Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 2998 – Public Intelligence Blog

Chuck Spinney sends….

Obama's policies are making Democrats the party of Bloated Plutocracy.

November 8, 2009 OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Night They Drove the Tea Partiers Down

Frank Rich

The Obama administration does not seem to understand that this rage, left unaddressed, could consume it.

The system is going back to the way it was with a vengeance, against a backdrop of despair. As the unemployment rate crossed the 10 percent threshold at week’s end, we learned that bankers were helping themselves not just to bonuses as large as those at the bubble’s peak but to early allotments of H1N1 vaccine. No wonder 62 percent of those polled by Hart Associates in late September felt that “large banks” had been helped “a lot” or “a fair amount” by “government economic policies,” but only 13 percent felt the “average working person” had been. Unemployment ranked ahead of the deficit and health care as the No. 1 pocketbook issue in the survey, with 81 percent saying the Obama administration must take more action.

Continue reading “Journal: Empire as Usual–and Then Collapse”

2009/11/082009/11/19

Journal: DNI Describes Losing Hand

Director of National Intelligence et al (IC)

Phi Beta Iota: Speaking to the World Affairs Council on 6 November 2009, Admiral Dennis Blair, USN (Ret), now the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), offered up a faint-praise indictment of a national intelligence community that is pedestrian and mis-directed.

Drawing on Global Trends 2025 and the National Intelligence Strategy, both of which are lacking (see our comments at links), here is what he said and did not say.

Top five prognostications:

Climate change accepted as a given top priority; state system still the foundation for analysis; technology search still focused on extraction of fossil fuels; potential for conflict grrowing; in 2025 the US will still be #1 power on Earth.

He stated that the goal of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) is to help policy-makers make wise policy; to provide effective actionable intelligence to the Whole of Government (WoG); and to move the IC toward the cutting edge of technology.

Here is what he did not say, and our critical comments:

Continue reading “Journal: DNI Describes Losing Hand”

2009/11/072009/11/07

Journal: The Rise and Rise Further of Turkey (Along with the Collapse of Israel and the NeoCons)

02 Diplomacy, 08 Wild Cards, Government, Peace Intelligence

Chuck Spinney Sends…

As someone who has lived in Turkey for most of the last two years, I have watched the development of her foreign policy with great interest, not to mention a good deal of confusion

It is hard to make sense out this rapidly-emerging, vibrant country of 70 million, increasingly well-educated, industrious people. While its remote interior is still very traditional, Turkey's coastal regions are already beginning to blossom into an outward looking, modern multinational consumer society, and the effects of rising incomes and education are very visible. In the coastal regions, I would say that living standards are now higher than those of Portugal, about the same as those of Greece, and somewhat lower than those of Spain. To be sure, the interior is poorer, especially as one travels east, but even in the east, there is growing modernity. Everywhere, markets are chock a block with high-quality healthy food and vast quantities middle income consumer goods, and there is fresh water galore, especially in the coastal regions.

The attached op-ed by Patrick Seale is a good summary that brings clarity to much of what is going on with Turkey's foreign policy and is well worth reading.

But there is more. Not mentioned are Turkey's bilateral overtures to Russia, Georgia, the Ukraine, and the various Turkic countries in great swath of Central Asia (including the Uighurs in NW China), as well as a bewildering variety of multilateral environmental and economic initiatives in the Black Sea region (involving Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Greece, and Turkey).

Continue reading “Journal: The Rise and Rise Further of Turkey (Along with the Collapse of Israel and the NeoCons)”

2009/11/072009/11/07

Journal: Out of Troops, Strategy, & Leadership

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Military

Phi Beta Iota: We'll figure out the troop balance, probably by getting serious about Of, By, and Through IQ forces between now and July 2010–we do that or both the Democrats and Republicans are toast in November 2010. What merits deep reflection below is the mental health angle that ties in with the Fort Hood massacre. And while we're on that topic, RUSH AND CRUSH is the new paradigm for surviving armed attacks. See, Shout, Rush & Crush. Absent a gattling gun, no one should be able to hit more than three people with this strategy, and two of those will almost certainly live. From Virgiia Polytechnic to Fort Hood, citizens standing like sheep waiting to be murdered, is an indictment of our culture, education, and lack of leadership.

Full Story Online

New Afghan War Headache: Not Enough Troops Available?

David Wood, 11/6/09

Just to maintain the 16 current brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan is, let's see, three times 16 is 48 and – oops! We're already out of BCTs! And here's the White House blithely batting around numbers like 40,000 more troops. That's roughly eight BCTs, which do not exist.

