Category: Military

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Stephen E. Arnold: Free DoD Book about Ethical Behavior

Ethics, Military
Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

Free DoD Book about Ethical Behavior

Ethical behavior in the intelligence community is an important consideration. What does the Department of Defense do to assist its personnel in navigating the often-churning waters of day-to-day decision making?

The Department of Defense publishes in Microsoft Word format a compendium of stories about ethical lapses in the Department of Defense and other US government agencies. The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failures is a Department of Defense publication. The 2012 update is located at http://goo.gl/784oP. The case examples range from simple fraud to bizarre exchanges of inside information for “personal” (sexual) services. The Wall Street Journal makes a copy of the 2007 version of the document available at its Web site at http://goo.gl/yJBcF.

You can find a compendium of related publications on the DoD Guidance page. An interesting summary of the “rules” for ethical conduct may be found in Cindy Van Rassen’s Ethics/Professional Responsibility” delivered at the 2012 40th Annual Symposium on Government Acquisition. At the time, Ms. Van Rassen was the Associate General Counsel for the Missile Defense Agency. The PowerPoint presentation was available online on July 22, 2013.

Does the Encyclopedia of Ethical Failures help minimize lapses in judgment? One hopes that the information programs provide a useful function.

Stephen E Arnold, July 22, 2013

You can sign up for a free monthly newsletter about online and content processing at http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/honk/.

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Ray McGovern: General Hayden’s Glass House

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military
Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern

Gen. Hayden’s Glass House

By Ray McGovern

July 21, 2013

Editor Note: Official Washington’s national security/mainstream media incest was on scandalous display when ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden posed as a CNN analyst to denounce Edward Snowden for exposing surveillance excesses that Hayden had a hand in creating.

Mike Hayden
Mike Hayden

Former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden should not throw any more stones, lest his own glass house be shattered. His barrage Friday against truth-teller Edward Snowden and London Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald invited a return rain of boulders for Hayden committing the same violations of constitutional protections that he is now excusing.

Writing as “CNN Terrorism Analyst,” Hayden read from the unctuous script previously used by “Meet the Press” host David Gregory on June 23 when he questioned Greenwald’s status as a journalist. Hayden claimed Greenwald deserves “the Justice Department’s characterization of a co-conspirator.”

But the principal target of Hayden’s ire was Snowden. After lumping him together with despicable characters like CIA’s Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen of the FBI, and others who spied for the U.S.S.R. – and then disparaging “leakers” like Bradley Manning – Hayden wrote, “Snowden is in a class by himself.”

But it is Michael Hayden who is in a class by himself. He was the first NSA director to betray the country’s trust by ordering wholesale violation of what was once the First Commandment at NSA: “Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on Americans Without a Court Warrant.” Not to mention playing fast and loose with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

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John Maguire: Russia Goes to Full Strategic Combat Readiness (Troops & Bombers) Exercise in Eastern District (Furthest from Middle East)

Civil Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Media, Military, Peace Intelligence
John Maguire
John Maguire

While everyone is distracted by the Trayvon Martin case….two stories.

From 14 July 2013:

WW3 Brews As Nation Distracted By Trayvon Martin Case

EXTRACT

Now enter new reports surfacing from the Russian Defense Ministry on orders of Vladimir Putin that the largest military ‘state of full combat readiness’ drill is taking place with around 160,000 troops ordered to report from all corners of the military. Specifically, the translated reports detail how Putin is calling together not just Armed Forces of Russia troops, but all forms of long-range aircraft, 70 naval ships, bomber and fighter aircraft, and so on.

According to a syndicated Russian announcement:

“On Friday, during a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Russian, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an unexpected military drill, urging all forces to enter a state of full combat readiness on the night of July 13.”

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Marcus Aurelius: Nation Needs Leadership, Not Gimmicks

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

 

Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

From a relatively local yokel paper, among the best issue summaries I've seen.  From my foxhole in the Pentagon, things are bad now and appear to be getting worse fast.

