Month: November 2011

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Chuck Spinney: Averting Civil War in Syria

02 Diplomacy, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Articles & Chapters, Corruption, Government, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney

Patrick Seale is one of the finest and most experienced writers now reporting on the Middle East

Averting Civil War in Syria

by Patrick Seale

Agence Global, 22 Nov 2011

Syria is heading for a bloody sectarian civil war. The mutual kidnappings, torture, beheadings and displacement of populations taking place between the Sunni and Alawi communities in the central city of Homs — often described as “the capital of the revolution” — send a fearsome signal of what might be in store for the rest of the country.

To avert this descent into hell must surely be the immediate priority of Arab leaders and the international community.

The Iraqi example next door is there for all to see. The Anglo-American invasion destroyed a major Arab country. The country’s institutions and infrastructure were shattered; sectarian demons were released, triggering a civil war. Hundreds of thousands died and millions were displaced from their homes or forced to flee abroad. The country was dismembered as the Kurds established their own semi-independent statelet.

Syria needs the intervention of a high-powered, neutral, contact group to stop the killing on both sides.

Read more.

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Reference: Jan Herring How Much Is Your Competitive Intelligence Worth? [Full Text Online for Google Translate] Referencia: Jan Herring ¿Cuánto vale tu Inteligencia Competitiva? [Texto completo en línea de Google Translate]

Articles & Chapters
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Source

Phi Beta Iota:  This article, written in 2007, remains the standard in the field for both brevity and authoritativeness.

Business Intelligence is data mining, not intelligence.  Competitive Intelligence focuses on competitors and does not do 360 degree holistic analytics.

The modern term for a full service program is Commercial Intelligence, which uses only open sources and ethical methods.  It should not be confused with secret government intelligence or with illegal industrial espionage.

Mr. Herring is also the creator of the now globally-recognized “Herring Triangle” graphic of four levels of commercial intelligence and their relative costs.

Herring Triangulo en Espanol

Herring Triangle as Published in New Craft of Intelligence

Full Text Below the Line for Google Translate

Continue reading “Reference: Jan Herring How Much Is Your Competitive Intelligence Worth? [Full Text Online for Google Translate] Referencia: Jan Herring ¿Cuánto vale tu Inteligencia Competitiva? [Texto completo en línea de Google Translate]”

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Mini-Me: General Strike 101 for the Deaf & Dumb

Uncategorized
Who? Mini-Me?

‘Months of public sector strikes' loom: Wednesday's walkout is just the start, warn unions

  • ‘No more money on the table' to settle pension row
  • Chief Secretary to Treasury says he may take his daughter to work when her school closes for the day

Becky Barrow

The Daily Mail,  25 November 2011

Union bosses have amassed a fighting fund of tens of millions of pounds to bring the country to its knees with waves of strikes.

The rolling programme will begin – but not end – next week with the biggest walkout since the General Strike of 1926.

In a chilling warning, union barons said it was fantasy to think the action on November 30 would be a one-off.

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Read full article.
Phi Beta Iota:  A number of the contributing editors have contacts on the Hill (US) and the recurring comment is that these people are completely out of touch with reality.  They have NO IDEA that Occupy is able to raise $500 million or more when the time comes to launch a wave of very personal public confrontations with INDIVIDUAL Senators and Representatives who fail to co-sponsor the Electoral Reform Act of 2012.  We are at the very very beginning of a “re-boot” of the US “system.”
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Marcus Aurelius: SecDef to McCain on Sequester + RECAP on DoD Fraud, Waste, & Abuse

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Hill Letters & Testimony, IO Impotency, Military, Office of Management and Budget, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, True Cost, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Marcus Aurelius

Invite your attention to pages 5 thru 7 of attached which outlines in very clear terms the likely FY 2013 and longer term impacts on the Department of Defense and the Joint Force of the impending sequester brought about by this week's dereliction of duty on the part of the Senators and Representatives making up the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

SecDef Panetta to Senator McCain on Sequester (PDF 2 pages)

Phi Beta Iota:  Panetta-McCain may be the toxic replacment to Cheney-Warner.  The letter is without merit.   The acquisition system is so broken now the Navy and Army cannot build anything coherently–the Navy still lacks Naval Gun Fire and the Army still lacks an infantry weapon able to out-gun  the Taliban, while the Air Force continues to stink at close air support and lack both an intra-theater adequacy of lift and a long-haul heavy lift capability (or the ability to be effective above 6,000 ft).  DoD, in short, is a mis-managed mess and Panetta has no idea how to go about fixing that, nor does he want to.  Lockheed Martin and others are quite happy with the way things are, where 50% of every dollar is waste but that waste is profit for them because it includes their overhead.  It is true that the current laws mandated by Congress make it difficult for any Cabinet Secretary to cut waste–this is the same Congress that mandated we pay 100% asking price for Medicare drugs instead of the more common global standard of 2% for generic wholesale.  As long as Congress remains corrupt, and the SecDef remains corrupt, there is no fixing this problem.  The FACT is that we have to cut one trillion a year (what we are borrowing), not one trillion over ten years.  The FACT is that DoD would be much stronger if it could combine both intelligence and integrity and actually create the four forces after next, at a much reduced cost, that those with intelligence and integrity have been discussing for decades, and with greater intensity, since the mid-1990's.

See Also:

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: SecDef to McCain on Sequester + RECAP on DoD Fraud, Waste, & Abuse”

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Tom Atlee: #OWS Nonviolence & Leadership Evolving

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Tom Atlee

#OWS => New forms of Nonviolence and Leadership emerging??

Something remarkable has been going on out there – especially at UC Davis. I have a hard time figuring out how to articulate it. I haven't yet seen anyone talk about quite what I'm seeing, so I'll give it a try.

Here's what it looks like to me: Nonviolent activism is evolving rapidly right before our eyes. The level of spot-on – and often spontaneous – nonviolent creativity that's showing up exceeds what I've seen before, to an extent that I wonder if a fundamentally new and more powerful form of nonviolent action is emerging.

. . . . . . .

While my initial response was to appreciate the students' powerful use of silence, I realized today another significant aspect was the speed with which this innovative response was born and implemented: It happened just one day after the incident that triggered it.

Then I saw an 8 minute video that showed what happened IMMEDIATELY after the pepper spray incident

Read a powerful summary of facts and analysis of potential.

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Dear Occupiers: A letter from anarchists

Civil Society

Dear Occupiers: A letter from anarchists

(Intro) We’re inspired by the occupations on Wall Street and elsewhere around the country. Finally, people are taking to the streets again! The momentum around these actions has the potential to reinvigorate protest and resistance in this country. We hope these occupations will increase both in numbers and in substance, and we’ll do our best to contribute to that.

Comment: I think most people will be surprised after reading this that they have so much in common in viewpoint with those who proclaim to be “anarchists” 🙂