Journal: Here’s a Great Idea–Lets Piss Off Turkey

08 Wild Cards, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends

CHUCK SPINNEY SENDS:

The American sources in the attached report of the New York Times blast Turkey, essentially because it refuses to be a US lackey.  Even the report’s title drips with contempt and reflects a myopia that is typical of the ego centric view of the perquisites of empire held by the American foreign policy establishment, including the mainstream media. The report's wishy-washy “on the one hand this, on the other hand that” style feeds this overall impression.

Any rational observer of Turkey knows that big things are happening in that country and its part of the world. 

Turkey has a large growing economy, is populated by more than 70 million hard working, industrious, increasingly well educated people.  It sits on an ocean of fresh water in a parched area of the world — Israel, Iraq, and Syria especially want access to water Turkey controls.  Turkey does not even use all its arable land, yet it is a major food exporter in a region of food importers, and local meats, vegetables, grains, and fruits are of the highest quality. The country is metamorphosing into a energy pipeline crossroads, and the Bosporus is the most heavily traveled waterway in the world.

Turkey is a secular democracy, and although many, no doubt a majority of its people are religious, there is very little religious fundamentalism, certainly less proportionally than is evident in either Israel, Iran, or the United States.  By an large Turkey’s historic traditions of religious tolerance seem intact — I was recently surprised to learn that there is still a substantial Jewish community in Istanbul that speaks a dialect of 15th Century Spanish at home and Turkish in professional life  (a relic from the time when the Ottoman Empire gave sanctuary the Jews in Spain who were persecuted by the Inquisition).  I met a member of this community, a prosperous businessman with a magnificent yacht, and he impressed as being Turkish through and through.  Interestingly, he told me he was pursuing an offer dual citizenship from Spain (sort of a right of return being instituted by Spain) but had no interest in accepting his automatic offer of citizenship by Israel.

Regardless of whether Turkey eventually enters the EU, it is a country that is moving and being sucked into a regional vacuum left by the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Part of this movement is caused by policy, but part of it is caused by the impulse of unpredictable events. 

The Turks, to their credit are trying to make the best of this by forging a regional good neighbor policy with all their neighbors, and until recently, this included Israel.  To this end, the Turks have, among other things, opened the border for visa free movement between Turkey and Syria, tried to broker a peace deal with the Syrians and Israelis (which the actions of the Israelis scuppered), made overtures of friendship to Armenia, been active in the Black Sea Initiative (basically an effort to protect the environment and delineate the rights and responsibilities of the states bordering on the Black Sea), made commercial overtures toward Iraq and Iran,  and most recently, in partnership with Brazil, launched an innovative initiative to defuse the Iranian nuclear problem (which the Obama Administration is petulantly trying to scupper). Meanwhile the Turkish government has been trying to reduce tensions with its own Kurdish minority in eastern Anatolia. While this is a serious problem (and I don’t pretend to understand it), Kurdish separatism and outside agitation by Kurdish insurgents based in Iraq (with some indirect Israeli and American support) and Iran, as well as a history of heavy-handed policies to limit the Kurdish autonomy, all contribute to it.  On the other hand, it is also important to acknowledge the fact that Kurds have every right to participate in the Turkish economy and culture as individuals, should they choose to exercise it. And many have done so.  One finds Kurds living throughout Turkey, in harmony with their neighbors, working and living prosperously.

Interpreting Turkey’s actions negatively through the lens of America’s imperial pretensions, together with our knee-jerk support of every outrage perpetrated by Israel, is implicit in the statements by the American sources in this report.  This attitude is a prescription for making trouble with a proud and independent people whose most recent actions have been focused on a policy of promoting regional comity.

Oh, and one other point — Turks are among the most gracious and welcoming people I have ever met, but push a Turk into a corner, where he perceives he is being treated unfairly and has no face saving exit, and you will have a real problem on your hands. 

June 8, 2010

Turkey Goes From Pliable Ally to Thorn for U.S.
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and MICHAEL SLACKMAN

ANKARA, Turkey — For decades, Turkey was one of the United States’ most pliable allies, a strategic border state on the edge of the Middle East that reliably followed American policy. But recently, it has asserted a new approach in the region, its words and methods as likely to provoke Washington as to advance its own interests.

The change in Turkey’s policy burst into public view last week, after the deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish flotilla, which nearly severed relations with Israel, Turkey’s longtime ally. Just a month ago, Turkey infuriated the United States when it announced that along with Brazil, it had struck a deal with Iran to ease a nuclear standoff, and on Tuesday it warmly welcomed Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Russian prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, at a regional security summit meeting in Istanbul.

