How Prepared is Israel for an Earthquake?

On October 21-25, 2012, Israel held its first national exercise to examine how prepared the state and its institutions are for a severe earthquake. This was the country's sixth home front exercise, held annually as part of the lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War. The annual exercise is also the climax of a series of smaller exercises held throughout the year. Until now, the annual exercises were based on security scenarios, primarily missile and rocket attacks on the civilian front. The decision to devote this year’s scenario to an earthquake is notable, as it implies (a) recognition of the importance of preparing for natural disasters whose damage to life and property are expected to be much higher than those inflicted by war, terrorism, and other man-made conflicts; and (b) the adequate understanding that preparing for an emergency is essentially generic in nature, as many of its components are shared by man-made and natural disasters. Thus, preparedness for natural disasters in general and earthquakes in particular has a direct impact on the preparedness for the more familiar security scenarios.

The goal of the exercise was defined as “improving the integrated response and preparedness on the part of the home front organs and the population to manage a severe earthquake hitting Israel.” The exercise examined the response of municipal and national civilian and military units, infrastructure systems, and the population at large in the case of an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, occurring at a depth of 10 kilometers in the Hula Valley area in the country’s northern region. According to the scenario, the quake also generated high sea waves (5-15 meters) along the coast, damaging the port of Haifa and the Reading power station in Tel Aviv.

According to the recently determined framework for emergency preparedness, which also served the concrete scenario for the exercise, the earthquake caused 7,000 fatalities (less than half of the past scenarios), 8,600 severely to moderately injured, 37,000 lightly wounded, 9,500 people trapped under rubble, 170,000 people displaced from their homes, 28,000 buildings with heavy damage, and severe disruptions to many critical infrastructures. The scope of the economic damage at the national level was estimated at a minimum of NIS 50 billion. The principal issues examined in the exercise were: command and control, continuous functioning, civilian services, evacuation, international assistance, and multi-stage rehabilitation. The specific objectives of the exercise were: raising the public awareness to the gravity of the challenge, validating the response strategies, examining future improvements to preparedness, and creating the conceptual basis for systemic post-disaster reconstruction.

There were several significant insights to emerge from the exercise, including:

• The national exercise was based on the assumption that Israel is not properly prepared for a severe earthquake with mass casualties, and that despite some initial steps taken recently, the nation must undergo a long, complicated process.
• Exercises in general and the current one in particular are crucial for the sake of enhancing systemic preparedness at the national and local levels. An exercise reflects the basic assumption that there is a direct, positive correlation between appropriate preparedness and the reduction of damage inflicted by foreseen disasters, whether natural or man-made. To its credit, Israel is one of the world leaders in holding exercises of this sort.
• After many years of focusing almost exclusively on security-related emergencies, the civilian front has now been drilled on the challenges of response to natural disasters. While less common in this region, their damage can be much more severe and it is important to be prepared for them.
• Beyond the immediate casualties, the anticipated damage to routine life is a critical issue requiring the formulation of a strategic approach and meticulous preparedness. At the heart is the sensitive question of mass evacuation and the supply of services in emergencies. Theoretical solutions on the drawing board are important, but it is doubtful they can provide the necessary response.
• The question of international assistance was central to the exercise and for good reason. The issue was dealt with mostly at the technical level, focusing on the orderly intake of foreign aid. This is of course important, but no less significant is the realization that Israel is incapable of handling widespread disasters on its own. This has a bearing on other contexts as well.
• The expected damage to critical infrastructures (electricity, water, communications, transportation) is a key topic demanding thorough study and prior preparation suitable for this present scenario as well as for other (perhaps more likely) hazardous episodes, such as cyber attacks or widespread war / terrorist activity. This is a challenge that calls for urgent attention to ensure redundancy and improve systemic flexibility, which currently appears insufficient, in part because of budget limitations.
• Authority and responsibility / command and control: as always, the twofold question arises of who is responsible for preparing the systems and for managing the events as they unfold. The legal issue has yet to be resolved. Unlike the security realm, the civilian system is far from being properly regulated. The situation is more complicated because of the nature of natural hazards, the high number of casualties and the scope of damage, and – no less importantly – the possible damage to means of communications and control. As with other scenarios, the expectation here was that the IDF, partly by deploying the Home Front Command, would take charge at an initial stage. But for this to happen, even in the most limited fashion, the IDF must prepare in advance for sensitive civilian scenarios. This is a difficult challenge.
• Handling the issue of rehabilitation and recovery after a mass disaster has always been an Achilles’ heel. The very fact that the issue was raised specifically in the present drill reflects constructive thinking. Hopefully this will generate concrete, long term systemic processes to create mechanisms that will allow relatively rapid and appropriate rehabilitation after severe future emergencies.

After a long period of neglect, Israel has drawn a clear starting line for the systemic tackling of mass natural disasters. To what extent will the exercise generate a structured and effective system of preparedness that meets different needs, including the omnipresent security challenges? Hopefully, future deliberations will generate a more adequate balance between the commonly emphasized prevention posture of disasters and defense against them on the one hand, and what has been generally neglected, i.e., preparation for the day after, in the form of ensuring the sequential functioning and rehabilitation. To date, there has been little progress toward this much needed balance.


Font: המכון למחקרי ביטחון לאומ

Anti-terrorism law must not undermine fundamental rights: Rabbani

ISLAMABAD, (SANA): Chairman Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) Mian Raza Rabbani on Wednesday has said that Pakistan needed a counter-terrorism law that would not give the state powers to undermine the fundamental rights of the people.

He was talking to media representatives after a session of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS).

