03 Economy – Page 141 – Public Intelligence Blog

IRAQ: THE LEGACY OF DECEPTION AND ITS COSTS

Susan Lindauer, Former CIA Back Channel to Iraq at the United Nations

Most Americans are astonished to discover that right up to 9/11, the CIA was developing a “Real Politik” vision of Iraq that recognized the fast approaching collapse of U.N. Sanctions. The CIA was preparing for Peace—with a ruthless determination that the United States would capture the lion's share of spoils from Iraqi Reconstruction contracts in any post-sanctions period.

German pilots transporting medical supplies and doctors into Baghdad International Airport at the end of the Clinton Administration had blasted the myth of invincibility surrounding sanctions. To this day, those pilots are anonymous—but they changed the equation in total. Their courage honoring the Berlin Airlifts in the Cold War was quickly copied. Across Europe and the Arab world, activists began to organize humanitarian flights into Baghdad. On the Security Council, France and Russia argued strenuously that the ban on air travel had been self imposed, and the no-fly zone could not prohibit humanitarian flights.

By this time, UN sanctions had killed over 1.7 million Iraqis; wiped out literacy in a single generation; and created artificial starvation in the world's second most oil-rich nation. Iraq's world class hospitals that once rivaled London and New York had been ravaged. Sick of the misery, the global community refused to stay silent any longer.

The CIA saw the writing on the wall. International loathing for “genocide by sanctions” had reached such a peak of outrage that there was no possibility of re-crafting the hated policy. Secretary of State Colin Powell's vision of “smart sanctions” had come too late.

The CIA was determined to control the agenda for the advantage of the United States, however. And so quietly through my back channel, we undertook a proactive, covert dialogue over exactly what concessions Iraq would offer the United States, in exchange for lifting the sanctions. As a long-time opponent of sanctions myself, I was eager to get results.

Continue reading “Susan Lindauer: IRAQ – The Legacy of Deception and Its Costs”

2011/12/302011/12/30

John Robb: Modern Darknets, Alternative Economies

03 Economy, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom

Modern Darknets

The classical definition of a darknet is: a private file sharing network. That's a bit outdated (those of you that have been reading Global Guerrillas for a while are already way ahead of the power curve on this). It's time to update/widen the term to accommodate a wider range of modern activity. A darknet:

is a closed, private communications network that is used for purposes not sanctioned by the state (aka illegal).

Darknets can be built in the following ways:

Software. A virtual, encrypted network that runs over public network infrastructure (most of the US government/economy uses this method).
Hardware. A parallel physical infrastructure. This hardware can be fiber optic cables or wireless. Parallel wireless infrastructures (whether for cell phones or Internet access are fairly inexpensive to build and conceal).
IN most cases, we see a mix of the two.

Examples of Darknets:

The Zetas have built a huge wireless darknet (a private, parallel communications network) that connects the majority of Mexico's states. Most of the other cartels also have wireless darknets and there are also lots of local darknets.
Hezbollah (in Lebanon) runs its own fiber optic network.
TOR. A voluntary, decentralized ad hoc network that anonymizes network connections.
Botnets (up to 4 m computers strong) that can be used for global private communications.
Etc. The list goes on and on….

The future? Darknets that power alternative economies. A network layer for accelerating the dark globalization of the $10 Trillion System D.

2011/12/292011/12/29

Mini-Me: Occupy 9/11 Emergent – War by Deception 2011 – The shadow government and shadow economy

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, InfoOps (IO), IO Deeds of War, Military, Movies, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

Occupy 9/11 is emergent. This film, loaded on 1 February 2011, is now going viral. At 2:28:42, this is one of the best documentaries on the topic, and it is free online.

YouTube War by Deception 2011

Phi Beta Iota: This is an extraordinary contribution. It is highly recommended for students as well as adult learning clubs; it provides the best “overview” in one place.

See Also:

9-11 Truth Books & DVDs (33)

2011/12/29

Richard Wright: Doug Macgregor on Wake Up – America Can’t Afford Its Military

03 Economy, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Corruption, DoD, Government, Military, Officers Call

Wisdom!

Strategy & Policy

Wake Up: America Can't Afford Its Military

By Doug Macgregor

EXTRACT:

It's no secret what's required in 2012 and beyond: an efficient and effective organization of military power for the optimum utilization of increasingly constrained resources. More specifically, a serious audit of the U.S. Department of Defense, along with a national reset where the roles of politicians, bureaucrats and four stars are recast as servants, not masters, of the national interest. Unfortunately, inside the Beltway where accountability is a dirty word, political and military leaders are free to conflate their personal and bureaucratic interests with the national interest.

