Sunday, December 9, 2012

CIA DISMANTLES "CENTER ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATIONAL SECURITY"

The CIA has closed down its Center on Climate Change and National Security. This office was created in 2009 and served as the conduit for the CIA to investigate how climate change is a national security threat. CIA spokesman Todd Ebitz said the agency’s work on climate change has been transferred to a new office.


Note: Please take the Poll in the upper right-hand corner of the right margin: "Do You Think Climate Change Is A National Secuirty Threat?"

 
Ebitz said during an interview with The Hill, “The CIA for several years has studied the national security implications of climate change. As part of a broader realignment of analytic resources, this work continues to be performed by a dedicated team in a new office that looks at economic and energy matters affecting America’s national security. The mission and the resources devoted to it remain essentially unchanged.”

Order online

The CIA is one of multiple federal agencies to explore the nexus between climate change and security and the GOP has criticized this activity by the CIA. I recall during the Republican National Convention, when Mitt Romney actually mocked the notion of rising oceans and climate change. I wrote an article shortly afterwards, claiming that the Joint Chiefs of Staff disagree with Romney's opinion about climate change. In fact, the Joint Chiefs believe climate change is, indeed, a national security threat of global proportions. The CIA, in announcing the center in September 2009, said it would explore the “national security impact of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts and heightened competition for natural resources.”

Greenwire, which first reported the story, reported that the center “received little internal support” after Leon Panetta stepped down as CIA director to become Defense Secretary in 2011.


Order online
I, along with another OSINT News employee, poured through a study by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, entitled, "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security". It was completed in October 2003. The Schwartz and Randall study is eye-opening and, hopefully, has been read by those in the Intelligence Community (IC) and in the GOP, who believe climate change is a hoax and not a national security threat. They interviewed top climate scientists and found that within a decade the evidence of an imminent abrupt climate shift may become clear and reliable. In that event the United States will need to take urgent action to prevent and mitigate some of the most significant impacts.

They predict that diplomatic action will be needed to minimize the likelihood of conflict in the most impacted areas, especially in the Caribbean and Asia. However, large population movements in the likely scenario are inevitable. Learning how to manage those populations, border tensions that arise and the massive refugee problem will be critical.

The study recommends that the U.S. establishes new forms of security agreements dealing specifically with energy, food and water that will also be needed. In short, while the US itself will be relatively better off and with more adaptive capacity, it will find itself in a world where Europe will be struggling internally, with large numbers of refugees washing up on its shores. Asia will have a serious crisis over food and water and political, social, economical and environmental disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.
 

Order online
OSINT News hopes the energy crisis and climate change have generated global demands for alternative non-fossil fuel sources. This has led to a rapid increase of investments in production of liquid biofuels based on agricultural feed stocks such as sugar cane. Most African governments see biofuels as a potential for increasing agricultural productivity and export incomes and thus strengthening their national economies, improving energy balances and rural employment. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions. There are, however, a number of uncertainties mounting that challenge this scenario. Using in-depth African case studies — with Brazil as a comparative reference — this book addresses this knowledge gap by examining the impacts of large-scale biofuel production on African agriculture, particularly with regard to vital land outsourcing and food security issues. The surge for African biofuels has also opened space for private investors — both domestic and external — to multiply and network "independently" of the state. The biofuel expansion thus generates new economic alliances and production relations, resulting in new forms of inclusions and exclusions within the rural population. This is an essential book for anyone wishing to understand the startling impact of biofuels on Africa.
 
OSINT News also hopes that U.S. policy makers who don’t believe climate change is a growing national security threat will change their archaic views. The energy crises and climate change demands that the U.S. become a world leader in research and development for alternative non-fossil fuel sources. I don’t mind my tax money paying for R&D in and rapid increases of investments in production of liquid biofuels based on agricultural feed stocks such as sugar cane. This move would simultaneously help African governments from becoming unstable, because they could increase agricultural productivity and export incomes, buttress their national economies, and enhance energy balances and rural employment.


