Category: Military

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Journal: Modern Obstacles to Spying & Assassination

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Military
Marcus Aurelius

(1)  I've seen some of the surveillance video on CNN; here is a link to more.

(2)  Regardless of who ran the operation, sounds like the Hamas guy needed to go;

(3) in addition to surveillance and biometrics, proliferation of commercially-available databases such ChoicePoint  creates additional operational challenges.)

Full Story Online

How spy technologies foil old-school political killings

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Finn

Saturday, February 20, 2010; A13

The practice of secretly assassinating purported enemies of the state — an age-old tool of foreign policy — has run up against steadily improving international police collaboration and the global proliferation of surveillance technologies that make it harder for anyone anywhere to surreptitiously conduct a high-profile killing on foreign soil.

In Doha, London and now Dubai, political killers have been caught on film and tracked, provoking unexpected attention and controversy for the organizers. Because of new biometric technologies, the proliferation of cheap video, and sophisticated monitoring of customs points and airports, the skills of those who specialize in the creation of fictional identities have been tested, and sometimes defeated.

The apparent political killing of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh has ricocheted around the world in recent days after his alleged attackers were spotted by a camera above an elevator at the Dubai Al-Bustan Rotana hotel, in the United Arab Emirates. Four suspects, all obvious weight-lifters, were filmed exiting in pairs and heading for Mabhouh's room.

Shortly after the killing, they were again filmed, this time more nervously boarding the same elevator, wearing the same baseball caps. Then they were filmed again, leaving the airport on flights to Europe, Africa and Asia. On Thursday, Interpol issued warrants for 11 suspects after the Dubai police conducted a careful study of their videotaped movements at nearly a dozen locales. Their mug shots had already been flashed on television screens around the world.ed to this report.

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Search: how much is al-qaeda worth?

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Mobile

Very cool question.  We don't have the answers, but here are a few thoughts.

Who benefits? There is only one beneficiary of Al Qaeda as a virtual actor: the US Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Congressional Complex whose outrageously wasteful funding and excessive (70%) obligations to contractors are bankrupting the US economy, but who cares as long as the corporate gravy train keeps rolling along.  The indigenous peoples seeking self-determination, including the long-repressed people of Saudi Arabia and the long-repressed peoples of Palestine, do not benefit from a model that Mahatma Gandhi clearly understood was self-destructive.  Non-violence is the only sustainable path to self-determination.

Calculating value. With the above firmly in mind, Al Qaeda's “value” to the sole beneficiary, the MIICC, is a combination of three sums:

1.  The sums Al Qaeda and related groups receive from governments, corporations, and individuals interested in sustaining radical Islamic violence against both Muslims and the West.

2.  The sums the US and others spend on false flag operations attributed to Al Qaeda (the underpants bomber is probably an Israeli false-flag operation with US consent and colalboration)

3.  The sums the MIICC receives from a corrupt Congress that has not done a serious national security baseline evaluation of need since Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) retired from his post as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

What is Al Gaeda Worth? Our wild-ass but informed guess is $1 trillion a year.  That one trillion a year is both positive value (for those that benefit) and negative value (for all the others).  With one trillion a year we could have brought the USA into the 21st Century, funded free cell phones for the five billion poor so they could create infinite stabilizing and self-sustaining wealth, and created a prosperous world at peace.

Continue reading “Search: how much is al-qaeda worth?”

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Journal: Drones of War

08 Wild Cards, Military
Marcus Aurelius

America's Deadly Robots Rewrite The Rules (Sydney Morning Herald)

In the artistry of war, the insertion of a Jordanian double-agent who detonated his explosive vest inside this super-sensitive CIA bunker was flawless. But, in their payback, the enraged Americans confirmed the breadth of a new horizon in modern warfare – launching 15 clinical drone attacks in which more than 100 people died along the border, as Washington's electronic eyes and guns sought out Mehsud and his Taliban and al-Qaeda allies.

War does not get more radical than this – technically, politically and, perhaps, ethically.

Consider: for the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war.   . . .

The US Air Force now has more drone operators in training than fighter and bomber pilots.

What Would Errol Flynn Think? (Boston Globe)

The drone has become the weapon of choice against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. CIA director Leon Panetta called it “the only game in town,’’ and the Pentagon recently announced it was doubling drone production. The US Air Force will soon have more drones than fighter aircraft.   . . .

As Jane Mayer described it in the New Yorker, he’s sitting at a screen. He can zoom in, see whom he wants to kill, and push a button. Sometimes he sees people running out of targeted houses for cover. This is so common, according to Mayer, that the running people are called “squirters’’ at Langley.

