Remember that the ongoing theory (possibly confirmed) is that Manning (are whoever leaked the documents and blamed it on it was) was the provider of not only these documents, but rumor has it that some of it went towards the latest WAPO article about the intel community, and I likely predict that by summer's end Assange will have at least one or two more of these style releases from documents provided by Manning. Also, often some of the HUMINT level stuff tends to get "leaked" into SIPR during operations in country and other hectic times (the surge for example).
From TFA, I am seeing a strange trend. They are making some outright statements that fit in with what the/. crowd has been discussing, often enforcing the view that the net should be neutral. Their words however, seem to hide subversive tactics. for example: "This means that for the first time, wireline broadband providers would not be able to discriminate against or prioritize lawful Internet content, applications or services in a way that causes harm to users or competition. Meaning that centralized agencies can shut down - or degrade access - to "unlawful" (defined by US government) content such as wikileaks, etc. (taken from comment section from TFA) So, while this looks good on the surface, even surprisingly so, my gut is to not trust either of these entities. Cautious skepticism is the name of the game here.
As a person who has been engaged in both tradition university and online courses, I can tell you that neither is perfect, but I would have to lean towards Mr. Gates statement. The coursework is similarly structured, there is still interaction between Profs and students, and also student-student interaction. You do lack the physical connection, and therefore the social network you might build, but for a non traditional student like myself, this really has fairly little value in the first place. One of the beauties of online work is that with non-semester based work, you can work at your own pace. So my international studies class I can whiz through, while I can take the extra time and effort on math that my feeble brain requires. To me it is an exercise in efficiency, but at the same time discipline. I find it hard to believe many of the 17-21 year olds who populate the majority of university have the amount of discipline to dedicate themselves to this format. So I think online courses can and will evolve but mostly for non-traditional students. One thing I struggle with though is the disconnect between the thirst for knowledge vs the practical knowledge for the profession I am currently undertaking.
PS. Things like Opencoursewar and the Khan academy have some superior classes!
Let me clarify some things. While I do not believe anyone is questioning the letter of the law in regards to such matters;as all the documents I have seen are focused at warning those who hold S or above clearance not to access the documents, and those people have a responsibility to safeguard matters regarding national security; the issue seems to be about the public and the non clearance holding military who should, as citizens, have equal access to information that is public already. The threatening of non-clearance holding military is part of the key to this issue. What is the risk? The information is in the public domain, the enemy has it, everyone has it, there is no getting it "back". Regarding the documents themselves, they actually do not reveal anything that those of us informed on the issues didn't already know about, (which basically boils down to, yes, were funding the Pakis, who fund ISI who funds our enemies, that we pay money to warlords for convoy security while preaching about no tolerance to the Karzai government, that the war was and continues to go badly and that Pakistan is more of a problem than a help due to the sensitivity of its national security aka it's nukes) I have analyzed some of the documents, and have not managed to find one yet that contained a name. I know that the 10-15k documents withheld were kept because of Wikileaks clear intent on trying to sanitize the information. Wikileaks also contacted, through a third party, the White house and offered for them to sanitize it, who then of course would rather not take the hit to pride than see any deaths occur, at least that way they can demonize Wikileaks, right? As far as moral relativism goes, I will flatly call the bullshit card. To conjure this idea up that "truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to some group of persons" which translated in this context you mean that "as long as we continue to think we are right in all we do, and no one questions the status quo, then we are right." is simply an exercise in misdirection and shows how ill informed you are. Let me tell you, on the battlefield, blood hardly ever comes without guilt (and when it does, it is disguised in cognitive dissonance) , and moral authority likes to sit at his desk in the rear, and is rarely seen. If American moral authority did show up, I think the first thing noticed would be the unneeded deaths of American's in wars that have no benefit to the people of either nation involved (other than the rich elite), wars that have ostensibly caused our nation to be less secure, wars that are the direct result of our interventionism in the 80's and elsewhere, and the lack of our foresight to learn histories lessons. And it is the Americans who cheer this war machine on without having the slightest clue what the reality of war is, those are them that are no different from the radical imams to me. Bottom line, Iraq and Afghanistan are literally not only unwinnable (barring decades and more of perseverance) but were and are indeed mismanaged, misunderstood, unnecessary, and even morally questionable.
Because the politics of the largest global hegemony (though rapidly declining) has no effect on nerds right? I mean, if you hide in your basement, and you can't see them, then that means they can't see you!
Similar to what corbettw says, the claims that the CIA funded or trained Bin Laden are false. Let me clarify though. Bin Laden was working with (sometimes rogue or unaccounted for) Pakistani ISI. While yes the US may have indirectly given money to him through the ISI, it should be noted that once funds were handed over to ISI, we had no control of it, and actually used that as a buffer to keep the Russians from getting mad at us. I have recently been studying the Middle East, and most recently the Afghan situation extensively. I have read books from over 4 different former CIA agents who had direct involvement with the issues surrounding Bin Laden, from the 80's to modern times, and I have seen not even the slightest hint that we actually did fund or train him. That being said, it has been proposed by one CIA officer, in this way: "I never saw any indication of this, but if we were doing it (referring to funding OBL) then it was so well hidden that no one at the CIA station in Islamabad knew about it." So, as much as I find fault in our failings to "follow through" with Afghanistan in the 80's (People like McWilliams saw the infiltration of radical islam, but our fear of the Russians overcame, and we basically have now reached the fulmination of our failure to see the long term consequences of interventionism in the international community, as we continue to do so today.
