General and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry on the Persistent Failure of US Understanding in Afghanistan

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Lessons, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Karl W. Eikenberry
Karl W. Eikenberry

使用谷歌翻译在下一列的顶部。

गूगल अगले स्तंभ के शीर्ष पर अनुवाद का प्रयोग करें.

Google sonraki sütunun üstünde Çevir kullanın.

Используйте Google Translate на вершине соседней колонке.

گوگل اگلے کالم میں سب سے اوپر ترجمہ کا استعمال کریں.

Emphasis below added by Milt Bearden, former CIA chief in Pakistan also responsible for the field aspects of the CIA's covert support against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Foreign Affairs, September/October 2013

ESSAY

The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan
The Other Side of the COIN

Karl W. Eikenberry

Eikenberry, Obama, and General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, March 2010. (Pete Souza / White House)
Eikenberry, Obama, and General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, March 2010. (Pete Souza / White House)

KARL W. EIKENBERRY is William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He served as Commanding General of the Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007 and as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2011.

Since 9/11, two consecutive U.S. administrations have labored mightily to help Afghanistan create a state inhospitable to terrorist organizations with transnational aspirations and capabilities. The goal has been clear enough, but its attainment has proved vexing. Officials have struggled to define the necessary attributes of a stable post-Taliban Afghan state and to agree on the best means for achieving them. This is not surprising. The U.S. intervention required improvisation in a distant, mountainous land with de jure, but not de facto, sovereignty; a traumatized and divided population; and staggering political, economic, and social problems. Achieving even minimal strategic objectives in such a context was never going to be quick, easy, or cheap.

Of the various strategies that the United States has employed in Afghanistan over the past dozen years, the 2009 troop surge was by far the most ambitious and expensive. Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine was at the heart of the Afghan surge. Rediscovered by the U.S. military during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, counterinsurgency was updated and codified in 2006 in Field Manual 3-24, jointly published by the U.S. Army and the Marines. The revised
doctrine placed high confidence in the infallibility of military leadership at all levels of engagement (from privates to generals) with the indigenous population throughout the conflict zone. Military doctrine provides guidelines that inform how armed forces contribute to campaigns, operations, and battles. Contingent on context, military doctrine is
meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive.

Broadly stated, modern COIN doctrine stresses the need to protect civilian populations, eliminate insurgent leaders and infrastructure, and help establish a legitimate and accountable host-nation government able to deliver essential human services. Field Manual 3-24 also makes clear the extensive length and expense of COIN campaigns:  “Insurgencies are protracted by nature. Thus, COIN operations always demand considerable expenditures of time and resources.

Continue reading “General and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry on the Persistent Failure of US Understanding in Afghanistan”

John Perry Barlow: Electronic Frontier Foundation Calls for New [Congressional] Church Committee to Probe NSA Violations of Constitution, Law, and Regulation

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military
John Perry Barlow
John Perry Barlow

Three Illusory “Investigations” of the NSA Spying Are Unable to Succeed

By Mark M. Jaycox

Since the revelations of confirmed National Security Agency spying in June, three different “investigations” have been announced. One by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), another by the Director of National Intelligence, Gen. James Clapper, and the third by the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally called the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).

All three investigations are insufficient, because they are unable to find out the full details needed to stop the government's abuse of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The PCLOB can only request—not require—documents from the NSA and must rely on its goodwill, while the investigation led by Gen. Clapper is led by a man who not only lied to Congress, but also oversees the spying. And the Senate Intelligence Committee—which was originally designed to effectively oversee the intelligence community—has failed time and time again. What's needed is a new, independent, Congressional committee to fully delve into the spying.

The PCLOB: Powerless to Obtain Documents

The PCLOB was created after a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission to ensure civil liberties and privacy were included in the government's surveillance and spying policies and practices.

But it languished. From 2008 until May of this year, the board was without a Chair and unable to hire staff or perform any work. It was only after the June revelations that the President asked the board to begin an investigation into the unconstituional NSA spying. Yet even with the full board constituted, it is unable to fulfill its mission as it has no choice but to base its analysis on a steady diet of carefully crafted statements from the intelligence community.

As we explained, the board must rely on the goodwill of the NSA's director, Gen. Keith Alexander, and Gen. Clapper—two men who have repeatedly said the NSA doesn't collect information on Americans.

Continue reading “John Perry Barlow: Electronic Frontier Foundation Calls for New [Congressional] Church Committee to Probe NSA Violations of Constitution, Law, and Regulation”

Former CIA Spy Jose Rodriguez’s Truly Sociopathic ’60 Minutes’ Interview

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Media, Officers Call
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Former CIA Spy Jose Rodriguez’s Truly Sociopathic ’60 Minutes’ Interview

By:

dissenter.firedoglake.com,  Monday April 30, 2012

Former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Counterterrorism Center and its former Deputy Director of Operations Jose Rodriguez appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to flaunt his new book Hard Measures, which details how he came to be in charge of CIA torture against terror suspects at “black site” prisons, why he believes torture was effective and why it should not be vilified.

