05 Civil War – Page 81 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/01/302011/01/30

Egypt Online Access Work-Arounds Updated

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, IO Technologies, Methods & Process, Mobile

Despite Severed Connections, Egyptians Get Back Online

Nicholas Jackson

The Atlantic, 29 January 2011

As the #jan25 revolution continues in Egypt, many people are finding that some of the oldest tricks in the book are working to get them connected, which authorities have tried to stop from happening with enforced curfews and cuts to Internet service.

Read rest of article….

Without Internet, Egyptians find new ways to get online

IDG News Service – “When countries block, we evolve,” an activist with the group We Rebuild wrote in a Twitter message Friday.

That's just what many Egyptians have been doing this week, as groups like We Rebuild scramble to keep the country connected to the outside world, turning to landline telephones, fax machines and even ham radio to keep information flowing in and out of the country.

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2011/01/292011/01/29

Regime Dominos–and Global Solidarity Protests

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government

Fearless protesters challenge regimes around Middle East

Los Angeles Times, 30 January 2011

The toppling of Tunisia's president is having a ricochet effect across the Arab world with demonstrators trading fear for solidarity.

. . . . . .

The uprisings are having a ricochet effect across the Arab world. People are watching the events unfolding on television and Facebook and identifying with the people in the streets.

. . . . . .

“It's political challenge to autocratic systems that have degraded and dehumanized people and humiliated them to the point where they just can't take it anymore and they finally started to erupt,” said Rami Khouri, a commentator and analyst affiliated with the American University of Beirut. “That's combined with intense social and economic pressures and disparities which are accentuated by the lavish lifestyles of the rich who made their money by being close to the regime.”

Read rest of this very fine overview….

`All repressive regimes must go!' — Asian socialists in solidarity with the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and the Middle East

January 29, 2011 — The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) would like to express its solidarity with the revolutionary masses in Egypt, as well as in Tunisia and other countries in North Africa and the Middle East, for their courageous struggle against repressive regimes which are mostly backed by US-led imperialist powers.

January 29, 2011 — The progressive movement and peoples of the Philippines stands in solidarity with the Egyptian people and the mass movement in the streets in these critical moments in their struggle for the ouster of the dictatorial Mubarak regime. We salute them for their tremendous courage in fighting a vicious regime, which has an infamous reputation for the brutality of its police and security forces, and that has been responsible for arbitrarily arresting and cruelly torturing government opponents. We support the people’s message that Mubarak must go and that the people no longer want his government and system.

We also salute the upsurge of the Tunisian peoples in overthrowing the US-backed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, and how their victory has electrified and inspired the people of Egypt and the Middle East, while dictators shake with fear.

Phi Beta Iota: The repeated refrain associated with the regime change movements singles out the USA for its decades of support for oppressive regimes. Two things are happening here: the public has lost its fear and found its solidarity; and the public is now thinking in historical context and holding the USA accountable for its role in supporting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, and dictators all over the world (less North Korea and Cuba).

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Anger

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Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corporate & Transnational Crime

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corruption

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Culture

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Dissent

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Evil

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Empire as Cancer Including Betrayal & Deceit

2011/01/292011/01/29

Egypt, Turkey, the Muslim Brotherhood…

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards

Qaradawi Urges Mubarak To Leave Egypt

The widely respected Sunni Muslim cleric who holds Egyptian and Qatari nationalities, also encouraged Egyptians to keep up peaceful protests, in an interview with Al-Jazeera television. “President Mubarak … I advise you to depart from Egypt … There is no other solution to this problem but for Mubarak to go,” Qaradawi said on Saturday.

Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood Organizes More Anti-Government Protests

Egypt protests: America's secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising – Telegraph

This is a fluff article. It represents the ignorance of both the media and the Western governments about reality on the ground.

Recommended by Berto Jongman:

Turkey, the Global Muslim Brotherhood, and the Gaza Flotilla

Phi Beta Iota: Turkey is making its move. This has been years if not decades in the making, and what we are seeing in an extraordinary coming together of the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey, and a wide variety of interested parties who see in Israel, the Arab dictators, and the USA's military presence in the region all they believe to be the Great Satan. The fall of the dictators and the exit of the US from this region are, in our collective view, inevitable. The fate of Israel hangs in the balance–they will be lucky to end up with a small separate state after giving up half the waterfront, the occupied lands, and all presence in and around Gaza. Interestingly, because secular corruption has played so prominent a role in the region, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism is virtually assured, taking “blow-back” to the next level. In this context, the Assisi Peace Summit and the prospects for inter-faith agreement on the need for multinational information-sharing and sense-making take on even more importance.

2011/01/29

CIA In Egypt: Silence of the Goats

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government

A never ending goat rope!

What should the CIA do in Egypt?

By Jeff Stein

The ghost of the 1979 Iranian revolution is very much on the minds of veteran intelligence officials as Egypt explodes in street protests.

Most historians agree that the CIA was largely in the dark when anti-American students, radical Islamists and mullahs ignited street protests in Tehran because the U.S.-backed shah had forbidden the CIA to have contact with opposition groups.

Read the rest of this empty article….

Phi Beta Iota: Stein is a low-rent version of Ignatius, and most of his sources rarely have anything substantive to contribute. This is puffery. CIA is in the liaison business, not the espionage or the analytics business. The Safari Club (the fifth CIA that does rendition and torture) is built around Egyptian intelligence officers whose idea of a good time is sodomizing drugged kids and taking photos to turn the kids against their fathers. Not only is CIA worthless in Egypt and across the region, but the minute they are asked to do something they will out-source it because they have no internal bench–indeed, the place looks like a geriatric ward now, with annuitants all over the place.

2011/01/17

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE: All Eyes No Brain

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Advanced Cyber/IO, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Military, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Real Time, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Technologies

Interesting, but also fails to mention we do not train our analysts on the
basics, know your enemy……we are so focused on technology we forget
that the basics are still the best way to view the situation…..

When military investigators looked into an attack by American helicopters
last February that left 23 Afghan civilians dead, they found that the
operator of a Predator drone had failed to pass along crucial information
about the makeup of a gathering crowd of villagers.

In New Military, Data Overload Can Be Deadly

By THOM SHANKER and MATT RICHTEL

New York Times, Published: January 16, 2011

When military investigators looked into an attack by American helicopters last February that left 23 Afghan civilians dead, they found that the operator of a Predator drone had failed to pass along crucial information about the makeup of a gathering crowd of villagers.

But Air Force and Army officials now say there was also an underlying cause for that mistake: information overload.

See Also:

Gorgon Stare–USAF Goes Nuts (Again)

Gorgon Stare (All Eyes, No Brain)

2011/01/132011/01/13

Journal: Microcosm of US Failure in Afghan Development

01 Poverty, 02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Budgets & Funding, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

More wasted money…..

Program to modernize Afghan justice system yields little so far

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2011/01/132011/01/13

Journal: Taliban Doubles US Casualties in Two Years…

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Peace Intelligence

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

January 12, 2011

Why Mine Warfare is Good for Protracted War

Surging Tit for Tat in Afghanistan

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch

President Obama's ballyhooed surge of US forces in Afghanistan added 17,000 troops in early 2009 plus an additional 30,000 by 2010, in effect doubling the number of troops in Afghanistan (not to mention the concomitant surge in the camp-follower contractor force). The Taliban may not have doubled its troop strength, but as Tom Vanden Brook reports in the 10 January issue of USA Today, the insurgents have doubled the the total number of casualties inflicted by mines in just the last two years of the nine year war. [See graphic]

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Continue reading “Journal: Taliban Doubles US Casualties in Two Years…”