In both Iceland and Hungary now, the governments stood tall and “kicked out” the “banksters”. We will see other countries follow. Unfortunately, the banksters still control the US government, so this country may be one of the last ones to become independent of the banking cartel. I know that there are strong forces at work attempting to end the rule of the Fed, and restore the US government to the republic that it once was, but it is turning out to be a slow and difficult process.
It will succeed; the question is not if, but when. Hopefully we are talking months, not years.
Major Jeffrey T. Bordin, United States Army, distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious service while deployed in support of OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM and Overseas Contingency Operations as the Center for Army Lessons Learned Liaison Officer assigned to Afghanistan, from 11 August 2012 to 10 August 2013. Major Bordin’s unwavering leadership, dedication, professional knowledge, commitment, field research in some of the most kinetic regions in Afghanistan, and resulting recommendations were instrumental in an 80% reduction in ISAF deaths caused by insider attacks from 1 November 2012 through 1 June 2013 compared to the previous two year period. In addition he co-authored two insider threat handbooks as well as a third ANSF advisor training handbook. Through his distinctive accomplishments, Major Bordin reflected great credit upon himself, the United States Army, and the Department of Defense.
India-Pakistan: Indian military authorities report a week-long series of gun battles has been taking place in the central region of the Line of Control in Kashmir. Some 30 to 40 fighters crossed the Line on 24 September, up to 12 of whom have been killed by Indian soldiers. Five Indian soldiers have been wounded.
The infiltrators holed up in an abandoned village, which appears to be the location of the gun fights.
Although General Officer Commanding of the Army's 15 Corps Lt Gen Gurmit Singh had said it will be premature to say whether the Pakistan Army was involved in infiltration of militants, he said there were definite indications that some special troops were part of it.
“I can only say, analyzing the methodology of this infiltration, it was not a pure infiltration. It was a BAT [Border Action Team]-cum-infiltration. The number of militants who attempted this infiltration was rather large. In fact, Wednesday night 10 to 12 militants tried to sneak into the cordoned off area from across (the Line of Control).”
Pakistani authorities deny that an infiltration occurred.
Comment: A Border Action Team is a mixed unit of Pakistan Army special forces commandos and irregular forces including terrorists or Kashmiri militants. Allmost every time the top political leaders have a cordial meeting, a shooting incident occurs along the Line of Control.
According to Der Spiegel, German-Bulgarian writer and activist Ilija Trojanow was barred from entering the United States on Monday. Trojanow was to speak at a literary conference. HuffPost Live’s Ahmed Shihab-Eldin took a closer look at the story, which has yet to be covered by most major news sources in the U.S.
While U.S. authorities did not provide Trojanow with a formal explanation, he believes he has been banned from the US because of his outspoken criticism of the NSA’s surveillance programs.
In an article published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Trojanow voiced his frustration with the incident. “It is more than ironic if an author who raises his voice against the dangers of surveillance and the secret state within a state for years, will be denied entry into the ‘land of the brave and the free,'” he said.
Ilija TROJANOW,
Trojanow has written an open letter denouncing the NSA in addition to signing a petition that asks German Chancellor Angela Merkel to forcefully oppose NSA surveillance. He is a professor at The European Graduate School and co-author of a book that examines the surveillance state, with fellow German novelist Juli Zeh.
Zeh also expressed outrage following Trojanow’s detainment in an airport in Brazil. A Facebook post by Zeh, loosely translated, reads, “ This is a farce. Pure paranoia. People who stand up for civil rights are treated as enemies of the state.”
News of Trojanow’s denied entry into the U.S. coincided with the announcement that the U.S. government had been shut down by Congress.
Correction: An earlier version of this story indicated that Trojanow had been invited to the United States by Congress. He was not invited by Congress, but by a literary conference in Denver.
“The potential of the surveillance state goes way beyond anything in George Orwell's 1984, (said Guardian Editor) Alan Rusbridger . ‘Orwell could never have imagined this concept of scooping up everything all the time’. The NSA stories were ‘clearly’ not about totalitarianism, but an infrastructure had been created that could be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. ‘In history, all the precedents are unhappy. The ability of these big agencies to keep entire populations under a system of monitoring and surveillance, is astonishing.’”
“George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984 described a fictitious totalitarian society control(ing its) population through invasive surveillance. Today, as the Snowden documents make clear, it is the NSA that keeps track of phone calls, monitors communications, and analyzes people’s thoughts through data mining of Google searches and other online activity. Of course the US is not a totalitarian society. Still, the US intelligence agencies also seem to have adopted Orwell’s idea of doublethink—`to be conscious of complete truthfulness,’ he wrote, `while telling carefully constructed lies.’”
— “They Know Much More Than You Think”, James Bamford, N.Y. Review of Books, August 15, 2013
Below our fifth and final segment on what must be done to end the U.S. Executive Branch’s present creation of a Surveillance State and infrastructure for a future Police State. Because surveillance is largely invisible, many economically comfortable journalists remain complacent, and so many other issues – Syria, a government shutdown, gun control, climate change, economic inequality, food stamp cuts, Iran, etc. etc. – call for our attention, the enormity and unprecedented nature of the Executive Branch’s assault on democracy itself has not yet sunk in for many. It is those closest to the story, like Alan Rusbridger and NSA expert James Bamford, who understand the full implications of the Orwellian threat to everything in which we believe.
Criticism of U.S. intelligence takes many forms: Intelligence agencies are too secretive, or they are too leaky. They over-collect, or they under-perform. Or all of these, and more besides.
Many of the criticisms can be reduced to a single argument: The U.S. intelligence community has become too large to be properly managed.
Interestingly, this is a view that is held by some within U.S. intelligence itself, according to a new dissertation by a CIA sociologist who studied and worked at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).
“I actually fear that the IC is too big,” a CIA analyst at the NCTC told sociologist Bridget Nolan. “It's crossed the point where it's [producing] healthy competitive analysis. We've gotten to the point where we're in each other's way. We're hindering the mission.”
“Something that's worth considering,” another CIA analyst said, “is completely counterintuitive, which is to make the CT [counterterrorism] community smaller, not larger. I think there are far more people at CIA HQ now than when we defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War. What the hell?”
As for the NCTC itself, yet another analyst said, “If it were to continue existing, it should be about one-tenth its current size.”
In identifying “difficult subordinates who should have been promoted, I should have included Colonels Doug Macgreagor and Jim Burton and especially Major Don Vandergriff. Sorry for the omission
CS note – Hersh channels John Boyd* : my comments are inserted in “blue” [italics]
my added emphasis to Sy's words in bold black. Of course, this is really a commentary on contemporary culture, including government and the private sector, not just the media.
—–
*Note to readers unfamiliar with Boyd or his theory of the OODA Loop: A brief introduction can be found in my essays Genghis John and Incestuous Amplification and the Madness of King George More comprehensive but accessible descriptions can be found in the books by Robert Coram and James Fallows, and Chet Richards. For those readers who are interested in heavy intellectually lifting, see Franz Ozinga‘s analysis of Boyd's strategic thought or even better, they could study Boyd's original presentations, which can be downloaded from the folder labeled “Boyd Briefs” in my Public Folder or the Pogo Archive.
Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the ‘pathetic' American media
Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should ‘fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can't control'
CITATION TO ACCOMPANY THE AWARD OF BRONZE STAR
