PDF (1 Page): (U) CSA Interview (Defense News, 28Oct13)-1

Interview

GEN. RAY ODIERNO

US Army Chief of Staff

Defense News 10/28/2013

At last week’s Association of the United States Army annual meeting and exposition in Washington, thousands gathered to hear senior leaders explain where the service is headed in this era of austerity. And the message from Gen. Ray Odierno, Army chief of staff, was one of frustration with uncertain budgets and automatic and inflexible defense cuts that are gutting readiness, with only two of his brigades ready for combat. The Army has been cutting personnel at a breakneck pace to save as much money as possible, given additional budget cuts are likely.

The Army is headed from a force of 570,000 soldiers, just a few years ago, down to 490,000. That number could get smaller, given sequestration is likely to continue and deeper reductions are expected over the coming months as part of a broader debt and spending deal.

Q. What is the real impact of past and future budget cuts on the force? Why are you so alarmed? And what is the way out of it?

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: CSA Interview + AWC SSI Reminder — Answers from the 1990's Long Ignored…”

2013/10/282013/10/28

David Swanson: ENDING ALL WAR: An Idea Whose Time Has Come — For Our Children and All Future Generations

Ethics, Peace Intelligence

ENDING ALL WAR: An Idea Whose Time Has Come — For Our Children and All Future Generations

By David Swanson and David Hartsough with input from George Lakey, Jan Passion, Mike Ferner, Colleen Kelly, Ruth Benn, Leah Bolger, Nathan Schneider, Hakim, Paul Chappell, Colin Archer, Kathy Kelly, et alia. (none of whom are to blame for shortcomings of this draft).

Many groups and individuals are discussing a new project; if you have ideas, let us know.

If unnecessary suffering on an enormous scale is to be avoided, we must abolish war. Some 180 million people died in wars in the 20th century and, while we have not yet repeated a war on the scale of World War II, wars are not going away. Their enormous destruction continues, measured in terms of deaths, injuries, trauma, millions of people having to flee their homes, financial cost, environmental destruction, economic drain, and erosion of civil and political rights.

If humanity is going to survive, we must abolish war. Every war brings with it both massive destruction and the risk of uncontrolled escalation. We are facing a world of greater weapons proliferation, resource shortages, environmental pressures, and the largest human population the earth has seen. In such a turbulent world, we must abolish the organized violence by governments known as war, because its continuation risks our extinction.

If we abolish war, humanity can not only survive and better address the climate crisis and other dangers, but will find it far easier to prosper. The reallocation of resources away from war promises a world whose advantages are beyond easy imagination. Some $2 trillion a year, roughly half from the United States and half from the rest of the world, is devoted to war and war preparation. Those funds could transform global efforts to create sustainable energy, agricultural, economic, health, and education systems. Redirection of war funding could save many times the lives that are taken by spending it on war.

Continue reading “David Swanson: ENDING ALL WAR: An Idea Whose Time Has Come — For Our Children and All Future Generations”

2013/10/282013/10/28

4th Media: America’s Threat-Centric [Lie-Based] Education System: Out of Date and Out of Time

04 Education, Academia, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

America’s Threat-Centric [Lie-Based] Education System: Out of Date and Out of Time

“History is a story. That’s why we fight over history. We make sense of ourselves, the world and ourselves in the world through the struggle to tell the truth through stories. Facts have to be contextualised to become the truth. And that truth is a struggle that is constantly fought over. It is not given. And telling stories helps to create debate about that truth. That is why working people should tell their stories. Truth is a class issue. I would appeal to all your readers, especially to young ones, to make their own political films; shoot interviews, especially with older comrades, and dare to express themselves on the screen. Film making is for everybody. I would be looking at the new technologies. They are disruptive and a problem in capitalist society…That’s why they want to close down the Internet if they can. Politicians don’t like allowing people to communicate anonymously with each other. They want to restrain freedom … But still for a while there is a window of opportunity and freedom. They monitor you, but don’t yet stop you. That will come, of course…[But] it’s where people ought to be, where creative people and political people ought to be.” Tony Garnett interviewed by the editors of WSWS

How can young people be encouraged and coached to narrate a “true” history of their lives and times in the world—and the events, people and geography that influence them—for the bulk of their literate existence (i.e., 21st Century literate to include visual and technological literacy)?

Continue reading “4th Media: America’s Threat-Centric [Lie-Based] Education System: Out of Date and Out of Time”

2013/10/272013/10/28

Marcus Aurelius: Can Military Learn From Its Mistakes?

