zenpundit.com

Top Billing! T. Greer -What Happens When Wall Street Goes Up Against the CIA? 

….I would like to focus on one sentence hidden in the body of the report. Shortly after the implementation of the Merida Initiative in 2008, the Mexican intelligence agency CISEN discovered that various cartels were employing American trained, ex-special forces. Understandably alarmed, American intelligence agencies floated a proposal to cut the power of the cartels:

“Anxious to counterattack, the CIA proposed electronically emptying the bank accounts of drug kingpins, but was turned down by the Treasury Department and the White House, which feared unleashing chaos in the banking system.”This one sentence betrays Washington’s distorted foreign policy priorities.  The CIA proposal had several clear benefits: drug lords forced to pull their investments would have less incentive to stay in the game,  cartels would be robbed of operating funds, and most importantly of all, the proposal could be implemented with minimal American involvement. [2] There would be no need for more boots on the ground. The drawbacks were also clear: folks on Wall Street would lose money. The White House took Wall Street’s side in the debate, and favored a policy designed to kill or capture the “high value targets” whose bank accounts were not to be touched.  (Readers curious about the cost of these operations — in terms of man-power as well as money — will find plenty of details in the last few pages of the Washington Post report.) 

SWJ El Centro - Friction Rises as Mexico Curbs U.S Role in Drug Fight and Mexican Cartel Strategic Note No. 14: Narcocantante (Narco-singer) Assassinated in Mission, Texas 

….If the investigation determines that Quintanilla was killed because of his narcocorridos it would be the first known assassination of a narcocantante (narco-singer) in the United States.  This would be a significant shift in targeting and the U.S. would be firmly in the operational zone of targeted killings to shape the ‘narcosphere’ or ‘drug war zone.’  

Quintanilla was identified with the CDG: Cartel del Golfo (Gulf Cartel) and had dedicated songs to Tony Tormenta (Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén)[6] the CDG capo who died in a battle with Los Zetas in November 2010.[7]  One of his songs, “Estamos En Guerra (Los Zetas Vs. CDG),”chronicled the battles following the Gulf-Zeta split.[8],[9]

It is possible that Quintanilla became a target of one or both of those cartels as a result of his characterization of their activities in the current conflict in Tamaulipas.  Certainly both cartels have a presence in Texas and could operate there as seen in recent reports of narcobloqueos (narco-blockades) in Texas.[10]  It is also possible that he crossed other criminal enterprises (such as U.S. gangs) or was targeted for more mundane criminal reasons.  Nevertheless, the modus operandi or tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) involved in his death are consistent with those of narco-assassinations. 

Southern Pulse -Cleaning up after Operation Limpieza 

….Prosecutions of government corruption initiated under the Calderon administration are falling apart in the early months of the Peña Nieto administration, leading to accusations among Mexico’s political elite. On one side, PRI officials say the Calderon government abused its authority, relied on untrustworthy witnesses, and targeted politically convenient officials. On the other side of the debate are concerns that the PRI is allowing impunity for corruption and harming relations with US agencies that provided evidence and want corrupt officials out of government. Regardless of whether the officials named were or were not working with transnational criminal organizations, the Mexican government’s failure to successfully investigate and prosecute high-level corruption should be a source of concern. Rumors of high level corruption have only increased since ex-President Felipe Calderon declared a war on violent drug trafficking organizations in Mexico upon taking office in December 2006. 

SWJ Blog -Cyberwar in the Underworld: Anonymous versus Los Zetas in Mexico

WIRED -Don’t Panic, But Mexico’s Zetas Cartel Wants to Recruit Your Kids 

FOXnews Latino -Mexico’s Blog De Narco Author Gives First Major Interview 

Washington Post - Obama’s trip to Mexico hints at new balance of power and What did we learn about Obama’s thinking in Mexico?

OTHER TOPICS:

TIME C. Christine Fair -Can This Alliance Be Saved? Salvaging the US-Pakistan Relationship

J.M. Berger -FORECASTING TERRORIST ATTACKS WITH BIG DATA AND THE WISDOM OF CROWDS… OR NOT

Steven Pressfield Online (Shawn Coyne) -Getting Screwed is a Compliment 

Global Guerrillas-The Flaw that May Bring Down Bitcoin or Change it Forever 

 Information Dissemination (Robert Farley) Book Review: China’s Search for Security 

Col. Pat Lang -“Israeli attacks inside Syria risks widening war” CSM 

RECOMMENDED VIEWING:

A harbinger that we are in grave danger of becoming a nation of autistic mimes

[ by Charles Cameron -- playing the two great games, from Caxton to Le Carré ]
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Karla, the Russian spymaster in John Le Carré‘s Smiley novels, is represented as the white queen in the 2011 Tomas Alfredson / Gary Oldman film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (lower panel, above).

