Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 200 – Public Intelligence Blog

A Gem, Free Online, Worth Buying Just for the Book Form, October 22, 2008

Army War College

I have long recommended that the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the U.S. Army offer its many publications on Amazon, and I am very glad to see that finally happening. SSI, to which I contribute when asked, is my single best source of free serious books, and a real national asset. The URL for their online version is in the comment, but I do recommend purchase as it will then reach you in book form.

This is a reader, the result of a conference held in February 2008. We are fortunate to have the published record so soon.

The most important contribution of the gathering, drawing from over 70 submitted “principles of peace,” was its final consensus on the following six:

1. Ensure rule of law
2. Seek security: civil, military, economic
3. Pursue legitimacy
4. Encourage development
5. Foster self-empowerment and self-sufficiency
6. Foster communications

Appendix II, nine individual submissions of distinct principles of peace, is alone worth the time and money for the book, and ample cause for reflection. Appendix III offering six break-out group distillations, and then Appendex IV offers the six principles above.

Appendix V offers 15 “Policies and Procedures,” and with apologies to those that hate lists, I believe I serve the group by listing them here in short form. I am impressed. This is useful good stuff.

1. Be ready for a fight after the fight
2. Enlist reconciliable groups
3. Control population
4. Advise, rather than force, when appropriate
5. Prevent disease and unrest
6. Be an honest broker
7. Punish egregious violators insofar as it promotes national healing
8. Reconstruct institutions so that abuses will not be repeated
9. Secure sacred places, relics, and cultural features
10. Empower a culturally-nuanced judiciary
11. Facilitate appropriate sustainable development
12. Facilitate coordinated efforts with lead agency (both national and international
13. Respect culture
14. Define a clear, concise national mission with associated objectives
15. Pursue bottom-up policies where applicable, thereby creating self-sufficiency through individual empowerment.

[It is natural for the reader to wonder why we don't do this at home.]

I found roughly half the pieces arresting enough to demand attention.

10 Questions Before You Go by Marc Tyrrell of Carlton University

Question 1: What is the Mission?
Question 2: What is the Ongoing Moral Justification of the Mission?
Question 3: What is the Source of Legitimacy for the Mission?
Question 4: What Social Institutions Have Failed and Why?
Question 5: What Social Institutions Does Mission Success Require and Desire?
Question 6: What Cultural Institutions Support *Required* Social Institutions?
Question 7: What Are the Basic Narratives of the Culture?
Question 8: What Are the Basics of the Culture?
Question 9: What are the Core Narratives of the Culture That Relate to the Mission?
Question 10: Not offered–the Socratic open-ended inquiry.

Dr. Dewey Browder from Austin Peay State University (host of the event)

Demilitarization
Denazification
Decentralization
Democratization

On the latter point, I was impressed by several contributors who pointed out that “democracy” for many is based on tribal and other network forms of consensus, not on majority voting (and of course we have our own tyranny of fraudulent parties disenfranchising two thirds of the public).

Dr. Albert Randall, also with the host university, got my attention on religion, after pointing out that our failure to take this into account cost us heavily in Iraq. [I was told directly by Civil Affairs officers that the first few years they were told to ignore the imams and the tribal leaders, now of course we know better.] Here are his truncated six points (the last two complete):

1. Religion adds a higher intensity…
2. Religion offers a stronger identity…
3. Religion can motivate the masses quickly and cheaply…
4. Religion offers an ideology or a platform for an ideology…
5. Religious leaders are often the last leaders left when states fail, and they offer a voice to the disempowered or oppressed.
6. Religious leaders are often the first to seek peace and reconciliation after conflict.

Other contributions earned my attention, but the last I want to mention here is the early intervention of Jordy Rocheleau, also from the host institution, “Ethical Principles for State-Building.” This one chapter of 14 pages could usefully be integrated “as is” into our concepts and doctrine. After discussion, he provided sentences, I will only list the key word here (get the PDF or buy the book):

1. Necessity
2. Human Rights
3. Peace and Security
4. National Self-Determination
5. Rule of Law
6. International Legality/Legitimacy
7. Beneficience/Non-exploitation
8. Limited Retribution
9. Restorative Justice
10.. Reconciliation

I put the book down at peace, pleased with this intellectual construct, disappointed that I missed the event itself, and most impressed with Austin Peay State University, proven to be world-class in this volume.

