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A Syrian Reality

Another day, another mention of Aleppo, Syria and events. Hilary Benn speaks of the shame we all should feel. Yet, here we have an issue. Not with his sentiment, but with the clarity of who or what is in charge. Now that the UN has another meeting, labelled as ’emergency’, it is time for people to realise that labels are no longer things to see You see, CNN states ‘descent into hell‘, I say ‘the reality of choice‘. As we now see that Assad, with Russian aid secures the news like ‘Syrian Government Forces Are Close to Full Liberation of Aleppo City’ and ‘Syrian army gaining control of Aleppo eastern quarters’ we need to realise that America is no longer the leader of the free world, that it is too bankrupt to be calling any shots other than commercial deals (read: trade agreements) to feed its own greed. The fact that Libya has now asked Russia to intervene on its behalf. As General Khalifa Haftar is meeting with Russian minister to seek help, we now all need to realise that we are chasing the consent from an empty bag names America. Only now, well over a year too late are pundits all over the media field considering a change. Those who some consider to be half baked evangelical procrastinators of social sciences are now considering that Frexit ‘might’ happen. The data was clearly there for well over 26 weeks. Just like they were trying to stay buddies with those running the gravy trains, Brexit was ignored for too long and Frexit is very nearly a given next. When you consider the quote two weeks ago in the Guardian “Kenny’s administration in Dublin to strongly back any French attempt to gain more concessions from Brussels to prevent a possible ‘Frexit’“, we can now start quoting South Park (Oh my god, they killed Kenny) whilst Ireland is considering the dangers it is manoeuvring itself in.

What about Syria?

Yes, that is the question, because for the most, no one gives a dams about Syria! This is a harsh reality. When you look at the cold reality for Syria, you will consider that the natural resources of Syria include iron ore, crude oil, phosphate rock, manganese ore, asphalt, marble, rock salt, and gypsum. Most can be gotten in many places, whilst oil value is in the basement and iron ore is in an even worse place. The large corporations do not care for any of these substances, so as such The American Congress is speaking a lot, not saying much and acting even less. The evidence is all around you. This outgoing Democratic failure has done next to nothing substantial. We see mention of weapon support. It is less than it should be and likely done to write off old equipment or get some parties a tax breaks (personal assumption), it never amounted to anything serious. The same could be stated for the United Kingdom, who with the US was involved with Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, because the growth of ISIL is scary for both of them. In my view, if there is any hero to be laureled in this mess than it would be the doctors who despite this level of ignoring are still trying to aspire the best the medical profession has to offer, in my view, most of these doctors are worth of any recognition that equals the Victorian Cross (American equivalent: Medal of Honor).

The grim reality of life set to value is that the morality of the things that President Assad was accused of. Perhaps some people remember how a little over 5 years ago, the unrest of the 2011 Arab Spring escalated to armed conflict after President Bashar al-Assad’s government violently repressed protests calling for his removal. Soon thereafter we had the issue that the government of a sovereign nation retaliated against those who were seeking to overthrow that government. This is the issue, you see, many of these nations had to deal with massive gaps in quality and quantity of life. There was a great deal of dissatisfaction that led to opposition and uprising against these governments and as such things escalated. There have been widely distributed claims that the US government’s support of the uprisings fuelled actions, funded largely by the National Endowment for Democracy (www.ned.org). This in an age where people in non-governmental places seem to think that whatever they do the US government had its back. Yet the outgoing Democratic Party had no money left, even worse, the total national debt is expected to hit 20 trillion just when President-elect Donald Trump gets into office. He gets a building to temporary live in and a debt that will take more than 3 generations to remove. Whatever happens, their choice will be American based, American focussed and there will be no space for any military action of any kind unless it is due to a direct attack on America. In all of this Syria is not mentioned, because for the players at large, it has no value, not the living, the dead or the national resources. For the next 8 years at least there is every indication that Russia will get a near cart blanch to grow its influence and after this December 2016 there is plenty of evidence that this will come with full Syrian backing, and likely Libyan backing too.

So this now ups the ante for Israel and in addition, it will require the allies and friends of Israel to up their game by a lot, because this game implies that the next cold war comes with one player short, an empty intelligence coffer and a much wider supported Russia. I reckon that Alexander Bortnikov will be having some very comfortable lunches with Sergey Lavrov. I can only assume that black bread and borscht will not be on the menu, Pancake! (Internal FSB translation joke).

