Topics (All Other) – Page 182 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/11/142010/11/14

Journal: Taliban’s grip is far stronger than the West will admit

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Analysis, History, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Afghanistan – behind enemy lines

James Fergusson returns after three years to Chak, just 40 miles from Kabul, to find the Taliban's grip is far stronger than the West will admit

Independent, 14 November 2010

The sound of a propeller engine is audible the moment my fixer and I climb out of the car, causing us new arrivals from Kabul to glance sharply upwards. I have never heard a military drone in action before, and it is entirely invisible in the cold night sky, yet there is no doubt what it is. My first visit to the Taliban since 2007 has only just begun and I am already regretting it. What if the drone is the Hellfire-missile-carrying kind?

Three years ago, the Taliban's control over this district, Chak, and the 112,000 Pashtun farmers who live here, was restricted to the hours of darkness – although the local commander, Abdullah, vowed to me that he would soon be in full control. As I am quickly to discover, this was no idle boast. In Chak, the Karzai government has in effect given up and handed over to the Taliban. Abdullah, still in charge, even collects taxes. His men issue receipts using stolen government stationery that is headed “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan”; with commendable parsimony they simply cross out the word “Republic” and insert “Emirate”, the emir in question being the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar.

The most astonishing thing about this rebel district – and for Nato leaders meeting in Lisbon this week, a deeply troubling one – is that Chak is not in war-torn Helmand or Kandahar but in Wardak province, a scant 40 miles south-west of Kabul.

Read rest of this direct look at ground truth….

Phi Beta Iota: We are reminded by this piece of how the best CIA desk officers knew instantly, the day we announced going to war in Viet-Nam, that we had gotten it wrong, that Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist, and that we would lose. By the time Afghanistan rolled around, intelligence had become both jejeune and unethical (silent in the face of treason), and politics had become even more ideologically psychopathic and corrupt than ever before. James Fegusson has given us a very fine contribution–this is ground truth at its best.

and most especially:

Review: War Without Windows

Review: None So Blind–A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam

Review: Who the Hell Are We Fighting?–The Story of Sam Adams and the Vietnam Intelligence Wars

2010/11/132010/11/13

Journal: Cyber-Heist 2nd Generation

03 Economy, 04 Education, 10 Security, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Computer/online security, Cultural Intelligence, Cyberscams, malware, spam, InfoOps (IO), IO Mapping, Law Enforcement, Mobile, Standards

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

The Great Cyber-Heist

New York Times

By JAMES VERINI

November 10, 2010

Mid-1990s: Gonzalez, 14, is visited by F.B.I. agents at his high school for hacking into NASA.

Gonzalez, law-enforcement officials would discover, was more than just a casher. He was a moderator and rising star on Shadowcrew.com, an archetypal criminal cyberbazaar that sprang up during the Internet-commerce boom in the early 2000s. Its users trafficked in databases of stolen card accounts and devices like magnetic strip-encoders and card-embossers; they posted tips on vulnerable banks and stores and effective e-mail scams. Created by a part-time student in Arizona and a former mortgage broker in New Jersey, Shadowcrew had hundreds of members across the United States, Europe and Asia. It was, as one federal prosecutor put it to me, “an eBay, Monster.com and MySpace for cybercrime.”

Read rest of article….

Phi Beta Iota: We opened Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) in 1994, making the observation that when the Israeli's captured a hacker they gave him a job, while the US simply kicked them in the teeth and sent them to jail. We tried to keep Phiber Optic out of jail, and we have for decades been on record comparing hackers to astronauts–full of the right stuff and pushing the edge of the envelope. No one, including Marty Harris then in charge of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) wanted to listen. Today the US Government is again ignoring the warnings on the urgency of getting a grip on all information in all languages all the time, and roughly 20 years behind in creating “root” cyber-security. This article by James Verini is a phenomenal update on what we all knew in the mid-1990's that the US Government is still oblivious to–this is not a problem technology or wanton spending can solve–this is a problem that demands discipline, integrity, intelligence, and sharing. It is neither possible nor desireable to secure government or military computers in isolation–this is an “all in” smart safe nation challenge.

