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New Book to Note: The Raptor’s Eye
John Stanton‘s reputation as a truth-teller/trouble-maker (depending on your politics) is solid. His new book, The Raptor’s Eye, JIEDDO, MISO, General P and The Prophet Smith: Reports from Washington, DC 2012, Capitol of the American Empire
, with contributions from Dr. Emma L. Briant, University of Glasgow, is a collection of essays on the state of Amerika.
Stanton made his name in part through his dissection of General Petraeus’ vaunted Human Terrain System (HTS), a failed component of Petraeus’ failed counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. HTS employed anthropologists to work alongside the US Army, analyzing the Iraqis scientifically so the US could more effectively manipulate and/or kill them.
But that’s for another time. Here are a couple of quotes from Stanton’s new book to set the tone for you:
“The biggest reason why stuff like the General Petraeus scandal happens is because the Inspector General’s Office (IG) continues to discount or ignore complaints from subordinates, until they explode in their faces. There is no way Paula Broadwell could have jumped on a plane and appeared in Afghanistan, without someone asking questions, somewhere. Instead of going after General David Petraeus, or Paula Broadwell, the military would save a lot of time and trouble taking a look at the people who allegedly approved Paula’s access to classified information, and the people responsible for safeguarding that access. I guarantee you that you will find someone who raised questions, who was harassed, intimidated, or removed from their position. The IG complaint process is supposed to provide a safety net for people who come forward with allegations of misconduct. This system appears to have fallen apart, and IG offices appear to be either complicit or disinterested in pursuing allegations of suspicious conduct by senior officers and NCO’s”.
And:
“It was not to New York City, Boston or Baltimore that Wall Street financiers and banking houses ran to in 2008 when they screwed up. It was a sprint to Washington, DC that they made in search of cash to salvage their bank accounts first, and then the American economy, second. This provided a fine lesson for those who deride the citizens and institutions of the National Capitol Region: the action is here DC, not outside the Beltway.”
Learn more about The Raptor’s Eye, JIEDDO, MISO, General P and The Prophet Smith: Reports from Washington, DC 2012, Capitol of the American Empire
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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Eric Hodgdon said...
1Human Terrain System
WTF!
Goes with Human Resources
These terms with “Human” in them are inhuman folks. These terms de-humanize people.
Here’s another story on Those Who Confront:
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1446
11/30/12 4:31 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
2America’s way of dealing with terrestrial bipeds who the calvary finds “different” has been consistent from the country’s first exploration by Europeans. Just file Iraqi under defunct North American indigenous tribes such as Apache, Souix, Iroquois and hundreds of others. It’s in our murderous DNA.
11/30/12 4:53 PM | Comment Link
john brown said...
3Peter, How can an author, no matter how well-intentioned, write a book about the “Capitol” of the USA, a misspelling if there ever was one, especially in the title of a book — or is there a linguistic subtlety/play on words to “make a point” here that I’m not getting? Pls. enlighten. Best, John
11/30/12 5:40 PM | Comment Link
wemeantwell said...
4I should not speak on behalf of others (perhaps this is some sort of meta-statement) but I will offer a hearty “Doh!” and suggest the ideas inside are still valid.
11/30/12 5:53 PM | Comment Link
john brown said...
5Peter, How can an author, however well intentioned, be taken seriously if he can’t tell the difference between “capitol” and “Capital”?
O tempora o mores ..
11/30/12 6:08 PM | Comment Link
Andrey said...
6Um, maybe it’s deliberate? You know, to denote how those guys in DC love to present their country as some kind of Roman Empire of the modern day (even if it looks more like Carthage).
11/30/12 7:13 PM | Comment Link
john stanton said...
7intended folks….
11/30/12 9:01 PM | Comment Link
john stanton said...
8Anyone read the Hunger Games?
11/30/12 9:11 PM | Comment Link
Meloveconsullongtime said...
9Capitol is the correct spelling for the building where Congress meets.
As for the Inspector General’s corruption, evidently it’s the same in all departments’ OIGs. In my experience the State Department’s Office Inspector General is currently continuing to cover up a Consular officer’s collusion in a Federal felony.
