Military – Page 262 – Public Intelligence Blog

CIA director Leon Panetta is to take over at the Pentagon and Gen. David Petraeus is to be nominated to head the CIA, NBC News confirmed Wednesday.

Sources: Petraeus to be nominated to head CIA

Agency director Panetta expected to become Defense Secretary, replacing Robert Gates

Phi Beta Iota: This is worse than business as usual, this is a dramatic step backwards. CIA is clearly irrelevant, an off-stage holding area for a failed General. In today's context, the best candidate for Defense, Senator Chuck Hagel, has evidently had second thoughts about the viability of the Obama Administration. Defense is about to be raped by the clerks as a bill-payer, rather than right-sized by serious people mindful of Senator Sam Nunn's wisdom:

I am constantly being asked for a bottom-line defense number. I don't know of any logicial way to arrive at such a figure without analyzing the threat; without determining what changes in our strategy should be made in light of the changes in the threat; and then determining what force structure and weapons programs we need to carry out this revised strategy.

This Administration–like others before it–lacks intelligence; lacks a holistic global and domestic strategy; and lacks the integrity necessary to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities to the public.

2011/04/242011/04/24

Call for Criminal Investigation of Bush-Cheney

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence

ElBaradei suggests war crimes probe of Bush team

(AP) – 22 April 2011

NEW YORK (AP) — Former chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei suggests in a new memoir that Bush administration officials should face international criminal investigation for the “shame of a needless war” in Iraq.

Freer to speak now than he was as an international civil servant, the Nobel-winning Egyptian accuses U.S. leaders of “grotesque distortion” in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, when then-President George W. Bush and his lieutenants claimed Iraq possessed doomsday weapons despite contrary evidence collected by ElBaradei's and other arms inspectors inside the country.

The Iraq war taught him that “deliberate deception was not limited to small countries ruled by ruthless dictators,” ElBaradei writes in “The Age of Deception,” being published Tuesday by Henry Holt and Company.

The 68-year-old legal scholar, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1997 to 2009 and recently a rallying figure in Egypt's revolution, concludes his 321-page account of two decades of “tedious, wrenching” nuclear diplomacy with a plea for more of it, particularly in the efforts to rein in North Korean and Iranian nuclear ambitions.

Read full article…

Phi Beta Iota: We endorse the truth & reconciliation process and believe that if the USA is to restore its promise as a contributor to the international community of nations, it must first disclose the truth. In our view, the investigation should begin three months prior to 9-11, when Dick Cheney first mandated a nation-wide counter-terrorism exercise that assured his complete control over the entire US Government on 9-11….an assurance he and his planners needed to not just let it happen, but to execute all the trimmings and then carry on with the Weapons of Mass Deception that committed America to an elective multi-trillion dollar war against multiple countries. Dick Cheney hijacked the Presidency. We all need the truth on the table.

Bob Seelert, Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide (New York): When things are not going well, until you get the truth out on the table, no matter how ugly, you are not in a position to deal with it.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Empire as Cancer Including Betrayal & Deceit

Worth a Look: Impeachable Offenses, Modern & Historic

2011/04/222011/04/22

On Intelligence–Out of Touch Squared

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence

A very interesting article by Chuck. Earlier I was thinking along similar lines about how the Military Intelligence System has devolved in the same manner as our air strategy.

When I first signed up, the Army had a number of sites in far flung places with strange sounding names. The advantage was the people working their were somewhat in tune with the psychological mindset of the people who lived in proximity to the “threat”. When they were concerned it raised our awareness of activities by the “other side”. The local population always had better intelligence than we did, but it was an indicator that we picked up on and used to focus our efforts.

Enter technology (re: US Air Force) resulting in the consolidation of intelligence activities to major fixed bases (somewhat like our overall military strategy – hunker down). We no longer have that view of the population, hell, we don't have any concept of the human terrain in those areas or anywhere else (with the exception of Korea where we have not run away).

