US Terror Scare Misfires

New US Tactics in Afghanistan Unrelated to Europe Terror Alert

A strong strategic rationale actuated Washington's blanket terror warning to Europe of Sunday, Oct. 3. But the way it evolved reflected the current interplay among the leading American personalities who devised it.

Phi Beta Iota: We do not normally point to anything that requires registration or payment, but in this instance, since it specifically supports our own skepticism about the recent terror alert (see Journal: US Travel Alert–Political and Fraudulent?, we agree with our contributor who suggested the pointer. Below are a few of the headlines internal to the Debka article, and three key sentences.

Angry Pakistani reaction was no surprise

Now to build a cover story

In North Waziristan, Petraeus said, smashing Taliban and local allied forces on the Pakistan side of the border is the key to success in Afghanistan, particularly in the south which has a common border with North Waziristan.

The imprecise, unspecific US terror scare did not impress Europe

Brennan's personal ambition gingered up the publicity

While Petraeus and Panetta kept their uncertainties under their hats and cooperated with one another, John Brennan went off on an aggressive tangent. He issued a welter of leaks to the media without coordinating them with either partner.

France settles scores with Britain

Two days later, France exhibited its fine sense of irony by issuing a travel advisory warning French citizens to be vigilant for terrorists while traveling in… London.

Debka “Premium” Content

Phi Beta Iota: Just after this story, which has rich detail on Brennan and Panetta lusting for Jones' job, the vacancy was announced and filled. This may be one of the weakest national security teams since the end of WWII.

2010/10/082010/10/08

Reference: Open Society on Afghan Views

08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, IO Sense-Making, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, White Papers

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends

The below report by the Open Society Foundations (a Soros project) is extremely important and should get the widest distribution. It documents the cumulative blowback caused by our narcissistic ideas about how to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans. It does this by systematically examining the views of a wide variety of Afghans in an effort to construct an Afghan narrative of how the intervention is affecting their lives. That this narrative is often at variance with our views (which makes it easy to dismiss by western military leaders), the report shows why this is really quite beside the point. Of particular interest (at least to me) is the Afghan narrative of the psychological effects of collateral damage cause by our all-seeing, all-knowing precision strike systems. It is a classic on how the ongoing self-referencing BS about the performance of these weapons is blowing back on itself to magnify the atmosphere of mistrust and alienation that is playing directly into the success of the insurgent's guerrilla strategy.

Of course, this report might be easily dismissed by those patriotic Amurikans, drunk on High Tea, as the subversive product of the lefty Hungarian-emigre George Soros, who is, after all, just another ‘other.'

AF Trust Deficit small footprint — Downloadable PDF

Phi Beta Iota: A properly managed intelligence campaign would have anticipated and then closely monitored this kind of situational awareness. It is called “Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield.” Neither CIA nor DIA know how to do this.

Review: Operation Dark Heart–Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan — and the Path to Victory

Review: Surrender to Kindness (One Man’s Epic Journey for Love and Peace)

2010 INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

2010/10/052010/10/05

Journal: Obama Grovels, Israel Rules

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards

These two article together reveal just how uninformed Obama is, how unprofessional his staff is, and how much his blind groveling to Israel is costing the US taxpayer while perpetuating the ignored pathos of the Palestinian people in their own land.

Netanyahu Humiliates Obama Again

The Obama administration must understand that the Israeli prime minister is essentially a right-wing Republican.

By MJ Rosenberg

October 02, 2010 “Al-Jazeera” — The Obama administration's attempts at seducing Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, are getting embarrassing. Netanyahu has made it very clear he is not interested.

Read full article online…

Published 19:24 04.10.10

Netanyahu urges top ministers to extend settlement freeze

PM to convene inner cabinet on Tuesday for vote on a 60-day moratorium in exchange for U.S. guarantees.

By Natasha Mozgovaya, Barak Ravid and Haaretz Service

Read full article online…

Journal: New York Times Lies, Ha’aretz Does Not

Journal: Israel, Obama, Settlements–Cape Job

2010/10/042010/10/04

Journal: US Travel Alert–Political and Fraudulent?

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Intelligence (government), Media, Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call

History:

1) 9-11 known to have been at a minimum allowed to happen.

9-11 Truth Books & DVDs (29)

2) CIA known to have sponsored terrorism in Philippines, Indonesia, Viet-Nam, and Italy as pretext.

Review: Edward Lansdale’s Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War) (Paperback)

Reference: US Responsibility for Atrocities in Indonesia

3) Underpants Bomber very likely to have been a US-Israeli deception operation against the US public and Congress (never mind the Constitution, Bush-Cheney buried it, Obama-Biden have carried on in that tradition).

Journal: Underpants Bomber Saved Worthless NCTC [with other links]

Current Situation:

1) This rumor has been around before; and the chatter sounds American in origin.

