July 2010 – Page 4 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/07/282010/07/28

Review: Searching for Everardo–A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala

6 Star Top 10%, Atrocities & Genocide, Biography & Memoirs, Consciousness & Social IQ, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

6 Star Epic–Genocide, CIA Complicity, & Indigenous Honor

July 27, 2010

Jennifer K. Harbury

This is one of multiple books by this author, and a huge bargain as a used book–I got the used hardcopy. This book is a book-end to Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954.

The author wrote Bridge of Courage: Life Stories of the Guatemalan Companeros & Companeras first, and then a book that Amazon lists but does not offer for sale nor does it appear easily when trying to insert the product link: Seeds of Rage: CIA Torture Practices from Vietnam to El Salvador to Abu Ghraib.

As a former case officer (spy) with the CIA, in the Latin American area from 1979 to 1988, and now on my way out of Guatemala, this book is one that I am going to rate as beyond 5 stars, 6 stars and above, because it is a phenomenal vortex that brings together genocide (called “the patriotic wars” by the white minority “conquistadores” seeking to keep the 80% indigenous in slave status), CIA complicity in genocide and torture, and the deep, deep honor and courage and intelligence of the indigenous people. See 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus for the larger treatment.

Highlights for me:

Continue reading “Review: Searching for Everardo–A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala”

2010/07/282010/07/28

NIGHTWATCH Extract: US “Strategic Decrepitude” vis a vis South China Sea–US Navy goes wee wee wee, Hilary Clinton Does the Gerbil

02 China, 02 Diplomacy

China-US-South China Sea: The Chinese government reacted angrily on Monday to the announcement by US Secretary of State Clinton that Washington might step into a long-simmering territorial dispute between China and its smaller neighbors over sovereign rights to the South China Sea.

Speaking Friday at a forum of Southeast Asian countries in Vietnam, Clinton apparently surprised the Chinese by saying the United States had a “national interest” in seeking to mediate the dispute, which involves roughly 200 islands, islets and coral outcroppings and the seabed that are claimed by China, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines. China claims all the South China Sea as its territorial waters.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: US “Strategic Decrepitude” vis a vis South China Sea–US Navy goes wee wee wee, Hilary Clinton Does the Gerbil”

2010/07/272010/07/29

Event: 29-31 July 2010, Berkeley CA, Open Science Summit

01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 04 Education, 07 Health, 10 Security, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Government, Reform, Technologies

Objectives: Create an annual flagship event and news hub to build and maintain the identity of the international Open Science Movement. Organize the various sub-communities into an effective, global, socio-technological force for rapid change in science/innovation policy. An attempt to gather all stakeholders who want to liberate our scientific and technological commons and enable a new era of decentralized, distributed innovation to solve humanity’s greatest challenges. Continue reading “Event: 29-31 July 2010, Berkeley CA, Open Science Summit”

2010/07/27

Video: Social Experiments to Fight Poverty

01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 04 Education, 07 Health, International Aid, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

Video Link

About this talk

Alleviating poverty is more guesswork than science, and lack of data on aid's impact raises questions about how to provide it. But Clark Medal-winner Esther Duflo says it's possible to know which development efforts help and which hurt — by testing solutions with randomized trials.

About Esther Duflo

Esther Duflo takes economics out of the lab and into the field to discover the causes of poverty and means to eradicate it. Full bio and more links

2010/07/272010/07/27

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Korean POWs Alive Ergo VN?

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards

South Korea-China-North Korea: For the record. An 81-year-old South Korean prisoner of war from the Korean War is known to have been sent back to North Korea after having been arrested in China in August last year.

The POW fought in the Korean War in the 3rd division of the South Korean Army's 5th Corps and was captured by North Korean forces in 1952. After years in captivity, he managed to escape North Korea with the help of a South Korean group and a “refugee broker.” The refugee broker who had helped the soldier escape reported him to Chinese police after arguing with the South Korean group over money

The POW was arrested on 24 August last year, eight days after he fled North Korea, according to Dong-A Ilbo.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Korean POWs Alive Ergo VN?”

2010/07/262010/07/27

Review: The CIA in Iran–The 1953 Coup and the Origins of the US-Iran Divide

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Stunning Account of Unethical Incompetence Triumphant

July 26, 2010

Christopher J. Petherick

I strongly recommend that this book (or my review) be read in conjunction with its counterpart for Guatemala, Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954 (or my review).

I've been a clandestine case officer (C/O) with three tours in Latin America, including one in the 1980's chasing terrorists, and while at the time I thought I was the Cold War equivalent of a Jesuit priest, I now see it all as terribly unethical, largely insane, and totally not worth the money, the risk, or the collateral damage.

Both books provide easy-to-read and still very relevant history on how the arrogance of the US, unconstrained by US ignorance, had led to surprisingly successful regime change operations despite a host of errors.

This particular book is published by a deeply anti-Zionist press, but the tone, while being churlish, is not so over-bearing as to be distracting. The book does achieve its objective: explain in no uncertain terms why Iran today despises the roots of its UK-US relations and the pillaging that was done by those two nations of its oil. See also Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush for the other half of the story.

Some of the highlights:

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2010/07/262010/07/26

Review: Secret History–The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, History, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Phenomenal “Primary” Source Relevant Today

July 26, 2010

Nick Cullather

This is the original, Stanford has also just produced a new version, Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala 1952-1954. I bought this used and not only loved the speed of delivery, but the notes from the previous owner.

My next review will cover The CIA in Iran: The 1953 Coup and the Origins of the US-Iran Trade. The two “successes” would both be condemned by history, but more pointedly, led to the CIA misadventures in Cuba, Chile, the Philippines, Viet-Nam, and so on.

There is a great deal in this book that I was not aware of, and that is with 294 reviews tagged Intelligence (Government/Secret)at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, all leading back to their Amazon page.

In a nutshell, PBSUCCESS was a stunningly inept widely known endeavor penetrated across multiple points by the Guatemalan government, which succeeded only because the Army lost its nerve and deposed their own elected President. Especially new to me were the US Navy blockage of the Guatemalan ports (one on each coast), and the failure of CIA-trained “saboteurs” to derail the shipment of arms from the port to the capital city that the President was able to procure despite a global US embargo on arms for Guatemala.

Continue reading “Review: Secret History–The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954”