Communities of Practice – Page 914 – Public Intelligence Blog

BOYKIN: Congress asking the wrong questions on Benghazi

Lack of military response should be top issue

Washington Times, 26 December 2012

“Iknew wherever I was that you thought of me and that if I got in a tight place, you would come — if alive.” This statement was contained in a letter dated March 10, 1864, written by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. It expresses an ageless ethos among warriors, especially those within the U.S. military. The commitment to come to the aid of fellow Americans in times of duress and danger has always been one of the foundations of America’s fighting forces. Yet that appears to have changed on Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya, when no effort was made to respond to the calls for help by U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and his CIA team at the U.S. Consulate facility.

Why was there no attempt to save the lives of the ambassador and his colleagues, beyond sending an unarmed drone to observe their demise? The congressional committees investigating the events in Benghazi seem to have focused on the Sunday talk-show statements of Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who blamed the attack on an obscure anti-Islam video made by a relatively unknown man in California.

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Continue reading “Jerry Boykin: Benghazi — Focus on Failure of DoD to Rescue with Comment & Links by Robert Steele”

2012/12/272012/12/27

Chuck Spinney: Patrick Seale on The Kurds Seizing the Day

02 Diplomacy, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace

FYI … Another excellent report by Patrick Seale.

The Kurds Seize Their Chance

by Patrick Seale

Agence Global 25 Dec 2012

Many Kurds have come to believe that the present prolonged turmoil in the Middle East — in Syria and Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Iran and Turkey — is giving them their best chance of self-determination in modern times. They are determined to seize it. It could be that the map of the region is being redrawn before our eyes.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: This is a no-brainer for anyone with intelligence and integrity. The artificial boundaries imposed by centuries of empire are collapsing, in part because they are unaffordable to maintain, in part because Epoch B has begun and the world is reverting to the pre-empire eras where indigenous peoples in close harmony with nature established natural boundaries over the course of centuries. The US Government, nominally led in foreign affairs by the Department of State, is ignorant and arrogant. It has the temerity to believe that it can a) know better and b) impose its ignorant arrogant will on others. Those days are over. What we should be doing is striving to offer all dictators an exit strategy as Ambassador Mark Palmer (our choice for Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy) has been recommending, getting serious about self-determination, and butting out of the internal affairs of others.

See Also:

Mark Palmer, Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025 (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005)

Philip Allott, The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State (Cambridge University Press, 2002)

2012/12/272012/12/27

Jiemian YANG: Global Governance Limits and Potentials

02 China, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, IO Deeds of Peace, Officers Call, Policies, Threats

Limits and Potentials of the Developing Countries in Global Governance

Inclusive global governance is one of the on-going efforts of the developing countries in this fast changing and complicated world. This is a process that started in the 1960s and will continue for many years to come.

I. Current Roles of the Developing Countries in Global Governance. Among all the roles, the following three stand out prominently. (1) They are the promoters of the UN centrality and democratization of international relations. Actually they are evolutionary reformers of the existent mechanisms. (2) They are invigorators of new mechanisms to cope with new challenges of our times, both institutionally and conceptually. A case in point is their role of G-20 by pursuing consultation and cooperation with the developed countries during the ongoing financial crisis and economic difficulties. (3) They are initiators of mechanisms of developing/emerging powers, such as the BRICS. The forming of BRICS reflects the shifting distribution of powers and upgrading of the developing countries.

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2012/12/272012/12/27

Marcus Aurelius: CIA Self-Destruction Continues…

Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude

CIA's Secret Security Group Emerges From Shadows

High-risk assignments draw many from U.S. Special Forces

By Greg Miller and Julie Tate

The rapid collapse of a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya exposed the vulnerabilities of State Department facilities overseas. But the CIA’s ability to fend off a second attack that same night provided a glimpse of a key element in the agency’s defensive arsenal: a secret security force created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Two of the Americans killed in Benghazi were members of the CIA’s Global Response Staff, an innocuously named organization that has recruited hundreds of former U.S. Special Forces operatives to serve as armed guards for the agency’s spies.

The GRS, as it is known, is designed to stay in the shadows, training teams to work undercover and provide an unobtrusive layer of security for CIA officers in high-risk outposts.

. . . . . . . .

Bodyguard details have become so essential to espionage that the CIA has overhauled its training program at the Farm — its case officer academy in southern Virginia — to teach spies the basics of working with GRS teams.

. . . . . . . . .
“They don’t learn languages, they’re not meeting foreign nationals and they’re not writing up intelligence reports,” a former U.S. intelligence official said. Their main tasks are to map escape routes from meeting places, pat down informants and provide an “envelope” of security, the former official said, all while knowing that “if push comes to shove, you’re going to have to shoot.”

