Category: Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)

Posted on

Review (Guest): The Illusion of Victory – The True Costs of War

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle
Amazon Page

Ian Bickerton

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant overview of the results of modern conflicts,May 26, 2011

By Tim Johnson (Fremantle, Australia) – See all my reviews

Although I loved Bickerton's excellent book, I did find it a demanding read; chapters one, two and three is not material that a general reader like myself often encounters in the contemporary media: the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 is not a conflict that is considered in accounts of the reasons for contemporary conflicts but the more so that it need be. Far too often the entrails of conflict are not considered and much modern commentary about conflict virtually implies that the event had few if any antecedents implying that it just happened spontaneously. I believe that Illusion of Victory puts that idea away and that seems not to be the author's thesis.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): The Illusion of Victory – The True Costs of War”

Posted on

Review: Global Public Policy – Governing Without Government?

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
Amazon Page

Wolfgang Reinicke

5.0 out of 5 stars Pioneering Work, Missing Some Pieces,July 7, 2011

This is a pioneering work, easily a decade ahead of other world-class efforts, my favorite being that of (then) World Bank Vice President for Europe, J. F. Rischard, High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them. It has been largely over-looked, but should gain additional importance, along with the author's additional book, Critical Choices. The United Nations, Networks, and the Future of Global Governance, now that George Soros is sponsoring the Central European University (CEU), and within that university, the author Wolfgang Reinicke has been appointed the inaugural dean of CEU's School of Public Policy and International Affairs. In the context of the essay by George Soros, the first 57 pages of The Philanthropy of George Soros: Building Open Societies, and the now hardened disenchantment with the nation-state system for being ignorant, biased, and non-agile (these and other deficiencies are marvelously articulated by Professor Philip Allot of Cambridge in The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State, one can surmise that Dean Peinicke will seek to focus on integrationist endeavors that demand transparency and accountability for multiple stakeholders in return for stability and mutual gain.

Continue reading “Review: Global Public Policy – Governing Without Government?”

Posted on

Review: Violent Politics — A History of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerrilla War, from the American Revolution to Iraq

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Public), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

William R. Polk

5.0 out of 5 stars Chuck Spinney Raves About This Book…., June 12, 2011
By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) – See all my reviews

Chuck Spinney, along with Pierre Sprey and Winslow Wheeler and a few others, one of the top twelve brains with integrity on US defense fraud, waste, and abuse, raves about this book, calling it “one of the very best books of the subject of guerrilla warfare and insurrection that I have ever read.” For myself, this would normally be a four, but since Chuck is one of my intellectual way points, I won't argue and go with five. I can see what Chuck likes so much about the conclusion–it is a summary of the “true cost” of a government that lacks both intelligence and integrity, and strives to perpetuate global war as a matter of momentum. The author does an excellent job of including in the “total cost” the mental and physical disability toll, the social toll, the foreign “collateral damage” toll, and of course the financial toll including all the borrowing that has been done “in our name” but not in our interest.

Continue reading “Review: Violent Politics — A History of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerrilla War, from the American Revolution to Iraq”

Posted on

Review: Tremble the Devil

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle
Amazon Page

Anonymous [US counterterrorism analyst]

NOTE:  Free Online, Table of Contents

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Five Stars–Epic, Poetic, Startling, Reasoned, June 11, 2011

I have been totally absorbed with this book, and I HATE electronic books. At the age of 58, if I can't hold it and flip back and forth and quickly check the index, and so on, it's just not a book. This is why I have encouraged the author, whom I know and respect enormously, to offer this book as an Amazon CreateSpace soft-cover hard-copy. It should certainly be translated into Arabic, Chinese, and other languages. This book goes into my top ten percent “6 Stars and Beyond.” See the others at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, under Reviews (middle column).

Right up front, let me give the author and this book my highest praise: both have INTEGRITY. Integrity is not just about honor, it's about doing the right thing instead of the wrong thing righter, it's about being holistic, open-minded, appreciating diversity, respecting the “other.” There is more integrity in this book than in the last thousand top secret intelligence reports on Afghanistan, all full of lies and misrepresentations.

