Truth & Reconciliation – Page 17 – Public Intelligence Blog

2005/12/262009/12/04

Review: Unspeakable Truths–Facing the Challenges of Truth Commissions (Paperback)

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

“The” Reference, Applies to 9-11 and USA Truth Commissions,

December 26, 2005

Priscilla B. Hayner

The publisher has been lazy and inconsiderate in failing to post adequate information about this superb book. It is without question the single most important reference, covering the theory, the history, the practice, and future of truth commissions. It is comprehensive, clear, easy to read, and superbly documented.

This book has special meaning for me, at the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction about global issues and national security and prosperity issues, because on the basis of real-life experience and reinforced by the 600+ books I have reviewed in just the past four years, I have become convinced that the US public must demand two Truth & Reconciliation Commissions if we are to reach the next century in any kind of good order: one must focus on the ills that America has bestowed on the world through its Cold War years (see Derek Leebaert, The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World as well as–among many others–Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project), its support of 44+ dictators world-wide (see Ambassador Mark Palmer's Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025), and our predatory immoral capitalism (Cf. Perkins Confessions of an Economic Hit Man‘ Greider The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy and Prestowitz, Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions.

EDIT of 11 Dec 07: There are *so* many other books I have reviewed that could be listed here. The sad thing is that in 8 years Bush-Cheney, with the total abdication of Congress and the media, have led an apathetic nation into ruin.

We also need an internal Truth & Reconciliation Commission that could usefully start with the treasonous, treacherous, immoral, and disgraceful failure of local, state, and federal government in the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina, and go backwards from there to explore not only our abuse of minorities, but our abuse of the working poor (see Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America David Shipler, The Working Poor: Invisible in America and then go from there to the pernicious deliberate looting of the Commonwealth by a combination of military-industrial, pharmaceutical, and energy special interests; corrupt Congressmen, and a Wall Street that thrives on laundering drug money and picking the pockets of the middle class (Cf . Michael Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil)

Most interesting to me, although not mentioned in this book, if one Goggles for truth and reconciliation USA one discoveres the Greensboro North Carolina Truth and Reconciliation endeavor, to explore past human rights abuses through slavery and related themes. This is a proven process that is clearly relevant to all countries, and especially to the 900-lb gorilla called America. The growing gap between rich and poor is the moral equivalent of global genocide and ecocide. If the rich wish to see their future generations survive, they had better start thinking about this important alternative to popular justice.

It is in this very American context that we can conclude that not only is this book at least as important to every American as it is to the rest of the world, but that the 9-11 Commission was a cover-up, a farce, that failed to engage the people, failed to discover all that could be known, and failed to hold anyone accountable.

I am most impressed by the diligence, scope, and coherence of this book. This is an extraordinary examination, based on global travel, deep research, and penetrating personal insight that is graceful and low-key, into the role of truth commissions, the great difficulties that accompany the creation and maintenance of such commissions, and the long-term implications of a successful outcome.

On page 23, after discussing the new emerging field of “transitional justice” the author declares that it “is certain that more countries will be turning to official truth-seeking in the coming years.” As we review books like Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People and Why They Hate Us: September 11, 2001…and Justice For Non and many others, two things are clear: 1) the dictators are not long for this world–I give them twelve years at the most; and 2) it is not just “dictatorships” that need commissions, but also those democracies that are fraudulent, among which I would include the United States of America (see my review of Jimmy Carter's new book, and the books recommended there, including Peter Peterson's Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It).

The author is to be commended for blending a reference work that concisely and clearly covers the 21 existing truth commissions at the time of the first writing as well as the 12 emergent between the hard copy and the new soft copy, and that brings out the reasons, the lessons, the benefits, and the costs. The most important benefit is mentioned on page 135, in which the author discusses the importance of honoring the past and overcoming what some call the conspiracy of silence. I would refer readers to Robert Parry's Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth' as well as Larry Beinhart, Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin, and of course the recent classic, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq. The list goes on.

The book has a practical side as well, identifying key factors in whether a truth commission will succeed or fail, chief among which is whether they get an adequate staff and budget, and whether there is a good process of engaging the public in defining the goals and the process.

