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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Re: [ALOCHONA] Re: A letter to Dr. M Zafar Iqbal - Jute Genome



 

Dear Mr. Q Rahman,
 
You might have simplified your reasonings on the issue under discussion.
 
Some people always say I am an optimistic person, i am hopeful. it is not a bad statement albeit, it is not the underlying fact that he likes to keep hope alive to move forward. Rather I guess he wants to cut himself off from the burgeoning problems despite knowing the actions and reasoning of compounding the same.
To some degree one need to understand why this problem exists, may be it's historical genesis or machination and know fairly its possible resolves.
 
Allow me to make a statement - I am hopeful that one day Buriganga will be clean and flow unpolluted, Jumuna's river bank would be trained and Pabna and Sirajganj will be saved from its per annial destruction or Dhaka university will run with teachers who will not act under political influence. How would you evaluate my wish, hope or naivity?
 
Motia's honesty is a legend and a rare commodity in our political goods and its embedded qualities, but she is the most aggresive women in our land. Bad mouthing and cruel utterances (look at her face when she speaks) could be one of the cause of our ugly and nasty political culture of today. Without that she could have been one of our brave women despite her surrendered political ethos. Let me keep the hope that some day she will speak politely and intelligently.
 
 
Nothing personal.
 

--- On Wed, 21/7/10, ezajur <Ezajur@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: ezajur <Ezajur@yahoo.com>
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: A letter to Dr. M Zafar Iqbal - Jute Genome
To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, 21 July, 2010, 3:16 PM

 
Dear Alochok Q Rahman

Greetings to you from Kuwait - where temperatures have often been above 50C in the last few weeks!

I mind giving credit to Matia and Hasina for this. Don't know what Hasina did - except allow some to say the genome for jute was discovered in the year of our Nethri, 2010. Perhaps Matia had to get permission from the PM and she said yes. Matia did the right thing by supporting the project. But then how many of your family members would have approved the, say, Taka 10 crore spend if they were in that position? She did the right thing and it's no big deal in the big world. In Bangladesh we make these things a big deal. The Minister of which country gets credit for supporting a genome project? Rwanda? Definitely Bangladesh at least.

And if you give Hasina and Matia credit for the unravelling of the jute genome how do you then expect anyone in AL to give a damn what you think about their renaming business? This is Bangladesh remember - normal logic does not apply. You have to think like a cretin to understand our cretins.

Politicians made our country unfit for our fathers and unfit for our sons. So in return - I hold nothing sacred. And Matia Chowdhury is not bloody sacred either. In fact she is part of the problem.

Yes she is our most successful minister for agriculture. So what? Does she have a lot of competition from previous ministers of agriculture? No. Have we had a long line of illustrious ministers for agriculture? No. We haven't even had a short line. And, apart from her undeniable passion and honesty, the main reason for her success at the Ministry is her political power within AL. She has the political power to fight for greater resources within the cabinet. She has the political power to scare the pants off those who work within her ministry. And she has the political power to ensure local AL branches pressure local officials. It is political power and it is vested in her by her Nethri.

So she is using it for good? Fine. But she also uses it for bad. She is one of the main proponents and supports for our bloody, rotten Nethri system and political culture. She is not part of the solution. She is part of the problem.

On her death bed AL will be sobbing hopelessly "Apa! Apa! Dinajpur'e shaar er daam kotho hobe?!"

Nothing is sacred.

Best regards.

