editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends

Surprise — The Very Dark Side of U.S. History

Many Americans view their country and its soldiers as the “good guys” spreading “democracy” and “liberty” around the world. It just ain't so.

October 8, 2010

Peter Dale Scott, Robert Parry / Consortium News

Alter.Net Editor's Note: Many Americans view their country and its soldiers as the “good guys” spreading “democracy” and “liberty” around the world. When the United States inflicts unnecessary death and destruction, it's viewed as a mistake or an aberration.

In the following article Peter Dale Scott and Robert Parry examine the long history of these acts of brutality, a record that suggests they are neither a “mistake” nor an “aberration” but rather conscious counterinsurgency doctrine on the “dark side.”

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The Great Transformation

America's Third World Economy

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Counterpunch

For a number of years I reported on the monthly nonfarm payroll jobs data. The data did not support the praises economists were singing to the “New Economy.” The “New Economy” consisted, allegedly, of financial services, innovation, and high-tech services.

This economy was taking the place of the old “dirty fingernail” economy of industry and manufacturing. Education would retrain the workforce, and we would move on to a higher level of prosperity.

Time after time I reported that there was no sign of the “New Economy” jobs, but that the old economy jobs were disappearing. The only net new jobs were in lowly paid domestic services such as waitresses and bartenders, retail clerks, health care and social assistance (mainly ambulatory health care services), and, before the bubble burst, construction.

The facts, issued monthly by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, had no impact on the ”New Economy” propaganda. Economists continued to wax eloquently about how globalism was a boon for our future.

. . . . . .

The wage and salary cost savings obtained by giving Americans’ jobs to Chinese and Indians have enriched corporate CEOs, shareholders, and Wall Street at the expense of the middle class and America’s consumer economy.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press.

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2010/10/092010/10/09

Journal: Who Controls (and Secures) the Internet?

10 Security, Computer/online security, Cyberscams, malware, spam, IO Secrets, Military, Officers Call

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Who controls the internet?

By Misha Glenny

Published: October 8 2010 23:40 | Last updated: October 8 2010 23:40

Squared-jawed, with four stars decorating each shoulder, General Keith Alexander looks like a character straight out of an old American war movie. But his old-fashioned appearance belies the fact that the general has a new job that is so 21st-century it could have been dreamed up by a computer games designer. Alexander is the first boss of USCybercom, the United States Cyber Command, in charge of the Pentagon’s sprawling cyber networks and tasked with battling unknown enemies in a virtual world.

Last year, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared cyberspace to be the “fifth domain” of military operations, alongside land, sea, air and space. It is the first man-made military domain, requiring an entirely new Pentagon command. That went fully operational a week ago, marking a new chapter in the history of both warfare and the world wide web.

In his confirmation hearing, General Alexander sounded the alarm, declaring that the Pentagon’s computer systems “are probed 250,000 times an hour, up to six million per day”, and that among those attempting to break in were “more than 140 foreign spy organisations trying to infiltrate US networks”. Congress was left with a dark prophecy ringing in its ears: “It’s only a small step from disrupting to destroying parts of the network.”

Phi Beta Iota: Of the $12 billion a year to be spent, roughly 90% if not more will be spent on “vapor-ware.” To understand the gap between the 67 people who actually know what needs to be done, and the hundreds of thousands who will be employed in cyber-theater (pun intended), see below. There are multiple sucking chest wounds in this enterprise, the two largest are a) the DoD Grid is a mess with no integrity in the fullest sense of the word, trying to “secure” that mess is next to impossible; and b) the only way to make Pentagon information operations safe is to make ALL operations safe, but this is not how the US Government and especially not how the Pentagon thinks–hence, another decade will be wasted. The upside is that OpenBTS and all sorts of other opens are emergent, and we may all end up going to Web 4.0 while the Pentagon stays at Web 2.0.

See Also:

2010: OPINION–America’s Cyber Scam

1994 Sounding the Alarm on Cyber-Security

Continue reading “Journal: Who Controls (and Secures) the Internet?”

2010/10/09

Journal: Alaska Selling Her Birthright…Water

12 Water, True Cost

Newsweek Story Online

The New Oil

Should private companies control our most precious natural resource?

