Communities of Practice – Page 738 – Public Intelligence Blog

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University, was Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and served as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. His most recent book is The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers our Future.

South Africa Breaks Out

NEW YORK – International investment agreements are once again in the news. The United States is trying to impose a strong investment pact within the two big so-called “partnership” agreements, one bridging the Atlantic, the other the Pacific, that are now being negotiated. But there is growing opposition to such moves.

South Africa has decided to stop the automatic renewal of investment agreements that it signed in the early post-apartheid period, and has announced that some will be terminated. Ecuador and Venezuela have already terminated theirs. India says that it will sign an investment agreement with the US only if the dispute-resolution mechanism is changed. For its part, Brazil has never had one at all.

There is good reason for the resistance. Even in the US, labor unions and environmental, health, development, and other nongovernmental organizations have objected to the agreements that the US is proposing.

Continue reading “Penguin: South Africa Opts Out of Predatory IMF/WTO System”

2013/11/09

Eagle: Google Testing Program To Track Everyone Everywhere

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption

300 Million Talons... — 300 Million Talons…

Google Is Testing A Program That Tracks You Everywhere You Go

Richard Feloni Nov 7 2013, 3:29 AM 41 2096

Google wants to know your every move

Google is beta-testing a program that tracks users’ purchasing habits by registering brick-and-mortar store visits via smartphones, according to a report from Digiday.

Google can access user data via Android apps or their Apple iOS apps, like Google search, Gmail, Chrome, or Google Maps.

If a customer is using these apps while he shops or has them still running in the background, Google’s new program pinpoints the origin of the user data and determines if the customer is in a place of business.

Google gets permission to do this kind of tracking when Android users opt in to the “location services” option in their smartphone’s options menu and when iOS users agree to allow “location services” for Google apps like Gmail and Google Maps.

The program was hinted at in an AdWords blog post from Oct. 1 regarding Google’s new “estimated total conversions” initiative. A “conversion” in this sense is a purchase, and Google is developing ways to track users across desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Google also mentioned that tracking conversions via phone calls is in the works, but has yet to release details.

Business Insider has reported on how Google is using cross-device conversion measurements in its war with Facebook for advertising supremacy. When advertisers are allowed to know as much as possible about users’ purchasing habits, they can target their ads more efficiently and reap the benefits. Measuring conversions is also important because it assures advertisers that their purchases are resulting in increased product sales.

Mobile users who search for products on their phones buy quickly after researching them, according to a Google/Nielsen report released on Tuesday. Consumers spend 15+ hours every week researching products, and more than half make their purchase within an hour after looking it up.

2013/11/082013/11/08

Marcus Aurelius: Five Takeaways from a Decade of War [Defense One] Plus Blistering Alternative View from Phi Beta Iota Editors

Ethics, Military, Peace Intelligence, Strategy

Five Takeaways from a Decade of War

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in a keynote address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies this week, signaled to military commanders that they should assume the across-the-board, automatic spending cuts imposed by sequester over the next decade will remain in place indefinitely. “We do not have the option of ignoring reality, or assuming something will change.” Before they decide how to shrink U.S. military forces and allocate scarce resources, however, uniformed leaders will have to decipher the lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to apply them to the coming era of austerity and global instability.

Hagel gave a preview of his own thinking when he argued that the Pentagon should protect investments in cutting edge technologies that are central to the evolving, network-centric model of warfare honed in those conflicts — to include space systems, cyber capabilities, “ISR” (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), and special operations forces (SOF).

Following Hagel’s speech, three senior retired generals offered their own thoughts on battlefield lessons. Here are five takeaways from the discussion by Gen. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Peter Chiarelli, former vice chief of the Army; and Gen. Ronald Fogleman, former chief of staff of the Air Force.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Five Takeaways from a Decade of War [Defense One] Plus Blistering Alternative View from Phi Beta Iota Editors”

2013/11/082013/11/08

NIGHTWATCH: CIA Kills Peace in Pakistan, Saudi Goes Nuclear [with Chinese Help?]

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Strategy

Pakistan-Pakistani Taliban: The Pakistani Taliban rejected peace talks with the government on Thursday after electing hardline militant Mullah Fazlullah as their new leader.

Earlier this month militant sources said that the consultative Shura council of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chose Khan Said Mehsud known as Sajna as the new leader. But the election of Sajna, who leads the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, reportedly was opposed by Taliban's other groups. Fazlullah was reported to have strongly objected to the choice of Sajna.

Shahidullah Shahid, the main spokesman for the TTP said talks with the government were a “waste of time” and the new chief Maulana Fazlullah was against them. “Holding of peace talks is not even an issue to discuss — this government has no authority, it is not a sovereign government, it is a slave, a slave of America. Holding peace talks is a waste of time.”

Fazlullah's men shot and wounded Malala Yousafzai last year, instantly turning Malala into a global hero for the education of girls.

Comment: Fazlullah's election does not necessarily mean that negotiations will never occur. Hardline leaders often are the only ones capable of negotiating with credibility. But that is for the future. Meanwhile, no peace talks are likely in the near term. Pakistani Pashtun savagery against Pashtun women will increase, including murder attempts against Malala in the UK.

