Journal: Taliban Doubles US Casualties in Two Years…

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

January 12, 2011

Why Mine Warfare is Good for Protracted War

Surging Tit for Tat in Afghanistan

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch

President Obama's ballyhooed surge of US forces in Afghanistan added 17,000 troops in early 2009 plus an additional 30,000 by 2010, in effect doubling the number of troops in Afghanistan (not to mention the concomitant surge in the camp-follower contractor force). The Taliban may not have doubled its troop strength, but as Tom Vanden Brook reports in the 10 January issue of USA Today, the insurgents have doubled the the total number of casualties inflicted by mines in just the last two years of the nine year war. [See graphic]

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: US C/JCS & China Arms Race

02 China, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, History, Intelligence (government), Military, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

China- US: CJCS Admiral Mullen said today that China's high-tech military capabilities, including the radar-evading stealth J-20 fighter, focus on America.

China has every right to develop military capabilities, Mullen said, adding that he cannot understand why many appear to target the United States despite North Korea's being an evolving threat to the region and to the United States. If Pyongyang obtains long-range nuclear missile capabilities, its provocations may become more catastrophic, Mullen stated, adding that China must pressure North Korean leadership to cease development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and expansion of nuclear weapons capability.

Comment: It is difficult to accept at face value that Admiral Mullen does not understand the Chinese obsession with the threat from the United States.

Taking the statement at face value – and not as an act of political manipulation – it implies that the J2 and J5 staffs have failed to brief him about the origins of Chinese national defense strategy since the death of Deng Xiao Ping. If the Chairman's statement is genuine and not posturing, it is astonishing.

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Search (2): jongman world conflict map 1997 – jongman world conflict and human rights

Geospatial, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Maps, Searches

Berto Jongman is one of the top Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) pioneers.   Word Press search has its good and bad features.  Good is that it updates instantly.  Bad is that it prefers simple searches e.g. <Jongman map> without the brackets.  Neutral is the fact that for older references, you will have to wade through every more current reference that cites the older reference.  If there were an Open Source Agency, the first three things it would do would be to commission an update of this map integrating all ten high-level threats; create a global intelligence, policy, and budget council for each of the thirty factors using citation analysis and making it multinational; and create the EarthGame with Policy-Budget Citizen Outreach.

2002 Jongman (NL) World Conflict & Human Rights Map 2001/2002

2001 Jongman (NL) World Conflict & Human Rights Map

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Poor in the USA: 50 Million & Rising + RECAP

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government
Bob Herbert

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist

Misery With Plenty of Company

By BOB HERBERT

Published: January 7, 2011

Consider the extremes. President Obama is redesigning his administration to make it even friendlier toward big business and the megabanks, which is to say the rich, who flourish no matter what is going on with the economy in this country. (They flourish even when they’re hard at work destroying the economy.) Meanwhile, we hear not a word — not so much as a peep — about the poor, whose ranks are spreading like a wildfire in a drought.

The politicians and the media behave as if the poor don’t exist. But with jobs still absurdly scarce and the bottom falling out of the middle class, the poor are becoming an ever more significant and increasingly desperate segment of the population.

How do you imagine a family of four would live if its annual income was $11,000 or less?

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UK Professors Want United Nations to Prep for Aliens

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Dr Martin Dominik of the University of St Andrews

Earth must prepare for close encounter with aliens, say scientists

UN should co-ordinate plans for dealing with extraterrestrials – and we can't guarantee that aliens will be friendly

Alok Jha, Alien Correspondent

Guardian UK, Monday 10 January 2011

Aliens visiting Earth will be just like humans, scientist claims
First contact: The man who'll welcome aliens
Aliens can't hear us, says astronomer

Click on Image to Enlarge

See Also:

Area 51: Collecting Memories after 47 years of Secrecy

Event: October 24-26, 2009 Rio Rico, Arizona – Disclosure Project

Review: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind

Review: Disclosure–Military and Government Witnesses Reveal the Greatest Secrets in Modern History

Review: Hidden Truth–Forbidden Knowledge

Worth a Look (DVD): The Day Before Disclosure

Worth a Look: UFO’s Known & Obscured

Event: 20-22 Jan Washington DC For the People Summit

Uncategorized

A year ago, on January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the door to unlimited and often anonymous spending to influence our elections. We invite you to mark the anniversary by joining a call to action.

The FOR THE PEOPLE SUMMIT in Washington DC, Jan 20-22, 2011 will bring together many of the nation's leading policy experts, grassroots organizers, and netroots innovators to collaborate on immediate and long-term strategies to protect our elections and policy-making from manipulation by multi-national corporations whose immense wealth is drowning out the voices of We the People.

Events will include:

Confirmed participants include Lawrence Lessig of Fix Congress First, Marge Baker of People for the American Way, John Bonifaz of Free Speech for People, David Cobb of Move to Amend, Lisa Graves of Center for Media and Democracy, Michael Ostrolenk of Transpartisan Center, Heather Booth formerly of Americans for Financial Reform, Phil Aroneanu of 350.org, Dean Baker of Center for Economic and Policy Research, Judith Freeman of New Organizing Institute, Walt Roberts of Changing the Game, as well as representatives of the Sunlight Foundation, Common Cause, Public Citizen, Public Campaign, Alliance for Democracy, the Backbone Campaign, City Life Vida Urbana, the Coffee Party, the Institute for Policy Studies, and Voters for Peace.

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Economics of Happiness: Going Local

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Reform

the Economics of Happiness

A film by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick & John Page

‘Going local' is a powerful strategy to help repair our fractured world – our ecosystems, our societies and our selves. Far from the old institutions of power, people are starting to forge a very different future…

FeaturingVandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, David Korten, Michael Shuman, Juliet Schor, Richard Heinberg, Rob Hopkins, Andrew Simms, Zac Goldsmith, Samdhong Rinpoche

Film Trailer & Web Site

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