The Intelligence Gap Gap

The present spectacle of President Elect Trump’s evasion of the daily briefing system used for the Presidency may appear to be pure arrogance, however, this gap is extremely common amongst the Insecure.  And insecurity in the Executive Pottery is very common to the point that all who read here, know of it personally.  One does not tell the spouse that the favorite attire is nasty, brutal and short.

The Gapped does not want to hear what does not fit the Gap’s Preconceptions particularly if already Tweeted. Hitler’s famous temper tantrums were his style to evading the issue of a challenge to omniscience.  Everyone is gapped in some way, boss or blue collar, but particularly in the ranks of the Corporate Eunuchs (Suits), the Assistant to Roaches (fake suits), and courtiers and courtesans of corporate courts (the dressed) thousands of years so far. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZZhhA87d6g   (Robocop Glitch Clip)

I fed my family for a decade when I was an IRM manager in the City of Houston on exploiting the Gap’s Gap, filling the Gap with Actionable Intelligence, instead of Glittering Gossip.  This was the continuation of a bad habit I learned in the Army, in Combat, and Behind the Green Door.  The trick was that the Gapped, could understand and intelligently use the data provided, and as such said actionable intelligence became addiction, and my paycheck was dependent upon said addiction.  

My mandate was called the “Chinese Lesson” based on the keen grasp of bureaucratic baffle noted in the Characters of the Chinese language

The "Chinese Lesson: about not building temples in my empire.

In the Case of the Donald, whose firm grasp of complex data is essential to effective management and leadership is a clear and present threat to his Suits, Courtiers, Dressed, Jackals and Roaches.  Powerful leaders know this game and keep the Gilded divided against each other.   FDR put two bureaucrats in charge of the TVA project requiring his interface.  Hitler divvied up propaganda between Goebbels, the Radio/movie studios and Leni Reifenstahl.  Stalin had his closest advisors dance like bears in his place late at night.

The real center of power in a Gapped Regime is often wielded by whomever has the Gap’s Ear, such as the Horse Master (Tudor), Body Guard (Capon), Pheromone Mistress, often the Spouse.   The position of Chamberlain was of the Golden Crapper Emptier, hence the name.  This is the position of the Trump team between rival egos, appetites, and billions where he thinks he can control by Firing. 

Advocating Violent Overthrow - The Smith Act and the Trump

Advocating Violent Overthrow - 18 US Code 2385 – the Smith Act

 

The Obama Logo is posted on the White House.   Whose Army is attacking?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 2, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 87–486, June 19, 1962, 76 Stat. 103; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)

The Imminent Lawless or Clear and Present Danger decision

 "Imminent lawless action" is a standard currently used that was established by the United States Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), for defining the limits of freedom of speech. Brandenburg clarified what constituted a "clear and present danger", the standard established by Schenck v. United States (1919), and overruled Whitney v. California (1927), which had held that speech that merely advocated violence could be made illegal. Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely. While the precise meaning of "imminent" may be ambiguous in some cases, the court provided later clarification in Hess v. Indiana (1973). In this case, the court found that Hess's words did not fall outside the limits of protected speech, in part, because his speech "amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time,"[1] and therefore did not meet the imminence requirement.

Constitution vs Coup

Pride's Purge of Parliament 1648

Article I: of the Constitution:

:

Section. 6.

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office

(Designed to prevent Cromwell and Pride)

Section 9

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Napoleon's "Whiff of Grapeshot"

Notes and replies to the Trump faction.

1.      The Declaration of Independence establishes the American States independence from Great Britain and without it we would be colonies of Great Britain. The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution did not supersede the Declaration of Independence but only established a central government to act, with specific delegated powers, on behalf of the States. Those powers specifically delegated were declare war, conclude peace, regulate foreign trade and commerce, which are also powers reserved to the individual sovereign independent States themselves.

The Constitution is a compact between the Sovereign Independent States which forms the central/federal government. Only a federal supremacist would believe and advance the ideology that the Declaration of Independence is superseded by either the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution! You present a false narrative!

2.  Our Constitution is a rule book, based on the experiences of the Founders and the ratifications of at least three quarters of the State legislatures in accordance with Article V of the Constitution. What "principles" that were addressed by the Constitutional Convention and in the Bill of Rights are listed in the Declaration of Independence from the list of grievances each starting with "he has" or "for" directed against the King of England. Each of these grievances were considered at the time as the "rights of Englishmen" which rights were understood in England.