Search: smart nation intelligence reform electoral reform national security reform

Continue reading “Journal: Cyber-Heist 2nd Generation”

2010/11/13

Journal: Who Dun It on the Deficit?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding, Government

Obama inherited a federal deficit that was spinning out of control (mostly because of decreased tax take and increased expenditures for automatic stabilizers, e.g. unemployment insurance), and pressure is growing to cut Social Security (perhaps the most efficiently run program in government) while placing Defense (one of the most inefficiently run programs) off limits. These political pressures are not new and in fact have been building up for years. So, as a first cut into a complex issue, perhaps it is time for the angry masses to ask which political party put them into the fiscal straight jacket that is setting them up for this horrible choice?

A. Democrats?
B. Moderate Republicans?
C. Right Wing Republicans?

Hint:

Green => Reductions in the burden of Gr. Fed. Debt (as measured by the debt to GDP ratio)
Red => Increases in the burden of Gr. Fed. Debt

2010/11/132010/11/13

Journal: Obama to Leave Democratic Party?

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

White House: Obama Conducting Reign of Terror

Posted on 06. Nov, 2010 by Raja Mujtaba in US

Suspected White House leakers are on the run

By Wayne Madsen

President Obama was urged by the few White House insiders from whom he still takes advice to leave the country on his ten-day Asian trip, his longest trip abroad since becoming president, in order to not inflict any more damage to the Democratic Party in the wake of one of the worst electoral defeats for the party of an incumbent president in recent history. According to sources close to the White House, who put themselves in great danger by even talking to members of the media, the plans to have Obama leave for a visit to India, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan are an attempt to get Obama out of the country while top Democrats can sort through the political disaster created for the party by Obama's increasingly detached-from-reality presidency.

Virtual political guerrilla warfare has broken out between Obama's inner circle on one hand and senior Democratic officials, including outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Party strategist James Carville, former Demcratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, and, behind-the-scenes, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton, on the other.

Phi Beta Iota: This is a remarkable “hit job” that will need much more corroboration. We see two underlying stories that merit exploration. First Story: Obama is scaring his own party. It took a lot to piece together all the little bits that have been hyped together here. Second Story: Obama is beginning to see that he can only win a second term as an Independent, without Biden and without Clinton II. What we do know is that Obama's advisors to date have been a mix of pogomists, pollsters, and political groupies. If he ever gets a grip on strategic reality and commits to restoring the Republic with Electoral Reform, he could still be the George Washington of the 21st Century. On this article, at this time, we stand with Barack Obama and not his detractors.

Complete Madsen reprint below the line so our military colleagues do not have to visit the other site.

Continue reading “Journal: Obama to Leave Democratic Party?”

2010/11/132010/11/13

Journal: Chinese Missile off US Coast?

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 10 Security, Intelligence (government), Military, Peace Intelligence

Chinese Submarine was not the first on US coast

Posted on 12. Nov, 2010 by Raja Mujtaba in Hot Topics

Sneaking subs into waters off the west coast — its happened before

By Wayne Madsen

The firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile by a Chinese Jin-class submarine off the coast of southern California last Monday at the height of evening rush hour in Los Angeles was not the first time the U.S. Navy's anti-submarine warfare sensors in the Pacific have failed.

In 1981, a Soviet Victor-class nuclear submarine successfully evaded the Navy's Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) network of underwater hydrophones, Towed Array Sensor System (TASS) ships, and P-3 sonobuoy-equipped aircraft and popped up off the Oregon coast alongside a Soviet fishing fishing trawler.

Phi Beta Iota: We only know that we do not know the full story. We do believe that China and Russia are furious over Wall Street to Washington financial irresponsibility. The Chinese have a sense of humor, having previously popped a submarine up directly behind a US carrier after sneaking through an entire carrier battle group. This could be related to blocking any further US military exercises in the waters around Taiwan. The US Government really does not “understand” how quickly Taiwan is going to follow Hong Kong into mainland control. Sadly, we cannot rely on the US Navy or the US Government to be open with its own public on what is known about this matter.

