A diplomatic disaster for the United States is currently unfolding in Berlin. The revelation that the NSA may have monitored cell phone conversations and text messages of Chancellor Angela Merkel has led to popular outrage in Germany, as well as unusually pointed language from the Chancellor and other government officials. The U.S. Ambassador was not merely asked but summoned (“einbestellt”) to the German foreign office—a strong verb used until now (if at all) only for the Syrian and Iranian ambassadors. The Chancellor’s phone conversation with President Obama did nothing to ease the tension. Merkel declared such practices totally unacceptable: Between friends and partners such as the United States and Germany, the monitoring of communications by government leaders is a grave breach of trust, her press secretary emphasized. The Obama administration, other than saying the Chancellor’s phone is not now and will not in the future be monitored, has offered nothing: neither apology, nor explanation of what happened in the past, nor any sort of suggestion for future cooperation or discussion of a collective solution.
The unprecedented Saudi refusal to take up its Security Council seat is not just about Syria but a response to the Iranian threat
The Muslim world’s historic – and deeply tragic – chasm between Sunni and Shia Islam is having worldwide repercussions. Syria’s civil war, America’s craven alliance with the Sunni Gulf autocracies, and Sunni (as well as Israeli) suspicions of Shia Iran are affecting even the work of the United Nations.
Saudi Arabia’s petulant refusal last week to take its place among non-voting members of the Security Council, an unprecedented step by any UN member, was intended to express the dictatorial monarchy’s displeasure with Washington’s refusal to bomb Syria after the use of chemical weapons in Damascus – but it also represented Saudi fears that Barack Obama might respond to Iranian overtures for better relations with the West.
The Saudi head of intelligence, Prince Bandar bin Sultan – a true buddy of President George W Bush during his 22 years as ambassador in Washington – has now rattled his tin drum to warn the Americans that Saudi Arabia will make a “major shift” in its relations with the US, not just because of its failure to attack Syria but for its inability to produce a fair Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.
What this “major shift” might be – save for the usual Saudi hot air about its independence from US foreign policy – was a secret that the prince kept to himself.
Israel, of course, never loses an opportunity to publicise – quite accurately – how closely many of its Middle East policies now coincide with those of the wealthy potentates of the Arab Gulf.
“I am overwhelmed by the elegance and simplicity of the techniques that are being deployed to defeat the dissemination of 9/11 Truth to the American public”–Jim Fetzer
The massive NSA surveillance program appears to have benefits for those who are in control beyond what has been generally acknowledged, which, evidence suggests, includes manipulating search engines to make it more difficult, if not impossible, to access programs about 9/11, even if they are broadcast by as important a source as “Russia Today”.
In addition, even as prominent and respected a source as NPR has begun to run a series of animated features about those who died on 9/11, which appears to be a brilliant stroke from the point of view of public relations. Emotions almost always outweigh reason and rationality in dealing with traumatic events, such as 9/11, where they may have found a way to control the public effortlessly.
Manipulating the Internet
In an article published on 3 October 2013, “Search Engine Manipulation. Google and YouTube Suppress Controversial 9/11 Truth?”, Elizabeth Woolworth reports about a recent broadcast by RT (“Russia Today”), which illustrates the technique that we can expect is going to be utilized on a large scale by the NSA and the CIA, not only in relation to 9/11 but JFK and other issues:
On September 8, 2013, the popular Russia Today “Truthseeker” program, with over a million subscribers on YouTube,[1] published a 13-minute newscast entitled “The Truthseeker: 9/11 and Operation Gladio (E23)”:
Below the video frame ran the caption:
Bigger than Watergate’: US ‘regular’ meetings with Al-Qaeda’s leader; documented White House ‘false flag terrorism’ moving people ‘like sheep’; the father of Twin Towers victim tell us why he backs this month’s 9/11 campaign on Times Square and around the world; & the protests calendar for September.
This paragraph was followed by a list of interviewees, including four people representing three scholarly research organizations: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth,[2] the 9/11 Consensus Panel,[3] and The Journal of 9/11 Studies.[4]
The “Truthseeker” video immediately started to gain popularity on YouTube, reaching 131,000 views in the first three days.[5](The history of the viewing statistics may be seen by clicking on the little graphic symbol under the video frame, and to the right)
Truthseeker posted its program to YouTube on Sept. 8. Russia Today tweeted the YouTube link to its 546,000 followers and to the interviewer, Daniel Bushell, that day:
– Downsize, transition, and then sustain a smaller, but ready and capable Total Army that provides Joint and Combined forces with expeditionary and enduring landpower for the range of military operations and features unique competencies such as operational leadership, mobility, command and control, and theater logistics at all echelons.
