08 Wild Cards – Page 209 – Public Intelligence Blog

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By IAN LIVINGSTON, HEATHER MESSERA, MICHAEL O’HANLON and AMY UNIKEWICZ January 2, 2010

In 2009, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan dominated American military and foreign policy. Which themes emerged over the last year?

In Iraq, 2009 was the year of relatively smooth transitions.

In Pakistan, 2009 was the year of the offensives.

In Afghanistan, 2009 was the year of decisions — by President Obama, of course, by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and by the Afghan people as they re-elected Hamid Karzai as president.

Phi Beta Iota: Although a puff piece in some ways, since it is well-known that Karzai is massively corrupt and the election was so fraudulent as to remind one of Idi Amin's elections, the statistics are indeed looking good, especially in Iraq. Our concern is that the US will finally de-occupy Iraq only to create new occupations in Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia. Neither CIA nor JSOC is actually up to the challenge of global operations without blow-back, the US has no strategy and no Whole of Goverment capability for waging peace so as to calm the context in which we do one man – one bullet operations, so on balance, we are very concerned.

2010/01/022010/01/02

Journal: Strong Signals–Azerbaijan in Play

02 Diplomacy, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

Phi Beta Iota: We now know that no one briefed the White House on the fact that Iraq was deeply divided between Sunnis in power and Shi-ites under repression. We have to ask ourselves if anyone has figured out that Azerbaijan is the other Shi'ite majority nation.

Iran starts to introduce visa-free regime with Azerbaijan on February 1 – Head of the press service of the Iranian Embassy

Earlier Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mohammad Bagir Behrami said that any Azerbaijani citizen can travel to Iran without a visa and stay for one month.

The ambassador expressed hope that the Azerbaijani side will take a similar step.

ACNIS criticizes Azerbaijani president’s renewed threats of war

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) Director Richard Giragosian issued a statement today criticizing Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s renewed “threats of war.

Azerbaijani citizen arrested in Afghanistan on suspected link to al Qaeda

Baku. Elmin Ibrahimov-APA. Afghanistan National Security Directorate (NSD) has announced that a member of the al-Qaida network was arrested in the country’s eastern province of Khost.

Turkey urges Armenia to resolve problems with Azerbaijan

“Normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia is not enough,” Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin told a press briefing on Wednesday. “If Armenia does not resolve Upper Karabakh dispute with Azerbaijan, stability in the Caucasus can not be established. This is quite clear.”

Continue reading “Journal: Strong Signals–Azerbaijan in Play”

2010/01/022010/01/02

Journal: US “Not Viewed as Occupiers in Afghanistan.” Really?

08 Wild Cards

McChrystal Sees Victory Ahead In Afghanistan

By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Saturday, January 2, 2010

“We are not viewed as occupiers now, ” Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, told Stars and Stripes in an interview Friday.

Continue reading “Journal: US “Not Viewed as Occupiers in Afghanistan.” Really?”

2010/01/012010/01/01

Worth a Look: Israeli Connections to USS Cole & 9-11

04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, 9-11 articles, Ethics, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence, Worth A Look

photo israel and 9-11 — Israel, USS Cole, 9-11

Phi Beta Iota: This is worth a look rather than a reference because we have not had time to evaluate it properly. It most certainly is worth a look. Israel is known to have attacked the USS Liberty, and similar to the USA being responsible for Abu Ghraib, such a crime against humanity cannot be forgotten.

We are especially troubled by the USS Cole allegation with respect to the Israeli's using a cruise missile. Unfortunately, the US Government has a track record of covering up “friendly” attacks (USS Liberty) as well as “enemy” attacks (USS Scorpion) so the bottom line is that we have no reliable source of information on any of this.

photo cb — Christopher Bollyn, Independent Journalist "Without Frontier"

This material furthers our deep interest in strategic public counterintelligence. It is a certainty that no one is defending the USA from “white collar” domestic enemies, and we are generally doing more to incite foreign enemies than to contain them. We are increasingly seeing the discipline of counter-intelligence as one that demands that we know ourselves–that we look deeply into our soul, and that we find and eradicate all those commiting treason against the Republic, including those who collaborate in the murder of Americans for “higher purposes.”

