Key Players – Page 269 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/01/162010/01/16

Journal: Haiti Public Intelligence Emergent

08 Wild Cards, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Geospatial, InfoOps (IO), IO Mapping, Methods & Process, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Tools

haiti google side by side — Full Story Online

Google Maps updates with new Haiti pics: Hours-old satellite images show destruction

Google has released a new KML overlay — tech speak for map layer — that includes fresh images of Port-au-Prince.

According to GeoEye , the satellite imagery company that provided the photos, they were taken at 10:30 a.m. yesterday from a satellite 423 miles up.

By toggling the new image layer on and off, it’s easy to compare what the city looked like before the earthquake with the way it looks now.

Aside from the obvious destruction, one of the most striking features of the new images is the large number of presumably homeless people in the streets of the ruined neighborhoods.

Click here to see the new images in Google Maps.

Phi Beta Iota: Finally, but kudos never-the-less. This should always be the first thing done, perhaps with a global arrangement that has regional cost-sharing in place and can use military air breathers where commercial are not immediately available, but respecting Google's software and end-user delivery offering. There is still the matter of getting to shared Spacial Reference Systems (SRS). This could and should be used to “plot” Twitter messages that identify need, and in the back office, matching RapidSMS messages that can be aggregated to fund need resolution.

Where Are Haiti Earthquake Relief Funds Going?

Millions in donations have been raised since the earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday, but where is the money going?

Like Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti which is urging people to text “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 to the cause — which has raised more than $2 million so far — many other relief organizations have used mobile messaging to quickly gather funds.

Phi Beta Iota: What is most interesting about this is the fact that fund-raising (financial incentive for the organizers that take a 5% to 50% “cut) is very well developed and moving money, while the other end (requirements definition, logistics coordination, and “by household” delivery” is NOT developed at all. This is a good start toward the Global to Local Range of Needs Table, when that is developed, this will “flip” in that people will give for SPECIFIC itemized needs, not as a leap of faith in intermediaries that generally do NOT deliver full value.

What is LACKING is a single trusted Multinational Decision Support Center with both regional and global non-profit “cachet” as well as two-way reachback into all eight tribes of all nations, that can be the single point orchestrating the receipt and integration of all information in all languages in near-real-time, and the trusted point for validating both needs and the resolution of needs through the application of fundss.

2010/01/152010/01/15

Journal: MILNET Selected Headlines

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Peace Intelligence

British Search And Rescue Team Turned Away From Port-Au-Prince

There were reports that the airport at Port-au-Prince had run out of aviation fuel, one of the factors that is understood to have led the US military to close it. . . . The scene at Santo Domingo airport was one of chaos, uncertainty and often despair for aid workers.

graphic africa collage — Ethno-Colonial BIG Africa

Phi Beta Iota: Lesson learned by the USMC the hard way (as of 1992): need Forward Area Refueling Points (FARP) in the FIRST lift.

U.S. Army Africa Boss: ‘I Feel Like The Lone Ranger…'

“Africa’s not high on America’s priority list these days.

Sometimes I feel like the Lone Ranger trying to get people to bring resources to bear out here.”

I had pointed out in an earlier interview that U.S. Army Africa and Africa Command in general are notably absent from the wars in Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, conflicts Garrett said are “currently the world’s two deadliest.”

For Israel, a Reckoning

A new global movement is challenging Israel's violations of international law with the same strategies that were used against apartheid

Phi Beta Iota: Israeli influence on the US Government has been as bad as post-war Nazi influence on the Cold War ubbas–both have spawned policies that have murdered and displaced millions, with attendant atrocities.

Pakistan: U.S.-Backed Broadcast Begins

Phi Beta Iota: Too little too late and they almost certainly have no idea about the history of the Pashtun Peace Army.

Taliban steps up violence in Afghanistan

Recent Pakistani military operations in insurgent strongholds in Pakistan also have driven greater numbers of Pakistan-based Taliban back into Afghanistan, the officer said.

UK plans ‘trust fund' to woo Taliban fighters

Phi Beta Iota: Turn in one weapon, get enough money for two…or go enlist and training and food along with a new weapon. Money corrupts and it is not a substitute for Whole of Government Stabilization & Reconstruction accomplishments.

How To Apply ‘Smart Power' In Yemen

Developing a coherent strategy focused on the right objectives is important, and hard to do. The country team in any normal American embassy (like the one in Sana) does not have the staff, resources or experience to do so. The limited American military presence in Yemen does not either. Despite years of talk about the need to develop this kind of capability in the State Department or elsewhere in Washington, it does not exist. It must be built now, and quickly.

Phi Beta Iota: Start with Tony Zinni's The Battle for Peace and implement Robert Steele's DoD OSINT-M4IS2 Strategy along with Whole of Government Intelligence (Decision-Support).

2010/01/142010/01/14

Journal: America’s Debt to–and Incapacitation of–Haiti

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, History, IO Sense-Making

How easily we forget the balance books of history. Below are two pieces, one from the colonial era written in 2006, the other from the recent “neo-colonia” era in which the author examines the specifics of the Clinton Administration's policies toward Haiti. Chuck

Full Story Online

America's Historic Debt to Haiti

By Robert Parry February 10, 2006

As Haiti intrudes again on the U.S. consciousness with a new round of troubled elections, Americans see a violent, backward, poverty-stricken country run by descendants of African slaves. There are feelings of condescension mixed with a touch of racism.

But what few Americans know is that they owe this Caribbean nation a profound historical debt. Indeed, perhaps no nation has done more for the United States than Haiti and been treated as badly in return.

