Berto Jongman: Saudi Arabia’s Efforts to Expand Radical Islam and Support Terrorism

Saudi Arabia’s Efforts to Expand Radical Islam and Support Terrorism Rachel Ehrenfeld and Ken Jensen American Center for Democracy, 23 February 2013 On the eve of the Arab Spring, Rachel Ehrenfeld published a lengthy and important study titled, “Their Oil Is Thicker Than Our Blood“*on Saudi support for Islamist terrorism and the global expansion of …

Penguin: Our Veterans, Our Blood, Our Soul

This captures my continuing anguish. How American Troops in Afghanistan became Unreal (Jones) Ann Jones writes at Tomdispath.com Informed Comment Posted on 11/08/2013 by Juan Cole The last time I saw American soldiers in Afghanistan, they were silent. Knocked out by gunfire and explosions that left them grievously injured, as well as drugs administered by …

Robert Young Pelton: Crowd-Funding the Hunt for Jospeh Kony (Full Text – Foreign Policy October 2013)

ROBERT STEELE: I’ve known RYP for over a decade, perhaps more. I first learned of him when CIA was handing out his book, World’s Most Dangerous Places, as the best available primer for case officers going into darkness without bodyguards or armor (which is what real case officers do, don’t get me started on the …

Robert Young Pelton: Crowd-Funding and Crowd-Sourcing the Hunt for Joseph Kony — with Public Lessons Learned

As some of you know, I like to find people who don’t want to be found. Since the mid 90’s I have located and connected with over two dozen terrorist, criminal, jihadi and drug groups. The alphabet list of people I have tracked down and lived with include the taliban, FARC, LURD, al Qaeda, BRA, …

SchwartzReport: NSA Has Not Foiled a SINGLE Terrorist Plot + NSA Meta-RECAP

Here is what I believe is a correct assessment concerning the creation of the national security state in which we live today. Absurd amounts of money have been spent, and civil liberties abridged to an unprecedented degree, on the basis of a threat consisting of little gangs. It is transparently disproportionate, there has to be …

Review: Pakistan on the Brink–The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan

Ahmed Rashid REF A — 12 Years of Lessons Learned in Time for 2014, October 13, 2013 This is an extraordinary book that required a great deal of time, not in the reading, but in the reflection. This will be a longer review than usual, even for me, because this book contains all of the …

Chuck Spinney: Sy Hersh Channels John Boyd, Chuck Highlights Hersh

In identifying “difficult subordinates who should have been promoted, I should have included Colonels Doug Macgreagor and Jim Burton and especially Major Don Vandergriff.  Sorry for the omission CS note – Hersh channels John Boyd* : my comments are inserted in “blue” [italics]   my added emphasis to Sy’s words in bold black.  Of course, this …