Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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Event: 30 Jun, 2010 OpenNet Initiative (ONI) Global Summit–Should Cyberspace be Secured as an Open Commons?

Civil Society, Computer/online security, Government, Media, Open Government, Policy
Event page registration

The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) 2010 Global Summit will convene three high-level panels of experts and practitioners on prominent topics related to cyberspace governance, security, and advocacy. The three panels will be organized as informal “talk show” or “Davos” style format: an active moderator, questions and answers from the audience, and high-level exchanges among the panelists and the audience (as opposed to formal presentations and Q&As;).
The panels will be open to the public and recorded for subsequent podcast.
The summit follows directly on the 2010 OpenNet Initiative Workshop held at Mont-Tremblant June 28-29, which will bring together the regional ONI Commonwealth of Independent States (Opennet.Eurasia) and Opennet.Asia networks. Both these networks will be present at the summit on June 30th.

EVENT DETAILS:

The OpenNet Initiative-2010 Global Summit/L'Initiative OpenNet-Sommet
Mondial 2010

Should Cyberspace be Secured as an Open Commons?
Le Cyberspace—faut-il défendre l’universalité de ce bien commun?

Victoria Hall (Old City Hall) 111 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
June 30, 2010
9:30 AM – 4:30 PM

Panelists and participants:
Panélistes et les participants:

BBC, Google, United States Department of State, National Endowment of
Democracy, United States Broadcasting Board of Governors,
International Development Research Centre, Department of Foreign
Affairs and International Trade, Canada, Public Safety Canada, Bell
Canada, Sesawe, Psiphon Inc, Opennet.Asia, Opennet.Eurasia, and more….

Moderator:
Modérateur:
Jesse Brown (Search Engine)

4:30 PM – 6:30 PM

Cocktail Reception/Réception avec hors d'œuvres

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Journal: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Punjab, and Taliban

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence
Berto Jongman Recommends...
By Ahmad Majidyar  |  AEI Online
(June 2010)

Key points in this Outlook:

  • Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and al Qaeda have teamed up with Punjabi militant and sectarian groups to destabilize Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province.
  • Although the militants have yet to assert the same control in southern Punjab that they did in Swat Valley or Waziristan, there are signs that such a scenario is possible.
  • Counterterrorism, intelligence, and police operations are more likely to make inroads than outright military operations.

See Also:  Press Release RAND 21 June 2010, Failed Strategy to Half Pakistan-Based Militant Groups Has Helped Lead to Rising Number of US Terror Plots; and report, Counterinsurgency in Pakistan.  Phi Beta Iota:  Pakistan has displaced Saudi Arabia as the primary sponsor of international terrorism (along with the Israeli Mossad that fills in when needed).  The US is deliberately blind to this reality.

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Journal: Why Taliban is Winning in Afghanistan–VERY IMPORTANT

08 Wild Cards, Military
Chuck Spinney Recommends

The attached article was brought to my attention by a highly-educated, well-read medical doctor of Pashtun descent now living in the UK.  It should be studied closely and ought to be mandatory reading in the White House, before the President gets stampeded by McChrystal debacle, the accession of General Petraeus, and his fellow travelers in the War Party (Democrats as well as Republicans) into backing away from President Obama's withdrawal deadline.  CS

Why the Taliban is winning in Afghanistan
By William Dalrymple – New Statesman – 22/06/2010
http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/06/british-afghanistan-government

As Washington and London struggle to prop up a puppet government over which Hamid Karzai has no control, they risk repeating the blood-soaked 19th-century history of Britain’s imperial defeat.

In 1843, shortly after his return from Afghanistan, an army chaplain, Reverend G R Gleig, wrote a memoir about the First Anglo-Afghan War, of which he was one of the very few survivors. It was, he wrote, “a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, has Britain acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.”

FULL STORY ONLINE

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Journal: Obama Misses the Afghan Exit Ramp

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Military

Obama Misses the Afghan Exit Ramp

by Ray McGovern, Consortium News, June 25, 2010
Raymond McGovern (born 1939) is a retired CIA officer turned political activist (see biography).

Is President Barack Obama so dense that he could not see why Gen. Stanley McChrystal might actually have wanted to be fired — and rescued from the current March of Folly in Afghanistan, a mess much of his own making?

McChrystal leaves behind a long trail of broken promises and unfulfilled expectations. For example, there is no real security, at least during the night, in Marja, which McChrystal devoted enormous resources to conquer this spring.

Remember his boast that he would then bring to Marja a “government-in-box” and offer an object lesson regarding what was in store for those pesky Taliban in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city?

But it’s now clear that there will be no offensive against Kandahar anytime soon. On its merits, that is surely a good thing, but it is a huge embarrassment for McChrystal and his former boss, the never nonplussed Gen. David Petraeus.

When McChrystal and his undisciplined senior aides let a Rolling Stone reporter know what they really thought of the “intimidated” Obama and most of his national security team, Obama and his advisers rose to the bait.

FULL STORY ONLINE

Phi Beta Iota:  Ray McGovern is a man of intelligence and integrity.  He gives General McChrystal too much credit here for a contrived exit, while at the same time touching on the pathethic lack of integrity in the White House, happy to sacrifice lives of “the little people” if it can embroil General Patraeus, who never had a shot at the Presidency, in a one-man quagmire.  What Obama has just done is treason in the purest sense of the word: there has been no strategic analysis, no Whole of Government conceptualization of what we need to do to rescue America while disengaging from a lecacy of 50 years of colonialism, militarism, and predatory immoral capitalism.  Obama is treating the US military–and especially General Patraeus who should have known better than to accept– as a pawn on the political chess-board–at the same time that he is, with malice aforethought, doing nothing at all in the public interest, just counting the days to his Goldman Sachs retirement package.   Shame.  Shame.  Shame.