The appendices and the index are quite professional, and overall this is a world-class reference work of enormous value to the possibilities of using transitional justice to achieve sustainable peace around the world.

2005/11/242009/12/04

Review: The New Pearl Harbor–Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 (Paperback)

5 Star, 9-11 Truth Books & DVDs, Crime (Government), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Truth & Reconciliation

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt–Makes Case for Public Investigation,

November 24, 2005

David Ray Griffin

I am a former Marine Corps Infantry officer, a clandestine case officer, the senior civilian responsible for founding the Marine Corps Intelligence Command, the author of books on intelligence, and since about 2001, the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction about national security matters, into which category this book certainly falls.

For those who would doubt the depths to which privilege power might go to get its way, let me just point out that it is now a documented fact that the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed the staging of a terrorist attack within the US that would murder U.S. citizens, in order to provide a pretext for an invasion of Cuba in the early decades of the Cold War. Do not ever under-estimate what the Dick Cheney's and Karl Rove's and Goldman Sach's of the world might be willing to do to further their profits. Also do not underestimate the power of blind mis-placed loyalty within the military, doing its “duty” to the President while overlooking its more sacred duty to the Constitution.

There are four aspects of this book that stand out with me, and that I believe warrant the appointment of a 12-person citizen's commission with full access, no holds barred, able to apply “Able Danger” data mining technologies to *all* materials bearing on 9-11.

First, I am absolutely persuaded by all my reading, that the Administration, the CIA, and the FBI, at a minimum were complicit in allowing 9/11 to happen, as a pretext for invading Afghanistan (for energy and drug reasons, since Rumsfeld let 3,000 Al Qaeda escape when we had them surrounded) and Iraq.

Second, I find the objective case, from Fire Engineering and other serious sources, against the buildings having been brought down by the fire, and instead that they were brought down by pre-placed explosives, to be sufficiently compelling so as to cast a reasonable doubt on the Administration's story, and hence a need for a full and open investigation.

Third, I find the objective case for a U.S. missile hitting the Pentagon, instead of Flight 77, to be, again, compelling enough to raise a reasonable doubt, particularly since no aircraft parts were recovered at the Pentagon and all bodies from the flight appeared in Dover without every appearing to have been transported from the Pentagon. I helped clean up a jet crash in San Diego long ago and there was luggage, seats, debris, everywhere. (The third one, the crater, looks like a bomb crater with a truck load of metal debris dumped in–military analysts scorn that one.

Fourth, the fact that relatives of George Bush were in charge of World Trade Center security, and that there was a total power down prior to the 9-11 event that would have allowed the explosives charges to be planted while also ensuring no security camara records, and that there were both insurance claims and stock futures transactions against key losers, that the Bush Administration continues to obscure, all suggest that this matter has not been properly investigated (see next comment).

I also read the author's follow-on book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions and I find that compelling as well. He recasts all that he knows from the previous book, into a parallel critique of the 9-11 Commission. While I consider the Commissioners to be individuals of very high integrity, I believe they failed in their dual mission of properly investigating this matter, and of devising recommendations to avoid failure in the future.

Taken together, the author's two books comprise a “People's Grand Jury” that surely calls for a People's Investigation. This would be something that receives funding form concerned philanthropists, and the focus of effort for popular investigation between now and November 2006.

See also the varied DVDs, and especially Webster Griffin Tarpley's 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition

2005/10/192009/09/25

Review: Rage of the Random Actor

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secession & Nullification, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary, Compelling, Urgently Applicable to All

October 19, 2005

Dan Korem

I am utterly astonished to not see this book at the top of the charts and being absorbed by every school principal, every small town mayor, every police chief, and every counter-terrorism expert. This book is extraordinary, it is compelling, and it is utterly and urgently applicable to every single person who wishes to “defuse” potentially deadly “random actors.”

Although it is a thick book packed with details, you do not have the read the whole thing to extract value. Suffice to say that armed with this book, communities and organizations will have all they need to know to achieve early warning of potentially threatening “random actors.”

This is not a book full of psycho-babble. If anything, it is solidly grounded in practical case studies going back twenty years, and I for one, as a 30-year veteran intelligence professional, including clandestine service with constant exposure to bad boys and girls, find the book credible, useful, and easy to understand.

