Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The Rand Coporation's: "Knowledge Matrix"
http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR416/
By: Christopher G. Pernin, Louis R. Moore, Katherine Comanor
As the U.S. military transforms to an information-based force, it will need processes and methods to collect, combine, and utilize the intelligence that is generated by its assets. The process known as fusion will play an important role in determining whether this intelligence is used in the most beneficial manner.
The process of fusion, combining pieces of information to produce higher-quality information, knowledge, and understanding, is often poorly represented in constructive models and simulations that are used to analyze intelligence issues. This report describes one approach to capturing the fusion process in a constructive simulation, providing detailed examples to aid in further development and instantiation.
The sequential fusion method in intended to determine whether separate intelligence observations are close enough geographically, have consistently identified the same battlefield entity, and contain high-quality information, all of which must be considered before fusion of intelligence can occur.
The fusion process described in this report is, for the most part, an implicit representation of the generation of battlefield intelligence and can be used in a constructive simulation or fusion model to better understand the dynamics of intelligence-gathering systems and their effect on intelligence metrics.
By: Christopher G. Pernin, Louis R. Moore, Katherine Comanor
As the U.S. military transforms to an information-based force, it will need processes and methods to collect, combine, and utilize the intelligence that is generated by its assets. The process known as fusion will play an important role in determining whether this intelligence is used in the most beneficial manner.
The process of fusion, combining pieces of information to produce higher-quality information, knowledge, and understanding, is often poorly represented in constructive models and simulations that are used to analyze intelligence issues. This report describes one approach to capturing the fusion process in a constructive simulation, providing detailed examples to aid in further development and instantiation.
The sequential fusion method in intended to determine whether separate intelligence observations are close enough geographically, have consistently identified the same battlefield entity, and contain high-quality information, all of which must be considered before fusion of intelligence can occur.
The fusion process described in this report is, for the most part, an implicit representation of the generation of battlefield intelligence and can be used in a constructive simulation or fusion model to better understand the dynamics of intelligence-gathering systems and their effect on intelligence metrics.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Clinton cancels spot at Jewish groups' anti-Iran rally over Palin invite! LOL! Irrefutable Proof both Parties are Zionist!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1022090.html
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has canceled an appearance at a New York rally next week after organizers blindsided her by inviting Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, aides to the senator said Tuesday. Several American Jewish groups plan a major rally outside the United Nations on Sept. 22 to protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Organizers said Tuesday that both Clinton, who nearly won the Democratic nomination for president, and Palin, Republican candidate John McCain's running mate, are expected to attend. That would have set up a closely scrutinized and potentially explosive pairing in the midst of a presidential campaign, one in which the New York senator is campaigning for Democratic nominee Barack Obama while Palin actively courts disappointed Clinton supporters.
Clinton aides were furious. They first learned of the plan to have both Clinton and Palin appear when informed by reporters. "Her attendance was news to us, and this was never billed to us as a partisan political event," said Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines. "Sen. Clinton will therefore not be attending." A McCain-Palin campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity because Palin's schedule for Monday has not been announced, said only that Palin tentatively planned to attend the rally. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, did not immediately return messages Tuesday seeking comment, nor did other organizers of the rally.
Other event sponsors are the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now, United Jewish Communities and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. Both McCain and Obama have made strong appeals to Jewish voters, particularly in critical states like Florida. Obama has emphasized to Jewish audiences his commitment to Israel's security, and has worked to dispel doubts created by false rumors that he is Muslim.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has canceled an appearance at a New York rally next week after organizers blindsided her by inviting Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, aides to the senator said Tuesday. Several American Jewish groups plan a major rally outside the United Nations on Sept. 22 to protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Organizers said Tuesday that both Clinton, who nearly won the Democratic nomination for president, and Palin, Republican candidate John McCain's running mate, are expected to attend. That would have set up a closely scrutinized and potentially explosive pairing in the midst of a presidential campaign, one in which the New York senator is campaigning for Democratic nominee Barack Obama while Palin actively courts disappointed Clinton supporters.
Clinton aides were furious. They first learned of the plan to have both Clinton and Palin appear when informed by reporters. "Her attendance was news to us, and this was never billed to us as a partisan political event," said Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines. "Sen. Clinton will therefore not be attending." A McCain-Palin campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity because Palin's schedule for Monday has not been announced, said only that Palin tentatively planned to attend the rally. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, did not immediately return messages Tuesday seeking comment, nor did other organizers of the rally.
Other event sponsors are the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now, United Jewish Communities and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. Both McCain and Obama have made strong appeals to Jewish voters, particularly in critical states like Florida. Obama has emphasized to Jewish audiences his commitment to Israel's security, and has worked to dispel doubts created by false rumors that he is Muslim.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975574.html
The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel. "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor." Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the veracity of the September 11 attacks Thursday, calling it a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. "Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.
