Military – Page 200 – Public Intelligence Blog

Afghanistan: Comment: On the 16th, US and NATO officials praised the Afghan commandos for leading the counterattack against the small group of anti-government fighters who assaulted Kabul on Sunday. However, some seemed to undermine the significance of the Afghan achievement by minimizing the significance of the assault itself, calling it the last gasp of the anti-government forces. Evidently, the Afghans fought well against a weak force and the sensational set of attacks actually signifies an improving security situation. Hmmm.

Thus, Readers might be confused on the 17th by multiple press services reports that the NATO command plans a large offensive to improve security in Kabul in May.

NightWatch has written that violent instability is centripetal. It moves from the border marches and other peripheries to the center of power, the capital. Victory for the anti-government forces means seizing and holding the capital. Victory for the government forces means holding a secure center and expanding a secure perimeter outward to the national borders.

A government that cannot maintain a secure center of power, the capital, cannot survive. It does not matter whether it falls to the Taliban or the Haqqanis. It will fall. Thus, attacks in the capital are always signs of weakness at the center. The only question is how weak.

For example, the Syrian government understands this phenomenology, which is why there have been less than a handful of attacks in Damascus during a year of violent instability. Damascus has experienced no 18-hour battles. The occasional attacks do not signify significant weakness. The Syrian center is holding.

Syria is not Afghanistan and the two fights are quite different, but the importance of security at the center is the same. This week's outbreak of fighting in Kabul means one thing: Kabul is not secure even with NATO forces. If the center is not secure, nowhere else matters.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

2012/04/172012/04/17

Chuck Spinney: Hardware Über Alles in the Spendagon — Paneta Pumps Corporate Profits While Veterans Commit Suicide + Meta-RECAP

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, DoD, Government, Military, Officers Call

Hardware Über Alles in the Spendagon

(Note to Readers, the following essay is a revised version of one that appeared in Time Magazine's Battleland blog found at this link.)

For a good example of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex’s (MICC’s) value system — which is hardware before ideas and people — read this New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof.

Note his opening paragraph:

Here’s a window into a tragedy within the American military: For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands.

And here is Kristof’s penultimate paragraph:

We refurbish tanks after time in combat, but don’t much help men and women exorcise the demons of war. Presidents commit troops to distant battlefields, but don’t commit enough dollars to veterans’ services afterward. We enlist soldiers to protect us, but when they come home we don’t protect them.

In between, Kristof supports these statements with horrific detail.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Hardware Über Alles in the Spendagon — Paneta Pumps Corporate Profits While Veterans Commit Suicide + Meta-RECAP”

2012/04/162012/04/16

Theophillis Goodyear: Ethics, Psychology, and the Volunteer Army

Ethics, Military

During World War II, most men joined the service out of a sense of duty and a sense of right and wrong. During the Vietnam war, many men, but not all, were drafted and really didn't want to be there. But they didn't want to go to prison. But men tend to join today's volunteer army so they'll have a job. These are all generalizations of course, but only for the purpose of discussion.

Ethics is a deep and complex subject. Right and wrong may seem easy to determine on most occasions, but what's not easy, at all, is to give reasonable and rational arguments for what's right and wrong on all occasions. That's why ethics is an imprecise branch of philosophy that often asks more questions than it can ever hope to answer. Some moral dilemmas are impossible to resolve.

If a man goes to war and kills out of a sense of duty, then that sense of duty may protect him from some of the psychological consequences of committing violence. He can tell himself that his heart was in the right place and his intentions were good—-and they probably were. But in the heat of battle, things happen.

Continue reading “Theophillis Goodyear: Ethics, Psychology, and the Volunteer Army”

2012/04/152012/04/15

Theophillis Goodyear: US Veteran Suicides: 25 for each combat death, 18 a day every day year after year + Meta-RECAP

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

According to the New York Times, for every U.S. soldier killed on the Battlefield this year, 25 committed suicide.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/15/veteran-death-nation-shame_n_1427263.html

The whole story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-veterans-death-the-nations-shame.html?_r=1

A related topic:

MDMA (known on the street as ecstasy) is showing promise as a psychotherapeutic tool for helping people with post traumatic stress disorder. Here's some info from Vanderbilt University:

http://healthpsych.psy.vanderbilt.edu/2008/PTSD_MDMA.htm

Some more info on MDMA therapy:

http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/

http://www.military.com/news/article/study-ecstasy-treats-ptsd.html

Of course, conservatives tend to resist this kind of psychotherapy, even if it has shown promise, because they had a hard time getting beyond the fact that the drug produces euphoria. But one psychotherapist got special permission from the U.S. government to do a study using MDMA to treat PTSD. I think it's past time they expanded the program to try to start helping soldiers NOW. Before MDMA was made illegal, it was being commonly used as a tool of psychotherapy. So there's plenty of collected information on the subject, going all the way back to the eighties.

