Officers Call – Page 165 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/09/052011/09/05

Chuck Spinney: Can USA Move Beyond 9/11 Pathology?

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

CS Note: Lightly reformatted by text unchanged and nothing added

Can the United States move beyond the narcissism of 9/11?

The unity brought about by the tragedy was intense but fleeting. The war on terror has been disastrous abroad and divisive at home

Gary Younge, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 September 2011 18.00

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks the then national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, called in her senior staff and asked them to think seriously about “how [to] capitalise on these opportunities”.

The primary opportunity came from a public united in anger, grief and fear which the Bush administration sought to leverage to maximum political effect. “I think September 11 was one of those great earthquakes that clarify and sharpen,” Rice told the New Yorker six months afterwards. “Events are in much sharper relief.”

Ten years later the US response to the terror attacks have clarified three things:

the limits to what its enormous military power can achieve,
its relative geopolitical decline and
the intensity of its polarised political culture.

It proved itself

incapable of winning the wars it chose to fight and
incapable of paying for them and
incapable of coming to any consensus as to why.

The combination of domestic repression at home and military aggression abroad kept no one safe, and endangered the lives of many. The execution of Osama bin Laden provoked such joy in part because almost every other American response to 9/11 is regarded as a partial or total failure.

Read original online–safety copy below the line.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Can USA Move Beyond 9/11 Pathology?”

2011/09/052011/09/05

Marcus Aurelius: US at Permanent “War” + War RECAP

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Military, Officers Call

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

The new normal, era persistent conflict.

A decade after the 9/11 attacks, Americans live in an era of endless war

Gregg Jaffe

Washington Post, September 5, 2011, p. 1

Video: The attacks of September 11, 2001 forced Americans to reevaluate their views on the nation's security. A decade later, is the country stronger and better prepared to prevent a terror attack? (Aug. 31)

This is the American era of endless war.

To grasp its sweep, it helps to visit Fort Campbell, Ky., where the Army will soon open a $31 million complex for wounded troops and those whose bodies are breaking down after a decade of deployment.

Read full article.

See accompanying graphic.

Phi Beta Iota: This is not new. War has been the norm since President General David Eiserhower warned of the rise of the military-industrial complex. The article is worth reading in full to understand how very smart people can become very stupid–we are in a state of endless war because none of our leaders have the integrity to apply their undeniable intelligence to waging peace, which is vastly cheaper than war–the problem is that peace enriches poor people rather than concentrating wealth.

See Especially:

Review: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace – How We Got to Be So Hated

2011/09/042011/09/04

Marcus Aurelius: US Special Forces Train Mexican Assassins

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Corruption, DoD, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

U.S. Special Forces Training Mexican Assassination Squads to Battle Cartels

Public Intelligence.Net, 2 September 2011

A small but growing proxy war is underway in Mexico pitting US-assisted assassin teams composed of elite Mexican special operations soldiers against the leadership of an emerging cadre of independent drug organizations that are far more ruthless than the old-guard Mexican “cartels” that gave birth to them.

These Mexican assassin teams now in the field for at least half a year, sources tell Narco News, are supported by a sophisticated US intelligence network composed of CIA and civilian US military operatives as well as covert special-forces soldiers under Pentagon command — which are helping to identify targets for the Mexican hit teams.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: Black SOF means well, but they are out of context and out of control. We recall with sadness that Cuban exiles trained and equipped by CIA to assassinate Castro used those skills and that equipment to assassinate John F. Kennedy, and more recently, many of the special forces trained in Mexico by US special forces have immediately rolled over to work for the cartels. The US Government lacks intelligence and integrity, and continues to throw money at bits and pieces of the old dysfunctional concepts….doing the wrong things righter instead of doing the right thing. Albert Einstein called that “insanity.” Mike Vickers has learned nothing from history, because he does not wish to learn–this is taxpayer funded playtime for him, and he is not being held accountable for the inevitable “blow back” that has accompanied every DoD/CIA assassination play going back fifty years.

2011/09/03

David Isenberg (Military): Government Contractors at War

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

War and Private Contractors: Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them

David Isenberg

Huffington Post, 9/2/2011

EXTRACT:

The number of Department of Defense (Defense), Department of State (State), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contractor employees in Iraq and Afghanistan has varied, but exceeded 260,000 in 2010. The contractor employee count has at times surpassed the number of U.S. military personnel in the two countries.

. . . . . . .

Although contract activity has taken on increasing importance, the resources devoted to managing contracts and contractors have not kept pace. The number of contract specialists — an occupation critical to the execution of contingency contracting — rose by only 3 percent government-wide between 1992 and 2009, despite an enormous increase in contracting activity during that period.

That last point is a diplomatic way of saying that even after 10 years of extensive use of contractors to enable and facilitate military, diplomatic and reconstruction operations, government still doesn't know how, or even worse, doesn't care, to carry out due diligence on the activities it contracts out.

. . . . . . .

Also, speaking of big firms, pause to consider the similarities between large PMCs and the financial services industry. The CWC did and found, “Because the U.S. government relies on only a handful of contractors to provide most of the support for the contingencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, this reliance potentially presents a situation analogous to the U.S. financial industry's “too big to fail” calamity.”

Read full article including list of top contractors.

