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How Neocon Central Worked for Muammar Qadhafi
02 Diplomacy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government
Laura Rozen, Politico, 21 February 2011
As several Libyan diplomats Monday denounced their country’s four-decade ruler Col. Muammar Qadhafi for unleashing the army against anti-government protesters, U.S. consultancies that have worked to burnish Libya’s and Qadhafi’s U.S. image were laying low.
Several consulting, law and lobbying firms have moved in to advise the Libyan government and energy interests since U.S. sanctions were lifted on Libya in 2004, some of which have since canceled their contracts, according to Justice Department records.
Fahmy Hudome International canceled its contract with the Libyan government in 2007. The Livingston Group canceled its $360,000-per-year lobbying contract with the Libyan government as well as one with an associated Qadhafi charity in September 2009, following the hero’s welcome Libyan leaders gave for the convicted Lockerbie bomber upon his release in August 2009 from a Scottish prison on humanitarian grounds. Justice Department records indicate the law firm White & Case LLP has been registered since 2008 to represent Libya regarding a litigation matter.
One of the more unlikely figures to have advised a firm which has worked to burnish Libya's image and grow its economy is not registered with the Justice Department. Prominent neoconservative Richard Perle, the former Reagan-era Defense Department official and George W. Bush-era chairman of the Defense Policy Board, traveled to Libya twice in 2006 to meet with Qadhafi, and afterward briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on his visits, according to documents released by a Libyan opposition group in 2009.
Perle traveled to Libya as a paid adviser to the Monitor Group, a prestigious Boston-based consulting firm with close ties to leading professors at the Harvard Business School. The firm named Perle a senior adviser in 2006.
The Monitor Group described Perle’s travel to Libya and the recruitment of several other prominent thinkers and former officials to burnish Libya’s and Qadhafi’s image in a series of documents obtained and released by a Libyan opposition group, the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition, in 2009.
Phi Beta Iota: In fairness to the Neocons, there is no real difference between the two parties that vie for control of the public purse to favor private ends. US Government support for dictators, criminal gangs, and selected terrorist groups has always been “bi-partisan” and completely devoid of any public benefit.
See Also:
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Review–Secrets of the Cold War: US Army Europe’s Intelligence and Counterintelligence Activities Against the Soviets During the Cold War
5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Intelligence (Government/Secret)
Leland C. McCaslin
Superb Ground-level View, Less So On Context
February 23, 2011
As a former direct report to John Guenther, who served along the same lines for many years in Marine Corps counterintelligence in Europe and elsewhere, I have to admire what this author has done and certainly agree that it is useful and important perspective from a ground-level point of view.
I like the names, the photos, the details. HOWEVER, there are two contextual issues that are not well-represented in the book, which is a historical account.
First, the author was and remains unwitting of the fact that the US was funding the Red Brigades and creating a false terrorist threat within Italy in order to further consolidate the power of the fascist government in the post-war period. Only recently has all of this been exposed in the aftermath of the CIA renditions out of Italy, and testimony finally elicited from several participants in the earlier cover operations . In that context then, this book has to be seen as a partial unwitting account. For the tip of the iceberg, see Journal: Nato's Secret Armies (It's Not Terror if CIA Pays and Locals Do the Dirty….) at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.
Diversity in Wholeness: “We were made different to complete each other…”
Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence
Dear friends,
Two remarkable presentations of our common humanity and shared predicament showed up in my email today. One is one of the most beautiful and intense videos I've ever seen and the other is a glimpse of the global spirit infusing the current uprisings in very diverse nations.
Blessings on our shared Journey…
Coheartedly,
Tom
============
1. The Human Planet … A spectacular video trailer of the BBC's ONE
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=2HiUMlOz4UQ&vq=large
Its fast-paced images of the archetypal energies and challenges of human life on Earth are riveting!
