Video: Visions of the Gamepocalypse, Possible Futures, Waking Up, Thinking, and Creating a Better World

Jesse Schell: Visions of the Gamepocalypse Hosted by The Long Now Foundation This is a provoking and entertaining presentation. After the short video called “Pixels” prior to the presentation, Jesse Schell starts off with what if life becomes, not Orwellian, but Huxleyan (Brave New World) where pleasure achieved through technology grips the whole lives of …

Journal: What Revolution in Military Affairs? Shattering the illusion of bloodless victory

It is not as if the disaster described below, in the Afghan war logs released by Wikileaks to the Guardian, the New York Times, and der Spiegle, was not foreseeable.  Here, for example, is an op-ed I wrote for Defense Week in April 2001, well before we began the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I …

NIGHTWATCH Extract: PSYOP versus Truth in AF-PK

Afghanistan-Pakistan: Afghanistan’s Tolo TV cited Pakistani media stating that Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar was arrested in Pakistan, Xinhua reported 6 July. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi almost immediately rejected the report as “mere Western propaganda,” stating that the Taliban chief is free, enjoys sound health and is in full command of his fighters. The …

Journal: William Polk on Afghanistan Non-Strategy Plus Consolidated Journal, Review, and Reference Links for Afghanistan

William R. Polk recently sent out the attached letter to his distribution list.  It is a very comprehensive and I believe important review of Afghanistan.  I urge you to take the time to read it.  Appended to the end are a series of notes he used in the construction of his letter.   Polk know …

The Year of the Drone: Map & Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2010

The research on these pages, which we have created in a good faith effort to be as transparent as possible with our sources and analysis and will be updated regularly, draws only on accounts from reliable media organizations with deep reporting capabilities in Pakistan, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, …

Journal: DECLASSIFICATION AND THE “CRISIS” IN INTEL HISTORY

Phi Beta Iota:  The next Director of National Intelligence (DNI) should be required by Congress, as conditions for confirmation, to agree to open the entire Intelligence Community, every single one of the 953 codeword compartments (and the other 200+ that “don’t exist”); and to immediately and without further ado declassify all documents as required by …

AFIO Selected Headline Links with Phi Beta Iota Comments

Pentagon “To Boost Covert Missions in Middle East” Phi Beta Iota:  Jim Clapper is a technocrat-administrator, not a leader, and he has consistently undermined both the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).  The Pentagon’s “clandestine” operations are a huge farce–the training, according to one CIA-trained Special Operations Colonel, consists …