So does this mean Assange is on Obama’s hit list? Will US Special Operations Command send a kill-capture team? It all brings to mind Ari Fleischer’s Single Bullet Doctrine of 2002 which stated that one bullet to Saddam Hussein’s head would be cheaper than sending an invading army to topple the former and now very dead Iraqi president. Technically he was correct.

Using this logic, it’d be cheaper to send a U.S. sniper team to take out Assange rather than spend millions of U.S. dollars extraditing, imprisoning and trying the WikiLeaks head.

Perhaps the American people would enjoy—courtesy of the MSM—watching Assange’s hanging/shooting, or staring at his corpse via electronic and print media. They did just that with Saddam Hussein and his family. Hussein was hanged in the stairwell of a building in Iraq and his two boy’s corpses were cheerily shown via the MSM with hearty U.S. government approval. The masses must see some sort of return on war investment whether it is the live-hanging of a dictator and his son’s corpses, or the American gladiator gently holding a child lifted from harm’s way as a palliative to the hanging and dead bodies.

“The United States is a nation at war,” asserted President Barak Obama. In fact, the USA remains in a State of Emergency declared by George Bush II in 2001.

In the USA, perpetuating a constant state of war has taken its toll on language and its usage dangerously diminishing the ability of Americans to depict reality, critically think, and inflict meaning. The use of language (and language itself) has become a matter of national security (Pentagon’s Strategic Communications programs are one example). Imperial thinking and acting has become the norm. The development of a consciousness of national security itself is a vital matter of national security. “The other” threatens at all times. The Empire must be constantly vigilant.

“Peace Enforcement,” “All of Government, All of Society,” “Freedom is Not Free,” remind daily of the war effort. No one is exactly sure what these concepts mean, but they “sound good” said one observer. Torture, KIA, and MIA are banal. “I’ll kill you,” say the American teenagers running down the school hallway. Americans, young and old, rush home to play the most recent video war games. They talk as if they have actually been to war in a distant land. High school football uniforms come now with American flags on them (why?). Collegiate football games in 2011 will be played in Bowl games sponsored by Northrop Grumman and Bell Helicopter. This is all positive if one is pushing war as a way of life.

To get that done, the War State, or any state, must be supported by main stream media in all its forms (see Reel Power for the role of movies). The MSM serves as interlocutors between the governing elite and the public/masses. Journalists in this scheme interpret events with guidance from media elite (editors, owners) who are quite comfortable in their incestuous relationships with US/Foreign government/corporate officials.

And so this was the standard model of journalism.  Turns out that what we all got for news over the years were just scraps. Some meat left on the chicken bone and a few croutons thrown down for consumption. WikiLeaks has busted that model for the moment even catching the New York Times trying to trump up Iran’s ballistic missile capability when dispatches show the opposite.

WikiLeaks is an information broker with the Internet as its platform. It cuts out the middle-man, that being journalists/editors/owners who claim privilege over information and how to use it. It also removes the governing elite who claim privilege over the interpretation of reality.

Special Relationship Between Assassins

An intriguing document found in the WikiLeaks dump is a cable concerning the spread of Israel’s Mafia. At first glance, it seems inconsequential as every country has organized crime rings operating freely. Besides, one never knows when members of the mafia might be useful for national security purposes. At any rate, we learn that a few years back an Israeli mafia don was assassinated by a motor scooter bomber in the same manner as the Iranian physicist recently executed in Tehran.

“In November 2008, Israeli crime boss Yaakov Alperon was assassinated in broad daylight in a gruesome attack on the streets of Tel Aviv, only about a mile away from the Embassy. According to several media accounts, a motor scooter pulled up alongside Alperon’s car and the rider attached a sophisticated explosive device with a remote detonator to the car door. The bomb killed Alperon and his driver, and injured two innocent pedestrians. The hit was the latest in a series of violent attacks and reprisals, and indicated a widening crime war in Israel…the old school of Israel OC [Organized Crime] is giving way to a new, more violent, breed of crime… that the new style of crime features knowledge of hi-tech explosives acquired from service in the Israeli Defense Forces, and a willingness to use indiscriminate violence, at least against rival gang leaders. New OC business also includes technology-related crimes, such as stock market and credit card fraud, and operates on a global scale.”

“Please warn your sources in HTS that TRADOC G2 senior management is on to them. I was told this in a conversation I had with the TRADOC G2 today. It’s sad that finding out your sources seems to be a priority. I hate to see anyone lose their job over this.”

As for Christopher A. King, who now replaces McFate as the social science director of HTS:

“He was chosen to lead the social science directorate not for his qualifications but because he is the least controversial last man standing.”

Also, this news:

On the artistic side, HTS will be featured as the topic of a theater performance in Los Angeles, California. Playwright Rick Mitchell has penned and produced a performance titled SHADOW ANTHROPOLOGY: A Post-9/11 Comedy. The play will be opening and running in Los Angeles in January and February, as part of a theatre festival.

Shadow Anthropology will also be the lead play in a forthcoming collection of Mitchell’s work. The fine American actor Edward James Olmos says of Mitchell’s book, “”Funny! Provocative! Stunningly poignant! Rick Mitchell is a great American Playwright.”

Mitchell is also working on a “comic song” about the Human Terrain System.

More about SHADOW ANTHROPOLOGY:

As a poor Afghan family struggles to hold onto its farm in spite of a drought, a warlord offers possible solutions, including a more profitable crop, as well as an odd marriage proposal for the farmer’s young daughter. Soon thereafter, an idealistic anthropologist from Puerto Rico teams up with an opium-loving American mercenary as part of a U.S. Army Human Terrain Team. While the visitors attempt to create a more “culturally sensitive” military occupation of Afghanistan, various characters and bawdy shadow puppets battle it out for who controls not only the story, but also the land. A satirical examination of the U.S. military’s “new” post-9/11 strategy to win Afghan hearts and minds, this dark comedy features original songs, Turkish-style shadow puppetry, and Spam.

Some might recall Rick Mitchell’s previous work on anthropology and HTS: ANTHROPOLOGY: Or How To Win Friends and Influence Afghans.

“Please warn your sources in HTS that TRADOC G2 senior management is on to them. I was told this in a conversation I had with the TRADOC G2 today. It’s sad that finding out your sources seems to be a priority. I hate to see anyone lose their job over this.”

Clearly, program reorganization and redirection are the key elements of Colonel Sharon Hamilton’s mission as program manager of the HTS. Sources speculate that she has questioned some in the chain-of-command about the “many millions of dollars wasted on a program that cannot produce any product.” Whether that is true or not, one thing is certain: Colonel Hamilton was dropped into a US Army program that was allowed by senior TRADOC management to carve its own self-destructive path. Meaningful oversight of the HTS program was non-existent.

Colonel Hamilton’s task is largely thankless. The investigations of the HTS program by the US Army and the House Armed Services Committee, and the stories as relayed by nearly 100 sources for this 17 month series of articles, has shown just how rotten the core of the program had become.

She deserves much credit for her actions thus far in trying to change the culture and, apparently, merge Human Terrain Analysis into Geospatial practice for modeling and simulation. The Human Terrain System website shows that the management has backed off marketing the program as “applied anthropology” and, of course, has forced the resignations of those who, while at the helm, shipwrecked the HTS effort and in the process lost and shattered lives.

Sources say that HTS Training is still a serious weak point in the program and the much ballyhooed HTS Training Redesign is already in trouble.

“There is lack of progress in the much discussed training redesign. There is supposed to be a 10 week redesign that goes in to effect in January 2011 but only 1 week is complete and not properly vetted or to TRADOC standards. The only successful training that continues to receive high marks is to be eliminated. For example, there is a contractor that repeatedly received high marks from students and also refused to reduce TRADOC training standards or compromise on work product. The HTS Training Redesign Team hates the contractor and frequently copies their product but can’t replicate the contractor’s experience.”

What it boils down to is this, agreed sources: “The real problem that HTS has is that their reputation is so bad that it scares off any qualified/creditable trainers. They will not work on the program. They can’t even get people to the CRC on time!”

There are rumors, say sources, that the HTS program’s performance has been so poor that it may cost General Martin Dempsey, CG of TRADOC, dearly. “A serious issue is that the [HTS] investigations have reached into the TRADOC Headquarters and may negatively impact on Dempsey’s future. He has not done enough to clean up the HTS mess.”

Other sources have reported that Dempsey is a “good man” and has done a good job as the TRADOC CG. They say Dempsey’s problem is Maxi McFarland who is known as a real bare knuckle, back room fighter. He gets what he wants and no one will challenge him. He has friends in high places. His contacts are built on personal support of the Army’s current leadership. He was a colonel when the current leadership held captain/major rank. There is no risk to him or his position.”

Sources say that one of the US Army’s Human Terrain System senior managers, Jeff Bowden, is resigning effective 31 December 2010. Observers say that Bowden was recently reprimanded by the HTS Program Manager, Colonel Sharon Hamilton (USA), for matters relating to his performance, or lack thereof, in the HTS program.

Also of note is the promotion of Christopher King, PhD in Forensic Anthropology—not Cultural Anthropology—who will head the social science directorate. Some say the difference in the two fields” is important.” Chris King is a forensic anthropologist. He was chosen to lead the “social science directorate” not for his qualifications but because he is the least controversial “last man standing.”

On the artistic side, HTS will be featured as the topic of a theater performance in Los Angeles, California. Playwright Rick Mitchell has penned and produced a performance titled SHADOW ANTHROPOLOGY: A Post-9/11 Comedy. The play will be opening and running in Los Angeles in January and February, as part of a theatre festival.

Shadow Anthropology will also be the lead play in a forthcoming collection of Mitchell’s work. The fine American actor Edward James Olmos says of Mitchell’s book, “”Funny! Provocative! Stunningly poignant! Rick Mitchell is a great American Playwright.”

Mitchell is also working on a “comic song” about the Human Terrain System.

They did not foresee that the Internet would be used as a revelatory tool by the global community to bypass and challenge all the dominant information streams leaders had previously used to govern, command, fight, buy or sell. Nor did they anticipate the importance the Internet would come to play—and challenges it would present–in the global spread of war, commerce, trade and culture in and amongst the nations of the world.

With that backdrop it’s no surprise that America’s government/corporate leaders failed to prepare American troops for the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Hence the ill-advised development and fielding of programs like the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System/Bowman Expeditions (Mexico) as retro-fixes for institutional/cultural ignorance and arrogance.

