Public Intelligence Blog – Page 4048 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

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Commentary & Reply

From Parameters, Summer 2005, pp. 135-40.

Intelligence Reform: More Needs to Be Done

To the Editor:

There are no simple answers when it comes to intelligence reform. The debate on this issue has suffered from decades of policy manipulation, congressional neglect, media ignorance, public inattention, and professional laziness. Senator Saxby Chambliss’s Parameters article, “We Have Not Correctly Framed the Debate on Intelligence Reform” (Spring 2005), merits consideration and a complex response.

Continue reading “2005: Intelligence Reform – More Needs to Be Done”

2005/07/152009/12/04

Review: Making America’s Budget Policy–From the 1980s to the 1990s (Paperback)

4 Star, Budget Process & Politics

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Excellent for Presidential Advisors (Not the Has-Beens),

July 15, 2005

Joseph J. Minarik

This is not the easiest book to read, and it desperately needs a one-page executive summary that a normal person can understand. However, having said that, I have to praise this book as a dated but still valuable primer on budget policy.

The bottom line in this book is clear: America can find $500 billion more in revenue if we return corporations to paying 25% of the total revenue (down to 6% now from a high of 32% in the past), eliminate subsidies and import-export pricing fraud; if we eliminate the tax code and all of its special interest provisions, and rely instead of the marketplace to choose winners and losers; and if we shift to a flat fair tax with no deductions except the mortgage and savings not counted as income. I am over-simplifying, but this book desperate needs distillation.

The author is quite clear on the growing threat to America of the double deficit (both debt and trade),

On balance I am very impressed by the author's grasp of the nuances of budget policy, and while I do not understand all that he writes about, his book has certainly persuaded me that Bill Bradley and he have a grip on this important subject.

It would be quite exciting to see Barack Obama and Ron Paul agree to collaborate on a new coalition government that offers all Americans two things: the restoration of informed engaged democracy where every citizen has access to the information they need, and where every citizen's vote counts; and the elimination of the twin deficits as a national security and competitiveness priority.

EDIT of 20 Dec 07: Adding a few links.
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism: How the Financial System Underminded Social Ideals, Damaged Trust in the Markets, Robbed Investors of Trillions – and What to Do About It
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back
War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War onthe American Dream and How to Fight Back

2005/07/122009/12/04

Review: Dying to Win–The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Hardcover)

5 Star, America (Anti-America), Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Terrorism & Jihad, Truth & Reconciliation, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

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Original–A Major Contribution to Understanding,

July 12, 2005

Robert Pape

The University of Chicago is an extraordinary institution–the author, employed there, lives up to their reputation for methodical, scholarly, useful reflections grounded firmly in the facts. This work significantly advances our understanding of terrorism and of the three forms of suicidal terrorism: egotistic, altruistic, and fatalistic. The author documents his findings that most suicidal terrorists are altruistic, well-educated, nationalistically-motivated, and fully witting and dedicated to their fatal mission as a service to their community.

Of the 563 books I have reviewed–all in national security and global issues, and all but four among the best books in the field–this new work by Professor Pape stands out as startlingly original, thoughtful, useful, and directly relevant to the clear and present danger facing America: an epidemic of suicidal terrorism spawned by the “virtual colonialism” of the US in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and now Iraq as well as other countries.

I will not repeat the excellent listing of facts in the Book Description provided by the publisher–certainly that description should be read carefully. If you are a Jewish zealot, don't bother, you will not get over the cognitive dissonance. Everyone else, including Muslim, Protestant, and Catholic contributors to Congressional and Presidential campaign funds, absolutely must read this book.

