Phi Beta Iota: The below reference is of human interest, but lacks context. Three major follow-on studies are needed, if someone can find a Member of Congress willing to ask for them:
1. Actual number of amputations including number of limbs per person amputated.
2. Suicides both while in service and post separation or retirement.
3. Follow-On Gulf War Syndrome and other self-inflicted bio-chemical-radiological wounds and conditions sustained in relation to depleted uranium and other toxic by-products associated with conventional munitions.
His focus is on the reality that 4% of the “total force,” the engaged infantry, bear 80-81% of the total casualties, but receive less than 1% of the over-all acquisitions and training budget. He calls this, rather memorably, a “cosmic incongruity.”
Very important CTC study on internal frictions within the Salafi movement
Very important CTC study with a number of high profile and experienced contributors. It should be read by anyone dealing with Islamist movements. The study is a landmark endeavor–a model to be followed–and hopefully will generate additional studies.
Full Source Online (257 pages)
Phi Beta Iota: The US Military Academy (West Point) Counter-Terrorism Center is a national gem, a treasure, vastly more effective at Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in multiple languages than many of the other elements of the Department of Defense, in part because they appear to have more rigor and a broader (holistic) view instead of the standard cookie cut & paste model that passes for “analysis” elsewhere.
Phi Beta Iota: Laos was both an inspiring success story at the operational and tactical levels, and a massive strategic failure in context. On the one hand, a handful of CIA officers and a very modest amount of money kept entire divisions pinned down or occupied or distracted. On the other hand, in the words of Ted Shackley's deputy in Laos, we got a lot of people killed with nothing to show for it in the end. Today this would not be possible to achieve by kinetic means because it would be too easy to first spot with commercial imagery, and then cover all of the air strips with covert hides able to shoot down the light airplanes as they landed. However, today there are other means of empowering indigenous peoples, centered on Open Spectrum, Open Source Software, and Open Source Intelligence–the Open Tri-Fecta: Information Operations (Advanced).
I've never tried to work up the numbers, but I would be very surprised to learn that the ratio of Hmong soldiers to lowland Lao/other mountain tribe soldiers was greater than 50/50.
Having been a Marine, I'm sure you know the old saying that every Marine squad goes into combat with its own photographer. Merely jealousy, I'm sure, for all the favorable publicity the Marines have had over the years, but not unlike all the favorable publicity the Marines have had (not that they don't deserve it) the Hmong have been the beneficiaries of a similar favorable publicity to the exclusion of the part the lowland Lao and all the other tribal peoples played in the “Secret War.”
Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name—even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off.
These phones don't keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.
REMINDER: Environmental Degradation, not Climate Change, is High-Level Threat #3. Climate Change is less than 10% of that, and within Climate Change, mercury and sulfer are more important than carbon. Furthermore, it is not possible to address any one threat without addressing the other nine (e.g. #1 Poverty) with harmonized policies from Agriculture to Water, so the bottom line is that these talks are isolated and worthless. The world needs a serious global strategy with serious analytics, a commitment to understanding true costs of every product and service, and a commitment to bringing the five billion poor into a prosperous world at peace. Anything less is a betrayal of the public trust.
Military brass and local dignitaries cut the ribbon on the Pentagon's new campus-style Southern Command headquarters.
By Carol Rosenberg
The Air Force staged an F-16 flyover. A Navy chaplain declared it a place of “justice” and “peace.” And military brass joined with local leaders Friday to officially open the Pentagon's $402 million state-of-the-art Southern Command headquarters in Doral.
The new hub for military and diplomatic operations in Latin America and the Caribbean has been years in the making, noted a succession of speakers.
Some thanked special guest Archbishop Thomas Wenski for lining up picture-perfect weather for the event, attended by several hundred guests.
Others paid tribute to former Gov. Jeb Bush and the South Florida Congressional delegation (none present), for lining up the finances and 55 acres of state-leased land for the Category 5 hurricane-proof facility.
It has a maze of specially secured offices, built next to the 13-year-old original building, plus a gym, small clinic and commissary. It also has a 200-seat auditorium in a structure called the Conference Center of The Americas, with technology to enable multilingual meetings that bring together military officers from the region.
Featured speaker Adm. James Stavridis, the previous Southcom chief, came from his current post as Supreme Allied Commander of Europe to declare the new facility a place of “partnership” and “promise.”
About 2,300 people work there, mostly members of the U.S. military; other U.S. government agencies and Latin American nations also send military and civilian liaisons to the facility.
I want to share three videos and one slide show that are having a profound impact on me and my work. They describe different facets of a new realm of understanding and possibility that is making all the difference in the world even now — possibilities that we can help along by taking up the creative challenges these videos present to us.
Much of my work will be weaving these insights into the kind of democracy-shift we need right now. They make it clear that we are, indeed, in a whole new ball game.
Phi Beta Iota: Above have been re-sorted to put Information Operations (IO) relevance from top to bottom. The next big thing is a combination of EMPOWERING people, HARNESSING minds, and ERADICATING corruption. GroupOn is the “good” counterpart to WikiLeaks, but WikiLeaks should not be scorned–it demonstrates the perfidy of the Industrial Era “rule by secrecy” top-down elite model that has now been shown to be completely incapable of micro-managing complexity and diversity with ethical integrity. Tom Atlee embodies the future of America and through a restored America the Beautiful, the future of humanity. We respectfully, urgently urge every person to give generously to Tom Atlee and the Co-Intelligence Institute. He has been devoted for decades to the heart of the matter: actualizing the goodness that lies within each of us, and the wisdom that lies within us as the aggregate, Collective Intelligence, Community Intelligence, Integral Consciousness. Giving to Tom is the spiritual equivalent of collective prayer. We need every prayer we can get. Please give to this righteous liberation endeavor. St.
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