Government – Page 729 – Public Intelligence Blog

How two scorpions trapped in a bottle weaken each other while they strengthen Hamas and Iran and increase the risks of nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East.

Attached is an excellent explanation of this. Not addressed specifically, but nevertheless implicit in the discussion is the universal influence of domestic politics in the shaping or a nation's foreign policy.

Israel: Its Fantasies and Its Realities

by Immanuel Wallerstein, Agence Global, 15 Mar 2012

EXTRACT:

Were either Israel or the United States to bomb Iran preemptively, there would be enormous political consequences immediately. First of all, it would almost certainly be relatively inefficacious in terms of stopping the Iranian project. Secondly, it would weaken politically the position of both Israel and the United States in the whole world. The two reasons together explain why there is so much opposition by the military and intelligence services of both Israel and the United States to the whole military discourse. What they fear is that the discourse would catch on and permit some political leaders not presently controlling the Israeli or U.S. governments to be foolish enough to start the war.

Read full article.

or are they engaged in a mutual backscratching operation?

My good friend Pierre Sprey took exception to Wallerstein's analysis, which I distributed in my last blaster (and is repeated below for convenience of reference). Readers may recall that I noted Wallerstein did not address the universal influence of domestic politics in shaping a nation's foreign policy. Pierre addresses the implications of that oversight in the attached comment:

Chuck,

Wallerstein's heart is in the right place and he is certainly right that neither Netanyahu nor Obama have the slightest illusions about the ridiculous uselessness of bombing Iran.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Obama & Netanyabua — Scorpions in a Bottle”

2012/03/162012/03/24

Mini-Me: Bin Laden Road Show Begins Part I – David Ignatius on the CIA’s “Captured” Abbottabad Files

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, IO Deeds of War, Media

Huh? We do not make this stuff up. CIA's Covert Action Staff is evidently having a ball, and David Ignatius has no problem playing the bimbo. Note the built-in pre-excuse on poor syntax. Note the pretense that incoherence was connected to long periods of time between sending, receiving, and responding. The hit on Fox is some kid [or geriatric annuitant]'s idiot idea of being clever — when Bin Laden was alive, he knew full well there is no substantive difference between CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox [or the two political parties in the US that exclude everyone else from access to the public treasure].

All of this is beyond belief for anyone with BOTH intelligence and integrity. When all of the documents are released (after the November elections, of course), they will be torn apart.

The bin Laden plot to kill President Obama

David Ignatius

The Washington Post, 16 March 2012

Before his death, Osama bin Ladenboldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Obama and Gen. David H. Petraeus.

“The reason for concentrating on them,” the al-Qaeda leader explained to his top lieutenant, “is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency. . . . Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour . . . and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Bin Laden Road Show Begins Part I – David Ignatius on the CIA's “Captured” Abbottabad Files”

2012/03/16

Eagle: Drums of War — Israel-Iran AND US-Uganda

Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

Brent At $126 As Israel Security Cabinet Votes 8 To 6 To Attack Iran

According to Israel's NRG, in a just completed cabinet vote, for the first time Netanyahu has gotten a majority (8 over 6) supporting an Iran attack. NRG also notes that at this point Israel has decided to not wait until the US elections in November before proceeding with sending crude to the stratosphere. From NRG (google translated): “Israeli political sources believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a majority Cabinet support Israeli military action against Iran without American approval….He announced that he would not hesitate to perform the operation without the approval of President Obama mentioned the precedent of the decision to attack the Iraqi reactor, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and with the comments heard yesterday some cabinet ministers say privately that “It sounds like a speech preparation for attack.

US Launches PR Campaign for Ugandan Oil Intervention

Phi Beta Iota: Oil and Oil Futures are the common denominator; Israeli aggression in expanding the settlements while everyone is watching Iran are the very important sideshow. It is a real shame when the public cannot trust its government to know the truth, much less tell the truth. This is about bets on oil futures. Can the US Government determine who gains from oil going up another $20 a barrel in March? Can the public do this on its own?

