More than 150 house parties are being planned, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will join the parties by phone and webcast. For those in Manhattan, believe it or not, but there is only ONE event listed (60 Wall St, “the Atrium” which is also accessible from Pine St).
Marcus Aurelius: Death Notice for Counterintelligence
07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call
Combat Commanders Gain Control Of Counterintelligence Ops
By Carlo Munoz
AOL Defense, November 1, 2011
Washington: The Pentagon is offering field commanders control of counterintelligence operations to cope with the never-ceasing efforts by countries such as China, Iran and Israel to gain access to classified information and technology.
Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike Vickers approved the plan in an Oct. 5 memorandum. Groups such as Central Command and Special Operations Command can now choose to do their own CI work within their organizations, according to the memo. Formal investigations are still handled by the services.
“We gave the [combat commands] an option to develop an organic CI capability… or to rely on [the Defense Department],” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. James Gregory said. “We did not want to legislate either way but instead wanted to give [them] an option.” The decision comes as the Pentagon and intelligence community are preparing for a $25 billion to $40 billion budget cut over the next decade.
Phi Beta Iota: At the tactical level intelligence has always been the runt, generally one rank down from operations, and within intelligence, counterintelligence is where the runts of the runts go. Marty Hurwitz destroyed tactical intelligence with his consolidation of the General Defense Intelligence Program (GDIP) and the well-intentioned but badly conceived Joint Intelligence Center (JIC) concept. While Jim Clapper destroyed Marty Hurwitz, he did not make tactical intelligence (counterintelligence silent as in non-existent) healthy again, going on to make national consolidation every worse. There is a huge difference between security and defensive counterintelligence – they are not the same but ignorant commanders will treat them as one. There is a huge difference between defensive counterintelligence and offensive counterintelligence – no one in the US national intelligence community is competent as offensive counterintelligence, and the commanders will be oblivious to this until such time as we finally eliminate the regional commands and reset national defense and multinational information-sharing and sense-making. The budget cuts are trivial – $40 billion over ten years is $4 billion a year, that is a 4% cut on $90 billion a year, while at least 50% of what the IC spends now is fraud, waste, and abuse, 70% of that on contractor vapor-ware. The greatest enemy of America is a dishonest intelligence community that cannot do holistic analytics relevant to everything we need to know.
More practically, COCOMs consist of headquarters staffs and operational units sourced from the Services. Counterintelligence is currently a functional support service provided to the COCOMs by the Services and perhaps DIA. I know of no joint CI force structure designed for COCOMs. So, for COCOMs to run their own CI operations, they will require resources to be sourced, either permanently or temporarily, from the Services or from DIA, which itself gets its military personnel from the Services and competes with the rest of the Intelligence Community to hire civilians. That would serve principally to exacerbate existing shortages in counterintelligence personnel and force structure. In other words, Mike Vickers is not leading, he is scamming.
NIGHTWATCH: Drums of War Israel Iran USA
04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special InterestsIran-Israel: Iran is on “full alert” and ready to retaliate for any strike against the Islamic Republic, Iranian military officials warned Wednesday amid Israeli media speculation of plans for an attack.
“We consider any threat — even those with low probability and distant — as a definite threat,” said General Hassan Firouzabadi, the armed forces' chief of staff. “We are ready to punish them.” The United States also “will suffer serious damages should there be a military attack by the Zionist regime against Iran,” the Iranian chief of staff warned.
Comment: The significance of this statement is that it represents feedback to the Israelis that their chest thumping and foot stomping is registering in Tehran. It also makes clear that if Israel ever attacks Iran, Iran will attack US installations in reach as well as Israel.
Phi Beta Iota: We have learned not to underestimate the ideological idiocy of the neo-cons still entrenched across the US national security “regime,” nor the ineffectiveness of the White House is doing anything other than “going along.” Israel is out of control; the US Government is out of control; this does not bode well for anyone.
Cynthia McKinney: More Truth on Libya
04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government, Military, Movies, Officers Call
It's really sad when journalists want to print the truth, but are prevented from doing so because of concerns about keeping their jobs. It seems that is the situation today with the video that shows that all of the Libya destruction was built on a pack of lies. The video done by Julien Teil called “The Humanitarian War” demonstrates, in the words of the author of the original lie, that there was no evidence at all to back up the allegation that thousands were killed by the Jamahirya government, but that instead, a small circle of friends “worked” that lie throughout the various organs of the United Nations and the result is genocide of a people and contamination of a land.
Now, here's my request to you. Can you become a journalist for a day and post the video link to just a few of the sites that you visit regularly? If the real journalists won't do it, then could you? It is clear that we have to become the journalists that we seek.
Please post this video link to Daily Kos, Common Dreams, OpEd News, Democracy Now!, and the rest that we visit regularly. But could you also please visit FOX, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBC, Russia Today, PRESS TV, etc. and post it there?
I'll do my part, too, and make sure that it's posted to my sites or sites that I'm supposed to have control over. Only, I have to learn how to post! (That's another matter!)
Finally, if you haven't taken the time to watch this video, please do. It will take your breath away that all of this has been done by NATO to Libya and its foundation is a lie. What kind of people would do that to their own country?
Click here to have a look at Julien (not Jonathan) Teil's, “The Humanitarian War:” http://www.youtube.com/watch?
(Those of you in Europe, Africa, and Asia might want to use this link instead: http://www.
