NIGHTWATCH Extract: India Wrong Force On Maoists

03 India, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Civil Society, Law Enforcement

India: In eastern India, the Maoist insurgents have neutralized yet another large police contingent.  About 70 police personnel are missing on 4 August in the Chhattisgarh forests following a gunfight between heavily-armed Maoists and police in Dantewada area, India, The Times of India reported. Maoists reportedly attacked a search party of the state police in a heavily forested region of Gumiapal, near Kirandul.

The key point of the item is that the India state police forces seem incapable of learning. The location of the attack is the same set of forests where hundreds of police have been killed this year, almost in defiance of central government warnings and advisories. Counterinsurgency means something entirely different in India than it does at Fort Leavenworth.

The Indians continue to rely on policemen and law enforcement forces to handle people who break the law. They consider Army forces and other armed services not appropriate or trained for handling law breakers.

NIGHTWATCH KSG Home

Phi Beta Iota: No government has achieved “whole of government” intelligence, which is a precursor to whole of government planning, programming, and budgeting, and of course to whole of government policy, acquisition, and operations.  See the Graphics, especially on Intelligence (Im)Maturity and Whole of Government.  Collated graphics at Information Sharing and at Connecting the Dots.

The 19 most influential cybersecurity organizations in the world (GAO)

02 China, 06 Russia, Computer/online security, General Accountability Office
see the report

The Government Accountability Office identified 19 global organizations “whose international activities significantly influence the security and governance of cyberspace.”

The organizations range from information-sharing forums that are non-decision-making gatherings of experts to private organizations to treaty-based, decision-making bodies founded by countries. The groups address a variety of topics from incident response,  the development of technical standards, the facilitation of criminal investigations to the creation of international policies related to information technology and critical infrastructure, the GAO stated.

From the GAO report:

  • Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a cooperative economic and trade forum designed to promote economic growth and cooperation among 21 countries from the Asia-Pacific region. APEC's Telecommunication and Information Working Group supports security efforts associated with the information infrastructure of member countries through activities designed to strengthen effective incident response capabilities, develop information security guidelines, combat cybercrime, monitor security implications of emerging technologies, and foster international cybersecurity cooperation.
  • Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is an economic and security cooperative comprised of 10 member nations from Southeast Asia. According to the 2009-2015 Roadmap for an ASEAN Community, it looks to combat transnational cybercrime by fostering cooperation among member-nations' law enforcement agencies and promoting the adoption of cybercrime legislation. In addition, the road map calls for activities to develop information infrastructure and expand computer emergency response teams (CERT) and associated drills to all ASEAN partners.

Continue reading “The 19 most influential cybersecurity organizations in the world (GAO)”

CrisisGroup’s CrisisWatch Monthly Report N°84, 1 Aug 2010

04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, CrisisWatch reports

CrisisWatch N°84

Two actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated and one improved in July 2010, according to the new issue of the International Crisis Group’s monthly bulletin CrisisWatch released today.

July 2010 TRENDS

Deteriorated Situations
Rwanda, Somalia

Improved Situations
Somaliland

Continue reading “CrisisGroup’s CrisisWatch Monthly Report N°84, 1 Aug 2010”

Journal: Just How Important is the WikiLeaks AF Dump?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Reform, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Chuck Spinney Recommends

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Kiss This War Goodbye

By FRANK RICH, New York Times,  July 31, 2010

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 1, 2010, on page WK8 of the New York edition.

IT was on a Sunday morning, June 13, 1971, that The Times published its first installment of the Pentagon Papers. Few readers may have been more excited than a circle of aspiring undergraduate journalists who’d worked at The Harvard Crimson. Though the identity of The Times’s source wouldn’t eke out for several days, we knew the whistle-blower had to be Daniel Ellsberg, an intense research fellow at M.I.T. and former Robert McNamara acolyte who’d become an antiwar activist around Boston. We recognized the papers’ contents, as reported in The Times, because we’d heard the war stories from the loquacious Ellsberg himself.
. . . . . . .

