OFFICE OF NET ASSESSMENT

Office of Net Assessment
by TPMmuckraker through the Freedom of Information Act

Pentagon's internal think tank, "20 to 30 years in the future," according to Jan van Tol

15 staffers, work is done by outside contractors, influence vast

Creation in 1973 by Andrew Marshall. Fred Kaplan profiles Marshall, the so-called "Yoda" of the Pentagon

"its informal channels are probably more important
says Paul Bracken

best known for its Cold War work evaluating

More recently Marshall was intimately involved in Donald Rumsfeld's project of "military transformation."

American dominance, earlier this decade ordered, that examined ancient empires to glean lessons

ONA has turned its sights to Asia, focusing obsessively on China as the next
rival power, studies' authors

outside contractors, Hudson Institute, Booz Allen Hamilton, or lesser-known firms like Scitor Corporation and IHS International

The Pentagon Office of Net Assessment from the Hudson Institute called "The Great Siberian War of 2025. The US has succeded in cutting of chinese access to oil in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf and china, in desperation, turns toward Siberia, Russia east of the Urals and you get a World War.

The Marshall Plan
For 40 years, the man Pentagon insiders call Yoda has foreseen the future of war - from battlefield bots rolling off radar-proof ships to GIs popping performance pills. And that was before the war on terror.

By Douglas McGray

Today, Marshall - along with his star prot�g�s Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - is drafting President Bush's plan

We've got to transform the force, next radical change

what drugs the other guys are on.", precision weapons with sensors, ability to coordinate separate elements, robotic devices-UAVs, undersea, smaller device able to crawl through buildings

psychologically influencing, visually impressing the person

The Swedes, three new naval vessels, submarine [running on fuel cells, Visby
no metal other than the engine

neural pharmacology, like natural chemicals inside people, behavior-modifying
performance-enhancing

THE NEW MARSHALL PLAN
The Pentagon's oldest cold warrior has a dubious vision for the future of national defense
By Jason Vest

Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy, adore Marshall for his dire prognostications about an inevitably bellicose and hegemonic China and his advocacy of "Revolution in Military Affairs," a doctrine critics charge is an intellectual cover for spending largess on "precision," Buck Rogers-type weaponry.

"Putting Andy Marshall in charge of this is a ploy to make sure National Missile Defense gets funded,"

Says wars will not be fought up close but from a distance, critical of the Air Force's F-22 fighter program

Regarding cold war, "Until the very end he was a major promoter of the line that 'The Russians are coming and they're ten feet tall.' "

He was one of the quietly forceful hands behind the infamous "Team B", far-right Committee on the Present Danger were given access to CIA data and allowed to histrionically rewrite the National Intelligence Estimate on Soviet Military Intentions.

In the early '80s, Marshall's view, imperative to arm the Afghan muhjahadeen with Stinger missiles, opposed by even the CIA

two close Marshall associates, Fred Ikle and Michael Pillsbury, pushed hard
the Stinger shipments. The missiles were not decisive. Marshall enthusiastic supporter of Star Wars schemes. we really do need someone like that," says Jonathan Pollack, a professor at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and one of the leading analysts of the Chinese military

Marshall swoons over high-technology networked sensor systems and "smart" weapons--expensive procurements that are notorious for, well, not working

As Pollack says, "This is going to be a gravy train."

RT; MONUMENTAL AFFRONT

US President Barack Obama met with the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at the White House today, despite Chinas threats to the US if it did not cancel the meeting. Was the meeting worth it? Will China retaliate? According to Webster Tarpley, this is a monumental affront to china.

RT: DALAI LAMA

On Peter Lavelle's Crosstalk, his guests talk about what is behind the Dalai Lama's meeting with Obama. The US speaks nice words about China, but its actions say something different, and China has the means to show its displeasure.

MYTH MAKER

Most people have never heard of Philip D. Zelikow, but he is best known as the executive director of the 9/11 Commission. He basically wrote the 9/11 Commission Report.

