Blog Wisdom – Page 13 – Public Intelligence Blog

For every square meter of land along the Western front from the Channel coast to the Swiss border it is estimated that a ton of explosives fell during WW1 (the “Iron Harvest“)

Belgian UXO (unexploded ordnance) experts estimate there are 450 million pieces of UXO in Belgium alone. At Verdun in France the estimate is that 12 million pieces of UXO remain.

Belgium – 450 million pieces

Verdun 12 million pieces

Verdun II

Belgian EOD

French UXB info

630 French UXO personnel have been killed since WWII working on this stuff. Currently in France the UXO specialists recover about 900 tons per year, with 30 tons of that being chemical munitions (mustard gas shells, phosgene shells, etc.), and they estimate there's enough work there to keep them busy for another 900 years.

French UXO specialist deaths

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: UXO Waste of War Decades Later”

2011/12/04

David Swanson: 70 Years of Lies About Pearl Harbor

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Military, Officers Call

70 Years of Lying About Pearl Harbor

By davidswanson

WarIsACrime.org, 04 December 2011

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's fervent hope for years was that Japan would attack the United States. This would permit the United States (not legally, but politically) to fully enter World War II in Europe, as its president wanted to do, as opposed to merely providing weaponry and assisting in targeting of submarines as it had been doing. Of course, Germany's declaration of war, which followed Pearl Harbor and the immediate U.S. declaration of war on Japan, helped as well, but it was Pearl Harbor that radically converted the American people from opposition to support for war.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had tried lying to the American people about U.S. ships including the Greer and the Kerny, which had been helping British planes track German submarines, but which Roosevelt pretended had been innocently attacked. Roosevelt also lied that he had in his possession a secret Nazi map planning the conquest of South America, as well as a secret Nazi plan for replacing all religions with Nazism. And yet, the people of the United States didn't buy the idea of going into another war until Pearl Harbor, by which point Roosevelt had already instituted the draft, activated the National Guard, created a huge Navy in two oceans, traded old destroyers to England in exchange for the lease of its bases in the Caribbean and Bermuda, and — just 11 days before the “unexpected” attack — he had secretly ordered the creation of a list of every Japanese and Japanese-American person in the United States.

Continue reading “David Swanson: 70 Years of Lies About Pearl Harbor”

2011/11/30

John Robb: How to Win Any Conflict – Como Ganar Cualquier Conflicto

Blog Wisdom

HOW TO WIN ANY CONFLICT

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 09:42 AM PST

NOTE: I'm in the process of modernizing conflict theory (for wars, insurgencies, protests, etc.) and needed to get this backgrounder on John Boyd's thinking out of the way first. IF any part of it is unclear/difficult to understand, let me know. I'll improve it.

What is Conflict?

To answer this question, let's start with a theory of conflict developed by the late great John Boyd, America's best military thinker. It's a bit of a journey, but trust me, it's worth the effort.

Continue reading “John Robb: How to Win Any Conflict – Como Ganar Cualquier Conflicto”

2011/11/27

Chuck Spinney: UK Dunkirk, USA Long Walk Away from Afghanistan – the Military-Industrial Scam is to “Reset, Rebuy, Retrench”

03 Economy, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

… How the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC) Will Win By Losing

The old adage that it is easy to get into Afghanistan but painful to leave is true for many reasons — here is a big one described in 27 November issue of the Daily Mirror [also attached below] — the British army plans to use Russian railways, built by the Tsars 140 years ago, to return hundreds of millions of pounds worth of equipment in Afghanistan via a landroute to the English Channel.

If you think the horror described in the Daily Mirror report is bad, think about the US options: Given our deteriorating relations with Pakistan, the long, highly vulnerable land route out of Afghanistan, thru the Bolan and Khyber passes, and then down the road system of the Indus Valley in Pakistan to its port of Karachi, is becoming increasingly problematic.

An optional US exit strategy would be an agonizing variation of the Dunkirk option described in the Daily Mirror report plus a sea lift, perhaps via transshipment points in Black Sea ports, like Batumi in Georgia, or Novorossiysk or Sochi in southern Russia, or even Odessa in the Ukraine (which at least would avoid the problem of different railroad gauges).

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: UK Dunkirk, USA Long Walk Away from Afghanistan – the Military-Industrial Scam is to “Reset, Rebuy, Retrench””

2011/11/27

Seth Godin: Do Not Confuse Logistics with Strategy

Blog Wisdom, Strategy

The Confusion of Logistics and Strategy Problem

So widespread, it deserves an acronym: CLASP.

You have a clasp when people criticize your new strategy because they don't know how to execute it.

Yes, a new strategy has to be executable, or it's merely a wish. No, the logistics behind it don't have to be tried and true. It's one job to dream up a strategy and another job to execute it. Whining about how hard the logistics are is just fine, but don't conflate this with thoughtful feedback about whether your strategy makes sense.

Just about every great new project couples a brilliant strategy with impossible logistics that somehow get handled.

2011/11/272011/11/27

Mini-Me: World Revolting Against US Economic Model [Full Text Online for Google Translate]

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call, Policies, Threats

Open Letter at P2P Foundation

Dear friends and colleagues,

The world is riveting toward a possible turning point and we hope that you are able to stand with us in this call to action.

We, the undersigned, have co-authored the document noted below. We are now writing to seek your endorsement. Please if you wish to support our statement and are willing to stand in solidarity with us, then, by return of this email, add your name and affiliation to the signatories. As the current global crises have clearly shown, the whole world is waking up to the value of co-creation and harnessing of knowledge from diverse sources, disciplines, experience and expertise.

We plan to publicise this document widely and forward it to many relevant national and international agencies and bodies tasked with formulating new policies for a new type of world economy.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: World Revolting Against US Economic Model [Full Text Online for Google Translate]”

2011/11/27

Event: 10 December Occupy London: P2P for All

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call, Policies

220px-Michel_Bauwens_crop — Michel Bauwens

Introduction to P2P and the Commons as the new paradigm of change

When: Sat, December 10, 10am – 11am

To succeed in social change, I believe we need 3 things.

* a genuine mass movement. As the first native movement and great hope of the digital age that is what #ows is all about.

* concrete alternatives that can change our lives and allow us to live our values right now. This is what commons-based peer production provides – a new way of producing value.

* the ability to be able to stop bad policies, and propose new ones that allow alternatives to survive and thrive, for which we need true democratic processes.

A ‘commons’ rather than ‘market state’ orientation is a fruitful way to think about solving humanity’s problems in a new way.

Michel Bauwens is founder of the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives , a global collaborative researching peer production that maps the thousands of p2p projects being created to achieve mutual alignment and a growing counter economy that can co-exist and perhaps even supersede the today’s dysfunctional one. He is also a partner of the Commons Strategies Group which seeks to seed conversations around the new commons paradigm.