References – Page 176 – Public Intelligence Blog

2009/11/242009/11/25

Event Report: 20 Nov 09 NYC Counterinsurgency–America’s Strategic Burden Featuring Nagl, Kilcullen, Sheehan, Bergen, Coll Among Others

21 November 2009

Memorandum of Transmittal by Robert David STEELE Vivas

Subject: Counterinsurgency Conference Overview

Mr. Jason Liszkiewicz, Executive Director of the Earth Intelligence Network (EIN) and resident in NYC, attended the 20 November 2009 conference on counterinsurgency (speakers identified on page two), and provided me with the notes on pages 3-9. Below is my own exploitation of these notes.

IGNORANT US POLICYMAKERS. We have policymakers with crippling illusions about how the world is—worst ever—people in policy positions do not understand the problems they are making policy on—Congress is unsophisticated about Afghanistan; Washington-area decision-makers vastly misunderstand the enemy—Taliban is a super-bug adapting super-fast. This is NOT about Al Qaeda having a home base. Congress lacks next of kin engaged.

CORRUPT AFGHAN OFFICIALS. Afghan government officials own 32% of the Palm Islands in Dubai—election was “industrial-strength fraud”—tsunami of cash (US, Saudi, others) drives corruption. NOTE: No Afghans on any of the panels.

US LACKS AREA KNOWLEDGE & STRATEGY. We really do not “get” the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India context, detail, etcetera. US “strategy” of “ten cities” is a mirror of the Soviet strategy before defeat. Doctrine is not a substitute for Strategy. Water (Indus River) is central to Pakistan-India relationship (Kashmir is about water). Question NOT being asked: how do we do this without a US ground presence? “Cheap coat of paint” approach to challenges. “Tactics without strategy is noise before defeat.” Saudi money, Pakistan-Taliban axis will outlast US money and US ground presence.

COUNTERINSURGENCY MANUAL LACKING. Counterinsurgency manual is not realistic and warps policy debate—the reality of poppy crops is not in the manual, not in the “strategy/doctrine”

UN, AID, NGO OOB NOT WORKNG. UN not working, its role not thought out, shortfalls in specialized everything. Local corruption and family-political angling for contracts lead to some IED’s intended to block or redirect contract funds. AID giving contracts to Americans, not Afghans. US has no ability to create ministries from scratch. Civilian capabilities non-existent or not understood by military when they do show up. No inter-agency planning in part because the civilians have no idea why they are there or what they should do.

LOST IN TRANSLATION. Continue to lack Pashto translators. More Pashto speakers within NYPD than in all US forces across Afghanistan

EXIT OPPORTUNITIES. Afghan Army most respected institution in country, best fighters but worst policemen. US ground presence makes things worse. Solutions have to be Afghan. Afghan population wants sovereignty and independence. US troops simply surviving, not campaigning.

On page 10 I provide the “Lessons Learned” from my 1992 study of USMC operations.

2009/11/232010/09/02

Reference: The Hasan Slide Presentation

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Articles & Chapters, Cultural Intelligence, Military

Phi Beta Iota: Berto Jongman flagged this from the Small Wars Journal. It is consistent with our own earlier diagnosis of Cognitive Dissonance, and we recommend it be read in its entirety. At the link below can be found a link to the original slide show. The author stresses the reasonable gravity of the conflict between being a Muslim and being asked to kill other Muslims, and while he avoids recommending a policy, we do not. DoD has been culturally ignorant for too long. It's time we brought both DoD human resource management and DoD counterintelligence into the 21st Century. See also:

Worth a Look: Berto Jongman on Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, CIA Torture, and Maj Nidal Hasan’s Slide Show

Journal: Fort Hood Cognitive Dissonance Round-Up

Journal: Cognitive Dissonance, Military Suicides, and an Alternative Interpretation of the Fort Hood Deaths

