Corruption – Page 826 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/01/272011/01/27

Carthage under Siege + Revolution Tyranny RECAP

Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Mobile, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Threats

Interesting reading….

Middle East & North Africa: Carthage under Siege

By Feriel Bouhafa , January 26, 2011

Foreign Policy in Focus

The success of a throng of Tunisian protesters who toppled Ben Ali, the seemingly unshakable dictator, caught the world off guard.

Analysts have rushed to make sense of Tunisia's unforeseen popular revolt. The media have emphasized the economic discontent caused by unemployment, poverty, and high food prices. Others have noted the role social networks have played, characterizing the uprising as an instance of online activism and hailing it as a “Twitter revolution.”

This extraordinary uprising is being seen as the possible start of a domino effect in the Arab world.

. . . . . . .

Going forward, Tunisians will scrutinize the sincerity of these statements. The Obama administration’s initial hesitation exposed its unease with this transformation. U.S. policy and its national-security strategy in the Arab world need reassessment. Tunisia’s democratic impulse, as well as the uprising’s reverberations in other Arab countries, presents challenges for U.S. policy and that of its authoritarian allies in the region.

Phi Beta Iota: Most governments are under siege, for most governments, to one extent or another, have failed to attend to the public interest, instead bending or selling out completely to special interests. The United States of America is especially vulnerable at this time because it is over-extended, financially and morally bankrupt, and has a government that is out of touch with both the public interest, and global reality. Tunesia is not unique–all countries have the preconditions for revolution extant, what has changed are two things: the proliferation of precipitants, and the ability of the public to connect and promulgate.

2011/01/272011/01/27

Shared Madness At the Top of the Two-Party “System”

03 Economy, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

Put another way, Simon Johnson is saying that Orientation (in the form of rigid pre-conceptions) is shaping the Observations as well as the Decisions and Actions (made in response to those observations). Any student of nonlinear dynamics and control theory will tell you that when a positive feedback loop like, Orientation's positive shaping effect, is pumping without interruption into a negative feedback control system, the entire system spins out of control and its outputs become increasingly disconnected from the real world environment that system is struggling to cope with. The inevitable result is chaos — full stop, end of story.

There Are Still No Fiscal Conservatives In The United States

By Simon Johnson, Basline Scenario, 26 Jan 2010

Following President Obama’s State of the Union address, there is a great deal of discussion about whether we might now be edging our way towards fiscal responsibility.

Unfortunately, most of our political elite – both left and right – is still living in a land of illusions. They cannot even seriously discuss what would be required to bring our true fiscal position under control – remember that most of the recent damage to our collective balance sheet was done by big banks blowing themselves up. No one who refuses to confront the power of those banks can be taken seriously as a fiscal conservative.

Even those interest groups that prominently espouse fiscal responsibility refuse to confront this reality. There are no fiscal conservatives in the United States; at this stage it is all pretence.

Pretence is apparently all we are likely to get, as long as the money keeps rolling in (see Argentina for details).

2011/01/272011/01/27

Open Source Insurgency: No More Corruption

About the Idea, Advanced Cyber/IO, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Historic Contributions, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Officers Call, Open Government, Policies, Real Time, Threats

A Plausible Promise

by John Robb of Global Guerrillas

For an open source revolt (here's some background on “open source insurgency“) to be successfully formed, it needs a plausible promise. A meta issue around which all of the different factions etc. can form (remember, most of the groups and individuals involved in an open source revolt can't agree on anything but some basic concepts). A generic “day of revolt” doesn't accomplish that. What could?

Using the multi-million scale No Mas FARC protests as an example and the critical ingredient in the Tunisian protests (extreme corruption that generated an endless wellspring of anger/frustration), a potential “plausible promise” for an Egyptian open source revolt is:

No More Corruption

Not only is a movement opposing corruption something the government will find hard to oppose, it is something every Egyptian deals with on a daily basis. It also has the added benefit of directly harming the entrenched ruling elite, who are likely to become poster children of the very thing the movement is against.

Emerging Concept of Open Stewardship

Reference: Peace versus War–Competing Visions

Reference: WikiLeaks and Al Qaeda as Open Source Insurgencies

Reference: On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy + RECAP on Secrecy as Fraud, Waste, & Abuse

2011/01/26

Egypt’s Day of Rage–Arab Dictatorial Dominos….+ RECAP

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

Egypt: Today is the “day of rage.” On 25 January, a day honoring Egyptian police, tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the government, calling for President Mubarak to step down. Police used water cannon and tear gas against rock throwing demonstrators.

Egyptian security forces used rubber bullets to disperse an estimated 8,000 demonstrators in Alexandria's central Sidi Gaber Square. More than 1,000 people from various opposition groups protested in Mansoura and an estimated 15,000 protesters occupied Tahrir Square in Cairo. Nearly 5,000 protesters demonstrated in Mahalla and dozens of youth were reportedly protesting in Minya.

Two protestors and one policeman died in the clashes. As in Tunisia online social media served as the channel for organizing the demonstration in large numbers without official permission.

The government cut or restricted aaccess to internet, phone and social media networks, spreading confusion among protesters and temporarily sealing the largest Arab country off from the rest of the world. Access was later restored, although services remained intermittent.

NightWatch Comment: Despite a US statement that the government of Egypt is stable, the demonstrations show that it has suppressed a large undercurrent of potentially incendiary opposition, whose capabilities are not known. Sclerotic regimes like those of Mubarak never know the depth or expanse of their real opposition because they are so busy suppressing it.