These events are very much at the core because the US security council has the US and Russia in opposition, so that part is not expected to get into action, the only benefit here is that China could side with US, not because of any Syrian humanitarian need, but if the US gets committed here, the US economic prospects go down further, which would suit China just fine. In my view, if there is anything to be salvaged, than it needs to be Jordan, not Syria. If we actually have any regard for lives, than the support for Jordan, for its infrastructure and resources is essential as it has been trying to give support to 1.4 million refugees (Syrians and officially registered refugees).

Let this sink in readers, we are bickering all over the world on how many refugees we should take and Jordan has added 25% of its entire population from refugees and Syrians. That whilst Jordan has always had a shortage of water and a few other resources. In my view, the actions of King Abdullah II of Jordan seem to me to be more worthy of a Nobel Peace prize a lot more than the one given to President Barack Obama ever was. I am not ignoring the issues at the Jordanian border, the given fact by Al Jazeera et al that there tens of thousands of refugees stuck in no man’s land. Yet Jordan already has 1.4 million, 25% of its entire population, they have done more than most nations have considered. That part, will be opposed and countered by nearly every nation, but that is the grim reality. I feel certain that Jordan was not working with open arms, yet when we see the few thousand that are in Greece (OK, a little over 10% of those in Jordan), the fact that Syrians (as reported by Ekathimerini) have been quoted that compared to life as a refugee in Greece, they would have preferred to have stayed in Syria. Tell me, when a person prefers to take their chances and live in an active war zone, how bad are you as a nation? Now, we can agree that Greece was in a really bad place before the Syrian refugees arrived, so that did not help the Greeks any, also their lack of any infrastructure to deal with these amount of refugees must also be accepted.

In all these matters discussed, big business have remained silent, inert and lacking actual action that make a difference. In addition, as Donald Trump is stated to make a policy change that it will be ‘America First’, which under their economic climate is fair enough, when the dust settles and President Bashar Hafez al-Assad sits on his ‘throne’ as victor, how many nations will move forward trying to do ‘business’ with Syria? How many will enter the quote ‘moving forward’ in their speeches and statements? You see, the reality of any nation has forever been that those with empty coffers do not govern, the US is figuring that out the hard way, because its actions and messages on a global scale are ignored by too many players for it not to be the case. In the end, these trade deals have a one sided benefit for American companies. They would still get to sue other governments, whilst the President-elect is moving towards the tactic of: “Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores“, and here I will be honest, it is pretty much the only option that the US has and no one can fault America for that, just realise that those who would have enacted the TTIP/TPP would have learned the hard way that American corporations would have sued governments for the mere profit of it. That too would bring money to America, and their board of directors. In all this, in light of Brexit/Frexit and now these trade deals, we see a massive lack of national legal protection in these ‘deals’, this whilst these corporations have only consented to continue certain factories when the tax breaks are juicy enough. When that falls away, those claimed economic national benefits fall away too and even today, certain taxations that wold have been seen as fair as those places took away billions, now that the economic weather changes, nations at large need to consider where to move to next. It is that weather that made me evangelize stronger bonds with the Indian pharmaceutical industry. Most nations have a growing need for generic medication and places like Syria, Jordan and Greece even more. Yet the people who should have realised this seem to be pushing for any pharmaceutical deal with America, whilst the players all know that there will be no local benefit, none at all, so again we see now that the Trump thinks like a business man, which is what the social left is not getting (read: comprehending), whilst they ignored the tax reform essentials, they keep on giving money from empty coffers, that party is over and those not adjusting their view will be in the cold soon enough. This also means that certain values change. This is the grim reality for Syrians, their value is none and have been so for some time. Not on a humanitarian scale, but the nations at large have no funds there, so we see that we turn our backs on a situation we cannot change and we cannot influence, in my personal view, mainly because some lawmakers were asleep at the wheel in setting up trade deals and certain tax loop holes (read: these loopholes were purely incidental and coincidental, not in any way orchestrated). Now we have to choose between economic hardship and humanitarian ‘sound’ suicide, how is that a choice?