2009/11/192009/11/19

Reference: Deep Secrecy–Complete Draft

Articles & Chapters, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

Abstract & Download

Phi Beta Iota: David Pozen, JD Yale 2007, has provided advance access to the complete draft on his paper forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review, and we are both appreciative of this offering, and impressed–deeply impressed–by this seminal work. At a time when the U.S. “security clearance” system is so totally hosed up (and 70,000 clearances behind) that we might do better with with “spin the bottle,” the author is highlighting the reality that most of the secrecy we buy with $75 billion a year in taxpayer funds is not really that important–not only have others, such as Rodney McDaniel, made it clear that 809% to 90% of all “official” secrecy is about turf protection and budget share rather than national security, but it is administrative secrecy rather than “deep secrecy” that is leveraged by a very few with their own informal system for assigning trust, generally at the expense of the larger mass of uninformed individual who are treated as “collateral damage” that is of little consequence. The download options are at the top of the linked page

Reference: Corruption Perceptions Map

09 Justice, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, White Papers

Phi Beta Iota: Kudos to Australia, Canada, the Nordics and the Netherlands, and probably Singapore too small to shine here. The USA has less to be proud of, between corporate corruption of Congress and what one author calls The Cheating Culture. Other books on corruption in the USA can be seen at Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth (31); Capitalism (Good & Bad) (117; Censorship & Denial of Access (23; Corruption (71);Crime (Corporate) (26); Misinformation & Propaganda (85); andPower (Pathologies & Utilization) (80).

2009/11/192009/11/19

Reference: Counterintelligence Open Source

Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Methods & Process

Original Source Online

September 2009.

Just noticed. A fine first effort that also provides a snap-shot of where the Open Source Center is now.

For more advanced thoughts, see Librarian's Paradox as well as Handbooks and Historic Contributions.

Seven Presentations from the Counterintelligence Open Source Symposium:

Continue reading “Reference: Counterintelligence Open Source”

2009/11/172010/09/02

Reference: Berto Jongman Recommends

05 Civil War, 09 Terrorism, Media Reports, Monographs

Today's recommendaitons:

Who's who in the Somali insurgency: A Reference Guide

Interview with Maajid Nawaz:Becoming a Muslim Radical

New Quilliam report: British prisons are incubating Islamist extremism

Selected Translation of the LIFG Recantation Document

Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field. Antonio Giustozzi gathers a renowned cast of journalists, experts, and academics to answer the most pressing questions regarding the Taliban today. Each contributor possesses extensive knowledge of the insurgency's latest developments, decoding its structure and organization as it operates within specific regions and provinces. They analyze the new Taliban as it expands, from the mature south, where they hold sway, to the southeast, where they struggle to penetrate, from the west and northeast, now in the initial stages of infiltration, to the provinces surrounding Kabul, which have been unexpectedly and quickly occupied.

Amazon Page

Empires of Mud: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan 2002-2007. Warlords are charismatic leaders who exploit weak authorities to gain control of subnational areas. Nevertheless, warlords do in fact participate in state formation, and this book considers the dynamics of warlordism within the context of such debates. Antonio Giustozzi begins with aspects of the Afghan environment that are conducive to the fragmentation of central authority and the emergence of warlords. He then accounts for the phenomenon from the 1980s to today, considering Afghanistan's two foremost warlords, Ismail Khan and Abdul Rashid Dostum, along with their political, economic, and military systems of rule.

2009/11/172009/11/17

Reference: Gangs in the US Military

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Commercial Intelligence, DoD, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

Phi Beta Iota: We have been highlighting our couinterintelligence deficiencies since the 1990's, primarily focused on the need for religious counterintelligence, but also on the need to recognize that sub-state and non-state groups are legitimate threats in and of themselves. Today the US military it thoroughly penetrated by multiple networks from Opus Dei and the Mormons to radical Islamics and plain street gangs happy to not only receive advanced training, but access to easily stolen weapons–one of the dirty little secrets of the US military is how little control it has over the primary weapon of mass destruction on the planet, small arms (which we also like to sell liberally to anyone with cash and especially dictators).

Continue reading “Reference: Gangs in the US Military”