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Review: SAVAGE CAPITALISM AND THE MYTH OF DEMOCRACY–Latin America in the Third Millennium

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Problems), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
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5.0 out of 5 stars Fast Read, Ground Truth, Moral Truth, Priceless Insights
January 5, 2010

Michael Hogan

I received this book as a gift from the author after I reviewed Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, and I am very glad to have accepted his offer. At 218 pages double-spaced it is a fast read and perhaps even more valuable for that–this is the book that every US CEO and professional having anything to do with Latin America should read. I do not mention politicians because they are all uniformly corrupt and have been castrated by the two-party tyranny. This book holds special meaning for teachers who wish to restore their role as speakers of truth rather than as cogs in the Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling.

The book opens with a spectacularly cogent list of the damages caused to Latin America by the USA:

1) Military interventions followed by abandonment (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti)

2) Undermining of the democratic process (Guatemala, Chile)

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Journal: National Intelligence or National Goat-F…?

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics
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Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first president to take office in the Age of Terrorism. He inherited two struggles — one with Al Qaeda and its ideological allies, and another that divides his own country over issues like torture, prosecutions, security and what it means to be an American. The first has proved to be complicated and daunting. The second makes the first look easy.

NATO official: US spy work lacking in Afghanistan

Eight years into the war, the U.S. intelligence community is only “marginally relevant” to the overall mission in Afghanistan, a senior intelligence official for the international forces wrote in a report released less than a week after seven CIA employees died in a suicide attack.

Intelligence Overhaul Ordered For Afghanistan

The overhaul announced Monday will broaden the scope of intelligence gathering from hunting down extremists to gathering information about local attitudes, concerns, people and leaders as part of an effort to win over the Afghan population.

Webster Tarpley on Nigerian Staging by Rogue Moles in US Intelligence

Officials in the Obama White House are considering the possibility that the Christmas day attempt by Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Mutallab to blow up an airliner about to land in Detroit was deliberately and intentionally facilitated by unnamed networks inside the US intelligence community. This was the gist of a report by Richard Wolffe delivered in this evening’s edition of cable network MSNBC’s Countdown program, hosted by Keith Olbermann: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#34694889.

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Journal: WIRED to IC–You’re Tired, Get Wired….

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)
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Pink Slips, Spyblogs, and More New Year’s Resolutions for the Intelligence Community

Michael Tanji spent nearly 20 years in the US intelligence community. A veteran of the US Army, Michael has served in both strategic and tactical assignments worldwide, and has participated in national and international analysis and policy efforts, including projects for the NIC, NSC and NATO. A Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow. Michael lectures on intelligence issues at The George Washington University. He is also an occassional contributor to the Weekly Standard and is the editor of _Threats in the Age of Obama.

A near-successful bombing on Christmas, a suicide attack on the CIA — it’s been a rotten ten days for the U.S. Intelligence Community. And unless things change in a serious way, the spy agencies can expect many more rotten days ahead. But there are some steps that the IC can take in 2010 that could mean fewer failures, more success, and more lives saved. Think of them as New Years’ resolutions for the spy agencies.

Pink Slips.    Go All In for 2.0.    Align Policy with Practice.    Get Real About Training.    Open Back Up.

Terrorism, transnational crime, cyber security: all problems that are only going to get worse as the world gets more wired and interconnected; all problems that cannot be addressed without a strong intelligence apparatus. The security of the nation is every administrations primary responsibility, which makes resolving to spend political capital on these low-cost, high-return efforts no-brainers.

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AFRICOM Week in Review Ending 4 January 2009

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NOTE:  This offering ends 9 Feb 10 unless we can find a volunteer to do once a week.

Hot Topics

AA: 2010: US To Wage War Throughout The World 12/31/09

AA: Mobility Helps al Qaeda Extend Reach 01/04/10

BW: Khama likens corruption to a deadly cancer 12/31/09

CF: Providing education to conflict-affected children in the remote regions of … 12/31/09

GH: Ghana's Oil Revenue Management – Transparency Or Prudence? 12/31/09

LY: Libya hails its efforts to undercut Al Qaeda 01/02/10

ML: Mali: President Touré hails return of peace in northern Mali 01/01/10

SN: Senegal's President Apologizes for Insult to Christians 12/31/09

ZA: South Africa Struggles to Fix Dysfunctional Schools: Week Ahead 01/04/10

ZW: Technology investors targeting Zimbabwe 01/01/10

Below the Fold: Instability, Special Operations, Security Forces, Foreign Affairs, Crime

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Journal: Death of CIA Personnel in Afghanistan