So here we are, seeing another iteration of ‘boo hoo hoo’ Syria, we all know it, we all agree and we cannot do anything, mainly because those who could, gave away the keys to the castle and the executive washroom. Those who are now in charge are setting the pace and none of them want a war where they get nothing out of. This is the mere reality of an economic driven political society of elected officials. No monarchy would ever abide by that. Should you see that the Libyan and Syrian deal have no influence, when you hear someone preach just that, and how America will get on top soon enough, also feel free to investigate the connections that are now happening between Egypt and Russia. A new air base on the Mediterranean close to the Libyan border, so as America moved out, Europe is getting surrounded by Russian bases, if we include the now permanent Russian Naval base in Syria. This is why Israel needs to change its game, because it is not outside of the realm of issues that Mossad now needs to refocus their attentions to foreign operations and data gathering. A field that the Russian have been decently good at. They do have one advantage, Sergey Yevgenyevich Naryshkin might be highly intelligent; he lacks experience and is relatively new to the job. If he ends up relying on the heads of Political Intelligence and Illegal Intelligence, the game changes, because those two are not the newbies we would want them to be and the Middle East desk will be the new hot potato for Intelligence Officers with a scent for promotion for at least 5 years (read: Mossad will have to deal with Intelligence ego’s from all over Europe). My weird sense of humour would try to push those two into the marching path of General-Lieutenant Igor Valentinovich Korobov, a proud man and as per 2016 the new head of the GRU, pride is something that often be used against that very same person.

Why mention these matters, what is their impact on Syrian refugees?

No matter what happens in the coming 3 weeks, when the dust settles, most nations would want these refugees to return to Syria, many Syrians want to return to Syria, but that place is in rubble and those people have nothing left. Syria will be a construction heaven for Russian entrepreneurs for decades to come, also meaning that the economic times will change and the Middle East picture we had of it will have changed more than many understand or want to take for granted. The Arab spring will soon be seen as a temporary thing that was not the success people wanted and proclaimed it to be. Some in those fields will object and counter with all kinds of manipulated data, in addition the press will give a few more articles on how the Arab spring was the only way and it was a good way, yet when we see that Russian influence is rising all over the Mediterranean, and now with Morocco raising the tourist numbers for China and Russia, it could be interpreted that a first signal is given to Sergey Lavrov that a conversation of interest is soon to be an option. In my personal view, one of two corridors of travel for ISIS ends up being in Russian hands. If not correctly countered we will see a radically shifted view of northern Africa with America no longer being any form of player there. This also reflects on Syria, because these nations will allow Russia to set up an empty trade house where they are merely the middle man in commerce between Syrians and Northern African partners, so suddenly there will be large economic growth (moving from zero that will always be the case) and it will push a shift in other ways too. It is the Grim reality we face, because the actual culprit was greed and we have seen how both America and the European Economic Community was unwilling and unable to act against it, which is why we will only see a stronger push for Frexit and Brexit. A move that scares the US, because the Euro and the Dollar are too closely tied and this dissolving action will be seen as the nightmare scenario by the IMF and Wall Street, where the question now becomes: who is speaking for whom?

 

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In light of non-brilliance

I just ended reading an article that has the hairs of the back of my neck stand up straight. I have seen my share of bungles and botches, but the article ‘Solicitor mistakenly sent girl’s address to father who murdered her‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/12/safe-house-address-of-may-shipstone-murdered-by-father-accidentally-sent-to-him) kind of takes the cake!

The subtitle ‘Case review concludes there is no evidence Yasser Alromisse located daughter’s safe house via accidental disclosures‘, in that regard I wonder what evidence and how thorough things were looked at. We all know that mistakes are made at times. Yet the level of errors, when they are nothing short of reckless endangerment to the life of a child is quite the achievement.

It’s almost like giving a 5 year old an active hedge trimmer asking it to throw it in the air and catch it again. I wonder if the sitting Judge will consider leniency whether the current to that trimmer had been switched on inadvertently. The quote “reported to police that her solicitor had inadvertently disclosed their new address to Alromisse in legal papers” seems to be part of all this. In addition we see “previous addresses or identities were inadvertently given to 46-year-old Alromisse by other bodies, including a bank and the Child Support Agency“, which is one clear reason why I do not bank online. You see, it is not just about this case specifically. The fact that I have been contacted on more than one occasion, whilst the marketeers were clearly selling me things (as marketeers do), based upon information my previous telecom provider had released to them.

