It is with great pleasure that I can introduce you to the International Civil Society Network on Infrastructures for Peace (I4P). The network and website are launched today: www.I4Pinternational.org
Many countries lack capacities and structures to deal adequately with on-going and potential violent conflict. This has emerged as a central obstacle to the attainment of equitable and sustainable development. In recent years, the number of conflicts has been increasing once again. We need comprehensive, inclusive and long-term approaches to peacebuilding, which involves the main stakeholders. Infrastructures for Peace and Local Peace Committees can be important pillars to counter these dangerous developments or substantially reduce their impact.
These months, several interesting articles on I4P are released: in the new Peacebuilding Journal, the Berghof-Handbook Dialogue Series on Peace Infrastructures, in Pensamiento Propio and soon a whole issue on this topic of the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development. Our website will tell you how to find the articles on I4P.
Several local peacebuilding NGOs and practitioners felt the need to exchange experiences and best practices about this approach and make I4P more recognised:the network was born and counts now some seventy members. We have established an Interim Steering Committee with members from three continents.
I invite you to see our website and join our network if you are interested.
Billionaires control the political conversation by staying hidden and paying others to promote their brutal agendas
Conspiracies against the public don't get much uglier than this. As the Guardian revealed last week, two secretive organisations working for US billionaires have spent $118m to ensure that no action is taken to prevent manmade climate change. While inflicting untold suffering on the world's people, their funders have used these opaque structures to ensure that their identities are never exposed.
The two organisations – the Donors' Trust and the Donors' Capital Fund – were set up as political funding channels for people handing over $1m or more. They have financed 102 organisations which either dismiss climate science or downplay the need to take action. The large number of recipients creates the impression of many independent voices challenging climate science. These groups, working through the media, mobilising gullible voters and lobbying politicians, helped to derail Obama's cap and trade bill and the climate talks at Copenhagen. Now they're seeking to prevent the US president from trying again.
There is no “out of the box” thinking here, just dabbling on the margins.
Phi Beta Iota: We agree with Brother Marcus. This was a very disappointing document and not at all presidential in utility. There is no executive summary, no bullet points, no explicatory graphics, and no budgetary perspective (means to ways to ends). The individual memorandums are too long, too bland, and not imaginative in the least. Especially disappointing were the two pieces directly oriented on defense, the first by Peter Singer on drones, the second by Michael O'Hanlon on achieving defense budget efficiencies on the margins. The individual authors are first rate across the board, but the editorial function and the leadership function are both absent from this work. Singer plays it safe and calls for the establishment of protocols on drone use, avoiding the moral disengagement and extrajudicial assassination concepts that make the CIA drone program a crime against humanity; O Hanlon simply loses his excellent mind completely, and babbles about changes on the margin. Below the line is the complete Table of Contents for the Brookings document, and relevant alternative perspectives by Robert Steele.
Power corrupts, no doubt about it. What most people miss is that it is not just about financial corruption that explicitly mis-directs scarce resources to benefit the few over the many (with Congress taking its standard 5% kick-back for delivering earmarks). Power also corrupts intellect. People forget how to think. They begin talking among themselves, shutting out external views, creating an incestuous cycle of circular citation. Col Mike Pheneger, then J-2 at the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) discovered this with respect to the Cuban Order of Battle (OOB), and I have found this myself on many occasions over the years.
Recently I have observed two deeply dysfunctional conversations in Washington. The first deals with intelligence and information overload, the second with the force structure requirements for the U.S. military beyond 2014.
Blithering Blobs of Blogdom
The intelligence discussion is best represented by SASA/INSA and The New America Foundation. The first fronts for the intelligence-industrial complex and the second for a mix of benefactors, none of whom appear actually interested in creating a government that works for all. Indeed, it can be said that the secret intelligence world and the “non-profit” think tank world share the same motivation: do whatever it takes to keep the money (inputs) moving, never mind the outputs or the outcomes.
New America Foundation blogged to CNN, November 21, 2012 |
A woman at the helm of the CIA wouldn't simply make another crack in the intelligence glass ceiling, it could effectively shatter it.
One of the most high-profile appointments President Obama will make in his second term is the director of the CIA. Here's a tip for the president: The time is ripe for the first woman to head the agency.
Choosing a woman isn't just about narrowing the intelligence community gender gap. It's also about drawing from the whole pool of talent to ensure the best national security apparatus and responding to Americans' apparent desire for more women in government. Here are the Top 10 reasons President Obama should name a woman as the next CIA director.
UN member states have historically been hesitant to provide the UN with an intelligence-collection mandate at either strategic (headquarters) or operational (field) levels. However, the increased size, length and complexity of peacekeeping operations, compounded by severe security threats to UN personnel, make a stronger UN intelligence capability in the field increasingly necessary.
Improving United Nations Intelligence