5 Star – Page 150 – Public Intelligence Blog

Stovepiping and Failure to Share Informaiton THE Threat,

May 31, 2006

Clark Kent Ervin

I actually like the “Tedious and Flawed” review even though I do not fully agree with that characterization of this book. That review is useful as a counter-balance to blind acceptance of the author's assertions as well as my own praise of this book.

However, as a 30 year veteran of the U.S. Government, and as the lead Amazon reviewer on national security matters, I have to give this book five stars and opine that on balance, this author is closer to the truth than the U.S. Government might wish us to believe.

The key assertion in the book, which most reviewers fail to note, is that stove-piping and a failure to share information is the key threat to our Nation. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) appears to understand this assertion, and the ONLY thing about the DNI that impresses me is the focus on information sharing standards and processes being devised by the DNI CIO. The author gives this information sharing blockage more weight when he discusses the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ten different intelligence units out of the 22 agencies it manages, yet the Secretary of DHS (then Tom Ridge) refused to do what Congress asked him to do, which was to be the lead for coordinating and consolidating intelligence about threats to the homeland. Little wonder that years after 9-11 we still do not have a consolidated watchlist of suspected terrorists.

The author says on page 175 that DHS suffers from a clear failure to take intelligence matters as seriously as they should be, and he cites testimony to the effect that DHS gets a grade of 5-6 on a scale of 10. A memorable quote on page 11 sets the stage for the book: “Instead of connecting the dots, the Secretary of Homeland Security was passing the buck.” Exactly right, and Hurricane Katrina, which the author does discuss, proves the point. DHS is a charade, line the DNI, the Secretary of DHS is simply a figure-head, a placebo for public.

EDIT of 28 June 2007: I reread this book by accident while at the beach, having forgotten I went over it earlier, and this time one additional observation jumped out at me: the author, in the chapter on intelligence failure, documents how the lawyers working for the original Secretary of DHS refused to allow DHS to execute its mandate to be the sole authority in bringing together all the terrorist watchlists. The national counter-terrorism center is in my view unnecessary, counter-productive, overly obsessed with terrorism, and oh, by the way, five years later, they have a gift shop but they still do not have a consolidated terrorist watch list.

I happen to sympathize with the author, and there are no doubt many that will consider this book to be self-serving, but when the author says on page 15 that “doing your job can ruin your career,” he is speaking for many. Today the Washington Post tells us that the Supreme Court has ruled against government employees being entitled to freedom of speech, even when they are attempting to report criminal actions by their organizations or leaders. The U.S. Government has, in my view, become corrupt with respect to the integrity of the information and the transparency and accountability of all the Cabinet departments. Fraud, waste, and abuse are the rule, not the exception, and we are long overdue for a massive housecleaning. I have seen too many good people driven out of government through “fitness of duty physicals,” transfers to dark corners, and other punitive measures that should be illegal and punishable by prison or at least impeachment. The U.S. Governments shoots the messenger and plays politics with the truth, and that is a fact.

In that regard, the authors slams Senator Joe “never met a Republican I cannot love” Lieberman, and Senator Collins, for not being serious about their oversight roles, for being too intent with “going along” with what according to this author, the Inspector General charged with knowing such things, were not only fraud, waste, and abuse, but MISSION FAILURE.

I was impressed that the author established a separate IG unit to focus on information technology, and distressed that like the rest of the US Government, he does not seem to recognize the extraordinary value that the Government Accountability Office (GAO, an investigative arm of Congress) can offer as a partner in rooting out fraud, waste, abuse, and plain incompetence.

In the intelligence arena, my primary area of int3rest and my main reason for reading this book, the author has real credibility with me when he states that the U.S. Intelligence Community has NOT been fixed (as of 2006, five years after 9-11), and that DHS is a minor and abysmally incompetent player in the US IC–the “last to know” anything relevant to defending homeland security.

The book has excellent notes and an extremely poor index. I would normally reduce the score of this book to four stars for such a poor index, but the importance of this topic, and the authenticity of the author's experience and shared knowledge, cause me to leave it at five stars. I recommend the book be read with Stephen Flynn's America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism, which I have also reviewed, some time ago, very favorably.