Win the Hearts and Minds of Gluons, Photons and Bosons!

The Cyber Terrain is the next big enigma, never mind that many layers of the Human Terrain onion haven’t been peeled back and studied.  The Pentagon’s CYBERCOM and heavy weight contractors like Lockheed Martin are keen to get on with the cyber expeditionary task. For example, in March 2010, Lockheed Martin Human Terrain experts produced a paper titled Dynamic Data and Modeling Suite in which we learn the following:

“This paper presents the feasibility of a complete services suite for end-to-end systems integration of data and modeling services that is tailored for use by commanders, military advisors and intelligence analysts involved in Counter-insurgency Operations. Through the integration of existing and innovative technologies including automated harvesting of near real-time data from the cyber domain, the Dynamic Data and Modeling Services Suite will enable astute socio-cultural behavior exploration. The existing proof-of-concept fusion environment feeds its predictive behavior models with comprehensive human terrain data from dynamic sources [including social networks].

It is our assertion that Users desire new applications that capitalize on technological advancements in behavioral modeling and data integration in order to achieve maximum mission success in the irregular warfare environment. The existing Environment leverages these technological advancements to enable Users to ingest, manage, store and model human terrain intelligence that is essential to COIN operations. Future work to form the complete Suite will further increase model accuracy by harvesting and integrating online social networking data. This OSINT data is evolving into a pertinent, though largely untapped, source for near real-time behavioral information.”

The USA’s Great Cyber Leap Forward threatens to encumber the Internet and its many applications as well as usher in an era of censorship by US government and corporate interests.

If ever the Pentagon fields some type of Cyber Terrain System (CYBERCOM?), here’s hoping that it does not mirror the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System as initially designed and managed.

Back to the Human Terrain System

“The complaints are so numerous and of such a nature as to keep Colonel Hamilton [acting HTS program manager] from doing her job,” sources claimed. They indicated that there is an ongoing investigation into the activities of Jeff Bowden, a key member of the program. This has an ongoing, negative influence on the functioning of the HTS program. Rumors abound, they said, of Bowden’s biased hiring practices that favor his friends and former service branch.

“The Army’s Human Terrain System program has such a bad reputation that it is openly shunned by the Fort Leavenworth military community. Personnel in the program who have good reputations have been warned to get out before their reputations are ruined.”

Apparently, there are some 80 Equal Opportunity, Discrimination and Sexual Harassment (EEO) claims that remain open within the HTS program. According to sources, “Poor management can be recognized by the way an organization treats its employees. The many complaints reflect failed leadership.” They allege that Bowden and other members of the HTS management team–who are/were McNeil, AECOM employees—are at the receiving end of some of these complaints.

As incredible as it seems, sources report that “people hide in their offices to avoid Bowden’s relentless prodding for oaths of allegiance to him and his insistence on attacking past or current employees who speak out against his poor leadership style.” They also allege that “He [Bowden] uses his government position to conduct character assassinations. He has asked many of us to give him statements slandering present and past employees. And when we refuse he adds us to his hit list and asks our fellow employees to make statements about our performance.”

Sources claim that Bowden’s “Training Redesign” is shallow and completely irrelevant. “It was developed in a vacuum with the input of just a few subcontractors [McNeil-AECOM] and the highest paid instructor in the program who continually receives the lowest student rating.”

Observers said this was “by design as it allows Bowden the freedom to make sweeping changes to the curriculum without full disclosure of the impact?

The Fort Polk Solution

Sources report that the HTS curriculum review/redesign is almost complete.  Some though, are unsure whether what is being proposed in the review/redesign will actually assist the program or make it worse.

“And what is the great training solution that will save the program? Ship the trainees to Fort Polk in Louisiana to take part in the eight week Foreign Security Forces Combat Advisor training program. If you think hiring has been tough in the past, try convincing a 40 something anthropologist to go to Fort Polk. Will this contribute to the integration of the team into a Brigade, Division or the Corps?”

The Combat Advisor Training seems to be a good idea. Providing some hard-core CAT for trainees before they deploy and attempting to simulate the dangerous environment they will be operating in makes sense. Still, observers see an Achilles Heel. “The real challenge is the first week at the beginning of the training. Personnel security, health and administrative requirements to meet deployment must be 100 percent complete.  Trouble is the HTS program has never been 100% on personnel for deployment. In fact there have been several issues in the completion of the background investigations and rumors of changing or altering records to improve students’ profiles and provide a gateway to classified material.”

Observers said there are other issues with the Fort Polk Solution. By sending the teams to the eight weeks of training at Fort Polk they are out-of-sight and out-of-mind; basically pushed down the road. They say they “don’t have to listen to them whine and complain about how they are treated.”

HTS trainees will spend ten weeks in Fort Leavenworth and the eight weeks at Fort Polk. After that they go directly into theater wherever they are needed.

Observers say that “Fort Polk is a projection platform. Pass go, collect $100 and into country. No time off or family contact.”

Sources report that there are five members of the {HTS] program who are actually going to go through the training and, once completed, provide their assessments to upper management. They are “all white males” said sources echoing complaints that HTS management is not a big fan of diversity.

Some believe that the Fort Polk Solution will “kill the HTS program.”

Cyber Terrain Meets Human Terrain-COIN-HTS

In 2009, social scientists were asked by the U.S. government to help Cyber Warriors understand the Cyber Terrain. Cyber Terrain offensive and defensive strategies and tactics have been discussed for decades* now but in 2010 there is a treasure trove of government cash available to public and private interests, CYBERCOM among them, to keep the cyber world open for business and military operations. It is likely that the world will soon learn about Cyber Terrain Teams operating in accordance with some sort of Cyber Counterinsurgency warfare doctrine not dissimilar to those developed by each of the major uniformed services.

Of course, this means that gigabytes of propaganda will appear promoting a new Cyber Cold War that pits West against East. Rather than the “cultural turn”, it’ll be the “cyber turn.” Who knows who will become the General David Petraeus of the Cyber COIN world?

At any rate, Cryptome recently posted a transcript from the Hearing on Agency Response to Cyberspace Policy Review, 16 June 2009, House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, Committee on Science and Technology. During that hearing, Congressman Daniel Lipinski opined that “We need a cultural change in the way Americans practice their computer hygiene. Computer scientists need to team with social scientists to gain a better understanding of how humans interact with and utilize technology.”

“Human terrain knowledge deficiencies exist at all command echelons,” says the U.S. Army’s retooled Human Terrain System website.

Now it’s “Cyber Terrain deficiencies exist at all command echelons.”

Within that group of 23 contractors are some that have already had extensive experience with the US Army’s Human Terrain System and its former principals Steve Fondacaro and Montgomery McFate.

Others have worked on some type of human terrain analysis contract and/or have marketed their human terrain analysis skills to various U.S. Combatant Commands.

Observers are concerned that positive changes apparently afoot with the U.S. Army HTS will be rolled back if the U.S. Army ultimately lets its business to organizations with personnel who have been in the midst of the troubles that plagued the earlier version of HTS.

A Brief Rant Due to Exposure to HTS for 2.5 Years

There is no questioning of the validity of the need for a military biased geospatial cultural analysis program that assists U.S. warfighters in their efforts to pacify local populations or improve the speed and accuracy of the kill chain. That effort does not require the use of PhD’s from colleges and universities. Further, it seems outlandish to pay $250,000 for an inexperienced (5 months training usually truncated) social scientist to operate in a combat zone.

Why push all that cash to contractors when the talent to divine the cultural landscape exists within the military itself? If after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan (and more on the way in Pakistan, Iran, Mexico—well, Hell, everywhere), the political and military leadership hasn’t figured out the human terrain they wish to control, then the questions become: Are the President and SECDEF and their subordinates that incompetent? Are the hundreds of military-university human terrain/behavioral analysis efforts simply jobs programs and a way for the military and intelligence functions to tunnel into academia (just as they have done with the new breed of war journalists in the MSM or places like Wired)?

Why the constant hue and cry that the human terrain is so complex that no one can figure out?

Hell, the good Christian folks over at the Joshua Project have one Hell of a cultural/geo-name, quasi-geospatial database. They have figured out where in the world the heathen non-Christians are and they’ve done one Hell of a job at it: ethnic tags, language, maps, etc. From that database, Christian Soldiers are sent off on their missions of conversion already understanding the human terrain. Wait! Hell! Isn’t this the mission of the USA? Is it not to convert indigenous populations to concede and to accept the American way of life or at least not get in the way of it?

Creepy People

At any rate, many observers are losing sleep over the prospects of a sequel to HTS I at the hands of some of the organizations listed in the “sources sought” list.

“McNeil and Glevum….Not going to sleep tonight! The companies listed look like various circles of Dante’s Hell,” said one source.

Syzygy’s Lett-Smith [currently not listed] was kicked out of AFRICOM for her unprofessional services. Steve Rotkoff [former DPM at HTS] while at HTS had a number of IG [Inspector General] issues.”

And then there is Glevum which apparently some find “creepy”.

According to sources, “Glevum is beyond creepy—it’s crooked. Some of its people were part of that Lincoln Group fiasco in Iraq a couple of years ago. Glevum is just another front company. They have bilked the government and especially HTS out of tens of millions of dollars. Their whole Social Science Research and Analysis/SSRA scheme [allegedly] used fraudulent data and then sold it on the street.  The sad thing is that the Gallup organization has picked up some of Glevum’s employees in Afghanistan so the same masquerade of data is now affecting U.S. policy there. Gelvum hires so-called local experts to do surveys, focus groups etc. It looks all rather polished on PowerPoint but ask any former HTT member who has seen Glevum products what they think.”

Glevum was apparently mentioned in the U.S. Army’s AR 15-6 investigation. But as one source pointed out, “Glevum has connections in high places, unfortunately.”

Other competitors on the “sources sought” list know the score.

“We are keeping an arm’s length relationship,” said one source.

“The need now is to get a decent contracting company in there that is actually focused on the job and they just might prove some worth as a force multiplier.”

On 22 September 2010 The U.S. Army Contracting Command Center at Fort Eustis posted a Sources Sought request (fbo.gov) to support the U.S. Army Human Terrain System. The contract ceiling for the effort is in the $7 million range. The deadline to submit information to the US Army is 11 October 2010.

There are 20 “interested vendors” listed on the FBO website. Those include current HTS insiders Glevum Associates (Andrew Garfield) and McNeil Technologies, Inc. (Steve Rotkoff , formerly part of HTS management is apparently with this group.)  McNeil is now owned by AECOM which has numerous and lucrative contracts with the U.S. military.

