08 Wild Cards – Page 70 – Public Intelligence Blog

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Afghanistan Beyond the Headlines: Women, Youth, and War

June 24, 2013

As the United States approaches its 2014 deadline for military withdrawal from Afghanistan, one often overshadowed aspect of the conflict is the hard-won progress made by previously marginalized segments of the Afghan population, particularly women, girls, and young people.

Afghanistan has one of the highest proportions of young people in the world – many of whom have known only war. The median age of the population is 15.6 years old, the median age of marriage is 18, and half of mothers surveyed during a country-wide mortality survey had their first child when they were teenagers.

But “while more than 70 percent of Afghanistan’s population are under 25 years of age, young people’s voices are rarely heard,” said Maiwand Rahyab, Counterpart International’s deputy director of Afghanistan.

“Let’s not be naïve about the current reality,” Rahyab said at the Wilson Center. “Afghan society is conservative and hierarchical,” making it difficult for young people to contribute meaningfully to policymaking and government reform. But over the last decade, there have been improvements in schooling, health, and opportunities for young people, which he and other panelists described during a special half-day event on June 24, “Afghanistan Beyond the Headlines: Women, Youth, and the War.”

Learn more.

See Also:

PDF (8 Pages): NATO ACT CFC The Youth Bulge in Afghanistan (Oct 2011, to be updated soon)

2013/09/24

Berto Jongman: Jeff Richelson’s Collection of Documents on Underground Facilities – Intelligence and Targeting Issues

04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

Underground Facilities: Intelligence and Targeting Issues

U.S. Intelligence: Hiding of Military Assets by “Rogue Nations” and Other States a Major Security Challenge for 21^st Century

U.S. Documents Describe Monitoring Effort Going Back to Early Cold War Years

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 439

UPDATE – September 23, 2013

Originally Posted – March 23, 2012

For more information contact:
Jeffrey T. Richelson – 202/994-7000
nsarchiv@gwu.edu

Washington, D.C., September 23, 2013 – While the focus on Syria's chemical weapons use, and the possibility of military action against Syrian government targets pushed aside, for a while, the issue of how to deal with Iran's nuclear program,¹ the two situations have one thing in common — their reported reliance on underground facilities to shield the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction.

Documents posted today by the National Security Archive show that such sites in Syria are only the latest in a long line of alleged and real underground facilities that have posed a high priority challenge for U.S. and allied intelligence collection and analysis efforts, as well as for military planners. There may be more than 10,000 such facilities worldwide, many of them in hostile territory, and many presumably intended to hide or protect lethal military equipment and activities, including weapons of mass destruction, that could threaten U.S. or allied interests.

Today's posting features 21 new documents, in addition to the 41 records from the Archive's initial March 23, 2012, posting on this subject. The new materials include several concerning a key topic of Cold War intelligence collection and analysis — hardened and underground communications facilities. Also included for the first time are draft charters for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) working group on hardened and buried targets. The majority of the new materials consist of reports from the Asian Studies Detachment (ASD) of the 500^th Military Group of the Army Intelligence and Security Command. The ASD reports, based on open source intelligence, focus on various aspects of hardened and buried facilities in North Korea and China.

The 21 new items, with one exception, were acquired via Freedom of Information Act requests or research in the National Archives. The original posting described in detail the agencies and programs the U.S. government has brought to the task of identifying and assessing underground structures in foreign countries since World War II.

Read New Introduction and See Complete List of Documents with Links

2013/09/24

4th Media: Saudi Intelligence Behind Chemical Attacks in Syria

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

Saudi Intelligence Behind Chemical Attacks in Syria But Unfortunately Nobody Will Dare Say That

A senior United Nations official who deals directly with Syrian affairs has told Al-Akhbar that the Syrian government had no involvement in the alleged Ghouta chemical weapons attack: “Of course not, he (President Bashar al-Assad) would be committing suicide.”

When asked who he believed was responsible for the use of chemical munitions in Ghouta, the UN official, who would not permit disclosure of his identity, said: “Saudi intelligence was behind the attacks and unfortunately nobody will dare say that.” The official claims that this information was provided by rebels in Ghouta.

Read full article with many links.

2013/09/20

David Swanson: Harvey Wasserman on Fukushima’s Coming Mega Meltdown

03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude

The Crisis at Fukushima 4 Demands a Global Take-Over

By Harvey Wasserman, WarIsACrime.org

We are now within two months of what may be humankind’s most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

There is no excuse for not acting. All the resources our species can muster must be focussed on the fuel pool at Fukushima Unit 4.

Fukushima’s owner, Tokyo Electric (Tepco), says that within as few as 60 days it may begin trying to remove more than 1300 spent fuel rods from a badly damaged pool perched 100 feet in the air. The pool rests on a badly damaged building that is tilting, sinking and could easily come down in the next earthquake, if not on its own.

Some 400 tons of fuel in that pool could spew out more than 15,000 times as much radiation as was released at Hiroshima.

