Category: Military

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Chuck Spinney: The Afghanistan Disaster Part I – When the War Comes Home

10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Military, Officers Call
Chuck Spinney
WEEKEND EDITION APRIL 6-8, 2012
The Afghan Disaster
by FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch

The PR disasters over the last three months — including pictures of American troops urinating on Afghan corpses, the burning of Qurans, and the massacre of Afghan civilians, including women and children, by at least one deranged American soldier — have morphed into a grand strategic debacle.  From the perspective of the Afghan insurgency, these are gifts that will keep on giving.

Why do I use the modifier grand strategic?

Because these incidents have (1) increased the moral strength of the Afghan insurgents by handing them a coup to rally supporters and attract the uncommitted to their cause.  They also widen the existing rift between the United States military and the Karzai government, which in any case is viewed by many Afghans as a corrupt, illegitimate, quisling lapdog of the US.  And (2), they are visibly weakening the rapidly crumbling solidarity at home.  Recent polls in America, for example, suggest the already overwhelming majority of Americans who now think it is time to exit the Afghan enterprise is growing again.  Moreover, an increasing number of politicians and editorial boards are now beginning to reflect the views of the majority of American people.  These incidents have magnified the already widespread perceptions among Afghans of a grotesque mismatch between the ideals we profess uphold  and what we do.

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Steve Aftergood: Scientific Accomplishment vs. Scientific Secrecy

Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Military
Steven Aftergood

DALE CORSON AND SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM

Dale R. Corson, a nuclear physicist who died last week, is best remembered as the Cornell University President who peacefully led his campus through the turmoil and upheaval of the Vietnam era.  But he also played an influential role in deliberations over the role of secrecy in scientific research.

Dr. Corson chaired a 1982 committee of the National Academy of Sciences that produced a landmark study entitled “Scientific Communication and National Security,” which became known as the Corson Report.

In sober and measured tones, the Corson Report pushed back against calls for increased secrecy in government-funded science:

“Current proponents of stricter controls advocate a strategy of security through secrecy. In the view of the Panel security by accomplishment may have more to offer as a general national strategy. The long-term security of the United States depends in large part on its economic, technical, scientific, and intellectual vitality, which in turn depends on the vigorous research and development effort that openness helps to nurture…  Controls on scientific communication could adversely affect U.S. research institutions and could be inconsistent with both the utilitarian and philosophical values of an open society.”

President Reagan cited Dr. Corson in National Security Decision Directive 189, “National Policy on the Transfer of Scientific, Technical and Engineering Information,” which seemed to affirm that fundamental research should remain unrestricted to the maximum extent possible.  In fact, however, that directive imperfectly reflected the input of the Corson Report, noted Harold C. Relyea in his book “Silencing Science: National Security Controls and Scientific Communication.”

Still, many of the issues identified by Dr. Corson and his colleagues, and the concerns they expressed, remain current today and have not reached an unequivocal resolution, as evidenced most recently by the latest U.S. government policy on dual use biological research.

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DefDog: Verizon 2012 Report on Hactivism & Data Breaches

Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Military
DefDog

A useful report that ignores the obvious: the internal errors and omissions as well as the “legal” penetrations and outside-of-legal warrant exploitation.

Talking to some IC insiders who simply do not get it, am forced to conclude that there is regressive de-evolution, and the US IC is the poster child for going backwards.

2012-03-31 Verizon Data Breach Report

Phi Beta Iota:  The National Security Agency (NSA) was directed by the President many many years ago to be responsible for commercial security.  NSA chose to leave commercial security exposed for its own convenience–NSA, in other words, has been criminally irresponsible with respect to the public interest, for decades.

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Chuck Spinney: Cancer of Careerism – Final Word on Colin Powell’s Moral Suicide

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Military
Chuck Spinney

There is not much new here, other than Curveball's public admission, but note Colonel Wilkerson’s comment below.  One the one hand, Wilkerson admits he was a party to the “sexed up” intelligence; on the other, he wants us to believe Powell (and by extension himself) was being used.  Given that “Curveball” was suspected of being a liar by the German intelligence (BND) as well as the CIA, the most charitable interpretation of Powell’s enthusiastic imitation of Adlai Stevenson's speech to the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis is that once the decision to attack Iraq was made, neither Powell nor Wilkerson had the courage to resign on principle, and both chose instead to be a party to the fabrication — or as we used to say in the Pentagon he chose to be “used” by going along to get along.

CS

 Defector tells how US officials ‘sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion

JONATHAN OWEN, Independent, 1 APRIL 2012

A man whose lies helped to make the case for invading Iraq – starting a nine-year war costing more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds – will come clean in his first British television interview tomorrow.

“Curveball”, the Iraqi defector who fabricated claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, smiles as he confirms how he made the whole thing up. It was a confidence trick that changed the course of history, with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi's lies used to justify the Iraq war.

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Mini-Me: Leon Panetta on Dysfunctional Government + Meta-RECAP

Corruption, Government, Military
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

Panetta: Political dysfunction threatens security

The Washington Post, 30 March 2012

(J. Scott Applewhite — Associated Press) “Dysfunction in Washington … threatens our security and raises questions about the capacity of our democracy to respond to crisis.”

That warning came from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta Thursday night at a dinner sponsored by Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, which had just given him its Eisenhower Award for excellence in leadership.

He called the dysfunction “a political crutch” and “not a part of the American spirit.”

Behind Panetta’s remarks is the frustration he feels looking at the current political deadlock in Congress over deficit reduction. He has been there before — as chairman of the House Budget Committee, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and chief of staff at the White House.

“One thing that I’ve learned over my career is that governing requires people coming together to get things done, not to pound their fists on the table and stand in the way,” he told an audience that included present and former government officials, members of Congress, defense industry representatives and dozens of college students.

Read the puke in the middle.

Panetta’s predecessor, Robert Gates, last December gave the same type of lecture, in which he talked about Washington’s short supply of “civility, mutual respect, putting country before self and country before party, listening to and learning from one another, not pretending to have all the answers and not demonizing those with whom we differ.”

Gates, too, talked about politicians’ inability “to sustain bipartisan strategies and policies needed to address our very real and serious problems.”

There must be something good in the Pentagon’s water.

Phi Beta Iota:  Pincus is the low-rent version of Ignatius.  This article so lacking in intelligence and integrity as to be the epitome of Washington–bottom feeders “honoring” bottom-feeders.  Panetta and Gates are both unethical toadies for the military-industrial-congressional complex.  They dishonor the Constitution, the Republic, and the flag.  All those associated with this charade are in betrayal of the public trust.  If they were *only* betraying the US public trust, that would be one thing — when combined with the global war crimes and other atrocities done “in our name,” all of this qualifies Leon Panetta for an appearance before the International Tribunal, along with the CIA drone team, the four service chiefs, and the chains of command for Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Yemen, inter alia.

See Also:

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DefDog: US Ignominious Collapse in Afghanistan II

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Military
DefDog

This effort destroys any trust that may have been left…..days are numbered (to aid in an election also)…..

New security for U.S. troops in Afghanistan

By Lolita C. Baldor and Pauline Jelinek

Associated Press, 28 March 2012

WASHINGTON — U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan have assigned “guardian angels” — troops that watch over their comrades even as they sleep — and have ordered a series of other increased security measures to protect troops against possible attacks by rogue Afghans.

The added protections are part of a directive issued in recent weeks by Marine Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to guard against insider threats, according to a senior military official. And they come in the wake of a spike in attacks on U.S. and coalition forces by Afghans, including the point-blank shooting deaths of two U.S. advisers in Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior.

Some of the changes have been subtle, others not so much.

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