Government – Page 553 – Public Intelligence Blog

If Saudi rulers had more brains, they might be formidably dangerous. Even with lackluster intelligence assets, they are already causing enough havoc and bloodshed across the Middle East and North Africa regions, pouring millions-of-dollars-worth of weaponry into Al Qaeda and other Takfiri networks that are destroying once proud civilizations in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Libya through nihilistic sectarianism.

And if the Saudi paymasters of terrorism could have it all their way, they would salivate at the chance of extending this destruction to Iran – the Shia power that they fear as their nemesis.

Fortunately, the Saudi rulers’ agenda of covert terrorism – an agenda that serves its Western masters – is not well concealed. This is because “Saudi state intelligence” is something of an oxymoron and leaves a trail of self-incriminating clues wherever it goes.

This uncovering of the real authors of regional violence and their motives curtails the plotters and will lead eventually to their downfall through their own damnation.

Take the latest disclosure that the Saudis tried to bribe Russia into abandoning its long-time ally, Syria. Given their own venal form of feudal rule, the Saudis seem to think that everyone else can be bought at a price. Apparently, Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan dangled a $15-billion arms deal in front of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin if the latter would jettison his country’s strategic alliance with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

Read rest of article.

2013/08/122013/08/12

SchwartzReport: Everything You “Know” About Drugs Is Wrong

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement

As Marijuana Prohibition begins to crumble, the ugly racist truth about the War on Drugs is beginning to come out.

Everything You Know About Drugs Is Wrong
TESSIE SWOPE CASTILLO – Salon

It’s not every day you read a book that blows the lid off of everything you’ve ever been taught about drugs, but Dr. Carl Hart’s recent work, ‘High Price,” does just that. Part memoir, part myth-buster, the fast-paced read details his journey from a violent Miami ghetto to the halls one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

At the heart of ‘High Price” is the argument that current U.S. drug policies are not only morally wrong, but scientifically wrong as well, a game of politics and fear-mongering in which our government sanctions the widespread prescription of certain drugs, while locking more than 1.5 million people behind bars each year for the use of others. If you’ve ever wondered why our nation pops OxyContin like candy, while its twin sister, heroin, evokes fears of driveling, strung-out junkies, High Price has an answer – just perhaps not the one you were expecting. I caught up with Hart to talk about the book, his career and how he thinks American drug policy needs to change.

What made you decide to write this book – and how did you decide to include personal stories in a book about the science of drugs?

Read full interview.

2013/08/112013/08/11

Berto Jongman: NSA, Snowden, Suspended Beliefs (Pun), and the Sad Spectacle of Michael Hayden

Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Military

Jennifer Hoelzer's Insider's View Of The Administration's Response To NSA Surveillance Leaks

from the and-also-the-favorites-of-the-week dept

In a bit of fortuitous timing, this week we had asked former deputy chief of staff for Ron Wyden, Jennifer Hoelzer, to do our weekly “Techdirt Favorites of the Week” post, in which we have someone from the wider Techdirt community tell us what their favorite posts on the site were. As you'll see below, Hoelzer has a unique and important perspective on this whole debate concerning NSA surveillance, and given the stories that came out late Friday, she chose to ditch her original post on favorites and rewrite the whole thing from scratch last night (and into this morning). Given that, it's much, much more than a typical “favorites of the week” post, and thus we've adjusted the title appropriately. I hope you'll read through this in its entirety for a perspective on what's happening that not many have.

Tim Cushing made one of my favorite points of the week in his Tuesday post “Former NSA Boss Calls Snowden's Supporters Internet Shut-ins; Equates Transparency Activists With Al-Qaeda,” when he explained that “some of the most ardent defenders of our nation's surveillance programs” — much like proponents of overreaching cyber-legislation, like SOPA — have a habit of “belittling” their opponents as a loose confederation of basement-dwelling loners.” I think it's worth pointing out that General Hayden's actual rhetoric is even more inflammatory than Cushing's. Not only did the former NSA director call us “nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twenty-somethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years,” he equates transparency groups like the ACLU with al Qaeda.

I appreciated this post for two reasons:

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: NSA, Snowden, Suspended Beliefs (Pun), and the Sad Spectacle of Michael Hayden”

2013/08/102013/08/10

Berto Jongman: Al Qaeda’s widening North African jihad confounds foes

01 Poverty, 09 Terrorism, Government, Ineptitude, IO Impotency

Al Qaeda's widening North African jihad confounds foes

(Reuters) – Inquiries into the bloody assault on an Algerian gas plant are uncovering increasing evidence of contacts between the assailants and the jihadis involved in killing the U.S. ambassador to Libya nearly a year ago.

