Category: Insurgency & Revolution

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Review (DVD): Restrepo

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Force Structure (Military), Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Reviews (DVD Only), Science & Politics of Science, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), War & Face of Battle
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Strong Recommendation from MajGen Robert Scales, USA (Ret)

September 27, 2010

  • Actors: Dan Kearney, Lamonta Caldwell, Kevin Rice, Misha C. Pemble-Belkin, Kyle Steiner
  • Directors: Sebastian Junger;Tim Hetherington

    • General (and PhD) Robert Scales strongly recommended this movie to an audience at the Brookings Institute today. He used it as a backdrop to his official remarks on how 4% of the total force (the engaged infantry) suffers 80% of the total casualties, but less than 1% of the total Pentagon budget is spent on training and equipping them.

    My trip report on his remarks is at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, search for <Robert Scales> without the brackets.

    General Scales is the author of three books, one of which I have reviewed that remains a classic, on the disconnect between the needs of the infantry and the pie in the sky $75 billion US national intelligence community that prefers to build expensive satellites that do not work and whose collection cannot be processed.

    Firepower in Limited War: Revised Edition
    Yellow Smoke: The Future of Land Warfare for America's Military
    The Iraq War: A Military History

    To understand the continued corruption in US military management, see also:
    War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
    Defense Facts of Life: The Plans/Reality Mismatch
    The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World

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    Review: Water Wars–Privatization, Pollution, and Profit

    5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Insurgency & Revolution, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Survival & Sustainment, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
    Amazon Page

    5.0 out of 5 stars Original, Grounded, a Foundation Book

    August 27, 2010

    Vandana Shiva

    Published in 2002, this is a foundation book within the twelve books on Water that I am reading, with all reviews both here and at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog where you can easily use Reviews/Water to see all my reviews of books on water.

    Right up front the author impresses me with her discussion of the paradigm war–a culture clash–between those who see water as sacred and its provision as a duty for the preservation of water, and those that view water as a commodity and its exploitation for profit as a fundamental corporate right.

    Up front she lists and discusses the key lessons she has drawn:

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    Review: Surrender to Kindness (One Man’s Epic Journey for Love and Peace)

    6 Star Top 10%, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Civil Affairs, Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), History, Information Operations, Insurgency & Revolution, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Religion & Politics of Religion, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
    Amazon Page

    5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star and Beyond–Deep Soul-Moving Raw Truths

    August 26, 2010

    Joseph David Osman

    I had the privilege of reviewing this book before it was published. Below is what I provided for use in publicizing the book, followed by my more detailed summary review provided here for the first time.

    I have goose-bumps as I contemplate this book that I have just finished in galley form. The author is unique, a mix of Philip Caputo (Rumor of War), Robert Young Pelton (Come Back Alive), and Ralph Peters (Wars of Blood and Faith), with one huge difference–this man, this author, this son of Afghanistan who is red, white, and blue American–has given us the definitive book on all that is wrong with the American “way of war,” at the same time that he so clearly, so explicitly, so very simply, outlines the alternative path of how we can, we must, “wage peace” in Afghanistan. I am reminded by this author of Bonheoffer, of Gandhi, of Nelson Mandela. This is a book in which the souls of two nations come together, both dark and light, and we see in very personal terms, with deep cultural intelligence, that Afghanistan is unconquerable by force, but desperately seeking to connect and respond to kindness. It shames me that our government is so inept–and our population so abjectly disconnected from reality–that we have repeated Viet-Nam. Bagram Air Base is the Binh Hoa Air Base of my time; we once again seek to win hearts and minds while looking and acting like Darth Vader; and our military prisons are again filled with individuals framed by their enemies, imprisoned by gullible naïve uninformed Americans who mean well, but who are simply not trained, equipped, nor organized to wage peace.

    Robert David STEELE Vivas
    Co-founder USMC Intelligence Center, #1 Amazon Reviewer for Non-Fiction, Author on Intelligence

    Highlights for me personally as a former Marine (1976-1996) who lived in Viet-Nam as a pre-teen from 1963-1967:

    Continue reading “Review: Surrender to Kindness (One Man's Epic Journey for Love and Peace)”

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    Review: Searching for Everardo–A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala

    6 Star Top 10%, Atrocities & Genocide, Biography & Memoirs, Consciousness & Social IQ, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
    Amazon Page

    5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star Epic–Genocide, CIA Complicity, & Indigenous Honor

    July 27, 2010

    Jennifer K. Harbury

    This is one of multiple books by this author, and a huge bargain as a used book–I got the used hardcopy. This book is a book-end to Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954.