OUTSTANDING.

Here are some other books to complement this one (other than Irregular War, which I am not ready to list yet).
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security
Faith- Based Diplomacy Trumping Realpolitik
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (This one is free online as well but color is best bought)
Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future

See the slide (image) above, it is still valid and available as a model, the 1976 paper is at my web site (last portal page, under Early Papers).

2008/10/202009/12/04

Review: The Rise of the Fourth Reich–The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America

4 Star, Impeachment & Treason, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Making Connection to Obama, October 20, 2008

Jim Marrs

I gave Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids a rave review and recommend it be read with Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil.

The sole purpose of this review is to link readers to three books on the treason and betrayal of the public trust by BOTH parties (two branches of the same crime family), and to connect the thesis with three books on Obama.

Congressional Treason:
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

Obama: The Dark Side
Obama – The Postmodern Coup
Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biography
The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate
Obama Unmasked: Did Slick Hollywood Handlers Create the Perfect Candidate?

In my view, all of the money flowing to Obama is NOT so much from individuals as from the major corporations and banks that are “changing the sheets” in the White House. This is all “theater” for the masses, and the “soft tyranny that Democracy in America (Penguin Classics) warns about is very likely if we are dumb enough to elect Obama, Pelosi, and Reid together. Obama is bought and paid for.

So one has to ask, Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter

This is NOT GOOD. I never thought Bush-Cheney could be outdone, but thinking about Obama-Pelosi-Reid makes Bush-Cheney look like second rate thugs overshadowed by the high theater of a Wall Street “daze” that shows us “democracy” on one hand while completing a national socialism fraud on the other, as the fat cats slip out the back door to Dubai.

McCain's campaign staff borders on being sheer idiots–I don't think he had taken the bribe that Gore took in 2000, but his campaign staff well might be bought and staging the fall.

2008/10/182009/12/04

Review: Barack H. Obama–The Unauthorized Biography

5 Star, Impeachment & Treason, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Truly frightening expose of Barack Obama's dark side, October 18, 2008

Webster Griffin Tarpley

EDIT of 14 Dec 08: Obama has been balanced in his early days, but conventional. He is appointing a “winner take all” Cabinet and going along with the Wall Street desires for massive bail-outs. He can be a great president if and only if he breaks the backs of the two criminal parties, invites Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, and Chuck Baldwin to be a kitchen council, and passes Electoral Reform and the Smart Nation Act. I am not holding my breath but will hope for the best.

EDIT of 19 Oct 08 to point to comment from author on this review and add Associated Press image of Obama's Indonesian citizenship and Muslim faith as registered for school in Indonesia.

This book may have been published too late, and I have to ask myself if John McCain's staff is incompetent, or whether McCain has somehow been sidelined and “contained” so as to LOSE this election.

I have read a great deal, not just in books, but in articles, online, and so on, and I am fairly persuaded that Barack Obama has not been properly vetted, and that there is a conspiracy of silence that is extraordinarily well-funded.

I am especially troubled by the complete absence of any proof that he actually attended Columbia University; by the very high probability that he was in fact raised as a Muslim (until he returned to the USA); and by the very bad company that he keeps–and here I refer to Zbigniew Brzezinsky, and the Democratic “regulars,” not Reverend Wright.

I am also troubled by the fact that most people of color see him for what he appears to be an elitist on the payroll of Wall Street corporations, a “House Negro” in their telling of the story, and hence the ideal “front man” for Wall Street's last great looting of what is left of the American treasury.

This book, which I could not put down once I picked it up, has eleven chapters, and each is incendiary. There are many places where I believe the author–a gifted historian whose integrity is unimpeachable–goes over the top on his political interpretations. A certain amount of filtering is required, but the bottom line for me is clear:

1) Barack Obama's valid US citizenship has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. His current birth certificate may be forged, and he may have lost his original one in the process of renouncing U.S. citizenship upon adoption. At a minimum he would appear to have conflicted loyalties.

2) His early years being raised as a Muslim have been proven by at least one enterprising reporter, but the entire media–a completely controlled enterprise that continues to refuse fully-funded public service advertisements–appears to have been ordered to cover this up.