There are two outcomes (long term) that I see for the internet and computing for the masses. Those are, wither we basically give up all control, and walk around figuratively naked, or we, the geeks, must actively start promoting things such as encryption and OSS (*nix) as a standard for even non geeks. Imagine facebook level popularity of encryption, privacy, and control of computing systems. The catch is that as the geeks started the internet, politicians like to think they own it (or their portions of it). We must fight back! The internet will route around any damage.
You know we around/. like to joke about things like encryption and the year of the linux desktop, but the more intrusive governments get, the more I see the internet as a whole routing around this damage and increasing both the use of *nix based systems and encryption. Imagine facebook levels of popularity but with encryption, privacy, and control as primary factors of computing for the masses. Because, in the end, its either that or we might as well just start walking around naked because we have "nothing to hide".
First, this "draw down" is a perfect example of political agendas fucking up military strategy. We should have drawn down a long ass time ago! Recent interviews I've read talk about the lack of professionalism in the IA/IP, the lack of running water and electricity, and have heard in numerous interviews with Iraqi's a theme, that at least dictatorship was more merciful on the general population. Any other similar wars like this going on....? We should have never been in Iraq in the first place, and we must expose and punish all those involved in blatantly sending Americans to their deaths and to kill innocents. My prediction is that Afghanistan will follow this pattern, the shift of focus to another "enemy" (Probably the unjustly demonized Iran) and in while the American public forgets about Ganny we will do the same thing, will the same ambiguous and debatable results, with almost no benefit to America other than some control of natural resources. We despise and often actively undermine true democracy in the middle east (See Iran, Lebanon etc). This is all just political posturing with little tangible improvement for us, but I guess its better late than never...
Sorry I got on a roll and forgot to answer the part about conducting the war if we do stay. I personally believe that if we are to stay there, we must find some way to unite the Afghan people, and FORCE (not literally) them to fight (down to every able man) against the radicals that took over post-soviet invasion. Imagine for a second, the American revolution (we were once the "terrorists") with our militias doing just as much fighting with other militias as with our own army and the Brits army! It would never have worked. If this does not happen, our only chance would be to have another local power influence control, whether politically, militarily, or religiously. This is one of the problems I have with our demonizing of Iran. If we would stop being so blind, we would realize that Iran could be one of the best controlling forces of the region if applied properly, yet we take every chance we get to alienate them. Why? We were the ones acting subversively against them long ago. And in regards to their "nuclear" issues, most everyone with half a brain knows that they would not strike first, and that Israel would be the one wanting to strike them if they obtained nukes, which they most likely will not, as they probably plan to stay at "breakout" stage. This is where you start to see how interconnected our international policies are, but even more so, how our politicians fail at understanding them and their consequences. If a lowly enlisted grunt like myself can come to these conclusions, WTF is wrong with Washington? They are blinded by lobbyist and money. The root cause of the majority of not just international but domestic issues in the US. Ok, once again I'll be quiet.
Well, I should note that my views on Iraq (which I have direct experience with) and Afghanistan,where most of my knowledge is either academic (I have a stack of books and reports 5 feet high just on Afghanistan!) or through friends, family who are involved (some at high levels) have often evolved with the amount of knowledge I gain, at at what level I look at the situation. For example, before my first time in Iraq I was the most gung-ho grunt around. Experience among other things changed this, and I opposed the war, but it is very hard to think on a large scale when participating in the small scale. But I digress, and have not answered your question. At the moment, as do many of the officers and enlisted I have talked to who are active in "Ganny" agree that we should not be there. First, not only does history show us that attempted conquer after attempted conquer, (including Russia, the British, and Rome as the most cited examples) Afghanistan is not a place that has ever been receptive to foreign rule. Second, our objectives are far too abstract. I often hear conflicting statements from politicians, some say we are there to prevent a safe haven for terrorists, but if that is the case, there are more AQ in places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, UAE, and especially Pakistan than there are in Afghanistan. Not to mention the amount of funding flowing from third parties with interest in AQ and AQ like organizations that we do little about. We even fund the militant talibs with protection money for convoys! Others say we are there to help prevent Pakistan being overrun with terrorists (who we are afraid will attempt to take control of Paki's nukes), but if that is the case, why are we not forcing ISI and Paki to help destroy these enemies? It is because, as I said before, they don't want to! Others say we are there to help restore the people of Afghanistan to a "Representative Government" but I have multiple problems with this. One, the culture is not conductive to such things, there is far too much fighting between Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras, Pashtuns, Foreign Arabs, et al. If they don't even claim to be Afghan, but rather claim their ethnicity, how can they unite to rule themselves? Sure we could do it for them, but we would be there for another 150+ years. Not something I think we are willing to do. The other question this brings up, is, "Where do you stop in your effort to "liberate" peoples from oppression?" I have been places I might consider worse than Iraq or Afghanistan (usually in Africa). So should we be "liberating" the people of Darfur, Sudan, Somalia (I thought we learned our lesson there, apparently not with recent events) etc? I have said it before, and I will say it again, tactically, our military is pretty much capable of anything you throw at them. It is strategically that we have failed, and I blame this on a handful of issues. A few of these being, a blatant disrespect for learning histories lessons, the infiltration of the military system with political "control/influence", and the lack of ranks above 0-6 not having the balls to tell truth to power, because once you get stars on, your are no longer military, you are a politician (With a few exceptions!) who is more concerned with keeping your job. Things like this are why we have had an influx of disillusioned CIA, DOD, and military people writings books (I hope one day I join the ranks) that call out these and many more fallacies. Give the American people a noble cause with their interests truly at heart to fight for, and they will fight for it till they bleed to death. Lie and tell them something is noble when it is not, the lie will only last so long before large amounts of us start to wake up. Ok, I really could go on and on about this stuff, (maybe I should start a blog) but I think you get my point, so I'll shutup now.
