Category: Policy

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Marcus Aurelius: WSJ on Viet-Nam War – Lack of Integrity

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Policy, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy
Marcus Aurelius

Well, this is harsh w/r/t Westy…

Wall Street Journal
October 8, 2011
Pg. C5

Bookshelf

The War Over The Vietnam War

By Max Boot

Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam. By Lewis Sorley, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 416 pp., $30

September 2006. Violence levels are spiking in Iraq. Every day brings reports of more suicide bombings, more IEDs, more death and destruction. So bad has it gotten that the Washington Post reveals that a senior Marine intelligence officer has concluded “that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there.”

This was the situation when I was among a dozen conservative pundits escorted into the Oval Office for a chat with President George W. Bush. I asked him why he didn't change a strategy that was clearly failing. He replied that he had no intention of micromanaging the war like Lyndon Johnson, who was said to have personally picked bombing targets in Vietnam. This commander in chief vowed to respect the judgment of his chain of command.

Phi Beta Iota:  Full text with added links below the line.  This review and the book are largely crap.  Viet-Nam was lost for two reasons: because all historical and indigenous influences were for the residents and against the occupiers; and because the US Government was corrupt and was in direct support of a Catholic mandarin and his sister who took corruption, torture, and exploitation of a Buddhist et all land to new heights.  The review misses two of the most important books on the matter, one, Triumph Foresaken that supports the “we could have won” argument, the other, Who the Hell Are We Fighting? that makes it clear that the corruption of intelligence and the corruption of military and political planning were at the heart of America's failure in Viet-Nam.  Westmoreland was not a bad man, but he represented–as most Army leaders do today–the orthodox, the West Point Protective Association, the Army above Republic, the “go along to get along,” and of course the toxic brew of “leadership” that is arrogant, inattentive, poorly educated, and not at all concerned about the welfare or their troops.  In the US Army today, “education” is for show or ticket punching, not to actually learn anything useful to the future.

Full Text and Links below the Line.

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Seth Godin: Back to (the wrong) school — inspires a plan to retrain 44% of the US workforce in one year

03 Economy, 04 Education, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), IO Deeds of Peace, Methods & Process, Open Government, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Serious Games, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, Threats
Seth Godin

Back to (the wrong) school

A hundred and fifty years ago, adults were incensed about child labor. Low-wage kids were taking jobs away from hard-working adults.

Sure, there was some moral outrage at seven-year olds losing fingers and being abused at work, but the economic rationale was paramount. Factory owners insisted that losing child workers would be catastrophic to their industries and fought hard to keep the kids at work–they said they couldn't afford to hire adults. It wasn't until 1918 that nationwide compulsory education was in place.

Part of the rationale to sell this major transformation to industrialists was that educated kids would actually become more compliant and productive workers. Our current system of teaching kids to sit in straight rows and obey instructions isn't a coincidence–it was an investment in our economic future. The plan: trade short-term child labor wages for longer-term productivity by giving kids a head start in doing what they're told.

Large-scale education was never about teaching kids or creating scholars. It was invented to churn out adults who worked well within the system.

Of course, it worked. Several generations of productive, fully employed workers followed. But now?

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Chuck Spinney: Can USA Move Beyond 9/11 Pathology?

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Chuck Spinney

CS Note: Lightly reformatted by text unchanged and nothing added

Can the United States move beyond the narcissism of 9/11?

The unity brought about by the tragedy was intense but fleeting. The war on terror has been disastrous abroad and divisive at home

Gary Younge, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 September 2011 18.00

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks the then national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, called in her senior staff and asked them to think seriously about “how [to] capitalise on these opportunities”.

The primary opportunity came from a public united in anger, grief and fear which the Bush administration sought to leverage to maximum political effect. “I think September 11 was one of those great earthquakes that clarify and sharpen,” Rice told the New Yorker six months afterwards. “Events are in much sharper relief.”

Ten years later the US response to the terror attacks have clarified three things:

  1. the limits to what its enormous military power can achieve,
  2. its relative geopolitical decline and
  3. the intensity of its polarised political culture.

It proved itself

  • incapable of winning the wars it chose to fight and
  • incapable of paying for them and
  • incapable of coming to any consensus as to why.