---

On September 11, 2001, the immediate reports on the ground told the truth. I think most people can see that it was later that the myth-makers retold the myth the way Zelikow scripted it to be remembered

---

In 1998, Zelikow actually wrote Catastrophic Terrorism about imagining "the transformative event" three years before 9/11

RAMZY BAROUD

With the dreadful threat of yet another Israeli war in the Middle East looming, Israeli propaganda machine is likely to go into full gear.

It also perhaps represents the last chance of fulfilling the US neoconservative vision - that of "A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" the price of the Israeli-neocon folly should be well known to US media

Israel has greater mastery than the Arabs over fighting media wars? National Information Directorate, the Israeli propaganda center

Israeli spokespersons are icons of articulation and charm, Palestinian retaliations
vile and gruesome. Israeli media blackout. no Arab spokespersons to present a coherent narrative to challenge

But none of these scenarios are convincing. Ehud Barak is as faltering in English, the scope of the tragedy known to all, Palestinian and Arab academics in every major Western city

"whenever Israel is bombing, it is hard to explain our position to the world ... but at least this time everything was ready and in place."

Utter nonsense. I cannot take seriously the media's claims to "objectivity" some things are obvious

First, media's decision to protect Israel's image. Second, Israel has now largely lost the media war thanks to the efforts of independent media groups, intellectuals, citizen journalists, civil society activists, artists, poets, bloggers, ordinary people and those in the media who possess the courage to challenge Israeli hasbara and its devotees.

AND WE'VE GOT FOX NEWS

WHERE IS THE NARRATIVE

This "government" is really starting to loose control. If you are like me and think that Obama was a "put up deal" by the political elites to shut down the liberals and the left, then it has backfired - hugely.

This poor man has almost completely lost control of the US political system and the official narrative. He is starting to make Warren Harding look like a genius. The fact that he is black has backfired and has given a large segment of the population Carte Blanche to revolt. FOX news is working overtime to co opt the tea party revolt, but they have yet to get much traction.

Polls taken in 2006, when Americans generally became aware of WT7 or the third bldg, show that between 30% to 80%, depending on how the question was asked, do not believe the official 911 narrative. That was four years ago and before the proved discovery of nano-thermite in the debris.

The result has been this group. The are a legitimate, scientific group on the verge of becoming a major political movement

Then there is the fact that 80% of the American public oppose the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v The Common Man. The republicans have lost control of the Supreme Court.

Then there is this guy. The corporate news apparatus is furiously trying to write him off as an anti IRS whack, but I don't think that is going to fly. His suicide note is a manifesto. He did have a couple of great lines:

In the "great" depression, bankers jumping out of windows. Now, they just steal from the middle class

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed

Mark Potok, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, writes

“This attack comes amid the absolutely explosive growth of the right-wing militias and the larger antigovernment ‘Patriot’ movement, which includes thousands of so-called tax protesters who believe the federal income tax is illegal. There is a populist rage out there about what is seen as the coddling of rapacious elites, like the mortgage bankers who kept receiving multimillion dollar bonuses, even as working Americans seem to keep losing more and more.”

In my simple minded way, I have been watching US politics for 50 years and, as a potential draftee, Robert McNamara's reports on the evening news really concentrated my mind as I was one of his targets but I have really never seen anything like this. I hope I am wrong. I am afraid that one of my final lessons is going to be that any narrative is better than no narrative.

Maybe I am just having a bad day.

JOE STACKS MANIFESTO

Joe Stacks manifesto is full of anti-government anger, rage over bailouts, the suffering of America's poor, and the pilfering of the middle class by a corrupt economic elite and their government-servants

He says

"great" depression, bankers jumping out of windows. Now, they just steal from the middle class. Elections are a joke

It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants.




The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

From here

“We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was 'no taxation without representation.' I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a 'crackpot,' traitor and worse.”

Mark Potok, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, writes “This attack comes amid the absolutely explosive growth of the right-wing militias and the larger antigovernment ‘Patriot’ movement, which includes thousands of so-called tax protesters who believe the federal income tax is illegal. There is a populist rage out there about what is seen as the coddling of rapacious elites, like the mortgage bankers who kept receiving multimillion dollar bonuses, even as working Americans seem to keep losing more and more.”

