[Huffpoo] People Are Waking Up to the Darkness in American Policing, and the Police Don't Like It One Bit.
If you've been listening to various police agencies and their supporters, then you know what the future holds: anarchy is coming -- and it's all the fault of activists.
In May, a Wall Street Journal op-ed warned of a "new nationwide crime wave" thanks to "intense agitation against American police departments" over the previous year. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie went further. Talking recently with the host of CBS's Face the Nation, the Republican presidential hopeful asserted that the Black Lives Matter movement wasn't about reform but something far more sinister. "They've been chanting in the streets for the murder of police officers," he insisted. Even the nation's top cop, FBI Director James Comey, weighed in at the University of Chicago Law School, speaking of "a chill wind that has blown through American law enforcement over the last year."
According to these figures and others like them, lawlessness has been sweeping the nation as the so-called Ferguson effect spreads. Criminals have been emboldened as police officers are forced to think twice about doing their jobs for fear of the infamy of starring in the next viral video. The police have supposedly become the targets of assassins intoxicated by "anti-cop rhetoric," just as departments are being stripped of the kind of high-powered equipment they need to protect officers and communities. Even their funding streams have, it's claimed, come under attack as anti-cop bias has infected Washington, D.C. Senator Ted Cruz caught the spirit of that critique by convening a Senate subcommittee hearing to which he gave the title, "The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement." According to him, the federal government, including the president and attorney general, has been vilifying the police, who are now being treated as if they, not the criminals, were the enemy.
[DAWN] TWO months after the fall of Kunduz reverberated around the region and internationally, another Afghan province is in trouble. Parts of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province are virtually under the control of the Afghan Taliban and it appears only a matter of time before a major district falls. The fighting appears to be following a familiar pattern. The Afghan state has been unable to prevent incremental gains by the Taliban, making the area vulnerable to a seemingly sudden and spectacular collapse. The reasons too appear to be familiar. Afghan cops are under-resourced and low on morale, while the assistance of the foreign fighting forces is too small to prevent a Taliban takeover. If provincial collapse or the fall of key districts does happen, the response may also look familiar: global alarm will lead to the government in Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... , with the assistance of the US, assembling a force strong enough to beat back the Taliban, at least temporarily. But Helmand is not Kunduz. It is in the heart of the Taliban-influenced south Afghanistan, and not the distant north. Helmand also shares a border with Pakistain and as such could cause fresh tensions in the Pak-Afghan relationship.
Curiously, the fighting in Helmand, and thus the continuing of the so-called fighting season deep into December, does not appear to have dampened talk of an early resumption of negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Nor does continuing uncertainty over the unity and cohesion of the Taliban appear to have impacted the insurgency; indeed, it seems to have grown only stronger and more potent. Talk and fight -- or perhaps, more accurately, fight and talk -- appears to be the new Taliban strategy, borrowed directly from the pages of the strategy that the US has been trying to get the Afghan government to implement in recent times. It must surely be worrying for the administration of President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. , and his partners and supporters inside and outside Afghanistan that the Taliban are mimicking state strategy better than the state itself is able to perform. The continuing Taliban onslaught will also likely further strain intra-administration and inter-institutional tensions in Afghanistan. One half of the national unity government is quite openly opposed to the other half's preference for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and outreach to Pakistain. Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Slats grabbed for his rosco... the intelligence apparatus, even after the recent resignation of the NDS chief, remains deeply suspicious of and hostile towards both the Taliban and Pakistain.
For Pakistain, the unfolding events in Helmand should be yet another reason to continue pursuing the twin approach of keeping the lines of communication with Kabul open while nudging the Taliban to the negotiating table. If Pakistain does both on a sustained basis, it may help address many of the suspicions of true state policy. The twin approach is also the right and sensible thing to do.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2015 00:00 ||
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Good backgrounder to the Wonderful World of Intel. There really aren't all that many ways of gathering intel: open source, signals (COMINT, ELINT, etc-INT), HUMINT (agents), and PHOTINT. The different INTs confirm/deny each other. Usually the people expressing the loudest opinions are the ones who know the least about it. That fact that we have seventeen or so different bureaucracies is a disgrace.
#1
This reality applies even more in the struggle against ISIS, which would like nothing better than to catch American spies whom they can decapitate, or perhaps set on fire in a cage, for YouTube. Commandos from the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, in tandem with the DO’s Special Activities Division (which is composed mostly of former military special operators), have regularly deployed in the Middle East against ISIS, but they’re not under cover in any meaningful sense, neither are they big-picture intelligence collectors.
Flag down - Operators probably have a much better grasp of the "big picture" and the reality of terrorism and intelligence collection than some politically motivated Federal bureaucrat at Main or Foggy Bottom...or the author if this POS.
John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he's also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He's published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.