2006/05/312009/12/04

Review: MGB Automotive Repair Manual–1962-1980 MGB Roadster and GT Coupe With 1798 CC (110 cu in Engine) (Haynes Manuals) (Paperback)

5 Star, Cosmos & Destiny

Absolutely Brilliant and Essential,

May 31, 2006

Chilton

This manual came with the 1964 MGB that I bought in Missoula, Montanta (western edge) and promptly drove across the country to Oakton, Virginia. The critics of this manual live on some other planet. This is the original repair manual, I could not live without it, and it is as historic as the MGB to which it pertains.

It can certainly be complemented by other books. The two that I chose and am very pleased with are the Original MGB with MGC and MGB GT V8 by Anders Ditlev Clausager, and the Haynes Restoration Manual MGB (2nd Edition). The first is NOT a restoration manual as it advertises itself to be. It is more like a coffee table book, a showroom “this is what perfect looks like” book. The second, by Lindsay Porter, is a really superior piece of work that brings complex photographic illustrations, detailed descriptions, and context. See my separate reviews of these latter two books. All three are essential.

The value of this book, the original MGB 19962-1980 guide, apart from its substance, is how well is conveys the idea that the MGB, the last and only car I have every been able to understand, was in fact intended as a racing sports car that could be both maintained and restored by its owner.

2006/05/312009/12/04

Review: Original MGB with MGC and MGB GT V8–The Restorer’s Guide to All Roadster and GT Models 1962-80 (Hardcover)

5 Star, Cosmos & Destiny

This is what perfect looks like–but not a real guide,

May 31, 2006

Anders Ditlev Clausager

This book is an absolute gem. It is a coffee table kind of book, with glorious detailed color photographs of the most extraordinary restored MGBs is the world. The book is inspirational and delightful in every possible way, and I could not do without it.

It is NOT, however, a restorer's guide other than in the iconic sense of showing what the final product looks like. The Haynes Restoration Manual MGB (2nd Edition) by Lindsay Porter, **combined with** the original Haynes MGB 1962 thu 1980 Automotive Repair Manual (“the green book”) is the way to go for actually studying up on the details of specific restoration projects. The black and white photographic essays and related text detail and diagrams are exactly what is needed to guide restoration.

Apart from the truly extraordinary photographs, this book also provides a detailed history of the car, both in a text form detailing changes within each model, year, and territorial type, and in a tabular form with engine and body numbers and a complete listing of all changes to the car over time. I mention this because “coffee table” book is meant to be a complement to the photographs, but I must also emphasize the extremely good detail that accompanies the photographs. It is, I venture to say, not possible to understand the history and development of the MGB, nor the deep affection that one can have for the car, without this particular book.

The three books together are essential. This book, the coffee table book, is both the beginning (inspiration) and the end (how close did I get). The Porter book is the meat, and the green book is the basic mechanics of it all.

2006/05/312009/12/04

Review: MGB Restoration Manual (Restoration Manuals) (Hardcover)

5 Star, Cosmos & Destiny

Essential Modern Middle Ground Book,

May 31, 2006

Lindsay Porter

This is NOT the foundation book for MGB maintenance and repair. That honor is still held by the Haynes MGB 1962 thru 1980 book published in the 1980's and often delivered as part of the “kit” to anyone buying an original MGB, as I just did.

This book, however, is a really superb rendition of modern guidance, with superb photographic essays of complex operations. Although it has a color cover, all of the photographs are in black and white. The book is a real build on top of a normal repair manual, with sections on history, buying (BUY THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU BUY AN MGB), and then bodywork, interior trim, mechanical, electrical, and so on.

The third book that I recommend is Anders Ditlev Clausager's “Original MGB With MGC and MGB GT V8.” This is a coffee table book, a “this is what perfect looks like,” and it is both inspirational and just plain delightful. I drove my 1964 MGB across the country in the four days after I bought it (at 2500 RPM most of the way, 65 mph, but on special stretches of Iowa, doing 4000 RPM for sustained periods) because I love this car as a sports drive, not a driveway show car. Still, it is really great to see what perfection without regard to long haul rallying looks like, and I could not do without all three books.

2006/05/072009/12/04

Review: While Europe Slept–How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within (Hardcover)

5 Star, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial)

No Footnotes, But a Clear Alarm on Intolerant Muslims,

May 7, 2006

Bruce Bawer

The Department of Homeland Security should be reading this book. We have wasted years since 2001 when we should have been identifying and expelling Muslims from America who refuse to be educated, emancipated, or integrated. The author, who took on Chirstian fundamentalist intolerance first (Stealing Jesus), has a personal ax to grind (he is gay and gays get attacked by Muslims all over Europe) but does a phenomenal job–a really superb job, of documenting (but without footnotes) how the intolerant Muslims (not to be confused with Muslims who accept integration) are a Fifth Column with a strategic plan for becoming a majority across Europe by 2030, already outnumbering Jews in America and most other places.