A British lawyer and an expert on anti-terrorism laws, Lord Alexander Charles Carlyle, also attended session of the PCNS held in Islamabad.
During the session chaired by Senator Rabbani, Lord Carlyle briefed the committee on Britain’s counter-terrorism laws.

After the session, Rabbani told media representatives that Pakistan was currently formulating laws to counter terrorism, adding that, it was important to examine and learn from the counter-terrorism laws enforced in other countries.

He added that recommendations pertaining to the recovery of missing persons would be given the final approval in the next session of the committee.

The meeting took place at a time when the government has already introduced “the Investigation for Fair Trial Bill, 2012” in the National Assembly “to provide for investigation for collection of evidence by means of modern techniques and devices to prevent and effectively deal with scheduled offences and to regulate the powers of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies” to deal with terrorism.

The bill is pending before the house committee for law and justice and if adopted in its present shape, emails, SMSs, phone calls and audio-visual recordings will be admissible evidence, while suspects will be held for six months after a warrant is issued by a district and sessions judge in his chambers.

The proposed legislation has attracted criticism from some quarters for being too intrusive and against the norms of privacy.
Ends-SANA-TR-A

Font: South Asian News Agency (SANA)

U.K. Lawmakers Eye Basing Submarines at U.S. Port, if Expelled by Scots.

The British ballistic missile submarine HMS Vengeance. A U.K. parliamentary report cites a U.S. base in Georgia as one possible temporary home for British nuclear-armed submarines if the vessels are forced out of an independent Scotland (Royal Navy photo).

 

WASHINGTON -- A new report issued by a British parliamentary panel suggests that the United Kingdom might consider temporarily basing its nuclear-armed submarines at a U.S. military seaport if Scotland achieves independence and refuses to continue hosting the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, located in southeast Georgia, has been identified as a potential option for absorbing one or more U.K. Vanguard-class vessels; maritime facilities in France are another possible alternative, according to the panel of British legislators.

“Any agreement whether to relocate the U.K. nuclear deterrent outside the British Isles, possibly in France or the USA, would be a decision for the U.K. in discussion with its allies,” states the Oct. 25 report, authored by the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee.

Four days earlier, Alex Salmond -- the first minister of Scotland and head of the Scottish National Party -- said he thought London might do well to arrange basing for the Trident D-5 missile-carrying submarines elsewhere in the United Kingdom or even abroad.

The British government "could either relocate Trident to another facility in the rest of the U.K. or, alternatively, they could use the nuclear facilities in America, or in France for that matter,” Salmond said on a BBC news show. “Trident is effectively an American weapon.”

The parliamentary assessment warns, though, that it “would be very difficult, both logistically and politically,” to base the U.K. nuclear force abroad. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond last week said his government is “confident that the Scottish people will choose to remain part of the United Kingdom” and “we have no plans to move the nuclear deterrent from there.”

Yet, with the matter as-yet unresolved, the question of how Scottish independence might affect London’s deterrence force is beginning to loom. Lawmaker Nick Harvey, a former armed forces minister, said it was “hard to think of any single item that would be larger in [British-Scottish] negotiation.”

All four U.K. ballistic missile-armed submarines currently use Faslane on the River Clyde’s Gareloch as their home port, while warheads are stored and mated with the missiles at Coulport, eight miles away on Loch Long. The nation maintains one Vanguard submarine on patrol at all times.

Future basing has been thrown into doubt in the run-up to a 2014 Scottish referendum on independence. Salmond has said his organization’s long-sought expulsion of nuclear arms from an independent Scotland could be formalized in a new constitution. Earlier this month, the party said an SNP government would “negotiate the speediest safe transition of the nuclear fleet from Faslane.”

There are no clear alternative naval facilities in the United Kingdom that offer both deep-water access for military submarines and secure areas for warhead-marrying operations, which must be located a safe distance from industry and population centers, according to some experts.

If secession proceeds, it might be possible for the U.K. government to negotiate a transition plan under which the nuclear-armed submarines could remain stationed temporarily in Scotland. However, it is far from clear if this option would prove politically viable.

“Nuclear weapons in Scotland could be disarmed within days and removed within months,” and the submarines that carry them could be banished within two years, according to the parliamentary report.

Salmond last week indicated some interest in imposing on an estranged United Kingdom “curtains for Trident,” using the separation as a means of effectively denuclearizing London, possibly for decades.

“We recognize that such speedy action would inevitably create the prospect of unilateral nuclear disarmament being imposed upon the Royal Navy and U.K., since the construction of facilities elsewhere could take upwards of 20 years,” stated the committee, comprising seven Scottish and four English members of Parliament. “It is not clear how quickly the U.K. could restore continuous at-sea deterrence.”

Committee Chairman Ian Davidson is a Labor Party lawmaker representing southwest Glasgow; his multipartisan panel includes just one member of the Scottish National Party.

The top British defense official last week said his government would never allow such a forced denuclearization to occur.

“Our continuous submarine-based nuclear deterrent is the ultimate safeguard of our national security,” Hammond said in response to the parliamentary report. “We have made a clear commitment to maintain that deterrent and there is absolutely no question that the U.K. will unilaterally disarm.”

“The U.K.’s preferred option is for nothing to change,” according to the committee’s 30-page document. “Failing that, the next best option would be securing an agreement that enabled the submarines to operate out of Faslane until an alternative base was found elsewhere.”

If Scotland were to drive out the Trident-carrying submarines, one domestic British option might be to store warheads and mate them to missiles at upgraded nuclear facilities in Berkshire, about 50 miles west of London, the document states. Under this scenario, the submarines could be based at Devonport on England’s southwest coast, where they now go for routine maintenance, the analysis states.

