Threats – Page 618 – Public Intelligence Blog

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends...

The 7 minute video at the link below is painfully embarrassing to watch, but it is quite revealing with regard to the dysfunctionality of our foreign policy and the state of decay in the U.S. mainstream media. Chuck

http://pulsemedia.org/2011/01/27/shihab-rattansi-lays-bare-us-hypocrisy-on-egypt/

Al Jazeera International is head and shoulders above all competitors in the MSM and Shihab Rattansi is by far the best news anchor currently on air. There is much journalists could learn from him. In the following interview with PJ Crowley watch Rattansi straitjacket the usually slick US State Department spokesman with relentless questions about the difference in US responses to Tunisia and Egypt and the applicability of pronouncements made in one instance to the other. Crowley appears disappointed that Rattansi is unwilling to abide by the convention of Western MSM which requires a newsman to take an evasion as a cue for moving on to a different subject.

See Also:

Reference: Empire of Lies & Secrecy

Reference: Lying is Not Patriotic–Ron Paul

2011/01/292011/01/29

Revolution & Secession: The Game is ON!

08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Threats

NIGHTWATCH Complete Report for 28 January 2011

Jordan: Protesters across Jordan called for the government to step down. In Amman, more than 5,000 marched. Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans, blamed the government for rising prices and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai.

Egypt: Today was the Day of Rage and so it has been. Roughly an hour after Friday prayers, the demonstrations began in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria, then spread and continued into the night. Buildings were set alight; curfews ignored and the Army moved in. The night closed with President Mubarak's mildly concessional speech which promises to incite the protesters, more than placate them. Expect more confrontations on 29 January.

Special comment: Background. Research and analysis of more than 50 internal instability episodes since 1980, NightWatch has tracked order in what appears to be chaotic security situations. Once internal discontent metamorphoses into a breakdown of public order, the government begins searching for a set of responses that will halt the decline in its fortunes. A government will follow a three-phase cycle in applying different ideas and resources alternately to placate or crush an insurrection or to buy time to try to find “a line it can hold.” That phrase refers to a set of actions over an expanse of national territory that will stabilize internal conditions.

If the government finds a set of responses that match the protestors' grievances, the downward cycle can be halted. If not, it will continue until the government falls or is changed, usually by the Army, the ultimate guardians of the state.

Below the line: complete NightWatch analytics, followed by comment on Davies J-Curve and Power of the Powerless.

Continue reading “Revolution & Secession: The Game is ON!”

2011/01/282011/01/29

Stronger Signals: REVOLUTION…

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Peace Intelligence

Al-Jazeera's Revolution?

For all the talk about hashtags and Facebook, al-Jazeera is the primary vector of this democratic infection. Most Tunisians first learned of the early protests in Sidi Bouzid from al-Jazeera. Egyptians watched the overthrow of Ben Ali on al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera broadcast the Egyptian mass demonstrations to the Yemenis. Social media may be important pathways for secondary infection, but this is an al-Jazeera revolution.

‘We are witnessing today an Arab people's revolution'

Today's Arab revolution is no less significant than those that preceded it in recent decades in Eastern Europe and Latin America. This time, Arabs are not being led by their leaders — from colonialism to pan-Arabism or Islamism or any other “ism” — as was the case in the past.

Propelled by the young and the digital revolution, citizens will demand nothing less than the right to choose and change their representatives in the future.

Continue reading “Stronger Signals: REVOLUTION…”

2011/01/282011/10/22

Revolution USA? COUNT ON IT. Egyptian Notes +

07 Other Atrocities, Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Waste (materials, food, etc)

Egypt: Update. Bedouin protesters in Egypt fired two rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at a police station in the Sinai Peninsula town of Sheikh Zuweid on the 27th. One of the rockets hit empty space at the station, while the other missed and hit a nearby medical center. No casualties were immediately reported. Protesters also fired an RPG at another police station outside the town, setting it on fire. The attacks came hours after police shot and killed a protester.

Members of the pro-democracy Egyptian youth group April 6 Movement promised more anti-government demonstrations, defying a government ban on protests and called for mass demonstrations on 28 January after Muslim prayers. According to one demonstrator, after the protests started on Jan. 25, they will not end until the demands of life, liberty and dignity for the Egyptian people have been met.

