Collaboration Zones – Page 1301 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/04/022011/04/02

International Law or Imperial License?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

What kind of law is this?

Anne Orford 29 March 2011

Tags: law | libya | un

Many aspects of the Libyan situation remain unclear: the scope of the mandate given to UN member states by Security Council Resolution 1973, the broader aims of the intervention, how many civilians have been killed and by whom, and who the rebels represent. One thing, however, seems clear: the international intervention is considered to be legal. International lawyers have agreed with the UK government’s advice that Security Council Resolution 1973 ‘provides a clear and unequivocal legal basis for the deployment of UK forces and military assets to achieve the resolution’s objectives’. Legal experts have been quick to suggest that Resolution 1973 gives authority for any action thought necessary not only to protect civilians, but to protect areas inhabited by civilians.

. . . . . .[read entire article]

If today’s Western leadership is really ready, in the words of William Hague, to support the people of the Middle East in their ‘aspirations for a better future’, it will need to do more than use international law to target its enemies while protecting its friends. In rejecting their authoritarian leaders, the current wave of Arab revolutionaries is also rejecting the international system that has profited from their existence. As the US declares yet again that Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorists while bombs rain down on Libya, as protesters continue to be killed in Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and as the numbers of people detained continue to grow, the idea that Nato is working to support the freedom fighters of this Arab spring rings increasingly hollow. The bombing of Libya in the name of revolution may be legal, but the international law that authorises such action has surely lost its claim to be universal.

2011/04/02

Citizen Intelligence on Food & Health Fraud

01 Agriculture, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency

Expose Foul Conditions at Factory Farms? Go to Jail!

March 29, 2011

Alliance for Natural Health

Iowa and Florida are considering bills that make it illegal to film or photograph inside factory farms without permission. Are the CAFOs afraid their unhealthy conditions and animal cruelty will be exposed? Help us put a stop to this madness!

Two weeks ago we reported on the way the FDA is blocking journalistic freedom of speech through the information embargoes they impose. Freedom of speech is taking another hit, this time from state legislatures. Read more….

* Fight Healthcare Monopolies

* Food and Supplements Are Not Drugs

* Protect Our Children

* Real, Not Phony Food Safety

* Stop Censoring Medical Science

Phi Beta Iota: It appears that some governments now believe that they have a right to legislate the censorship of truth. Arsenic and antibiotics and other toxins associated with the industrialization of agriculture are a major cause of human illness, deformity, allergies, and other unnatural conditions. This is all part of the “true cost” paradigm for the redesign of society to emphasize the wellness of humans and the sustainability of the Earth. Governments so foolish as to deny that the truth at any cost reduces all other costs should be voted out of office or ignored. Truth is a public power, a public good, and a public right.

2011/03/312011/03/31

Nattering Nabobs on Libya–Never Mind Ethics

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

This how the influencers are influenced to justify to the “prol's that rule of law properly means nothing. All in place before Obama sent in Special ops and claimed that there were no boots on the ground.

Reasonable cop/barbaric cop.

Declare victory and get on with ousting Gaddafi

By Mark Malloch-Brown

Financial Times, March 31 2011 15:12

It is not just Libya that now risks long-term division. Telltale signs of fragmentation in the international community’s approach are opening up. Not for the first time Muammer Gaddafi may be on the verge of securing a public relations coup against his western opponents. Now we must declare humanitarian victory, and regroup.

Tuesday’s London conference was a confused affair. The Germans and the Italians touted a ceasefire and exile for Colonel Gaddafi. Others, notably Saudi Arabia and the African Union, stayed away. The US and the UK, meanwhile, insisted the military job was not done, with David Cameron, the UK prime minister, noting on Wednesday that UN Security Council resolution 1973 might give the allies a legal basis to arm the Libyan opposition.

Intelligent Design: Will It Make a Beautiful (Safe) Ruin?

08 Proliferation, 11 Society, Earth Intelligence

This struck me as “speaking poetry to power.”

Idle Chatter: The Power of Ruins
Nuclear power plants are an uncanny presence in the built environment.

By Morgan Meis, The Smart Set

“Will it make a beautiful ruin?” That was the question Basil Spence asked about the nuclear power station he was designing in Trawsfynydd, Wales. This was back in the 1960s, but it was forward looking. Spence, an architect (he designed the famous Coventry Cathedral in England), was aware of one simple fact: Nuclear power plants are functional for a relatively short period of time before they are put out of commission and replaced by newer, safer designs and technology. The abandoned plant is filled with radioactivity that makes it unusable for anything for a long time. A cathedral is designed with the idea that it should stand, and function, for a very long time — perhaps beyond time. A nuclear power plant is designed with the knowledge that it must become a ruin, and rather quickly. It is born to die, and then to sit as a corpse, a testimony to the strange and unsettling function it once had.

Lack of Integrity = Being on Wrong Side of History

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Officers Call

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

There is no question that the sudden emergence of the Arab Revolution caught the Obama Administration flatfooted. While it is easy to blame President Obama for being asleep at the switch, he is dependent on the professional government for information about the world — specifically, that provided by the $80 billion a year intelligence services.

The American intelligence apparat – CIA, DIA, NSA, NRO, etc. — has missed just about every important international development/opportunity in the last 30+ years: The Iranian Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, 9-11, WMDs in Iraq, the Taliban's tentative overtures with respect to dumping Osama bin Ladin, and now the Arab Revolt. Given this history, Obama is not entirely blameless for being caught napping. To date has not even attempted to correct what is a horrendous problem that clearly threatened to capture him and distort his decision making.

Why are the $80 billion a year intelligence activities so blind to important events and so resistant to reform?

Continue reading “Lack of Integrity = Being on Wrong Side of History”

2011/03/302011/03/30

Ushandi Moves Forward with Crisis Mapping Check-In

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Civil Society, Earth Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), IO Mapping, Mobile, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Real Time

Crisis Mapping Meets Check-in

New features could make a Web tool that has helped track events in Japan and the Middle East even more useful.

Monday, March 28, 2011, By David Talbot

MIT Technology Review

EXTRACT: The new feature is known as “check-in,” also used by social sites like Foursquare—in that case as a way of alerting friends to your presence at a particular location.

crisis mapping check-in — Click on Image to Enlarge

For Ushahidi, this is “a pretty powerful step forward,” says Ethan Zuckerman, a board member of the nonprofit, and a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. “Adding check-in to this equation allows me to pull my data apart from the whole. That makes maps usable for multiple purposes—group reporting as well as tracking of my own movements.”

Enabling such tracking simply requires a GPS-equipped phone to allow a quick log-in to record whereabouts

2011/03/302011/03/30

Public Itemization of US Hypocrisy on Libya

08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military

There's no business like war business

By Pepe Escobar

Asia Times, 29 March 2011

To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please clickhere.

Lies, hypocrisy and hidden agendas. This is what United States President Barack Obama did not dwell on when explaining his Libya doctrine to America and the world. The mind boggles with so many black holes engulfing this splendid little war that is not a war (a “time-limited, scope-limited military action”, as per the White House) – compounded with the inability of progressive thinking to condemn, at the same time, the ruthlessness of the Muammar Gaddafi regime and the Anglo-French-American “humanitarian” bombing.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: A good review. See especially the conclusion on water beneath Libya as a factor. See also the author's various articles on “The Great Arab Revolt.”