08 Wild Cards – Page 133 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/08/02

Chuck Spinney: Israeli Ethnic Cleansing of the Bedouin

05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military

Palestinians fear for ancient West Bank water source

By Tom Perry, Reuters

RASHAYIDA, West Bank | Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:43am EDT

(Reuters) – – Hewn from rock, the cavernous cisterns which dot the desert beyond Bethlehem have for centuries harvested winter rain to provide shepherds and their flocks with water through summer.

Under a baking sun, an elderly Bedouin explains how cisterns he remembers from childhood, many of them restored to full working order in the last few years, are once again helping his goat-herding community to survive.

That, he concludes, is why the Israeli authorities who control the West Bank have demolished at least three in the area since November.

“Maybe they are doing this to make us leave. We will not leave,” said Falah Hedawa, 64, sitting on cushions in his tent home pitched in the hills that slope down to the Dead Sea.

Out into the desert, a stagnant pool marked the spot where one of the cisterns, chiseled out of a hillside, had stood until its recent demolition. A mud trail on the otherwise dry ground indicated where the water inside had drained away toward a wadi, a valley which becomes a river when the rain falls.

Israel has demolished 20 rainwater collection cisterns in the West Bank in the first half of this year, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which monitors conditions in the Palestinian territories.

Read full article…

Phi Beta Iota: There are two crimes against humanity here, the first against the Palestinians, the second against the centuries old cisterns that collect winter water.

The Attack on the Liberty–The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship

2011/07/30

Dolphin: Libyan Rebel – We Want the Green Flag Back

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Movies, Peace Intelligence

How many times has the West encouraged rebels–going back to the Warsaw ghettos–only to leave them to die in the lurch? When motives are less than pure, both those being supported and those doing the supporting are on shaky moral ground, and opening Pandora's Box, which always includes third parties with their own agendas, empowered by Western destabilization to muck about on their own.

Libya , Ashraf General Younis son : We want the green flag back

Abdel Fatah Younis Assassinated By Rebels: Rebel Officer

Witnesses: Commander Killed by Fellow Libya Rebels

Libya rebels say Younis killers were ‘Islamist element'

Close Friend Claims General Younis was Betrayed

NATO bombs Libyan TV transmitters

2011/07/232011/07/23

Dolphin: DARPA Runs Amok in Afghanistan

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Analysis, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Military, Real Time, Waste (materials, food, etc)

More lipstick on a pig, anyone?

The plethora and pace of the development of these one-off “solutions”
is killing me ….the collective defense and intelligence community
apparently can't keep up with themselves in order to prove who is more
irrelevant…. we continue to throw good money after bad.

Will this ever end?

Exclusive: Inside Darpa’s Secret Afghan Spy Machine

Noah Shachtman

WIRED, 21 July 2011

The Pentagon’s top researchers have rushed a classified and controversial intelligence program into Afghanistan. Known as “Nexus 7,” and previously undisclosed as a war-zone surveillance effort, it ties together everything from spy radars to fruit prices in order to glean clues about Afghan instability.

The program has been pushed hard by the leadership of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They see Nexus 7 as both a breakthrough data-analysis tool and an opportunity to move beyond its traditional, long-range research role and into a more active wartime mission.

But those efforts are drawing fire from some frontline intel operators who see Nexus 7 as little more than a glorified grad-school project, wasting tens of millions on duplicative technology that has nothing to do with stopping the Taliban.

“There are no models and there are no algorithms,” says one person familiar with the program, echoing numerous others who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the program publicly. Just “200 lines of buggy Python code to do what imagery analysts do every day.”

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: The mind boggles at the idiocy of “reality mining” where the only reality that can be “computed” is digital, and actual reality is a 15th century pre-analog illiterate society. The comments at the end of the article are earthy and on target. The US Government in the aggregate has lost both its intelligence and its integrity.

2011/07/23

Chuck Spinney: The Afgan Misadventure in One Paragraph

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

: Chuck Spinney

First, the paragraph:

“The enterprise has proved to be a model of how not to go about such things, breaking all the rules of grand strategy: getting in without having any idea of how to get out; almost wilful misdiagnosis of the challenges; changing objectives, and no coherent or consistent plan; mission creep on an heroic scale; disunity of political and military command, also on an heroic scale; diversion of attention and resources [to Iraq] at a critical stage in the adventure; poor choice of local allies, who rapidly became more of a problem than a solution; unwillingness to co-opt the neighbours into the project, and thus address the mission-critical problem of external sanctuary and support; military advice, long on institutional self-interest, but woefully short on serious objective analysis of the problems of pacifying a broken country with largely non-existent institutions of government and security; weak political leadership, notably in subjecting to proper scrutiny militarily heavy approaches, and in explaining to the increasingly, and now decisively, sceptical domestic press and public the benefits of expending so much treasure and blood.”

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles
British ambassador in Kabul and as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan

The Afghan misadventure

By Lionel Barber, Financial Times, 22/07/11

Phi Beta Iota: A full reading of “The Afghan misadventure” by Lionel Barber is highly recommended. The ends with several lessons not understood in Washington, and a marvelous description of NATO as a “tethered goat.” He also recommends these three books:

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Cables From Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign, by Sherard Cowper-Coles, Harper Press, 352 pages

The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts and the Failures of Great Powers, by Peter Tomsen, PublicAffairs, 912 pages

Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Real Story of Britain’s War in Afghanistan, by Toby Harnden, Quercus, 640 pages

2011/07/21

Chuck Spinney: From Bad to Worse in Afghanistan

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Military, Peace Intelligence

From bad to worse in Afghanistan

Peter Eichstaedt

McClatchy News – 20/07/11

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN The assassination of President Hamid Karzai’s half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, along with the recent attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in the heart of the capital in Kabul, underscore the increasingly fragile security situation in Afghanistan.

Both events occurred soon after U.S. President Barack Obama announced his intention to begin withdrawing 30,000 “surge” troops beginning this month, with a goal of removing all American forces by the end of 2014.

With the death of Osama bin Laden and claims that his terror network had been crippled in Afghanistan, the president suggested the United States and its international partners had done all they could in the country.

Afghans would have to assume responsibility for security in Afghanistan, the president said.

The hotel attack, however, immediately raised questions about the Afghan military’s capabilities, with eight terrorists successfully overwhelming one of the most secure places in the capital. It was only after NATO helicopters were called in after an all-night firefight that the siege was brought to an end.

While many complain the assault laid bare the weakness of Afghanistan’s security forces, with some guards reportedly fleeing after the first shots were fired, others note that their response was about as good as could have been expected, given the Afghan forces’ level of equipment and training.

What the attack on the hotel did show was the pervasive presence of the Taliban and their growing alliance with other anti-government forces all across the country.

These insurgents in recent months have steadily ratcheted up the size, frequency and effectiveness of these attacks, while showing an alarming ability to penetrate seemingly impenetrable places.

Recent events included the wholesale escape of nearly 500 Talban captives from a prison in the southern province of Kandahar; the dramatic attack on the defence ministry headquarters in Kabul; and the suicide attack on a high-level military meeting in the northern Takhar province that killed one of Afghanistan’s best commanders and injured a NATO general.

Indeed, the list seems to grow daily.

Read full article….

2011/07/18

Chuck Spinney: Israel Crosses Line Into Fascism

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Immigration, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency

Israel likes to pride itself by claiming it is the only democracy in the Middle East … Uri Avnery, a hero of the 1948 War, a former member of the Knesset, and a prominent peace activist, describes how that claim is becoming a hollow shell.

July 18, 2011

The Israeli Boycott Law

It [Fascism] Can Happen Here

By URI AVNERY, Tel Aviv

Counterpunch

Years ago I said that there are but two miracles in Israel: the Hebrew language and democracy.

Hebrew had been a dead language for many generations, more or less like Latin, when it was still used in the Catholic church. Then, suddenly, concurrent with the emergence of Zionism (but independently) it sprang back to life. This never happened to any other language.

Theodor Herzl laughed at the idea that Jews in Palestine would speak Hebrew. He wanted us to speak German. “Are they going to ask for a railway ticket in Hebrew?” he scoffed.

Well, we now buy airline tickets in Hebrew. We read the Bible in its Hebrew original and enjoy it tremendously. As Abba Eban once said, if King David were to come to life in Jerusalem today, he could understand the language spoken in the street. Though with some difficulty, because our language gets corrupted, like most other languages.

Anyhow, the position of Hebrew is secure. Babies and Nobel Prize laureates speak it.

The fate of the other miracle is far less assured.

* * *

THE FUTURE – indeed, the present – of Israeli democracy is shrouded in doubt.

Read rest of article…

2011/07/15

Chuck Spinney: Obama Implodes…the Story Continues

02 Diplomacy, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency

President Obama in trouble at home and around the world. The common denominator in his problems is a failure to follow through on expectations he recklessly excites … while this mismatch is clear in the mounting alienation of his domestic political base in the United States, it is also evident his plummeting popularity abroad, particularly in the Arab World, as shown in the attached survey by Zogby International for the Arab American Institute Foundation.

ARAB ATTITUDES, 2011

Conducted by Zogby International, Analysis by James Zogby

Arab American Institute Foundation

The full report can be downloaded from this link.

Executive Summary

After improving with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, U.S. favorable ratings across the Arab world have plummeted. In most countries they are lower than at the end of the Bush Administration, and lower than Iran's favorable ratings (except in Saudi Arabia).
The continuing occupation of Palestinian lands and U.S. interference in the Arab world are held to be the greatest obstacles to peace and stability in the Middle East.
While many Arabs were hopeful that the election of Barack Obama would improve U.S.-Arab relations, that hope has evaporated. Today, President Obama's favorable ratings across the Arab World are 10% or less.
Obama's performance ratings are lowest on the two issues to which he has devoted the most energy: Palestine and engagement with the Muslim world.
The U.S. role in establishing a no-fly zone over Libya receives a positive rating only in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, but, as an issue, it is the lowest priority.
The killing of bin Laden only worsened attitudes toward the U.S.
A plurality says it is too early to tell whether the Arab Spring will have a positive impact on the region. In Egypt, the mood is mixed. Only in the Gulf States are optimism and satisfaction levels high.