US Terror Scare Misfires

New US Tactics in Afghanistan Unrelated to Europe Terror Alert

A strong strategic rationale actuated Washington's blanket terror warning to Europe of Sunday, Oct. 3. But the way it evolved reflected the current interplay among the leading American personalities who devised it.

Phi Beta Iota: We do not normally point to anything that requires registration or payment, but in this instance, since it specifically supports our own skepticism about the recent terror alert (see Journal: US Travel Alert–Political and Fraudulent?, we agree with our contributor who suggested the pointer. Below are a few of the headlines internal to the Debka article, and three key sentences.

Angry Pakistani reaction was no surprise

Now to build a cover story

In North Waziristan, Petraeus said, smashing Taliban and local allied forces on the Pakistan side of the border is the key to success in Afghanistan, particularly in the south which has a common border with North Waziristan.

The imprecise, unspecific US terror scare did not impress Europe

Brennan's personal ambition gingered up the publicity

While Petraeus and Panetta kept their uncertainties under their hats and cooperated with one another, John Brennan went off on an aggressive tangent. He issued a welter of leaks to the media without coordinating them with either partner.

France settles scores with Britain

Two days later, France exhibited its fine sense of irony by issuing a travel advisory warning French citizens to be vigilant for terrorists while traveling in… London.

Debka “Premium” Content

Phi Beta Iota: Just after this story, which has rich detail on Brennan and Panetta lusting for Jones' job, the vacancy was announced and filled. This may be one of the weakest national security teams since the end of WWII.

2010/10/082010/10/08

Journal: Nato’s Secret Armies (It’s Not Terror if CIA Pays and Locals Do the Dirty….)

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Sense-Making, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Full Poting Online

Nato's Secret Armies

By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 1 of 7 page(s)

In his book, “NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe,” Daniele Ganser described their clandestine Cold War operations, run by European secret services, collaborating with NATO, the CIA and Britain's MI6 and Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) against a possible Soviet invasion, internal communist takeovers, or others on the political left gaining power.

EXTRACT:

In Italy, against both communist and socialist parties, it was claimed they wanted to weaken NATO “from within,” Italian judge, Felice Casson, learning that right-wing terrorists carried out bombings against civilians, blamed them on the left, neo-fascist Vincenzo Vinciguerra explaining the scheme as follows:

“The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.”

In 2000, the Italian Senate was more explicit, saying:

“Those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been organized or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as had been discovered more recently, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence,” meaning CIA mainly.

Former director William Colby admitted in his memoirs that covert western armies were a major CIA initiative, begun post-WW II, and restricted “to the smallest possible coterie of the most reliable people, in Washington (and) NATO” to keep the initiative secret.

Phi Beta Iota: CIA's importation of 100 Nazis a year after WWII (and probably many more, it has always considered itself above the law, both domestic and foreign) fueled a truly psychopathic perception of communism that led to policies and programs that today are clearly seen to be crimes against humanity, but back in the day were seen as “collateral damage” essential to contain communism while maintaining “control” over key governments.

2010/10/082010/10/08

Journal: NATO Blind to Supply Route Hollowness

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, Military, Officers Call

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends

Nato contractors ‘attacking own vehicles' in Pakistan

By Riaz Sohail

BBC News, Karachi,6 October 2010

Khyber Pass

• Up to 80% of Nato supplies for Afghanistan pass through Pakistan

• Majority are driven 1,200 miles (1,931km) from port of Karachi to Kabul via Khyber Pass

• 1,000 container lorries and tankers travel daily through the pass to Kabul

• Khyber Pass is 53km long (33 miles) and up to a height of 1,070m (3,444ft)

• About 150 lorries go via the southern supply route through Chaman to Kandahar.

Phi Beta Iota: Now here is the big picture. First, never get in a fight on the Asian landmass. Our politicians do not read a lot and can be considered very isolated from both reality and history. Second, understand your supply line vulnerabilities. This story tells the tale of the very contractors being hired by NATO bombing their own trucks, in part to conceal the fact that the trucks are near empty when bombed–they are optimizing profits three ways: sell and then burn; reimbursed for old trucks as if new; and premium pricing for risk they create themselves. Doesn't get much better than this.