Another gasser is the quote “the serious case review concluded that no one could have predicted or prevented the killing, which took place in Northiam, near Rye, East Sussex, on 11th September 2014“, in that regard, the joker in that part of the game should consider “five months earlier Lyndsey Shipstone, who had fled with her daughter to escape domestic abuse and violence“. The fact that this lady needed a safe house might be indicative of the fact that not just her, others too clearly perceived a danger to her life. You see a safe house is not just a place where you hide defected members of the FSB or MOIS, it is also where you could hide a person who prefers not to be beaten to death. #Justsaying

You see, it is not the act that is the issue. The quote “After a thorough independent review, the LSCB concluded, as did the investigating police officers, that the father planned and carried out the killing in a secretive way, using the internet and a range of covert methods to trace the family and obtain the means to carry out the murder“, so there was an online path that lead to the victims. Now, I will accept that if the mother had posted selfies with geotracking on Facebook with texts like ‘Here we now safely are‘, there is a clear case of the mother losing the plot, but that is not it, is it? Apart from legal papers that could have inadvertently contained information (which is still very wrong), it is more the issue that, as stated ‘including a bank and the Child Support Agency‘, I have to ask the question, is this an institutional failure? In addition, when I see the quote “It called for assurances from agencies that systems were in place surrounding information about vulnerable people that should not be revealed”

Which agencies and what systems? Did anyone consider not logging information on something this volatile and currently implied to be non-protective? There is one other part in the article that I find debatable. The quote “there is no evidence this information did actually allow him to track them down. In fact, it was a period of some six months after details had been disclosed to him before the mother raised concern, and in that time there is evidence the father had still been using the internet to try to trace them“.

You see if that is all true then an IT expert could have given loads of Intel on how the address was sought and how it was found. Perhaps after 2 hours of seeking an not finding anything, he might have read the legal paper stating;

Victim A, currently residing at 68 shoot her dead lane, [insert postcode] Northiam. Yes, that made it hard, did it not? And as for the time lag, how many non-law students/professionals do you know that read legal papers to the degree they should? So whilst I see the part at the end where it reads “what we want all agencies to be mindful of, is that social media and powerful internet search engines make it increasingly difficult for families fleeing violence to rely on their whereabouts remaining secret. This needs to be considered as part of safety planning and guidance given to those at risk“, there has been no mention of not entering certain data online and keeping that info off-line in a folder that is in a locked cabinet, with perhaps only a reference number. Is it me or have I oversimplified the issue?

This is what is at the centre of all this, the consideration to remain off-line. You see, when it is offline, the average person cannot accidently reveal that information, and in addition the requesting party would be required to talk to the person that has access to the paper, the person, not some code for access. It is an issue that will be evolving in the near future for many reasons. No matter what excuse Apple used (valid or otherwise), the fact that the breach was a result of vulnerabilities in Apple’s password security system, enabling persistent hackers to guess the passwords and security questions of select users. So what were these ‘persistent’ hackers? How persistent makes for how many guesses? These parts were not given, my guess is, is that it has been likely more than three times. I have seen similar issues with Skype passwords. This goes further than just quality control. It is of course part of it, but the evolution of systems shows now more than ever the need for better security control on applications and more important, on data. The idea that Child services endangered the child is more likely the stuff of nightmares for those working there, but how was it revealed? Without better insight in how things happened, there is no way to tell but the fact that the wrong person got access and accidently revealed it to the wrong person is now more likely than not.

A linked issue could be seen in the Sydney Morning Herald (at http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/massively-negligent-childrens-photos-audio-recordings-released-after-toymaker-vtech-breach-20151201-glc7ps.html), where ‘children’s photos, audio recordings released after toymaker VTech breach‘. The article being useful in more than one way I might add. The quote “A breach of almost 4,854,209 parents and 6,368,509 kids’ online accounts” should scare any parent senseless. The article which was published on December 1st 2015 gives way to more parts. In one instance is the April 20th article (at http://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/banks-fret-data-breach-law-will-stir-fear-about-digital-economy-20160419-goai8n.html), which is about the quote “Banks have warned the federal government that a proposed law requiring mandatory notification of serious data breaches risks stirring up fear about the nation’s transition towards a digital economy“, which starts the story, with mentions that there are issues with the situation as a whole. The banks make various valid cases, yet when we get to “the proposed law as being convoluted and warns it could dampen public confidence in the digital economy that the government wants to encourage“, you should consider that there are various online issues and the banks are currently losing the cyberwar, not winning it. Now, there might not be direct threat to life in this case, yet the fact that criminals are getting better at getting to your money and there is too much unclear regarding issues like the responsibility of the users regarding safeguarding passwords. There are issues all over the board and the fact that more and more applications are using shared libraries on desktop and mobile, which does not guarantee added security, far from it. One flaw is all that is needed to get multiple access to data sets. And as you might have noticed, there have been way too many flaws in IOS, Android and Windows (although I personally believe that the amount of windows flaws have grown exponential to the sum of both IOS and Android flaws. There is an additional problem, as there is a time lag between finding the flaw and fixing it. When the development teams find them it is one thing, when they act reactively because a third party had found them it becomes another matter. Now, the reality is, is that not all flaws are about personal details or data matters, but some are!

