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David Isenberg: CIA as Consolation Prize

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David Isenberg

The Art Of The Deal:

By Andy Johnson

ForeignPolicy.com,November 29, 2012

With the abrupt departure of Director David Petraeus, the revolving door on the CIA's seventh floor continues to spin: The average tenure of the agency's last five leaders has been less than 20 months.

The timing of this leadership upheaval could not have come at a worse time for the agency. The CIA once ruled the operational and analytic fiefdoms of the U.S. Intelligence Community with near-monopolistic control. But bureaucratic reorganization and the expansion of military intelligence during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars brought an end to a half-century of preeminence. The steady diminution of the CIA's influence over the past decade echoes the travails of Microsoft — the spy agency is weakened, beset by competitors, and facing an uncertain future.

The paradox of this post-9/11 reality is that the CIA is now more mission-focused than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Its aggressive, collaborative prosecution of terrorist networks has been wildly successful and saved American lives here and abroad. This was by design, aided in large part by reform efforts to eliminate intelligence agency stovepipes, force information sharing, and enhance paramilitary capabilities. The results have borne out the wisdom of these and other steps to remake the Intelligence Community.

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Chuck Spinney: End Time of Tribulation for Israel, the Fake State

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society
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Chuck Spinney

With the exception of the problematic reference Iron Dome missile defense system (notwithstanding all the hype, school is still out on its performance, IMO), the attached opinion piece is an excellent summary of the grand strategic ramifications of the recent dustup in Gaza. CS

Why Israel Didn’t Win

Adam Shatz, London Review of Books, Vol. 34 No. 23 · 6 December 2012

The ceasefire agreed by Israel and Hamas in Cairo after eight days of fighting is merely a pause in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It promises to ease movement at all border crossings with the Gaza Strip, but will not lift the blockade. It requires Israel to end its assault on the Strip, and Palestinian militants to stop firing rockets at southern Israel, but it leaves Gaza as miserable as ever: according to a recent UN report, the Strip will be ‘uninhabitable’ by 2020. And this is to speak only of Gaza. How easily one is made to forget that Gaza is only a part – a very brutalised part – of the ‘future Palestinian state’ that once seemed inevitable, and which now seems to exist mainly in the lullabies of Western peace processors. None of the core issues of the Israel-Palestine conflict – the Occupation, borders, water rights, repatriation and compensation of refugees – is addressed by this agreement.

The fighting will erupt again, because Hamas will come under continued pressure from its members and from other militant factions, and because Israel has never needed much pretext to go to war. In 1982, it broke its ceasefire with Arafat’s PLO and invaded Lebanon, citing the attempted assassination of its ambassador to London, even though the attack was the work of Arafat’s sworn enemy, the Iraqi agent Abu Nidal. In 1996, during a period of relative calm, it assassinated Hamas’s bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash, the ‘Engineer’, leading Hamas to strike back with a wave of suicide attacks in Israeli cities. When, a year later, Hamas proposed a thirty-year hudna, or truce, Binyamin Netanyahu dispatched a team of Mossad agents to poison the Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman; under pressure from Jordan and the US, Israel was forced to provide the antidote, and Meshaal is now the head of Hamas’s political bureau – and an ally of Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi.

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SchwartzReport: US Court Orders Tobacco Companies to Admit Lying — But Higher Court Has Blocked Mandate of Graphic Images

Culture, Knowledge, Politics
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US court orders tobacco firms to admit lying

A US judge has ordered tobacco firms to pay for a public campaign laying out “past deception” over smoking risks.

The ruling sets out the wording of a series of “corrective statements” that the companies are being told to make over a period of up to two years.

Details of which media will carry the statements and how much they will cost are yet to be determined.

Read full article.

 

Click on Image to Enlarge

US court blocks graphic cigarette warnings

The US government cannot force tobacco firms to put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages, an appeals court in Washington has ruled.

It said the government's plan undermined free speech in America.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had wanted to put nine pictures of dead and diseased smokers to convey the dangers of cigarettes.

But tobacco firms had argued that the images went beyond factual information and into anti-smoking advocacy.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Absent a public uprising and a change in the electoral integrity of the US Government, it will take another 20 years for the truth to be pushed back into big pharma, big sugar, and big oil.  The truth, however, is making a comeback as a public good.  “The truth at any cost lowers all other costs.”  Once a government gets back into the business of serving the public interest instead of special interests, transparency, truth, and trust will again become the signal attributes of a democracy.

See also:

Documentary: The Tobacco Conspiracy: Backrooms Deals of a Deadly Industry (free, loaded with quality content)

Video (26min) of tobacco leaf child labor in Malawi – towards the end is mention of fair trade farms working to replace the tobacco crop with tea leaves.

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NIGHTWATCH: Syria at Risk — Own the Consequences

Government, Ineptitude, Military
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Syria: On 29 November, the administration of Damascus' airport cancelled all incoming and outgoing flights because rebel groups had cut the road from the airport to Damascus, for the first time.

Syrian rebels also used shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile systems (MANPADs) that were captured from Syrian forces to shoot down a government helicopter and a fixed wing combat aircraft in a 24-hour period.

Comment: The Syrian uprising crossed an important strategic threshold with the first demonstrated capability to shoot down government aircraft. This is a major escalation of the threat to the Damascus government.

One news report stated an opposition group had captured 40 MANPADS in recent overruns of government air force bases. That number is enough to neutralize the government's air advantage, provided they are distributed adequately to trained shooters. A key question is who is providing the training. That is almost certainly US special forces.

