Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1793 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/09/142013/09/14

Stephen E. Arnold: Navy Project Pulls Military into the Nineties [Just 20 Years Behind State of the Art]

Navy Project Pulls Military into the Nineties

September 13, 2013

Sometimes an initiative comes along that causes me to perk up and declare, “wait, you mean they weren’t doing that already?” That is my response to Slashdot‘s article, “Navy Version of ‘Expedia’ to Save DOD Millions.” I know, I should no longer be surprised by the gross inefficiency of large bureaucracies.

The set of bureaucracies that makes up our military, though, is taking a welcome step toward efficiency with this project being tested by the Office of Naval Research. The system would use “an Expedia-like” search to correlate freight and personnel travel needs with open slots worldwide. Writer Kevin Fogarty reports:

“The Transportation Exploitation Tool (TET) is a little more sophisticated than online-travel sites such as Expedia or Travelocity were in 1996: The system consolidates travel schedules and capacity reports for both military and civilian carriers to give logistics planners a choice of open spaces in ships, planes, trucks, trains or other means of travel, along with information about cost, estimated time of arrival and recommendations of the most efficient route. Previously, logistics planners trying to get an engine part to a Navy ship stranded in a foreign port, for example, might spend hours or days looking through separate databases to find a ship or plane able to carry the part that could deliver it within a limited window of time.”

Though it has taken our government seventeen years to take advantage of this technology, I suppose the fact that they finally are is worth celebrating. The TET system is part of the Logistics Information Technology(LogIT) project, which aims to combine information “from separate systems for travel planning, asset tagging, tracking, location, monitoring and analysis of travel options into a single interface.” Logic is a beautiful thing!

The article includes a few details about how the system will work, as well as expectations for the project’s impact. See the article for more information about this belated but important initiative.

Cynthia Murrell, September 13, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

2013/09/14

NIGHTWATCH: Syria

08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Peace Intelligence

Syria: Syrian ambassador to the UN Jaafari said, “Legally speaking Syria has become, starting today, a full member of the (chemical weapons) convention.” He made the statement after submitting relevant documents to the United Nations.

He said President Bashar al-Asad signed a legislative decree on Thursday that “declared the Syrian Arab Republic approval to accede to the convention” and that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mu'allim had written to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to notify it of Syria's decision to join the convention.

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2013/09/132013/09/13

Jon Ramer: Compassion Games to 21 September 2013

Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Games run September 11-21 worldwide—anyone can play

“We behave ourselves into new ways of thinking,as distinct from thinking ourselves into new ways of behaving.” —from the Hoʻoponopono practice of forgiveness

SEATTLE, September 9, 2013—Announcing the Compassion Games: Survival of the Kindest, a worldwide “co-opetition” running September 11 through 21, 2013. To date, 18 communities in four countries have signed on, and the number of teams and local activities is growing daily.

Opening ceremonies and local festivities will kick off the Games September 11 in communities around the world. Over the following 10 days, neighborhoods, organizations, businesses, and individuals will organize and participate in games of their choice. Scores will be tallied and displayed online, so the progress of teams and individuals can be tracked across the globe. Closing ceremonies will take place worldwide on September 21, coinciding with the International Day of Peace, established by the United Nations in 1981.

Organized by the nonprofit Compassion Games International (CGI), the Compassion Games are designed to help and inspire individuals to make their communities safer, kinder, more just, and better places to live. The Games provide a network through which individuals, organizations, and businesses can actively participate in and lead societal change—being empowered and caring citizens, while putting kindness at the center of fun, good-natured, competitive play. CGI offers tools and an active online community to help organizers form teams and participate.

Continue reading “Jon Ramer: Compassion Games to 21 September 2013”

2013/09/13

Steven Aftergood: POLICY RESPONSE TO INTELLIGENCE REVELATIONS LAGS

Ethics, Government

POLICY RESPONSE TO INTELLIGENCE REVELATIONS LAGS

The end of the government's fiscal year 2013 is just weeks away, but an intelligence authorization bill for fiscal year 2014 is nowhere in sight. In past years, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees typically reported intelligence bills in late spring or early summer for House-Senate conference and floor action later in the year. But this year, nothing.

On its homepage, the Senate Intelligence Committee website cites the Committee's report on the fiscal year 2012 intelligence bill under the heading “recent action.” But that report was issued in August 2011. (The Committee website also offers a current compilation of YouTube videos that appear to reflect the use of chemical weapons in Syria.)

Though 2013 has become the most momentous year for intelligence policy in a generation, the Senate Intelligence Committee has not held any public hearings since a March threat briefing, and none at all on surveillance policy. Americans seeking insight into the meaning of current intelligence controversies must look elsewhere.

Continue reading “Steven Aftergood: POLICY RESPONSE TO INTELLIGENCE REVELATIONS LAGS”

2013/09/132013/09/13

Open Mind: CIA PSYOP Against US Public – Labeling Truth-Seekers as “Conspiracy Theorists?”

