The more followers you have, the stronger is their belief in you. The more believers you have, the greater your chances of getting elected. With both you can rule the nation. The difference between the two is that believers will fight for their cause. This forms the basis for real power (From author).
The influence of religion is such that power, order and government perceive their effects as a stabilizer on society as well as the legitimation of their rule. Depending on the history, the state depends on a society that is moral, consistent and trusting in their institutions. As decision makers, real power ensures that their decisions will be both supported and followed by society. From the very beginning of society, religious institutions fought for “believers-parishioners.” As a result, politics borrows from religion in that it is a secularization of bureaucratic competencies formally entrusted to an absolute ruler ‘personally’ chosen by a supreme being and counseled by his representative on earth – embodied as the senior religious leader. Sometimes this symbiotic relationship is equal, sometimes dependent upon the other but always it is both visual and implied. What both understand is that power is expressed in numbers which is something they both need.
This analysis is a series of articles consisting of historical and contemporary facts in order to examine this relationship in more detail. By minimizing editorial comment and without bias to any particular religion, the intent to explore a dimension that remains largely underexplored in modern scholarship. In other words if intelligence professionals are dedicated patriots above the norm then what effect does religion play in the composition of their national identity and their duties in serving the state?
Interview with Mullah Omar, Arnaud de Borchgrave (June 2001) – Very important and rare interview with Mullah Omar the head of the Taliban almost three months before 9-11 on the front page of the Washington Times (June 18). Omar suggested Osama bin Ladin was a problem he wanted to resolve. Bush Administration showed no interest in pursuing this lead. The information in de Borchgrave’s 2001 report is consistent with that in an important report issued in February 2011 by theCenter on International Cooperation at New York University, which is summarized by Gareth Porter in Counterpunchhere.
Phi Beta Iota: There are other reports of the Taliban approaching the US Department of State (including one approach to a CIA officer under cover). After 9/11 the Taliban resurfaced these offers, but asking only that Bin Laden receive a public trial. In every instance before and after 9/11 the US refused to consider the Taliban offers to turn over Bin Laden. One can only surmise that between them the CIA and the White House were quite content with the role Bin Laden was playing in AF, and that removing him would actually interfere with US plans for which Bin Laden was, like Lee Harvey Oswald, a “patsy” in the not-so-great game.
This whole thing leaves me believing that something rotten is going on in Langley…..from my work I know the following:
AQ did not conduct operations based on historical dates. Infiltrating AQ was the hardest task we faced. In fact, the CIA and other IC elements always preached that it was almost impossible to insert a double into the mix, it just required too much on our part. Now we have a success by a double agent?
The Central Intelligence Agency successfully thwarted an Al Qaeda plot to use a sophisticated underwear bomb to bring down a U.S. airliner around the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, the Associated Press reported yesterday.
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According to the AP report, the Yemen-based suicide bomber had not selected a target or purchased purchase plane tickets when U.S. intelligence officials seized the device. It is unclear what happened to the would-be suicide bomber.
Americans are tightening their belts, and it’s time for the U.S. government to do the same. In light of the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the subsequent failure of the “Super Committee,” Congress is still desperately seeking ways to reduce spending. To this end, the Project On Government Oversight and Taxpayers for Common Sense have closely examined the proposed national security budget[1] and found plenty of wasteful spending. Adjusted for inflation, U.S. national security spending is higher than at any point during the Cold War and accounts for more than half of all discretionary spending.[2] However, the U.S. faces no existential threats as it did then, and U.S. defense needs are changing as the military draws down its presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Still, military spending at the Department of Defense (DoD) has increased by an astounding 95 percent from FY 2001 to the FY 2013 estimate, adjusted for inflation.[3] Nuclear weapons spending at the Department of Energy (DOE) is projected to grow by billions of dollars over the next decade.[4] And the federal government’s reliance on contractors, most of whom work on national security-related work and cost on average nearly twice as much as the federal workers who do the same job, is also driving budgets through the roof.[5] It’s clear that any serious proposal to shrink the U.S. deficit must include cuts to the national security budget.
The following list updates our recommendations from 2011[6] and details nearly $700 billion in savings over the next ten years, including cuts to wasteful weapons systems as well as limits on out-of-control contract spending. We found programs for which there are cheaper yet equally effective alternatives, and programs that can be cancelled or delayed without putting America’s security at risk.
The Project On Government Oversight is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that champions good government reforms. POGO’s investigations into corruption, misconduct, and conflicts of interest achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government.
Taxpayers for Common Sense is a nonpartisan budget watchdog serving as an independent voice for American taxpayers. Its mission is to achieve a government that spends taxpayer dollars responsibly and operates within its means. TCS works with individuals, policymakers, and the media to increase transparency, expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare, and hold decision makers accountable.
Wasteful Spending in the Department of Defense Budget
While news around the world was told that sheriff candidate J.T. Ready, leader of the controversial US Border Guard, had killed his family and himself, they had always been holding an eyewitness, the 17 year old daughter of Ready’s girl friend, who, from moment one, had given them descriptions of those who killed Ready and the rest of her family.
Yet, the Gilbert police, the Pinal County Sheriff, both suspected of being on “cartel” payrolls, nor even the FBI, conflicted by jurisdictional disputes, has yet to release the truth, begin an investigation or start looking for suspects.
