ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Alastair Beach Iraqi officials have issued a desperate plea for America to bring US ground troops back to the embattled country, as heavily armed Islamic State militants came within striking distance of Baghdad. Amid reports that Isil forces have advanced as far as Abu Ghraib, a town that is effectively a suburb of Baghdad, a senior governor claimed up to 10,000 fighters from the movement were now poised to assault the capital. The warning came from Sabah al-Karhout, president of the provisional council of Anbar Province, the vast desert province to the west of Baghdad that has now largely fallen under jihadist control. The province’s two main cities, Fallujah and Ramadi, were once known as “the graveyard of the Americans”, and the idea of returning there will not be welcomed by the Pentagon. But were the province to be controlled by Isil, it would give their forces a springboard from which to mount an all-out assault on Baghdad, where a team of around 1,500 US troops is already ac

By Andrew Korybko A global shift in US strategy is currently underway, with America transitioning from the ‘ world policeman’ to the Lead From Behind mastermind. This fundamental shift essentially entails the US moving from a majority forward-operating military to a defensive stay-behind force. Part of this transformation is the reduction of the conventional military and its replacement with special forces and intelligence recruits . Private military companies (PMCs) are also occupying a higher role in the US’ grand strategy. Of course, it is not to say that the US no longer has the capability or will to forward advance – not at all – but that the evolving US strategy prefers more indirect and nefarious approaches towards projecting power besides massive invasions and bombing runs. In this manner, it is following the advice of Sun Tzu who wrote that “supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” The outcome is a mixture of Color Revolutions, unc

According to Edward Snowden, people who care about their privacy should stay away from popular consumer Internet services like Dropbox, Facebook, and Google. Snowden conducted a remote interview today as part of the New Yorker Festival, where he was asked a couple of variants on the question of what we can do to protect our privacy. His first answer called for a reform of government policies. Some people take the position that they “don’t have anything to hide,” but he argued that when you say that, “You’re inverting the model of responsibility for how rights work”: When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights. He added that on an individual level, people should seek out encrypted tools and stop using services that are “hostile to privacy.” For one thing, he sa

The National Security Agency has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use “physical subversion” to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. The documents, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also indicate that the agency has used “under cover” operatives to gain access to sensitive data and systems in the global communications industry, and that these secret agents may have even dealt with American firms. The documents describe a range of clandestine field activities that are among the agency’s “core secrets” when it comes to computer network attacks, details of which are apparently shared with only a small number of officials outside the NSA. “It’s something that many people have been wondering about for a long time,” said Chris Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, after reviewing the documents. “I’ve had conversations with executives at tech

The chorus of U.S. health officials constantly reassuring the public that Ebola can't transmit through the air is quickly tailing off, as virologists and other disease experts say "not so fast." Health experts know very little about the nature of the Ebola strain now in circulation, they say, and it appears as though the current iteration of the disease is much more virulent than previously believed. Dr. C.J. Peters, a former researcher who worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study Ebola's transmissibility in humans, is just one of many who now say that airborne transmission of Ebola can't be ruled out as an impossibility. There simply isn't enough data to suggest otherwise, he says. Dr. Philip K. Russell, a virologist who helped oversee Ebola research at the U.S. Army's Medical Research and Development Command, agrees. He helped stockpile massive amounts of the smallpox vaccine following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and now

From Before It’s News (source link): Now the plot thickens with this Ebola crisis. The UN is now set to pass a World Patriot Act. Now, the tyranny is beginning to show and their true agenda is coming to light.So while the world is in a panic over the Ebola crisis, the Power Elite are taking full advantage. Another sleight of hand by the diabolical Globalists. Abby Martin speaks with RT Correspondent Marina Portnaya, about a new UN resolution that is being compared to the US Patriot Act, going over how the text could allow countries to increase surveillance under the name of counter terrorism, as well as giving states new tools to crack down on dissent by simply labeling activists ‘terrorists’. Global Patriot Act: Resolution 1373 — in effect, a global Patriot Act — fanned outward from the Security Council. Regional bodies joined the effort, adding action plans and treaties to carry out the new policies. The European Union, the African Union, the Organization of American States, the O

by Tyler Durden Two weeks ago, we revealed one part of the “Secret Deal” between the US and Saudi Arabia: namely what the US ‘brought to the table’ as part of its grand alliance strategy in the middle east, which proudly revealed Saudi Arabia to be “aligned” with the US against ISIS, when in reality John Kerry was merely doing Saudi Arabia’s will when the WSJ reported that “the process gave the Saudis leverage to extract a fresh U.S. commitment to beef up training for rebels fighting Mr. Assad, whose demise the Saudis still see as a top priority.” What was not clear is what was the other part: what did the Saudis bring to the table, or said otherwise, how exactly it was that Saudi Arabia would compensate the US for bombing the Assad infrastructure until the hated Syrian leader was toppled, creating a power vacuum in his wake that would allow Syria, Qatar, Jordan and/or Turkey to divide the spoils of war as they saw fit. A glimpse of the answer was provided earlier in the article “The O

by Tyler Durden The Swiss National Bank has lashed out at the so-called “gold initiative” efforts to “Save Our Swiss Gold” unsurprisingly proclaiming it as a bad idea. As Ron Paul previously noted, “The gold referendum, if it is successful, will be a slap in the face to those elites,” and so the full-court press ahead of the Nov 30th vote has begun (a la Scotland fearmongery) as SNB Vice Chairman Jean-Pierre Danthine explains how a ‘yes’ vote for the initiative “would severely constrain the SNB’s room for manoeuvre in a future crisis,” as it “poses danger to the conduct of a successful monetary policy.” His reasoning (below) is stunning… Via Jean-Pierre Danthine, Vice Chair Swiss National Bank On 30 November, the Swiss electorate will vote on the so-called “gold initiative” (“Save our Swiss gold”, in full), which, paradoxically, would severely constrain the SNB’s room for manoeuvre in a future crisis. Let me digress for a few minutes to explain why the SNB is opposed to this initiative