Other interested vendors include S3 Syzygy.  Syzygy’s CEO since 2009 is Sarah Letts-Smith, a former Human Terrain Team Leader in Iraq and “External Consultant” to the HTS program. She is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves.  She has been a Director, Leadership Development at United States Army Reserve; SOCCENT J2 Liaison at United States Department of Defense and a Mortgage Loan Officer at Sterling Capital Mortgage

Linc Government Services’ subsidiary Operational Support & Services–based in Fayetteville, North Carolina—may be a contender. “OSS has a long and successful history of providing and supporting unique training, linguists, intelligence support services, language and cultural immersion, administrative, logistical, and Subject Matter Expert requirements to the Department of Defense, U.S. Government agencies, and NATO.”

It appears that U.S. Army TRADOC is either taking a shot at correcting the troubles within HTS or is simply seeking to replace the services provided by the Georgia Tech Research Institute that announced its intention to bolt from the program.

At any rate, in the end, the “winner” will be managing the HTS program from top to bottom recruiting, hiring and training students at a pace of 35-50 trainees a month with a “success” aim point of 95 percent. “The intended acceptable performance metric is 95% of student requirements hired prior to start date of each training cycle; and, at least 95% of the candidates will meet the Governments Civilian Personnel Advisory Center (CPAC) qualifications and deploy at the end of the training cycle.”

According to the announcement, other tasks include coordinating HTS data collection efforts with battle command general officer steering committees and decision forums, fielding and training the Mapping the Human Terrain (MAP-HT) system, and overseeing collection efforts to ensure the HTS Program meets combatant commander requirements. In addition, “the contractor shall conduct research and analysis to satisfy time sensitive (within 8-96 hours) and routine Requests for Research, as well as directed research specified by the Director of the Reach Back Research Center. Output form varies but may take such form as white paper or geospatial products.”

Much more remarkable, and coming from a supposedly professional journalist who embedded with the U.S. Army in order to tag along with several Human Terrain Team members, is this series from The Virginian-Pilot by Joanne Kimberlin. What she loses in honesty and credibility she more than makes up for in her cheer-leading for a Human Terrain System in deep disrepute and disarray. Her work also proves why taking a “balanced” approach to our critiques is a worthless endeavor, as she cynically misappropriates certain revelations made only on this site, that she finds amenable to painting a positive lacquer on HTS. We now need to be the real balance once again, and the only way to do that is by being as skeptical and critical as possible.

PART ONE

Pulp: Framing HTS within the genre of war-related action/adventure is tried, tested, and yet still popular with American readers, if one takes the production of such fictions as answering some demand. We have seen this before with HTS, when it was written about here. Here we begin with Part 1, “New weapon in an old war:”

[Kimberlin:] “Boom! Heads snap toward the blast….No one speaks. Nothing moves – except salty trickles of sweat that seep from beneath helmets. There! From the other side of the mud-brick village, a plume of black smoke boils into an empty blue sky…. “That,” one says quietly, “was Afghanistan.”

Boom! Patriotic readers snap into formation. That was Afghanistan—a curious use of the past tense. Boom! That is not America. America makes no sound at all as it occupies what was Afghanistan.

“The idea: fewer bullets, more brains.” Brains—the zombie metaphor beckons yet again. It’s about brains, brains will save America from this morass. We need more articles about brains, to get Americans thinking about thinking, instead of ejaculating about bombing.

“The Human Terrain System embeds civilian scholars with combat units to help outsmart the insurgency….anthropologists and other social scientists delve into the population, which the military now dubs “the human terrain.”

They are outsmarting the insurgency—I see—more Afghan than the Afghans now, are they? Well not really, just license on the part of the pulp fiction writer, the reality is more mundane: “Insight into the customs and history of the people could help troops avoid the kind of blunders that make it tough to gain traction in Afghanistan.” Tour guides.

It’s a Good Idea… It’s a Good Idea… It’s a Good Idea… It’s a Good Idea… It’s a Good Idea… It’s a Good Idea… It’s a Good Idea… It’s a Good Idea… It’s a Good Idea…

The idea, that HTS is a good idea, is repeated throughout. Kimberlin writes, “for all the problems and controversy, one big question persists: In a long war short on answers, could HTS be one that works?” She then interviews Col. Steve Fondacaro for her answer, as she does consistently: asking those employed with the program, and those with personal reputations tied to the program’s public image, to speak about the value of the program. Fondacaro, for his part, cannot seem to give an answer without doing further damage: to Kimberlin he complains about President Obama firing General Stanley McChrystal, for his vulgar and public insubordination. Fondacaro thinks the firing “was really petty,” and praises his former classmate for his indiscretion: “Stan’s always been a straight shooter.” (Even, it seems, when he shoots himself in the foot.)

Kimberlin makes a plea for extending the war effort, betraying her role as military stenographer: “We’ve been here before and seen what happens when we just pack up and leave….Once the Russians were gone, we lost interest.” But, there has to be an end in sight, and here she is more careful to align herself with Obama’s foreign policy: “Still, no one wants us to stay forever. An armed occupation, well-intentioned or not, eventually wears out its welcome. Every wayward drone, every ham-fisted house search, every wrong squeeze of the trigger creates new enemies.”

News?

Kimberlin offers us very few revelations about HTS, apart from a handful scattered across the four articles. In this first one, she helps to confirm what we already understood, thanks to her interview with Fondacaro: “Funding would come from the Department of Defense, but, Fondacaro says, every dollar required a dog fight in the competition-heavy military machine.” As part of that dog fight, a media blitz, of which this series itself is a residual artifact, having been started and prepared before Fondacaro and McFate were removed from HTS.

Mystery Critics

The treatment of critics is minor and brusque, opting to render them homogeneous and nameless. Human Terrain Team members, on the other hand, get extended personal treatment, are named, and shown to have diverse views. Part of the bulk criticisms from nameless critics has been aimed at Fondacaro’s leadership—here Kimberlin writes: “Personally, Fondacaro has taken a lot of heat. He’s been called a ‘mad man,’ a ‘war profiteer’ and an ‘idiot’.” In the fourth article in the series Fondacaro says even he hated himself after reading John Stanton’s articles.

Paula Loyd: Blonde

Finally, in this first installment, a few words about those who died while working for HTS. Standing out again is Paula Loyd—and note the lead description: “Loyd was an outgoing, 36-year-old blonde with a long history of aid work.” What does her having blonde hair have to do with anything? Why even bother mentioning it, when the hair colour of the other dead HTS people is not mentioned? Because it matters to Americans, as a cultural icon, as symbolic of the superior White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. She was outgoing—she went too far. A long history of aid work—and no mention of the even longer history spent in the military. Hear that bell ring? An angel in fatigues just earned her wings.

PART TWO

In Part 2, “American muscle proves futile in land of extremes,” Kimberlin continues the main theme: “The Hampton Roads-based Human Terrain System is one attempt to wage smarter war. HTS embeds civilian scholars with troops in the battle zone, where it’s their job to decipher the complex cultural landscape that allows the militants to maintain their stubborn toe hold.” Keep these in mind: complex cultural landscape—decipher—smarter war. The value of HTS is a matter the interviewees all insist upon, never demonstrate—here a soldier says “They start from a vantage point that’s strictly about the people and what they think. That’s invaluable. Anybody who can help us get a piece in the puzzle is an add.”

Later in the article, this out of place statement, concerning “criticism that its scholars aren’t qualified to give local insight. ‘They’ve got Ph.D.s,’ Fondacaro says. ‘They’re smart people. They can learn’.” This complex cultural landscape, so complex it must be deciphered, can be apprehended by just about any foreigner who is air dropped into Afghanistan without prior experience, without facility in local languages—but they can learn, because they have credentials. Are they then saying that ordinary soldiers, some with multiple “tours” of Afghanistan, are just too stupid to learn?

Again With the Critics

About those critics—Kimberlin notes: “Anthropologists working for HTS are defying their profession. Last December, the American Anthropological Association condemned the program, wary that its scholarly findings might be used by the military to target the enemy, a breech of the field’s ‘do no harm’ code of ethics. The association also takes a dim view of its own members becoming casualties.” Even this brief element draws no direct response from anyone she interviews. Instead, we hear that

“the backlash has helped turn Fondacaro and his academic counterpart, Montgomery McFate, into lightning rods. Bloggers have vilified the pair, accusing them of all sorts of shadowy deeds, including bilking the taxpayers and recklessly endangering lives.”

Who are these mysterious, nameless bloggers? That doesn’t matter, as we are told about McFate that, “She doesn’t bother to read any of the blogs about HTS, where she’s described as a ‘hustler,’ a ‘poisonous individual’ and ‘the crazy aunt in the room’.” Too bad she doesn’t read “them” …because those are statements made from people who served in HTS.

Wait…did McFate tell Kimberlin that she doesn’t read any of the blogs?

“But her jaw sets at some of the personal attacks in journals or anthropology blogs — not the accusations of intellectual prostitution, but claims that she is motivated by greed.” (source)

Oops. Kimberlin’s research is selective: she “missed” that piece, but not another: without attribution she recycled some of the material about Fondacaro from The Men’s Journal article written by Robert Young Pelton, particularly the part (see Part 1 of the series) where Fondacaro breaks his jaw during an interview with RYP.

Meet Mac the Mercenary: Second-in-Charge

Any new revelations in Part 2? Not many, except that a former mercenary is now in charge of HTS in Afghanistan, someone who goes by the name of “Mac:” “He first came to Afghanistan in 2003 as a security contractor on the Ring Road…. He joined HTS in November 2008 and worked his way up to second-in-charge in Afghanistan.”

Also, the number of Human Terrain Teams in Afghanistan: “Two-thirds of the 30 HTS teams are now embedded with the military in Afghanistan.”

Finally, the only HTS member I met in person, Christopher King, is now in Afghanistan: “Chris King, an anthropologist from Ohio, is on an HTS team assigned to ISAF. Reserved and bookish, King does not leave ‘the wire,’ as the perimeter of the base is known. It’s his job to supply ‘theater wide’ cultural insight to the host of generals and colonels who make up the high command.” One of the few anthropologists they get—not that he had any expertise on Afghanistan—and they have him perform in the role of armchair anthropologist. One of his valuable discoveries is that Afghans are a lot like Americans. They hate outsiders imposing on them.

