The risk of nuclear terrorism is hyped by some as possible and high consequence (Allison 2006) while others dismiss the strategy as too difficult and too risky for terrorist organizations (Jenkins 2008). However, analysts have no data from which to directly analyze the probability of terrorist acquisition and use. One methodological solution is to extend the range analysis to include analogous cases: private military corporations (PMCs) are one class of non-state actors (NSAs) who may possess the capacity and autonomy to pose a risk of nuclear terrorism for their state masters. I find that the while the technical and military capabilities of PMCs may be greater than those of terrorist organizations with respect to nuclear weapon construction or delivery, they are still be insufficient (and PMCs must also somehow acquire fissile materials). Also, PMCs benefit from agency slack, as demonstrated by Blackwater’s performance in Iraq, but this autonomy does not appear sufficient to carry out an illicit nuclear plot. Therefore, PMCs may be more capable than most terrorist organizations if they sought to acquire nuclear weapons but they are still unlikely to succeed.
Keywords: Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, Private Military Corporations, Blackwater, Xe
Working Paper Series
Brown, Robert L., Private Military Corporations: A Non-State Actor-Nuclear Terror Nexus? (August 16, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1659785
Harnessing Collective Intelligence to Save Democracy
“The most durable and dangerous ‘special interest’ – the only one that can directly traduce the Constitution – is the political class.” George F. Will
Robert David Steele (Vivas) has produced a significant, but short, political essay for the Huffington Post, titled, “Citizens Fiddle, Obama Dances.” The central argument of the essay is that there is a ‘confrontational convergence’ of major proportions set to occur in the U.S. presidential election year of 2012 between a set of negative and positive forces that Steele has been able to identify and summarize. At stake is nothing less than the constitutional government of the U.S. and the continued prosperity of the U.S. and probably the world.
To put it another way, the current U.S. Political System has two major problems that threaten the Constitutional Foundations on which it is built:
First to a greater extent than anytime in U.S. History, the U.S. Government no longer effectively represents the interests of the majority of its citizens, but is actually controlled by a very wealthy minority (an oligarchy–many would say a kleptocracy).
Michael Lind
Michael Lind in a perceptive article “Nobody Represents the American People,” at Salon, makes this point most clearly. And he correctly, I believe, noted that this control was not the result of a vast conspiracy against popular democracy, but was due to a systemic problem. The way the U.S. Political System is structured and operated, wealthy individuals and institutions have gained inordinate influence over both political parties and the politicians that they sponsor. The people who pay the bills have the ability to direct legislation and guide policy formulation. As the result, politicians of both parties will pay lip service to the popular will during elections, but in the end it is the people who actually pay for their campaigns who own their allegiance. Lind somewhat overstates his case for the decline of mass participation in public affairs, but basically he is correct.
Second political power is addictive and in the absence of real safeguards, the Republican and Democratic Parties have colluded to exclude any other parties from threatening their hold on government.And since they are controlled by the same set of wealthy patrons their policies are essentially identical, a fact concealed by political rhetoric and a highly suspect public media. They form a duopoly that has been able to hold on to power for forty years and to marginalize non-duopoly candidates by manipulating election laws, election districts, political debates and, of course, the print and broadcast media. As a toxic by-product of duopoly control of government, civil liberties as guaranteed by the Constitution have been steadily eroded usually under the guise of public safety. In the elegant prose of Michael Lind, “The disconnect between the actions of the government and public opinion is the central fact of American politics today. It doesn’t seem to matter whether liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans are in power. Only minor, marginal reforms ever take place.”
So what is the solution to these dangerous, I use the word advisedly, problems? Well Steele with the aid of some collaborators has devised what he correctly suggests is the “Magna Carta’ of the 21st Century, the Election Reform Act of 2011. This is a one page document that is presented among other places in his Huffington Post essay Electoral Reform (1 Page, 9 Points). If enacted it would break the power of the duopoly and its wealthy patrons and truly return power to the people. But would it ever be enacted by a congress controlled by a power addicted duopoly which in turn is employed by a wealthy oligarchy? The original Magna Carta of 1214 (CE) was forced down King John’s throat by a consortium of land barons and wealthy merchants who gave him the choice of acceptance or abdication. Does the U.S. citizenry have similar leverage over congress? Certainly not now, but Steele believes that a
Tom Atlee
movement started by thought leader Tom Atlee, with the meme of “Change the Game,” may be able to mobilize enough voters to force congress to pass the act and the executive branch to enforce it.
Atlee heads an Oregon based outfit called the “Co-intelligence Institute”, which to date has not been co-opted the U.S. oligarchy. The Institute in essence is trying to create a collaborative movement among the voters that will be a force for change through the power of the collective intelligence of its participants. Among other things Atlee hopes that as the movement grows, natural leaders will come to fore who will use integrity and decency to turn the movement into a politically powerful force.
If Atlee can reach enough citizens through other means, such as GroupOn (originally a citizen democracy idea by founder Andrew Mason), the National Council on Dialog and Deliberation (NCDD); and what Steele calls the “eight tribes” of intelligence, he–Tom Atlee–may be offering us all a last chance at regaining true political freedom and restoring the Republic.
Robert Steele, a truly important and original thought leader himself, has somehow managed to retain his sanity and integrity in spite of living within spitting distance of the nation’s capital. He now is pleading for monetary and participatory support for Tom Atlee and his institute; I think this plea should be heeded.
Richard Wright
From the Heartland
12 December 2011
Phi Beta Iota: $25 is the norm, send more if you can, this is the one person in the USA who is absolutely without question working on behalf of We the People. Donation Link Here. Below is from the Co-Intelligence Institute donation page.
Why should I donate to the Co-Intelligence Institute rather than some other charity or cause?
