Communities of Practice – Page 819 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/06/04

SchwartzReport: US Elective Invasion & Occupation of Iraq: Gift to China (and Iran),. Biggest Blunder Ever, Biggest War Crime in Modern History

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

You and I, thanks to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Daniel Pipes, and a number of other lesser neocons, and an almost fatally incurious President, spent over a TRILLION dollars of public money, and squandered the lives of tens of thousands of young Americans who were killed, wounded, or permanently maimed, in order to achieve… nothing… for either America or Iraq, as t! his report makes clear.

Historians, I think, will say it was the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history. It has resulted in the destabilization of an entire region of the world, sucked out the money that should have gone to rebuilding our infrastructure and our schools, and laid the foundation for generations of anti-American hate throughout the Islamic world.

Fears of Civil War in Iraq After 1,000 Are Killed in a Month
PATRICK MARKEY – NBC News

As the previous story pointed out the deaths of thousands of Americans and some far large but never accurately counted number of Iraqis, and the wounding and maiming of hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis produced no benefits for either country and great damage to both. Even on the terms the neocons argued for the war: it would protect Iraq's massive o! il supplies for the U.S. (read the neocons' corporate masters) turns out to be wrong, as this story makes clear. Everything the Bush Administration based its policy decisions on was wrong, and China is the main beneficiary.

China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom
TIM ARANGO and CLIFFORD KRAUSS – The New York Times

2013/06/032013/06/03

4th Media: Syrian Rebels Retreating, Caught with Chemical Weapons — Call for End to Dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrein

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Military, Peace Intelligence

Al Nusra Front, a Key Syrian Rebel Force and a Foreign Terrorist Group Declared by US State Dept, Arrested with Chemical Weapons in Istanbul

Syria claims sarin seizure at rebel hideout as Russia ‘blocks’ UN’s Qusair resolution

If the Syrian Dictator Must Go… Why Not the Dictators in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain?

Hillary Clinton: “We Created Al Qaeda”: Protagonists of the “Global War on Terrorism” Are the Terrorists

2013/06/032013/06/03

SchwartzReport: Book on Congress Lacking Intelligence and Integrity — Literally Ignorant and Reduced to Partisan Posturing

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude

I cannot express how strongly I agree with this. My only critique: He does not properly place this in the context of the transition into the Age of the Non-geographical corporate states. If our democracy were functioning properly the lunatic Right Congresspersons would not be elected. Click through to see the interview. It is worth your time.

Journalist Explains How Utter Lack of Expertise in Congress Is Ruining America

ERIC W. DOLAN – The Raw Story

For his new book, journalist Robert Kaiser intensely researched the political maneuvering surrounding the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. His conclusion? Most members of Congress don’t understand what they’re arguing about.

Speaking on PBS, Kaiser said Wall Street reform only occurred in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse thanks to the unique talents of former Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). Unlike the rest of Congress, Frank and Dodds had an actual grasp on the financial situation and understood the need to act. Frank provided the brainpower, while Dodds’ political skill was necessary for financial reform to pass.

‘But it was upsetting to me as a citizen to realize how few members understood the issues they were dealing with,” Kaiser remarked. ‘These are, of course, extremely complicated financial matters, how banks work, how they’re regulated, so on.” ‘Not everybody can know this, but at the end, I concluded that you could fit the number of experts in Congress on financial issues easily onto the roster of a Major League Baseball team,” he added. ‘That’s 25 people. I think that is the max.”

Kaiser also said the lack of expertise was resulting in a deadlocked Congress. Rather than trying to craft meaningful legislation to aid the country, most lawmakers were more interested in scoring partisan political points. ‘You don’t really engage on issues in this Congress,” he explained. ‘What you engage in is political warfare, partisan bashing, one or the other. And the result is that serious policy issues, as we have seen again and again, get very short shrift.”

2013/06/022013/06/02

Berto Jongman: Professor Charles Kurzman Points Out Blatant Errors in World Map of Terrorism Now Posted at the Web Site of the NCTC

Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War

As Phi Beta Iota likes to say, “we do not make this stuff up.”

Dear US Government: Your ‘Terror’ map of the Muslim World is from the Time of Shakespeare (Kurzman))

Charles Kurzman is a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations. He is author of The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists (2011) and Muslim-American Terrorism: Declining Further (2013).

“The United States is not at war with Islam,” President Obama said last week at the National Defense University, in a speech that declared an end to America’s “wartime footing” in the fight against terrorism. President Bush said the same when he launched the war on terrorism in 2001: “We do not fight Islam, we fight against evil.”

But in America’s sprawling security establishment, not everyone has stayed on message. Until this week, the website of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) — the U.S. government’s primary counterterrorism clearinghouse — featured a map that appeared to identify the entire Muslim world as a terror zone.