PART THREE

In Part 3, “Building trust amid fear, one mission at a time,” we are introduced to a few more HTS members, most notably Amy Bursell, Patrick Flanagan, and Chris Fitz, only the first being an academic—and we are also introduced to the “mission monkey:”

Oh Goody! The Mission Monkey is Here!

“Amy Bursell climbs out of a bulletproof car in front of an Afghan police station. Strapped to the back of her flak vest: the Mission Monkey, a stuffed animal she brings along for nearly every meeting with the locals. Patrick Flanagan rolls his eyes: ‘I hate that stupid monkey. I mean hate.’ Bursell, 38, is a talkative social scientist from Alexandria. Flanagan, 43, is a conservative Army reserve colonel from Manassas. ‘The monkey helps break the ice,’ Bursell says firmly. ‘It lets people know I’m not a soldier’.”

When meeting with Afghan elders, what does Bursell do? Please tell us she doesn’t take out her stuffed toy and wiggle it in their faces! We are not told how she uses it. It seems to be her outward way of symbolizing that she is a civilian…but then again, we are told later that she carries a gun. I would like to suggest that the mission monkey here is not the one on the back of the flak vest; it’s the one wearing the vest.

It gets worse—“Radios have been synced, and call signs are being chosen for the two hardened SUVs that will carry the team into town. Bursell suggests ‘Muppet One’ and ‘Muppet Two’.” Either Bursell is having a tough time outgrowing an American infancy fed on a diet of incessant television, or, her psychological tactic involves lowering everyone else to the level of children.

One thing about Bursell, as an expert required to provide advice and insight on the basis of her sensitivity to locals, is that she has learned to tune the locals out: “All eyes watch as she and the Mission Monkey weave their way through a group of men in a garage outside the police station. ‘They’re mostly just curious,’ she says. ‘At first it makes you feel pretty weird, but now I just try to ignore it.’

Bursell “tries not to think about the fact that three HTS social scientists have been killed on the job,” Kimberlin tells us. Bursell says: “My parents thought I was crazy to come here. But I just find it really stimulating.” Really stimulating—yes, indeed, it’s all about me and my personal gratification.

European Luxury and West Virginia Savages

Camp Marmal, where this particular Human Terrain Team is based,

“is an oasis of European civilization. It features a cozy atrium with bistros and socializing. Fresh herbs grow in pots outside comfortable barracks. There’s even an indoor badminton court, earning the base the nickname of Club Med.”

Like their Soviet predecessors, this new crop of colonials has learned that the good life is to be had in the colonies. “Bursell feels fortunate to be assigned to such a cushy post.” Reports are that her mission monkey can be heard cooing with pleasure.

What about Afghanistan…beyond that oasis of European herbs and badminton? HTS member Chris Fitz “says the country reminds him of West Virginia: ‘They’re conservative, religious and they like their guns’.” But do they like headcheese sandwiches and banjos?

Take it Easy: We Just Supply the Information that Kills

Patrick Flanagan “dismisses the frowns of social scientists back home who accuse HTS of supplying ‘mercenary anthropology’ that the military could use to hunt down and kill the opposition, a violation of the field’s neutral pledge to the subjects it studies. ‘We provide information,’ Flanagan says. ‘We can’t be responsible for what the commander does with that information’.”

A remarkable statement: he confesses to irresponsible complicity, and confesses to the fact that some of the information is used for targeting.

Dishonest Use of Wikileaks References

Where any remaining veneer of honesty cracks and falls off Joanne Kimberlin is when she raises the issue of what was found in Wikileaks about HTS. As it happens, it was this very site—which she does not name—that did the research about HTS in Wikileaks, and the only site to have written about that aspect. In the first contribution we made, we extracted all of the records dealing with HTS; second, we dealt with some of the problems surrounding the records’ release, and to what extent they can be counted on as useful; third—and this is the only piece on which Kimberlin bases her irresponsible, dishonest, and deliberately propagandistic claims—we talked, ironically, about how Wikileaks’ records could be used to construct a positive gloss for HTS, not realizing anyone would be incompetent enough to single out that information and do so without question—but then again, we didn’t know Kimberlin existed back then; and, fourth, the really critical piece that Kimberlin and the rest of the media continue to choose to ignore.

Instead, Kimberlin lazily plonks down these words, again without attribution, hoping that readers are lazy and gullible and will do no searches of their own:

“The program cropped up dozens of times in the Afghan War Diaries, the reams of insider documents posted by Wikileaks this summer. According to the entries, HTS has helped uniforms understand clans and disputes, assess loyalties, and figure out that construction supervisors were siphoning off money and police were stealing from households.”

Remember 9/11 When I Run for Congress

Patrick Flanagan has political ambitions, he reveals. No doubt these factored into what otherwise seemed like a sloppy and all-too-fast invocation of 9/11: “And if it’s useful to help us win the war on terror, then that’s good, yes? Do you forget 9/11?”

No, don’t ever, ever, let them forget 9/11. Flanagan “plans to run for Congress in his Northern Virginia district in 2014.” For which party? “Republican…of course.”

PART FOUR

Part 4, “In the enemy’s lair, fighting for Afghanistan’s future,” is more interesting for what it tells us about Fondacaro, even though it contains a few notes about two HTS members, Patrick Carnahan and Brian Ericksen.

The one person finally named who is a critic of HTS management, John Stanton, gets an ironic swipe from Kimberlin: “Stanton’s articles lean on mostly unnamed sources.” That is better than using other people’s published material without even token attribution, and I know and have relied on some of those sources and they demand anonymity.

The problem, as identified by Kimberlin, is that,

“Bad press can bring heat from above. A congressional review of HTS has been ordered by the House Armed Services Committee. A senior staffer on the committee described the inquiry as mostly routine but acknowledged that it’s partially propelled by the criticism. ‘The bosses don’t like complaints,’ Fondacaro says.”

Kimberlin updates her article to take into account more recent events, speaking of what we now know was the outright firing of Steve Fondacaro: “His boss at the Training and Doctrine Command gave him 24 hours to turn in his government-issued gear and clear out. ‘I gave him a chance to resign and he refused,’ said Maxie McFarland, the man who hired Fondacaro four years ago.” McFarland says the firing had nothing to do with the detractors or the congressional review: “Steve did a great job standing up the program, but his skills are not the right ones to carry it to the next level.” Sure, we get it.

And Fondacaro gets it too: “I’m the toad in the road,” he says quietly. “In personal terms, I’m absolutely pissed off.”

Finally, the message is repeated again, in ever simpler terms (you do this when you think your readership consists of imbeciles and children): “HTS is part of a new strategy that puts as much emphasis on shoring up the good guys as it does on destroying the bad. Cultural insight is now considered as crucial as high-powered weaponry.”

The good guys, versus the bad guys. This is contemporary American journalism.

“The United States will protect its people and advance our prosperity irrespective of the actions of any other nation…” President Barak Obama in National Security Strategy of the United States, 2010

The American Empire is not in decline.

It is rebooting for a new era of dominance.

The American Empire’s success depends on successfully converting the national American psyche into a sociopathic national consciousness (SNC). Once completed, America’s empire will be as successful as it is ruthless.

This conversion process is ad hoc and always the consequence of an “outside” event or “crisis” and the fear it engenders. The sociopath, as individual or collective, is opportunistic and reaps advantage from uncertainty. Sociopaths are in abundance at every level of American society.

For example, the response to 911 was mostly ill-conceived as the world now knows. But the fallout from that, though, is irreversible: state secrets, wire tapping, torture, leaders inciting fear in American society, terrorists around every corner threatening life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, fusion centers, laws conceived for punishing terrorists used on common criminals/vandals, war as meaningless, etc. Now more war is needed and so it’s cyberwar, helicopter gunships into Pakistan and Yemen, and that pesky homegrown terrorist problem (antiwar activists).

There is no end game for this state of affairs just as there is no stopping the conversion of America to a totally sociopathic empire.

In the USA, Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and the societies of Orwell’s 1984 and Zamyatin’s We are taking shape rapidly. The institutions/societies they created/portrayed are the inevitable result of a society based on a violence-in-the-name-of-good model and indispensible to a warring Empire like the USA. They are critical to its success.

Could it be otherwise? Is the American Empire an exception to the historical rule?

The conversion to the SNC can be seen everywhere.

Language is emptied of meaning, the national securitization of every aspect of life, and the increase of “action at a distance via technology” whether in inter-personnel relations or the execution of war in distant lands.

Examples abound: “too big to fail” as legitimate rationale, a “surge” is not an increase; “combat has ended” when it has not; the recession “is over” when it is not; “we do not torture” when we actually do; the two party system is competitive when it is not, the Tea Party is a grassroots creation when it is not, and so on.

President Obama has stated that national security and homeland security are now the same. Just so: food security, infrastructure security, neighborhood security, personal security, airport security, education security, and on and on. The Christian Easter Sunday normally sees children at the receiving end of an Easter Basket from parents loaded with candy. Now the Easter Basket has toy soldiers and military airplanes included.  A popular mouthwash states on its bottle, “Tooth Defense!”

Face-to-face, interpersonal communication is to be avoided if at all possible.  When it is witnessed at press conferences, military briefings, town halls, or the “Sunday morning talkies” on the MSM, the ground rules for the contestants make for a sterile and humorless event in which participants simply make noises at each other.

Americans hide in their I Phones, Blackberry’s and Cell Phones.  This scene is commonplace: talking in meat-space with friend, spouse, or fellow worker. In mid-conversation, a cell phone rings with the result that the person on the other end of phone overrides the near-flesh conversation. Even near-flesh experiences during which conversation does take place lacks any degree of substance. How was your weekend? Did you see “American Idol?” How about that football team? What’s the deal with Mel Gibson? Can you believe Lady Gaga?

No existential or ontological discussion here. It’s a nation of sociopaths, mechanical to the core. That’s ok because that what the Empire needs to move forward unencumbered with reality.

It is the SNC that will be America’s trump card in the game of global domination.

The American Sociopath

The American Empire depends on its people, said President Obama. What are the characteristics of the American people and their “leaders”?

Glibness and Superficial Charm and Manipulative and Cunning–They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

Grandiose Sense of Self–Feels entitled to certain things as “their right.”

Pathological Lying–Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt–A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

Shallow Emotions–When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.

Need for Stimulation–Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.

Callousness/Lack of Empathy–Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others’ feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature–Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, and no concern for their impact on others.

