is blocking almost 2,000 fuel tankers from crossing the border into Afghanistan, saying the trucks would supply U.S.-led coalition troops, according to Afghan officials. The unannounced blockade is in its third week, and Afghan officials do not know when fuel imports will resume, Afghan Deputy Minister of Commerce Sharif Shairifi said.

. . . . . . .

Sudan: Update. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz held talks with Sudanese President Omar al Bashir and Southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir in Khartoum on 21 December in anticipation of the coming referendum on Southern Sudanese independence.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: All three pieces with the commentary are worth reading.  Even when wrong, the intellectual process and insights of the NIGHTWATCH leader are authentic, deep, and a real pleasure to consider.

1.  Wrong.  South Korea should not be provoking the North, and the US is long overdue from pulling out of South Korea.  This is a regional matter and like Germany, reunification is inevitable.  Meanwhile, the US military and the US taxpayer should not be burdened.

2.  Right.  Iran is Persia, and complicated.  The US supply lines to Afghanistan, and US cultural and doctrinal inadequacies in Afghanistan, combined with the FACT that it is costing the US taxpayer $50 million per Taliban body, the US is PAYING for the Taliban drug crop, and the US is blindly accepting of Karzai's deep deep corruption, all argue for a redirection of attention away from Afghanistan and toward respectful engagement with the Iran-Turkey axis of sensibility.

3.  Wrong.  Sudan is a bomb waiting to explode.  They may go through the motion of a vote, but the raw fact that the south has the wealth and the north has nothing means that strategic instability is inevitable.  Absent a regional plan to achieve tolerable prosperity for all, this is theater.  The US and the Arabs are settling for theater over thinking.

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Journal: Development at Gunpoint? Wasteful & Wrong

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Military, Non-Governmental, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Threats
DefDog Recommends...

Development at Gunpoint?

Why Civilians Must Reclaim Stabilization Aid

Michael Young

Foreign Affairs, December 19, 2010

Summary: Today, billions of dollars in aid is delivered by soldiers and private contractors at the behest of the political and military leadership. But this so-called “militarized aid” is ineffective, wasteful, and puts lives at risk.

MICHAEL YOUNG is Regional Director for Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East at the International Rescue Committee. He has worked in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chechnya, and Pakistan.

Article online….

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Reference: Private Military Corporations–A Non-State Actor-Nuclear Terror Nexus?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Full Paper Online
Private Military Corporations: A Non-State Actor-Nuclear Terror Nexus?

Robert L. Brown
Temple University

August 16, 2010

Abstract:

The risk of nuclear terrorism is hyped by some as possible and high consequence (Allison 2006) while others dismiss the strategy as too difficult and too risky for terrorist organizations (Jenkins 2008). However, analysts have no data from which to directly analyze the probability of terrorist acquisition and use. One methodological solution is to extend the range analysis to include analogous cases: private military corporations (PMCs) are one class of non-state actors (NSAs) who may possess the capacity and autonomy to pose a risk of nuclear terrorism for their state masters. I find that the while the technical and military capabilities of PMCs may be greater than those of terrorist organizations with respect to nuclear weapon construction or delivery, they are still be insufficient (and PMCs must also somehow acquire fissile materials). Also, PMCs benefit from agency slack, as demonstrated by Blackwater’s performance in Iraq, but this autonomy does not appear sufficient to carry out an illicit nuclear plot. Therefore, PMCs may be more capable than most terrorist organizations if they sought to acquire nuclear weapons but they are still unlikely to succeed.

Keywords: Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, Private Military Corporations, Blackwater, Xe

Working Paper Series
Brown, Robert L., Private Military Corporations: A Non-State Actor-Nuclear Terror Nexus? (August 16, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1659785

See Also:

David Isenberg, Jack Bauer Beats Blackwater, Huffington Post 20 december 2010

Journal: Near-Term Demise of Private Military Contractors