10 Security – Page 101 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/02/012011/02/01

Monthly CrisisWatch Report N°90, 1 February 2011

01 Poverty, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Immigration, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, CrisisWatch reports, Government, Law Enforcement, Military

CrisisWatch N°90, 1 February 2011

Historic events in the Arab world gripped the world's attention in January. In Tunisia weeks of escalating riots and demonstrations over dire economic conditions, corruption and government repression culminated in the ouster of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali on 14 January. He was replaced by an interim government which announced the country's first free elections since independence.

Download the full issue of CrisisWatch N°90

The direction of Tunisia's transition, and its significance for the region, are not yet clear. But, assuming a successful transition, this could mark the first genuine popular revolt leading to a democratic government in the Arab world.

Inspired by the Tunisian uprising yet fuelled by their own long-standing grievances, hundreds of thousands took to the streets across Egypt towards the end of the month, protesting against authoritarian rule and poor living standards, and calling for President Hosni Mubarak to step down. Over 135 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured during the initial police response. The army was deployed at the end of the month to curb increasing chaos and looting, but vowed not to use force against the protesters.

Continue reading “Monthly CrisisWatch Report N°90, 1 February 2011”

2011/02/012011/02/01

Americans Admire Military Personnel While Being Unaware & Uninterested in What They Do “In Our Name”

02 Diplomacy, 04 Education, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, Civil Society, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Media, Military, Policy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

Troops Die Because of Their Country, Not For It

US admiration for its soldiers may be deep and widespread, but interest in what they are doing is shallow and fleeting

by Gary Younge
Published on Monday, January 31, 2011 by The Guardian

Most of the stories told about Benjamin Moore, 23, at his funeral started in a bar and ended in a laugh. Invited to testify about his life from the pews, friend, relative, colleague and neighbour alike described a boisterous, gregarious, energetic young man they'd known in the small New Jersey town of Bordentown since he was born. “I'll love him 'til I go,” his granny said. “If I could go today and bring him back, I would.”

Grown men choked on their memories, under the gaze of swollen, reddened eyes, as they remembered a “snot-nosed kid” and a fidget who'd become a volunteer firefighter before enlisting in the military. Shortly before Benjamin left for Afghanistan, he sent a message to his cousin that began: “I'm about to go into another country where they hate me for everything I stand for.” Now he was back in a flag-draped box, killed by roadside bomb with two other soldiers in Ghazni province.

Continue reading “Americans Admire Military Personnel While Being Unaware & Uninterested in What They Do “In Our Name””

2011/01/282011/01/28

Intelligence Agencies Fund Games for Spying + RECAP

04 Education, 10 Security, Advanced Cyber/IO, Augmented Reality, Cultural Intelligence, Government

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

On top of everything else….

Spy Games: Intelligence Agency to Fund Video Games for Spooks

Sharon Weinberger Contributor

Scientists say video games can increase concentration, help with learning and even improve decision-making skills. Now, in an effort to improve the work of spies, the intelligence community may also resort to using educational games.

Phi Beta Iota: Nothing the secret world does in gaming can be called serious, and that includes the ridiculous DARPA initiative to model a world so as to influence what real people think. There is no game that can help those put into IC leadership positions or those who continue to allow $75 billion a year to be spent on technical collection and contractor butts in seats that produce “at best” 4% of what top commanders need. The insanity continues. The ONLY “serious game” any intelligence community should be funding (and ideally all together in the aggregate) is the EarthGame designed by Medard Gabel. Medard was co-creator with Buckminster Fuller of the analog World Game, and the only person truly qualified to create the EarthGame in the context of a global Strategic Analytic Model that allows to design a world that works for all. Anything less is a corruption of the possible.

2011/01/262011/01/26

David Ignatius Loves Bob Gates

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Media, Military, Officers Call

David Ignatius, Washington Post 26 January 2011

Ike was right: Defense spending must be cut

Core paragraph: President Obama has the right team in place to begin this strategic downsizing of the defense budget. Gates has been an outspoken advocate of cutting programs we can't afford, and he has strong backing from Adm. Mike Mullen and Gen. James Cartwright, the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military brass knows the country won't be secure if it's broke.

Phi Beta Iota: This article is corrupt on so many levels, from moral to intellectual to financial, it simply epitomizes all that is wrong with Washington.