The segment with Lesley Stahl has the same title as Rodriguez’s book. The title sounds like the name of a film starring an action movie star like Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal, which makes it appropriate because each answer from Rodriguez is dripping with bravado. From Rodriguez’s first answer to the last, one cannot help but realize he believes it is somehow unmanly to be concerned that torture of terror suspects violates the rule of law. He appears in his sleek white Camaro rolling down the highway to the CIA. And he says at one point, “We needed to get everyone in government to put their big boy pants on and give us the authorities we needed.”

Of course, like most establishment media interviews, the torture is not called torture. It is called “harsh techniques.” Or the official term Cheney coined for it—“enhanced interrogation techniques.”

*Here are both parts of the interview: Part 1 / Part 2

The first words in the segment are, “After the attacks of 9/11…” That phrase is all one needs to hear to know that this is going to be a tireless exercise in explaining away acts that historically have been considered war crimes when carried out.

Read full post with quotes and links.

See Also:

Review: Hard Measures – How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives

Marcus Aurelius: Reuel Marc-Gerecht on NSA High Cost – Low Return — Robert Steele Comments

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Military, Office of Management and Budget, Officers Call
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

The Costs And Benefits Of The NSA

The data-collection debate we need to have is not about civil liberties.

By Reuel Marc Gerecht

Weekly Standard, June 24, 2013

Should Americans fear the possible abuse of the intercept power of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland? Absolutely. In the midst of the unfolding scandal at the IRS, we understand that bureaucracies are callous creatures, capable of manipulation. In addition to deliberate misuse, closed intelligence agencies can make mistakes in surveilling legitimate targets, causing mountains of trouble. Consider Muslim names. Because of their commonness and the lack of standardized transliteration, they can befuddle scholars, let alone intelligence analysts, who seldom have fluency in Islamic languages. Although one is hard pressed to think of a case since 9/11 in which mistaken identity, or a willful or unintentional leak of intercept intelligence, immiserated an American citizen, these things can happen. NSA civilian employees, soldiers, FBI agents, CIA case officers, prosecutors, and our elected officials are not always angels. Even though encryption is mathematically easier to accomplish than decryption, the potential for abuse of digital communication is always there—all the more since few Americans resort to encryption of their everyday emails.

But fearing the NSA, which has been a staple of Hollywood for decades, requires you to believe that hundreds, if not thousands, of American employees in the organization are in on a conspiracy. In the Edward Snowden-is-a-legitimate-NSA-whistleblower narrative, it also requires that very liberal senators and congressmen are complicit in propagating a civil-rights-chewing national surveillance system.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Reuel Marc-Gerecht on NSA High Cost – Low Return — Robert Steele Comments”

John Robb: The Implosion of the US National Security State

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, DHS, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call
John Robb
John Robb

DATA Dystopia. The NSA Scandal and Beyond.

In the last couple of weeks, we've gotten confirmation that what we've been assuming is true:

The government is snooping on us.  They aren't lightly snooping.  :

  • They are gathering data on EVERYONE (inside and outside the US) simultaneously.
  • Storing it in databases that will last forever, and
  • Mining that data in the hopes of proving that you are a criminal/terrorist.

What are they snooping on?

Continue reading “John Robb: The Implosion of the US National Security State”

SchwartzReport: National Security Machine Focused on US Public & Repressing Dissent

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, DHS, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call

schwartz reportThis is one of the most important essays SR has ever published. Here, I believe you see the real reason for the creation of the security apparat. Terrorism is its second, but public, brief. Its real brief is to prepare for climate change. When you cut through what flows out of the Aegean Stable! s that is the Congress, you find that in the civil and military bureaucracies they are laying track for what they see coming.

This should definitely give you pause.

Pentagon Bracing for Public Dissent Over Climate and Energy Shocks
DR. NAFEEZ MOSADDEQ AHMED, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development – The Guardian (U.K.)

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Rickard Falkvinge: NSA as Poster Child for Government & Corporate Corruption, Collusion, & Treason

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Law Enforcement, Military

Rickard Falkvinge
Rickard Falkvinge

Told You So: If You Have Been Using A Centralized Comms Service, You Were Wiretapped

Privacy:  This night, news broke that the USA’s security agencies have been wiretapping essentially every major centralized social service for private data. Photos, video conferences, text chats, and voice calls – everything. We have been saying this for years and been declared tinfoil hat and conspiracy nuts; it’s good to finally see the documents in black on white.

This night, European time, the news broke that the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) has had direct access to pretty much every social network for the past several years, dating back to 2007, under a program named PRISM. Under the program, a number of social services voluntarily feed people’s private data to the NSA. In short, if you have been using/uploading

  • e-mail
  • video or voice chat
  • videos
  • photos
  • stored data
  • VoIP calls
  • file transfers
  • video conferencing
  • (and more)

…from any of…

  • Microsoft (incl. Hotmail et al), since Sep 11, 2007
  • Google, since Jan 14, 2009
  • Yahoo, since Mar 12, 2008
  • Facebook, since June 3, 2009
  • PalTalk, since Dec 7, 2009
  • YouTube, since Sep 24, 2010
  • Skype, since Feb 6, 2011
  • AOL, since Mar 31, 2011
  • Apple, since Oct 2012

…then you have been wiretapped, and still are.

Continue reading “Rickard Falkvinge: NSA as Poster Child for Government & Corporate Corruption, Collusion, & Treason”