So was this mere an institutional failure through personal actions, or was it a cyber and IT issue? The issue would be easier if the report was available, but let’s take a look.

You see, The East Sussex LSCB is at http://www.eastsussexlscb.org.uk/, which looks ok, but when you take a simple deeper look (at http://www.eastsussexlscb.org.uk/index.html), we see the Parallels Plesk Panel, with the text “To log in to your Parallels Plesk Panel, visit https://www.eastsussexlscb.org.uk:8443“, now this does not give away the farm, but it raises questions, on why the page is there in the first place. Ah, but the plot thickens!

You see (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTpmZvcIZIM), there is a video on how to exploit the zero day exploit, and the video was published on 5th Sep 2014, 6 days before the murder! It shows precisely how to get into the system and how to get the information out of such a system. Now we have ourselves a ballgame, don’t we?

No matter when it was fixed, this video gives the goods to get access to the system, meaning that other children could have been and even might be in danger. So what does the report (at http://www.eastsussexlscb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/SCR-Child-P-Overview-Report-Published-March-.16.pdf) say?

The report gives some of the goods at 3.5, where we see: “Child P’s address and important details of her mother’s circumstances were inadvertently disclosed by a number of public and private bodies during the period covered by the review, though there is no evidence that this is what enabled her father to locate her“, the intended outcome is “Agencies have in place good systems which identify information about vulnerable service users that should not be disclosed. Staff in all agencies are trained to use the agencies system and to understand the significance of this issue“, which sounds decent, but the zero day exploit their own web system has shown a flaw meaning that these systems are not to be trusted. If even one person has shared login and passwords, the security in there is pretty much null and void.

There is an important element in [100], here we see “It is also now believed that the father had accessed information about Child P and her mother from Facebook. This may have included information that the mother had a new partner and that Child P had been baptised in her local village church“, which is beyond belief! So, you need a safe house, but casually place your actions on Facebook? I am shaking my head in disbelief! Still, the point was added, yet when did these events take place? Is there any evidence that the father accessed those records? In addition, the fact that the flaws of the IT system did not make it into the report, especially in light that the video shows a step by step guide on how to get into such a system is equally a failure on the investigating body of the LSCB. I will agree that this was not the most likely intrusion, especially in light of given information on Facebook. Yet, especially in regards to items 22 and 23 on page 63 gave realisation of the fear of finding out, which places some issues with item [100] aforementioned and who placed what information exactly and on which Facebook account?

What does seem to be the case is that the death of Child P is a slightly bigger mess than either the Guardian or the BBC give vision to. I think that the failure was larger and due to the missing IT part more of an institutional failure than most realise, the fact that no clear guidance of non-social media actions might be in play as supportive evidence to that view.

As I see it, it was a preventable loss and the ‘defence’ “Although the review is clear that professionals could not have prevented this death“, is one I personally cannot agree with.

 

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United we classify others

Two articles hit me a few days ago. One of them was an article describing a survey by the Reputation Institute. The news article titled ‘Tel Aviv ranked among least reputable cities‘. The article was found at http://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-ranked-among-least-reputable-cities/. This was an issue for me, because I have been to Tel Aviv. Why would it not be reputable, or at least one of the more reputable cities. In all that I wonder, because the top 600 cities (by population) are larger than Tel Aviv with its 425,000 people. So coming in at 92 whilst 600 are larger is still a good achievement. What puzzles me in all this is the part ‘least reputable cities‘. What makes a city reputable? I did not see the research or the questionnaire, but when we see “the Reputation Institute, asked 19,000 residents of France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Japan, the US, Canada and Russia to rank the world’s top 101 cities based on their levels of trust, esteem, admiration and respect“.

