IO Deeds of War – Page 177 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/10/05

Chuck Spinney: The Day America Died

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

Assassinating Awlaki

The Day America Died

by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, Counterpunch, 4 October 2011

September 30, 2011 was the day America was assassinated.

Some of us have watched this day approach and have warned of its coming, only to be greeted with boos and hisses from “patriots” who have come to regard the US Constitution as a device that coddles criminals and terrorists and gets in the way of the President who needs to act to keep us safe.

In our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, Lawrence Stratton and I showed that long before 9/11 US law had ceased to be a shield of the people and had been turned into a weapon in the hands of the government. The event known as 9/11 was used to raise the executive branch above the law. As long as the President sanctions an illegal act, executive branch employees are no longer accountable to the law that prohibits the illegal act. On the president’s authority, the executive branch can violate US laws against spying on Americans without warrants, indefinite detention, and torture and suffer no consequences.

Phi Beta Iota: Every single major flaw in the US Government can be connected to the corruption that is made possible by a two-party tyranny divorced from reality and accountable to none. Electoral Reform is the singular demand of OccupyWallStreet movement, and with good reason. It is the “one thing” that can cleanse the government and restore the integrity of the Republic.

CORRUPTION is the common enemy, both in government and in the private sector.

ELECTORAL REFORM is the singular demand.

SUNSHINE CABINET is the method.

INTEGRITY is the core value.

COMMONWEALTH RESTORED is the outcome.

2011/10/032011/10/03

Chuck Spinney: Meltdown in the Maghreb?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency

Want a headache … read this!

Chuck Spinney
Blanes, Spain

MEC Analytical Group
29 September 2011
The Sahara

According to a spokesman of the Libyan National Transitional Council Qadhafi is believed to be holed up near the western town of Ghadamis near the Algerian border under the protection of Tuareg tribesmen. Qadhafi supported Tuareg rebellions against the governments of Mali and Niger in the 1970s and allowed them to settle in Libya.

The Algerian Foreign Minister announced last week that his country was ready to work closely with the new Libyan authorities, adding that Algeria would eventually recognise the National Transitional Council.

We circulate below an article published by Al Jazeera which attempts to consider the many and confusing factors which influence developments in the Sahara including the position of Niger, Chad and Mali as well as Algeria and Libya, the Tuareg and other Saharan people, al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), American pursuit of the “global war on terror” GWOT, and most recently the possibility that Qadhafi or his supporters will continue disruptive activity after their defeat in Libya itself. The author is a professor of social anthropology at the London School of Oriental and African Studies who seems to be the only analyst of the area writing in English.

Libya and the Sahel's nightmare scenario

Libya's uprising is causing turmoil in amid its neighbours and speculation of a Tuareg rebellion has emerged.

Jeremy Keenan

Aljazeera, 28 Sep 2011

EXTRACT:

Prior to the start of Libya's revolution in February, the Sahelian regions of Niger and Mali had already suffered eight years of increasing political instability and insecurity. The reasons for this are complex:

First, having partially recovered from the Tuareg rebellions of the 1990s, the rulers of both Niger and Mali became willing, pliant and corrupt partners in the global war on terror (GWOT). This transformation occured following the complicity between the US and Algeria's mukhabarat [security services] and the Departement du Renseignement et de la Securite [DRS – Department of Intelligence and Security] in fabricating terrorism in the region in order to justify the launch of the 2003 second front in the GWOT in the Sahel/Sahara. That alone brought an almost instant decimation of the predominantly Tuareg tourist industry and an annual loss of an estimated $50m.

Another factor contributing to instability in the region occured in 2005, following the political provocation of the Tuareg by the Niger government. This led to a short-lived rebellion, while in May 2006 the US and Algeria's DRS orchestrated a Tuareg rebellion in northeastern Mali. This was followed, four to five months later, by two contrived “terrorist” engagements designed to facilitate the name change of Algeria's GSPC into al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its “insertion” into the Sahel.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Meltdown in the Maghreb?”

2011/10/022020/02/24

Marcus Aurelius & DefDog: Google, NSA, Domestic Spying

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, DHS, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, IO Deeds of War

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

NSA spooks win fight to keep secret possible ties to Google

The National Security Agency will get to keep secret documents that may, or may not, show a working relationship with Google.

