Category: Collaboration Zones

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Patrick Meier: Ushandi Data to Study Micro-Conflict

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Patrick Meier

Using Ushahidi Data to Study the Micro-Dynamics of Violent Conflict

The field of conflict analysis has long been handicapped by the country-year straightjacket. This is beginning to change thanks to the increasing availability of subnational and sub-annual conflict data. In the past, one was limited to macro-level data, such as the number of casualties resulting from conflict in a given county and year. Today, datasets as such as the Armed Conflict Location Event Data (ACLED) provide considerably more temporal and spatial resolution. Another example is this quantitative study: ”The Micro-dynamics of Reciprocity in an Asymmetric Conflict: Hamas, Israel, and the 2008-2009 Gaza Conflict,” authored by by NYU PhD Candidate Thomas Zeitzoff.

Click on Image to Enlarge

I’ve done some work on conflict event-data and reciprocity analysis in the past (such as this study of Afghanistan), but Thomas is really breaking new ground here with the hourly temporal resolution of the conflict analysis, which was made possible by Al-Jazeera’s War on Gaza project which used the Ushahidi platform.

Read Abstract and Key Highlights.

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Jon Lebkowsky: Memory, Association, and the Pathology of Excessive “Identification” with Anything

Blog Wisdom, Cultural Intelligence
Jon Lebkowsky

Thinking about memory, association, and identification

by jonl

A lesson in memory.

Phi Beta Iota:  Full reflections below the line.  Wait for the aha at the end.  God is what happens when we create community which is inherently in contradiction with our identifying deeply with anything other than God/community.  This is deep and worth swimming in.

Continue reading “Jon Lebkowsky: Memory, Association, and the Pathology of Excessive “Identification” with Anything”

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NIGHTWATCH: Afghanistan – Nothing New Since 2001

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, Peace Intelligence

Afghanistan: Afghanistan will likely plunge into civil and regional war if the United States does not leave a residual force of 20,000 to 30,000 troops in the country after 2014, along with significant economic aid, a senior Afghan opposition figure said Thursday. ‘The state will disintegrate' and Afghan security forces will break into factions, said Mohammad Hanif Atmar, a former minister in the government of President Karzai.

Comment: The above assertion is not true in part. A residual US force would be primarily a target that would be too weak to prevent a return to civil war. As for the prediction of civil war — or more accurately tribal war — there is no power on earth than can stop it, whether the US keeps soldiers in Afghanistan or not. It has never stopped.

Nothing has been settled since 2001, including the terms for the distribution of wealth among the tribes; the role of Islam in government; ethnic relations between North and South; the ultimate form of the state; and finally, security.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

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Robert Steele: Waterboarding Morons — A Social Cancer

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call
Robert David STEELE Vivas

It is difficult for any intelligent moral citizen to stand by and watch their country self-destruct.  Between the ideological idiots on the extreme right and the mere idiots on the extreme left, America is in a pickle.  Elsewhere I have posited a solution for 2012.

Here I am obliged, from a sense of duty to the Republic that has been betrayed by our serving flag officers and senior executives, to point to and then demolish a book that is beneath contempt among real professionals, but all the rage among the loosely-educated and macho-shit crowd–this sadly includes a number of ranking Special Operations Force (SOF) officers that should know better.  It came out in early 2010 and crap from this book is now making the rounds among the wing-nuts of the right and the uniformed officers that have never actually done any form of successful clandestine intelligence or counterintelligence.  I refer to Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack.

Here is a copy of the garbage that is circulating now via email among military officers:

Setting the Record Straight: Courting Disaster, by Marc Thiessen

And now to set the record straight for honest folk:

Continue reading “Robert Steele: Waterboarding Morons — A Social Cancer”

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Theophilis Goodyear: Russia’s Chief Military Officer on Nuclear War Soon

04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Russia, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, IO Deeds of War, Military
Think?

Russian military chief: War risks have grown

Associated Press, 17 November 2011

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's chief military officer says the nation is facing an increased threat of being drawn into conflicts at its borders that may grow into an all-out nuclear war.

Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff, pointed at NATO's expansion eastward and said Thursday that the risks for Russia to be pulled into local conflicts have “risen sharply.” He added, according to Russian news agencies wires, that “under certain conditions local and regional conflicts may develop into a full-scale war involving nuclear weapons.”

Read more.

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Josh Kilbourn: Bush-Obama End Financial Prosecutions

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government
Joshua Kilbourn

US Federal Prosecutions For Financial Fraud In the Obama Administration Fall to Record Lows

Jesse's Cafe Americain, 16 November 2011

The declines in US Federal prosecutions for financial fraud  that began under G.W. Bush have followed that down trend that in the first three years of the Obama Administration. That might make more sense if Obama had not been elected as a reform president in response to one of the greatest financial frauds in American history.

Kiss My Shiny Ass....

In the first three years of the Obama Administration, federal prosecutions have been running at new highs. Over half of the prosecutions involve illegal immigration. Another 17% are drug related.

Illegal immigrants and drug dealers have the reputation for being notoriously cheap in providing campaign contributions.

Prosecutions for financial fraud however have dropped to the lowest levels in over 20 years.

Read more (including NYT article).

Phi Beta Iota:  When Goldman Sachs continues to “own” the Secretary of the Treasury, has its own lobbyist in the office of the National Security Advisor to the President, and can count on a the Fed Chairman–as always, both Jewish and ensnarled in conflict of interest relationships with the major private banks, we can only conclude that Bush-Obama are one.

noble gold