Turkey’s shifting foreign policy is making its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a hero to the Arab world, and is openly challenging the way the United States manages its two most pressing issues in the region, Iran’s nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Turkey is seen increasingly in Washington as “running around the region doing things that are at cross-purposes to what the big powers in the region want,” said Steven A. Cook, a scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations. The question being asked, he said, is “How do we keep the Turks in their lane?”

FULL STORY ONLINE

Journal: Dropping COIN–McChrystal Returns to His Roots

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Ethics, Military, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch, 27 May 2010

FULL STORY ONLINE

For the past several years Americans have been inundated by reams of journalistic puff pieces extolling the virtues of the new US Counterinsurgency (COIN) Strategy documented by General Petraeus in his much ballyhooed COIN manual — which for the most part was a merely regurgitation of the failed thinking of French Marshal Lyautey's ink spot strategy (that counterinsurgent forces should aim to secure an ever expanding geographic zone of security with each new area secured providing a basis for further spreading, and so on.)
It is becoming clear, however, the showpiece of this new strategy, the Marjah operation, has failed to deliver on the promised security improvements to the people, and in the words of the theater commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has become a “bleeding ulcer.” 
Coupled with the deadlines imposed by President President Obama, when he approved McChrystal's ill-thought out plan last Fall, notwithstanding the cogent misgivings expressed by Ambassador Eikenberry, it is now clear that McChrystal is under mounting pressure to deliver some progress by the end of the year. 

Indeed, hair may be on fire at McChrystal's Bagram headquarters.  Rumors are circulating in military circles of backbiting and finger pointing, as well as complaints that MacChrystal is being set up as a fall guy, while his boss, General Petraeus, skates to a Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

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Handbook: Synergy Strike Force, Dr. Dr. Dave Warner, Round II

About the Idea, Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Analysis, Geospatial, Geospatial, Hacking, Historic Contributions, ICT-IT, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Innovation, Maps, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Research resources, Technologies, Tools
 

Dr. Dr. Dave Warner

Phi Beta Iota:  STRONG ANGEL was the other major innovation besides CATALYST, Analysis 2000, and MCIA JNID.  Below is Round II from STRONG ANGEL, with Round II from M4IS2 soon to be made public, built around SILOBREAKER (actually, Son of SILOBREAKER).  We considered forcing visits to the Synergy Strike Force home page, but decided that the richness of the content there needed to be displayed here. 

I. Introduction

Welcome to the MESS-KIT wiki: Minimum Essential Software Services for Knowledge and Information Transfer

II. Structure

The MESS-KIT system is composed of three basic components — the software package, the virtual environment and the hardware:

a. APPLICATION SOFTWARE PACKAGE: One or more Virtual Machine Instances that package together an operating system with a web server environment and all free-and-open-source/commercial-off-the-shelf software modules. Example: A VMware instance of an Ubuntu Linux installation with a full LAMP web server hosting environment and associated web software.

b. VIRTUAL MACHINE CLIENT SOFTWARE: One Virtual Machine Software Client to package, distribute, and host one or more Application Software Packages and abstract the application software from the host operating system. Examples: VMWare Fusion and Sun VirtualBox.

c. HARDWARE: Hardware on which the Virtual Machine Client Software and Application Software Package will run. The Hardware will include a host operating system. Examples: MacMini running OSX, ASUS eeePC Netbook running eeeBuntu Linux.

Continue reading “Handbook: Synergy Strike Force, Dr. Dr. Dave Warner, Round II”

Journal: HOUSE TO CONSIDER GAO AUDITS OF INTELLIGENCE

08 Wild Cards, Collective Intelligence, Government, Peace Intelligence
Full Secrecy News Online

Defying a previous veto threat from the White House, the House of Representatives will consider an amendment to bolster intelligence oversight by requiring intelligence agencies to cooperate with the Government Accountability Office when it performs audits that are requested by a congressional committee with jurisdiction over intelligence.

In general, the amendment (pdf) states, “the Director of National Intelligence shall ensure that personnel of the Government Accountability Office designated by the Comptroller General are provided with access to all information in the possession of an element of the intelligence community that the Comptroller General determines is necessary for such personnel to conduct an analysis, evaluation, or investigation of a program or activity of an element of the intelligence community that is requested by one of the congressional intelligence committees.”