In a decision made public Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon denied a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the curious souls at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. EPIC sought documents relating to NSA's possible relationship with Google following news of an alleged cyber attack by hackers in China and of a subsequent cooperation agreement between Google and NSA.

Internet firms co-opted for surveillance: experts

(Reuters) – Internet companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook are increasingly co-opted for surveillance work as the information they gather proves irresistible to law enforcement agencies, Web experts said this week.

2011/10/02

Berto Jongman: ICSR Report – As American As Apple Pie – How Anwar al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad + US Government Assassination RECAP

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

From the Introduction:

This is an ICSR Insight written by Research Fellow, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens
On the ten year anniversary of 9/11 earlier this month ICSR published an authoritative report on Anwar al-Awlaki, As American as Apple Pie: How Anwar al-Awlaki became the Face of Western Jihad.

The demise of Anwar al-Awlaki, if reports of his death are accurate, represents a significant milestone in the fight against al-Qaeda. Despite his involvement with a number of both successful and abortive terrorist attacks against the West, it is Awlaki’s ability to project Salafi-jihadi ideology

. . . . . .

The story of Anwar al-Awlaki, and in particular his intellectual progression to jihad, reveals a unique
trajectory of jihadism in the West. This movement is not just confined to Muslim majority countries,
and through arguments he and others have provided, its message now resonates with a small section of
Western Muslims. The movement has achieved this level of resonance through a process which
includes the appropriation of contemporary Western political discourse about human rights, injustice
and foreign policy, interwoven with the history of Islam and the fostering a of global Islamic
consciousness which demands violent action in order to survive and expand.

As American as Apple Pie:
How Anwar al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad
PDF 96 Pages

See Also [US Government Assassination RECAP]

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: ICSR Report – As American As Apple Pie – How Anwar al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad + US Government Assassination RECAP”

2011/09/302011/09/30

DefDog: Those ‘Coining the Blood of War’ Should Sacrifice Too

Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

Those ‘Coining the Blood of War' Should Sacrifice Too

Dallas Darling

WN.com, 30 September 2011

In 1919, immediately after World War One but still during the United States' military occupations of Russia and China, Hiram Johnson, the former reform governor of California who served in the Senate, spoke for many who feared American involvement in the Great War might continue to generate obscene profits for armaments makers. To ensure that corporate interests and their futuristic manufactured wars did not reap unfair gains from the war taxes imposed on citizens, Johnson proposed that the government make the defense industry contribute toward the expenses of war.

Phi Beta Iota: This assumes government with integrity.

2011/09/302011/10/02

Mini-Me: Assassination – Made in America – At What Cost? Impeachable Treason.

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call

The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality

Without a shred of due process, far from any battlefield, President Obama succeeds in killing Anwar al-Awlaki

Glenn Greenwald

Salon, 30 September 2011

The US Assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki and the Blurring of Bright Lines

E. D. Kain

Forbes, 30 September 2011

The Obama administration has demonstrated once again, as it did in Libya and as it’s done in a variety of surveillance cases, that its view of executive power in the arena of national security is hardly any less expansive than Dick Cheney’s was. The fact that this was predictable makes it no less alarming.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Assassination – Made in America – At What Cost? Impeachable Treason.”

2011/09/30

Winslow Wheeler: Elitist Corruption on the Defense Budget

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

WinslowWheeler Cropped — Winslow Wheeler

Just as the leaders of US national security thinking led America into the war in Iraq based on the false premise of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and reckless, but politically powerful, rhetoric, Washington's elite are now circling the wagons around the defense budget. They are using the same disingenuous tactics and the same kind of rhetorical gibberish. While they have successfully intimidated the rest of the political system, they are also making huge fools of themselves.

I express my views on this and some defense budget facts you have not heard from these people in a commentary. Titled “The Stench of Elitism in Defense Spending,” it is available at the Politics page of the Huffington Post. Under the better mannered title “Elites Are Wrong,” an edit is also available at AOL Defense.

Full text below the line.

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