Continue reading “Revolution USA? COUNT ON IT. Egyptian Notes +”

2011/01/272011/01/27

Reference: NYT on WikiLeaks + RECAP

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

Dealing With Assange and the Secrets He Spilled

By BILL KELLER

The New York Times, January 26, 2011

Bill Keller is the executive editor of The New York Times. This essay is adapted from his introduction to “Open Secrets: WikiLeaks, War and American Diplomacy: Complete and Expanded Coverage from The New York Times,” an ebook available for purchase at nytimes.com/opensecrets.

EXTRACT: The government surely cheapens secrecy by deploying it so promiscuously. According to the Pentagon, about 500,000 people have clearance to use the database from which the secret cables were pilfered. Weighing in on the WikiLeaks controversy in The Guardian, Max Frankel remarked that secrets shared with such a legion of “cleared” officials, including low-level army clerks, “are not secret.” Governments, he wrote, “must decide that the random rubber-stamping of millions of papers and computer files each year does not a security system make.”

Phi Beta Iota: Upgraded to a Reference because this nine part overview of the entire process is elegant, informative, and provocative. A very fine contribution of lasting value.

2011/01/272011/01/27

Carthage under Siege + Revolution Tyranny RECAP

Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Mobile, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Threats

Interesting reading….

Middle East & North Africa: Carthage under Siege

By Feriel Bouhafa , January 26, 2011

Foreign Policy in Focus

The success of a throng of Tunisian protesters who toppled Ben Ali, the seemingly unshakable dictator, caught the world off guard.

Analysts have rushed to make sense of Tunisia's unforeseen popular revolt. The media have emphasized the economic discontent caused by unemployment, poverty, and high food prices. Others have noted the role social networks have played, characterizing the uprising as an instance of online activism and hailing it as a “Twitter revolution.”

This extraordinary uprising is being seen as the possible start of a domino effect in the Arab world.

. . . . . . .

Going forward, Tunisians will scrutinize the sincerity of these statements. The Obama administration’s initial hesitation exposed its unease with this transformation. U.S. policy and its national-security strategy in the Arab world need reassessment. Tunisia’s democratic impulse, as well as the uprising’s reverberations in other Arab countries, presents challenges for U.S. policy and that of its authoritarian allies in the region.

Phi Beta Iota: Most governments are under siege, for most governments, to one extent or another, have failed to attend to the public interest, instead bending or selling out completely to special interests. The United States of America is especially vulnerable at this time because it is over-extended, financially and morally bankrupt, and has a government that is out of touch with both the public interest, and global reality. Tunesia is not unique–all countries have the preconditions for revolution extant, what has changed are two things: the proliferation of precipitants, and the ability of the public to connect and promulgate.

2011/01/272011/01/27

Open Source Insurgency: No More Corruption

About the Idea, Advanced Cyber/IO, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Historic Contributions, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Officers Call, Open Government, Policies, Real Time, Threats

A Plausible Promise

by John Robb of Global Guerrillas

For an open source revolt (here's some background on “open source insurgency“) to be successfully formed, it needs a plausible promise. A meta issue around which all of the different factions etc. can form (remember, most of the groups and individuals involved in an open source revolt can't agree on anything but some basic concepts). A generic “day of revolt” doesn't accomplish that. What could?

Using the multi-million scale No Mas FARC protests as an example and the critical ingredient in the Tunisian protests (extreme corruption that generated an endless wellspring of anger/frustration), a potential “plausible promise” for an Egyptian open source revolt is:

No More Corruption

Not only is a movement opposing corruption something the government will find hard to oppose, it is something every Egyptian deals with on a daily basis. It also has the added benefit of directly harming the entrenched ruling elite, who are likely to become poster children of the very thing the movement is against.

Emerging Concept of Open Stewardship

Reference: Peace versus War–Competing Visions

Reference: WikiLeaks and Al Qaeda as Open Source Insurgencies

Reference: On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy + RECAP on Secrecy as Fraud, Waste, & Abuse