2011/01/212011/01/22

Transnational Crime: Camorra & New Twin Towers

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Education, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, 9/11 research, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Research resources, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

There is obviously a lot of news about the recent FBI mafia bust. The NY Daily News has mentioned Massive FBI Mafia bust: Organized crime still has firm grip on unions, even at Ground Zero (1/21/11)

Related: Investigative journalist Roberto Saviano's book Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System (about the pervasive crime syndicate Camorra) was made into a movie. NPR reviewed the movie and repeated what was mentioned at the movie's end “Their members have killed more than 4,000 people in 30 years. They are also shareholders in the reconstruction of the Twin Towers.”
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|Related:
+ European webzine cafebabel.com interviewed Roberto Saviano (Claims Comorra most associated with Spain; cocaine is Europe's “white oil”)
+ Documentario BBC “The Italian Patient” Parte 1 (Roberto Saviano appears/interview at 3:45 while in hiding)
+ Roberto Saviano interview (his security situation, the need to change economic system, the political system needs the mafia, alliances between legal and criminal entrepreneurs, compromised ‘free press,' and “before the bullets there is slander”)
+ Curse Of The Camorra (YouTube, Journeyman Pictures, 22min video)
+ Roberto Saviano interview on BBC2's The Culture Show (Obituary: “YOU CAN'T IGNORE THIS”)
+ Al Jazeera report on Roberto Saviano and the Camorra
+ Mafia Take Down – USA (at 15:35, mention of NYC construction mob influence; Sammy Gravano confessing to killing 19 people yet getting only 5 years in prison & later witness protection in Arizona)
+ The Victorious Mafia (Journeyman Pictures, 1998, 23min doc, lacks translation)
+ Scampia Camorra Napoli Ground Zero (YouTube clips of arrests, murders, etc with music)
+ Transnational crime category at PhiBetaIota

2011/01/202011/01/20

Clear-Hold-Build–VN Deja Vu “Destroy to Save”

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Government, Military, Officers Call

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

The Clear-Hold-Build (C-H-B) strategy was first enunciated enthusiastically during the Bush Administration as the new counterinsurgency strategy to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Actually, this strategy was merely an unimaginative regurgitation of Marshall Lautey's “tache d'huile” (oil spot) strategy used to quell native uprisings during France colonial wars at the end of the 19th Century and the first decade of the 20th Century.

The recent escalation in Afghanistan may be taking the unimaginative C-H-B soundbyte to the extremities of its logical absurdity, if the attached report by Spencer Ackerman is correct: Apparently, our forces applied the C-H-B strategy literally to a small Afghan village in Kandahar's Arghandab River Valley of Taliban by using 25 tons of air delivered explosives to CLEAR it off the map (see photo). Ackerman goes to suggest HOLDING will be accomplished because we will spend one million dollars to (re) BUILD it. As part of our cultural sensitivity strategy to HOLD onto the Afghan's hearts and minds during the BUILD leg of the strategy, our troops are holding “construction shuras” with the villagers to compensate them for their loses.

Think of the C-H-B strategy as the Petraeus equivalent of destroying a village to save it — sound familiar?

Chuck Spinney

Archive of selected Blasters

25 Tons of Bombs Wipe Afghan Town off Map

by Spencer Ackerman, Wired, 19 January

An American-led military unit pulverized an Afghan village in Kandahar's Arghandab River Valley in October, after it became overrun with Taliban insurgents. It's hard to understand how turning an entire village into dust fits into America's counterinsurgency strategy – which supposedly prizes the local people's loyalty above all else.

But it's the latest indication that Gen. David Petraeus, the counterinsurgency icon, is prosecuting a frustrating war with surprising levels of violence. Some observers already fear a backlash brewing in the area.

Paula Broadwell, a West Point graduate and Petraeus biographer, described the destruction of Tarok Kolache in a guest post for Tom Ricks' Foreign Policy blog. Or, at least, she described its aftermath: Nothing remains of Tarok Kolache after Lt. Col. David Flynn, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 1-320th, made a fateful decision in October.

Continue reading “Clear-Hold-Build–VN Deja Vu “Destroy to Save””

2011/01/202011/01/20

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Egypt Dictator-Domino Falling?

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Peace Intelligence

Egypt: A spokesman for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood announced that the group is making five urgent demands which the Egyptian government should comply with in order to avert several crises, according to a 19 January posting on the Muslim Brotherhood website.

Muhammad Mursi said the group wants Cairo to revoke the state of emergency, dissolve the People's Assembly and hold free and fair elections, amend the constitutional articles that led to vote rigging in Egypt's last elections, hold presidential elections according to those amendments, and fire the current government and form a national unity government responsive to the Egyptian people's demands.

Comment: The Brothers are belatedly trying to take advantage of the Tunisian uprising. Mubarak could die at any time, but as long as he possesses his faculties he will not fall for lies by his personal security chief, as did Tunisia's Ben Ali, and will not be intimidated by the Brotherhood.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: Dictators will fall before faux democracies because they are on the thinnest ice in the face of angry connected young people with legitimate grievances. The PowerShift that Alvin and Heidi Toffler anticipated in the 19990's has begun to occur. The other threat to civilization can be found in fundamentalists and relativists–those who treat faith as a cult or faith as a convenience. It is a mistake to regard the Muslim Brotherhood as threatening–they are more of an indications & warning. When the right precipitant comes along, Egypt will fall, and the other 43 dictators will follow in relatively quick (ten years) time. Now is when US covert action could shine, but first the White House and Congress and the military-industrial complex must be weaned of their love of dictators. This is also a time when holistic all-source analysis could shine, helping guide a 180 degree turn away from dictators and toward democracy in time for the 2012 “Awakening.”