"Under this pretext, they [the U.S.] attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then, a million people have been killed only in Iraq." Speaking Wednesday at a news conference on the Iran threat, Netanyahu compared Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler and likened Tehran's nuclear program to the threat the Nazis posed to Europe in the late 1930s. Netanyahu said Iran differed from the Nazis in one vital respect, explaining that "where that [Nazi] regime embarked on a global conflict before it developed nuclear weapons," he said. "This regime [Iran] is developing nuclear weapons before it embarks on a global conflict."
The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel. "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor." Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the veracity of the September 11 attacks Thursday, calling it a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. "Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.
"Under this pretext, they [the U.S.] attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then, a million people have been killed only in Iraq." Speaking Wednesday at a news conference on the Iran threat, Netanyahu compared Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler and likened Tehran's nuclear program to the threat the Nazis posed to Europe in the late 1930s. Netanyahu said Iran differed from the Nazis in one vital respect, explaining that "where that [Nazi] regime embarked on a global conflict before it developed nuclear weapons," he said. "This regime [Iran] is developing nuclear weapons before it embarks on a global conflict."
Monday, September 1, 2008
9/01/08: RNC anti-war protest
Smoke Bombs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICkVCrnyW2g
Amy Goodman's Arrest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImvogepDnZc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICkVCrnyW2g
Amy Goodman's Arrest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImvogepDnZc
Medvedev: Unipolarity is unacceptable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXBbGadYh0I
Russia's President says his decision to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia won't change. Here's what Dmitry Medvedev had to say in an interview with Russia's main television stations.
Russia's President says his decision to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia won't change. Here's what Dmitry Medvedev had to say in an interview with Russia's main television stations.
Vindicating Larry Franklin? .....Riiiiiiight
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/vindicating-larry-franklin/46762/
When President Bush announced the new Iraq strategy Wednesday evening, acknowledging that Iran was effectively at war with us in Iraq by supplying terrorists with advanced improvised explosives, my thoughts turned to Lawrence Franklin.
Nearly a year ago, Judge T.S. Ellis III, sentenced this Pentagon Iran analyst to almost 13 years in a federal prison after he pleaded guilty to discussing classified information with two former lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The case, which is thus far the Bush administration's only successful anti-leaking prosecution, illustrates the strategic confusion of our national security bureaucracy in a time of war.
Franklin, it turns out, was trying — unconventionally — to influence a debate in the administration in 2003 over a national security policy directive regarding Iran. He provided Aipac's Iran specialists, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, with his own list of specific instances of how Iran was sending teams from its Quds Force to sow terror, kill American soldiers, and pose a threat to Israeli operatives in northern Iraq. He hoped his list could find its way to the National Security Council, through the two lobbyists, to counter the intelligence from other channels suggesting that Iran had an interest in stabilizing Iraq.
Franklin was not a typical bureaucrat. He was dogged in his view of the Iranian threat, and he was also not averse to taking risks that would earn him the enmity of powerful foes. He risked incurring the enmity of the CIA by meeting with sources of Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iran-Contra era figure, and, in December 2001, met with the man's sources in Rome. At the meeting, according to Franklin's friend Michael Ledeen, Franklin was told about hunter-killer teams operating against coalition forces in western Afghanistan. He delivered the intelligence personally to special forces command that month in Kabul, and, according to Mr. Ledeen, the intelligence was correct.
For his troubles, Franklin got caught up in the prosecution of two Aipac officials and has been libeled by some in the Web fringes as a spy for Israel. One of the commanders who worked closely with Franklin, General Mulholland, wrote a letter to the court last year, praising the former analyst's patriotism and diligence.
What's interesting is why Franklin took such desperate measures to make the president aware that the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world was sponsoring terrorists in a post-Saddam Iraq. Messrs. Weissman and Rosen were leading proponents in the 1990s of the view that Iran's sponsorship of international terrorism could be modified through diplomatic sticks and carrots — the inverse of Franklin's view that the Islamic Republic was genetically predisposed to use terrorism as statecraft.
One reason was that in 2002, the Bush administration, as part of its efforts to coordinate the Iraqi opposition, was resigned to working with Iran's proxies, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party. This decision locked America into an impossible position. Mr. Bush was betting that Iran would have an interest in stabilizing Iraq because the groups closest to Iran would be brought into the government to replace Saddam Hussein. The kind of analysis Franklin was providing would scuttle a policy built around the presumption that Iran shared our interests in Iraq.
That presumption has cost the White House a good part of its strategic coherence. On the one hand, the president has at times acknowledged the malicious role the Iranians play in Iran, he has lent his voice at times to the struggle of Iranian democrats, and he has authorized paltry sums of cash for meetings about the Iranian opposition. On the other hand, Secretary Rice in 2005 ordered our envoy in Baghdad, Ambassador Khalilzad, to open a direct channel with his Iranian counterpart and placed hopes for modifying Iranian behavior in a United Nations Security Council resolution.