Irresponsibility/Unreliability–Not concerned about wrecking others’ lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility –Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.

Is there any doubting America’s character?

Critics of the Empire: Convert Now!

Naysayers believe that the American way of consumption is at an end. The USA can’t continue to consume 25 percent of the Earth’s resources, they say. They point to the presence of new and powerful global competitors in Brazil, China, Russia, Turkey and India that are cutting into the sole source status that the USA once enjoyed around the globe. Profligate US government spending and the financial crisis of 2008 sapped America’s ability to shape its own future, just as it has wounded its ability to meddle in the affairs of other nations.

The naysayers fail to understand the ebbs and flows of building and sustaining an empire. There are constant setbacks and challenges. They also underestimate the American Way of Empire: an empire based on the principle of excessive violence, consumption and amusement. The American Empire’s mission is right there in the Declaration of Independence: “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” It’s an inalienable right.

When asking what Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Washington would think about the current state of the American Experiment as Empire, they undoubtedly would applaud it. Why?  Because they would be smart enough to understand that the speed of movement of people/resources and information/ideas around the globe is exactly what America is all about.  It’s simply a reflection of the pace of life in the USA.  Imagine it: Jefferson may have been able to pay off his debts rather than have died penniless. What living US president these days has ever gone broke?

The American Empire, just as its predatory predecessors (Greece, Rome, for example), proclaims—quite loudly–that its way of life is most noble, its technology preeminent, its political system unmatched, its culture and Gods supreme. An empire must shape the world in its own image, must conquer and enslave. The Gods favor conquerors, favor the emperor who orders destruction in the name of a good or a God, favors the citizens who go about their daily business or willingly sacrifice their existence for the Empire’s cause.

Empires tolerate internal dissent—“free press”–as part of the grand theater that is politics and entertainment. Allowing dissent legitimizes the destruction of the empire’s foes, internal and external (assassinating US citizens?) that are intolerant of dissent, who operate contrary to the empire’s ethos, who challenge the rule of violence.

The Price of Empire: Psychopathic, Vapid Culture

“Despair, feeding, as it always does, on phantasmagoria, is imperturbably leading literature to the rejection, en masse, of all divine and social laws, towards practical and theoretical evil.” Isadore Ducasse/Lautreamont

“The Korova Milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence.” Alex from a Clockwork Orange

“It did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that a man was capable of change, or that the world could be a better place through one’s taking pleasure in a look or a feeling or a gesture, or receiving another person’s love or kindness. Nothing was affirmative, the term ‘generosity of spirit’ applied to nothing, was a cliché, it was some kind of bad joke. Sex is mathematics. Individuality is no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire is meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead. Fear, recrimination, innocence, sympathy, guilt, waste, failure, and grief, were things, emotions that no one really felt anymore. Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love can’t be trusted. Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in … this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged…” Bateman from American Psycho

“The spirit was freedom and justice
And its keepers seem generous and kind
Its leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won’t pay it no mind
‘Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it’s all just an echo of what they’ve been told
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin’ the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can’t understand
We don’t know how to mind our own business
‘Cause the whole world’s got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who’s the winner
We can’t pay the cost
‘Cause there’s a monster on the loose
It’s got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
America where are you now?
Don’t you care about your sons and daughters?
Don’t you know we need you now
We can’t fight alone against the monster
Heed the threat and awesome power of the mighty Pentagon
Which is wasting precious millions on the toys of Washington
Just one time I’d like to be somewhere where
None of your clever lies fill the air
I’m tired of your frozen smile and your voice of tin”

-0-

Lyric Excerpts from “Monster Album” by Steppenwolf, 1970.

Up until November of 2000, an American citizen could have arguably maintained that the United States had become a more tolerable society having, in some respects, tamed much of its monstrous behavior and murderous history, and that there would be no return to the wretched mentality that allowed some of the greatest atrocities in American history.

And there’s no question about the human rights abuses that have become part and parcel of that history. President Thomas Jefferson made it the policy of the US to wipe out Native Americans leading to what would become America’s Final Solution by stating in 1807, “And if ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated.”

Slavery and segregation of African Americans began in 1619 in the North American continent, Virginia to be precise, and lasted well into the 1970s in the USA. Open minded American’s like Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson would declare that “universal suffrage was the foundation of every evil in the US” and that African Americans were an “ignorant and inferior race.”

She was hanged upside down from a tree and while still alive, members of the crowd cut open her abdomen and the tiny infant fell to the ground. As hundreds of bullets were fired into her body, someone from the crowd stepped forward and crushed the infant’s head as the onlookers cheered.

As reported by John Gray in Straw Dogs, in 1899 thousands of other open minded Americans – men, women and children – in the US state of Georgia assembled in the town of Newman to watch the hanging of African American Sam Hose. When eight-months-pregnant African American Mary Turner learned that her husband met his end in similar circumstances, she protested to the authorities. Her reward? She was hanged upside down from a tree and while still alive, members of the crowd cut open her abdomen and the tiny infant fell to the ground. As hundreds of bullets were fired into her body, someone from the crowd stepped forward and crushed the infant’s head as the onlookers cheered.

Add to that chilling tale, the grotesque treatment of American women who suffered disenfranchised for 72 years until 1920; the deadly anti-union policies that would result in events like the Ludlow Massacre of mine workers in 1914; the internment of Japanese Americans in the 1940s; the debasement of Chinese Americans in the 1850s; the destruction of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s and 1970′s; US eugenics laws and practices of the 1920s and 1930s that Adolph Hitler would later use in his Final Solution; and the insidious US support of the former apartheid regime in South Africa that would mercifully end in 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela.

These are but a few instances of America’s sordid past that don’t find their way into popular accounts of mythic America. And contrary to popular belief, globalization and wars to ensure US market dominance were set in motion as far back as 1898.

On the Senate floor in that year, Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana would maintain that:

“Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? … It is elemental. It is racial. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish a system where chaos reigns. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force as this the world would relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race, He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man. We are trustees of the world’s progress, guardians of its righteous peace. The judgment of the Master is upon us: ‘Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things.’”

In taming America’s most noxious actions, most US government and business leaders would proclaim that they alone were responsible for the bright light of reason and the courage to redress the wrongs perpetrated by the US government and its greedy counterparts in the corporate world, and their enforcement arm – the US military. But the reality is that in every one of these instances, the cure came as the result of individuals joining together – sometimes sacrificing life and reputation – and taking to the streets to stop the murderous and prejudicial behavior that plagues not just Americans, but the entire human species. The horrible treatment of fellow human beings is never the urgent motivator for most of America’s government and business leaders, and indeed world leaders. It always was and remains to this day the fear of losing power and prestige. And so again, as in every case above, it falls to the true progressives, the American people – those who, shall we say, have evolved far beyond protoplasmic entities that occupy the US government – and their counterparts everywhere, to take to the streets and stop a return to the hideous policies and practices of yesteryear.

Kings of Pain

On January 18, 2003, as 100,000 plus Americans rallied and marched in the “capitol of the free world,” Washington, DC, their weasely president-select and vice president-select and their 533 representatives and senators were nowhere to be found. Only Michigan’s John Conyers braved the elements to energize the crowd. And while anti-Iraq war sentiments received top billing, more was afoot than what was generally reported by media outlets around the globe.

All the speakers who took to the podium, and the 100,000 plus individuals that made up the crowd, were decrying the mentality and an environment that led to some of the most sinister acts ever undertaken by the US government. “Jobs Not War!” and “No Tax Cuts for the Rich!” was a constant refrain. The “No racism, Stop Hate!” theme could be found on thousands of posters and placards, as could “No Death Penalty” and “Money for the Poor, Not the Pentagon!” “No One Should Die for Bush.” Podium speakers and the crowd were fearful of a return to a US government and society that had, in its history, encouraged some of the worst aspects of humanity.

In short, this was arguably more anti-Bush II than anti-Iraq war sentiment. Participants were mindful of the type of environment that breeds violence and suffering, and impoverishes thought and debate. They know very well that if Bush II and his government, and the US Congress, remain unchecked, an environment of greed and corruption and racism and fear will flourish.

And there’s plenty to fear from this King of Pain who represents the most callous elements of America. Few have commented on the fact that every single business venture that Bush II has meddled with – from failed oil companies to the now suffering State of Texas – has ended up as either a public and commercial embarrassment or in shambles for taxpayers, with wealthy cronies and political appointees having to spring for bail and create spin for the alphabet-challenged President. Texas is now billions of dollars in debt and battles horrid air pollution. The residents of Arlington, Texas, are still paying for Bush’s stint as owner of the Rangers. The Texas Air National Guard shamelessly puts the best face on Bush’s service debacle – actions for which any other reservist would have been swiftly sent to Vietnam.

Attempting to criminalize affirmative action by challenging the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program on the eve of Martin Luther King’s birthday and turning a blind eye to those great 20th century racists Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond says much about Bush’s and Beveridge’s God.

So now, it’s the United States’ turn to suffer a similar fate. If ever there was a practitioner for ruthlessness, it’s Bush and crew. Ruining people’s lives seems to be something in which this regime prides itself. Eliminating billions of dollars for birth control programs, food disbursements, benefits for the unemployed (8 percent and climbing unemployed in the US), environmental protections, and promoting what amounts to $2 trillion in tax cuts primarily for the rich is hardly the way to maintain a somewhat egalitarian society. Standing idly by while knowing California’s energy crisis was caused primarily by Enron, and while many states approach bankruptcy is to court further disaster. Giving the wacky Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department budgets which approach $500 billion while holding spending on infrastructure, education and health care to a ludicrous $350 billion is close to criminal. Inserting church into state through untidy faith-based programs and inserting state into the home through the efforts of convicted criminals like Admiral John Poindexter seems the work of madmen.

Attempting to criminalize affirmative action by challenging the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program on the eve of Martin Luther King’s birthday and turning a blind eye to those great 20th century racists Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond says much about Bush’s and Beveridge’s God. Now American Muslims must suffer while their kin in the US and the world over are fingerprinted and registered as if they are cows to be branded. There are watch lists for American citizens who are Greens or antiwar protestors. High school students are suspended for criticizing Bush and his government. First Amendment zones are created for anti-Bush demonstrators and while in them, police cameras record the process.

