The comment on this article, the last sentence which is in red print, is the most telling. This whole article is a good example that proves two things:
1. There is “stuff” really is going on behind the scenes which is being kept secret.
2. It is difficult, if not impossible, to know who the white hats are and who the black hats are. In this case the general(s) who was “fired” might have been fired by the positive military because he was negative military, following cabal orders. Or he might have been fired by the cabal because he wouldn't follow cabal orders. We don't know without further information.
Face it, when it comes to social networks Google+ is not everyone’s favorite. User adoptions have been less than hefty and Google is not happy. What does the search giant do? Force people to sign up. ReadWrite reports that if you “Want To Comment On YouTube? You’ll Need A Google+ Account First.” In an attempt to cut back on haters’ comments on videos, Google will make anyone who wants to comment on YouTube videos sign up on its social network.
The goal is to clean up content and improve overall quality in the YouTube content section.
How many times have you watched a video on a video with serious content, i.e. animal cruelty, nuclear bombings, child abuse, or the 9/11 attacks, and someone posts a lewd comment or totally off base? As they say haters got to hate, but Matt McLernon, a YouTube spokesperson, wants the comment section to contain meaningful conversations.
Google never does something without a hidden agenda. It forces users to join the Google+ network. All Google users have been forced into this ploy one way or another and have said account, but that does not mean they use them. Google wants to drive its numbers up and may have a problem on its hands:
“The company is risking a user revolt by mandating all commenter’s be Google+ users, as many people are already unhappy that the service is being forced on them. YouTube will begin rolling out the changes on channel pages today, with the exclusive Google+ commenting and linking system due globally later this year.”
But you need to remember who these users are: YouTube commenters. No one takes them seriously in the first place, so staging a revolt probably will not do much. Good luck, though! Those snarky comments give you all the power in the world.
This is literally a sickening story, a cautionary tale of what happens when corporate interests trump national wellness and this is affirmed by all the branches of the government. It is no longer possible to take it as a given that food in an American supermarket is safe to eat. Here is the proof of that. There needs to be a citizen outcry about this, and it should be a major issue in the 2! 014 elections.
As an especially vicious salmonella outbreak sickens hundreds across the country, U.S. Department of Agriculture regulators have declined to crack down on the poultry processing plants that spread the pathogen. On Monday, the USDA threatened to close the California-based Foster Farms facilities, but decided to keep the plant open under scrutiny on Thursday night after Foster Farms submitted a plan for ‘immediate substantive changes to their slaughter and processing to allow for continued operations.”
The outbreak has sickened at least 300 people in 17 states, and 42 percent of the victims have been hospitalized – twice the normal hospitalization rate for salmonella. Yet neither state nor federal regulators have issued a recall order, stating the chicken is safe if fully cooked.
Since 9/11, two consecutive U.S. administrations have labored mightily to help Afghanistan create a state inhospitable to terrorist organizations with transnational aspirations and capabilities. The goal has been clear enough, but its attainment has proved vexing. Officials have struggled to define the necessary attributes of a stable post-Taliban Afghan state and to agree on the best means for achieving them. This is not surprising. The U.S. intervention required improvisation in a distant, mountainous land with de jure, but not de facto, sovereignty; a traumatized and divided population; and staggering political, economic, and social problems. Achieving even minimal strategic objectives in such a context was never going to be quick, easy, or cheap.
Eikenberry, Obama, and General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, March 2010. (Pete Souza / White House)
Of the various strategies that the United States has employed in Afghanistan over the past dozen years, the 2009 troop surge was by far the most ambitious and expensive. Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine was at the heart of the Afghan surge. Rediscovered by the U.S. military during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, counterinsurgency was updated and codified in 2006 in Field Manual 3-24, jointly published by the U.S. Army and the Marines. The revised doctrine placed high confidence in the infallibility of military leadership at all levels of engagement (from privates to generals) with the indigenous population throughout the conflict zone. Military doctrine provides guidelines that inform how armed forces contribute to campaigns, operations, and battles. Contingent on context, military doctrine is meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive.
Broadly stated, modern COIN doctrine stresses the need to protect civilian populations, eliminate insurgent leaders and infrastructure, and help establish a legitimate and accountable host-nation government able to deliver essential human services. Field Manual 3-24 also makes clear the extensive length and expense of COIN campaigns: “Insurgencies are protracted by nature. Thus, COIN operations always demand considerable expenditures of time and resources.”
The apparent validation of this doctrine during the 2007 troop surge in Iraq increased its standing. When the Obama administration conducted a comprehensive Afghanistan strategy review in 2009, some military leaders, reinforced by some civilian analysts in influential think tanks, confidently pointed to Field Manual 3-24 as the authoritative playbook for success. When the president ordered the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops into Afghanistan at the end of that year, the military was successful in ensuring that the major tenets of COIN doctrine were also incorporated into the revised operational plan. The stated aim was to secure the Afghan people by employing the method of “clear, hold, and build” — in other words, push the insurgents out, keep them out, and use the resulting space and time to establish a legitimate government, build capable security forces, and improve the Afghan economy. With persistent outside efforts, advocates of the COIN doctrine asserted, the capacity of the Afghan government would steadily grow, the levels of U.S. and international assistance would decline, and the insurgency would eventually be defeated.
Blindly following COIN doctrine led the U.S. military to fixate on defeating the insurgency while giving short shrift to Afghan politics.
I've waited two days with this story waiting to see if it was picked up. It was not. Think about what President Carter is saying, and ask yourself: Why didn't this story get coverage.
Phi Beta Iota: The actual unemployment rate in the USA is 22.4%. Only 47% of adults have a full time job, all others are either juggling two or more part time jobs without benefits, or unemployed. If the government cannot tell the truth about anything, we can hardly expect it to actually work in the public interest.
I've been grappling with a simple question. Is the use of national interest, as the basis of security and foreign policy, a dumb idea in the present context?
National interest is a construct from the realism school of policy. Realism is simply a case by case analysis of the costs and benefits of actions relative to the interests of the state, without reference to ideology or ideals (capitalism, communism, religion, etc.).
Realism assumes that the world is an anarchic, in a Hobbsian dog eat dog way, and that nation-states need to be selfish in order to survive.
Of course, things have changed since that formulation was developed. In particular, we're now living in a world that is:
As I Have Said Before: Things Are NOT What They Seem 
