10 Security – Page 91 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/04/28

Pakistan Rules in Afghanistan–Petraeus Who?

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, History, Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Methods & Process, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

I'm told this story is in every newspaper and on television in Afghanistan. Most Afghans believe it to be true. Basically, in spite of the Administration's posturing, Pakistan would become the governing power in Afghanistan…..The Administration's statements show a clear lack of understanding about this region….

Pakistan Tells Afghanistan: Expel the Americans

ByAhmad K. Majidyar | National Review Online

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Pakistan's leaders “bluntly” told Afghanistan's president “to forget about allowing a long-term U.S. military presence in his country,” and urged him instead “to look to Pakistan–and its Chinese ally–for help in striking a peace deal with the Taliban and rebuilding the economy.” According to Afghan officials, at an April 16 meeting in Kabul in which the leaders of Pakistan's military and intelligence also participated, Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Pres. Hamid Karzai that “the Americans had failed them both,” and that it was time for Kabul to choose “alternative allies.” The Pakistani delegation also outlined a number of demands to the Afghan leader. Afghanpaper.com, quoting an unnamed Afghan official, lists Pakistan's demands as:

Read full article….

Continue reading “Pakistan Rules in Afghanistan–Petraeus Who?”

2011/04/272011/04/27

From the Pentagon? More Education, Fewer Guns?

03 Economy, 04 Education, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Strategy, Threats

An excellent read from credible sources in the vein of Phi Beta Iota articulated reforms. Oh, and by the way, surprisingly this was written (in part, this is a two-author article) by a fellow naval intelligence professional (and more surprising is the fact it comes from a senior navy intelligence officer …. not something I would have expected, given how wed to cold-war ideals most of the senior leadership is…

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The Pentagon’s ‘Mr. Y’ And National Security

Direct download: Mp3 (podcast)

The Pentagon’s ‘Mr. Y’ And National Security

Two Special Assistants to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen say (unofficially) it’s time, strategically, to spend more on education and less on guns. We’ll hear them out.

2011/04/272011/04/27

Reference: Five Major Trends Into the Future Include Severe Weather (More Severe, Frequent, & Costly)

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Earth Intelligence

Trocaire reports severe weather as global trend

ThePost.IE 20 March 2011 By John Burke

An increase in severe weather incidents has been identified as one of the five major trends in global development aid.

The trends, which also include shifting geopolitical alliances, urban poverty, demand for natural resources and widening inequality, are contained in a new report by Irish aid organisation Trocaire.

The report, which was compiled using interviews with more than 100 global aid and development experts, will be published on Tuesday at the Leading Edge 2020 Conference in Dublin city centre.

Read balance of short article….

Leading Edge 2020 Home Page

Download the report: Leading Edge 2020: Critical Thinking on the Future of International Development.

Biographies of Leading Edge 2020 Conference speakers

Phi Beta Iota: Severe weather trends are an act of man, not of God. Global warming is an important but by no means the sole or even the most important environmental degradation component.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Environmental Degradation (Other than Emissions)

2011/04/272011/04/27

Reference: Mr. Smith is Dead by Winslow Wheeler

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

PDF 55 Pages

Posted online with permission, not available elsewhere.

Learn more about the author, Winslow Wheeler

2011/04/272011/04/27

Right-Sizing the US Military–Doug Macgregor

10 Security, 11 Society, Intelligence (government), Key Players, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, Threats

WinslowWheeler Cropped — Winslow Wheeler

Although there are important elements I disagree with — in some cases strenuously — US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor (Ret.) has written an important piece on the fundamental changes and massive budget reductions that are needed to improve America's ability to survive into the future.

Macgregor gets the three essentials right, I believe:

1) the threat America faces is now massively reduced; its future character may very well not be what conventional wisdom expects, and Americans need to fundamentally change how we interact with the rest of the world,

2) before any changes are effected in the size, character and funding of our armed forces, a comprehensive audit must be successfully and immediately completed to understand how we spend our money, and funding should be withheld unless and until that is done, and

3) massive changes are needed in our armed forces and their leadership, organization, staffing, weapons, and more.