3.      While the Constitution is the Supreme law of the land, it itself is subject to alteration or abolition by three quarters of the State legislatures. This goes to the jurisprudential reality that the sovereignty of the States each and collectively is the source of authority. This is so stated in the Tenth Amendment, just to make sure that point was made. 

The Federal government can legislate only in those areas where they have specified, implied or derived authority stated in the Constitution. The States can do anything they want, unless it has been given to the Federal Government. 

The "elastic clause" of Article 1, Section 8 has been used to stretch the definitions of what is Federal. "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

So Much for Protestant representation - St Bartholomew's Day Massacre 1572

Pork or Hogwash, the Voter's Choice

Pork or Hogwash, the Voter’s Choice

Pork is some concrete benefit to the voter’s district, job, family, and community.  Pork is honest, something useful in the cultural survivability strategy from Food & Family by Roles to Nurture and Protect, in accordance with Rules regarding Social Status and Tools to make it happen, leading back to dinner and a date, feeding and breeding, or not.  There is a direct link between survival and the pork.  Pork is honest. It means jobs, contracts, benefits, and infrastructure.

By way of contract, Hogwash is washing someone else’s pork which leverages the roles of Rescuer, Victim, Protector vs Villainy, even when there is no pork benefit from the Hogwash.   Sometimes hogwash is often bullshit.  Sometimes it’s a warm blanket. 

By way of example in the current political imbroglio starting with the Democrats (liberals, progressives) with their demands for student loan deferments, schooling and medical care for the less fortunate constitute pork for the less fortunate, but hogwash for the affluent advocates seeking to play rescuer and protector to the stupid and unwashed. 

The Rainbow Coalition

Pollution from Russian industries in Siberia.

The latter Democratic Hogwash campaigns against fracking, offshore drilling, nuclear power and the Polar Ice Melt are camouflage for someone else’s pork, which is to say the Russian Energy and Defense Industries.  Long standing linkages back to the days of the Comintern of the Thirties theoretically in line with Communist World Conquest, but now are acting in the corporate interests of Gasprom, Lukoil and Uralvagonzavod. 

The flap over depleted uranium rounds in Leftish Academia after Russian built tanks were shredded by uranium depleted rounds from relatively small cannon. 

Inverse Attribution.

What simplifies the confusion is the application of the Law of the Inverse Attribution Reflex (LIAR). Inverse Attribution (Bragging & Blaming). Brag of one’s weakest virtue, blame with one’s biggest vice. http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2016/01/liars-advertisers-and-true-believers.html

Bragging of one's weakest virtue - gas mileage

Accusations by the Left of Corporate Greed, Wall Street Avarice and Capitalist Excess fall under the category of inverse attribution (blaming with one’s strongest vice) as greed, avarice and excess are inherent in the offensive nature of the defense of pork.   Likewise, the Right’s accusation of the Liberal’s Class Warfare, is an example of the Right’s War against the “welfare cheat” and losers, and in favor of the protection of wealthy welfare (tax breaks, contracts, etc.).

The Thunderclap Coalition

Blaming with one's biggest vice

The other side of the political scramble this current election cycle is heavy into hogwash with links to pork not so clear.  Certain themes made by alleged Conservative punditry, if taken seriously, would call for the violent overthrow of the Constitution to be replaced by a designated dictator subject of back room manipulation.   These are some of the popular arguments:

1.       Courts are supposed to interpret the law, not make it. Since the Anglo-American legal and political systems are based on precedent, case law, and the Common Law which cases go back before the Magna Carta.  The term is “stare decisis”, let the decision stand, all cases with same facts and law should be treated the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law  

2.       Judicial Review is not in the Constitution despite Case Law going back to Marbury vs Madison in 1803.  Statutory law generally over rides case law except when the case law involves a Constitutional precedent such as due process of law, or when the law is arbitrary and capricious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison

3.       The Founders were Demi-Gods whose godly pronouncements have been blasphemed by all Amendments after the 12^th (The loser in Presidential Elections would not be VP). In fact, the Founders were brilliant and practical men who had just defeated one of the largest empires in the world, and knew the tragic history of abuses and misuses of political power as evidenced during the course of English history, particularly from the Tudors to the Stuarts with the English Civil Wars in between.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War

