Corruption – Page 756 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/08/192011/08/19

Chuck Spinney: NATO and Libya – What Next?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

The interplay of chance with necessity means that no one can predict the future evolutionary pathway in Libya or the US role in Libya, but Ted Galen Carpenter of the libertarian CATO Inst. provides a thoughtful lens for thinking about potential ramifications of NATO's precipitate intervention in Libya.

Key issues discussed:

De facto or de jure partition vs a unification that sows the seeds of future conflict?
How to replenish empty Libyan treasury and repair infrastructure (including restoring oil production capability)?
Will US get sucked into another NATO stabilization, peacekeeping, nation-building mission?

NATO’s New Problem: Post-Qaddafi Libya?

Ted Galen Carpenter, The National Interest, August 18, 2011

After weeks of very little movement either militarily or diplomatically in Libya, there are apparent developments on both fronts in recent days. Rebel forces, aided by NATO’s air support, finally appear to be advancing into western Libya and cutting off supply lines to Tripoli, the long-time stronghold of support for Muammar Qaddafi. And reports are swirling about secret negotiations that might provide a peaceful exit from the country for the aging dictator.

Those developments underscore that U.S. and NATO officials urgently need to consider what strategy they intend to pursue if Qaddafi’s more-than-four-decade hold on power finally comes to an end. That is more crucial for the leaders of the European members of the alliance, since Libya is located on Europe’s Mediterranean flank, but because the Obama administration unwisely chose to involve the United States in Libya’s internecine conflict by launching air strikes, it has become a pertinent issue for Washington as well.

The outlook for a post-Qaddafi Libya is midpoint between sobering and depressing. It is possible that the warring parties will accept a de facto division of the country between the eastern and western tribes, although a formal agreement to that effect is unlikely. Even an informal partition would more accurately reflect the demographics, politics, and history of that territory than an insistence on keeping Libya intact.

John Robb: 147 Banks & Corporations as Global Financial Cancer, Gray Markets Fairs, Urban Foraging

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Blog Wisdom, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Corporations, Corruption, IO Impotency, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth

JOURNAL: Global Financial Cancer

EXTRACT: A new paper, The Network of Global Corporate Control by Vitali et. al. from ETH in Zurich. This paper finds, through extensive network analysis, that a small group of tightly intertwined financial institutions control the bow of the global financial system. It is in effect, the world's first super-organism. 147 trans-national companies that the global core that is owned by itself (3/4 of the ownership of firm's in this organism are owned by firms in the organism). This organism is beyond governments. If it is self serving (and this shouldn't be too hard to assume), it is the equivalent of a biological cancer that has metastasized.

JOURNAL: Grey Market Fairs

Maker grey market ecosystem in China. Note how the Shanzhai Rules are reminiscent of the standing orders of OSW.

Foraging on vacant lots. The NYTimes dives in.

Phi Beta Iota: The day will come when the executives of the 147 transnational companies find themselves kidnapped, renditioned, and tortured until they make restitution by giving up the majority of their ill-gotten gains. We anticipate a mix of vigilante, criminal, and third world governments getting into this business. On the other end of the spectrum, we anticipate a massive withdrawal of normal people from the fraud-ridden world of banking and government-printed money. The two go together.

2011/08/17

Chuck Spinney: US versus Iran on Uranium-Lack of Integrity

05 Iran, 08 Proliferation, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Peace Intelligence

Spinning Iran's centrifuges

By Yousaf Butt, Asia Times, Aug 16, 2011

Yousaf Butt is a nuclear physicist and is currently serving as a scientific consultant to the Federation of American Scientists on global security issues. Previously, he was a fellow on the Committee on International Security and Arms Control at the US National Academy of Sciences, and on the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Consider yourself warned – “[I]n the next few years Iran will be in position to detonate a nuclear device,” so writes Ray Takeyh, confidently, in a recent Washington Post OpEd [1]. Why? Because the Iranian government willingly informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it would begin installing additional centrifuges with higher capacity to enrich uranium. [2]

Just like fertilizer can be used to increase crop yields – or make bombs – uranium is a dual use material.

Read full article.

2011/08/16

Penguin: Classic Corruption in Zambia in re Mining Taxes

Corruption, Government

A bit dated but still important. BBC reports evidently suppressed.

Refusing windfall tax is an injustice – Sardanis

By Joe Kaunda and Chiwoyu Sinyangwe

The Post Online, 12 November 2010

Andrew Sardanis has described the government's refusal to reinstate the windfall tax regime in the mining sector as an injustice to the country.

And economic consultant Bob Sichinga has advised opposition political parties to make the issue of restoring windfall tax a campaign issue in next year's general elections.

In an interview, Sardanis who presided over negotiations during the nationalisation of the mines under the Kenneth Kaunda administration, said he was appalled to learn that government was only getting 2.6 per cent in revenue from the exports of copper that stood at US$2.9 billion despite the huge boom in metal prices.

“…in other words a total tax of only 2.6 per cent of total revenue. When the mines were bought by the current owners, the copper prices stood around US $1,500 per tonne, but the price has shot up to the current over US $8,500,” Sardanis observed.

Read full article….

2011/08/162011/08/17

Koko: CIA Bows to Islamic Radicals, with Strong Comment on Need for Religious Counterintelligence

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Officers Call

Below is an exact reprint from the Association For Intelligence Officers (AFIO). HOWEVER, AFIO does not endorse the tone of the article, only the fact of its appearance.

The CIA Should be a bit more ‘CAIR'less. This week, a three-day conference hosted by the CIA on “homegrown radicalization” was supposed to have taken place at CIA headquarters. It did not. The conference was abruptly canceled – or, softening the blow, “postponed.” Question: Did pressure from what we might (and should) call a certain “homegrown radical” group – the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) – make this happen?

Here is what we know.

On Monday, July 18, CAIR issued a press release headlined: “CAIR Asks CIA to Drop Islamophobic Trainer.” It revealed that CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad wrote a letter to now-former CIA Director Leon Panetta to that effect. The rest of the release is more opaque. In referencing an NPR report that slammed one counterterrorism trainer by name, former FBI agent John Guandolo, for “allegedly smearing” an “Ohio Muslim” in a presentation, CAIR noted that an entirely different trainer, unnamed, was “scheduled to hold a similar session in August for the CIA.” (Full disclosure: Guandolo and I are among 19 co-authors of Shariah: the Threat to America.) The August CIA “session” appears to be the driver of both the CAIR release and letter asking the CIA, as the headline put it, to “Drop Islamophobic Trainer.”

Continue reading “Koko: CIA Bows to Islamic Radicals, with Strong Comment on Need for Religious Counterintelligence”

2011/08/16

Chuck Spinney: The S&P Downgrade Market Plunge Myth

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Law Enforcement, Media, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

The S&P Downgrade Market Plunge Myth

Monday 15 August 2011

by: Dean Baker, Truthout | News Analysis

The Wall Street crew that wants to cut your Social Security and Medicare benefits are sensing that victory is in sight. They have managed to knock jobs completely off the agenda and have made deficit reduction the near exclusive focus of economic policy in Washington. They are now setting the stage to have the Congressional “super committee” produce a deal that will mean large cuts in both programs.

The backdrop for these cuts is that the country is in crisis and that we have no choice. A central part of this story is that the stock market crashed last week in response to the Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgrade of US government debt. The Wall Street crew and their allies in the media and Congress will tell the country that if we don't have the cuts in Social Security and Medicare demanded by S&P then we run the risk of further downgrades. This raises the prospect of further market panics and the complete wreckage of the economy.

This story has as much credibility as John Edwards' tales of marital bliss during his presidential campaign.

Read rest of article.

Phi Beta Iota: A couple of things are clear, the first being that Barack Obama is not in charge of anything, the second being that New York–Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, the Koch Brothers–is. From the Tea Party funded and manipulated by the Koch brothers, to the idiotic lack of intellent analysis from the newspapers and broadcast stage, what we have here is theater. The truth is nowhere to be found between New York and Washington.

2011/08/16

Cheery Waves: Four of Five CIA Bay of Pigs History Books Released by National Security Archive

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

Archive Cuba Project posts Four Volumes; calls for declassification of still secret Volume 5

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 355

Posted – August 15, 2011

By Peter Kornbluh

For more information contact:
Peter Kornbluh – 202/374-7281 or by email

EXTRACT

In perhaps the most important revelation of the entire official history, the CIA task force in charge of the paramilitary assault did not believe it could succeed without becoming an open invasion supported by the U.S. military. On page 149 of Volume III, Pfeiffer quotes still-secret minutes of the Task Force meeting held on November 15, 1960, to prepare a briefing for the new President-elect, John F. Kennedy: “Our original concept is now seen to be unachievable in the face of the controls Castro has instituted,” the document states. “Our second concept (1,500-3000 man force to secure a beach with airstrip) is also now seen to be unachievable, except as a joint Agency/DOD action.”

This candid assessment was not shared with the President-elect then, nor later after the inauguration. As Pfeiffer points out, “what was being denied in confidence in mid-November 1960 became the fact of the Zapata Plan and the Bay of Pigs Operation in March 1961”—run only by the CIA, and with a force of 1,200 men.