Francis Tusa, editor of the U.K. monthly Defense Analysis, told legislators that although it would not be an ideal setup, “it does not mean you cannot do it,” the report states.

Norman Polmar, a naval expert who has advised several top U.S. Navy civilians and brass, agreed, saying of the Devonport option: “Why not? Just expand the port.”

Interviewed on Tuesday, he played down the safety risks of attempting to duplicate Coulport functions proximate to a population center, saying similar activities typically take place near large U.S. cities.

The Scottish Affairs Committee said it could not estimate relocation costs, but experts said the price tag would probably reach billions of dollars. The question of who would foot the costs to develop new Vanguard basing likely would be a major focus of any Scotland secession negotiations.

The lawmakers called the storage and loading of warheads outside the British Isles a possible “temporary measure,” noting that two deep-water ports with submarine-servicing capacity being mulled are “French facilities in Brittany or the U.S. facilities in Georgia.”

Kings Bay is currently home to six of the U.S. Navy’s 14 U.S. Ohio-class nuclear-armed “SSBN” vessels, as well as two conventionally armed “SSGN” submarines, according to base spokesman Scott Bassett.

The facility likely could accommodate additional submarines from the United Kingdom in the near term, some experts said. More space will be freed up as the U.S. Navy reduces its Trident ballistic missile-carrying fleet to 12 vessels by 2028, and to just 10 vessels between 2032 and 2040, according to these sources.

The British government intends to replace its Vanguard-class boats with Successor submarines beginning in 2028, though there remains heated debate within the leadership coalition over whether results of an analysis of alternatives expected early next year might alter those plans.

With most federal offices in the Washington area closed on Monday and Tuesday because of Hurricane Sandy, a U.S. Defense Department spokeswoman did not respond by press time to a reporter’s query regarding basing prospects or any bilateral discussions on the issue.

Washington and London have long had a close relationship in nuclear-weapons matters, to include significant cooperation in submarine and ballistic missile operations.

Among the joint activities today is a leasing arrangement under which the Royal Navy operates with Trident D-5 missiles from the U.S. arsenal, which are assembled, stored and maintained at Kings Bay, Bassett said. Missile loading onto British Vanguard-class submarines -- each of which can carry 16 D-5s -- also takes place at Kings Bay, Bassett said.

Since 2010, U.K. policy has been to carry no more than 40 warheads on each vessel, though the Trident missile has a capacity of up to 12 warheads.

Polmar said the logistics of basing British submarines at Kings Bay would be so challenging as to rule out the option entirely.

“Absolutely not,” in part “because of the support facilities involved,” he said, noting that the Vanguard submarines and nuclear reactors “are all different from ours.”

However, another nuclear-arms expert did not find the notion to be altogether far-fetched.

“There is infrastructure there” for Trident-armed submarines at Kings Bay, said Hans Kristensen, who directs the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. “The only question is whether they can squeeze in more.”

Polmar also cited two additional factors why such an arrangement would be “totally impossible”: cost and transit time to U.K. patrol areas.

Kristensen agreed the long steaming distances could be an obstacle, saying, “That burns up a lot of core fuel.”

“Setting up a base two to three thousand miles away is ludicrous,” Polmar said. “It would be easier and cheaper to buy the city of Faslane.”

Even if logistics were determined to be feasible, U.S. basing might prove politically unworkable, according to experts.

Home-porting the submarines overseas could “raise questions about how independent the U.K.’s deterrent was,” the parliamentary panel said.

When Trident was first procured, the idea of mating warheads to missiles in the United States was explored but “was seen as just a step too far to being perceived as not having an independent deterrent,” Malcolm Chalmers, a defense policy expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told the panel. That view prevailed, leading to the use of Coulport for this sensitive task.

Nor would sending the submarines to French naval facilities be an easy fix, in the view of some.

“The idea of dumping off the boats there for a few years while we sort out a long-term solution would be a little tricky to manage,” British legislator Peter Luff, a defense equipment minister at the time who has since lost his post, told the committee in June.

The notion of a “sovereign base” located in a newly independent Scotland -- or perhaps sovereign or jointly run facilities in the United States or France -- might be explored as a means of preserving independent nuclear control, the parliamentary report suggests.

As things stand, some Kings Bay military commands, including the Strategic Weapons Facility-Atlantic, fly both the U.S. flag and the Union Jack to reflect the ongoing Trident partnership, Bassett said.

Given the “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom, basing the Vanguard vessels at a U.S. port would not be such a stretch, one former U.S. nuclear officer said last week.

“We probably won’t go to nuclear war without them,” said the former officer, who asked not to be named in discussing sensitive military and diplomatic matters. “So what difference does it make where you’re stationed?”

"We rely on Diego Garcia,” a British territory in the Indian Ocean, for staging bomber operations, said the ex-officer. “We station our nuclear bombs in Europe on foreign soil. I don’t see it as that big of an issue.”

In London, though, indications are mounting that the U.K. government and Royal Navy actually would see basing abroad as a huge issue, given that the entirety of the nation’s nuclear arsenal is in question, rather than logistics for a select few assets.

Still, there remain many bridges yet to be crossed, not the least of which is the 2014 referendum vote that might, in the end, dispense with the notion of Scottish independence -- an outcome that many in the British capital are hoping for.

 

For the time being, “we were told that the Ministry of Defense was not making contingency plans for the event of Scotland becoming a separate country,” according to the parliamentary report.

The ministry, legislators learned, “had not been approached or had discussions with the Scottish government about defense matters” should independence be formally embraced, the report states.

 

 

Font: NTI

 

 



 

 

Did Psychic Espionage Reveal Spy?

