When Your Numbers Come Up It Sure As Hell Ain't The Lucky One

LMAO

The fact that USG has gone full retard is certainly among the sub rosa details that they wish to remain out of public consciousness.  

Unfortunately for them, an old truism is operative here. 

If you wish in one hand and shit in the other, which one gets full first?

The ballooning category of public-but-classified documents has befuddled officials and led to a series of unusual pronouncements from government agencies and those who work with them.

In December, Columbia University warned international relations students that commenting on the documents disclosed by WikiLeaks online or linking to them might endanger their chances of getting a government job. The same month, the United States Agency for International Development told workers that viewing the documents on an unclassified computer at work or home could violate security rules that govern their employment. In February, an Air Force unit cautioned that employees and even their family members could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for looking at the WikiLeaks documents at home.

Some of those warnings were quickly modified or withdrawn after attracting public ridicule. But the general principle that the leaked files remain classified remains in effect, with varying consequences.

Some foreigners applying for asylum in the United States have attached diplomatic cables printed from the Internet that describe repression in their native countries — requiring the Department of Homeland Security to store their applications in special safes and to apply cumbersome security rules.

State Department employees have confided that they read leaked cables on newspaper Web sites at home rather than risk trouble by viewing them at work. A Times reporter who appeared with a State Department official on a recent panel was advised not to show leaked cables as slides — the official was prohibited from looking at them.

Dragon Lady

Madame Nhu, Vietnam War Lightning Rod, Dies

She was in Los Angeles on Nov. 1 [1963] when news flashed that Diem and her husband had been shot to death in a coup. “The deaths were murders,” she told reporters, “either with the official or unofficial blessing of the American government.” 

(You know what they say about the accuracy of a stopped clock - she nailed that one)

Panama's Own Charlie Brown And Lucy

McClatchy has published what is the funniest WL cable I have seen in some time. (Esp ¶ 9).  

Cable: Panama's intel chief shows anti-U.S. bias

Topic isn't really funny, but the episodes described are really special.  

(Cable is hosted by McClatchy - as safe as any of these are.)

One Trick Pony Put Down

Here is the sole item of some interest among Sunday's NYT Book Review items: Questioning America’s Faith in Air Power.

My only reservation is that the book is by Martin van Creveld.  Beschloss's review is worthy, though.


Speaking about mil "experts", it is gratifying to see that folks are finally catching on to some of the more egregious attention whores (need we really provide names?). One-trick ponyism gets really tired when advice keeps costing lives (and the reputation of U.S. military - you can only lose so many wars before the word gets around).


And here's an obit from page A-22 of today's NYT: Violet Cowden, 94; Flew Military Planes for War Effort

The Old "Black Market Uniform" Misdirect

I've been meaning to mention this for awhile. This morning's NYT reminded me.

Remember how many of the suicide attacks against American and Iraqi forces in Iraq were attributed to terrorists "wearing Iraqi military uniforms", implying that enemies were simply putting on military or police uniforms to gain access to conduct their attacks?

We did a piece on SMC in 2006 expressing our skepticism about such representations.

We have since received confirmation of our suspicions, follow up investigations nearly always ID'ed the perp[s] as real members of the security forces.

The media have been regurgitating the same narrative in Afghanistan:

It was the latest in a string of attacks targeting Afghan government and military officials in what the Taliban have called the beginning of their spring offensive. On Saturday, a suicide bomber killed five NATO service members in eastern Afghanistan A day earlier, a suicide bomber killed the police chief of Kandahar Province. In both attacks, the bombers were dressed in Afghan army or police uniforms.

The same motive for the media manipulation is in play. To acknowledge that enemies have infiltrated our only hope for a decent exit from the war (such as it is) would cast some doubt about the strategy we are hanging our hats upon.

This is far from our only problem in Afghanistan. Pak sanctuaries, Afghan gov incompetence (and corruption), challenges in getting enough warm bodies to join Afghan mil and police, and dwindling options to address all of these issues are certainly more serious obstacles.

But deluding ourselves is rarely a recipe for success in any endeavor.

WaPo, Laying It On Thick

WaPo has really been laying it on thick lately.

A few days ago they had the nerve to dispute the SMC and NYT story about the 300+ folks getting their walking papers from Pakistan:

The official also dismissed reports that Pasha had demanded a reduction in the number of CIA officers deployed to Pakistan, saying, “That did not come up.”

Maybe it didn't come up in the Langley meeting between Panetta and Gen Pasha, but it sure as shit was raised a couple of weeks ago. The implication in the WaPo was that the NYT got burned.