The most frightening facts that the author brings forward, apart from the grotesque intolerance of many Muslims, is how they refuse to integrate. The author lays bare the false assumptions by government authorities who anticipated integration over several generations. In one case study, Turkish men imported not one but three wives over time, and have an average of 6.4 children with each wife. A small group of Turkish male guest workers numbering less than 150 thus grew to over 2,500 non-integrated and largely rabid Muslims prone to anti-democracy.

The author also addresses–as Steve Emerson addressed in his PBS film in 1994–how immans in Europe uphold the Muslim traditional of female mutilation, female slavery, and the Muslims being under NO OBLIGATION to accept the rules and conventions of the secular states where they are guests.

The author discusses how anti-semitism is on the rise across Europe, spurred by intolerant Muslims, and how the authorities tend to ignore the Muslim attacks on Jews, their honor killings and other travesties within their own communities.

The author goes further and notes how many of the children are “dumped” back home to be brain-washed in madrasses, and even if taught in-country, are taught intolerance.

On balance, despite the lack of footnotes, this is an extraordinary book, and it gives reasonable rise to the informed judgement that expulsion edits are required if individual countries are to protect themselves from both Muslim intolerance and the importation of poverty that accompanies illegal immigration.

Over-all the author provides a very broad look at how the Europeans have become lazy, are not re-populating, and are all too inclined to be anti-American as a mind-set, without recognition of all that America has contributed. European anti-Americanism, combined with European blind eye toward Muslim intolerance, is basically gutting Europe, to the point that one third of the Dutch plan to leave the Netherlands.

This excellent book has helped me see that there are two distinct views on the Muslim threat that have to be balanced. On the one hand, there is the liberal view that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were a concocted threat nurtured by the US Government in order to provide an excuse for invading Central Asia and Iraq. On the other, there is the conservative view that Muslims who are intolerant and who refuse education, emancipation of their women, and integration into the host society, should be regarded as a clear and present threat to the society, and should be expelled. I believe that both views have credibility and both views need to be considered as we move forward.

2006/05/062009/12/04

Review: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order (Paperback)

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class

Free Market Not Free, Ills of the 21st Century, Brilliant,

May 6, 2006

Michel Chossudovsky

Although it saddens me to see a strong literature emerging today that was largely anticipated and ignored by people like David Barnett with his Global Reach work in the 1970's, it is a good thing that strong voices like those of this author are now making very comprehensive documented cases for how corporate power and privatized wealth are collapsing nations, bankrupting economies, and impoverishing more and more people unnecessarily.

The table of contents of this book is extraordinarily details and brilliant in its organization. Although the book is mostly case studies that one can read through rapidly if accepting of the author's key points, this may well be one of the finest itemizations of the ills of the 21st century: corporate power run amok, privatization and concentration of wealth (which is, incidentally, one of the precondition for revolution), the collapse of national and local economies (e.g. Wal-Mart), the dismantling of the welfare safety net in most countries, and the outbreak and spread of famine and civil war.

The author is probably the foremost scholar and commentator on how the “free” market is not so free, and how the existing capitalist system is predatory, aided by locked in privileges that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank impose on nations foolish enough to accept their intervention. In this the author is consistent with Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty) who has put forward the need for a complete make-over of developmental economics, to include an end of the normal business practices of the IMF and the World Bank.

I was tempted to remove one star for lack of sufficient reference to the works of others, but the personal insights and comprehensive review caused me to leave the ranking at five stars. I see a clear pattern emerging in the literature (see my other 700+ reviews) and what I am waiting for is for someone to cut the spines off all these books and “make sense” of the total picture in a manner comprehensible to the indivdual voter.

If we are to restore informed democracy and moral capitalism, this book is one of the foundation stones.

2006/05/042009/12/04

Review: Wal-Mart–The High Cost of Low Price (2005)

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), True Cost & Toxicity

Good News: People Power is Starting to Work!,

May 4, 2006

Robert Greenwald

This is an important and absorbing documentary. I have nine note cards on it, and I summarize the key points that this DVD makes because I believe it should be shown in every town hall meeting where a Wal-Mart exists or threatens to arrive.