Photo: Jean-Philippe Wispelaere Credit: Australian government

An upcoming book claims that a spy was discovered through the use of psychic powers.

According to the "Canberra Times", Scott Carmichael, a former investigator for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), "is writing a book about how he used a psychic to identify [saboteur Jean-Philippe] Wispelaere after the former Australian Defence Intelligence Organization analyst tried to sell stolen U.S. documents to Singaporean embassy officials in Thailand."

 

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Wispelaere was caught in a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting when he flew to the United States to broker the documents. He was arrested, convicted of espionage, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

How, exactly, was Wispelaere discovered? Carmichael claims that a psychic named Angela Ford told him that the DIA should look for a muscular Australian man in his twenties who used the name Baker, and tried to sell secrets at the Singaporean embassy.

Based upon this description and evidence, Carmichael says, he was able to identify Wispelaere (a bodybuilding low-level Australian intelligence officer who used the name Baker) and tip off the FBI to launch the investigation.

Carmichael's claim has come as a surprise to law enforcement, who know exactly how Wispelaere was discovered -- and it had nothing to do with psychics. According to several sources including a March 8, 2001 "Jane's Intelligence Watch Report," "[Wispelaere's] potential buyers informed U.S. authorities" about the spy's offer.

So it was not Angela Ford or any other psychic who tipped police off, but instead the embassy worker Wispelaere offered the information to. There appears to be no credible sources that mention any psychic information solving the case.

 

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The book has not been released yet so it's impossible to know what evidence, if any, Carmichael offers for his claim. But if what he says is true, apparently Angela Ford is much more accurate than the countless psychics who try --and always fail -- to find missing persons for the police.

If the U.S. government employs accurate psychics as Carmichael claims, it raises many interesting and puzzling questions. For example, why was the intelligence community's information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction so badly wrong in 2003?

Valid, verifiable psychic information could have averted the costliest war in history. For that matter, why didn't psychics locate Osama bin Laden? Presumably psychic power could have found him within days or weeks, instead of careful (non-psychic) intelligence collection spanning a decade.

 

NEWS: Skeptics Issue $1 Million PsychicChallenge

While tipping off investigators to aborted attempts at spying may be helpful, in the larger picture it would seem much more important to identify active, actual, ongoing spying that damages our national security. No psychics identified and stopped recent spies such as Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen (whose spying was called "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history").

In fact, it is certain that there are active, undetected spies currently working in American intelligence agencies at this very moment. If Ford and other psychics truly can expose spies, locate terrorists, and find missing persons, there seems little or no evidence of it.

Swiss Intel Sees Broad NATO Protection Against Iranian Missiles by 2018.

The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service has assessed that NATO's planned antimissile framework will by 2018 be capable of guarding all of Europe from any Iranian ballistic missile offensive, the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported on Sunday.

The document -- provided without authorization to the newspaper Tages-Anzeiger -- apparently calls for Berne to consider in the near future various alternatives for potentially providing monetary support for operation of the alliance defensive framework.

The Federal Intelligence Service has reported the record's release and the disclosure of a second document to law enforcement, agency spokesman Felix Endrich said. He described the antimissile statement as one component of a "weekly situation report" by the service.

Russia by this decade's end would face a significant risk from U.S. antimissile equipment now scheduled to be fielded in Europe as part of the NATO plan, a new edition of Versiya quoted Russian Duma defense panel head Vladimir Komoedov as saying.

Moscow objects to U.S. plans to place increasingly sophisticated land- and sea-based missile interceptors around Europe through 2020 in support of the evolving NATO shield. Russia fears the weapons would secretly target its strategic nuclear force, though they are ostensibly intended to counter potential missile threats from the Middle East.\

New Italian defense technology could assume a role in defending the country from shorter-range ballistic missiles in addition to cruise missiles and military aerial assaults, Defense News reported last week.

Italian army officials are set next March to attend trials in France of the SAMP/T Aster 30 air-defense system's ability to hit nonstrategic ballistic missiles. The equipment's possible application against such armaments was assessed during French air force exercises conducted in 2010 and 2011 against Black Sparrow mock enemy projectiles.

"It is an extra capability to have, and one that features in NATO’s new strategy,” said Col. Carlo Zantilli, who heads the Italian army's 4th Air Defense Regiment. Zantilli's unit is due to begin preliminary use of the SAMP/T Aster 30 apparatus before 2013, and to achieve complete activation of the gear before 2014.

“It is the only capability of this kind that Italy has, and we would like to be involved in NATO’s ballistic missile defense program, as do the French,” the officer stated.

The Italian army indicated the interceptors can fly nearly 75 miles and shoot down ballistic missiles with maximum flight distances of roughly 800 miles. The technology would supplant Italy's Hawk weaponry.

“Up until now the Italian air force has taken care of high-altitude missile defense, the army has looked after medium altitude and the navy has protected its fleet, but with NATO now asking for cities to be defended from ballistic missiles, things are evolving,” said an insider with Italy's manufacturing sector. “In Italy, it looks like the army is taking the initiative.”

Five SAMP/T Aster 30 firing units are slated for placement within the army's Mantua regiment, and a model slated for deployment at Sabaudia would aid in preparing personnel. The arms firm MBDA has provided two of the units to date, and three more are scheduled for delivery next year.

NATO is anticipated to award $65 million in deals between January and June for antiballistic missile equipment and services, Defense News reported on Friday.

