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Planning for the unthinkable

August 19, 2009 /

Peter Schwartz of GBN suggests there’s “a high likelihood” of a global food crisis due to commodity speculation and the potential for a bad rice season.

Schwartz, however, is quick to point out that he’s not stating unequivocally that there will be a food crisis. “Our goal is to do scenarios and look at the uncertainties and the elements that could surprise us … We’re not predicting a food crisis, but (saying) that we are vulnerable to it,” he told INSEAD Knowledge following a lecture on ‘Emerging Strategic Issues and Wildcards’ at Singapore’s Civil Service College.

So how can we better prepare ourselves from unpredictable ‘black swan’ events which would have a major impact? Schwartz believes the answer is to think the unthinkable. That involves considering possibilities that are outlandish, implausible but highly consequential. The Asian tsunami, he says, is a prime example of such a black swan event whose impact could have been reduced somewhat had the right questions been asked.

Insead: Planning for the unthinkable

(via Kristin Wolff)

The Fifty Top U.S. War Criminals Who Need To Be Prosecuted

August 19, 2009 /

Compiled below, in hopes that it may be of some assistance to Eric Holder, John Conyers, Patrick Leahy, active citizens, foreign courts, the International Criminal Court, law firms preparing civil suits, and local or state prosecutors with decency and nerve is a list of 50 top living U.S. war criminals. These are men and women who helped to launch wars of aggression or who have been complicit in lesser war crimes. These are not the lowest-ranking employees or troops who managed to stray from official criminal policies. These are the makers of those policies.

The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have seen the United States target civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, use antipersonnel weapons including cluster bombs in densely settled urban areas, use white phosphorous as a weapon, use depleted uranium weapons, employ a new version of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs, engage in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian populations — including by blocking roads, cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations, planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and plowing down orchards — detain people without charge or legal process without the rights of prisoners of war, imprison children, torture, and murder.

The Fifty Top U.S. War Criminals Who Need To Be Prosecuted

Goes on to list the names and probable whereabouts for 50 war criminals.

(via Cryptogon)

The “safe haven” myth

August 19, 2009 /

At an appearance before the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday, President Obama defended U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, calling it a “war of necessity.” He claimed that “our new strategy has a clear mission and defined goals — to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies,” and he declared that “If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

This is a significant statement. In effect, the president was acknowledging that the only strategic rationale for an increased commitment in Afghanistan is the fear that if the Taliban isn’t defeated in Afghanistan, they will eventually allow al Qaeda to re-establish itself there, which would then enable it to mount increasingly threatening attacks on the United States.

This is the kind of assertion that often leads foreign policy insiders to nod their heads in agreement, but it shouldn’t be accepted uncritically. Here are a few reasons why the “safe haven” argument ought to be viewed with some skepticism.

Foreign Policy: The “safe haven” myth

(via Jorn Barger)

China’s CIC set to invest in U.S. mortgages

August 19, 2009 /

hina’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, which lost big on its ill-timed 2007 Morgan Stanley and Blackstone bets, plans to invest up to $2 billion in U.S. mortgages as it eyes a property market rebound, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Monday.

China Investment Corp plans to soon invest in U.S. taxpayer-subsidized investment funds that will acquire “toxic” mortgage-backed securities from the nation’s banks. CIC believes these assets are a safer bet than buying into the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), the people with direct knowledge said.

Reuters: China’s CIC set to invest in U.S. mortgages

(via Atom Jack)

U.S. Small Business Sector One of the Smallest Amongst Comparable Countries

August 18, 2009 /

*The United States has the second lowest share of self-employed workers (7.2 percent).

*The United States has among the lowest shares of employment in small businesses in manufacturing – only 11.1 percent of the U.S. manufacturing workforce is in enterprises with fewer than 20 employees. Eighteen other rich countries have a higher share of manufacturing employment in small enterprises, including Germany (13.0 percent), Sweden (14.4 percent), and France (18.0 percent).

*U.S. small businesses are particularly weak in high-tech. The United States, for example, has the second lowest share of computer-related service employment in firms with fewer than 100 employees and the third lowest share of research and development related employment in firms with fewer than 100 employees.