Phi Beta Iota: So much for Bob Gates doing anything useful at DoD. He combined “civility” with maintenance of the status quo, ignoring both the fact that the US Government is incapable of contracting at scale, and the fact that 4% of the force takes 80% of the casualties and gets 1% of the budget. Shame everlasting. Defense is long past due for a Secretary of Defense able to combine intelligence with integrity….but that needs a restoration of integrity to the electoral process and the governance process.

2011/09/012011/09/01

Steven Aftergood: Top Secret America–Totally Dysfunctional

Analysis, Commerce, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Policies, Threats

A SPOTLIGHT ON “TOP SECRET AMERICA”

Most people can vaguely recall that there was once no U.S. Department of Homeland Security and that there was a time when you didn't have to take your shoes off before boarding an airplane or submit to other dubious security practices.

But hardly anyone truly comprehends the enormous expansion of the military, intelligence and homeland security bureaucracy that has occurred over the past decade, and the often irrational transformation of American life that has accompanied it.

The great virtue of the new book Top Secret America by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin (Little Brown, September 2011) is that it illuminates various facets of our secret government, lifting them from the periphery of awareness to full, sustained attention.

Top Secret America, which builds on the series of stories the authors produced for the Washington Post in July 2010, delineates the contours of “the new American security state.” Since 9/11, for example, some 33 large office complexes for top secret intelligence work have been completed in the Washington DC area, the equivalent in size of nearly three Pentagons. More than 250,000 contractors are working on top secret programs. A bewildering number of agencies – more than a thousand — have been created to execute security policy, including at least 24 new organizations last year alone. And so on.

But the vast scale of this activity says nothing about its quality or utility. The authors, who are scrupulous in their presentation of the facts, are critical in their evaluation:

“One of the greatest secrets of Top Secret America is its disturbing dysfunction.”

Continue reading “Steven Aftergood: Top Secret America–Totally Dysfunctional”

2011/08/312011/08/31

DefDog: Court Case Lifts Lid on CIA Rendition Flights

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Officers Call

The dam should be close to bursting…..

Court case lifts lid on secret post 9/11 flights

By STEPHEN BRAUN, Associated Press – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A hidden network of U.S. companies, coordinated by a prominent defense contractor, played a key role in the covert airlift that transported terrorism suspects and their American minders, according to newly disclosed documents in a New York business dispute between two aviation companies.

The court files of more than 1,700 pages shed new light on the U.S. government's reliance on private contractors for flights between Washington, foreign capitals, the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and, at times, landing points near once-secret, CIA-run overseas prisons. The companies included DynCorp, a leading government contractor that secretly oversaw a fleet of luxury jets, and caterers that unwittingly stocked the planes with fruit platters and bottles of wine, according to the court files and testimony.

The business dispute stems from an obscure four-year fight between a New York-based charter company, Richmor Aviation Inc., which supplied corporate jets and crews to the government, and a private aviation broker, SportsFlight Air, which organized flights for DynCorp. Both sides cited the government's program of forced transport of detainees, or “extraordinary rendition,” in testimony, evidence and legal arguments. The companies are fighting over $874,000 awarded to Richmor by a New York state appeals court to cover unpaid costs for the secret flights.

The court files — they include contracts, flight invoices, cell phone logs and correspondence — paint a sweeping portrait of collusion between the government and the private contractors that did its bidding — some eagerly, some hesitantly. Other firms turned a blind eye.

Read full article….

2011/08/26

DefDog: Over-Stating China – Close Down PACOM + RECAP

02 China, Communities of Practice, Corruption, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Strategy, Threats

A smaller America could be a stronger America

By Nader Mousavizadeh, 25 Aug 2011

Reuters Compass (author is not Reuters)

Last week, China quietly launched the aircraft carrier Varyag from the port of Dalian. The ship is expected to be deployed to Hainan province in close proximity to the strategic regions of Taiwan and the South China Sea. Amidst an atmosphere of existential gloom triggered by the debt-ceiling debacle and the deeper economic crisis, the reaction in the United States was dominated by the fear of a rising, militarist China challenging America’s global superiority. What few in the United States bothered to mention, however, is that the new Chinese carrier was built from an unfinished Ukrainian hull purchased in 1998 – and is the first and only aircraft carrier China has ever had. The United States, meanwhile, has eleven.

The real problem with the U.S. response was not, however, that it exaggerated the Chinese threat. It is that it greatly overestimates the benefits, to America, of the country’s continuing quest for global supremacy – politically, economically and militarily.

. . . . . .

Six numbers tell the story of empire’s price in stark terms: federal deficits, gross debt, military spending, infrastructure investment, income inequality and now endemic joblessness:

. . . . . .

From Brazil to Indonesia, Turkey to South Africa, the rising pivotal powers are not looking to replace U.S. hegemony with Chinese dependency. In fact, as they focus on strategies of inclusive growth that sustain accountability and legitimacy, the mobile networked younger generations of these countries will continue to look to America as a model in many respects. A new partnership with a right-sized America disciplined by limitations and constraints is there to be forged – if only U.S. political leaders are willing to rethink the value of empire.

In an Archipelago World defined by the fragmentation of power, capital and ideas where the winners will be those states able to vertically integrate public and private interests, America’s present global posture is more a curse than a blessing.

Read full article…

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