4 Star – Page 35 – Public Intelligence Blog

Valid Conclusions, Original, Missed Important Other Works

August 1, 2007

Dan Lindley

Information Peacekeeping and Peacekeeping Intelligence are topics of great importance to me, and I have been writing about them since the mid-1990's, while also publishing several books on the topic and reading others, all easily found on Amazon and listed below. Hence I was most disappointed in the overly academic nature of the book.

I reduce it by one star because it does not focus on the transparency needed among predatory immoral corporations as well as covert operations by the United States and others that poison the well and retard possibilities for peace, and because while it is an original work and offers very valuable primary research in the form of numerous interviews, it completely missed the work done between the Brahimi Report and this book's publication.

The book discusses four kinds of transparency:
1) Cooperative (both formal and informal)
2) Ambient
3) Coerced
4) Unilateral (intelligence, confrontational, and proferred)

The author concludes that information is power and that the United Nations continues to be reluctant or unwilling to use this power (I would add that the US military has the same problem–commanders are spending 80% of their time on intelligence & information operations (I2O) but less than one percent of the staff and budget are assigned to this vital mission).

The author identifies the following impediments to UN success in information operations:
1) Staffing not there
2) Doctrine and procedures lacking
3) Bureacratic intertia
4) Continued fear of “intelligence” as evil instead of decision support

The author concludes that United Nations operations of all kinds could benefit from and be more effective if:
1) More information was collected and analyzed, and then shared
2) Transparency operations were an advanced form of presence beyond patrols and static monitoring–a pro-active form of UN operations
3) Strategic communications (the author appears unfamiliar with the term) are mounted against hate-mongering (the first stage of genocide).

The author focuses on information transparency, but does not appear to see budget transparency as one of the most important means of validating policies and beliefs. “It's not real until it's in the budget” is a phrase taught to me by the former custodian of all national security funds in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and I have come to the conclusion that transparency of budgets at all levels is the non-negotiable pre-condition for restoring the trust and engagement of all people in their own governance.

The author does recognize the excellent work published previously,
Peacekeeping and Public Information: Caught in the Crossfire (Cass Series on Peacekeeping, 5)

Below are books that complement this one and that are not, as best I can tell, drawn on in this work:

Intelligence Power in Peace and War
Intelligence Services in the Information Age (Studies in Intelligence Series)
Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time
Peacekeeping Intelligence New Players, Extended Boundaries (Studies in Intelligence)
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption

The following book, at $150, is grotesquely over-priced, but the content, should it ever be more ethically available, appears worthy:
Intelligence for Peace: The Role of Intelligence in Times of Peace (Cass Series on Peacekeeping, 5)

Readers may also wish to search online for:
VIRTUAL INTELLIGENCE: Conflict Avoidance and Resolution Through Information Peacekeeping as published by the US Institute of Peace online
PEACEKEEPING INTELLIGENCE: Leadership Digest 1.0
Information Peacekeeping: The Purest Form of War

I also understand that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) is moving forward with concepts and doctrine for harmonizing the many Joint Military Analysis Centers that MajGen Patrick Cammaert, NL RN inspired during his tour as Military Advisor to the Secretary General. Separately, I am advancing an effort to engage 120 nations in a discussion of Multinational Information Sharing to be institutionalized through an Office of Information Sharing Treaties and Agreements within any diplomatic service. It is slow going, but this book is another helpful stone in the road to peace through information.

2007/07/292009/12/04

Review DVD: THE ART OF RACING SAILING

4 Star, Reviews (DVD Only), Sailing

Must Own, Must View Annually

July 29, 2007

Bennett Marine Video

It's a stormy day and the boat I crew on (as a grinder, the lowest of the low) is in for warranty work, so I spent the afternoon with this DVD.

It grabbed me right off by pointing out that many races are won or lost before the boat ever hits the water, and then going over a stem to stern list of all the warps and unevenness along the hull that could significantly reduce the boats symmetry and consequently, speed.

I can barely remember all the good stuff covering every position on the boat, but I know now that I am going to have to watch this DVD at least twice more this season, and then annually thereafter.

I'm a big fan of Gary Jobson and have his book; I dsicovered his DVD by wrting this review and will buy it. In the meantime, this specific DVD is a world-class opportunity to improve your racing sailing, at a price that so low that buying this could be the best $30 bucks you ever spend.

See my list of great sailing books, adding this DVD to it.