I am going to have to read this book at least once more. The author provides a wealth of detail along three other paths that are very troubling:

1) Senator Obama is a shameless full-up member of the Chicago crime circles and corruption circles, and has not shirked from their financial sponsorship.

2) Senator Obama does not appear in any Columbia University literature, class photos, and has failed to produce a transcript of his claimed time at Columbia, or proof of graduation. His staff and his biographies are both adamant on not discussing this period in his life.

3) Senator Obama appears to have been groomed for his role, and to be a consummate actor who plays the role he is paid to play.

Here are the chapter headings, which the publisher has not seen fit to provide–with the caveat that the author sometimes goes a bridge too far with his interpretations of the facts, the facts are never-the-less there and I for one do not trust Obama, in large part because of the company he keeps and who he listens to.

Introduction: Obama from the Ford Foundation to the Trilateral Commission

Chapter 1: Obama's Roots in Polygamy and the Ford Foundation

Chapter 2: Columbia University and Recruitment by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Chapter 3: Foundation-funded Racism in Chicago: Jeremiah Wright and Michelle

Chapter 4: Apprenticeship with Foundation-Funded Terrorists: Ayers and Dohrn

Chapter 5: Obama's Heart of Darkness: Rezko, Auchi, Alsammareae, and Chicago Graft

Chapter 6: Grabbing a Senate Seat with a Little Help from his Trilateral Friends

Chapter 7: The Hope Pope and His Trilateral Money Machine

Chapter 8: “Our Souls Are Broken” — “Feel Don't Think! Be Visceral!” — Michelle Obama, Postmodern Fascist Ideologue

Chapter 9: Obama's Triumph of the Will: The 2008 Primaries

Chapter 10: Obama: A Looming World Tragedy

Chapter 11: Obama as Social Fascist

The appendices are fascinating and include an actual law suit that was not allowed to proceed, seeking force Obama to document his U.S. citizenship properly.

Like other anti-Obama books, one has to do some filtering, but at the end of it all, I have to treat books like this the way I treat books about the 9-11 “let it happen” and cover up: there is substance here that the public has a right to evaluate, and that the media is NOT evaluating.

PLEASE: buy and read this book for yourself and weight in with your own opinion. In my view, similar to books like Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, there is enough here to indict, but not to convict. Only a mass of thinking citizens can go that last mile. My role here is to propose that you all do that: engage. I do want to emphasize that my greatest concern about Obama is not whether he is gifted (we know he is), but rather who is behind him, who controls him, and what his puppet masters will have him do–despite Colin Powell's endorsement, I trust John McCain to be independent, and I have seen Obama shut out those who would help him balance the Democratic “advisors” that are in my view dangerous.

Other relevant books:
Obama – The Postmodern Coup
The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate
The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality
Obama Unmasked: Did Slick Hollywood Handlers Create the Perfect Candidate?

2008/10/162009/12/04

Review: Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy

5 Star, Commissions, Democracy, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

The Single Best Examination of Secrecy Costs, October 16, 2008

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I testified to this Commission, both publicly and also in a private session in the office of Daniel Patrick Moynihan (RIP).

This is the single best non-partisan overview of the costs of unnessary secrecy, as well as the imperatives of providing proper definition and protection of necessary secrets.

I note with appreciation that my testimony led him to include the words “open source” in his cover letter of transmittal to the White House.

For a sense of the logical implementation of the findings of this Commission, see THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest.

For a sense of how we must radically alter the “closed circle” of national intelligence to embrace the entire Nation and indeed the Whole Earth, see Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace.

2008/10/162009/12/04

Review: Preparing for the 21st century–An appraisal of U.S. intelligence : report of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Most Recent Truly Relevant (and Ignored) Offical Findings on Intelligence Reform, October 16, 2008

Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community

I testified to this Commission, and won the Burundi Exercise, a benchmark exercise in which General Lew Allen, USAF (Ret) examined what I could produce with six telephone calls to the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) world, and what the U.S. Intelligence Community could provide on a “no-notice” overnight basis.

