Initiative will be punished, investigated

Initiative will be punished, investigated.

Force protection be damned.

NYT reporter rats out team protecting US troops on battle field.

Intelligence columnist indeed, speculation passes for news.

On Monday, the Times ran a story about Michael Furlong, the Defense Department official being investigated over an ad hoc spy ring. The piece raised more questions than it answered, and Washington Post intelligence columnist David Ignatius is now filling in some of the blanks.

In a column today, Ignatius distills the story. “Under the heading of ‘information operations’ or ‘force protection,’ he writes, “the military has launched intelligence activities that, were they conducted by the CIA, might require a presidential finding and notification of Congress. And by using contractors who operate ‘outside the wire’ in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the military has gotten information that is sometimes better than what the CIA is offering.”

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/danger-room-explainer-outsourced-intel-in-afghanistan/#more-23257#ixzz0iSXG8JAp

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Instead of giving Michael Furlong a medal, and honors

they are serving him up as scapegoat.

New successful methods and techniques result in 

witch hunt.

New SysAdmin force paradigm:

"force protection atmospherics", 

“cooperators.”,

The military has been frustrated by a general lack of  understanding about the social and cultural landscape of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in its quest for ground truth, it has turned to nontraditional sources to fill in the gaps on cultural knowledge and the local scene.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/danger-room-explainer-outsourced-intel-in-afghanistan/#more-23257#ixzz0iSaKkM2X

General David McKiernan, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, greenlighted AfPax Insider to help provide open-source assessments of the local situation in areas where coalition forces were operating. It was part of an effort to improve information flow — as well as respond to reports of civilian casualties, among other things.

Smells like a turf war?

Looks like active real time OSINT in situ.

Feels like a GREAT idea.

Gerald

Anthropologist.

Backgrounder:
http://warintel.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-is-paradigm-intel.html


.

.