Trust, “In a social context, trust has several connotations“, which is nice yet did the interviewees realise that? The paper (at http://misrc.umn.edu/workingpapers/fullpapers/1996/9604_040100.pdf) gives a nice view on how trust is not an easy thing to tackle. at Page 43 we read “one can develop a good relationship with another person by gradually increasing Trusting behaviour, while at the same time decreasing any minor control measures directed at the other person. Decreasing controls includes less ‘checking up’ on the other person. It also includes moving from a formal relationship to a more personal, informal relationship

Which is nice when we consider that Russia, land of GRU and FSB gives way to ‘decreasing any minor control measures directed at the other person’, so do the interviewees from Russia consider trust the way a person from Sweden, the Netherlands or even Uruguay does? I can go on for the other nations, but in all, many have a feeling towards Israel, their view is biased from day one. Plenty with an anti-Israeli view, some with an anti-Jewish view, the probability of a mean will not apply here.

Then we get ‘esteem’, are they looking upon Tel Aviv in a particular way? Are they confusing esteem with ‘self-esteem’? All questions that go through my mind. We could state that Bagdad in last position is validly there, but over what level of reasoning? Because it is in a warzone?

Yet, do my thoughts invalidate the results? The paper as shown does give a solid foundation, the methodology sounds sound. In that I state ‘sounding sound’ is not entirely on the ball. You see, the heart of the respondent, how does that come in? The study overview states “G8 general public (only people who were ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ familiar)” Yet what makes you somewhat or very familiar? How many Non-Jewish people who have been to Tel Aviv answered this? How many know this place. I was there, and I felt safer there than in Budapest (and Budapest is a decent and safe city). Tel Aviv scored less than Johannesburg, Hanoi, even Cape Town, known for its high crime ended up with a score better than Tel Aviv.

So what gives value to this report? This is not the setting of my view, it is a question. The question exists in my mind because if we give reputation and value to a place we must know and agree to the standards given here. That is the question that should be on your mind too. Now, you might not care about Tel Aviv for many reasons. The bulk of us will never visit the city, visit the country or end up anywhere near it. So how do we give value to a place, even when we are somewhat familiar? Yet there is more than just the result as given in the Times of Israel. Slide 22 when you get the 2015 reputation report (at http://www.reputationinstitute.com/), shows a very interesting part. Familiarity versus Reputation. So how about the places with low familiarity? How come their reputation is so high? Is it the media, because there again we see that Tel Aviv gets in the news when there are rocket attacks and terrorist issues towards Israel, so how can we consider reliability in this report? Beware my words, I am not stating that the methodology is in question, I am wondering how the validity of vision from the interviewee is correct. In a similar way, we can understand that Baghdad is graded poorly, but why is Tehran graded so bad, it is because of our impression of Iran? In that same context we might understand why Sydney, Stockholm and Melbourne are graded so high, yet in all this, what makes Zurich more reputable than Amsterdam or Oslo, perhaps because FIFA is placed there? With the FIFA news Zurich got a lot of visibility, but is that visibility correctly graded in the mind of the beholder? The issue here is the colouring by the media, that influence cannot be countered, which is why I think that Tel Aviv got placed so badly (in this 101 list). Behind all this is a bigger issue. It is the one reason why I object to some of these studies.

In my personal view this list caters to presentations and to some who need to see a national interest, it also places my own view in debate (as it should), not because my view is too shallow, but as we go through the iterations of reasoning behind this as we see in slide 24. The Advanced Economy gives view to the question ‘why is an advanced economy part of reputation or familiarity?‘ This connect on more than one level, which got me to ‘The Economics of Developing Countries‘, what makes for an Advanced Economy? In that view Peru, Chile and Uruguay are not amongst them, so with close to 1/3 of the measurement absent, in that case, how come Montevideo scored so high in that list? If it is the state of peace, we see something a lot more linking, Tel Aviv, Karachi and Abu Dhabi together, a pattern seems to emerge. In that view we must wonder as Tel Aviv is not in war, but under near constant attack. Now when we add Rio to all this, we see another pattern emerge, those not relying on ‘stability of peace’ we see the need for positive reinforced publications, Rio is certainly getting that. In all this we do not question the reputation institute or their methodology, it is all about the people giving their vote. It is that view which gives voice to my worry. Slide 24 is descriptive in all this. ‘Appealing environment’ is one, which give the view to ‘non war torn places’, Effective government is the second one. Yet, why is ‘effective’ government part of all this? You see, in my view, the most effective government is a corrupt one, a humane based government (like Norway and Sweden) tends to be expensive and not that effective. Perhaps effective government and humane government are terms that are interchangeable? I am just asking. In all this we see the four earlier words at the core of this. ‘Trust’, ‘Admire’, ‘Esteem’ and ‘Feeling’, so how does this all link?