December 20, 2009 Police expect Mumbai-style terror attack on City of London

2) This time, the “threat” is based on a single US-controlled captive being held in Afghanistan.

Thursday, 30 September 2010 Mumbai-style commando raid plan ‘uncovered in Pakistan'

3) The threat appears to have been originally aimed at silencing critics of the widespread drone attacks inside Pakistan.

Wed Sep 29 Terror plot in Europe prompted drone strikes

4) British reinforcement of the US claims suspect

Al Qaida's Mumbai-style attack plot could have been hatched in Rochdale

Our group bottom line: Not even close. This is very likely a fraud, most certainly over-reaction hyped for political purposes, and the evidence has not been collected, processed, analyzed, and presented properly. This is bogus. What is really scary is that in order to “prove” it, a crime against humanity may be ordered, a bombing or shooting spree of sorts using either a false flag recruit set in motion by covert action operators, or a bombing by a contractor such as Xe/Blackwater.

2010/10/022010/10/02

Reference: Enemies are Brave, Not Cowards

08 Wild Cards, Analysis, Articles & Chapters, DoD, Officers Call, Reform

Special NightWatch Comment: Mirror imaging is a serious analytical flaw. If things are not done their way, analysts are prone to consider them inferior or wrong. It manifests a dangerous, potentially lethal cultural bias.

This week US officers were quoted in international press, yet again, as accusing the Taliban of cowardice because they use improvised explosive devices and don't come out and fight like men. An odd taunt.

In the past nine years of fighting, the Taliban — who go to war wearing robes, sandals and turbans and fight mainly with assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades and IEDS — never accuse US soldiers of cowardice for wearing ceramic armor; riding in tanks and armored fighting vehicles; fighting from forts; using the most advanced artillery invented, helicopter gunships and fighter aircraft; relying on advanced communications, satellites, armed drones; and rotating out after a tour in the field.

The officers might drop the name calling and try to understand what motivates pre-modern men so ill equipped to continue to fight the most advanced military forces in the history of the world for nearly a decade.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: It is an honor and a privilege to read NIGHTWATCH. NIGHTWATCH commentaries, along with those by Chuck Spinney, Ralph Peters, and Robert Young Pelton, are among a handful of analytic commentaries that are consistently intelligent and honest. Few others can make this claim. “Strategic Decrepitude” has been joined by “Intellectual Decrepitude” among the ranks of those officers who would rather fight than think. Sun Tzu would call them assured losers….losers who are enablers of the ideological idiots who lie to the public and betray the public trust. In combination, the lack of integrity by both parties robs the Republic of blood, treasure, and spirit.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Empire as Cancer Including Betrayal & Deceit

2010/10/02

Journal: US Government Funding the Taliban…

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Officers Call

David Isenberg

Author, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq

Taliban to PSC: How May We Serve You?

Today we have news straight out of Mario Puzo. It seems the Taliban made local Afghan private security contractors an offer they could not refuse.

Yesterday the Inspector General's office at the U.S. Agency for International released a report that found that millions of dollars in American taxpayer funds may have been paid to Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan to provide security for a U.S. development project. The report says subcontractors hired to protect a development project near Jalalabad may have paid more than $5 million to the militants through local authorities.

Phi Beta Iota: INTEGRITY demands respect for reality. The U.S. Government is knowingly funding the Taliban as a “cost of doing business,” the “business” being the churning of the military-industrial complex–use everything up, wear everything out, so it has to be bought again new. This was done in Viet-Nam, and revisionist history is now showing that it was known that there would be a 50,000 US casualty cost beforehand. As long as the American public tolerates a two-party tyranny that excludes sane and sensible alternative candidates, and that allocates the taxpayer revenue behind closed doors and often without complying with the Constitution, the Republic will remain comatose.

CrisisWatch Report N°86, 1 October 2010

03 India, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, CrisisWatch reports

Seven actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated and none improved in September 2010, according to the latest issue of the International Crisis Group's monthly bulletin CrisisWatch, released today.

Guinea saw increased political and ethnic divisions, exacerbated by controversies related to the presidential elections. Two days of violent clashes in the capital between rival supporters of the two presidential candidates, Alpha Conde and Cellou Diallo, left one person dead and dozens injured. Continued delays in the timing of the run-off and Diallo's rejection of the appointment of the election commission's new head led to further tensions between the two camps.

In Sri Lanka moves by President Rajapaksa to consolidate his power through a de facto constitutional coup transformed the political terrain. On 8 September the parliament passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which gives the President nearly unbridled power by scrapping term limits on the presidency, abolishing the Constitutional Court and allowing the President to appoint directly officials to the judiciary, police and electoral bodies.

Continue reading “CrisisWatch Report N°86, 1 October 2010”

Category: 08 Wild Cards

Journal: Debka (IL)–US Terror Scare Backfires