In chess terms, that’s quite a step up for spies — pawn promoted to queen.

**

Before the digital age, in the early years of printing, way back in 1474, Thomas Caxton‘s press issued the second book ever printed in England — his Game and Playe of the Chesse — and things were subtly different. The eight pawns, for instance, differed one from another, each representing a different human type or craft, and named accordingly: “Labourer, Smith, Clerk, Merchant, Physician, Taverner, Guard and Ribald.”

It’s the Ribald (in the upper panel, above) who interests us here — for he’s the spy on the chessboard, as surely as Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh were spies in the land of milk and honey. Caxton describes the Ribald, stationing him in front of the Rook, thus:

The rybaulders, players of dyse and of messagers and corrours ought to be sette to fore the rook/ For hit apperteyneth to the rook whiche is vicayre & lieutenant of the kynge to haue men couenable for to renne here and there for tenquyre & espie the place and cytees that myght be contrarye to the kynge/ And thys pawn that representeth thys peple ought to be formed in this maner/ he must haue the forme of a man that hath longe heeris and black and holdeth in his ryght hand a lityll monoye And in his lyfte hande thre Dyse And aboute hym a corde in stede of a gyrdell/ and ought to haue a boxe full o lettres

And what should be the appearance of such a one?

And thys pawn that representeth thys peple ought to be formed in this maner/ he must haue the forme of a man that hath longe heeris and black and holdeth in his ryght hand a lityll monoye And in his lyfte hande thre Dyse And aboute hym a corde in stede of a gyrdell/ and ought to haue a boxe full o lettres

Let’s go over that first part one more time, and make sure we understand it:

It pertains to the Rook, which is vicar and lieutenant of the King, to have men available to run hither and yon to make inquiries and spy out the place and cities that might be contrary to the King.

**

And isn’t that precisely what Moses sent Joshua and Caleb out to do, when he instructed them in Numbers 13.17-20:

Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain: And see the land, what it is, and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many; And what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in strong holds; And what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not. And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land.

**

Espionage has been around longer than chess: some things never change — and some things have changed significantly.

Today, you can’t tell one pawn from the next…

Top Billing! T. Greer -Far Right and Far Left – Two Peas in a Pod?

….There are two groups who consistently oppose this plutocratic “pragmatic” consensus: the far left and the far right. These two groups, seemingly divided, are united by their “radical” opposition to many otherwise unquestioned aspects of America’s standing political regime. To name but a few:

• The belief that the United States federal government should play a strong role in holding up the U.S. economy - particularly sectors deemed “Too Big To Fail.” 

• Strong support for subsidies or other forms of ‘corporate welfare’ for influential or strategic industries (“The Farm Lobby,” “Big Pharma,” and the energy sector – both the “Big Oil” and green energy varieties - are prominent examples).

• A commitment to America’s global hegemony and globalization writ large. The chosen instruments for this are transnational economic agreements, financial interventions (as pioneered by the IMF), or offers of substantial military assistance. 

• The use of drone strikes, special forces and other ‘limited war‘ operations as the most effective response to international terrorist movements.

• A disdain for the rule of law and governmental transparency. 

• Prioritizing national security over privacy and individual rights.

• Eclipse of the legislative branch in favor of an increasingly large, complex, and powerful executive. Outsourcing legislative policy making to congressional, think tanks, or industry wonks.  

Tea-party and Occupy members are opposed to most, if not all, of these things. However, identfying the real problem does not ensure the two sides will agree on solutions. What party program could unify the two sides? Mr. Parameswaran outlines one possible solution. He labels it “radical centrism: [....] 

An outstanding post . Hat tip to L.C. Rees 

The League of Ordinary Gentlemen – (Blaisep)Under a Field of Flowers: Captain Emil Kapaun 

….As Chinese Communist forces encircled the battalion, Kapaun moved fearlessly from foxhole to foxhole under direct enemy fire in order to provide comfort and reassurance to the outnumbered Soldiers. He repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to recover wounded men, dragging them to safety. When he couldn’t drag them, he dug shallow trenches to shield them from enemy fire. As Chinese forces closed in, Kapaun rejected several chances to escape, instead volunteering to stay behind and care for the wounded. He was taken as a prisoner of war by Chinese forces on Nov. 2, 1950.