4.       Congress is irremediably corrupt, and should be purged of the politically correct. The essence of a republican form of government (guaranteed in the Constitution) is a legislature.  Anglo-American political systems are built around protecting the legislative function, Federal and State. This goes back to Queen Elizabeth’s barring the bishops during consideration of the Book of Common Prayer, and Cromwell’s purge of Parliament in 1648.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride%27s_Purge

Colonel Pride of Cromwell's Ironside Army purge the Parliament 

What is difficult in the case of Conservative Right Wing propaganda is the nature of the Pork of interest to the Right.   In part, the war over Pork is treated as a zero sum game, someone else’s loss is automatically your gain.  It is difficult, however, to see how a collapse of civil and criminal law benefits the Conservative base.  In short, the four points of how to do a coup should not be taken seriously, as such a coup would destroy the one percent even if the downtrodden stayed in their place.

Another way to purge a Congress

Donald Trump did not invent the current coup credo he is now stuck with.  The true authors of the coup credo are obscured by a maze of fake institutions and quack publishers.   Behind them, perhaps lurks the ghost of hippies past, as these techniques are Sixties familiar.  The Atlantic Monthly suggests that Carl Rove and his propaganda machine are lurking back there, perhaps.  http://www.rove.com/

Foreign Influence?

Foreign influence influences both influential influencer both affluent and articulate.  Moscow is fully represented in the Rainbow Coalition as they have been since the Thirties.  Tel Aviv has likewise fake institutions which have built a fanatic Thunderclap Coalition of Conservatives, and which leverage Christian eschatological interpretations of the Rapture and the Second Coming which will be triggered by the unification of Greater Israel…in which all but 144,000 Jews go to Hell half way through the Tribulation. 

From the Left Behind series of comics illustrating the Rapture 

See Nicolas Cage in the Left Behind Movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrXe8YDbzYs

and the website

http://www.leftbehind.com/

The historical roots of this twist go back to the English Civil War of the unreconstructed and unforgiving Puritans who still do not accept the Restoration or the Glorious Revolution in which Roundhead and Royalist cut a deal. 

Gordon S Fowkes, LTC USA RET, KCTJ

ISIS - THE NAZI STATE

ISIS – THE NAZI STATE

SS Division Handshar - Bosnian SS

The ideological underpinnings of ISIS came from WW 2 resistance against Britain and France with the support of Nazi Germany and later Stalin of the Soviet Union.  The fusion of Arab nationalism plus bits and pieces of Arab Socialism aka National Socialism took shape in the Baath Party which held power in Iraq and had been influential in other Arab states.  Nasser and Sadat were both German agents in the period before El Alamein to time the Egyptian Army’s revolt from garrison against the British.

 The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin Al Husseini was a Nazi who raised Bosnian and Arabs SS units.

http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/videos.html

Fig 1

The pattern of total submission to ISIS version of Islam and the execution of all others is a purely Western notion, the worst examples being the Holocaust and Stalin’s purges.

The default manner of dealing with minorities ethnic groups by Islam from the time of the Rashidun Caliphs, through the Ottoman Sultans was flexible and accommodating of various groups’ values closest to family, village and tribe. 

Fig 2

Proof of the matter is the fate of minorities in Iraq and Syria who have survived the entire period of Muslim rule, and some go back before the Israelites.  The Yazidun, for example go back before Zoroastrianism.   Now for the first time in all that time, they are being butchered like the Nazi Death Squads was loose. 

Under the Ottomans, minorities were ruled in a flexible and conciliatory mode, known as the Millet System. 

“In the heterogeneous Ottoman Empire (c. 1300–1923), a millet was an autonomous self-governing religious community, each organized under its own laws and headed by a religious leader, who was responsible to the central government for the fulfillment of millet responsibilities and duties, particularly those of paying taxes and maintaining internal security. In addition, each millet assumed responsibility for social and administrative functions not provided by the state, conducting affairs through a communal council (meclisimillî) without intervention from outside. From 1856 on, a series of imperial reform edicts introduced secular law codes for all citizens, and much of the millets’ administrative autonomy was lost.”

