Government – Page 799 – Public Intelligence Blog

Herewith is Stephen Walt's excellent critique of US grand strategy in the Middle East since 1990. My only comment is that he omits the pernicious influences of the arrogance that emerged from our misinterpretation of our “victory” in the Cold War and does not discuss the closely related emergence of Mad Madeline's nutty theory of the unipolar “indispensable power,” coupled to William Perry's fatally-flawed techno-theory of marrying coercive diplomacy to the so-called military revolution in hi-tech precision warfare (the latter explained in my essay here).

Chuck Spinney

Cap Ferrat, France

When did the American empire start to decline?

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Today is the 21st anniversary of a key date in world history. On this date in 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, setting in motion a train of events that would have fateful consequences for Saddam himself, but also for the United States. Indeed, one could argue that this invasion was the first step in a train of events that did enormous damage to the United States and its position in the world.

EXTRACT:

But no strategy is so bad that somebody else can't make it worse. And that is precisely what George W. Bush did after 9/11. Under the influence of neoconservatives who had opposed dual containment because they thought it didn't go far enough, Bush adopted a new strategy of “regional transformation.”

And in other news….

Think things can't get worse? Check out how the palace parasites are lining up to contain the debt ceiling in the Hall of Mirrors that is Versailles on the Potomac.

Debt Ceiling Bill's Super Committee Has Lobbyists Preparing

By ANNA PALMER, POLITICO.com, August 3, 2011

K Street wasted little time putting clients on notice about the next phase of the debt ceiling debate with a simple message: Nobody is safe from the super committee.

2011/08/042011/08/04

Chuck Spinney: Demonizing Iran, Bankrupting America

01 Brazil, 03 Economy, 05 Energy, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military

Making an Enemy of Iran

By Patrick Seale

Agence Global, 2 August 2011

It is now widely accepted – and lamented — that US President Barack Obama failed dismally in attempting to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Defeated by Israel’s hard-line Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, and by Israel’s friends in the U.S. — lobbyists, Congressmen and women, neo-conservatives, Christian Zionists, and assorted Arab-haters both inside and outside the Administration — the President threw in the towel.

What is less well understood is that Obama was also defeated in another major area of foreign policy – relations with Iran. When he came to office he vowed to ‘engage’ with the Islamic Republic, but this admirable objective was soon supplanted by a policy of threats, sanctions and intimidation aimed at isolating Iran, subverting its economy and overthrowing its regime.

Israel and its friends led the campaign against Iran, demonizing it as a threat to all mankind, and forcing the United States to follow suit. Israel has repeatedly, and very publicly, threatened to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities, and has done its best to drag the U.S. into war against it, in much the same way as pro-Israeli neo-conservatives – such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon — manipulated intelligence to push America into war against Iraq in 2003, with catastrophic consequences for the United States.

Read full analysis….

Phi Beta Iota: Brazil and Turkey are depicted as adults, the US as a retarded child misguided by Israel. There is no discernible difference between the Bush-Cheney Administrations and the Obama-Biden Administration with respect to foreign policy and national security, with one signal exception: the National Security Advisor is a Goldman Sachs lobbyist.

Wesley Clark interview (March 2007): “We plan to take out 7 countries in 5 years”

Chuck Spinney: Israel To Bomb Iran Soon + RECAP

Review: Endgame–The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

Review: Target Iran–The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change

2011/08/04

DefDog: Doing the Wrong Things–Agriculture, Defense

01 Agriculture, 10 Security, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Military

Industrialized agriculture, and industrialized corruption in defense. Nobody is serious about creating safe, affordable, sustainable solutions for anything, from agriculture to defense.

Antibiotic resistance is a common feature of Cargill Salmonella outbreaks

Drew Falkenstein

Food Poison Journal, 3 August 2011

Competition for Military Contracts Doesn't Lower Costs

Joshua Foust

The Atlantic, 3 August 2011

Phi Beta Iota: Holistic strategic analytics with embedded full life cycle “true costs” is a non-negotiable first step toward global hybrid governance, with or without governments.

Review: Betrayal of Trust–The Collapse of Global Public Health

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Dereliction of Duty (Health)

1961-2011: 50 Years of The Military-Industrial Complex

Review: Prophets of War–Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex

Why Boeing is Imploding–Spinney, Sprey, & Reality vs Political Engineering & Government Spec Cost Plus

What’s Wrong with America? Let Me List the Books….

