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300 Million Talons... — 300 Million Talons…

30 Statistics About Americans Under The Age Of 30 That Will Blow Your Mind

By Michael Snyder, on October 3rd, 2013

Why are young people in America so frustrated these days? You are about to find out. Most young adults started out having faith in the system. They worked hard, they got good grades, they stayed out of trouble and many of them went on to college. But when their educations where over, they discovered that the good jobs that they had been promised were not waiting for them at the end of the rainbow. Even in the midst of this so-called “economic recovery”, the full-time employment rate for Americans under the age of 30 continues to fall. And incomes for that age group continue to fall as well. At the same time, young adults are dealing with record levels of student loan debt. As a result, more young Americans than ever are putting off getting married and having families, and more of them than ever are moving back in with their parents.

It can be absolutely soul crushing when you discover that the “bright future” that the system had been promising you for so many years turns out to be a lie. A lot of young people ultimately give up on the system and many of them end up just kind of drifting aimlessly through life. The following is an example from a recent Wall Street Journal article…

Continue reading “Eagle: 30 Facts About Americans Under 30”

2013/10/04

Maj (P) Jeff Bordin Receives Bronze Star for Green on Blue Study Leading to 80% Reduction in ISAF Deaths from Insider Attack

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Military

CITATION TO ACCOMPANY THE AWARD OF BRONZE STAR

TO MAJOR JEFFREY T. BORDIN, UNITED STATES ARMY

Citation:

Major Jeffrey T. Bordin, United States Army, distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious service while deployed in support of OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM and Overseas Contingency Operations as the Center for Army Lessons Learned Liaison Officer assigned to Afghanistan, from 11 August 2012 to 10 August 2013. Major Bordin’s unwavering leadership, dedication, professional knowledge, commitment, field research in some of the most kinetic regions in Afghanistan, and resulting recommendations were instrumental in an 80% reduction in ISAF deaths caused by insider attacks from 1 November 2012 through 1 June 2013 compared to the previous two year period. In addition he co-authored two insider threat handbooks as well as a third ANSF advisor training handbook. Through his distinctive accomplishments, Major Bordin reflected great credit upon himself, the United States Army, and the Department of Defense.

References:

Jeff Bordin: Fratricide (Green on Blue) in Afghanistan — A Crisis of Trust, A Vacuum in Understanding 1.1

Previously rejected report is now key to US effort to curb insider killings in Afghanistan

Review: Lethal Incompetence

Narrative

Continue reading “Maj (P) Jeff Bordin Receives Bronze Star for Green on Blue Study Leading to 80% Reduction in ISAF Deaths from Insider Attack”

2013/10/04

Penguin: Saudi Arabia Definitively Behind Syrian Gas Attacks – Cancel Speech to UN General Assembly

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Connecting the dots….

Saudi black op team behind Damascus chem weapons attack – diplomatic sources

The August chemical weapons attack in the Syrian capital’s suburbs was done by a Saudi Arabian black operations team, Russian diplomatic sources have told a Russian news agency.

“Based on data from a number of sources a picture can be pieced together. The criminal provocation in Eastern Ghouta was done by a black op team that the Saudi’s sent through Jordan and which acted with support of the Liwa Al-Islam group,” a source in the diplomatic circles told Interfax.

The attack and its consequences had a huge impact on the Syrian situation, another source said.

“Syrians of various political views, including some opposition fighters, are seeking to inform diplomats and members of international organizations working in Syria what they know about the crime and the forces which inspired it,” he told the agency.

Liwa Al-Islam is an Islamist armed group operating near Damascus headed by the son of a Saudi-based Salafi cleric. The group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a secret governmental meeting in Damascus in July 2012 that killed a number of top Syrian officials, including Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, his deputy Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani.

The allegations mirror a number of earlier reports, which pointed to Saudi Arabia as the mastermind behind the sarin gas attack, which almost led to US military action against Syrian government. Proponents of this scenario say intelligence services in Riyadh needed a false flag operation to provoke an American attack in Syria, which would tip the balance in favor of the armed opposition supported by Saudi Arabia.

Continue reading “Penguin: Saudi Arabia Definitively Behind Syrian Gas Attacks – Cancel Speech to UN General Assembly”

2013/10/042013/10/04

SchwartzReport: Evangelical Sex Abuse Record ‘Worse’ Than Catholic, Says Billy Graham’s Grandson Box Tchividijian

07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence

It is the nature of fundamentalist religion, of whatever stripe, to be authoritarian, sexually repressive, and patriarchal. But beneath that there is also the lingering stench of sex abuse — human nature will not be denied, and when healthy sexual expression is not supported its dark side pedophilia emerges. I have done many pieces on the Roman! Catholic Church, and several on the Ultra-orthodox Jews. Now comes a report from inside the Evangelical Protestant world about what is going on there.

Evangelical Sex Abuse Record ‘Worse' Than Catholic, Says Billy Graham's Grandson Boz Tchividijian
SARAH PULLIAM BAILEY – The Huffington Post

AUSTIN, Texas (RNS) The Christian mission field is a ‘magnet” for sexual abusers, Boz Tchividjian, a Liberty University law professor who investigates abuse said Thursday (Sept. 26) to a room of journalists.