Slide 25 gives us ‘Social, Economic & Environmental Policies’ in regard to ‘Effective Government’, are they for real? Environmental policies can be made more effective, but they do not, I say again absolutely not make for an effective government. In addition when an Advanced Economy relies on ‘Financially Stable & Future Growth’ we can state that Wall Street took care of that not happening in the last decade and in addition not for many more years to come, so when we acknowledge that the elements of attributes are an issue, does that not add question marks to the stated foundation of this report? In all this the summary from page 28 onwards makes sense. I do not disagree, I do not oppose it, but in all this, it is a view brought to us on the premise of a flawed view, the influenced view of the interviewee, that part is missing, which gives the question mark within me. This gets me to slide 34, a good reputation might influx tourism, yet in all this, the tainting influence of media becomes a colouring issue, discriminatory and revoking as we ignore or forget that perception is tainting and the press factor seems to be uncorrected for. So how is that not an issue in all this, or at least a non-correcting influence? This all gets me to the final part “living or working in the city, or deciding to invest in the city” might be deciding factors for anyone when the reputation is an issue, but on what foundation? Still overall the report remains an interesting piece of work, the supportive behaviour slide gives fuel to that.

My views do come to fruition in slide 40 where we see the two quotes “Communication is required to capitalize on good reality and overcome poor perceptions” and “Change is required to alter ‘reality’ and minimize reputational risk“. In my mind, this states that opportunity and risk are influential factors that can be pressed on by the media, the media sets perception and alters reality in a hundred ways, so does this paper show true reputation, or does this show how the media is too large a factor to ignore and in all this a place like Tel Aviv got introduced to the less reputable score than they should have gotten? The question is how we see a true score on reputation and perhaps that list is not completely incorrect, but in my personal view, the idea that Bangkok is more reputable than Tel Aviv remains an issue, one of perception and I have actually been to both places.

 

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First Blood

It’s nice to see the Guardian this morning, first there is the news on Alan Rushbridger who stops being a teenager and starts heading the Scott Trust the power that be, behind the Guardian and several other media companies. Why Teenager? Well, as I see it, when you follow your passion you tend to avoid having to grow up (a sort of Peter Pan syndrome) and this man has lived his dream as I see it. I have written against the Guardian more than once, but it is clear Alan knows what he was doing and he was doing it quite well. Lastly, the bastard looks 15 years younger than his actual age (geriatric envy).

Anyway, now that is out of the way, let’s focus on some first blood. Some will have missed it, but with this jab, President Obama has started his feeble attempt in getting the Democratic Party re-elected in 2016. He needs to get an early start, because if the House Elections are anywhere near an indication, the democrats will lose by a landslide as I see it at present. The Republicans now have 246 seats against the democrats 188, which means that minority speaker Pelosi needs to seriously woe the republicans to get anything sorted, this also implies that President Obama needs to get used to the word ‘No’ a lot more then that he is comfortable with.

So, as we look at the continuation of a white horse, we look at the latest article called ‘White House under pressure as calls for CIA accountability grows stronger‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/10/white-house-cia-torture-report). Now there is nothing really against the article itself, it is just a reflection for that what seems to be. But the following parts jumped out at me.

The White House is under growing pressure to hold individuals accountable for covering up the torture of terrorist suspects, with calls coming from a senator for a purge of top CIA officials and a furious row over whether the agency kept both Congress and the previous administration sufficiently informed of the program“, which senators? To give some of these people the label ‘pussy’ seems harsh but in effect that is the truth. These people are all about ‘not getting hands tainted’, ‘I still need to sleep at night’ and ‘as long as I am kept in the dark’. The real terror world outside the US is a nightmare realm, if you can stomach it, the consequences and the acts you have to live with you do not and never will belong on the hill and you belong as a part of the Langley brotherhood, likely trained or to be trained in Quantico or Lejeune. Going up against terrorists is a dirty business and it will damage your soul, whether you believe it or not. Now, I spoke out against the acts yesterday and to the major extent I believe that it was a flawed approach from the beginning. But the reality is that bringing a terrorist into the yard for a meeting with Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, having tea and a biscuit will not lead to information or determent. You must become the beast they fear. If there is one clear directive that we learned from the KGB (now the FSB) and how they dealt with the Russian Mafia, it is that a soft glove leads nowhere.

