UPDATED 2 November 2012 to add 450-ship Navy and other military implications of intelligence with integrity
Marcus Aurelius: CIA Panetta Memo on Presidential Authorization of Bin Laden Hit
07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
As posted at http://cryptocomb.org/cia-
Phi Beta Iota: This may well be authentic, but it is highly suspect. A signed Presidential finding is needed for such a project, one does not undertake such initiatives without that written document, nor accept a phone call from a lesser aide as a substitute–nor should JSOG be doing anything without that written finding, certainly not on the verbal word of the CIA Director. We continue to believe that CIA created an Oswald situation, a patsy, for JSOG to kill and dump without credible forensic evidence. There is uncertainty as to whether Obama actually authorized the mission–it may have been done against his wishes as the placeholder president. We continue to believe that former Assistant Secretary of State Dr. Steve Pieczenik has it right — Bin Laden died in 2001. Our only certainty is that the truth is quite distant from the “Bin Laden Story” as told to date.
See Also:
Bin Laden Show 16: Over-Ruling the President
Bin Laden Show 08: History from 2001 Updated
Bin Laden Show: Entries 01-79 UPDATED 24 March 2012
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Most)
Gary North: Cancer Lobby Winning Big — Corrupt Congress is THE Cancer
07 Health, Corruption, Government
Health and Free Trade
by Gary North
Tea Party Economist
For over 250 years, economists – even before they were called economists – have struggled to solve a problem: how to persuade people that trade really is positive and that restrictions on trade really are negative. This is one more attempt.
Let us assume that your physician informs you that you have cancer. The type of cancer that you have is invariably fatal. He utters those words that estate planning lawyers thrive on: “You should get your affairs in order.”
You go home. After thinking about your situation, you go online in search of a solution. You come across an article on a proposed new cure. There is hope. But you find that the cure is experimental. It has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The estimated cost of getting through the FDA's legal hoops is $100 million. It will take seven years.
You do not have seven years.
Do you believe in free trade in proposed cancer cures? Now you do.
What if you could sign a legal waiver taking full responsibility for your actions? What if you are willing to let the discoverer off the hook legally for any negative outcome of the treatment? Sorry, no can do. That would be illegal.
Why would it be illegal?
There is a simple reason: “Because it would reduce the power of the Food and Drug Administration.” If every Tom, Dick, and Harry were willing to sign a waiver, then the FDA could not control drugs. This degree of open entry into the health care field would enable producers of health-care to get together with customers to arrange mutually agreeable solutions.
See Also:
Dolphin: Universal Cancer Vaccine Developed
Dolphin: Cancer Cure in Canada, Big Pharma NOT Interested
DefDog: Afghan Solider Shoots NATO Soldier, US/NATO “Disingenious”
10 Security, 11 Society, DoD
This line is completely disingenuous…..shows the lack of knowledge of the Afghan people……
Afghan Special Forces Soldier Shoots US Mentor
It follows another shooting incident earlier this week
By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff
newser, Apr 27, 2012
A member of Afghanistan's elite special forces—a group that is supposed to be rigorously vetted—shot and killed an American mentor and his translator at a US military base Wednesday, before being gunned down in turn by US soldiers, Reuters reports. Another Afghan special forces soldier was killed in the crossfire as well. The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for the shooting, but according to one Afghan general it took place “after a verbal conflict.”
Phi Beta Iota: Afghanistan has been a study in legalized crime. The USA has trained, equipped, and organized both sides for the past decade, while simultaneously taking Afghanistan opium processed into #4 heroin in Pakistan (by the Pakistani military) from 0 to 95% of the world's supply. Talk about hat tricks for the financial crime families behind the two political parties in the USA for whom no insanity is inconceivable. In comparison the 200+ other illegimate “small wars,” Afghanistan is a study in “optimal” government-induced global crime.
NIGHTWATCH: China Builds Economic-Tourism Bridge to Taiwan, Puts PLA Into a Box – US Will Continue to Demonize China for Unethical Reasons
02 China, 02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Ethics, Government, Peace IntelligenceSixteen years ago, Pingtan Island, just north west of Taiwan, was the center of Chinese military energies to intimidate Taiwanese voters against electing a pro-independence president. Major amphibious operations were staged, some with catastrophic loss of life by military personnel because of bad weather. This also was the first time China attempted to maintain continuous air operations over the Taiwan Strait. That also proved beyond Chinese capabilities.
These complemented the dramatic and sensational Chinese short range ballistic missile shots into Taiwan's two main ports. The missile launches might be compared to the US launching missiles into Pearl Harbor to prevent Hawaii from seceding from the US.
