The United States is hosting the G8, NATO and the Bilderberg Group in a two-week span, during which elite Russian troops will be occupying key points near Northern Command (NORTHCOM), and it isn’t hard to imagine another 9/11 coming from such a sinister combination of brains and brawn.
Starting with the premise that a false flag attack by the end of May is more likely than not, I’ll present the odds for the top targets and most dangerous days, then evaluate the various entities and individuals likely to be involved.
Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia and Bahrain discussed a political union at a meeting in Riyadh on 13 May. The arrangement under discussion would allow Bahrain to retain its seat at the United Nations, but the two states would merge foreign relations, defense and economic policy, according to press sources. The details have not been released.
Bahrain's Prime Minister, the Army Chief of Staff and the Foreign Minister – all members of the al-Khalifa royal family — have stated their support for the union.
Comment: The King of Bahrain and the royal family are Sunni Muslims who govern a population of mostly Shiite Muslims. Thus, the news that a union with Saudi Arabia is under discussion has prompted widespread criticism that Saudi Arabia intends to make Bahrain a vassal state so as to keep the Shiites disenfranchised and subjugated.
On the other hand, the limited information in the public domain suggests Bahrain's administration of internal affairs will not be changed by the union proposal. Bahrain, by itself, is not defensible against an Iranian attack or subversion, but in a union arrangement with Saudi Arabia it would not be alone.
Saudi King Abdallah has warned Iran repeatedly against meddling in Arab affairs. This union is consistent with his policy decision to stop Iranian meddling in Arab countries as well as the spread of Shi'i Islam which the Sunnis consider a heresy.
One advantage of the union would be that it would bypass tricky conditions attached to US foreign military sales. Conditions of the sales include that US military equipment can only be used for defense, cannot be resold without US permission and cannot be used outside the recipient country without US permission. Under a union arrangement, the Saudis would not need to consult the US before sending Saudi forces equipped with US tanks and armored personnel carriers back to Bahrain, unless they chose to.
Phi Beta Iota: It is entirely possible that Saudi Arabia is moving to a whole new level of global diplomacy, information-sharing, military alliances, and economic entanglements (DIME). Qatar is similar to Bahrain in multiple ways. Below is a map of the Sunni – Shi'ite spread. A religious war is brewing, not just Sunni – Shi'ite, but Pentecostals against Islam, Jews against everyone, Catholics in a panic, and so on. We say it again: counter-intelligence generally, and religious counter-intelligence specifically, is the ONE 21st Century aspect of the craft of intelligence that must continue to be secret and that must *explode* in the near-term. Note: within the eight “tribes” or communities, we include religion and labor organizations within the Civil Society tribe. The others are academic, commerce, government at all levels, law enforcement, media, military, and non-government/non-profit.
Big news! I'll be taking a senior level position at the Qatar Foundation to work on the next generation of humanitarian technology solutions. I'll be based at the Foundation's Computing Research Institute (QCRI) and be working alongside some truly amazing minds defining the cutting edge of social and scientific computing, computational linguistics, big data, etc. My role at QCRI will be to leverage the expertise within the Institute, the region and beyond to drive technology solutions for humanitarian and social impact globally—think of it as Computing for Good backed by some serious resources. I'll spend just part of the time in Doha. The rest of my time will be based wherever necessary to have the greatest impact. Needless to say, I'm excited!
My mission over the past five years has been to catalyze strategic linkages between the technology and humanitarian space to promote both innovation and change, so this new adventure feels like the perfect next chapter in this exciting adventure. I've had the good fortune and distinct honor of working with some truly inspiring and knowledgeable colleagues who have helped me define and pursue my passions over the years. Needless to say, I've learned a great deal from these colleagues; knowledge, contacts and partnerships that I plan to fully leverage at the Qatar Foundation.
It really has been an amazing five years. I joined the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) in 2007 to co-found and co-direct the Program on Crisis Mapping and Early Warning. The purpose of the program was to assess how new technologies were changing the humanitarian space and how these could be deliberately leveraged to yield more significant impact. As part of my time at HHI, I consulted on a number of cutting-edge projects including the UNDP's Crisis and Risk Mapping Analysis (CRMA) Program in the Sudan. I also leveraged this iRevolution blog extensively to share my findings and learnings with both the humanitarian and technology communities. In addition, I co-authored the UN Foundation & Vodafone Foundation Report on “New Technologies in Emergen-cies and Conflicts” (PDF).
