Threats – Page 719 – Public Intelligence Blog

Chuck Spinney Sends… America's diplomatic recipe for winning the hearts and minds of “furriners” in the 21st Century:

Mix – Blind unreasoning fear with the
Domestic politics of privatizing embassy protection and the
Domestic politics of huge construction contracts

into neat grand-strategic soufflé, then bake it in the domestic political-economic oven of heated by the coals of the MICC's Long War Against Terrorism and serve hot to a world that hungers for American values.

For those readers who question the political relevance of such a tasty dish, I offer the following op-ed by Simon Tisdall of the Guardian

Continue reading “Journal: Out of Touch with Reality III”

2009/11/04

Journal: One Man – One Bullet on the Table

09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Ethics, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence

Full Story Online

U.S. Needs Hit Squads, ‘Manhunting Agency’: Spec Ops Report

Noah Shachtman November 3, 2009

CIA director Leon Panetta got into hot water with Congress, after he revealed an agency program to hunt down and kill terrorists. A recent report from the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University argues that the CIA didn’t go far enough (.pdf). Instead, it suggests the American government should set up something like a “National Manhunting Agency” to go after jihadists, drug dealers, pirates and other enemies of the state. . . . . . . .

Such a group wouldn’t just go after terrorists. “Human networks are behind narcotics trafficking, arms proliferation, piracy, hiding war criminals from authorities, human trafficking, or other smuggling activities,” Crawford writes. “Human networks also lie at the core of national governments, offering an increased potential to nonlethally influence state actors with precision. A robust manhunting capability would allow the United States to interdict these human networks.”

Continue reading “Journal: One Man – One Bullet on the Table”

2009/11/04

Journal: Outsourcing Honor, Losing Common Sense

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Communities of Practice, Ethics

Full Story Online

The Best Allies Money Can Buy

By Thomas L. Friedman

November 4, 2009

In 2008, notes Stanger, roughly 80 percent of the State Department’s requested budget went out the door in the form of contracts and grants. The Army’s primary support contractor in Iraq, KBR, reportedly has some 17,000 direct-hire employees there.

The U.S. military is now proposing a huge nation-building project for Afghanistan to replace its dysfunctional government with a state that can deliver for the Afghan people so they won’t side with the Taliban. I might be more open to that project if we had a true global alliance to share the burden of an effort that will take decades. But we don’t. European publics do not favor this war, and our allies will only pony up just enough troops to get their official “Frequent U.S. Ally Card” renewed. We’ll make up the difference by hiring private contractors.

Continue reading “Journal: Outsourcing Honor, Losing Common Sense”

2009/11/032009/11/03

Journal: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards

Intelligence for the President--AND Everyone Else

A Long-Term Disaster for Obama and the US

The Delegitimization of Karzai

By PATRICK COCKBURN

The election in Afghanistan has turned into a disaster for all who promoted it. Hamid Karzai has been declared re-elected as president of the country for the next five years though his allies inside and outside Afghanistan know that he owes his success to open fraud. Instead of increasing his government’s legitimacy, the poll has further de-legitimized it. . . . . . . .

In Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, the government was democratically elected by a huge majority in 2005. There was a savage civil war because the fifth of the population, who are Sunni Arabs, did not accept that victory of four fifths who are Shia Arabs and Kurds. The Shia did not relish US occupation, but they were prepared to cooperate with it while they took power. Only the Kurds were long term US allies.

Continue reading “Journal: Between a Rock and a Hard Place”

2009/11/032009/11/03

Journal: True Cost of War–Insanity & Murder at Home

07 Health, 08 Proliferation, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Reform, True Cost

Full Story Online

A Groundbreaking PTSD Court Decision

Week of November 02, 2009

A groundbreaking verdict for accused veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was decided recently in Canyon City, Ore. when former Soldier Jesse Bratcher, on trial for murder, was found guilty by reason of insanity. It appears to be the first trial in the U.S. where a veteran's post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was successfully considered to mitigate the circumstances of a crime. For more information on the case, visit the National Veterans Foundation website.

2009/11/032009/11/03

Worth a Look: Visual Language & Information Mapping

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Key Players, Methods & Process, Policies, Real Time, Technologies, Threats, Tools

Phi Beta Iota: Our most trusted alter ego flagged this for attention, and we love it. We have ordered the book on Visual Language and hoping the author will soon publish on Information Mapping. This is sheer genius, not least for its human sensitivity and its grasp of the brain-eye-hand-touch loop. We are blown away by this, it buries the visual design phenoms of the past, while clearly being relevant to Collective Intelligence and Conscious Evolution.

2009/11/032009/11/03

Journal: Airplane Wings from Soy…Soon

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 12 Water, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Technologies

Not New, But Improved

Allison Arieff

Meet Stella.

At first glance, this little yellow giraffe looks like a lot of other kids’ bath toys. But Stella is made from Renuva, a little-known material that could change for the better the way hundreds of things, from upholstery to airplane wings, are made.

The story of how Stella came to be made from this material, a soy-based alternative to polyurethane (which is typically petroleum-based), provides a model for how stuff can be better designed in the future.

Phi Beta Iota: While folks focus on the Al Gore show and the important but isolated challenge of reducing our carbon footprint, the avant guarde is way down the road with sustainable design, green chemistry, zero waste, and so on. It's all connected, we need to get truth on the table, and we need to do the right things righter. Stella is a poster child for a new paradigm of ecological economics, natural capitalism, and conscious evolution. Learn more about Renuva from Dow below.

Learn More

Full Story Online U.S. Needs Hit Squads, ‘Manhunting Agency’: Spec Ops Report

Full Story Online

U.S. Needs Hit Squads, ‘Manhunting Agency’: Spec Ops Report