Corruption – Page 744 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/09/22

Chuck Spinney: Middle East New Geopolitical Map

02 Diplomacy, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

In this very important essay, one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East explains the tectonic shifts taking place that are clearly leaving the United States and Israel on the wrong side of history.

The Middle East’s New Geopolitical Map

by Patrick Seale

Agence Global, 20 Sep 2011

The Arab Spring is not the only revolution in town. The toppling of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya; the mounting death toll in Syria and Yemen, where the outcome is still undecided; the revival of long-suppressed Islamic movements demanding a share of power; the struggle by young revolutionaries to re-invent the Arab state — all these dramatic developments have distracted attention from another revolution of equal significance.

It is the challenge being mounted by the region’s heavyweights — Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran — against the hegemony which the United States and Israel have sought to exercise over them for more than half a century.

. . . . . . .

America’s most grievous mistake, however — the source of great harm to itself, to Israel, and to peace and stability in the Middle East — has been to tolerate Israel’s continued occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians. These policies have aroused intense hate of Israel in the Arab and Muslim world and great anger at its superpower protector.

We are now witnessing a rebellion against these policies by the region’s heavyweights — in effect a rebellion against American and Israeli hegemony as spectacular as the Arab Spring itself. The message these regional powers are conveying is that the Palestine question can no longer be neglected. Israel’s land grab on the West Bank and its siege of Gaza must be ended. The Palestinians must at last be given a chance to create their own state. Their plight weighs heavily on the conscience of the world.

. . . . . . .

Turkey, Iran and Egypt, heirs to ancient civilizations, are thus asserting themselves against what they see as an Israeli upstart. Saudi Arabia, the region’s oil and financial giant, guardian of Islam’s holiest sites, is breaking free from the constraints of the American alliance.

Israel stands accused. Will it heed the message or shoot the messenger? If true to its past form, it might well try to fight its way out of the box in which it now finds itself, further destabilising the region and attracting to itself further opprobrium.

Read full article.

2011/09/21

Marcus Aurelius: US Intelligence Still Ignorant in Languages

04 Education, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Impotency, Methods & Process, Officers Call

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

Nothing changes….

US spy agencies ‘struggle with post-9/11 languages'

Despite intense focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East in the last decade, U.S. spy agencies are still lacking in language skills needed to talk to locals, translate intercepted intelligence and analyse data, according to top intelligence officials.

Telegraph, 20 September 2011

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks prompted a major push for foreign language skills to track militants and trends in parts of the world that were not a Cold War priority.

But intelligence agencies have had to face the reality that the languages they need cannot be taught quickly, the street slang U.S. operatives and analysts require is not easy, and security concerns make the clearance process lengthy.

As recently as 2008 and 2009, intelligence officials were still issuing new directives and programs in the hopes of ramping up language capability.

“Language will continue to be a challenge for us,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said at a congressional hearing last week.

“It's something we're working at, and will continue to do so, but we're probably not where we want to be,” he said.

Phi Beta Iota: Languages are not hard–what is hard is the “leadership” culture incapable of leading. US citizens by birth are never going to learn foreign languages as needed. There are just TWO solutions, both executable today, all it takes is integrity at the top, long missing:

1. Exempt case officers and others “on the street” from the idiotic security clearance requirements. Hire to qualifications and manage to risk. This includes restoration of the “principle agent” category as well as the third-country subject-matter expert category. They never see secrets, they just do what they do, very well.

2. Adopt the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) model of regional field stations in which multinational cadres of case officers and analysts are supported by US money and US technology. Again, they never see secrets and are firewalled during active ops.

See Also:

Graphic: Language Basics

Graphic: OSINT Multinational Outreach Network

Graphic: OSINT, We Went Wrong, Leaping Forward

Journal: Secret World Still Short on All Languages

Journal: Military says linguists can’t keep up in Afghanistan

2011/09/20

Steven Aftergood: Four Million Security Clearances Plus…

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Intelligence (government)

Number of Security Clearances Soars

September 20th, 2011 by Steven Aftergood

The number of persons who held security clearances for access to classified information last year exceeded 4.2 million — far more than previously estimated — according to a new intelligence community report to Congress (pdf).

The report, which was required by the FY2010 intelligence authorization act, provides the first precise tally of clearances held by federal employees and contractors that has ever been produced. The total figure as of last October 1 was 4,266,091 cleared persons. See “Report on Security Clearance Determinations for Fiscal Year 2010,” Office of the Director of National Intelligence, September 2011.

In 2009, the Government Accountability Office had told Congress that about 2.4 million people held clearances “excluding some of those with clearances who work in areas of national intelligence.” (“More Than 2.4 Million Hold Security Clearances,” Secrecy News, July 29, 2009). But even with a generous allowance for hundreds of thousands of additional intelligence personnel, that estimate somehow missed more than a million clearances.

Likewise, one of the many startling findings in the 2010 Washington Post series (and 2011 book) “Top Secret America” by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, was that “An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.”

But remarkably, that too was a significant underestimate, according to the new report. In actual fact, as of October 2010 there were 1,419,051 federal employees and contractors holding Top Secret clearances.

As high as the newly determined total number of clearances is, it may not be the highest number ever. In the last decade of the cold war, a comparable or greater number of persons seems to have had security clearances. In those years the size of the uniformed military was much larger than today, and a large fraction of its members were routinely granted clearances. Thus, as of 1983, there were approximately 4.2 million clearances, according to 1985 testimony (pdf) from the GAO. But that was an estimate, not a measurement, and the actual number might have been higher (or lower). By 1993, the post-cold war number had declined to around 3.2 million clearances, according to another GAO report (pdf) from 1995.

