Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War – Page 13

2010/02/28

Review: Tears of Autumn–A Paul Christopher Novel

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Biography & Memoirs, Country/Regional, Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Serious People Believe This Nails the JFK Assassination for Real

February 28, 2010

As a recovering spy who went on to champion Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), whose mantra is “the truth at any cost reduces all other costs,” I read this book long ago, found it very creidble (I was in Viet-Nam from 1963-1967 and historically have always been morally and intellectually ashamed of how CIA–not JFK–allowed and encouraged the internal assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the Catholic Mandarin from whom we voilated the Geneva Convention and trashed Viet-Nam for a decade.

This book, I found recently, while discussing the below JFK books I have reviewed, is taken very seriously by individuals close to two Presidents. Personally I think the CIA tacit consent, Cuban exiles out of Miami trained by CIA is much more likely–the fraudelent Secret Service credentials that allowed the killers and associates to escape are one indicator for me. In any event, this novel is terribly, terribly on target with respect to the possibilities.

My many book reviews on Viet-Nam are easily accessed at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, all my reviews lead back to their Amazon home page.

2010/01/20

Review (Preliminary): Drugs and Contemporary Warfare

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Country/Regional, Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Economics, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle

Strongly Recommended by BGen McMaster in Talk at ODNI

January 20, 2010

Paul Rexton Kan

This is one of two books strongly recommended, with deep admiration, by BGen McMaster, USA (Ret) speaking to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on 19 January. The four page trip report on his remarks about improving intelligence in support of the multinational mission in Afghanistan has been posted to Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.

I have bought this book and will review it within two weeks. CIA got its start in drug running and money laundering in Viet-Nam, and has at best facilitated the expansion of the drug zone and at worst financed it–at least half of the billion dollars a year that were channeled into Afghanistan by CIA via the Pakistani Intelligence Service are assumed (by me) to have been stolen, and today Pakistan is the primary site for the processing of Afghan opium into #4 heroin for onward shipment to Europe and elsewhere.

General McMaster also recommended Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond. In my own review of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 From that review pending my doing a complete proper review of this book:

The most important point in the book is not one the author intended to make. He inadvertently but most helpfully points to the fact that at no time did the U.S. government, in lacking a policy on Afghanistan across several Administrations, think about the strategic implications of “big money movements.” I refer to Saudi Oil, Afghan Drugs, and CIA Cash.

The greatest failure of the CIA comes across throughout early in the book: the CIA missed the radicalization of Islam and its implications for global destabilization. It did so for three reasons: 1) CIA obsession with hard targets to the detriment of global coverage; 2) CIA obsession with technical secrets rather than human overt and covert information; and 3) CIA laziness and political naiveté in relying on foreign liaison, and especially on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

My bottom line: the $75 billion a year for secret intelligence is not producing intelligence, only waste and profit. We are killing our troops in the field by being incompetent at intelligence. That breaks my heart.

2010/01/202010/01/20

Review (Preliminary): Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Culture, Research, Insurgency & Revolution, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), War & Face of Battle

Strongly Recommended by BGen McMaster in Talk at ODNI

January 20, 2010

Abdulkader H. Sinno

I have bought this book and will review it within two weeks. The key point that General McMaster made in referencing the book is that the author of this book has it right, there is no such thing as a leaderless jihad, and it is vital to be able to identify, understand, and interdict the often obscure means by which a jihad “organization” is formed and operated.

General McMaster also recommended Drugs and Contemporary Warfare. In my own review of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 From that review pending my doing a complete proper review of this book:

2009/11/282019/09/06

Review: Nonzero–The Logic of Human Destiny

7 Star Top 1%, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Communications, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, History, Information Operations, Information Society, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Media, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

7 Stars–Nobel Prize (Of Old, Before Devalued) – Life Transformative Insights

November 28, 2009

Robert Wright

QUOTE: “Non-zero-sumness is a kind of potential–a potential for overall gain, or for overall loss, depending on how the game is played.”

This book is one of the most sophisticated, deep, documented, and influential I have ever read, right up there with Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Published in 2000, this book has NOT received the marketing promotion or the public attention it merits.

THIS BOOK HAS SUBSTANTIALLY ALTERED MY PERCEPTION OF EVERYTHING ELSE.