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

CIA Responsible For Labeling Honest Research Into Finding the Truth As “Conspiracy Theories”

Boy does this article by Foster Gamble fit on this blogsite. For more than 40 years anyone attempting to find out the truth about anything that the “controllers” wanted to keep secret, was labeled a “conspiracy theorist”. Of course, then, propaganda was used to discredit any “conspiracy theorist” so no one would take them seriously. Now, the CIA admits what many have known for a long time. There is also a good little video near the bottom of this article where Foster and Kimberly offer suggestions about how to talk to others about “conspiracy theories”.Tom

News Flash — CIA Invents “CONSPIRACY THEORY” Wed, 11 Sep 2013 By Foster Gamble

It is a little-known though well-documented fact that the origin of the campaign to ridicule research into conspiracies was initiated by the CIA in 1967 to undermine the credibility of those who questioned the official claims of the Warren Commission regarding the so-called facts of the Kennedy assassination. Given the challenge we and others feel when speaking out about conspiracies, I think Lance deHaven-Smith is right when, in his new book Conspiracy Theory, he suggests “the CIA’s [covert and illegal] campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited…with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time…”

Of course not all proclaimed conspiracies are true. There are competent conspiracy analysts and incompetent ones, just as there are skilled and shoddy reporters, historians or practitioners of any discipline.

Continue reading “Open Mind: CIA PSYOP Against US Public – Labeling Truth-Seekers as “Conspiracy Theorists?””

2013/09/132013/09/13

Berto Jongman: Excerpt from American Coup – Chemical Weapons and the Homeland Defense Pork Scam

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation

Against the unthinkable: The government’s secret chemical weapons defense

What would happen if a chemical weapons attack happened here? The government has been making secret plans for years

Excerpted from American Coup

Existing disaster plans may include provisions for mass fatalities but should be reviewed and tested regularly to determine if these plans are appropriate for the relatively long period of increased demand which is characteristic of a pandemic, as compared to the shorter response period required for most disaster plans. There are currently no national plans to recommend mass graves or mass cremations. This would only be considered under the most extreme circumstances. The use of the term mass grave infers that the remains will never be re-interred or identified. Therefore, the term mass grave should never be used when describing temporary interment.
– Pandemic Influenza Mass Fatality Response Plan, 2007

A month before 9/11, scientists from Livermore and its sister Los Alamos laboratory conducted a test using live microbes in a sealed chamber at the West Desert Test Center of Dugway Proving Ground, eighty-five miles from metropolitan Salt Lake City. Dugway is a huge, remote high-desert military installation surrounded on two sides by mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert to the north, acoustically and electronically quiet and free of light pollution, about as remote as one can get in the continental United States. Since 1942, through ups and downs, the post has hosted development and testing of and countermeasures to biological and chemical weapons. Until the United States renounced its own biological weapons in 1972 and destroyed its inventory, ten different biological agents were tested at Dugway.

Since the Nixon years Dugway base has served as the off-the-books black hole of the weapons of mass destruction national mission forces, the commando, SWAT, and technical arm of the Program. Dugway is where secret lethality tests are performed to gauge foreign and terrorist capabilities but also American equipment, protective clothing, detectors, and destroyers. If not literally the birthplace of the guinea pig, then it is certainly the place where the executive agents can play out their darkest fears and fantasies with humans and animals alike; it is the only U.S. facility equipped to test with aerosolized Bio-Safety Level 3 agents, the most deadly.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Excerpt from American Coup – Chemical Weapons and the Homeland Defense Pork Scam”

2013/09/132013/09/13

Berto Jongman: A Violent Non-State Actors Reading List

Worth A Look

A Violent Non-State Actors Reading List

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013 BY DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS 1 COMMENT

In the introduction to her edited volume Violent Non-State Actors in World Politics, Klejda Mulaj notes that, while political science scholarship has extensively examined non-state actors (most notably those whose activities are primarily economic), violent non-state actors (VNSAs) “have only recently received sustained interest amongst academic and policy circles.” The study of VNSAs is thus a young and developing academic field, and scholars examining VNSAs will experience both the joys and also the pitfalls of working on a relatively new topic. The theoretical literature is highly uneven, with some extraordinarily well developed concepts mixed with a battery of assumptions that the field may no longer adhere to in four or five years.

This semester I’m teaching a course on violent non-state actors for Georgetown University’s security studies program, the first such class that the program has offered (although it has offered courses examining terrorism and counterterrorism for many years). A number of colleagues have expressed interest in seeing my syllabus, or having me provide a reading list. Thus, to assist other scholars with an interest in VNSAs, I’ve compiled the following reading list, largely based on my course syllabus. The inclusion of a particular work does not constitute an endorsement (which should be evident to those who remember my reaction to Pape and Feldman’s Cutting the Fuse), but it means that it’s part of the relevant discussion that scholars should be having.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: A Violent Non-State Actors Reading List”