Ezajur Rahman
Kuwait

--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, qrahman@... wrote:
>
>
> I don't mind giving credit to Matia Chowdhury and our PM in this regard. At least they are making progress. Matia clearly established herself as a successful minister of agriculture.
>
> If anyone with a backbone can explain to our PM that, naming everything under the sun after her family members is a receipe for disaster. Many dictators all over the world tried it and failed at it. I am hopeful one fine morning she will realize it.
>
> There are a large number of people who already follow her blindly. If she keeps taking small steps towards progress and democracy, people will automatically line up behind her.
>
> At the same time for the sake democracy, I would like to see a good vibrant opposition party as well. BNP need to work hard to bring up talented new leaders to make them a credible choice.
>
> I strongly feel we can have a better future. Looking at so many challenges we face, we need an exceptionally capable "Messiah" leader to take us to the "Promise" of sonar Bangla.
>
> --qr
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ezajur <Ezajur@...>
> To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thu, Jul 15, 2010 4:46 pm
> Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: A letter to Dr. M Zafar Iqbal - Jute Genome
>
>
>
>
> Dear Alochok Haque
>
> The unravelling of the jute genome is a worthy and laudable achievement. But this discovery has already been credited partly to Motia and Hasina, the first for providing for funds and the second for being PM at the time of discovery. Of course, if this discovery is kept newsworthy we may be able to look forward to a lecture on the subject by the eminent geneticist, nicknamed Joy.
>
> But if I were you I would save your hard earned dollars for something more meaningful, for something more tangible and something that can be leveraged for the greater good.
>
> I am mean because I know all your points are valid.
>
> But rotting fruits and vegetables would be useful to hurl at our political classes :)
>
> Ezajur Rahman
> Kuwait
>
> --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "Mohd. Haque" <haquetm83@> wrote:
> >
> > Dr. Zafar Iqbal
> >
> > Dear Sir,
> >
> > I read your article on discovery of ‘jute Genome’.
> >
> > Every research is good for us and we should engage in more research. It is an achievement.
> >
> > Jute is cultivated from period unknown or say, last three hundred years jute industry contributed to economic progress. Centuries ago thousand miles away an industrial city was built called Dandy mainly on Jute. Adamjee was built less than a century ago.
> >
> > Today jute do not have its glory or importance, there are lot of arguments for and against its industrial and economic potentials. And politics played it part in the direction one may like it to fit in.
> > Reality is, our farmers who used to cultivate jute already lost their lust for the ‘golden fiber’ and found alternate corps in its place. Not only Adamjee but numerous big plants already disappeared from the industrial township along with its millions suppliers/growers. That brings the country’s reliance on jute as exportable or as primary goods for industry to a negligible percentage.
> > Discovering the ‘genome’ how will change the whole scenario, as projected, I simply can not fathom. Save the academic research which itself an achievement but re-invigorating jute with this discovery is a mere propaganda. And our respected professors and teachers impeccably playing in the hand of their political mentors.
> >
> > Banana, Mango, Pineapple are produced in much bigger quantity these days in our country which fetch a good economic value without knowing their ‘Genome’, but like all other agri produce farmers benefits are always less. What is needed an organized storage, distribution and marketing mechanisms under fully strategized policy supports from the state. Until these facilities are not created and farmers profit is not protected potential development will not take place. There are loose talks, political ‘bhashon’, which do not change the scenario or actual matrix of the business or the economy. Until those loose talks turns to objectivity and also effectively exercised into profitable ventures.
> >
> > Since, this involves millions of poor farmers and growing number of small entrepreneurs, our professors would do better if they open their hearts for the millions of poor whose children do not fill their class rooms, rather than for few researchers to earn a mileage, to help better their lives.
> >
> > Research should be done for productive results and resources should be mobilized from ‘unchained’ (without string attached) sources so that the benefits of the research is done objectively and used for welfare of common folks or for humanity in general.
> >
> > We need to free Dhaka University, BUET, Agriculture University, Shahjalal University from the influence of coterie politics and their cronies, in order to instill a culture of wellbeing of our society.
> > We can mobilize more resources ample proof are there, and I would like to stress on the fact that resources will not be a problem for doing good basic research. Through a development oriented participatory yet transparent programs will attract not only the researchers but the industry and voluntary fund providers as well.
> > What is required, these professors should free themselves and change their line of allegiance to built trust of our people, so that in reliance they come and offer their few hundred to see that their knowledge is enhanced only to be utilized for their own good.
> >
> > Are you ready professor, upon your readiness you will find thousands like me who would have few hundreds either in Dollar or in taka or powerful moral supports.
> >
> >
> > Your sincerely
> > Haque
> >
>




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[ALOCHONA] Prof Asif Nazrul on etc



Prof Asif Nazrul on etc
 
 


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[ALOCHONA] Indian Over Dimensional Cargo in Bangladesh



Indian Over Dimensional Cargo in Bangladesh
 
 
 


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[ALOCHONA] Millionaire BNP Ministers : hawa bhaban was headquarter of the corruption of BNP JAMAT



Millionaire BNP Ministers : hawa bhaban was headquarter of the corruption of BNP JAMAT
 