Donnie Rumsfeld’s extraordinary statement that draftees lend little to the US military must have come as a surprise to many veterans. On that note, it’s interesting to listen to Rumsfeld and other active duty military-types who are fond of pointing out that without the protections they provide the demonstrations in the USA on January 18 would have been impossible. Yet, on that day in Russia, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Brazil, Japan, Jordan, England, Australia, France, Syria, India and elsewhere, tens of thousands exercised the same freedom displaying many of the same banners as their brethren in the USA.

United States of Anarchia

From the jungles of Colombia and Indonesia to the streets of Washington, DC, and Portland, Oregon, America is now at war with the world and itself.

What it all adds up to is that Bush II has led the way in tearing the fabric of America apart. He has eased the ability of 15 percent of the US population to accumulate further wealth, while leaving to the remaining 85 percent to fight over what amounts to a pittance. He has mindlessly opened the doors to racism and greed while at the same time he has closed and locked the doors of accountability, openness and peace. Millions of people are out of work in the US and his government has no solution but war and tax cuts. From the jungles of Colombia and Indonesia to the streets of Washington, DC, and Portland, Oregon, America is now at war with the world and itself. It seems that it hasn’t come all that far since 1970 when other ruthless human beings – Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger – were doing all that they could to destroy America and Southeast Asia. But, perhaps, this time around there may be a difference.

He has mindlessly opened the doors to racism and greed while at the same time he has closed and locked the doors of accountability, openness and peace.

In 1688, German Quaker settlers in Germantown, Pennsylvania – led by Daniel Pastorius – were the first to publicly protest US slavery by challenging Pennsylvania’s Quakers. Their efforts at the time were unsuccessful, but many in the community of Quakers were moved to change and their actions would ultimately contribute to Pennsylvania becoming the first state to pass anti-slavery legislation in 1780, and in the 1800s their statements contributed to the argument against slavery.

Like the German immigrants to America who had the foresight to see that injustice, the millions who protested around the world on January 18, 2003 will be remembered for raising the consciousness of people everywhere to the great danger that George Bush II and the current US government pose to America and the world. The greatest threat to American society besides Iraq Oil Wars, is an unaccountable White House occupant, Congress, Supreme Court and military, the latter being the now well-established fourth branch of the US government.

Americans and the world can only hope that there will be more rallies and marches as occurred on January 18. If not, the US government, as it stands now, will destroy or imprison its people and those of any other nation who dare challenge the Bush and Beveridge God-given right to rule the world.

The Monster is, indeed, on the loose and no single individual can fight against him.

Also, a comment posted on this blog states: “…last week a team from HTT was involved in a complex IED attack and NOTHING was reported. Injured was Mike Warren a deputy program manager. There were no casualties but there were many njuries and no report on the severity.”

If more is made known, we will post updates here.

“Col Sharon Hamilton [acting HTS program manager], does not know what is going on here in Iraq because if she was aware of the behavior here, she would not tolerate the dysfunction that continues within the organization.”

“The rules and regulations within the HTS program only apply to minorities or other people whom the team leaders and management dislike.”

The US Army’s Human Terrain System continues to experience  personnel troubles. “Nothing has really changed”, said sources. The reasons for that appear to be due, in part, from the fallout left behind by tag team Fondacaro & McFate, and ongoing reports of hostile working environments for both women and minorities within HTS.

But before getting to that, some updates are in order.

The Center for Naval Analyses has submitted its report to the Undersecretary of Defense/Intelligence. House Armed Services Committee members will be briefed soon on the findings. The U.S .Army’s  Administrative Review findings are unknown at this time. The National Defense University is conducting a study on HTS looking into internal performance/interagency matters.

Dr. Max Forte at Zero Anthropology has scoured through the WikiLeaks Afghan War files. He found a number of entries on HTS/HTT and is currently writing a pro-con series on the subject. Among other things, the findings raise, yet again, the issue of intelligence gathering and “interviewing” wounded and suspected insurgents. And there is also credit given where due for HTT’s providing legitimate support to military personnel.

Mark Solomon, apparently in HTS program management at BAE Systems is also a real estate agent apparently picking up some extra cash in off-hours. Observers wonder how he finds the time. Solomon did not respond to questions—sent by email–on the matter.

Former HTS graduate Dr. Nancy Kobrin writes for Family Security Matters, a well funded neoconservative non-profit. This HTS graduate recently wrote that “Arab Muslim culture is so rife with deprivation and victimhood, nothing is ever enough…Saudis and other Muslims do not know how to mourn their losses. They stay glued together like a big enmeshed dysfunctional family defending their wounds and licking them. They bully to get what they want, but even then it is never enough. They avenge by the sword.”

Rotten Management/Leadership in Field

Prior to Steve Fondacaro departing from the HTS program he apparently setup one of his friends, Leslie Kayanan, with a program management position in  Iraq. Kayanan (Asian American) is described by sources as a “weak leader”.

“This  was not a good decision because Kayanan was part of the original dysfunction in the program. He was removed from the Human Resources section of HTS and sent down range where he continues to be disruptive,” said observers. “If you don’t kiss up to him and others in management, you are not part of the clique and may not get comp time.”

Job security—and staying alive–is tough enough for the best of the HTS’ers without having to worry about joining an ass-kissing fraternity.

But being part of the clique/fraternity has its rewards. “There  are  some Team Leaders in-country that don’t do anything and get paid six figures. There are Team Leaders in the program who have never been outside the wire. But they will send their teams outside the wire and expect the team to respect him or her as a Team Leader. There was a father and son team who would just show up for work and drink coffee and and  still bill for comp time.”

According to some observers, pushing program diversity is not high on management’s to do list. “The HTS program only has three African Americans in leadership positions.” Observers say that for African Americans to “get in” they have to have a PhD or be on close terms with Montgomery McFate or personnel that remain from former tag- team Fondacaro-McFate. Evidently, another African American was recently moved into a leadership position.

“Minorities and others in the program have been publicly humiliated by management. Leadership will plot with other HTS personnel to get rid of them just because of the color of their skin or they just don’t like them”, said sources. “The rules and regulations within the HTS program only apply to minorities or other people whom the Team Leaders and management dislike.  As a result this organization has a lot of disgruntled employees,”  they said.

“If you check recent statistics you will notice in Iraq that HTS management puts the white females with no military experience in Team Leader positions just because they are friends with McFate.”

There are reports of personnel vacationing to visit friends and family but disguising it as program “research”. Management appears to encourage this behavior either through ignorance or acceptance of the practice.

Sources said that some team leaders in the program do not “have a clue as to what is going on” and will not consult experienced personnel for advice because they believe they above such practices.  Team leaders have the uncanny ability to remain employed by HTS even when the client tells them to “get out.”

“A team leader at HTAT–C lied to the commanding general and was asked to leave the area of operations.  HTS management put him at an HTAT elsewhere in-country. What a disgrace.”

“Sri Lanka has been a friend and democratic partner of the United States since gaining independence in 1948 and has supported U.S. military operations overseas such as during the first Gulf War. Commercial contacts go back to 1787, when New England sailors first anchored in Sri Lanka’s harbors to engage in trade. Sri Lanka is strategically located at the nexus of maritime trading routes connecting Europe and the Middle East to China and the rest of Asia. It is directly in the middle of the ‘Old World,’ where an estimated half of the world’s container ships transit the Indian Ocean. American interests in the region include securing energy resources from the Persian Gulf and maintaining the free flow of trade in the Indian Ocean.” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Report, 2009.

Most Americans are not familiar with the long history of relations that Sri Lanka and the USA have together. In fact, most—and to be fair, a good deal of the world’s population—couldn’t pinpoint the country on a map even though Sri Lanka is one of the top trade partners of the USA.

Still, some may know Sri Lanka through the name Mathangi Arulpragasam, better known as M.I.A., a globally recognized musician/singer/artist. Many will remember that science fiction giant Arthur C. Clarke (2001 Space Odyssey) made his home in Sri Lanka. Perhaps a handful will know that Sri Lanka is a Cricket powerhouse.

Others may remember the 2004 Tsunami that destroyed large portions of the Sri Lankan coastline wiping out thousands of lives and leaving many more thousands internally displaced. Some will be familiar with the Sri Lankan’s military defeat of the LTTE—Tamil Tigers—in 2009 after roughly 26 years of conflict. The victory came with a burdensome price tag: thousands killed, nearly 460,000 Tamils/noncombatants confined in holding camps/displaced, and the horrible legacy that is one million landmines that dot former warfighting zones.

So what do they do in Sri Lanka besides producing excellent tea and Cricket players? Here is the industry/services breakdown for 2009:

Sri Lanka’s natural resource base consists of limestone, graphite, mineral sands, gems and phosphate.

The agricultural sector is 12.8 percent of GDP and includes rice, tea, rubber, coconut, and spices. The service industry is 58 percent with key sectors being tourism, wholesale and retail trade, transport, telecom and financial services. The industrial sector comprises 29.2% of GDP and includes garments and leather goods, rubber products, food processing, chemicals, refined petroleum, gems and jewelry, non-metallic mineral-based products and construction.

Major exports (amounting to $7 billion US) in 2009 were garments, tea, rubber products, jewelry and gems, refined petroleum, and coconuts. The main markets for those products were the USA ($ 1.54 billion US), the United Kingdom, India and Italy.

Major suppliers to the Sri Lankan economy were India, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Iran, Malaysia, Japan, U.K., U.A.E., Belgium, Indonesia, South Korea and the USA (totaling $9.6 billion US of which $283 million was with the USA).

USA-India-China: Sri Lanka as Geopolitical/Economic Battlespace

For US policy makers and military planners, Sri Lanka has now become a top geopolitical priority. A sense of urgency is driving the grand brains in the White House and Pentagon to figure out how “not to lose Sri Lanka.” In short, that means an answer to the question, “How can we use Sri Lanka to further US national security interests in the Indian Ocean?”

“Friendly” economic competition (and the concomitant struggle for resources, markets, jobs) between the USA and China/India will inevitably move to military conflict at some future date. Why? There simply are not enough energy stores in the world to meet the needs of the three nations which, combined, make up 41 percent of the world’s population. And this excludes Indonesia and Brazil whom together make up just over 6 percent of the world’s population. The five nations make up 47 percent of the world’s population and their hunger for energy, raw materials, food, construction materials, “the better life”, is insatiable. All are pre-positioning for economic security which, of course, is an element of national security.

In State and Corporate governing circles within the five countries (USA, India, China, Indonesia, Brazil), there is a far graver threat to be dealt with: the prospect of restive populations revolting as their job prospects darken, social programs are cut, income inequality increases, and health/pension benefits become more restricted, even eliminated. Meanwhile, up above, the losing classes watch as their nation’s stock exchanges operate as though it’s business-as-usual. In this volatile environment, internal mass dissent/boycotts are, arguably, the number one threat to each nation’s security.

