STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Aug. 15 (UPI) — The founder of WikiLeaks says he will seek a publishing license for his controversial operation in Sweden where whistleblower protections are strong.
Phi Beta Iota: The Nordic nations have consistently been “smarter” and more ethical than the US and all others. Wikileaks has made many mistakes of judgment, as our esteemed colleague Steve Aftergood of Secrecy News has noted in “Wikileaks Fails Due Diligence Review,” but it can safely be said that the US, the UN, and all others are too easily found to be in violation of the “rule of law” they claim to represent. In our own experience, US Ambassadors spend too much time sweeping dirt under the rug and lying for their government (not their country–America the Beautiful does not want liars as Ambassadors), and the UN is an incestuous bog of little fiefdoms that “live and let live” without the ability to police the integrity of its own professionals. Wikipeaks exists–and is gaining traction–precisely because those who object to its leaks have failed to maintain their own integrity.
China-North Korea: China offered to help North Korea control cross-border crime and build law-enforcement forces, according to a report by Agence France-Presse on 12 August. A spokesman also said China provided military equipment to North Korea's National Defense Commission during a visit by China's Deputy Public Security Minister Liu Jing on 8 August.
North Korea's Security Ministry staff and a Chinese public security delegation met on 12 August, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
NIGHTWATCH Comment: The reports are intermittent in the public media, but cumulatively they establish a pattern of China using economic and law enforcement linkages to tie North Korea more tightly. When North Korean leadership has been strong, it strongly and successfully has resisted Chinese initiatives. That does not appear to be the case at this time. China's admission of providing “military equipment” is unusual and rare. The actors mentioned in the report suggest the reference is to crowd control equipment.
Phi Beta Iota: Hybrid and M4IS2 (along with bottom-up self-governance) will be the defining attributes of local to global governance in the 21st Century. The USA has consistently made the mistake of selling arms and withholding information sharing and intelligence capacity building (providing stealable funds does not count). A mix of hybrid bi-lateral (such as Australian-Cambodian task forces on human trafficking) and hybrid multi-lateral (e.g. a regional intelligence centre for Central America) will flip the international relations and national security paradigms.
Full Extract on China-Fiji, Fiji as Potential Base of China in South Pacific
Full Extract on China Carrier Force and Implications in Region
Full Extract on Venezuela-Colombia Reconciliation
Phi Beta Iota: It's a shame no one will fund NIGHTWATCH to do Global Coverage, because it is consistently more intelligent than all the other “open source” offerings. Fiji is a failure, primarily an Australian failure but also a US failure; China's carriers are a natural progression, they advance while the US Navy retards–absent Whole of Government, a long-haul Air Force, and a 450-ship expeditionary Navy, US influence in Asia and the Southern Hemisphere is destined to whither. Our esteemed colleague is too hard on Venezuela. Read Open Veins of Latin America, understand Savage Capitalism and Sorrows of Empire as well as Killing Hope, and push the reset button–the US has screwed over Latin America for going on two centuries and throws a hissy-fit when Castro first, and now Chavez seek their own declaration of independence. America desperately needs someone with gravitas devising a sustainable strategy aimed at a Non-Zero solution: a prosperous world at peace.
(From EnoughProject.org)
The Lord’s Resistance Army has depopulated a remote corner of northeastern Congo, killing and abducting hundreds of civilians, and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes. In a new report, “‘This is our land now:’ Lord’s Resistance Army attacks in Bas Uele, northeastern Congo,” Enough Project Field Researcher Ledio Cakaj documents 51 attacks by the LRA in Bas Uele, Congo, resulting in at least 105 deaths and 570 abductions during the last 15 months.
“The LRA rampage in Bas Uele territory is brutal but strategic,” notes Cakaj, “LRA fighters have used this region as a base and transit point to the Central African Republic and beyond. The threat to civilians is increasing, since there is no meaningful military force to challenge the LRA in this area. The Congolese army remains a threat to its own population, and the United Nations is drawing down its peacekeepers in this region.”
After signing into U.S. law the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act on May 24, 2010, the Obama administration is developing a comprehensive strategy to deal with the LRA. The report argues that any viable strategy needs to take into account the importance of Bas Uele to the LRA, in order to better protect civilians and finally to end the LRA’s escalating threat across a vast region of central Africa.
On Aug 9, 2010, Wired carried the below chart of the evolution of Taliban attacks between 2004 and 2009. This chart was constructed from the now notorious Wikileaks data base by Drew Conway, a graduate student at NYU, using the open source statistical analysis program known as “R.”
Below these I provide three historical charts, and after my comments, a chart of the Mongol invasion, the only one with lasting influence–but also a failed invasion and occuption.
Two actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated and one improved in July 2010, according to the new issue of the International Crisis Group’s monthly bulletin CrisisWatchreleased today.
