Education and knowledge are different searches, but use the Journal and Reviews menu to browse. Phi Beta Iota is committed to the declassification of virtually all intelligence (decision-support); to a convergence of the education, intelligence, and research budgets under one national leader in those nations that wish to be Smart Nations; and to an end to corruption including lies to the public and a failure on the part of politicians, appointees, and civil servants to act in the best interest of the public at all times. “Going along” and not making a fuss when the ship is sicking will simply not do.
In his new book The Watchers, (Penguin Press, 2010), Shane Harris chronicles what he calls “the rise of America's surveillance state,” a process he's been following since he was a reporter and technology editor at Government Executive from 2001 to 2005.
It's a story with all the elements of a spy thriller: political intrigue, shadowy federal organizations and a compelling cast of characters desperately seeking to prevent the next Sept. 11. At the center is the enigmatic John Poindexter, former national security adviser and architect of the ill-fated Total Information Awareness data collection and analysis effort.
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What I discovered was that it really was the Beirut attack that shocked the intelligence system in a very similar way to 9/11. You have the Marines in Beirut, ostensibly on this international peacekeeping mission. They're hunkered down at the airport. For various political reasons, they're not allowed to go out very much in public. They are sort of sitting ducks. What happens is in the aftermath of the bombing, the intelligence community finds out there were all these warnings that something bad was about to happen to the Marines at the airport. So you had, in the spring of 1983, more than 100 individual warnings about car bombings fielded by the intelligence community.
Full Interview Online
The Marines were blind, deaf and dumb sitting at the base. And the golden nugget of it all is that NSA intercepted, in the days before the attack, this phone conversation going from a minister in Iran to presumably one of these organizing terrorist groups–directing this group to go and take this spectacular action against the Marines. You add all these up and it looks a lot like 9/11. There's all this information sitting there and it's like, how come nobody's putting it together? And Poindexter is the guy who looks at this and says, “This shouldn't happen and we can take steps to make sure it doesn't happen. There has to be a way to logically approach this problem, systematize the whole process and connect those dots.”
Phi Beta Iota: The US Intelligence Community is badly managed, grotesquely over-funded, and incapable of changing its culture for the simple reason that instead of finding and empowering leaders with new ideas and open minds, we continue to give more money to old leaders, like pouring gasoline on a fire. We still cannot process 90% of what we collect; we still cannot speak foreign languages; and we still do not play well with others. The IC is managed by people who know nothing of intelligence–they are essentially staffers who went through the motions of moving money around–and their only real accomplishment is that they have not burned any bridges. Unfortunately, they have been so busy not burning bridges they have not built anything worthwhile. The IC is a shell game–move money, move the harem around, repeat the same testimony over and over to Congress again–ultimately the IC is a $75 billion a year tragic farce.
With great regret, we have had to close all comments and ping-backs because Russian spammers are over-whelming WordPress. Emails are always welcome and where desired structured comments delivered via email will happily be posted as guest interventions.
This is a dynamite op-ed written jointly by my good friend Marshall Auerback and Rob Parenteau.
Chuck
Coming to a Country Near You
Let a Dozen Latvias Bloom?
By MARSHALL AUERBACK and ROB PARENTEAU
The article's bottom line conclusion:
It is now time for the rest of us to follow the Lilliputians of Iceland: to take the rentier juggernaut down before it completes the task. Time to pry the vampire squid off our faces so we can see the light of day again and allow some semblance of humanity to flourish again. Hopefully, Iceland represents the future, not Latvia.
Full Story Online
Phi Beta Iota: Iceland has led the way. It is time to start closing down the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the outrageous misbehavior of Goldman Sachs and the other banks. Nations need to start nationalizing ill-gotten gains, refusing to pay predatory loan interest, and beginning to think for themselves. We certainly encourage judicial activism in confiscating foreign-owned land and structures and in blocking both the privatization of water and other commonwealth resources, while also blocking predatory and often hazardous or poisonous importations. Top-down government has been corrupted and does not work. The only means to achieve resilience is bottom-up “home rule.” We salute Iceland for its intelligence and its integiryt.