We hope that you will donate to the Co-Intelligence Institute if you believe, as we do, that our work offers a very high potential for positive change.
We believe that our current social systems — especially our political and governance systems — are dangerously unresponsive to positive change, and even actively block the very changes we need to survive and thrive in the 21st century.
No matter what other issues concern you (and there are a huge number that concern us), we suggest that the existing system will not handle them well. The Co-Intelligence Institute is currently focusing on changing the political system so that it will handle every other issue wisely — and inspiring a movement of conscious evolutionary agents to catalyze cultural shifts, systemic evolution, and technological development into more co-intelligent forms.
To the extent we succeed at that, we'll get the world we all want, because we'll be able to freely and wisely co-create it, using these more responsive and wise democratic systems. We invite you to consider the logic of this and — if you agree — support our work.
If you believe, as we do, that our work offers a very high potential for positive change, we hope that you will donate to the Co-Intelligence Institute.
What if the greatest scam ever perpetrated was blatantly exposed, and the US media didn’t cover it? Does that mean the scam could keep going? That’s what we are about to find out.
. . . . . . .
The Fed doled out $12.3 trillion in near-zero interest loans, using the American people as collateral, demanding nothing in return, other than a bunch of toxic assets in some cases. They only gave this money to a select group of insiders, at a time when very few had any money because all these same insiders and speculators crashed the system.Do you get that? The very people most responsible for crashing the system, were then rewarded with trillions of our dollars. This gave that select group of insiders unlimited power to seize control of assets and have unprecedented leverage over almost everything within their economies – crony capitalism on steroids.
Ex-Intelligence Officers, Others See Plusses in WikiLeaks Disclosures
WASHINGTON – December 7 – The following statement was released today, signed by Daniel Ellsberg, Frank Grevil, Katharine Gun, David MacMichael, Ray McGovern, Craig Murray, Coleen Rowley and Larry Wilkerson; all are associated with Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.
WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are trying desperately to stuff the genie back in. The people listed below this release would be pleased to shed light on these exciting new developments.
How far down the U.S. has slid can be seen, ironically enough, in a recent commentary in Pravda (that's right, Russia's Pravda): “What WikiLeaks has done is make people understand why so many Americans are politically apathetic … After all, the evils committed by those in power can be suffocating, and the sense of powerlessness that erupts can be paralyzing, especially when … government evildoers almost always get away with their crimes. …”
So shame on Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and all those who spew platitudes about integrity, justice and accountability while allowing war criminals and torturers to walk freely upon the earth. … the American people should be outraged that their government has transformed a nation with a reputation for freedom, justice, tolerance and respect for human rights into a backwater that revels in its criminality, cover-ups, injustices and hypocrisies.
I completely missed the release of this film in July, and stumbled on it while picking movies for a sick son.
It opens with Henry Kissinger, since demonstrated to be a war criminal, calling Daniel Elsberg the most dangerous man in America, and lamenting the release of secret documents (that ultimately proved government perfidy). Fast forward to WikiLeaks as a sequel to the 935 documented lies led by Dick Cheney.
There is a war underway. I'm not talking about Washington's bloody misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, but a war within our own borders. It's a war fought on the airwaves, on television and radio and over the Internet, a war of words and images, of half-truth, innuendo, and raging lies. I'm talking about a political war, pitting liberals against conservatives, Democrats against Republicans. I'm talking about a spending war, fueled by stealthy front groups and deep-pocketed anonymous donors. It's a war that's poised to topple what's left of American democracy.
Phi Beta Iota: A detailed and devastating article that recommends the book, Winner-Take-All Politics, and places the beginning of today's economic divide with President Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan. We place it further back, in the 1920's, when Carnegie and Rockefeller structured the role school system and also oversaw the destruction of all public transportation systems they could buy and then liquidate. It provides details on the specific organizations and their leading lights unleashed by the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court, and decision that in our view should suggest the need to first fire Congress and then pass legislation overturning all Supreme Court decisions permitting corporate “personality” and its requisite privileges that could be reserved for individual citizens.
by: Melvin A. Goodman, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
CIA Deputy Executive Director John Brennan. (Photo: CSIS: Center for Strategic & International Studies / Flickr)
Last month, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a blistering report that documented a secret drug interdiction program in Peru that was responsible for the death of an American missionary and her infant daughter in 2001. The report provided a detailed study of the efforts of senior CIA leaders, including Deputy Director John McLaughlin and Deputy Executive Director John Brennan, to cover up the crime by stonewalling the White House, the Congress and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the flaws of the interdiction program.
Brennan, who was President Obama's original choice to be CIA director until the report complicated the confirmation process, is currently the deputy director of the National Security Council (NSC).McLaughlin was the “villain” in the politicization of intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to the chief of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay. Few people remember that it was McLaughlin who actually delivered the “slam-dunk” briefing to the president in January 2003. Nevertheless, the Obama administration named McLaughlin to lead the internal investigation of the CIA's intelligence failures in the attempted bombing of a commercial airliner and the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.
The detailed report on Peru documents a culture of corruption and deceit at the highest levels of the CIA as well as the interventions of CIA lawyers to stop the DOJ from pursuing prosecutions in the case. The CIA office of general counsel's aggressive campaign to prevent a criminal prosecution of the agency officers culminated with Deputy Director McLaughlin's letter to the assistant attorney general that promised “significant disciplinary action” if CIA officers “lied or made knowingly misleading statements” to the Congress, DOJ, the NSC or office of inspectors general (OIG) investigators. The report carefully documents the lies and the stonewalling, but there was never any genuine punishment.
Melvin A. Goodman is national security and intelligence columnist for Truthout. He is senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. His 42-year government career included service at the CIA, State Department, Defense Department and the US Army. His latest book is Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.