The unexpectedly large number of security clearances today can presumably be attributed to several related factors: the surge in military and intelligence spending over the past decade, increased government reliance on cleared contractors, and intensive classification activity that continues today.

Phi Beta Iota: For $80-90 billion a year, $15 billion or so of which is the cost of maintaining one of the most extraordinarily inept and unreliable secrecy systems on the planet (much much larger than those of all dictators combined), we get, “at best” 4% of the intelligence (decision-support) that the President or a major commander needs, and nothing for everyone else.

See Also:

Graphic: Jim Bamford on the Human Brain

Graphic: Tony Zinni on 4% “At Best”

Open Source Agency: Executive Access Point

Review: No More Secrets – Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence

Review: Top Secret America – The Rise of the New American Security State

2011/09/202011/09/20

DefDog: Laser to Detect Improvised Explosive Devices (IED)

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Academia, Corruption, DoD, Government, Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, Methods & Process, Military

JIEDDO spent north of $1 Billion and climbing and was not able to do what these guys have…..

Researchers Say Laser Could Detect Roadside Bombs

By Chloe Albanesius

PCMag.com, September 19, 2011

Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a laser that could be used to detect roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The device is no stronger than a typical presentation pointer, but it has the sensitivity and selectivity to scan large areas and detect the chemicals used in these deadly bombs, which have accounted for about 60 percent of soldier deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Chuck Spinney: Perspective on Turkey-Israel Relations

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

Below is an excellent perspective on Turkish – Israeli relations and the irresponsible Israeli-neocon effort to smear Turkey with the phony charge of islamo-fascisim (itself a logically absurd term). While Hadar thinks, in my view correctly, Ataturk would back Erdogan's policies, one thing he does address is how Ataturk might have reacted to Israel's provocations, especially the murder of Turkish nationals in raid on the Gaza Peace Flotilla, followed by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's incredibly stupid threat to give aid to the PKK. Based on my limited knowledge of the man, I think Ataturk's reaction to such ham-fisted tactics would have made Prime Minister Erdogan's reaction look downright lovable.

Chuck Spinney
Carnon Plage, France

Turkish Foreign Policy: What Would Ataturk Do?

Leon T. Hadar

Huffington Post, 9/16/11

Even before the crisis in the relationship between Israel and Turkey over the raid on the Gaza “Peace Flotilla” had erupted last December, right-wing Israelis and American neoconservatives were promoting a new Grand Narrative: Turkey was joining forces with Iran and Syria in an anti-American and anti-Israeli Islamofascist Axis of Evil, seeking to destroy the Jewish State as part of a long-term strategy of re-establishing the Ottoman Empire and a Global Caliphate. Turkey was becoming the New Iran.

Cynthia McKinney: Wes Clark on US Foreign Policy Coup

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

A remarkable talk by Wesley Clark–4-Star General in the U.S. military: he reveals his reaction to informaton that the U.S.was going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in 5 years–Iraq, Syria,Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran. He goes on to say, “These people [from the Project for a New American Century] took control of the policy of the United States” and recalls a 1991 meeting he had with Paul Wolfowitz who at that time held the number three position at the Pentagon. Pay close attention to what Wolfowitz told him. This talk by Wesley Clark made my jaw drop.

Former 4-star U.S General admits to America Foreign Policy Coup

Uploaded by TheRonPaulAffect on Sep 2, 2011

8 minutes 14 seconds

2011/09/19

Chuck Spinney: No Freedom for Palestine Says Obama

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War

… My Cairo speech may have felt good, but I urge patience. Please remember, I ‘lead from behind,' and so the steering wheel of my ship of state is not connected to its rudder. There is nothing I can or will do to change its course. Hopefully, if the ship of state stays its own course, I might pass through a hole in the line of shoals in front of me (i.e., BiBi, Hillary, Congress, AIPAC, Rick Perry, the House Republicans, etc.), and then I will be able to lead from behind until 2016.

Published on Sunday, September 18, 2011 by EricMargolis.com

No Freedom for Palestine, Thunders Washington

by Eric Margolis

Could we see a great leap forward next week on the Palestinian’s long quest for statehood? Not quite. The Palestinian Authority (PA) says it will ask the United Nations General Assembly to upgrade from being a non-voting “observer entity” to an “observer state.” This bureaucratic-sounding change hardly seems earthshaking. The Vatican is an “observer state.”

But the earth is shaking. A majority of the world’s nations are fed up by the endless suffering of the stateless Palestinians and support creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza.

Turkey’s increasingly influential premier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, went to Cairo last week and spoke for the world: “Let’s raise the Palestinian flag and let that flag be the symbol of peace and justice in the Middle East.”

The United States is desperately scrambling to head off a favorable vote in the UN. Washington threatens to veto any pro-Palestine vote in the Security Council – that alone can grant statehood status to a new state. The US is exerting huge pressure on allies and dependant states to vote against any resolution in the General Assembly.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: US “policy” on Israel (can do no wrong) and Palestine (let them eat dirt) is the single most compelling example of corrupt ideological idiocy, treason against the public interest both at home and abroad. We all want Israel to be safe and prosperous–most us, the rabid and the corrupt not-withstanding–also want Palestine to be safe and prosperous, a contiguous state free from Israeli genocide and other atrocities. As Chuck Spinney has noted in the past, the Middle East is a nuanced complex problem that demands intelligence and integrity applied in a holistic manner–the Israelis for example, are single-handedly stealing most of the water from the Arab aquifers for an agricultural “miracle” that produces 4%, at best, of the Israeli GDP. This is nuts. In Washington, “nuts” is policy.