SchwartzReport: $26 Billion Later, Iraqi Military a Disaster — the True Cost of US Government Corruption and Idiocy

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Military, Peace Intelligence
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

As you read this think about how many schools this money would have built and staffed. How many elder care facilities could have been built. How much prenatal care this would have paid for. All lost on a losing strategy, that has failed over and over, and will fail again.

$26 Billion in US Aid Later, the Iraqi Military Is a Total Disaster

Alex Park  –  Mother Jones

As US bombs rain down on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, analysts agree that this war will ultimately be won on the ground. Too bad the Iraqi defense forces are a shambles. The New York Times reports that the United States still has to train the country's 26 “intact and loyal” brigades. And the Iraqi government has yet to recruit and set up national guard units. “It is not going to be soon,” says a State Department official.

Sound familiar? Following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US government spent billions trying to rebuild Iraq's security forces so they could fight insurgents such as ISIS. By the fall of 2012, about a year after the full withdrawal of American troops, this effort had consumed about half the money the US government spent on Iraq's reconstruction, according to the final report of the Special Investigator General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).

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Owl: Ebola Catastrophe – Real Terrorism or False Flag? Competing Narratives!

02 Infectious Disease, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Who?  Who?
Who? Who?

DHS Chatter: Suspected Terrorists Planning to Infect Themselves With Ebola

Video: Proof Of US Plan To Kill 90% Of World Population With Airborne Ebola?

See Especially:

Sheriff’s Officers Fearful After Being Ordered into Quarantined Ebola Apartment

See Also:

Ebola @ Phi Beta Iota

False Flag @ Phi Beta Iota

Stephen E. Arnold: How the NYT (and Google) Imploded — Bad Management, Static Content, Piecemeal Kludging

Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Impotency, Media
Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

New York Times Online: An Inside View

Check out the presentation “The Surprising Path to a Faster NYTimes.com.”

I was surprised at some of the information in the slide deck. First, I thought the New York Times was first online in the 1970s via LexisNexis.

I thought that was an exclusive deal and reasonably profitable for both LexisNexis and the New York Times. When the newspaper broke off that exclusive to do its own thing, the revenue hit on the New York Times was immediate. In addition, the decision had significant cost implications for the newspaper.

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: How the NYT (and Google) Imploded — Bad Management, Static Content, Piecemeal Kludging”

Stephen E. Arnold: Federal Agencies Suffering Constant Connectivity Losses — “Dark Fiber”?

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Impotency
Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

Federal Agencies Perpetually Battle Connectivity Loss

This may be stating the obvious, but ComputerWorld declares that “IT Outages Are an Ongoing Problem for the U.S. Government.” The article cites a recent report sponsored by Symantec and performed by MeriTalk, which runs a network for government IT workers. Though the issues that originally plagued HealthCare.gov were their own spectacular kettle of fish, our federal government’s other computer networks are no paragons of efficiency. Writer Patrick Thibodeau tells us:

“Specifically, the survey found that 70% of federal agencies have experienced downtime of 30 minutes of more in a recent one-month period. Of that number, 42% of the outages were blamed on network or server problems and 29% on Internet connectivity loss….

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Federal Agencies Suffering Constant Connectivity Losses — “Dark Fiber”?”

SchwartzReport: References to Civil Disobedience Being Censored Out of US History Classes

04 Education, Academia, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

This is the latest on the Willful Ignorance Trend. American schools are under attack from the Theocratic Right, who literally want to rewrite history, and get it taught the way they want. This is some very good news about that trend. Real pushback. But how many schools do you think will do this? Still it's my favorite story of the week.

Colorado Students Walk Out to Protest Conservative ‘Censorship’ of AP History
DAVID FERGUSON – The Raw Story

In Tuesday, hundreds of high school students in Jefferson County, Colorado walked out of classes this week to protest conservative censorship of the national Advanced Placement U.S. history class curriculum.

According to the Denver Post, students and teachers are protesting the removal of all mentions of civil disobedience from texts and classroom materials intended for the teaching of AP U.S. history.

. . . . . . . .

Tensions have run high in Jefferson County schools since three conservative candidates were elected to the school board. These new board members have suggested an extensive rewrite of the way history is taught to the area’s students to a model they believe is more patriotic.

The right-leaning board-members said they believe history teachers should teach nationalism, respect for authority and reverence for free markets. They should avoid teaching any historical events or acts that promote ‘civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.”

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Berto Jongman: US in 5-134 Wars (Right Now)

Government, Idiocy, Military, Peace Intelligence
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

The US is now involved in 134 wars or none, depending on your definition of ‘war'

The White House spent much of last week trying to figure out if the word “war” was the right one to describe its military actions against the Islamic State.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was at first reluctant:

“We're engaged in a major counterterrorism operation,” he told CBS News on Sept. 11. “I think war is the wrong terminology and analogy but the fact is that we are engaged in a very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity… I don't think people need to get into war fever on this. I think they have to view it as a heightened level of counter terrorist activity.”

Kerry said similarly hedgy things during interviews on CNN and ABC.

By the next day, the Obama administration appeared more comfortable with the word war, yet hardly offered any more clarity. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters, “The United States is at war with ISIL in the same way we are at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates.”

The problem is that our traditional definition of “war” is outdated, and so is our imagination of what war means.

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SchwartzReport: 25% US Citizens Support Secession & Break-Up of USA + Meta-RECAP

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

Twenty five per cent of Americans are open to secession and the break up of the United States. To this add that better than 3 out of 4 Americans are unhappy. And that 64 per cent can't even name the three branches of government. This is a country in crisis.

Angry With Washington, 1 in 4 Americans Open to Secession
Reuters/The Raw Story

The failed Scottish vote to pull out from the United Kingdom stirred secessionist hopes for some in the United States, where almost a quarter of people are open to their states leaving the union, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

Some 23.9 percent of Americans polled from Aug. 23 through Sept. 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away, while 53.3 percent of the 8,952 respondents strongly opposed or tended to oppose the notion.

The urge to sever ties with Washington cuts across party lines and regions, though Republicans and residents of rural Western states are generally warmer to the idea than Democrats and Northeasterners, according to the poll.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: 25% US Citizens Support Secession & Break-Up of USA + Meta-RECAP”