Key Players – Page 157 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/11/01

DefDog: Afghan Surge Flops, Viet-Nam Deja Vu

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

More evidence, as if we needed it, of the lack of integrity of this administration…..

New Afghan War Plan Concedes the Surge Fell Short

Spencer Ackerman

WIRED, 1 November 2011

As the Obama administration winds down its troop surge in Afghanistan, it’s adopted a new political strategy for ending the war. And that new strategy represents a tacit concession that the best the surge could accomplish was rescuing Afghanistan from from the brink of total failure.

What was the surge for, anyway? In one sense, as explained by President Obama, it was merely designed to stop the Afghanistan war from deteriorating. But Obama’s generals promised that it would do more — that it would whup the Taliban into suing for peace. And in the broadest sense of all, it would contribute to the Obama team’s ultimate objective for the region: to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaida.

Judged in the narrowest sense, then, the surge worked. Afghanistan is no longer spiraling into greater violence. But it’s failed to accomplish anything beyond that.

Read longer than usual, very pointed analysis of lies, delusions, and failure.

Phi Beta Iota: We've learned to expect a complete lack of integrity in our political, operational, and intelligence leaders. This is so “deja vu” of Viet-Nam. There is no accountability for failure in the US Government.

See Also:

Chuck Spinney: Time Favors the Taliban

Afghanistan Ground Truth: Deja Vu & Nested RECAP

Bob Gates: Flat Out Liar or Just Feeble? + RECAP

US Intelligence Lies to “Defer” to General Petraeus

Journal: Taliban Ramps Up North, Holds South + RECAP

Journal: Putin to Obama–Stay in Afghanistan + RECAP

Journal: William Polk on Afghanistan Non-Strategy Plus Consolidated Journal, Review, and Reference Links for Afghanistan

Chuck Spinney: Bin Laden, Perpetual War, Total Cost + Perpetual War RECAP

Marcus Aurelius: US at Permanent “War” + War RECAP

1961-2011: 50 Years of The Military-Industrial Complex

David Isenberg: Jim Clapper Claims Transformation — Robert Steele Comments on Each Misrepresentation

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Most)

2011/11/01

Mini-Me: From Arab Spring to Death of the US Empire

02 China, 02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Analysis, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Movies, Policy, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy

‘Arab Spring is about controlling Eurasia'

Includes Video (12:04)

The ultimate goal of the US is to take the resources of Africa and Middle East under military control to block economic growth in China and Russia, thus taking the whole of Eurasia under control, author and historian William F. Engdahl reveals.

The crisis with the US economy and the dollar system, the conduct of the US foreign policy is all a part of breakdown of the entire superpower structure that was built up after the end of WWII, claims Engdahl.

“Nobody in Washington wants to admit, just as nobody in Britain a hundred years ago wanted to admit that the British Empire was in terminal decline,” claims the author, noting that “All of this is related to the attempt to keep this sole superpower not only intact, but to spread its influence over the rest of the planet.”

William F. Engdahl believes the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa is a plan first announced by George W. Bush at a G8 meeting in 2003 and it was called “The Greater Middle East Project”.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: From Arab Spring to Death of the US Empire”

2011/10/26

John Robb: China Bans “Occupy” as Search Term

02 China, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, IO Impotency

‘Occupy' Now a Banned Search Term in China

A good rule of thumb for life is that if the Chinese government is against it, you're probably doing something right. The latest evidence to support this axiom is the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has spread from lower Manhattan to cities around the globe, including London, Auckland, Toronto, and Rome, among many others. Terrified by OWS' viral growth, the oppressive regime controlling China is taking measures to ensure the protests don't happen there. And it's starting with the internet.

Read full story.

2011/10/25

John Steiner: 10 Years Late, NYT “Sees” Democracy Now!

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, IO Impotency, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth

A Grass-Roots Newscast Gives a Voice to Struggles

Brian Stelter

New York Times, 23 October 2011

EXTRACT

Some fans as well as critics describe “Democracy Now!” as progressive, but Ms. Goodman rejects that label and prefers to call it a global newscast that has “people speaking for themselves.” She criticized networks in the United States that have brought on professional pundits, rather than actual protesters, to discuss the Occupy protests.

Last week, no United States television network covered the filing of a lawsuit in Canada by four men who said they had been tortured during the Bush administration and who are seeking Mr. Bush’s arrest and prosecution. But one of the men, Murat Kurnaz, a former prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, was interviewed at length by Ms. Goodman and her co-host, Juan Gonzalez.

Read full story.

Phi Beta Iota: Now that the rest of the world has seen that the US Courts are generally corrupt and will not entertain law suits against those that led the US to an elective war costing trillions and including crimes against humanity at multiple levels, we anticipate a flood of law suits against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, among others. As committed as we are to Truth & Reconciliation (with presidential pardons when full truth has been offered to the public by the individual concerned) we fear that absent a restoration of integrity to the electoral process and to the US Government in the 2012 elections, we are in for a decade of revenge against specific individuals and specific banks now known to have betrayed the public trust.

2011/10/25

Chuck Spinney: Screwing the Greeks – Deeply

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

Below are two eye opening reports/analyses by two of the best counterpunchers in Alexander Cockburn's and Jeffrey St Clair's stable of bomb throwers. The subject is Greece: its political/economic crisis and the myths surrounding average Greeks being the cause of its crisis.

In the first, Destroying the Livelihoods of Thirteen Million People: The Myth of Greek Profligacy, my friend Marshall Auerback, argues that the masses of the Greek people (the bottom 80% of a highly unequal income distribution) are being set up as scapegoats to pay for a neo-liberal austerity plan that aimed producing income deflation (instead of a currency devaluation) to improve export competitiveness. Auerback explains why this is really a plan of collective punishment that is guaranteed to fail while shredding what is left of Greece's social contract.

In the second, Naxos Hangs On By Its Fingernails: How Greeks Were Driven Back to the Land, Patrick Cockburn presents the reader with a micro-case study of what is happening to average Greeks (i.e. part of the lower 80%) on the island of Naxos, the largest and my favorite island in the windy Cyclades.

Chuck Spinney
Barcelona

Destroying the Livelihoods of Thirteen Million People
The Myth of Greek Profligacy
by MARSHALL AUERBACK,
Counterpunch, OCTOBER 24, 2011

Naxos Hangs On By Its Fingernails
How Greeks Were Driven Back to the Land
by PATRICK COCKBURN
Counterpunch, OCTOBER 18, 2011

Phi Beta Iota: One reason why the Electoral Reform and BigBatUSA endeavors are so important NOW, is because if they succeed in the USA, where Internet connectivity, cognitive surplus, and Occupy awaking have converged, the model can be scaled globally very quickly. At root this is about secular corruption. Pope Benedict XVI had a chance to use Assisi creatively but chose the low road.

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