The combination of domestic repression at home and military aggression abroad kept no one safe, and endangered the lives of many. The execution of Osama bin Laden provoked such joy in part because almost every other American response to 9/11 is regarded as a partial or total failure.

Read original online–safety copy below the line.

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Reference: Smart Nation Act (Simplified) 2011

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Congressional Research Service, Ethics, General Accountability Office, Hill Letters & Testimony, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Key Players, Legislation, Memoranda, Methods & Process, Mobile, Office of Management and Budget, Officers Call, Open Government, Policies, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Real Time, Reform, Research resources, Resilience, Serious Games, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, Threats
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Original Online (.doc 1 page)

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2014 Peace from Above: Envisioning the Future of UN Air Power

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Articles & Chapters, Augmented Reality, Autonomous Internet, Briefings & Lectures, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Computer/online security, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, Geospatial, History, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), International Aid, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Key Players, Maps, Methods & Process, microfinancing, Mobile, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Policy, Real Time, Reform, Serious Games, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools
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Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/UNODIN

Steele in Dorn Peace from Above As Published

Finally published in 2014 (Article) originally presented in 2011 (Briefing).

The chapter more fully integrates the DNI spiral between modern mature intelligence (M4IS2) and modern mature Air Power.

Abstract 3.1

Briefing 3.3 (29 Slides With Notes As Presented 40 KB pptx)

Event: 15-17 June Ontario UN Aerospace Power

See Also:

2012 Robert Steele: Practical Reflections on UN Intelligence + UN RECAP

UN Intelligence @ Phi Beta Iota

Worth a Look: Wings for Peace – First Book on Air Power in UN Operations

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Tom Atlee: Making Wise Decisions on Public Issues

About the Idea, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Officers Call, Open Government, Policies, Policy, Reform, Standards, Strategy, Threats
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

I have worked for several months to develop the ideas in this article and to articulate them in an accessible way.  They are fundamental understandings underlying the co-intelligence vision of a wiser democracy.

If the ideas intrigue you, you can find a longer version with more detailed guidelines and references online.  I wrote the abstract below to make it easier for you to see the whole pattern at once.  I hope you find both versions interesting and useful.

Coheartedly,
Tom

============

GUIDELINES FOR MAKING WISER DECISIONS ON PUBLIC ISSUES

by Tom Atlee

As a civilization we have tremendous collective power, but we don't always use it wisely.  We can make good decisions, but we face messy, entangled, rapidly growing problems with complex, debatable causes.  Efforts to solve one problem often generate new ones.  We need more than problem-solving smarts here.  We need wisdom.

A good definition for wisdom here is

the capacity to take into account
what needs to be taken into account
to produce long term, inclusive benefits.

To the extent we fail to take something important into account, it will come back to haunt us.  But often we only realize we overlooked something long after our decision has been implemented.  Certain practices – because they lead us to include more of what's important – can help us meet this challenge.  Here are eight complementary ways to do this.  The more of them we do, and the better we do them, the wiser our collective decisions will be.
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Winslow Wheeler: Analysis of House Mood on Defense Cuts

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, DoD, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, Methods & Process, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace Intelligence, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Winslow Wheeler

Below is an important and interesting analysis of John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World of the “mood” of the House on defense issues.  I do not agree with all of the characterizations or implications (and I agree with some), but I do believe John (whom I have known professionally with respect for almost four decades) has collected some significant information.  From this and other data, I conclude:

1) No one should be surprised at the House' ambivalence on a defense issue like Libya.  It has been the hallmark of Congress for longer than I can recall to permit presidents to do as they please internationally while sniping from the sidelines and avoiding taking responsibility;

2) Congress pats itself on its own back for pretending to support frugality in the Pentagon by taking easy votes such as against the second engine for the F-35 (which SecDef Gates successfully painted as a pork program) and against a piece of the DOD funding for military bands (see below).  The size of the votes on matters that are actually significant, such as the Barney Frank/Ron Paul and the Mulvaney amendments to cut from $8.5 to $17 billion from the 2012 DOD budget, shows a new high-water mark for budget cutting in the Pentagon not seen in Congress since — by my recollection — in the mid-1980s when the so-called Military Reform Caucus and budget cutters like Chuck Grassley were fully active.

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