JOE STACK AND TERRORISM

Terrorism is the single most meaningless, manipulated word in the political lexicon. Nothing to do with the act, only identity - "a Muslim who fights against or even expresses hostility towards the United States, Israel and their allies."

It is the all-justifying term for anything the U.S. Government does. Invasions, torture, due-process-free detentions, military commissions, drone attacks, warrantless surveillance, obsessive secrecy, and even assassinations of American citizens are all justified by the claim that it's only being done to "Terrorists," who, by definition, have no rights.

Even worse, one becomes a "Terrorist" not through any judicial adjudication or other formal process, but solely by virtue of the untested, unchecked say-so of the Executive Branch.

HAMID GUL

Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul was a military commander in the Pakistani Army in the 1980s, and served as the head of the country's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency from 1987 to 1989
During
Bush
sought to put Gul on a UN list of international terrorists
blocked by the Chinese
Domestically
opponent of Asif Ali Zardari
Supreme Court to be reinstated
Americans are defeated
their own people are sick and tired
Karzai is no more
They have
end of this year
shoulder the responsibility
civilian casualties
made the Taliban a popular
80 per cent
support
fed up with corruption
sick of
warlords
drug barons
occupation
they stayed on betrays their real intentions
want to prop up and build the Afghan Army
they don't give the money to build
just $140mn
US to
one soldier
$1mn dollars
Americans can't take casualties
started employing security contractors
whoever has more money
employ
mercenaries
latest
offensive
not going to work
political purpose back home
dislodging the civilians
very harsh weather
fields abandoned
Pakistani Taliban

sponsored by the Indian intelligence and the Mossad
Mossad is very active in Pakistan
providing
guidance
to the Indian intelligence
The Americans fear the return of the Supreme Court
could rule that the US drone attacks are violations
US officials have accused you
close ties with
Taliban and al-Qaeda
wrong
al-Qaeda
come up with the evidence for 911
You haven't
charged Osama bin Laden
you don't have hard evidence
full story is yet to come out.
a gimmick, an inside job
Taliban
national spirit of resistance
Americans talk of freedom of speech
my speech hurts them
jihad is our right when a nation is oppressed
national resistance for liberation is a right. We call this a jihad.

Fear is no policy, Surrender is no option
Clash between moral and material, whenever it takes place moral always always win.

SMEAR CAMPAIGN

two-part hit piece in Tablet magazine
machinations of the “Iran lobby”
Lee Smith
former reporter for Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard and a current fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute
first piece
targets Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett
second
Trita Parsi and the National Iranian American Council
Leveretts
underestimating the Green Movement’s prospects of succes
they are
pposed to U.S. military action against Iran
Parsi
continuation
silencing any insufficiently hawkish Iranian voices
that Parsi is thin-skinned
for identifying
antagonists as neoconservatives
from Eli Lake to Michael Rubin to Reuel Marc Gerecht
bases his critique
Commentary
Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Quarterly
Iranians
Hassan Daioleslam
Daioleslam
associate of
Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK)
accuses Parsi and the Leveretts of being Iranian agents,
relyin
on Michael Rubin, a longtime shill for
Ahmed Chalabi
neocon agitprop
Tablet
new breed of Jewish cultural journals
“a new read on Jewish life”
Like its peers Jewcy and Heeb
relentlessly progressive

domestic politics
But foreign policy
conventional and
hawkish
Adam Kirsch, Seth Lipsky, and Michael Weiss

