Above is a picture I took looking down on Anzac Cove in Gallipoli during my recent trip to Gallipoli. The Aussies and New Zealanders assaulted a beach that is about 25 meters wide and 600 meters long. After crossing the tiny beach, they hit a slope rising at about 60 degrees or more, covered by dense Mediterranean maqui. Bear in mind, the road in my picture did not exist and the first major summit was probably 700-800 feet high, but to get there, you had to cross a labyrinth of steep, irregular ravines, covered with the dense prickly undergrowth. Moreover, it is the wrong beach. [Continued below.]
Reference: Concept of Operations (CONOP) for the National Maritime Intelligence Center (NMIC)
12 Water, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, MilitaryRear Admiral Gilbride has promulgated the Concept of Operations (CONOP) for the National Maritime Intelligence Center (NMIC), effective 19 August 2009.
It is quite good and serves as a model for all others. it is, as of now, the single best attempt to truly integrate the concerns and capabilities of the inter-agency community of interest.
A few shortfalls are easily corrected. The Department of Agriculture and food security, for example, are not embraced. That needs to be corrected. The CONOPS is also too focused on security and avoids both protective and enabling opportunities for maritime intervention. Environmental Impacts, for example, focuses only on weather and the opening of the Northwest Passage, not on pollution or other maritime dumping activities that further toxify 75% of our Earth.
Journal: Washington Post Continues to Die….
09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Government, Law Enforcement, MilitaryMeet Walter Pincus. He has “covered” the U.S. Intelligence Community for over two decades.
Fine Print: U.S. Intelligence and Afghan Narcotics
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Click on the story title to read the story. The entire story is built arouind an Air Force contracting announcement, and everything there-in is taken at face value including the absurd claim electronic processing of Dari information not only allows it to accept locally generated Afghan intelligence but to also return finished intelligence reports in Dari to the Afghan counternarcotics police.
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Journal: Special Forces Collect, But Cannot Process
MilitaryPhi Beta Iota: Tip of the Hat to Steven Aftergood and the Federation of American Scientists.
“Ongoing SOF operations demonstrate the ability to collect significant amounts of pocket litter, hard copy documents, hard drives, cell phones, and other important hard copy and electronic media with significant intelligence value. However, without specialized expeditionary processing, this information becomes inaccessible and of no value to SOF in immediate urgent operational missions, and over the longer term to the war fighter, the intelligence community and others in need of access.” The Committee recommended additional resources to remedy this deficiency.
Read the full story, including two links at Secrecy News.
Journal: President Barack Obama on Military
Military, Peace Intelligence‘Because in the 21st century, military strength will be measured not only by the weapons our troops carry, but by the languages they speak and the cultures they understand,” the president said.
Obama lashes waste…
never mind Empire as usual…..
President Barack Obama salutes as his daughter Sasha Obama, 8, holds her glasses, as they step off Air Force One at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Ariz., Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Phi Beta Iota Editorial Comment:
Let there be no doubt of our hopes for President Barack Obama. He has the potential to be the George Washington of the 21st Century, but first he needs to reform the electoral process, the secret intelligence world, the governance process, and national security. Above is the most intelligent thing he has said about the military to date.
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Journal: Bing West on Futility of the Grunt War in Afghanistan
Ethics, Government, MilitaryFlagged by Marcus Aurelius. Bing West, former Marine and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during the Reagan Administration, has put some straight-forwawrd words into the Small Wars Journal with a bottom-line that has been known to all of us for decades, but merits repetition over and over again until we finally restore integrity to the national security decision-making process.
Tactics or Strategy?
Our soldiers only get a small number of chances to engage the enemy. Our battalions average one arrest every two months, and one platoon-sized patrol per day per company that infrequently makes solid contact. On average, a US rifleman will glimpse a Taliban once a month.
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Journal: Ralph Peters, Hillary Clinton, & the U.S. Navy
02 Diplomacy, 10 Security, Ethics, Government, Military, Peace IntelligenceSometimes reality and fantasy collide in extraordinary ways. Below are four headlines and teaser editorial comments, click on the headlines to read the details, but the details do not really matter, here is the lunacy all together in one pot.
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