Sitka, Alaska, is home to one of the world’s most spectacular lakes. Nestled into a U-shaped valley of dense forests and majestic peaks, and fed by snowpack and glaciers, the reservoir, named Blue Lake for its deep blue hues, holds trillions of gallons of water so pure it requires no treatment. The city’s tiny population—fewer than 10,000 people spread across 5,000 square miles—makes this an embarrassment of riches. Every year, as countries around the world struggle to meet the water needs of their citizens, 6.2 billion gallons of Sitka’s reserves go unused. That could soon change. In a few months, if all goes according to plan, 80 million gallons of Blue Lake water will be siphoned into the kind of tankers normally reserved for oil—and shipped to a bulk bottling facility near Mumbai. From there it will be dispersed among several drought-plagued cities throughout the Middle East.

Phi Beta Iota: The commercialization of Earth has already resulted in enormous costs most of which are barely understood today, at the same time that changes to the Earth that used to take 10,000 years, now take three. The “true cost” of shipping bulk water is already known to be much higher than the engaged parties recognize–these are costs to the environment, the balance of nature, and ultimately to the sustainability of the very water supply being looted.

2010/10/082010/10/08

Journal: Nato’s Secret Armies (It’s Not Terror if CIA Pays and Locals Do the Dirty….)

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Sense-Making, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

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Nato's Secret Armies

By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 1 of 7 page(s)

In his book, “NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe,” Daniele Ganser described their clandestine Cold War operations, run by European secret services, collaborating with NATO, the CIA and Britain's MI6 and Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) against a possible Soviet invasion, internal communist takeovers, or others on the political left gaining power.

EXTRACT:

In Italy, against both communist and socialist parties, it was claimed they wanted to weaken NATO “from within,” Italian judge, Felice Casson, learning that right-wing terrorists carried out bombings against civilians, blamed them on the left, neo-fascist Vincenzo Vinciguerra explaining the scheme as follows:

“The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.”

In 2000, the Italian Senate was more explicit, saying:

“Those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been organized or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as had been discovered more recently, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence,” meaning CIA mainly.

Former director William Colby admitted in his memoirs that covert western armies were a major CIA initiative, begun post-WW II, and restricted “to the smallest possible coterie of the most reliable people, in Washington (and) NATO” to keep the initiative secret.

Phi Beta Iota: CIA's importation of 100 Nazis a year after WWII (and probably many more, it has always considered itself above the law, both domestic and foreign) fueled a truly psychopathic perception of communism that led to policies and programs that today are clearly seen to be crimes against humanity, but back in the day were seen as “collateral damage” essential to contain communism while maintaining “control” over key governments.

2010/10/082010/10/08

Reference: Open Society on Afghan Views

08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, IO Sense-Making, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, White Papers

The below report by the Open Society Foundations (a Soros project) is extremely important and should get the widest distribution. It documents the cumulative blowback caused by our narcissistic ideas about how to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans. It does this by systematically examining the views of a wide variety of Afghans in an effort to construct an Afghan narrative of how the intervention is affecting their lives. That this narrative is often at variance with our views (which makes it easy to dismiss by western military leaders), the report shows why this is really quite beside the point. Of particular interest (at least to me) is the Afghan narrative of the psychological effects of collateral damage cause by our all-seeing, all-knowing precision strike systems. It is a classic on how the ongoing self-referencing BS about the performance of these weapons is blowing back on itself to magnify the atmosphere of mistrust and alienation that is playing directly into the success of the insurgent's guerrilla strategy.

Of course, this report might be easily dismissed by those patriotic Amurikans, drunk on High Tea, as the subversive product of the lefty Hungarian-emigre George Soros, who is, after all, just another ‘other.'

AF Trust Deficit small footprint — Downloadable PDF

Phi Beta Iota: A properly managed intelligence campaign would have anticipated and then closely monitored this kind of situational awareness. It is called “Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield.” Neither CIA nor DIA know how to do this.

Review: Operation Dark Heart–Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan — and the Path to Victory

Review: Surrender to Kindness (One Man’s Epic Journey for Love and Peace)

2010 INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

2010/10/082010/10/08