The bottom line, without seeking to simplify the book, is avoid de-personalization, prevent bullying, open up to individuals and empower them, and above all, be alert for any sense that they see teachers or other authority figures as “CONTROLLING” and rules as “INAPPLICABLE.”

The author's finding that terrorism is a rich kid's game, and that most US-based random actors will come from upper middle class families in small towns, are consistent with my own research and practical experience with revolutionaries.

Sadly, the underlying theme across the book is that of societal collapse. The major institutions, from school to church to sports to social clubs are all degenerating and failing to provide the inclusiveness and alternatives to boredom and alienation that they once represented. The threat of “random actors” imposing catastrophic fatal acts on their communities is very real.

This book is an important reference work, and one that I would recommend be bought in bulk, and discussed in a structured manner by every school staff and every local police department…and of course by parents!

2005/07/122009/12/04

Review: Dying to Win–The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Hardcover)

5 Star, America (Anti-America), Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Terrorism & Jihad, Truth & Reconciliation, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Original–A Major Contribution to Understanding,

July 12, 2005

Robert Pape

The University of Chicago is an extraordinary institution–the author, employed there, lives up to their reputation for methodical, scholarly, useful reflections grounded firmly in the facts. This work significantly advances our understanding of terrorism and of the three forms of suicidal terrorism: egotistic, altruistic, and fatalistic. The author documents his findings that most suicidal terrorists are altruistic, well-educated, nationalistically-motivated, and fully witting and dedicated to their fatal mission as a service to their community.

Of the 563 books I have reviewed–all in national security and global issues, and all but four among the best books in the field–this new work by Professor Pape stands out as startlingly original, thoughtful, useful, and directly relevant to the clear and present danger facing America: an epidemic of suicidal terrorism spawned by the “virtual colonialism” of the US in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and now Iraq as well as other countries.

I will not repeat the excellent listing of facts in the Book Description provided by the publisher–certainly that description should be read carefully. If you are a Jewish zealot, don't bother, you will not get over the cognitive dissonance. Everyone else, including Muslim, Protestant, and Catholic contributors to Congressional and Presidential campaign funds, absolutely must read this book.

There are many other books that support the author's key premises, all well-documented with case studies and the most complete and compelling statistics–known facts. I am persuaded by the author's big three:

1) Suicidal terrorism correlates best with U.S. military occupation of specific countries that tend to be undemocratic and corrupt, where the U.S. in collusion with dictators and one-party elites are frustrating legitimate national aspirations of the larger underclass and middle class;

2) Virtually all of the suicidal terrorists comes from allies of the U.S. (at least nominally–they actually play the U.S. as “useful idiots”) such as Saudi Arabia, rather than Iran;

3) The three premises shared by Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, and now the Iraqi insurgency, are all accurate and will continue to be so if the U.S. does not pull its military out of the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia, and other locations:

a) Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and virtual colonialism everywhere else, demand martyrdom operations;

b) Conventional inferiority mandates self-sacrifice (not only suicidal terrorism, but other asymmetric attacks including the death of a thousand cuts against key energy, water, and transportation nodes in the USA; and

c) The US and its European allies are vulnerable to coercive pressure. The withdrawal of the Americans and the French from Viet-Nam and then Lebanon, of the Israelis from the West Bank, and other concessions itemized by the author, have all made the case for suicidal terrorism. It works and it will explode.

I will mention several other books to support this author, but wish to stress that alone, his work is spectacularly successful in documenting the fallacies of the U.S. national security policy.

Among the books that support him are
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods
Understanding Terror Networks
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People

This is a core reading for every officer at STRATCOM and SOCOM, and for anyone who wishes to be effective at either Public Diplomacy or Strategic Communication or Information Operations. This author should be an invited distinguished funded speaker at every single war college in the Western democracies. We cannot win without listening to him. Military withdrawals, combined with energy independence, are essential. Without them, we not only will not fully defeat the current crop of suicidal terrorists, but we will, in attempting to deal with the current threat with old counter-productive and heavy-handed means, give birth to hundreds of thousands in the next generation of suicidal terrorists.

