Category: Collaboration Zones

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Journal: William Polk on Afghanistan Non-Strategy Plus Consolidated Journal, Review, and Reference Links for Afghanistan

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends

William R. Polk recently sent out the attached letter to his distribution list.  It is a very comprehensive and I believe important review of Afghanistan.  I urge you to take the time to read it.  Appended to the end are a series of notes he used in the construction of his letter.   Polk know of which he speaks: his book Violent Politics (Harper Collins, 2007) is one of the very best books on guerrilla warfare, insurrection, and terrorism I have ever read.  You can learn more about Polk and his writings by visiting his website http://www.williampolk.com/

Chuck Spinney, Kalamata, Greece

William R. Polk [personal web site]
669 Chemin de la Sine, 06140 Vence, France
williamrpolk@post.harvard.edu
(33) 493581627

June 27, 2010

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

On June 24, the International Herald Tribune published an editorial from its parent, The New York Times, entitled “Obama’s Decision.”  Both the attribution –  printing in the two newspapers which ensures that the editorial will reach both directly and through subsidiary reprinting almost every “decision maker” in the world – and the date – just before the appointment of David Petraeus to succeed Stanley McChrystal – are significant.  They could have suggested a momentary lull in which basic questions on the Afghan war might have been reconsidered.

That did not happen.  The President made clear his belief that the strategy of the war was sound and his commitment to continue it even if the general responsible for it had to be changed.

The editorial sounded a  different note arising from the events surrounding the fall of General McChrystal:   Mr. Obama, said The Times, “must order all of his top advisers to stop their sniping and maneuvering” and come up with a coherent political and military plan for driving back the Taliban and building a minimally effective Afghan government.”

In short, Mr. Obama must get his team together and evolve a plan.

Unfortunately, the task he faces is not that simple.

Continue reading “Journal: William Polk on Afghanistan Non-Strategy Plus Consolidated Journal, Review, and Reference Links for Afghanistan”

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Journal: Farce on Farce…and Contempt for Obama

06 Russia, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

COMMENT:  Ten years the FBI has been watching this do-nothing network and this breaks now?  The contempt for Obama appears to have reached uncontrollable levels.   Fact #1:  the network was launched ten years or more ago.  Fact #2:  the network has not actually done any spying.  The timing of this action appears extraordinarily contemptuous of the White House.

Why Roll Up the Russian Spy Network Now?

U.S. Charges 11 in Russian Spy Case

Alleged Russian Spies: A Novel Idea?

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Peace-Building Thru Spotlights on Local Insights

01 Poverty, 04 Education, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Family, 06 Genocide, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Immigration, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence
www.peacedirect.org

Stop Conflict. Save lives. 40 per cent of conflicts will restart within 10 years of a peace treaty being signed. 90 per cent of the people who die in those conflicts are not armed forces, but civilians, many of them children. We need to stop these conflicts from restarting, to stop people from dying. Peace Direct funds local peace-builders to build lasting peace.
Our vision is a world where the work and knowledge of local peace-builders is central to all strategies for managing conflict. Our mission is to fund local people who are working for peace in their communities. It makes sense to act before a conflict leads to a full blown humanitarian crisis, and to do that we need to listen to the local people who are there on the ground and can see the warning signs.

http://www.insightonconflict.org

Insight on Conflict is Peace Direct’s resource on local peace-builders in conflict areas.
You’ll find information on how local people are working to resolve some of the longest and bloodiest conflicts around the world.
Insight on Conflict provides information on local peace-building organisations in areas of conflict. Local peace-builders already make a real impact in conflict areas. They work to prevent violent conflicts before they start, to reduce the impact of violence, and to bring divided communities together in the aftermath of violence. However, their work is often ignored – either because people aren’t aware of the existence and importance of local peace-builders in general, or because they simply haven’t had access to information and contacts for local peace-builders. We hope that Insight on Conflict can help redress the balance by drawing attention to important work of local peace-builders. On this site, you’ll be able to find out who the local peace-builders are, what they do, and how you might get in touch with them. Over half the organisations featured on Insight on Conflict do not have their own website.

Thanks to the Global Peace Index Twitter feed for this resource. Also see the Inst for War & Peace Reporting.

Link to conflict areas they highlight: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burundi, Colombia, DR Congo, Kashmir, Kosovo, Israel & The Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Liberia, Nepal, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand

Related (yet not):
Food4Peace – Conflict Kitchen
(only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with)

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Journal: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Punjab, and Taliban

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence
Berto Jongman Recommends...
By Ahmad Majidyar  |  AEI Online
(June 2010)

Key points in this Outlook:

  • Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and al Qaeda have teamed up with Punjabi militant and sectarian groups to destabilize Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province.
  • Although the militants have yet to assert the same control in southern Punjab that they did in Swat Valley or Waziristan, there are signs that such a scenario is possible.
  • Counterterrorism, intelligence, and police operations are more likely to make inroads than outright military operations.

