Justice (Failure, Reform) – Page 28 – Public Intelligence Blog

2006/06/262009/12/04

Review: The One Percent Doctrine–Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Hardcover)

6 Star Top 10%, Education (General), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Justice (Failure, Reform), Politics

Amazon Page

Impeaches Cheney, Demeans Bush, Crucifies Rumsfeld and Rice,

June 26, 2006

Ron Suskind

In the context of non-fiction literature, I consider this book to be the co-equal of Graham Allison's classic, “Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.” It joins Bob Woodward's “Bush at War” and the more detailed James Risen's “State of War” as core references. This book specifically and clearly documents three facts:

1) Vice President Cheney is impeachable for dereliction of duty and obstruction of due process in government as well as many violations of international and domestic law. While I do not see the President as quite the puppet some represent him to be, he is certainly childish and petulant and angry at his father (page 107: “I'm not going to be supportive of my father and all his Arab buddies.”) Cheney and his neo-cons nurtured the young President's inclination to “unleash” Israel against the Palestinians, and Cheney is specifically impeachable for not providing the President with a copy of the Saudi Arabian memorandum of grievances that preceded a summit at the ranch which was of MAJOR importance to the entire Middle East situation. The author excels at showing how Dick Cheney has “experimented”, from President Ford onward, with specifically NOT briefing the President, ostensibly to give him plausible denial but in this instance, more as a means of Cheney's deposing Bush as the actual head of State.

2) I cannot take the second step of suggesting that Bush himself is impeachable on the basis of this book. What I see–and the author excels at social-psychological insights across the entire text–is an insecure young man with excessive faith in his gut instinct, loosely-educated, hostile about experts and especially mature experts like Brent Scowcroft, and all too eager to prove his (inadequate) manliness by being belligerent and often a bully. “Bring it on.” The author of this book combines analytic insights into the character of the President, with detailed discussion of the degree to which the White House completely ignored the policy process to “do what they want, when they want to, for whatever reason they decide.” On the basis of this book, one can conclude that Cheney should be impeached and Bush still needs a good spanking from his father. In this context, the author provides a memorable quote on page 227, “America, unbound, was duly led by a President, unbound” and also “free from conventional sources of accountability.”

3) The third major focus of this book is the combination of incapacity of the CIA and the FBI and the Pentagon in evolving to deal with the post-9/11 challenges. The FBI comes off as the most inept, consistently unable to do its job on the home front. Rumsfeld is next in line for condemnation, and while the author is very professional in his review, he quotes Rumsfeld as saying that “every CIA success is a DoD failure,” and he quotes then Vice President Nelson Rockefeller as considering Rumsfeld to be “beneath contempt.” One can only be stunned as the six years going on eight of having a government that is BOTH “out of control” AND inept. The CIA, and George Tenet, are featured as the least incompetent among the three. At a minimum, they did find and track Bin Laden over a week as he fled Afghanistan and the Pentagon refused to put US troops into Afghanistan's border region; and they did get other aspects right in relation to the policy debate that was not allowed to happen. The title of the book refers to the Vice President's decision that even a 1% probability of what he chose to emphasize, was sufficient to eliminate the policy process and all standards of evidence, sufficient to close out all reasoned debate.

There are a number of gems in this book that merit note:

1) Cheney was responsible for both intelligence and terrorism from day one of the Bush Administration, and was clearly derelict in his duty in ignoring both.

2) The book clearly lays out how the Administration's obsession with Iraq sidelined all CIA warnings including the 6 August warning and others. Bush is quoted in the book as having dismissed the last CIA briefing team, which made a frantic attempt to alarm him, as “OK, you've covered your ass now.” Boy kings as “enfant's terribles!”

3) The book captures in detail the incompetence of the CIA and FBI as a general rule. On one page, the author quotes the Vice President as chewing out both agencies, saying “You don't cooperate for shit.” On another page, he quotes George Tenet as telling the assembled Allied intelligence chiefs, “We don't know shit.”

4) The author provides a superb review of successes in one area, following the money, but ends on a down note because now Al Qaeda and everyone connected to the financial support of Al Qaeda has gone “offline” to use couriers and cash. As the author says, we are now, again, deaf and blind. In passing the book puts Western Union out of business in the Arab world, at least among those desiring to do illegal transactions. In this context the author makes it clear that First Data volunteered to help, and confirms that the Bush Administration decided with great deliberation to ignore the FISA court and its *exclusive* mandate from Congress.

Other tid-bits:

1) CIA had the mastermind of the London bus bombings in its sights, but put him on a no fly list rather than help the UK track him.

2) Al Qaeda chose NOT to go after nuclear targets with the 9/11 bombings, “for fear it would go out of control.” This suggests a reasoned enemy.

3) Brent Scowcroft produced a plan for intelligence reorganization that was sensible, and that was blocked by Cheney, who also blocked the 1992 intelligence reform effort.

4) Condi Rice is crucified in this book for a broken NSC process and lack of gravitas.

Book ends with Deuteronomy 16:20, justice twice, once for ends, one for means. This book fails the Bush Administration on both counts.

2006/04/042009/12/04

Review: The Covenant with Black America (Paperback)

Economics, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class

Many Excellent Reviews, Some Additional Related Reading,

April 4, 2006

Tavis Smiley

There are some really excellent reviews of this book, and I recommend they all be read as the authors are better qualified than I to comment on the book's weaknesses.

I want to focus on its strengths. This is a five-star piece of work that is extremely well developed and well-presented. The ten covenants merit listing because all Americans need these covenants, and if the Latinos and the Americans of color can form their own parties and demand equality, then these ten covenants work for all of us:

I. Securing the right to healthcare and well-being. See my review of Paul Farmer's Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor (California Series in Public Anthropology, 4) and Andrew Price Smith's The Health of Nations: Infectious Disease, Environmental Change, and Their Effects on National Security and Development

II. Establishing a System of Public Education… See my varied reviews of the work of the university. Thomas Jefferson said “A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry.” We've been blowing it since Viet-Nam.

III. Correcting the System of Unequal Justice. Not only do people of color get cheated, but so do white people that are not part of the corporate white collar crime world. See my reviews of both books by Kurt Eichenwald (The Informant: A True Story and also Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story)–U.S. law enforcement is joke in strategic terms, not just with illegal immigration.

IV. Fostering Accountable Community-Centered Policing. Makes sense, with an emphasis on community-building. More recently I have been promoting the need for a “bottom-up” community warning network with 119 and 114 numbers that help National Guard watchstanders “see” patterns that can be used for preventive policing.

V. Ensuring Broad Access to Affordable Neighborhood that Connect to Opportunity. This one really grabbed me, the author pointing out that the Department of Transportation spends 60% of its budget on roads for cars driven mostly by white people, and a fraction on mass transit of greater value to those who cannot afford a car.

VI. Claiming Our Democracy. This short section could have benefited from some mention of the reforms proposed by Ralph Nader (voting on week-ends, instant run-offs, end to gerrymandering), but it is right on target in pointing out that we have a corrupt democracy that does NOT deliver representative accountable representation. Since this is a Republic, we have the authority to dissolve the government and start over–now wouldn't that be something?

VII. Strengthening Our Rural Roots. There is a growing understanding that the centralized models of agriculture and energy are not only bad models from an oil-demand point of view, but they also destroy communities. “Localized” communities spread out and doing their own agriculture, energy production, and moral networking, are the way to go.

VIII. Accessing Good Jobs, Wealth, and Economic Prosperity. All well and good, but it starts with education. We have to give everyone a good education, and that is not happening in the inner cities or the rural areas, in part because we still have an education system built to train docile factory workers, not creative free spirits suited for the age of networked information.

IX. Assuring Environmental Justice for All. See my review of Max Manwaring (editor), “Environmental Security,” and Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

X. Closing the Racial Digital Divide. Every church needs to become a Collective Intelligence Center where the members can come together to strategic on lowering their mortgage rates, sharing cars, increasing their income with online second jobs, etcetera.

Each section concludes with a Facts sheet, and then sections on what the community, the individual, and leaders can do, as well as short sections on what works.

Over-all this is an elegant collection of very educated views that should yield a very fine “summit” between John Edwards and Al Sharpton.

I completely agree with the reviewer that is disdainful of any attempt to shop this covenant to the Democratic or Republican parties. Both are completely corrupt and out of touch with America. A separate party is exactly the way to go, co-equal to the Greens, Libertarians, and others, but ideally, also helping to bring together the various minority parties, including a Latino party, under a federated American Independence Party. Peter Peterson in Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It has it right: BOTH the Democratic and Republican parties need to be closed down (conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans can form their own minority parties and come together with those listed above as well as the Deaniacs).

