Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 75 – Public Intelligence Blog

Barton Whaley

5.0 out of 5 stars Pioneeding, Deep, Essential, Needs 21st Century Follow-Up September 5, 2013

I borrowed this book from another officer, and have been quite delighted to spend time with it.

This is a much older book than most realize (1969) and its examples and case studies stop with the Six-Day War in 1967 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. It is certain a book that is worthy of being brought up to date through to the varied wars of the 21st Century; it is also a book that would merit a deeper look at the ethics, efficacy, and frequent perversion of deception operations, by which I mean both the mission and the mind-set creep from focused deception to what has been called “Strategic Communication,” or lies so broad and deep we believe them ourselves and want everyone else to believe them also. Apart from being dated, this is the books more important oversight – it does not offer the reader a balanced appraisal of when transparency, truth, and trust are a better investment than pervasive and pernicious deception of one's own public, global leaders, and global publics. The latter may be asking too much, I will soften it by strongly endorsing this book as a reader for war colleges around the world, with my own monographs (free online) from the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), as the counterfoil.

Now for the good of this book, this is considerable. This book merits vastly more attention than it has been getting, in part because the US marketplace is dumbed down and drugged up, and the US military still has a “hey-diddle-diddle up the middle mind-set.” “Keep it simple” is often actually “keep it stupid.” In that context, this book could be used to teach both ethics and nuanced thinking at the war colleges. The book offers – and the author points out this is the least visible part of the book – “an original exercise in methodology – a method designed to unmask deception when it is present.”

The author's introduction to the 2007 reprint is BRILLIANT. I can do no better and therefore I keep the book at five stars and suggest that the introduction, and my extractive summary of the book provided here at Amazon, be used as handouts across the war colleges.

Continue reading “Review: Stratagem: Deception and Surprise in War”

2013/09/042013/09/04

Review: The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

John Diamond

4.0 out of 5 stars Got the Obvious Right, Misses Everything Else, September 4, 2013

I regard Retired Reader as an alter ego and top gun in the field, so his review has my vote. If the book were current (it was published in 2008) I would be tempted to buy it but my time is not my own for the next year or two. Tim Weiner's book remains my top level choice, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA along with The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (Second Edition), and of course the many other books that I have reviewed here at Amazon, all easily scanned and leading to their respective Amazon page, by searching for “Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Most)”. I last updated it in August 2011.

There are seven CIAs, not just the one that the author writes about, and that costs the book one star. Search for my post of some time ago, “Search: Seven CIAs [Steele on the Record]”.

There is also a total lack of integrity as well as intelligence in Washington, D.C., and while I might normally take a second star away from the book — the author is pimping the cover story and not addressing the deep pathologies across the Executive, Legislative, and corporate worlds — this last bit is something I focus on and will return to in a year or two once I am done with my service overseas.

Yes, the CIA failed on 9/11 because Dick Cheney ordered it so and the Director of the FBI, two weeks on the job, was hired for the explicit purpose of covering it all up (just as the FBI actively covered up George W. Bush's participation in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and its own culpability in the assassination of Martin Luther King, as well as many other crimes of state from Waco to Oklahoma and beyond).

No, the CIA did not fail on Iraq. Charlie Allen got it right, and George Tenet prostituted his office in willfull betrayal of his oath of office and the public trust. we had the defecting son-in-law, we had the 20 plus legal travelers, we knew they had kept the cook books, destroyed the stocks, and wer bluffing for regional influence's sake.

Continue reading “Review: The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq”

2013/09/03

Worth a Look: Framing the Net – The Internet and Human Rights

Advanced Cyber/IO, Information Society, Worth A Look

‘Rikke Frank Jorgensen has given us a thoughtful and competent contribution to a debate of increasing global importance. Her theoretical analysis and practical case-study stimulate critical reflection on how we should connect the primary moral domain of our time – human rights – with the primary infrastructure for global communication, the Internet. This book is a must read for all who engage with the search for meaningful and practical normative directions for communications in the 21st century.' – Cees J. Hamelink, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands ‘Understanding the Internet is key to protecting human rights in the future. In Framing the Net, Rikke Frank Jorgensen, shows how this can be done. Deconstructing four key metaphors – the Internet as infrastructure, public sphere, medium and culture – she shows where the challenges to human rights protection online lie and how to confront them. Importantly, she develops clear policy proposals for national and international Internet policy-makers, all based on human rights. Her book is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of human rights on the Internet: and that should be everyone.' – Wolfgang Benedek, University of Graz, Austria ‘Jorgensen's examination of whether Internet governance can be better aligned with the rights and freedoms enshrined in human rights law and standards of compliance should be read by everyone in the academic, policy and legal practitioner communities. From women's use of ICTs in Uganda to Wikipedia in Germany, information society developments make it imperative that scholars and practitioners understand why it matters how the issues are framed. This book successfully analyses a decade or more of debate in this field in an engaging and very illuminating way.' – Robin Mansell, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

2013/09/022013/09/02

Review: The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate

2 Star, Atlases & State of the World

Robert Kaplan

2.0 out of 5 stars Neither new nor original nor reliable, September 1, 2013

I am getting pretty sick of Stratfor and the pimps of empire. There is nothing new in this book other than self-promotion. For better more original reads consider, among many, many others:

Zones of conflict: An atlas of future wars

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Geography and natural resources are a starting point. How the population develops — including the degree to which it is educated, liberated, and empowered to innovate, matter. Deeper books along these lines include:

Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition

Politics Among Nations

In the end it boils down to clarity, diversity, integrity, and sustainability. I am quite tired of pundits recycling old knowledge, a practice made poissible by an ignorant public (including ignorant policy makers and deeply unethical politicians as well as a captive media that is both ignorant and complicit).