So where does Sri Lanka fit in?

“Indian threat perceptions have grown as China has become more active in South Asia. Sri Lanka is no exception,” said Maria Kuusisto of Eurasia Group in an interview with Kari Lispschutz of World Politics Review. “Chinese investment has expanded rapidly, including the strategically situated commercial deep-sea port in Hambantota — which is [Sri Lankan] President Mahendra “Mahinda” Rajapaksa’s home constituency — and the two-phase coal power plant in Norochcholai. During the civil war in Sri Lanka, Beijing provided unconditional diplomatic, economic and military support to the Sri Lankan government, winning significant goodwill in Colombo. And China is now offering to provide financing and technical expertise to the Sri Lankan government, which is pursuing an aggressive, multi-million dollar reconstruction program. New Delhi sees this Chinese maneuvering as an incursion into its historic sphere of influence, and is consequently trying to outbid the Chinese for strategically important infrastructure projects.”

While India and China solidify their relationships with Sri Lanka, the USA/West has had a muddled foreign policy that seems to always be fixated—no matter the region–on Iran and China. Writing in Future Directions International, Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe indicated that the European Union used the war crimes card following the defeat of the LTTE simply to punish Sri Lanka for its trade relations with Iran and China, not out of any great concern for human rights.

“Following the LTTE defeat in May, the EU sought to pursue a motion against Sri Lanka for war crimes investigations at the UN Human Rights Council, which collapsed when 29 countries of the 47-member council voted in solidarity with Sri Lanka. India itself came out strongly in support of Sri Lanka at the Council and later even criticized the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Commenting on Sri Lanka’s diplomatic feat, Sri Lankan Ambassador to the United Nations, Dayan Jayatillaka, said: ‘This is not a lesson that Sri Lanka taught the West. It is a victory of the developing countries and the global south. It was not a defeat of the Tiger Diaspora alone.

It was the defeat of a powerful bloc of forces. Geneva was a miniature diplomatic Dien Bien Phu or Bay of Pigs for the EU. The unfolding events earlier this year underscored the fact that Sri Lanka’s confrontation with the West, which has seen relations plummet to their lowest point since the 1970s, has had less to do with human rights and more to do with a fierce geopolitical struggle for influence. There is little doubt that Sri Lanka’s move to broaden relations with China and Iran, its rejection of Western demands in its internal affairs, the timing of its victory over the LTTE, and its acceptance in June 2009 as a Dialogue Partner to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) were crucial in influencing the West’s attempts to take punitive action against Sri Lanka — moves which served to further strengthen Sri Lanka’s relations with China.”

Senate Foreign Relations Report 2009: The Americans Are Coming! The Americans Are Coming!

The Sri Lanka Foundation (SLF) reports that former Sri Lankan military commander Sarath Fonseka was favored by the USA to win the Sri Lankan presidential election in 2010 over rival and current president Mahendra Rajapaksa. Fonseka was apparently awarded permanent residency in the USA, according to the SLF, and spent too much time hanging around Washington, DC during the LTTE conflict.

Fonseka is now charged with Criminal Breach of Trust by the Sri Lankan government under Sri Lanka’s Property Act.

Many Sri Lankans here in the USA and in Sri Lanka itself see Fonseka as a tool of the US government and Western interests. Others, of course, don’t.

The SLF derides the Senate Foreign Relations Report of 2009 (see link above, also known as The Kerry Report) as being the product of a dumbfounded US foreign/military policy establishment that was shocked when the Sri Lankan military defeated its LTTE nemesis. Their criticisms of US foreign policy practices (subterfuge, spreading money around via NGO’s, fanning the flames of class conflict) are certainly not without ample historical precedent.

The SLF views the purpose of the Kerry Report as this: “Their mission: to make recommendations to prevent further erosion of US security interests in the island and increase US leverage in Sri Lanka for securing longer term US strategic interests and expanding the number of tools available at Washington’s disposal.”

No problem there, that’s what the large nations do.

But then it gets very interesting. SLF goes on to say, “If the LTTE had succeeded, the US would have gained control of two thirds of Sri Lanka coastline, enabling them to secure Persian Gulf energy resources to Japan, interfere if and when the need arose, with the flow of these same resources to China, selectively interfere with free trade in the Indian Ocean, and undermine stability in India by provoking Tamil and Hindu sentiments in Tamil Nadu…To make matters worse, not only did President Rajapaksa destroy the cornerstone of US policy in the region [by defeat of the LTTE], but he was, as The Kerry Report identified, responsible for the country’s drift towards China (and the non-Western world), considered one of the biggest challengers to US hegemony of the world. All this threatens US national security interests, and President Rajapaksa is considered a threat to US National Security. US policy, the report states, has to be re-charted. A regime change is considered imperative: Rajapaksa must go.

The battle lines were drawn for January 26, 2010. The battle was not between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, but between Sri Lanka and the US. On May 18, 2009, Sri Lanka won a historic proxy war on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon, defeating the scourge of terrorism [LTTE] and the threat of neocolonialism. Election day was crucial – Sri Lankans had to defeat the neocolonialist if they were to protect their victory at Nanthikadal.

The sovereignty of Sri Lanka is being challenged and is at stake…

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that Sri Lankan Ambassador Tamara Kunanayakam (Cuba and Venezuela) urged Sri Lankans to study Latin American and USA relations. Writing in Why Latin America is Important for Sri Lanka she states,

“Whereas the economic performance of China and India impress most observers in Sri Lanka and much of our efforts are focused on warding off attacks from our former colonial masters and their allies who continue to have a stake in this country, we have failed to grasp the significance of the history that is being written in Latin America. Sri Lanka cannot remain indifferent to this evolution. The quality of its international relations cannot be appreciated through the narrow vision of those who judge its good health solely through the state of relations with Western powers. Sri Lankan foreign policy must take into account the reality of a world that is changing and Latin America as constituting an important factor in that change.”

Become the Switzerland of the Indian Ocean

How can Sri Lanka—with 21 million people, just .3 percent of the global populace—rebuild and reunite its tattered country after 26 years of war and a Tsunmai, while at the same time avoid Faustian economic and military bargains with the world’s giant nation-states? Can its leaders avoid the lure of bribes (in any form), the sweetheart deals that will inevitably be forthcoming, and the trappings of power?

Can the Sri Lankan people calm the ethnic turbulence between (Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim) that has plagued it and develop a common national consciousness/identity?

Can Sri Lanka avoid getting tangled in the competition between the world’s largest nations that will only escalate in the future?

DeSilva-Ranasinghe made this observation. “So far, at least, Sri Lanka appears to have successfully balanced the competing interests of India and China.” He cited the commentary of a former Sri Lankan diplomat named Jayantha Dhanapala on the delicate balancing act.

“There are elements in America and India who would like to raise the China bogey…This is not a zero sum game where our relationship with China is at the expense of our relationship with India. We cleverly balanced the relationship.”

How long that relationship can be balanced remains to be seen.

As they rebuild their country and amend their constitution, they would do well to look to Switzerland as an example of a neutral—even sane—nation state. Their survival may depend on it.

With the USA shifting focus and resources to the Indian Ocean, they’d best move quickly and warily.

Defense non-profits like the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) also represent the non-military interests of members such as Boeing—at once a defense contractor and commercial airline manufacturer. In fact, James Albaugh, dual hat XVP of Boeing and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, sits on the Aerospace Industries Association’s Board of Governors and the Executive Committee.  The defense associations, like the heavyweight corporations they speak for, maintain Boards of Directors/Trustees who are nearly always only six degrees of separation apart. For example, you’ll just as easily find a member of Northrop Grumman Corporation on the AIA roster as you will on that of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).

Defense association presidents and officers are generally paid very well for networking, sitting on this and that board of directors or trustees, and representing their member’s interests.  The individuals that run these associations are nearly all spun out of the revolving door of the federal government whether they were employed in a civilian, military or paramilitary capacity. In addition to compensation packages they receive from their own associations (they all “serve at the discretion of the Board of Directors/Trustees” and have their salaries approved by them), they receive retirement packages for their years employed by the federal government and rank/grade achieved. That includes health care, social security and other perks (commissary shopping, for example) that fall mostly to former employees of one of the military branches.

Defense associations are allowed to lobby Congress spending up to $1 million per year. Most defense non-profits, like AUSA and NDIA have legislative agendas that are based on membership demands. And there is an added and unspoken benefit:  it’s extremely difficult to know where the dividing line between education and lobbying is. That’s the beauty of the non-profit defense association. With so many Directors/Trustees,  conferences, trade shows, classified meetings and networking done behind closed doors (between military and civilian personnel at all levels) it’s impossible to know who leaking insider information to whom or who is on the receiving end of that crucial nod or wink.

Selective Service

Gordon Sullivan, a retired US Army General, received $638,000 in 2008 from the Association of the US Army (AUSA). That includes compensation received from all sources according to its 2008 IRS Form 990*. AUSA had revenues just over $32 million according to the IRS document.

Amongst the many items that AUSA is spending its lobbying money on is ensuring the survivability of Selective Service Boards.  “We must also continue the Military Selective Service Act that provides a database allowing a rapid mobilization in times of national emergency as well as the Standby Selective Service Boards.” [MF: since this story was published, some of the AUSA pages have been deleted, and thus the links have been removed.]

Yes, indeed.  If the USA intends to destroy Iran; fight Mexico’s drug war; entrench itself in Iraq and Afghanistan; continue to send armed forces into Pakistan; fully fund AFRICOM; encircle China and Russia with missile defense systems; cut taxes, health care programs, pensions and social security; allow income inequality to increase in America; watch the US infrastructure (roads, water systems, communities and people) collapse; and develop predominant national culture of war, then Sullivan better make sure that those Draft Boards are ready for either domestic revolution or WWIII. Shooting for an end-strength of 700,000 isn’t going to be enough.

NDIA made the news some time ago for its opposition to a proposal (by Rep. Maloney (D) and Sen. McCaskill (D)) for a database—FAPIIS–that would list government contractors who were penalized with fines or disbarred for various types of malfeasance.  That database is up and running.

In 2007, Lawrence P. Farrell, a retired USAF lieutenant general, made $909,433 in total compensation (with a benefit plan contribution of $35, 931) as President of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) according to its IRS Form 990 for 2007. An FPDS entry on June 2010 indicates NDIA had revenue of $27 million.

NDIA, like AUSA and most of the defense associations that rest inside the Washington, DC, Beltway, are classified as IRS 501 (C) (3) organizations and are tax exempt. Their charters invariably indicate that they are “educational” groups though that’s sometimes a stretch.

For example, NDIA facilitates conferences for “legal and ethical” interaction between commercial contractors and civilian and military employees of the federal government. In this sense, it is a trade association. But it also provides scholarships to worthy college students and defense community awards for exceptional service. For the most part, though, the business of the non-profit is to put private and public sectors together to explore contracting opportunities for everything from weapons systems to uniforms.

NDIA has a long and distinguished history working in the defense community promoting the interests of the Defense Industrial Base (defense contractors) and the nation’s national security. Starting as the Army Ordnance Society in 1919, it publishes one of the oldest and finest defense publications in the USA—National DEFENSE. National DEFENSE is managed by Sandra Erwin, one of the most underrated national security reporters and analysts in the national security community. National DEFENSE’s stories are timely and insightful with depth. Erwin has kept the publication “21^st Century” with the support of Farrell who is also the magazine’s publisher.

It shouldn’t be long before Danger Room, the Wired Magazine Blog (Conde Nast/Advanced Publications), strikes out on its own to form its own magazine. The model for that will be National DEFENSE though it’ll be interesting to see if they will stand the test of time. National DEFENSE has been around since 1926.

F-35 Obsolete?

Before changing its name to NDIA the group was known as the American Defense Preparedness Association and was led by US Army Ordnance/Material Command legends Larry Skibbie (LTG, USA Ret.) and Bill Eicher (MG, USA Ret.). Under their guidance, a salvage operation of the financially failing National Security Industrial Association was completed.  Skibbie and Eicher laid the foundations that have allowed Farrell to expand NDIA’s membership and widen NDIA’s reach. NDIA recently joined with its equivalents in Canada and the UK to find more contracting opportunities in anticipation of the inevitable “train wreck.”

The AIA head, Marion Blakely, was paid just over $800,000 in 2008 according to its IRS Form 990. Blakely was a controversial figure as head of the Federal Aviation Administration. While there, her imposition of new work rules (that led to pay cuts) caused many of the FAA’s most experienced air traffic controllers to retire (nearly 30 percent). She would later claim she was shocked that so many would leave their positions because of the pay cuts. Her predecessor, John Douglass, former Assistant Secretary for the Navy (RDD) under Bill Clinton received a severance package of $623,616.

The AIA recently had a posting on its main website that the F-35 Lightening is already obsolete and that the Obama Administration should consider next generation alternatives to the fledgling aircraft “as foes advance.”

So as every defense association group gets set to hop-to on behalf of its membership, the question is: Who is willing to sacrifice? The answer to that has surely has to be all or none.

Farrell’s recent editorial is largely on track.

Maintaining wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is high cost. Global dominance is very expensive. Prepositioning for the challenge of the BRIC’s is high cost. Invading and occupying Iran will be high cost. Keeping fuel prices low is tough. Sending a converted Ohio Class sub to kill/capture 10 members of AQ is expensive. Creating a perpetual war state out of a Republic—that is ostensibly a democracy—is costly.

But if these are the things that America’s leaders really want, then by all means let’s stop dancing around the matter. Start printing dollars, get Sullivan’s Draft Board’s up and running, declare total war footing, ramp up the defense industrial base and COCOM’s, and re-create the world in America’s image.  Stop doing it piecemeal.

+++

*Form 990’s are free online. Guide Star is a good source. Register there for free.

The IAG is led by Dr. Eric V. Thompson. Here is a portion of IAG’s mission statement.

“Its regional specialists conduct analyses on issues associated with Europe, NATO, the Mediterranean and Black Sea littorals, Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific. Its functional specialties include leadership analysis, coalition integration and interoperability, proliferation, force structure and deployment, operational strategy, work associated with partner capacity building….The IAG approach to complex issues is characterized by rigorous methodology, a heavy reliance on primary sources, and the unmatched operational and policy expertise of our analysts. IAG research is also informed by its analysts’ years of in-country experience, an understanding of local perspectives, and in-house language expertise, including Arabic, Russian, French, and Persian. IAG is home to CNA’s Middle East experts and senior analysts who have for many years provided highly valued research informed by cultural and historic knowledge. This cadre of experts makes frequent visits to the Middle East, and has close relationships with research institutions in the region. IAG also has the experts on South Asia and the Indian Ocean littoral.”

The CNA received high praise from around the globe for its 2006 Climate Change Study that challenged the prevailing view of the, then, Bush White House that refused to accept the realities of global climate change. CNA brought a number of retired generals and admirals together to make the point that climate change was a threat to national security.

It is unclear what CNA’s mandate or charter was for the HTS effort. And it is unknown how deeply into HTS they traveled for information (what primary sources did they consult?). Sources are not optimistic about CNA’s report having any positive impact on changing the culture of HTS.

Indeed, looking at the IAG’s staff qualifications, it appears their study will focus mainly on macro issues.

Program Management: So Poor

Just prior to interim program manager Colonel Sharon Hamilton’s arrival at HTS HQ, HTS principals ordered personnel to return to their desks so that when Hamilton walked through The Landing everyone would look busy, said sources.

“Good instructors that were legitimately engaged in training students were called back to their office by Marcus Griffin to sit at their desk and look busy when Colonel Hamilton walked through the Landing.”

Sources noted that other instructors were ordered to develop last minute, ad hoc training programs that cut into independent studies by students “languishing” at hotel pool sides in the Kansas City/Lansing area.

“Some instructors were told to make up a training program for the last two weeks of the next class. Why? Because the program managers did not have any training planned! They claim they had discovered a gap in training just seven days before.”

“Other students languish at hotel swimming pools in the Kansas City/Lansing area and are conducting independent studies. Good students admit they are between jobs and are going to take all the money they can and resign before deploying.”

Observers indicate that it is obvious to students that HTS management is in the program for the money alone. Personnel within the program, in management’s view, are fungible. “Taking the money and running with it is the program management’s attitude.”

Colonel Hamilton has stepped on to The Bounty. Let’s hope she can salvage the best of the ship and set a clearer course.

The world has heard the term of art, HT (human terrain), for nearly five years now from Petraeus and his Apostles. It has also heard President Obama (a likely one term U.S. president) take up the COIN-HT mantra from Petraeus and make it his own. Petraeus’ push to make COIN-HT the central war waging doctrine of the US Army—and National Security Strategy–has produced truckloads of paper and likely has kept dying U.S. paper mills in business. The number of reports, articles, briefings, transcripts, manuscripts, PhD theses, studies, power point presentations, field surveys, and books that discuss COIN-HT and the Human Terrain System would likely fill up the Washington Redskins’ FEDEX field.

And now as General Petraeus dominates flat screens all over the world, it should come as no surprise that a COIN-based communications game plan is being used by Petraeus to convince the USA’s Human Terrain (American people, the U.S. Congress and influencers from every walk of life) that, like Felix the Cat, Petraeus can pull something out of his magic bag to stop the madness in Afghanistan and Iraq. Don’t forget, in the COIN-HT view, the battlefield—the HT—is global and electronic.  This is no silly conspiracy. It is simply part of the process and very much a marketing campaign.

But the problem is that Petraeus’ magic bag holds nothing more than TRADOC’s woeful Human Terrain System and a covert intelligence program. This is a global kill/capture effort designed by Petraeus and Admiral Olsson (USSOCOM)—and approved by Obama–that not only seeks to wipe out those antithetical to U.S. interests, but also enlists US businessmen/women, academics, journalists and US troops as global intelligence gathering platforms. We are all part of the COIN-HT analysis team now.

Petraeus has nothing more to offer.

And what has Petraeus accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan and, for that matter, in his overall area of responsibility as CENTCOM commanding general.  For example, how are things in Somalia? (AFRICOM is still ramping up).

Turmoil reigns in Afghanistan at every level political, social and economic. U.S. warfighters there and in Iraq are sick and they are tired and want to come home.  U.S. warfighters certainly do not want to babysit civilian personnel from the Human Terrain System.

Over in Iraq, it’s not really that much better: power shortages, riots, over a million Iraqis displaced, Shia and Sunni at knife’s edge, Christians violently moved out of country, and unlimited corruption at the national level. The environmental situation in Iraq literally stinks as the U.S. has left a toxic wasteland wherever it has encamped on a large scale.

Operation Iraq Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom will be remembered as Petraeus’ Wars: a time when for-profit contractors outnumbered the uniformed services.  A time when the reason to join the U.S. military (besides a failing U.S. economy) was simply an investment: training and experience that would lead to lucrative contracts in the private sector.  Protecting and defending the U.S. Constitution became little more than a Boy Scout Motto.  The USA has been at war for so long that it became the new American pastime. The American lexicon is numb to the meaning of war, killed in action, maimed in action, torture, Guantánamo Bay, and rendition. Calls for a civilian warfighting cadre come from the White House. All of U.S. government, all of society says the U.S. Interagency Task Force on COIN. The National Security State is threatening the foundations of the democratic republic.  Andrew Bacevich eloquently stated as much in a recent editorial.

Americans are now in uncharted waters.

In short, Petraeus has left a trail of destruction and controversy in his wake. And the larger issues of the direction of U.S. democracy swirl around this General who is arguably the second most powerful—and untouchable—politician in Washington, DC. This is the portion of Petraeus’ record that PSYOPS/MISO has been so adroit at eliminating from the theater of Senate Confirmations and Sunday talk shows on the main stream media. It is one heck of an effort!

The Human Terrain System which Petraeus’ so strongly supports is a microcosm, a snapshot, of the tragicomedy of war, politics and—today–America itself. Those at the bottom suffer for the madness of those at the top. And for what? It does not have to be that way.

* Paula Loyd-killed/died of wounds
* Nicole Suveges–killed
* Michael V. Bhatia–killed
* Lt Brian Brennan–(both legs amputated)
* Wesley Cureton–wounded, status unknown
* Scott Wilson–wounded, status unknown
* D. Ayala–guilty of manslaughter
* A. Salam, Afghani National killed by Ayala
* Issa Salomi–Hostage, released March 2010
* Name Unknown-shot in chest
* Name Unknown-wounded in vehicle rollover
* Name Unknown-wounded in vehicle rollover