Communities of Practice – Page 1127 – Public Intelligence Blog

Herewith is Stephen Walt's excellent critique of US grand strategy in the Middle East since 1990. My only comment is that he omits the pernicious influences of the arrogance that emerged from our misinterpretation of our “victory” in the Cold War and does not discuss the closely related emergence of Mad Madeline's nutty theory of the unipolar “indispensable power,” coupled to William Perry's fatally-flawed techno-theory of marrying coercive diplomacy to the so-called military revolution in hi-tech precision warfare (the latter explained in my essay here).

Chuck Spinney

Cap Ferrat, France

When did the American empire start to decline?

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Today is the 21st anniversary of a key date in world history. On this date in 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, setting in motion a train of events that would have fateful consequences for Saddam himself, but also for the United States. Indeed, one could argue that this invasion was the first step in a train of events that did enormous damage to the United States and its position in the world.

EXTRACT:

But no strategy is so bad that somebody else can't make it worse. And that is precisely what George W. Bush did after 9/11. Under the influence of neoconservatives who had opposed dual containment because they thought it didn't go far enough, Bush adopted a new strategy of “regional transformation.”

And in other news….

Think things can't get worse? Check out how the palace parasites are lining up to contain the debt ceiling in the Hall of Mirrors that is Versailles on the Potomac.

Debt Ceiling Bill's Super Committee Has Lobbyists Preparing

By ANNA PALMER, POLITICO.com, August 3, 2011

K Street wasted little time putting clients on notice about the next phase of the debt ceiling debate with a simple message: Nobody is safe from the super committee.

2011/08/052011/08/05

Patrick Meier: Crisis Crowd Sourcing the Diaspora

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, IO Deeds of Peace, IO Technologies, Policies

Crisis Mapping Somalia with the Diaspora

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Patrick Meier| Leave a comment

The state of Minnesota is home to the largest population of Somalis in North America. Like any Diaspora, the estimated 25,000 Somalis who live there ar closely linked to family members back home. They make thousands of phone calls every week to numerous different locations across Somalia. So why not make the Somali Diaspora a key partner in the humanitarian response taking place half-way across the world?

In Haiti, Mission 4636 was launched to crowdsource micro needs assessments from the disaster affected population via SMS. The project could not have happened without hundreds of volunteers from the Haitian Diaspora who translated and geo-referenced the incoming text messages. There’s no doubt that Diasporas can play a pivotal role in humanitarian response but they are typically ignored by large humanitarian organizations. This is why I’m excited to be part of an initiative that plans to partner with key members of the Diaspora to create a live crisis map of Somalia.

Reference: No More Secrets – Open Source Intelligence/Intelligence Reform Fight Round II

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Officers Call, Policies, Serious Games, Threats

Updated 4 Aug 2011 to add M4IS2

Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2)

2012 Manifesto for Truth: Expanding the Open Source Revolution (Evolver Editions, July 2012)

2010: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Trilogy Updated

2010 INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

2006 Briefing to the Coalition Coordination Center (CCC) Leadership at the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM)–Multinational Intelligence: Can CENTCOM Lead the Way? Reflections on OSINT & the Coalition

– – – – – – –

Short Review by Retired Reader

Long Review by Robert Steele

Reference: Open Source Agency (OSA) III

Reference: Open Source Agency (OSA) II

Reference: Open Source Agency (OSA) I

2011/08/042011/08/04

Chuck Spinney: Demonizing Iran, Bankrupting America

01 Brazil, 03 Economy, 05 Energy, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military

Making an Enemy of Iran

By Patrick Seale

Agence Global, 2 August 2011

It is now widely accepted – and lamented — that US President Barack Obama failed dismally in attempting to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Defeated by Israel’s hard-line Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, and by Israel’s friends in the U.S. — lobbyists, Congressmen and women, neo-conservatives, Christian Zionists, and assorted Arab-haters both inside and outside the Administration — the President threw in the towel.

What is less well understood is that Obama was also defeated in another major area of foreign policy – relations with Iran. When he came to office he vowed to ‘engage’ with the Islamic Republic, but this admirable objective was soon supplanted by a policy of threats, sanctions and intimidation aimed at isolating Iran, subverting its economy and overthrowing its regime.