Obama's Drone War: Does The Killing Pay Off? (PoliticsDaily.com)

“The drone attacks have become very effective over time, hitting an increased number of targets, more precisely with less collateral damage,” said Haider Ali Hussein Mullick, a counterinsurgency analyst at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University.

But those stepping into vacant leadership positions, he added, “are more deadly. They do not have strong ideological links. They are dangerous. These are not guys you can talk to.”   . . .

These attacks, the resurgence of al-Qaeda, and the flare-up of its operations in Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere, suggest that the campaign to stop terrorists by killing off terrorist leaders has been less than successful.

“Killing leaders supports an illusion of progress, but not the reality,” said John McCreary, former strategic analyst for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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Journal: Human Terrain Team (HTT)–Drama Part III

02 Diplomacy, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence

John Stanton Blog

New Details Emerge in Salomi Hostage Case:  High Drama in HTS

by John Stanton

Observers indicate that two individuals in HTS leadership positions on the ground in Iraq—Lieutenant Colonel Byrd (Program Management Office – FWD)  and Michael Goains, GG-15 (Theater Coordination Element) had direct knowledge of Issa Salomi's prior forays outside Camp Liberty/Victory Base Complex in Iraq unaccompanied by his teammates (team designation IZ-02,) or US military personnel. Salomi was apparently taken by an Iraqi insurgent group in January 2010 and a video of him recently appeared in global media outlets in February 2010.

Observers have also pointed out that Salomi is not, in fact, a contractor but is instead a temporary US Army Civilian employee. In 2009, HTS reverted to a government program and contractors were forced to choose between leaving or converting to US government civilian status.

“There is so much drama within the HTS program right now that it is unbelievable. Many, many people are being fired, rearranged and moved around due to management incompetence and personality problems,” said observers. “The amount of money being squandered is ridiculous.”

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Journal: Iraqi Insurgents Capture Human Terrain Team (HTT) Member Issa T. Salomi

Academia, Military, Peace Intelligence
Full Story Online

Steve Fondacaro and Montgomery Clough, senior program management of the US Army's Human Terrain System (HTS), were warned as early as 2007 that Human Terrain Team members in Iraq and Afghanistan would become prey for insurgent groups. They were advised repeatedly that training must emphasize the dangerous environment HTS employees would be operating in. That training needed to focus on practices and procedures for handling life threatening situations to include kidnapping.

Issa Salomi, a 60 year old HTT member operating in a combat zone, was taken in January 2010 by an Iraqi insurgent group and a video of him was released on the Net in February 2010 by the same group. This tragic event drives home, once again, the core failings of the Human Terrain Team System: the inability to find qualified personnel, to train them properly and to, quite simply, take care of them. Some allege that many team leaders and HTS management itself have no clue where many of their teams are. “Some HTT members disappear for days and then return.”

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Journal: New QDR–Pentagon Goes Intellectually AWOL

10 Security, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Ethics, Military, Reform, Strategy, Threats
Chuck Spinney

The New QDR

The Pentagon Goes Intellectually AWOL

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY

Monday, February 1, 2010, was a day that should live in budgetary infamy. The Defense Department released its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and its accompanying Fiscal Year 2011 budget request, which is the first year of the Fiscal Year 2011-2015 five year plan (2011-2015 FYDP). These documents are available on the internet and can be downloaded in PDF format here: QDR and the FY 2011 budget.

Even by the dismal intellectual standards of Pentagon bureaucracy, the QDR and the FY 2011 budget, taken together, establish a new standard of analytical vacuity, psychological denial, and just plane meaningless drivel. I will keep this short by using just one important case to prove my allegation. Judge for yourself if it is necessary and sufficient to make the point.

. . . . . . .

The chaos in the accounting system provides the intellectual “grease” to lubricate the engine driving narrow bureaucratic agendas that are causing the force structure meltdown. Senior decision makers can not possibly understand the trade offs they are really making when they put together a budget, assuming they wanted to, which is also in doubt.

Full Story Online

Phi Beta Iota: The Pentagon is only as competent as the combination of three factors:

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Journal: Politics of Fear–Spending on National Insecurity

10 Security, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Military, Peace Intelligence, Reform, Threats
Chuck Spinney

Answer: It all depends on what you think should be included, but once this is clear — this spending will be be exempt from any cutbacks needed to reduce the deficit.

The Table prepared by Winslow Wheeler, Director, Straus Military Reform Project within the Center for Defense Information.

Chuck

Winslow Wheeler, Straus Military Reform Project.