This Commission's finding remain the most relevant to intelligence reform. They also remain the most ignored, one reason Senator David Boren (D-OK) was willing to write a Foreword to my own first book, On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World. In his Foreword (in the year 2000), Senator Boren points out explicitly that the reform recommendations of this Commission have been ignored by a succession of Directors of Central Intelligence (and today, Directors of National Intelligence.

There are a number of books on intelligence reform, I list a few below, and they all boil down to one simple truth: more outreach, less secrecy.

Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age
Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information (RAND Studies in Policy Analysis)
Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs: Intelligence and America's Quest for Security
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2008/10/142019/09/06

Review: Philosophy and the Social Problem–The Annotated Edition

7 Star Top 1%, Philosophy

Will Durant

7 Star Life Transformative Special So VERY Relevant Today–Absent Philosophy, No Amount of Money Will Suffice

October 14, 2008
This book, first published in 1916 in 1000 copies of which only 100 sold, is a gem. It is Will Durant's doctoral thesis simplified for the public, and I found it to be extraordinary. This book *preceded* his life's work in creating the History of Civilization with his wife Ariel Durant, and I now understand, from this book, how Durant first devised and then applied his personal intellectual & philosophical framework of “Perspectivism.”

Early on he states that philosophy should be the foundation for politics qua political-economic decision-making, but it is not. He shares E. O. Wilson's view articulated in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge that philosophy is what SHOULD be unified with science in order to produce social solutions (today he would no doubt say *sustainable* social solutions. He laments the relegation of philosophy to the “ivory tower” of academia, lost to politics and lost to the public. (Conservatives would say they still live by a philosophy but I would disagree–most of them simply parrot dogma–the liberals have neither, they offer platitudes and are just as corrupt and partisan.)

In his view so early in his career, philosophy plus history equals wisdom; and politics without either cannot resolve “the social problem” regardless of how much money might be thrown at specific solutions.

The first five chapters review Socrates, Plato, Bacon, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. In keeping with his “Perspectivism” he neither seeks to refute nor ignore but instead to *relate* diverse philosophies to the present circumstances (reading Plato, and then Durant as of 1916, I am struck by the timeless wisdom–money creates hoarding and speculation, inheritance incentivizes same, neither is good for society as a whole).

“The social problem” and the task of philosophy is to achieve balance between emergent individualism and the larger social construct that needs civic duty and contributions from all if the group is to be safe and be prosperous.

I am fascinated throughout this book, beginning with Socrates inheriting a war of all against all as wealth creates a leisure class that “buys” knowledge and leads to analysis destroying morals. I am struck by Durant's emphasis on how a civilization may be characterized by its conception of virtue, and think immediately of how the USA is a The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead based on Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids and managed by two criminal parties each Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It.

We are, today, in the midst of the battle for the soul of the Republic and also The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism and the wisdom of Will Durant could not be more timely or relevant.

Durant defines duty not as unquestioning submission to the group but rather individual excellence in thinking and action–for a modern presentation of this, see Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution.

From Socrates to Spinoza and on, Durant finds that morality is not about freedom of will or individual purpose, but rather about how the group and the individuals as part of the group relate means to ends (or we could say now, means (revenue) to ways (policies) to ends (endless war or peace, distributed prosperity or concentrated wealth and broad slavery).

I find guidance and solace for Colin Powell in Durant's rendition of Plato, and am just blown away by how we must give the best to education, that until we do so, until we give our best brains to education, no amount of money will reduce our social ills. Here is the quote for Colin Powell:

“When Plato says that the office of minister of education is ‘of all the great offices of state the greatest,' and that the citizens should elect their very best man to this office (Laws 765-6), he is not pronouncing a platitude, he is making a radical, revolutionary proposition.

Durant draws out (mostly from Spinoza) the importance of NOT having a standard government-defined education, of making education fun, exploratory, diverse, and open-ended. I cannot help but recall how the author of Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace suggests we beat the creativity out of children by the fourth grade, and how my hacker friends consider schools to be prisons.

In reviewing Bacon, Durant sees the destruction of philosophy by religion, and states clearly that this is something we must undo. I favor the concept of Faith- Based Diplomacy Trumping Realpolitik and see no conflict between secular philosophy and faith.