Hopefully, the CIA’s discarded Center on Climate Change and National Security is alive and operationally-well in another area of the Intelligence Community. In each region of the world impacted by climate change, the U.S. must take drastic action with coordinated government- Intelligence Community (IC)- private investor networking. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions. The development of African biofuels is but one example where the IC, government, and private investors could work to keep those governments, exposed to the devastating effects of climate change, stable.  When the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon determined that climate change was, indeed, a growing threat to America's national security, their report mentioned about the availability of water. Water is the one underlying factor for all humanity. Civilizations will take drastic measures to have  reliable sources of water for drinking, sanitation, food production and manufacturing.


Order online
As we speak, a world population bomb coupled with increasing droughts is threatening available water supplies. Global warming, climate change and rising sea level are expected to intensify the resource sustainability issue in many water-stressed regions of the world by reducing the annual supply of renewable fresh water and promoting the intrusion of saline water into aquifers along sea coasts, where 50% of the global population reside.  Experts are very concerned about the impact climate change will have on global water resources. 

New biofuel, wind, geothermal, solar, and hydro energy development would not only generate new power sources, reduce carbon emissions and rid us of Middle East oil dependency, but it would create new economic alliances and production relations as well. For the sake of America's national security, our policy-makers must take climate change as a genuine threat.







Robert Morton, M.Ed., Ed.S. is a member of the Association For Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). A portion of Ad revenues generated on this site is donated to the AFIO. His ideas are his own and do not represent those of any organization he's a member of. We will publish your ideascomments at no charge...for the good of the order! Contact us on the Secure Contact Form

Saturday, December 8, 2012

CIA STUDIED GLOBAL WARMING AS SECURITY THREAT

The CIA has closed down its Center on Climate Change and National Security. This office was created in 2009 and served as the conduit for the CIA to investigate how climate change is a national security threat. CIA spokesman Todd Ebitz said the agency’s work on climate change has been transferred to a new office.


Note: Please take the Poll in the upper right-hand corner of the right margin: "Do You Think Climate Change Is A National Secuirty Threat?"

Ebitz said during an interview with The Hill, “The CIA for several years has studied the national security implications of climate change. As part of a broader realignment of analytic resources, this work continues to be performed by a dedicated team in a new office that looks at economic and energy matters affecting America’s national security. The mission and the resources devoted to it remain essentially unchanged.”

Order online

The CIA is one of multiple federal agencies to explore the nexus between climate change and security and the GOP has criticized this activity by the CIA. I recall during the Republican National Convention, when Mitt Romney actually mocked the notion of rising oceans and climate change. I wrote an article shortly afterwards, claiming that the Joint Chiefs of Staff disagree with Romney's opinion about climate change. In fact, the Joint Chiefs believe climate change is, indeed, a national security threat of global proportions. The CIA, in announcing the center in September 2009, said it would explore the “national security impact of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts and heightened competition for natural resources.”

Greenwire, which first reported the story, reported that the center “received little internal support” after Leon Panetta stepped down as CIA director to become Defense Secretary in 2011.


Order online
I, along with another OSINT News employee, poured through a study by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, entitled, "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security". It was completed in October 2003. The Schwartz and Randall study is eye-opening and, hopefully, has been read by those in the Intelligence Community (IC) and in the GOP, who believe climate change is a hoax and not a national security threat. They interviewed top climate scientists and found that within a decade the evidence of an imminent abrupt climate shift may become clear and reliable. In that event the United States will need to take urgent action to prevent and mitigate some of the most significant impacts.

They predict that diplomatic action will be needed to minimize the likelihood of conflict in the most impacted areas, especially in the Caribbean and Asia. However, large population movements in the likely scenario are inevitable. Learning how to manage those populations, border tensions that arise and the massive refugee problem will be critical.

The study recommends that the U.S. establishes new forms of security agreements dealing specifically with energy, food and water that will also be needed. In short, while the US itself will be relatively better off and with more adaptive capacity, it will find itself in a world where Europe will be struggling internally, with large numbers of refugees washing up on its shores. Asia will have a serious crisis over food and water and political, social, economical and environmental disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.
 