As a USMC Iraq combat vet, who has for the past few months been studying the Afghan situation extensively, I can say that this is a good thing. Anybody who is actually involved knows that the Paki, and more specifically ISI, have been a problem for us since the early 80's, and not much has changed. The Paki's have and will continue to say "What? Not us!" but they are full of shit. The fact that the politicians are relatively good at hiding this fact undermines the general public's knowledge about the situation, and therefore it is a major part of controlling public opinion about our war. The facts are that we send money to ISI (often bypassing paki authorities completely) who then have (sometimes rogue) officers directly funding everything from afghan warlords, to Al Queda, to Paki Talibs, and on down the line. The fact of the matter is that Pakistan has absolutely no interest in really getting rid of their extremists, on either border, because Islamabad has so much fear of India, the militants are a tool they plan to use if needed. They will only do enough to keep our money flowing to them, but not enough to truly alienate the extremists. Its enormously complicated, with factors such as Iran and Russia playing into the equation. Regardless, I just hope that Assange did a good enough job purging of intel that could jeopardize people, but when so much is being hid, this kind of knowledge should be made public, albeit perhaps a bit with a bit more ambiguous information.
In this age, where more and more people and institutions are trying to control, and intercept, the flow of information, encryption is the future. Anyone with some knowledge in the area knows that LE et al have the ability to intercept all kinds of comm, emails, phone calls, etc. Just as you should automatically assume that any email you send to anyone is compromised and therefore public knowledge, the same for phone conversations. The only way around this is to encrypt if at all possible, though the demand has to rise for things to be more pragmatic and easily accessed. It is still an interesting method, but much like the internet, phone systems were not designed with security as a main priority.
When are people going to learn that, though often the rhetoric we pay close attention to calls for action against the west because it is the "Great Satan", and all that goes with that, that the line many westerners have been fed about others hating the west because of its democracy, freedom of speech, and general ideals is a crock of shit. This is a line fed to the masses that has unfortunately become almost universally accepted by those with only cursory knowledge of international policy on a broad scale. Most (people, governments) hate the west for our international policy regarding them. There are often the vocal few who use the propaganda of hating western ideals as inflammatory tools for recruitment, but with true goals of changing of international policy. This is the reason why Americans hear so few moderate voices opposing those who hate us; the moderates are out there and often do not approve of the opposition's actions, but they hate U.S. policies with just as much venom and passion. The sad thing is that so many people would read what GP just said and nod their head in agreement, and they would be wrong.
Now, back OT. Just recently I read an article (2600) about the use of facebook to manipulate local populations (college campuses) on a fairly large scale, done by one person. While I naturally doubt China's claims, it is not infeasible that if the US wanted to, they could do something of a similar fashion.
I'm suprised no-one has listed backtrack yet. I always have one flash drive and one dvd of it in my kit with me at all times (among some other things listed). It rocks for throwing up metasploit or cracking WEP real fast. It is a merge of Whax and Auditor) I also miss PHLAK.
Hey, major resources in developing countries has worked out so well in the past right!?...input list of third world countries beset by war, corruption, famine and secretarian violence here..... oh maybe not. (stolen from the daily show or colbert report can't remember which)
Anybody involved with TOR knows that EXIT nodes are a big potential risk, and not only have there been rumors of official government sponsored (and therefore tapped) exit nodes, but even/. had a story about it a long ass time ago. Recently the TOR guys have been trying to curtail this via a few different methods, but it is nothing new. Regardless, exit node sniffing is a novel way to get information, (for example, allow only.gov or.edu traffic)
Indeed I understand the differences, and I'm quite sure it is some good technology and although lacking in range etc, it might be slightly useful. This and the MICLIC are used mostly for traditional minefield clearing operations, and in Iraq have been used almost never, but in Afghan are used a bit more for the routes that are considered so volatile they are "minefeilds". What I was pointing out is that we wouldn't need any of this tech if we GTFO of there and stopped trying to fight unwinnable wars. Tactically, our military can take just about anything thrown its way, it is strategically that we have failed, and this rests not on my fellow grunts shoulders, but on politicians, government officials, and high level military leaders, and those around them that disagree with matters but hold their tongue in silent acquiescence.
