Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Army invited attention to following article in this morning's daily “Stand-To” e-mail.

Special forces wary of ‘don't ask, don't tell' repeal

By Rowan Scarborough

The Washington Times

6:39 p.m., Monday, December 27, 2010

EXTRACT: The working group's report contained this observation: “These survey results reveal to us a misperception that a gay man does not ‘fit' the image of a good warfighter – a misperception that is almost completely erased when a gay service member is allowed to prove himself alongside fellow warfighters.

“Anecdotally, we heard much the same. As one special-operations force warfighter told us, ‘We have a gay guy [in the unit]. He's big, he's mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay.' ”

Said Adm. Worthington: “It just depends on how they comport themselves. If they start breaking out the bows and the earrings in the barracks, that might cause a little trouble. That becomes a good order and discipline sort of thing. The services are going to have to tighten up on regulations.”

2010/12/282010/12/28

Journal: Taliban Reflects on Departure of US from AF

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, IO Sense-Making, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Earlier Reports:

• Part one: The London cab driver who fights for the Taliban

• Part two: Five days inside a Taliban jail

Talking to the Taliban about life after occupation

Special report: In the last of his series from Afghanistan, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad asks Taliban leaders past and present what kind of regime they would run – and whether there is a chance of negotiated peace

The administrator

In the south-eastern city of Khost, the everyday business of the Taliban administration carries on across the street from the fortified, government-run city court and police station.

Read rest of this long provocative article….

2010/12/272010/12/27

Assessment of the Position of Director of National Intelligence

Corruption, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call, Policies, Threats

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) was created to examine how the terrorist attacks of September 2001 could have occurred and what could be done to prevent future attacks. Among other things the Commission recommended that there should be a National Intelligence Director who would have “two main areas of responsibility” namely:

1) to oversee intelligence centers on specific subjects affecting national security; and

2) to oversee the national intelligence program and the agencies that contribute to it.

In effect the Commission wished to have a single authority that could that could task and co-ordinate the processes and operations of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). The U.S. Congress was more or less forced to act on this specific recommendation because of public pressure. Thus the position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was created by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

In April 2005, Ambassador John D. Negroponte, former Ambassador to Iraq, was sworn in as the first DNI. Negroponte was chosen because no qualified candidate from the so-called IC was willing to take the job. In truth, the DNI was forced on the Federal Government by outside forces and began with no support either in the Congress, the Executive Branch, or the so-called IC. Indeed President Bush made it clear that he considered the DNI unnecessary. The position of DNI had responsibility for, but no authority over the IC, had no ready made constituency within the government, and was considered an unnecessary intrusion on intelligence operations by the principal members of the IC.

Continue reading “Assessment of the Position of Director of National Intelligence”

2010/12/24

Journal: Future Hotspots?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Military

Forecast 2011: Conflict Hotspots

23 December 2010

Protestor with face mask walks past street fire and crowds of other protestors, courtesy of Faramarz Hashemi/flickr

Political hotzones 2011?

Where in the world will conflict flare in the new year? This special, expanded edition of ISN Insights examines three hotzones beyond the headlines: Pakistan, Tajikistan and the Northern Caucasus.

This special ISN Insights package contains the following content, easily navigated along the tab structure above – or via the hyperlinks below:

A 2011 Pakistani political forecast by Gregory Copley, President of the International Strategic Studies Association, who predicts a watershed year ahead for the Islamic Republic.

A look forward to the potential for further proliferation of terrorist activity in the North Caucasus – and how Russia should address it by Simon Saradzhyan, research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.

A close examination of Tajikistan's make-or-break year ahead by John CK Daly, non-resident fellow at the Johns Hopkins Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

Review: The Water Atlas–A Unique Visual Analysis of the World’s Most Critical Resource

2010/12/242010/12/24

Journal: Covert War in Pakistan–Lessons Not Learned

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Military

Something caught my eye while reading a Slate item written by Tom Scocca and posted on December 20, 2010, “Two Ways of Looking at Our Covert War in Pakistan.”

Mr. Scocca wrote:

“There are diplomatic tensions because we are fighting a full-on undeclared war on the territory of a country with which we are an ally, using covert agents as the commanding officers”.

So what’s new? Didn’t we fight a full-on undeclared war on the territory of Laos from about 1961 to 1973? Wasn’t Laos an ally while trying to maintain the fig-leaf of neutrality? Wasn’t the United States government using ‘covert agents as commanding officers’?

Moreover the New York Times published an article by Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins the same day titled “U.S. Military Seeks to Expand Raids in Pakistan”.