Encyclopedia Britannica

 

Massacre at Sinjar

Fig 3

The early Muslim empires from the Rashidun Caliphs, Umayad, Abbasid, Seljuk, Fatimid and Ottomans offered the conquered a simple choice, of minding their own business plus tax, or converting with a tax break.  The loss of revenue from those converted then, as now, operated as an incentive to keep the peace. 

Otherwise, Islam would have been forced back into the desert instead of fostering a higher degree of tolerance for minorities than the Europe until after the French Revolution allowed Jews to be treated as mensch.  Jews were driven out of Spain and found home in the Ottoman Empire.  Jews and other minority figures could rise to positions of wealth and power, by playing according to the rules.

While many can argue about script and dogma, the treatment of minorities was practical, pragmatic, and profitable. Consequently the arguments used by ISIS to massacre those who Islam has protect for over a thousand years, are insults to the Caliphates they purport to represent. 

It should be remembered that Iraq revolted against the British with Nazi assistance (that didn’t amount to much).   Saddam Hussein’s surrogate father, his maternal uncle Kairallah, had fought in the 1941 uprising against Britain, and suffered thereafter because of it.  The Ba’th (Arab National Socialist) party was nationalist not religious, and subsequent use of religion since 9-11 is convenient propaganda for Saddam’s humiliated legions. 

Fig 4

Saddam’s butchery to his own people are legend, and the tradition continues with ISIS. 

Suffer the Children,

Fig 6

Gordon S Fowkes, LTC USA RET

Flipping the Bird instead of COIN

Flipping Birds at Counter Insurgency, Flipping Bass Ackwards.

By Gordon S Fowkes,

LTC USA RET, KCTJ, M.Ed.

ST Bartholemew's Massacre of French Calvinits, 1572

Now is the time for Bass Wholes on both sides of the Aisle to bay at the winds and microphones of how “nation building is not a military job” or how “remotely piloted vehicles” with pin point precision is a war crime, unlike carpet bombing of Japan and Germany which were not.   Now is also the time when virgin pundits describe that which never happened in Vietnam, or those whose scope of understanding of the nuances of mortal combat are confused with Four Quarters or Nine Innings. War is not a game, nor is it an election, nor a debate.  War Sucks, but somebody has to do it. 

And it better be done right.

War is not a continuation of politics by other means, it is politics with other means just as an airstrike is no different from a traffic ticket aimed at reducing the speed of the action. Whatever it takes to feed and protect the family is what the fighting is all about, as is all the rest of survival of the adaptive, fit or not.

And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  That sad tale is how the best equipped, best trained, best led, and best supported military force of the US, was bested by a hollow point between the ears, by a bloated bureaucracy bent on self-aggrandizement and career enhancement.  The latter a sham foisted on those in field grades with eyes on the stars whose chosen slots were shot down by those without branch or insignia.

US MP and German Police on Traffic Duty during Occupation

But enough for the platitudes.  We screwed up, again as we had in the villages and towns of other ancient civilizations. We assumed (ass out of you and me) that our fantasies of what was sacred and absolute truth, were as imaginary as are those of our enemies are towards their own.  

Muslims have this nutty idea that Islam is the central truth of the universe, despite that they aren’t even a (Circle One, or more):

• American, Texan, Southern Californian, German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, French, Italian, Russian, Chechen, and/or _________________. 

The fundamental motivation of the Rescuer is to convert the Victim and fight villainy, insanity, and heresy.  Nation building is rescuing and converting the helpless and stupid to worship the ground we walk on.

 Civil Affairs (and Military Governance) works to grease the gears that might not mesh, and fix shot up places get to their own feet.  Regardless of what kind of shoes they wear.  The flip side of CAMG is to flip the other guy’s feet. These include Special Forces and Special Operations.  Psychological Operations supports both stand and flip.

THE SHOGUN AND THE EMPEROR

The term counter insurgency became the fad by means obscure to me, as it anoints the counter insurgent with a righteousness not bestowed upon the insurgent.  And, to make it even clearer, what is an insurgent?  The Taliban was the effective government in place in Afghanistan when the US took sides with the Northern Alliance and invaded.  That was a surge against the Taliban, but not an insurgency? The term has a political definition not relevant to military operations. 