This creates the condition for a field-grade officers' coup to install a reformist government, which Egypt has experienced whenever a government has overstayed its welcome. Sadat and Mubarak did that and Mubarak is overdue to have it done to him. If the demonstrations continue for two more weeks, the Mubarak era will be over.

US-Arab States: The United States will use the “Tunisian example” in its talks with other Arab states, U.S. envoy Jeffrey Feltman said during a visit to Tunis, Al Jazeera reported 25 January. The Arab world faces many of the same challenges, and Washington hopes the governments will address legitimate political, social and economic concerns, Feltman said.

NightWatch comment: This is the kind of statement a US official might well regret he ever made. The dedication to democratic change might be commendable, provided the Arab voters are capable of handling it in a sophisticated fashion. That is the rub because the outcome of elections in Arab states or territories to date has not produced results that reinforce US strategic interests, such as the security of Israel.

The political upheaval in Tunisia has not spent itself. It is a gross exaggeration to describe a government of Ben Ali cronies as a revolutionary government. More violence and change are likely.

If the Mubarak government in Egypt is replaced by a revolutionary, anti-US fundamentalist regime, citing the Tunisian example in the name of democracy, all US policy in the Middle East since 1973 becomes unhinged. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran will look like inconvenient by comparison.

NightWatch KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: The US Government appears to be severely out of touch with both the negative and the positive forces that are converging in 2011 and 2012, both domestically and internationally. Legitimacy is lacking, along with integrity, on all sides. Corruption versus truth…the ripple effect continues. Israel–and its many dual-nationals with Top Secret clearances in policy positions, will spin this against the public interest, and our politicians and bankers will go along with the spin. Lacking is public intelligence in the public interest. Note the tires burning in the streets–we anticipate such tire burning in the USA within the year.

2011/01/262011/01/26

David Ignatius Loves Bob Gates

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Media, Military, Officers Call

David Ignatius, Washington Post 26 January 2011

Ike was right: Defense spending must be cut

Core paragraph: President Obama has the right team in place to begin this strategic downsizing of the defense budget. Gates has been an outspoken advocate of cutting programs we can't afford, and he has strong backing from Adm. Mike Mullen and Gen. James Cartwright, the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military brass knows the country won't be secure if it's broke.

Phi Beta Iota: This article is corrupt on so many levels, from moral to intellectual to financial, it simply epitomizes all that is wrong with Washington.

2011/01/252011/01/25

Reference: Advanced Cyber-IO (First Cut)

Advanced Cyber/IO, Computer/online security, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, Military, Monographs, Officers Call, Policies, Real Time, Threats

The below was inspired by a close look at the evolving concept of cyber-commands. In our judgment, LtGen Keith Alexander, USA and those in charge of the various service cyber-commands are headed for spectacularly expensive failure, minor operational successes not-with-standing. The officers concerned are well-intentioned, precisely like their predecessors who chose to ignore precisely the same insights published in 1994–they simply lack the intestinal fortitude to break with the past and get it right for a change. What they plan is the cyber equivalent of “clear, hold, build,” and just as mis-guided. They are out of touch with reality and will remain so. They will all be happily retired long before the predictable recognition of their failure occurs, and the next generation of young flags will make the same mistakes again…and again…until we get an honest President with an honest Office of Management and Budget (OMB) able to demand and enforce integrity across the board.

Draft Monograph on Cyber-Command

2011/01/212011/01/21

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Tunisian Political Theater

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

NIGHTWATCH EXTRACT Tunisia: Update. The Tunisian army fired into the air to disperse protesters from the headquarters of former President Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally (CDR) in Tunis. The CDR has been disbanded but some demonstrators want the building razed. The state of emergency remains in effect.

The interim government met for the first time today. The session concluded with a number of decrees.

The government ordered a general amnesty for all political prisoners, reduction of the curfew everywhere except Tunis, and the reopening of schools and universities next Monday. It also agreed to recognize all previously banned political parties and declared three days of mourning for the 78 people killed during the recent uprising.

In his address, the interim president and former Speaker of the Parliament stressed the temporary character of this government, and determined its tasks to be:

– to make sure that all enterprises get back to normal business;

– to prepare for the forthcoming presidential elections.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: The interim president and the prime minister both resigned from the RCD, in which both had been longstanding members. They directed other hold-over cabinet members to resign in today's cabinet session.

The political activities are almost surreal. The holdover political leaders apparently think a “do-over” will be sufficient to correct the authoritarian excesses of the past 23 years. Thus far Tunisians are acquiescing in this bizarre exercise. Meanwhile, the economic grievances that gave rise to street demonstrations remain unaddressed.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: The well-mannered unethical among us will be quick to scorn the above headline, but the comment says it all. Buckminster Fuller was among the first in modern history to point out that the White House was theater, and many others have addressed the huge gap between reality and the images that Wall Street and Washington seek to communicate. Advanced cyber-information operations have been perfected by the financial crime network within which the two political parties are fully complicit co-conspirators. There are 63 other parties in America that have been disenfranchised, and the electoral system is as corrupt as any abroad including that of Tunisia. The current financial and political leadership of the USA really thinks that a “do-over” (the other term is “make-over”) will quiet things down. This isn't just moving deck chairs on the sinking Titanic; this is re-arranging deck chairs floating in the icy waters of the North and pretending the ship of state is still there.