A key difference was that the Chinese missiles were so inaccurate, that no one knew whether they would launch much less whether they would stay on target. The danger was that a ballistic missile might veer off course and strike Taiwan, rather than the ocean. The missiles were so unreliable that the risk of a stray missile was very real. With only luck, they did not hit land or ships in the harbor which would have sparked general war in 1996.
The US sent two aircraft carrier task groups to defend Taiwan in 1996, forcing the Chinese to back down and inflicting a humiliating political defeat on the communist mandarins in Beijing. At one point, during turnover, three carriers were present to defend Taiwan. The Chinese intimidation effort failed on every level. Even the weather was hostile to the Chinese.
This week China published details of its plans for the Pingtan Comprehensive Economic Zone (CEZ) through the approval and promulgation of the General Development Plan for the Pingtan CEZ. Mainland China officials have emphasized the “importance” of the plan and the CEZ.
The Chinese military fiasco during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis ensured that the communist party leaders would never again allow the People's Liberation Army leaders to have their way in solving any national security problems.
Chuck Spinney: US Senate Notices Next Atomic Disaster in Japan
05 Energy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, Intelligence (government), IO Impotency
Warning Signs for the US
by ROBERT ALVAREZ,
Counterpunch, APRIL 24, 2012
In the aftermath of the world’s worst nuclear power disaster, the news media is just beginning to grasp that the dangers to Japan and the rest of the world posed by the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site are far from over. After repeated warnings by former senior Japanese officials, nuclear experts, and now a U.S. Senator, it is sinking in that the irradiated nuclear fuel stored in spent fuel pools amidst the reactor ruins may have far greater potential offsite consequences than the molten cores.
After visiting the site recently, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote to Japan’s ambassador to the U.S. stating that, “loss of containment in any of these pools could result in an even greater release than the initial accident.”
This is why:
Phi Beta Iota: This is a classic illustration of how dangerously useless it is to have a massively expensive secret intelligence and “heavy metal” military, without capacity for global coverage, true cost economics, and so on. Until governments make the shift toward future-oriented hybid governnance — embracing the core ideals of clarity, diversity, and integrity — it will not be possible to get a grip on the challenges and the possibilities facing the human species on Earth. We have been here before: in the 1970's when Peak Oil, Peak Water, and AIDs were all briefed to the US Senate and to the White House. The reality is that the corruption characteristic of those bodies then is still with us–there is only ONE serious approach to this and all other issues, and that is the creation of the World Brain and Global Game and a commensurate commitment to integrate true cost economics into every decision, and to make every decision as indigenous communities have done for thousands of years: future-oriented — Seventh Generation.
See Also:
Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: US Senate Notices Next Atomic Disaster in Japan”
Yoda: Thinking in a Foreign Language Improves Decisions
07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call, Policies
Maybe we should stop worrying about analysts w second language capabilities and insist that policymakers have a second language.
Thinking in foreign language makes decisions more rational
To judge a risk more clearly, it may help to consider it in a foreign language.
A series of experiments on more than 300 people from the US and Korea found that thinking in a second language reduced deep-seated, misleading biases that unduly influence how risks and benefits are perceived.
“Would you make the same decisions in a foreign language as you would in your native tongue?” asked psychologists led by Boaz Keysar of the University of Chicago in an April 18 Psychological Science study.
“It may be intuitive that people would make the same choices regardless of the language they are using, or that the difficulty of using a foreign language would make decisions less systematic. We discovered, however, that the opposite is true: Using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases,” wrote Keysar’s team.
Psychologists say human reasoning is shaped by two distinct modes of thought: one that’s systematic, analytical and cognition-intensive, and another that’s fast, unconscious and emotionally charged.
In light of this, it’s plausible that the cognitive demands of thinking in a non-native, non-automatic language would leave people with little leftover mental horsepower, ultimately increasing their reliance on quick-and-dirty cogitation.
Equally plausible, however, is that communicating in a learned language forces people to be deliberate, reducing the role of potentially unreliable instinct. Research also shows that immediate emotional reactions to emotively charged words are muted in non-native languages, further hinting at deliberation.
. . . . . . .
The researchers believe a second language provides a useful cognitive distance from automatic processes, promoting analytical thought and reducing unthinking, emotional reaction.
Phi Beta Iota: Integrity is not just about people making decisions. It is about the whole — the context, the clarity of communication, the diversity of views, the integrity of all feedback loops. Today there is very little integrity in the process of intelligence – on those rare occasions when it actually exists — and there is zero integrity in the policy process, something Paul Pillar and Morton Halperin (among many others) have documented nicely.
See Also:
Morton Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Brookings, 2006)
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011)
Paul Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform (Columbia, 2011)
Phi Beta Iota: Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both