Macgregor's two part article, “Lean Mean Fighting Machine” and “A Radical Plan for Cutting the Defense Budget and Reconfiguring the Military.” Both are published by Foreign Policy; I believe they merit your thorough reading and consideration.

Phi Beta Iota: The US Marine Corps understood all this in 1989, and sought to change the defense paradigm from worst case to most likely in 1992; then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and his subordinates were not at all interested. Right-sizing defense–and the whole of government–is not that difficult, provided that one has absolute integrity rooted in real-world truthful intelligence. That cannot be said of the US Government today.

2009 Perhaps We Should Have Shouted: A Twenty-Year Restrospective

2008 Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power–Army Strategy Conference of 2008 Notes, Summary, & Article

2008 U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century

2001 Threats, Strategy, and Force Structure: An Alternative Paradigm for National Security

2000 Presidential Leadership and National Security Policy Making

1998 JFQ The Asymmetric Threat: Listening to the Debate

1995 GIQ 13/2 Creating a Smart Nation: Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information

1993 On Defense & Intelligence–The Grand Vision

1992 MCU Thinking About Revolution

1992 E3i: Ethics, Ecology, Evolution, & intelligence (An Alternative Paradigm)

Reference: 1992 USMC C4I Campaign Plan

1991 MCG Intelligence Support for Expeditionary Planners

2011/04/25

Taliban Tunnel Frees Over 500 From Prison

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, IO Sense-Making

106 Taliban Escape After Huge Prison Jailbreak In Afghanistan

Gus Lubin, April 25, 2011

Business Insider

Last night the Taliban brazenly tunneled into a major prison in Kandahar and broke out 504 prisoners, including 106 Taliban fighters, according to Al Arabiya.

The 1,050-meter tunnel went from a nearby house into the political wing of the prison.

The Taliban told Al Arabiya it had buses waiting at the end of the tunnel to transport prisoners to Taliban safehouses.

This is the second biggest jailbreak in Afghanistan, after militants blew up the front gates to free around 1,000 prisoners in 2008.

See Also:

Review: The Tunnels of Cu Chi

2011/04/242011/04/24

Call for Criminal Investigation of Bush-Cheney

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence

ElBaradei suggests war crimes probe of Bush team

(AP) – 22 April 2011

NEW YORK (AP) — Former chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei suggests in a new memoir that Bush administration officials should face international criminal investigation for the “shame of a needless war” in Iraq.

Freer to speak now than he was as an international civil servant, the Nobel-winning Egyptian accuses U.S. leaders of “grotesque distortion” in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, when then-President George W. Bush and his lieutenants claimed Iraq possessed doomsday weapons despite contrary evidence collected by ElBaradei's and other arms inspectors inside the country.

The Iraq war taught him that “deliberate deception was not limited to small countries ruled by ruthless dictators,” ElBaradei writes in “The Age of Deception,” being published Tuesday by Henry Holt and Company.

The 68-year-old legal scholar, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1997 to 2009 and recently a rallying figure in Egypt's revolution, concludes his 321-page account of two decades of “tedious, wrenching” nuclear diplomacy with a plea for more of it, particularly in the efforts to rein in North Korean and Iranian nuclear ambitions.

Read full article…

Phi Beta Iota: We endorse the truth & reconciliation process and believe that if the USA is to restore its promise as a contributor to the international community of nations, it must first disclose the truth. In our view, the investigation should begin three months prior to 9-11, when Dick Cheney first mandated a nation-wide counter-terrorism exercise that assured his complete control over the entire US Government on 9-11….an assurance he and his planners needed to not just let it happen, but to execute all the trimmings and then carry on with the Weapons of Mass Deception that committed America to an elective multi-trillion dollar war against multiple countries. Dick Cheney hijacked the Presidency. We all need the truth on the table.

Bob Seelert, Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide (New York): When things are not going well, until you get the truth out on the table, no matter how ugly, you are not in a position to deal with it.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Empire as Cancer Including Betrayal & Deceit

Worth a Look: Impeachable Offenses, Modern & Historic