DoD – Page 7 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/05/182013/05/18

Neal Rauhauser: Syria, Regional War, The Only Red Line That Matters + Syria Meta-RECAP

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, DoD, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

The Only Red Line That Matters

Conclusion:

Here are what I hope are a fairly complete laundry list of the issues:

NATO member Greece has collapsed, triggering regional banking meltdown concerns
Banks of Cyprus collapsed, Russian offshore banking haven taken out by Greek troubles
Russian ally Assad’s Syria is failing, loss of Tartus would exclude them from the Med
Assad regime is the only Iran friendly outpost in the area
Syrian revolt is funded in part by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, other Sunni majority regimes
KSA & Qatar funds come /w Salafist radicalization built into the deal
NATO members Greece & Turkey are at odds over Cyprus partition
Syrian instability is spilling into Iraq, fueling Sunni/Shia violence, some refugees
Syrian instability is spilling into U.S. ally Jordan, many refugees
Syrian instability is spilling into NATO member Turkey, many refugees
Israel is concerned over weapons transport to Hezbollah in Lebanon

The Syrian civil war has been metastasizing into all of its immediate neighbors – Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon have all seen violence precipitated by this festering conflict. Regional powers Iran and Russia have connections to the failing Assad regime and have taken indirect steps to protect the status quo. Regional Salafist funders Saudi Arabia and Qatar are funneling support and pushing ideology on Sunni Syrian rebels. I do not envy Israeli policy makers and the menu of unpleasant options that reality has provided them.

Russia has drawn a red line of their own – no NATO intervention in Syria. They’ve backed it up with a naval presence and the transfer of advance anti-aircraft systems to the Assad regime. The Syrian civil war is a multifaceted, multipolar regional issue and there are no soundbite sized prescriptions that will end it.

Read full post with maps.

Continue reading “Neal Rauhauser: Syria, Regional War, The Only Red Line That Matters + Syria Meta-RECAP”

2013/05/182013/05/18

SchwartzReport: Army Goes Green (20 Years After It Was Told To…)

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 11 Society, DoD, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Military, Officers Call

This is good news. The military, perhaps because it is a centralized command structure, often adopts progressive positions before general society. The military integrated long before the rest of America. It became a gender, race, and religion neutral meritocracy — an evolution in which I played a role — well before this was the norm. So the military's adaptation of noncarbon energy is the latest in a line of accomplishments.

The Army Goes Off the Grid
Jim Hightower – Nation of Change

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2013/05/10

Michael Ostrolenk: Impeachable Offenses by Veteran’s Administration and Secretary of Defense — VA Whistleblower Ignites Firestorm on Hill Over Stonewalling of Gulf War Illnesses

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, DoD, Government, Military, True Cost

Meanwhile, 22 veterans a day (up from 18) commit suicide and this is beneath notice by the President of the United States of America.

Phi Beta Iota: Complete story below the line.

VA Whistleblower Ignites Firestorm Over Vets’ Illnesses

It’s not every day that a scientist creates such intense drama on Capitol Hill.

Kelly Vlahos

The American Conservative, 10 May 2013

Veterans of War Betrayed by Their Own Government

But Dr. Steven S. Coughlin’s charges that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials hid, manipulated, and even lied about research pertaining to Gulf War Illness (GWI) and health problems plaguing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are still causing fallout a month after his stunning testimony before a key House subcommittee.

“The implications of his testimony are profound,” declared Anthony Hardie, 45, a Gulf War veteran who serves on the congressionally appointed Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC).

Veterans and their advocates, as well as many in the scientific community, have long believed that the VA avoids responsibility for veterans’ care by downplaying or outright ignoring evidence linking wartime experiences—such as exposure to Agent Orange, chemical weapons, or toxic pollution—to veterans’ chronic medical issues back home.

Coughlin, a senior epidemiologist with the VA’s Office of Public Health (OPH), gave the VA’s critics what they say is a smoking gun: after conducting major surveys of 1991 Gulf War veterans and “New Generation” veterans from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan, Coughlin told the committee he quit his post in December. He claims the VA is hiding important survey results about the health of veterans and that his colleagues watered-down analysis that might have shed light on whether recent vets got sick from open-air trash-burning pits on overseas bases.

He told the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on March 13 that millions of dollars are invested in veterans’ heath studies each year, yet “if the studies produce results that do not support [OPH’s] unwritten policy, they do not release them.” And “on the rare occasions when embarrassing study results are released, data are manipulated to make them unintelligible.”

Continue reading “Michael Ostrolenk: Impeachable Offenses by Veteran's Administration and Secretary of Defense — VA Whistleblower Ignites Firestorm on Hill Over Stonewalling of Gulf War Illnesses”

2013/04/032013/04/03

Marcus Aurelius: UK Enabler for US

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 11 Society, DoD, Officers Call

Camp Nama: British personnel reveal horrors of secret US base in Baghdad

Detainees captured by SAS and SBS squads subjected to human-rights abuses at detention centre, say British witnesses

EXTRACT

However, one peculiarity of the way in which UK forces operated when bringing prisoners to Camp Nama suggests that ministers and senior MoD officials may have had reason to know those detainees were at risk of mistreatment. British soldiers were almost always accompanied by a lone American soldier, who was then recorded as having captured the prisoner. Members of the SAS and SBS were repeatedly briefed on the importance of this measure.

It was an arrangement that enabled the British government to side-step a Geneva convention clause that would have obliged it to demand the return of any prisoner transferred to the US once it became apparent that they were not being treated in accordance with the convention. And it consigned the prisoners to what some lawyers have described as a legal black hole.

Read full article (long with photos and links).

See Also:

Camp Nama Overhead Imagery Close-Ups

Cruel Britannia by Ian Cobain – A history of Britain's involvement with torture is essential reading. By Clive Stafford Smith

2013/03/312013/03/31

Mongoose: Papa Bush, CIA, Oil, LBJ, and the Assassination of JFK — Best Summary with Links

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

I don't read much but this has a very strong feeling of authenticity — certainly enough to warrant a Truth & Reconciation Commission before Papa Bush dies. The photos and graphics in this account, two included below, are best I have seen.

Did George H.W. Bush Coordinate a JFK Hit Team?

by Richard Hooke (with Jim Fetzer)

Veterans Today, 30 March 2013

This is not the first time and surely will not be the last that George H.W. Bush, former Director of the CIA and the 41st President of the United States, has been implicated in the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, our 35th president. In an earlier study, for example, “Was George H.W. Bush involved in the assassination of JFK?”, John Hankey and I both address this question, where he provides a great deal of evidence supporting a role for GHWB in the Dealey Plaza turkey shoot. In this new study, Richard Hooke substantiates that claim and advances additional proof of his own. I believe that they are right.

Continue reading “Mongoose: Papa Bush, CIA, Oil, LBJ, and the Assassination of JFK — Best Summary with Links”

2013/03/112013/03/11