Category: Officers Call

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Chuck Spinney: Has the US Lost Its Grand Strategic Mind?

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

As Esam Al-Amin explained here, Mohamad Morsi made some colossal blunders during his one year rule of Egypt, as its democratically elected president.  He was elected in what most observers regard as a reasonably fair election.

But the exclusive report by Al Jazeera (also attached below) reveals that the United States — which claims to support democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere — has been actively involved in bankrolling Morsi's opposition, and in so doing has continued its long policy of subverting Islamist democratic victories when they win fair elections (Hamas in  2006) or threaten to win fair elections (Algeria  1991).

Al Jazeera reveals how stark contradictions continue to rip through the three legs of the moral triangle that is US foreign policy — i.e., the contradictions between  (1) the values we profess to to the world that we uphold, (2) the values we actually hold as demonstrated by our actions abroad as well as at home (don't forget the neo-fascist, non-accountable, hidden hand the emerging American deep state exemplified by the NSA scandal) and (3) the world we have to deal with deal with (in this case epitomized by the changing conditions of the Arab Spring).

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Marcus Aurelius: 213 Things US Army Does NOT Allow

Cultural Intelligence, Military, Offbeat Fun, Officers Call
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

Circulating among SOF retired.

The 213 Things Skippy is Not Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army

At the bottom of the page is a little info about “Skippy”, the originator of the list. The ones listed after “Mike’s addenda” were added by an author, and a friend of mine, named Michael Z. Williamson.  Extracted from that context at the end of this post:

I assure you, every thing on this list is something that I personally was instructed not to do, or I witnessed another soldier receive instructions about. Not to say that everything actually happened, just that it was discussed.

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Evo Morales: Indignation Over Impunity

02 Diplomacy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call
Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

O presidente boliviano Evo Morales em entrevista coletiva no aeroporto de Viena, na Áustria

Bolivian President Evo Morales at a press conference at the airport in Vienna, Austria

25 verdades sobre o caso Evo Morales/Edward Snowden: Caso mostra que União Europeia é um engodo político e diplomático, sempre subserviente às exigências de Washington

25 truths about the case Evo Morales / Edward Snowden: Case shows that the European Union is a political and diplomatic deception, always subservient to the demands of Washington

Full translation below the line.

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Marcus Aurelius: SOCOM Working on Global Network — Comment by Robert Steele

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics, Government, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

Well worth reading between the lines.

Socom Officials Work on Plan for Global Network

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., June 3, 2013 – About 100 people are hard at work at the U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters here on a new plan that will operationalize the way the command provides manpower and capability in support of the new defense strategic guidance.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

The plan, due to the Joint Staff in late August, is part of the Special Operations Command 2020 vision Navy Adm. William H. McRaven introduced shortly after taking the helm as Socom commander in 2011.The building of a global network of special operations forces, as well as U.S. government partners and partner nations, is a major component of Socom 2020, McRaven explained during the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Fla., earlier this month.

McRaven’s Socom 2020 vision calls for a globally networked force of special operations forces, interagency representatives, allies and partners, with aligned structures processes and authorities to enable its operations. Globally networked forces, he said, will provide geographic combatant commanders and chiefs of mission with an unprecedented unity of effort and an enhance ability to respond to regional contingencies and threats to stability.

McRaven noted his own experience working with the Joint Special Operations Command in Afghanistan. “It has been interesting to work in a network like that, and we do that very, very well on the direct action side,” he said. “We need to figure out — and it is part of the Socom plan — how do we take that network, and be able to extend that out to the theater special operations commands,” down to special operations forward elements and forces assigned to them.

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Marcus Aurelius: Reuel Marc-Gerecht on NSA High Cost – Low Return — Robert Steele Comments

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Military, Office of Management and Budget, Officers Call
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

The Costs And Benefits Of The NSA

The data-collection debate we need to have is not about civil liberties.

By Reuel Marc Gerecht

Weekly Standard, June 24, 2013

Should Americans fear the possible abuse of the intercept power of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland? Absolutely. In the midst of the unfolding scandal at the IRS, we understand that bureaucracies are callous creatures, capable of manipulation. In addition to deliberate misuse, closed intelligence agencies can make mistakes in surveilling legitimate targets, causing mountains of trouble. Consider Muslim names. Because of their commonness and the lack of standardized transliteration, they can befuddle scholars, let alone intelligence analysts, who seldom have fluency in Islamic languages. Although one is hard pressed to think of a case since 9/11 in which mistaken identity, or a willful or unintentional leak of intercept intelligence, immiserated an American citizen, these things can happen. NSA civilian employees, soldiers, FBI agents, CIA case officers, prosecutors, and our elected officials are not always angels. Even though encryption is mathematically easier to accomplish than decryption, the potential for abuse of digital communication is always there—all the more since few Americans resort to encryption of their everyday emails.

But fearing the NSA, which has been a staple of Hollywood for decades, requires you to believe that hundreds, if not thousands, of American employees in the organization are in on a conspiracy. In the Edward Snowden-is-a-legitimate-NSA-whistleblower narrative, it also requires that very liberal senators and congressmen are complicit in propagating a civil-rights-chewing national surveillance system.

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