Summary: Corruption is the number one problem for Bangladesh. Transparency International in its annual report placed Bangladesh at the top of the list of most corrupt nations in the world. Certainly, it makes the politicians in Bangladesh, especially those in power, extremely uncomfortable and worried. It is apprehended that in the coming report of Transparency International, Bangladesh is going to be placed once again at the top. Although the ruling alliance in the country are making frantic bids in cleansing the image of Bangladesh, it is well understood that, international community are yet to be convinced to the fact that, Begum Khaleda Zia's government is doing something in eliminating corruption from different section in the country. Only recently, an intelligence agency in the country identified 11 mid ranking officials with National Board of Revenue, who own 15 luxurious villas in countries port city of Chittagong, which costs US$ 2.5 million. It is important to mention here that, monthly salary of these officials is less than US$ 400 per month! Police and Customs (revenue) are the most corrupt departments in Bangladesh. Almost all the officers, on their retirement, emerge as multi-millionaire. They acquire wealth and properties in their own name of in the names of their spouses. It is almost an open secret in the country. Government also knows these facts, but is unable to take any action.
In recent days, names of some of the members of the BNP's cabinet in Bangladesh come as the worst corrupts. They minted money like wild gambling. Sixty members of parliament rose complaint against a particular minister, while the Prime Minister Khaleda Zia did not take any action against him. It is also learnt that, many of the family members of Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia are becoming fabulously rich, by using state power. The most talked about corrupt figure in Bangladesh is Tareq Rahman, eldest son of the Prime Minister. TAREQ BECAME BILLIONAIRE JUST IN FEW YEARS, WHILE MANY OF HIS FRIENDS, WHO WERE PARTNERS IN HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVITIES OR IN THE ADDICTION OF PHENSIDYL ALSO BECAME VERY RICH UNDER THE DIRECT PATRONIZATION OF THE SON OF PM BEGUM KHALEDA ZIA.
Tareq has established Hawa Bhaban, which is although considered as one of the offices of the ruling party. There are solid evidences of this office's involvement in interfering in almost all the business and contracts in the country. Hawa Bhaban palls are considered as the most influential figures in Bangladesh. One of the Hawa Bhaban palls is Giasuddin Mamun, who is tareq's closest friend too. Hailing from an extreme poor family in the southern part of Bangladesh, Mamun is today one of the richest men in Bangladesh through various corruption, smuggling and many other forms of illegal activities.
Surprisingly one of the assistant press secretaries of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Touhidul Islam alias Ashik Islam is simultaneously working in the PMO as well in Hawa Bhaban as its spokesman. Moreover, this man is also involved with Tareq's private television channel, Channel One. There are numerous allegations on Ashik's involvement in a number of financial irregularities as well of misappropriating state money with various excuses, government did not take any action against this man, as he is considered to be one of the closest aides of Tareq Rahman. In the PMO too, Ashik is known as an womanizer, alcoholic, bribe taker and blackmailer. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia was notified several times about this man's illegal activities by country's intelligence agencies. But, she could not take any action against Ashik, as Tareq always stood behind him with fullest support.
Khaleda'a own brother, Sayeed Iskander, who is a sacked major of Bangladesh army, also turned into multi-millionaire by using the influence of his sister. Sayeed runs a company named dandy Dying, which is a mere camouflage of his other activities. Behind the mask of Dandy Dying, Sayeed is involved in minting fabulous amount of cash through kick backs or other means; as well he is virtually active as the unseen defense advisor to the Prime Minister. No posting or promotion in the army is possible without his blessings or recommendations. Sayeed Iskander placed a number of his course-mates and even some of his close relatives in the sensitive and important positions in Bangladesh Army. A man with high political ambition, Sayeed is known to be one of the key conspirators in seizing power from Khaleda by using his grip in the armed forces. His ultimate goal is to become the future Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Khaleda's late husband President Ziaur Rahman sacked Sayeed Iskander from Bangladesh Army for his alleged involvement in a number of corruption charges. Zia was one of the few honest figures in Bangladesh politics, who did not allow any of the members of his family to make money using state power. Not only that, Ziaur Rahman was the man, who did not interfere when both of his sons were ousted from St. Joseph School, which is considered one of the most prestigious schools in Dhaka. Zia's sons were to leave this school because they turned to be duffers and extremely inattentive to their education. Tareq and his brother requested their daddy to readmit them in St. Joseph, when angry Ziaur Rahman said, "I am not in power to support inattentive sons of mine".
The present government will finish its tenure this October. Meantime, names of most corrupt ministers are already coming in circulation, with figures of cash they minted during the five-year term of the BNP government since 2001. The corrupt ministers are:
Name of Minister Amount Earned in U$
01 Barrister Nazmul Huda 0.5 billion
02 Mirza Abbas 43 Million
03 Begum Khurshid Jahan Haque (sister of PM) 40 Million
04 Tariqul Islam 38 million
05 Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan 35 million
06 Salahuddin Ahmed 32 million
07 Barrister Aminul Huq 31 million
08 Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusuf 30 million
09 Altaf Hussain Chowdhury 28 million
10 Iqbal Hassan Mahmood Tuku 26 million
11 Dr. Khandekar Musharraf Hussain 25 million
12 Barkatulla Bulu 24 million
13 Abdullah Al Noman 23 million
14 Lt. Col Akber Hussain 22 million
15 Major (Retired) Qamrul Islam 21 million
16 Shajahan Siraj 20 million
17 Advocate Gautam Chakrabarty 17 million
18 Amanullah Aman 15 million
19 Ziaul Haque Zia 14 million
20 Jafrul Islam Chowdhury 13 million
21 ANM Ehsanul Haque Milon 11 million
22 Asadul Habib Dulu 10 million
23 Fazlur Rahman Patal 9 million
24 Advocate Ruhul Quddus Talikder Dulu 8 million
25 Lutfur Rahman Khan Azad 6 million
Finance Minister M. Saifur Rahman is although considered to be a clean man, his sons are engaged in minting money by using the influence of their father. His sons are involved in several businesses like multi-level marketing (a company, which just disappeared after taking a few million dollars from the innocent people), customs clearing and forwarding business (this company is handling most of the big businesses in the country, just because, finance minister's sons are partners in the business), readymade garments (smuggling of narcotics are done under the cover of this business) etc.
Dr. Peter Snowman
34 Bay Side Ave
New York City
USA


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[ALOCHONA] We have a long way to go (3) - our Leadership (Jamaat another example)

We have a long way to go (3) - our Leadership (Jamaat another example)

1.
Bengol, in my understanding never had an independent ruler after 11th or 12th century (After Sen erra). Bengali's franchise for leadership, to rule, to take their own matters in their own hands either predominantly obstructed, censured or suppressed.