EDIT of 11 Dec 07: as I write this We the People appear to be stirring. There is now clear evidence that Dick Cheney is a proven liar and a nakely amoral person, and that Congress betrayed us all, the Republicans by being foot-solders for the White House, the Democrats for being their door-mats. 100 million “opt out” voters could come back into politics in November 2008, and help us take back our government. I for one am absolutely committed to reducing the size of the federal government while at the same time assuring free public health care just as we get “free” police and fire safety, and the same quality education for everyone through high school and thereafter as needed.

2005/09/292009/12/04

Review: Democracy Matters–Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (Hardcover)

6 Star Top 10%, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy

Nobel Prize Material–Extraordinarily Thoughtful and Articulate,

September 29, 2005

Cornel West

I found this gem in the Tampa Airport bookstore and bought it for the title, not realizing that the author was the world-class professor that Larry Summers disrespected.

This is, easily, Nobel Prize material. The reflections of Professor West are extraordinary, and they are well-presented with a wealth of both names and carefully selected quotations from the works of others that make this book both a tour of the horizon, and a bright shining light on the topic of democracy and how to save the American democracy.

As I absorbed this superb material over the course of flying from Tampa to DC and into the evening, I felt that on the one hand, Professor West was truly gifted at singling out and embracing the best literary, religious, and musical talents, and that I was receiving, in the course of a single book, a course on thoughts of others that mattered to democracy. My other thought, once reminded of his dust-up with Larry Summers, was how extraordinarily courteous this author is, in identifying the very destructive tendencies of extremist Christianity, extremist Judaism, and extremist Islam. This is a man who is both innovative and polite.

A few notes from the margins of this heavily under-lined and annotated work….

1) There is marvelous deliberate aliteration throughout the book, with many pages having the resonance of poetry. This is gifted articulation and reflection, hand-crafted communication of the highest order. “Superb artistry of words” is my note on page 27.

2) Professor West is absolute correct to highlight the fact that America is built on genocide against the Native Americans, and slavery of the Africans, and remains in denial of these core realities. Then fast forward to America's support of 44 dictators, its virtual colonialism, its immoral capitalism, it schism between rich and all others–I am reminded by Professor West of Nelson Mandela, and write in the margins: America needs two “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions”–one for what we have done to our own Native Americans, Americans of African descent, and to the working poor, another for what we have done to the rest of the world.

3) Thoughout this book run the themes of prophetic or embracive Christianity, love versus materialism, nurturing versus imperialism. Most interesting to me is the consistency of thought between Professor West and that icon of the leadership literature, Margarent Wheatley. Both understand the extraordinary importance of dialog and openness and the need to share information and perspective, in sharp contrast to the ideologues in the White House that call General Anthony Zinni a traitor for questioning the false facts that led us into an unjust and prohibitively expensive war in Iraq. Dialog, not force, is the way to spread democracy.

4) On page 104 I have the annotation “THIS IS THE MESSAGE!” and “WOW!!!! If Karen Hughes wants to succeed as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, she has only to read this book and memorize page 104. Professor West is stunningly brilliant in both his assessment of America's vulnerabilities from its inherent hipocrasy, and in his evaluation of the faith-based democratic message that has real possibilties in the Middle East and elsewhere. Page 137 is also essential to Karen Hughes–Professor West is incisive in understanding that Western democracy has no chance in the Islamic world; that we must undermine the repressive autocratic clerics; and that we must help Islam modernize on its own terms–Islamic democracy will not look like Western democracy, but it can be democratic.

5) The author is just down-right superb in evaluating the Jewish condition, and the insanities of America's wasteful and counter-productive generosity toward extremist Jews who receive 33% of all our foreign aid, $500 per Israeli (against 10 cents a year for Africans). He is brilliantly coherent when he suggests that we should continue to spend these sums in the Middle East (Egypt gets 20% of our foreign aid) but put our money on the side of indigenous democratic movements, not the autocratic extremists on both the Arab and Israeli fronts.

6) Professor West gently slams Salman Rushdie and V. S. Naipaul while introducing the reader to the wealth of insight and passion in the literature from the African Islamic world.

7) The entire book, in its brilliance, coherence, and insightfulness, is a spanking of Larry Summers, one of Harvard's least qualified Presidents, but on page 189 ff the author addresses Summers directly, and his account of the encounters has the ring of truth. Tenured at Yale and Princeton as well as Harvard, with more publications to his credit than most of his peers, one puts down the book with appreciation for the author's condemnation of the sell-out of universities to greed and corporate grants, and one can easily choose to respect the author over his antagonist.