And the same "reporter" Karen DeYoung also had the temerity - on the same day - to claim that Saudi Arabia was our main intel fulcrum in Mid-East (Jordan and Izzy might beg to differ):

Saudi Arabia, in addition to being the world’s largest oil exporter and the site of the Muslim world’s holiest sites, is the leading U.S. regional partner on counterterrorism matters.

Keeping people in the dark (or worse, misinforming them) seems to be the in-thing these days.

We have no problem with them keeping their mouths shut, but heaping BS kinda irks us.

Painstakingly crafted BS, aimed at D.C. -- Too Bad (Would've Been Such An Uplifting Story)

Painstakingly crafted BS, aimed at D.C.

In Afghanistan’s south, signs of progress in three districts signal a shift

If this isn't a good enough tell:

“We start this year in a very different place from last year,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top coalition commander in Afghanistan, said in a recent interview.
...

Petraeus has not provided his withdrawal recommendation to Obama. The four-star general said the progress across southern Afghanistan remains “fragile and reversible,” although he also has made it clear to his subordinates that he thinks it can be cemented with enough time and military pressure.

Then this seals the deal:

Intercepted Taliban communications suggest insurgent commanders are increasingly demoralized, according to military intelligence officers.

The SMC maxim isn't something to be fucked with. Apparently they think most readers cannot imagine what would happen to above ref'd "military intelligence officers" [plural] if they had - without authorization - discussed this type of intel product with a reporter (even from WaPo).

And if intercepts really were showing this, it would be operationally imprudent in the extreme to advertise same.

Since the bullshittery meter has registered a positive, the baby must be thrown out with the bathwater.

Too bad, and it would have been such an uplifting story.

Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers

It's a highly existential thing going on here (unlike many an other matter) -- maybe that's why we so enjoyed the book. From a review by Foreign Affairs. (Today's easter egg is a nod to V -- The Falcon)

This is the story, initially set in the nineteenth century, of seven chocolate makers -- three English, one Dutch, two Swiss, and one American -- struggling to produce salable products.

Eventually, determined entrepreneurs met the technical challenges of converting a bitter bean into the many delicious forms of chocolate familiar today. The three English firms -- Fry, Cadbury, and Rowntree -- were run by Quaker families, and the founder of the American one, Milton Hershey, had gone to a Quaker school. All the companies were imbued with a strong sense of social responsibility, founding orphanages, creating model towns, and engaging in other good works as they prospered.

Some Good Book Reviews

Some really good reviews from tomorrow's NYT Book Review.

Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley: Team of Rivals (quite outstanding, full of great quotes) This review reminded me of that great scene in Tim Weiner's CIA book when senior CIA were briefing Ike (the commander of the largest secret invasion in history) on their retarded Bay of Pigs plans.

How Evolution Explains Altruism

Why the Eichmann Trial Really Mattered

And from tomorrows NYT Magazine, a kinda relevant piece:

Package to Nowhere

Burn Qu'ran Burn (Bad Shit)

US media played down Reverand (LMDAO) Jones' Qur'an burning. Nice. No play in Afghanistan media either.

Yeah well, till our bipolar "ally" Hamid Karzai aka 'The Rug' chose to make a stink about it.

"Dave, where the fuck's Rug's lith?!"

Bad shit all around.

(Remember Petraeus called Jones personally last year and requested he tone it down.)

Perfect PSYOP (if that's what we have here)

Interesting NYT piece. Classic strategy, as you well know.

Get these fuckers killing each other just makes everything a bit easier.

Losses in Pakistani Haven Strain Afghan Taliban

The Afghan Taliban are showing signs of increasing strain after a number of killings, arrests and internal disputes that have reached them even in their haven in Pakistan, Afghan security officials and Afghans with contacts in the Taliban say.

The killings, coming just as the insurgents are mobilizing for the new fighting season in Afghanistan, have unnerved many in the Taliban and have spread a climate of paranoia and distrust within the insurgent movement, the Afghans said.

...

While the arrests have been conducted by Pakistan security forces, it is not clear who is behind the killings. Members of the Taliban attribute them to American spies, running Pakistani and Afghan agents, in an extension of the American campaigns that have used night raids to track down and kill scores of midlevel Taliban commanders in Afghanistan and drone strikes to kill militants with links to Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Others, including Pakistani and Afghan Parliament members from the region, say that the Pakistani intelligence agencies have long used threats, arrests and killings to control the Taliban and that they could be doing so again to maintain their influence over the insurgents.