Continue reading “Review: Nonzero–The Logic of Human Destiny”

2009/11/252011/10/22

Review: TYRANNICIDE The Story of the Second American Revolution

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Electoral Reform USA, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Survival & Sustainment, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Recommended by habeas corruptus & Robert Steele

November 23, 2009

Dr. Evan Keliher

Edit of 9 Jan 11 in light of shooting of gentle lady of Arizona, a judge, and others. I am leaving the original rhetoric intact, but I want to emphasize two things: 1) my enthusiasm was rhetorical, never anticipating the two-party tyranny blessing the the triple fraud (mortgage clearinghouse, Wall Street derivatives, and Federal Reserve) bankrupting all of us less the top 1%; and 2) many of us–millions of us–have been sounding the alarm for over a decade. We're not as stuck as we think we are–those speaking of adding security for all elected officials are fools–the only security for elected officials is to be found in their being perceived as LEGITIMATE. Neither do I believe that the ill-gotten wealth of the 1% that own America is threatened–but it will be if they do not take this terrible event in Arizona as a strong signal. All that is required to get America the Beautiful back on track is Electoral Reform–restoring the integrity of a government Of, By, and For We the People. Arizona is a “tipping point.”

Edit of 25 Nov 09 to complete review.

This book is a HOOT. It deserves to become a CULT CLASSIC. Nothing would please me more than to see 10 million copies of this book being shared across the land.

The author know Washington, knows the bureaucracy, and certainly understands the high crimes and misdemeanors that are so characteristic of Congress and the partisan White House (regardless of which party). Although a book of fiction, this book could well be a cultural prediction of the revolution that is brewing. Personally I support a General Strike that quite simply demands the same conditions as the author outlines at the end of the book, but for a fun thriller, a fast read, and a strong sense of the power of We the People armed with both knowledge and weapons, this book CANNOT BE BEAT.

Send a copy of this book to every public official whose blatant corruption you cannot stand. If you cannot afford to buy and mail the book, print the cover of the book and this review and mail them that.

Continue reading “Review: TYRANNICIDE The Story of the Second American Revolution”

2009/11/242009/11/25

Review: The Twenty-five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon

4 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Country/Regional, History, Politics, War & Face of Battle

Important but Tedious Detail, First Book Probably Better

November 25, 2009

I was so pleased to get this book today that it went right to the top of my reading pile and I spent the afternoon and evening with it. I lived in Viet-Nam from 1963-1967, going through ten coups d'etat as the son of an oil engineer and executive, and Viet-Nam has always been special for me.

Sadly, the book, while full of extraordinary detail at a personal level, is extremely tedious. It *felt* like it took a century to read, and my eyes just glazed over with page after page of names of relatives, classmates, town, etcetera.

The author's first book, Autopsy: The Death of South Viet Nam is probably a much better book for anyone other than a student of the genealogical details.

The photos were disappointing, and while the strategic maps were helpful there was little to enliven the thirteen chapters.

Over-all I formed three impressions:

Continue reading “Review: The Twenty-five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon”

2009/11/232009/11/23

Worth a Look: TYRANNICIDE The Story of the Second American Revolution (Paperback)

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Crime (Government), Impeachment & Treason, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Public), Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Preview from habeas corruptus by Christopher Ketcham

A suggestion for further action comes to mind in a recent book of fiction called Tyrannicide, by Evan Keliher, which offers the improbable scenario of the Second American Revolution, which opens, sometime in the near future, with the slow, careful, systematic assassination of the members of the US Senate for their complicity in the sell-out of the old republic. In Keliher’s fantasy, “It was big business and corrupt politicians against everybody else in a scenario that grew ever worse for average citizens and ever more prosperous for the rich, and it was now going to change even if it meant shooting every last one of the larcenous pricks.” Right. Down goes one senator after another, popped between porcine eyes with a .22 cal. bullet fired by experts. Soon, select representatives follow to the grave. The federal government freaks out with martial law and the iron fist and the boot on the throat, the citizens respond with full-scale armed revolt – a delightful vision, as sepia-tone and strange as that of a citizen musketeer on Bunker Hill fighting the injuries from a distant king.

Now if I was to imagine this kind of thing – and I’m not saying I am – as the proper justice for the most treasonous and scheming and syphilitically whored-out figures in our legislature – shoot the diseased little shits, why not? – I think the plan should certainly extend to their friends and co-conspirators on Wall Street.