As a result, there is still no willingness to comprehend or, at least, admit the truth: America's current national security posture is fiscally unsustainable. Today, the United States' national debt is so large it will swallow almost any legislation the President and Congress agree to pass. It is only a question of time before the U.S. government is compelled to make drastic cuts in federal spending.

Read full article.

2011/12/282011/12/28

NIGHTWATCH: Financial Crisis Now a Crisis of Fundamentals

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, General Accountability Office, Government, Key Players, Law Enforcement, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Office of Management and Budget, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

Europe: Updates. In an interview with a French daily on 25 December, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde stressed that Europe's financial crisis is turning into “a crisis of confidence in public debt and the solidity of the financial system.

Greece: According to an IMF source involved in discussions with Greece, the situation in Athens is “deteriorating” and “a further 10-15 billion euros ($13.1-19.6 billion) still needs to be found.” Banks may be asked to agree to write off 65 % instead of 50% of Greece's debt.

France: The French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) said on 26 December that there were 29,000 new job seekers “without any occupation” in November, up 1.1% over October. The year-on-year increase reached 5.2%. In total, 2,844,800 people did not have any occupation, the highest such figure since November 1999.

An economist at the French Observatory of Economic Conditions speculated that France's unemployment rate — which currently stands at 9.3% — will reach 10.7% by the end of 2012, and predicted that Paris will not succeed in bringing the deficit down to 3% of GDP by 2013.

Spain: At a news conference on 26 December, Spanish Economy Minister Luis De Guindos said that the Spanish economy had suffered a “relapse” and would record negative growth in the fourth quarter of 2011. De Guindos warned that “the next two months are not going to be easy, neither from a growth nor a jobs point of view.”

Comment: According to the Financial Times and multiple economists the fate of the euro depends on what happens in Italy. This week Italy intends to auction bonds worth Euros 20 billion. The market reaction to the auction will be an important indicator of whether the central bankers have found a way to stabilize the financial crisis, or have just made it worse.

All analysts of European economics predict a recession in 2012. They differ only about how severe it will be. In an integrated global economy, the ripple effects from Europe will drag the US and the Chinese economies, among all others.

Phi Beta Iota: Christine Lagarde, perhaps because she is a woman with a smaller ego and larger intuition than most men, appears to be the first Epoch A leader to “get” that we are all calling into question the very existence of the Western financial system that is rooted in fraud, waste, and abuse. When she begins to point to Iceland as an example, and to demand that Western countries arrest and try Goldman Sachs, Morgan, Citi-Bank, Bank of America, and other officials for high crimes against the public, the healing can begin. Until then, the West is avoiding the fundamentals.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Chuck Spinney: Financial Coups Destroying Europe

Michel Bauwens: Human Evolution – Who Are We Becoming?

Mini-Me: European-US Banking–Tangled Web — Tell Me Again, Why Shouldn’t We Default and Let the Banks Fry? + Financial Terrorism RECAP

2011/12/272011/12/27

DefDog: STRATFOR Bites on Security

03 Economy, Commerce, Computer/online security, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, IO Impotency

No. It's THE code breaker. No more secrets… Sneakers

Victims in hacking of security analyst Stratfor targeted after speaking to news media, online

Associated Press, 27 December 2011

EXTRACT:

The loose-knit hacking movement “Anonymous” claimed Sunday through Twitter that it had stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to the company’s clients. Anonymous members posted links to some of the information Sunday and more on Monday.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: We sounded the alarm in 1994 and were ignored. We sounded it again in 2010 and were ignored. STRATFOR is the lowest common denominator in an abysmally irresponsible government-private sector ecology of ignorance mixed with complacency.

2011/12/232011/12/23

Josh Kilbourn: Endgame – 2012 Forecast [W.E. Pollock]

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, 12 Water, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, General Accountability Office, Government, IO Deeds of War, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Office of Management and Budget, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Threats, Waste (materials, food, etc)

We are going to move from denial to realization. Physical world events will drive the process of realization. The primary trend is between stability and instability. We are moving from a multi-class system running from Super Elite to Unperson into a model of have's and have-nots, the unpersons. Labor has become a problem because less than 500 million are involved in life support activities thereby leaving more than 7 billion people very vulnerable to dependency (and treated as expendable containers). We are watching a redistribution process bound towards divestiture as more people become unpersons. Destruction of paper assets, debt collapse, bank failure, and war are all part of the redistribution process. With more unpeople, it becomes easier to reduce population through death and abuse. Our current economic structure has at least six trajectories of support; the physical world, human capital, transportation, technology, rule of law,and money.

Fukishima, Katrina, Gulf of Mexico oil spill — all examples of entire populations treated as “unpersons.”

See Also:

VIDEO: Fukushima – Total Cost (33)

W. E. Pollock Web Site