America has pledged up to now to respond to the threat Iran poses in Baghdad by talking to bureaucrats in Geneva, Paris, and London. Then last month, we changed our strategy. Suddenly America is responding to the Iranian threat in Iraq by going after Iran's outposts and missions. It may be too late. As the National Security Council's power point summary of the new strategy says, Iran has been "burrowing" its agents deep inside the new Iraqi government. Iran has proven that it is not averse to working with the Sunni car bombers who kill Shiites and with the Shiite militias who kill Sunnis. Iran's Quds Force turns out to be playing both sides of the Iraqi civil war.
This news has been ignored and disbelieved by those lawmakers advocating a "diplomatic surge." But it would not likely come as a surprise to Franklin, a Persian speaker who now parks cars and works odd jobs, as he awaits final word on the jail sentence he earned for trying to get word of all this to a president who failed to grasp what Franklin was trying to tell him.
When President Bush announced the new Iraq strategy Wednesday evening, acknowledging that Iran was effectively at war with us in Iraq by supplying terrorists with advanced improvised explosives, my thoughts turned to Lawrence Franklin.
Nearly a year ago, Judge T.S. Ellis III, sentenced this Pentagon Iran analyst to almost 13 years in a federal prison after he pleaded guilty to discussing classified information with two former lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The case, which is thus far the Bush administration's only successful anti-leaking prosecution, illustrates the strategic confusion of our national security bureaucracy in a time of war.
Franklin, it turns out, was trying — unconventionally — to influence a debate in the administration in 2003 over a national security policy directive regarding Iran. He provided Aipac's Iran specialists, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, with his own list of specific instances of how Iran was sending teams from its Quds Force to sow terror, kill American soldiers, and pose a threat to Israeli operatives in northern Iraq. He hoped his list could find its way to the National Security Council, through the two lobbyists, to counter the intelligence from other channels suggesting that Iran had an interest in stabilizing Iraq.
Franklin was not a typical bureaucrat. He was dogged in his view of the Iranian threat, and he was also not averse to taking risks that would earn him the enmity of powerful foes. He risked incurring the enmity of the CIA by meeting with sources of Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iran-Contra era figure, and, in December 2001, met with the man's sources in Rome. At the meeting, according to Franklin's friend Michael Ledeen, Franklin was told about hunter-killer teams operating against coalition forces in western Afghanistan. He delivered the intelligence personally to special forces command that month in Kabul, and, according to Mr. Ledeen, the intelligence was correct.
For his troubles, Franklin got caught up in the prosecution of two Aipac officials and has been libeled by some in the Web fringes as a spy for Israel. One of the commanders who worked closely with Franklin, General Mulholland, wrote a letter to the court last year, praising the former analyst's patriotism and diligence.
What's interesting is why Franklin took such desperate measures to make the president aware that the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world was sponsoring terrorists in a post-Saddam Iraq. Messrs. Weissman and Rosen were leading proponents in the 1990s of the view that Iran's sponsorship of international terrorism could be modified through diplomatic sticks and carrots — the inverse of Franklin's view that the Islamic Republic was genetically predisposed to use terrorism as statecraft.
One reason was that in 2002, the Bush administration, as part of its efforts to coordinate the Iraqi opposition, was resigned to working with Iran's proxies, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party. This decision locked America into an impossible position. Mr. Bush was betting that Iran would have an interest in stabilizing Iraq because the groups closest to Iran would be brought into the government to replace Saddam Hussein. The kind of analysis Franklin was providing would scuttle a policy built around the presumption that Iran shared our interests in Iraq.
That presumption has cost the White House a good part of its strategic coherence. On the one hand, the president has at times acknowledged the malicious role the Iranians play in Iran, he has lent his voice at times to the struggle of Iranian democrats, and he has authorized paltry sums of cash for meetings about the Iranian opposition. On the other hand, Secretary Rice in 2005 ordered our envoy in Baghdad, Ambassador Khalilzad, to open a direct channel with his Iranian counterpart and placed hopes for modifying Iranian behavior in a United Nations Security Council resolution.
America has pledged up to now to respond to the threat Iran poses in Baghdad by talking to bureaucrats in Geneva, Paris, and London. Then last month, we changed our strategy. Suddenly America is responding to the Iranian threat in Iraq by going after Iran's outposts and missions. It may be too late. As the National Security Council's power point summary of the new strategy says, Iran has been "burrowing" its agents deep inside the new Iraqi government. Iran has proven that it is not averse to working with the Sunni car bombers who kill Shiites and with the Shiite militias who kill Sunnis. Iran's Quds Force turns out to be playing both sides of the Iraqi civil war.
This news has been ignored and disbelieved by those lawmakers advocating a "diplomatic surge." But it would not likely come as a surprise to Franklin, a Persian speaker who now parks cars and works odd jobs, as he awaits final word on the jail sentence he earned for trying to get word of all this to a president who failed to grasp what Franklin was trying to tell him.
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