The gradual loss of air superiority means the regime cannot survive, though its demise is not yet imminent.

Several other recent tactical successes by opposition fighting groups also almost certainly are the result of US and possibly other Western training, guidance and possibly leadership. Within four months of American announcements that US Special Operations Forces were providing training to opposition groups in camps in Jordan, the opposition groups suddenly have become tactically more effective. The targets of some of their attacks are more harmful to the Damascus regime and some groups have greater ability to coordinate their attacks.

These are the effects of superior outside military involvement. These same opposition groups fumbled around for 18 months with no significant impact on the stability of the regime. The US is involved in the fight, probably with special forces inside advising selected rebel groups.

The regime is falling back, trying to find a line it can hold. That presumably is the corridor from Damascus to Latakia, the Alawite homeland.

As noted above, policy choices have consequences. Should the Alawite government fall, Syrian Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and other minorities will be killed and shrines destroyed. That is why the Syrian Kurds are opposing the Syrian opposition fighters and jihadists.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

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Yoda: Palestinians win upgraded UN status by wide margin

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
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Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Good, this is.

Palestinians win upgraded UN status by wide margin

The UN General Assembly has voted to recognise Palestine as a non-member observer state – a move strongly opposed by Israel and the US.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the assembly the vote was the “last chance to save the two-state solution” with Israel.

Israel's envoy to the UN said the bid pushed peace process “backwards”, while the US said the move was “unfortunate”.

The assembly voted 138-9 in favour, with 41 nations abstaining.

Read full article.

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Penguin: Hurray for Walter Pincus, Blowing Up the $100 Million DoD Underground Multi-Story Bunker for Tel Aviv — Public Interest Be Damned….

Corruption, Government, Military
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Who, Me?

Phi Beta Iota:  We learn that the Army Corps of Engineers, which should be focusing on the Mississippi right now, has not one but three offices in Israel; and that it is acting as an agent of the Israeli government in obligating US taxpayer dollars for what is clearly a deeply religious construction, to which DoD is allegedly (and probably) not privy to the details.   We do not make this stuff up.  Penguin insists that we all acknowledge Brother Pincus' righteous contribution.  So ordered!  All hail Walter Pincus.  Seriously.

Why Is The US Building A Secret $100 Million Underground Facility Outside Tel Aviv?

Robert Johnson

Business Insider, 29 November 2012

Leave it to legendary Walter Pincus from the Washington Post to flesh out a Request for Proposalconstruction project planned for Israel called Site 911.The oddly named project will cost up to $100 million, take more than two years to complete, and can only be built by workers from specific countries with proper security clearances. Palestinians need not apply.When complete the well-guarded compound will have five levels buried underground and six additional outbuildings on the above grounds, within the perimeter. At about 127,000 square feet, the first three floors will house classrooms, an auditorium, and a laboratory — all wedged behind shock resistant doors — with radiation protection and massive security.Only one gate will allow workers entrance and exit during the project and that will be guarded by only Israelis.The bottom two floors are smaller, according to the full line of schematics uploaded to the Army's Acquisition Business Web Site, and possibly used for equipment and storage.As impressive as the American design features already are, Ada Karmi-Melamede Architects will decorate the entire site with rocks it chooses, but are paid for by the contractor, and provide three outdoor picnic tables.Pincus also found this detailed description of the mezuzahs that will adorn every door in the facility:

These mezuzas, notes the [US Army] Corps, “shall be written in inerasable ink, on . . . uncoated leather parchment” and be handwritten by a scribe “holding a written authorization according to Jewish law.” The writing may be “Ashkenazik or Sepharadik” but “not a mixture” and “must be uniform.”

Continue reading “Penguin: Hurray for Walter Pincus, Blowing Up the $100 Million DoD Underground Multi-Story Bunker for Tel Aviv — Public Interest Be Damned….”

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Mini-Me: False Flag Nuclear Christmas? Deceitful “Allies” and Enemies Within

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 10 Security, 11 Society, Officers Call
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Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

WARNING NOTICE: The raw material is 80% speculative.  The 20% is so real as to warrant real alarm and extraordinary measures within the virtually non-existent US national counter-intelligence community that is generally inept at real-time cyber-monitoring in multiple languages across all cyber-domains (e.g. skype, steganography, etcetera).  We also do not “own the street,” rule one in counter-intelligence–all fifteen slices of HUMINT are in the basement, foreign counter-intelligence (offensive and defensive) being the runts of a very weak litter.   DHS has wasted a decade doing the wrong things wronger, and is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Nuclear Christmas, false flag in America to blame on Iran

There are strong confirmations that one or more nuclear weapons, known to have been stolen but kept from the public to “prevent panic,” may well be deployed in American cities by extremist elements with probable ties to a foreign intelligence agency.

This scenario was the basis of the television show “Jericho” several years ago. However, this time there are real culprits and real motivations, both the overthrow of the government of the United States and the naming of Iran as a “scapegoat.”

The plot has been tracked to groups within the Pentagon, several government agencies and wealthy and powerful extremist backers of Netanyahu and, in particular, the “Gulf Cartel” operating from Mexico that has penetrated nearly all levels of government, law enforcement and the military across the country.

Using surprisingly direct language, President Obama has officially confirmed this conspiracy.

Six days ago, the President of the United States, on his official public website, issued a warning about “government insiders” who were planning “violent acts” against the “government and the nation.”

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