Category: 08 Wild Cards

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US Billions in Cash Stolen in Early Days of Iraq II

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence
Who, Me?

US: $6.6bn in Iraq aid ‘may have been stolen'

By David Usborne, US Editor

Tuesday, 14 June 2011

Years after American auditors said they had lost track of vast sums of reconstruction cash for Iraq in the wake of the ousting of Saddam Hussein they are now admitting for the first time that much of it was almost certainly stolen.

In a revelation that is stirring anger both on Capitol Hill and among Iraqi officials in Baghdad, the office that was created by the Bush administration to monitor efforts to get Iraq on its feet after the 2003 invasion is saying that $6.6bn (£4bn), all delivered in cash, cannot be accounted for.

Just how much of the missing money was pocketed either by US contractors or Iraqis is not clear, nor is it likely that a full picture of what happened will ever be painted. Even so, Stuart Bowen, who runs the monitoring office, says that the errant billions may represent the “largest theft of funds in national history”.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: This is old news and it was much more.  By one account, Paul Bremer was unable to account for over $10 billion in shipped cash (12 airplanes, $2 billion each, rough estimate $24 billion.  That is completely apart from the fact that we paid tens of millions to US contractors when local engineers who built the originals were asking for hundreds of thousands.

See Also:

Continue reading “US Billions in Cash Stolen in Early Days of Iraq II”

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Long-Term Implications of Netanyahu Over Obama

02 Diplomacy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Attached herewith is an important essay on the long term implications of Netanyahu – Obama spectacle of late May. The Author, William R. Polk, has kindly given granted me permission to distribute it.

Read preliminary comment and full text of William Polk's

Obama and Palestine

What will make Obama willing to move on the issue?

Also by William Polk:

Journal: William Polk AF Trip Report August 2010

Journal: William Polk on Afghanistan Non-Strategy Plus Consolidated Journal, Review, and Reference Links for Afghanistan

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Cynthia McKinney: From Libya with Love and Dismay

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Media, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Cynthia McKinney

Phi Beta Iota: Cynthia McKinney has integrity, and is committed to transparency and truth.  Most of what the public is viewing and reading about Libya is a manufactured lie.  What NATO is doing in attacking Tripoli is illegal, immoral, and a war crime by any standard.  As we have previously shown, this is about oil, water, and gold (the paper gold market is about to crash, Libya has a great deal of real gold that has not been tainted with titanium by the New York banks).

Below the line is a lengthy post from Cynthia McKinney in Tripoli, with many links and some photographs.

Continue reading “Cynthia McKinney: From Libya with Love and Dismay”

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IMF: Cyber-Militia Flexing Its Muscles?

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Computer/online security, Corruption, Government, IO Technologies, Law Enforcement, Non-Governmental, Policies

IMF attack goal said to be network ‘insider presence'

‘It was a targeted attack,' says expert who once worked for organization

Reuters, 11  June 2011

Phi Beta Iota: This is interesting on two levels.  First, all instruments of Empire can expect to be attacked; without any central impetus, we anticipate a global cyber-intelligence and penetration network to develop, similar to what has matured for Free/Open Source Software, but with penetration, understanding, and neutralization of as the objective.  A Cyber-Militia, if you will.  Second, no government, no corporation, no international organization, can muster the global intelligence capability needed to be effective in today's reality–the US Government least of all.  An opportunity is emerging for a multinational decision-support centre and network co-sponsored by a mix of stakeholders who are willing to commit to absolute integrity.  That is all it takes: integrity and a commitment to “The Virgin Truth.”

See Also:

1994 Sounding the Alarm on Cyber-Security

Cyber-Virus Proliferation: USG as “Main Enemy”

2011 Cyber-Command or IO 21 + IO Roots

Journal: Army Industrial-Era Network Security + Cyber-Security RECAP (Links to Past Posts)

Search: Steele USMC C4I 1990′s

Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2)

 

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Mother Jones: How Not to Withdraw from Iraq

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

How Not to Withdraw from Iraq

Even as we withdraw troops, the enormity of the US embassy compound in Baghdad sends the wrong message.

— By Peter Van Buren

Mother Jones, 11 June 2011

EXTRACT:

Eight disastrous years after we invaded, it is sad but altogether true that Iraq does not matter much in the end.

Click on Image to Enlarge

It is a terrible thing that we poured 4,459 American lives and trillions of dollars into the war, and without irony oversaw the deaths of at least a hundred thousand, and probably hundreds of thousands, of Iraqis in the name of freedom. Yet we are left with only one argument for transferring our occupation duties from the Department of Defense to the Department of State: something vague about our “investment in blood and treasure.”

Think of this as the Vegas model of foreign policy: keep the suckers at the table throwing good money after bad. Leaving aside the idea that “blood and treasure” sounds like a line from Pirates of the Caribbean, one must ask: What accomplishment are we protecting?

The war's initial aim was to stop those weapons of mass destruction from being used against us. There were none, so check that off the list. Then it was to get rid of Saddam. He was hanged in 2006, so cross off that one. A little late in the game we became preoccupied with ensuring an Iraq that was “free.” And we've had a bunch of elections and there is a government of sorts in place to prove it, so that one's gotta go, too.

What follows won't be “investment,” just more waste. The occupation of Iraq, centered around that engorged embassy, is now the equivalent of a self-licking ice cream cone, useful only to itself.

Read long article rich with details….

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US Borders are NOT Secure–Just Dangerous

08 Wild Cards, Analysis, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Law Enforcement, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Threats
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Tip of the iceberg, no doubt….

Authorities take gunfire on border with MexicoAn

Phi Beta Iota: The President's declaration that the border is “safe” has inspired a sense of disbelief and even scorn among those who know that it simply is not so.  This level of “cognitive dissonance” now characterizes informed public reactions to most of what the President says on any issue.  There is only one cure:  he needs intelligence with integrity. Or not.

See Also:

Border Global Incidents Scroll and Map

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Cynthia McKinney from Libya: Primal Anger/Angst

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), IO Sense-Making, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Cynthia McKinney

Revelations of secret bombing in Yemen bring President Obama closer to Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Nixon and their secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War than is appropriate for any Nobel Peace Laureate.  How many wars is this President going to start?  As many as the American people will allow.

Der Spiegel reports that the Pentagon released the remaining papers of the Pentagon Papers while admitting that lies were told about the war.  We know that.  But here it is from them.  The four volumes of the Gravel Papers can be accessed through Der Spiegel by clicking on the link below.  How many more lies will the U.S. government tell the American people and the international community?  As many as the American people will allow.

Are NATO's allies child soldiers?  Isn't that against the law?  So what else is new with this war?  How long will war crimes and crimes against humanity be committed by NATO?  As long as the American people allow these crimes to be committed.

Please see these:

1.  Libyan rebel group sells first oil to U.S.

2.  Hedge funds ‘grabbing land' in Africa

3.  Children work with weapons to aid Libya's rebels

Silence is the deadliest weapon of mass destruction.