Category: Government

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Mis-Understanding Al Qaeda and Arab Spring

Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency
DefDog Recommends....

It is apparent that there is a limited view of what is really going on in the MENA arena.  Zawahri is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, who is beginning to appear to be the real underlying role player in the so called “Arab Spring” that most American policy makers (read the Administration) believe want democracy.  It has become very apparent that is not the case.  Zawahri's ties therefore place him, and by association AQ, in tandem with
the Brotherhood.  But the IC has completely missed this point because of their focus, or lack thereof….

Qaeda Selection of Its Chief Is Said to Reflect Its Flaws

By

New York Times, June 16, 2011

WASHINGTON — American counterterrorism officials all but welcomed the announcement on Thursday that Ayman al-Zawahri would succeed Osama bin Laden as leader of Al Qaeda, arguing that his deep flaws are likely to weaken the core of the terrorist network.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: Secular corruption is the common enemy of the people.  The US Government is just as guilty of secular corruption as are the Arab government, and on a global scale, does vastly more damage to the Earth and commits vastly more crimes against humanity than any individual dictatorship.  The general US public–and the so-called literati–have been dumbed down and channeled to the point that they are relatively useless as a countervailing force.  Alone among the candidates for the Presidency, Ron Paul and Cynthia McKinney each in their respective ways, champion truth in governance.

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Turkey Rising–21st Century an Ottoman Century?

02 Diplomacy, 08 Immigration, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, Strategy
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Turkey in Position to Lead Region Out of Tumultuous Century

By William Pfaff, Truthdig, Jun 14, 2011

Looking backward, there is a great deal to be said for leaving well enough alone, which is more difficult than one might think. Western Europe in the 19th century is now generally looked back upon as having constituted a pinnacle of Western civilization. Certainly in literature, music and the plastic arts this was so, the last-named in the century’s final decade, when painting ceased its period as domestic decoration and exploded into a myriad of ways to perceive not only the external world but the interior universe as well.

The modern Western intelligence was invented then, and the world has since played variations on 19th century political themes: nationalism, colonialism, imperialism, populism, class liberation, revolution, anarchism, class and racial warfare. The Napoleonic wars began the century and transformed its political institutions. The Franco-Prussian War ended the century, setting the scene for the hyper-destructive 20th century.

. . . . . . .

There is a Muslim community of peace for Turkey to inspire.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: Science and religion and philosophy, when at their best, seek to establish “best truths.”  All three have been corrupted by politics, dogma, and laziness.  Peace costs one third of what is now spent on war, and infinite wealth for the many can only be achieved in the context of a universal peace.  If Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India come together on this point, Islam will be a global force in the 21st Century, not least because it will control secular corruption.

See Also:

Pfaff via Spinney at Phi Beta Iota

William Pfaff,  The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy (Walker & Co, 2010)

Event: 26 Oct 2011 Assisi Italy Pope, Peace, & Prayer — 5th Inter-Faith Event Since 1986 — Terms of Reference…

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Winslow Wheeler: What Gates Did NOT Do…

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence
Winslow Wheeler

What Gates Didn't Do

Robert Gates has been called the best secretary of defense in recent memory. On the other hand, he has a reputation with some as a slick career bureaucrat with a knack for avoiding blame but pocketing credit. Both are true.

“Best in recent memory?” It would have been hard for Gates to have been a bigger tower of ego, bluster and incompetence than Donald Rumsfeld, more of a non-entity than William Cohen, or a more fervent technology huckster than William Perry. Nonetheless, with a very small number of worthwhile decisions that he had the smarts to make stick, Gates has won himself the swooning accolades of the vast majority of the media, most (but not all) think tank Pooh-Bahs from the left, right and center, and just about every politician in the country.

Why would I be negative about a respected personality who did, indeed, exercise some very long overdue discipline on the recalcitrant military services? They had, for example, busied themselves running around Donald Rumsfeld and his predecessors to keep alive sacred – but outrageously expensive and under-performing – hardware programs like the F-22 (lately priced at over $400 million per copy). They also had tried to stiff much needed reforms to improve wounded veterans care at dysfunctional facilities like Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Gates fired the malefactors and stuffed the porkers in Congress when they tried to resuscitate the F-22. Those actions alone earn him the “best in recent memory” accolade.

The negativity comes – at least to me – when I realize the authority Gates achieved for himself with those actions and a few well-worded policy journal articles and speeches. Then, I compare that power to what he accomplished, or just tried to accomplish. Having won for himself recently unprecedented power as secretary of defense, what did he use his power to do?

Here is my list of important things that Robert Gates didn't fix and didn't even try to fix.

Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: What Gates Did NOT Do…”

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David Brooks Doth Protest–Not Nearly Enough!

07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
DefDog Recommends....