Last week I circulated a piece discusing an eight page advertising special in The Washington Post, paid for by Lockheed-Martin and Boeing (and a credit union). The huge ad commemorated the 100th anniversary of Marine Corps aviation. (My piece with a link to the advertisement is at the end of this message.) In the special advertising sectionthe Marine Corps' Commandant and Deputy Commandant for Aviation, among others, proclaimed that Marine air was wholly focused on supporting “ground troops,” especially while engaged in combat–thereby demonstrating the Marines' warrior ethic and devotion to one of its proudest traditions. Unsurprisingly, the ad also loudly touted Boeing's V-22 and Lockheed's F-35B as the contemporary embodiment of the Marine air tradition.<
David Evans is a retired Marine. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, after which he worked as a widely respected journalist for the Chicago Tribune. When I sent him my piece on the Marines' self praise, paid for by Lockheed and Boeing, he immediately responded that the proclamation of a focus only on air support for troops in combat rang hollow. I asked him to write up his concerns; the following 1,500 word analysis was the result. It makes important and informative reading. It exposes the sophistry of the ad's assertions, and it is an excellent explanation of how technology proclaimed to be a leap ahead can in reality be a step backwards–at great additional cost. The discussion of the V-22 and F-35 compared to cheaper, more effective systems–available earlier–is very instructive.
For sheer sophistry, deception and delusion, it is hard to top the status report “100 Years of Marine Corps Aviation” that appeared as an advertising supplement arriving in this former Marine's Washington Post newspaper on 2 May 2012 (located at http://issuu.com/wpcustomcontent/docs/usmc). My view is that Marine aviation is now broken, riven by exploding costs, starkly troubled development programs and, above all, the triumph of technical wants over tactical needs.
The Marine Corps could have had superior flying machines at dramatically less cost to acquire and maintain. There is an old aphorism about “pride goeth before the fall” that certainly applies. The country cannot afford these habits and the junior Marines at the “pointy end” deserve better for tactical support.
The eight-page supplement was dominated by breathless paeans to the Marines' two dominant aircraft modernization programs, the V-22 tilt-rotor, a troop hauler which takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a turboprop airliner, and the F-35B, a jet that will similarly be capable of short take-offs and vertical landings but fly to the battlefield at supersonic speed.
Neither machine will deliver on its heady promises.
Living in America is becoming very difficult for anyone with a moral conscience, a sense of justice, or a lick of intelligence. Consider:
We have had a second fake underwear bomb plot, a much more fantastic one than the first hoax. The second underwear bomber was a CIA operative or informant allegedly recruited by al-Qaeda, an organization that US authorities have recently claimed to be defeated, in disarray, and no longer significant.
This defeated and insignificant organization, which lacks any science and technology labs, has invented an “invisible bomb” that is not detected by the porno-scanners. A “senior law enforcement source” told the New York Times that “the scary part” is that “if they buil[t] one, they probably built more.”
“I get mad when bloggers accuse me of lying — of knowing the information was false. I didn’t.” — Colin Powell.
Can you imagine having an opportunity to address the United Nations Security Council about a matter of great global importance, with all the world's media watching, and using it to… well, to make shit up – to lie with a straight face, and with a CIA director propped up behind you, I mean to spew one world-class, for-the-record-books stream of bull, to utter nary a breath without a couple of whoppers in it, and to look like you really mean it all? What gall. What an insult to the entire world that would be.
Colin Powell doesn't have to imagine such a thing. He has to live with it. He did it on February 5, 2003. It's on videotape.
I tried to ask him about it in the summer of 2004. He was speaking to the Unity Journalists of Color convention in Washington, D.C. The event had been advertised as including questions from the floor, but for some reason that plan was revised. Speakers from the floor were permitted to ask questions of four safe and vetted journalists of color before Powell showed up, and then those four individuals could choose to ask him something related – which of course they did not, in any instance, do.
Bush and Kerry spoke as well. The panel of journalists who asked Bush questions when he showed up had not been properly vetted. Roland Martin of the Chicago Defender had slipped onto it somehow (which won't happen again!). Martin asked Bush whether he was opposed to preferential college admissions for the kids of alumni and whether he cared more about voting rights in Afghanistan than in Florida. Bush looked like a deer in the headlights, only without the intelligence. He stumbled so badly that the room openly laughed at him.
Joe Justice is the ideator of Team Wikspeed: a team of volunteers distributed around the world who recently created a prototype car that is open source, modular and ultra-efficient in just three mo… …YES, in just three months compared with the years it takes traditional car manufacturers to bring out a new model.
See Also:
This is an extremely interesting interview with Joe Justice … it gives the gist of where the manufacturing revolution is going.
Phi Beta Iota: Achieving an Open Source Everything world is a three part process:
1. Creation of Open Source Alternatives.
2. Creation of Integrated infrastructure–pieces need to intersect.
3. Abolishment of political parties and governments that try to micro-impose safety standards (e.g. air bags) and other onorous measures whose sole real purpose is to make competition unaffordable for the Open Source Everything movement, while blackmailing commerce into contributing to Political Action Campaigns.