Article recommended by Chuck Spinney.

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NIGHTWATCH on Afghanistan, Pakistan, & India

03 India, 08 Wild Cards

Pakistan-Afghan: Expressing dissatisfaction about the deteriorating Afghan situation, Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi said that talks are the only solution to the Afghan problem and no military means can bring peace. Qureshi spoke in a joint press conference with his Afghan counterpart Dr. Zalmai Rasoul.

Qureshi said they discussed the security situation, especially the efforts of the Afghan government to ensure stability through reconciliation. The countries agreed to enhance bilateral relations in politics, trade and economic among other fields.

The foreign minister said peace and security in Afghanistan is important for Pakistan therefore, Pakistan has sincerely offered assistance, cooperation and training facilities to Afghanistan in all the fields, including training Afghan military so that a well trained Afghan Army can take over the responsibility of the security in their country.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: The meeting is significant as a sign of shifting relationships. An Afghan official tilt towards Pakistan is being reciprocated by Pakistani moves towards Afghanistan, as described in the New York Times. Since last year's presidential elections, President Karzai's relations with the US have become strained. The emergence of strain in the US relationship appears to be the precursor to a warming trend with Pakistan.

The shifting ties have mixed implications. Pakistan invested heavily in the Taliban regime in Kabul before 2001, as part of a strategy to provide depth against India. The Pashtuns were the primary beneficiaries of Pakistani support against the northerners who eventually sided with the US in overthrowing the Taliban.

Nevertheless, Pakistani behavior and continuing reports indicate the national security leaders in Islamabad have not, probably cannot, abandon that strategy. They only can de-emphasize it temporarily as a matter of expediency. The Times article and Qureshi's remarks both point in the direction of power sharing, starting with the ex-royalists, the Haqqanis.

Pakistan also is in a position to do much more, provided it has a key role in arranging the power sharing. Pakistan's tactics are more nuanced, but the policy of using Afghanistan to gain strategic depth against India appears to be still in place. Afghanistan's handling of Indian relations, aid and infrastructure construction companies will be a good indirect measure of rising Pakistani influence in Kabul. If Indian Border Roads Organization units are invited to leave Afghanistan, for example, the tilt to Pakistan

NIGHTWATCH HOME PAGE

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Journal: Vickers to Replace Clapper? Double-Whammy.

Military
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

W/R/T Vickers' Irregular Warfare office — that looked like a shoo-in when originally staffed 3-4 weeks ago.  More recently it has picked up significant senior-level opposition within the Building.  If for no other reason, it's inherently inconsistent with what SECDEF is now advocating about streamlining headquarters, reducing layers and reduncancy, etc. 

Morning Defense (Politico.com)
June 22, 2010

Vickers To Replace Clapper

By Gordon Lubold

If Clapper is confirmed as the new DNI, Gates is expected to nominate Michael Vickers, currently the assistant secretary of defense for
special operations/low-intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, to replace Clapper as under secretary of defense for
intelligence, POLITICO has learned. Vickers, the top civilian overseer of special operations forces, is best known outside the Pentagon for his portrayal in “Charlie Wilson's War” as a national security wunderkind.  Sources tell POLITICO that Vickers would be Gates' favorite to replace Clapper, assuming Clapper's nom goes through.

A NEW OFFICE ON IRREGULAR WARFARE? – Vickers is proposing a new “Irregular Warfare Office” – IWO for short, POLITICO has also learned.  The focus of the new office would be to “identify, accelerate and monitor the implementation of the Department's top priority IW
initiatives,” according to a memo Vickers wrote in May that was obtained by POLITICO.

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Chuck Spinney Sends: From McCrystal to Turkey to Unemployment

08 Wild Cards, Military
Chuck Spinney Sends

CS: The United States may be on the cusp of a double dip recession and the government (the President and Congress) appears to be on the verge of making the same mistake Franklin Roosevelt made in 1937 — namely moving to reduce the federal deficit before the recovery was locked into place.  Most historians now agree that FDR's move prolonged the Great Depression and made it more miserable for the working classes.  The fundamental issue was then and is today a question of values: Is reducing the deficit (favoring the monied classes) more important than reducing unemployment (favoring the greater mass of middle and lower classes)?  In the attached essay, my good friend Marshall Auerback argues that reducing unemployment is more important.

President Obama is Hoisted on His Own Budget-Busting Petard
by Marshall Auerback, New Deal 2.0, 22 Jun3 2010
All it takes is simple accounting to stop obsessing about the deficit and start focusing on unemployment.

CS:  As is (2).

Punishing Turkey
by Philip Giraldi, Antiwar.com, June 24, 2010

Switch to Petraeus Betrays Afghan Policy Crisis
by Gareth Porter, Antiwar.com, June 24, 2010

Phi Beta Iota:  Ignore the nonsense fed to the journalist by the Kilcullen crowd.  Two farces do not make a force.

CS:  An excellent critique of COIN.
Rolling Stone Article’s True Focus: Counterinsurgency
23 June 2010

“COIN doctrine [is] an oxymoron.”
– Chief Adm. Eric Olson, U.S. Special Operations Command

CS:  Portrait of a jerk with his hair on fire.
The Runaway General, Rolling Stone, 22 June 2010
Stanley McChrystal, Obama's top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House

CS: Why Obama needs to clean out the Augean Stables at the Pentagon (and this is just the tip of the iceberg).
Runaway Defense Spending Not Winning Any Wars
by William Pfaff, June 23, 2010

BP's Other Gifts to America and the to the WorldIran, BP and the CIA
By LAWRENCE S. WITTNER, Counterpunch, 22 June 2010

The offshore oil drilling catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico brought to us by BP has overshadowed its central role over the past century in fostering some other disastrous events.

noble gold