Using terminology sometimes used in the DoD special operations community, article below conveys a strong suggestion that in organizing and staffing its operation at Khost, CIA failed to discriminate between enthusiasm and capability. Based on knowing nothing more about the case than is available to the public, there seems to be a lot to agree with in this article, which seems to get better the farther into it you read.
2. A quotation long reputed to be associated with Marine Corps Drill Instructors is, “Let's be damned sure that no man's ghost will ever have cause to say, ‘if your training program had only done its job.'” The obvious supposition is that you actually put people through the training program. That may not have happened here.
Phi Beta Iota: Click on Silent Stars to read the entire piece, link posted for the record. Toward the end the article gracefully provides an indictment of CIA's incompetence across multiple fronts.
The book is a history of the largest military contractor in U.S. history, Lockheed Martin. Hartung argues that with 25 billion dollars annually in Defense Department contracts, Lockheed Martin's reach into American life is extensive and largely unknown, including creation of satellites used to spy on the phone calls of American citizens. He discusses the company's size, scope and influence with Pierre Sprey, father of the A-10 and F-16 military aircraft and a well-known thorn in the Pentagon's side. Chuck
William Hartung
Mr. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. He is the author of How Much are You Making on the War Daddy? and And Weapons for All. He's written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Nation magazine.
And this for those still trying to believe in the “enlightenment model,” some lowest-common-denominator and somewhat overstated evolutionary psychology:
Phi Beta Iota: Our political, policy, and military leaders simply do not know what they do not know. Assuming–desiring–that they have the best of intentions–the reality is that they are not receiving the intelligence (decision-support) that they require to make intelligent decisions. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, because there was political will, trillions have been wasted on “security” instead of sustenance. Haiti, because there were no political will, was a microcosm–20,000 troops with a huge logistics tail when what was really needed were CAB 21 Peace Jumpers able to call in a Reverse TPFID…. Advanced Cyber/IO starts with imagination & intelligence.
“We've Heard All This About American Decline Before.”
This time it's different. It's certainly true that America has been through cycles of declinism in the past. Campaigning for the presidency in 1960, John F. Kennedy complained, “American strength relative to that of the Soviet Union has been slipping, and communism has been advancing steadily in every area of the world.” Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One was published in 1979, heralding a decade of steadily rising paranoia about Japanese manufacturing techniques and trade policies.
In the end, of course, the Soviet and Japanese threats to American supremacy proved chimerical. So Americans can be forgiven if they greet talk of a new challenge from China as just another case of the boy who cried wolf. But a frequently overlooked fact about that fable is that the boy was eventually proved right. The wolf did arrive — and China is the wolf.
Phi Beta Iota: The problem with the “status quo” actors and thinkers–however good their intentions–is that they simply do not know what they do not know. The world can indeed be zero-sum. It can also be non-zero sum, a case made by Robert Wright and summarized in Review: Nonzero–The Logic of Human Destiny. We know how to do this and want to do this. Those in power do not know how to do this and do not want to do this. Therein lies the challenge–all it takes is ONE leader–Cynthia McKinney comes to mind–willing to stand up, demand Electoral Reform (1 Page, 9 Points), and the rest will be history–a very good history of the Second American Republic, how it came to its senses, and created a prosperous world at peace through intelligence as design. Now THAT is Advanced Cyber/IO!
On Need to Know, we do a lot of reporting about the world’s problems. But we’re premiering a new series about people coming up with creative solutions — it’s called “Agents of Change.”
Social entrepreneur challenging conventional wisdom
Samasource–microwork (small digital tasks that can be done on an inexpensive computers).
Building 21st Century assembly line that can break down massive tasks (e.g. updating addresses for Google maps, or translating emergency messages from Creole to English). Won contracts with Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft.
15% premium for socially-conscious companies, AND competitive on cost, quality, and turnaround time.
Small scale digital tasks did not exist before.
Transforming lives, especially women, young men, and refugees. $5 a day is very much better than local norms, and buys an active English-speaking brain with hands able to do quality work.
IMPORTANT: Developing world is out-pacing USA and West generally in extending Internet infrastructure to the poor–centers created, humans come in, also doing viewing (Gorgon Stare, take note!), creating logs of store videos on shopper buying habits, anything that can be noticed and logged by a human–$5 a day.
Phi Beta Iota: We could not, in a million years, have found a better “off-set” to the USAF Gorgon Stare program. This micro-tasking, combining human brains and hands with Internet access, is one of the most profoundly intelligent and socio-economically useful ideas we have seen in our lifetimes (there are 800 of us here). BRAVO.
Chuck Spinney and Robert Steele have pretty well identified the new U.S. Air Force (USAF) drone program for what it is, but here are some ancillary remarks on the subject.
The Gorgon Stare, a new UAV built presumably to USAF specifications is a technological marvel and does indeed multiply not only surveillance capabilities, but store and forwarding capabilities as well. In the excitement over this new collection platform several essential questions are being ignored.
The most important is how much help is this device going to be in actually fighting enemy forces in Afghanistan. Is it going to help the U.S. or Coalition High Commands understand that what they call the “Taliban” is not a monolithic force with an elaborate hierarchy using a Soviet era command and control systems? But is actually a rubric for disparate tribes, groups, and gangs that engage the foreigners when they fell like it or to protect their opium trade or home village or to up grade their armament. I don’t think so.
Perhaps it will help the actual U.S. and Coalition fighters (boots on the ground) by providing heads up warnings of impending attacks or dangerous stretches of road. Perhaps but this will depend not simply on enhanced surveillance, but as Robert Steele has observed enhanced processing as well.
Thus the second important question is how will all the extra data being down linked from the Gorgon be processed, analyzed, and disseminated in a timely manner? It may not be, but it can be certain with all the extra data coming in the USAF will argue for greatly increased processing staffing along with new information handling systems with impressive, if expensive, bells and whistles. This of course will be a hidden, but real addition to the cost of the Gorgon. So will enhanced processing and analytic capabilities mean that Gorgon data may actually get to the war fighters in time to save lives and materially aid in defeating enemy forces? My guess is it won’t make a bit difference.
Unfortunately the whole Gorgon Stare Program is one more example the increasing tendency to use technology as a substitute for target knowledge and analysis (what Chuck Spinney calls synthetic as opposed to analytic thinking). As one who designed my share of ‘Gold Plated Shovels with Rope Handles’, I suspect the Gorgon falls into that category.
Phi Beta Iota: See the three graphics below. Historically the excess profit is in collection with few humans, and both government managers and contractor carpet-baggers shy away from the processing challenge–the contractors don't do processing well (a major problem with single-point of sale snake oil salesmen) and humans are “messy” and there are not enough of them to go around if you insist they have clearances. The future is HUMAN, Multinational, Ezight-Tribe Sharing, and THINKING. Gorgon Stare has no brain and neither does the US Air Force. This web site contains all of the information the US Government refuses to take seriously. Until at least one element of the US Government gets serious about creating intelligence for every level of command across all mission areas, Gorgon Stare will continue to be the norm: expensive, useless, and harmful to the infantry that take 80% of the casualties because 96% of the Pentagon's budget continues to be spent irresponsibly (and without being accounted for in a responsible manner either).
Working for change: Samasource redefines international aid 
