Owl: Confirmation of John Brennan at CIA Equals Congressional Approval of Open Season on “So-Called Americans” — Without Due Process, At Home or Abroad — And Thousands More Extrajudicial Killings of Foreigners

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, True Cost
Who?  Who?
Who? Who?

This offers a brilliant analysis, a “connecting of the dots,” of why Petreaus was set up to leave CIA. But that's not the main story. The general's affair was cover used by Obama for getting rid of Petraeus to install Brennan for a special purpose:

If Brennan were to succeed Petraeus at the C.I.A., the White House would not only install Obama's first choice in that office, no small matter in itself. Of far greater importance is the fact that, aside from Obama himself — and in certain respects, probably more than Obama — Brennan is the single most critical person in the design and implementation of the government's Murder Program, as I recently discussed. If Brennan does finally head the C.I.A., do you think that would be a coincidence? I do not for a moment believe in coincidences of that kind, especially not with an administration as determined in its lethality as this one. Think of it: John Brennan, who now is Obama's chief adviser on domestic security and counterterrorism goes to head the C.I.A.

I'll tell you what that means to me: Obama and his fellow murderers are absolutely determined to bring the Murder Program home to America, and probably even more quickly than I had previously thought. I described the steps by which that might happen in the second half of the preceding post. The unfolding nightmare that I described might very well lie in your future, America — and in the not too distant future at that. Do you care?  To be sure, the administration could achieve the same end with another candidate if it wished, Vickers for example. But to be able to unleash the Murder Program on an even greater scale with the man who knows everything about it, and from his lofty perch at the C.I.A. … it's a dream come true for these bastards. And that may well be the reason they decided to get rid of Petraeus.”

And Congress's approving Brennan will enable Obama to say Congress approves of using drones what this writer calls the “Murder Program”:

Continue reading “Owl: Confirmation of John Brennan at CIA Equals Congressional Approval of Open Season on “So-Called Americans” — Without Due Process, At Home or Abroad — And Thousands More Extrajudicial Killings of Foreigners”

Reflections on Reform 2.3 Numbers for 30% DoD Cut over 2-4 Years

Advanced Cyber/IO, All Reflections & Story Boards, Budgets & Funding, Ethics, Government, Officers Call, Policies, Serious Games, Strategy, Threats, True Cost
Robert David STEELE Vivas
Robert David STEELE Vivas

It never occurred to me, when I lost the first bureaucratic battle on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in 1992, that my innate sense of  integrity [do the right thing] would lead me to resign from the Marine Corps civil service in 1993 as a very young GM-14, and spend not five, not ten, but twenty years wandering in the wilderness helping over 66 governments and over 7,500 mid-career officers get a grip on sources and methods the traditional secret services refused to consider and the traditional consumers of intelligence did not know how to do.  Of all my student bodies, the USA was the worst, remaining ignorant at the leadership level, helpless at the follower level–butts in seats, no brain required.  Hence, as we approach a historic turning point, the possibility that we might have a Secretary of State and a Secretary of Defense that can actually get a grip on reality together, I thought it might be useful to offer up three things I have learned during my 20-year walk-about:

Continue reading “Reflections on Reform 2.3 Numbers for 30% DoD Cut over 2-4 Years”

SmartPlanet: 1 Earth-Changing Idea, 9 Other Ideas

Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, True Cost

Scientific American’s list of 10 ideas about to change the world

6. A single sustainability index for products

How do you compare the environmental impact of, say, a bottle of laundry detergent versus an LCD screen? The Sustainability Consortium, a group of 10 universities, non-profits and 80 international companies including Walmart and Coca-Cola, are creating an index that includes every step of the supply chain. The group has already released the measure it will use to evaluate its first 100 products.

Right now, a similar rating system, Good Guide, is based solely on public information. The new system would take into account “emissions, waste, labor practices, water usage and other sensitive factors that will become available only as large corporate players exert pressure on suppliers to disclose them,” says Scientific American.

Read full article with 9 Other Ideas

Continue reading “SmartPlanet: 1 Earth-Changing Idea, 9 Other Ideas”

Robert Steele: World Bank Open Access / Open Knowledge

Access, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Future-Oriented, Government, International Aid, IO Deeds of Peace, Key Players, Knowledge, Non-Governmental, Officers Call, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Resilience, Threats, True Cost, World Bank
Robert David STEELE Vivas

Press Release

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 – The World Bank today announced that it will implement a new Open Access policy for its research outputs and knowledge products, effective July 1, 2012. The new policy builds on recent efforts to increase access to information at the World Bank and to make its research as widely available as possible. As the first phase of this policy, the Bank launched today a new Open Knowledge Repository and adopted a set of Creative Commons copyright licenses.

The new Open Access policy, which will be rolled out in phases in the coming year, formalizes the Bank’s practice of making research and knowledge freely available online. Now anybody is free to use, re-use and redistribute most of the Bank's knowledge products and research outputs for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

“Knowledge is power,” World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said. “Making our knowledge widely and readily available will empower others to come up with solutions to the world’s toughest problems. Our new Open Access policy is the natural evolution for a World Bank that is opening up more and more.”