There are numerous other books I have reviewed here at Amazon that bear witness to Professor West's thoughtful and balanced critique of American imperialism and the loss of our democratic ideals here at home. Princeton is fortunate to have this great mind return to its busom, and one can only pity Harvard for violating its motto and allowing a white supremacist (who does not respect women either) to eviscerate their prophetic Christian and Black Studies faculty.

This is an absolutely grand piece of reflection, ably presented, with enormous respect for the views of others and very delicate manners in the discourse of disagreement. Very few books have aroused in me a passion such as this one has–Bonhoffer would say it is the passon of the black Church. I would say that this one man truly represents all that could “be” in the American democratic tradition. He merits our affectionate respect, embodiying as he does the thought that struck me early on in the book: life as religion, religion as life. In God We Trust, and damnation to those lawyers that seek to remove God from our Republic's identity. One can separate the church from the state, but one cannot separate religious faith from the foundation of democracy–it is as water is to cement, an essential ingredient for a lasting construct.

2005/07/252015/01/09

Review: Running on Empty–How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It (Paperback)

6 Star Top 10%, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Justice (Failure, Reform), Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

6 Star Holy Cow! “Insider” Speaks Truth, Tars Both Parties,

July 25, 2005

Peter G. Peterson

Edit of 9 Jan 15 to elevate to 6 stars. In the context of the hundreds of books I have reviewed (see my master list easily found, Worth a Look: Democracy Lost & Found Essay, Book Review Blurbs and Links, this book stands out as one of the earliest and most thoughtful — still a classic, still relevant. SIX STARS.

Edit of 16 Apr 08 to add more links on the bad and the good.

Edit of 17 Jan 07 to add links.

UPDATED 15 Dec 07 Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial BranchesThis extraordinary book should be read in tandem with Lewis H. Lapham's Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy and perhaps also William Greider's The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy as well as Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World.

I find it extraordinary to have the Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, which I have always considered to be an old man's club of established elites, largely out of touch with 80% of the real world (that is to say, the 80% that has almost nothing in the way of wealth, health, or rights), step up to the plate and speak truth.This book addresses the second core issue in America's future, i.e. the twin deficits that are not only going to kill the business of America, but also deprive the children of America of their future. (Lapham addresses the first: restoration of honest democracy). In combination, the $7 trillion deficit in federal spending, and the $500 billion a year trade deficit, with roughly $2 billion in foreign loans being required every single day to keep America afloat, both suggest that we are snorting political cocaine and every one of us is a damn fool for allowing two political parties to get away with selling us down the river.As the author points out in the Preface, when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cautions its own master, the USA, that it is in danger of becoming an insolvent Third World country, running up bills that “would require an immediate and permanent 60 percent hike in the federal income tax, or a 50 percent cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits,” we cannot say we have not been warned.The author is balanced, focused, deliberative, and earnest. He carefully explains how both the “mainstream” political parties have completely abdicated all responsibility, and completely betrayed the public interest in their eagerness to sell legislation to the highest corporate bidders.

There is one grievous flaw in the book. In concluding that we can only survive by educating ourselves and then finding our voice, the author neglects to address the fast means of achieving short-term fiscal recovery in tandem with campaign finance and electoral reform: the elimination of subsidies, tax fraud, and tax relief for corporations. We have close to a trillion in unwarranted and unsound subsidies to poor agricultural, fisheries, forestry, and minerals programs where every dollar in subsidy is yielding high long-term costs to the taxpayer citizen; we have over $50 billion a year in documented import-export tax fraud ($25 rocket engines going out, $3000 toothbrushes coming in–advanced money laundering and tax avoidance); finally, the corporate share of federal tax revenue has dropped from 32% to 6% in the past twenty years, with corporations like Halliburton paying $15M in taxes on billions in profit–easy to fix: pay taxes on the profit declared to the stockholders.

See also the more recently published book by John Bogle, Wall Street mutual funds giant, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, in which he singled the author of this book out for special praise. What this means is that Wall Street and the “elite” now realize, as Dean Garten from Yale tried to tell them in The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders, we are all in this together, government is hosed, labor is vital, morality and integrity are non-negotiable foundations for mutual prosperity. 2008 could be the foundation year of the 2nd American Republic.

See also (with reviews):
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
State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

2005/02/272009/12/04

Review: The Cheating Culture–Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Ethics, Justice (Failure, Reform), Philosophy, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Gets Right to the Point: Cheating Destroys the Commonwealth,

February 27, 2005

David Callahan

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

I recommend that this book be read together with John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and William Greider's, The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy. As a pre-amble, I would note that a Nobel Prize was given in the late 1990's to a man that demonstrates that trust lowers the cost of doing business. Morality matters–immorality imposes a pervasive sustained, insidious, long-term, and ultimately fatal cost on any community, any Republic, and that is the core message of this book that most reviewers seem to be missing.

