Sunday, May 16, 2004

Those imps at Cryptome eyeball Cambone's home.  Also, some background material on the reporting requirements for special access programs. 10:33:46 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

al-Battar.  Historical meaning.  It's also the name of the al-Qaeda e-zine. 12:47:23 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

Woot!  Space tug to launch in 2007.  Excellent. 12:01:43 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

Doug Kaye has just published the first audio installment of the Gillmor Gang.  It's like a McLaughlin Group for technology (they would argue that its more urbane, like Washington Week). 10:32:35 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

Jeff Jarvis brings up some good points about Six Apart (software) and Typepad (service).  He's right that there is a conflict of interest and it does detract from the company's core mission:  to sell software.  This is a difficult decision to make (I've been there).  However, the solution is to productize Typepad for large communities provided by leading hosting companies.  Typepad needs to be sold as software.  Treat the current instantiation of Typepad as a demo of its capabilities.  9:47:55 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

Meet America's top counter-terrorist strategist, Dr. Stephen Cambone (It's interesting to note that his focus has been on Defense reform, particularly the reform of intelligence operations, and not on next generation warfare.  Outside of this, he has published little.  I suspect, based on the Hersh article, that his time in an official capacity at the DoD is through.  He's been Poindextered -- def. made to look foolish, harebrained, and out of control.): 9:18:59 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

William Lind opines on US domestic politics ( Lind is one of the best, albeit grumpy due to years of institutional neglect, minds thinking about next generation warfare.  My bet is that Zawahiri reads Lind and Boyd as closely as Guderian read Hart and Fuller). But what of the world beyond Iraq? That is where one sees the full effect of Iraq’s factory of WMDs – Wars of Mass Destruction. The State Department has just told all Americans to leave Saudi Arabia, while they can still get out alive. Over a hundred people are dead in Thailand, where local Islamics are waging a new jihad. Moslems and Christians are going at it again in Indonesia and Nigeria. The Israelis, beaten in Gaza as they were beaten in Lebanon, find it impossible to move either forward or back. Pakistan, whose army got it’s a-- handed to it by tribesmen on the old Northwest Frontier, is turning a deaf ear to increasingly desperate demands from America’s generals in Afghanistan for “tough action.” President Mubarak of Egypt warns from his tottering throne that America has never been so hated in the Middle East as it is now. Each day’s newspapers make the same point: in the misnamed “War on Terrorism,” America is losing and losing badly. Osama & Company are having a banner year. The reason is not any brilliance on their part, but gross buffoonery on ours. Specifically, the invasion and occupation of Iraq by America have created the greatest recruiting drive in history – for the other side. He continues with another article on contingency planning (and given that Iraqis guerrillas are armed to the teeth, it is worth paying attention to): The disastrous course of America’s war in Iraq has created a new task for the Great General Staff, in the form of more contingency planning. America needs to make sure it has a plan in the file for a fighting withdrawal from Iraq. It is still possible the end may not come this way. We may still manage a shaky hand-off to a U.N.-designated Iraqi government, and that government might last long enough for us to withdraw with some shreds of dignity. George W. might awake some morning a new man, announce he was swindled, sack the neo-cons and bring in someone like Marine Corps General Tony Zinni, who opposed the war all along, to handle our disengagement. The Archangel Michael might appear over Mecca and convert all the Mohammedans to Christianity. But the growing probability is that we will be driven out of Iraq by a general uprising, an intifada in which every American will be the target of every Iraqi and our boys (and, in America’s Neo-Model Army, girls) will have to fight their way out in a scene like that which faced Gordon in the Sudan. 8:52:02 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

Slowly but surely, I am improving past posts to global guerrillas (for example,  "Target: Ghawar").  It's tough without the push-back of an editor.  I wish there was a mechanism in weblogging that allowed more collaborative editing.  Comments aren't sufficient.  Wiki's are too chaotic.  Perhaps an ability to edit a draft with changes, like what can be done in Word, would do it.  For example:  as a designated editor I can click on edit and get a window with the post in an editing box.  I can make changes and suggestions that would improve the post.  Changes would be denoted in red.  As the author I can either accept the changes on an item by item basis or not.  8:24:51 AM    Comment_ Trackback []