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Only one small problem, the Gilbert Police spokesman made the statement knowing it was false, and incomplete. The Gilbert Police Department had witness 17 year old Brittany Modero in protective custody. The Gilbert PD also had statements from neighbors who saw 2 other cars at the house, which fled the scene before the police arrived at the shooting.
This is more than simple obstruction of justice, the Gilbert PD and every corporate owned and controlled News outlet in Arizona especially the local outlet for Village Voice Media, the “New Times” reporter Stephen Lemons. Since it has now been disclosed that there were other people in the house at the time of the shooting, why didn’t Gilbert PD or Media outlet issue an apology or a retraction. Nothing but silence from corporate media, I guess the truth does not fit their pre-planned agenda to destroy the character of Mr. Ready and cast him as a crazed white supremacist, Neo-Nazi.
Phi Beta Iota: There is evidently strong evidence that Mr. Ready was an FBI informant, which means that local law enforcement personnel, corrupted by the cartels, may have murdered not just a citizen, but a federal informant as well. The FBI does not appear too eager to get to the bottom of this….just as they were not at all interested in leads to the 9/11 atrocity received before the event.
“Wholesome” means healthy, in the sense of something that promotes physical and moral well-being. Wholesome capitalism would take into account the wholeness of people and the social and natural world we live in, and it would enhance that wholeness.
Some people think capitalism already does this. They note how good it has been at generating wealth. The word wealth, meaning abundance, derives from roots meaning well-being and wholeness. Many of capitalism's advocates feel it should be freed from constraints so it can generate more wealth.
Others note that capitalism – while generating wealth for some – many or few, depending on its form in a particular time and place – nevertheless generates much suffering and destruction in the process. It reduces everything to money and maximizes financial return even if it has to degrade and destroy human and natural life to do it. Many of capitalism's critics feel it should be undermined or overthrown.
Still others note both the blessings and problems with capitalism. They think we can have the wealth without so much suffering and destruction. Most of these people promote freeing capitalism's creativity and productivity while restraining its rapaciousness in various ways – using everything from laws, regulations and taxes to moral suasion and consumer-shareholder activism.
In this article I advocate all three positions – odd as that may sound – but only after reframing “capital” and “wealth” to better reflect wholeness.
THE PRIMARY DYNAMIC OF CAPITALISM
The special gift of capitalism is its ability to create MORE – more products and services, more self-organized economic activity, more wealth. In systems science, this tendency to create more-ness is called a positive or reinforcing feedback dynamic.
I confess: I have an interest in an unseemly topic. Last year I coauthored a report on the subject and testified before Congress about it. The subject is labor trafficking.
This is not, of course, a problem exclusive to the PMSCO sector but neither is it something that has happened only now and then either. Suffice it to say that it enough of a problem that this is the second conference ISOA organized on the issue, the first being seven years ago. The conference program guide minced no words in stating why a conference is necessary:
Labor trafficking is a disgraceful practice that plagues many country as well as international peacekeeping and stability operations. Poverty creates pools of desperate labor at high risk of human trafficking of all kinds, including forced labor. The problem is morally reprehensible but of such enormous complexity it cannot be solved by a single sector and must be addressed by stakeholders working in partnership from all sides — private, governmental, nongovernmental and humanitarians sectors; clients and employers
As a sign that of its recognition of the seriousness of the problem ISOA's Code of Conduct has long had a provision stating that “Signatories shall not engage or allow their personnel to engage in the act of trafficking in persons.”
Trafficking in persons takes different forms. It might be forced labor, sex trafficking or bonded labor, to name a few examples. The first two types have happened in the PMSC industry.
As an article in JIPO notes:
Human trafficking on U.S. government contracts in the Central Command (“CENTCOM”) sector is chronic, overt and unabated. The appalling fact that hundreds of thousands of men have been used as slave laborers to support “freedom” operations is not lost upon the victims.
Investigative journalists reporting of widespread human trafficking of laborers on U.S. government contracts in CENTCOM date back to 2004. The New York Times reported the too common fraudulent recruiting scheme that began in 2003 when contractors first started trafficking men to perform services on government contracts. The Chicago Tribune also covered human trafficking in 2005, calling out the use of US tax dollars to provide slave labor during wartime. Articles in USA Today have reported labor trafficking abuses of Asian workers in Saudi Arabia as well as forced labor of Thai workers in the United States, considered “the nations biggest human trafficking operations.”
Personal investigations both on the ground in Iraq, and in conducted interviews of victims who have returned to the Indian subcontinent, have produced conclusions consistent with other investigative journalists. Other investigative journalists such as David Phinney and reporters who have been on the ground, observed the practice and interviewed thousands of victims have also highlighted this blight on our national image. In fact, the only thing parties agree upon is that the practice is prolific, unabated and contrary to the very foundation and core of American values.
A more blunt way of putting is, as one conference speaker noted, is that we now have people enslaved than at any time in human history, with estimates ranging from 12 to 27 million people.
Interestingly, this is not an issue where people think this is something best left to industry to self-regulate. As the morning keynote speaker Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, senior adviser to the secretary of state, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said:
Government is the answer, government is the solution, but it is not the only player. We have to dismiss the notion that this is someone else's problem. This is our problem and we have to be part of the solution. Our starting point has to be that we're not making the problem worse.
Those wanting more detail should see the current (May/June) issue of ISOA's JIPO magazine, which is devoted to the subject. According to ISOA it will be online later this week.
