1. “Powell warned of ‘terror-industrial complex’ in 2007 interview
Olbermann was taken aback by the question, but by the next day he had uncovered Powell’s September 12, 2007 interview with GQ Magazine. Powell’s apology in that interview for his use of faulty intelligence prior to the Iraq War grabbed the headlines at the time, but he also delivered a far less-noticed warning against what Olbermann now calls “an entire aspect of the nexus of politics and terror.”
“What is the greatest threat facing us now?” Powell asked. “People will say it’s terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. … The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn’t do it to ourselves, and we shouldn’t use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex.”
When Powell delivered a speech at the University of Oklahoma a short time later, campus reporters asked what he had meant by his remarks, and he replied, “We’re spending an enormous amount of money on homeland security, and I think we should spend whatever it takes. But I think we have to be careful that we don’t get so caught up in trying to throw money at the terrorist and counter-terrorist problem that we’re essentially creating an industry that will only exist as long as you keep the terrorist threat pumped up. … Let’s make sure that we are spending money on the right things and not spending money just to spend money.”
Although Powell’s follow-up remarks focused on the potential for wasting money, the original model for his statements — President Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address — was primarily concerned with the threat to a free society of granting “unwarranted influence” over US policy to a “military-industrial complex” of defense contractors and national security think-tanks that might “endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/powell-warned-of-terror-industrial-complex/
2. ” Same old mistakes in new Afghan war
Soviet military archives show latest international intervention in Afghanistan has learnt nothing from the war two decades ago
“We should honestly admit,” he writes, “that our efforts over the last eight years have not led to the expected results. Huge material resources and considerable casualties did not produce a positive end result – stabilisation of military-political situation in the country. The protracted character of the military struggle and the absence of any serious success, which could lead to a breakthrough in the entire strategic situation, led to the formation in the minds of the majority of the population of the mistrust in the abilities of the regime.”
“The experience of the past years,” he continues bleakly, “clearly shows that the Afghan problem cannot be solved by military means only. We should decisively reject our illusions and undertake principally new steps, taking into account the lessons of the past, and the real situation in the country…”
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Should not US and British policy makers be studying the lessons of the Soviet Union’s disastrous war from 1979-89, if they want to avoid history’s mistakes?
Kalinovsky writes: “The US army/marine corps counterinsurgency field manual does not mention the Soviet experience once. One analyst told me that when she suggested including the conflict as a way to inform current policy, Pentagon officials seemed to have little awareness about what Moscow had been trying to do there or for how long.
The date is 17 August… 1987. The writer is Colonel K. Tsagalov and he is addressing the newly appointed Soviet defence minister, Dmitry Yazov.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/18/afghan-war-soviet-invasion-mistakes
3. “Security boss calls for end to net anonymity
“Everyone should and must have an identification, or internet passport,” he was quoted as saying. “The internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public and it was wrong…to introduce it in the same way.”
Kaspersky, whose comments are raising the eyebrows of some civil liberties advocates, went on to say such a system shouldn’t be voluntary.
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But remarkably, his interview transcript spends no time contemplating the inevitable downsides that would come in a world where internet anonymity is a thing of the past.
“You could make the same argument about the offline world,” said Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “You know, every purchase you make should be tracked, we should ban the use of cash, we should put cameras up everywhere because in that massive data collection something might be collected to help someone. But we think privacy is an important enough countervailing value that we should prevent that.”
In Kaspersky’s world, services such as Psiphon and The Onion Router (Tor) – which are legitimately used by Chinese dissidents and Google users alike to shield personally identifiable information – would no longer be legal. Or at least they’d have to be redesigned from the ground up to give police the ability to surveil them. That’s not the kind of world many law-abiding citizens would feel comfortable inhabiting.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/16/kaspersky_rebukes_net_anonymity/
4. “Military Looks to Upgrade Its Super Spy Blimps
The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst New Jersey issued a call for research proposals this week, looking for all sorts of new sensors, sensor-processors, and communication relays to use on its new, snooping aerostats.
According to the Navy, the lighter-than-air-craft should also be able to see all across the spectrum — from ultraviolet to visible light to infrared. The system should incorporate “advanced radar for target detection and tracking; laser radar for target tracking and identification; ESM [electronic support measures] for target location cueing and identification; C4I [Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence] for receiving and disseminating target information and secure transmission of imagery and target track data.”
Ideas on other surveillance gear — acoustic sensors, magnetic anomaly detectors, “biometrics technologies,” and “non-cooperative ID sensors” — are also welcome. Ditto the “insertion of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques into airborne sensors for situational optimization.” And in case blimps ain’t your thang, spyboys, the Navy will also be happy to look at proposals involving “unattended ground sensors and compact autonomous vehicles,” too. Under this surveillance project, it’s all covered.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/military-looks-to-upgrade-super-spy-blimps/
5. War between China and India?
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7453
6. Why do the Taliban hate us?
“The New York Times‘ David Rohde writes about the seven months he was held hostage by a group of extremist Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conveys this observation about what motivates them:
My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington’s antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged.
Apparently, when we drop bombs on Muslim countries — or when Israel attacks Palestinians — that fuels anti-American hatred and militarism among Muslims. The same outcomes occur when we imprison Muslims without charges in places like Guantanamo and Bagram. Imagine that.
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One could — and should — ask that question every time the U.S. or Israel engages in another military strike that kills Muslim civilians, or for that matter, every day that goes by when we continue to wage war inside Muslim countries. Rohde adds this about what motivates these Taliban:
America, Europe and Israel preached democracy, human rights and impartial justice to the Muslim world, they said, but failed to follow those principles themselves.
One of the taboo topics in the American media is how the U.S. Government routinely violates the principles we espouse for, and try to impose on, the rest of the world.
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Rohde explains that the Taliban automatically believe that journalists — especially American journalists — are spies. Despite that belief, the Taliban never waterboarded him, never hung him naked in a cold room to induce hypothermia, never stuffed him in a coffin-like box as punishment, never deprived him of sleep to the point of severe disorientation, and instead adhered to their commitment regarding “the good treatment of prisoners.” We might want to think about what that means about us. That many of the Taliban are inhumane, brutal and barbaric extremists only underscores that point further.
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One of the most astounding feats in propaganda is how we’ve managed to take people who live in a country which we invade, bomb and occupy — and who fight against us because we’re doing that — and call them “Terrorists,” thereby “justifying” continuing to bomb and occupy their country further (“We have to stay in order to fight the Terrorists: meaning the people who are fighting us because we stay”).”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