==========
2. From Cairo to Madison: Hope and Solidarity are Alive
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/21-11
by Medea Benjamin
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And a closing word for U.S.Americans, from Ralph Nader:
“In a country that has so many problems it doesn't deserve and so many solutions that it doesn't apply; all things are possible when people begin looking at themselves for the necessary power to produce a just society.”
______________________________
Tom Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute, POB 493, Eugene, OR 97440
http://www.co-intelligence.org / http://tom-atlee.posterous.com
Read THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY – http://www.taoofdemocracy.com and
REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM – http://evolutionaryactivism.com
Please support our work. Your donations are fully tax-deductible.
http://www.co-intelligence.org / http://tom-atlee.posterous.com
Read THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY – http://www.taoofdemocracy.com and
REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM – http://evolutionaryactivism.com
Please support our work. Your donations are fully tax-deductible.
Phi Beta Iota: Tom Atlee is the sole seer and charitable cause that we actively promote. His soul and mind are a precious global treasure like no other we have encountered. Please do donate, with $20 to $50 as the recommended range. His Donate Page.
Asymmetrical Giving, Social Contracts, & the Internet
Gift Intelligence
INTERNET-ENABLED ASYMMETRICAL GIVING
A flip side: the asymmetrical gift
Yesterday I bummed you out with a riff about favors becoming impossible to fulfill. Worth a thought: the alternative, the good news that comes with the bad, is the massive asymmetric gift.
A gift is not a favor, because no recompense is implied or expected. A gift is just from me to you, that’s it.
The internet makes it easy to give gifts to large numbers of people at very very low cost. Editing a wikipedia article, for example, is a gift for the ages, one that might be seen by a million people over three years.
This leads to a new clause in the social contract. In this environment, we expect that civilized participants will give. Just because. Because they can. Because the gift makes all of it work better.
While mass favors have to fade (too easy to ask for, too unfair at scale), mass gifts show up to change the equation. Gifts are easy to scale, now, the more generous, the better. For all of us.
Below the Line: Asymmetrical Mass Favor Asking, the Bad
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Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Aaron Huslage
Alpha E-H, Collective Intelligence, Cyber-Intelligence
Aaron Huslage has been hacking on Internet technologies since 1987.
Aaron has been a thought leader in the Internet industry since 1993. His greatest talent lies in communicating highly technical information to those who aren't highly technical.
He constantly researches new and emerging technologies and the latest system management techniques with an emphasis on very large-scale, low-cost, simple mobile, wireless and public interest communications.
Aaron is a member of the organizing committee for O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony Conference. He is intimately familiar with Sun Microsystems offerings, and heavily committed to the concept of Open Everything including OpenBTS.
He has managed large server farms for Microsoft, Major League Baseball and has consulted with some of the largest companies on the Internet. He founded Aidphone Disaster Relief, supported Amsoft Identity Systems (Equals.com), and has been engaged with Red Hat Software, IBM Global Services, and Collective Technologies, among others.
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Range Networks: The ONLY OpenBTS Real Deal
Autonomous Internet
Phi Beta Iota: We have noticed with irritation the number of beltway bandits and think tanks claiming to have OpenBTS well in hand, and vying for the declining government dollar. There is only one company that has a legitimate claim to offering OpenBTS, and that company's name is Range Networks, featured at DEMO 2010 and a spin-off from Kestrel Signal Processing.
The technical minds behind OpenBTS in its current and rapidly maturing form are David A. Burgess, now Chief Technical Officer of Range Networks, and Dr. Harvind S. Samra, a pioneer of novel signal processing algorithms for exploiting packet transmissions. We posted information earlier about their stunning success at Burning Man 2010, where Brother Dave Warner of MindTel was again scouting for follow-ons to STRONG ANGEL III and TOOZL.
To create Range Networks, profitable in year one, they recruited as Chief Executive Officer Glenn Edens, whose background at ZeroOne, Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett Packard is extraordinary–he is a peer of John Gage, who showed off the first hand-held Internet server at OSS '92.
Learn more below the line….
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