There are many other books that support the author's key premises, all well-documented with case studies and the most complete and compelling statistics–known facts. I am persuaded by the author's big three:

1) Suicidal terrorism correlates best with U.S. military occupation of specific countries that tend to be undemocratic and corrupt, where the U.S. in collusion with dictators and one-party elites are frustrating legitimate national aspirations of the larger underclass and middle class;

2) Virtually all of the suicidal terrorists comes from allies of the U.S. (at least nominally–they actually play the U.S. as “useful idiots”) such as Saudi Arabia, rather than Iran;

3) The three premises shared by Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, and now the Iraqi insurgency, are all accurate and will continue to be so if the U.S. does not pull its military out of the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia, and other locations:

a) Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and virtual colonialism everywhere else, demand martyrdom operations;

b) Conventional inferiority mandates self-sacrifice (not only suicidal terrorism, but other asymmetric attacks including the death of a thousand cuts against key energy, water, and transportation nodes in the USA; and

c) The US and its European allies are vulnerable to coercive pressure. The withdrawal of the Americans and the French from Viet-Nam and then Lebanon, of the Israelis from the West Bank, and other concessions itemized by the author, have all made the case for suicidal terrorism. It works and it will explode.

I will mention several other books to support this author, but wish to stress that alone, his work is spectacularly successful in documenting the fallacies of the U.S. national security policy.

Among the books that support him are
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods
Understanding Terror Networks
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People

This is a core reading for every officer at STRATCOM and SOCOM, and for anyone who wishes to be effective at either Public Diplomacy or Strategic Communication or Information Operations. This author should be an invited distinguished funded speaker at every single war college in the Western democracies. We cannot win without listening to him. Military withdrawals, combined with energy independence, are essential. Without them, we not only will not fully defeat the current crop of suicidal terrorists, but we will, in attempting to deal with the current threat with old counter-productive and heavy-handed means, give birth to hundreds of thousands in the next generation of suicidal terrorists.

There are not enough guns in the world to win this one, even if we had competent intelligence at the neighborhood level, which we do not. In keeping with the author's recommendations, it is clear that moral capitalism, informed democracy, equanimity toward bottom up movements for national liberation and an end to corruption, an honest policy process in Washington, D.C.–these are the keys to victory.

This is a towering accomplishment and a major contribution to strategic thinking.

2005/07/082009/08/07

2005 IJIC18/2 The Impact of Religion on Intelligence

Articles & Chapters, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Religion & Politics of Religion

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18/2 Summer 2005 Religion & Intelligence

John D. Stempel, “The IMpact of Religion on Intelligence”

Slated for Peacekeeping Intelligence Book II (Fall 2009)

2005/07/042009/12/04

Review: 1776

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation)

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Elegant, Deep Detail on the Year and the First Battles,

July 4, 2005

David McCullough

Somewhere between Honors American History in high school and a solid political science degree, I never really understood the historical importance of the crossing of the Delaware and the first battles in 1776. Today, as a 53-year old, I finally do, thanks to this brilliant author.

This is a moving book with exactly the right amount of white space, easy to read, yet deeply detailed about key personalities and key battles. For the first time, I understand with awe the degree to which tens of thousands of mixed Americans were able to mobilize, fight, move cannons weighing over a ton along hundreds of miles, construct earthworks (British General Howe on the works at Dorchester Heights: “these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.”), survive disease, drink a bottle of rum per day per man, and on balance, make the miracle of the Republic.

The author tells the story with a light hand, and among the points I found especially noteworthy were his comparison of the speed with which good ideas from the ranks made their way to General Washington, unencumbered by the bureaucracy of the British military; and Washington's appreciation for intelligence and Washington's constant focus on the mind of his counterpart and what that counterpart might be thinking.

It also merits comment that the original revolution sought only to be afforded the rights due an Englishman, not Independence, and it was the heavy-handed actions of King George that led the original American leaders to take the final step of full treason (which, if you win, is not treason, but cause for celebration).

The acknowledgements and the notes are themselves worthy of careful study, for the author appears to have meticulously combed through every possible archive, and hence, he not only provides a walk through a year of American history–*the* year–but also a record of where the pages of that history are archived and honored around the world.

I started this book yesterday afternoon and finished it this afternoon, at 1600 on the 4th of July 2005. There is no finer manner in which I could have spent the eve and the day on which we celebrate the ideals that led to Independence. I only pray that we cast off the immoral capitalism and support for 44 dictators around the world–many of them practicing genocide–and return to the ideals of these great early Patriots.

2005/07/012009/12/04

Review DVD: Cracking the Code to the Extraordinary

3 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Reviews (DVD Only)

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Forget this one, get “What in the Bleep”,

July 1, 2005

Ramtha

In comparison with “What the Bleep Do We Know” which I rate at five stars, this is a relatively light-weight and somewhat flakey sideshow. Don't waste your time. I will note that the same blond is in both DVD's–in this one she is a quasi-cult feel good about yourself old hippie, in the better DVD she comes across as a serious person with an important message.

