The Black Notes - Amazing Grace

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Vulnerability

Most powerful, most vulnerable, fear to initiate escalation.



I would add the special susceptibility to asymmetry

Amplify’d from www.foreignpolicy.com

If cyberwar is such a threat, why is the Pentagon doing so little to prepare for it?

Last month, while reviewing his career a few days before retirement, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen discussed what he sees are the two "existential" threats facing the United States. After nuclear weapons, Mullen listed cyberattacks, which, he said, "actually can bring us to our knees."

But a more important argument against a cyberattack was the desire to avoid setting a precedent that other adversaries could later exploit against the United States. Similarly, the U.S. government considered hacking Osama bin Laden's bank accounts but refrained because officials feared that such an attack could cause investors to lose faith in the safeguards underpinning the global financial system. The common theme is that the United States, including its military forces, is among the heaviest users of computer networks and thus has the strongest incentive to avoid escalating combat in this domain. Read more at www.foreignpolicy.com

 

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The Man Who Knew Too Much

Dark times

Amplify’d from www.foreignpolicy.com

Libyans may be celebrating the killing of Muammar al-Qaddafi, but you'd better believe that Western governments are breathing a sigh of relief themselves.

Whether the NATO countries -- who had only a few years ago welcomed Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi back into the international fold in exchange for his renouncing his chemical and nuclear weapons programs and allowing U.S. and British experts to come and help dismantle them -- played any role in what certainly appeared in first reports from the scene to have been the summary execution of the Libyan dictator will probably never be known. What the video evidence does prove is that the Libyan revolutionary forces did not find him already dead or killed by a NATO airstrike; nor does the initial claim that he was killed in "crossfire" between insurgent forces and diehard regime loyalists stand up to even the most minimal scrutiny.

NATO does acknowledge that its planes bombarded the convoy in which Qaddafi was fleeing the city of Sirte shortly before it was intercepted on the ground by the insurgents, but it has denied it even knew he was there. If that is true, and the French, British, and Americans did not try to make their own luck, then they certainly were very lucky indeed.

Qaddafi was, quite simply, a man who knew too much. Taken alive, he would have almost certainly have been handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC),

he would almost certainly have revealed the extent of his intimate relations with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the details of his government's collaboration with Western intelligence services in counterterrorism, with the European Union in limiting migration from Libyan shores, and in the granting of major contracts to big Western oil and construction firms.

He would have had much to tell, for this cooperation was extensive.

To the contrary, both the British and French governments were soon falling all over themselves to curry favor with a newly "respectable" Qaddafi. The Daily Mail reproduced a facsimile of the letter that, while prime minister, Tony Blair wrote to Saif Qaddafi to help him with his research for his LSE doctorate.

Sarkozy, to the consternation even of many members of his own cabinet, invited Qaddafi to Paris in Dec. 2007, for an official state visit, the upshot of which was billions of dollars in contracts from Libya won by French firms.

Washington, Paris, or London -- links between Libyan intelligence and the CIA were particularly strong, as an archive of secret documents unearthed by Human Rights Watch researchers has revealed. Read more at www.foreignpolicy.com

 

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‘We Came, We Saw, He Died’ Hillary Clinton Reacts To Confirmed News Of Gaddafi’s Death

A Hillary Clinton moment of joy

Amplify’d from www.mediaite.com

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the midst of a series of news interviews yesterday when news broke that Muammar Gaddafi had been captured. So press pool cameras were rolling at the very moment that Clinton learned of unconfirmed reports of Gaddafi’s capture, which elicited a stately “wow!” Shortly there after, the same cameras captured the moment she learned that Gaddafi was dead, which had the Secretary of State joyously proclaiming “we came, we saw, he died!”

It’s a candid moment of joy for a senior administration official celebrating Read more at www.mediaite.com

 

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US vows to act unilaterally in Pakistan

The public accusation added to tensions in America’s relationship with Pakistan, which plummeted to a new low this year as Pakistan arrested a C.I.A. contractor and American commandoes killed Osama bin Laden deep inside the country in May.



The Obama administration decided to take a harder line with Pakistan in a meeting at the White House on Sept. 29 in the wake of a 19-hour assault on the American Embassy in Kabul by heavily armed insurgents linked to the Haqqani network.

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton;

the United States would act unilaterally if necessary to attack extremist groups that use the country as a haven to kill Americans.

“This is a time for clarity,” Mrs. Clinton declared in Kabul, Afghanistan,

“No one should be in any way mistaken about allowing this to continue without paying a very big price.” Read more at www.nytimes.com

 

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Shot in the head at close range - God is great

I guess peaceful democratic protesters can be a little rough sometimes.

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

MISURATA, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s last moments Thursday were as violent as the uprising that overthrew him.

In a cellphone video that went viral on the Internet, the deposed Libyan leader is seen splayed on the hood of a truck and then stumbling amid a frenzied crowd, seemingly begging for mercy. He is next seen on the ground, with fighters grabbing his hair. Blood pours down his head, drenching his golden brown khakis, as the crowd shouts, “God is great!”

Colonel Qaddafi’s body was shown in later photographs, with bullet holes apparently fired into his head at what forensic experts said was close range, raising the possibility that he was executed by anti-Qaddafi fighters.

The official version of events offered by Libya’s new leaders — that Colonel Qaddafi was killed in a cross-fire — did not appear to be supported by the photographs and videos that streamed over the Internet all day long, raising questions about the government’s control of the militias in a country that has been divided into competing regions and factions. Read more at www.nytimes.com

 

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US Secretary of State openly calls for killing

In 2003 Libya wrote to the UN Security Council formally accepting "responsibility for the actions of its officials" in respect to the Lockerbie bombing. Gaddafi agreed to pay up to US$2.7 billion to the victims' families, and completed most of the payout in 2003. Later that year, Britain and Bulgaria co-sponsored a UN resolution to remove the UN sanctions entirely.

Amplify’d from www.cbsnews.com

"We hope he can be captured or killed soon so that you don't have to fear him any longer," Clinton told students and others at a town hall-style gathering in the capital city.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with Libya Transitional National Council President Mustafa Abdel-Jalil at the World Islamic Call Society Headquarters during a visit to Tripoli in Libya Tuesday Oct. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Lamarque)

Until now, the U.S. has generally avoided saying that Qaddafi should be killed. Read more at www.cbsnews.com

 

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Julian Assange pictured in Anonymous mask at Occupy London protest

Hero? Infant?



Assange was ordered to remove his mask based on recent London law forbidding facial covering

Amplify’d from sociable.co

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has been pictured in an Anonymous mask at the Occupy London protest on Saturday. Assange joined 3,000 other anti-capitalist protesters near London’s Stock Exchange.

Photographer Mike Kemp captured these images of Julian Assange, who was later forced to remove the mask by a London police officer.

Assange then made an impromptu speech to a section of the protesters concerning anonymity. He stated, “Under a new section used, people cannot wear masks in London, they cannot wear facial coverings in London, and that basic anonymity is denied to people. I say, that sometimes it may be legitimate to deny anonymity, but we should not accept it until Swiss bank account and offshore bank accounts are also denied of their anonymity.” Read more at sociable.co

 

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Julian Assange pictured in Anonymous mask at Occupy London protest

Hero? Infant?



Assange was forced to shed his mask due to new London laws forbidding face covering

Amplify’d from sociable.co

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has been pictured in an Anonymous mask at the Occupy London protest on Saturday. Assange joined 3,000 other anti-capitalist protesters near London’s Stock Exchange.

Photographer Mike Kemp captured these images of Julian Assange, who was later forced to remove the mask by a London police officer.

Assange then made an impromptu speech to a section of the protesters concerning anonymity. He stated, “Under a new section used, people cannot wear masks in London, they cannot wear facial coverings in London, and that basic anonymity is denied to people. I say, that sometimes it may be legitimate to deny anonymity, but we should not accept it until Swiss bank account and offshore bank accounts are also denied of their anonymity.” Read more at sociable.co

 

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Live forever

Note the materialism here.  So mild, so complete.

Help: Lonely and cold

Sent by Vinnie Hagen

Michelle Obama's Africa trip: Cost to US tax payers

The use of Air Force aircraft alone for the June 21-27 trip cost $424,142

Amplify’d from blogs.telegraph.co.uk

Without all the figures available, it is impossible to establish the total cost to the public purse of Michelle Obama’s 42 days of holiday during that period, which included her trip to Spain last year (though not the Obamas' recent sojourn in Martha’s Vineyard).

But we do now know for sure that her visit to Africa in June, with a sizeable entourage in tow, cost taxpayers at the very minimum $424,142 in transportation costs, according to figures obtained by Washington-based watchdog Judicial Watch. As the 'Washington Whispers' blog at US News and World Report noted:

Michelle Obama with her daughters in South Africa in June. (Photo: AP)

First lady Michelle Obama's family trip to South Africa and Botswana in June cost taxpayers well over $424,000, according to new accounting based on Air Force manifests obtained by Judicial Watch, a taxpayer watchdog group.

The use of Air Force aircraft alone for the June 21-27 trip cost $424,142, said the group, and that doesn't include the food, lodging, and ground transportation for the 21 family and staff members.

This trip was as much an opportunity for the Obama family to go on a safari as it was a trip to conduct government business. This junket wasted tax dollars and the resources of our overextended military. No wonder we had to sue to pry loose this information. Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk

 

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