After he was captured, Kapaun and other prisoners were marched for several days northward toward prisoner-of-war camps. During the march Kapaun led by example in caring for injured Soldiers, refusing to take a break from carrying the stretchers of the wounded while encouraging others to do their part.

Once inside the dismal prison camps, Kapaun risked his life by sneaking around the camp after dark, foraging for food, caring for the sick, and encouraging his fellow Soldiers to sustain their faith and their humanity. On at least one occasion, he was brutally punished for his disobedience, being forced to sit outside in subzero weather without any garments. When the Chinese instituted a mandatory re-education program, Kapaun patiently and politely rejected every theory put forth by the instructors. Later, Kapaun openly flouted his captors by conducting a sunrise service on Easter morning, 1951. 

Emil Kapaun, US Army captain, Catholic priest, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and a martyr for religious freedom, is the American Maximilian Kolbe

SWJ - Understanding Groupthink and Aligning FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency with Reality 

….To illustrate the nuanced challenges of groupthink, we informally surveyed a small group of Intermediate Level students at one of the Defense Department’s educational institutions.  The students were junior field grade officers from joint and international services, nearing the end of their year-long education.  Our survey asked two questions:  1) Whether their education had formally addressed groupthink as a subject; and 2) What were groupthink’s causes?  A little more than half of the group responded that while groupthink had been discussed early in their education year, albeit briefly as part of a broader class topic, groupthink was not a central focus of the class.  In response to the causes of groupthink, about half of the group cited dominant personalities within a group who ignored dissenting opinions, and the inclination of group members to remain within the group’s good graces by avoiding dissention.  Less than one-fourth of the responses cited direct pressure on any member who objected to group opinions.[2]  What strikes us is not what the students said, but what they did not say.

Two excellent and – I might suggest, related – articles.

Lexington Green – Margaret Thatcher: Revolutionary, Leader

….There is always a “them” who are the current ruling group. They are the ones dealt into the existing game, its apologists and advocates. To take them on, to organize and lead an opposition movement, the leader must have extremely strong character. Such a leader must be self-assured, know how things really work, and have a very thick skin. The leader must have no regard for conventional wisdom and no respect for the often unstated limits of what can be done or, even more, what is “simply not done” or “simply not said.”

As a practical matter, such a leader must have the capacity to speak plainly and clearly to a majority of ordinary people who are quietly victimized in the existing game, to show them how certain changes will be good for them, and good generally. They do not lead by force or lies, they lead by telling hard truths and gaining assent to the hard path to better things.

Mrs. Thatcher was such a leader.  

Strategic Studies Institute – (Manwaring) Venezuela as an Exporter of 4th Generation Warfare Instability and (Bunker) Op-Ed: The Need For A “Half-Pivot to the Americas” 

Kings of War – (Betz) Kim Jong Un, We’re all gonna be like three little Fonzies here, OK? and (Egnell) Rethink, but don’t dismiss – on U.S. training of foreign troops 

The Glittering Eye – Personal Computers Aren’t Too Good 

Forbes -Nanotechnology’s Revolutionary Next Phase 

Taking Note -Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error 

It’s easy to see how not trying to find out who had done the erasing–burying the problem–was better for Michelle Rhee personally, at least in the short term. She had just handed out over $1.5 million in bonuses in a well-publicized celebration of the test increases[9]. She had been praised by presidential candidates Obama and McCain[10] in their October debate, and she must have known that she was soon to be on the cover of Time Magazine[11]. The public spectacle of an investigation of nearly half of her schools would have tarnished her glowing reputation, especially if the investigators proved that adults cheated–which seems likely given that their jobs depended on raising test scores.

Moreover, a cheating scandal might well have implicated her own “Produce or Else” approach to reform. Early in her first year she met one-on-one with each principal and demanded a written, signed guarantee[12] of precisely how many points their DC-CAS scores would increase.

Relying on the DC-CAS[13] was not smart policy because it was designed to assess students’ strengths and weaknesses. It did not determine whether students passed or were promoted to the next grade, which meant that many students blew it off. 

