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More evidence of General David H Petraeus' flawed judgment is evident today in an excellent article by Rajiv Chandrasekaran in the Washington Post.
The article catalogues Petraeus' inappropriate relationship with Kimberly and Frederick Kagan of the right-wing, defence-contractor supported, Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute respectively.
The husband-and-wife team appear to have been taken on as unpaid advisers to the General during his time in Afghanistan, promoting a series of hawkish policies that chimed nicely with their corporate sponsors' (DynCorp International, CACI International and General Dynamics) agendas. Shocking that America's most senior general in Afghanistan should have allowed himself to become associated with two such arms industry pimps.
Showing posts with label General David H Petraeus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General David H Petraeus. Show all posts
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Debating the US National Intelligence Estimate
Excellent, well-informed article by Steve Coll in the New Yorker on the latest US National Intelligence Estimate on the war in Afghanistan. Coll says the NIEs, which are seldom published and are classified Secret or Top Secret, contain the most up-to-date information on the Obama Administration's take on the war. The last two, he says offered a gloomy picture, with the 2010 report warning that "large swathes of Afghanistan are still at risk of falling to the Taliban".
The new draft, around 100 pages long and due to be circulated shortly, contains six Key Judgments and is said to be gloomier than the typical public statements made by US military commanders in Afghanistan.
It is said to raise doubts about the authenticity and durability of alleged gains in Kandahar and Helmand provinces since the Obama troop surge and also suggests that the next generation of political leaders after Karzai will be more corrupt.
It also questions the success of the programme to train and equip the Afghan military and police forces, noting that the projected cost of running a force of 350,000 after 2014 will be $8-10 billion a year, more than the US is willing or able to pay.
As Coll points out, you hardly need secret information to come to these conclusions. It is not hard to see that little progress is being made in the country and that conditions in many areas are deteriorating, despite the billions of dollars sloshing around in military and civilian aid.
Coll says that Maj.Gen. John R Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador, believe the NIE to be too pessimistic and that they intend to dissent from its conclusions. With General David Petraeus now in charge of the CIA there is also a danger, says Coll, that intelligence from that quarter will also be 'militarised'. To guard against this he argues that unclassified versions of the key judgments in the latest NIE should be published so that they can be publicly debated. Well said.
The new draft, around 100 pages long and due to be circulated shortly, contains six Key Judgments and is said to be gloomier than the typical public statements made by US military commanders in Afghanistan.
It is said to raise doubts about the authenticity and durability of alleged gains in Kandahar and Helmand provinces since the Obama troop surge and also suggests that the next generation of political leaders after Karzai will be more corrupt.
It also questions the success of the programme to train and equip the Afghan military and police forces, noting that the projected cost of running a force of 350,000 after 2014 will be $8-10 billion a year, more than the US is willing or able to pay.
As Coll points out, you hardly need secret information to come to these conclusions. It is not hard to see that little progress is being made in the country and that conditions in many areas are deteriorating, despite the billions of dollars sloshing around in military and civilian aid.
Coll says that Maj.Gen. John R Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador, believe the NIE to be too pessimistic and that they intend to dissent from its conclusions. With General David Petraeus now in charge of the CIA there is also a danger, says Coll, that intelligence from that quarter will also be 'militarised'. To guard against this he argues that unclassified versions of the key judgments in the latest NIE should be published so that they can be publicly debated. Well said.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Operation Earnest Voice Part III
More on Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), the US Army's top secret psyops initiative aimed at the manipulation of social media through the use of fake online personas. This $200 million CENTCOM programme was first developed for use in Iraq and is now said to be targeted at countering Taliban propaganda in Afghanistan.
The theory behind the programme is that a single individual can control large numbers of online personas from a single computer screen, presumably to influence the activities of targeted individuals. It goes without saying that the use of this kind of software by the US army against US citizens would be illegal.
Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March last year, General David H Petraeus said OEV "is the critical program of record that resources our efforts to synchronize our Information Operations activities, to counter extremist ideology and propaganda, and to ensure that credible voices in the region are heard. OEV provides CENTCOM with direct communication capabilities to reach regional audiences through traditional media as well as via websites and regional public affairs blogging. In each of these efforts, we follow the admonition we practiced in Iraq, that of trying to be “first with the truth.”"
One can imagine how easy it would be to influence events via Twitter, for example, where people tend to follow particular hashtags. Astute tweeting on a popular hashtag by a lot of personas acting in unison could easily be used to divert people away from what was really happening. The same applies to Facebook, chatrooms and other social media venues. Stephen C Webster at the Raw Story has done an excellent job of explaining the way in which contracts were let for Operation Earnest Voice and the people involved.
Already I have mentioned that Neal Harper of Mission Communications claims to have developed the strategy behind OEV. Now another name has surfaced. Joseph Cook is a Japanese-American telecommunications specialist who since the beginning of this month works for the US government's Defense Information Systems Agency. For three years prior to that he worked at USCENTCOM where he helped to run 17 counter-terrorism and stability operations. He lists his notable achievements on LinkedIn as managing development communication plans such as Operation Earnest Voice.
More information welcome.
The theory behind the programme is that a single individual can control large numbers of online personas from a single computer screen, presumably to influence the activities of targeted individuals. It goes without saying that the use of this kind of software by the US army against US citizens would be illegal.
Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March last year, General David H Petraeus said OEV "is the critical program of record that resources our efforts to synchronize our Information Operations activities, to counter extremist ideology and propaganda, and to ensure that credible voices in the region are heard. OEV provides CENTCOM with direct communication capabilities to reach regional audiences through traditional media as well as via websites and regional public affairs blogging. In each of these efforts, we follow the admonition we practiced in Iraq, that of trying to be “first with the truth.”"
One can imagine how easy it would be to influence events via Twitter, for example, where people tend to follow particular hashtags. Astute tweeting on a popular hashtag by a lot of personas acting in unison could easily be used to divert people away from what was really happening. The same applies to Facebook, chatrooms and other social media venues. Stephen C Webster at the Raw Story has done an excellent job of explaining the way in which contracts were let for Operation Earnest Voice and the people involved.
Already I have mentioned that Neal Harper of Mission Communications claims to have developed the strategy behind OEV. Now another name has surfaced. Joseph Cook is a Japanese-American telecommunications specialist who since the beginning of this month works for the US government's Defense Information Systems Agency. For three years prior to that he worked at USCENTCOM where he helped to run 17 counter-terrorism and stability operations. He lists his notable achievements on LinkedIn as managing development communication plans such as Operation Earnest Voice.
More information welcome.
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