The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Aon downgrades 37 countries for terrorism and political violence
Future Trends and Challenges Middle East and North Africa Toward 2030
Iran & Israel: What the West should and can do
“Targeting Top Terrorists: How Leadership Decapitation Contributes to Counterterrorism”
Huh?
NIGHTWATCH
Mali-US: For the record. US Africa Command announced that on 20 April three US soldiers and three civilians died in an automobile crash in Bamako. One was from the Army's intelligence and security command and two were from special forces – Special Operations Command. The civilians were not identified, but almost certainly were clandestine agents.
Comment: This announcement is the first US admission since the government overthrow that US military and government civilians are present and active in Mali. The US has sent military and apparently civilian intelligence personnel to assist and improve the counter-terrorism capabilities of several Sahelian African states, including Mali.
Some people in Mali will interpret this announcement as confirming early news service accusations that US military personnel encouraged the US-trained Mali Army captain to overthrow his government.
Pentagon increasing spy presence overseas
Defense Department Plans New Intelligence Gathering Service
Phi Beta Iota: People don't die in car crashes in Mali — especially six at a time. Dover AFB has been getting body bags from all over the world for some time now. We have to say this: the only thing stupider than CIA doing a “Khost Kathy” all over the place is DIA trying to get into the spy business. CIA has been living immunity and a lack of accountability to include ignoring all DoD requirements for anything outside any capital city. CIA is not a spy service. It is a bureaucracy that begs at two tables: the foreign liaison table and the US legal traveler table. It has survived (kept the myth alive) on foreign liaison hand-outs and the use of secrecy to conceal gross ineptitude. DIA spying–apart from being totally unnecessary–must by definition get into the provinces. There are four solutions, but no one at DIA or INSCOM (or CIA for that matter–CIA has no bench) has the depth of understanding and experience to get it right, so General Flynn is going to blow his entire tenure dealing with kindergarten kids playing dress-up. Here are the four solutions:
Member of Veterans for Peace Alters Afghanistan Discussion on CNN
Scott Camil, a veteran of the second-longest U.S. war in history, that on Vietnam, radically changed a discussion of the longest war in U.S. history, that on Afghanistan, on CNN on Sunday.
CNN's Don Lemon tried repeatedly to explain troops posing with body parts as an inscrutable result of war, without questioning the justification of that war. Repeatedly, Lemon instructed viewers not to judge soldiers.
A guest to whom Lemon devoted a great deal of time, Dr. Terry Lyles, followed Lemon's leads and was praised by Lemon as the best guest he'd heard from on the topic. Lyles suggested the problem was one of public relations: “We need to do a better job,” he said, “you know, with them psychologically to help them understand that the world is watching. Be careful about what you do and what you capture while what you're doing every day is very difficult.”
Scott Camil took a different tack, saying: “Well no we don't know what it's like to be in combat unless you've been in combat, but I think the real question is: you're nit picking when you're talking about things like people posing with bodies. The real question should be why are we at war in the first place? Why are we killing so many people in the first place? The concern over posing with someone that's dead, it seems to me the fact that that person is dead and that we're killing people is more important than what happens after they're dead.”
Camil's comment was so effective that the next panelist to speak shifted to his topic. Holly Hughes remarked: “Scott hit the nail on the head because now we've opened a dialogue. What are we talking about now? Shouldn't we be more upset that we're out there killing people? . . . Maybe we need to assess why we're there in the first place.”
Camil continued: “What I understand is what it's like to be in a war zone and I understand the behavior in a war zone. And I would say that, first of all, that war is really an institution made up of criminal behavior. When we as civilians want to solve our problems, we're not allowed to murder people and burn their houses down. I don't see why war is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. And furthermore, the majority of people that die are innocent civilians.”
Some fundamental truths are rarely spoken on television.
Watch the video: Corpses Serve as Trophies
Scott Camil was honorably discharged with 13 medals including 2 purple hearts following 20 months voluntarily spent as a Marine in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. He testified at the Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971, and was a founding member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War Inc. He is an active member of Veterans For Peace and serves as the President of Chapter 014 in Gainesville, Florida.
Veterans for Peace was founded in 1985 and has approximately 5,000 members in 150 chapters located in every U.S. state and several countries. It is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) by the United Nations, and is the only national veterans' organization calling for the abolishment of war.
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 | Posted by Veterans TodayHe has made more than 20 trips to that region as a journalist, during which he covered such events as Anwar Sadat’s 1977 trip to Jerusalem, and the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. He has interviewed, and written about, journalists, religious leaders, political leaders and private citizens in the region. Jim served for two years on active duty in the US Air Force, and three additional years in the USAF (inactive) reserve. His website: Wall Writings.
