07 Other Atrocities – Page 519 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/10/282010/10/29

Journal: US BODY COUNT–What Price Lost Jobs?

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends

This is a really good argument

October 28, 2010

Globalism Comes Home to Roost

America's Jobs Losses are Permanent

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Counterpunch

Now that a few Democrats and the remnants of the AFL-CIO are waking up to the destructive impact of jobs offshoring on the US economy and millions of American lives, globalism’s advocates have resurrected Dartmouth economist Matthew Slaughter’s discredited finding of several years ago that jobs offshoring by US corporations increases employment and wages in the US.

At the time I exposed Slaughter’s mistakes, but economists dependent on corporate largess understood that it was more profitable to drink Slaughter’s kool-aid than to tell the truth. Recently the US Chamber of Commerce rolled out Slaughter’s false argument as a weapon against House Democrats Sandy Levin and Tim Ryan, and the Wall Street Journal had Bill Clinton’s Defense Secretary, William S. Cohen, regurgitate Slaughter’s claim on its op-ed page on October 12.

I sent a letter to the Wall Street Journal, but the editors were not interested in what a former associate editor and columnist for the paper and President Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy had to say. The facade of lies has to be maintained at all costs. There can be no questioning that globalism is good for us.

Cohen told the Journal’s readers that “the fact is that for every job outsourced to Bangalore, nearly two jobs are created in Buffalo and other American cities.” I bet Buffalo “and other American cities” would like to know where these jobs are. Maybe Slaughter, Cohen, and the Chamber of Commerce can tell them.

Last May I was in St. Louis and was struck by block after block of deserted and boarded up homes, deserted factories and office buildings, even vacant downtown storefronts.

Continue reading “Journal: US BODY COUNT–What Price Lost Jobs?”

2010/10/282010/10/28

Journal: AF BODY COUNT–$50 Million Per Body

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Government, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

Its not like the disaster described below was not foreseeable.

Winning the War in Afghanistan at $50 Million per Kill

Fun With Arithmetic

By NICHOLAS C. ARGUIMBAU

CounterPunch 28/10/10

Michael Nasuti of Kabul Press recently published an article in which he calculated that killing each Taliban soldier in Afghanistan costs on average of $50 million to the US. The article, seemingly carefully. researched with all assumptions laid out so that anyone can examine them, is well worth reading. Nasuti, “Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 million.” He points out that at this rate, killing the entire Taliban forces (only 35,000) would cost $1.7 trillion, not a small amount for a country suffering from a severe economic downturn to spend on a war with no apparent purpose. And Nasuti's number, of course, assumes that they coud not be replaced faster than they are killed, but it appears that they can, easily.

Nasuti, who actually uses a “conservative” number (assuming that he has undercounted the number of Taliban casualties by one half), states that he had previously served “at a senior level” in the United States Air Force. He says,

The reason for these exorbitant costs is that United States has the world’s most mechanized, computerized, weaponized and synchronized military, not to mention the most pampered (at least at Forward Operating Bases). An estimated 150,000 civilian contractors support, protect, feed and cater to the American personnel in Afghanistan . . . The ponderous American war machine is a logistics nightmare and a maintenance train wreck.

Read rest of article…

2010/10/282010/10/28

Journal: Putin to Obama–Stay in Afghanistan + RECAP

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Corporations, Government, History, Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy

Mikhail Gorbachev, who has been neutralized by the succession of Russian rulers, especially Putin) has just advised President Obama to get out of Afghanistan. Jonathan Steele suggests here (also attached below) that Obama ought to heed that advice, because Obama is in a similar albeit somewhat worse position than Gorbachev was in 1985-6.

Analogies are dangerous, because they can capture your thinking and take you off the cliff. But here goes.

If Steele's analogy is accurate, it suggests some pregnant ramifications that are not addressed directly by Steele: Russia (Putin and Medvedev) appear to be helping US/Nato in Afghanistan with training programs and by providing access routes for northern logistics lines of communication. This cooperation serve both parties by improving relations in the short term, but it also helps US/Nato stay on its disastrous course in Afghanistan. Are there other reasons why would Putin, an ardent nationalist, would what the US to remain stuck in Russia's backyard?

Russia needs help in staunching spillover of Sunni radicalism into its Moslem areas and its Central Asian sphere of influence (a variation of the original reason USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979). The US war on the Taliban serves that interest. So from Putin's point of view, keeping US/Nato bogged down in Afghanistan serves Russian national interests for free.

