Category: Military

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Joe Mazzafro: Deficit Deal and Impact on the US IC

03 Economy, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Military
Joe Mazzafro

The MAZZ-INT Blog

DEFICIT DEAL AND ITS IMPACT ON THE IC

At  the time of the July edition of Mazz-INT Blog, the government was tied in a knot over coming to grips with how to get long term spending under control so there would be the political conditions to raise the debt ceiling on August 2nd; NATO forces  were engaged in a seeming stalemate in Libya to remove Gadhafi from power;  there was rising concern about corruption in the Karzai “government” in Afghanistan; near open confrontation between Islamabad and the Washington over continuing US unilateral drone attacks against Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership inside of Pakistan; and the US Intelligence Community (IC) was finishing a quiet but well deserved victory lap for taking out Osama bin Laden.  As August begins I am happy to report that Bin Laden remains dead —– with increasingly negative impacts for Al Qaeda, but little else as changed.

So what to discuss with you that is worth your time?  As Eddie Layton,  Nimitz’s N2 throughout WWII, was famous for saying “the biggest alligator is the one closest to you” which means to me the debt crisis and its impact on the on the IC.  As I write this on 31 July, the Executive and Legislative branches are struggling to figure out how to raise the debt ceiling so the US government will not be in default on August 3rd when you are likely to be seeing these ramblings.  So let’s focus on how debt crisis will likely impact the IC.

Continue reading “Joe Mazzafro: Deficit Deal and Impact on the US IC”

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DefDog: More Government Waste on Vaporware

Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
DefDog

U.S. Spy Agencies Want Software That Can Figure Out Where Any Photo Was Taken

By Clay Dillow

POPSI, 08.02.201

American intelligence agencies are hoping to turn propaganda videos, images captured from enemy data caches, and other pics snapped with or without the subjects’ knowledge into readymade geolocation tags via a system that can identify exactly where any photo was taken anywhere in the world. If successful, such a tool could turn images captured from enemy hard drives–like those snatched from Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound back in May–into the makings for a point-by-point Google map of terrorist travels.

Read full article….

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Chuck Spinney: Libya, Rebels, & the West–A Debacle

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military
Chuck Spinney
Note:  the author of this important report is one of best journalists covering the wars of Western intervention in the Islamic world. CS

August 1, 2011

Follow the Oil and the Money

Why the West is Committed to the Murderous Rebels in Libya

By PATRICK COCKBURN, Counterpunch

In keeping with the British Government's well-established record of comical ineptitude in dealing with Libya, foreign secretary William Hague chose to recognize the rebel leaders in Benghazi as the legitimate government of the country at the very moment some of them may have been shooting or torturing to death their chief military commander.

Read full article….

See Also:

Cynthia McKinney Reports from Libya

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Chuck Spinney: Israeli Ethnic Cleansing of the Bedouin

05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military
Chuck Spinney

Palestinians fear for ancient West Bank water source

By Tom Perry, Reuters

RASHAYIDA, West Bank | Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:43am EDT

(Reuters) – – Hewn from rock, the cavernous cisterns which dot the desert beyond Bethlehem have for centuries harvested winter rain to provide shepherds and their flocks with water through summer.

Under a baking sun, an elderly Bedouin explains how cisterns he remembers from childhood, many of them restored to full working order in the last few years, are once again helping his goat-herding community to survive.

That, he concludes, is why the Israeli authorities who control the West Bank have demolished at least three in the area since November.

“Maybe they are doing this to make us leave. We will not leave,” said Falah Hedawa, 64, sitting on cushions in his tent home pitched in the hills that slope down to the Dead Sea.

Out into the desert, a stagnant pool marked the spot where one of the cisterns, chiseled out of a hillside, had stood until its recent demolition. A mud trail on the otherwise dry ground indicated where the water inside had drained away toward a wadi, a valley which becomes a river when the rain falls.

Israel has demolished 20 rainwater collection cisterns in the West Bank in the first half of this year, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which monitors conditions in the Palestinian territories.

Read full article…

Phi Beta Iota:  There are two crimes against humanity here, the first against the Palestinians, the second against the centuries old cisterns that collect winter water.

See Also:

Review: T2004 (US) Spinney Water and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

The Attack on the Liberty–The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship

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Winslow Wheeler: Defense Cuts, Defense Flim-Flam

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Impotency, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Technologies
Winslow Wheeler

There are numerous misleading and misinformed assertions being made about the defense spending parts of the debt deal.

The White House's “fact sheet” asserts a $350 billion savings in the “base defense budget.” The $350 billion in defense savings that the White House declares apparently uses a different “baseline” (basis of comparison) and pretends that a two year cap the bill establishes on “security” spending will extend to ten years.  Most misleading of all, it assumes that all savings in the “security” category (which includes DOD, DOE/nuclear weapons, all State Department related spending, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security) will occur only in DOD spending.  In fact, the “security” category was designed to broaden the base for “defense” cuts and to lessen the impact on DOD.  The undocumented $350 billion in “security” savings will actually translate into lesser reductions in DOD spending, but the amount is unknown.  The actual amount will be decided by Congress in the future.
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Reference: Which Army? Minutemen or Legionnaires?

10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Military, Officers Call
Marcus Aurelius
Attached 17-page (12 plus footnotes) paper is worth reading.  Much to agree with, little to dispute.  Major thesis is that Army has, since about 1989, transformed from a citizen force that may go nowhere for decades to a professional legion that deploys operationally on a routine basis.
The single part that most seized me is that portion of the abstract that reads, “… In the midst of a civilian society that is increasingly pacifistic, easygoing, and well adjusted, the Army (career and non-career soldiers alike) remains flinty, harshly results-oriented, and emotionally extreme.  The inevitable civil-military gap has become a chasm.”
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Tom Atlee: Citizens Panel Cuts 2.2 Trillion in One Hour

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace, Methods & Process, Military, Policies
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

The 160-person British Columbian Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform took every other weekend for a year to research and reach consensus on the best method for their province's election process.

The fourteen citizens in a Danish Consensus Conference take several weekends over several months to learn about their assigned technical issue and come up with shared recommendations for Parliament and the public.

A 24-person Citizen Initiative Review of the kind now institutionalized in Oregon takes a week to figure out how to best advise voters on a given ballot initiative.

Similar Citizens Juries on all kinds of subjects also take about a week.

The dozen citizens selected for MACLEAN'S magazine's 1991 “People's Verdict” deliberations took just three days to come up with a lengthy vision for Canada's future direction.

A Wisdom Council often takes just two days to come up with a consensus statement sharing their concerns and dreams for their community.

Hundreds or thousands of people in a 21st Century Town Meeting take one day to make decisions on the issue that they have been assigned.

And now ABC News gave five citizens of diverse political beliefs one hour to solve the deficit crisis that Washington can't seem to resolve in months.  This small group's success is the special feature of this e-mailing, so check out ABC's very short video (2:43) about it

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