Continue reading “On Intelligence–Out of Touch Squared”

2011/04/222011/04/22

Obama Pakistanizes [Undeclared] War on Libya

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call

REFERENCE

Obama Takes the Cape

Pakistanizing the Libyan War

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch

Weekend Edition, April 22 – 24, 2011

. . . . . .

In other words, someone has sold Obama on Pakistaning the Libyan War, i.e., pursuing a military strategy of relying on drone attacks to a destroy an adversary hiding in the environmental background. What is astonishing is that Obama took the cape, despite the fact that only 12 days earlier, a report in the Los Angeles Times by David Cloud illustrated once again the absurdity of Cartwright's and Gates' claims.

Read complete blaster….

Continue reading “Obama Pakistanizes [Undeclared] War on Libya”

2011/04/17

Congress? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Congress…

Corruption, Government, Military

Sweet: per CBO's numbers, the epic budget showdown didn't even produce enough cuts to pay for a week of bombing Libya.

Six Days of Odyssey Dawn (Libya) Cost $400 Million

March 30th, 2011 by Steven Aftergood

The first six days of Odyssey Dawn, the US war in Libya, cost an estimated $400 million, according to a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

“Using operational details provided by DOD and DOD cost factors, a ‘bottoms-up’ estimate of the cost of initial operations suggests that in the first six days of operations, DOD has spent roughly $400 million,” the report said.

“U.S. participation in Operation Odyssey Dawn and NATO operations around Libya raises a number of questions for Congress, including the role of Congress in authorizing the use of force, the costs of the operation, the desired politico-strategic end state, the role of U.S. military forces in an operation under international command, and many others,” said the CRS report, which fleshed out many of those questions.

See “Operation Odyssey Dawn (Libya): Background and Issues for Congress,” March 28, 2011.

Seven Promises to America–Who Will Do This?

2011/04/152011/04/15

Serious (Honest) Thinking About US Budget

03 Economy, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Military

Dear friends,

The three articles below describe major approaches to addressing the deficit — for health care, taxes and the military — that would have a greater impact on America's budget woes than ANYTHING being currently negotiated by Congress and the Obama Administration. Even better, these three things would, if implemented, actually improve the quality of life in the U.S., instead of degrading it, as so many of the current proposals would do. They give a taste of some excellent thinking emerging from the fringes of this “budget crisis” debate.

[After I wrote this I was alerted to another very interesting “People's Budget” recently released with little coverage in the mainstream media, which I recommend to those interested in alternatives.]

When I imagine a Citizens Jury, a Citizens Assembly, or any other randomly selected body of citizens convened to deliberate about the “budget crisis”, this is the kind of information I believe they should be exposed to. We don't need to undermine public health to create affordable health care. We don't need to undermine the wealth of the nation to have a reasonable tax system. We don't need to endanger American security to have a strong, affordable military.

We just need to think a bit outside of the boxes that most mainstream media, pundits, politicians and partisan activists (intentionally) put our minds in, and ask ourselves “What's the REAL problem here — and what would ACTUALLY solve it?”

How to Save a Trillion Dollars

Taxes on the Wealthy: New Top Brackets Needed for the Have Mores

Want to improve US national security? Cut the defense budget.

Continue reading “Serious (Honest) Thinking About US Budget”

2011/04/14

Veterans Hosed Upon to Return to USA

03 Economy, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military

One has to wonder how General Eric Ken Shinseki, USA (Ret) is faring as the 7th Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Out of War, Out of Luck: For Veterans, Skills Learned In Service Don't Translate To Employment

Laura Bassett, 13 April 2010

Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — When Eric Smith, 26, returned home after his second tour in Iraq serving as a Navy medic, he didn't expect to have a difficult time finding work.

While on tour, Smith had worked as a physician's assistant in the intensive care unit (ICU), caring for patients undergoing everything from cancer to recent brain surgery. At times, he served on the front lines treating infections. He never thought the expertise he had developed in the field wouldn’t amount to a job back home — but when he returned he found that he couldn't get a job in medicine without the right certifications.

Read full article….

Category: Military

CIA Given To Petraeus, DoD Given to Panetta