In The Wake Of Davis -- Horseshit (Non-Starter) ROE

ROE like this would clearly be a non-starter. Probably just horseshit to advance Davis' release

An important aspect of the settlement, for the U.S., was that the principal of diplomatic immunity was never formally challenged in Pakistani courts. The Pakistani High Court refused to rule on the question and the trial court didn’t make a finding, either. That was crucial for the U.S., which feared that a legal challenge to its claim of immunity for Davis would expose hundreds of other undercover agents around the world who rely on the legal protection of their formal status as “diplomats.”

The final piece of the settlement may be the most complicated. Pakistani officials say discussions will begin soon with the CIA about the “rules of engagement” in Pakistan. “If it’s a CIA operation, the ISI needs to know,” explained one Pakistani official. The CIA has a roughly similar policy of “declaring” its personnel and operations with some other countries with which it has close intelligence ties, such as Britain, France, Israel and Jordan..

More On The Boundary Break

Security researchers, meanwhile, say Anonymous has changed the game. "The bar has been raised" with the targeted attack and breach of HBGary, says Marc Maiffret, founder and CTO at eEye Digital Security, who did some black-hat hacking as a teenager. "They may start to do more of that versus just DDoSing."


Maiffret says Anonymous has a large, global identity that includes political activists and hackers. "Rather than different people, they are gravitating to a central identity," he says.

Entirely predicted by the theory. Also, theory does not predict kumbaya environment. Precisely the opposite.

More Stuff You Just Can't Make Up

Bardella, 27, described most reporters as "lazy as hell" and displayed supreme confidence about his ability to place stories favorable to his boss in almost any major news media outlet.

and a WaPo review of that new Bing West book on Afghanistan:

West spreads the blame widely but finds a failure of political culture at the heart of the problem. Endlessly engaged in euphemism and rhetorical triangulation, American generals and politicians insist on a story in which war isn't war and doesn't center on killing. Official doctrine instead declares that professional warriors are engaged in a nation-building strategy "to serve and secure the population," a focus that West argues has "transformed the military into a giant Peace Corps."

JFC! When you have an impossible mission you must define it in possible terms. Career suicide otherwise.

Disgruntled CP Officials with Access to Secret Docs Posting on Chinese Wikileaks-type Sites

We have been informed that in China disgruntled CP officials and others with access to secret docs have been posting them on myriad Chinese Wikileaks-type sites. Just like the theory predicts. Perfect.

Also that Chinese officials' hands have been forced and they have had to address problems revealed by docs.

And USG thinks they will just bluff, threaten, and punish their way through this.

Gov truly doesn't grasp what is at hand here (even though they have had decades of warning). Although the USA is in a much better position than other security states, given the (ostensibly) open nature of our wider society. The problem for the USG is that with so much bread buttered by the secret state, there will always be pissed off (or suddenly awakened/radicalized) people with access who will take matters into their own hands. Live by big numbers, ...

Speaking of that, some want to know why we haven't let LTC Coombs (BM's atty) in on the specifics of what we (and SMC readers) know. Might be helpful, might not. Not a priority of ours, I answered. Sometimes a US Senator will suffice. (Although the BS about "aiding the enemy" (in the indictment) was kinda special.)

They are trying to send the most serious message to acolytes by the treatment of BM.

It ain't gonna work.

The theory says so.

PS: NSA assumes that they are compromised. Saw it in a doc that was in the HBGary email dump.

The theory would predict that type of OPSEC approach would be a good one (even if they are not in fact compromised).

Also, Russia has its hands full with copycat WLs too - but this has been widely reported, unlike AFAIK the China news

Contractor Blues (Our Boy Davis Aside)

ISI better hope Davis doesn't choke on a chicken bone.

On t'wards other matters -- decent little interim report [72-page PDF] on the contingency-contracting clusterfuck.

Basic conclusion is that lots of this shit will be on the chopping block.

Some highlights:

Armed private security contractors generally perform one of three roles: static security for facilities and bases, movement security for convoys, and movement security for personnel. Movement security for personnel carries a number of special risks

A serious concern with relying on armed security contractors is a potential gap in legal accountability. Without certain legal accountability, incidents involving contractors may alienate the host nation and undermine attempts at establishing legitimacy. ...

The use of contractors to manage other contractors and the heavy use of armed private security contractors reflect a failure of government to provide for
contingency workforce needs. Congress and federal agencies are obligated to structure the U.S. peacetime workforce to deal with projected mobilization and crisis demands. Personnel shortages in a contingency are not sufficient justification for contracting out high-risk functions after a crisis develops. Securing a standing capability to deploy at the start of a contingency would reduce contract waste, fraud, and abuse such as were conspicuous in early operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Accordingly, the Commission recommends that Congress direct agency heads to:

Recommendation 1

Grow agencies’ organic capacity

Require DoD, State, and USAID to:

▪ Undertake a comprehensive, risk-based, contingency-manpower
assessment to determine the organic resources needed to preserve a
core level of capability, including consideration of the agencies’ ability to
manage any contractors they use.

