Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink…..
NAIROBI, 9 November 2010 (IRIN) – Fighting between two sub-clans over grazing pasture and water has left 20 dead and thousands of families displaced from several villages in central Somalia, say locals.
“In my own town of Galinsor, about 1,300 families [7,800 people] have been displaced, out of a total population of 5,500 families,” Osman Abdi, an
elder, told IRIN on 9 November. “Many of the families have fled to surrounding villages and are living in the open or sheltering under trees.”
An aid worker in the region told IRIN many of the displaced were nomads who were forced to flee their water sources. “They are now in areas where there are no water points,” he said.
The US commander in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, has drafted a timetable for the handing over of control of its provinces to local security forces. The news emerged as officials recovered the bodies of five of 16 policemen who vanished a week ago after an apparent Taliban attack on their remote base.
General Petraeus's colour-coded map includes a small number of ”green” areas, designated for handover within six months, the London newspaper The Times reported.
The plan, which will be presented to NATO leaders at a summit in Lisbon on November 19, indicates that the western province of Herat will be handed over early, while NATO forces are expected to remain in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand for at least two more years.
This is just too cool. The smart guys always went into artillery, where you had to be able to count not just spell. As upset as one might be with all the high end waste, fraud, and abuse within our military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC), this short film is a celebration in combat effectiveness. Go Army! [The Marines still do not have Naval Gunfire Support, the Navy decided a couple of decades ago it really doesn't give a shit about supporting Marines, and multiple Commandants of the Marine Corps have let them get away with it.]
LONDON — Months after he was released from Guantánamo Bay, Abdul Rahman was back in the company of terrorist leaders along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. But he was a double agent, providing Taliban and al Qaeda secrets to Pakistani intelligence, which then shared the tips with Western counterparts.
The ruse cost him his life, according to a former Pakistani military intelligence official, Mahmood Shah. The Taliban began to suspect him, and after multiple interrogations executed him.
The case of Rahman, which Shah recounted to The Associated Press, falls in line with a key aspect of the fight against terror — Western intelligence agencies, with help from Islamic allies, are placing moles and informants inside al Qaeda and the Taliban. The program seems to be bearing fruit, even as many infiltrators like Rahman are discovered and killed.
It was a tip from an al Qaeda militant-turned-informant that led international authorities to find explosives hidden in printer cartridges from Yemen to the United States a week ago, Yemeni security officials say. Officials say the explosives could have caused a blast as deadly as the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people.
Phi Beta Iota: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) done right, in the context of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) done right, is the cheapest, fastest, and most effective means of creating intelligence (decision-support) at all levels from strategic to tactical. After ten years of letting CIA get away with doing both badly, and ten years of the Pentagon's recovering from treating its HUMINT and CI people like shit, it appears that adults are finally back in charge. We continue to under-budget for operational HUMINT and OSINT, and we continue to grossly over-spend on contractor vapor-ware for technical capabilities that simply do not deliver 96% of what what we need, but that is a separate issue. It is good to see HUMINT (not OSINT) making some progress. However, the continued absence of a strategic analytic model and honest governance means that these capabilities are not being focused on transnational crime or on white collar crime, where the most significant gains in the public interest are to be achieved.
NOTICE: Within DoD, at least all elements of the Army as well as the Marine Corps Reserve have been given direct, unqualified, written orders not to access the Wikileaks site or read the Wikileaks document via any Government **OR** non-Government computer. This Rolling Update complies with the DoD guidance.
The Federal Reserve will pump $600 billion more into the US economy and keep interest rates at historical low levels. The short-term impact of the Fed’s move, known as quantitative easing, has been a jump in stock prices across the globe. Many nations, however, have accused the United States of waging a currency war by devaluing the dollar. We speak to former Wall Street economist and University of Missouri professor Michael Hudson. “The object of warfare is to take over a country’s land, raw materials and assets, and grab them,” Hudson says. “In the past, that used to be done militarily by invading them. But today you can do it financially simply by creating credit, which is what the Federal Reserve has done.” [includes rush transcript]
Amazon Page -- New Edition (2003)
QUOTE from the Introduction: “The last time there were a series of devaluations like this it led to WW II.”
QUOTE from the TV Interview: “A legalized way for Wall Street to loot other Central Banks.”
QUOTE from the TV Interview: “In Europe it is illegal for the Central Bank to finance government debt.”
Phi Beta Iota: This interview, viewed in its entirety, destroys the myth of Barack Obama and clarifies with stunning detail the degree to which the Obama Administration is blocking all forms of relief for the public at the state level at the same time that he is assuring that the Chinese yuan will become the global reserve currency. We anticipate all sales of anything to US currency to be blocked by other countries, and we hope that US Governors will start nullifying federal interference with justice at the state level.