Phi Beta Iota: 18 US veterans a DAY succeed in killing themselves. A 1000 a month attempt to do so. This is a problem that in a properly managed government would lead to the firing of everyone from the Secretary of Defense down through the Army Chief of Staff to the head of Army personnel. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is a factor, but cognitive dissonance is a greater factor. We also need to remember depleted uranium and bio-chemical left-overs. These people cannot live with what they have done in our name and they live with the toxic environments we fund for them. Because military flag officers have lacked the integrity to dispute illegal unconstitutional orders to wage war on the world, they have put their troops into situations that did not warrant the insertion of our military, and that drawn out over time have destroyed our military and our veterans and therefore our society.

2012/04/15

David Swanson: Nobel Laureate Rejects State Department Event & Agenda

Civil Society, Corruption, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

Nobel Peace Laureate Rejects U.S. State Department – NATO – Chicago Agenda

FROM: MAIREAD MAGUIRE

Dear Friends,

I write to let you know that I have decided not to attend the 12^th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates on 23^rd-25^th April, 2012, in Chicago, USA.

On 10^th April, Sec. of State H. Clinton appeared on video in US State Department Web announcing plans for the forthcoming Nobel Peace Laureates Summit and said ‘The US Department of State is proud to be an active partner in this event’.

Sec. Clinton gave details of how the US State Dept. is working with US embassies around the world, to bring twenty students and 4 teachers from 4 countries to Chicago and explained that video conferences and portals for live streaming of events, will be managed by US State department.

I have now decided, with some sadness, not to be associated in this Partnership as I do not agree with many of the Policies of the US State Department. Indeed I have, as a Nobel Peace Laureate, (and in the spirit of Alfred Nobel) often called for disbandment of NATO, end of militarism and war, and for Disarmament and demilitarization. I cannot therefore, in good conscience, be part of a Partnership with the US State Government (NATO). I also believe that my participation in such a partnership would compromise my position and put in jeopardy my work in the Middle East and other countries.

I am very disappointed that what is a great opportunity for young people, the Nobel Laureates and organizations to listen, learn, and exchange friendships and experiences, has been, I believe, seriously compromised in such a Partnership.

However, I hope it will be an enjoyable and educational summit particularly for all the young people, and I am deeply saddened not to be with you all.

Peace,

Mairead Maguire

Peace People, Northern Ireland

http://www.peacepeople.com

13.4.2012

2012/04/152012/04/15

Mini-Me: How the US Struck Back to Strangle the Arab Spring

02 Diplomacy, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

Huh?

Revolution vs. Counterrevolution: Whatever Happened to the Arab Spring?

by ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH

CounterPunch, Weekend Edition April 13-15, 2012

Within the first few months of 2011, the U.S. and its allies lost three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament.

Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit the “axis of resistance” (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in the Middle East, the US-Israeli “axis of aggression” and their client states in the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive.

Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included

(1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya;

(2) co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen;

(3) crushing pro-democracy movements against “friendly” regimes ruling countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia “before they get out of hand,” as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and

(4) using the age-old divide and rule trick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shias, or Iranians vs. Arabs.

Read full article (elaboration on each of the four strategies in being listed above).

Phi Beta Iota: Meanwhile within the USA, Ron Paul has been bought off and firmly put back in place as part of the controlled opposition, and Occupy has been very successfully squelched by encouraging their inherent tendency to kum-ba-ya themselves to their own early demise. Now the 1% has what is left of Occupy competing for small scholarships to tread water and remain irrelevant. It is still possible to re-ignite the Electoral Reform Act of 2012 possibilities, but each month that passes without public coalescing around this ONE THING that the all can agree on and force upon the corrupt two-party tyranny in Congress, is another stake in the heart of the Republic.

2012/04/132012/04/13

DefDog: The infamous ‘take down the Internet in 30 minutes’ hearing from 1998 — Tens of Billions Later, NSA and OMB Have Not Done Their Jobs, US Cyber is Wide Open and Unsafe at Any Speed + Meta-RECAP

Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Military

This is the famous hearing where Mudge told senators he could K-O the Internet in 30 minutes. It was a wide-ranging discussion, though Mudge's claim is what the media ran with at the time. Watch and ask yourself, as Trustwave's Tom Brennan does on his Facebook page this morning: “14 Years… have we gotten better?”

I think as Tom said, with all the spending, with all the hoopla, we have not achieved any security (as you and Winn noted in the early 90's). For everything that has been said, for the government it has turned into another method to rob the citizen blind…..

The infamous ‘take down the Internet in 30 minutes' hearing from 1998

A video has surfaced from 1998, showing some well-known members of the hacker community testifying before the United States Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs.

In this video, recorded on May 19, 1998, you will see Brian Oblivion, Kingpin, Tan, Space Rogue, Weld Pond, Mudge, and Stefan von Neumann.

Phi Beta Iota: Winn Schwartau and Peter Black were among the first to warn all of us in 1990. In 1994 the alarm was sounded with a letter and very specific spending recommendations from Jim Anderson, then a top NSA security consultant, Winn Schwartau, Bill Caelli, and Robert Steele. The letter was ignored. Today, just short of 20 years later, the US Government remains ignorant, unethical, and ineffective in cyberspace.

Category: Military

NIGHTWATCH: Afghanistan Lost, Syria Holding