Complete Madsen reprint below the line so our military colleagues do not have to visit the other site.

Continue reading “Journal: Chinese Missile off US Coast?”

2010/11/122010/11/12

Journal: Sacred Music from a Time of Peace Among Religions

11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process

From Jerusalem to Cordoba

Here’s a press release for a performance I’m co-producing with Scoop Sweeney:

AUSTIN – Catherine Braslavsky and Joseph Rowe will bring their musical performance, “From Jerusalem to Cordoba,” from Paris to Austin on December 3, 7pm at St. David’s Episcopal Church, Bethell Hall, 301 E. 8th St., Austin, 78701-3280. The performance is a celebration of the musical and mystical traditions in and around the Mediterranean, from ancient Judaism and Paganism, to medieval Christianity and Islam. It features ancient and original music sung in Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Greek, Medieval Spanish, Occitan, and Arabic. Instrumental accompaniment includes Middle Eastern percussion, oud, dulcimer, Tibetan bowls, Indian tampura, and African mbira.

The performance is built on short poetic and narrative texts that include both original material and quotations from Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Ibn ‘Arabi, Yehuda Halevi, etc. The narrative thread woven through the performance evokes a rarely-perceived common ground, and an alternative view of sacred traditions which have so often been in conflict. Braslavsky and Rowe have presented this performance at venues throughout Europe.

The Italian newspaper La Republicca describes the performance as “fascinating… with great spiritual power.” Author Jacques Attali describes it as “A remarkably successful voyage in sound, depicting those rare times when Jews, Christians and Muslims have lived together in peace and dialogue.” Rev. Lauren Artress, Canon at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, calls it “uplifting and inspiring,” and notes that “Catherine and Joseph are truly gifted musicians. Allow them to enrich your life.” Jon Lebkowsky in Wired Magazine described the music as “…at once new, traditional, and transcendent. … chants and chant-like original compositions powerfully realized as invocations of the human essence — whether it be the soul, spirit, or consciousness — in its ascent.

Taking Place in Austin, more details…..

Phi Beta Iota: This makes the cut for three reasons. First, Jon is selective about what he sends out. Second, holistic analysis and understanding must of necessity include music and art–the Western tradition has destroyed the role of the humanities and in so doing, committed sacrilige with science. Finally, faith is also a part of conscious evolution, and absent its full integration into any intellectual traditional, you end up with fundamentalist idiots doing grave damage within and among communities. Religion is at its most gifted when it is a vibrant part of the cultural tradition and used to transfer the lessons of civilization from one generation to the next–starting with the Golden Rule.

Review: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

Review: Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Women’s Thinking to Psychological Theory and Education

Review: Consilience–the Unity of Knowledge

Review: Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution

Review: Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution

Review: Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution

Review: Philosophy and the Social Problem–The Annotated Edition

2010/11/122011/10/22

Reference: Changing the Game

About the Idea, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, Geospatial, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Mobile, Officers Call, Open Government, Policies, Policy, Real Time, Reform, Threats, Tools

ARE WE READY TO CHANGE THE GAME YET?

by Tom Atlee

Some people say Gandhi was about nonviolence. And he was.

But he is significant for something else that I believe is far more important:

He changed the game.

With no one's permission, he reconfigured the playing field of colonialism to a higher Game in which everything the British did in their smaller, narrower game backfired on them. Prisons, guns, threats and bureaucracies of control not only ceased to work like they used to, but actually generated more power for Gandhi's world-changing Game.

Gandhi's Game involved, in his words, “experiments in Truth” — a search for Truth, a bigger Truth, a common inclusive Truth, a win-win Truth in every situation. The British — and even many of Gandhi's compatriots — were not aligned to that Truth. They wanted victory, control, and righteousness. These things trapped them in their smaller game until, one by one, and sometimes wholesale, Gandhi's commitment to Truth won their hearts and minds — and Shift happened.

Continue reading “Reference: Changing the Game”