Yay, lets invent something that we already have (mine line clearing device, aka MICLIC) and put it ona robot, so much better! How about the fucking old grey haired bastards that are too pussy to fix our current wars snap out of their cold war mindset and start investing in things more applicable to our current situation. Oh yeah, I'm a USMC Iraq vet.
No, its like a doctor operating on a patient but forgoing gauze and stiches because of time and money constraints, and then the doctor infusing blood to the patient in one arm while the patient bleeds out the other. The technology for containing such a spill is available. It has not been used. I heard an interesting report on the radio over the weekend(no sources unfortunately) from a person who had attended some of the best oil boom classes in the industry, who said that they had looked at all the pictures of the coast and had not seen a single boom done properly, and that if done properly they could have easily (barring actual resources, or amount of booms available) not let anything but the smallest blobs of oil touch the coast.
The problem is that the people that are aware of the problems are far fewer than the sheeple who continue without a care. I'm afraid that until something extreme shocks the nation nothing can be said or done to "wake up" enough people to actually get fundamental issues changed. And those groups that do many of those things are often misguided, extremists to a point of flaw, or infiltrated by those that are. Yeah, the problem is also that it is no longer just the US. You think canucks or Euro's are any more immune to this (on a relative scale?) , yeah, were all pretty much fucked methinks.
The following is copy pasted from one of my earlier posts since I didnt feel like rewriting, most of your points are true, but I would like to bring the following to your attention.
When are people going to learn that, though often the rhetoric we pay close attention to calls for action against the west because it is the "Great Satan", and all that goes with that, that the line many westerners have been fed in the lead up to the wars about Muslims hating the west because of its democracy, freedom of speech, and general ideals is a crock of shit. This is a line fed to the masses that has unfortunately become almost universally accepted by those with only cursory knowledge of Islam. Muslims hate the west for our international policy regarding them. A very good book I just recently finished explains this quite well (Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq ; Micheal Sheuer) even states that although our president and others starting talking about the importance that we bring democracy to the middle east, even bin Ladens early warning clearly stated the grievances muslims had with America in particular. Schueur says "the Islamists' indictment sheet against the united States has been precise...for more than a decade. 1. The U.S. military and civilian presence in the Arab Peninsula and other parts of the Islamic world 2. Unqualified U.S. support for Israel 3. U.S. support for states oppressing Muslims, especially China, India, and Russia, and the Arab police states. 4. U.S. exploitation of Muslim oil and suppression of its price
All of these things are facts of our policy, and our neglect or unwillingness to recognize these as some of the core issues feeding not only radical Islam, but even moderate Islam. (Really, be objective and put yourselves in their shoes, would you not feel the same way?) In fact, Bin Laden and his ilk were around during Ayatollah Khomeini's utter failure to get Muslims to kill themselves by attacking America because they drank beer, voted in elections, and attempted to ensure that women and men are treated equally. "Even the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters who killed themselves in attacks against the U.S. and French targets in Beirut in 82-83 did so under the umbrella of the ayatolla's rhetoric, but they were in fact executing nationalist operations aimed at driving what they perceived as occupying Westerners out of Lebanon." For anyone to believe otherwise, that "The Islamists and their supporters are warring against the United States because they hate Americans as Americans, as well as everything they stand for in the politcal and social spheres, and in the end intend to eradicate our society from the planet....If true... our choice is black and white simple: we can completely abandon our beliefs, our lifestyles, and how we behave in the domestic, political, and social arenas to appease our enemies, or we can undertake the task of killing every last Muslim because that is what they intend to do to us."
If we truly were on a campaign for hearts and minds, it would require an out of the ordinary grasp of reality and common sense from the elite, and would also require that the last 3 presidents "recant most of what they have sworn to be true about our enemies motivations, to take on the Saudi and Israeli lobbies, and to begin to destroy the energy-policy status quo..."
"This is the reason why Americans hear so few "moderate Muslim voices" opposing bin Laden and the Islamists; the moderates are out there and often do not approve of the Islamists' military actions, but they hate U.S. policies with just as much venom and passion as the Islamists, per the polls by Pew, Gallup, BBC, and Zogby."
Most of this is the result of an western population, political elite and else, who have studied little of the widely varying cultures, nations, and peoples that make up the "Muslim nation". By increasing deamnation of the entire Muslim religion, we enrage and "contribute to their silent acquescence in the face of the Islamists' arguments and mili
This is where the difference in pacifist comes into play, the common misconception is that pacifist = never resorts to violence. I consider myself a pacifist, but will not hesitate to kill someone who puts my or my families life in danger. You're definition of pacifist is flawed.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember that the ongoing theory (possibly confirmed) is that Manning (are whoever leaked the documents and blamed it on it was) was the provider of not only these documents, but rumor has it that some of it went towards the latest WAPO article about the intel community, and I likely predict that by summer's end Assange will have at least one or two more of these style releases from documents provided by Manning. Also, often some of the HUMINT level stuff tends to get "leaked" into SIPR during operations in country and other hectic times (the surge for example).
