Threats – Page 725 – Public Intelligence Blog

In opposition to the Pakistan Act, sponsored byBarbara Boxer [D-CA], Thomas Carper [D-DE], Robert Casey [D-PA], Hillary Clinton [D-NY], Christopher Dodd [D-CT], Richard Durbin [D-IL], Charles Hagel [R-NE], John Kerry [D-MA], Richard Lugar [R-IN], Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI], Ron Paul offers some thoughts worthy of consideration.

Phi Beta Iota: The Republic is now confronted with both an Executive and a Legislative Branch that make decisions without regard to strategy, holistic reality-based appreciations, or public discourse on costs and benefits. The Administration is proposing, and Congress is approving, without serious thought and without regard to the best interests of the American public. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are turning in their graves.

2009/10/092009/10/09

Journal: Defense Research, Science, & Technology

04 Inter-State Conflict, 10 Security, Commercial Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Military, Reform

Proprietary Black Box Magic Happens Inside Linked to TS/SCI Price List (Only Visible to Idiots) — Proprietary Black Box Expensive Classified Magic Happens Inside

DoD Suppressed Critique of Military Research

New DoD Website Fosters Secret Science

Phi Beta Iota:Two reports today confirm our grave doubts about the viability of U.S. Departemnt of Defense (DoD) research in general, and Science & Technology (S&T) in particular. In combination with the known grid-loock and inherent loss of integrity within defense acquisition, these two reports suggest that the U.S. taxpayer will continue to pay more and more for less and less, while secrecy is used to avoid accountability. It has long troubled us that in classifying deficiencies, DoD assures a lifetime monopoly on “fixes” to the people that created the deficiencies in the first place–they do not know what they do not know! DoD desperately needs a Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) able to get a grip on all Human Intelligence (HUMINT) funded by the U.S. taxpayer. Ideal would be an expansion of the Undersecretary of Defense of Intelligence so as to add this as an integrative ICT and HUMINT integration function, while also assuming collaborative oversight of the Inspector General and of Operational Test and Evaluation. See the latest draft of the HUMINT Monograph for more information.

2009/10/092009/10/09

Journal: State of the Ummah (Muslims)

01 Poverty, 03 India, 04 Indonesia, 05 Iran, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence

The State of the Ummah is both a re-mixed Internet film for which a non-US citizen has been held at Guantanamo for years, and a concept of community that explicitly includes Jews and pagans.

The main graphic shows relative distribution. This smaller graphic to the right shows the “divide” between East and West in starker terms.

Text reports are available–an Executive Summary and a Full Report. What they do not properly address are three facts:

1. Sunnis everywhere, Shi'ites in the minority and severely persecuted to the point of genocide. Note: the rough estimate of Shi'ites is 10-13% of the total, the bulk of them in Iran and southern Iraq.

2. Vulernability of Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar) to encroachment.

3. The lack of religious counterintelligence and security campaign plans in any country, not just in relation to Muslims, but also dual Israeli citizens, Opus Dei, Mormons, etcetera. As states fail, so do loyalties. In our view, the terrorist-criminal nexus will be followed by the religious-criminal nexus. This makes poverty in predominantly Muslim areas the number one flash point for the future of global stability, in our view.

2009/10/082009/10/08

Journal: The New “Cold War” Pakistan vs India, Many vs. Israel

09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Government, Military

AP Full Story Online

Taliban claim Afghan bomb, say [Indian] embassy was target

KABUL – The Taliban have claimed responsibility for Thursday's suicide car bomb in the Afghan capital, saying their target was the Indian Embassy.

Phi Beta Iota: India's hands are not clean. There are ample reports of India offering safe-haven bases for cross-border terrorism into Pakistan, and the creation of the new Afghan intelligence and covert action agency under Indian and other auspices bodes ill. In our judgement, there is an urgent need for a multinational containment of Pakistan on the one side, and Israel on the other, to include a total end to the Israeli campaign of genocide and other atrocities against the Palestinian peoples. India is a much more responsible country than Pakistan, but its military and intelligence branches are out of control and must be brought under discipline if we are to contain Pakistan, which has the Sunni nuclear bomb, and prevent the emergence of a new Cold War that uses terrorists and “freedom fighters” to wage proxy war EVERYWHERE. Iran will be a player best contained by rushing to meet their legitimate needs for nuclear power. While everyone else is distracted, China will accelerate and deepen its virtual take-over of the Southern Hemisphere. As once stable governments begin to fail we anticipate an increase in ethnicity-based crime families that strive to meet the need for security and prosperity in the absence of reliable governnance. Naturally no one in Washington is thinking about any of this.

2009/10/072009/10/07

Journal: A Day in the Life of US Grunts in AF

Ethics, Government, Military, Threats

It will take more than technology to win war

Despite the army's newest technology, one of their most valuable assets so far was an informant: a farmer with a taste for opium.

Seattle Times October 7, 2009 Pg. 1 Hal Bernton

In the farmlands and ancient villages of the Arghandab, an Army campaign launched this summer has been a slow, difficult grind, and insurgent forces continue to hold sway over large areas. Technology alone isn't enough to win this fight

Phi Beta Iota: This piece moved us, and reminded us of the The Soldier's Load. Weight, Water, and “who's got eyes on?” Then we recall The Tunnels of Cu Chi and more recently, Phantom Soldier. President Obama is caught between those he listens to, who want him to see AF in isolation, and those he does not listen to, who want him to address all ten high-level threats by harmonizing all twelve core policies within a balanced budget. The US IC, which should be empowering the President, appears AWOL.

2009/10/072009/10/07

Journal: Chuck Spinney and Pat Buchanan on Groupthinking Apparat Moves to Finish Off Obama

05 Civil War, 10 Security, Ethics, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

Chuck Spinney Sends: The attached article, “Generals Open New Front in Washington,” by Pat Buchanan describes how the time honored practice of Versailles Groupthink is now closing in to circumscribe President Obama's strategic options in Afghanistan and Pakistan, much as it did to Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam.

Note how the “strategic” options for Afghanistan are boiling down to a consensus view of an either/or decision. Either a large escalation of US ground forces or an escalation of destabilizing Predator attacks, particularly in Pakistan, or a compromise on some combination of the two. In all cases, there will be a large increase in the size of the Afghan Army. That questionable enterprise is taken as a given by the emerging consensus view. If Buchanan is right about this either/or choice … Obama is being set up big time by advisors, because, as near as I can tell, Obama has no access to outside or dissenting views. There is no third or fourth way, because there is no one in the role of George Ball to just say no (who LBJ ignored much to his chagrin), and there is no one on Capital Hill with political or military smarts or the stature to shape a third, more practical alternative. Continue reading “Journal: Chuck Spinney and Pat Buchanan on Groupthinking Apparat Moves to Finish Off Obama”

2009/10/062009/10/06

Journal: Ron Paul, Grand Strategy, Ahem

Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Threats

Full Story Online

Chuck Spinney has nominated this short piece,

Instead of Bombs and Bribes, Let’s Try Empathy and Trade

Representative Ron Paul, October 6, 2009

What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on U.S. soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across the Canadian border in the middle of the night and carried out the latest of many attacks? What if it was claimed that many of the victims harbored anti-Chinese sentiments, but most of the dead were innocent women and children? And what if the Chinese administration, in an effort to improve its public image in the U.S., had approved an aid package to send funds to help with American roads and schools and promote Chinese values here?

Continue reading “Journal: Ron Paul, Grand Strategy, Ahem”

Category: Threats

Journal: “Pakistan Act” Weakens National Security