POSTSCRIPT: The US and NATO are stuck with land routes because the US Air Force has for decades refused to be responsible for long-haul airlift at the same time that the US Army has been logistically insane and built a force that is not air mobile. We could not do a Berlin Airlift today, nor can we lift the minimal needed forces to a distant theater in anything near the Marine Corps 911 standard that we defined in 1992: a platoon with two Cobras in 24 hours, a company with Harriers in 48, a light battalion landing team with organic air in 72, and a full up Marine Amphibious Brigade in 96 (four days). The Navy is not much better, big ships and few of them mean that the Navy remains 5-7 steaming days away from anywhere that matters, and when they get there, they are out-gunned by Third World coastal artillery and missiles and have no Naval Gunfire capabilities because a series of Marine Corps Commandants have rolled over and played dead for the sake of getting along with the Chief of Naval Operations. Bottom line: US global strategy is non-existent; US force structure is incoherent, and the people responsible for it, past and present, lack integrity in the holistic sense of the word.

2010/10/082010/10/08

NIGHTWATCH Extract: East Prepares for Big War

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Russia, 10 Security, Government, Military, Officers Call, Strategy

India-Russia: India will buy 250 to 300 advanced stealth fighter aircraft from Russian, according to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, as he announced the deal worth nearly $30 billion. Antony and Russian Defense Minister Serdyukov said Russia would supply the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) as well as 45 transport aircraft. India also will jointly manufacture the fighters under license for ten years.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: The future of the Indian Air Force appears to be linked primarily to Russian rather than US firms. This agreement thinly hides an Indian strategic judgment about the threats it faces from China and Pakistan, about the US as a supplier for coping with those threats compared to the Russians.

India is making long term preparations to be ready for a major war after ten years that will require fifth generation fighters because the most likely enemy – presumably China – also will have those air capabilities. The Russians are willing to sell India the aircraft and to license the technology. The US is not building significant numbers of fifth generation fighters and will not sell them even to Israel.

The Indians, Russians and Chinese do not share the US strategic outlook favoring small wars and counterinsurgency forces.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: Since the mid-1990's, when the best minds associated with the U.S. Army's Strategic Studies Institute turned decisively away from the two-major theater war model, and we presented the 1+iii (One Plus Triple Eye) strategy, the US has been incoherent with respect to strategic policy, acquisition, and operations. Ideology is not a substitute for intelligence, and technology is not a substitute for thinking.

2009 Perhaps We Should Have Shouted: A Twenty-Year Restrospective

2001 Threats, Strategy, and Force Structure: An Alternative Paradigm for National Security

2000 Presidential Leadership and National Security Policy Making

1998 JFQ The Asymmetric Threat: Listening to the Debate

1995 GIQ 13/2 Creating a Smart Nation: Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information

1993 On Defense & Intelligence–The Grand Vision

and some graphics….

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: East Prepares for Big War”

2010/10/072010/10/07

Journal: 10% Foreclosures, 1-2% Mortgage Default

06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Government

The Huffington Post is doing a very fine job of raising key issues, but in isolation and out of context. Here is one story they have brought forward. As Cleveland found out when they had to raze to the ground 11,000 abandoned units, foreclosures come with very heavy social and financial costs. It is not to late to stop all foreclosures and evictions as we recommended in October 2008, to no effect. America is going through a multi-dimensional crisis without any leadership whatsoever. One way to understand the crisis is to study the Revolution Matrix and the Negative Book List. The Positive Book List requires some semblance of leadership and legitimacy, at this time not to be found in America, outside of the Virtual Cabinet at The Huffington Post, which does not really exist–it could, but it does not.

2010/10/05

Reference: Poverty is an Over-riding Set of Variables

01 Poverty

More Images

Paul Polak

3 Minutes on Poverty & Mentally Ill

3 Minutes on Design for the Other 90%

Design for the Other 90% Exhibit + “Micro-Giving” Global Needs Index to Connect Rich to Poor/Fullfill Global-to-Local Requests

Poverty Dichotomies: USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network, & “Dead Aid” (poverty reduction vs. wealth creation)

2010/10/052010/10/05

Journal: Obama Grovels, Israel Rules

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards

These two article together reveal just how uninformed Obama is, how unprofessional his staff is, and how much his blind groveling to Israel is costing the US taxpayer while perpetuating the ignored pathos of the Palestinian people in their own land.

Netanyahu Humiliates Obama Again

The Obama administration must understand that the Israeli prime minister is essentially a right-wing Republican.

By MJ Rosenberg

October 02, 2010 “Al-Jazeera” — The Obama administration's attempts at seducing Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, are getting embarrassing. Netanyahu has made it very clear he is not interested.

Read full article online…