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Government
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UPDATE: Journal: CIA’s Poor Tradecraft AND Poor Management

UPDATE:  Bomber was Jordanian doctor & Jordanian intelligence asset

Phi Beta Iota: This keeps getting worse.  We wonder if CIA contractors get stars on the wall–4 employees including the one who was over-ruled by Berger, Tenet, and Brennen in taking Bin Laden out unilaterally; 3 guards, and a Jordanian intelligence officer who was probably “handling” the asset that did not get searched coming into a “safe” area.  So now we have analysts as chiefs of base (or visiting) on the front line; Jordanian “case officers” providing the language, tradecraft, and other services, and “flipped” assets not validated who get to waltz inside our lines without being searched.   Still unclear is whether the Atlanta detective until recently a UN security officer was an employee or a contractor.

The only thing worse than what CIA is doing in AF and IQ is what the military is evidently unable to do: combat intelligence and counter-intelligence.

See also the Sanity Check comments associated with this posting.

UPDATE:  CIA invited suicide bomber on base as a potential informant

Phi Beta Iota:  The informant was not searched prior to being brought into the “safe” area.  This is what happens when you have inexperienced people too focused on convenient debriefings and not focused enough on counterintelligence.  The Cubans and the Soviets have been running rings around CIA for decades with walk-ins, and CIA now has a whole new crop of folks with no idea how to operate in the field.  We are reminded of the two CIA case officers that went nuts in Somalia.  Somebody needs to  tell Panetta he's in charge of Clowns in Action.  Similarly, the first CIA casualty in Afghanistan was killed because CIA got into the prison business and had no clue on the fundamentals, such as searching prisoners before putting them into group confinement.  This is a tragedy that could have been avoided.

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Review: Social Change 2.0–A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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5.0 out of 5 stars Undeniable Genius Isolated from Other Movements

January 4, 2010

David Gershon

This book is a work of undeniable genius and to that I would add peseverence–the author and his wife Gail Straub have been on the forefront of the personal empowerment movement from the late 1970's onward, and in many ways this book is a capstone work that bridges from the personal to the neighborhood and aspires to–but does not quite attain–the goal of being globally meaningful. I previously enjoyed and reviewed Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds–Be Part of the Global Warming Solution! but this is the book that moves the author into my pantheon of a dozen world-class thinkers on social change.

Early on the book grabs me in a Buckminster Fuller sort of way when the author emphasizes that not only do we have to re-invent the world, we have to re-invent the process by which we re-invent the world. Of course Jonas Salk and others have addressed that with Epoch B leadership, but not for mention here.

I am totally impressed by the 30 years of hard work at the grass roots level that the author builds on in this book, one of the reasons it is a solid five stars on its own merits.

QUOTE from page 45: “The intial test results from the first 200 households were very promising. Those households on average reduced their annual solid waste by percent, water use by 32 percent, energy use by 17 percent, vehicle miles traveled by 8 percent, CO2 emissions by 15 percent, and achieved financial savings of $255.”

Those are HUGE accomplishments, and severely under-stated because the author does not factor in the “true cost” of the savings, probably closer to $10,000 a person if not vastly more (fuel is actually a million dollars a gallon if you really value the time it took to create the fossil base).

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Journal: Scheuer on C-SPAN, Blows Off Key Question

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Michael Scheuer, Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief (1996-99)

Today on C-SPAN:  Michael Scheuer, Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief (1996-99), discussed the latest on the alleged terrorist attack on Northwest flight 253, new security procedures, the recent killings of CIA employees in Afghanistan and the Obama administration's response to foreign terrorists.
Washington, DC

Phi Beta Iota: U.S. Foreign Policy is a complete mess, despite the best efforts of our professional diplomats (who are outnumbered by military musicians) for three reasons:

1.  The excessive and totally inappropriate power of Israel and its US-citizen sayonim

2.  The immoral and often outrageously ridiculous antics of CIA in support of dictators and regime changes–made worse by CIA's refusal to comply with the law in declassying old information to the point that we cannot write an accurate history of U.S. foreign relations

3.  The idiocy of our partisan ideologies that give excessive attention to the Jewish voting bloc in the USA

Summary of key points from the Scheuer appearance:

+  Watchlist is not a silver bullet

+  We're at drawing board, have not progressed beyond 9/11

+  US labeling of Al Qaeda as hating our philosphy of liberty is false–they hate our policies and especially our support for tyrants including Yemen dictatorship, Saudi dictatorship

+  Our unquestioned support to Israel is part of the problem

+  Al Qaeda achieved 80% of its goals despite non-explosion–grid lock, fear, US incompetence

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