I updated my settings to show an email if you wish to contact me.
From TFA, I am seeing a strange trend. They are making some outright statements that fit in with what the /. crowd has been discussing, often enforcing the view that the net should be neutral. Their words however, seem to hide subversive tactics. for example: "This means that for the first time, wireline broadband providers would not be able to discriminate against or prioritize lawful Internet content, applications or services in a way that causes harm to users or competition. Meaning that centralized agencies can shut down - or degrade access - to "unlawful" (defined by US government) content such as wikileaks, etc. (taken from comment section from TFA) So, while this looks good on the surface, even surprisingly so, my gut is to not trust either of these entities. Cautious skepticism is the name of the game here.
As a person who has been engaged in both tradition university and online courses, I can tell you that neither is perfect, but I would have to lean towards Mr. Gates statement. The coursework is similarly structured, there is still interaction between Profs and students, and also student-student interaction. You do lack the physical connection, and therefore the social network you might build, but for a non traditional student like myself, this really has fairly little value in the first place. One of the beauties of online work is that with non-semester based work, you can work at your own pace. So my international studies class I can whiz through, while I can take the extra time and effort on math that my feeble brain requires. To me it is an exercise in efficiency, but at the same time discipline. I find it hard to believe many of the 17-21 year olds who populate the majority of university have the amount of discipline to dedicate themselves to this format. So I think online courses can and will evolve but mostly for non-traditional students. One thing I struggle with though is the disconnect between the thirst for knowledge vs the practical knowledge for the profession I am currently undertaking.
PS. Things like Opencoursewar and the Khan academy have some superior classes!
Let me clarify some things. While I do not believe anyone is questioning the letter of the law in regards to such matters ;as all the documents I have seen are focused at warning those who hold S or above clearance not to access the documents, and those people have a responsibility to safeguard matters regarding national security; the issue seems to be about the public and the non clearance holding military who should, as citizens, have equal access to information that is public already. The threatening of non-clearance holding military is part of the key to this issue. What is the risk? The information is in the public domain, the enemy has it, everyone has it, there is no getting it "back". Regarding the documents themselves, they actually do not reveal anything that those of us informed on the issues didn't already know about, (which basically boils down to, yes, were funding the Pakis, who fund ISI who funds our enemies, that we pay money to warlords for convoy security while preaching about no tolerance to the Karzai government, that the war was and continues to go badly and that Pakistan is more of a problem than a help due to the sensitivity of its national security aka it's nukes) I have analyzed some of the documents, and have not managed to find one yet that contained a name. I know that the 10-15k documents withheld were kept because of Wikileaks clear intent on trying to sanitize the information. Wikileaks also contacted, through a third party, the White house and offered for them to sanitize it, who then of course would rather not take the hit to pride than see any deaths occur, at least that way they can demonize Wikileaks, right? As far as moral relativism goes, I will flatly call the bullshit card. To conjure this idea up that "truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to some group of persons" which translated in this context you mean that "as long as we continue to think we are right in all we do, and no one questions the status quo, then we are right." is simply an exercise in misdirection and shows how ill informed you are. Let me tell you, on the battlefield, blood hardly ever comes without guilt (and when it does, it is disguised in cognitive dissonance) , and moral authority likes to sit at his desk in the rear, and is rarely seen. If American moral authority did show up, I think the first thing noticed would be the unneeded deaths of American's in wars that have no benefit to the people of either nation involved (other than the rich elite), wars that have ostensibly caused our nation to be less secure, wars that are the direct result of our interventionism in the 80's and elsewhere, and the lack of our foresight to learn histories lessons. And it is the Americans who cheer this war machine on without having the slightest clue what the reality of war is, those are them that are no different from the radical imams to me. Bottom line, Iraq and Afghanistan are literally not only unwinnable (barring decades and more of perseverance) but were and are indeed mismanaged, misunderstood, unnecessary, and even morally questionable.
Because the politics of the largest global hegemony (though rapidly declining) has no effect on nerds right? I mean, if you hide in your basement, and you can't see them, then that means they can't see you!
Similar to what corbettw says, the claims that the CIA funded or trained Bin Laden are false. Let me clarify though. Bin Laden was working with (sometimes rogue or unaccounted for) Pakistani ISI. While yes the US may have indirectly given money to him through the ISI, it should be noted that once funds were handed over to ISI, we had no control of it, and actually used that as a buffer to keep the Russians from getting mad at us. I have recently been studying the Middle East, and most recently the Afghan situation extensively. I have read books from over 4 different former CIA agents who had direct involvement with the issues surrounding Bin Laden, from the 80's to modern times, and I have seen not even the slightest hint that we actually did fund or train him. That being said, it has been proposed by one CIA officer, in this way: "I never saw any indication of this, but if we were doing it (referring to funding OBL) then it was so well hidden that no one at the CIA station in Islamabad knew about it." So, as much as I find fault in our failings to "follow through" with Afghanistan in the 80's (People like McWilliams saw the infiltration of radical islam, but our fear of the Russians overcame, and we basically have now reached the fulmination of our failure to see the long term consequences of interventionism in the international community, as we continue to do so today.
