Category: 08 Wild Cards

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Journal: Haiti Update 21 February 2010

03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards

U.N. aid chief ‘disappointed' with Haiti earthquake relief efforts

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations' top humanitarian relief coordinator has scolded his lieutenants for failing to adequately manage the relief effort in Haiti, saying that an uneven response in the month after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake has undercut confidence in the world body's ability to deliver vital assistance, according to a confidential e-mail.

The criticism from John Holmes, the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, focuses on the United Nations' sluggish implementation of its humanitarian “cluster strategy,” which assigns key U.N. relief agencies responsibility for coordinating the delivery of basic needs in 12 sectors, including water and shelter.

Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #22

WASH partners are currently reaching 850,000 people with 5 litres of water a day, covering 83 per cent of the target population. A 75 per cent gap remains, however, in the provision of latrines.

The Health cluster warns that there is a risk of a large-scale outbreak of diarrhea, given the present overcrowding, poor sanitation and lack of effective waste disposal systems in spontaneous settlement sites.

Rain brings more misery to Haiti earthquake survivors

Aid agencies warn of new humanitarian disaster if shelter and sanitation not improved quickly

Study: Quake damage twice value of Haiti economy

A report by three Inter-American Development Bank economists found last month's earthquake to be more devastating than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was for Indonesia, and five times deadlier than the 1972 earthquake that leveled Nicaragua's capital.

Reference: Haiti Rolling Directory from 12 January 2010

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Journal: IED Deja Vu–from Viet-Nam with Love…

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Military
Marcus Aurelius

Robots and bees to beat the Taliban

Full Story Online

The homemade IED is the extremists’ deadliest weapon and America is spending billions on trying to combat it. We are granted access to this secret, smart and bizarre world

Phi Beta Iota: In 1988 the US Marine Corps told the emerging MASINT community that their highest priority was the detection of explosives at a stand off distance regardless of the container.  This was based on USMC experience in El Salvador, where wooden containers were used to defeat mine detectors.  The article is incorrect about mines replacing small arms as the weapon or casualty-causer of choice; mines in Viet-Nam took out more people (and the able-bodied needed to carry the wounded) than any other capability.  The Israeli solution is a well-trained dog.

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Search: how much is al-qaeda worth?

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Mobile

Very cool question.  We don't have the answers, but here are a few thoughts.

Who benefits? There is only one beneficiary of Al Qaeda as a virtual actor: the US Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Congressional Complex whose outrageously wasteful funding and excessive (70%) obligations to contractors are bankrupting the US economy, but who cares as long as the corporate gravy train keeps rolling along.  The indigenous peoples seeking self-determination, including the long-repressed people of Saudi Arabia and the long-repressed peoples of Palestine, do not benefit from a model that Mahatma Gandhi clearly understood was self-destructive.  Non-violence is the only sustainable path to self-determination.

Calculating value. With the above firmly in mind, Al Qaeda's “value” to the sole beneficiary, the MIICC, is a combination of three sums:

1.  The sums Al Qaeda and related groups receive from governments, corporations, and individuals interested in sustaining radical Islamic violence against both Muslims and the West.

2.  The sums the US and others spend on false flag operations attributed to Al Qaeda (the underpants bomber is probably an Israeli false-flag operation with US consent and colalboration)

3.  The sums the MIICC receives from a corrupt Congress that has not done a serious national security baseline evaluation of need since Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) retired from his post as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

What is Al Gaeda Worth? Our wild-ass but informed guess is $1 trillion a year.  That one trillion a year is both positive value (for those that benefit) and negative value (for all the others).  With one trillion a year we could have brought the USA into the 21st Century, funded free cell phones for the five billion poor so they could create infinite stabilizing and self-sustaining wealth, and created a prosperous world at peace.

Continue reading “Search: how much is al-qaeda worth?”

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Journal: Learning from Haiti–Seven Ways to Respond

08 Wild Cards
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

This article was written for a progressive magazine which asked for an updated version of my earlier essay on the Haitian crisis. http://bit.ly/7pJ0iF

I decided that rather than updating it I would reorganize it to reflect some deeper dynamics I see in our responses to catastrophes in general. Although in the end the magazine felt they couldn't use what I came up with, I want to share it with you.