Ethics, Government, Military

1. Ricks fails to understand that military strategy and policy do not exist in a vacuum. The White House and Congress both have votes that can be decisive. Shinseki and Franks were closer to right w/r/t force requirements for Iraq than was Rumsfeld. Further, Jerry Bremer unbelievably complicated Iraq by de-Baathification and dissolutionn of the Iraqi army.

2. The Edward Snowden problem is not a contractor/military/civil service issue. It is an NSA personnel security clearance issue. As it turns out, the largest theoretical risks in the NSA workforce comes from military personnel because their screening is less rigorous on the premise they are involuntarily assigned there. Of course, NSA's personnel security screening model seems fatally flawed conceptually as does that of the USG more generally.

3. General/Flag Officers have been going down like ten pins recently. Many have simply screwed up in terms of basic integrity, morals, officership, leadership, commandership. I have read a number of the DoDIG reports and they usually show clear failings. There is traffic circulating this weekend positing an Obama Administration purge of senior military officers. I can't prove or disprove that. If I were advocate that theory, I'd point to the cases of GENs Ham and McChrystal.

4. The documents at the links contained in article are worth looking at.)

Can the military learn from its mistakes?

By Thomas E. Ricks, Published: October 25

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2013/10/24

Penguin: Post Iran-Contra – Clean Army, Dirty Marines + A Few Special Ops Books and DVDs

Ethics, Military

Further to David Sabow: White House/Pentagon/CIA Iran Contra Drug Running — and Destruction of Senator Gary Hart to Stop Investigation see the below book, bottom line is that Army became super clean and Marines did not; and of course Army had Yellow Fruit.

Steve Emerson, Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era (Putnam Adult, 1988)

Jim Fallows, Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget (Grand Central Publishing, 1990)

Continue reading “Penguin: Post Iran-Contra – Clean Army, Dirty Marines + A Few Special Ops Books and DVDs”

2013/10/242013/10/24

SchwartzReport: Six Specifics That Make Denmark the Happiest (and Perhaps the Most Productive) Nation on Earth

08 Wild Cards, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Lessons, Peace Intelligence, Policies

Lo and behold when a society is ordered on wellness and not just profit, as is the case in Denmark, we can see what results — wellness, happiness. So why aren't we doing this?

Denmark Is the Happiest Country on Earth! You'll Never Guess Why
AlterNet (U.S.)

Last month, Denmark was crowned the happiest country in the world.

‘The top countries generally rank higher in all six of the key factors identified in the World Happiness Report,” wrote University of British Columbia economics professor John Helliwell, one of the report's contributing authors. ‘Together, these six factors explain three quarters of differences in life evaluations across hundreds of countries and over the years.”

The six factors for a happy nation split evenly between concerns on a government- and on a human-scale. The happiest countries have in common a large GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy at birth and a lack of corruption in leadership. But also essential were three things over which individual citizens have a bit more control over: A sense of social support, freedom to make life choices and a culture of generosity.

“There is now a rising worldwide demand that policy be more closely aligned with what really matters to people as they themselves characterize their well-being,” economist Jeffrey Sachs said in a statement at the time of the report's release.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Six Specifics That Make Denmark the Happiest (and Perhaps the Most Productive) Nation on Earth”

2013/10/222013/10/22

Patrick Meier: Why Anonymity is Important for Truth and Trustworthiness Online

Cultural Intelligence, Culture, Ethics, Governance, P2P / Panarchy

Why Anonymity is Important for Truth and Trustworthiness Online

Philosophy Professor, Karen Frost-Arnold, has just published a highly lucid analysis of the dangers that come with Internet accountability (PDF). While the anonymity provided by social media can facilitate the spread of lies, Karen rightly argues that preventing anonymity can undermine online communities by stifling communication and spreading ignorance, thus leading to a larger volume of untrustworthy information. Her insights are instructive for those interested in information forensics and digital humanitarian action.

To make her case, Karen distinguishes between error-avoidance and truth-attainment. The former seeks to avoid false beliefs while the latter seeks to attain true belief. Take mainstream and social media, for example. Some argue that the “value of traditional media surpasses that of the blogosphere […] because the traditional media are superior at filtering out false claims” since professional journalists “reduce the number of errors that might otherwise be reported and believed.” Others counter this assertion: “People who confine themselves to a filtered medium may well avoid believing falsehoods (if the filters are working well), but inevitably they will also miss out on valuable knowledge,” including many true beliefs.

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Category: Ethics

Marcus Aurelius: CSA Interview + AWC SSI Reminder — Answers from the 1990’s Long Ignored…