There are two outcomes (long term) that I see for the internet and computing for the masses. Those are, wither we basically give up all control, and walk around figuratively naked, or we, the geeks, must actively start promoting things such as encryption and OSS (*nix) as a standard for even non geeks. Imagine facebook level popularity of encryption, privacy, and control of computing systems. The catch is that as the geeks started the internet, politicians like to think they own it (or their portions of it). We must fight back! The internet will route around any damage.
You know we around /. like to joke about things like encryption and the year of the linux desktop, but the more intrusive governments get, the more I see the internet as a whole routing around this damage and increasing both the use of *nix based systems and encryption. Imagine facebook levels of popularity but with encryption, privacy, and control as primary factors of computing for the masses. Because, in the end, its either that or we might as well just start walking around naked because we have "nothing to hide".
First, this "draw down" is a perfect example of political agendas fucking up military strategy. We should have drawn down a long ass time ago! Recent interviews I've read talk about the lack of professionalism in the IA/IP, the lack of running water and electricity, and have heard in numerous interviews with Iraqi's a theme, that at least dictatorship was more merciful on the general population. Any other similar wars like this going on....? We should have never been in Iraq in the first place, and we must expose and punish all those involved in blatantly sending Americans to their deaths and to kill innocents. My prediction is that Afghanistan will follow this pattern, the shift of focus to another "enemy" (Probably the unjustly demonized Iran) and in while the American public forgets about Ganny we will do the same thing, will the same ambiguous and debatable results, with almost no benefit to America other than some control of natural resources. We despise and often actively undermine true democracy in the middle east (See Iran, Lebanon etc). This is all just political posturing with little tangible improvement for us, but I guess its better late than never...
Sorry I got on a roll and forgot to answer the part about conducting the war if we do stay. I personally believe that if we are to stay there, we must find some way to unite the Afghan people, and FORCE (not literally) them to fight (down to every able man) against the radicals that took over post-soviet invasion. Imagine for a second, the American revolution (we were once the "terrorists") with our militias doing just as much fighting with other militias as with our own army and the Brits army! It would never have worked. If this does not happen, our only chance would be to have another local power influence control, whether politically, militarily, or religiously. This is one of the problems I have with our demonizing of Iran. If we would stop being so blind, we would realize that Iran could be one of the best controlling forces of the region if applied properly, yet we take every chance we get to alienate them. Why? We were the ones acting subversively against them long ago. And in regards to their "nuclear" issues, most everyone with half a brain knows that they would not strike first, and that Israel would be the one wanting to strike them if they obtained nukes, which they most likely will not, as they probably plan to stay at "breakout" stage. This is where you start to see how interconnected our international policies are, but even more so, how our politicians fail at understanding them and their consequences. If a lowly enlisted grunt like myself can come to these conclusions, WTF is wrong with Washington? They are blinded by lobbyist and money. The root cause of the majority of not just international but domestic issues in the US. Ok, once again I'll be quiet.
Well, I should note that my views on Iraq (which I have direct experience with) and Afghanistan ,where most of my knowledge is either academic (I have a stack of books and reports 5 feet high just on Afghanistan!) or through friends, family who are involved (some at high levels) have often evolved with the amount of knowledge I gain, at at what level I look at the situation. For example, before my first time in Iraq I was the most gung-ho grunt around. Experience among other things changed this, and I opposed the war, but it is very hard to think on a large scale when participating in the small scale. But I digress, and have not answered your question. At the moment, as do many of the officers and enlisted I have talked to who are active in "Ganny" agree that we should not be there. First, not only does history show us that attempted conquer after attempted conquer, (including Russia, the British, and Rome as the most cited examples) Afghanistan is not a place that has ever been receptive to foreign rule. Second, our objectives are far too abstract. I often hear conflicting statements from politicians, some say we are there to prevent a safe haven for terrorists, but if that is the case, there are more AQ in places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, UAE, and especially Pakistan than there are in Afghanistan. Not to mention the amount of funding flowing from third parties with interest in AQ and AQ like organizations that we do little about. We even fund the militant talibs with protection money for convoys! Others say we are there to help prevent Pakistan being overrun with terrorists (who we are afraid will attempt to take control of Paki's nukes), but if that is the case, why are we not forcing ISI and Paki to help destroy these enemies? It is because, as I said before, they don't want to! Others say we are there to help restore the people of Afghanistan to a "Representative Government" but I have multiple problems with this. One, the culture is not conductive to such things, there is far too much fighting between Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras, Pashtuns, Foreign Arabs, et al. If they don't even claim to be Afghan, but rather claim their ethnicity, how can they unite to rule themselves? Sure we could do it for them, but we would be there for another 150+ years. Not something I think we are willing to do. The other question this brings up, is, "Where do you stop in your effort to "liberate" peoples from oppression?" I have been places I might consider worse than Iraq or Afghanistan (usually in Africa). So should we be "liberating" the people of Darfur, Sudan, Somalia (I thought we learned our lesson there, apparently not with recent events) etc? I have said it before, and I will say it again, tactically, our military is pretty much capable of anything you throw at them. It is strategically that we have failed, and I blame this on a handful of issues. A few of these being, a blatant disrespect for learning histories lessons, the infiltration of the military system with political "control/influence", and the lack of ranks above 0-6 not having the balls to tell truth to power, because once you get stars on, your are no longer military, you are a politician (With a few exceptions!) who is more concerned with keeping your job. Things like this are why we have had an influx of disillusioned CIA, DOD, and military people writings books (I hope one day I join the ranks) that call out these and many more fallacies. Give the American people a noble cause with their interests truly at heart to fight for, and they will fight for it till they bleed to death. Lie and tell them something is noble when it is not, the lie will only last so long before large amounts of us start to wake up. Ok, I really could go on and on about this stuff, (maybe I should start a blog) but I think you get my point, so I'll shutup now.
