Posted 5:03 PM by Charles Cameron

Note to John Robb

I posted a comment on John Robb's excellent blog, after he'd said:

I'm almost finished reading Imperial Hubris by the CIA's Anonymous. Excellent book and well worth reading. It fits with Global Guerrillas tongue and groove.

I'va almost finished it myself, and have little colored book-mark stickies calling my attention back to specific paragraphs on almost every page -- the thing looks more like a missal than a book I picked up at Borders...

In any case, I agreed with John's assessment, and in particular with the clarity with which Anonynmous handles the religious aspect of al-Qaida and friends. But the one quarrel I do have with the book seems important. As I commented to John:

It [Anon's book] is indeed excellent. My only real nit-pick with it is that he doesn't grasp the theologically precise meaning of the term apocalyptic, and hence says OBL is not an apocalyptic figure (meaning he's not foamingly end-of-the-world crazy) when that is, in fact, a major feature of the background he's working in.
But then that's par for the course: the apocalytpic trend in Islam is all too easily overlooked, as this quote from Benjamin and Simon indicates: "So much of what was heard from al-Qaeda after the attacks sounded to Americans like gibberish that many chords of the apocalypse were missed."

Luckily, Benjamin and Simon themselves provide a corrective here, in _The Age of Sacred Terror_ pp. 91 and following, drawing on the fine work of David Cook. For a real sense of the importance of apocalyptic in all sorts of situations from al-Qaida to the Marxist-Leninists by way of Aum Shinrikyo, and not forgetting the contemporary US, see Robert Jay Lifton's brilliant squib of a book, _Superpower Syndrome_. And for an immediate, quick hit on the importance of apocalyptic thought to OBL himself, consider that he quotes the hadith of the Gharqad Tree, describing the battle which takes place immediately before Judgment Day:

"Judgment day shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews, whereas the Jews will hide behind trees and stones, and the tree and the stone will speak and say 'Muslim, behind me a Jew come and kill him', except for the al-Ghargad (sic) tree, which is a Jewish plant." -- ABC News interview with John Miller, May 28 1998.

Interestingly enough, this particular hadith also features in the Hamas charter…

Posted 12:10 PM by Charles Cameron

Social Network Analysis

I was pleased to run across an ancient entry in geORge brett's blog, InfoArk(ive), today, linking my work to that of Noshir Contractor and others in the field of Social Network Analysis, thus:

Via a personal social network, Ed Vielmetti's Vacuum, I came across a great article today from Peter Moreville at Semantic Studios, "Social Network Analysis". It is a wonderful synopsis of the value and power of Social Network Analysis in organizations. Be sure to take a look at it. In particular he mentions two applications I want to check into: Inflow and Babble.

It spurred two thoughts/memories for me:

The work of Noshir Contractor at UIUC with I-KNOW which is an acronym for Inquiring Knowledge Networks On the Web.

Charles Cameron's Hipbone Games.

What Charles has developed is potentially a strong parallel tool that might serve the Socal Network Analysis framework with another viewpoint.

Bingo!

Thanks, geORge: that's been very much on my mind, though I don't think I've ever expressed it that succinctly.

Posted 9:39 AM by Charles Cameron

Open Source Intelligence:

That tiny reference to a new Open Source Agency in a chart on page 413 of the 9/11 Commission report drew remarkably little press attention, but it wasn't a mistake, it was a marker for a significant idea. Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton recently confirmed their interest in such an agency in their Prepared Statement to the House Armed Services Committee of August 10, in which they propose:

A focus on open source information and the development of a new office or agency to collect and analyze solely open source information would also add to the competition of ideas on tough national security issues

It's my impression that we're still "chunking" here, thinking of creating a cluster rather than a distribution, building a central hub where a wide-flung network along the lines of GBN's "remarkable people" might be more to the point:

GBN's network of "remarkable people" is a diverse collection of original, systemic thinkers whose boundless curiosity, passion for ideas, and generosity of spirit leads them to explore a wide range of issues and contribute unique insights to the GBN community.

GBN Network News

And the thing is, the GBN network really is remarkable, featuring people like:

Douglas Engelbart, Lynn Margulis and William Calvin; Bill Joy, John Perry Barlow and Amory Lovins; William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Vernor Vinge; Adam Kahane, Art Kleiner and Kees van der Heijden; Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno; James Hillman, George Lakoff and Mary Catherine Bateson; Jaron Lanier, J.C. Herz and Gary Snyder; Freeman Dyson, John Brockman and Francis Fukuyama.

Now that's a truly impressive roll-call of intelligence in the original sense of the word. But okay, I know, this is a first step in a positive direction.

Posted 1:38 PM by Charles Cameron

The Olympics are upon us...

And as controversial as ever.

*

My take on transforming the Games...

I see sports in general and the Olympics in particular as potential alternatives to war.