    The author wrote Bridge of Courage: Life Stories of the Guatemalan Companeros & Companeras first, and then a book that Amazon lists but does not offer for sale nor does it appear easily when trying to insert the product link: Seeds of Rage: CIA Torture Practices from Vietnam to El Salvador to Abu Ghraib.

    See also her Truth, Torture, and the American Way: The History and Consequences of U.S. Involvement in Torture. In selecting this title, I see also GUATEMALA: HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER JENNIFER HARBURY LOSES SUPREME COURT CASE AS FORMER OFFICIALS CLAIM RIGHT TO LIE.: An article from: NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs which is depressing–the “right to lie” just astounds me.

    As a former case officer (spy) with the CIA, in the Latin American area from 1979 to 1988, and now on my way out of Guatemala, this book is one that I am going to rate as beyond 5 stars, 6 stars and above, because it is a phenomenal vortex that brings together genocide (called “the patriotic wars” by the white minority “conquistadores” seeking to keep the 80% indigenous in slave status), CIA complicity in genocide and torture, and the deep, deep honor and courage and intelligence of the indigenous people. See 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus for the larger treatment.

    Highlights for me:

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    Review: International Peace Observations

    5 Star, Civil Affairs, Complexity & Resilience, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Force Structure (Military), Information Operations, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Public), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

    Amazon Page

    5.0 out of 5 stars Seminal Work Cited by Dr. Walter Dorn
    July 23, 2010
    David Wainhouse

    EDIT of 6 Sep 2010 to add comments on books once received.

    I bought this book, a real bargain, at the suggestion of Dr. Walter Dorn, the “dean” of the peace intelligence scholars, who cites the book with great favor in his own forthcoming book, KEEPING WATCH: Monitoring and Technology in UN Peace Operations, which I am going through now in galley form.

    Now that I am holding it in my hands, here are some comments.

    1)  Published in 1966, it is a phenomenal, an utterly superb, historical review of League of Nations, Latin American Union, and UN peace observation missions from 1920 to 1965.  The book concludes with a major section on “Strengthening Peace Observations.”

    2)  Right away I decide to donate this book to the George Mason University library without marking it up, nor am I reading it, having seen enough to understand why Professor Dorn recommends it so highly as a historical reference work.

    3)  The book clearly needs a sequel, from 1966 to date, over 40 years of new conflicts and new peace missions, and I make mention of this hoping that someone reading this review will be inspired to take on the project with many collaborators.

    Other related books I have reviewed:
    Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future
    Intelligence and the War in Bosnia: 1992-1995 (Perspectives on Intelligence History)
    U.S. Commercial Remote Sensing Satellite Industry: An Analysis of Risks
    Peacekeeping and Public Information: Caught in the Crossfire (Cass Series on Peacekeeping, 5)
    Public Information Campaigns in Peacekeeping : The UN Experience in Haiti

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    Review: Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements

    4 Star, Insurgency & Revolution
    Amazon Page
    4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Primer Lacking in Some Substantive Respects
    July 7, 2010
    James DeFronzo
    There is no question but that this book would be an excellent undergraduate primer, but it is lacking in a number of substantive respects. The shortfalls first:

    1. Needs to add understanding and summary of “secret war” and covert action dimensions underlying each revolution and its counter-revolution. Although there are some references, the reality about the CIA and others that comes out in books such as Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA or None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam is simply not there. In this vein, the author focuses too much on world “permissiveness” for revolution as a factor, and not enough on the grave sorrows inflicted on humanity by US sponsorship of dictatorships (see Ambassador Mark Palmer's utterly sensational Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025. While the author does address CIA's role in subverting both Guatemala and Iran (and in Guatemala, of Che Guevara's being there to witness the illegal over-throw), generally this book lacks a system of systems approach to the raw disconnect between government and people across political-legal, socio-economic, ideo-cultural, techno-demographic, and natural-geographic factors.

    2. Needs to add understanding and summary of the role of multinational corporations in both sponsoring and suppressing revolutions. From Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations to War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier to The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back, the role of elite corruption sponsored by the USA or USSR or China or Iran is simply not adequately integrated.

    3. Needs to add understanding and summary of the role of criminal networks as substantive players in any and all revolutionary movements, not just whatever poster child the US Government wants to emphasize that day. Criminals, terrorists, revolutionaries, and white collar criminals all share the same smuggling and money-laundering spectrum of networks. See Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy.

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