The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Extent of Corruption in Countries Around the World Tied to Earthquake Fatalities
ScienceDaily (Jan. 16, 2011) — A new assessment of global earthquake fatalities over the past three decades indicates that 83 percent of all deaths caused by the collapse of buildings during earthquakes occurred in countries considered to be unusually corrupt.
The 2010 Haiti earthquake is believed to have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, primarily due to shoddy building construction. (Credit: U.S. Air Force)
People power goes techie, ousts Tunisian dictator
Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 01:25:00 01/16/2011
Seeds of protest
The antigovernment protests began a month ago when a college-educated street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi in the small town of Sidi Bouzid burned himself to death in despair at the frustration and joblessness confronting many educated young people here. But the protests he inspired quickly evolved from bread-and-butter issues to demands for an assault on the perceived corruption and self-enrichment of the ruling family.
The protesters, led at first by unemployed college graduates like Bouazizi and later joined by workers and young professionals, found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the US Embassy in Tunisia, released by WikiLeaks, which detailed the self-dealing and excess of the president’s family. And the protesters relied heavily on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to circulate videos of each demonstration and issue calls for the next one.
TUNISIA: The First WikiLeaks Revolution?
Review: SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa
23 Worst Tyrants/Dictators (Yes, there’s more than 23) and Oops, there’s Saudi Arabia..
Review: Breaking the Real Axis of Evil–How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025
M-Paisa: Ending Afghan Corruption, one Text at a TimeMonty Munford Oct 17, 2010
Afghanistan supplies 92% of the world’s opiates. According to the latest available figures, the country produced 8,200 tons of heroin in 2008, more than double the the amount three years earlier.
But even being the heroin capital of the world, bringing in more money than most Afghans can dream of, the on-going war and rampant corruption means the money goes to the wrong people and the country has no infrastructure. There are no decent roads, no railways… But they do have mobile phones.
Four months ago, the Afghan National Police began to pay salaries through mobiles (using a text and Interactive Voice Response system), rather than in cash. The platform used was based on the M-Pesa service that has become highly successful in Kenya. Branded M-Paisa in Afghanistan, it was introduced by the operator Roshan in partnership with the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and had an immediate effect.
Thanks to Vinod Khosla via his Twitter feed.
Related: Could Tiny Somaliland Become the First Cashless Society?
Also see: Afghanistan War Wealth + Corruption Cycle (Opium, Hashish, Minerals, Past Pipeline Attempts)
More wasted money…..
Program to modernize Afghan justice system yields little so far
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McClatchy's November investigation of contracting in Afghanistan
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Contractor Louis Berger settles in Afghan overbilling probe
Follow Afghanistan developments at McClatchy's Checkpoint Kabul
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Reference: Quadrennial Diplomacy & Development Review
Graphic: Whole of Government Intelligence
Journal: Whole of Government Competence & Contractors
Review: Losing the Golden Hour–An Insider’s View of Iraq’s Reconstruction
Worth a Look: The Golden Hour and Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power
January 12, 2011
Why Mine Warfare is Good for Protracted War
Surging Tit for Tat in Afghanistan
By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch
President Obama's ballyhooed surge of US forces in Afghanistan added 17,000 troops in early 2009 plus an additional 30,000 by 2010, in effect doubling the number of troops in Afghanistan (not to mention the concomitant surge in the camp-follower contractor force). The Taliban may not have doubled its troop strength, but as Tom Vanden Brook reports in the 10 January issue of USA Today, the insurgents have doubled the the total number of casualties inflicted by mines in just the last two years of the nine year war. [See graphic]
Continue reading “Journal: Taliban Doubles US Casualties in Two Years…”
When reform becomes impossible, revolution becomes inevitable.
Phi Beta Iota: This guy is amazing. Visit his website.
Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today
Gerald Celente: Forecasted Panic in Dec 2007; EIN PDB forecasted crash in Oct 2007
NIGHTWATCH Extract China-US: Special comment. International news services broadcast video and translations of Chinese Minister of Defense Liang insulting and hectoring the US, represented by the Secretary of Defense. The Chinese tasked Secretary Gates to defend and to explain to the Chinese why the US sells weapons to Taiwan and conducts naval training in the Yellow Sea. China demanded they stop. Instead of rejecting the Chinese demands and leaving, Gates tried to defend what needs not defense in Asia – US national policy.
A couple of points are worth noting. The tongue lashing Gates endured at a Singapore conference last year by a Chinese general clearly was no accident. That insult focused on the same issues as the latest. Gates should have walked out of the Singapore meeting last year and should have walked out of today's session. It remains unclear what the US hoped to gain that merited humiliation.
China is not ready to be a cooperative partner in international security affairs as some analysts contend; resents and resists the tutelage or guidance that some analysts think the US must offer; and has no intention of becoming more open in response to US requests if only because the US wants it so badly.
Phi Beta Iota: See our Memorandum on Chinese Irregular Warfare. The US Government has hit bottom in terms of lacking legitimacy at home and credibility abroad. Ideology is not a substitute for intelligence, and civility is not a substitute for cultural understanding.
By M K Bhadrakumar Asia Times Online
The unscheduled visit by United States Vice President Joe Biden to Islamabad this week underscores Washington's embarrassment and anxiety that it stands excluded from a regional initiative on Afghan peace process that could be about to take off. The rapid sequence of events over the past fortnight has taken Washington by surprise.
Read entire analysis of role played by Turkey, Russia, and Iran…
DefDog Comment: Most insurgencies last past 10 years it almost always requires a political settlement….thus we are seeing what could have been accomplished at the beginning by understanding the Pashtun and sitting down, Jirga style, and asking for UBL, who was granted sanctuary under the Pasthun Honor Code, Pasthunwali…..no cultural understanding has resulted in a 10 year waste…
Phi Beta Iota: The US Government is suffering from multiple disconnects–from its public, from reality, from strategic analytics, from cultural intelligence–from ANY intelligence relevant to all challenges at all levels–and finally, from integrity. Integrity is what allows well-intentioned people to cope with ambiguity. When they give up their integrity, they yield the field to those with political, ideological, and financial ambitions, and the public interest suffers–as does the welfare of our Armed Forces in harm's way.
See Also:
Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both
