Category: Peace Intelligence

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Journal: Denmark Ceases on Afghanistan

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Military, Peace Intelligence

Afghanistan-Denmark-NATO: Today the Danish Foreign Minister said Denmark has turned down a NATO request to send F-16 fighters to Afghanistan because it believes it has done enough for the international military mission there.

“We are one of the countries that contributes the most to Afghanistan,” Foreign Minister Lene Espersen told the media after a meeting of parliament's foreign affairs committee. “This is why we rejected the NATO request” which was also made to other member countries, she said.

Espersen said the committee “has a strong desire to scale down engagement” in Afghanistan as the Danish defense budget was “under pressure” and the government “is under no obligation to do more” there. Denmark “can be proud” of its role in Afghanistan, she said, adding that “it's up to other countries to play a role and meet demands”.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: Denmark has 750 soldiers in Afghanistan serving in the International Security Assistance Force force, primarily in Helmand province. Its small contingent has sustained, proportionally, the heaviest losses of any ISAF nation with 34 combat deaths. The fight in Afghanistan is not popular in NATO. More countries may be expected to decline further involvement and pursue early withdrawal in 2011.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: Denmark spends more than most on waging peace, and its government is vastly more intelligent and holistic than the US Government (USG).  The raw truth is that the US made a huge mistake in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Denmark felt obliged to honor its NATO commitment when NATO compounded the mistake by making Afghanistan a NATO mission (equivalent to asking Mexico to declare Cuba a threat to national security–we all die laughing).  The USG is incapable of demonstrating any return on investment for its foreign and national security policies, and the US public is among the losers for this lack of intellectual integrity.

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Journal: Fairfax County Intelligence Up for Bid

10 Security, 11 Society, Intelligence (government), Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence
Friday, August 6, 2010

FedBiz

Fairfax County looking for intelligence analysts

Fairfax County is seeking bidders for a new contract that injects private sector intelligence analysts into regional law enforcement and homeland security efforts.

The county began working with intelligence analysts five years ago, and the existing contract with Fairfax-based ManTech International Corp. is set to expire at the end of the year.

Under the agreement, the defense contractor has provided eight analysts who work to identify terrorist threats in the national capital region and also provide support for more bread-and-butter police work.

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Journal: DoD QDR–incomplete, incoherent, incredible…

Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

In simple terms, the collection of links below centered on the latest Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), come to the general conclusion that the Department of Defense (DoD) can no longer think, strategize, complete staff work, or acquire the right capabilities to do what DoD is supposed to do (which is also a topic lacking consensus).

SMALL WARS JOURNAL ROBERT HADDICK: Not trusting the Pentagon’s staff to prepare a Quadrennial Defense Review that would be useful, the Congress established an independent panel of “wise men” to critique the QDR after its release. Last Thursday, the QDR Independent Panel, led by William Perry and Stephen Hadley and supported by a praiseworthy list of commissioners and staff members, released its critique of the 2010 QDR. With the exception of one glaring clunker, the Independent Panel’s report is superb and is the strategic defense review the QDR should have been. Yet the very fact that the Independent Panel was needed (confirming Congress’s suspicions) shows that something is seriously wrong with the government’s ability to formulate and execute strategy.  Read more from Haddick.

INDEPENDENT CONGRESSIONAL PANEL OF EXPERTS: CORRECTED ADVANCE COPY The QDR in Perspective:
Meeting America’s National Security Needs In the 21st Century. Read the Report

ORIGINAL QDR (February 2010)

Phi Beta Iota: Business profit center opportunities abound, the most notable being the provision of intelligence and shared computing and communications to multinational, multiagency, multifunctional forces that do not speak English.  The following two short lists are pulled from the Executive Summary of the Independent Report, which is the best “old” thinking (do the wrong things righter) and while utterly brilliant as far as it goes, lacking in “new” thinking (create a prosperous world at peace).  This report fails to point out the obvious, to wit, for one quarter of what we spend on war today ($1.3 trillion a year), we can eradicate all ten high level threats to humanity (the top three of which are not recognized by this report (poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation), in the process reinventing capitalism to go after the four trillion a year the five billion poor gross, which just happens to be four time what the one billion rich gross per year.

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Twitter & SMS Used to Help Election in Kenya

07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Geospatial, Mobile, Peace Intelligence, Technologies
source article

How Twitter saved Kenya's election

Thu Aug 5, 2010

New York – Once again, social media has played a central role in a national election. During Kenya's recent ballot initiative to adopt a new constitution, citizens used Twitter, along with Facebook and a new breed of monitoring technology, to help eliminate the voter intimidation, bombings, and deadly violence that marred the struggling African country's disastrous 2008 election. Here, a quick guide:

How was social media used to monitor the election?
Voters reported any intimidation issues at the polls by posting Twitter messages with the hashtag #uchaguzi (the Kiswahili word for “election”), or sending SMS messages to a specially designated number. A group of volunteers tracked the messages and alerted local officials when necessary.

Besides Twitter, what other technologies were used?
A Kenyan-developed platform called Uchaguzi helped aggregate all reported problems, documenting incidents by location and type (security issues, hate speech, ballot issues) so that anyone with Internet access could get a quick overview on the Uchaguzi site. It's very new for Kenyans, Uchaguzi's Charles Kithika tells The Christian Science Monitor, to see that problems are being reported and investigated, effectively “discouraging” troublemakers.

Continue reading “Twitter & SMS Used to Help Election in Kenya”

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The $12 Computer

01 Poverty, Gift Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Technologies, Videos/Movies/Documentaries


Playpower.org aims to introduce the world’s cheapest computer programs to the poor by utilizing the technology of old 8 bit computers. The Apple II computer, which had its heyday in the 1970s in the West, has lived on in the developing world, where its technology is now open source and easy to manufacture. As a result, computers can be sold for as little as $10-12. Many of these systems are currently on sale as “TV computers” in Bombay, Bangalore, and Nicaragua, offering pirated, low-tech versions of games like Mario and Donkey Kong. Like the early home computers sold in the United States, they plug into a TV screen for display, making them an easy access technology. Continue reading “The $12 Computer”

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Event: 10-12 Sept 2010, Berlin, Interdependence Day

02 Diplomacy, 10 Security, Academia, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Government, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

Event page

Berlin, Germany 2010

In 2010 Interdependence Day will be celebrated in a dynamic global city and cultural melting pot at the heart of Europe.

> INTERDEPENDENCE DAY

In a world where global interdependence is not simply an aspiration of idealists, but a brute fact of the forces that bind us together— global warming, financial capital, AIDS, telecommunications, crime, migration, and terrorism—many people still think in narrow, insular terms.

Reality is global, but consciousness too often remains local — constrained by town and nation.

In the year 2000, a small group of scholars, civic and political leaders, and artists from a dozen nations met to design a program that might help raise consciousness around the realities and possibilities of interdependence. Their efforts were given impetus by the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the group created a project that would:

> Make September 12, the day following the memorial of 9/11, an international celebration of interdependence “Interdependence Day”

> Draw up a “Declaration of Interdependence”, making clear that both liberty and security require cooperation among peoples and nations and can no longer be secured by sovereign nations working unilaterally;

> Develop a Civic Interdependence Curriculum that would make interdependence a central concept in Civics and Social Studies programs in middle and high schools in as many schools around the world as possible.