12/1/12 11:50 AM | Comment Link
john stanton said...
10one last time on Capitol…in this case it refers to the Capitol depicted in the book Hunger Games and/or the movie of the same name…the description of Capitol in HG works well and was used in this book to make points about power, etc…samewith Capitolregion……
12/1/12 11:58 AM | Comment Link
John Stanton said...
11Capitol of the AE with the ol makes reference to the Capitol in the Hunger Games by design as does Capitol Region…..And away we go!!!
12/1/12 2:39 PM | Comment Link
Jim said...
12J Poole,
Strangely the Army names it’s helos after the Indian tribes that we put in concentration camps which are often called reservations. The only diff is food stamps and tax free cigarettes. The Apache of course is an attack helo.
The use of professionals to help kill or torture folks is the extension of the “ism” template. This allows the guilty parties to claim that all they did was in the name of science. Example: using psychiatrists and PhD mental health types to design our torture policies, and to supervise sessions. This was done by subverting SERE policy.
I think this started when SF SERE schools started employing PH D’s to oversee training back in the early/middle 80’s.
jim
12/2/12 12:47 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
13Jim- yes indeed. Many vanquished indigenous tribes live on as rotary wing ghosts. The early Lockheed Cheyenne compound helo experiment and the stalled Commanche project suggests we are stuck with flying “injun” scalps way into the future. I saw an old Mojave years ago being made ready for the scrap man. Too bad it couldn’t have been just buried in the California desert with dignity.
12/2/12 3:18 PM | Comment Link
Lafcadio said...
14Stanton’s comments about military OIG’s describe exactly what’s going on with the State Department OIg, and probably more that a few other gov IG’s. They are totally captured by the parent organizations. At State, retired foreign service officer’s, who still have friends and contacts at State, and who owe their positions as inspectrors to these friends and contacts, don’t go after any substantive issues, but instead go after those who are trying to finger the actual waste, fraud and abuse.
In State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, the best example we have is the recent hiring of Ambassador Harty’s husband to serve in a high level position in the CA Front Office. State’s OIG refuses to investigate this blantant cronyism. Harty was fired for the Great Passport Debacle of 2007, but her good buddy, new CA Assistant Secretary Janice Jacob’s, is one to make sure that no Harty is left out of high level, and high paying, State Department positions. Woe to anyone who would report this through the OIG hotline; their career would be toast.
In order for OIG’s to be effective, they must have actual independence. That doesn’t seem to exist in the USG at this time.
12/2/12 3:45 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
15Well, I trust nature will do it’s handiwork. The Laws of Classical Stupidity notwithstanding, that Parallel Universe known as the Department of State, will eventually succumb to the Third Law of Thermodynamic Stupidity.
“Entropy, the spontaneous disorganization of matter, is universal and always proceeds from organization to disorganization. Stupidity will invariably progress from a disorganized state to larger and larger disorganized units that will eventually consume the entire universe.”
Scientifically speaking, DOS is living proof that stupidity exists in it’s natural state, not to mention Livagh’s second Corollary to Cippola’s 5 Basic Laws of Stupidity..ie..
II. When the stupidity of one person is combined with the stupidity of others, the impact grows geometrically-by multiplication, rather than the addition of the individual stupidity factors.
Unfortunately, State, according to McDonald’s Class V Stupidity, may actually require intervention.
“Class V stupidity is any act of stupidity that is of sufficient magnitude and posing such immediate, dire, and potentially catastrophic consequences that only the direct intervention of God Himself can avert the impending disaster.”
I can only pray such will be the case.
12/2/12 5:05 PM | Comment Link
Eric Hodgdon said...
16Wait a minute pitchfork, the PCDOS 7.0 E-Editor is a far superior product to other text editors, and I still use it when writing programs for MCUs. It’s got a multi-ring loop for rapid file switching, far more useable keyboard shortcuts by using the Alt key rather than the Ctrl key. Unfortunately its capacity is around 325K total for all of the files loaded. If IBM would have of upgraded it…
12/4/12 8:09 AM | Comment Link
George Orwell said...
17“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
12/9/12 10:06 AM | Comment Link