The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Doc Searls has done some work on 4th parties. Worth a look.
April 12, 2009 — Doc Searls
I think we can get some clarity about VRM — and growth of customer power in the marketplace — by re-positioning what we’ve been calling “parties.”
Google Memo Reveals Importance of Android Location Database
Just how important is location-based data to Google? Just how important is it for the sun to rise each morning? Same deal.
This question comes in the wake of eyes turning toward mobile handsets—specifically, Apple's iPhone and smartphones based on Google's Android OS—for the information they collect about the various wireless access points and cell phone towers the devices connect to (or notice) throughout the course of a given day.
Ron Paul: I wouldn't have killed bin Laden
CBS News, May 12, 2011 12:20 PM
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), who is poised to launch his presidential campaign tomorrow, said this week he would not have authorized the mission that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, arguing that killing bin Laden was unnecessary and that he has “respect for the rule of law.”
Ron Paul wouldn't have approved Osama bin Laden operation
By JUANA SUMMERS | 5/12/11 Politico
Ron Paul: I Would Not Have Ordered Bin Laden Raid
Fox Nation, May 12, 2011
The Texas congressman questioned whether Obama could have gotten away with the operation if Usama bin Laden had been in a country other than Pakistan.
“What if he had been in a hotel in London?” Paul said on Newsradio 1040 WHO. “So would we have sent the … helicopters into London because they were afraid the information would get out? No, you don't want to do that.”
NIGHTWATCH
Afghanistan-Taliban: On the death of bin Laden. The Afghan Taliban issued a lengthy statement praising bin Laden, but decoupling his jihad from the current struggle in Afghanistan.
“…The martyr (may God the Exalted have mercy on him) was among the protectors of the Islamic Afghan jihad against the enemy Soviet Union, and he participated with complete loyalty and courage in jihad alongside the Afghans until the Soviet invader forces departed Afghanistan. He offered great sacrifices in jihad in the cause of God, which the history of the ummah of Islam will always take pride in. In addition to this, the martyr shaykh (may God the Exalted have mercy on him) was among the strongest of defenders on the issue of the first qiblah [direction of prayer] of the Muslims: the issue of Al-Aqsa in occupied Islamic Palestine. Likewise, he was the greatest mujahid, and knew not laziness in his struggle against the Crusader-Zionist aggressors all over the Islamic world…”
“… If the occupying Americans and their allies think that the ranks and fighting spirit of the mujahidin in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the occupied lands will weaken with the killing of Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin (may God have mercy on him), this points toward the naïve thinking of the Americans and their lack of understanding of the meanings of jihad and martyrdom. The tree of jihad has been watered, and it is flourishing. It will always do so from the pure blood of the martyrs. With the martyrdom of each martyr, a hundred others will advance to the fields of sacrifice and devotion.”
‘Let America know that the jihadist movement present now in Afghanistan was established from within the Afghan people. It is an expression of the sentiments and hopes of this proud people, and every strike from the occupiers in this country will engender a more powerful response than the strike. The people are in solidarity with the mujahedin.'
‘Indeed, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers that the martyrdom of Shaykh Usama (may God have mercy on him) at this sensitive stage of jihad will give birth to a new spirit of jihad against the occupiers, and will incite the jihadist waves further and further. Time will prove, to friend and enemy alike, the will of God the Exalted. What we have said is sincere.'
‘The Shura Command of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ”
Comment: The statement represents guidance to the commanders in Afghanistan that bin Laden was important in the fight against the Soviets and his death is an inspiration for the future. The Shura Command, however, does not extol him as a hero of Afghanistan today. Rather it stresses the point that his struggle moved in a different direction. The Afghan fight is home grown so that bin Laden's death is not a blow to the Taliban struggle or morale.
The statement makes clear that the Taliban think that bin Laden had nothing to do with the struggle of the Taliban. The Afghans always despised the Arabs as much as the Arabs looked down on the Afghans. Mullah Omar extended hospitality to bin Laden and his Arabs and they paid him rent and abused Afghan hospitality. Omar lived to regret the arrangement because he lost his country in 2001 to US forces and northern tribal allies because of those Arabs. The Shura members apparently have not let Omar forget his bad judgment and thus they showered bin Laden with faint praise.
The language of the statement also looks like a direct rebuke of western pundits and officials who predicted that bin Laden's death would demoralize the Taliban. The Shura Command disagrees and so does the data on the level of fighting and security incidents in May. More to follow.
Guardian, Monday 9 May 2011
Muslim majority countries will soon no longer be defined by their relationships with the West
EXTRACT: The elements of a new political philosophy defining the West's relationship with Islam and with the Muslims can only emerge from the crucible of the broad-based movement for justice, freedom, democracy and dignity now sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. The rebirth now underway in the East must be understood first as an appeal for critical self-examination by the West. Once the rejoicing at the elimination of bin Laden, the “symbol of the cancer of terrorism” is over, the West should move rapidly to review its regional policies.
Phi Beta Iota: The West continues to lie to itself at all levels. Absent an honest strategic analytic model and a commitment to developing a mature approach to intelligence and policy that create non-zero solutions for a world that works for all, the West will continue to decline.
Very strange combination–and multiple searches with the exact same words.
Below the line: 1) On UN, 2) On UN national, 3) on national, 4) on M4IS2
Continue reading “Search: national intelligence strategy of the un”
Is it just me, or does it appear that we're okay with selling our cyber-soul to China (and Russia), as long as we can also blow tens of billions on US firms pretending to do cyber-security?
Report: Despite status as U.S. security threat, China's Huawei partnering with Symantec
East-Asia-Intel.com, April 27, 2011
The Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies, which has been linked to the Chinese military, is working with the U.S. software security giant Symantec, which is engaged in securing hundreds of thousands of U.S. computer systems against outside intrusions, according to a report last week in the Diplomat newsletter.
The report said “China and Russia are leveraging U.S. multinational corporations' economic requirements to accomplish strategic goals that could quite plausibly include covert technology transfer of intellectual property, access to source code for use in malware creation and backdoor access to critical infrastructure.”
Huawei was blocked from buying the U.S. telecom 3Leaf last year by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and also was blocked in 2008 from buying 3Com over security concerns. The U.S. National Security Agency also stepped in to dissuade AT&T from buying Huawei telephone equipment.
Despite those actions, Huawei formed a joint venture with Symantec in 2007 called Huawei Symantec Technologies Co. Ltd. (HS), the report said. Huawei is the majority partner with 51 percent ownership, with the entity being headquartered in Chengdu, China.
The report said a 2008 report identified HS as developing “China's first laboratory of attack and defense for networks and applications.”
The result is that Symantec is assisting China's cyber development of computer warfare capability.
The report was produced by cyber security expert Jeffrey Carr, author of Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld (O'Reilly, 2009).
Phi Beta Iota: The US Government compounds its lack of a strategic analytic model and the requisite integrity to actually pay attention to whatever findings might emerge, with an abysmal inattention to the most basic aspects of counter-intelligence, not just within government, but across the private sector, which does not actually take counter-intelligence seriously either. Creating a Smart and Safe Nation is not difficult–it requires only a uniform commitment to intelligence and integrity across all boundaries.
Tariq Ramadan