The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Continue reading “Water Overview from the Bottom of the Pyramid”
Related:
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Poisons, Toxicity, Trash, & True Cost
COMMENTS:
1. Before anybody asks — yes, I know from which network the video clip apparently originated and yes, I am well aware of LTG Boykin's views (or biases, depending on your perspective).
2. “I have absolutely no basis to dispute LTG Boykin's assertions.” OTOH, I know two separate people involved in studying the Hassan case, one Army and one Marine Corps and have heard absolutely zero about the case from either. Further, if you recall the coverage in the immediate aftermath of the event, people were turning cheetah flips to avoid the kind of candor LTG Boykin displays.
Phi Beta Iota: We are among those that admire LtGen Boykin for his directness. His book Never Surrender remains a favorite, along with the Leadership Lessons of Jesus that was offered for sale in the US Special Operations bookstore. The US Army is making the same mistake the FBI made when it refused to act on the PBS exposure by Steve Emerson, author of American Jihad–The Terrorists Living Among Us, because they confused “political correctness” with intelligence, and their leaders have no integrity (a problem common across the flag and senior executive ranks in every corner of the US Government). We would augment LtGen Boykin's observation with our own on Cognitive Dissonance.
See Also:
Prisonplanet.com
July 20, 2010
More information has emerged about Google’s relationship with the government and spook agencies (see PR Newswire below). The revelations should come as no surprise.
Consumer Watchdog, formerly the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization with offices in Washington, DC and Santa Monica, Ca. Consumer Watchdog’s website is www.consumerwatchdog.org. Visit our new Google Privacy and Accountability Project website: http://insidegoogle.com.
Phi Beta Iota: Goggle has accomplished a great deal, aided in part by CIA and NSA, but also in part by being able to get away with stealing Yahoo's search engine in the early days and hiring the Alta Vista people when HP foolishly killed off that offering. They have emulated Microsoft in achieving first-rate marketing with second-rate services, and continue to spend $10 million in fantasy cash for every dollar they actually earn. They are now the Goldman Sachs of the software industry, and that is not a compliment. It is not possible to understand Google without reading the three deep analytic books on Google by Stephen E. Arnold:
Book One: The Google Legacy–How Google's Internet Search is Transforming Application Software
Book Two: Google Version 2.0–The Calculating Predator
Book Three: Google: The Digital Gutenberg
All three books (all downloadable pdfs) are available in The Google Trilogy at a very special price.
By Michael Winter
The nation's spy world is anxiously — certainly not eagerly — anticipating a Washington Post series looking at CIA and Pentagon contractors, according to insider reports. And the intelligence community has been preparing for an expected offensive by plotting its defense.
Politico says in “Jitters over WaPo intel series – Explosions rock Iranian mosque – What's Petraeus thinking? – McChrystal's retirement – ‘Monkey Terrorist' update,” that the series, by Dana Priest, is scheduled to appear “in the next few days and that public affairs officers have been preparing how to handle the resulting media onslaught.
The Atlantic has posted a memorandum, “Internal Memo: Intelligence Community Frets About Washington Post Series,” sent by Art House, the media manager for the Director of National Intelligence. He outlines what he thinks the series will say about the “IC” (intelligence community) and offers talking points for press aides.
Here are some of the highlights of the memo:
Themes
While we can't predict specific content, we anticipate the following themes:
*The intelligence enterprise has undergone exponential growth and has become unmanageable with overlapping authorities and a heavily outsourced contractor workforce.
*The IC and the DoD have wasted significant time and resources, especially in the areas of counterterrorism and counterintelligence.
*The intelligence enterprise has taken its eyes off its post-9/11 mission and is spending its energy on competitive and redundant programs.
Management of Responses
We do not know which agencies will receive attention, and each agency will need to manage its own responses. …
It might be helpful as you prepare for publication to draw up a list of accomplishments and examples of success to offer in response to inquiries to balance the coverage and add points that deserve to be mentioned. In media discussions, we will seek to garner support for the Intelligence Community and its members by offering examples of agile, integrated activity that has enhanced performance. We will want to minimize damage caused by unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified information. …
House's conclusion: “This series has been a long time in preparation and looks designed to cast the IC and the DoD in an unfavorable light. We need to anticipate and prepare so that the good work of our respective organizations is effectively reflected in communications with employees, secondary coverage in the media and in response to questions.”
