General and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry on the Persistent Failure of US Understanding in Afghanistan

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Lessons, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Karl W. Eikenberry
Karl W. Eikenberry

使用谷歌翻译在下一列的顶部。

गूगल अगले स्तंभ के शीर्ष पर अनुवाद का प्रयोग करें.

Google sonraki sütunun üstünde Çevir kullanın.

Используйте Google Translate на вершине соседней колонке.

گوگل اگلے کالم میں سب سے اوپر ترجمہ کا استعمال کریں.

Emphasis below added by Milt Bearden, former CIA chief in Pakistan also responsible for the field aspects of the CIA's covert support against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Foreign Affairs, September/October 2013

ESSAY

The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan
The Other Side of the COIN

Karl W. Eikenberry

Eikenberry, Obama, and General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, March 2010. (Pete Souza / White House)
Eikenberry, Obama, and General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, March 2010. (Pete Souza / White House)

KARL W. EIKENBERRY is William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He served as Commanding General of the Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007 and as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2011.

Since 9/11, two consecutive U.S. administrations have labored mightily to help Afghanistan create a state inhospitable to terrorist organizations with transnational aspirations and capabilities. The goal has been clear enough, but its attainment has proved vexing. Officials have struggled to define the necessary attributes of a stable post-Taliban Afghan state and to agree on the best means for achieving them. This is not surprising. The U.S. intervention required improvisation in a distant, mountainous land with de jure, but not de facto, sovereignty; a traumatized and divided population; and staggering political, economic, and social problems. Achieving even minimal strategic objectives in such a context was never going to be quick, easy, or cheap.

Of the various strategies that the United States has employed in Afghanistan over the past dozen years, the 2009 troop surge was by far the most ambitious and expensive. Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine was at the heart of the Afghan surge. Rediscovered by the U.S. military during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, counterinsurgency was updated and codified in 2006 in Field Manual 3-24, jointly published by the U.S. Army and the Marines. The revised
doctrine placed high confidence in the infallibility of military leadership at all levels of engagement (from privates to generals) with the indigenous population throughout the conflict zone. Military doctrine provides guidelines that inform how armed forces contribute to campaigns, operations, and battles. Contingent on context, military doctrine is
meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive.

Broadly stated, modern COIN doctrine stresses the need to protect civilian populations, eliminate insurgent leaders and infrastructure, and help establish a legitimate and accountable host-nation government able to deliver essential human services. Field Manual 3-24 also makes clear the extensive length and expense of COIN campaigns:  “Insurgencies are protracted by nature. Thus, COIN operations always demand considerable expenditures of time and resources.

Continue reading “General and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry on the Persistent Failure of US Understanding in Afghanistan”

Berto Jongman: Brookings Evaluates the NSA Documents

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Media
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

The NSA Documents, An Introduction

Benjamin Wittes

Brookings, 22 August 2013

Rather than starting with what I—or anyone else—think and believe about the remarkable cache of documents the intelligence community declassified yesterday, I thought we should begin with a detailed account of what these documents actually are and the story they tell, individually and collectively.

The press stories that follow a document release like this often do not bother to do this. They look, instead, for a key—or the key—fact, around which the news story then develops. In this case, unsurprisingly, the key fact is that the NSA gathered tens of thousands of email communication by Americans before the FISA Court declared its actions unconstitutional. As the Washington Post puts it in its lead:

For several years, the National Security Agency unlawfully gathered tens of thousands of e-mails and other electronic communications between Americans as part of a now-revised collection method, according to a 2011 secret court opinion.

Read full article.

Berto Jongman: CENTCOM Underground War Room in Amman to Manage US War on Syria

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, DoD, IO Deeds of War
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

New Centcom underground war room in Amman for US intervention in Syria

DEBKAfile Video August 17, 2013, 1:58 PM

Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in Amman this week to inaugurate the Centcom’s Forward Command in Jordan manned by 273 US officers. US media correspondents were permitted to visit the new war room for the first time on condition of non-disclosure of its location and secret facilities. debkafile’s military sources report that the installation is bomb- and missile-proof against a possible Syrian attack. The US Air Force command section is in direct communication with the US, Israeli, Jordanian and Saudi Air Force headquarters ready for an order by President Barack Obama to impose a partial no-fly zone over Syrian air space.

