Category: Policies

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Obama fails to grasp the gravity of going to war

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call
DefDog Recommends...

Although a partisan paper, the Examiner does show the lack of
understanding that is permeating the current administration……..

By: Byron York 03/24/11 8:05 PM

The Examiner

“I see Obama's visiting the United States,” said Rush Limbaugh on
Thursday, the president's first full day back in Washington after a spring
break diplomatic tour of Latin America….

. . . . . . .

After ordering troops into action, the president headed off to South
America with his wife, daughters, mother-in-law, and mother-in-law's
friend in tow. There was no solemn, reasoned speech to explain why the
U.S. was going to war…..

Click on Image to Enlarge

Meanwhile, the White House is at times having difficulty simply making
sense. The president talked about an “exit strategy” in which American forces would not exit at all. And administration officials are going out of their way to deny that the Libyan fighting, which involves a significant fleet of U.S. warships and U.S. warplanes, is a “war.” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters Wednesday that Libya
wasn't a war, describing it instead as a “kinetic military action.”

Read more….

Phi Beta Iota:  Original Image from Palestinian Pundit.

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Syrian Domino Teeters….

05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Peace Intelligence
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Syria’s Bashar al-Assad faces most serious unrest of his tenure

By Leila Fadel, Thursday, March 24

Washington Post

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was facing the most serious unrest of his 11-year tenure Thursday as anti-government protests in a southwestern city threatened to escalate after a deadly crackdown.

. . . . . . .

On Wednesday, security forces launched a pre-dawn raid in the city in which dozens of people were killed, according to witnesses and activists. Precise estimates of the death toll range from 15 to 51.

On Thursday, witnesses said, thousands of people gathered in the city to bury the dead, chanting, “Syria! Freedom!”

Click on Image to Enlarge

Phi Beta Iota: “Freedom” is neither a partisan term, nor one that can be bought by Lockheed Martin or discounted by Goldman Sachs.  Young, freedom, and the autonomous Internet.  Not at all what the “elite” had planned.  Most interestingly, the dominos falling to non-violent public will are in sharp contrast to the published plan of the neo-conservatives to take down the Middle East by force–nuclear if necessary.

See Also:

Review: Endgame–The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

Reflections on Revolution, Information & Civil Affairs

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Japan Case Study in Nuclear Information Ignorance

08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, About the Idea, Advanced Cyber/IO, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Policies

Time does not permit the detailed study a topic of this importance merits (it would be an excellent PhD project for a bi-lingual Japanese-English speaking PhD candidate) but here is what we do know:

1.  The risks were known.

2.  A tsunami risk was specificially brought up and dismissed at a critical juncture.

3.  There was no “what if” planning or critical supply chain planning for contaminated water and food.

We speculate that an intense look at the information terrain surrounded Japan's nuclear and global warming and related environmental degradation and energy-commercial competitiveness discussions will yield an almost perfect understanding of where the data asymmetries and information pathologies were that allowed Industrial Era decision systems (inherently secret and corrupt) to ignore open source information on risk.

This is also a good place to study how disasters turn into catastrophes instead of remaining disasters, for lack of the proper political-legal, socio-economic, and ideo-cultural mindsets.

Fifty years from today, the catastrophe in Japan may be regarded as the moment of awakening for the global mind.

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NIGHTWATCH Taliban R&R Program Under Petraeus

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Officers Call

Afghanistan: Almost 5,000 Taliban insurgents laid down their weapons or are moving toward doing so, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan General Petraeus said on 23 March. About 700 former Taliban have officially completed the steps to reintegrate into society, Petraeus said. He said another 2,000 insurgents are taking steps toward reintegration and others have laid down their weapons entirely.

Comment: The statistic is interesting because only a fraction of the anti-government fighters have reconciled to the government, based on the daily number of clashes and engagements. Most have been in northern districts where logistics support from Pakistan is barely sustainable. Petraeus also did specify the time frame for his data.

NightWatch data in November 2010 and January 2011 show the number of ralliers increased, but the number of clashes increased at a much greater rate. Several developments can explain the data. First, the anti-government forces appear to be replacing losses at a rate much faster than the rate of rallies. That can only happen if the populace supports the recruitment effort and that means the fight in Afghanistan is a Pashtun tribal uprising, not an insurgency. Second, the ralliers do not remain reconciled, but rejoin the fighting after a period of rest. The spring anti-government offensive should provide insight into the rate of recidivism. Third, the numbers are spread over such a long period as to be meaningless in evaluating the success or failure of the Coalition efforts. And there are others.

Without more context, the statement about ralliers looks like cheer leading.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Taliban R&R Program Under Petraeus”

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U.S. Lacks Plan for Dealing With Chaos in Yemen Despite Dire Warnings

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Multinational, Military, Peace Intelligence
Who, Me?

Although it is Fox News and arch-critic Lindsey Graham pointing fingers, the fact is they are right!  US Government seems trapped in a time warp and completely unprepared to contemplate a world in which our military is relatively useless (as well as unaffordable) and we actually need to have a deep capacity for nation-building.  P

The Obama administration, after helping to orchestrate a U.N.-backed military intervention in Libya, is facing pressure to do more to prepare for the potential collapse of the government in another Mideast country, Yemen — but U.S. officials admit they are doing little more than watching at this point.

. . . . . . .

Yemen is a central ally of the U.S. government against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The group, along with its operational planner, the American Anwar al-Awlaki, the first American on the CIA's kill or capture list, are now considered a greater threat than Usama bin Laden's network in Pakistan. And one U.S. lawmaker suggests that chaos in Yemen could result in a worse terrorist breeding ground than Afghanistan.

But Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ admission in Cairo that the administration had not focused on a future without Yemen's president was startling.

Read full article….



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