Bengalis were the foot soldiers in most of the battles, some battles were won by them but not the war. Fazlul Haque, Suhrawardy were partner to the main leadership representing the East Bengol. Mawlana Abdul Hamid Khan 'Bhasani' took the lead role even before Sheikh Mujibur Rahman become the only leader of East Bengol (East Pakistan). Bhasani took a great initiative while Mujib was in prison to keep the movement going, which was mostly managed by the young activists who then at their 20s. Eventually these firebrand lads could not make to leadership in Bangladesh. This could be the short story of our leadership in independent and pre independent Bangladesh.

Those young leaders – 'char Khalifas' or Menon, Rono, Matia who were instrumental to political uprising of the days and used to command the great majority of people's thinking, psychology, after 45 years of their career seems lost in a whirlpool, all their charisma displayed under Sh. Mujib or Bhasani gone with the wind. It wouldn't be imprudent to consider all of them retracted from their original positions, belief, what they were famous for, and either distanced themselves from their ethos and active politics, turned as successful businessmen, or merged with mainstream political parties by surrendering their legendary values, morality and political ethos, distastefully to their once-opponents. But except one – Hyder Akbar Khan Rono. Though Rono do not command any sizeable portion of today's public in any terms but he still professes the same philosophy that once were immensely popular. It is sad, remaining out of the grasp of greedy and
profiteering politics, simple, soft spoken and humble Rono could not maintain his lead in the leadership.

Motia made little success joining once censured leader's politics and worshiping his daughter, though remain impeccably honest and fairly successful, yet as a fiery legend now only bad mouthing everything she had to say, tarnishing the political culture and the behavior into an ugly image like her unscrupulous colleagues. It is my believe that she could have still command a good and brave side of our politics had she not gone that far to touch Hasina's feet (to see her off in the airport, as seen on TV) and speaking with such venom, to instigate hatred belittling all others that added much to the ongoing face of cruel and ugly culture of politics.

So, Rono and Matia are the example of our leadership legend. As I see always, so much of potential and prospects gone in vain, resembling almost all sectors of our society. Otherwise we could have written our history with a brave face. Forty years of independence produced very little, a shameful and undignified state of our people far outweigh the brevity once displayed. Economic and social conditions, dreaded poverty and injustice are the stark example of our leadership qualities and its crisis.

When any leadership fails finds hundreds of reasoning but when one succeeds a single reason is enough, our leadership did not grow and unfortunately there is no breeding sign.


2.
When we as a nation failed to put up a brave face of our leadership yet did not fail to create fictitious images of various administrators, beneficiaries of our state and our struggles. Whom we often put in apex of our polity may be out of frustration or even with genuine aspirations.

Let's look at 'Jamaat' politics – Considering the defeat of all powerful Kemalist's and the gradual rise of a religious party in Turkey amidst the world wide machination against Islam, made me to think why Jamaat could not do the same, again, corollary to our leadership crisis. (make no mistake a lay man out of his sheer frustration trying to make analyses from his daily experiences, who has no support, no sympathy or even hatred except those committed crime, to Jamaat politics).

Ottoman Empire was defeated for various reasons and shrunk to its current existence albeit until recently with Kemal Ataturk's vision and mission that made them neither European nor Middle Eastern. Neither Muslim nor Christian. Sacrificing all its past – dresses, alphabets, historical ties could not elevate once a dominant empire to the economic status of even Italy or Greece today.
However, Turkey made a great stride within less than a decade, from the brink of collapse of its economy, banking and social system under the ruin of Kemalist Institutions and its all powerful military and its pulling of all the strings.

They pulled, but Erdogan's Islamist vision and finely crafted strategy either by passed or defeated the Kemalist systematically without much confrontation or bloodshed. Thanks to his vision and strategy that gradually adopted first before changing the direction to reach the objective. Remain under the nonsensical secularism they still remain a fervent supporters of Islamic principles and its values. Taking many actions that made the whole country and its leadership most successful in Turkey and surprisingly made its leadership most popular in the whole Middle East. Country's economy became the fastest growing only after china this year, its foreign policies become more effective and emerging as a effective regional power even acceptable to Iran. The Islamic party changed to Justice and Development Party and Erdogan become a figure head who tackled his arch enemy the military institutions and its judiciary and most importantly without social unrest or
violent upheaval. That is call leadership. The Islamists are fighting without firing a bullet or spreading hatred and revenge. So far sustained its fight against Israel that is simply another wonder in 20th century.