Any student of national security can tell you that one of the most important sources of national power is the population, followed by the economy, natural resources, and then the more traditional sources of national power: diplomacy, military, law enforcement, and government policies generally.

What this author makes clear is that our population has become a cheating population, one that cheats in school, cheats their employer, and cheats their clients (lawyers, accountants, doctors, all cheating). Such a population is literally undermining national security by creating false values, and undermining true values. Some simple examples: an estimated $250 Billion a year in individual tax avoidance; an estimated $600 Billion a year in theft from employers; an estimated $250 Billion a year in legalized corporate tax avoidance and investor fraud; and an additional $250 Billion a year in legalized theft form the individual taxpayers through Congressional support for unnecessary and ill-advised “subsidies” for agriculture, fishing, and forestry, as well as waivers of environmental standards that ultimately result in long-term external diseconomies…

At root, the author observes that pervasive cheating ensues from the perception by the majority that “everyone does it” and that the rules are not being enforced–that “the system” lacks legitimacy. In other countries, illegitimacy might lead to revolution, a revolt of the masses. In the USA, still a very rich country, the poor are cheating on the margins while the rich are looting the country, and we are not yet at a “tipping point” such as a new Great Depression might inspire.

This is a thoughtful book, and it does not deserve the negative comments from those whom the book most likely is describing all too well. Cheating diminishes trust and reduces value. America has become corrupt across all the professions, within Congress, within the media, within the political level of government (the civil service remains a bastion of propriety).

What price freedom? What price the Republic? You may or may not choose to agree with this author's diagnosis and prescription, but in my view, he gets to the heart of the matter. It's about integrity. We've lost it.

2005/01/272009/12/04

Review: Inside–A Top G-Man Exposes Spies, Lies, and Bureaucratic Bungling in the FBI

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform)

Not Enough on Spies, Plenty on State-Level Corruption and FBI Idiocy,

January 27, 2005

I. C. Smith

I bought this book in an airport for two reasons: because I knew the man, and because the FBI does not produce enough good authors. Although I was disappointed by finding that only 20% of the book covers spies and lies, while 80% covers bureaucratic bungling and leadership failures with in the FBI, overall I put it down fully satisfied.

We all know now that Al Qaeda was never operating in secret, and even today, is not operating in secret. We are simply incompetent at looking at open sources in foreign languages. IC Smith conveys this perfectly early on in his book, on page 7, when he repeats something he said that was published in the media, to wit “These guys were not superhuman, but they were playing in a system that was more inept than they were.” I share IC's anger over the FBI's failure to translate and exploit the many boxes of documents in Arabic that were captured in the Philippines and after the first World Trade Center attack, the botched car bombing.

If there is one word that summarizes this book's message, beyond incompetency, it is “corruption.” IC Smith tells it like it is when he discusses Congressional corruption, refusing to fix known problems in the Intelligence Community; Presidential corruption in abusing power and covering up those abuses; state-level corruption across Arkansas; intelligence community management corruption and malfeasance–some would even say treason, although IC avoids this word.

On a very practical level, IC Smith is probably the foremost authority to come forward and denounce the practice of having prosecuting attorneys manage investigations. The book has many examples of where trained investigators were not allowed to do their job, and prosecutors botched or blocked investigations that would have otherwise been timely and successful.

In passing, he skewers the staff at the FBI Academy, almost none of whom have actual street experience (nor do most FBI managers at the wood-paneled office level), and it is clear that while America has many dedicated Americans serving within the FBI, they are badly trained and badly led.

In addition to this book I recommend Michael Levine's Deep Cover: The Inside Story of How DEA Infighting, Incompetence and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War (on the Drug Enforcement Agency), and Mark Riebling's Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11–How the Secret War between the FBI and CIA Has Endangered National Security (on the FBI-CIA wars that continue to this day), as well as George Allen's book None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam (on the continuing ability of the White House–regardless of occupation–and the Intelligence Community–to lie to themselves, to Congress, and to the American people).

IC is a straight shooter. I'm glad he made it to retirement without being shot by a crook or stabbed in the back (fatally) by one of the suits in Washington that pretend to serve the people while serving only themselves.

