(1) This **could** be DoD's near-term future; (2) honestly have not heard anything bad about her; (3) my principal concern is that she has no personal military experience, which I personally think should be mandatory for any SECDEF.
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney Sends: Truely nuts. The article is a puff piece about an incompetent fraud who happens to be a woman … not the part lauding flournoy about the 97 QDR … that is a joke … see my critique of that QDR here. She also was the leader of the most recent QDR was equally flawed … here … so we must conclude she is incapable of learning as well.
Washingtonian
February 2011
Pg. 36
The Making Of Michele Flournoy
By Spencer Ackerman
UPDATED to add links for smart people interested in doing the right thing.
The real terror eating away at the Arab world is socio-economic marginalisation.
Larbi Sadiki 14 Jan 2011 Al-Jazeera
From Tunisia and Algeria in the Maghreb to Jordan and Egypt in the Arab east, the real terror that eats at self-worth, sabotages community and communal rites of passage, including marriage, is the terror of socio-economic marginalisation.
The armies of ‘khobzistes' (the unemployed of the Maghreb) – now marching for bread in the streets and slums of Algiers and Kasserine and who tomorrow may be in Amman, Rabat, San'aa, Ramallah, Cairo and southern Beirut – are not fighting the terror of unemployment with ideology. They do not need one. Unemployment is their ideology. The periphery is their geography. And for now, spontaneous peaceful protest and self-harm is their weaponry. They are ‘les misérables' of the modern world.
This is the one link to share if you wish to have a consolidated view on these topics. The Tiny URL for this consolidated posting is http://www.tinyurl.com/Assisi-Egypt-USA.
Phi Beta Iota: Egypt is a lever for the Assisi Peace Summit.
1) Against dictators and corruption, inter-faith dialog and coordinated action is HAPPENING.
2) The connected young are the antidote to radical violent Islamic fundamentalism.
3) Muslim demographics must be understood by all Catholics and Protestants
4) The Church can be a central force for Open Spectrum, Open Source Software, Open Source Intelligence, and Open Society–imagine, in a revolution, all churches and mosques as sources of wireless solar and wind-powered information that cannot be shut down, that collaborate to avoid inter-faith violence and promote non-violent “presence” in the streets to overturn the 44 dictators and demand the withdrawal of all foreign military forces….
5) Revolutions are no longer national–the diasphoras matter–the global presence of the Church matters from local to national.
6) The hypocrisy of the USA is now fully revealed–Barack Obama made 500 promises to the American people he has not fulfilled, and he dares to suggest to anyone that they honor their promises? It is time for the Church to recognize that the people are the sovereign power, not governments, and that the Church can profit much more from a free people creating wealth than from absolving corruption by governments and corporations and crime families.
7) Liberation Theology is back–it must be elevated by the Most Holy Father NOW.
2012 is not the year of apocalypse, it is the year of awakening when the meek inherit the earth. The time between now and Assisi and from Assisi on is strategically priceless, in our collective view.
Below the line:
On Assisi Peace Summit and Inter-Faith Intelligence (7 Links)
On Egypt as Awakening (14 Links)
On Revolution in & Hypocrisy of USA (10 Links)
Direct to the Core Revolution References (8 Links)
Leading Tunisian Islamist Rachid Ghannouchi returned home on Sunday from 22 years in exile, witnesses said. Thousands turned out to greet him at
the airport.
His return is the most powerful symbol to date of the change that has
swept this country since its president was toppled by popular protests
this month.
. . . . . .
Speaking to Reuters a day before his return, Ghannouchi said the party's role would be to help “anchor a democratic system, social justice and to put a limit to discrimination against banned groups.”
“We are taking part so we can move from a one-party system to a true multi-party system without corruption or oppression.”
Phi Beta Iota: The USA has a one-party system or a two-party tyranny, whatever you want to call it: corrupt politicians that work for special interests and betray the public trust. There is no difference between Democratic and Republican politicians, and sadly, the good people who think of themselves as Democrats or Republicans have no idea they are being deceived, screwed, stolen from, and generally dismissed.
CHINA has blocked the word “Egypt” from the country's wildly popular
Twitter-like service, while coverage of the political turmoil has been
tightly restricted in state media.
China's ruling Communist Party is sensitive to any potential source of
social unrest.
A search for “Egypt” on the Sina microblogging service brings up a
message saying, “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the
search results are not shown.”
Throughout the week, as the crisis gathered storm in Egypt, the
administration had otherwise been slow to react, seemingly always one step
behind events. This was partly because neither the U.S. intelligence
community nor diplomats on the ground foresaw how swiftly the protests in
Egypt would gather momentum—even if everyone realized that virtually the
entire Arab world is a tinder box of pent-up frustration, with despotic
regimes unable to meet the needs of, especially, their youth.
Phi Beta Iota: Advanced Cyber/Information Operations are primarily about being in close touch with reality inclusive of history and culture as well as a full range of future holistic projections firmly grounded in a mature concept of intelligence that fully integrates “true cost” information for every service, product, and policy, and clearly appreciate the value of the human factor. Cyber-security is largly a scam (think back to the Y2K scare), and to the extent that cyber-security vaporware reduces the commander's attention to substance (intelligence), it is a cancer.
Change is sweeping though the Middle East and it's the Facebook generation that has kickstarted it
Guardian, 29 January 2011
EXTRACT: Meanwhile, the uprisings are curing the Arab world of an opiate, the obsession with Israel. For years, successive Arab dictators have tried to keep discontent at bay by distracting people with the Israeli-Arab conflict. Israel's bombardment of Gaza in 2009 increased global sympathy for Palestinians. Mubarak faced the issue of both guarding the border of Gaza, helping Israel enforce its siege, and continuing to use the conflict as a distraction. Enough with dictators hijacking sympathy for Palestinians and enough with putting our lives on hold for that conflict.
Phi Beta Iota: The Assisi Peace Summit would do well to integrate the Facebook Generation. Ms. Eltahawy raises the prospect of Arab youth no longer tolerating an Arab-Israeli conflict (as well as genocide by both Israel and the Arab dictators against the Palestinians). The question now for us is this: where is the Jewish Facebook Generation? They need to pay attention and participate. By the by, this is what Advanced Cyber/Information Operations should be focusing on, not the expensive and fraudulent cyber-terror/cyber-security now a cancer within Cyber-Command circles.
2.11 children per family required to maintain a culture.
Muslims births outpacing Christians including Catholics
Muslim immigration plus immigrant birthrate swamping West
Phi Beta Iota: When governments lack a strategic analytic model and a holistic as well as honest planning, programming, and policy process, they fail to provide for culture and education as well as water and other essentials. The era of governments being “in charge” appears to be winding down. The era of hybrid networks leveraging shared information to achieve consensus on “who are we and who do we want to be” appears emergent. This is advanced cyber/information operations in gestation.
Phi Beta Iota: Lesbians and Gays are biological way stations between female (the default for everyone) and male. The Industrial Era impact on agriculture, family, food, health, and bio-economics is still not understood. The reality is that between dropping sperm counts and bio-cultural changes including growing industrial-based diseases, the West is committing cultural suicide.