Coheartedly,
Tom

LEARNING FROM HAITI: 7 WAYS TO RESPOND TO CRISES

Tom Atlee's Complete Article

By Tom Atlee

1. Strategic interest

2. Compassion

3. Prevention

4. Insight

5. Justice

6. Sustainability

7. Social evolution

Reference: Haiti Rolling Directory from 12 January 2010

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Journal: Goldman Sachs Outed, European Audit Soon?

03 Economy, 08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement

Chuck Spinney

Goldman Goes Rogue – Special European Audit To Follow

Simon Johnson     Baseline Scenario      February 14, 2009

We now learn – from Der Spiegel last week and today’s NYT – that Goldman Sachs has not only helped or encouraged some European governments to hide a large part of their debts, but it also endeavored to do so for Greece as recently as last November.  These actions are fundamentally destabilizing to the global financial system, as they undermine: the eurozone area; all attempts to bring greater transparency to government accounting; and the most basic principles that underlie well-functioning markets.  When the data are all lies, the outcomes are all bad – see the subprime mortgage crisis for further detail.

A single rogue trader can bring down a bank – remember the case of Barings.  But a single rogue bank can bring down the world’s financial system.

Goldman will dismiss this as “business as usual” and, to be sure, a few phone calls around Washington will help ensure that Goldman’s primary supervisor – now the Fed – looks the other way.

But the affair is now out of Ben Bernanke’s hands, and quite far from people who are easily swayed by the White House.  It goes immediately to the European Commission, which has jurisdiction over eurozone budget issues.  Faced with enormous pressure from those eurozone countries now on the hook for saving Greece, the Commission will surely launch a special audit of Goldman and all its European clients.

Phi Beta Iota: The balance of the above article is a “must read.”

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Happy Birthday Arno Reuser–Master Librarian

08 Wild Cards, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Librarian Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)
Arno Reuser

PLATINUM LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Arno “The Curious” Reuser

Mr. Arno Reuser, Arno the Curious, is a Master Librarian who has done more for the practice of Open Source Inteligence (OSINT) in support of national security than anyone else in Europe.  He has been a pioneer in the explotiation of badly-delivered OSINT from private sector vendors, writing original PERL programs to make sense of their feeds; he has known how to make the most of the Internet; and above all, he has known how to find and engage human intellects around the world, each capable of producing unique tailored knowledge not available online or in print.  He is the Master Librarian of the OSINT world and all seven intelligence tribes.

When InterNET is InterNOT (2008)

Virtual Open Source Agency (2006)

Librarian Tradecraft (2003)


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Journal: Drones of War

08 Wild Cards, Military
Marcus Aurelius

America's Deadly Robots Rewrite The Rules (Sydney Morning Herald)

In the artistry of war, the insertion of a Jordanian double-agent who detonated his explosive vest inside this super-sensitive CIA bunker was flawless. But, in their payback, the enraged Americans confirmed the breadth of a new horizon in modern warfare – launching 15 clinical drone attacks in which more than 100 people died along the border, as Washington's electronic eyes and guns sought out Mehsud and his Taliban and al-Qaeda allies.

War does not get more radical than this – technically, politically and, perhaps, ethically.

Consider: for the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war.   . . .

The US Air Force now has more drone operators in training than fighter and bomber pilots.

What Would Errol Flynn Think? (Boston Globe)

The drone has become the weapon of choice against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. CIA director Leon Panetta called it “the only game in town,’’ and the Pentagon recently announced it was doubling drone production. The US Air Force will soon have more drones than fighter aircraft.   . . .

As Jane Mayer described it in the New Yorker, he’s sitting at a screen. He can zoom in, see whom he wants to kill, and push a button. Sometimes he sees people running out of targeted houses for cover. This is so common, according to Mayer, that the running people are called “squirters’’ at Langley.

Obama's Drone War: Does The Killing Pay Off? (PoliticsDaily.com)

“The drone attacks have become very effective over time, hitting an increased number of targets, more precisely with less collateral damage,” said Haider Ali Hussein Mullick, a counterinsurgency analyst at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University.

But those stepping into vacant leadership positions, he added, “are more deadly. They do not have strong ideological links. They are dangerous. These are not guys you can talk to.”   . . .

These attacks, the resurgence of al-Qaeda, and the flare-up of its operations in Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere, suggest that the campaign to stop terrorists by killing off terrorist leaders has been less than successful.

“Killing leaders supports an illusion of progress, but not the reality,” said John McCreary, former strategic analyst for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.