Month: June 2011

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Secrecy News: Thomas Drake Triumphant

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement
Thomas Drake

SHORT URL for this Post:

http://www.tinyurl.com/DrakeWins

Settlement Reached in Thomas Drake “Leak” Case

June 10th, 2011 by Steven Aftergood

In a whirlwind conclusion to the prosecution of former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake, Mr. Drake agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “exceeding authorized use of a computer.”

Prosecutors were unable to sustain any of the felony counts against Mr. Drake that were contained in last year’s ten-count indictment, including charges of unauthorized retention of classified material under the Espionage Act of 1917.

A copy of the June 9, 2011 plea agreement is here.

Mr. Drake had been suspected of unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the press, though he was not specifically charged with that offense, and he denied committing it.

Much of the case was conducted behind closed doors and off the public record, so many intriguing aspects of its ultimate resolution remain obscure for the time being.  But it seems clear that the Obama Administration misjudged the merits of its case against Drake, pursuing minor infractions with disproportionate zeal.

Meanwhile, Mr. Drake’s legal team, public defenders James Wyda and Deborah L. Boardman, did a superb job of defending their client in a challenging legal environment.  Drake’s supporters at the Government Accountability Project managed to win a remarkable degree of public sympathy and support for a supposed felon.

Speaking of disproportionate zeal, I wrote last Monday that there was “no possibility” of avoiding trial on June 13.  Consider this a correction.

See related coverage in the Washington Post, Politico, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, AP, MSNBC and Emptywheel.

Phi Beta Iota: We are very pleased that Mr. Drake, who is on record about being uncompromising with the truth, has in essence–with some serious help from legal professionals with integrity–buried the unethical Department of Justice and National Security Agency attempt to intimidate, railroad, and destroy one of the few senior executives with the balls to challenge the incestuous pathologically mis-managed mess we call an “intelligence” community.   As Congressman Ron Paul puts it, “lying is not patriotic.”  We all swear an oath to support the Constitution, and from where we sit, Mr. Drake upheld his oath, and senior officials at Justice and NSA violated their oaths of office–not surprisingly, but reprehensible never-the-less.  “Integrity” is the most frequently searched for term on this web site, and rightly so: without integrity, intelligence is not achievable.

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Joint US-Russia Assessment Nuclear Terrorism

06 Russia, 08 Proliferation, 10 Security, Academia, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, IO Technologies, Military, Peace Intelligence, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Technologies
Berto Jongman Recommends...

“First Joint U.S.-Russia Assessment of Nuclear Terror Threat”

Study Warns of Multiple Dangers, Calls for Urgent Action

June 6, 2011

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: The US-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism

Learn More

Phi Beta Iota: This is a good initiative, something we should have been doing for decades.  However, it does not go far enough.  No such study can be credible without the participation of Brazil, China, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan, as well as major “interested parties” such as South Africa and Turkey.  In short, we are long over-due for a Multinational Decision-Support Centre that does M4IS2 on all topics.

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Critique of Western “Model” & “Plans” for Arabia

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, International Aid, IO Deeds of War, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Who, Me?

Under the cover of democracy

US and its allies assist will be using neoliberal economic policies to make sure new Arab governments stay in line.

Joseph Massad

Al Jazerra, 08 Jun 2011

EXTRACT:

Click on Image to Enlarge

But as US action around the world aimed at eliminating the recently won right to self-determination for the peoples of Asia and Africa under the guise of “Western democracy” fighting “totalitarian communism”, which left a trail of millions murdered by the US and its allies (starting with Korea and moving to the Congo, to Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, and from Guatemala to Brazil to Argentina, Uruguay, El Salvador, and Chile, to Southern Africa and the Middle East), the cruel US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade have hardly changed this anti-democratic trend. Yet two important victories are always touted by supporters of US foreign policy on the democratic front: namely, the fall of the Soviet Union and the ensuing “democratisation” of Eastern Europe, and the end of Apartheid in South Africa. The US hopes that its policies in both places will guide it to achieve similar ends for those uprisings of the Arab world that it cannot crush.

Joseph Massad is Associate Professor for Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University in New York.

Read complete lengthy historical and moral review….

See Also:

Continue reading “Critique of Western “Model” & “Plans” for Arabia”

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Review: Grand Strategies — Literature, Statecraft, and World Order

6 Star Top 10%, Civil Society, Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, History, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Amazon Page

Charles Hill

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond 5 Stars–Can Frustrate, But Righteously Broad, June 9, 2011

I am sympathetic to those who are critical of the author, as I myself was frustrated at many points and also I confess feeling very ignorant about many of the literary works that were mentioned. However, and despite a rotten index and the lack of a syntopicon or annex with literature and politics and economics at least, side by side, this is for me beyond 5 stars, a category where no more than 10% of my reviewed works can be found (at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog).

