Category: Uncategorized

25-26 OCTOBER 2010

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1 Place Jourdan, Brussels

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Mexico: For the record. The United States closed its consulate in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez on Thursday pending a security review, according to The Associated Press. The US Embassy announced the consulate will “remain closed until the security review is completed.”

Three additional paragraphs from this item deleted, can be seen at link below.

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Phi Beta Iota: First off, the threat to US citizens and UN employees is seriously over-stated by regional and organizational security officers who do not know how to do the “craft” of intelligence, and in some cases, who get greedy and hype the threat for political as well as personal motives–in one instance, we have seen a LOW threat hyped all the way to CRITICAL because the high-school graduate who had reached his maximum level of incompetence wanted more people, guns, and armoured cars, ultimately consuming 37% of the international people and budget and 66% of the total manpower (inclusive of local security) of an organization that was supposed to be in the “back office” doing capability building.  Out of control security (and out of control staffing that should have blocked the imbalance) cost that organization a third of its possible productive potential within the donor countries' generous budget allocation.

Secondly, Central America in particular (our definition runs from the southern border of Arizona to Cali, Colombia), is suffering from a vicious cycle in which the oligarchs invest in private security and pay extortion rather than pay taxes.  A study needs to be done.  We believe it will demonstrate to the oligarchs that they are paying three times more than they need to for the same level of security that a properly funded government could provide, at the same time that they are foregoing the social security that their paying of taxes would enable, which in turn would empower the poor to create infinite wealth of their own–redistribution of wealth is neither sufficient nor appropriate.  A regional Open Space Technology conference that includes the cartel leaders could have a revolutionary outcome.

The time has come for regional multinational information-sharing and sense-making centers that address all ten high-level threats to humanity (transnational crime is tenth out of ten) by harmonizing both information-intelligence and how money is spent by ALL eight tribes of intelligence across the twelve core policy areas including security.

Phi Beta Iota: With the utmost respect for both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (C/JCS) and the Secretary of Defense (SecDef), their “outrage” is nonsense–nothing more than political theater.  On BBC, the moderately intelligent evening news, this is right up there with the French mom who murdered eight babies.

1.  The Taliban knows all its needs to know about our tactics and procedures because we have been running through our training for the last decade, not knowing how to distinguish them.  Does anyone really think they are going to waste reading 90,000 pages that are 99% noise?

2.  Anyone who puts a “source” name into a message is either criminally negligent if an intelligence professional, or insanely naive if a diplomat or defense attache or military tactical commander.  The fact that names and addresses are bandied about in any message anywhere is a stake in the heart of the chain of command in Afghanistan, and reminds us of the negligence surrounding Abu Ghraib.

3.  Afghanistan is a side show for some, a loot-fest for others, and mission impossible for all the rest.  Like Iraq, American troops were sent there on a foundation of lies by the Bush-Cheney Administration that the Obama-Biden Administration has been happy to continue because “the establishment” (as opposed to the public) wants to be there using up every borrowed and printed dollar they can.

4.  Between the Wall Street bail-out and the three-four trillion dollar elective global war, we have broken the national treasury (which was officially bankrupt in 2006 to begin with).  Anything that helps get foreign troops out of Afghanistan and national policymakers focused on domestic challenges, is good.

Transparency.  That's what our secret government needs.  Bring it on!  Yes We Can!

See Also:

Continue reading “Journal: Shoot the Messenger–Not the Originators”

CAN THE SECRECY SYSTEM BE FIXED?

Can the national security classification system be fixed before it breaks down altogether in a frenzy of uncontrolled leaks, renewed barriers against information dissemination, and a growing loss of confidence in the integrity of the system?

CAN WHISTLEBLOWERS BE PROTECTED?

One of the most compelling reasons for doing so is to expose perceived wrongdoing.

See, relatedly, “Whistleblowers have nowhere to turn to challenge retaliatory suspensions” by Mike McGraw, the Kansas City Star, July 24.

Phi Beta Iota: Deja vu….from 1993 and of course ON INTELLIGENCE in 2000.  Jim Clapper is just buying time.  He will never fix this system.  Until there is a DNI that can create an Open Source Center that provides decision support for the President–AND Everyone Else, while serving as a benchmark for evaluating both the necessity of classified sources & methods and the return on investment for same, the “system” will stay in grid-lock and whistle-blowers will continue to be pariahs.  In a time of insanity and injustice, the place for an honest sane man is outside the US Government and most particularly outside the US “secret” intelligence community.   See Also:  1993 TESTIMONY on National Security Information and Reference: 1996 Hill Testimony on Secrecy.

Asia Times 24 July 2010 South Korea reels as US backpedals By Peter Lee

Special Note. An Asia Times Online analysis of Allied behavior during this confrontation contains several points worth restating. First is that any effort to obtain Chinese and Russian support for the findings of the joint investigation into the sinking of the Cheonan was doomed to fail because South Korea did not invite either nation to send experts to join the investigation. This is a colossal political blunder no matter what the findings were and how the experts agreed or disagreed.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Koreas Analysis”

IPOA 2010 Annual Summit of the Stability Operations Industry

Starts: Sunday October 17, 2010 at 06:00PM

Ends: Tuesday October 19, 2010 at 05:00PM

Region: Washington D.C.

International Peace Organization Association (IPOA)

Annual Summit for Stability Operations Industry

CLAPPER: MILITARY INTEL BUDGET TO BE DISCLOSED

The size of the annual budget for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP), which has been classified up to now, will be publicly disclosed, said Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr., the nominee to be the next Director of National Intelligence.  He said that he had personally advocated and won approval for release of the budget figure.

SEEKING STRUCTURAL REFORM OF THE INTEL BUDGET

Open government advocates believe that intelligence budget disclosure is good public policy and may even be required by the Constitution's statement and account clause.  But what makes it potentially interesting to policymakers is that it would permit the intelligence budget to be directly appropriated, rather than being secretly funneled through the Pentagon budget as it is now.

CLAPPER EMBRACES GAO INTEL OVERSIGHT, SSCI DOESN'T

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, won plaudits for its contributions to intelligence oversight from Gen. James R. Clapper at his July 20 confirmation hearing to be the next Director of National Intelligence.  But in the latest version of the intelligence authorization bill, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yielded to White House opposition and abandoned a provision that would have enhanced GAO's role in intelligence oversight.

Phi Beta Iota: The day will come when a Department of Education, Intelligence, & Research has, at a minimum, a National Strategy Center and a national Open Source Agency that are both under diplomatic auspices and enjoy the same hand-off relationship with the Executive that the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) enjoy.  Right now Jim Clapper is feeling his way in uncertain territory–independence from a chain of command that is suffering moral myopia as well as practical cognitive failure.  This fight will have to wait for the next President.  Put bluntly, the IC is doing the wrong things with too much money, and totally divorced from five of the eight tribes of intelligence as well as 184 countries not included in the absurd CIA and DoD “special relationship.”