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SchwartzReport: National Security Machine Focused on US Public & Repressing Dissent

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, DHS, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call
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schwartz reportThis is one of the most important essays SR has ever published. Here, I believe you see the real reason for the creation of the security apparat. Terrorism is its second, but public, brief. Its real brief is to prepare for climate change. When you cut through what flows out of the Aegean Stable! s that is the Congress, you find that in the civil and military bureaucracies they are laying track for what they see coming.

This should definitely give you pause.

Pentagon Bracing for Public Dissent Over Climate and Energy Shocks
DR. NAFEEZ MOSADDEQ AHMED, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development – The Guardian (U.K.)

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Iran Election Results — Moderation Wins

Civil Society, Ethics, Government
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Iran's new president hails ‘victory of moderation'

(Reuters) – Moderate cleric Hassan Rohani won Iran's presidential election on Saturday with a resounding defeat of conservative hardliners, calling it a victory of moderation over extremism and pledging a new tone of respect in international affairs.

White House acknowledges Iran election results, praises voters

Offering praise for Iranians and reproaching their government, the Obama administration said Saturday it respected the results of a presidential election conducted under restrictive conditions.

 

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Berto Jongman: Beyond Prism — Even More — Lots Lots More — Data Capture

Government, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement, Military
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Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Secret to Prism program: Even bigger data seizure

By STEPHEN BRAUN, ANNE FLAHERTY, JACK GILLUM and MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON (AP) ā€” In the months and early years after 9/11, FBI agents began showing up at Microsoft Corp. more frequently than before, armed with court orders demanding information on customers.

Around the world, government spies and eavesdroppers were tracking the email and Internet addresses used by suspected terrorists. Often, those trails led to the world's largest software company and, at the time, largest email provider.

The agents wanted email archives, account information, practically everything, and quickly. Engineers compiled the data, sometimes by hand, and delivered it to the government.

Often there was no easy way to tell if the information belonged to foreigners or Americans. So much data was changing hands that one former Microsoft employee recalls that the engineers were anxious about whether the company should cooperate.

Inside Microsoft, some called it “Hoovering” ā€” not after the vacuum cleaner, but after J. Edgar Hoover, the first FBI director, who gathered dirt on countless Americans.

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Franklin Lamb: Obama, Surrounded by Liars and Untried Youths, Declares War on Syria — USA Working for Iran (Again)

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 06 Genocide, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Government, Idiocy, Peace Intelligence
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Franklin Lamb Esq.
Franklin Lamb Esq.

Why Obama is Declaring War on Syria

Veterans Today, 15 June 2013

(Beirut) ā€“ The short answer is Iran and Hezbollah according to Congressional sources. ā€œThe Syrian armyā€™s victory at al-Qusayr was more than the administration could accept given that townā€™s strategic position in the region. Its capture by the Assad forces has essentially added Syria to Iranā€™s list of victories starting with Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, as well as its growing influence in the Gulf.ā€

Other sources are asserting that Obama actually did not want to invoke direct military aid the rebels fighting to topple the Assad government or even to make use of American military power in Syria for several reasons. Among these are the lack of American public support for yet another American war in the Middle East, the fact that there appears to be no acceptable alternative to the Assad government on the horizon, the position of the US intelligence community and the State Department and Pentagon that intervention in Syria would potentially turn out very badly for the US and gut whatā€™s left of its influence in the region. It short, that the US getting involved in Syria could turn out even worse than Iraq, by intensifying a regional sectarian war without any positive outcome in sight.

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Berto Jongman: NSA Puts Full Force of the Government Against A Poem Containing the Word Terror — We Do Not Make This Stuff Up!

Offbeat Fun, Officers Call
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Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Cryptogams & the NSA

John Sifton is an attorney at Human Rights Watch. He worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2001 to 2004 and was senior researcher on terrorism and counterterrorism from 2005 to 2007. He is currently the Asia Advocacy Director.

The first thing I did after I heard about the highly classified NSA PRISM program two years ago was set up a proxy server in Peshawar to email me passages from Joyceā€™s Finnegans Wake. A literary flight of fancy. I started sending back excerpts from Gerard Manley Hopkins poems.

Complete story below the line.

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Neal Rauhauser: Islam’s Doctrinal Divide — US Intelligence Vacuum

Civil Society, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
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Neal Rauhauser
Neal Rauhauser

Islamā€™s DoctrinalĀ Divide

 

Americans were largely ignorant of the Muslim faith prior to 9/11, but in the years since we have at least learned that there are two major branches and that not all Muslims are Arab. I came across this graphic of global Muslim sects in other reading a few days ago and saved it for an opportune moment, not realizing how quickly I would need it.

The geographic display of the divide between Sunni and Shia is a fair match for the count of adherents ā€“ about 85% of all Muslims are Sunni. There are several conflicts where the sectarian differences are important. These include:

  • Alawite Syrians on the coast, terrified of the coming Sunni majority government
  • Majority Shia Bahrain chafing under a Sunni monarchy
  • Yemeni Shia fighting to restore the North/South Yemen divide
Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

One bright spot has been NATO relations with the ethnic Hazara minority in Afghanistan. They are clearly visible in the global sects map as a yellow Jafari Shia donut hole in the middle of what is otherwise Hanafi Sunni territory.

Read rest of post with more graphics.

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