Pundit Under Protest

By

New York Times, June 13, 2011

I’ll be writing a lot about the presidential election over the next 16 months, but at the outset I would just like to remark that I’m opining on this whole campaign under protest. I’m registering a protest because for someone of my Hamiltonian/National Greatness perspective, the two parties contesting this election are unusually pathetic. Their programs are unusually unimaginative. Their policies are unusually incommensurate to the problem at hand.

The election is happening during a downturn in the economic cycle, but the core issue is the accumulation of deeper structural problems that this recession has exposed — unsustainable levels of debt, an inability to generate middle-class incomes, a dysfunctional political system, the steady growth of special-interest sinecures and the gradual loss of national vitality.

The number of business start-ups per capita has been falling steadily for the past three decades. Workers’ share of national income has been declining since 1983. Male wages have been stagnant for about 40 years. The American working class — those without a college degree — is being decimated, economically and socially. In 1960, for example, 83 percent of those in the working class were married. Now only 48 percent are.

Read complete article–devastating, but not nearly enough so…..

See Also:

Seven Promises to America–Who Will Do This?

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DOT&E Documents and Tony Capaccio Story

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Military, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Standards, Technologies
Winslow Wheeler

There are a set of documents at the DOT&E website which offer DOT&E insights into the reason for why about 40 programs have experienced delays — and costs.  These documents relate to a Tony Capaccio story in today's Bloomberg News (below).

The document titled “Updated DOT&E Input on Program Delays” (at the DOT&E link shown above) identifies various specific reasons for the problems programs experience — different from most of the explanations from contractors and other system advocates in and out of the Pentagon.  (Eg. for the F-35:  Fly rates per month lowered to more realistic projections (from 12 max for all variants and venues to 10 max for CTOL/CV flight sciences, 9 max for STOVL flight sciences, 8 max for all mission systems); increased planning factors for re-fly and regression (up 15% for flight science, 10% for mission systems); more time required for software development and incremental builds.”)

Beyond the F-35, the various systems described in the analysis are typically more obscure programs (eg. AIM-9X 8.212 Software Upgrade) but there are also a few better known ones, such as LCS, which is described in “fly before buy,” Congress and the Navy want to rush ahead of testing to buy 4 LCS in the 2012 HASC DOD Authorization bill for $1.8 billion in production costs.

Availability of complete mission packages will be delayed until at least 2015.

Instead of withholding production of untested systems with clear and obvious development problems, Congress and the Pentagon are intent on business as usual.  The LCS is a good example: instead of “fly before buy,” Congress and the Navy want to rush ahead of testing to buy 4 LCS in the 2012 HASC DOD Authorization bill for $1.8 billion in production costs.

Some will think the DOT&E analysis and documents to be obscure and too “in the weeds” to pay much attention to.  Instead, they offer a major part of the explanation for why hardware costs and delays are so out of control, and they offer a stunning view into how little is being done about that.

BloombergNews.com, June 13, 2011

Weapons Testers Found Not to Blame for Procurement Delay

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NO DIFFERENCE: Obama’s White Half Is Bush III

Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Law Enforcement, Policies, Threats
Sucks for You....

Headline Revelations

Glenn Greenwald

Salon, 13 June 2011

Dan Gillmor observes that the two top New York Times headlines this morning “sum up the Obama administration”:

EXTRACT:  As Yale Professor Jack Balkin recently put it to Jane Mayer about the Obama presidency: “We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimization of a national-surveillance state.”  This state, as much as anything, is devoted to gathering as much intrusive data as possible about as many citizens as possible without a shred of oversight or suspicion of wrongdoing: exactly that which has proven to create inevitable abuse and exactly that which the Fourth Amendment sought to bar.

SECOND EXTRACT:  The article also notes that one possible threat to Obama's plan would be a Romney candidacy, as Wall Street would love to back one of their own, and Romney — who amassed a fortune by saddling companies with debt and then firing huge numbers of their employees — is the very essence of what Wall Street loves.

Read full review….

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Whistle-Blowers of 1777 & Congressional Intent

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Autonomous Internet, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, Law Enforcement, Officers Call
Michael Ostrolenk Recommends...

The Whistle-Blowers of 1777

Stephen M. Kohn

New York Times, 12 June 2011

The tension between protecting true national security secrets and ensuring the public’s “right to know” about abuses of authority is not new. Indeed, the nation’s founders faced this very issue.

. . . . . . .

Later that month, without any recorded dissent, Congress enacted America’s first whistle-blower-protection law: “That it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or any other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge.”

. . . . . . .

Nearly two centuries later, the Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, praising the founders’ commitment to freedom of speech, wrote: “The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.”

Read full article…..

Phi Beta Iota: This is not about Barack Obama–he sold out, get over it.  This is about a two-party tyranny that hides its prostitution to Wall Street behind secrecy–chasing down whistle-blowers benefits both these parties all those they have shaken down for kick-backs.  This is about a system that is inherently corrupt, in which 63 of 65 parties–and all Independents–are shut out, disenfranchised, and cheated.

noble gold