The policy will also apply to Bank research published with third party publishers including the institution’s two journals—World Bank Research Observer (WBRO) and World Bank Economic Review (WBER)—which are published by Oxford University Press, but in accordance with the terms of third party publisher agreements. The Bank will respect publishing embargoes, but expects the amount of time it takes for externally published Bank content to be included in its institutional repository to diminish over time.

Event 21 May 2012 1230-1400 Washington DC

Join us for an Open Discussion: What the Bank's Open Access Policy Means for Development

Monday, May 21, 2012 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET/16:30 – 18:00 GMT

The World Bank will be adopting an Open Access Policy as of July 1. In addition, the Bank recently launched the World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) and became the first major international organization to adopt a set of copyright licenses from Creative Commons. As a result, a wealth of Bank research and knowledge products are now freely available to anyone in the world for use, re-use, and sharing.

  • Why is this so significant?
  • How can open access contribute to the goal of eliminating poverty?
  • How does the new policy impact the Bank's researchers and authors?
  • How will the OKR benefit users of Bank knowledge, in particular those in developing countries?

Join us in person at the World Bank or online for a lively conversation about these and other aspects of open access to research, and its potential for development progress.

FEATURED GUESTS:
Peter Suber
Director of the Harvard Open Access Project and a leading voice in the open access movement
Cyril Muller
Vice President for External Affairs                  at the World Bank
Michael Carroll
American University law professor and founding board member of Creative Commons
Adam Wagstaff
Research Manager of the World                Bank's Development Research Group
HOST:
Carlos Rossel
World Bank Publisher

See Also:

The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations

THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust

INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Open Source Agency: Executive Access Point

Graphic: School for Future-Oriented Hybrid Governance with World Brain Institute, Global Game, and Prototype Center for Public Intelligence

Advanced Cyber/IO, Collaboration Zones, Ethics, Hacking, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Serious Games, Threats, Topics (All Other), True Cost, Worth A Look
Click on Image to Enlarge

Creative Commons license applies — no financial exploitation without permission.  Robert Steele owns three of the four world-brain urls (net, org, com) and is looking for a university with the gravitas to understand why this concept needs to be implemented in full, soonest.

See Also:

Director of articles & chapters leading to this graphic

Director of briefings & lectures leading to this graphic

Books leading to this graphic

Reviews of books by others leading to this graphic (negative)

Reviews of books by others leading to this graphic (positive)

Personal web page of Robert Steele

Ralph Peters: Testimony to Congress on Pakistan As a Failing Empire, Focus on Baluchistan

Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Hill Letters & Testimony, History, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Key Players, Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call, Policies, Strategy, Threats, True Cost
Ralph Peters

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Baluchistan Hearing, February 8, 2012
Testimony of Ralph Peters, military analyst and author

“PAKISTAN AS A FAILING EMPIRE”

2012-02-09 Ralph Peters House Testimony, Baluchistan and Pakistan (8 pages, doc)

Introductory remarks: This testimony arises from three premises.

First, we cannot analyze global events through reassuring ideological lenses, be they left or right, or we will continue to be mistaken, surprised and bewildered by foreign developments. The rest of the world will neither conform to our prejudices nor behave for our convenience.

Second, focusing obsessively on short-term problems blinds us to the root causes and frequent intractability of today’s conflicts.  Because we do not know history, we wave history away.  Yet, the only way to understand the new world disorder is to place current developments in the context of generations and even centuries.  Otherwise, we will continue to blunder through situations in which we deploy to Afghanistan to end Taliban rule, only to find ourselves, a decade later, impatient to negotiate the Taliban’s return to power.

Third, we must not be afraid to “color outside of the lines.”  When it comes to foreign affairs, Washington’s political spectrum is monochromatic: timid, conformist and wrong with breathtaking consistency.  We have a Department of State that refuses to think beyond borders codified at Versailles nine decades ago; a Department of Defense that, faced with messianic and ethnic insurgencies, concocted its doctrine from irrelevant case studies of yesteryear’s Marxist guerrillas; and a think-tank community almost Stalinist in its rigid allegiance to twentieth-century models of how the world should work.

If we do not think innovatively, we will continue to fail ignobly.

Continue reading “Ralph Peters: Testimony to Congress on Pakistan As a Failing Empire, Focus on Baluchistan”

Reference: Global Risks 2012 [World Economic Forum]

Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats, True Cost, Waste (materials, food, etc), World Economic Forum

Economic imbalances and social inequality risk reversing the gains of globalization, warns the World Economic Forum in its report Global Risks 2012. These are the findings of a survey of 469 experts and industry leaders who worry that the world’s institutions are ill-equipped to cope with today’s interconnected, rapidly evolving risks. The findings of the survey fed into an analysis of three major risk cases: Seeds of Dystopia; Unsafe Safeguards and the Dark Side of Connectivity. Report also analyses the top 10 risks in five categories – economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological.

Report

Tip of the Hat to Berto Jongman.

Phi Beta Iota:  The report fails to address the absence of both intelligence and integrity among all “institutions” be they public or private.  This is the entire point of the global Occupy movement.  This is also the entire point of this website, which predates Occupy by some time.