Military – Page 225 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/10/18

Winslow Wheeler: Media Plays Dead for Panetta Virus

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

WinslowWheeler Cropped — Winslow Wheeler

Yesterday, the Nieman Watchdog journalism group at Harvard asked me to evaluate how well the press is scrutinizing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Basically, it's not; instead, Panetta seems to be free of informed, skeptical questioning; he must be absolutely delighted with the treatment he is receiving.

Why is the press ignoring Panetta's frenzied rhetoric and data-free myths?

The defense secretary likens budget-cutters to Nazis and makes assertions that simply aren't true — but the media don't seem to care, writes Winslow Wheeler.

The silence in the press about the overheated rhetoric and dubious myths from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta makes for a very unhappy comparison of today’s defense journalism compared to previous eras when, for example, SecDef Casper Weinberger was the subject of serious critical analysis.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: Leon Panetta, like Bob Gates before him, is a posturing pimp for the military-industrial complex that pays 5% bribes to get 95% discounts on the taxpayers treasure. He could not stand up to fifteen minutes on the same stage with any one of us–Chuck Spinney, Winslow Wheeler, Ralph Peters, Bob Scales, etcetera.

2011/10/17

DefDog: Drones Kill US Forces – Once Again, BAD IDEA

Corruption, IO Deeds of War, Military

This unconnected, dispersed approach to intelligence has never worked and this is a clear example of its failure. When one tries to do intelligence remotely, using technological means, one looses the “native atmospherics” that often tell more about what is going on than any sensor.

U.S. deaths in drone strike due to miscommunication, report says

The Pentagon says Marines in Afghanistan and the crew controlling the drone in Nevada were unaware analysts watching the firefight via live video in Indiana had doubts about the targets' identity.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: Leon Panetta has no idea what he is doing – just another naked ignorant mini-emperor going through the motions. All of us with intelligence and integrity have been pointing out that situational awareness comes from humans in the situation, not crews half the world away chugging a soda and morally disengaged; and bandwidth costs more than pilots.

2011/10/172011/10/17

Winslow Wheeler: Two Myths (Lies) from Leon Panetta

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Office of Management and Budget, Officers Call

Panetta's Frenzied Rhetoric Is Not Stopping the Decay of U.S. Forces

Huffington Post, 14 October 2011

Before Tuesday this week, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had been sprinkling Washington D.C. with words like “doomsday mechanism,” “catastrophic,” and “shooting ourselves in the head” to describe any cuts in the Pentagon's budget beyond the $450 billion over 10 years (overall a 4 percent reduction) he and President Obama have already committed to. Panetta had set a new standard for overheated rhetoric to defend the Pentagon's budget.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: Panetta, like Gates and others before him, is a political toad incable of telling the truth or pursuing the public interest. He is telling two major lies in all of his speeches: 1) that cutting the defense budget will weaken national security; and 2) that what we pay $1 trillion a year (in borrowed money) for is “the finest fighting force in the world.” Not so less the infantry, which is 4% of the force, takes 80% of the casualties, and receives 1% of the budget. In an honest government, Panetta would be impeached–and all his senior generals and senior executive sychopants retired.

2011/10/162011/10/16

Anthony J. Thorne: 9/11 Revelations 10 Years After

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call

Phi Beta Iota: Responding at Amazon to Review of Extreme Prejudice.

Interesting review Robert. I haven't read the book yet but I'm hopeful there are some new details of worth in it. I appreciate your regular mention of 9/11 issues in your book reviews. Don't know if you've read it yet but Kevin Fenton's DISCONNECTING THE DOTS is worth a look as it brings out new details in the (dubious) activities of the CIA and their Alex Station team prior to 9/11 – Peter Dale Scott recently praised this one highly in interviews. Additionally, if you Google ‘Who is Rich Blee?', the first link that comes up (SecrecyKills) offers a lengthy podcast from the same team that made 9/11 PRESS FOR TRUTH that fruitfully accompanies that DISCONNECTING book mentioned above with new interviews with Richard Clarke and statements from a very defensive George Tenet. They have a full transcript of the podcast on the site which is valuable reading, and author Kevin Fenton is again featured on that site and thanked in the podcast.

