One of the complaints about the U.S. Constitution recently, being as outdated as it is, is that it fails to guarantee certain unalienable rights such as free medical care, housing , food, and of course, the right to bear cell phones. And, although the founders failed to specifically cite social programs as a necessary element for promoting the general welfare, the living nature of our founding document has been interpreted by political and legal scholars alike to allow for the seizure of assets by force from one group of people in order to redistribute those assets in a fair and responsible manner to those less fortunate.
Although I held clearances until 2006 from 1976 when I was the S-1/Adjutant for Battalion Landing Team 3/4 out of Okinawa (six countries, six ships, six months), it was not until 15 August 1979, when I entered on duty with the Central Intelligence Agency, that the “truth” became my calling. My class was one of two (79 and 82) where they changed the profile to recruit self-starters and free-thinkers instead of go-along blind obedience types. The bulk of both classes quit within five years. I lasted nine, and bless the US Marine Corps for my freedom, an invitation to create the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, today a Command. [My clearances were revoked in 2006 for declaring 7,500 foreign contacts; there have been enormous improvements to the management of clearances since then [the Office of Personnel Management now rules] and I do not anticipate others suffering the abuse I did before OPM took over, an abuse that cost me $1 million dollars in lost income over four years after I was asked for “by name” to be Chief Instructor for Intelligence and Information Operations at COINSOC in Iraq and denied a SECRET-level reinstatement.]
“Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32) is for me both a sacred and a practical manifesto of the obvious.
Sadly, it has received only lip service from my colleagues, who not only should know better, but from whom I expect the highest ethical standards at all times. Being an intelligence officer is in my view a sacred duty to the Republic. Lies kill. Allowing honest intelligence to be ignored is also a betrayal of the public trust. Not doing honest intelligence in the first place is in my view an impeachable offense.
My horizons broadened in 2000, when I was shocked by the blatant theft of the election in Florida, a theft well-documented three months in advance by Greg Palast, writing for The Observer in England — no US media dared to speak the truth then or since. In 2008, after having also watched the theft of the presidential election in 2004, and then seen the rush of money to “company man” Barack Obama and away from “controlled opposition” John McCain, I wrote ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (EIN, 2008). Included in that volume was an essay on “Paradigms of Failure,” in which I discuss the loss of integrity across the eight tribes of intelligence: academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-governmental / non-profit.
In recent months I have been heartened by the clear and present emergence of a public as well as a professional disposition to re-examine the fundamentals. Who should government be serving? Should government be allowed to lie at will to the Court, the public, Congress, and allies? What is the point of having a government?
Today the Catholic Church is confronting the reality that I have embraced since 1979 and never abandoned, never foresaken for temporary convenience or out of misplaced loyalty to a chain of command that is at best incompetent and at worst treasonous. The following caught my eye:
“The teaching … that truth is at the basis of justice explains why a deadly culture of silence, or ‘omerta,' is in itself wrong and unjust,” Scicluna said in his address to the four-day symposium which brings together some 200 people including bishops, leaders of religious orders, victims of abuse and psychologists. Source
As I observe the public blow-back on false economic statistics from the US Government, and the professional blow-back from the Armed Forces Journal report on Afghanistan that indicts many but not all flag officers, senior executive service officers, and political appointees for impeachable lies to Congress and the public, I dare to hope that our national crisis has finally broken the back of “rule by secrecy” as well as “rule by theater.”
As Karl Denninger, a Tea Party co-founder says in his book, LEVERAGE: How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World, “the math is never wrong.” Similarly, as I have found in the course of three decades of pursuing the truth, the last two with a good appreciation for true cost economics, “the truth at any cost reduces all other costs.”
We are in a crisis of our own making. It is a crisis most likely to be resolved if we can all get a grip on the truth, speak the truth only, and demand that all others speak the truth. We professionals swear an oath to defend and support the Constitution against all enemies, domestic and foreign. We do not swear an oath to obey the chain of command irrespective of how insanely criminal and intellectually hollow its orders might be.
In my view, Colonel Paul Yingling opened the door to restoring the integrity of our national security cadre with his direct articulation of “The Failure of Generalship” that obviously also includes Admirals and Senior Executive Service elements. While others have been “blowing the whistle” for decades, notably Chuck Spinney, Pierre Sprey, and Winslow Wheeler on defense, Mark Lewis, John Bogle, and William Greider on finance, it is only now that We the People appear to be listening. This should encourage those who wish to reconnect to their integrity and begin pushing back from within.
Nothing has discouraged me more these past decades than to have flag officers who ignored me while on active duty suddenly begin to parrot me upon their retirement. Integrity cannot be an afterthought, a luxury to wallow in after retirement. It must be integral to everything we do at all times, and it is MOST valuable when we are working for the government, ostensibly in the public service, and able to contribute in every small way possible, to the renunciation of corruption including all forms of turf protection at any cost. Integrity is making a comeback as the core attribute of every professional. Transparency, truth, and trust are the foundation for restoring the Republic, America the Beautiful.
PersonalBrain Webinar : February 15, 2012, 11 AM -12:00 PM Pacific, 2:00 – 3:00 PM Eastern
Webinar FREE Online
We’re all connected to a vast sea of information: twitter, email, news and social networking sites, blogs and corporate portals …But with all this information at our fingertips it begs the question: are we getting smarter with all this data or just bogged down?
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Intelligence Chief Describes Complex Challenges. America and the world are facing the most complex set of challenges in at least 50 years, the director of national intelligence told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence here today.
James R. Clapper Jr. said capabilities, technologies, know-how, communications and environmental forces “aren't confined by borders and can trigger transnational disruptions with astonishing speed.”
“Never before has the intelligence community been called upon to master such complexity on so many issues in such a resource- constrained environment,” he added.
CIA Director David H. Petraeus, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Army Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr. and others accompanied Clapper during his testimony on Capitol Hill. Clapper spoke for all agencies in his opening statement.
All U.S. agencies are combating the complex environment and making sense of the threats by continuing to integrate the community and “by taking advantage of new technologies, implementing new efficiencies and, as always, simply working hard,” Clapper said.
Still, he said, all agencies are confronting the difficult fiscal environment.
“Maintaining the world's premier intelligence enterprise in the face of shrinking budgets will be difficult,” the director said. “We'll be accepting and managing risk more so than we've had to do in the last decade.”
Terrorism and proliferation remain the first threats the intelligence agencies must face, he said, and the next three years will be crucial. [Read more: Garamone/AFPS/31January2012]
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Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus
“Too Big To Know is Weinberger's brilliant synthesis of myriad little debates—information overload, echo chambers, the wisdom of crowds—into a single vision of life and work in an era of networked knowledge.”
Available for Pre-Order Release Date 16 March 2012
Rheingold outlines five fundamental digital literacies, online skills that will help us do this: attention, participation, collaboration, critical consumption of information (or “crap detection”), and network smarts. He explains how attention works, and how we can use our attention to focus on the tiny relevant portion of the incoming tsunami of information. He describes the quality of participation that empowers the best of the bloggers, netizens, tweeters, and other online community participants; he examines how successful online collaborative enterprises contribute new knowledge to the world in new ways; and he teaches us a lesson on networks and network building.