So which senator made that call? Well, the information is that it came from Senator Mark Udall from the state of Colorado, which seems to be predominantly Republican. By the way, how loud were some of these people before 2010?

The next statement: “When countries are threatened, oftentimes they act rationally in ways that in retrospect were wrong”, is one I can go along with, it is true that this happens, yet the one thing we still ignore is that the terrorist attack we saw had been so unprecedented, that any ‘rational’ response could be thrown out of the window. This compared to the Chechnyan act of parking trucks loaded with explosives next to apartment buildings and blow them (Moscow 1999), try that approach in San Francisco and watch millions go insane with rage. It is a mere and simple cause & effect. If you go into a war against such opponents you need to keep your cool and show that you are willing to do that what they could not fathom. In other words you need your own kind of monster available.

This does not change my premise that the intelligence gained from prolonged torture tends to be ineffective and mostly useless. Whatever answer in regards to state ‘we got Bin Laden this way‘ is on thin ice, regarding how many people it took to get any information on one person.

many insiders perceive as an attempt to isolate the intelligence community from Washington’s political leaders was also supported by former CIA director Michael Hayden“, which is exactly what I would consider to be a fact and the administration had some knowledge of what happened (like water boarding), yet they would never know, or want to know the details, they wanted to see results. Which calls the following to be called into question: “White House rejects claims agency misled President Bush“, which might be academically true, but ““That’s a point of some contention,” he said, when asked whether the CIA had lied to the White House. “There are some people who have said that that’s not true.”” here we see the crux, what EXACTLY was not true? You see, we get a number of ambiguous references, but did the CIA lie, or did they not reveal all facts? There is a large difference here, and as such part of this what we read becomes a deception on how ‘guilty’ the previous administration could have been. It is first blood, the Democrats seem to be pushing for a moral guilt call, in reflection on President Obama ‘stopping’ the torture procedures, yet, if we believe the Huffington Post (at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/obama-black-sites-rendition-torture_n_1812578.html), we see that like the technical support of their phone lines, it had been outsourced. The headline that gave us ‘Obama Administration Outsources Torture: Can U.S. Ever End Human Rights Abuses?‘ also tells us: “Despite the closure of these facilities, the administration’s use of extraordinary rendition has outsourced human rights abuse to other countries. Will we ever get rid of torture?” It gives a whole new meaning to the claim ‘it was not us!’

Black water anyone, or do we call it coffee?

What is in a name, in an act and in any non-written, non-verbal agreement is being looked at, which means it is a discussion of innuendo, whilst the politicians hide behind ‘if it is not written down, it does not exist’, knowing that they play this game, selling whatever service they condoned for their own selfish need of re-election. That is how this reads between the lines. So when we read “Director [John] Brennan and the CIA are continuing to wilfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture. In other words, the CIA is lying,”, we should ask certain questions of Senator Udall as well, The senator, who was before that in the House of Representatives, representing the community of Boulder (where Mork from Ork used to live), representing the Judiciary and Agriculture Livestock & Natural Resources Committees, can we all agree that litigating for cattle is not really the same as discussing the finesses of intelligence?

The final part is seen with “Yet Obama’s spokesman went out of his way to defend Brennan on Wednesday, denying that he had lied about any aspect of the torture inquiry“, yes, the President would not like to get his hands tainted on fingering guilt towards Director John Brennan, yet overall this entire article reads like the Democratic administration has started regaining votes and visibility through false morality by having a Minority Democratic Senator stand up and voice thoughts that are morally right, but for the morally wrong reasons. It is almost like the initial invasion on Iraq, when you do the right thing for the wrong reasons you corrupt whatever banner you wish to hold high. In a faltered economy, virtually boosted, the losing party of the next election will feel the consequences of this depreciated position. The democrats are desperate to make sure it is not them.

There is one more quote that calls it all into question. Consider ““The lines of accountability that needed to be set up weren’t always in place and that some of these techniques that were described were not only wrong were counterproductive.”“, it is so nice that President Obama is trying to fit this into the hands of the Intelligence community, like ‘vice holds’ and ‘muzzles’, would it not be nice if he had taken that approach towards the financial industry at least three years ago? If he had done that, America might not be in the desperate economic state it is now; moreover Russia might take America serious when they discuss the Ukraine. This article is all fine, but it read like the democrats will be using this for something entirely different, I hope the people can read between the lines here, because holding certain people to account after the fact, whilst the condoning politicians remain unaccounted for is more than just a little shady.

 

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