Gary Jobson's Championship Sailing : The Definitive Guide for Skippers, Tacticians, and Crew
Racing To Win with Gary Jobson
Getting Started in Sailboat Racing
Championship Tactics: How Anyone Can Sail Faster, Smarter, and Win Races
Whitbread 97/98: Pushing The Limits.
The Race: Extreme Sailing and Its Ultimate Event: Nonstop, Round-the-World, No Holds Barred
Volvo Round the World Race: The SEB Stopover Reports.
Advanced Racing Tactics

2007/07/272009/10/16

Review: Spy Wars–Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Not for the General Reader

July 27, 2007

Tennent H. Bagley

Tim Weiner's book, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA is the better book for the general reader as well as any intelligence professional.

This book loses one star for failing to be open about the special prison built for Nesenko at “The Farm,” and the extraordinarily abusive treatment he received at the hands of the Soviet Division in the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO). Old timers are still shaking their heads in dismay.

Recognizing that this book is a profound and detailed telling of the story from the side of those who destroyed Nosenko, I give it a four over all for detail from a particular perspective, a 3 for the general reader.

There is nothing in this book that would lead anyone to believe that the DO was anything less than quite good, and while I was tempted to drop it to a 3 for that reason, I left it at 4 for what I call special purpose reading. Deeper details than most desire, and details that cannot be evaluated alone, but must be considered in the light of many other accounts and context–don't bother if you only want to read one book.

In passing, the author confirms CIA's persistent inability to field officers with language skills, even against the “main enemy,” the Russians. The author also touches on the groupthink mentality of the cult of intelligence.

Other books apart from Legacy of Ashes:
Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC
Wilderness of Mirrors: Intrigue, Deception, and the Secrets that Destroyed Two of the Cold War's Most Important Agents
The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West
Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors That Shattered the CIA
None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times
Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards: U.S. Covert Action and Counterintelligence
Nightmover: How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB for $4.6 Million

2007/07/042009/10/16

Review: Imagery of Lynching–Black Men, White Women, and the Mob

4 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, DVD - Light

Erudite, Incisive, But Mostly Text and Few Photos, July 4, 2007

This is not the book I was expecting. For that, go to Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, which I rate at five stars and which so sickened me that I thought of Ike Eisenhower ordering that all those living near the death camps be ordered to march past slowly to see what they tolerated in their midst.

This is without question a very respected academic work, an one line jumps out from the first chapter “On Looking.” It captures the essence of this book perfectly:

“The power and seduction of specatacle lynching, and its social and moral legitimacy as the embodiment of communal values of law and order, white masculine affirmation, family honor, and white supremacy, depended on the crowd's act of looking.” (page 15).

My mind swirled around this, thinking of other books (listed below), of genocide, of eugenics (Henry Kissinger's favorite word), of injustice, of moral perversion and cowardliness, of those who allowed the Jews to be persecuted by the Nazis.

I am reminded of at least one other author, it may have been Francis Lappe Moore in Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life, who noted that “white supremacy” has been the death of democracy in America. To that I would add the perversion of the corporation, which stole a legacy intended for freed people of color, and turned into a lifetime license to steal from all.

Where this book lost me was in its emphasis in the remainder of the book on how lynching are depicted in art–the wood cuttings and other art images outnumber the actual photographs. All very worthy, to be sure, but at this point the book moves into the realm of the academic rather than the visceral, which is why if you buy only one book, I recommend Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America instead.

I won;'t even try to get into today's continued injustice, including red lining black districts to turn them into ghettos, then buying up the real estate at a fraction of its true value, before gentryfing it for resale and much higher prices.

My bottom line: we need two Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in America, the first to bring out in the open all of the evils that the white race has inflicted on people of color from the Native Americans to the black slaves to the Chinese slaves to the current dispossessed that now include a heavy leavening of poor whites. The second, with Nelson Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew as co-chairs, can examine the history of the UK and US as colonial powers, unilateral militarists, and predatory capitalists looting the commonwealths of all other lesser developed nations, with the consequence that we have five billion poor instead of seven billion billionaires.

2007/06/272009/12/04

Review: Betraying Our Troops–The Destructive Results of Privatizing War

4 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, War & Face of Battle

June 27, 2007

Dina Rasor

This is an excellent book for those that do not follow the broader press (I ignore the “mainstream” press, the NYT, Washington Post, and LA Times are largely worthless–the Boston Globe continues to please from time to time). The author has ably catalogued the disgrace to our nation, and the betrayal of our loyal troops, from the outsourcing of virtually every function including some combat operations.