What was often forgotten last week is that the Pentagon Papers had no game-changing news about that war either and also described events predating the then-current president.

. . . . . . .

The papers’ punch was in the many inside details they added to the war’s chronicle over four previous administrations and, especially, in their shocking and irrefutable evidence that Nixon’s immediate predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, had systematically lied to the country about his intentions and the war’s progress.

Journal: Zionists & Neocons Ramp for War on Iran

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society
Chuck Spinney Recommends

Neocon Nutballs Ramp Up Campaign

Bomb Iran?

By GARETH PORTER

Reuel Marc Gerecht’s screed in the Weekly Standard seeking to justify an Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening of the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of  House Resolution 1553 expressing full support for such an Israeli attack.

What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.

FULL STORY AT COUNTERPUNCH

Phi Beta Iota: Daniel Elsberg had it right lecturing to Henry Kissinger, our second most important war criminal after Dick Cheney: these people have become like morons, totally disconnected from reality or the public interest.  For their total game plan, in which they thought they could “roll up” the Middle East, see Review: Endgame–The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.  Gerecht used to be a fairly sensible accomplished Case Officer (C/O).  We speculate they've given him dual citizenship as part of an offer he just could not refuse.  His piece is world-class idiocy.

See Also:

Continue reading “Journal: Zionists & Neocons Ramp for War on Iran”

Journal: Wikileaks Afghan Collection Assessed

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Corruption, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Media, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda

Chuck Spinney Recommends

Below is a good summary of the wikileaks database.  It is also a good example of how the secretive conspiratorial mind, trained in the wilderness of mirrors that is the US intelligence establishment, conjures motivations out of the ether.   The author builds a an inferential case to insinuate the massive leak of intelligence data via the wikileaks website was an orchestrated info-operation aimed at influencing the American polity by building the case for leaving Afghanistan.  Left unsaid, but dangling tantalizingly in the last two paragraphs, is a subtle (and unsubstantiated) suggestion that this leak came from very high levels, perhaps the highest level, of the Obama Administration.  Too clever by a half??????  Chuck

Thousands of reasons to leave

By George Friedman, Asia Times, 29 July 2010

On Sunday, The New York Times and two other newspapers published summaries and excerpts of tens of thousands of documents leaked to a website known as WikiLeaks. The documents comprise a vast array of material concerning the war in Afghanistan. They range from tactical reports from small unit operations to broader strategic analyses of politico-military relations between the United States and Pakistan. It appears to be an extraordinary collection.

Tactical intelligence on firefights is intermingled with reports on confrontations between senior US and Pakistani officials in which lists of Pakistani operatives in Afghanistan are handed over to the Pakistanis. Reports on the use of surface-to-air missiles by militants in Afghanistan are intermingled with reports on the activities of former Pakistani intelligence chief Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, who reportedly continues to liaise with the Afghan Taliban in an informal capacity.

FULL APPRAISAL ONLINE

Related:
Wikileaks Afghanistan files: every IED attack, with co-ordinates

Journal: Pentagon’s Lost (and Last) War

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security
Chuck Spinney Recommends

Afghanistan: The Pentagon’s Lost War

By William Pfaff, Truthdigg.com, 27 July 2010

While it is unquestionable that Barack Obama made the war in Afghanistan “his” war, it also is true that it was served to him on a platter and with a gun pressed against his back.

It was in fact the Pentagon’s chosen war. Had he refused to fight it, Pentagon insider stories, the opposition press and the Republican Party would have attacked him and his new administration for demonstrating incompetence in dealing with world affairs, naive and pacifist inclinations, and a willingness to “surrender” to terrorism.

FULL STORY ONLINE

Phi Beta Iota:  There is an information-intelligence race going on, between the “establishment” that thrives on information asymmetries, and the collective intelligence of the public, that is very very rapidly learning how to share information and make sense about all manner of topics.  We're betting on the public.