Journal: Ron Paul, Grand Strategy, Ahem

Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Threats
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Chuck Spinney has nominated this short piece,

Instead of Bombs and Bribes, Let’s Try Empathy and Trade

Representative Ron Paul, October 6, 2009

What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on U.S. soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across the Canadian border in the middle of the night and carried out the latest of many attacks? What if it was claimed that many of the victims harbored anti-Chinese sentiments, but most of the dead were innocent women and children? And what if the Chinese administration, in an effort to improve its public image in the U.S., had approved an aid package to send funds to help with American roads and schools and promote Chinese values here?

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Journal: Afghanistan Bipartisan Blindness

10 Security, Government, Peace Intelligence

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White House: Leaving Afghanistan not an option

WASHINGTON – The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama is not considering a strategy for Afghanistan that would withdraw U.S. troops from the eroding war there.

. . . . . . .

Obama has invited a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to the White House on Tuesday to confer about the war. He said the administration would brief leaders from both parties and key committee chairmen and would seek their opinions.

Phi Beta Iota: Not only is the White House itself out of touch with reality on Afghanistan, but inviting a “bipartisan” collection of the same appartchiks that allowed us to go into two elective wars and to bankrupt the nation twice over is hardly the way to get coherent strategic advice.

Journal: Early Warning on Further Destabilization from Afghanistan and India into Pakistan

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence
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In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul responds to charges that he supports terrorism, discusses 9/11 and ulterior motives for the war on Afghanistan, claims that the U.S., Israel, and India are behind efforts to destabilize Pakistan, and charges the U.S. and its allies with responsibility for the lucrative Afghan drug trade.

Ex-ISI Chief Says Purpose of New Afghan Intelligence Agency RAMA Is ‘to destabilize Pakistan’

August 12, 2009  by Jeremy R. Hammond

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Journal: Integrity, Afghanistan, & The White House

02 Diplomacy, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Ethics, Military, Peace Intelligence

SMALL WARS JOURNAL

Robert Haddock
Robert Haddock

This Week at War: America's Last Counterinsurgent?

McChrystal report unwittingly slays counterinsurgency doctrine

September 25, 2009

Robert Haddock

This summer the U.S. government has faced a deteriorating crisis in Afghanistan. Such crises tend to force policymakers to face up to the facile assumptions they have previously made. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s report to his civilian masters on the faltering counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan has caused President Barack Obama and his advisers to face up to their basic assumptions about U.S. objectives and strategies for perhaps the first time. Obama and his team seem very likely to conclude from this long overdue examination of first principles that it will be impractical for the U.S. to successfully implement a counterinsurgency campaign plan in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s assessment has unwittingly tossed the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency field manual into the shredder. McChrystal’s report is brutally honest about the troubles in Afghanistan.

Click on title above for complete article, below for Phi Beta Iota comment and links to three “fix” pieces.

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Journal: Intelligence Is A Critical Need

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

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Intelligence Is A Critical Need

To do the job right and win

By Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Rep. John Shadegg

September 25, 2009  Pg. 21

Phi Beta Iota: Despite the fact that Representative Hoekstra is now Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), neither of these two individuals (or their staffs) appear to know what it would take to do proper intelligence in Afghanistan; why their commentary is fifteen years too late; and/or why it is also moot in the absence of a coherent reality-based strategy and the rescinding of the existing rules of engagement that are incapcitating our troops.  Both good men trapped in a bad system, they have no access to ground truth from iconoclasts and are a perfect reprise to the “best and the brightest” on Viet-Nam–brilliantly uninformed.

Journal: Eye Opener–Census Worker Found Hanged

11 Society, Civil Society, Ethics, Peace Intelligence, Reform
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A part-time Census Bureau field worker was found hanged in Kentucky Sept. 12 with the word “fed” scrawled across his chest, according to a law enforcement source. Bill Sparkman, 51, who was white, was found at the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky, the Associated Press first reported Wednesday night.

Summary of Book
Summary of Book

Summary of Book
Summary of Book

Phi Beta Iota: The Washington Post was among the early casualties in the new business.  They don't read a lot, just replay the hand-outs from government, so something that is an eye-opener to them is old news to the rest of us.  This story is note-worthy because it is the first story we have seen that a politician in Washington might actually read.  To better understand the Legitimate Grievances of all Americans against the “out of control” Federal Government that has–with the best of intentions and really rotten intelligence–combined with  the Federal Reserve (neither Federal nor a Reserve) to destroy the pension funds and the life savings of the vast majority of the public, see the two reviews behind the two covers, and contemplate some of the other books accessible via the Reviews menu.  We spoke in 19 small towns and cities across America after 9/11 and that was our own eye-opener.  The anger against the Federal Government across the land cannot be exaggerated, and is co-equal with the elitist obliviousness to the plight of the people.  The public is losing its mind because the government has lost its soul.

Worth a Look: Peace Book One Now Online in Chapter Form

Communities of Practice, Peace Intelligence, Worth A Look
PKI Book I By the Chapter
PKI Book I By the Chapter

With apologies for taking so long to do this, we have finally gotten around to loading the first Peacekeeping Intelligence book, which has always been free as a single PDF, in chapter form.

The short URL (or click on the cover) is http://www.tinyurl.com/OSSPKIONE

The primary page for this book with Amazon and PDF links is here.

The next book can now pre-ordered on Amazon, see the page for the new book, INTELLIGENCE for PEACE: Multinational Multifunctional Information-Sharing and Sense-Making, here.