See Also:  Press Release RAND 21 June 2010, Failed Strategy to Half Pakistan-Based Militant Groups Has Helped Lead to Rising Number of US Terror Plots; and report, Counterinsurgency in Pakistan.  Phi Beta Iota:  Pakistan has displaced Saudi Arabia as the primary sponsor of international terrorism (along with the Israeli Mossad that fills in when needed).  The US is deliberately blind to this reality.

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Poli-Tricks: The Life and Death of Brothel Madams of New Orleans and D.C.

Crime (Government), Cultural Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Videos/Movies/Documentaries
Deborah Palfrey

DEATH BY CLIENT LIST – One was murdered for revealing the client list (Deborah Jeane Palfrey), and one currently lives (and not in jail) because she did not reveal the client list (Jeanette Maier).

This weekend in Brooklyn, NY was the premiere of the film the “Canal Street Madam” about the life of Jeanette Maier and an FBI raid on her infamous family-run brothel in New Orleans. She appeared for the screening and after wards was on a panel for Q & A.

Mentioned in the film was the “DC Madam” (Deborah Jeane Palfrey) and audio of her being interviewed by Alex Jones that she would not commit suicide.

Jeanette Maier

Telephone conversations used in the film were from FBI wiretaps. The FBI used 10 agents taking turns listening to calls for 4 months (5,000 calls).  Jeanette Maier said during the Q & A panel that the FBI was wiretapping her phone while she was watching the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and that those tax dollars could have been spent helping keep the country safer.

Background on the Jeanette Maier case and family business:
+ Part One
+ Part Two
+ Part Three

::::

Related:
+ Palfrey page at NNDB
+ Palfrey and Maier connection to Louisiana Senator David Vitter
+ 598 page Book – Why Just Her: The Judicial Lynching of the D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey by Montgomery Sibley

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Journal: One Mobile Per Child

About the Idea, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, microfinancing, Mobile, Real Time, Reform, Tools

Phi Beta Iota: The idea of one mobile per person was originally devised by the Earth Intelligence Network, and is articulated in both brief form and in a full-length book.  Now the idea is emerging, spontaneously, from others.  Below is a link to a letter in the Journal of Health Informatics in Developing Countries.

Letter: One mobile per child: a tractable global health intervention

The authors, Prajesh Chhanabhai and Alec Hold, one working at the University of Otago in New Zeland, the other for the Department of Economic and Soical Affairs in the United Nations, make several important points, not least of which is the price point: mobile telephones are being offered in Venezuela for $15, which is half the price the World Bank negotiated with Motorola.

If and when the Chinese see the opportunity (free cell phone, no extra charge for listening in), we should see both free cell phones and eventually free airtime as well as free call centers to educate the poor “one cell call at a time” at the same time that we recoup the investment in elevated national productivity, now proven to be associated with the diffusion of cell phone access.

It merits observation that the cell phone is now the “gift of life” that any one of the one billion rich (80% of whom do not give to charity now) can endow, down to a specific person in a specific village.  The sooner we make cell phones ubiquitous, the sooner we can start exposing corruption at all levels (with web sites that make sense of text messages and expose corruption in near-real-time “by name,” and also creating infinite wealth among the four billion at the “bottom of the pyramid.”  The human brain is the one inexhaustible resource we have, giving every human a cell phone is the fastest way to harnessing the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth.

Interesting Side Note: Carlos “slim” Helu (richest person in the world) has a major stake in Tracfone (some phones go for $10). He could be a major player in the one mobile per child campaign. Venezuela president Hugo Chavez has a Twitter account and the Earth Intelligence Network just posted >>  earthintelnet @chavezcandanga “the Vergatario” ($15 phone) + Carlos “Slim” Helu ? http://phibetaiota.net/?p=25785 #Vergatario #Venezuela #CarlosSlim

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Reference: Panarchy is What We Make of It–Why a World State is Not Inevitable

Advanced Cyber/IO, Articles & Chapters, Cultural Intelligence

ABSTRACT:  Alexander Wendt begins his paper “Why a World State is Inevitable” with the following concise formulation of his intent: “In this article I propose a teleological theory of the ‘logic of anarchy' which suggests that a world state is inevitable …” (Wndt, 2003).  I offer the following equally concise opposition: In this article I propose a teleonomic theory of the ‘logic of panarchy' which suggests that a world state is not inevitable.  I suggest that the stable “state” for this teleonomic process is a global “complex adaptive system,” or governance network, in which the ‘logic of anarchy' gives way to the ‘logic of panarchy.”  It is essential to note that Wednt and I agree on far more than we disagree, but the pointson which we disagree are fundamental.

Core Quote:  “In a teleonomy, the focus is on the adaptive rules, i.e. the processes by which the system explores and exploits new possibilities.  Because the system's identity is enacted through a program and not by virtue of an outcome, lourality, diversity, democracy, abnd the navigation of competing rules and norms take on a new urgency.  That urgency is enshrined in the voluntary and “freely given” intentionality that is possible only in panarchy.”

29 Page PDF