Keep your eyes peeled for this blockbuster.
Phi Beta Iota: Panetta had a chance to get it right and blew it. Clapper will finish the job of destroying whatever integrity is left in the US Intelligence Community. This is not news, but the Washington Post has finally caught up with the rest of us.
See Also:
2000 ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World (AFCEA, OSS, EIN)
2002 THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political (OSS, EIN)
2003 PEACEKEEPING INTELLIGENCE: Emerging Concepts for the Future (OSS, EIN)
2006 INFORMATION OPERATIONS: All Information, All Languages, All the Time (OSS, EIN)
2006 THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest (OSS, EIN)
2008 COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace (OSS, EIN)
2009 Intelligence for Peace (PKI Book Two) Finalizing (OSS,EIN)
2010 INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH (OSS, EIN)
And Reviews of Books by Others:
Congress (Failure, Reform) (108)
Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback (160)
(July 9) — A former Russian intelligence officer who may have provided information that helped uncover two of the worst spies in U.S. history — Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames — is among the four Russians swapped for 10 sleeper agents in an elaborate Cold War-style spy swap today.
U.S. Seized Opportunity In Arrests Of Russians
Preparation for biggest spy swap since Cold War began weeks before
By Karen DeYoung
President Obama's national security team spent weeks before the arrest of 10 Russian spies preparing for their takedown and assembling a list of prisoners Moscow might be willing to trade for the agents, senior administration officials said Friday.
The Situation Room (CNN), 5:00 P.M.
WOLF BLITZER: But now to a striking gap in America’s homeland security. It’s been over a month since President Obama named his choice to become the new director of National Intelligence, but James Clapper still hasn’t been confirmed for the job and there is no telling when or if he will be. Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is working the story for us.
Barbara, what’s going on here?
BARBARA STARR: Well, you know, Wolf, Russian spy swaps, al Qaeda at the door step, and no director of National Intelligence in this country, a lot of concerns about really who is minding the store.
Summer time confirmation hearings for General David Petraeus to run the war in Afghanistan and Elena Kagan to join the Supreme Court quickly planned and carried out. But there’s another critical nomination out there that’s been anything but.
Continue reading “Journal: Spy Games, Clapper on a Time Out”
The New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
July 6, 2010
BAGHDAD — An American soldier in Iraq who was arrested on charges of leaking a video of a deadly American helicopter attack here in 2007 has also been charged with downloading more than 150,000 highly classified diplomatic cables that could, if made public, reveal the inner workings of American embassies around the world, the military here announced Tuesday.
By Leila Fadel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
BAGHDAD — The military said Tuesday that it has charged an Army intelligence analyst in connection with the leak of a controversial video and the downloading and transfer of classified State Department cables, in a case that is likely to further deter would-be whistleblowers.
Click on headlines to read each full story.
Phi Beta Iota: PFC Manning swore an oath to defend the Constitutions, not the chain of command and not the secrecy of immoral, illegal, and unaffordable policies that are funded by the U.S. taxpayer and done “in our name” but not at all in our interest. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
His charge sheet rests on “discrediting the Armed Forces” which is laughable–it is the behavior of our leaders that is a discredit to all of America; and on subverting “good order and discipline.” His behavior in revealing the webs of deceit and incompetence that characterize our military, our “diplomats,” and our spies is precisely what America needs in order to re-establish good order and discipline in harmony with our Constitution.
America needs MORE leaks, MORE “misbehavior,” because we now suffer a “system” that is so far removed from the Founding Fathers' vision, and so deeply divorced from the principles enshrined in our Constitution, that we must, without question, consider PFC Manning to be a “just man” whose best place in a time of injustice is to be in jail as an example to us all. BRAVO ZULU for courage and intelligence in the face of the enemy–he is us. If the lawyer for the defense has any integrity at all, this will be a public jury trial and the PFC will walk free, as he should. It's time to trash this pathological system and get back to the basics of freedom and a foreign policy of commerce and peace.
Wikipedia on Civil Disobedience
Civil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government) is an essay by Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. It argues that people should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War.
Resistance also served as part of Thoreau's metaphor which compared the government to a machine, and said that when the machine was working injustice it was the duty of conscientious citizens to be “a counter friction” (i.e., a resistance) “to stop the machine”.