Just think now, Jamaat has made a worst blander in 1971 in the name of Islam. They did not surrender or repent. In the name of sharia, taken strategies that made them fragile, skeptic and vulnerable.
Had they repent in public, changed their name (during the caretaker government new policy on political parties registration or earlier) followed an strategy that is on a long vision of Islamic equity and justice, not merely everyday sharia rhetoric; adopted policies that appears as uptodate and progressive, their position would have been very different. Once the same party align itself with todays annihilator – Awami League.

All the above arguments in one stroke we can waive – all our leadership never had a far sighted vision and development oriented focus and policies for our land and boundary. Shockingly enough made it a theatre of foreign manipulation.
No one repents, sheer arrogance do not allow them to apologies for their past mistakes, no one like to accommodate, no one brings in broader and longer views in their strategies for the country or for their own qualitative and effective sustainability.

Our leaders only divides with their petty nonsense ideologies , chastise and create confrontations as they fail to lead. Today they made even bigger mess and arguably we have a long way to go!

Haque


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[ALOCHONA] Exclusive Canadian News



১৪ কোটি ডলারের ফাইটার জেট
নয়া বিতর্কে হারপার সরকার
http://www.thebengalitimes.ca/details.php?pub_no=43&menu_id=2&val=1673

ফলোআপ জি ২০
সাত মোস্ট ওয়ান্টেড গ্রেফতার
 
 
Samia Jaman
-------------------
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ON M6H 1V4
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Re: [ALOCHONA] Re: A letter to Dr. M Zafar Iqbal - Jute Genome



Dear Mr. Q Rahman,
 
You might have simplified your reasonings on the issue under discussion.
 
Some people always say I am an optimistic person, i am hopeful. it is not a bad statement albeit, it is not the underlying fact that he likes to keep hope alive to move forward. Rather I guess he wants to cut himself off from the burgeoning problems despite knowing the actions and reasoning of compounding the same.
To some degree one need to understand why this problem exists, may be it's historical genesis or machination and know fairly its possible resolves.
 
Allow me to make a statement - I am hopeful that one day Buriganga will be clean and flow unpolluted, Jumuna's river bank would be trained and Pabna and Sirajganj will be saved from its per annial destruction or Dhaka university will run with teachers who will not act under political influence. How would you evaluate my wish, hope or naivity?
 
Motia's honesty is a legend and a rare commodity in our political goods and its embedded qualities, but she is the most aggresive women in our land. Bad mouthing and cruel utterances (look at her face when she speaks) could be one of the cause of our ugly and nasty political culture of today. Without that she could have been one of our brave women despite her surrendered political ethos. Let me keep the hope that some day she will speak politely and intelligently.
 
 
Nothing personal.
 

--- On Wed, 21/7/10, ezajur <Ezajur@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: ezajur <Ezajur@yahoo.com>
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: A letter to Dr. M Zafar Iqbal - Jute Genome
To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, 21 July, 2010, 3:16 PM

 
Dear Alochok Q Rahman

Greetings to you from Kuwait - where temperatures have often been above 50C in the last few weeks!

I mind giving credit to Matia and Hasina for this. Don't know what Hasina did - except allow some to say the genome for jute was discovered in the year of our Nethri, 2010. Perhaps Matia had to get permission from the PM and she said yes. Matia did the right thing by supporting the project. But then how many of your family members would have approved the, say, Taka 10 crore spend if they were in that position? She did the right thing and it's no big deal in the big world. In Bangladesh we make these things a big deal. The Minister of which country gets credit for supporting a genome project? Rwanda? Definitely Bangladesh at least.

And if you give Hasina and Matia credit for the unravelling of the jute genome how do you then expect anyone in AL to give a damn what you think about their renaming business? This is Bangladesh remember - normal logic does not apply. You have to think like a cretin to understand our cretins.

Politicians made our country unfit for our fathers and unfit for our sons. So in return - I hold nothing sacred. And Matia Chowdhury is not bloody sacred either. In fact she is part of the problem.

Yes she is our most successful minister for agriculture. So what? Does she have a lot of competition from previous ministers of agriculture? No. Have we had a long line of illustrious ministers for agriculture? No. We haven't even had a short line. And, apart from her undeniable passion and honesty, the main reason for her success at the Ministry is her political power within AL. She has the political power to fight for greater resources within the cabinet. She has the political power to scare the pants off those who work within her ministry. And she has the political power to ensure local AL branches pressure local officials. It is political power and it is vested in her by her Nethri.

So she is using it for good? Fine. But she also uses it for bad. She is one of the main proponents and supports for our bloody, rotten Nethri system and political culture. She is not part of the solution. She is part of the problem.

On her death bed AL will be sobbing hopelessly "Apa! Apa! Dinajpur'e shaar er daam kotho hobe?!"

Nothing is sacred.

Best regards.

