Category: Policies

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Journal: Pentagon Strategy & Policy Oxymoron Squared?

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Government, Military
Michèle Flournoy

Phi Beta Iota: We don't make this stuff up.  The Pentagon has no strategy because the U.S. Government has no strategy.  The National Security Council is managed by a General who emphasized getting along with the Chief of Naval Operation, never-mind leaving Marines wounded on the battlefield for lack of Naval Gunfire Support (NFS).

Join us in savoring what passes for a strategist and nominal policy making savant with the below headlines.

Below item is full text to avoid inconvenience.  It is followed by several linked  headlines that make quite clear the shallowness of the Pentagon strategy-policy pool.

Executive Summary: The gentle lady has no idea what the ten high-level threats to humanity are, nor does she care.  She's a place-holder for the disappointed John Hamre, and a token female at the top who goes with the flow.  She has neither any grasp nor any conceptual framework for actually creating grand strategy, harmonizing Whole of Government policies nor even–this really did surprise us–how many failed states there are in the world.

PBS March 27, 2010

Interview With Michele Flournoy, Under Secretary Of Defense For Policy

Charlie Rose (PBS), 1:00 A.M.

CHARLIE ROSE: The United States military is engaged around the world. It is withdrawing combat troops from Iraq as it builds up troops in Afghanistan. It is partnering with Pakistan in an aggressive counterterrorism campaign including drone attacks in the tribal areas. It’s working with the Yemeni government to counter a resurgent al Qaeda there. And U.S. troops are still in Haiti for the humanitarian relief efforts.

But the military has to do more than respond to the conflicts of the day. It must prepare for future wars, adoptive enemies and a shifting security environment.

The person at the Pentagon who spends the most time working on these issues is Michèle Flournoy. She is under secretary of defense for policy and the highest ranking female official in the Defense Department. I am very pleased to have her with me in the night studio at the Newseum in Washington.

Tell me what it is that you do at the Pentagon, how do you define this responsibility?

Continue reading “Journal: Pentagon Strategy & Policy Oxymoron Squared?”

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Journal: Legality of US Drones as Killing Machines . . .

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Government, Military

Death by Drone
Berto Jongman Recommends...

U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Hearing:

“Rise of the Drones:

Unmanned Systems and the Future of War”

Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 2:00 pm 2154 Rayburn House Office Building Written Testimony Submitted By Kenneth Anderson March 18, 2010

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Journal: Pentagon as VERY Slow Learner….

03 Economy, 04 Education, 10 Security, 11 Society, Government, Military

Time.com    March 18, 2010

To Battle Computer Hackers, The Pentagon Trains Its Own

By Mark Thompson, Washington

“More than 100 foreign intelligence organizations are trying to hack into U.S. systems,” Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn warned last month. “Some governments already have the capacity to disrupt elements of the U.S. information infrastructure.” So the Pentagon recently modified its regulations to allow military computer experts to be trained in computer hacking, gaining designation as “certified ethical hackers.” They'll join more than 20,000 such good-guy hackers around the world who have earned that recognition since 2003 from the private International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (also known as the EC-Council).

Continue reading “Journal: Pentagon as VERY Slow Learner….”

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Worth a Look: Campaign to End Bottled Water Waste

12 Water, Worth A Look
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This is an extremely righteous example of citizen intelligence–a brilliant compilation of FACTS presented in a compelling manner intended to inspire ACTION by hundreds of millions of independent citizens whose governments cannot be relied upon to produce public intelligence in the public interest.

– Much of the water is tapped water rather than spring water–both are contaminated from the overflow of chemicals that we allow to freely enter our groundwater sources.

– More water is used in the manufacture and transport of bottled water than is contained in the bottles themselves.

– There is no regulatory oversight beyond ONE person on the safety of this water.

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Journal: Joe Mazzafro, USN (Ret), on IC Performance

10 Security, Government, Threats

How Should We Measure Intelligence Community Performance?, by Joseph Mazzafro. As the Congress and the DC dignitary debate if health care is affordable given the nation's first trillion dollar annual debit incursion, I am wondering where the money would come from should the United States need to defend its national interests against another Al Qaeda attack or worse. The President has already frozen budgetary growth for all discretionary spending not related to national security, but can the Defense Department and Intelligence Community remain fenced for much longer given the increasing national debt – the size of which already is a national security concern in its own right?

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Journal: Tobin Tax (Tax the Moving Money Not Earned Income) Coming Forward

03 Economy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Government
Webster Griffin Tarpley

The Tobin tax or Wall Street sales tax is rapidly gathering momentum thanks to a bid by British Labour Party MPs to save themselves from looming defeat at the hands of the Tories by playing this great economic populist card. If the Labour Party succeeds with this gambit, it will tend to transform the situation in the US as well, with desperate Democrats embracing the Tobin tax as a means of getting some populist credibility. The Republicans, by contrast, will be forced to line up in defense of their Wall Street backers, stripping away all their Tea Party camouflage.  Obama-Summers-Geithner will also be put into a bind. I have been campaigning for the Tobin tax for a number of years, and it is an idea whose time has come.

If a sales tax on financial transactions (Tobin tax, trading tax, securities transfer tax, Robin Hood tax) can bring the British Labour Party back from the dead, it can defeat Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, Wall Street, and the reactionary Republicans here in the US. It is time to make this a world-wide campaign to force the bankers to pay for the world economic depression they have created.

Webster Tarpley

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A tiny tax on bankers that would give billions to tackle poverty and climate change, here and abroad.

This tax on banks – not you or I – has the power to raise hundreds of billions every year. It could give a vital boost to the NHS, our schools, and the fight against child poverty in the UK – as well as tackling  poverty and climate change around the world.

Not complicated. Just brilliant.

Phi Beta Iota: We support the elimination of the Federal income tax as being unconstitutional in the Unted STATES of America.  Individuals should pay taxes to localities; businesses should pay taxes to all states where they do business; and federal operations should be based on the Tobin tax and strictly limited to the narrow administrative services of common concern that are consistently authorized and approved by Congress acting on behalf of the STATES.

noble gold