The extent of the contacts between the militants is still unclear and nobody is sure there was a direct link between the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the carnage at In Amenas, where 39 foreign hostages were killed in January.

But the findings, according to three sources with separate knowledge of U.S. investigations, shed some light on the connections between Al Qaeda affiliates stretching ever further across North and West Africa.

The lack of detail, meanwhile, highlights the paucity of intelligence on jihadis whose rise has been fuelled by the 2011 Arab uprisings and who have shown ready to strike scattered Western targets including mines and energy installations.

Read full article.

2013/08/102013/08/10

Berto Jongman: Book of Sand — America Lost in Yemen

Cultural Intelligence, Government, Ineptitude

Book of Sand: How America’s Yemen Policy Has Come to Resemble Salih’s Disasterous Rule

The “war on terror” has, since its birth in the smoldering horror of 9/11, carried within it the seeds of deep, cynical irony. The battle cry against the enemies of freedom turned into an exercise in torture and surveillance, set against a bored backdrop of reality TV and economic catastrophe. During this wasted decade-plus, America has turned to a series of unreliable partner governments who frequently made a mockery of its goal to eliminate transnational terrorism while promoting America’s values of democracy and human rights. They illuminated the horrible paradox of being the lone superpower in a time of global dislocation.

Perhaps no one represented this difficulty more than former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Salih. Salih was one of the first allies in the “war on terror,” and one of the most confusing and unreliable friends a country can have. The U.S. never understood Salih, and in its official imagination assumed that any of his behavior was born of a particular anti-Western or pro-terrorism animus. It is therefore one of the stranger ironies that the U.S. has essentially adopted Salih’s style of crisis management in its Yemen policy.

Read full article.

2013/08/10

Mini-Me: Chinese Methods, American Sour Grapes

Commerce, Corruption, Ethics, Government

Huh?

Chinese firm paid insider ‘to kill my company,' American CEO says

A Chinese energy firm offered big money and access to women to entice an engineer at a U.S. company to launch a cyber raid on his employer, stealing sensitive computer codes and “thereby cheating (the firm) … out of more than $800 million,” according to newly unsealed court documents and internal messages and emails obtained by NBC News.

Federal prosecutors call the alleged cyber theft from American Superconductor (AMSC) in Devens, Mass., one of the most brazen cases yet of Chinese economic espionage in the United States. The techniques the Chinese used to rob the company of three quarters of its revenue, half its workforce, and more than $1 billion in market value were straight out of a “spy novel,” the firm's CEO said in an interview with NBC News.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Chinese Methods, American Sour Grapes”

2013/08/10

Chuck Spinney: Newt Gingrich as Dr. Evil, Bill Clinton as Dr. Lesser [But Still Very] Evil

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, Government

Jeff St. Claire and the late, and much missed, Alexander Cockburn have written an excellent and important history of how the democrats under Clinton sold out their heritage and, in effect, became the enablers of the Republicans in the construction of the emerging American police.

WEEKEND EDITION AUGUST 9-11, 2013

Welfare Reform and an Ever-Expanding Police State

The Origins of the Neoliberal War on the Poor

by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Counterpunch

In November of 1994 two years of ramshackle government, breached pledges and the Clinton administration’s frequently manifested contempt for its traditional base, exacted their price. In the midterm elections Republicans seized control of both the House and the Senate for the first time since the Eisenhower era. The rout extended to governors’ mansions across the country, where the Republicans captured the majority of governorships for the first time in a quarter-century. Newt Gingrich, the new Speaker of the House, became the nation’s political wunderkind.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Newt Gingrich as Dr. Evil, Bill Clinton as Dr. Lesser [But Still Very] Evil”

Category: Government

4th Media: Saudis Pour Money Into Militants

SchwartzReport: Everything You “Know” About Drugs Is Wrong

Berto Jongman: NSA, Snowden, Suspended Beliefs (Pun), and the Sad Spectacle of Michael Hayden

Berto Jongman: Al Qaeda’s widening North African jihad confounds foes

Berto Jongman: Book of Sand — America Lost in Yemen

Mini-Me: Chinese Methods, American Sour Grapes

Chuck Spinney: Newt Gingrich as Dr. Evil, Bill Clinton as Dr. Lesser [But Still Very] Evil