Waste (materials, food, etc) – Page 9 – Public Intelligence Blog

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends....

It's a good think Ike is dead… else he would realize his nightmare survived. Chuck

Newsday January 13, 2011 Pg. 34

The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex

Eisenhower warned against the influence of arms production, but did we listen?

By Bob Keeler

EXTRACT: Now, the deficit has caused some unexpected voices to say, ever so softly, that everything is on the table – including defense cuts. Last week, Gates talked about plans to slow the defense budget's growth by $78 billion over five years. That dainty nibble is a start, but we need big bites. A group called the Sustainable Defense Task Force has laid out ways to cut $1 trillion in 10 years. That's better.

Full story below the line…

And…

Obama Ignores Eisenhower at Country's, World's Peril (Melvin Goodman)

Military-Industrial Complex, Fifty Years On (Leslie Gelb, Council on Foreign Relations)

Continue reading “1961-2011: 50 Years of The Military-Industrial Complex”

2011/01/132011/01/13

Reducing Afghan Corruption Through Mobile Payments to National Police

08 Wild Cards, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Corruption, Ethics, microfinancing, Military, Mobile, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Non-Governmental, Open Government, Technologies, Waste (materials, food, etc)

M-Paisa: Ending Afghan Corruption, one Text at a Time

Monty Munford Oct 17, 2010

Afghanistan supplies 92% of the world’s opiates. According to the latest available figures, the country produced 8,200 tons of heroin in 2008, more than double the the amount three years earlier.

But even being the heroin capital of the world, bringing in more money than most Afghans can dream of, the on-going war and rampant corruption means the money goes to the wrong people and the country has no infrastructure. There are no decent roads, no railways… But they do have mobile phones.

Four months ago, the Afghan National Police began to pay salaries through mobiles (using a text and Interactive Voice Response system), rather than in cash. The platform used was based on the M-Pesa service that has become highly successful in Kenya. Branded M-Paisa in Afghanistan, it was introduced by the operator Roshan in partnership with the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and had an immediate effect.

Full article

Thanks to Vinod Khosla via his Twitter feed.

Also see: Afghanistan War Wealth + Corruption Cycle (Opium, Hashish, Minerals, Past Pipeline Attempts)

2011/01/132011/01/13

NIGHTWATCH Extract: US C/JCS & China Arms Race

02 China, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, History, Intelligence (government), Military, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

China- US: CJCS Admiral Mullen said today that China's high-tech military capabilities, including the radar-evading stealth J-20 fighter, focus on America.

China has every right to develop military capabilities, Mullen said, adding that he cannot understand why many appear to target the United States despite North Korea's being an evolving threat to the region and to the United States. If Pyongyang obtains long-range nuclear missile capabilities, its provocations may become more catastrophic, Mullen stated, adding that China must pressure North Korean leadership to cease development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and expansion of nuclear weapons capability.

Comment: It is difficult to accept at face value that Admiral Mullen does not understand the Chinese obsession with the threat from the United States.

Taking the statement at face value – and not as an act of political manipulation – it implies that the J2 and J5 staffs have failed to brief him about the origins of Chinese national defense strategy since the death of Deng Xiao Ping. If the Chairman's statement is genuine and not posturing, it is astonishing.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: US C/JCS & China Arms Race”

2011/01/11

High Speed Rail in America: Identifying Mega-Regions

03 Economy, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Policy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

A new study released today by America 2050 identifies the high-speed rail corridors with the greatest potential to attract ridership in each of the nation's megaregions. Corridors connecting populous regions with large job centers, rail transit networks, and existing air markets scored best. The study also recommends that the federal government adopt a quantitative approach to evaluating future investment in high-speed rail.

Download the press release.

The 56-page study, entitled, “High-Speed Rail in America,” cites ridership potential as the number one factor in determining if a corridor is suitable for investment, identifies the specific conditions that generate ridership demand, and scores each corridor according to strength in those areas. The top performing corridors in each region determined to have the greatest potential demand for high-speed rail ridership include corridors such as: New York-Washington, DC; Chicago-Milwaukee; Los Angeles-San Diego; Tampa (via Orlando) to Miami; Dallas-Houston; Atlanta-Birmingham; Portland-Seattle; and Denver-Pueblo.

2011/01/102011/01/10

US$2 Trillion debt crisis threatens 100 US cities

01 Poverty, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Waste (materials, food, etc)

Phi Beta Iota: The existence of double sets of books is now coming to light. As best we can tell from various public discussions, the operating budgets are deliberately in the red and used to borrow money, at the same time that out-sourced services and “asset rents” are in the black. We honestly do not know what the true situation is, but we do know that the amount of falsehood and fraud in the “system” is deep.

– – – – – – –

Overdrawn American cities could face financial collapse in 2011, defaulting on hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowings and derailing the US economic recovery. Nor are European cities safe – Florence, Barcelona, Madrid, Venice: all are in trouble

Elena Moya, guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 December 2010

More than 100 American cities could go bust next year as the debt crisis that has taken down banks and countries threatens next to spark a municipal meltdown, a leading analyst has warned.

Continue reading “US$2 Trillion debt crisis threatens 100 US cities”

2011/01/092011/01/09

Journal: Will Pakistan Implode Because of US in AF?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Military, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

Pakistan will implode if the US does not leave Afghanistan

The continuing US presence in Afghanistan fuels extremism in neighbouring Pakistan

Imran Khan The Observer, Sunday 9 January 2011

The assassination of Salmaan Taseer has shown only too clearly the growing extremism in Pakistan, the radicalisation of its society and the polarisation that is taking hold. This is not just between the religious and the secular, but also the polarisation that the “war on terror” has caused between the various religious sects.

Read rest of article Chuck Spinney is commenting on…

Is the Global War in Terror Creating More Problems than it is Solving?

Chuck Spinney

The late historian Chalmers JOHNSON popularized the term “blowback” to describe the unintended grand-strategic consequences resulting from interventionist foreign policies and military actions. The term blowback dates to the CIA's internal history of the US’s 1953 Iranian coup that threw out the Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (a progressive social reformer who wanted to nationalize the oil industry among other things) and replaced him with the tyrannical American puppet Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. No one can doubt that contemporary problems with Iran today are rooted in resentments dating back to the 1953 coup.

Continue reading “Journal: Will Pakistan Implode Because of US in AF?”

2011/01/042011/01/04

Journal: CIA Ghosts of Khost Ride Again….

04 Education, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

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.

Silent Stars

By Jennifer Sklaka

Washingtonian.com, January 2011

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.

See Also:

Journal: The Truth on Khost Kathy

Journal: CIA Officer Blew Off Warning in Jordon Weeks in Advance of Jordanian Suicide Bombing in Afghanistan that Killed Seven

Journal: CIA Does It Again….(Taliban Imposter)

Reference: Panetta Puts Lipstick on the Pig (Again)