I will not replicate all that is at www.oss.net and to a much lesser extent, www.earth-intelligence.net, but do want to recognize a handful of extraordinary individuals by isolating their especially meritorious contributiions to the long-running debate about national intelligence reform and re-invention.
Phi Beta Iota: The below reference is of human interest, but lacks context. Three major follow-on studies are needed, if someone can find a Member of Congress willing to ask for them:
1. Actual number of amputations including number of limbs per person amputated.
2. Suicides both while in service and post separation or retirement.
3. Follow-On Gulf War Syndrome and other self-inflicted bio-chemical-radiological wounds and conditions sustained in relation to depleted uranium and other toxic by-products associated with conventional munitions.
His focus is on the reality that 4% of the “total force,” the engaged infantry, bear 80-81% of the total casualties, but receive less than 1% of the over-all acquisitions and training budget. He calls this, rather memorably, a “cosmic incongruity.”
Very important CTC study on internal frictions within the Salafi movement
Very important CTC study with a number of high profile and experienced contributors. It should be read by anyone dealing with Islamist movements. The study is a landmark endeavor–a model to be followed–and hopefully will generate additional studies.
Full Source Online (257 pages)
Phi Beta Iota: The US Military Academy (West Point) Counter-Terrorism Center is a national gem, a treasure, vastly more effective at Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in multiple languages than many of the other elements of the Department of Defense, in part because they appear to have more rigor and a broader (holistic) view instead of the standard cookie cut & paste model that passes for “analysis” elsewhere.
Phi Beta Iota: Laos was both an inspiring success story at the operational and tactical levels, and a massive strategic failure in context. On the one hand, a handful of CIA officers and a very modest amount of money kept entire divisions pinned down or occupied or distracted. On the other hand, in the words of Ted Shackley's deputy in Laos, we got a lot of people killed with nothing to show for it in the end. Today this would not be possible to achieve by kinetic means because it would be too easy to first spot with commercial imagery, and then cover all of the air strips with covert hides able to shoot down the light airplanes as they landed. However, today there are other means of empowering indigenous peoples, centered on Open Spectrum, Open Source Software, and Open Source Intelligence–the Open Tri-Fecta: Information Operations (Advanced).
I've never tried to work up the numbers, but I would be very surprised to learn that the ratio of Hmong soldiers to lowland Lao/other mountain tribe soldiers was greater than 50/50.
Having been a Marine, I'm sure you know the old saying that every Marine squad goes into combat with its own photographer. Merely jealousy, I'm sure, for all the favorable publicity the Marines have had over the years, but not unlike all the favorable publicity the Marines have had (not that they don't deserve it) the Hmong have been the beneficiaries of a similar favorable publicity to the exclusion of the part the lowland Lao and all the other tribal peoples played in the “Secret War.”
REMINDER: Environmental Degradation, not Climate Change, is High-Level Threat #3. Climate Change is less than 10% of that, and within Climate Change, mercury and sulfer are more important than carbon. Furthermore, it is not possible to address any one threat without addressing the other nine (e.g. #1 Poverty) with harmonized policies from Agriculture to Water, so the bottom line is that these talks are isolated and worthless. The world needs a serious global strategy with serious analytics, a commitment to understanding true costs of every product and service, and a commitment to bringing the five billion poor into a prosperous world at peace. Anything less is a betrayal of the public trust.
I want to share three videos and one slide show that are having a profound impact on me and my work. They describe different facets of a new realm of understanding and possibility that is making all the difference in the world even now — possibilities that we can help along by taking up the creative challenges these videos present to us.
Much of my work will be weaving these insights into the kind of democracy-shift we need right now. They make it clear that we are, indeed, in a whole new ball game.
Phi Beta Iota: Above have been re-sorted to put Information Operations (IO) relevance from top to bottom. The next big thing is a combination of EMPOWERING people, HARNESSING minds, and ERADICATING corruption. GroupOn is the “good” counterpart to WikiLeaks, but WikiLeaks should not be scorned–it demonstrates the perfidy of the Industrial Era “rule by secrecy” top-down elite model that has now been shown to be completely incapable of micro-managing complexity and diversity with ethical integrity. Tom Atlee embodies the future of America and through a restored America the Beautiful, the future of humanity. We respectfully, urgently urge every person to give generously to Tom Atlee and the Co-Intelligence Institute. He has been devoted for decades to the heart of the matter: actualizing the goodness that lies within each of us, and the wisdom that lies within us as the aggregate, Collective Intelligence, Community Intelligence, Integral Consciousness. Giving to Tom is the spiritual equivalent of collective prayer. We need every prayer we can get. Please give to this righteous liberation endeavor. St.
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Winter 2010-2011 Co-Intelligence Institute fundraiser progress report:
Funds raised so far: $450 // Target: $15,000
Percentage of needed funds raised so far: 3.0%
People on List: 2045 // Days left in fundraiser: 44
Thank you to the 10 people who have responded so far!
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As we move into the holiday season, it's perhaps useful to reflect on just why some of us have made some of the key professional and life choices that we have. Check link below.
Shaffer’s book rips the lid off several stories the bureaucrats wanted to suppress: the role of a program named Able Danger in yielding information that could have uncovered the 9/11 plot; Operation Dark Heart, which could have nabbed Al Qaeda’s number two leader; and early indications that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, actively supported the Taliban. These are the incendiary bombs the censors tried to defuse. And this is the real story of Tony Shaffer’s book.
Phi Beta Iota: The Playboy folks did not do their homework–the destruction of an entire first edition is not unprecendented, it was done by CIA to the first printing (1972) of Col L. Fletcher Prouty's The Secret Team: CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (Skyhorse, 2008). While the title is hyped and the good Colonel was not aware of the over-arching financial crime families that the US Government has secretly supported and in some instances actually spawned from scratch, his general point to the public was clear: what is done in our name under the guise of secrecy is often criminal, generally unconstitutional, and almost always very costly in long-term blood, treasure, and spirit over both the short and the long term. What is at issue here is straight-forward: either we have a government that works in the public interest and displays integrity at every level, or we do not. It is not only the political “leaders” who have lost their integrity, but the professional “leaders” as well. Until the truth of this is understood by the majority of the American people, nothing will change.