Ezajur Rahman
Kuwait

--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, qrahman@... wrote:
>
>
> I don't mind giving credit to Matia Chowdhury and our PM in this regard. At least they are making progress. Matia clearly established herself as a successful minister of agriculture.
>
> If anyone with a backbone can explain to our PM that, naming everything under the sun after her family members is a receipe for disaster. Many dictators all over the world tried it and failed at it. I am hopeful one fine morning she will realize it.
>
> There are a large number of people who already follow her blindly. If she keeps taking small steps towards progress and democracy, people will automatically line up behind her.
>
> At the same time for the sake democracy, I would like to see a good vibrant opposition party as well. BNP need to work hard to bring up talented new leaders to make them a credible choice.
>
> I strongly feel we can have a better future. Looking at so many challenges we face, we need an exceptionally capable "Messiah" leader to take us to the "Promise" of sonar Bangla.
>
> --qr
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ezajur <Ezajur@...>
> To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thu, Jul 15, 2010 4:46 pm
> Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: A letter to Dr. M Zafar Iqbal - Jute Genome
>
>
>
>
> Dear Alochok Haque
>
> The unravelling of the jute genome is a worthy and laudable achievement. But this discovery has already been credited partly to Motia and Hasina, the first for providing for funds and the second for being PM at the time of discovery. Of course, if this discovery is kept newsworthy we may be able to look forward to a lecture on the subject by the eminent geneticist, nicknamed Joy.
>
> But if I were you I would save your hard earned dollars for something more meaningful, for something more tangible and something that can be leveraged for the greater good.
>
> I am mean because I know all your points are valid.
>
> But rotting fruits and vegetables would be useful to hurl at our political classes :)
>
> Ezajur Rahman
> Kuwait
>
> --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "Mohd. Haque" <haquetm83@> wrote:
> >
> > Dr. Zafar Iqbal
> >
> > Dear Sir,
> >
> > I read your article on discovery of ‘jute Genome’.
> >
> > Every research is good for us and we should engage in more research. It is an achievement.
> >
> > Jute is cultivated from period unknown or say, last three hundred years jute industry contributed to economic progress. Centuries ago thousand miles away an industrial city was built called Dandy mainly on Jute. Adamjee was built less than a century ago.
> >
> > Today jute do not have its glory or importance, there are lot of arguments for and against its industrial and economic potentials. And politics played it part in the direction one may like it to fit in.
> > Reality is, our farmers who used to cultivate jute already lost their lust for the ‘golden fiber’ and found alternate corps in its place. Not only Adamjee but numerous big plants already disappeared from the industrial township along with its millions suppliers/growers. That brings the country’s reliance on jute as exportable or as primary goods for industry to a negligible percentage.
> > Discovering the ‘genome’ how will change the whole scenario, as projected, I simply can not fathom. Save the academic research which itself an achievement but re-invigorating jute with this discovery is a mere propaganda. And our respected professors and teachers impeccably playing in the hand of their political mentors.
> >
> > Banana, Mango, Pineapple are produced in much bigger quantity these days in our country which fetch a good economic value without knowing their ‘Genome’, but like all other agri produce farmers benefits are always less. What is needed an organized storage, distribution and marketing mechanisms under fully strategized policy supports from the state. Until these facilities are not created and farmers profit is not protected potential development will not take place. There are loose talks, political ‘bhashon’, which do not change the scenario or actual matrix of the business or the economy. Until those loose talks turns to objectivity and also effectively exercised into profitable ventures.
> >
> > Since, this involves millions of poor farmers and growing number of small entrepreneurs, our professors would do better if they open their hearts for the millions of poor whose children do not fill their class rooms, rather than for few researchers to earn a mileage, to help better their lives.
> >
> > Research should be done for productive results and resources should be mobilized from ‘unchained’ (without string attached) sources so that the benefits of the research is done objectively and used for welfare of common folks or for humanity in general.
> >
> > We need to free Dhaka University, BUET, Agriculture University, Shahjalal University from the influence of coterie politics and their cronies, in order to instill a culture of wellbeing of our society.
> > We can mobilize more resources ample proof are there, and I would like to stress on the fact that resources will not be a problem for doing good basic research. Through a development oriented participatory yet transparent programs will attract not only the researchers but the industry and voluntary fund providers as well.
> > What is required, these professors should free themselves and change their line of allegiance to built trust of our people, so that in reliance they come and offer their few hundred to see that their knowledge is enhanced only to be utilized for their own good.
> >
> > Are you ready professor, upon your readiness you will find thousands like me who would have few hundreds either in Dollar or in taka or powerful moral supports.
> >
> >
> > Your sincerely
> > Haque
> >
>




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[ALOCHONA] Badruddin Omar on Trial of war crime and AL- situation of BD

http://www.amardeshonline.com/pages/details/2010/07/22/35694

Sir, Fazle Hossain abed bolsen era to desh bhaloi chalachhey (recent interview), Muntasir Mamun bolsen birodhi doler jonyo to kono issue nai dhormoghot korar othocho ei probin unsellable and unsold columnist bolsen onyo kotha, konta thik.