Center for Economic and Policy Research: U.S. Small Business Sector One of the Smallest Amongst Comparable Countries

(via Kristin Wolff)

Target Of Obama-Era Rendition Alleges Torture

August 13, 2009 /

Just because the crazies are sinking their fangs into Obama lately doesn’t let him off the hook:

According to court papers, on April 7, 2009, Azar and a Lebanese-American colleague, Dinorah Cobos, were seized by “at least eight” heavily armed FBI agents in Kabul, Afghanistan, where they had traveled for a meeting to discuss the status of one of his company’s U.S. government contracts. The trip ended with Azar alighting in manacles from a Gulfstream V executive jet in Manassas, Virginia, where he was formally arrested and charged in a federal antitrust probe.

This rendition involved no black sites and was clearly driven by a desire to get the target quickly before a court. Also unlike renditions of the Bush-era, the target wasn’t even a terror suspect; rather, he was suspected of fraud. But in a troubling intimation of the last administration, accusations of torture hover menacingly over the case. According to papers filed by his lawyers, Azar was threatened, subjected to coercive interrogation techniques and induced to sign a confession. Azar claims he was hooded, stripped naked (while being photographed) and subjected to a “body cavity search.”

Huffington Post: Target Of Obama-Era Rendition Alleges Torture

American brain drain: college graduates moving to China

August 10, 2009 /

Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home.

Even those with limited or no knowledge of Chinese are heeding the call. They are lured by China’s surging economy, the lower cost of living and a chance to bypass some of the dues-paying that is common to first jobs in the United States.

“I’ve seen a surge of young people coming to work in China over the last few years,” said Jack Perkowski, founder of Asimco Technologies, one of the largest automotive parts companies in China.

New York Times: Shut Out at Home, Americans Go to China

(via Don)

John Metta: Our soldiers should die in war

August 7, 2009 /

While it’s easy to sit in a room somewhere and discuss the merits of building autonomous vehicles to do the “dirty work,” I’m very disturbed by the trend. In fact, it quite sickens me.

I feel that we are at a time when we should be seriously seeking to understand the humanity of each other. Other peoples, other cultures, other ways of being. Looking at the news, it may seem that often, the only thing that we have in common with a person on the other side of the planet is that we are both human.

But, I feel it’s important to remember that this commonality is the only thing that is important. The most important thing we have is our humanity, and humanity means that with makes us human.

Sitting in an office, safely controlling a machine that will extinguish the lives of human beings is not going to connect us to another human. It is not going to give us the chance to learn about that person’s worldview, nor is it going to give us the chance to describe ours. There is no conversation. There is only death.

And this is death at no cost to ourselves.

How disconnected do we want to be? Will we accept war without a price?

Positively Glorious: Our soldiers should die in war

See also: Military Robots and the Laws of War (adapted from PW Singer’s Wired for War)

My position is simpler: we shouldn’t fight wars.

Blackwater founder accused of murder

August 5, 2009 /

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”

Jeremy Scahill: Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

(via Disinfo)

Future of Cyber Security: What Are the Rules of Engagement?

August 3, 2009 /

The fireworks weren’t only in the sky this past Fourth of July but were seemingly in the Intertubes, too, when U.S. and South Korean government websites were struck by a series of cyber sorties that knocked a few sites off line and left some people seeing red — as in the crimson Communist hue.

Anonymous South Korean intelligence agents blamed North Korea for the attacks — despite presenting no evidence to back the claim. U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan) even called on the administration to retaliate with a “show of force” against the Communist regime.

The congressman’s extreme reaction to a minor web attack is a stark reminder that we’ve entered the age of the cyber wars. It’s also a reminder that there are numerous questions — ethical, legal and even bureaucratic — that need to be sorted out about the rules of engagement before the U.S. launches any cyber volleys in retaliation for an attack or otherwise. The most basic being, what constitutes an attack, how do we identify its source and what’s an acceptable response?

Wired: Future of Cyber Security: What Are the Rules of Engagement?

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