Safely out of uniform, gov't service, and the requirement to pass a poly, putting others at risk by discussing 'sources and methods' appears to ok.... as long as his articles and book sales produce revenue.
Apologies to Pollard and the Rosenbergs may be in order.
#4
The lack of classifications markings does not negate the doctrine of 'need to know.' This fellow is writing about sources and methods from an insider's perspective which probably violates the non-disclosure agreement he signed when 'Read-Off' the programs or access.
[DAWN] IN a set of regrettable remarks, the PTI chief Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... has threatened owners of the lands that surround his university project with forcible seizure of their properties if they don't consent to sell their lands at the price being offered to them. Apparently, the PTI chief wishes to build a stadium for Namal University in Mianwali on land that is adjacent to the campus; but the farmers who own the land have been refusing to sell it at the rates that are being offered to them. Although Mr Khan may not have the means to act on his warning, even to talk of forcible seizure is reprehensible to say the least. He threatened to invoke Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act once his party came into power, which he seems to believe is inevitable.
Ouch.
Though his party's steep losses in the recent LG polls would appear to belie his belief at this point, given that politics is a game of fluctuating fortunes, the PTI could do much better in the next general elections. This is one reason why a more mature attitude befitting a leader of a major political party should have been in evidence. Instead, his remarks were disappointing and revealed a dictatorial mindset, which can hardly prove a boon for Pakistain's democracy. True, there are others in the political pantheon that may also harbour what can be called a feudal mindset. Pakistain has seen several such politicians whose arrogance and determination to persecute those with differing views have proved to be costly mistakes. Perhaps, appreciating this, and also as a consequence of being censured routinely by a society more informed about its rights than it was previously, many politicians have seen the wisdom in being moderate in their approach, at least in their interactions with the public. It is hoped that Mr Khan, too, will see the wisdom in adopting a less belligerent tone.
But Mr. Khan doesn't do wisdom. He does beloved football star.
He must revise his opinion if he thinks that private ventures are automatically synonymous with the public good, and that putting pressure to achieve what he believes is a noble goal is justified. It is about time he understood both sides of the picture and refrained from pushing a personal agenda. In any case, Mr Khan needs to realise that his remarks were hardly those that one associates with national leaders of stature and that the land and people of Pakistain are not there to serve his private interests.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] MANY people in Pakistain, seething at Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US, are rightly upset. In the same vein, those few who point out similar discriminatory practices against the Ahmadi community right here in Pakistain are also rightly upset. When the few were bold enough to make their grievance public, the state apparatus surprisingly took action. They proceeded to remove a hate-filled sticker in a commercial establishment and tossed in the clink Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! the person who'd put it up.
In response, the many erupted into the streets to 'protect' their right to discriminate. They've now decided to escalate matters by asking the state to distinguish 'real' believers from 'fake' ones using ID cards (and maybe down the line, they'll force them to wear hats and badges). They've put up a few hundred more stickers and many new banners asking for everyone to discriminate against a particular community. The many say it's an obligation. This difference in numbers between the few and the many is one of the principle ideological chasms this country struggles with on a regular basis.
Continued on Page 49
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AFTER Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor to the Islamic State, reportedly beheaded the American hostage Nicholas Berg in 2004, he became known in jihadi circles as the Slaughterer. Few people in the West are aware that he also went by the nickname He Who Weeps a Lot. Mr. Zarqawi was known for weeping during prayer and when speaking about Muslim women's suffering under occupation. (Skipping many paragraphs in the same vein)
As the West comes to terms with a new and growing threat ‐ horrifically evident in the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. ‐ we are not only confronting organizations and doctrines, but also a highly seductive subculture. This is bad news. Governments are much better equipped to take on the Slaughterer than they are He Who Weeps a Lot. Without that last paragraph, this would be pure enemy propaganda. It still is. NYT, sympathetic as always.
[Telegraph] Genes which make people intelligent have been discovered and scientists believe they could be manipulated to boost brain power.
Researchers have believed for some time that intellect is inherited with studies suggesting that up to 75 per cent of IQ is genetic, and the rest down to environmental factors such as schooling and friendship groups.
Friendship groups? So I'm smarter because I hang out here?
But until now, nobody has been able to pin-point exactly which genes are responsible for better memory, attention, processing speed or reasoning skills. Apple falling from tree theory confirmed ?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DAWN] MANY people in Pakistain, seething at Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US, are rightly upset. In the same vein, those few who point out similar discriminatory practices against the Ahmadi community right here in Pakistain are also rightly upset. When the few were bold enough to make their grievance public, the state apparatus surprisingly took action. They proceeded to remove a hate-filled sticker in a commercial establishment and 
[Telegraph] Genes which make people intelligent have been discovered and scientists believe they could be manipulated to boost brain power.