Putin, a former member of the KGB and an ardent nationalist, certainly knows the US fomented Sunni extremism in Afghanistan to sucker the Soviets into invading Afghanistan with the aimed of bogging the USSR down in its own VietNam-like quagmire (a policy proudly acknowledged by President Carter's National Security Advisor,Zbigniew Brzezinski in his notorious interview in Le Nouvel Observateur, January 1998). Putin must also know that the US/Nato engagement in Afghanistan, is (1) a huge resource drain that is weakening US economically and militarily, as well as (2) weakening the bonds giving the US political control over its Nato allies. From his point of view, these two outcomes would certainly improve Russia's relative power with respect to Europeans (especially Germany) and in the world, at the expense of the US. Moreover, in Putin's eyes, these outcomes might seem to be justified as payback to the US. After all, did not the US unleash the Islamic radicalism with its efforts to maneuver the USSR into Afghanistan in 1979 and did not the US humiliate Russia by the exploiting Russia's economic misery and military weaknesses, after Gorbachev had done the the US and the West a huge favor by precipitating collapse of the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War without bloodshed?

So, who should Obama and his advisors listen to? Putin the nationalist and go for a short term political gain at expense of remaining stuck in the quagmire that serves Russia's interests, or Gobachev the statesman who advises Obama to bite the bullet and absorb short-term political pain to gain long term benefits of exiting a quagmire that is weakening the US economically and militarily?

Of course the war advocate could counter by saying this is based on an analogy run amok. We are not making the gross mistakes the Soviets made in Afghanistan, and besides, it is cutting and running that weakens us. After all, Gobachev is just an old man who refuses to see that his time has past and is struggling futilely to remain relevant.

Russia's Afghan agenda | Jonathan Steele

guardian.co.uk 10/27/10 10:00 PM Jonathan Steele

Gorbachev has valuable advice for the US on the war in Afghanistan that Putin would rather he keep to himself

The surprise in this week's reports that Russia is planning to help Nato in Afghanistan by training Afghan helicopter pilots is that people are surprised. Memories are short, it seems, for the shift in Moscow's line came as early as July last year during Barack Obama's first summit in the Kremlin.

Designed to press the “reset” button after east-west tempers flared over the war in Georgia, the meeting ended with several agreements, the most dramatic of which was Russia's nod for the US to send military supplies across Russian territory to its forces in Afghanistan. Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin wanted to give Obama a reward for taking a calmer view of Russia than George Bush, in particular for accepting Georgia's share of blame in the South Ossetian crisis and for cancelling the most provocative aspects of Bush's missile defence scheme which Moscow viewed as a threat.

Read rest of Jonathan Steele's article….

See Also (RECAP)

Continue reading “Journal: Putin to Obama–Stay in Afghanistan + RECAP”

2010/10/272010/10/27

NIGHTWATCH Extract: US, Venezuela, Libya…

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Education, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 07 Venezuela, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Venezuela- US: For the record. The Caracas government seized two factories owned by U.S.-based glass maker Owens Illinois, because it caused “environmental damage and exploited workers,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on 25 October. Today Venezuelan soldiers took possession of the factories.

Venezuela-Middle East: President Chavez said his government and Libya are creating a $1 billion joint investment fund to pay for projects the two countries will pursue together, according to a report by The Associated Press. Chavez also announced a $100 million joint fund with Syria, which will be used on projects such as aid in the construction of an oil refinery and to establish an olive oil processing plant.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: Chavez invariably goes out of his way to make questionable deals with countries that tend to have strained relations with the US. None of his new allies are in a position to help Venezuela in the event of trouble, which calls into question the wisdom of the investments, the utility of the associations and the soundness of Chavez' judgment.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: We beg to differ with our esteemed colleague. The US is so over-extended in its elective wars and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as to call into question its ability to be effective anywhere else, including against Somali pirates. Furthermore, the passing of time and the accumulation of public knowledge has a “truth” effect that may not lead to reconciliation but will lead to more and more expropriation of ill-gotten gains by predatory capitalists who in the past were able to call in the US Marines to enforce unethical, illegal, and unjust seizures of property. Just as Australia is now getting serious about Native Title, so also is the rest of the Southern Hemisphere going to get serious about expropriating back into indigenous possession those lands acquired through illicit or unethical means.

The next President, and the next Director of National Intelligence (DNI), are going to have to lead a 180 degree change in how the US “does” intelligence. Instead of producing 4% “at best,” the DNI is going to have to lead the integration of education, intelligence, and research so as to meet 96% “at worst” of the needs of the Nation in both restoring domestic prosperity and in achieving truth & reconciliation abroad. Absent such a redirection, the US will not survive in its present form to 2025…in our always humble opinion. This will require leaders with integrity who place the public interest foremost.

