Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 3020 – Public Intelligence Blog

Full Op-Ed Online

October 12, 2009

Climate Myths and National Security

The President of the United States recently told the United Nations that “global warming” poses a threat to national security and may engender conflicts as populations are displaced by rising sea levels, droughts, floods, storms etc. etc. etc. However, it is now clear that there is no basis for the notion that the barely-detectable human influence on the climate is likely to prove a threat to climate, still less to national security.

The first principle to which any national security advisor must adhere is that of objective truth. Though he must have an understanding of politics, he is not a politician: he is a truth-bearer. Therefore, he begins by narrowing down the issue to a single, central question whose answer determines whether the suggested threat is real. He then tries to find the truthful answer to that question, and draws his conclusion from that. [Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Journal: Integrity 101 for Presidential Aides”

2009/10/122009/10/12

Journal: Chuck Spinney Flags Moral Clarity Israeli Style

09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Ethics, Government

Full Story Online

Rattling the Cage: Our exclusive right to self-defense

By LARRY DERFNER

Oct 7, 2009

Virtually all of Israel is now speaking in one voice against the Goldstone report, against any attempt to blame us over the war in Gaza. We've honed our message to a sharp point and, inspired by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's performance at the UN, we're delivering it with just the right tone of outrage:

How dare anyone deny us the right to self-defense! How dare anyone deny us the right to fight back against terrorism!

Very nice. Puts everyone else on the defensive. The right to self-defense is up there with motherhood and apple pie – who's going to come out against it, especially for us, for Israel, for the Jews, for the people of the Holocaust?

The right to self-defense – perfect.

But I'd like to ask: Do the Palestinians also have the right to self-defense?

We probably wouldn't admit it out loud, but in our heads we would say – again, in one voice – “No!”

This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We're entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism.

Continue reading “Journal: Chuck Spinney Flags Moral Clarity Israeli Style”

2009/10/112009/10/12

Worth a Look: Is another 9/11 set to unfold?

Worth A Look

Full Story Online

Phi Beta Iota: This article came out in early September 2009.

Heart of a Soldier tells the story of two men who, well before it happened, foretold not only of the terrorist attack of 9/11 but also the 1993 bombing in the World Trade Center parking garage that preceded it.

It was Hill who converted to Islam as a young U.S. Army paratrooper stationed in Beirut in 1958. It was Hill who learned fluent Arabic. It was Hill who joined the Mujahedeen Freedom Fighters in Afghanistan and fought the Soviet invasion there in the 1980s. It was Hill who personally met Osama bin Laden. It was Hill who used information from Islamic extremists to warn Rescorla that terrorists would use the underground parking garage for a car bomb attack on the World Trade Center. It was Hill who asked the U.S. government to assist him in an assassination attempt on bin Laden in 1998 (the request was rejected). And it was Hill who warned the FBI just weeks before Sept. 11, 2001, that his Mideast contacts told him “something big” was about to happen in the United States, in New York, Washington, D.C., or Philadelphia — maybe all three.

He didn't want to talk about the past. He wanted to talk about the future. The very near future.

The man who predicted 9/11 is worried that its sequel is imminent. “Muslims that I talk to say things like, ‘America thinks they're safe now. They've forgotten about 9/11. But watch, Daniel. Stay near your TV. It's going to be bigger than 9/11,' ” he said.

2009/10/112009/10/12

Journal: Google Good, Bad, & Ugly

Technologies

Google Ugly: Google “broccoli casserole” and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing. The world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise — the kind that comes from real experience. Contrast with Gourmet to All That and the death of expertise in the public interest.

Google Bad: The above image is accurate. Google is one of 75+ search engines, and barely scratches the surface. Worse, Google now offers results based on who pays for what you see, not on what you need or wish to see.

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2009/10/102011/12/10

Reference: Building Agility, Resilience and Performance in Turbulent Environments

Articles & Chapters

Definitions:

Adaptive Capacity: The amount and variety of resources and skills possessed and available for maintaining viability and growth relative to the requirements posed by the environment.

Agility: The capacity for moving quickly, flexibly and decisively in anticipating, initiating and taking advantage of opportunities and avoiding any negative consequences of change.

Resiliency: The capacity for resisting, absorbing and responding, even reinventing if required, in response

Below is a key table from the article. The degree to which US Government elements–and especially elements of the secret world–are NOT agile and NOT resilient, is striking. Money has been a substitute for everything else, and secrecy a means of avoiding accountability. The below table is more characteristic of those emergent organizations that embrace M4IS2: Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making.

Agility

1. Our organization is open to change

2. Our organization actively and widely scans for new information about what is going on

3. Our organization is good at making sense of ambiguous, uncertain situations

4. Our organization takes advantage of opportunities quickly

5. Our organization is good at quickly deploying and redeploying resources to support execution

Resiliency

1. Our organization has a strong sense of identity and purpose that can survive anything

2. Our organization has a strong support network of external alliances and partnerships

3. Our organization is expanding its external alliances and partnerships

4. Our organization has “deep pockets”—access to capital and resources to weather anything

5. Our organization has clearly defined and widely held values and beliefs

Source

2009/10/102009/10/10

Journal: Strategy versus Secrecy

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Policies, Policy, Real Time, Reform, Strategy, Threats

We pay careful attention to the search terms used by those who visit us, and have noticed a very healthy focus on strategy and on secrecy. The two are incompatible.

Strategy, by its inherent nature, must be holistic, transparent, and sustainable. It demands broad collaboration and the broadest possible information-sharing and sense-making.

Secrecy, by its very nature, is reductionist, completely opaque, and generally not sustainable beyond the moment. It restricts collaboration, excludes key stake-holders with relevant information, and does not share effectively.

Michael Herman's book on Intelligence in Peace and War is the best available review of why intelligence at the strategic level should not be secret.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan's book on Secrecy remains one of the best articulations of the hidden costs of secrecy to a Republic.

Continue reading “Journal: Strategy versus Secrecy”

2009/10/102009/10/10

Worth a Look: Reporters for a Free Press

Media, Worth A Look

Official Web Site

Somewhat tongue in cheek, since none of the major figures actually try to report the truth in a useful context, we point today to The Reporters Committee for a Free Press, which is hosting an event this Sunday (11 October) in Washington, D.C. Most of these people are what are called “courtiers” whose livelihood depends on accepting all of the censorship that comes with access in Washington, D.C.

We note with interest that the Justices appear willing to allow the Executive to block photos of dead U.S. troops and tortured detainees, but feel strongly that photos of animal cruelty are totally necessary and in the public interest. That pretty much sums up the state of our not so free press–a circus, not a service.