If not for Haiti – which in the 1700s rivaled the American colonies as the most valuable European possession in the Western Hemisphere – the course of U.S. history would have been very different. It is possible that the United States might never have expanded much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

Full Story Online

Before and After the Quake

The Incapacitation of Haiti

By ASHLEY SMITH January 14, 2010

Why were 60 percent of the buildings in Port-au-Prince shoddily constructed and unsafe in normal circumstances, according to the city's mayor? Why are there no building regulations in a city that sits on a fault line? Why has Port-au-Prince swelled from a small town of 50,000 in the 1950s to a population of 2 million desperately poor people today? Why was the state completely overwhelmed by the disaster?

To understand these facts, we have to look at a second fault line–U.S. imperial policy toward Haiti. The U.S. government, the UN, and other powers have aided the Haitian elite in subjecting the country to neoliberal economic plans that have impoverished the masses, deforested the land, wrecked the infrastructure and incapacitated the government.

The fault line of U.S. imperialism interacted with the geological one to turn the natural disaster into a social catastrophe.

Continue reading “Journal: America's Debt to–and Incapacitation of–Haiti”

2010/01/14

Reference: NGO Guide for the Military

Key Players, Military, Mobile, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

cover dod ngo — NGO Guide for the Military

Phi Beta Iota: Tip of the Hat to MILNET for noticing and Federation of American Scientists (FAS) for posting.

FAS commentary with additional links recommended also.

A good start but less than 20% of what is needed. This should be a living online directory that spans all military occupational specialties (e.g. communications, engineering, water treatment, power) and it should have a multinational information-sharing and sense-making component including of course reach-back to the Multinational Decision Support Center, wherever that might be located. It would also benefit from a revitalization of DARPA's STRONG ANGEL and TOOZL, and a new pilot project to integrate Twitter and UNICEF's RapidSMS into the overall “outside the wire” C4I campaign plan.

2010/01/132010/01/13

Journal: Haiti–Ready for a Rapid-Response Open-Source-Intelligence-Driven Inter-Agency Multinational Multifunctional Stabilization & Reconstruction Mission…

01 Brazil, 01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, 07 Venezuela, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, 12 Water, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Methods & Process, Mobile, Real Time

photo haiti millions — Full Story Online

AP: Injured Haitians plead for help after quake

Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital Wednesday after the strongest earthquake hit the poor Caribbean nation in more than 200 years crushed thousands of structures, from humble shacks to the National Palace and the U.N. peacekeeping headquarters. Untold numbers were still trapped.

Destroyed communications made it impossible to tell the extent of destruction from Tuesday afternoon's 7.0-magnitude tremor, or to estimate how many were dead among the collapsed buildings in Haiti's capital of about 2 million people.

France's foreign minister said the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission was apparently among the dead.

photo haiti devastation — Full Story Online

Phi Beta Iota: This is precisely what was briefed recently to the DIA Multinational Intelligence Fellows and earlier in Tampa to the Coalition Coordination Center (CCC) and unnoticed by DIA as well as declined by CENTCOM as a transition model toward a Multinational Decision Support Center. The US Government does well enough with little things that can be handled by one agency, or one thing that must be handled by multiple agencies, but it does not do well as all with many things that must be handled by many players on a no-notice basis. The reason: a C4I system that is high-side unilateral expensive and largely useless past one big contingency. The solution: a global grid that is unclassified (commercial-level security) and open to everyone. DIA has enormous potential as a hub for Multinational Engagement and defense-rooted open source exploitation that also impacts on the QDR and acquisition while providing Combatant Commanders with relevant unclassified intelligence for COIN and other challenges.

2010/01/122010/01/12

Journal: Yemen, Guns, Tribes, & Deja Vu

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Ethics, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence, Policy

Three Guns for Every Person

Only Fools Rush Into Yemen

By PATRICK COCKBURN January 11, 2010

The mounting crisis in the country only attracted notice when a Nigerian student is revealed to have been “trained” in Yemen by al-Qa’ida to detonate explosives in his underpants on plane heading for Detroit. But this botched attack has led to the US and Britain starting to become entangled in one of the more violent countries in the world. The problems of Yemen are social, economic and political, and stretch back to the civil war in Yemen in the 1960s, but Gordon Brown believes solutions can be found by holding a one day summit on Yemen to “tackle extremism.”

Al-Qa’ida in Yemen is small, its active members numbering only 200-300 lightly armed militants in a country of 22 million people who are estimated to own no less than 60 million weapons. Al-Qa’ida has room to operate because central government authority barely extends outside the cities and because it can ally itself with the many opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in office since the 1970s.

Continue reading “Journal: Yemen, Guns, Tribes, & Deja Vu”

2010/01/122010/01/12

Journal: Yemen and the “Great Game”

02 China, 03 India, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Peace Intelligence, Threats

The real motives behind the increasing US involvement in Yemen are obscure, to put it charitably. M.K. Bhadrakuma, retired Indian diplomat, presents a complex and fascinating — and no doubt controversial — hypothesis in this regard. Bhadrakuma, a prolific writer, is an astute observer of the Central and South Asia, and judged by his writings, he is by no means a toady of the Indian government.

Chuck

UPDATED to add critique of the below article by a colleague of Chuck Spinney's (below the fold).

Full Story Online

Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China

By M K Bhadrakumar Asia Times 9 January 2010

It's all about China
Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the “great game” of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China's economy. By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy.

Continue reading “Journal: Yemen and the “Great Game””