Highlight (this DVD generated one note card, the other one 9):

God is us channeling up and out.

Each of us is an “observer.”

There are multiple worlds, we can transfer between past and future.

Time & space are NOT a continuum.

If you pay attention, you ARE “God.”

*You* create your life, you decide what external “opinions” to act on.

On balance, not worth the time–but I really want to stress this, this woman's contributions in the better DVD that I do recommend, clearly mark her as a serious person worth listening to. This tape is fluff compared to the other one.

What the Bleep Do We Know!?
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

2005/07/012009/12/04

Review DVD: What the Bleep Do We Know!?

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Reviews (DVD Only)

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Truly Extraordinary, Absolutely Worth Buying and Absorbing,

July 1, 2005

Marlee Matlin

EDIT of 20 Dec 07 to add links and one line at end.

This DVD is truly extraordinary. I have nine note cards on it. Here is my very positive summary of key points in this very serious DVD that pulls together credible useful thoughts from some real professionals. This movie held my counter-culture teen-agers attention for a full 45 minutes, which is quite extraordinary in and of itself.

1) Multiple realities exist side by side across time and space.

2) You can move outside “your” reality to see yourself from outside or from another reality.

3) Major problem in our culture today is that children are not learning to think or imagine broadly.

4) Much of what we are taught to think is not true.

5) Modern materialism and most religions have stripped individuals of their ability to see that they are both responsible, and capable, for affecting their environment.

5) Quantum physics opens new ways for individuals to grab responsibility and *live* life to its fullest.

6) New model says that internal reality is more important that external reality, and it does impact on the environment.

7) Brains do not know difference between what one sees and what one imagines.

8) Natives upon Columbus' arrival could not “see” the ships–one cannot see what one has not learned to imagine.

9) Sub-atomic world is beyond current physics–it is not about the matter, but rather about the empty space between the matter. It is not matter that is a live but rather the empty space (as in a basketball) that is full of information.

10) Nothing material exists without interaction with a thinking being. Material is NOT independent, on the contrary, it is totally dependent on perception. Perception is about possibilities, not absolutes.

11) Consciousness drives material reality; perception activates signatures.

12) 4000+ meditators dropped crime in Washington DC by 25%. The Chief of Police was a skeptic, and then a believer. People, and their thoughts, DO affect reality.

13) Water is responsive to thinking, more so than other materials. Photographs of water crystallization after good thinking (e.g. thank you written on side of water bottle) are quite amazing.

14) If thoughts can crystallize water, imagine what the collective intelligence and good will of all mankind could do?

15) There are different levels of truth but the deepest level of truth is that we are all one. We are at one with the larger whole that is God (community) and with one another, but religions have become corrupt and prescriptive rather than enlightened and inclusive. Control of God's image is the height of arrogance.

16) Emotion is a memory enhanced by chemical addition (internal). Problem for most is that they are operating as if today were yesterday, applying old mindsets, rather than working as a part of a larger integrated whole.

17) Mind DOES influence the body. Emotional toxins and habits are as powerful as heroin.

18) We must learn to dream better, and to dream bigger dreams.

19) Definitions of beauty and valor (like definitions of crime and insanity) are illusory, false, and have no authority. There is more to life than the definitions, you simply need to seek it and see it.

20) Change your choices, change your life. Be ready for a chemical withdrawal as you abandon bad old habits.

21) It's not about good or evil, black or white. Life is nuances, to be *experienced*. You are you own pilot, you are your own priest.

22) You co-create your future by your thinking, imagination, wanting, your choices. PAY ATTENTION and you will get what you wish.

23) You can influence your body, others, the environment, and the future.

24) We are all one; we are not alone; we are connected; we are collective intelligence; we are, in the whole, both God and Heaven on Earth.

I buy into this. This is serious good stuff.

I used to turn off when people talked about the paranormal, even through CIA spent a lot of money on “remote viewing” and I have two books in line waiting to be read; here are a few links:
Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution
Integral Psychology : Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace