Corruption – Page 759 – Public Intelligence Blog

WinslowWheeler Cropped — Winslow Wheeler

Defense Budget Hysteria and Business as Usual – or Reform?

By Winslow T. Wheeler

Military.com, 9 August 2011

The rhetoric of people rushing to rescue Pentagon spending from “completely unacceptable” cuts is quite hysterical. Leading the chorus has been Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. He termed the possible defense budget cuts (about $850 billion over 10 years according to most) a “doomsday mechanism,” if the automatic sequestration trigger of Obama’s debt deal with the Republicans in Congress is pulled. Some think tank types, opining in the Washington Post and the New York Times, have deemed these reductions “indiscriminately hacking away” at the Pentagon’s budget and something that could “imperil America’s national security.” Their defense spending allies, including multiple generals and admirals sitting atop various Pentagon bureaucracies, confirm it all with descriptions like “very high risk” and “draconian.”

It should be pointed out that these people are underestimating the size of the potential cuts the new debt deal could theoretically cause. The $850 billion supposition measures the reductions against an artificial “baseline” from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that does not include the actual budget growth the Pentagon had scheduled for itself. Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments tells us in a useful analysis (“Defense Funding in the Budget Control Act of 2011”) that the debt deal’s automatic sequesters, if implemented, would mean $968 billion in cuts over ten years from the DOD budgets heretofore planned – over $100 billion more in cuts.

Read full analysis….

2011/08/09

Chuck Spinney: Time Favors the Taliban

03 Economy, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military

August 9, 2011

The Whack-a-Mole Endgame Begins in Afghanistan

Americans Have the Clock, But the Taliban Have the Time

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch

Cap Ferrat, France

Obama’s surge and de-surge has, therefore, created a reinforcing dynamic that is playing into the hands of the insurgents by seducing the United States into increasing its reliance on a pointless, reactive, “whack-a-mole” strategy. Like a judo specialist, the insurgents will use the expenditure of American energies to exhaust American forces and paralyze American political willpower by inducing our military to over and under react to an unfolding welter widely dispersed insurgent attacks

Read full analysis…

Phi Beta Iota: At home, the teen riots have started in Philadelphia. More riots are certain to follow, and more “random” shootings of anyone representing the US Government are likely west of the Mississippi. This is almost the perfect storm–all that is missing is a water failure in New York City followed by a firestorm, and massive epidemic across California.

2011/08/082011/08/08

David Isenberg: Military Sub-Contractors Managing Kitchens a Major Health Threat to Entire Battalions

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, DoD, Military, Officers Call

You Want Chicken Pox with That?

EXTRACT

The story of what might be called the ghost of chicken pox future starts with Najlaa International Catering Services (NICS), a KBR contractor, headquartered in Kuwait. NICS was solicited by KBR in the spring of 2008 to provide a Request for Proposal (RFP) for approximately 32 Dining Facilities (DFAC) at various military camps in Iraq under the Army's LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) III program. NICS subsequently won the contract.

Around the end of the first week of November 2008 it was discovered that NICS's temporary tent city housing camp at Victory Base Camp had a confirmed chicken pox case and 37 employees were supposed to be quarantined. NICS disputed with GlobalMed, its KBR-approved medical service provider, that it was a chicken pox case. NICS began to release the employees from the quarantine tent and put them back to work at the DFAC's.

Read original story in full….

Phi Beta Iota: This little-noticed story is actually–in our view–a major investigative expose. At multiple levels, from irresponsible acquisition to potentially catastrophic infections of entire divisions by “friendly contractors,” this is a story that merits much more attention. It is also a story that reinforces our view that contractors have no business being employed or engaged in a combat zone.

2011/08/082011/08/08

Richard Wright: DoD Drowning, Leaders Can’t Swim

03 Economy, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, IO Impotency, Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

The Perils of Cutting Defense Spending

The Public Intelligence Blog has speculated that the financial elites who indirectly are the principal influencers the U.S. Congress and the Presidency have decided that their best interests will be served if U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) spending is substantially reduced. It has long been obvious that DOD budgets have been bloated beyond any rationality so any real effect to bring those budgets under control should be welcomed.