Best wishes to all,
Robert Steele
INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

2013/09/022015/05/08

Berto Jongman: Mexico Drug War a Huge Lie — New Book “Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lorders and Their Godfathers”

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Culture, Research, Economics, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

‘Mexico's war on drugs is one big lie'

Anabel Hernández, journalist and author, accuses the Mexican state of complicity with the cartels, and says the ‘war on drugs' is a sham. She's had headless animals left at her door and her family have been threatened by gunmen. Now her courageous bestseller, extracted below, is to be published in the UK

Read full article.

Book to be Released 10 September 2013 — Can Pre-Order Now

The product of five years’ investigative reporting, the subject of intense national controversy, and the source of death threats that forced the National Human Rights Commission to assign two full-time bodyguards to its author, Anabel Hernández, Narcoland has been a publishing and political sensation in Mexico. The definitive history of the drug cartels, Narcoland takes readers to the front lines of the “war on drugs,” which has so far cost more than 60,000 lives in just six years. Hernández explains in riveting detail how Mexico became a base for the mega-cartels of Latin America and one of the most violent places on the planet. At every turn, Hernández names names—not just the narcos, but also the politicians, functionaries, judges and entrepreneurs who have collaborated with them. In doing so, she reveals the mind-boggling depth of corruption in Mexico’s government and business elite.

Hernández became a journalist after her father was kidnapped and killed and the police refused to investigate without a bribe. She gained national prominence in 2001 with her exposure of excess and misconduct at the presidential palace, and previous books have focused on criminality at the summit of power, under presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón. In awarding Hernández the 2012 Golden Pen of Freedom, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers noted, “Mexico has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with violence and impunity remaining major challenges in terms of press freedom. In making this award, we recognize the strong stance Ms. Hernández has taken, at great personal risk, against drug cartels.”

Also see:
Dying for the Truth: Undercover Inside the Mexican Drug War by the Fugitive Reporters of Blog del Narco

2013/08/242013/08/24

Review: Lethal Incompetence

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Civil Affairs, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Leadership, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Jeff Bordin

5.0 out of 5 stars Authentic, Credible, Legitimate, and Damning of All Who Betray the Public Trust, August 24, 2013

I have this book in front of me, and will be doing a detailed review over the next week or so. I have already gone through it quickly, and concluded that it offers the single best compilation or literature review of all of the psychological and social reasons why military “leaders” end up being treasonous gerbils, combined with the deepest direct field research I know of to buttress the author's speculative hypotheses and proven conclusions.

I swung by here to check what others have said, and am quite disappointed by the shallow ignorance of the only review present. Here are a couple of quotes that capture my philosophy and hence my valuation of this book:

When things are not going well, until you get the truth out on the table, no matter how ugly, you are not in a position to deal with it. Bob Seelert, Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide (New York)

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. George Orwell

This book is a tad hyper-critical (of Dick Cheney for example — certainly a traitor but by no means stupid) and too close in format to the original thesis, or it would be a six star book. If I were Czar, every person responsible for the public interest would receive the wisdom and ethical instruction in this book, in one form or another, to include comic book form if necessary.

My detailed review will be posted within the week. I could not let the first review stand uncontested.

Continue reading “Review: Lethal Incompetence”

2013/08/242014/06/18

Worth a Look The Program from Hell [Indictment of the US Army Human Terrain System (HTS) — Over-Sold, Under-Performing]

5 Star, Civil Affairs, Culture, Research, Force Structure (Military), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public)

The Program from Hell

Authored by John Stanton

This is a story of ongoing alleged fraud, waste, abuse; a murder, KIA's, WIA's, cover ups, a hostage taking, and incompetence at the highest levels of the US Army's TRADOC G-2. It is Mash meets Catch-22 (the movies)…

The United States Army Human Terrain System has been mired in controversy since its inception. Billed as an anthropology program, it went dangerously off track soon after its first mission. Collected for the first time in this volume are many but not all of the reports written by independent journalist John Stanton. They are based on over 110 sources spanning over a four year period from the summer of 2008 to 2013 during which nearly 115 pieces were written. Collectively it is a story about civilian and military leadership that was negligent in the line of duty. The Human Terrain System richly deserves the title, The Program from Hell.

Offered as a Kindle Edition.

Continue reading “Worth a Look The Program from Hell [Indictment of the US Army Human Terrain System (HTS) — Over-Sold, Under-Performing]”