Tyranny looms large in America, because We the People have become ignorant, inert, and too subject to mass deception. Read the headline and first pargragraph, then (below the fold) the Phi Beta Iota comment, and then the full story online. One bird, two wings. Time to retire this turkey, starting with Rockefeller, Webb, and Warner. The Internet is resilient against everything EXCEPT domestic treason.
Bill would give president emergency control of Internet
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
We knew the Pentagon had hit bottom when a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (C/JCS) best left to his well-deserved obscurity said “Real men don't do Operations Other Than War (OOTW).” This is the same person that ignored General Al Gray, USMC (Ret), then Commandant of the Marine Corps, who in 1989 was calling for both “peaceful preventive measures” and what is today known as Irregular Warfare (nothing new, each generation rediscovers stuff–as Winston Churchill ikes to say, “The Americans always do the right thing, they just try everything else first”).
We were also very unhappy when flag officers who knew better allowed Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith to lie to Congress and get away with it. Integrity is about more than personal honor–it is about serving the Republic in good faith, and that includes protecting us all from enemies both domestic and foreign. Lies kill ones comrades. The current Administration is living multiple lies at multiple levels, which makes it an exact mirror of the previous Administration or, as the Libertarians are now saying: “two wings, one bird.”
Zulu
The below piece warms our heart. We celebrate this blinding flash of integrity by adding a photo and short bio of this worthy gentleman. Now if we can just get the President and his National Security Advisor to flush the partisan hacks out of the White House, create a non-partisan Cabinet and a National Strategy Center, and buy-in to the 450-ship Sustainability from the Sea Navy and the Four Forces After Next that have been kciking around since 1992 or so when the USMC first conined the term “911 from the Sea,” we might just get DoD back on track at the same time that we learn how to do peaceful commerce and moral policy.
Full Story Online
New York Times
August 28, 2009
Pg. 9
By Thom Shanker
Message To Muslim World Gets A Critique
Admiral Mike Mullen
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written a searing critique of government efforts at “strategic communication” with the Muslim world, saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting.
The critique by the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, comes as the United States is widely believed to be losing ground in the war of ideas against extremist Islamist ideology. The issue is particularly relevant as the Obama administration orders fresh efforts to counter militant propaganda, part of its broader strategy to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,” Admiral Mullen wrote in the critique, an essay to be published Friday by Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal.
Two years ago, I interviewed Vaclav Smil, the prolific author and energy thinker. I asked Smil, a distinguished professor at the University of Manitoba, why Americans are so easily swayed by politicians and others when it comes to energy matters. His response: scientific illiteracy and innumeracy. “Without any physical, chemical, and biological fundamentals, and with equally poor understanding of basic economic forces, it is no wonder that people will believe anything,” he told me.
By Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad and James Lamont in New Delhi
Half of the planned assistance pledged by the US to Pakistan is likely to be wastefully spent on administrative costs, Islamabad’s most senior finance official has said.
Phi Beta Iota: This is really about AID not letting Pakistan steal most of the money, as CIA likes to allow.