He cites Bacon as seeking to inspire more cooperation and less chaotic rivalry in research, and this is one reason I believe Colin Powell would be foolish to settle for Secretary of Education. Instead he should suggest that there be three Deputy Vice Presidents: himself for Education, Intelligence, and Research; one for National Security; and one for the Commonwealth. This will allow the bloated $75 billion a year secret intelligence budget to be used as bill-payer for both Education and Research, at the same time that an Open Source Agency makes it possible to dismantle 80% of the hydra of relatively useless secret sources and methods (they acquire 4% of what we need to know while ignoring all the rest in 183 languages we do not understand).

For Spinoza as for Plato compulsion is a negative force, useful for inhibiting attacks but not for inspiring collaboration.

It is from Spinoza that Durant draws his ultimate vision, one shared by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison: for a democracy to be successful, something other than an anarchist mob, the spread of intelligence–wisdom, knowledge, decision-making skills, is essential.

In the transition to Nietzsche, Durant offers marvelous one-line dismissals (each) of Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Bishop Berkeley, Hume, Voltaire, Compte, John Stewart Mill, Spencer, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Hildebrand.

In Part II Durant explores various solutions and objectives, and then circles around again to his bottom line: the purpose of philosophy, the mission of philosophy, is to facilitate the growth and spread of intelligence among men. Unlike history, which reconstructs the past, philosophy seeks to reconstruct the future. Instead of analysis, synthesis; instead of categorization, reconstruction and redirection, innovation from diversity mixed in diverse ways.

See also his The Lessons of History and the new publication with 55 authors, Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace.

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

2008/10/092009/12/04

Review: Seven Pillars of Wisdom–A Triumph

5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Culture, Research, Insurgency & Revolution, War & Face of Battle

$4 extra avoids abridgement,October 9, 2008

T.E. Lawrence

I own an original first edition (and did not realize its value until recently), but in searching for this book to add a link from within my new book on Irregular Warfare: Waging Peace, I realized the reader is faced with two choices today, one costing $4 more than the other. I believe I found the explanation in the less expensive version, which is described as “severely abridged.” So all things being equal, buy this version instead.

There is no finer summary of this work that I have encountered in my literature search than “T.E. Lawrence And the Mind of An Insurgent” by James J. Schneider, Ph.D., a professor of military theory at the School of Advanced Military Studies, U.S. Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Previously published in 2005 in varied works, it can be easily found online by searching for the author and title.

My preliminary research for the new book shows that the Lieutenant Colonels/Commanders and some Colonels/Captains of the Navy get it, but the flags do not. Even the vaunted counterinsurgency handbook avoids dealing with three realities:

1. Absent a moral legitimizing strategy that includes a commitment to sufficiency of presence, no occupation will succeed.

2. Absent a national intelligence community willing and able to jump deep into Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2), no commander will succeed.

3. It costs asymmetric irregular warriors $1 for every $500,000 they force us to spend with our present idiotic emphasis on technology as a substitute for both thinking and human presence. They can keep this up forever, we cannot.

IMHO, Dr. Schneider's distillation is utterly brilliant, and if the publisher issues a new edition, I urge the publisher to obtain permission to include Dr. Schneider's distillation as a new professional preface.

Although I have a very very large personal library (photo at oss.net), here are the books I bought today as part of my homework. In the comment I provide the URLs for the pieces I have had printed locally.

Modern irregular warfare: In defense policy and as a military phenomenon
The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror: Military Culture and Irregular War (Stanford Security Studies)
Asymmetric Warfare: Threat and Response in the 21st Century
Guerrilla Warfare: Irregular Warfare in the Twentieth Century (Stackpole Military History Series)
The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual
Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom
Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man

Two other books I already own within my ten link limit:
War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam

And everything written by H. John Poole, but especially Tactics of the Crescent Moon, Phantom Soldier, One More Bridge to Cross, and Tiger's Way. Also Col Hammes on Sling and Stone, Mao and Che, Max Manwaring's various works including Search for Security, Uncomfortable Wars, and Environmental Security….and on, and on, and on….IRWF is finally “in” now we just have to spend ten years waiting for the current flags to retire.

Category: Reviews (Books & DVD)

Review: Stability Operations and State-Building–Continuities and Contingencies: Colloquium Report