See Also:

Review: The Naked Capitalist

Review: War is a Racket–The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier

Review: Open Veins of Latin America–Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

Review: SAVAGE CAPITALISM AND THE MYTH OF DEMOCRACY–Latin America in the Third Millennium

Review: Killing Hope–U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II-Updated Through 2003

Review: Overthrow–America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Hardcover)

2010/10/262010/10/26

Journal: Tea Party Manipulated, Idle Angry Minds Being Exploited…

04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

The author of attached article in the Guardian, George Monbiot is a pious Global Warming enthusiast. He probably despises the Koch brothers because they are funding anti-global warming efforts. But setting the writer's biases aside, as well as his somewhat condescending tone, his report (which is based primarily on the New Yorker’s brilliant expose of the Koch brothers and the new documentary “(Astro)Turf Wars,”) is an excellent summary of how behind-the-scene manipulators are funding the Tea Party movement and are shaping and energizing the Orientation of Tea Party’s collective OODA loop — i.e., the lens thru which its members Observe the world, interpret their all-to-real problems, provides focus to their anger, and thereby shapes the Decisions guiding their Actions.

The strategic leverage gained by shaping a group's Orientation ought be self-evident at this point: it unleashes and focuses the free-wheeling energy of the individuals to enthusiastically work together for the well being of others without requiring the coercive and ultimately revealing and self-defeating effects of top-down control.

The following quote (near end of article) provides an excellent statement of the strategic aim guiding those shaping efforts.

“Most of these bodies call themselves “free-market thinktanks”, but their trick – as (Astro)Turf Wars points out – is to conflate crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty. Between them they have constructed the philosophy that informs the Tea Party movement: its members mobilise for freedom, unaware that the freedom they demand is freedom for corporations to trample them into the dirt.”

On the other hand, any strategy grounded in deception must be wrapped in a protective cloak of ambiguity, because a deception builds into the OODA loops of the ‘deceived' the seeds of a crucial vulnerability: Once the ambiguity is penetrated, and the scam is exposed and its effects appreciated, the Orientation of the ‘deceived' will flip and their rage will be energized and focused on the deceivers by the desire for vengeance. Which is why the passive or active connivance of the mainstream media in the US (most of which is owned by crony capitalists) in supporting the manipulation is central to keeping the game going.

The Tea Party movement: deluded and inspired by billionaires

By funding numerous rightwing organisations, the mega-rich Koch brothers have duped millions into supporting big business

George Monbiot

guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 October 2010 20.15 BST

The Tea Party movement is remarkable in two respects. It is one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen – and the biggest Astroturf operation in history. These accomplishments are closely related.

A “must read” piece of solid British analysis….

Phi Beta Iota: A new set of unwitting fools–no offense intended, but that's the story….those elected under the Tea Party banner will caucus with the Republicans, and that is the truth-teller.

See Also:

Journal: Tea Party “Booboisie”

Review: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

2008 ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig

Review: Shooting the Truth–The Rise of American Political Documentaries

Review: Grand Illusion–The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny

Review: Selling Out

2010/10/262010/10/26

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Mexican Cartels Threaten Massacres

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call

Mexico: For the record. Suspected members of the Sinaloa drug trafficking cartel warned that they would kill 135 people after security forces seized 134 tons of marijuana last week in Tijuana, Baja California state, Milenio reported today, 25 October. The warning was made over a police radio frequency late on 24 October reportedly minutes after gunmen killed 13 patients at a drug rehabilitation center in Tijuana.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: This kind of indiscriminate mass murder in retaliation for what are relatively minor interdictions suggests that on the one hand, both the US and Mexican government have not only lost all control of the territory for which they are responsible for providing good order and public safety and security; but also that neither government has an effective intelligence capability to guide operations in detail. We are reminded of how long it took to hunt down one man in Colombia, Pablo Escobar. A MAJOR obstacle is the recalcitrance of the US secret intelligence community with $75 billion or more being applied to produce “at best” 4% of what is needed, to reinvent itself and engage in M4IS2: multinational, multiagency, multidisciplinary, multidomain information-sharing and sense-making. The El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) is a massive failure precisely because it embodies all of the handicaps of the past and none of the advantages of the present.

2010/10/252010/10/25

Journal: “True Cost” Meme Gaining Ground

01 Agriculture, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence

Chris Elam

Program Director, Meatless Monday

Posted: October 25, 2010 10:13 AM

Short Film Reveals The Secret Life of Beef

Livestock today consume 5 times as much grain as the entire American population, the average meal travels 1,500 miles from farm to fork, and seven football fields' worth of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals and the crops that feed them.

But it doesn't have to be all doom-and-gloom. We as consumers still have options, which, over time, can change our economy. It's this idea that drives INFORM — the educational and advocacy nonprofit that raises environmental consciousness for the general public through visual media. Its “Secret Life” film series, seen by over 2 million viewers in 80 countries, examines the lifecycle environmental impact of everyday objects we all consume.

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Read rest of article (includes link to YouTube short)

Go directly to YouTube short)

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