EXTRACT:
I propose no firm historical linkage between slavery and Occupation, but I do propose a linkage between the demand for action called for by John Newton against slavery, and the passage of a divestment resolution by United Methodist General Conference delegates as a 21st century demand for the UMC to halt its financial support of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people.
It is well past time to “throw this dirty, filthy Occupation out of United Methodist waters”.
Full article with video and illustrated inserts.
Phi Beta Iota: The continuing economic and political crisis in the USA, one that may escalate to a civil war as well as a national crime wave in 2013, has limited US public outrage against Israel. However, there are many weak signals that the tide has turned — not only are Americans outraged the role played by Goldman Sachs and the Jewish Chairmen of the Federal Reserve in the destruction of the global and the US domestic economies, but also at the role played by Jewish money and Israeli dominatrix methods in US politics. We see the day coming when Israel is treated to financial sanctions much as South Africa was. The Israeli government is to the Palestinians as the white South African government was to the people of color in South Africa. Justice will have its day in Palestine; we pray this be so.
Whistleblowers Unite with Occupy Washington for Civil and Human Rights Conference May 20-22, 2012
(Washington, D.C.) – The USDA Coalition of Minority Employees (http://www.agcoaliation.org) and watchdog group ACORN 8 (http://www.acorn8.com) united with 40 national and international coalitions of good government, open government, civil rights and human rights groups as well as hundreds of individual Occupy Wall Street protesters from across the country, announce an assembly at the Washington DC Capitol to be held May 20-22, 2012. We are proud to announce that MSNBC Host Dylan Ratigan has agreed to moderate and the PACIFICA Radio Network has committed to broadcast the historic event this year.
Over the last six years members from the Make it Safe Coalition (MISC) have arranged an assembly of whistleblowers in Washington, DC each year for an annual conference originally known as Washington Whistleblower's Week. The USDA Coalition of Minority Employees will co-host this year's Whistleblower Summit—Civil & Human Rights Conference , in Washington, DC. The Coalition has been very active at the US Department of Agriculture since 1994, regarding their continued widespread racism, sexism, reprisal, intimidation, sexual assault, hostile work environment, and other abuses against USDA employees and minority farmers.
The week's events will include an Opening Plenary, New Media Panel Discussion, No FEAR Anniversary Reception, Civil and Human Rights Roundtable, Book Signing, Movie Night, Citizen's Tribunal, Press Conference, Peace & Justice Demonstration, Congressional Lobby Day, Solidarity Dinner and much, much, more. Featured speakers will include some of the following:
Richard Gingras at the International Symposium on Online Journalism
The leader of Google News gave an insightful talk about the current state of online journalism. Here are my tweets during his keynote. Appreciated his visionary thinking about the state and future of news, especially the extent to which the concept of a “news story” is being redefined and reshaped as the Internet evolves past old media paradigms (page/periodical/book) and new forms of distribution emerge that are a more natural fit for technical and social networks. One caveat: he doesn’t really have to think the same way as some of the other speakers about finding a new business model – Google already has one that works. Also note that he was feeling good about Google+. (You think Facebook has Google+ beat? We used to think that Apple was never going to be a leader.)
(Pardon my typos.)
Phi Beta Iota: Tweets distilled below.
International Symposium on Online Journalism: New approaches in engaging with the news community
ISOJ Program
Angela Lee: Audience preference and editorial judgment: a study of time-lagged influence in online news
To what extent are audiences influencing editors and journalists, and vice versa? Editorial judgement measured based on placement on paper; audience preference measured by clicks, looking at a 3-hour interval. Audience preference influences editorial decisions three hours later (which suggests editors are watching behavior and responding). However not seeing a reciprocal effect of editorial judgement on audiences.
I’m wondering if the results are influenced by assumptions embedded in the structure of the methodology for the report.
Some popular stories get pushed down on the home page, not sure why? Could be relevance of speed and immediacy – stories might be pushed down to make room for fresh content. Lee calls for input from journalists at the conference.
Alfred Hermida (who’s also been live blogging the conference, and who wrote the book on Participatory Journalism).
Sourcing the Arab Spring: A case study of Andy Carvin’s sources during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. How is sourcing evolving in the networked social sphere?
“We looked at sourcing, because sourcing matters.” Who we talk to as journalists affects not just what we report, but the meaning we derive from the reporting. When journalists cite non-elite sources or alternative voices, we treat them as deviant, as the others. Powerful and privileged dominate sourcing.
Carvin was doing a very different type of reporting, messaging and retweeting on Twitter. Carvin was like a “must-read newswire” (per Columbia Journalism Review). 162 sources in Tunisia, 185 sources in Egypt. Coded into categories: mainstream media, institutional elites, alternative voices, and other. Alternative voices included people involved in the protests.
Continue reading “Jon Lebkowsky: 21st Century New Sources & Methods for Journalism”