Yet I have concerns about how DOD will respond to major reductions in military spending. The permanent senior civilian leadership of DOD and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), for the most part, appear to be completely devoid of integrity and indeed common sense. I seriously doubt if DOD leadership can be trusted to execute intelligent reductions in spending. I worry that the bureaucrats and JCS staffers will end up cutting back even further on support to our actual fighting forces (real men and women) in order to continue funding parochial badly conceived programs that are expensive, but often useless. There is such a close relationship between DOD and the Defense Industries that as the late Colonel John Boyd (USAF ret.) observed the real strategy of the JSC is to keep the money flowing (and increasing if possible). Too many military and civilian DOD officials use a revolving door between high level DOD positions and high paying defense industries jobs to be able to objectively evaluate the real worth of many defense projects.

Continue reading “Richard Wright: DoD Drowning, Leaders Can't Swim”

2011/08/082011/08/08

Penguin: Taliban Plussing Up Anti-Air? Deja Vu….

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Corruption, IO Deeds of War, Military, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Technologies

Improvisation by the Taliban, combined with decades of strategic, intellectual, and integrity shortfalls in DoD, equal death traps in the air. Note that the Taliban laid a trap to optimize body count AFTER the action was “over” and the helicopter was “going home.”

Did a New Taliban Weapon Kill a Chopper Full of Navy SEALs?

David Axe

WIRED, 8 August 2011

The passengers and crew of the twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook helicopter probably never saw the rocket hurtling towards them. The explosion and fiery crash in Wardak province in eastern Afghanistan early on Saturday morning killed all 38 people aboard the lumbering chopper.

For U.S. forces, it was the bloodiest single incident of the 10-year-old Afghanistan war — and possibly a sign of the insurgency’s continued ability to introduce new weaponry. The attack is also a chilling reminder of the vulnerability of the United States-lead coalition’s indispensable helicopters. “Shock and disbelief,” is how one official characterized the reaction inside the military.

Marcus Aurelius: 22 SEAL Team Six & Others Die in Old Slow Chopper, Because US DoD Never Cared About Training, Equipping, & Organizing for High-Altitude Mountain Warfare

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, IO Deeds of War, Military, Offbeat Fun, Peace Intelligence, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Standards, Strategy

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

British press report, unusually thorough, but miss the core point: why so many sent into combat in a single very old, very slow transport helicopter.

Special forces helicopter shot down in Afghanistan was on a mission to rescue U.S. Army Rangers

Daily Mail, 7 August 2011

Chopper brought down in rocket attack was on its way to aid other elite troops fighting militants
Names of American victims begin to be released
Twenty-two of the dead soldiers were from elite Seal Team Six
At 30 deaths in total, it's highest number of U.S. casualties in one incident
Seven Afghan soldiers die in the crash
President Obama mourns this ‘extraordinary sacrifice'
Afghan president sends condolences to Obama

Marcus Aurelius: White People! It Is Your Duty to Die.

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, IO Impotency, Policies

The below is provided as a window into emergent very strong feelings from the white middle and lower class that has been disenfranchised by Wall Street yet unwilling to focus their animosity on those who have failed to govern America in the public interest. This is a cultural intelligence snap-shot.

Politricks

YOU OLD WHITE PEOPLE. IT IS YOUR DUTY TO DIE

SO SAY THE HISPANIC LEADERS

By California Coalition for Immigration Reform

Augustin Cebada , Brown Berets; “Go back to Boston ! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die. Through love of having children, we are going to take over.

Richard Alatorre , Los Angeles City Council. “They're afraid we're going to take over the governmental institutions and other institutions. They're right. We will take them over . . . We are here to stay.”

Excelsior , the national newspaper of Mexico, “The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot.”

Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez , University of Texas; “We have an aging white America . They are not making babies. They are dying. The explosion is in our population . . . I love it. They are shitting in their pants with fear. I love it.”

Category: Corruption

Winslow Wheeler: Defense Budget Hysteria

Chuck Spinney: Time Favors the Taliban

David Isenberg: Military Sub-Contractors Managing Kitchens a Major Health Threat to Entire Battalions

Richard Wright: DoD Drowning, Leaders Can’t Swim

Penguin: Taliban Plussing Up Anti-Air? Deja Vu….

Marcus Aurelius: 22 SEAL Team Six & Others Die in Old Slow Chopper, Because US DoD Never Cared About Training, Equipping, & Organizing for High-Altitude Mountain Warfare

Marcus Aurelius: White People! It Is Your Duty to Die.