Continue reading “Review: Tremble the Devil”

Posted on

Review: The Threat on the Horizon

5 Star, Budget Process & Politics, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Culture, Research, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Operations, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, True Cost & Toxicity
Amazon Page

Loch Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars Scholarly Reference–Does Not Add Weight to Reform, June 10, 2011

By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) – See all my reviews

The author of this book, Loch Johnson, is one of two people who also served on the Church Commission-Brit Snider is the other, and he was, at the recommendation of Loch, joined to the Commission by Les Aspin and then appointed Staff Director on his merits. For this reason, what the book does not do is deliberate. The focus on the book is on rendering a historical account of a major endeavor to study the need for reform of the US Intelligence Community.

What the author misses up front is the reality that the Commission was the way in which Senator John Warner (R-VA) and then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney blew up the rather well-crafted efforts of Senator Dave Boren (D-OK) and Representative Dave McCurdy (D-OK-04), each the chairman of their respective Senate and House Intelligence Communities. The National Security Act of 1992 (I summarized the Act for the American Intelligence Journal) was a well-crafted endeavor. It was destroyed because Senator John Warner refused to consider anything that might reduce intelligence budget and personnel in Virginia (both a bloated at all locations), and Secretary Cheney was willing to tell any lie, oppose any good idea, that might reduce the military's growing ownership of secret intelligence. Today, under DNI James Clapper, we have the most expensive and most ineffective intelligence community on the planet-only the vendors of vaporware get rich-the deal is that all retired IC leaders and most IC retirees get to double-dip with their clearances intact-good for them, very bad for the public.

Continue reading “Review: The Threat on the Horizon”

Posted on

Review (Guest): Brain Trust — The Hidden Connection Between Mad Cow and Misdiagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease

02 Infectious Disease, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, 5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Disease & Health, Earth Intelligence, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Government, Impeachment & Treason, IO Sense-Making, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

Dr. Colm A. Kelleher

5.0 out of 5 stars As a neurologist, I found it frightening, November 21, 2004

By Stephen Wong (Pennsylvania, USA) – See all my reviews

As a trained neurologist working at a school of medicine, I thought I had a fairly good understanding of BSE and its human counterpart, nvCJD. But clinical knowledge is only one piece of the puzzle.

Drawing upon epidemiologic, forensic, political, medical, scientific, and historical sources, the author has provided a truly chilling account of the importation of prion disease samples from the small cannabalistic Fore tribe in New Guinea for U.S. animal experimentation in the 1950's and '60's, with credible links to the current epidemic of animal prion disease in North America (CWD or chronic wasting disease, TME or transmissible mink encephalopathy, and BSE), as well as the current epidemic of Alzheimer's disease in developed countries (i.e., those eating mass-produced livestock). The author also speculates that the cattle mutiliations in North America in the past few decades may have been programs designed for the surveillance of prions within the nation's food supply.

Some disturbing points made in the book are:

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Brain Trust — The Hidden Connection Between Mad Cow and Misdiagnosed Alzheimer's Disease”

Posted on

Review: To Save America Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Budget Process & Politics, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Threats (Emerging & Perennial)
Amazon Page

Newt Gingrich and *many* other contributors.

4.0 out of 5 stars Hyperbole Squared, Disingenious, Mostly Theater, June 2, 2011

I happen to like Newt Gingrich, but no one has held him accountable on matters of truth for decades. When I was elected Virtual President at the Huffington Post (search for Robert David Steele), Newt was my choice for Vice President for Global Engagement. He is easily the most educated and thoughtful/philosophical leaders we have, apart from Dennis Kucinich (better on facts) and Ron Paul (better on the Constitution and common sense). I suppose you could add Mike Bloomberg (my choice for Vice President for Education Intelligence, & Research). In short, no Coalition Cabinet can be complete without Newt Gingrich. He might even make a good president if he would stop talking and learn to integrate the thoughts of others from across all 64 parties, not just the right wing of the same bird that has been pooping on America since Newt destroyed Speaker Wright (see The Ambition and the Power: The Fall of Jim Wright : A True Story of Washington). That was also the end of bi-partisanship and the beginning of the end of the Republic, now a neo-fascist corporate state.

Continue reading “Review: To Save America Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine”