Government – Page 526 – Public Intelligence Blog

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University, was Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and served as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. His most recent book is The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers our Future.

South Africa Breaks Out

NEW YORK – International investment agreements are once again in the news. The United States is trying to impose a strong investment pact within the two big so-called “partnership” agreements, one bridging the Atlantic, the other the Pacific, that are now being negotiated. But there is growing opposition to such moves.

South Africa has decided to stop the automatic renewal of investment agreements that it signed in the early post-apartheid period, and has announced that some will be terminated. Ecuador and Venezuela have already terminated theirs. India says that it will sign an investment agreement with the US only if the dispute-resolution mechanism is changed. For its part, Brazil has never had one at all.

There is good reason for the resistance. Even in the US, labor unions and environmental, health, development, and other nongovernmental organizations have objected to the agreements that the US is proposing.

Continue reading “Penguin: South Africa Opts Out of Predatory IMF/WTO System”

2013/11/082013/11/08

NIGHTWATCH: CIA Kills Peace in Pakistan, Saudi Goes Nuclear [with Chinese Help?]

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Strategy

Pakistan-Pakistani Taliban: The Pakistani Taliban rejected peace talks with the government on Thursday after electing hardline militant Mullah Fazlullah as their new leader.

Earlier this month militant sources said that the consultative Shura council of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chose Khan Said Mehsud known as Sajna as the new leader. But the election of Sajna, who leads the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, reportedly was opposed by Taliban's other groups. Fazlullah was reported to have strongly objected to the choice of Sajna.

Shahidullah Shahid, the main spokesman for the TTP said talks with the government were a “waste of time” and the new chief Maulana Fazlullah was against them. “Holding of peace talks is not even an issue to discuss — this government has no authority, it is not a sovereign government, it is a slave, a slave of America. Holding peace talks is a waste of time.”

Fazlullah's men shot and wounded Malala Yousafzai last year, instantly turning Malala into a global hero for the education of girls.

Comment: Fazlullah's election does not necessarily mean that negotiations will never occur. Hardline leaders often are the only ones capable of negotiating with credibility. But that is for the future. Meanwhile, no peace talks are likely in the near term. Pakistani Pashtun savagery against Pashtun women will increase, including murder attempts against Malala in the UK.

Fazlullah's election signifies rejection of Prime Minister Sharif's peace overture. It also highlights a degenerative leadership pattern resulting from the US program of leadership decapitation. First, there is always someone waiting for the chance to be leader. Second, the new leaders are less experienced and wise than the men they replace. Third, the new generation of leaders is more extreme and theologically rigid than its predecessors. Finally, the new leaders tend to be unknown to intelligence relative to their predecessors. Decapitation is not a permanent solution to an insurgency or an uprising.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: CIA Kills Peace in Pakistan, Saudi Goes Nuclear [with Chinese Help?]”

2013/11/07

Owl: Monbiot: Corporate New World Order Dictatorship Close to Implementation, Democracy and Law for Ordinary People Nearly Dead

01 Poverty, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government

Monbiot: Corporate New World Order Dictatorship Close to Implementation, Democracy and Law for Ordinary People Nearly Dead

It's coming together piece by major piece for the Elite's plans of absolute and total world domination: imposition of GMO food and many toxic substance for human consumption, covert eugenics via not only food and water, but constant aerial spraying and massive and on-going vaccines of numerous types, a vastly increased and efficient surveillance and military control infrastructure imposed at a maniacally rapid tempo, the destruction of net neutrality and thereby guaranteeing control and closing down of almost all independent information flows on the Internet, and now, as seen so clearly in this article by Monbiot, the forced imminent world-wide imposition of a legal structure that will remove all protections from services and products that cause wide-spread disease in humans and all other living beings and toxify the entire planet and also cause immense cultural and economic dislocation for 50%-99% of all people. In short, as Monbiot says, this major piece will create, “as the Democracy Centre says…”a privatised justice system for global corporations”. This initiative will be key to utterly circumventing virtually ALL citizen-based efforts at protecting itself medically, politically, legally and economically, a citizenry which will be much reduced or weakened by covert eugenics, and those remaining who are not weakened, will be radically coerced and controlled by the military/police state.

2013/11/072013/11/07

Michael Shank: Why the White House Won’t Win the Afghanistan War…

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, Civil Society, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Strategy

Why the White House won't win the Afghanistan war

Washington Times, Wednesday, November 6, 2013 –

Cause, Conflict, Conclusion by Michael Shank, Ph.D.

WASHINGTON, November 7, 2013 — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry desperately needs a win on the Afghanistan war. Unfortunately, however, it appears increasingly unlikely he will get one.