Fazlullah's election signifies rejection of Prime Minister Sharif's peace overture. It also highlights a degenerative leadership pattern resulting from the US program of leadership decapitation. First, there is always someone waiting for the chance to be leader. Second, the new leaders are less experienced and wise than the men they replace. Third, the new generation of leaders is more extreme and theologically rigid than its predecessors. Finally, the new leaders tend to be unknown to intelligence relative to their predecessors. Decapitation is not a permanent solution to an insurgency or an uprising.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: CIA Kills Peace in Pakistan, Saudi Goes Nuclear [with Chinese Help?]”

2013/11/082013/11/08

Del Spurlock: Call to Arms — The People’s Army

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Military

The Objective force is one which maximizes the SECURITY of the American people. The American Security regime is a con and has been since Korea. All players–including Zion and Saud–have an interest in maximizing the INsecurity of the American people. DHS was the last imperial structure to be put in place. PRISM,et.al. was designed and implemented to enhance domestic domination and insecurity. So long as these “domestic” pieces remain in place and unchallenged there will be no honest assessment of force projection requirements.

Roughead's [February 2013] assessment of Army Force Structure is about right in my estimation, but as far as I know he never comes to grips with a honest assessment of total force requirements which must include a significant growth in an integrated reserve-guard force structure which assumes (from contractors–who profit only with increased insecurity) over the POM the bulk of DHS functions and structure AND simultaneously builds the only force structure sustainment functions (i.e., nation-building)possible for land forces–engineering, civic institution building and maintenance, dispute resolution,etc.

No matter what, there will be no honest assessment of the way forward without an honest lessons learned from the last ten years of institutional manpower failure. The problem? The perps are still in place perping.

The broad outline of citizen-soldier force projection–the most difficult concept to grasp–was surfaced over 25 years ago in this 1986 San Francisco Army Day Speech. This is the only speech I gave that the W-H chopped on. [Speech Below, and as Online PDF]

DLS

Armies are not inherently disciplined, nor responsive to the will of the people in whose name they purport to act.

Armies are not innately well led, nor representative of the societies from which they spring, nor humane in the treatment of those, within or without their ranks,
subject to their power.

Yet all of these characteristics have become accepted norms of performance, duty and responsibility for our Army. When there is deviation or perceived deviation from those norms, it is known to the world, and not simply within the platoon.

This is as it should be for an Army exercising the will of a free people. In this, our Army sets the standard.

Continue reading “Del Spurlock: Call to Arms — The People's Army”

2013/11/07

Owl: Monbiot: Corporate New World Order Dictatorship Close to Implementation, Democracy and Law for Ordinary People Nearly Dead

01 Poverty, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government

Monbiot: Corporate New World Order Dictatorship Close to Implementation, Democracy and Law for Ordinary People Nearly Dead

It's coming together piece by major piece for the Elite's plans of absolute and total world domination: imposition of GMO food and many toxic substance for human consumption, covert eugenics via not only food and water, but constant aerial spraying and massive and on-going vaccines of numerous types, a vastly increased and efficient surveillance and military control infrastructure imposed at a maniacally rapid tempo, the destruction of net neutrality and thereby guaranteeing control and closing down of almost all independent information flows on the Internet, and now, as seen so clearly in this article by Monbiot, the forced imminent world-wide imposition of a legal structure that will remove all protections from services and products that cause wide-spread disease in humans and all other living beings and toxify the entire planet and also cause immense cultural and economic dislocation for 50%-99% of all people. In short, as Monbiot says, this major piece will create, “as the Democracy Centre says…”a privatised justice system for global corporations”. This initiative will be key to utterly circumventing virtually ALL citizen-based efforts at protecting itself medically, politically, legally and economically, a citizenry which will be much reduced or weakened by covert eugenics, and those remaining who are not weakened, will be radically coerced and controlled by the military/police state.

2013/11/072013/11/07

Michael Shank: Why the White House Won’t Win the Afghanistan War…

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, Civil Society, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Strategy

Why the White House won't win the Afghanistan war

Washington Times, Wednesday, November 6, 2013 –

Cause, Conflict, Conclusion by Michael Shank, Ph.D.

WASHINGTON, November 7, 2013 — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry desperately needs a win on the Afghanistan war. Unfortunately, however, it appears increasingly unlikely he will get one.

Despite repeated visits and discussions, Kerry has so far failed to secure a clean Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Without an agreement, all U.S. and NATO forces – including the approximately 10,000 that the Pentagon wants to keep in country – would have to leave the country next year.

The immediate sticking point is on whether U.S. troops will receive immunity for misdeeds during the deployment, but the larger issue centers on respect, sovereignty and judicial non-interference.

Local populations are overwhelmingly against immunity for U.S. troops. In Afghanistan, most cases currently slide without reprimand or justice. This includes countless stories of abuse accompanying night raids, which Karzai has repeatedly attempted to ban. As is the case in Iraq, the Philippines and elsewhere, local populations want accountability within their own courts for U.S. troops who commit abuses in their countries. Americans would assuredly want the same treatment for foreign troops on U.S. soil.

After 12 years at war with Afghanistan, we continue to miss the mark on four fronts: strategy, cost, accountability and perception.

Continue reading “Michael Shank: Why the White House Won't Win the Afghanistan War…”