Continue reading “David Swanson: Harvey Wasserman on Fukushima's Coming Mega Meltdown”

2013/09/202013/09/20

NIGHTWATCH (2): Russia Draws the Line at Syria

06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards

IN REVERSE ORDER (TODAY FIRST, YESTERDAY SECOND)

Russia: President Putin today accused the West of worsening the situation in Syria by “blowing up an internal conflict” there. His remarks were broadcast by state news television channel Rossiya 24.

At an international meeting Putin interrupted former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon who said mass murder in Syria must be stopped. “Of course, we cannot calmly watch mass murder,” Putin said. “But let's be honest with each other: yes, there was an internal conflict in Syria, but it was immediately blown up from abroad, and weapons and rebels started coming into Syria.”

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH (2): Russia Draws the Line at Syria”

2013/09/182013/09/18

Chuck Spinney: Israel Still Angling for Attacks on Syria and Iran

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military

The author is one of the best journalists in the Middle East.

Israel Still Angling for Attacks on Syria and Iran

Jonathan Cook

Counterpunch:, 2013-09-18

Nazareth.

President Barack Obama may have drawn his seemingly regretted “red line” around Syria’s chemical weapons, but it was neither he nor the international community that turned the spotlight on their use. That task fell to Israel.

It was an Israeli general who claimed in April that Damascus had used chemical weapons, forcing Obama into an embarrassing demurral on his stated commitment to intervene should that happen.

According to the Israeli media, it was also Israel that provided the intelligence that blamed the Syrian president, Bashar Al Assad, for the latest chemical weapons attack, near Damascus on August 21, triggering the clamour for a US military response.

It is worth remembering that Obama’s supposed “dithering” on the question of military action has only been accentuated by Israel’s “daring” strikes on Syria – at least three since the start of the year.

It looks as though Israel, while remaining largely mute about its interests in the civil war raging there, has been doing a great deal to pressure the White House into direct involvement in Syria.

That momentum appears to have been halted, for the time being at least, by the deal agreed at the weekend by the US and Russia to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

To understand the respective views of the White House and Israel on attacking Syria, one needs to revisit the US-led invasion of Iraq a decade ago.

Israel and its ideological twin in Washington, the neoconservatives, rallied to the cause of toppling Saddam Hussein, believing that it should be the prelude to an equally devastating blow against Iran.

Israel was keen to see its two chief regional enemies weakened simultaneously. Saddam’s Iraq had been the chief sponsor of Palestinian resistance against Israel. Iran, meanwhile, had begun developing a civilian nuclear programme that Israel feared could pave the way to an Iranian bomb, ending Israel’s regional monopoly on nuclear weapons.

The neocons carried out the first phase of the plan, destroying Iraq, but then ran up against domestic opposition that blocked implementation of the second stage: the break-up of Iran.

The consequences are well known. As Iraq imploded into sectarian violence, Iran’s fortunes rose. Tehran strengthened its role as regional sponsor of resistance against Israel – or what became Washington’s new “axis of evil” – that included Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Israel and the US both regard Syria as the geographical “keystone” of that axis, as Israel’s outgoing ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, told the Jerusalem Post this week, and one that needs to be removed if Iran is to be isolated, weakened or attacked.

But Israel and the US drew different lessons from Iraq. Washington is now wary of its ground forces becoming bogged down again, as well as fearful of reviving a cold war confrontation with Moscow. It prefers instead to rely on proxies to contain and exhaust the Syrian regime.

Israel, on the other hand, understands the danger of manoeuvring its patron into a showdown with Damascus without ensuring this time that Iran is tied into the plan. Toppling Assad alone would simply add emboldened jihadists to the troubles on its doorstep.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Israel Still Angling for Attacks on Syria and Iran”

2013/09/182013/09/18

Berto Jongman: Uzbeckistan Faces Civil War, Possible Disintegration

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Uzbekistan Faces Civil War, Possible Disintegration, Tashkent Scholar Says

Over the past six weeks, the independent FerganaNews.com portal has conducted an online discussion, sparked by an article of the leader of the “Birdamlik” opposition movement, Bahordir Chorniyev, on the possibility that Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov and his regime could be overthrown by a “velvet revolution” (fergananews.com/articles/7849; fergananews.com/articles/7852;fergananews.com/articles/7854; fergananews.com/articles/7856).

Most of those taking part were skeptical about that possibility, but none of them has as bleak a vision of Uzbekistan’s future as Maryam Ibragimova, a Tashkent-based political scientist, whose article concludes the current series (http://www.fergananews.com/articles/7860). In an 800-word letter to the editor, she argues that her “beautiful and unhappy land” likely faces “either a military dictatorship or a civil war.”

As “a professional political scientist,” Ibragimova writes, she says she has no choice but to add her voice and that in her view there is no possibility of any “velvet” revolution in Uzbekistan. Instead, she continues, what lies ahead is “a bloody dismantling” of the existing dictatorship “or a prolonged civil war accompanied by the disintegration of the country.”

The Tashkent scholar gave five reasons for her explanation.

Category: 08 Wild Cards

NATO Civil-Military Fusion Centre: Afghanistan Youth