Separately Christopher Boyllyn, a self-described journalist “without frontier” who has standing with Prison Planet and Mike Ruppert, former LAPD who wrote Crossing the Rubicon, has posted a number of items also worth a look.

To that end, we respectfully post these two links for public consideration.

2010/01/01

Reference: Afghanistan–The Other Side

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Peace Intelligence, White Papers

FYI … I just found this interesting report. While the report focuses almost entirely on the political perspective to this conflict, note how he claims the Taleban increases its cohesion by organizing itself in a decentralized way the marries centralized intent with high degree of autonomy at lower levels. He thinks it is paradoxical that this type of organization improves cohesion, but it is right out of the maneuver warfare tradition, and it is hardly paradoxical that this kind of organization increases the variety, rapidity, and harmony of its OODA loops at all levels organization. Nor should it be surprising, given the sluggish, rigid OODA loops that result our highly centralized, techno-intensive approach to command & control, that the Taleban seized and maintains the initiative, as acknowledged by General McChrystal in his report to President Obama in August. Chuck

35-Page Report includes Executive Summary, Introduction, Roots & Causes, Induced & Internal Factors, Pakistan Factor, Who Are the Insurgents, Talks or Reconciliation, Conclusion, and Recommendations.

High points:

1. Many actors, no strategy

2. Cannot reconcile extremists with corrupt government

3. Time for the UN to be the UN again and lead a 360 “all stakeholders” non-military convergence.

2010/01/012010/01/01

Journal: CIA Morphing into Paramilitary Organization

08 Wild Cards, Government

A few more details about the loss of those 7 CIA officers and a lot more questions about tradecraft. Such as in country like Afghanistan where the rocks have eyes should a penetration agent be brought to a major CIA base prior to being rcruited for a mission?

C.I.A. Takes On Bigger and Riskier Role on Front Lines

By MARK MAZZETTI

December 31, 2009

WASHINGTON — The deaths of seven Central Intelligence Agency operatives at a remote base in the mountains of Afghanistan are a pointed example of the civilian spy agency’s transformation in recent years into a paramilitary organization at the vanguard of America’s far-flung wars.

2009/12/31

Journal: Walking Into Al Qaeda’s Trap in Yemen

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Military, Peace Intelligence

Very important article from one of the very best reporters covering the Middle East

Walking Into the Al-Qaeda Trap

Touch Yemen, Get Burned

By PATRICK COCKBURN

December 31, 2009

Skip to End of Article:

It is extraordinary to see the US begin to make the same mistakes in Yemen as it previously made in Afghanistan and Iraq. What it is doing is much to al-Qa’ida’s advantage. The real strength of al-Qa’ida is not that it can ‘train’ a fanatical Nigerian student to sew explosives into his underpants, but that it can provoke an exaggerated US response to every botched attack. Al-Qa’ida leaders openly admitted at the time of 9/11 that the aim of such operations is to provoke the US into direct military intervention in Muslim countries. It is a formula which worked under President George W Bush and it still appears to work under President Barack Obama.

In Yemen the US is walking into the al-Qa’ida trap. Once there it will face the same dilemma it faces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It became impossible to exit these conflicts because the loss of face would be too great. Just as Washington saved banks and insurance giants from bankruptcy in 2008 because they were “too big to fail,” so these wars become too important to lose because to do so would damage the US claim to be the sole super power.

In Iraq the US is getting out more easily than seemed likely at one stage because Washington has persuaded Americans that they won a non-existent success. The ultimate US exit from Afghanistan may eventually be along very similar lines. But the danger of claiming spurious victories is that such distortions of history make it impossible for the US to learn from past mistakes and instead to repeat them by intervening in other countries such as Yemen.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of ‘The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq‘ and ‘Muqtada! Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq‘.

Continue reading “Journal: Walking Into Al Qaeda's Trap in Yemen”

Category: 08 Wild Cards

Journal: States of Conflict (AF, PK & IQ) An Update