Category: Officers Call

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OpenDemocracy: Robert Steele, American Intelligence and National Defense 2.0

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, DoD, Ethics, Government, Innovation, Officers Call, Strategy

open democracy logoAmerican intelligence and national defense 2.0

Robert David Steele 10 November 2015

An Open Source (Technologies) Agency, far removed from the secret intelligence world, would radically reduce wars and illegal immigration, increase trade and shared prosperity, and convert the USA into a “Smart Nation”.

On 06/17/11, I wrote the first installment of National intelligence and national defense, published at the Campaign for Liberty, suggesting that we could both cut the secret intelligence budget by three quarters, and radically increase the amount of open source decision-support (as opposed to secret mass surveillance).

Of course nothing happened, but now, to my enormous delight, I am hearing that there is a very tentative discussion in some of the darkest corners of the US government of a proposal to terminate three of the secret agencies that reside within the Department of Defense (DoD) – the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the National Geospatial Agency (NGA). This should happen, if not in the closing year of the Obama Administration, then in 2017 under the first Independent president and a diversified Congress in which Independents, Greens, and Libertarians and others (e.g. Constitution, Working Families) win the 20-30 seats being vacated.

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Ray McGovern: INDICTMENT of Bush Senior, Others for Failing to Stop War Rooted in Lies Led by Dick Cheney

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern

Bush-41 Finally Speaks on Iraq War

Despite the propaganda and more tangible signs of incipient war in Iraq, my former intelligence analyst colleagues and I – with considerable professional experience watching other countries prepare for aggression against others – were finding it difficult to believe that the United States of America would be doing precisely that. Still harder was it to digest the notion that Washington would do so, absent credible evidence of any immediate threat and would “fix” intelligence to “justify” it. But that, sadly, is what happened.

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Richard Wright: Are Army Leaders Serious? Cannot Fight a Big War with 127,000 Net Net Soldiers

DoD, Officers Call, Strategy
Richard Wright
Richard Wright

The sad fact is that flag level officers and their civilian overseers of all the military services appear unable or unwilling to exercise critical thinking and commitment to doing what should be their jobs.

Look at the U.S. Army: it is now down to between 425 and 450 thousand soldiers yet the army general staff still speaks of fighting multiple conventional wars, defending the U.S. Homeland, and tackling insurgencies. This is just plain silly.

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William Blum: USA – Exporting War & Repression

01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Government, Military, Officers Call
William Blum
William Blum

Since the end of World War 2, the United States has:

  • Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically-elected.
  • Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
  • Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.
  • Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.
  • Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
  • Plus … although not easily quantified … more involved in the practice of torture than any other country in the world … for over a century … not just performing the actual torture, but teaching it, providing the manuals, and furnishing the equipment.

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Steve Metz: Reimagining the US Military

Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Strategy
Steve Metz
Steve Metz

Reimagining the U.S. Military for Today’s Security Environment

Steve Metz

World Politics Review, 30 October 2015

The U.S. military is increasingly ill-suited for today’s complex, interconnected and transparent security environment. It was designed to fight major wars against the military forces of other nations, yet never does so. Despite the best intentions of its architects, the U.S. military is a “kluge”—a combination of sometimes compatible, sometimes mismatched parts cobbled together. It works, but not as effectively or efficiently as it should.

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Chuck Spinney: Benghazi, Libya, Dysfunctional Congress, End of All Checks and Balances

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Hill Letters & Testimony, Officers Call
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

The Republican antics in the hearings of the Benghazi Committee in the House or Representatives are a good example illustrating how broken American politics have become.  The clear aim is narrowly political: to embarrass Hillary Clinton (and President Obama) for partisan reasons, while avoiding the roots of the larger Libyan debacle that flowed from the US led intervention.  Accounting for the deeper causes of the Libyan debacle is off limits, because just about everyone’s hands are dirty: Our bombing campaign was supported by the Republican neo-cons and their humanitarian interventionist allies in the Obama White House, as well as a majority of the Republican congressional leadership*  and most Democrats in Congress.  So, the Democrats have tried to present the hearings as yet another anti-Clinton witch hunt for the parallel reason of partisan domestic politics.

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