Intelligence (Government/Secret) – Page 9

David Tucker

3.0 out of 5 stars A poor thesis, rotten sources, with no quality control in the literature review, January 27, 2015

This is a hugely disappointing book. It reads like a graduate thesis badly overseen (with zero in the way of serious literature search). While the author has some experience in the foreign service (perhaps in the clandestine service) and as an action officer and minor manager in the Pentagon bureaucracy responsible for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, he knows little about intelligence in all its complexity, less about the information revolution, and nothing at all across 80% of the relevant literatures he fails to discover or cite.

Continue reading “Review: The End of Intelligence – Espionage and State Power in the Information Age”

2015/01/03

Review (Guest): The American Deep State – Wall Street, Big Oil, and the Attack on US Democracy

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Peter Dale Scott

5 Star Connecting the Dots

By The Peripatetic Reader on December 13, 2014

Peter Dale Scott has written many books about the Deep State at work in the U.S. government. Scott depicts American society as structurally and inherently schizophrenic. Just as there is the public government and the deep government, and ordinary events and deep events, there are two dominant forces permeating United States history: One egalitarian, believing in fairness, inclusion, and free expression, and the other militaristic and exclusionary, which is only interested in social control.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): The American Deep State – Wall Street, Big Oil, and the Attack on US Democracy”

2014/11/292014/11/30

Review (Fiction): The Navigator

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Michael Pocalyko

5.0 out of 5 stars Riddle (Family) Wrapped in a Mystery (Spies) Inside an Enigma (Finance), November 29, 2014

This is a book that requires a tiny bit of patience in the beginning and an appreciation of nuances throughout. By the beginning of the second quarter of the book you should be hooked. I found it to be a quite stunning weaving together of history, capital flight, corruption, and international financial ineptitude at the trillion dollar level. It held me to the end, I just had to be there for all the pieces to come together at the end as they did. No spoiler from me!

A few non-fiction books that I have reviewed that complement this one include:

Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold
Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War
A Full Service Bank: How BCCI Stole Billions Around the World
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country
Flash Boys

Robert David STEELE Vivas
INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

2014/10/302014/11/05

Review: Analyzing Intelligence: National Security Practitioners’ Perspectives Second Edition

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Roger George

5.0 out of 5 stars A Status Quo Book, Improved from 1st Edition, Still Pulls Punches, October 30, 2014

This is a very fine book, not least because of its inclusion of Jack Davis (search for <analytic tradecraft> as well as Carmen Medina (see them both at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog ), but it must still be categorized as a status quo book. Despite improvements from the 1st edition the authors still pull some punches — I dare hope that by the 3rd edition — and the book is certainly worthy of going forward — they will get tougher, perhaps in a new final chapter — Where Did We Go Wrong, Who Did We Ignore, How Do We Get It Right Now?

Continue reading “Review: Analyzing Intelligence: National Security Practitioners' Perspectives Second Edition”

2014/10/21

Review (Guest): Pay Any Price – Greed, Power, and Endless War

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity

James Risen

Better Than His Last One – Imagine What He'll Write From Prison, October 14, 2014

By David Swanson

When New York Times report James Risen published his previous book, State of War, the Times ended its delay of over a year and published his article on warrantless spying rather than be scooped by the book. The Times claimed it hadn't wanted to influence the 2004 presidential election by informing the public of what the President was doing. But this week a Times editor said on 60 Minutes that the White House had warned him that a terrorist attack on the United States would be blamed on the Times if one followed publication — so it may be that the Times' claim of contempt for democracy was a cover story for fear and patriotism. The Times never did report various other important stories in Risen's book.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Pay Any Price – Greed, Power, and Endless War”

2014/10/18

Review (Guest): The Great Heroin Coup – Drugs, Intelligence & International Fascism

5 Star, Crime (Government), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Kenrik Kruger

5 Stars A wild, fascinating read…

By Vanya Limonov on January 19, 2000

Danish investigative author Henrik Kruger set out to write a book about Christian David, a French criminal with a colorful past, and wound up writing a book that spans all continents and names names all the way up to Richard Nixon! The same names keep popping up here and in other books of its type, like Howard Hunt and other various CIA spooks and gangsters. A few of the characters have even been named in connection with the JFK assassination. This is not some bizarre conspiracy theory book, however, as everything is thorougly researched and annotated.

The basic premise is that the Nixon administration/CIA wanted to eliminate the old French Connection and replace it with heroin from the Golden Triangle, partly in order to help finance operations in Southeast Asia. He also goes into the relationships between French and US intelligence services and organized crime.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): The Great Heroin Coup – Drugs, Intelligence & International Fascism”

2014/10/162014/10/16

Review: Shadow Government — Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

Tom Engelbardt

5.0 out of 5 stars Responsible and Compelling — Avoids Some of the Darkest Facts, October 16, 2014

A more timely relevant book for US citizens could not be imagined, at least by me. By the sheerest coincidence, I have also recently read two books that in my view form a tri-fecta of perspective that could help launch an abolishment of the present government of the USA, a two-party tyranny in service to the legalized crime families of Wall Street.

Micah Sifry: The Big Disconnect: Why The Internet Hasn't Transformed Politics (Yet)
Darrell West: Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust

I won't repeat my summary reviews of those two books, here I will only say that while Tom Engelhardt is ably laying out the criminal insanity of what we have now in the way of a secret government that has become a “lockdown state” toxic to all forms of life everywhere, Micah has documented why the progressive and activist civil movements are dead in the water without a clue, and Darrell has documented how there are at least 25 billionaires out there who want to get it right but have no one to work with.

Continue reading “Review: Shadow Government — Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World”