2012/03/16

Chuck Spinney: Investigating NATO’s War Crimes Against Libya

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, DoD, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Non-Governmental, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Investigations Around Libya

NATO’S Craven Coverup of Its Libyan Bombing

by VIJAY PRASHAD, Counterpunch, March 15, 2012

Ten days into the uprising in Benghazi, Libya, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council established the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya. The purpose of the Commission was to “investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in Libya.” The broad agenda was to establish the facts of the violations and crimes and to take such actions as to hold the identified perpetrators accountable. On June 15, the Commission presented its first report to the Council. This report was provisional, since the conflict was still ongoing and access to the country was minimal. The June report was no more conclusive than the work of the human rights non-governmental organizations (such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch). In some instances, the work of investigators for these NGOs (such as Donatella Rovera of Amnesty) was of higher quality than that of the Commission.

Due to the uncompleted war and then the unsettled security state in the country in its aftermath, the Commission did not return to the field till October 2011, and did not begin any real investigation before December 2011. On March 2, 2012, the Commission finally produced a two hundred-page document that was presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Little fanfare greeted this report’s publication, and the HRC’s deliberation on it was equally restrained.

Nonetheless, the report is fairly revelatory, making two important points:

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Investigating NATO's War Crimes Against Libya”

2012/03/162012/03/16

Graphic: US Defense Outlays vs All Others

Corruption, Government, Military

Source

Tip of the Hat to Winslow Wheeler

Phi Beta Iota: Across most if not all US Cabinet budget categories, it has been established by multiple independent audits that roughly 50% of every dollar in federal spending is fraud, waste, or abuse. This is as true of agriculture-food and energy as it is of defense and homeland “security.” Federal spending today mixes a complete lack of requirements analytics; industrial-era processes that are grossly ineffective; ideological and criminal misallocation of resources, and zero accountability.

See Also:

Winslow Wheeler, The Military Imbalance: How The U.S. Outspends The World, AOL Defense, 16 March 2012.

2012/03/15

Mini-Me: US Government Witch Hunting Continues…

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Intelligence (government), Law Enforcement, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

Huh?

My friends and colleagues,

Forgive the interruption. I reach out to you on a matter of some urgency, about my dear friend, a former CIA officer, dedicated, stoic, talented … and now in deep and terrifying trouble. What's happening to him is so stunningly crappy, and so unjustifiable, that his defense and support has become a personal priority. Though triggered — I believe — by a personal and political agenda, I see his cause as strikingly apolitical: this is about a man falsely persecuted, and the survival of his family.

Please, please take a minute to look at the below. Any questions, reach out to me, and/or check out the sites at the bottom of this email.

Thanks so much,
Peter Landesman

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

We write to ask you to join us in supporting, protecting and materially helping our friend and colleague, John Kiriakou, a long-time former C.I.A. official and case officer. Incredibly, John has been accused by the Department of Justice of crimes under the 1917 Espionage Act, a charge historically reserved for persons who betrayed their country to foreign governments for money.

Why? The prosecutors have not claimed that John talked to any foreign government, passed any government documents or accepted funds from anyone hostile to the United States. Instead, according to the facts asserted in the indictment, he committed the “crime” of responding honestly to a query from the New York Times related to the agency's interrogation program under the Bush Administration, which included waterboarding.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: US Government Witch Hunting Continues…”

2012/03/15

Marcus Aurelius: State Department Moves to Fire Peter Van Buren Author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

For those of you with experience or interest in such things, State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS, long ago SY), has developed for itself a very negative reputation in personnel security arena.

Through AFSA, American Foreign Service Association (I am not a member having never been a FSO), I have read numerous accounts of horror show DS cases.

Overall, DS comes across as an internal State Dept Gestapo, much different from the RSOs I dealt with in embassies in LATAM and Africa.

State Dept. moves to fire Peter Van Buren, author of book critical of Iraq reconstruction effort

Lisa Rein

Washington Post, 14 March 2012

Peter Van Buren, a foreign service officer who wrote anunflattering bookabout his year leading two reconstruction teams in Iraq, was stripped of his security clearance, banned from State Department headquarters for a time and transferred to a telework job that consists of copying Internet addresses into a file.

Read full story.

Phi Beta Iota: Most Departmental “security” services turn into little Gestapos, but they do so on command from the top. Peter van Buren's book was APPROVED by the proper Department of State publication review process, which has integrity. Evidently now someone at the top, probably not the Secretary of State but one of the top six mandarins, is abusing their authority and perhaps giving Peter van Buren a $10 million lawsuit on a platter. When governments stop telling the truth they lose legitimacy. When they begin persecuting people who tell the truth they lose authority. We're there.