Thursday evening's shootout between Pentagon police officers and a gunman apparently motivated by anti-government sentiment was the latest in a spate of attacks on federal employees and facilities and serves as a stark reminder that public servants too often find themselves unexpectedly in harm's way. The following timeline reviews major attacks during the past two decades.
Feb. 18, 2010. A small jet is flown into a building housing a federal tax office in Austin, Texas, injuring 13 and killing two. The pilot, Joseph Andrew Stack, was angry with the Internal Revenue Service.
Nov. 5, 2009. An Army psychiatrist goes on a rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding dozens. The alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was a Muslim who had been in contact with a radical Imam and was about to be deployed overseas.
June 1, 2009. A gunman opens fire on a U.S. military recruiting office in Little Rock, Ark., killing one soldier and wounding another. The suspect, a Muslim convert, opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was not affiliated with a larger terrorist network.
And the brief window we had to fix this country will be gone.
Gone.
Gone, baby, gone.
I don't know what your team has been up to, but they haven't served you well. And Rahm, poor Rahm, has turned into a fighter — not of Republicans, but of the left. He called those of us who want universal health care “f***ing retarded.” Look, I don't know if Rahm is the problem or if it's Gibbs or Axelrod or any of the other great people we owe a debt of thanks to for getting you elected. All I know is that whatever is fueling your White House it's now running on fumes. Time to shake things up!
Phi Beta Iota: The Huffington Post is consistently negative on Rahm Emanuel, and with good reason. Between his partisan ideology and David Axelrods ignoring the 70% of the eligible voters that did not vote for President Barack Obama, the White House is completely out of touch with reality and literally has no intelligence (decision-support) on ANYTHING. The government is BROKEN. Click on the photograph to read the full satirical piece.
India-Pakistan: Update. An Indian prosecutor in a special court in Mumbai said active duty members of the Pakistan Army and a serving major general oversaw the training of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants who carried out the deadly Mumbai attacks in November 2008, Press Trust of India reported 9 March. Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said in his final arguments that it could be inferred that the attack was state-sponsored.
The Hindu account is sharper. “The November 26 attack was not an ordinary attack by 10 indoctrinated terrorists. It was well orchestrated, meticulously planned and [reflected] a deep-seated hatred for our country. It was a classic case of sponsored terrorism. Evidence by the prosecution has successfully established that the attack was sponsored by Pakistan. Irrefutable inference [can be drawn] that it was sponsored by State actors involved in the security apparatus of Pakistan,” Mr. Nikam argued.
He said the Major General's name was not revealed to the attackers “undoubtedly because he was from the Pakistan Army.” “He is an entity separate from the Lashkar-e-Taiba [LeT]; he must have been the supreme authority running the training camp.”
Citing excerpts from the judicial confession statement of lone surviving terrorist Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, recorded on 20 February 2009, Mr. Nikam said the Major General visited the training camps when military and intelligence training was being imparted to the attackers. He had enquired whether the trainees had any complaints and was keen that they completed the mission given by the LeT.
Comment: The Indians are serious about improving anti-terror cooperation, whereas Pakistan wants to restart a comprehensive dialogue. Pakistan has arrested terrorists from every group except those that target India. When that occurs, India will know Pakistan has abandoned terror as an instrument of state policy.
Since mid-January, Pakistan has done more to disrupt Pakistan-based terrorists and insurgents than any administration in a quarter century. But it has done little to suppress anti-Indian terrorists, which explains the public embarrassment of the Mumbai trial.
Phi Beta Iota: The tide has turned in the “Global War on Terror,” for a variety of reasons, with Malaysia, Indonesia, and Turkey being among those nations that merit huge respect for their steady secular approach to counter-terrorism, but two nations still stand out as state-sponsors of terrorism: Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Until the Americans stop lying to themselves and the public about their naive relationships with 42 of the 44 dictators on the planet, and their naive acceptance of Pakistan's deceit, Afghanistan will continue to be a “hurt locker.”