▪ Submit budget justifications and obtain the hiring authority to
accommodate staffing increases.

The trend toward contracting out security also  reflects the government’s human-resource constraints. With Congressionally mandated  overall force-strength ceilings, and with limits on military force-strength “in theater,” DoD has had to choose between using military personnel or security contractors for force protection. The State Department has limited numbers of diplomatic security agents in its Bureau of Diplomatic Security, while USAID has no organic security capability.

In most cases, private security contractors are used not because they are necessarily more effective or efficient than government security personnel, but because agencies have turned to them by default. If these  agencies attempted to conduct security functions with organic capability, it would require increasing manpower significantly, redirecting military personnel from other missions, or some combination of these options. Another alternative to using private security contractors would be to increase reliance on host-nation government security forces, but this is not currently a realistic option.

Accordingly, the Commission recommends that Congress:

Recommendation 2

Develop a deployable contingency-acquisition cadre

▪ Provide funding and direction for agencies involved in contingency
operations to establish a trained, experienced, and deployable cadre for
acquisition-support functions. The strategic plan for deploying this cadre
should be supported by a back-up capability for making rapid, temporary
hires of acquisition professionals for large-scale or long-term contingency
operations.

Recommendation 3

Restrict reliance on contractors for security

▪ Restrict the reliance on private security contractors by requiring agencies
to more broadly provide embedded government personnel responsible for
leadership, command and control, and oversight of all security contractors
and operations. 

This recommendation does not, however, address the Commission’s abiding
concern that agencies’ reliance on contractors relative to government
personnel is excessive, notably in the realm of movement security
contractors. The Commission’s final report will address that concern.

Recommendation 4

Designate officials with responsibility for cost consciousness

Revise management directives, instructions, and other policies as necessary to:

▪ Ensure that senior officials are specifically designated as being accountable
for contract-cost consciousness, and develop metrics to facilitate
assessment of contract outcomes.

▪ Establish criteria allowing promotion boards and selection panels to
evaluate and reward officials for contract cost consciousness.

 Recommendation 5

Measure senior military and civilian officials’ efforts to manage
contractors and control costs

Revise senior officials’ personnel-evaluation reports to:

▪ Affirmatively state the responsibility to avoid excess cost, accurately
establish contingency-contract support requirements, manage contractor
performance, and revalidate requirements at appropriate stages of the
acquisition process.

▪ ▪ Include an acquisition-management category that is separate from any
existing category to measure officials’ demonstrated commitment to
contractor management and oversight, and to acquisition-cost control....

Defense policy for more than two decades has recognized that contractors—along with military reservists, federal civilians, and host-nation support personnel—are part of the “total force” for contingency operations. But the declared total-force policy that includes contractors is at odds with agencies’ failure to plan for their reliance on contractors...

Supplementing the contingency-contracting function with ad hoc solutions has proven to be ineffective. The Iraq and Afghanistan contingencies have brought many problems with contractors into sharp relief. Solutions demand concerted and continuing leadership attention to ensure that money spent in the future will bring better results. Despite contractors’ constituting almost half the total force deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, DoD contingency-contracting matters have been mixed together with the J-4 logistics directorate and managed by a colonel. At State and USAID, the functions have been relegated to the office-director level.

Qaradawi Perfect

We seem to be hearing a lot from Qaradawi these days:

Tribal and religious leaders condemned Gaddafi for the attacks against civilians; some urged all Muslims to rise against him. Influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi told al-Jazeera that he urged any Libyan soldier who has the opportunity to kill Gaddafi - and issued a religious decree to that effect.
"I am issuing a fatwa now to kill Gaddafi," the cleric said. "To any army soldier, to any man who can pull the trigger and kill this man to do so."

Perfect.

It's down to the ding-a-lings (Beck's show over in a year)

This article is the prod; BECK VS. GOOGLE

"Its down to the ding-a-lings (plus/minus 2.3 percent) for Beck audience. Those types all have their own theories.  They no longer need a Beck."--SMC source 

LMAO





Also,

that his show will be over in a year.

Also,

that we saved the gov some money by our generic reminder to look before you turn in your ID for private sector.  

Still modeling number of saves - gonna probably be good.

The operative Communications Theory idea is likely being nibbled at.  After all, parts were funded by the Ford Foundation. Too bad gov lost the thread - holding up good here.


Jerkoffs might suspect that we are touting the Assange line. Hardly


(Feel free to feel amply dumb -- it's the true feeling that builds a resilient community)