TALKING HEADS ARE LOBBYIST

Tom Ridge, was on MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews
"create nuclear power plants."
since 2005, Ridge has pocketed $530,659 in executive compensation for serving on the board of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power company. As of March 2009, he also held an estimated $248,299 in Exelon stock
"NBC Military Analyst" Barry McCaffrey told viewers that the war in Afghanistan would require an additional "three- to ten-year effort" and "a lot of money."
granted DynCorp a five-year deal worth an estimated $5.9 billion to aid American forces in Afghanistan
The first year is locked
but
four options are subject
Pentagon's use of former military officers
to get their talking points on television in exchange for access
x-Newsweek writer Richard Wolffe
guest-hosted
working at a large PR firm
"strategies for managing corporate reputation."
covert corporate influence peddling
Since 2007
seventy-five registered lobbyists
have appeared
no disclosure
everyone involved
heavily invested in
current system
except
viewer

Bernard Whitman, president of Whitman Insight Strategies
worked for AIG to "develop, test, launch, and enhance their consumer brand
appeared on Fox
AIG
"Having said that, we need to move beyond anger, frustration and hysteria to really get down to the brass tacks of solving this economy,"

NO MATTER WHAT THE CORPORATE MEDIA TELLS YOU

COMMENT

this small group of mostly Jewish intellectuals had completely captured the Republican Party. In the Reagan and George H.W. Bush years, realist James Baker, Chuck Hagel, Henry Kissinger

Kristol eviscerated realist school in the Republican Party. no realist left
exception is Dick Lugar

same in the House, other than Ron Paul

The 2012 Republicans, hook, line and sinker, Mitt Romney; Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty

Steve Clemons, Rita Hauser, Susan Eisenhower and Lincoln Chafee have all been exiled from the Republican Party

Even prominent Republican realist Brent Scowcroft, James Baker Henry Kissinger
sidelined

Irving Kristol refer to Reagan, as “an appeaser

More amazing, Jewish group of neoconservative intellectuals take over without delivering votes

neoconservatives have taken over the foreign policy apparatus of the Democratic Party

Obama ramped up Afghanistan, increased covert Taliban in fghanistan and Pakistan, increased drone attacks, hasn't closed Guantanamo, sold weapons to Taiwan. Dalai Lama, moratorium on domestic spending, growth in military spending

path on Iran imposing sanctions which is a precursor to attack on Iran, abandoned rhetorical pressure on Israel, condemning the Goldstone Report

neoconservatives own the Democratic Party

Howard Berman and Illeana Ros-Lehtinen in the House on March 4th pass a resolution condemning Turkey for the Armenian Genocide

John Kerry was powerless to stop sanctions bill on Iran’s importation of gasoline

THERAPY

FRUM

I have always been intrigued by the neoconservative network and how it so successfully commandeered the helm of America's national security establishment after having been for many decades mostly a small boutique shop of high octane intellectuals hanging out in Irving Kristol & Gertrude Himmelfarb's apartment.

Frum is pretty far from the current imperial line of original
neoconservatism -- Irving Kristol, Albert Wohlstetter, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, Seymour Martin Lipset, and a few others

more heir apparent, Bill Kristol, John Podhoretz, a few of the Kagans
Robert Kagan, who is a genuine intellectual rather than an apparatchik
flame out

surf Tea Party populism and to stay powerful by associating with a growing pugnacious, anti-intellectual movement

Frum may have an opportunity to replace the know-nothing brain of a Republican Party whose blustery, intolerant celebration of an anachronistic "whites dominate" nativism
disaffected neoconservatives

Frum, Francis Fukuyama, Kenneth Adelman. Frum is building, Fukuyama could play. Robert Kagan a writing intellectual

AND THEN TOM FRIEDMAN LAUGHED

This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have

AUTHENTIC JOURNALISM; NARCO NEWS FLASH

“Repeating things is a good way to make a point.”

1) Tell the truth without resorting to monologues, giving space to other voices which may or may not agree with you. 2) Don’t bore people; only the enemy should suffer, not you.

When a reality is narrated, we are involved in the story we are narrating.
start pointing the cameras and microphones below

corporate media has not been honest with its readers

Authentic Journalism, a journalism that behaves as a community organization
In contrast to activism, which most of the time speaks to whomever wants to listen, Authentic Journalism has to speak to ordinary people
to construct a path towards that which hurts us so much