All of North Africa, the coast of East Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, the north of India, and much of Southeast Asia was shaded in red. Wherever Muslims are a majority, the map implied, terrorism lurks.

But this map misrepresented the geography of Islamic terrorism, which has been concentrated in only a handful of civil war zones and is rare or non-existent in most Muslim communities.

The map also misrepresented American policy, which has avoided a blanket association of all Muslims with terrorism. The NCTC map literally threw a red blanket of terrorism over the Muslim populations of Africa and Eurasia.

Plus, the map was half a millennium out of date. A month ago, I finally remembered where I had seen it before. It was almost identical to the boundaries of the Muslim world in 1500, as depicted in William Brice’s Historical Atlas of Islam (see below) . Professor Barbara von Schlegell’s webpage has long posted this and other maps as a teaching resource.

Read full post with additional maps.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Professor Charles Kurzman Points Out Blatant Errors in World Map of Terrorism Now Posted at the Web Site of the NCTC”

2013/06/022013/06/02

2013 Army’s new mobile network to support its Afghan security mission

Ineptitude, IO Impotency, Military

Army's new mobile network to support its Afghan security mission

FORT DRUM, N.Y. (May 31, 2013) — As the U.S. mission in Afghanistan evolves from full spectrum combat operations to a support role in helping Afghan forces take hold of their country's security, unit commanders emphasize the need for network mobility.

Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T, Increment 2, the Army's improved tactical network communications backbone, was designed to fulfill such a mission.

“As we reduce our presence in Afghanistan, it is absolutely critical that we continue to understand what is happening around us, to understand the operational environment,” said Col. Sam Whitehurst, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), during a recent training exercise at Fort Drum, in preparation for his unit's possible deployment to Afghanistan. “My ability to take the information that I am hearing from my team leaders, and then share it with all of our Afghan partners, so they can correspondingly help confirm or deny that information and share what they are seeing, is one of the most critical elements as we go forward into Afghanistan over the next year.”

The mobile WIN-T Increment 2 network is being fielded as part of the Army's new capability sets. Capability Set 13, or CS 13, is the first of these fully-integrated fielding efforts, which are scalable and tailorable in design to support the changing requirements of current and future missions. CS 13 includes radios, satellite systems, software applications, smartphone-like devices and other network components that provide connectivity from the stationary command post to the commander on-the-move to the dismounted Soldier. WIN-T Increment 2 is the tactical communications network backbone that binds the capability sets together.

Continue reading “2013 Army's new mobile network to support its Afghan security mission”

2013/06/022013/06/02

Mini-Me: War Crimes as US Strategy, Policy, Operational Campaign, & Centerpiece for Tactics

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Officers Call

Huh?

Weekend Edition May 31-Jun 02, 2013

War Crimes as Policy

The CIA: Keepers of the Hit Lists

by DOUGLAS VALENTINE and NICOLAS J.S. DAVIES

In February the Guardian and BBC Arabic unveiled a documentary exploring the role of retired Colonel James Steele in the recruitment, training and initial deployments of the CIA advised and funded Special Police Commandos in Iraq.

The documentary tells how the Commandos tortured and murdered tens of thousands of Iraqi men and boys. But the Commandos were only one of America’s many weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Along with US military forces – which murdered indiscriminately – and various CIA funded death squads – which murdered selectively – and the CIA’s rampaging palace guard – the 5,000 man strong Iraq Special Operations Forces – the Commandos were part of a genocidal campaign that killed about 10% of the Sunni Arabs of Iraq by 2008, and drove about half of all Sunnis from their homes.

Including economic sanctions, and a 50 year history of sabotage and subversion, America and its Iraqi collaborators visited far more death and destruction on Iraq than Saddam Hussein and his regime.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: War Crimes as US Strategy, Policy, Operational Campaign, & Centerpiece for Tactics”

2013/06/022013/06/02

Berto Jongman: (YouTube 1:04:07) Christian Film on Muslim Terrorist Camps in USA (Part 1) – Part 2 (9:29) Also

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Immigration, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Civil Society, DHS, Government, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Movies, YouTube

35 Islmaic comunes across 22 states

Published on Dec 9, 2012

http://www.christianaction.org/

Scattered around the United States, unknown by most Americans, are dozens of Islamic terrorist-training compounds known as “Muslims of the Americas.” Under the leadership of a radical Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarik Gilani, Muslims of the Americas has thousands of devoted followers who are being groomed for homegrown jihad.

In never-before-seen video footage, Christian Action Network exposes these dangerous terrorist compounds and reveals for the first time a secret training tape in which American Muslims are recruited to “join one of the most advanced training courses in Islamic military warfare”… right here in America.

Part 2:

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: (YouTube 1:04:07) Christian Film on Muslim Terrorist Camps in USA (Part 1) – Part 2 (9:29) Also”