The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
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.
“Nothing” is the most common response.
Do nothing until you do know the answer. Study and practice and wait for approval and then do something.
Which is fine (for a surgeon) but what happens most of the time? Most of the time there's something that needs to be done where the answer is unknowable until you do it…
That's what we're waiting for you to do.
Signature strikes target groups of men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren't always known. The bulk of CIA's drone strikes are signature strikes. Wall Street Journal.
Drones are changing the dynamics of warfare in very scary ways. They make oppression much easier (and cost-effective).
To recap: Drones are extremely cost effective vs. ground/air assets (particularly in that with drones, operators aren't put at risk). They also enable extremely centralized command and control (as in: operations can be micro-manged in Washington, down to the decision to kill). In sum, a small number of people in Washington DC can control/operate a vast 24×7 killing field for very few $$.
Here's how they are changing warfare:
What's Next?
It's a pretty slippery slope from here. The simple answer is that US practice we see at work in Pakistan will eventually become common place in Mexico, Central America, and Northern Africa. However, the more interesting answer is how it gets applied to US internal security when the US/global economy crumps into depression, the US government goes bankrupt, and the current system loses much of its remaining legitimacy. In that scenario:
Good summary of the American sickness.
William Pfaff – truthdig – 02/11/11
The theme of most political and social commentary is that things are more complicated than you think. For once, I wish to write that things are simpler than you think. This concerns two matters at the core of the present American political crisis.
The first is that control over the government has passed all but completely into the hands of business corporations. The country has become a plutocracy. This has occurred because corporations are the principal supplier of funds essential to the election of federal officials—the president and the members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, and through them, the members of the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary, all of whom are nominated and confirmed by the elected officials of the executive and legislative branches of the government.
. . . . . . .
I spoke of a second source of American crisis to which there is a simple solution, an intellectual solution, which to impose would require conversion of the hard hearts and biased minds of a sizable part of the international economic community (at least that part of it educated at the University of Chicago since the Second World War), as well as a near-revolutionary change in how the American government presently functions (see above). The crisis is easily described as the 1 percent problem. One percent of the American population receives income equivalent to the other 99 percent put together.
This is caused by the consensus decision of the economists and business schools to define profit as the sole criterion of corporation efficiency and public (and civic) worth. The automatic consequence of this has been the de-industrialization of the United States, the export of its manufacturing capacity, unemployment in the U.S. comparable to that of the Great Depression, poverty levels with no modern American precedent, and the moral corruption of American politics.
Setting the Stage for Information-Sharing in the 21 st Century:
Three Issues of Common Concern to DoD and the Rest of the World
Robert D. Steele
The more I read and talk to people as I work up for this the more I think it comes down to three issues:
Japan-India: Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony and Japanese Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa agreed to hold their first bilateral naval exercises in 2012, according to Japanese Defense Ministry officials.
Ichikawa said deepening bilateral defense ties between Tokyo and New Delhi will lead to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Antony said India's relations with Japan remain a priority and New Delhi seeks to strengthen those ties. Both ministers discussed the importance of the international community in protecting sea lanes, specifically discussing the South China Sea.
Comment: For India, this is the next step in its “Look East” policy. Similar ties and exercises with the South Korean Navy also are likely. Eventually, the combined fleets of India, South Korea and Japan, supported by Taiwan and the US, will be arrayed against China in future conflicts. The Asian states do not perceive containment of China as primarily a US leadership task. That is an important lesson and manifests the success of a half century of US policy.
The Chinese, on the other hand, are reaping what they have sowed in the past twenty years by their aggressive assertiveness in northeast Asia, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Chinese actions have nurtured an extraordinary and unprecedented regional reaction that is moving towards a new regional military cooperative structure, linking the fleets of the Asian democracies.
The most important features of this interlocking set of bilateral ties are that the Asian members are equals and the Asians are taking responsibility for Asian security affairs, without relying on the US Navy. US Navy connections with all the parties constitute a second tier of linkage that resides in background and gives the Asians depth and strength.
A third feature is that for the first time in a millennium and a half, the Asian navies are defying China and are actually much more capable than the Chinese navy, without relying on the forces of nature.
The worst thing that could happen is for the US to try to take charge or steer the development or do anything except enable it, behind the scenes. US estimates of Asian security threats that do not factor Asian capabilities that the US has nurtured are incomplete.
The NightWatch bias is that Asian nations know best how to solve Asian problems, with some US support as requested. The Asians will find a way.
Phi Beta Iota: The above good sense is in sharp contrast to the on-going US Navy attempt, aided by a defense policy mafia that blends ignorance and corruption to an astonishing degree, to invest dollars and capabilities we do not have in making the Pacific the “main front” for the future. There is nothing intelligent about how the US Navy is planning for the future, in large part because the US Navy, like the US Government generally, lacks integrity at the leadership / gerbil maximus levels.
QUOTE: The Summum Bonum (Highest Good) of Social Capitalism
Summum Bonum = Latin for the highest good.
The tranformation of Capitalism from an ancillary activity (as opposed to the activities of monarchs) into an engine of material and technological bounty was through the (likely accidental) introduction of an ethical/moral substrate. This ethical substrate enabled a rate of cummulative progress that went far, far beyond what was possible with a traditional Capitalism that was limited to the motivational capacity of ethically unbounded greed (i.e. the ideal type being the speculator, trader, or mercantile adventurer).
With that in mind, here's something to think about from the founder of the extremely innovative and amazingly efficient Khan Academy:
Question: Are you interested in turning this into a business? Maybe with some VC funding?
Answer: I've been approached several times, but it just didn't feel right. When I'm 80, I want to feel that I helped give access to a world-class education to billions of students around the world. Sounds a lot better than starting a business that educates some subset of the developed world that can pay $19.95/month and eventually selling it to some text book company or something. I already have a beautiful wife, a hilarious son, two hondas and a decent house. What else does a man need? With that said, if you are a social venture capitalist and are looking to deploy capital with the highest possible social return per dollar invested, we should talk. I think you'll find that there is no more measurable, scalable and high impact way to educate the world.
Moyers is a sanctimonious preacher who sometimes speaks the truth.
Bill Moyers: “Our Politicians Are Money Launderers in the Trafficking of Power and Policy”
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
Public Citizen 40th Gala
Washington, DC
October 20, 2011
I am honored to share this occasion with you. No one beyond your collegial inner circle appreciates more than I do what you have stood for over these 40 years, or is more aware of the battles you have fought, the victories you have won, and the passion for democracy that still courses through your veins. The great progressive of a century ago, Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin – a Republican, by the way – believed that “Democracy is a life; and involves constant struggle.” Democracy has been your life for four decades now, and would have been even more imperiled today if you had not stayed the course.
VIDEO (21:15): Bill Moyers keynote at Public Citizen's 40th Anniversary Gala
