Peace Intelligence – Page 331 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/10/292013/10/30

Robert Young Pelton: Crowd-Funding the Hunt for Jospeh Kony (Full Text – Foreign Policy October 2013)

ROBERT STEELE: I've known RYP for over a decade, perhaps more. I first learned of him when CIA was handing out his book, World's Most Dangerous Places, as the best available primer for case officers going into darkness without bodyguards or armor (which is what real case officers do, don't get me started on the clowns surrounded by protein shakes with ink). This is a guy that can get kidnapped in the middle of the Darien Gap, and by the time his captors get him to the chief, the chief knows who he is, apologizes, and begs for an interview. A self-made man in every possible sense of the word, a brother in arms tried and true, RYP is one of the most educated, versatile, and accomplished people in the real world. It merits comment that it costs up to $2.1 million a year to keep one US soldier in the field with all the generals, aviation, logistics, and so on that one US soldier brings with them. $450K for one man, one hunt is a BARGAIN.

Printable (4 Pages with Links): So Crazy It Just Might Work

So Crazy It Just Might Work

Swashbuckling journalist Robert Young Pelton is crowdfunding a mission to hunt down Joseph Kony. Is it genius or folly?

BY ELIAS GROLL

FOREIGN POLICY, OCTOBER 29, 2013

Robert Young Pelton thinks he can do what no one else has done: find the fugitive warlord Joseph Kony. And he wants your help in doing it.
Pelton, a journalist-cum-adventurer, has traveled the world tracking down and interviewing the world's most dangerous men. He was in Grozny hanging out with Chechen rebels while the city was getting pounded by Russian forces. He linked up with Liberian rebels during their assault on Monrovia. And he tracked down and interviewed Francis Ona, the leader of a separatist movement on the island of Bougainville in the South Pacific.

Now he's turning his attention to the most wanted man in Africa. Together with two filmmakers, Pelton is planning an expedition to central Africa, where he will attempt to track down Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), in the jungle wilderness. Where activists and African troops — aided by U.S. Special Forces — have failed, Pelton believes he can succeed and find the man responsible for the kidnapping as many as 66,000 children and pressing them into service in his rag-tag army or as sex-slaves.

So is Pelton completely crazy? Or is he, maybe, just crazy enough to pull it off?

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2013/10/282013/10/28

David Swanson: ENDING ALL WAR: An Idea Whose Time Has Come — For Our Children and All Future Generations

Ethics, Peace Intelligence

ENDING ALL WAR: An Idea Whose Time Has Come — For Our Children and All Future Generations

By David Swanson and David Hartsough with input from George Lakey, Jan Passion, Mike Ferner, Colleen Kelly, Ruth Benn, Leah Bolger, Nathan Schneider, Hakim, Paul Chappell, Colin Archer, Kathy Kelly, et alia. (none of whom are to blame for shortcomings of this draft).

Many groups and individuals are discussing a new project; if you have ideas, let us know.

If unnecessary suffering on an enormous scale is to be avoided, we must abolish war. Some 180 million people died in wars in the 20th century and, while we have not yet repeated a war on the scale of World War II, wars are not going away. Their enormous destruction continues, measured in terms of deaths, injuries, trauma, millions of people having to flee their homes, financial cost, environmental destruction, economic drain, and erosion of civil and political rights.

If humanity is going to survive, we must abolish war. Every war brings with it both massive destruction and the risk of uncontrolled escalation. We are facing a world of greater weapons proliferation, resource shortages, environmental pressures, and the largest human population the earth has seen. In such a turbulent world, we must abolish the organized violence by governments known as war, because its continuation risks our extinction.

If we abolish war, humanity can not only survive and better address the climate crisis and other dangers, but will find it far easier to prosper. The reallocation of resources away from war promises a world whose advantages are beyond easy imagination. Some $2 trillion a year, roughly half from the United States and half from the rest of the world, is devoted to war and war preparation. Those funds could transform global efforts to create sustainable energy, agricultural, economic, health, and education systems. Redirection of war funding could save many times the lives that are taken by spending it on war.

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2013/10/282013/10/28

4th Media: America’s Threat-Centric [Lie-Based] Education System: Out of Date and Out of Time

04 Education, Academia, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

America’s Threat-Centric [Lie-Based] Education System: Out of Date and Out of Time

“History is a story. That’s why we fight over history. We make sense of ourselves, the world and ourselves in the world through the struggle to tell the truth through stories. Facts have to be contextualised to become the truth. And that truth is a struggle that is constantly fought over. It is not given. And telling stories helps to create debate about that truth. That is why working people should tell their stories. Truth is a class issue. I would appeal to all your readers, especially to young ones, to make their own political films; shoot interviews, especially with older comrades, and dare to express themselves on the screen. Film making is for everybody. I would be looking at the new technologies. They are disruptive and a problem in capitalist society…That’s why they want to close down the Internet if they can. Politicians don’t like allowing people to communicate anonymously with each other. They want to restrain freedom … But still for a while there is a window of opportunity and freedom. They monitor you, but don’t yet stop you. That will come, of course…[But] it’s where people ought to be, where creative people and political people ought to be.” Tony Garnett interviewed by the editors of WSWS

How can young people be encouraged and coached to narrate a “true” history of their lives and times in the world—and the events, people and geography that influence them—for the bulk of their literate existence (i.e., 21st Century literate to include visual and technological literacy)?