It is true the book is not so much about grand strategy in the classical political science or military sense, but for that I recommend Colin Gray's Modern Strategy. The book also does not address the impoverished nature of the nation-state system or how to build civilizations. There I recommend Philip Allott's The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State and Richard Spady's The Leadership of Civilization Building: Administrative and civilization theory, Symbolic Dialogue, and Citizen Skills for the 21st Century.

Read to the bitter end this magnificent book is both an indictment of the nation-state system, and an ode to the role of literature as a foundation for understanding and enhancing civilization and relations among peoples rather than nations.

Continue reading “Review: Grand Strategies — Literature, Statecraft, and World Order”

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Review: Zero-Sum — American Power in an Age of Anxiety

4 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Economics, History, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class
Amazon Page

Gideon Rachman

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent but Superficial, June 9, 2011

By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) – See all my reviews

I was expecting so much more from this book, it is almost a three in relation to disappointment, but assuredly a solid four as far as it goes. This is a very good review of politics at the top personality level, but devoid of any discussion at all of corruption, government ineptitude, and so on. The index stinks, mostly a name index, but that sums the book up–names, not root cause and effect.

Part I is about Deng, Thatcher, Reagan, Gorbechev, Eastern Europe coming free, Latin America moving to the center, and India awakening.

Part II is about Fukuyama, Greenspan (before he was striped naked), Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Asia rises, and in a most interesting but all too short section: the role played by the anti-globalization advocates and the neo-conservatives.

Part III offers three scenarios, the world as Europe, the world as China and Russia, and the world as Pakistan.

In relation to my broader reading habits the book is disappointing. It is a journalism story not at all illuminating. Particularly annoying to me, and especially so noting the financial reporting capabilities of the author, is the absolute refusal to call a spade for what it is: a spade. The destruction, de-construction, corruption, and flat out fraud that permeated all of the governments under the varied leaderships discussed by the author do not exist within the jacket of this book.

At a simplistic level there is certainly value to the book, but it ignores so much I was constantly resisting the urge to simply put the book down and move on.

The author concludes that there are three sources of zero sum thinking:

1. Slower economic growth

2. Rivalry between the USA and China (no mention of Brazil, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, and Wild Cards like South Africa and Turkey that I noticed)

3. Clash of national interests in face of global challenges–the author's range of understanding of global challenges is very limited and traditional: climate change (which is 10% of environmental degradation), global economic imbalances (but no focus on massive fraud and corruption), nuclear proliferation (ho hum compared to poverty and infectious disease), resource shortages (duh, especially when farm land is the next bubble and food prices suffer from unethical politicians pushing ethanol), and failed states (no mention of the role of the US in increasing that number from 25 to 175 in the last 12 years).

When the author states that China is “stealing” jobs from the US I almost drop this book to a three. That is idiotic. Jobs are being exported from the USA by unethical CEOs with no grounding in moral capitalism, and allowed to do so by unethical politicians who are absolutely not making policy in the public interest.

The author anticipates that polarization and protectionism are the most likely near-term national reactions, and this is the point at which I realize he has absolutely no idea about what is going on among the young and those that have labored in the evolutionary activism, emergence, and open everything circles these past twenty years.

QUOTE I liked (275): “On every one of the big global issues, a mixture of national interests and ideological disagreements blocks the chances of an international deal.”

Although I like the quote it reflects a complete lack of appreciation for panarchy, end-user democracy, open information-sharing, hybrid coalitions across the eight tribes (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, non-governmental/non-profit).

My view of the author as totally status quo and convention is confirmed when he states that the existing international economic system must be preserved at all costs.

There is nothing in this book that actually helps understand complexity or foster resilience.

Ten books I recommend instead:

Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays, poems and prayers from an emerging field of sacred social change
The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education (Wiley Desktop Editions)
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators
Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

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Cynthia McKinney from Libya: Primal Anger/Angst

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), IO Sense-Making, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Cynthia McKinney

Revelations of secret bombing in Yemen bring President Obama closer to Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Nixon and their secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War than is appropriate for any Nobel Peace Laureate.  How many wars is this President going to start?  As many as the American people will allow.

Der Spiegel reports that the Pentagon released the remaining papers of the Pentagon Papers while admitting that lies were told about the war.  We know that.  But here it is from them.  The four volumes of the Gravel Papers can be accessed through Der Spiegel by clicking on the link below.  How many more lies will the U.S. government tell the American people and the international community?  As many as the American people will allow.

Are NATO's allies child soldiers?  Isn't that against the law?  So what else is new with this war?  How long will war crimes and crimes against humanity be committed by NATO?  As long as the American people allow these crimes to be committed.

Please see these:

1.  Libyan rebel group sells first oil to U.S.

2.  Hedge funds ‘grabbing land' in Africa

3.  Children work with weapons to aid Libya's rebels

Silence is the deadliest weapon of mass destruction.