Nevertheless, the logical lines of operation (LLO) in the counter insurgency (COIN) as originally spelled out in the Army/Marine Corps manual on Counter Insurgency applies in fact to all of war for or against those whose contributions to success or failure make a difference.  

LLO or LLE or whatever dissected the body politic into functions of a society including governance. Or as it is done by ISIS in reverse to topple and repeat on those toppled.

From one of the manuals LLO are directed at:

• 1.     Civil Security
• 2.     Civil Control
• 3.     Security Forces
• 4.     Governance
• 5.     Essential Services
• 6.     Economy and Infrastructure
• 7.     Advertising and Public Relations

As one who is retired from the City of Houston (Building Inspections) and member of many a society for the preservation of the good, and disruption of the bad, this is a fairly standard list of logical lines of reelection, election or selection to the higher and mighty.  At present, REMFCOM appears to have decided that local governance is not one of interest to the infantry including those on boots who must travel the routes through those local governances with unpronounceable names.

Just as it is in local elections, the efforts of one side to enhance their version of the LLO, must be destroyed, disrupted and/or discredited by actions against the other’s LLO, and to enhance the other’s own.   This is precisely what the Taliban and ISIS are doing, and have been doing for decades, in one version or another.

There are, therefore, four variants of LLO depending upon which side one is on:

• 1.     Making your own,
• 2.     Wrecking someone else’s,
• 3.     Defending one’s own,
• 4.     Wrecking the wreckers.

This bears some resemblance to the Tactical Imperatives of combat.

Stability Operations therefore have the same four modes. As such there is Stabilization and Destabilization already under Special Operations Command, as it was under the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.  And therein, lie many a good example of what not to do and what to do.

The Hanging of French Protestants during wars of religion

The Cold War was a religious war in all but name.  The present religious wars are like the political wars of the religion, as the two differ only in name.

 Bloody Awful ISIS is!

Inverse ISIS Adversity

Inverse ISIS Adversity

Horrible as ISIS psychological operations are, they also open a number of windows on their deepest fears.  The key to understanding this is the Law of the Inverse Attribution Reflex aka LIAR.  The LIAR brags of his weakest virtue and blames others with his strongest vice. 

“The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it.  They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an axe.”  104. Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind.

The massacre and torture of women, children, and any who don’t bow at the right angle is an exemplar of the deepest fears that women, children and non-conformists pose to the faithful.  The same gimmick was used by the Nazi’s against Jews who they accused of being both inferior and a clear and present danger to the Volk.  Folks, it’s one or the other, Inferiors cannot be a danger to those who are superior.  The constant refrain of the Super Race was overcompensation for a deep feeling of inferiority.  

From Wilson's Favorite Flic - Birth of a Nation

The constant rampage against unbelievers by ISIS et al, is in fact a deep fear of the power of unauthorized thought.  If, as a thousand years of Muslim protection of those “Of the Book” (Books of Abraham) showed, that those “of the Book” did not threaten the continued existence of Muslim polities. Why now? 

The constant use of Gitmo Orange is testimony of the devastating threat that Gitmo posed to the terrorist that is presented. If not, some other color would be used, if any.  The necessity of continued use of Gitmo Orange also shows the tricky and resourceful of their greatest fear…orange.

The Soviet Massacre of the bourgeoisie paved the way for the apparatchik who took over the same dachas, wheels, and sycophants. One the revolution is attained, it must be conserved.  The counter-revolutionary is the image of the revolutionary on the flip side of the cycle. Absent any connection with the real world, the cycle goes in circles and nowhere else.

LIAR works within normal parameters, as defined by one standard deviation above and one below the mean. That is Two Sigma. A more precise measurement is readily available for the reader’s verification by taking everyone the reader meets at family gatherings (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Party Day, wedding and funerals) and rank order all in accordance with any useful variable.  The middle two thirds is normal.

LIAR is also a guide for the formation of tactics, techniques, procedures as well as strategies to unleash the power of the weakness against the powerfully weak.  Instead of making super mensch out of ISIS terror, it is to delegitimize fear of the weak as power.  Humor works by making the terrorist a joke, preferably within their own ranks, as such assaults the sense of self-worth.   

The Victim to Victimizer is a cycle tied to Karpman’s concept of the Drama Triangle of victim, rescuer and prosecutor.

This, however requires a villain, whose villainy justifies counter villain extraordinary measures.