Category: Corruption

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Hillary Clinton: Torn Between Dictators & Rhetoric

02 Diplomacy, 07 Other Atrocities, Advanced Cyber/IO, Autonomous Internet, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Mobile
What's Wrong with This Picture?

UPDATED:  Robert Smith comment at Facebook:

“WHAT? Dictators $10 billion, Democracy lovers $25 million, hypocrisy priceless.”

Phi Beta Iota: It is actually much worse than that.  Our estimate of the cost of US being best pals with 42 of 44 dictators is closer to 500 billion, and that is a very conservative estimate.  The cost is roughly divided between US taxpayer money being given away for the wrong reasons, and the “true cost” to the world–and ultimately to the USA–of an unethical, uninformed, unstrategic foreign policy that is in no way, shape, or form focused on creating a prosperous world at peace.  Not to be naive, we realize that we have a government Of, By, and For the Banks and their Corporations.  That is what needs to change, non-violently, on the basis of Internet Freedom and Freedom through the Internet.  In passing, we are not amused when people steal our ideas and offer to help the US Government do for $3 million what we are doing for free.  Three Internet Freedom URLs with links below the line.

Clinton Pledges $25 Million for Net Freedom Fighters

Spencer Ackerman

WIRED February 15, 2011

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed on Tuesday to invest $25 million for developers to build tools that will let online dissidents get around “thugs, hackers and censors.” It’s her attempt at giving teeth to the so-called “Internet Freedom Agenda” that she unveiled last year.

Read rest of the report….

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CURVEBALL: The Interview + Integrity RECAP

Corruption
DefDog Recommends...

Curveball: How US was duped by Iraqi fantasist looking to topple Saddam

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi let imagination run wild and became main source for Colin Powell's case for war in 2003

Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war

Admissions vindicate CIA's former Europe chief

Read full article…

Phi Beta Iota: The story lacks context; Powell was not duped, he knew he was lying for his party, never mind that this left his integrity in the trash can.  If Curveball had not existed Dick Cheney and the Neo-Cons would have fabricated someone like him.  This is a classic case of integrity failure across the board.  The British, the Germans, the CIA, everyone knew this guy was a liar, but in a repeat of “reasonable dishonesty” as immortalized by Sherman Kent in talking to Sam Adams, everyone chose to let Dick Cheney get away with a massive crime against humanity and a massive crime against the American people.  Integrity.  Keeping your integrity matters; you pay a price in the short-run when surrounded by those without integrity, but in the long run, you honor your Oath to the Constitution and your obligations to God, country, and family.  It's a challenge.  See Paradigms of Failure for context–integrity is not easy.  Those of us that tried to fund full-page information pages against the war and the lies supporting the war were pushed back by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times (no doubt there were many other pushbacks).  America has become a cheating culture in which “anything goes” for short-term selfish gain, without regard to the long-term consequences.  Groundswell, Netroots, Smart Mobs, Wise Crowds, Generation 2.0, Youth Pirates, Everybody, all are  meeting huge resistance in the near-term.

See Also:

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NO LABELS Fraud Reprise….Hypocrisy Round II Mike Bloomberg Fiddling While David Walker Burns Money and Loses Time?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence

No Labels to tackle hyper-partisanship, fiscal responsibility, election reform

Ken Bingenheimer

National Common Ground Examiner
February 14th, 2011 1:28 pm ET

After soliciting the thoughts of its members, the No Labels organization has settled upon three areas of focus for the group's efforts: Policing partisan politics, promoting fiscal responsibility, and election reform.

No Labels founding member John Avlon announced this decision Monday during the weekly leaders conference call.

“Based on your feedback we have decided to focus on three core policy principles going forward.

Continue reading “NO LABELS Fraud Reprise….Hypocrisy Round II Mike Bloomberg Fiddling While David Walker Burns Money and Loses Time?”

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Good People, Bad System

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, InfoOps (IO), Reform
Who, Me?

Obama Isn't Trying to ‘Weaken America'

Some conservatives call the president the political equivalent of a suicide bomber: so consumed with hatred that he's willing to blow himself up in order to inflict casualties on a society he loathes.

. . . . . . .

In short, the White House record of more than 200 years shows plenty of bad decisions but no bad men. For all their foibles, every president attempted to rise to the challenges of leadership and never displayed disloyal or treasonous intent.

. . . . . . .

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: Both the extreme right and the extreme left persist in demonizing individuals while remaining oblivious to the fact that it is the two-party “system” (remember, there are 65 parties in America, 63 of them disenfranchised) that has with malice and deliberation “sold out” the US public.  The fact is that top-down governance is impossible anyway, it is pathologically dangerous when done by corrupt uninformed parties.  The ONLY thing that can get America back on track is Electoral Reform–yet to our astonishment, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Cynthia Mckinney, all others who would seem to have everything to gain by coming together and demanding Electoral Reform in time for 2012, remain silent.  Could they be part of the theater?  The ONLY agile governance in the age of complexity is collective self-governance rich in clarity, diversity, and integrity.  Electoral Reform is the only way to get there.

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US Intelligence Lies to “Defer” to General Petraeus

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Intelligence (government), Military
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

National Intelligence Estimate Failed to Register Taliban Growth

Deferring to Petraeus

By GARETH PORTER, Counterpunch, 14 February 2011

Despite evidence that the Taliban insurgency had grown significantly in 2010, the U.S. intelligence community failed to revise its estimate for Taliban forces as part of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan in December. That unusual decision was in deference to Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S.-NATO forces in Afghanistan, who did not want any official estimate of the insurgency's strength that would contradict his claims of success by Special Operations Forces in reducing the capabilities of the Taliban in 2010.

Read full story…..

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The Afghanistan War: Tactical Victories, Strategic Stalemate? With Comment by Chuck Spinney

Corruption, Government, Military
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The Afghanistan War: Tactical Victories, Strategic Stalemate?

David Wood, Politics Daily, 13 February 2011

The top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, likes to describe the tactical gains his troops are making against insurgents. But a stream of independent data and analysis suggests a wide gap between those battlefield gains and the strategic progress needed to convince a skeptical President Obama, Congress and the public to stay with the war effort for at least three more years.

. . . . . . .

But an estimated 7,000 insurgents who had given up and come over to the government later went back to fighting because of poorly managed and underfinanced programs to resettle and reintegrate them, according to a detailed study by the Afghan Analysts Network, an independent nonprofit research organization.

. . . . . . .

On a broader canvas, the United States continues to suffer a negative strategic impact, in part because of its involvement in Afghanistan, according to James Clapper, director of national intelligence.

He testified in Congress on Thursday that al-Qaeda continues to be able to recruit willing new fighters by aggressively exploiting such explosive issues as “the presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and U.S. support for Israel” all of which “fuel their narrative of a hostile West determined to undermine Islam.”

Comment by Chuck Spinney

Continue reading “The Afghanistan War: Tactical Victories, Strategic Stalemate? With Comment by Chuck Spinney”