The amendment to the FY2011 Defense Authorization Act (HR 5136) was sponsored by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and several colleagues.

When a similar amendment was included in the FY2010 Intelligence Authorization Act, which is still pending, it prompted a veto threat from the Obama White House.  But the White House opposition was based on an erroneous interpretation of the law, the Acting Comptroller of the GAO told Congress.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the likelihood of a renewed veto threat, the House Democratic leadership ruled that the Eshoo amendment was “in order,” and it will therefore be considered on the House floor, perhaps today or tomorrow.

Back when he was a Congressman in 1987, CIA Director Leon Panetta introduced a bill called the “CIA Accountability Act” (pdf) that would have reinforced GAO oversight over the Central Intelligence Agency.

Can't Fix Stupid

Phi Beta Iota:   Tip of the hat to Secrecy News for the above lead story.  The secret world is long overdue for GAO oversight, and we have stated in writing before that the first decision by any Director of National Intelligence (DNI) with even a modicum of ethics (we're not holding our breath) should be to create an integrated IG/GAO office and put the entire secret intelligence world under a GAO microscope.  It is our judgement that 90% of the contract positions should be eliminated, and at least 50% of the so-called government employee positions, most of which are very highly paid clerical positions, nothing more.  The budget should be cut back to $25 billion a year, with the proviso that the other $50 billion remains under the DNI's purview for redirection toward education, research, and a global multinational multiagency multidisciplinary multidomain information sharing and sensemaking (M4IS2) grid focused on creating a prosperous world at peace.  Budget intelligence, and the eradication of corruption at all levels by combining true cost intelligence with the exposure of blatantly stupid acquisition decisions, some but not all also corrupt acquisition decisions (most just uninformed), is the single best thing intelligence can do for the government; creating a Smart Nation is the ONLY thing that should be on the next DNI's mind.  If Obama is dumb enough to keep John Brennan at the White House, he is assuredly dumb enough to move Jim Clapper or Leon Panetta to the DNI position and lose all hope of ever getting anything serious out of the secret world in the little time he has remaining.  No one now serving is capable of serving the public interest–Panetta had a shot, but if he cannot handle CIA he assuredly cannot handle Jim Clapper and the Clapper Harem.

Journal: Federal Judge–NSA Wiretaps Were Illegal

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence
Full Story Online

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush.

. . . . . .

The ruling by Judge Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, rejected the Justice Department’s claim — first asserted by the Bush administration and continued under President Obama — that the charity’s lawsuit should be dismissed without a ruling on the merits because allowing it to go forward could reveal state secrets.

The judge characterized that expansive use of the so-called state-secrets privilege as amounting to “unfettered executive-branch discretion” that had “obvious potential for governmental abuse and overreaching.”

Phi Beta Iota: The US Intelligence Community is totally out of control and stupid as well.  Keith Alexander,[1]  like Mike Hayden [2] before him, is an administrative piss-ant with zero ethics–he means well, but he simply does not have the strategic brain-power to be honorable in the sense that every US citizen has a right to expect.   Across the board, US intelligence is being administered rather than led, and the time has come for the President–if he wishes to retain a semblance of credibility with the US public as well as the international community–to bring in a wrecking crew.  Not likely, but eminently necessary.

[1]  On very ignorant legal advice, while administering the Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), Alexander destroyed ABLE DANGER and destroyed the early warning on two of the hijackers that ABLE DANGER produced, rather than hand over the information to the FBI as he was supposed to.

[2]  While administering NSA, Mike Hayden was the first to violate the Constitution and the  law with warrantless wiretapping, and then went on to pioneer rendition and torture at CIA.  He is the  epitomy of well-intentioned generals who sacrifice their ethics and their integrity in favor of loyalty to a political chain of command that is abjectly corrupt irrespective of which of the two-party tyranny wings holds  the White House.

Reference: Intelligence Reform Death Notice

10 Security, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Commissions, DHS, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Ethics, Government, Hill Letters & Testimony, Law Enforcement, Legislation, Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Threats
Full Document Online

Phi Beta Iota: With a tip of the hat to Marcus Aurelius, this document is provided for information.  On balance it is rich with insights that are not available elsewhere and consequently must be very highly regarded as a baseline for where US intelligence reform (and US intelligence) are today: dead, with a $75 billion a year casket that shows no signs of atrophy.  Below are summary extracts both positive and negative.

Continue reading “Reference: Intelligence Reform Death Notice”