Font: NTI

U.S. Presidential Elections in Perspective

The U.S. presidential election will be held a week from today, and if the polls are correct, the outcome will be extraordinarily close. Many say that the country has never been as deeply divided. In discussing the debates last week, I noted how this year's campaign is far from the most bitter and vitriolic. It might therefore be useful also to consider that while the electorate at the moment appears evenly and deeply divided, unlike what many say, that does not reveal deep divisions in our society -- unless our society has always been deeply divided.

Since 1820, the last year an uncontested election was held, most presidential elections have been extremely close. Lyndon B. Johnson received the largest percentage of votes any president has ever had in 1964, taking 61.5 percent of the vote. Three other presidents broke the 60 percent mark: Warren G. Harding in 1920, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 and Richard Nixon in 1972.

Nine elections saw a candidate win between 55 and 60 percent of the vote: Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. Only Eisenhower broke 55 percent twice. Candidates who received less than 50 percent of the vote won 18 presidential elections. These included Lincoln in his first election, Woodrow Wilson in both elections, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Nixon in his first election and Bill Clinton in both his elections.

From 1824-2008, 13 elections ended in someone obtaining more than 55 percent but never more than 61 percent of the vote. Eighteen elections ended with the president receiving less than 50 percent of the vote. The remaining 16 elections ended with the winner receiving between 50-55 percent of the vote, in many cases barely above the 50 percent mark -- meaning almost half the country voted for someone else. The United States not only always has had deeply divided elections, but in many cases, minority presidents. Interestingly, of the four presidents who won more than 60 percent of the vote, three are not remembered favorably: Harding, Johnson and Nixon.

Three observations follow. First, for almost 200 years the electoral process has consistently produced a division in the country never greater than 60-40 and heavily tending toward a much narrower margin. Second, when third parties had a significant impact on the election, winners won five times with 45 percent of the vote or less. Third, in 26 of the U.S. presidential elections, the winner received less than 52 percent of the vote.

Even in the most one-sided elections, nearly 40 percent of voters voted against the winner. The most popular presidents still had 40 percent of votes cast against them. All other elections took place with more than 40 percent opposition. The consistency here is striking. Even in the most extreme cases of national crisis and a weak opponent, it was impossible to rise above just over 60 percent. The built-in opposition of 40 percent, regardless of circumstances or party, has therefore persisted for almost two centuries. But except in the case of the 1860 election, the deep division did not lead to a threat to the regime. On the contrary, the regime has flourished -- again, 1860 excepted -- in spite of these persistent divisions.


The Politically Indifferent.

Why then is the United States so deeply and persistently divided and why does this division rarely lead to unrest, let alone regime change? Let us consider this seeming paradox in light of another fact, namely, that a substantial portion of the electorate doesn't vote at all. This fact frequently is noted, usually as a sign of a decline in civic virtue. But let's consider it another way.

First, let's think of it mechanically. The United States is one of the few countries that has not made Election Day a national holiday or held its presidential elections on a weekend. That means that there is work and school on Election Day in the United States. In the face of the tasks of getting the kids off to school, getting to work, picking up the kids on the way home -- all while fighting traffic -- and then getting dinner on the table, the urgency of exercising the franchise pales. It should therefore be no surprise that older people are more likely to vote.

Low voter turnout could also indicate alienation from the system. But alienation sufficient to explain low voter turnout should have generated more unrest over two centuries. When genuine alienation was present, as in 1860, voter turnout rose and violence followed. Other than that, unrest hasn't followed presidential elections. To me, that so many people don't vote does not indicate widespread alienation as much as indifference: The outcome of the election is simply less important to many than picking up the kids from piano lessons.

It is equally plausible that low voter turnout indicates voter satisfaction with both candidates. Some have noted that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney sound less different than they portray themselves as being. Some voters might figure there is not much difference between the two and that they can therefore live with either in office.

Another explanation is that some voters feel indifferent to the president and politics in general. They don't abstain because they are alienated from the system but because they understand the system as being designed such that outcomes don't matter. The Founding Fathers' constitutional system leaves the president remarkably weak. In light of this, while politically attentive people might care who is elected, the politically indifferent might have a much shrewder evaluation of the nature of the presidency.

The Role of Ideologues.

The United States always has had ideologues who have viewed political parties as vehicles for expressing ideologies and reshaping the country. While the ideologies have changed since Federalists faced off against Democratic-Republicans, an ideological divide always has separated the two main parties. At the same time, the ranks of the true ideologues -- those who would prefer to lose elections to winning with a platform that ran counter to their principles -- were relatively sparse. The majority of any party was never as ideologically committed as the ideologues. A Whig might have thought of himself as a member of the Whig Party when he thought of himself in political terms at all, but most of the time he did not think of himself as political. Politics were marginal to his identity, and while he might tend to vote Whig, as one moved to less committed elements of the party, Whigs could easily switch sides.

The four elections in which presidents received 60 percent or more were all ideological and occurred at times of crisis: Johnson in 1964 defeated Barry Goldwater, a highly ideological candidate, in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination; Roosevelt defeated Alf Landon, an anti-Roosevelt ideologue, during the depths of the Depression; Nixon defeated George McGovern, an anti-war ideologue, during the era of the Vietnam War and the anti-war challenge; and Warren G. Harding won in the wake of World War I and the latter debacles of the Wilson administration and its ideology.

Crisis tends to create the most extreme expressions of hostility to a challenging ideology and creates the broadest coalition possible, 60 percent. Meanwhile, 40 percent remain in opposition to the majority under any circumstances. To put it somewhat differently -- and now we get to the most significant point -- about 40 percent of the voting public cannot be persuaded to shift from their party under any circumstances, while about 20 percent are either persuadable or represent an unrooted voter who shifts from election to election.

The 60-40 break occurs rarely, when the ideological bent rallies the core and the national crisis allows one party to attract a larger block than normal to halt the less popular ideology. But this is the extreme of American politics; the normal election is much narrower.

This is because the ideologues in the parties fail to draw in the center. The weaker party members remain in their party's orbit and the 20 percent undecided distribute themselves fairly randomly, depending on their degree of indifference, so that the final vote depends on no more than a few percentage points shifting one way or another.

This is not a sign of massive divisions. Whereas the 60-40 elections are the moments of deepest political tension in which one side draws the center to it almost unanimously, in other elections -- particularly the large number in which the winner receives less that 55 percent of the vote (meaning that a 5 percent shift would change the outcome) -- the election is an election of relative indifference.

This is certainly not how ideologues view the election. For them, it is a struggle between light and darkness. Nor is it how the media and commentators view it. For them, it is always an election full of meaning. In reality, most elections are little remembered and decide little. Seemingly apocalyptic struggles that produce narrow margins do not represent a deeply divided country. The electoral division doesn't translate into passion for most of the voters, but into relative indifference with the recognition that here is another election "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

The fact that nearly 50 percent of the public chooses not to vote is our tipoff about the public's view of elections. That segment of the public simply doesn't care much about the outcome. The politically committed regard these people as unenlightened fools. In reality, perhaps these people know that the election really isn't nearly as important as the ideologues, media and professional politicians think it is, so they stay home.

Others vote, of course, but hardly with the intensity of the ideologues. Things the ideologues find outrageously trivial can sway the less committed. Such voters think of politics in a very different way than the ideologues do. They think of it as something that doesn't define their lives or the republic. They think of politicians as fairly indistinguishable, and they are aware that the ideological passions will melt in the face of presidential responsibility. And while they care a bit more than those who stay home, they usually do not care all that much more.

The United States has elected presidents with the narrowest of margins and presidents who had far less than a majority. In many countries, this might reveal deep divisions leading to social unrest. It doesn't mean this in the United States because while the division can be measured, it isn't very deep and by most, it will hardly be remembered.

The polls say the election will be very close. If that is true, someone will be selected late at night after Ohio makes up its mind. The passionate on the losing side will charge fraud and election stealing. The rest of the country will get up the next day and go back to work just as they did four years ago, and the republic will go on.


Font:By George Friedman Stratfor

The Next Weapon Of Mass Destruction Will Probably Be A Thumbdrive.

Despite congressional foot dragging, or maybe because of it, most defense and technology analysts are screaming dire warnings of impending cyber attacks, whether by Internet hacks or infected thumb drives.

Iran is ratcheting up "copy cat" cyber attacks on the U.S., and as per a report soon to be out, China has a vast military infrastructure set up to launch web-based attacks on foreign infrastructure. And that doesn't even factor in the 'lone wolf' Anonymous-type hackers who are just in it for the "Lulz."

Yes, folks, the Cyber War is going on right now, and it's a World War like nothing ever before seen.

Bill Gertz of the conservative-leaning Washington Free Beacon reports:

The Project 2049 Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based think tank that focuses on Asian security issues, concluded that groups operating from Chinese territory have been “waging a coordinated cyber espionage campaign targeting U.S. government, industrial, and think tank computer networks.”

This "coordinated cyber espionage campaign" is waged from a new wing of the Chinese Military Industrial Complex called the "Beijing North Computing Center." Gertz goes on to say that analysts are calling this center another "department" since it's "similar to the United States National Security Agency, because of its signals intelligence work, its high-performance computing work, and its linguistic and code-breaking specialists."

And it's not just nation-states in the mix, civilian hacking groups from Russia and the Middle East (The Arab Electronic Army) are also targeting U.S. and foreign targets around the globe. Less vitriolic and militant, the hacktivist group Anonymous seems to target anybody whom they perceive to be blocking the "free flow of information" on the net.

The U.S. isn't standing down though — even if Congress won't pull the trigger on the cyber security bill, the military is leading the way in cyber deterrence and militarization. At the Air Force Academy there is training for permanent personnel wholly dedicated to fighting cyber wars.

Indeed, even the Marine Corps is getting in on the mix, in the hopes that they can weaponize cyber warfare to the point that it can supplement troops on the ground in small unit tactics.

Which brings the war full circle: as the military invests and Congress (grudgingly) forces infrastructure companies to update and harden networks, the most likely culprit in a cyber attack becomes the same culprit in the famous Stuxnet attack — a thumb drive.

Washington designed Stuxnet and then waited with bated breath for one of their on the ground 'assets' to slip it to an unsuspecting Iranian nuclear scientist.

From a report by Mashable:

The answer turned out to be simpler than U.S. officials thought, since some plant personnel weren’t very careful with the thumb drives they were carrying. Thumb drives were “critical” in the initial Stuxnet attacks — which began in 2008 — although unspecified “more sophisticated” means were later used.
“It turns out there is always an idiot around who doesn’t think much about the thumb drive in their hand,” one of the program’s architects said.

 If a network is hardened, and military redundancies, offensive as well as defensive, are put into place, then the next best option is a manual insertion, like with Stuxnet. In fact, it doesn't even need to be a thumb drive, it can be a phone or a PDA.

Recently, the National Security Agency has begun testing BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, and hardening networks as cloud computing begins to take hold in defense agencies.

"It's very simple: 'I want one device.' I don't think it's any more complicated than that," Robert Carey, principal deputy CIO at the Department of Defense. Carey told TechWorld of the growing demand for BYOD policies. "Balancing ease of use and security is always the dynamic. Security is the antithesis of convenience."

What Carey is trying to say, is that there are gaping holes in security with regard to storage devices. Employees bringing in mobile devices is exactly where the Iranians went wrong in terms of Stuxnet.

More from the TechWorld report:

Carey noted that the Pentagon is currently running multiple pilot programs to test various devices from other manufacturers, and working with vendors to harden mobile operating systems to meet DoD security requirements. But he held RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry, apart from other device makers for its focus on enterprise-grade security from the outset, while Apple, Android and other operating systems began with a consumer-centric approach, and have only been beefing up security in response to concerns from corporate and government customers.

"We have to manage this very carefully as we move into the future and make sure that these are not additional attack surfaces," Carey said to TechWorld. "I don't know that we'll quite get to a pure BYOD environment."

Soon, the weak networks of private American infrastructure companies will become hardened, if for any reason because the military's cyber skills toughen by the day — a quote from the Marines' "top cyber warrior," Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, on Aug. 15 about cyber warfare against the Taliban sums up America's future web defense:

"I was able to get inside [enemy networks], and affect his command and control and, in fact, defend myself against his almost constant incursions to get inside my [cyber] wire to effect my operations," Mills said.

There are three rules of nationwide cyber security, laid out to us by Jarno Limnell, a cyber security expert:

 1. — Resilience (defense): We must be able to withstand an attack.

 2. — Attribution: We must be able to locate the attacker.

 3. — Offense: We must be able to locate and destroy the attacker.

 So the likelihood is that a terrorist action, a 'copy cat' terrorist action, by the Iranians, Chinese or anyone, would take place over a mobile digital storage device.

The reason for this is that it eliminates the last two rules: Iran suspected it was the U.S. and Israel who infected their nuclear sites, but didn't know for sure until the Obama administration leaked it's responsibility.

Without knowing attribution, then you can't locate an enemy, and you can't launch an offense.

That's why the the next WMD won't be a suitcase bomb, it won't be chemicals wired to blow in Times Square, it'll be a well-placed thumb drive or a black berry which contains malicious code, placed by a homegrown terror agent, and brought in by an unwitting employee.


Font: Military & Defense

Britain rejects US request to use UK bases in nuclear standoff with Iran.

(photo: Senior Airman Rebeca M. Luquin/USAF)




From Nick Hopkins, Guardian: Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law.

The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories.

The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly. They have pointed US officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general's office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

This makes clear that Iran, which has consistently denied it has plans to develop a nuclear weapon, does not currently represent "a clear and present threat". Providing assistance to forces that could be involved in a pre-emptive strike would be a clear breach of international law, it states.

"The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans."

Sources said the US had yet to make a formal request to the British government, and that they did not believe an acceleration towards conflict was imminent or more likely. The discussions so far had been to scope out the British position, they said.

"But I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise."

Outrage as UN Report Calls for Israel Boycott

The UN investigator tasked with Israel-PA affairs openly supports a boycott of companies doing business in Israeli cities in Judea, Samaria.

Man waves pro-boycott sign in Ramallah



The United Nations official responsible for investigating Israel-PA affairs has openly expressed support for a boycott of all companies doing business with Israelis east of the 1949 armistice line.

In his latest report, UN special rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Richard Falk has called for a boycott on all companies tied to Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria.

Falk included “settlement expansion” as one of the reasons to boycott.

His statements have been severely condemned by Israel and its allies. Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, quoted by the AFP news agency, called on Falk to “either withdraw this biased and disgraceful report – or resign from his position at the United Nations.”

Falk has “not only done a disservice to the United Nations, but also to the Palestinian people,” Baird charged.

Israel condemned Falk’s statements as “grossly biased.” United States UN Ambassador Susan Rice rejected his statements as well, saying, “His call for a boycott of private companies is irresponsible and unacceptable.”

Falk’s boycott statements “do nothing to further a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and indeed poison the environment for peace,” she added.

Israeli experts say that Israel’s civilian communities in Judea and Samaria are legal under international law. The Palestinian Authority, backed by much of the international community, claims that the territories won by Jordan in 1949, and retaken by Israel in 1967, rightfully belong to Arab residents of the area for the establishment of a new Arab state.

Richard Falk was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, not by UN Chief Ban-Ki-Moon. The Human Rights Council is notoriously anti-Israel, and has gone so far as to conduct its own probes criticizing Israel in cases where other official UN reports are more balanced.

Falk’s mission was criticized from the beginning due to his biased mandate, under which he is to examine Israeli Jewish violations of Arab rights, with no mention of Arab terrorism or other Arab violations of Israeli rights. The appointment of Falk, specifically, also came under fire due to his past extremist statements, including claims of a U.S. cover-up in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Font: By Maayana Miskin

UK intelligence officers knew of CIA's rendition plans within days of 9/11

Meeting at British embassy in US raises questions about repeated denials by MI5 and MI6 of connivance in torture.

Jack Straw, who told MPs in 2005 there was 'simply no truth in the
 claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition'.
Photograph: David Gadd/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd

Within days of the 9/11 attacks on the US, the CIA told British intelligence officers of its plans to abduct al-Qaida suspects and fly them to secret prisons where they would be systematically abused.

The meeting, at the British embassy in Washington, is disclosed in a forthcoming book by the Guardian journalist Ian Cobain. It raises serious questions about repeated claims by senior MI5 and MI6 officers that they were slow to appreciate the US response to the attacks, and never connived in torture.

The meeting signalled to British officials that the US was preparing to embark on a global kidnapping programme which became known as extraordinary rendition. Cobain reveals that at the end of a three-hour presentation by Cofer Black, President George Bush's top counter-terrorist adviser, Mark Allen – his opposite number in MI6 – commented that it all sounded "rather bloodcurdling".

A few weeks later, in early October 2001, at a secret meeting at Nato headquarters in Brussels, US officials drew up a list of "necessary measures to increase security", Cobain discloses. They included flights to and from secret prisons in Asia, Africa, and throughout Europe. "Quietly, Britain pledged logistics support for the rendition programme, which resulted in the CIA's Gulfstream V and other jets becoming frequent visitors to British airports en route to the agency's secret prisons," writes Cobain.

Over the next four years CIA rendition flights used British airports at least 210 times. The book reveals that Washington asked the UK for permission to build a large prison on Diego Garcia, the British territory in the Indian Ocean where the US has a large bomber base. The project was dropped, for logistical rather than legal reasons.

However, Diego Garcia was used as a stopover for CIA flights taking detainees to secret prisons around the world. And in secret memos, Labour ministers said in early 2002 that their "preferred option" was to render British nationals to Guantánamo Bay, Cobain records. MI5 and MI6 officers carried out around 100 interrogations at the US prison on Cuba between 2002 and 2004.

Yet for years ministers emphatically denied any British involvement in America's rendition programme. As late as December 2005, Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, was telling MPs there was "simply no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition". Just a year earlier, we now know, MI6 – under Straw's watch and with the blessing of ministers, officials say – helped to render two leading Libyan dissidents to Muammar Gaddafi's secret police.

Despite the post-9/11 Washington embassy and Nato meetings, and other evidence of their early involvement in rendition, MI5 and MI6 witnesses told the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) that it was some time before they knew what the US was up to. As late as July 2007, the misinformed ISC stated in a report on rendition that MI5 and MI6 "were … slow to detect the emerging pattern of renditions to detention".

Cobain's book, Cruel Britannia, says the British military operated a "torture centre" throughout the 1940s "in complete secrecy, in a row of Victorian villas in one of the most exclusive neighbourhoods in London". They also ran an "interrogation centre" near Hanover in Germany. Evidence from newly released records shows that British involvement in abuse was common earlier – in the colonies, later in Northern Ireland, and much more recently in Iraq.

The book reveals that Allen (who was later to develop a cosy relationship with Gaddafi's intelligence chiefs) expressed concern after the post-9/11 meeting in the UK embassy in Washington about what would happen once the Americans had "hammered the mercury in Afghanistan". Al-Qaida would simply scatter elsewhere, destabilising entire regions, Allen suggested. A CIA officer who was present at the embassy meeting remarked later that while the British appeared laid back, "it was clear they were worried, and not without reason".

Intelligence service to be split from interior ministry.

TBILISI, DFWatch — Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili says the intelligence service will be separated from the interior ministry and be set up as an independent state agency.

“This service will have as function to find secret information, analyze, systematize,” Ivanishvili said, and explained that criminal law persecution will not be under the new agency’s authority.

Bidzina Ivanishvli said the government will transform the Interior Ministry to a domestic affairs ministry and form it as civil service.

“We will enforce a mechanism of public control of police activity. Policemen will be released from political pressure and they will serve the state and the people. We will not let the police once again become a weapon for threatening people and exert violence for a political force.”

Ivanishvili said the new government will not start political persecution.

He spoke about the importance of constitutional changes to have an appropriate model of state governing and to end single person or single party management. The model of governing adopted by parliament will provide state stability, he said adding that they will agree with Georgian people on this issue and then make decision.

NEWS. KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN THE CORPORAL TIZIANO CHIEROTTI!

NEWS. KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN THE CORPORAL TIZIANO CHIEROTTI!

Corporal Chierotti Titian, one of four Italian soldiers wounded in Afghanistan today in a firefight, not did it! This was announced by a press of the State. greater of Defense.

HONOR THE CORPORAL CHIEROTTI!

A prayer for him and his family as for the other wounded.



Italian convoy attacked in Afghanistan ...
Our soldier killed, three others injured
Our soldiers were carrying out a joint patrol with the Afghan army when their Lynx were attacked by a group of insurgents.
17:46 - An Italian armored Lynx was attacked in Afghanistan among our soldiers on board the train one was seriously injured, and died a few hours later, while three others suffered minor injuries.
The gunfight took place at 13:40 local district Bakwa, in Farah province (south of Herat), during a joint operation with the Afghan army: our soldiers responded by opening fire and killing one of the insurgents.

ULTIMA ORA. MORTO IN AFGHANISTAN IL CAPORALE TIZIANO CHIEROTTI!

Il caporale Tiziano Chierotti, uno dei quattro militari italiani feriti oggi in Afghanistan in uno scontro a fuoco, non ce l'ha fatta! Lo rende noto un comunicato dello Stato. maggiore della Difesa.

ONORE AL CAPORALE CHIEROTTI!

Una preghiera per lui e per la sua famiglia come per gli altri feriti.




Convoglio italiano attaccato in Afghanistan ...
Ucciso un nostro soldato, altri tre feriti
I nostri militari stavano compiendo un pattugliamento congiunto con l'esercito afghano quando i loro Lince sono stati assaltati da un gruppo di insorti.
17:46 - Un blindato Lince italiano è stato attaccato in Afghanistan: tra i nostri militari a bordo del convoglio uno è stato ferito gravemente, ed è morto alcune ore più tardi, mentre altri tre hanno subìto ferite lievi.
Lo scontro a fuoco è avvenuto alle 13.40 locali nel distretto di Bakwa, nella provincia di Farah (a sud di Herat), nel corso di un'operazione congiunta con l'esercito afgano: i nostri soldati hanno reagito aprendo il fuoco e uccidendo uno degli insorti.