Below the fold: two key paragraphs on stress, battle performance after multipe tour, and suicides.

Continue reading “Journal: Out of Troops, Strategy, & Leadership”

2009/11/072009/11/07

Worth a Look: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

Earth Intelligence, Media, Worth A Look

Home Page

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) is a collaboration of some of the world's top investigative reporters. Launched in 1997 as a project of the Center for Public Integrity, ICIJ globally extends the Center's style of watchdog journalism, working with 100 journalists in 50 countries to produce long-term, transnational investigations.

Tobacco Underground

The illicit trafficking of tobacco is a multibillion-dollar business today, fueling organized crime and corruption, robbing governments of needed tax money, and spurring addiction to a deadly product. Drawn by profits rivaling those of narcotics, smugglers move cigarettes by the billion, making tobacco the world's most widely smuggled legal substance.
Collateral Damage

Post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy and military aid and assistance had a huge impact in nations around the world — and at home. This award-winning project includes 20 articles from four continents.
Divine Intervention, U.S. AIDS Policy Abroad

A year-long investigation of President Bush’s initiative to fight AIDS abroad finds that conservative ideology hinders its real benefits by insisting on abstinence-only programs over promoting condom use.
Windfalls of War, U.S. Contractors in Afghanistan & Iraq

A comprehensive examination of companies that won contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan — and of their campaign contributions, led by General Electric and Vinnell Corporation (the former Northrup Grumman).

2009/11/07

Journal: Global Climate Change Lobby Intent on Copenhagen Stalemate

Earth Intelligence

Online Home Page

Starting in July 2009, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists fielded a multinational team of reporters to uncover the special interests attempting to influence negotiations leading to the pivotal December talks on a climate change treaty in Copenhagen. The project built upon the Center’s previous reporting in Washington on efforts to influence the U.S. Congress in The Climate Change Lobby. The ICIJ team involved reporters in eight of the major economies deemed essential to a successful treaty: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, and the United States.

November 04, 2009, 11:01 pm
Washington — Toward a Stalemate in Copenhagen

Phi Beta Iota: Governments are incompetent at global Earth Intelligence (although the Earth Science Initiative under Bush-Cheney showed real promise), and corporations lie. It is not helpful to have the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Honorable Al Gore also play very loosely with the truth. The one public interest solution, and one alone that will enable humanity to achieve conscious evolution: creation of a World Brain with an embedded EarthGame.

2009/11/072009/12/04

Worth a Look: UFO’s Known & Obscured

Intelligence (Extra-Terrestrial), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Worth A Look

Amazon Page

UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Coverup, 1941-1973

Amazon Reviewer M. Packo: Mr. Dolan's perspective on how a better understanding of UFOs has been obfuscated and frustrated by agencies within our government, as well as much of our national media, conjoined of course, is presented efficiently and without distortion or cant. His summary of 25 years' worth of global UFO sightings alone makes this a valuable reference book. Combined with other developments related to the elaboration of our national security apparatus – domestic and international – this study achieves truly authoritative status. This is a book that every student of American history should read, regardless of their opinion about UFOs.

Amazon Page

The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991 (UFOs and the National Security State, Vol. 2)

Amazon Reviewer Juan Ordonez: The second volume of the planned trilogy of “Ufo's & The National Security State” follows the methodical coverage of the UFO events in America and other parts of the world between 1973 to 1991. As in the first volume, the narrative is fluid and well organized, making it a page turner. The cases and reports exposed are not just interesting but also well referenced. Dolan clearly delineates when a case is fully supported or is just unproven (but suggestive). In addition, Dolan presents a parallel account of world wide events that might have been affected by the narrative of the UFO cases covered by the book. Although the book follows the chronological account of cases as in the first volume, this volume hints at a possible evolution of the UFO narrative (or folklore, depending on the reader) in consonance with the rise of corporate power as the main factor of power in the developed world. This second volume, as the first does not look for a direct and simple answer to a multifaceted issue such as the UFO's, instead presents the existing evidence about the most relevant cases and allows the reader to shape an informed opinion.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: UFO's Known & Obscured”

Amazon Page UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Coverup, 1941-1973

Amazon Page The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991 (UFOs and the National Security State, Vol. 2)

Amazon Page

UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Coverup, 1941-1973

Amazon Page

The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991 (UFOs and the National Security State, Vol. 2)