I will honor the author by quoting Ralph Peters, one of the top US military strategists alive, who has said that we have outsourced so much that we have ultimately outsourced our honor (this includes our outsourcing to 42 dictators–there are only 2 we do not love) and to several despotic or illegal narco-regimes, including Colombia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.

The author is careful to identify some real heros that excel at supporting our troops, but on balance he provides a very bleak narrative that could be used to set the stage for Congressional hearings. In my view, Title 10 needs a complete overhaul, to create four joint forces after next: Big War built around Air Force; Small War built around Army and Marines; Peace War built around Navy and Coast Guard, and Homeland Defense, built around a National Guard that shifts toward law enforcement and does NOT go overseas for anything less than World War IV.

Below are a couple of related recommendations:
Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
Squandered Victory: The American Occupation And the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq

2007/06/272009/12/04

Review: It’s Not News, It’s Fark–How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News

4 Star, Misinformation & Propaganda

Predictable and Lightweight, But Serves a General Purpose

June 27, 2007

Drew Curtis

I read a lot, and list some related interesting books below that expand on the author's rather predictable and lightweight review. He does serve a general purpose, so I do recommend this book as a fast overview.

Here is an even faster overview of mass (corporate-dominated) media:
1) Fearmongering
2) Unpaid (and paid) placement pretending to be news
3) Headlines contradicted by content
4) Equal time for nut jobs (extreme right and extreme left as well as lunatics)
5) Out of context celebrity commentary
6) Seasonal garbage
7) Media fatigue
8) Lesser media space fillers

All of the above are called the “news hole” around which advertising, op-eds, and other garbage are placed.

Now for other books that I consider somewhat more valuable than this one:
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public
Breaking The News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest

2007/05/292009/12/04

Review: The Halo Effect: … and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers

4 Star, Leadership, Misinformation & Propaganda

Business Emperor is Naked, As Are the Courtiers,

May 20, 2007

Phil Rosenzweig

Other reviewers have listed the delusions, so I will not do that. This book was recommended to me by a disgruntled reader of one of my reviews, and I care what thinking people say in the Comments, so I got it and went through it.

The author is as good as it gets in terms of deep academic and practical understanding of business. This book is the equivalent of saying that not only is the Emperor of Business naked, but so are all of his courtiers.

I recommend the book in part because the author has done a lovely job of integrating and reviewing, with scathing subtlety, every major business weekly and business “guru”, showing how they are all blowing the breeze and have no clue which way is up.

I am reminded of Michael Lewis's “Liar's Poker” about Wall Street exploding the client (one reason most investment firms do well is because they off-load the bad stuff to their low-end customers–they play the upside of the IPO and then bail out leaving the little guy to take all the risk and suffer the consequences after the smart money bails out).

I did find it off-putting that the author thinks Rubin bailed out Mexico for some grand strategic reason. My reading of the situation is that Rubin bailed out Mexico to bail out all the idiots on Wall Street that invested in Mexico and were not prepared to suffer the consequences of their ill-advised investments. Here I am reminded of General Smedley Butler's book, “War is a Racket,” where he rails against Wall Street lending money to decrepit Third World nations and their corrupt leaders, and then sending in the Marines when it all goes bad. See also my review of “The Global Class War” and of “Unintended Consequences: The United States at War.”

This book is worth reading if you are all too prone, as most are, to accept conventional wisdom and blatant lies (e.g. “our books are balanced” or “there is no doubt Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” For the rest of us that are skeptical about virtually every statement by any corporation chief or any politician, this book is reinforcement on the margins.

Like Al Gore, the author does a good job of showing us what the problem is. He does not offer solutions or any new integrated concept of business analysis that properly provides for all that is external to the corporation.

I am especially struck by the fact that “green” or “environment” or “Capitalism 3.0” or “Natural Capitalism” do not appear in this book. Let us conclude then, that the author has done an excellent job of burying the past, and now needs to spend some time thinking about the future (see my list on Natural Capitalism).

I am nominating Paul Hawkins, Herman Daly, and Lester Brown for the Nobel Prize. Al Gore is not even close–his Hollywood Oscar will have to do. Paul Hawkins especially (see his latest, “Blessed Unrest” and also the online World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility) has actually mobilized and organized and suffered for the future.

Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back
Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
Unintended Consequences: The United States at War
War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It

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Category: 4 Star

Review: Promoting Peace with Information–Transparency as a Tool of Security Regimes