Winslow Wheelers: Morally Bankrupt Flag Officers Need to Go + Pentagon Corruption RECAP

The Joint Chiefs of Staff testified to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees this week arguing that unless their budgets are augmented with still more money they will hollow out the armed forces. Most in the press and Congress didn’t read their assertions that way, but two near simultaneous reports that provide some meaningful …

Reference: John Brennan’s Opening Statement — Extreme Fluff + CIA Meta-RECAP

PDF 8 Pages:  Statement for the Record to the SSCI of 7 Feb 2013 (John Brennan) One useful insight:  “Trust deficit” between Congress and CIA has never been greater. One questionable rah rah:  103 stars on the wall.  Counting Khost Kathy, at least half and probably more like two thirds are deaths that resulted from …

Reflections on Lincoln, Principle, Compromise, Autonomous Internet & Citizen Intelligence / Counter-Intelligence 2.0 with Meta-RECAP

EDIT of 21 January 2013:  I have gotten both sharp criticism from folks I revere, and complements.  I am more than willing to delete this, but I am more interested in having people think outside the lines.  I’ve made some revisions, adding issues and readings in each section.   Email me as you please, robert.david.steele.vivas [at] …

Marcus Aurelius: CIA’s Double Standard Exploitation of Secrecy — Use It to Hide Official Attrocities, While Screwing Iconoclasts + RECAP

Secret Double Standard By Ted Gup New York Times, January 9, 2013 Cambridge, Mass. — IN the last week, the American public has been reminded of the Central Intelligence Agency’s contradictory attitude toward secrecy. In a critique of “Zero Dark Thirty,” published last Thursday in The Washington Post, a former deputy director of the C.I.A., …

John Steiner: THE GLOBAL MARCH TOWARD PEACE by Gareth Evans*

A starting point for the new Secretaries of State and Defense. THE GLOBAL MARCH TOWARD PEACE by Gareth Evans Gareth Evans, Australia’s foreign minister for eight years and President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group, is currently Chancellor of the Australian National University and co-chair of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect. As …

Review: Using Data Sharing to Improve Coordination in Peacebuilding: Report of a Workshop on Technology, Science, and Peacebuilding

Andrew Robertson and Steve Olson (eds.) 4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent First Step, Four Disappointments, January 2, 2013 This is one of the more useful reports to come out of the US Institute of Peace and its collaborative effort with the National Academy of Engineering and I highly recommend it for either free reading …

DefDog: Panetta at Press Club — Pathetic! & Comment by Robert Steele with Remedial Reading List

While touted as strategy, I fail to see any, more like wishful thinking and hope…..and as we all know, Hope is Not a Strategy…. Remarks by Secretary Panetta at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON E. PANETTA:  Thank you very much, Theresa, for that kind introduction.  And thank you for the …