Chuck Spinney: No-Nothingism with Nukes
03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Below is a brilliant synopsis of America's defeat in Iraq. The author Patrick Seale, whom I had the pleasure of meeting last summer, is one of the leading authorities on the Middle East. Seale lays out the costs incurred and the unintended grand-strategic consequences of the US invasion of Iraq, and he reminds of us of its fraudulent origins. Contrast Seale's analysis with the self-serving pap peddled by Fredrick Kagan et al. in Weekly Standard that caused Col. XXX to do his atomic puke (distributed in my previous blaster).
The most disturbing point made by Seale, at least to me, is his observation that the people and politics of the United States show no signs of wanting to determine who is responsible for the Iraq catastrophe or to hold them to account. Without accountability and punitive as well as corrective action, the very idea of a representative republic becomes a sham, and the Constitution becomes a sick joke. Given the escalating danger in the Middle East, not mention our dangerous economic times, the absence of any self-correcting mechanism in the political OODA loops of people or government in the United States is a scary thing indeed, not only to the United States but also for the entire world — think of US politics as no-nothingism with nukes.
Chuck Spinney
Barcelona, Catalunya
America’s Defeat in Iraq and Beyond
by Patrick Seale, Agence France Global
Released: 1 Nov 2011
EXTRACTS:
Can America chance course? Nothing is less likely. It is widely predicted that if the Republican Mitt Romney wins the White House, the pro-Israeli neocons will be back in power in Washington. Their target this time will be Iran.
Phi Beta Iota: A superb article that names names. It is very likely that Occupy Wall Street is going to blow its one chance to demand an Electoral Reform Act of 2012, and that the next “president” will again be a puppet to Israel, extremist influences, and Wall Street. Romney is a suit – a corrupt suit. Obama is the same. The US Government no longer represents the US public, but Occupy Wall Street is so busy doing intense kum-ba-ya they are ignoring the one thing everyone can agree on: it's time to dump the two-party tyranny in the toilet and reset US democracy with open ballot access and the other nine elements of the Electoral Reform Act of 2012.
Reference: Why Spy? The Uses and Misuses of Intelligence
Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, White PapersSearch led to this. Thank you.
Why Spy?
The Uses and Misuses of Intelligence
by Stanley Kober
Stanley Kober is a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Executive Summary
America's intelligence agencies should devote their resources to the most serious security threats, principally international terrorism and adverse political trends. Instead, the Clinton administration has diverted the intelligence community to economic espionage.
The economic espionage mission is based on faulty assumptions and damages relations with governments whose cooperation we may need in dealing with significant security threats. Indeed, Washington's use of the Central Intelligence Agency for economic spying has already led to ugly incidents with Japan and France. The focus on commercial espionage also creates a myopic perspective from which developments such as massive corruption in another country are seen as merely economic factors, rather than harbingers of political instability.
There are more than enough bona fide security problems in the world to command the full attention of the intelligence community. The most serious is international terrorism. Penetrating and neutralizing shadowy and secretive terrorist organizations will pose a daunting task for the intelligence agencies. There are also disturbing political trends that warrant close scrutiny, including the continuing turbulence in Russia; China's emergence as an assertive, if not abrasive, great power; and early signs of a Beijing-Moscow axis motivated by hostility toward the United States.
It is essential, not only that the intelligence agencies focus their efforts on such actual or potential security problems, but that policymakers listen to the agencies' assessments, especially when those assessments raise questions about the wisdom of current U.S. policy. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration all too often seems indifferent if not hostile to such valuable early warnings.
Phi Beta Iota: There are some gems in here, for example, the US policy of demanding weak encryption in commerce so NSA does not have to work hard, only stupid. NSA is a monstrous tragic comedy, an expensive albatross that corrupts US intelligence in the extreme. The essay is wrong-headed on other point, not least of which is the raw fact that what our politicians and appointed policy people do every day in the way of treason against the public interest is THE greatest threat to the Constitution and the Republic.
DefDog: Afghan Surge Flops, Viet-Nam Deja Vu
08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
More evidence, as if we needed it, of the lack of integrity of this administration…..
New Afghan War Plan Concedes the Surge Fell Short
Spencer Ackerman
WIRED, 1 November 2011
As the Obama administration winds down its troop surge in Afghanistan, it’s adopted a new political strategy for ending the war. And that new strategy represents a tacit concession that the best the surge could accomplish was rescuing Afghanistan from from the brink of total failure.
What was the surge for, anyway? In one sense, as explained by President Obama, it was merely designed to stop the Afghanistan war from deteriorating. But Obama’s generals promised that it would do more — that it would whup the Taliban into suing for peace. And in the broadest sense of all, it would contribute to the Obama team’s ultimate objective for the region: to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaida.
Judged in the narrowest sense, then, the surge worked. Afghanistan is no longer spiraling into greater violence. But it’s failed to accomplish anything beyond that.
Read longer than usual, very pointed analysis of lies, delusions, and failure.
Phi Beta Iota: We've learned to expect a complete lack of integrity in our political, operational, and intelligence leaders. This is so “deja vu” of Viet-Nam. There is no accountability for failure in the US Government.
See Also:
Chuck Spinney: Time Favors the Taliban
Afghanistan Ground Truth: Deja Vu & Nested RECAP
Bob Gates: Flat Out Liar or Just Feeble? + RECAP
US Intelligence Lies to “Defer” to General Petraeus
Journal: Taliban Ramps Up North, Holds South + RECAP
Journal: Putin to Obama–Stay in Afghanistan + RECAP
Chuck Spinney: Bin Laden, Perpetual War, Total Cost + Perpetual War RECAP
Marcus Aurelius: US at Permanent “War” + War RECAP
1961-2011: 50 Years of The Military-Industrial Complex
David Isenberg: Jim Clapper Claims Transformation — Robert Steele Comments on Each Misrepresentation
