Corruption – Page 824 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/02/012011/02/01

Americans Admire Military Personnel While Being Unaware & Uninterested in What They Do “In Our Name”

02 Diplomacy, 04 Education, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, Civil Society, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Media, Military, Policy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

Troops Die Because of Their Country, Not For It

US admiration for its soldiers may be deep and widespread, but interest in what they are doing is shallow and fleeting

by Gary Younge
Published on Monday, January 31, 2011 by The Guardian

Most of the stories told about Benjamin Moore, 23, at his funeral started in a bar and ended in a laugh. Invited to testify about his life from the pews, friend, relative, colleague and neighbour alike described a boisterous, gregarious, energetic young man they'd known in the small New Jersey town of Bordentown since he was born. “I'll love him 'til I go,” his granny said. “If I could go today and bring him back, I would.”

Grown men choked on their memories, under the gaze of swollen, reddened eyes, as they remembered a “snot-nosed kid” and a fidget who'd become a volunteer firefighter before enlisting in the military. Shortly before Benjamin left for Afghanistan, he sent a message to his cousin that began: “I'm about to go into another country where they hate me for everything I stand for.” Now he was back in a flag-draped box, killed by roadside bomb with two other soldiers in Ghazni province.

Continue reading “Americans Admire Military Personnel While Being Unaware & Uninterested in What They Do “In Our Name””

2011/02/012011/02/01

BLOWBACK, Legitimate Grievances, & Integrity Lost

08 Wild Cards, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Officers Call, Policies, Real Time, Threats

Phi Beta Iota: The announcement of the Egyptian Army that it recognizes the “legitimate grievances” of the public and that it will not use force is in fact a recognition of both the substance of the public grievances, and the fact that force would backfire–there are not enough guns on the planet to repress the public, that cat is out of the bag forever. Morality is a priceless strategic asset–individual integrity is a priceless enabler of a government's legitimacy. From Hawaii to Vermont, the USA is facing domestic demands for secession that reflect the lack of legitimacy of the financial crime families that “own” the two-party system to the detriment of the public interest. It's time to get right with God and our own Humanity. There is much that is right with America–none of it to be found on Wall Street or in Washington, D.C.

In Sorrows of Empire, Johnson discusses the roots of American militarism, the rise and extent of the military-industrial complex, and the close ties between arms industry executives and high-level politicians. He also looks closely at how the military has extended the boundaries of what constitutes national security in order to centralize intelligence agencies under their control and how statesmen have been replaced by career soldiers on the front lines of foreign policy–a shift that naturally increases the frequency with which we go to war.

Three More Covers & See Also Below the Line…

Continue reading “BLOWBACK, Legitimate Grievances, & Integrity Lost”

2011/01/312011/02/01

Video: Jesse Ventura Rips Wall St & Goldman Sachs

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
Continue reading “Video: Jesse Ventura Rips Wall St & Goldman Sachs”

2011/01/312011/01/31

End of Hegemony, Deceit, & Despots

Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Key Players, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Strategy, Threats

Analysis: The US moral conundrum in Egypt

(AP) – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — As with Iran 30 years ago, American leaders again are wrestling with the moral conflict between Washington's demands for democracy among its friends and strategic coziness with dictatorial regimes seen as key to stability in an increasingly complex world, particularly the Middle East.

The turmoil in Egypt — and its potential for grave consequences for U.S. policy throughout the region — was inevitable. The recent WikiLeaks release of U.S. diplomatic reports showed that Washington knew what problems it increasingly faced with the regime of President Hosni Mubarak and his three decades of iron-fisted rule.

Read article and view five photos….

Phi Beta Iota: For decades we have been citing Will and Ariel Durant, who state in Lessons of History that morality is a priceless strategic asset. Max Manwaring et al nailed it in The Search for Security, identifying legitimacy as the sole basis for stable effective governance. Ambassador Max Palmer nailed it in Breaking the Real Axis of Evil, addressing the fact that the US Government has consistently chosen to support 42 of 44 dictators over the public interest. To the best of our knowledge this is the only website that has consistently stated that morality, legitimacy, and integrity are the essential foundation for a prosperous world at peace.

1. The US Government has no strategy and no standing. Obama and Clinton are puffery without a clue. What has been done in this region and “in our name” has been a Web of Deceit and a Legacy of Ashes. Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude.

2. Israel has lost all credibility as well as all practical power–Turkey and the publics will do to Israel what Gandhi did to the British. Israeli genocide (and Arab dictator neglect) of the Palestinians will stand as the modern Holocaust.

3. Saudi Arabia, not Jordan, should be the next regime to fall and fall hard. There are 60,000 “royal” perverts and thieves there that need to be exorcised, exiled or executed. Jordan is on the edge of the razor–our Queen Noor's Leap of Faith is central to the possibilities.

This is going to take a quarter century to play out. A fine beginning.

Marginalization Not Al Quada the Real Atrocity

Women of Washingtonian–The Lunacy Continues

Below the line: one paragraph from selected reviews, other book review links.

Continue reading “End of Hegemony, Deceit, & Despots”

2011/01/302011/01/30

Did Obama’s Promise Trigger Arab Revolt?

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Officers Call

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off...

My good friend Jim Fallows, national correspondent for the The Atlantic, asked me to be part of a team to publish guest blogs while he is using the ‘down time' to finish a book. I am assigned, with three other people, for this week. Attached is my first entry, which I am also distributing as a blaster.

