Member Blog & Stories

CA Stories

“Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan”

Captain Matt Pottinger, USMC

Paul D. Batchelor, DIA

January 6, 2010:

Well, not exactly submarines, but close. These semi-submersible boats run mostly submerged, and are excellent at evading detection. This design was first developed by Colombian drug gangs a decade ago, and these craft are carrying most of the cocaine being moved north to the United States. Several years of effort by the U.S. Navy to improve detection methods, have not had much success. Thus the semi-submersibles are a growing problem, and it is known that criminal gangs will sell their technology to other groups. If Islamic terrorists got their hands on these subs, they would have a useful way to move people and goods, as well as for making attacks. Many of the captures are the result of intelligence information at the source, not air and naval patrols out there just looking for them. These boats are hard to spot (by aircraft or ships), which is why they are being used more often.

“Terrorism’s Triumphant Techniques”

By Ralph Peters

Posted: 1:17 AM, January 4, 2010

Our terrorist enemies are out-thinking us. It’s not only embarrassing, but deadly.

“Bastion of Impunity, Mirage of Reform”

Source: Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies

From Press Release:

Today the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies released its second annual report on the state of human rights in the Arab world for the year 2009. The report, entitled Bastion of Impunity, Mirage of Reform, concludes that the human rights situation in the Arab region has deteriorated throughout the region over the last year.The report reviews the most significant developments in human rights during 2009 in 12 Arab countries: Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Yemen. It also devotes separate chapters to the Arab League and an analysis of the performance of Arab governments in UN human rights institutions.

Another chapter addresses the stance of Arab governments concerning women’s rights, the limited progress made to advance gender equality, and how Arab governments use the issue of women’s rights to burnish their image before the international community while simultaneously evading democratic and human rights reform measures required to ensure dignity and equality for all of their citizens.

“How to Leave a Stable Iraq”

By Stephen Biddle, Michael E. O’Hanlon, and Kenneth M. Pollack

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2008

McCaffrey – Current assessment of legal state of affairs in Afghanistan

"U.S. Army Civil Affairs-The Army’s “Ounce of Prevention”

(LWP 41, March 2003, PDF, 297K), Bruce B. Bingham, Daniel L.Rubini and Michael J. Cleary. Takes a timely look at one of the least known and most misunderstood Army missions—the Civil Affairs element of Army Special Operations. Although the paper predates (by just a matter of weeks) the war with Iraq, it goes a long way toward explaining what is happening now, in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad.

Justice in Waiting: Developing Rule of Law in Iraq

Colonel (Ret) Daniel L. Rubini

The U.S. government has intervened in crises around the world to protect its national interests, resulting in the need to build the essential services of a devastated or failed state. This includes the need to build the rule of law in place of lawlessness, rule by dictator’s decree, and human rights atrocities.

US Army Civil Affairs- The Army’s Bridge To Stability (2009- pre-pub version)

DoD Report on Civil Affairs to House Armed Services Committee

BG (Ret) Patt Maney Organizes a Special Docket For Homeless Vets

A Soldier’s Story: Hap Goodman’s Memoir of World War II Civil Affairs Service in Italy

Col. Kalman Oravetz World War II Papers