In particular I noticed the following that Mazzetti and Filkins attributed to senior military commanders in Afghanistan.

Continue reading “Journal: Covert War in Pakistan–Lessons Not Learned”

2010/12/22

Journal: Israel Persists on Polard–an Information Operations (IO) Case Study

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Sense-Making, Military, Officers Call

In Wash Post article on CIA's Wikileaks TF, passed u/s/c, the following quote closes the piece, “the former high-ranking CIA officer said. “Nobody could carry out enough paper to do what WikiLeaks has done.”” Not sure that's true. Open source reporting not long after his trial indicated that Pollard hand carried tremendous volumes of paper documents out of his office to the Israelis; if memory serves, it amounted to hundreds of cubic feet. Volume was so great that the Israelis set up a safesite equipped with a copying machine of significant capability so that they could quickly copy Pollard's offerings and let him carry them back to the office.

New York Times December 22, 2010 Pg. 6

Israel Plans Public Appeal To Ask U.S. To Free A Spy

By Isabel Kershner

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel will officially and publicly appeal to President Obama in the coming days for the release of Jonathan Jay Pollard, the American serving a life term in a North Carolina prison for spying for Israel, Mr. Netanyahu’s office announced Tuesday.

Read rest of article that makes clear Israel believes it can win on this perfidious demand.

Phi Beta Iota: The facts are clear. Pollard approached other governments before he approached Israel. His elevation into a national hero to be brought home to accolades is perfectly consistent with what every Jewish male cutting a swath through Christian girls accepts as his mantra: “Chiksas don't count.” Evidently the crew and families of the USS Liberty don't count either. We strongly support the US Intelligence Community's view that Pollard is a traitor and should die in prison. We also strongly support the need to for a comprehensive review of how every US taxpayer dollar is spent in the Middle East, with the objective of ending military support to dictators and financial support to Israel. Creating a regional water and educational trust makes more sense to us. At the same time, the fact is that at least three quarters of what we have classified should not be classified, and we are out of touch with unclassified reality across all ten high-level threats. We need to heal ourselves before we attempt to heal others, Pollard is an excellent case study of how out of touch both Israel and the White House are with reality.

2010/12/222010/12/22

Reference: Logistics Oversight as an Information Operations (IO) Mission

Articles & Chapters, Computer/online security, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Threats

David Isenberg

Posted: December 21, 2010 11:59 PM

Huffington Post

Can't Anyone at DoD Do Oversight? Anyone at All?

The perennial issue regarding private military security contractors is the degree to which they are subject to effective oversight. In that regard there is only one item in today's news worth looking at. That is the report issued by the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, chaired by John F. Tierney (D-MA). The Majority staff report is titled, Mystery at Manas: Strategic Blind Spots in the Department of Defense's Fuel Contracts in Kyrgyzstan. The report culminates an eight-month investigation into the Department of Defense's multi-billion dollar aviation fuel contracts at the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan.

Reminding one of the famous line by 1st Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder in Joseph Heller's famous Catch-22 novel, “We're gonna come out of this war rich!” the report found that to keep U.S. warplanes flying over Afghanistan, the Pentagon allowed a “secrecy obsessed” business group to supply jet fuel to a U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan, turning a blind eye to an elaborate fraud involving fuel deliveries from Russia.

. . . . . . .

But the fuel was being bought by the Pentagon for shipment to the American airbase in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, and from there on to Afghanistan, the report said. Once Russian officials discovered the true identity of the recipient, they cut off supplies, creating a major logistical headache for United States military commanders.

That breakdown forced a major redrawing of supply routes into Afghanistan for jet fuel, which is in chronically short supply in landlocked Afghanistan. It also touched off a major behind-the-scenes diplomatic effort by the Obama administration to rebuild the fuel lines.

Read the complete very well-presented and documented article….

Phi Beta Iota: David Isenberg, author of Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq, has become a valuable oversight contributor with respect to the out-of-control acquisition system on top of the out-of-control Private Military Contractor (PMC) system. When reliability and redundancy matter, any military force that does not understand its supply chain timelines, costs, and geospatial realities down to the RFID level, as well as the vulnerabilities to disruption, is begging for a major hit. The Information Operations (IO) domain appears poised for a major advance, integrating intelligence, logistics, operations, and civil affairs information in a manner never before attempted–with the supplemental value of placing Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in proper relationship to Cyber-Security, i.e. 70-30 or thereabouts (some would say 80-20). Make this multinational, and it will be a game changer. This is one reason the Office of the Inspector-General is one of the fifteen slices of HUMINT that must be managed by IO.

Category: Military

Journal: Special Forces, Gay Men, and Co-Ed Showers