Israel and its friends led the campaign against Iran, demonizing it as a threat to all mankind, and forcing the United States to follow suit. Israel has repeatedly, and very publicly, threatened to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities, and has done its best to drag the U.S. into war against it, in much the same way as pro-Israeli neo-conservatives – such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon — manipulated intelligence to push America into war against Iraq in 2003, with catastrophic consequences for the United States.

Read full analysis….

Phi Beta Iota: Brazil and Turkey are depicted as adults, the US as a retarded child misguided by Israel. There is no discernible difference between the Bush-Cheney Administrations and the Obama-Biden Administration with respect to foreign policy and national security, with one signal exception: the National Security Advisor is a Goldman Sachs lobbyist.

Wesley Clark interview (March 2007): “We plan to take out 7 countries in 5 years”

Chuck Spinney: Israel To Bomb Iran Soon + RECAP

Review: Endgame–The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

Review: Target Iran–The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change

2011/08/04

Event: 22-25 May Laguna Beach CA Future in Review

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Technologies

“The best technology conference in the world.” – The Economist

Future in Review Conference

May 22-25, 2012
Montage Laguna Beach
Laguna Beach, California

2011/08/04

DefDog: Doing the Wrong Things–Agriculture, Defense

01 Agriculture, 10 Security, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Military

Industrialized agriculture, and industrialized corruption in defense. Nobody is serious about creating safe, affordable, sustainable solutions for anything, from agriculture to defense.

Antibiotic resistance is a common feature of Cargill Salmonella outbreaks

Drew Falkenstein

Food Poison Journal, 3 August 2011

Competition for Military Contracts Doesn't Lower Costs

Joshua Foust

The Atlantic, 3 August 2011

Phi Beta Iota: Holistic strategic analytics with embedded full life cycle “true costs” is a non-negotiable first step toward global hybrid governance, with or without governments.

Review: Betrayal of Trust–The Collapse of Global Public Health

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Dereliction of Duty (Health)

1961-2011: 50 Years of The Military-Industrial Complex

Review: Prophets of War–Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex

Why Boeing is Imploding–Spinney, Sprey, & Reality vs Political Engineering & Government Spec Cost Plus

What’s Wrong with America? Let Me List the Books….

2011/08/032011/08/03

Cofer Black: Hackers Evil, Pay Me… + Hackers RECAP

Commerce, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Hacking, IO Impotency

Cofer Black Says Threat Posed by Hackers Same as Pre-9/11 Terrorism

Public Intelligence Net, 4 August 2011

not to be confused with Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog

Ex-CIA official sounds alarm about hackers’ next targets (CNN):

The former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center raised concerns Wednesday about an impending “code war” in which hackers will tamper not just with the Internet but with technology that runs real-world infrastructure.

Somewhat fittingly, Cofer Black’s keynote talk at the Black Hat hacker conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas was interrupted by a literal alarm: flashing lights, sirens and the whole bit.

“Attention, please. Attention, please,” a robotic woman’s voice said repeatedly as Black smiled, apparently confused. “We are currently investigating the alarm signal you are hearing. Please remain calm.”

After a pause and some laughs from the audience, Black kept going.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: He does not seem to realize he was put on the program as an inside joke, or that we all knew in 1990-1994 that cyber-space was going to be the next combat zone. What Mr. Black does not appear to understand, is that hackers are the good guys, while politicians, bureaucrats, and vendors who routinely betray the public trust are the bad guys. He is out of touch with both history and reality. He lives in a world of lies, not the world of truth. Only in the world of truth can problems be fully understood and intelligently addressed. Here above the line are one simple graphic and the most recent exposure of the cyber-scam that is on-going between ignorant Contracting Officers and equally ignorant vendors. Below the line are more references.

Graphic: Cyber-Threat 101

2010: OPINION–America’s Cyber Scam

Continue reading “Cofer Black: Hackers Evil, Pay Me… + Hackers RECAP”

Category: Communities of Practice

Chuck Spinney: Madness in White House, K Street Thrives