সার ফজলে হাসান আবেদ বলছেন এরা তো দেশ ভালই চালাচ্ছে, মুনতাছির মামুন লিখছেন বিরোধী দলের কাছে আন্দোলন করবার মতো কোন ইসু নাই আর এই প্রবীন অবেচা এবং বিক্রীর জন্য নহে এই প্রবন্ধ লেখক বলছেন সম্পুর্ন অন্য কথা। আমরা সবাই মানি এদেশে হাজারো সমস্যা - তাহলে কে সত্য বলছেন ? আর আপনার সত্যটা কি ?

------------------------------------

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[ALOCHONA] Fw: Interesting reading





--- On Thu, 7/22/10, H.R Azad <hrazad1960@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: H.R Azad <hrazad1960@yahoo.com>
Subject: Fw: Interesting reading
To: hafizul51@gmail.com
Cc: "ahmad kabir" <ahmadkbr4@gmail.com>, bji_cox@yahoo.com, kazimohammadismail@yahoo.com, kazimohammadismail@gmail.com, farukiphoto72@gmail.com, sarefin2005@gmail.com, faizubn@yahoo.com
Date: Thursday, July 22, 2010, 1:21 AM



--- On Thu, 7/22/10, Abu Sayed <sayed9090@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Abu Sayed <sayed9090@gmail.com>
Subject: Interesting reading
To:
Date: Thursday, July 22, 2010, 1:02 AM





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[ALOCHONA] A hidden world, growing beyond control



A hidden world, growing beyond control

Monday, July 19, 2010

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
 

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation's other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

 

An alternative geography

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the top-secret world created to respond to the terrorist attacks has grown into an unwieldy enterprise spread over 10,000 U.S. locations. Launch Photo Gallery »

These are not academic issues; lack of focus, not lack of resources, was at the heart of the Fort Hood shooting that left 13 dead, as well as the Christmas Day bomb attempt thwarted not by the thousands of analysts employed to find lone terrorists but by an alert airline passenger who saw smoke coming from his seatmate.

They are also issues that greatly concern some of the people in charge of the nation's security.

"There has been so much growth since 9/11 that getting your arms around that - not just for the CIA, for the secretary of defense - is a challenge," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in an interview with The Post last week.

In the Department of Defense, where more than two-thirds of the intelligence programs reside, only a handful of senior officials - called Super Users - have the ability to even know about all the department's activities. But as two of the Super Users indicated in interviews, there is simply no way they can keep up with the nation's most sensitive work.

"I'm not going to live long enough to be briefed on everything" was how one Super User put it. The other recounted that for his initial briefing, he was escorted into a tiny, dark room, seated at a small table and told he couldn't take notes. Program after program began flashing on a screen, he said, until he yelled ''Stop!" in frustration.

"I wasn't remembering any of it," he said.

Underscoring the seriousness of these issues are the conclusions of retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who was asked last year to review the method for tracking the Defense Department's most sensitive programs. Vines, who once commanded 145,000 troops in Iraq and is familiar with complex problems, was stunned by what he discovered.

"I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities," he said in an interview. "The complexity of this system defies description."

The result, he added, is that it's impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. "Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste," Vines said. "We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe."

The Post's investigation is based on government documents and contracts, job descriptions, property records, corporate and social networking Web sites, additional records, and hundreds of interviews with intelligence, military and corporate officials and former officials. Most requested anonymity either because they are prohibited from speaking publicly or because, they said, they feared retaliation at work for describing their concerns.

The Post's online database of government organizations and private companies was built entirely on public records. The investigation focused on top-secret work because the amount classified at the secret level is too large to accurately track.

Today's article describes the government's role in this expanding enterprise. Tuesday's article describes the government's dependence on private contractors. Wednesday's is a portrait of one Top Secret America community. On the Web, an extensive, searchable database built by The Post about Top Secret America is available at washingtonpost.com/topsecretamerica.

Defense Secretary Gates, in his interview with The Post, said that he does not believe the system has become too big to manage but that getting precise data is sometimes difficult. Singling out the growth of intelligence units in the Defense Department, he said he intends to review those programs for waste. "Nine years after 9/11, it makes a lot of sense to sort of take a look at this and say, 'Okay, we've built tremendous capability, but do we have more than we need?' " he said.

CIA Director Leon Panetta, who was also interviewed by The Post last week, said he's begun mapping out a five-year plan for his agency because the levels of spending since 9/11 are not sustainable. "Particularly with these deficits, we're going to hit the wall. I want to be prepared for that," he said. "Frankly, I think everyone in intelligence ought to be doing that."

In an interview before he resigned as the director of national intelligence in May, retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair said he did not believe there was overlap and redundancy in the intelligence world. "Much of what appears to be redundancy is, in fact, providing tailored intelligence for many different customers," he said.