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2013/10/27

SchwartzReport: 7 Billion Minds, or One?

Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Here is another really excellent essay by SR reader and best selling author Larry Dossey. It provides a guide map to how in the domain of nonlocal consciousness we are all linked, all life is interdependent, and inter-connected.

7 Billion Minds, or One?
LARRY DOSSEY, MD – The Huffington Post

“I felt there was no separation between anything. I felt as if I were united with everything, and it was wonderful!” This recent report from a reader is a universal experience of people who are concerned with psychological and spiritual growth. This sense of connectedness is not fantasy, but is being affirmed by recent advances in consciousness research.

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2013/10/252013/10/25

John Steiner: US “War on Terror” Has INCREASED Terrorism

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

From Gary Sycalik

Fellow earth-travelers,

An exceedingly important article / blog is copied below. It involves the War on Terror.

The very important rule rule is “Follow-the-Money.” So, when applied to the War on Terror what do we find? Perhaps, we find a tremendous strengthening of the Military-Industrial-Complex, a substantiation for unconscionable U.S. military budgets (to the determent of other budget areas such as education) and exceedingly huge profits of such corporate giants as Halliburton. According to a 2012 article in the Huffington Post, the U.S. spends more than China, Japan, UK, France, and Russia combined. More than all these added together. Russia spent 52.7 billion while the United States spent 695.7 billion (Not counting off the books stuff such as ‘black ops.”)

Could the War on Terror really be, substantially (and pivotally), about power and money? And until the majority of we, the people, become realistic about the ‘why’ of ‘things’, shine light into the shadows of secrecy, and demand appropriate responsible action from government and corporate leaders, the very few will control the many to the determent of the citizen-public. Consider this; existing corporate-government relationships are insidious in nature and dangerous in fact. President Eisenhower warned us about the this relationship (military-industrial complex) as he left office. Why do you think he waited to do so at the end of his presidency? Think about it. A more balanced relationship can be created. Actually, it must be if our country is to be sustainable and viable in the future. I want a sustainable and viable country. I assume that you do too.

Happy travels,

Gary

U.S. “War On Terror” Has INCREASED Terrorism

Posted onOctober 21, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog

Charts Show that U.S. Policy Has Increased Terror Attacks

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) Global Terrorism Database – part of a joint government-university program on terrorism – is hosted at the University of Maryland.

START is the most comprehensive open source terrorism database, which can be viewed by journalists and civilians lacking national security clearance.

A quick review of charts from the START database show that terrorism has increased in the last 9 years since the U.S. started its “war on terror”.

This chart shows the number of terror attacks conducted in Iraq:

See compelling charts and rest of article.

Phi Beta Iota: The article and the charts do not address the financial terrorism of the City of London and Wall Street that have destroyed entire national economies, and particularly those of the USA, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Greece. Iceland, alone, had the integrity and intelligence to stuff the bankers into jail.

2013/10/252013/10/25

NIGHTWATCH: Libya as Arsenal for Muslim Terrorists

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Government, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Algeria-Libya: Algerian soldiers found a large weapons cache on 24 October in Illizi in east central Algeria, near the border with Libya. The weapons included 100 anti-aircraft missiles, more than 500 MANPAD shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles and hundreds of rocket launchers, rifles, landmines and rocket-propelled grenades.

Comment: Algerian authorities have not commented about whom they suspect stored the weapons, except to suggest they came from Libya. Illizi is on the road several hundred kilometers southwest from Tripoli, Libya. This is one of the routes used to smuggle Libyan weapons to militants and terrorists in Mali.

The cache contents help confirm where some of Libya's large store of man-portable shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADS) went after the weapons depots used by Qadhafi's forces were ransacked and their contents carried off. This is an important discovery, but only a portion of the weapons that are unaccounted.

Five hundred MANPADS would be more than enough to neutralize French air superiority in Mali, had they reached the militants there. Libya has become the arsenal of Muslim terrorists.

2013/10/25

Berto Jongman: 40,000 Afghan SIM Cards in Pakistan

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

40,000 Afghan SIMs active in country

Waseem Ahmad Shah

Dawn.com (Peshawar), 24 October 2013

EXTRACTS:

PESHAWAR: Over 40,000 cellphone SIM cards of Afghan telecom companies are operational in Pakistan and most of them are used in acts of terrorism, kidnapping for ransom and extortion.

The information was placed before a Peshawar High Court bench by National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday during the hearing into a case about unregistered SIM cards.

. . . . . . .

Head of the legal department of Zong Waqar Ahmad said the roaming agreements existed between Pakistani and Afghan companies with prior approval of PTA and if the court ordered they would stop that facility forthwith. He said the company had been following SOPs given by PTA.

He said a meeting of the companies would be held with the Interior Ministry on Wednesday wherein it would be decided how to further make the SIM card registration mechanism foolproof.

He added that to improve the mechanism, the companies had been planning to introduce a biometric system under which a SIM card would be activated only after thumb verification of the subscriber.

Read full article.

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