Raymond T. Odierno
Phi Beta Iota: To downsize effectively you have to have ethical evidence-based decision-support immediately applicable to strategy, policy, acquisitions, and operations. This does not exist. NGIC once upon a time had Tim Hendrickson and GRAND VIEW but they never made the leap to holistic analytics and true cost economics. Army flags — including the very best of them — simply do not know what they need to know to demand of the intelligence “professionals” what the latter have no clue how to produce. We have not seen a single useful strategic, policy, or acquisition document come out of DIA in the past twenty years…nor CIA. All these people are still in the cut and paste fluff mode that Col Mike Pheneger, USA (SOF) blew the whistle on in 1988. Nothing has changed in substance — just more people, more money, more (retarded) technology, and much less useful thinking.
Click on Image to Enlarge
[ENABLERS; EXPEDITIONARY; UNIFIED ACTION PARTNERS (UAPs)] – Support the Joint Force with critical enablers such as aviation, intelligence, engineers, logistics, medical, signal, and special operations, both while enroute to, and operating within, expeditionary environments alongside Unified Action Partners.
Phi Beta Iota: The Marine Corps led the way with Planning and Programming Factors for Expeditionary Operations in the Third World, and then lost its integrity and started chasing money instead of producing ethical evidence-based decision-support relevant to what General Al Gray wanted in the first place, compelling support for honest light-footprint low-cost acquisition (something the other four services need but refuse) along with strategic and operational support to what he called “peaceful preventive measures.” The Navy has imploded — as many Admirals as ships, and the whole lot of them are not worth anything in terms of rapid precision response, this leaves the Marine Corps both 4-6 days away from anywhere, and totally exposed (e.g. no Naval Gunfire, rotten CAP) once they get there. Army cannot do what it wants to do without an honest long-haul Air Force and a complete make-over of close air support (to include transfer of CAS to the Army) as well as reconnecting to reality at the geospatial, cyber, and cultural levels.
Most of America can’t imagine the evening news could look and sound any other way.
That’s how solid the long-term brainwashing is.
The elite anchors, from Douglas Edwards and John Daly, in the early days of television, all the way to Brian Williams and Scott Pelley, have set the style. They define the genre.
The elite anchor is not a person filled with passion or curiosity. Therefore, the audience doesn’t have to be passionate or filled with curiosity, either.
The anchor is not a demanding voice on the air; therefore, the audience doesn’t have to be demanding.
The anchor isn’t hell-bent on uncovering the truth. For this he substitutes a false dignity. Therefore, the audience can surrender its need to wrestle with the truth and replace that with a false dignity of its own.
The anchor takes propriety to an extreme: it’s unmannerly to look below the surface of things. Therefore, the audience adopts those manners.
The attached article is a very important and informative essay. Patrick Cockurn describes how the media echo chamber warps the Orientation* of the public, as well as that of a government, to unfolding events in the so-called global war on terror that triggered by 9-11 and the continuously metastasizing instabilities the GWOT is unleashing. I regard Cockburn** to be one of the very finest if not THE finest observer now operating in the Middle East. I urge readers to study his analysis very closely … almost every sentence contains a nugget of wisdom. Then think about how this kind of reporting is messing with your mind — e.g., a good place to start is to work through the Orientation-related ramifications of his reference to “embedding.”
Chuck Spinney
Alexandria, VA
* Explanatory note for new readers: The American strategist Colonel John R. Boyd explained why Orientation is the most crucial yet most vulnerable part of any decision maker's Observation – Orientation – Decision – Action (OODA) Loop. The OODA loop lies at the heart of his influential strategic theories about the elemental nature of any form of conflict — i.e., the interaction of opposing MINDs. Readers unfamiliar with Boyd or his synthesis of the OODA Loop can find brief introduction in my essays Genghis John and Incestuous Amplification and the Madness of King George. More comprehensive but accessible and accurate 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, I recommend Franz Ozinga‘s analysis of Boyd's strategic thought or even better, they could study Boyd's original presentations, which can be downloaded from this Archive.
** Truth in advertizing: I am proud to call Patrick Cockburn a friend.
The four wars fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria over the past 12 years have all involved overt or covert foreign intervention in deeply divided countries. In each case the involvement of the West exacerbated existing differences and pushed hostile parties towards civil war. In each country, all or part of the opposition have been hard-core jihadi fighters. Whatever the real issues at stake, the interventions have been presented as primarily humanitarian, in support of popular forces against dictators and police states. Despite apparent military successes, in none of these cases have the local opposition and their backers succeeded in consolidating power and establishing stable states.
More than most armed struggles, the conflicts have been propaganda wars in which newspaper, television and radio journalists played a central role. In all wars there is a difference between reported news and what really happened, but during these four campaigns the outside world has been left with misconceptions even about the identity of the victors and the defeated.