Links added 20 Dec 07:
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World

2004/06/292009/12/04

Review: Shake Hands With The Devil–The Failure Of Humanity In Rwanda

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Biography & Memoirs, Diplomacy, History, Humanitarian Assistance, Insurgency & Revolution, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Genocide is SYMPTOM–Lack of Public Intelligence is CAUSE,

June 29, 2004

Romeo Dallaire

I read this book with the eye and mind of a professional intelligence officer long frustrated with the myopia of national policy constituencies, and the stupidity of the United Nations Headquarters culture. General Dallaire has written a superb book on the reality of massive genocide in the Burundi and Rwanda region in 1994, and his sub-title, “The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda” is where most people end up in reading this book.

I see things a little differently. I see this book as a massive indictment of the United Nations culture of “go along gently”, as a compelling documentary of how ignorant the United Nations is about impending disasters because of its persistent refusal to establish a UN intelligence secretariat as recommended by the Brahimi Report, and as a case study in how the Western nations have failed to establish coherent global strategies–and the intelligence-policy dialogues necessary to keep such strategies updated and relevant.

According to the author, 15 UN peacekeepers died–over 800,000 Rwandans died. The number 15 is not larger because Belgium, Canada, and the US explicitly stated that Rwanda was “irrelevant” in any sense of the word, and not worth the death of a single additional Western (mostly white) soldier.

Although there has been slight improvement in the UN since LtGen Patrick Cammaert, NL RM became the Military Advisor to the Secretary General (see General Cammaert and other views in Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future, the reality is that the UN is still unintelligent and unable to muster the strategic intelligence necessary to get the mandate right; the operational intelligence necessary to get the force structure right; and the tactical intelligence necessary to achieve the mission on the ground. Just about everything General Dallaire writes about in this book with respect to UN culture and UN lack of intelligence remains valid today: they still cannot get decent maps with which to plan a campaign or execute the mission; UN administrators are still anal-retentive bureaucrats that will not issue paper and pencils, much less soft drinks for diplomatic encounters; UN “seniors” still like the first class lifestyle on the road (they pretend to be austere only in NY); UN civilian mission leaders still misrepresent military reporting, as Booh-Booh did to Dallaire; and the UN is still ineffective in creating public intelligence with which to communicate directly to national publics the reasons why humanitarian operations must take place early and in force.

General Dallaire concludes his excruciatingly detailed book, a book with enormous credibility stemming from the meticulous manner in which he documents what happened, when it happened, and what everyone knew when (including advance warning of the genocide from the “third force” that the UN leadership refused to take seriously), with two thoughts, one running throughout the book, the second in the conclusion only:

First, and perhaps because of the mental toll he himself paid for this mission, there are frequent references throughout the book to the urgency of understanding the psychology of groups, tribes, and cultures. This is not something any Western intelligence agency is capable of today. The closest I have seen to this is Dr. Marc Sageman's book on Understanding Terror Networks We urgently need a global “survey”, with specific reference to the countries plagued by ethnic conflict and other sources of instability, and we need to start taking “psychological intelligence” very seriously. We need to UNDERSTAND.

Second, he concludes the book by emphasizing the urgency of understanding and then correcting the sources of the utter RAGE that characterizes hundreds of thousands if not millions of young men around the world, all of whom he says have access to guns and many of whom he says will ultimately and unavoidably have access to weapons of mass destruction.

As I contemplate the six-front hundred-year war that America has started by attacking Iraq instead of addressing the social networks and sources of terrorism, I cannot help but think that this great solider and statesman has hit the nail on the head: Rwanda is coming to your neighborhood, and nothing your policy makers and military leaders are doing today is relevant to avoiding that visitation. Remember the kindergarten class in Scotland? The Columbine shootings and Oklahoma disasters? Now magnify that by 1000X, aggravated by a mix of angry domestic militants, alienated immigrant gangs, hysterical working poor fathers pushed into insanity–and the free availability of small arms, toxins, and simple means for collapsing the public infrastructure….

The complexity of society, which has lost its humanity, is leading to unpredictable and difficult to diagnose and correct collapses of all the basic mechanisms of survival. General Dallaire's book is not about Rwanda–it is about us and what will happen to us if we persist in being unintelligent about our world and the forces that could–if we were wise–permit billions to survive in peace.

In addition to this book I recommend the PKI book mentioned above, Jonathan Schell's book on The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People Bill Moyer's on Doing Democracy, and Tom Atlee on The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All. If we do not take back the power and restore common sense to how our nations behave and how our nations spend our money around the globe, the plague of Rwanda will visit our neighborhoods within the decade.