2011/08/032011/08/03

Joe Mazzafro: Deficit Deal and Impact on the US IC

03 Economy, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Military

The MAZZ-INT Blog

DEFICIT DEAL AND ITS IMPACT ON THE IC

At the time of the July edition of Mazz-INT Blog, the government was tied in a knot over coming to grips with how to get long term spending under control so there would be the political conditions to raise the debt ceiling on August 2^nd; NATO forces were engaged in a seeming stalemate in Libya to remove Gadhafi from power; there was rising concern about corruption in the Karzai “government” in Afghanistan; near open confrontation between Islamabad and the Washington over continuing US unilateral drone attacks against Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership inside of Pakistan; and the US Intelligence Community (IC) was finishing a quiet but well deserved victory lap for taking out Osama bin Laden. As August begins I am happy to report that Bin Laden remains dead —– with increasingly negative impacts for Al Qaeda, but little else as changed.

So what to discuss with you that is worth your time? As Eddie Layton, Nimitz’s N2 throughout WWII, was famous for saying “the biggest alligator is the one closest to you” which means to me the debt crisis and its impact on the on the IC. As I write this on 31 July, the Executive and Legislative branches are struggling to figure out how to raise the debt ceiling so the US government will not be in default on August 3^rd when you are likely to be seeing these ramblings. So let’s focus on how debt crisis will likely impact the IC.

Continue reading “Joe Mazzafro: Deficit Deal and Impact on the US IC”

2011/08/032011/08/03

Marcus Aurelius: “Deal” Cuts 1.5T Adds 10T Net 8.5T+

03 Economy, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

The government is certain we are stupid. This deal cuts $1.5 trillion over ten years while continuing the practice of borrowing $1 trillion a year. The net increase in debt is roughly $8.5 trillion.

The deal, point by point

By Katy O'Donnell National Journal August 1, 2011

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: “Deal” Cuts 1.5T Adds 10T Net 8.5T+”

2011/08/022011/08/02

Penguin: TwitterGate – Gingrich Leads Political Corruption in Cyberspace, 92% Fake, Palin, Romney, Bachman, Pawlenty All Fake 70% of Their “Followers”

Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

92 percent of Gingrich’s Twitter followers are fake, search firm says

Newt Gringrich’s campaign denies the allegations, claiming they never used “agencies” to inflate the presidential candidate’s Twitter follower numbers.

GlobalPost, 2 August 2011

A social media analytics site says that 92 percent of Newt Gingrich’s 1.3 million Twitter followers are fake. The New York-based company, PeekYou, used an algorithm to evaluate whether Gringrich’s followers were real individuals, ABC News reports. It found most of Gringrich’s followers were business accounts, private accounts, anonymous accounts with no other web presence or spambots.<

. . . . . . .

PeekYou has also analyzed the Twitter accounts of the other Republican presidential hopefuls, according to Gawker, and has found that Gingrich is not the only GOP politician with a large spambot following. PeekYou claims that only 20 percent of Sarah Palin’s followers, 26 percent of Mitt Romney’s followers, 28 percent of Michele Bachmann’s followers and 32 percent of Tim Pawlenty’s followers are real humans.

Read full story….

Phi Beta Iota: Useful metrics emerge from this–extrapolating and by extention, everything about Gingrich can be presumed to be 92% fake unless proven otherwise, and everything about the other Republicans as 70% fake unless proven otherwise. Cyberspace is very unkind to those who lie for a living.

2011/08/02

Koko: US Government Changes It Story — BearGate

03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

29 July Koko: US Government Suspends Scientist For Integrity Inquiry – Who Suspends the USG?

2 August Scientist suspension is about project's management

The government's new new story:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. government suspended an Arctic biologist over how he awarded a polar bear research project to the University of Alberta and its management, not for his earlier scientific work detailing drowned polar bears, a watchdog group said Monday.

The reality check:

Documents provided by the watchdog group showed questioning by investigators earlier this year focused on the polar bear observations that Monnett and researcher Jeffrey Gleason made in 2004.

Continue reading “Koko: US Government Changes It Story — BearGate”

Category: Government

Chuck Spinney: Madness in White House, K Street Thrives