Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 3001 – Public Intelligence Blog

Chuck Spinney Sends… America's diplomatic recipe for winning the hearts and minds of “furriners” in the 21st Century:

Mix – Blind unreasoning fear with the
Domestic politics of privatizing embassy protection and the
Domestic politics of huge construction contracts

into neat grand-strategic soufflé, then bake it in the domestic political-economic oven of heated by the coals of the MICC's Long War Against Terrorism and serve hot to a world that hungers for American values.

For those readers who question the political relevance of such a tasty dish, I offer the following op-ed by Simon Tisdall of the Guardian

Continue reading “Journal: Out of Touch with Reality III”

2009/11/04

Journal: DARPA Tests Twitter

Civil Society, Government, Methods & Process, Military, Mobile, Real Time, Technologies

Full Story Online

DARPA to hold Internet competition

Challenge features 10 red balloons

By Doug Beizer Nov 04, 2009

A contest planned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will challenge contestants to use the Internet to locate the 10 large red weather balloons the agency will place across the continental United States, DARPA officials announced last week. DARPA will put the balloons in publicly accessible locations and display them for one day during daylight hours. The first participant to identify the latitude and longitude of all the balloons will receive the $40,000 cash prize. The balloons will be positioned Dec. 5, DARPA officials said Oct. 29.

Phi Beta Iota: This is a no-brainer for Twitter–Graphics: Twitter as an Intelligence Tool

2009/11/04

Search: History, Wealth & Reconciliation

Searches

History is not as easy to understand as some might think, for the simple reason that history is a political and economic tool, and the history books are written to reinforce the status quo powers. In the United States of America, for example, the myth of Abraham Lincoln persists despite compelling evidence that he violated the Constitution and did not in fact free the slaves:

1. Constitutional scholars agree on the right of the South to seceed

2. Lincoln did not free the slaves in the north or west, only in the south

3. Lincoln is on record as stating that he did not want to free slaves in the south and did so only out of military necessity

4. Lincoln violated the Constitution in suspending habeas corpus; in conscriptng and Army for domestic attack; and in invading and occupying the South for twelve years.

Wealth and Reconcilation, Including Truth at Any Cost, Below the Fold

Continue reading “Search: History, Wealth & Reconciliation”

2009/11/04

Worth A Look: Harold Wilensky

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Methods & Process

This interview is part of the Institute's “Conversations with History” series, and uses Internet technology to share with the public Berkeley's distinction as a global forum for ideas.

In this landmark work, the culmination of thirty years of systematic, comprehensive comparison of nineteen rich democracies, Wilensky answers two basic questions: What is distinctly modern about modern societies? In what ways are they becoming alike, and how do variations in types of political economy shape system performance? The book is being hailed as “a monumental work,” “an instant classic,” “a truly amazing accomplishment.”

Background … influence of parents … impact of the Depression … importance of education … impact of World War II … interest in understanding society … education
Working with Labor Unions … the labor movement … first research jobs
Being a Social Scientist … graduate school at Chicago … skills … temperament … defining the problem so that it can be disconfirmed
Research Methods … importance of interdisciplinary study … follow the problem … importance of comparative studies … qualitative versus quantitative research
Comparing Rich Democracies: Theory … defining modernity and social change … convergence theory … mass society theory
Comparing Rich Democracies: Examples … political economy structures … tax revolts … mayhem index
Conclusion … advice for students

2009/11/04

Journal: One Man – One Bullet on the Table

09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Ethics, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence

Full Story Online

U.S. Needs Hit Squads, ‘Manhunting Agency’: Spec Ops Report

Noah Shachtman November 3, 2009

CIA director Leon Panetta got into hot water with Congress, after he revealed an agency program to hunt down and kill terrorists. A recent report from the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University argues that the CIA didn’t go far enough (.pdf). Instead, it suggests the American government should set up something like a “National Manhunting Agency” to go after jihadists, drug dealers, pirates and other enemies of the state. . . . . . . .

Such a group wouldn’t just go after terrorists. “Human networks are behind narcotics trafficking, arms proliferation, piracy, hiding war criminals from authorities, human trafficking, or other smuggling activities,” Crawford writes. “Human networks also lie at the core of national governments, offering an increased potential to nonlethally influence state actors with precision. A robust manhunting capability would allow the United States to interdict these human networks.”

Continue reading “Journal: One Man – One Bullet on the Table”

2009/11/04

Journal: Outsourcing Honor, Losing Common Sense

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Communities of Practice, Ethics

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The Best Allies Money Can Buy

By Thomas L. Friedman

November 4, 2009

In 2008, notes Stanger, roughly 80 percent of the State Department’s requested budget went out the door in the form of contracts and grants. The Army’s primary support contractor in Iraq, KBR, reportedly has some 17,000 direct-hire employees there.

The U.S. military is now proposing a huge nation-building project for Afghanistan to replace its dysfunctional government with a state that can deliver for the Afghan people so they won’t side with the Taliban. I might be more open to that project if we had a true global alliance to share the burden of an effort that will take decades. But we don’t. European publics do not favor this war, and our allies will only pony up just enough troops to get their official “Frequent U.S. Ally Card” renewed. We’ll make up the difference by hiring private contractors.

Continue reading “Journal: Outsourcing Honor, Losing Common Sense”

2009/11/032009/11/03

Journal: New Ocean, Lost Aquifers

12 Water

Full Story Online

Giant Crack in Africa Will Create a New Ocean

A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm.

The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial, and the rift had not been well studied.

A new study involving an international team of scientists and reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the processes creating the rift are nearly identical to what goes on at the bottom of oceans, further indication a sea is in the region's future.

The same rift activity is slowly parting the Red Sea, too.

Continue reading “Journal: New Ocean, Lost Aquifers”

DARPA to hold Internet competition

Full Story Online U.S. Needs Hit Squads, ‘Manhunting Agency’: Spec Ops Report

Full Story Online

Giant Crack in Africa Will Create a New Ocean

Full Story Online

U.S. Needs Hit Squads, ‘Manhunting Agency’: Spec Ops Report