Key Players – Page 206 – Public Intelligence Blog

Hezbollah-Israel: Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address to be ready to invade northern Israel if ordered to do so, The Associated Press reported. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned the Israel Defense Forces Northern Command on 15 February that the border could explode into crisis. Nasrallah said Hezbollah should be ready to seize the Galilee area, which refers to part of northern Israel.

Comment: Well-informed and Brilliant Feedback reports that Galilee already is mostly Arab. It is only a matter of opportunity before Arabs attempt to seize it from Israel. A fight over Galilee promises to be a crisis this year, in which Arab forces and proxies fight on and for Israeli soil.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Arabs Occupy Galilee + RECAP”

2011/02/132011/10/22

EGYPT: Can Democracy by Randomly Revolutionized?

08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Reform

Will Egypt Revolutionize Democracy Itself?

by Tom Atlee

Thomas Friedman suggests that the special strength of Egypt's youth-led revolutionary movement has been “the fact that it represented every political strain, every segment and class in Egyptian society.” But then he turns around and says that diversity “is also its weakness. It still has no accepted political platform or leadership.”

Of course, from a majoritarian electoral perspective, he's right. But perspective that may not provide the most potent and useful democratic approaches for Egypt's future — or ours.

If Egypt's 21st century revolutionaries want their revolution to turn the world, they will make this supposed weakness — their inclusive diversity — into the greatest strength of their emergent democracy. They will cherish, develop and institutionalize their cross-section diversity AS a political platform AND AS the principle underlying their new forms of democratic leadership.

My advice: Make random selection as fundamental to Egyptian democracy as majority vote will be. Properly institutionalized, random selection is harder to manipulate and co-opt than elections.
Continue reading “EGYPT: Can Democracy by Randomly Revolutionized?”

2011/02/112011/02/11

URGENT EVOKE: The End of Old Government

Advanced Cyber/IO, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Geospatial, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), International Aid, Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Serious Games, Threats

free job training — Four Rules of EVOKING

EVOKE is a ten-week crash course in changing the world.

It is free to play and open to anyone, anywhere.

The goal of the social network game is to help empower people all over the world to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems.

VOKE was developed by the World Bank Institute, the learning and knowledge arm of the World Bank Group, and directed by alternate reality game master Jane McGonigal.

EVOKE is for all ages; recommended age 13 and up.

LEARN HOW TO PLAY: the Five Secrets of the EVOKE Network.

URGENT EVOKE Home Page

2011/02/102011/02/10

NIGHTWATCH on Egypt…and Libya

08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence

Egypt: Protesters in Tahrir Square, Cairo, are asking citizens to take part in demonstrations on 11 February, for the “Day of Confrontation,” Al Arabiya reported. One news service reported tens of millions of text messages about the event. According to a report in the Indian Express, “organizers” want a “big push” on Friday that could include storming parliament and the state television station in Cairo.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH on Egypt…and Libya”

2011/02/082011/02/08

EGYPT: The Young, Not the Brotherhood, Anti-US?

08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence

Phi Beta Iota: Below the line is an excellent overview from NIGHTWATCH. Here are the key points:

1. Muslim Brotherhood was caught by surprise, not just the US Intelligence Community.

2. This is a revolution of young people focused on fundamentals, NOT an Islamic uprising.

3. There is no overt anti-US aspect within the young, but Hezbollah and others are trying to tie the US to the dictators it supports–left unsaid is that if the US cannot turn on a DIME (pun intented) it will be skewered with its own sword.

4. Dictator Mubarak may be shopping for an exile estate in Egypt.

INSIGHT: The US Government has no one thinking strategically–certainly not the Goldman Sachs lobbyist now enjoying the corner office and pretending to be national security advisor to the President, and certainly not the Department of State, which has lost its one strategic thinker back to Princeton and has no bench. NOW IS THE TIME for President Barack Obama to decide he wants to create a Smart Nation with Whole of Government strategy and operations resting on a foundation of intelligent intelligence. See ON INTELLIGENCE: Open Letter to the President.

Continue reading “EGYPT: The Young, Not the Brotherhood, Anti-US?”

2011/02/07

Report Casts Doubt on Taliban’s Ties With Al Qaeda

08 Wild Cards, Analysis, Cultural Intelligence, Government, History, Intelligence (government), Policy, Strategy

N.Y.U. Report Casts Doubt on Taliban’s Ties With Al Qaeda

By CARLOTTA GALL

Published: February 6, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan Taliban have been wrongly perceived as close ideological allies of Al Qaeda, and they could be persuaded to renounce the global terrorist group, according to a report to be published Monday by New York University.

The report goes on to say that there was substantial friction between the groups’ leaders before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that hostility has only intensified.

The authors, Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, have worked in Afghanistan for years and edited the autobiography of a Taliban diplomat, many of whose ideas are reflected in the report. The authors are among a small group of experts who say the only way to end the war in Afghanistan is to begin peace overtures to the Taliban.

An excellent critique of Israel’s grand strategy …

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off...

… which is to morally isolate itself by making enemies faster than it can kill them.

If Israel's behaviour continues unchecked, the pro-Israeli biases in and distortions of US policies will intensify our own isolation, until something snaps in our polity — and then, Israel will be all alone.

Read rest of article….

IMO … Israel's only constructive option is to do a grand strategic U turn, which Israel's leadership steadfastly refuses to do. On the contrary, it shows every sign of digging itself deeper into the self-destructive bunker mentality described by M.J. Rosenberg below.

[Interested readers will find a summary of the basic ideas underpinning a constructive grand strategy, which are universal, in this blaster, where I criticized the US grand strategy pursued by the Bush Administration.]

Chuck Spinney

Why Is Israel So Blind?

MJ Rosenberg, Political Correction, February 02, 2011 3:55 pm ET

Those of us in the pro-Israel, pro-peace camp do not enjoy being proven right — although we invariably are.

Our standard recommendation to Israel is that it should move quickly to achieve agreements with the Arab states and the stateless Palestinians before it is too late.

And the Israeli response is that there is no urgency to make peace — except on Israeli terms — because Israel is strong and the Arabs are weak.

Read rest of article….