Order online
OSINT News hopes the energy crisis and climate change have generated global demands for alternative non-fossil fuel sources. This has led to a rapid increase of investments in production of liquid biofuels based on agricultural feed stocks such as sugar cane. Most African governments see biofuels as a potential for increasing agricultural productivity and export incomes and thus strengthening their national economies, improving energy balances and rural employment. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions. There are, however, a number of uncertainties mounting that challenge this scenario. Using in-depth African case studies — with Brazil as a comparative reference — this book addresses this knowledge gap by examining the impacts of large-scale biofuel production on African agriculture, particularly with regard to vital land outsourcing and food security issues. The surge for African biofuels has also opened space for private investors — both domestic and external — to multiply and network "independently" of the state. The biofuel expansion thus generates new economic alliances and production relations, resulting in new forms of inclusions and exclusions within the rural population. This is an essential book for anyone wishing to understand the startling impact of biofuels on Africa.
 
Order online
OSINT News hopes the U.S. policy makers who don’t believe climate change is a growing national security threat will change their archaic views. The energy crises and climate change demands that the U.S. become a world leader in research and development for alternative non-fossil fuel sources. I don’t mind my tax money paying for R&D in and rapid increases of investments in production of liquid biofuels based on agricultural feed stocks such as sugar cane. This move would simultaneously help African governments from becoming unstable, because they could increase agricultural productivity and export incomes, buttress their national economies, and enhance energy balances and rural employment.

Hopefully, the CIA’s discarded Center on Climate Change and National Security is alive and operationally-well in another area of the Intelligence Community. In each region of the world impacted by climate change, the U.S. must take drastic action with coordinated government- Intelligence Community (IC)- private investor networking. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions. The development of African biofuels is but one example where the IC, government, and private investors could work to keep those governments, exposed to the devastating effects of climate change, stable.  When the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon determined that climate change was, indeed, a growing threat to America's national security, their report mentioned about the availability of water. Water is the one underlying factor for all humanity. Civilizations will take drastic measures to have  reliable sources of water for drinking, sanitation, food production and manufacturing.


Order online
As we speak, a world population bomb coupled with increasing droughts is threatening available water supplies. Global warming, climate change and rising sea level are expected to intensify the resource sustainability issue in many water-stressed regions of the world by reducing the annual supply of renewable fresh water and promoting the intrusion of saline water into aquifers along sea coasts, where 50% of the global population reside. Experts are very concerned about the impact climate change will have on global water resources. New biofuel, wind, geothermal, solar, and hydro energy development would generate not only new power sources, but new economic alliances and production relations as well...for the sake of America's national security.
 
Robert Morton, M.Ed., Ed.S. is a member of the Association For Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). A portion of Ad revenues generated on this site is donated to the AFIO. His ideas are his own and do not represent those of any organization he's a member of. We will publish your ideas and comments at no charge...for the good of the order! Contact us on the Secure Contact Form

Monday, December 3, 2012

NEW AFGHAN 2014 PRESIDENT MAY BE TALIBAN

Note: Please take POLL: "Will Taliban Win 2014 Afghan Presidential Election?" in upper right-hand corner.

According to Usman Sharifi, the Middle East Online source in Kabul, it appears the Taliban may be running for Afghan president soon. Yes, after 11 years of battling the Taliban in Afghanistan, they may soon assume the Presidency! President Karzai is serving his second term as leader of the war-torn country and he is constitutionally barred from running in the 2014 election. There are no clear candidate to succeed him has yet emerged. 

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So, who will be the future president? The Taliban could stand in Afghanistan's next presidential election in 2014, according to the war-torn country's polling experts. They spoke as a series of coordinated bombings killed 17 civilians. The vote, scheduled for April 5, 2014, is seen as crucial to stability after the withdrawal of NATO troops and Fazil Ahmad Manawi, the head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), insisted his body would act impartially. "We are even prepared to pave the ground for the armed opposition, be it the Taliban or Hezb-i-Islami, to participate in the election, either as voters or candidates," Manawi told a news conference. "There will be no discrimination," the IEC chief added, defending the body in response to a question about its impartiality.