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2012/12/26

David Isenberg: Spanking Bill Kristol — and Other Neo-Cons

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Military

Take My Neocon — Please

In case you are not aware, Jews have long been drawn to and practiced humor. It is just a plain matter of fact that in any listing of top U.S. komikers (comics) over half of them are going to be Jewish. Think Bud Abbott, Woody Allen, Hank Azaria, Bea Arthur, Lewis Black, Mel Brooks, Lenny Bruce, George Burns, Billy Crystal, Al Franken, The Three Stooges, and The Marx Brothers, to name a very few.

So, as a duly certified member of the Chosen, allow me to explain what some of my fellow tribe members have been doing lately to bring comic relief to the American public. Please note that these are not the usual standup suspects we are accustomed to seeing on comedy clubs and late night talk shows.

No, these are a distinct subcategory of the Jocus Judaica species; otherwise known as Jewish neocons, a distinct, but voluble segment of the overall neocon community.

. . . . . . . . . .

Reading between the not so thinly veiled lines (to paraphrase from the Wizard of Oz; pay no attention to the neocon hiding behind the accusation of anti-Semitism) the criticism of Hagel comes down to the fact that he may be reluctant, perhaps even unwilling, -Oh Dear Yahweh! – to attack another Middle Eastern country, like, oh say, Iran.

Speaking as both a Jew and American military veteran if that is the mark of an anti-Semite we need more of them.

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2012/12/262012/12/26

Richard Wright: Friedman on Hagel — Zionists Backing Down? Steele Overview & Remember the USS Liberty

Ethics, IO Deeds of Peace, Media, Military

Given the out of control slander and vicious opposition of the Zionists and the neo-cons to Chuck Hagel's leaked nomination prospects, this comes as a pleasant surprise.

Give Chuck a Chance

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

New York Times December 25, 2012

In case you haven’t heard, President Obama is considering appointing Chuck Hagel, a former United States senator from Nebraska and a Purple Heart winner, as the next secretary of defense — and this has triggered a minifirefight among Hagel critics and supporters. I am a Hagel supporter. I think he would make a fine secretary of defense — precisely because some of his views are not “mainstream.” I find the opposition to him falling into two baskets: the disgusting and the philosophical. It is vital to look at both to appreciate why Hagel would be a good fit for Defense at this time.

The disgusting is the fact that because Hagel once described the Israel lobby as the “Jewish lobby” (it also contains some Christians). And because he has rather bluntly stated that his job as a U.S. senator was not to take orders from the Israel lobby but to advance U.S. interests, he is smeared as an Israel-hater at best and an anti-Semite at worst. If ever Israel needed a U.S. defense secretary who was committed to Israel’s survival, as Hagel has repeatedly stated — but who was convinced that ensuring that survival didn’t mean having America go along with Israel’s self-destructive drift into settling the West Bank and obviating a two-state solution — it is now.

I am certain that the vast majority of U.S. senators and policy makers quietly believe exactly what Hagel believes on Israel — that it is surrounded by more implacable enemies than ever and needs and deserves America’s backing. But, at the same time, this Israeli government is so spoiled and has shifted so far to the right that it makes no effort to take U.S. interests into account by slowing its self-isolating settlement adventure. And it’s going to get worse. Israel’s friends need to understand that the center-left in Israel is dying. The Israeli election in January will bring to power Israeli rightists who never spoke at your local Israel Bonds dinner. These are people who want to annex the West Bank. Bibi Netanyahu is a dove in this crowd. The only thing standing between Israel and national suicide any more is America and its willingness to tell Israel the truth. But most U.S. senators, policy makers and Jews prefer to stick their heads in the sand, because confronting Israel is so unpleasant and politically dangerous. Hagel at least cares enough about Israel to be an exception.

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Continue reading “Richard Wright: Friedman on Hagel — Zionists Backing Down? Steele Overview & Remember the USS Liberty”

2012/12/262012/12/26

Marcus Aurelius: Army Spreading Troops Around Africa?

Ineptitude, Military

A broad concept that illuminate the fact that Special Operations Forces are not available for such duties.

Army plans to shift troops to U.S. Africa Command

Aims for quick crisis response

U.S. Africa Command, the military’s newest regional force, will have more troops available early next year as the Pentagon winds down from two ground wars over the past decade, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, Army chief of staff, told The Washington Times.

As part of Gen. Odierno’s Regionally Aligned Forces concept, about 1,200 soldiers will deploy to Africa as early as March in an effort to place troops strategically around the globe to respond quickly to sudden challenges in hot spots such as Libya and to develop ties with the people and officials in host countries.

“It’s about us moving towards a scalable, tailorable capability that helps them to shape the environment they’re working in, doing a variety of tasks from building partner capability to engagement, to multilateral training to bilateral training to actual deployment of forces, if necessary,” Gen. Odierno said in an interview.

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