As a USMC Iraq combat vet, who has for the past few months been studying the Afghan situation extensively, I can say that this is a good thing. Anybody who is actually involved knows that the Paki, and more specifically ISI, have been a problem for us since the early 80's, and not much has changed. The Paki's have and will continue to say "What? Not us!" but they are full of shit. The fact that the politicians are relatively good at hiding this fact undermines the general public's knowledge about the situation, and therefore it is a major part of controlling public opinion about our war. The facts are that we send money to ISI (often bypassing paki authorities completely) who then have (sometimes rogue) officers directly funding everything from afghan warlords, to Al Queda, to Paki Talibs, and on down the line. The fact of the matter is that Pakistan has absolutely no interest in really getting rid of their extremists, on either border, because Islamabad has so much fear of India, the militants are a tool they plan to use if needed. They will only do enough to keep our money flowing to them, but not enough to truly alienate the extremists. Its enormously complicated, with factors such as Iran and Russia playing into the equation. Regardless, I just hope that Assange did a good enough job purging of intel that could jeopardize people, but when so much is being hid, this kind of knowledge should be made public, albeit perhaps a bit with a bit more ambiguous information.
In this age, where more and more people and institutions are trying to control, and intercept, the flow of information, encryption is the future. Anyone with some knowledge in the area knows that LE et al have the ability to intercept all kinds of comm, emails, phone calls, etc. Just as you should automatically assume that any email you send to anyone is compromised and therefore public knowledge, the same for phone conversations. The only way around this is to encrypt if at all possible, though the demand has to rise for things to be more pragmatic and easily accessed. It is still an interesting method, but much like the internet, phone systems were not designed with security as a main priority.
When are people going to learn that, though often the rhetoric we pay close attention to calls for action against the west because it is the "Great Satan", and all that goes with that, that the line many westerners have been fed about others hating the west because of its democracy, freedom of speech, and general ideals is a crock of shit. This is a line fed to the masses that has unfortunately become almost universally accepted by those with only cursory knowledge of international policy on a broad scale. Most (people, governments) hate the west for our international policy regarding them. There are often the vocal few who use the propaganda of hating western ideals as inflammatory tools for recruitment, but with true goals of changing of international policy. This is the reason why Americans hear so few moderate voices opposing those who hate us; the moderates are out there and often do not approve of the opposition's actions, but they hate U.S. policies with just as much venom and passion. The sad thing is that so many people would read what GP just said and nod their head in agreement, and they would be wrong.
Now, back OT. Just recently I read an article (2600) about the use of facebook to manipulate local populations (college campuses) on a fairly large scale, done by one person. While I naturally doubt China's claims, it is not infeasible that if the US wanted to, they could do something of a similar fashion.
I'm suprised no-one has listed backtrack yet. I always have one flash drive and one dvd of it in my kit with me at all times (among some other things listed). It rocks for throwing up metasploit or cracking WEP real fast. It is a merge of Whax and Auditor) I also miss PHLAK.
Hey, major resources in developing countries has worked out so well in the past right!? ...input list of third world countries beset by war, corruption, famine and secretarian violence here..... oh maybe not. (stolen from the daily show or colbert report can't remember which)
Anybody involved with TOR knows that EXIT nodes are a big potential risk, and not only have there been rumors of official government sponsored (and therefore tapped) exit nodes, but even /. had a story about it a long ass time ago. Recently the TOR guys have been trying to curtail this via a few different methods, but it is nothing new. Regardless, exit node sniffing is a novel way to get information, (for example, allow only .gov or .edu traffic)
Indeed I understand the differences, and I'm quite sure it is some good technology and although lacking in range etc, it might be slightly useful. This and the MICLIC are used mostly for traditional minefield clearing operations, and in Iraq have been used almost never, but in Afghan are used a bit more for the routes that are considered so volatile they are "minefeilds". What I was pointing out is that we wouldn't need any of this tech if we GTFO of there and stopped trying to fight unwinnable wars. Tactically, our military can take just about anything thrown its way, it is strategically that we have failed, and this rests not on my fellow grunts shoulders, but on politicians, government officials, and high level military leaders, and those around them that disagree with matters but hold their tongue in silent acquiescence.