Hezb-i-Islami is the faction of former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar which wages an insurgency along with the Taliban against Karzai's Western-backed government. The Taliban, whose hardline Islamist regime was overthrown in 2001 by a US-led invasion for harbouring Osama bin Laden, did not take part in the 2009 election. Instead it launched polling day attacks that killed more than 20 people.


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At least 17 civilians, most women and children, were killed in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday in roadside bombings which officials blamed on "the enemies of Afghanistan" -- the term they use for the Taliban. In the deadliest incident, seven women and three children died when a blast tore through the vehicle in which they were travelling in Musa Qala district of Helmand province. Also on Wednesday, a Taliban attack on a checkpoint in eastern Kunar province left four police dead, while another five officers were killed in an insurgent raid on a post in Zabul province, in the south.

The 2009 poll, in which Karzai was re-elected over former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, was marred by widespread allegations of fraud. It was characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout and widespread ballot stuffing, intimidation, and other electoral fraud. The vote, along with elections for 420 provincial council seats, took place on August 20, 2009, but remained unresolved during a lengthy period of vote counting and fraud investigation. Two months later, under heavy U.S. and ally pressure, a second round run-off vote between incumbent President Hamid Karzai and his main rival Abdullah Abdullah was announced for November 7, 2009. On November 1, however, Abdullah announced that he would no longer be participating in the run-off because his demands for changes in the electoral commission had not been met, and a "transparent election is not possible." A day later, on November 2, 2009, officials of the election commission cancelled the run-off and declared Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan for another 5 year term. 


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Interestingly, the election resulted in former warlords and their followers gaining the majority of seats in both the lower house and the provincial council (which elects the members of the upper house). Women won 28 % of the seats in the lower house, six more than the 25 % guaranteed in the 2004 Constitution. Turnout was estimated at about 50%, substantially lower than at the presidential election in October 2004. This is blamed on the lack of identifiable party lists as a result of Afghanistan's new electoral law, which left voters in many cases unclear on who they were voting for. Turnout was highest in the minority Turkmen, Uzbek and the majority Tajik populated provinces in the north - generally over 60% - and lowest (below 30%) in some of the Pashtun southeastern areas where the Taliban insurgency is strongest. Turnout was also surprisingly low (34%) in the capital, Kabul.

After studying these factors in past elections, I believe the Taliban could, indeed, assume political power via the ballot box, in addition to their penchant for instilling fear in the populace. The credibility of the 2014 vote will be the key to avoiding an escalation in violence after the NATO withdrawal. Donor nations at a conference in Tokyo in July pledged $16 billion for Afghanistan to prevent the country from sliding back into turmoil when foreign combat troops depart, with several pre-conditions including presidential elections in 2014.


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The International Crisis Group think-tank warned in October that the Kabul government could fall apart after NATO troops withdraw, particularly if the presidential elections are affected by fraud. Security officials said they were confident they would learn lessons from 2009 as they seek to prevent violence in the run-up to the next election, only the third since the fall of the Taliban. "Afghan security institutions will start working to design a comprehensive plan for security during the election," said defence ministry chief of staff Shir Mohammad Karimi.

Under the Afghan system, voters elect the president as an individual rather than as a representative of a party, and candidates must submit their nominations by October 6, 2013. The IEC will then rule on their admissibility and publish a final list of candidates on November 16. Initial results of the ballot will be announced on April 24, 2014, and final results on May 14, with May 28 set aside for any potential run-off vote. Provincial council elections will be held at the same time as the main poll.

Robert Morton, M.Ed., Ed.S. is a member of the Association For Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). A portion of Ad revenues generated on this site is donated to the AFIO. His ideas are his own and do not represent those of any organization he's a member of. We will publish your ideas and comments at no charge...for the good of the order! Contact us on the Secure Contact Form