There are not enough guns in the world to win this one, even if we had competent intelligence at the neighborhood level, which we do not. In keeping with the author's recommendations, it is clear that moral capitalism, informed democracy, equanimity toward bottom up movements for national liberation and an end to corruption, an honest policy process in Washington, D.C.–these are the keys to victory.

This is a towering accomplishment and a major contribution to strategic thinking.

2005/04/282010/09/18

Review: New World New Mind–Moving Toward Conscious Evolution

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Priorities, Survival & Sustainment, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

cover new world new mind — Vote and/or Comment on Review

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

2005/01/152009/12/04

Review DVD: Tibet – Cry of the Snow Lion (2003)

6 Star Top 10%, Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Philosophy, Religion & Politics of Religion, Reviews (DVD Only), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Liberation through Knowledge: Absorbing,

January 15, 2005

Shirley Knight

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add other significant DVDs.

Halfway through this probing, sensitive, sharp, spiritual documentary film I thought to myself, “wow, this is what CIA covert propaganda *should* be able to produce” and then instantly corrected myself: David Ignatius of the Washington Post has it right: overt action is vastly superior to covert action, and in this instance, a loose coalition of kindred spirits have come together in time and focus to produce something remarkable, something much more threatening to Chinese behavior in Tibet than any military armada: a collage of truth-telling.

This is a world-class documentary, full of vivid images, well-blended historical and modern footage, and extremely good production planning and voice over editing. Early on I was struck by the similarity between the Tibetans, the Native Americans, and the Guatemalan Indians, all of whom share some basic moral precepts.

The portrait painted of Tibet as a nation committed to the concept of spiritual education, is a compelling one. One analogy offered up by one of those interviewed I found especially compelling: Tibet was spending 85% of its budget on spiritual development, with 10% of its population in monasteries–this being the equivalent of America redirecting its entire defense budget toward education.

The documentary will clearly infuriate the Chinese, for it carefully itemizes the many ways in which Tibet is uniquely Tibetan, including in its language, greatly distant from Chinese. Shown are Chinese torture instruments, including electrical cattle prods used in the vaginas of nuns and the mouths and throats of monks. The photographs are graphic.

Also covered are the genocide, the torture, imposed by the Chinese, as well as the loss of morality–625 brothels to serve the Chinese garrison.

The documentary carefully covered the death of 30 million Chinese and half the Tibetan population that resulted from Mao Tse Tung's order that Tibet grow wheat instead of barley–shades of the Soviet Union and its failed socialist agriculture.

6,200 monasteries destroyed–as one Tibetan government official in exile notes, this is not just places of worship, but places of scholarship and cradles of a specific civilization.

A section of the documentary focuses on CIA training of the Tibetan resistance, the conclusion of the Tibetans themselves that CIA was not serious, only providing enough support to enable harassment but not victory, and then the coup de grace–Henry Kissinger selling Tibet out for the sake of engagement.

A very powerful section points out that the US, with its 89 billion dollar a year trade imbalance with China, is in fact subsidizing Chinese repression and genocide, not only against Tibet, but against Muslims in China and other separatists elements. US business, according to this documentary, has sold democracy out in favor of profit.

As the documentary drew to an end, I found myself asking again: is this CIA propaganda, as the Chinese would have us believe? Or is the Dalai Lama is fact the representative of a group that may well be the soul of the world, a kernel of hope for non-violent resolution to all that ails us? I found myself wishing that we did indeed have a more effective People's Intelligence Agency (PIA), one that I could trust, one that we could all trust, to actually get the facts right, without political, economic, or cultural manipulation and distortion.

I was educated by this documentary. I had never really thought about Tibet as other than a spiritual oddity. This documentary very effectively points out that it can and should be a zone of peace, not least because it is situated between China and India, two of the most populous nations on earth, between them holding one half of the earth's population, and both of them nuclear *and* poor.

The documentary ends on a high note. It explicitly calls for liberation through knowledge and compassion, and one educator is very effective in pointing out that no one expected apartheid to end in South Africa, or the Berlin Wall to fall, yet both came to pass. Tibet, by this telling, is next.

This is an eye-opening, intelligent, visually-stimulating, and spiritually unnerving documentary. These people–both the observers and the observed–have served us all well.

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.