Recommended Viewing:

Top billing! Sam Liles  - Manhattan project for cyber security 

Mr. Lewis Shepherd of Microsoft came to Purdue to give a talk for CERIAS awhile back and he talked about how equating the Manhattan Project to the world of cyber security is completely wrong. I liked his talk quite a bit, and it aligned closely with something I’ve been talking to people about for awhile. Talking to people is important. I know my impact on the world is going to be negligible but I’ve dedicated my life to infecting the youth of the world with a few stray ideas. They call it teaching, and it doesn’t pay much. I think Mr. Shepherd was making a good case that scope, and cause and effect, and process of one program might no align realistically with another program. The secrecy, single mindedness, and type of problem that was the Manhattan project has almost nothing to do with the quite different project of cyber security. Much like I’ll never be able to equate my teaching to Socrates, the cyber security community shouldn’t really think “Manhattan Project”.

….Everything you likely think about defense in depth is wrong. All of the audit and compliance stuff is wrong. The firewall and intrusion detection and prevention technologies are wrong. The autocratic and dictatorial policies of information security are wrong. The underlying theories of robust and resilient programming are wrong. There is nothing about the current information technology infrastructure that is security oriented. The foundations of the technologies are fundamentally at odds with creation of an information secure culture. Now to be honest I didn’t say this. Neumann, Saltzer, Cerf, Bernack, and so many other people said this long before I did. But, maybe you haven’t read their stuff before.

How can I possibly support that they are all wrong and don’t work? Pretty simple. They don’t. Though we can secure systems to some point we are almost always talking about a security absent some failure in the system. There is nothing really secure. This is a huge problem that breaks most peoples “common sense” way of thinking about security. Simply put the way we do things will never be secure and we should stop trying to fix things the way we know doesn’t work. 

Read the rest here.

John Hagel -A Contrarian View on Resilience 

In a world of growing uncertainty and mounting performance pressure, it’s understandable that resilience has become a very hot topic. Everyone is talking about it and writing about it. We all seem to want to develop more resilience. But I’m going to take a contrarian position and suggest that resilience, at least as conventionally defined, is a distraction and perhaps even dangerous.

….In this context, the conventional view of “bounce back” resilience for enterprises is profoundly dangerous. It simply increases the ability of the institutional status quo to survive when conditions demand a fundamental transformation. It increases the gap between what we are doing and what we need to do. We already face a growing mismatch between the institutions and practices that dominate in business and the needs of the markets and societies that are being re-shaped by the global forces outlined earlier. As long as this mismatch persists, we will face increasing disruptions and stress as struggle to maintain institutions and practices that are no longer viable. We don’t need to bounce back; we desperately need to move forward.

International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) -“Who Matters Online: Measuring Influence, evaluating content and countering violent extremism in online social networks“ by JM Berger and Bill Strathearn

J.M. Berger, author of Jihad Joe (reviewed here by Charles) frequently tackles Islamist militants and various kinds of terrorism at Intelwire but the focus in the above paper is on far Right,  white nationalist and radical racist strands of violent extremism

SWJ Blog-  (Bunker) Review: Intersections of Crime and Terror and (Sullivan) Spillover/Narcobloqueos in Texas 

A new Texas Department of Public Safety Threat Assessment report states that  criminal cartels are operating in Texas and are the No. 1 threat to the Lone Star State. Narcobloqueos (narco-blockades) are now being seen north of the border.

Eeben Barlow – Failing to Listen 

….Often, the government forces appear to be very well trained in running away

Timothy Thomas – Why China is reading your email

Abu Muqawama (Trombly) – Limits of Proxy Warfare in Syria 

GLORIA Center – (Col. Norvel DeAtkine) Western Influence on Arab Militaries: Pounding Square Pegs into Round Holes 

David Stockman - State-Wrecked: The Corruption of Capitalism in America 

ZeroHedge – List Released With 132 Names Who Pulled Cyprus Deposits Ahead Of “Confiscation Day”

Harvard Magazine -The Humanities, Digitized 

Chicago Boyz (Foster) -RERUN–Author Appreciation: Rose Wilder Lane

From BOYD & BEYOND 2012:

Dr. Chet Richards on the work of  Colonel John Boyd:

Top Billing! Scholar’s Stage -The Power of Ideas in Antiquity and What Senator Paul Accomplished 

….Rand Paul is not Daniel Webster. But the comparison is an important one: it gives us a sense of just how far the goal posts have been moved. There was once a time when Senators and Representatives were expected to plead their case before the American people on the House and Senate floors.  Debate and discussion by leading statesmen in public forums was considered an essential part of popular democracy. Through such discussion Congressmen were held accountable and through this forum Congressmen would communicate to their constituents, and at times, to the nation. There is a strong correlation between the decline of popular discourse on the Senate and House floors and the eclipse of the national legislature by the technocrats of a bloated executive branch. 