Yay, lets invent something that we already have (mine line clearing device, aka MICLIC) and put it ona robot, so much better! How about the fucking old grey haired bastards that are too pussy to fix our current wars snap out of their cold war mindset and start investing in things more applicable to our current situation. Oh yeah, I'm a USMC Iraq vet.
No, its like a doctor operating on a patient but forgoing gauze and stiches because of time and money constraints, and then the doctor infusing blood to the patient in one arm while the patient bleeds out the other. The technology for containing such a spill is available. It has not been used. I heard an interesting report on the radio over the weekend(no sources unfortunately) from a person who had attended some of the best oil boom classes in the industry, who said that they had looked at all the pictures of the coast and had not seen a single boom done properly, and that if done properly they could have easily (barring actual resources, or amount of booms available) not let anything but the smallest blobs of oil touch the coast.
It would be interesting to see if there were any major volume shorts on BP prior or directly after the incident, and who made them.
The problem is that the people that are aware of the problems are far fewer than the sheeple who continue without a care. I'm afraid that until something extreme shocks the nation nothing can be said or done to "wake up" enough people to actually get fundamental issues changed. And those groups that do many of those things are often misguided, extremists to a point of flaw, or infiltrated by those that are. Yeah, the problem is also that it is no longer just the US. You think canucks or Euro's are any more immune to this (on a relative scale?) , yeah, were all pretty much fucked methinks.
The following is copy pasted from one of my earlier posts since I didnt feel like rewriting, most of your points are true, but I would like to bring the following to your attention.
When are people going to learn that, though often the rhetoric we pay close attention to calls for action against the west because it is the "Great Satan", and all that goes with that, that the line many westerners have been fed in the lead up to the wars about Muslims hating the west because of its democracy, freedom of speech, and general ideals is a crock of shit. This is a line fed to the masses that has unfortunately become almost universally accepted by those with only cursory knowledge of Islam. Muslims hate the west for our international policy regarding them. A very good book I just recently finished explains this quite well (Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq ; Micheal Sheuer) even states that although our president and others starting talking about the importance that we bring democracy to the middle east, even bin Ladens early warning clearly stated the grievances muslims had with America in particular. Schueur says "the Islamists' indictment sheet against the united States has been precise...for more than a decade.
1. The U.S. military and civilian presence in the Arab Peninsula and other parts of the Islamic world
2. Unqualified U.S. support for Israel
3. U.S. support for states oppressing Muslims, especially China, India, and Russia, and the Arab police states.
4. U.S. exploitation of Muslim oil and suppression of its price
All of these things are facts of our policy, and our neglect or unwillingness to recognize these as some of the core issues feeding not only radical Islam, but even moderate Islam. (Really, be objective and put yourselves in their shoes, would you not feel the same way?) In fact, Bin Laden and his ilk were around during Ayatollah Khomeini's utter failure to get Muslims to kill themselves by attacking America because they drank beer, voted in elections, and attempted to ensure that women and men are treated equally. "Even the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters who killed themselves in attacks against the U.S. and French targets in Beirut in 82-83 did so under the umbrella of the ayatolla's rhetoric, but they were in fact executing nationalist operations aimed at driving what they perceived as occupying Westerners out of Lebanon." ...If true... our choice is black and white simple: we can completely abandon our beliefs, our lifestyles, and how we behave in the domestic, political, and social arenas to appease our enemies, or we can undertake the task of killing every last Muslim because that is what they intend to do to us."
For anyone to believe otherwise, that "The Islamists and their supporters are warring against the United States because they hate Americans as Americans, as well as everything they stand for in the politcal and social spheres, and in the end intend to eradicate our society from the planet.
If we truly were on a campaign for hearts and minds, it would require an out of the ordinary grasp of reality and common sense from the elite, and would also require that the last 3 presidents "recant most of what they have sworn to be true about our enemies motivations, to take on the Saudi and Israeli lobbies, and to begin to destroy the energy-policy status quo..."
"This is the reason why Americans hear so few "moderate Muslim voices" opposing bin Laden and the Islamists; the moderates are out there and often do not approve of the Islamists' military actions, but they hate U.S. policies with just as much venom and passion as the Islamists, per the polls by Pew, Gallup, BBC, and Zogby."
Most of this is the result of an western population, political elite and else, who have studied little of the widely varying cultures, nations, and peoples that make up the "Muslim nation". By increasing deamnation of the entire Muslim religion, we enrage and "contribute to their silent acquescence in the face of the Islamists' arguments and mili
This is where the difference in pacifist comes into play, the common misconception is that pacifist = never resorts to violence. I consider myself a pacifist, but will not hesitate to kill someone who puts my or my families life in danger. You're definition of pacifist is flawed.