Despite repeated visits and discussions, Kerry has so far failed to secure a clean Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Without an agreement, all U.S. and NATO forces – including the approximately 10,000 that the Pentagon wants to keep in country – would have to leave the country next year.

The immediate sticking point is on whether U.S. troops will receive immunity for misdeeds during the deployment, but the larger issue centers on respect, sovereignty and judicial non-interference.

Local populations are overwhelmingly against immunity for U.S. troops. In Afghanistan, most cases currently slide without reprimand or justice. This includes countless stories of abuse accompanying night raids, which Karzai has repeatedly attempted to ban. As is the case in Iraq, the Philippines and elsewhere, local populations want accountability within their own courts for U.S. troops who commit abuses in their countries. Americans would assuredly want the same treatment for foreign troops on U.S. soil.

After 12 years at war with Afghanistan, we continue to miss the mark on four fronts: strategy, cost, accountability and perception.

Continue reading “Michael Shank: Why the White House Won't Win the Afghanistan War…”

2013/11/07

Steven Aftergood: US Intelligence Challenged by Foreign Technological Innovation [and Everything Else…]

Government, Ineptitude, IO Impotency

US Intelligence Challenged by Foreign Technological Innovation

“The increasing pace and adoption of global scientific and technological discovery heighten the risk of strategic or tactical surprise and, over time, reduce the advantages of our intelligence capabilities,” according to a new report on U.S. intelligence research and development programs prepared by a congressionally-mandated Commission.

“Foreign countries’ growing expertise and proficiency in a number of emerging or potentially disruptive technologies and industries–gained either by improving their own capabilities, by using surreptitious methods, or by taking advantage of an erosion of U.S. capabilities and U.S. control over critical supply chains–have the potential to cause great harm to the national security of the United States and its allies,” the report said.

In order to adapt, the report said, the US intelligence community will need to place renewed emphasis on scientific and technical intelligence; improve coordination and management of competing collection and analysis programs; and accelerate the production of actionable intelligence, among other recommended steps.

See the Report of the National Commission for the Review of the Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Community, Unclassified Version, released November 2013 (NYT, WP).

The Commission also produced a White Paper on The IC’s Role Within U.S. Cyber R&D.

2013/11/07

Paul Craig Roberts: How America Was Lost

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

How America Was Lost

“No legal issue arises when the United States responds to a challenge to its power, position, and prestige.” Dean Acheson , 1962, speaking to the American Society of International Law.

Dean Acheson declared 51 years ago that power, position, and prestige are the ingredients of national security and that national security trumps law. In the United States democracy takes a back seat to “national security,” a prerogative of the executive branch of government.

National security is where the executive branch hides its crimes against law, both domestic and international, its crimes against the Constitution, its crimes against innocent citizens both at home and abroad, and its secret agendas that it knows that the American public would never support.

“National security” is the cloak that the executive branch uses to make certain that the US government is unaccountable.

Without accountable government there is no civil liberty and no democracy except for the sham voting that existed in the Soviet Union and now exists in the US.

Read full post.

2013/11/062013/11/06

Mini-Me: NYT Discussion of Cutting Military Flag Officers + Meta-RECAP on Flag Waste and Corruption

Ethics, Government, Military

Huh?

Weighing the Brass

New York Times, 5 November 2013

One of the hardest-hit areas being discussed in federal budget talks is the Pentagon, which would take an automatic $20 billion cut in January under sequestration. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel proposed a 20 percent cut in his own office’s budget, but command headquarters around the world doubled in cost from 2007 to 2012, the Government Accountability Office found. And while Hagel’s predecessor, Robert Gates, said at least 50 generals and admirals should be eliminated, few of the cuts have occurred.

Trim the Top, Like Most Innovative Organizations

Celeste Ward Gventer, former deputy assistant secretary of defense

With cuts coming, the best junior officers will see a surfeit of generals and seek a future elsewhere than in a top-heavy bureaucracy

Why Cut the Leaders We May Soon Need?

Tim Kane, Hudson Institute

The past isn't a model for the future. More troops and money on the battlefield might not be the most efficient allocation if more drones are used

The Costs Are Crippling

Benjamin Freeman, Third Way

The bureaucracies that surround top commanders have grown drastically, and the taxpayer-financed perks these commanders enjoy is immense

Cuts Are Needed, but Shouldn’t Affect Diversity

Willie J. Williams, Retired general

The number of minorities serving in the military's highest ranks has risen, but there are still so few, that cuts, without care, could almost eliminate them.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: NYT Discussion of Cutting Military Flag Officers + Meta-RECAP on Flag Waste and Corruption”