I'd change the Olympics to bring them as close to war as possible while remaining compatible with full mutual dojo-style respect.

I'd pit individual against individual a thousand ways and army against army a handful, use mountainous regions, deserts and undersea for the big set pieces, allow enhancements (night vision goggles or whatever) if those wishing them provide them in equal measure to all teams, and in general try to vent and honor as much testosterone as possible with fatalities in the low hundreds per annum (and not less than forty, either), and teams could compete in the name of any grouping they chose.

Ahem, I said:

With full mutual dojo-style respect,

... which I understand as naturally inclined towards conflict resolution and ppeacemaking:

The Japanese word BUDO consists of two characters. Although usually translated as "martial", the original components of the character BU have the meaning "to stop clashing weapons," with a definite connotation of restoring peace. BU may also be translated as "valorous action", "courageous living," and "commitment to justice." DO is TAO, "the Way to truth," "the Path to liberation." The two concepts merge as BUDO, "the Way of brave and enlightened activity."

John Stevens, Budo Secrets - Teachings of the Martial Arts Masters

*

That's what they call a trial balloon, or a thought experiment, perhaps -- don't take it too seriously, okay? Just a little something to stir fresh thinking as the Games begin...

*

My background on this...

...comes from recently stumbling across the personal website of the Greek Foreign Minister, where I found a remarkable speech from which these sample paras are drawn:

It is a story that comes from ancient Greece and from the times when the Olympics were created. Approximately 3,000 years ago, in the Peloponnese - a region of Greece which was divided among several cities – states that fought each other almost continuously.

One day, the King of one of these warring states, Iphitos Elis, his name was of the region of Ilia in today’s terminology, asked the oracle of Delphi – that is where people used to go for their think tanks, to get their consulting work done – how will we end this cycle of violence. And the oracle said, if it was the king, that they should organize an athletic and cultural festival every fourth summer. And during this festival, there should be declared a sacred haven of peace. And while these games were being held, all hostilities among all states should cease. Warriors should lay down their shields and weapons outside the stadium walls. All states should declare truce or in Greek «Ekecheiria», which has become the Olympic Truce.

Now, the King Iphitos, a wise king, accepted the oracle’s suggestion. He made peace with his enemy states of Sparta and Pissa and they actually signed an agreement and they decided that the site for this festival would be Olympia, the site of the ancient athletic competition. And there we begin with the Olympic Games.

So, in fact, what is interesting here is that it was not that we had an athletic festival which then helped peace, but it was the actual purpose of the Olympic Games, to bring a period of peace in the ancient times. And the Olympic Truce was actually followed in a very sacred way for over one thousand years.

There was a call before the Games, when people would announce that now the Games are to begin, wars would stop, the athletes would leave the battlefield if they were on the battlefield and go to Olympia where the Games would take place. And in fact, we do have even statues where peace was made between different warring states during the Olympic Games.

Speech by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Giorgos A. Papandreou at the Economist Conference on The Olympic Truce
The 2004 Olympic Games Summit Management Strategies for the Success of the Olympiad
Athens (Intercontinental), March 05, 2002
Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs
http://www.papandreou.gr/papandreou/content/articlepage.aspx?articleid=185&language=0

Some modern results, cited in the same speech:

There already have been some substantial results since Juan Antonio Samaranch began with this idea, this modern idea, bringing it back to life some years ago. What are the specifics? First of all, he and the Olympic Movement was able in Bosnia, during the war, to have at least one day of truce during the Lillehammer Games in Norway. And UNICEF then came and inoculated thousands of children during that one day of truce: Muslims, Serbs and Croats from all sides.

Secondly, there was a truce held in Nagano when there was possibility of a new conflict with Iraq because of them not complying with the UN resolutions. And then, Kofi Annan was able to use those two weeks during the Nagano Games to actually hammer out an agreement with the Iraqi government. Unluckily, the agreement did not hold as long as one would have wanted to, but in any case, this was a very important moment.

Thirdly, we have the Sidney Games, where both the North and South Korean teams marched into the stadium under one Olympic flag. I think these are just some of the small or large examples of what might happen when this inspiration does take hold and does create the possibility for a moment of peace.

Posted 1:35 PM by Charles Cameron

For the record...

For the record, this blog is a continuation of the blog of the same name to be found (currently) on my old HipBone site:

http://home.earthlink.net/~hipbone/blog.html

The complex problems I'll be blogging mostly have to do with religious violence.

The glass beads reference is to the idea of the Glass Bead Game in Hermann Hesse's novel, Magister Ludi. I am interested in the application of some ideas drawn from Hesse's Game to the visual representation (mapping) of complex problems, and am developing an analytic style based on a minimum of two data-points in conjunction, in which symmteries and asymmetries are particularly fruitful indicators...

See also my DoubleQuotes blog at http://www.beadgaming.com/doublequotes.html