By bucking all of these sad trends Senator Paul has done our Republic a great favor. This is true even if the critics are correct. Senator Paul may be an unprincipled scally-wag who is using this filibuster purely for personal advantage, but this does not curtail his accomplishment. Senator Paul has proven than a rising politician can publicly declare his opposition to the establishment consensus and not be marginalized by doing so. Indeed, as the massive wave of twittering that accompanied the senator’s stand suggests, Rand Paul has benefited, not suffered, from his decision to take the ruling class consensus head on.

It is good to see T. Greer back after a long hiatus

Small Wars Journal (Octavian Manea) -The American Way of War after COIN’s Waterloo: An Interview with Fred Kaplan 

OM: Can we talk and point to a “Petraeus Generation”? An Accidental Generation? Or by design? I mean most of “the insurgents” (the COINdinistas) shared a common cognitive map or were influenced to some extent by the same “big ideas”: the classic COIN masters (Galula, Thompson, Kitson, Larteguy), classic COIN campaigns (Malaya, Vietnam) or by the “moot-wah” wars of the 1990s.

FK: The key thing is that an entire generation of officers has fought, and trained for, COIN-style wars – and no other kind. This is bound to have some kind of enduring impact. Also the fact that the Soviet Union has since imploded means that, much as some might like to do so, the military can’t go back to the firepower-intensive wars (“the American way of war”; there’s no logical enemy for them. Hard to say.) Some of these officers were influenced by the “big ideas,” but the bigger influence was their experience. As far back as the mid-’80s, when the generals of the day were referring to any conflict smaller than major combat operations as “Military Operations Other Than War” (moot-wah), the junior officers were engaged in precisely those kinds of conflicts (Salvador, Somalia, Bosnia, etc.) – and they sure felt like war to the officers. Iraq and Afghanistan, especially from 2007 on, solidified this sense.

I’m a fan of Octavian’s interview series on COIN – hope he continues.

INTELWIRE.com – Inspire 10: Still Sucks 

I guess I’m never going to get to write a self-congratulatory post about how I got a shout-out in Inspire, because I still don’t have anything much good to say about it.

Issue No. 10 of the English-language vehicle for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula just came out, and while it’s crawled back from the precipice of copy-editing collapse hinted at in its last issue, it’s still a sad little effort that gets taken awfully seriously.

The “hit list” of targets named by Al Qaeda and friends repeatedly over the years is neither fresh nor surprising. The recycled content remains recycled, the original content remains uninspired. The flashy graphics remain flashy.

The part of the publication that most concerns U.S. counterterrorism officials is, of course, “Open-Source Jihad,” AQAP’s how-to guide for “lone wolf” terrorists. Regular readers will recall that this feature was self-parody from the beginning, and it’s descended further into absurdity with this issue’s advice that Western mujahideen should try to cause traffic accidents and carry out ninja-style assassinations. And no, I’m not joking, that’s really their advice….

The Sophmores of jihad…..

Duck of Minerva – ‘Rodman-gate’ Can ‘Useful Idiots’ please stop shilling for North Korea (Robert Kelly) and Is the Weakness of the Liberal Order Overblown (Josh Busby)

Feral Jundi – Soviet soldier missing for 33 years, found alive in Afghanistan

Not the Singularity (Bob Morris) -Clay Claiborne banned from Daily Kos for Speaking the Truth about Syria 

Eeben Barlow – “The Specialists” 

USNI Blog – Guest Post by LTJG Matthew Hipple: From Epipolae to Cyberwar 

Steven Pressfield Online (Shawn Coyne) -The Difference Between Self-Discipline and Self-Flagellation

Boing Boing – Invisibility Cloak Demoed at TED2013 

The Volokh Conspiracy -En Banc Ninth Circuit Holds That Computer Forensic Searches Are Like “Virtual Strip Searches” And Require Reasonable Suspicion At the Border

The National Interest – Spengler’s Ominous Prophecy

WPR (Dr. Steve Metz) -Strategic Horizons: Iraq’s Biggest questions still Unanswered for US 

Aeon (James Palmer) – The Bailinghou 

Scientific American (Heather Pringle) -The Origin of Human Creativity Was Surprisingly Complex 

The Atlantic (Ta-Nehisi Coates) -‘Lucrative Work for Free Oportunity’

Recommended Viewing: