An American Child's Primer on Ending War đđ
"Reboot!" cry the X-units, from the bleeding edges of the network... đŠ đ đ
"The man who sees two or three generations is like one who sits in the conjuror's booth at a fair and sees the tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
From our war files, an overview of âmodern warfareâ & a few key reminders.
âWould you recognize a revolution if you were in it?â
The Future of Information Operations: Software, Hardware & Wetware Defense
Information is power, and how a nation uses that power determines how effective a country may be in influencing the world politic. Unlike in the past where the elements of power only included military, economic and diplomatic factors, in the 21st century, information is rapidly assuming a place of primacy in the conduct of foreign policy. It can be a force multiplier, a decision-tool, a central theme for an offensive campaign and so much more. But to be useful, information must be understood for what it truly is â a weapon, and if not used correctly, it can backfire just like any other kinetic device in your inventory.
The use of information to effect public opinion has a long and varied history within world politics. Often it was the government or leadership elite that could control that information, thereby exercising power over their people. Yet the tremendous advances in technology in the computer and telecommunications fields over the last decade have shattered their monopoly of control over information. In addition, the merging of these formally separate areas have given the power to use information to a much greater audience. This in turn has forced the government to work harder to control the dissemination and ultimately the use information as an element of power.
Yet in reality the government can no longer control information. This is because it does not owns the sources nor means of delivery of information to our modern society. Which of course begs the question, if you cannot control information, can you really control power? There are many other organizations outside the government that now have a much greater influence on the flow of information, and it is now the government more often than not that is on the defensive. Since it cannot control the information, it must therefore react, and because the government is a bureaucracy, it cannot act fast enough to stay on the offensive.
Therefore Information Operations is changing the way in which the worldsâ militaries and governments conduct business. This includes military deterrence and peace-keeping operations, foreign policy and also world-wide economic development. No longer can these missions be conducted in isolation and so it is imperative that the organization structure adapt to these changing circumstances. That is precisely why you see so much turmoil in the governmental architecture that exists today. Will these changes even out as IO matures as a warfare area?
Younger self note: (Reminder for American citizens: when a candidate becomes Chief Executive/President, he/she takes control of the most deadly military war machine ever constructed, and the most complex, secretive intelligence infrastructure on Earth.)
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between." ~ Oscar Wilde
Addendum: Intel Above your Pay Grade
USA IO Acronyms & Agencies
AFIWC Air Force Information Warfare Center
AIA Air Intelligence Agency
ASD/C3I Assistant Secretary of Defense/Command, Control, Computers and Intelligence
ASD/SOLIC Assistant Secretary of Defense/Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict
BIOSG Bilateral Information Operations Steering Group
BIOWG Bilateral Information Operations Working Group
CAAP Critical Asset Assurance Program
CERT Computer Emergency Response Team
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CIAO Critical Infrastructure Protection Office
CINC Commander in Chief
CIP Critical Infrastructure Protection
CIPIS Critical Infrastructure Protection Integration Staff
CIPWG CIP Working Group
CITAC Computer Investigation & Infrastructure Threat Center
CJCS Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
CNA Computer Network Attack
CND Computer Network Defense
DASD S&IO Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security and Information Operations
DCI Director of Central Intelligence
DIA Defense Intelligence Agency
DIAP Defense-Wide Information Assurance Program
DIAPSG Defense Information Assurance Program Steering Group
DII Defense Information Infrastructure
DIRNSA Director National Security Agency
DISA Defense Information Systems Agency
DISN Defense Information Systems Network
DIOC Defense Information Operations Council
DOC Department of Commerce
DOD Department of Defense
DOE Department of Energy
DOJ Department of Justice
DOS Department of State
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation
FEDCIRC Federal Computer Incident Response Capability
FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency
FIRST Forum of Incident Response & Security Teams
GNOSC Global Network Operations Security Center
GSA General Services Administration
I & IA Infrastructure and Information Assurance
IA Information Assurance
IC Intelligence Community
ICC Information Coordination Center
IMINT Imagery Intelligence
INFOCON Information Condition
IO S&I Information Operations Strategy and Integration
IOSS Interagency OPSEC Support Staff
IOTC Information Operations Technology Center
IPI International Public Information
IPIIWG International Public Information Interagency Working Group
IPTF Infrastructure Protection Task Force
IWSC Information Warfare Support Center
JCIWS Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System
JCMA Joint Comsec Monitoring Activity
JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff
JCSE Joint Communications Support Element
JDISS Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System
JIOC Joint Information Operations Center
JIVA Joint Intelligence Virtual Architecture
JPO-STC Joint Program Office â Special Technology Counter Measures
JTF-CNO Joint Task Force â Computer Network Operations
JSC Joint Spectrum Center
JWAC Joint Warfare Analysis Center
LIWA Land Information Warfare Activity
MASINT Measurement & Signature Intelligence
MPP Mission Program Plan
NCA National Command Authorities
NCS National Communications Systems
NCTF-CND Navy Component Task Force â Computer Network Defense
NIAP National Information Assurance Partnership
NIPC National Infrastructure Protection Center
NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology
NIWA Naval Information Warfare Activity
NSA National Security Agency
NSC National Security Council
NSIRC National Security Incident Response Center
NSOC/IPC National Security Operations Center/Information Protect Cell
NSPD National Security Presidential Directive
NSTAC National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee
NSTC National Science and Technology Council
NSTISSC National Security Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Council
NTIA National Telecommunications & Information Assurance
ONDCP Office of National Drug Control Policy
OMB Office of Management and Budget
OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense
OSINT Open Source Intelligence
OSTP Office of Science & Technology Policy
PCAST President's Committee of Advisors on Science & Technology Policy
PCCIP Presidential Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection
PDD Presidential Directive Decision
PD&PA Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
PIR Priority Intelligence Requirement
POG Psychological Operations Group
POTUS President of the United States
PSN Public Switched Network
RPP Regional Program Plan
TWI Transnational Warfare Interests
UCP Unified Command Plan
USD(P) Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
USG United States Government
"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace-- more about killing than we know about living." ~General Omar Bradley
Kurt Vonnegut's Last Book, âA Man Without a Countryâ
on "Psychopathic Personality Syndrome":
"I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d'etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka "Christians," and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or "PPs."
To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete's foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!
And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.
What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can't. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!"
-- Kurt Vonnegut, In Memorium
Vonnegut's final book, a collection of essays entitled A Man Without a Country (2005), became a bestseller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut
The Sweet Serenity Of Modern Warfare
by Case Wagenvoord
Countercurrents.org
The successful execution of Americaâs Eternal War of the Empty Policy does not require toughness or resolve. All it requires is that those in charge achieve a sublime state of moral nihilism that transcends good and evil.
In this elevated state of moral nihilism, consequences no longer exist. The dead are not dead; the maimed are not maimed. It is an ethical void scrubbed clean of the gore that is warâs traditional aftermath. In this netherworld dead children, who really arenât dead, continue to play in the streets under the loving gazes of their mothers, whose limbs havenât been blown off. Dead fathers returned from their destroyed factories and the family sits down to its evening meal even though its home has been reduced to rubble. Life goes on, no matter how brutal the bombing.
Slaughter is sanitized. A clean-cut young man sits at his laptop somewhere in Nevada and with his mouse directs the course of an unmanned drone until a collection of hovels is in his sights. He clicks the mouse and in a flash, the hovels are no more. He closes his laptop, goes home to his family and gets a good nightâs sleep. Heâs put in a good day, and he sleeps blissfully unaware of the death and destruction he has wrought.
Moral nihilism works best in value-free individuals. This emptiness is achieved when the ties that bind an individual to family and community are severed. Into the void that remains pour the facile symbols of the state, symbols that are effective because they have been stripped of their original meaning until they are empty shells that resonate with meaning in individuals who are also empty shells. The best example of this is the American flag lapel pin. This once proud symbol of freedom and democracy now signifies the moral void that has made the United States a hegemonic wonder to behold.
To reach its peak efficiency, moral nihilism requires an environment in which nobody is in charge. Instead of a single evil mastermind, there is a collective mass consensus that is more reminiscent of a pool of toxic sludge than a grand conspiracy. Its driving force is a blind momentum that drifts along more from habit than resolve. Any attempt to think outside the box is thwarted because the box is constantly growing and expanding so the mind is never able to step outside of its confines.
Language, stripped of passion, is the medium of this moral nihilism. The language of the nihilist doesnât sing, it drones. Here is an example of its poetry:
"A cluster bomb delivery will be examined to determine the optimum configuration of bomblets from a maximum probability of destroying the target."
The emptiness of this passage rests in the absence of a child attracted to an unexploded bomblet. Nowhere is there a photograph of the child after the bomblet has exploded. The prose sits in a state of pure innocence which reduces war to little more than a video game.
But, do not think for a minute that our moral nihilists are totally lacking in compassion. Leo Tolstoy had them in mind when he wrote:
"I sit on a manâs back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means except by getting off his back. Of course, if the man throws me off his back, I have no choice but to kill him so the contagion of his freedom doesnât spread to other carriers."
A savage brutality once drove war. Now it is driven by the serene barbarity of the civilized.
Case Wagenvoord
An American Child's Primer on Ending War
War is another way of saying we're going to kill you now or else you comply.
War has become America's heart disease, and we are dying from it.
America holds the hopes, dreams and nightmares of the world in our privileged hands. Also most of the atomic weapons.
History is mostly a long list of wars, or periods of nations killing each other using various more deadly technologies to kill more people. Now we are in the 21st century epoch of killing, where entire communities and cities are threatened with mass death.
Our social conditioning in America is to support the killing, and say "yes" to wiping out the enemies of America. Now we have laser-guided, satellite-tracking, robot death-missiles, and we trust the CIA knows who to kill? (Extra credit: Draw a Predator drone with Hellfire missiles in action!)
We probably will never know who all were killed, and why, but we are supposed to support it, because we are told we are being "freed from terrorism." In fact "our" War is now officially against another more desperate form of war("terrorism")-- the "War against war" which will last until all of America's enemies are wiped out or agree to the demands of our "intelligence agencies."
American child, the connected version, global networked, 21st century model X-unit, sees that the "war" in Iraq and Afghanistan is not a "winnable" operation for the "American Way." In fact, we have lost our way a long time ago, when we allowed the CIA's secret war machines and killers like those who are slicing off our brothers' heads to operate in our name-- America, America, allegedly "the home of the brave."
Our Cultural Corps would have delegations of translators, artists, religious leaders, musicians, sports stars (even magicians!) make educational/diplomatic tours with our accompanying connected media coverage. We would distribute pre-loaded laptops with translation and DVD libraries everywhere we go. We would allow American and Iraqi women and children to interact on live media broadcasts.
21st century American child sees an end to "war" but it will require utmost honesty and historic justice-- exposing our secret CIA war machine to the world for review.
It's like any other corrupted machine-- the operating system must be purged of opportunistic parasites and malicious-ware sucking our bandwidth into oblivion. Or you toss the old machine entirely ("recycle" the hardware!) and boot up a shiny-fresh one with an improved, less corruptable operating system. Like a completely new system of diplomacy, for example.
Finally, America's funny way of saying "secret" when it comes to war is: "above my pay-grade." This tells so much about the "American Way," but it causes us to question: who is at the highest pay-grade, if the president is heard saying this? Is it even possible to find out?
"Reboot!" cry the X-units, from the bleeding edges of the network...
by Violet Flemme (younger self #13) Earth Advocates International
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between." ~ Oscar Wilde
The United States of Corruption:
Government of Corporate Overlords, by the Pentagon, for the Elite
"From the bosom of the devastated Earth, a voice goes up with our own.
It says 'Disarm!' 'Disarm!' The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
--Julia Ward Howe, Mother's Day Declaration, 1872
Americans are caught in an ironic, bipolar reality war in which we are told on one hand that the Democratic and Republican parties represent "our best interests" and the Constitutional government is based on the consent of the People. Yet day by day, from 9-11-2001 to this hour, we are reminded that a secret complex of agencies like the CIA and NSA, the gigantic military establishment and related corporate profiteers are the ones actually in charge, with barely any oversight, unknown, cosmic-level shadow budgets, and criminal activities of such derangement to shame all human beings.
We are now asked to look the other way as torture, imprisonment in cages for years without trial, terroristic attacks on our country, theft of trillions of dollars, lying and fascistic propaganda are deployed upon us.
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it." -- General Douglas MacArthur, 1957
As long as these century-long crimes, from the assassination of our own President in Dallas to the intentional demolition of a financial center in NYC, theft of the entire economy by Wall Street, oil companies and military profiteers, the Bush family/CIA wars around the world which qualify as "Holocaust" are allowed to be "business as usual" or swept aside for the future to deal with, we will be haunted by ghosts, living with cracked mirrors. Continued support for these activities, complicity now in the cover-up, as well as allowing the far-Right in Israel to carry on their genocide against the Palestinian people-- don't be bullied into believing it's all going to be OK because we're such "good guys." Now corruption is literally, physically coming home to roost, to coat our entire lives in oily, horrific despair.
The far-Right who are blockading and attacking our society have made it quite clear that they will not accept scientific-environmental demands for sustainability, social needs of the poor, or reduction of the military until we are all living amongst prison camps in a storm-tossed, oil-soaked wasteland--wait, here it comes now!
The broken world we are faced with is a challenge for heroes, for idealists, people with big ideas and even bigger hearts-- truthtellers and yes, sometimes the People have to throw themselves on their own government's bayonets, sometimes our students are mowed down, sometimes we are attacked by dogs. The difference is now we are questioning the very survival of humanity on planet Earth. This time there are nuclear holocausts to question.
"When we die and stand before our ancestors, we can say we stood up, we did what we could and did not turn and run." --Lame Deer
Here is my rational argument to every American: how can you claim this government of the military contractors and secret "intelligence" agencies succeeded in any way? How much more of a failure of our People and our resources could happen, why are we continuing along behind them as if the machinery is working for us? It's blood-soaked madness, a Dr. Strangelove nightmare threatening and choking us all for "classified" reasons. And let's not even get into "Space Command" and what's going on in those giant bases nobody is allowed to see, the underground cities and "continuity of operations" facilities you won't be invited to.
B. Burnbridge (younger self #23) Memorial Day, 2010
"The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death. From Shiloh to Dachau, from Antietam to Stalingrad, from Hiroshima to Vietnam and Afghanistan, the great specialty of industry and technology has been the mass production of human corpses." ~ Edward Abbey
"There is nothing inevitable about our future. The internet is made of people. People make decisions at social media companies. People make hashtags trend or not trend. People make societies progress or regress. When we internalize that fact we can stop waiting for some inevitable future to arrive and actually get to work now.
We've all been taught that the arc of the moral universe is long but that it bends toward justice. Maybe. Maybe it will. But that has always been an aspiration. It is not a guarantee. The arc doesn't bend itself. It's not bent inevitably by some mysterious force. The real truth, which is scarier, but more liberating, is that we bend it.":
Inside the bizarre world of internet trolls and propagandists
TED Talks | Andrew Marantz
"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.â ~ Elie Wiesel đđ đ đđ
âSTOP THE WAR SAVE UKRAINE - We Are Earthâ by đĨ Gagarin Project + Gagarin Beats â
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