The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
This extraordinary resource is the personal initiative of Jeffrey S Harley,SMDC/ARSTRAT G39, Deputy, Information Operations. As received, each new newsletter is posted to the Archives at the above permanent URL:
For many other references relevant to IO, see the original OSS page on IO. See also our short Memorandum on Chinese Irregular Warfare.
Phi Beta Iota: a 59 page memorandum is rocketing around the Internet, entitled Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001. Read the report, which includes very specific details and charts with head and shoulder photos. This material is substantiated not just by the sources cited in the endnotes, but by many other sources such as those reviewed at 9-11 Truth Books & DVDs (23) and (indirectly) at Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback (145).
Newsweek November 16, 2009 Cover Story
The Surprising Lessons Of Vietnam
Unraveling the mysteries of Vietnam may prevent us from repeating its mistakes
By Evan Thomas and John Barry
Stanley Karnow is the author of Vietnam: A History, generally regarded as the standard popular account of the Vietnam War. This past summer, Karnow, 84, picked up the phone to hear the voice of an old friend, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. The two men had first met when Holbrooke was a young Foreign Service officer in Vietnam in the mid-1960s and Karnow was a reporter covering the war. Holbrooke, who is now the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was calling from Kabul. The two friends chatted for a while, then Holbrooke said, “Let me pass you to General McChrystal.” Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, came on the line. His question was simple but pregnant: “Is there anything we learned in Vietnam that we can apply to Afghanistan?” Karnow's reply was just as simple: “The main thing I learned is that we never should have been there in the first place.” [Emphasis added]
Berto Jongman recommends….
Understanding History's Seven Stages of Jihad
by Sebnastian L.v. Gorka
CTC Sentinel October 2009 V 2 I 10 pp. 15-17
Phi Beta Iota: The Counterterrorism Center (CTC) at West Point has been doing extraordinary work of very high value to the U.S. Central Command, with an emphasis on understanding.
Click on the title for the three-page article by itself, and on the journal name for the full issue containing the article.
The author opens with the four kinds of jihad (heart, mind, tongue, sword), and the lists the seven historically-driven politically-defined jihads of the sword, and closes with a discussion. Over three pages, this is first class thinking.
The seven jihads of the sword:
Berto Jongman Recommends:
Impacts of Climate Change: A System Vulnerability Approach (2007)
| Type : | Report |
| Title : | Current Trends in al-Qaeda and Global Jihad Activity |
| Source : | Institute for National Security Studies |
| Date Added: | 17-Aug-2009 |
| Publication Date : | 1-Jul-2008 |
| URL : | http://www.humansecuritygateway.info/documents/INSS_CurrentTrends_AlQa eda_GlobalJihad.pdf |
| Abstract : | In recent years, a serious academic discussion about the al-Qaeda (or AQC – al Qaeda Central) organization has been underway, once that has also found its way into the popular media. It has focused on whether AQC has ceased functioning as an active organization and turned into an icon only, and whether its role as leader of the global jihad has been assumed by a mass movement run by a network of people, groups, and organizations whose members have undergone a process of self-radicalization. A response to this question may be found in an analysis of the activities of al-Qaeda and its affiliates, but also depends on understanding the concept of struggle according to al-Qaeda and its relationship with its affiliates. |
The Elephant in the Room: A war of ideas within Islam
Backward views hold sway in much of the Muslim world. And yet there is hope.
By Rick Santorum Thu, Nov. 5, 2009
The students, one man and two women, wore Western-style clothes and spoke English with little or no accent. They disputed my description of Islam as it's practiced in the Middle East, maintaining that al-Qaeda's version of Islam in no way reflects the Islam that is practiced around the world.
So I asked them a question: Should apostates – Muslims who convert to another religion – be subject to execution?
One of the women quickly said no. She insisted that she was free to leave Islam if she wanted to, and that she knew other people who had done so without a problem – in the United States.
I said I wasn't talking about her and others' freedom of religion in this country. What if they lived in a Muslim-majority country?
Silence. Eventually, the young man blurted out, “That's different.”