While comparing evangelicals to Catholics on abuse response, ”I think we are worse,” he said at the Religion Newswriters Association conference, saying too many evangelicals had ‘sacrificed the souls” of young victims.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Evangelical Sex Abuse Record ‘Worse' Than Catholic, Says Billy Graham's Grandson Box Tchividijian”

2013/10/04

NIGHTWATCH: India-Pakistan Firefight, Pakistan TTP

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Information Operations (IO), Peace Intelligence

India-Pakistan: Indian military authorities report a week-long series of gun battles has been taking place in the central region of the Line of Control in Kashmir. Some 30 to 40 fighters crossed the Line on 24 September, up to 12 of whom have been killed by Indian soldiers. Five Indian soldiers have been wounded.

The infiltrators holed up in an abandoned village, which appears to be the location of the gun fights.

Although General Officer Commanding of the Army's 15 Corps Lt Gen Gurmit Singh had said it will be premature to say whether the Pakistan Army was involved in infiltration of militants, he said there were definite indications that some special troops were part of it.

“I can only say, analyzing the methodology of this infiltration, it was not a pure infiltration. It was a BAT [Border Action Team]-cum-infiltration. The number of militants who attempted this infiltration was rather large. In fact, Wednesday night 10 to 12 militants tried to sneak into the cordoned off area from across (the Line of Control).”

Pakistani authorities deny that an infiltration occurred.

Comment: A Border Action Team is a mixed unit of Pakistan Army special forces commandos and irregular forces including terrorists or Kashmiri militants. Allmost every time the top political leaders have a cordial meeting, a shooting incident occurs along the Line of Control.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: India-Pakistan Firefight, Pakistan TTP”

2013/10/042013/10/04

Berto Jongman: Breaking the Cycle of Counterinsurgency

Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Breaking the Cycle of Counterinsurgency

It's time to relegate the bankrupt counterinsurgency doctrine into the “dustbin of history.”

By Hannah Gurman and Jeremy Kuzmarov, October 3, 2013

Foreign Policy in Focus, 3 October 2013

This September marked a potential turning point in America’s long and seemingly bottomless appetite for war. The Obama administration made a pitch for U.S. military intervention against Syria, and the American public didn’t buy it. Across the country, people demonstrated and wrote and prodded their congressional representatives to vote against air strikes, forcing the president to backtrack and agree to pursue a Russian plan to have Syria’s president Bashir al-Assad turn over his chemical weapons stockpiles. This turn of events came just days before the 12th anniversary of 9/11 and may mark the end of an era in which the U.S. public gives carte blanche support to foreign military intervention.

The United States could take this critical moment to learn from the mistakes of its recent past. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the two full-scale wars of the era, the course of intervention followed a similar path. First came the military strikes. These were followed by the military-backed regime changes that installed Hamid Karzai and Nouri Al-Maliki. And then came the massive counterinsurgency campaigns that were launched after these governments failed to gain the full support of their people. As George Ball, undersecretary of state in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, warned of Vietnam, “Once on the tiger’s back, we cannot be sure of picking the place to dismount.” In other words, once the path of intervention begins, it’s difficult to stop.

There is also a pattern of counterinsurgency in the larger course of history. The moment of the supposedly limited strike tends to be one of relative war fatigue, which incrementally erodes as U.S. involvement deepens and the war escalates. War fatigue then returns after the cost in dollars and American lives becomes intolerable. A generation later, the cycle begins again.

Taking COIN Out of Circulation

Read full article.

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2013/10/032013/10/03

Gregory Sinaisky: HIST 3 APR 2003 Detecting Disinformation, Without Radar [Truth Specific, Lies Vague]

Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Detecting disinformation, without radar
By Gregory Sinaisky [Pseudonym]

Asia Times, 3 April 2003

How to tell genuine reporting from an article manufactured to produce the desired propaganda effect? The war in Iraq provides us plenty of interesting samples for a study of disinformation techniques.

Take the article “Basra Shiites Stage Revolt, Attack Government Troops”, published on March 26 in The Wall Street Journal Europe. Using its example, we will try to arm readers with basic principles of disinformation analysis that hopefully will allow them in the future to detect deception.

The title of the article sounds quite definitive. The article starts, however, with the mush less certain “Military officials said the Shiite population of Basra … appeared to be rising”. “Military officials” and “appeared to be” should immediately raise a red flag for a reader, especially given a mismatch with such a definitive title. Why “officials”? Were they speaking in a chorus? Or was each one providing a complementary piece of information? A genuine report certainly would tell us this and also name the officials or at least say why they cannot be identified.

Why “appears to be”? There are always specific reasons why something “appears to be”. For example, information about the uprising may be uncertain because it was supplied by an Iraqi defector who was not considered trustworthy and has not been confirmed from other sources. Again, every professional reporter understands that his job is to provide such details and it is exactly such details that make his reporting valuable, interesting, and memorable. If such all-important details are missing, this is a sure sign to suspect intentional disinformation.

Continue reading “Gregory Sinaisky: HIST 3 APR 2003 Detecting Disinformation, Without Radar [Truth Specific, Lies Vague]”