Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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SchwartzReport: Truths That Matter

Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

This is the most amazing story yet to come out of Fukushima. TEPCO discharged highly radioactive water into the ocean around the carrier Ronald Reagan without telling the U.S. Navy while she was working to rescue Japanese citizens. It resulted in the contamination of the ship, its personnel, and its water system. Sailors are now trying to sue TEPCO. Ask yourself: Why is this not a major story in the corporate news? We have endless news coverage about a very wealthy studiedly redneck yahoo racist bigot, but next to nothing on what happened to this ship and these young American sailors and Marines on a humanitarian mission. Do you think the media's priorities are a bit out of whack? Click through to see the video of the sailors describing what happened to them.

Japan Refused USS Ronald Reagan to Dock for Fresh Water and Crew Decontamination During Rescue Mission Too Radioactive
Turner Radio Network

Phi Beta Iota: The above is an outrage, certainly, but the question Congress should be asking is this: why did the commander of the USS Ronald Reagan, and the ship's NBC detection systems, not see this coming?

More interesting, and positive, developments from the Vatican. Increasingly the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant Fundamentalists are diverging over the issue of science. One becoming more fact based, the other more unmoored from reality.

Vatican Science on Christmas and Creationism
CHRISTOPHER DICKEY – The Daily Beast

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Berto Jongman: Pentagon’s Top Three Threats

Government, Idiocy, Military
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Pentagon's top three threats in the ‘deep future'

What sorts of threats will the US military face in the “deep future”?

That was the topic of a panel at the Association of the US Army (AUSA) conference this week, the heavily attended annual trade show that draws top Pentagon officials and defense contractors.

It's a tricky proposition for the Pentagon, since making the wrong predictions means squandering scarce funds in a time of intense budget pressure. The Pentagon was forced to cancel the Future Combat System in 2009, for example, when the military tried to predict where the future was headed “more than a few years out,” said Gen. Robert Cone, head of the US training and doctrine command. As a result, he told the panel, “We're a little gun-shy.”

Still, in a standing-room-only session, the discussion endeavored to come up with the most likely risks to the stability of the world – and most likely to challenge the US military – in 2030 and beyond. Here are their top three picks.

1. The growth of cities – and of slums

2. A ‘significant and lengthy' period of Sunni-Shiite violence in the Middle East

3. The revolution in personal communications, combined with cheap drones and robotics

Read full article.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Pentagon's Top Three Threats”

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Rob Kall: Looking At a Bigger Picture: Criminals and Rogue Organizations Within

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Military
Rob Kall
Rob Kall

Looking At a Bigger Picture: Criminals and Rogue Organizations Within

Rob Kall

OpEdNews, 22 December 2013

We have big problems that are currently out of control and taking our nation careening towards a future that is dangerously out of control. We have, deeply ensconced within our power infrastructures, institutions, organizations and job categories where there are gross violations of the law, of the constitution, of the rights of citizens. These organizations and the people who operate freely as perpetrators of crimes and abuses of the constitution are protected by the power hierarchy that is supposed to supervise them and hold them accountable.

Let's take a look at some of the worse offenders. There's no new news here. But my hope is to frame this is a bigger problem that needs to be addressed by new responses– responses which I'll discuss shortly.

My goal in this article is to start a conversation that needs to be raised to a much higher level. So here are a few examples of the abusing entities.

Continue reading “Rob Kall: Looking At a Bigger Picture: Criminals and Rogue Organizations Within”

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Ray McGovern: Truman’s True Warning on the CIA

Corruption, Government
Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern

Truman's True Warning on the CIA

Ray McGovern

OpEdNews, 22 December 2013

Fifty years ago, exactly one month after John Kennedy was killed, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled “Limit CIA Role to Intelligence.” The first sentence of that op-ed on Dec. 22, 1963, read, “I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency.”

It sounded like the intro to a bleat from some liberal professor or journalist. Not so. The writer was former President Harry S. Truman, who spearheaded the establishment of the CIA 66 years ago, right after World War II, to better coordinate U.S. intelligence gathering. But the spy agency had lurched off in what Truman thought were troubling directions.

Sadly, those concerns that Truman expressed in that op-ed — that he had inadvertently helped create a Frankenstein monster — are as valid today as they were 50 years ago, if not more so.

Truman began his article by underscoring “the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency … and what I expected it to do.” It would be “charged with the collection of all in telligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President … without Department  ‘ treatment' or interpretations.”

Truman then moved quickly to one of the main things bothering him. He wrote “the most important thing was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions.”

Read full article.

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Berto Jongman: Snowden Has Over-Turned the Secret Regime — A Turning Point for Intelligence Reformers?

Ethics, Government, Military
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

A spy world reshaped by Edward Snowden

Leaks from the former NSA contractor have been so illuminating that experts say they mark a turning point in U.S. intelligence operations.

By Ken Dilanian

Los Angeles Times, December 22, 2013

WASHINGTON — After news reports that the National Security Agency had secretly monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone calls, America's top intelligence official was asked why congressional oversight committees were kept in the dark.

Shouldn't Congress have been briefed, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) asked James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, about a spying operation that would embarrass the U.S. government if exposed?

“Well, sir, there are many things we do in intelligence that, if revealed, would have the potential for all kinds of blowback,” Clapper replied at a House Intelligence Committee hearing in October. “The conduct of intelligence is premised on the notion that we can do it secretly, and we don't count on it being revealed in the newspaper.”

Not these days.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Snowden Has Over-Turned the Secret Regime — A Turning Point for Intelligence Reformers?”

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Michael Kearns: Pope Francis Condemns Racism And Declares That “All Religions Are True” At Historic Third Vatican Council

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Peace Intelligence
Michael S. Kearns
Michael S. Kearns

Pope Francis Condemns Racism And Declares That “All Religions Are True” At Historic Third Vatican Council

Diversity Chronicle, 5 December 2013

For the last six months, Catholic cardinals, bishops and theologians have been deliberating in Vatican City, discussing the future of the church and redefining long-held Catholic doctrines and dogmas. The Third Vatican Council, is undoubtedly the largest and most important since the Second Vatican Council was concluded in 1962. Pope Francis convened the new council to “finally finish the work of the Second Vatican Council.” While some traditionalists and conservative reactionaries on the far right have decried these efforts, they have delighted progressives around the world.

Continue reading “Michael Kearns: Pope Francis Condemns Racism And Declares That “All Religions Are True” At Historic Third Vatican Council”

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Berto Jongman: Pakistan Outs Three CIA Chiefs in Three Years… + CIA Cover Incompetence RECAP

Government, Ineptitude
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Pakistan Outs Three US CIA Station Chiefs in Three Years

Corporate Media Keeps US Citizens in the Dark

by DAVE LINDORFF

Counterpunch, Weekend Edition December 20-22, 2013

For the third time in three years, a CIA station chief has been outed in Pakistan, a country where the CIA is running one of its largest covert operations. It’s a remarkable record of failure by the CIA, since each outing, which has required a replacement of the station chief position, causes a breakdown in the agency’s network of contacts in the country.

The full names of all three station chiefs have been published widely in Pakistan and India and all over the world via the Internet—though Americans getting their news exclusively from domestic mainstream media wouldn’t know, as those organizations have consistently blacked out the names.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Pakistan Outs Three CIA Chiefs in Three Years… + CIA Cover Incompetence RECAP”

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