Fayetteville (NC) Observer
July 19, 2013

Nation Needs Leadership, Not Gimmicks

At Fort Bragg, a name almost synonymous with “readiness,” Congress is idly flirting with unreadiness.

Says who? Said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a Monday visit appropriately set at the Green Ramp: “We have planes not flying, ships not sailing and soldiers not training. We are doing damage to our readiness, to our future readiness.”

Thus far, casual onlookers have found it easy to dismiss the blind, automatic budget cuts called the sequester as political theater. No Independence Day fireworks display this year; maybe something goes unpainted a while longer. Big deal.

That's ending.

For 8,500 civilian workers caught in a furlough (worldwide, the number is well over half a million) it has already ended. They'll lose about 20 percent of their pay for five months – a loss that will be hardest on them, but one that will also affect counties surrounding the fort.

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David Swanson: Bradley Manning Wins Sean MacBride Peace Award — Manning Also Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Ethics, Military
David Swanson
David Swanson

Manning Wins Peace Prize

U.S. whistleblower and international hero Bradley Manning has just been awarded the 2013 Sean MacBride Peace Award by the International Peace Bureau, itself a former recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, for which Manning is a nominee this year.

A petition supporting Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize has gathered 88,000 sinatures, many of them with comments, and is aiming for 100,000 before delivering it to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.  Anyone can sign and add their comments at ManningNobel.org

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Neal Rauhauser: The Pentagon’s Third Rail

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, Military
Neal Rauhauser
Neal Rauhauser

The Pentagon’s Third Rail

This came out of the morning Situation Report from @glubold of Foreign Policy magazine. The secret sauce, for those interested, is to read NightWatch for a mix of what might happen and what the news is too clumsy to cover, then check the various FP feeds to see what has actually come to pass.

This is a domestic rather than international issue, but it’s one that is liable to bite us hard.

The Pentagon is starting to touch the third rail of budgetary spending: military compensation, retirement and benefits spending. As Chuck Hagel completes his “listening tour” of troops and their families, a quiet effort has begun to review military retirement and compensation that will grow louder as its work begins to surface. Hagel is finishing up his domestic road trip today, visiting airmen at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., and then Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Hagel, we’re told, wants to hear from troops and families about the challenges they face during a period of shrinking budgets. He’s listening but he’s also starting slowly to float the idea that compensation benefits and even retirement plans may have to be pared back in order to make the Pentagon’s ledgers add up. Personnel costs alone cost the services between 55 and 65 percent of their budgets and rising – a fact the Pentagon brass say they’ve been saddled with for years. But now as budgets tighten, it’s a fact that can’t be ignored.

Airmen, marines, sailors, and soldiers who served their time and were discharged with a clean DD214 are going to see their retirement benefits slashed. The 55% – 65% of budget being personnel was an eye opener for me – if I pay attention to domestic matters it’s almost always system costs, system life cycle, and changing military doctrine. This looks like a brewing battle between our veterans and defense contractors who are desperately trying to keep their nose in the Pentagon’s feeding trough as the normal 25% post war budget cuts begin.

But there is a ticking bomb out there:

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Eagle: NSA Reason for Existence — Is It To Snoop? Or Is It to Waste Tens of Billions of Dollars without Accountability?

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military
300 Million Talons...
300 Million Talons…

NSA Snooping: The War on Terror Is America's Mania

A Commentary By Klaus Brinkbäumer

The NSA spying scandal shows that America's pursuit of terrorists has turned into a mania. Spying on citizens is as monstrous and unlawful as Guantanamo Bay and drone warfare. The German government's response has been woefully weak.

America is sick. September 11 left it wounded and unsettled — that's been obvious for nearly 12 years — but we are only now finding out just how grave the illness really is. The actions of the NSA exposed more than just the telephone conversations and digital lives of many millions of people. The global spying scandal shows that the US has become manic, that it is behaving pathologically, invasively. Its actions are entirely out of proportion to the danger.

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