Another section is designed to coordinate operations between US and Jordanian special forces, as well as the units trained in commando combat by US instructors in Jordan.  A closed section houses CIA personnel who control the work of US agents going in and out of Syria and also a communications center.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: CENTCOM Underground War Room in Amman to Manage US War on Syria”

John Perry Barlow: Electronic Frontier Foundation Calls for New [Congressional] Church Committee to Probe NSA Violations of Constitution, Law, and Regulation

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military
John Perry Barlow
John Perry Barlow

Three Illusory “Investigations” of the NSA Spying Are Unable to Succeed

By Mark M. Jaycox

Since the revelations of confirmed National Security Agency spying in June, three different “investigations” have been announced. One by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), another by the Director of National Intelligence, Gen. James Clapper, and the third by the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally called the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).

All three investigations are insufficient, because they are unable to find out the full details needed to stop the government's abuse of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The PCLOB can only request—not require—documents from the NSA and must rely on its goodwill, while the investigation led by Gen. Clapper is led by a man who not only lied to Congress, but also oversees the spying. And the Senate Intelligence Committee—which was originally designed to effectively oversee the intelligence community—has failed time and time again. What's needed is a new, independent, Congressional committee to fully delve into the spying.

The PCLOB: Powerless to Obtain Documents

The PCLOB was created after a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission to ensure civil liberties and privacy were included in the government's surveillance and spying policies and practices.

But it languished. From 2008 until May of this year, the board was without a Chair and unable to hire staff or perform any work. It was only after the June revelations that the President asked the board to begin an investigation into the unconstituional NSA spying. Yet even with the full board constituted, it is unable to fulfill its mission as it has no choice but to base its analysis on a steady diet of carefully crafted statements from the intelligence community.

As we explained, the board must rely on the goodwill of the NSA's director, Gen. Keith Alexander, and Gen. Clapper—two men who have repeatedly said the NSA doesn't collect information on Americans.

Continue reading “John Perry Barlow: Electronic Frontier Foundation Calls for New [Congressional] Church Committee to Probe NSA Violations of Constitution, Law, and Regulation”

Berto Jongman: Syria False Flags & Mystery Munitions, Blowback To UK

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

US-Trained Rebels Moved Towards Damascus Days Before ‘Chemical Attack’

Lawmakers who opposed arming FSA militants “reconsider intervention”

Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars.com, August 23, 2013

300 handpicked rebel militants trained by the US, Israel and Jordan entered Syria and began advancing towards Damascus in the days before an alleged chemical weapons attack, the French newspaper Le Figaro is reporting.

“The rebels were trained for several months in a training camp on the Jordanian-Syrian border by CIA operatives, as well as Jordanian and Israeli commandos,” reports the Jerusalem Post.

Read full article.

See Also:

Mystery Munitions Video

How Might Syria Come Back to the UK?

John Maguire: James Corbett on the Syrian Cover Story

07 Other Atrocities, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Military
John Maguire
John Maguire

Description: In this exclusive clip from the forthcoming edition of the Jack Blood Podcast, James Corbett and Jack Blood dissect the latest reports of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, occurring just two days after a UN chemical weapons team arrived in the country. James goes over the history of false flag chemical provocations in the country and the reasons why we should doubt the quickly-forming official narrative that this attack was perpetrated by Assad's military. Listen to the Jack Blood podcast at DeadlineLive.info.

http://youtu.be/bSAMT5Pe15k

See Also:

NIGHTWATCH: Syrian Chemical Attack? “No Fucking Way, Jose.”

Marcus Aurelius: CIA False Flag Terrorism in Iran Plus Overview of Government-Sponsored False Flag Terrorism Over

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

F-6  info?

CIA Admits It Hired People to Impersonate Enemies and Commit Terrorism in Iran

The news that the CIA has admitted that it helped overthrow Iran’s democratically elected president in 1953 has gone viral.

In reality, the CIA admitted that a long time ago.  Indeed, the bigger story is that the CIA admitted that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister.

Indeed, governments from around the world admit they carry out this sort of subterfuge:

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: CIA False Flag Terrorism in Iran Plus Overview of Government-Sponsored False Flag Terrorism Over”