Chuck

Did Obama’s Promise Trigger the Arab Revolt?

Chuck Spinney

During his brilliantly run campaign of 2008, Barack Obama electrified the world with vague promises of change in foreign policy as well as domestic policy. (My take on his campaign strategy can be found here.) Two and a half years later, those promises are ashes. Nowhere is that clearer in foreign policy than in the Arab world.

In contrast to the euphoria surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Arab Revolt of 2011 leaves one with a disquieting sense that we may be standing on the wrong side of history. People power and the promise of democracy worked spectacularly well for the United States when the tyrants in Eastern Europe collapsed twenty years ago, but I think it may be working against us in the Arab world of 2011.

Read entire article at The Atlantic….

Phi Beta Iota: Brother Chuck is at least half right. The Davies J-Curve shows how people revolt not when they are oppressed, but when they have enjoyed or tangibly seen within reach the state of non-oppression. What we have here is a convergence. Yes, the US is on the wrong side of history–it gave up its strategic integrity immediately after WWII when it joined the UK in reneging on all promises to the Arabs and then supporting a series of brutal dictators. Yes, Obama's broken promises had an effect, but not the effect Brother Chuck suggests: instead of raising hopes, Obama's promises, quickly broken, sidelined the US. It took the US off the table. All that was left was the example of the former Soviet Union states, what Vaclav Havel calls “the power of the powerless.” That memory lay dormant while the Internet and cellular telephones and social networks (including especially Facebook) created a new sense of social power independent of the state. The PRECIPITANT for Egypt was the fall of the despotic Tunisian government in less than a week IN COMBINATION WITH the visible collapse of the US and global economies and the food scarcities visible across the region. Paradigms of failure have been with us for some time, but the word ENOUGH!, first articulated in Egypt, will now be heard–and acted upon–around the world. Saudi Arabia is ripe. That's a good thing.

2011/01/302011/10/22

Marginalization Not Al Quada the Real Atrocity

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption

islam flag raising — Click on Image to Enlarge

The ‘bin Laden' of marginalisation

The real terror eating away at the Arab world is socio-economic marginalisation.

Larbi Sadiki 14 Jan 2011 Al-Jazeera

From Tunisia and Algeria in the Maghreb to Jordan and Egypt in the Arab east, the real terror that eats at self-worth, sabotages community and communal rites of passage, including marriage, is the terror of socio-economic marginalisation.

The armies of ‘khobzistes' (the unemployed of the Maghreb) – now marching for bread in the streets and slums of Algiers and Kasserine and who tomorrow may be in Amman, Rabat, San'aa, Ramallah, Cairo and southern Beirut – are not fighting the terror of unemployment with ideology. They do not need one. Unemployment is their ideology. The periphery is their geography. And for now, spontaneous peaceful protest and self-harm is their weaponry. They are ‘les misérables' of the modern world.

Read complete article….

Tip of the Hat to Jock Gill for the pointer.

Continue reading “Marginalization Not Al Quada the Real Atrocity”

2011/01/292011/01/29

Regime Dominos–and Global Solidarity Protests

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government

Fearless protesters challenge regimes around Middle East

Los Angeles Times, 30 January 2011

The toppling of Tunisia's president is having a ricochet effect across the Arab world with demonstrators trading fear for solidarity.

. . . . . .

The uprisings are having a ricochet effect across the Arab world. People are watching the events unfolding on television and Facebook and identifying with the people in the streets.

. . . . . .

“It's political challenge to autocratic systems that have degraded and dehumanized people and humiliated them to the point where they just can't take it anymore and they finally started to erupt,” said Rami Khouri, a commentator and analyst affiliated with the American University of Beirut. “That's combined with intense social and economic pressures and disparities which are accentuated by the lavish lifestyles of the rich who made their money by being close to the regime.”

Read rest of this very fine overview….

`All repressive regimes must go!' — Asian socialists in solidarity with the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and the Middle East

January 29, 2011 — The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) would like to express its solidarity with the revolutionary masses in Egypt, as well as in Tunisia and other countries in North Africa and the Middle East, for their courageous struggle against repressive regimes which are mostly backed by US-led imperialist powers.

January 29, 2011 — The progressive movement and peoples of the Philippines stands in solidarity with the Egyptian people and the mass movement in the streets in these critical moments in their struggle for the ouster of the dictatorial Mubarak regime. We salute them for their tremendous courage in fighting a vicious regime, which has an infamous reputation for the brutality of its police and security forces, and that has been responsible for arbitrarily arresting and cruelly torturing government opponents. We support the people’s message that Mubarak must go and that the people no longer want his government and system.

We also salute the upsurge of the Tunisian peoples in overthrowing the US-backed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, and how their victory has electrified and inspired the people of Egypt and the Middle East, while dictators shake with fear.

Phi Beta Iota: The repeated refrain associated with the regime change movements singles out the USA for its decades of support for oppressive regimes. Two things are happening here: the public has lost its fear and found its solidarity; and the public is now thinking in historical context and holding the USA accountable for its role in supporting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, and dictators all over the world (less North Korea and Cuba).

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Anger

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Class War (Global)

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corporate & Transnational Crime

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corruption

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Culture

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Dissent

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Evil

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Empire as Cancer Including Betrayal & Deceit