The bottom line is that the Wal-Mart family of five had made over 100 billion dollars on the backs of its “slave” employees in the US and in China, and Wal-Mart can and should be viewed as a front from the Chinese government, as a means of undermining the US economy while building up the Chinese economy. Throughout this DVD (and in the book that inspired it) hard documented incontrovertible facts are provided with respect to the manner in which Wal-Mart is subsidized by the taxpayer (e.g. over $80 million a year in assistance to Wal-Mart employees in Florida that qualify for below the poverty line assistance)–the cost to taxpayers across the country is said to total over $1.5 BILLION; Wal-Mart also fails to meet its obligations, either in return for tax abatements, or in response to consent decrees when it has been found guilty of pollution or other crimes.

* Wal-Mart does not pay fair wages and is violently anti-union to include illegal surveillance and intimidation. They short-change payroll and demand off the clock overtime, which is illegal, in order to increase their profits. The personal stories told in this DVD about employees having to choose between eating lunch or buying medicine for their children are not only heart-rending, but remind me of Third World countries where the same choice has to be made by mothers. PEOPLE POWER IS STARTING TO WORK: Wal-Mart is losing hundreds of law suits across the country to employees suing for off the clock cheating.

* Wal-Mart lies a lot. It lies about its contributions to communities (there is clear documentation that Wal-Mart destroys communities and destroys the small businesses for hundreds of miles around). Wal-Mart lies about its benefits, its wages, its environmental concerns, it lies about almost everything. I have the note “hypocritical liars.”

* Wal-Mart is eroding global labor standards. They fire their own inspectors for doing their jobs and telling the truth.

* Wal-Mart parking lots are very very unsafe. Wal-Mart has known since 1994 that their parking lots attract a great deal of crime including night-time rapes and murders, and they have also known since 1994 that a couple of unarmed security guards in uniforms riding around in golf carts would eliminate almost ALL of that crime, but they are not willing to pay for that safety just as they are not willing to pay for living wages for their employees.

* Wal-Mart has established a clear and well-documented pattern of lying to courts–of flagrant active perjury.

* PEOPLE POWER II: “plantation capitalism” will forever be linked to Wal-Mart, but the wonderful news is that the people are starting to fight back, and across America, Wal-Mart is being stopped in its tracks from hijacking local planning processes and buying out city councils.

Two additional points not covered by the documentary:

* Reviewer John Staffa does us all a favor in pointing out that Hillary Clinton was a member of the Wal-Mart board and profited from the relationship. This simply drives home the point that Democratic “leaders” are simply “Republican Lite” and no longer really interested in supporting labor unions and people's rights.

* I have reviewed many books on the end of cheap oil, and many of them make the point that companies like Wal-Mart can bring all those goods from China to the USA because of the cheap oil, which is no more. In 1974-1979 the Senate and the White House knew full well that Peak Oil was upon us. They made the treasonous decision back then to conceal this from the public and take no action in order to keep the bribes from the energy companies, and the illusion of cheap gas going. Both Wal-Mart and the US Government have essentially lied to the US public and acted against the long-term public interest. It's time we tax them back.

I strongly recommend this movie as a means of mobilizing support for blocking all new Wal-Marts, and for beginning the process of closing down existing Wal-Marts. The facts are incontrovertible. Wal-Mart kills communities. Wal-Mart is now, like Standard Oil and Exxon today, like AT&T and Microsoft, a company that has gotten pathologically powerful and needs to be broken up.

This DVD, and “The Corporation” DVD, are both essential tools in nurturing a new movement to take back the power over the US economy and the corrupt US political system. Super super work.

Category: 5 Star

Review: Open Target–Where America Is Vulnerable to Attack (Hardcover)

Review: MGB Automotive Repair Manual–1962-1980 MGB Roadster and GT Coupe With 1798 CC (110 cu in Engine) (Haynes Manuals) (Paperback)

Review: Original MGB with MGC and MGB GT V8–The Restorer’s Guide to All Roadster and GT Models 1962-80 (Hardcover)

Review: MGB Restoration Manual (Restoration Manuals) (Hardcover)

Review: While Europe Slept–How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within (Hardcover)

Review: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order (Paperback)

Review: Wal-Mart–The High Cost of Low Price (2005)