There's a lengthy 500 page book on 9/11 by a possibly pseudonymous author called E.P.Heidner, titled ‘The September Eleventh Commission Report' (a poor title for a valuable work) that a number of researchers have been discussing recently – David Ray Griffin mentioned to me in an email a month ago that he makes note of the book in his latest 9/11 TEN YEARS LATER volume. Heidner has done a massive amount of new research into who the likely background figures are (many linked to Iran Contra) and brings a lot of new information to the table. The book is currently unpublished but is available online for free as a PDF, at Scribd and elsewhere. If you Google the phrase ‘A remarkable new book on 9/11', the first link that comes up is a post by me at the Deep Politics forum where I and some others discuss the book in detail and post a number of links where any reader can get the book for free.

Researcher and journalist Jonathan Elinoff uploaded a fine documentary on 9/11 online a couple of years back called CORE OF CORRUPTION-FROM THE SHADOWS, which goes into a lot of depth about events prior to 9/11. (The currently available version has a minor sound issue where for the first 10 minutes or so, the background music is a little louder than it should be, but the film is still worth sticking with and is easily locatable online). I mention this as two(!) new follow up films to that documentary, the next of the series entitled CORE OF CORRUPTION-ECHOES OF TREASON, are reportedly being finished right now and will be released online for full viewing in March 2012. Elinoff reportedly has close to five years of research and relevant interviews and various revelations prepared for release with the new film, including new information from whistleblowers, fresh details about the participants in the rogue 9/11 stock trades, and a lot of juicy new info. The proof will be in the pudding but I expect it to be a formidable piece of work.

As a final note, if you haven't yet watched the recent feature length documentary 9/11 EXPLOSIVE EVIDENCE-EXPERTS SPEAK OUT, and its accompanying shorter featurette ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS-SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF WTC7 (hosted by Ed Asner) please go to Youtube and view them immediately. Both are superior works from Richard Gage's group of professionals and contain a lot of formidable evidence and testimony.

2011/10/142011/10/17

Mini-Me: Army of Unemployed Persistent Structural Issue

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 04 Education, 06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, DoD, Ethics, Government, Legislation, Methods & Process, Military, Policy, Reform

Army of unemployed is now entrenched in U.S.

Commentary: Structural woes in economy creating ‘permanent underclass’

Howard Gold

Wall Street Journal, 14 October 2011

The public knew this much earlier than economists or pundits did, and as for politicians — don’t ask!

. . . . .

Listen to Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, in a speech a couple of weeks ago.

“These numbers are troubling, especially when more than 40% of the unemployed, or some six million people, have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer,” he said.

“Millions of unemployed workers may take longer to find jobs because their skills have depreciated or they may need to seek employment in other sectors. These structural issues will take time to resolve. Jobs and workers will need to be reallocated across the economy, which is a long and slow process.”

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: The US Government is in grid-lock, with 1950's mind-sets, 1970's technologies, and 1990's spendthrift ways–in other words, it is completely out of touch with reality and has no idea how to cope with the need to retrain a quarter of the population across all age groups in a year or two. Hint: bail out the public, not the banks and certainly not the multiple complexes of corruption. Start by using military to ingest the entire unemployed population into receiving and retraining centers with full salary for each individual committing to retraining.

2011/10/142011/10/14

Penguin: Israel’s Covert Operations Inside the USA

05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Hmmmmm. Does this connect Israel's larger covert operations inside the USA to the specific Iran plot as a possible Israeli covert operation to influence US public and US Congress?

Why I Published US Intelligence Secrets About Israel's Anti-Iran Campaign

Richard Silverstein

Truthout, 14 October 2011

In 2009, Shamai Leibowitz was working secretly for the FBI, translating wiretapped conversations among Israeli diplomats in this country. He passed some transcripts of these conversations to me, which described an Israeli diplomatic campaign in this country to create a hostile environment for relations with Iran. I published excerpts from them in my blog, Tikun Olam.

. . . . . .

The true story was why and how Israeli diplomats were intervening so obtrusively in US political life.

Read full story with many specifics on Israeli lobbying, monitoring, and direct influence (tantamount to threats) against members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Phi Beta Iota: We do not think the Israeli's are behind the Iranian plot. It may even be that the Iranian liberation nut-jobs are not behind it either, and this is strictly a standard FBI over-reach with a sting that netted a used car salesman. What we do know is that both Congress and the White House have been very irresponsible in their confrontational statements toward Iran, and very irresponsible in failing to challenge the authenticity of this plot in detail.

2011/10/122012/10/08