Blair also expressed confidence that subordinates told him what he needed to know. "I have visibility on all the important intelligence programs across the community, and there are processes in place to ensure the different intelligence capabilities are working together where they need to," he said.

Weeks later, as he sat in the corner of a ballroom at the Willard Hotel waiting to give a speech, he mused about The Post's findings. "After 9/11, when we decided to attack violent extremism, we did as we so often do in this country," he said. "The attitude was, if it's worth doing, it's probably worth overdoing."

----

Outside a gated subdivision of mansions in McLean, a line of cars idles every weekday morning as a new day in Top Secret America gets underway. The drivers wait patiently to turn left, then crawl up a hill and around a bend to a destination that is not on any public map and not announced by any street sign.

Liberty Crossing tries hard to hide from view. But in the winter, leafless trees can't conceal a mountain of cement and windows the size of five Wal-Mart stores stacked on top of one another rising behind a grassy berm. One step too close without the right badge, and men in black jump out of nowhere, guns at the ready.

Past the armed guards and the hydraulic steel barriers, at least 1,700 federal employees and 1,200 private contractors work at Liberty Crossing, the nickname for the two headquarters of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its National Counterterrorism Center. The two share a police force, a canine unit and thousands of parking spaces.

Liberty Crossing is at the center of the collection of U.S. government agencies and corporate contractors that mushroomed after the 2001 attacks. But it is not nearly the biggest, the most costly or even the most secretive part of the 9/11 enterprise.

In an Arlington County office building, the lobby directory doesn't include the Air Force's mysteriously named XOIWS unit, but there's a big "Welcome!" sign in the hallway greeting visitors who know to step off the elevator on the third floor. In Elkridge, Md., a clandestine program hides in a tall concrete structure fitted with false windows to look like a normal office building. In Arnold, Mo., the location is across the street from a Target and a Home Depot. In St. Petersburg, Fla., it's in a modest brick bungalow in a run-down business park.


Every day across the United States, 854,000 civil servants, military personnel and private contractors with top-secret security clearances are scanned into offices protected by electromagnetic locks, retinal cameras and fortified walls that eavesdropping equipment cannot penetrate.

This is not exactly President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex," which emerged with the Cold War and centered on building nuclear weapons to deter the Soviet Union. This is a national security enterprise with a more amorphous mission: defeating transnational violent extremists.

Much of the information about this mission is classified. That is the reason it is so difficult to gauge the success and identify the problems of Top Secret America, including whether money is being spent wisely. The U.S. intelligence budget is vast, publicly announced last year as $75 billion, 21/2 times the size it was on Sept. 10, 2001. But the figure doesn't include many military activities or domestic counterterrorism programs.

At least 20 percent of the government organizations that exist to fend off terrorist threats were established or refashioned in the wake of 9/11. Many that existed before the attacks grew to historic proportions as the Bush administration and Congress gave agencies more money than they were capable of responsibly spending.

The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, for example, has gone from 7,500 employees in 2002 to 16,500 today. The budget of the National Security Agency, which conducts electronic eavesdropping, doubled. Thirty-five FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces became 106. It was phenomenal growth that began almost as soon as the Sept. 11 attacks ended.

Nine days after the attacks, Congress committed $40 billion beyond what was in the federal budget to fortify domestic defenses and to launch a global offensive against al-Qaeda. It followed that up with an additional $36.5 billion in 2002 and $44 billion in 2003. That was only a beginning.

With the quick infusion of money, military and intelligence agencies multiplied. Twenty-four organizations were created by the end of 2001, including the Office of Homeland Security and the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Task Force. In 2002, 37 more were created to track weapons of mass destruction, collect threat tips and coordinate the new focus on counterterrorism. That was followed the next year by 36 new organizations; and 26 after that; and 31 more; and 32 more; and 20 or more each in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

In all, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11. Each has required more people, and those people have required more administrative and logistic support: phone operators, secretaries, librarians, architects, carpenters, construction workers, air-conditioning mechanics and, because of where they work, even janitors with top-secret clearances.

With so many more employees, units and organizations, the lines of responsibility began to blur. To remedy this, at the recommendation of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, the George W. Bush administration and Congress decided to create an agency in 2004 with overarching responsibilities called the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to bring the colossal effort under control.

----

While that was the idea, Washington has its own ways.

The first problem was that the law passed by Congress did not give the director clear legal or budgetary authority over intelligence matters, which meant he wouldn't have power over the individual agencies he was supposed to control.

The second problem: Even before the first director, Ambassador John D. Negroponte, was on the job, the turf battles began. The Defense Department shifted billions of dollars out of one budget and into another so that the ODNI could not touch it, according to two senior officials who watched the process. The CIA reclassified some of its most sensitive information at a higher level so the National Counterterrorism Center staff, part of the ODNI, would not be allowed to see it, said former intelligence officers involved.

And then came a problem that continues to this day, which has to do with the ODNI's rapid expansion.

When it opened in the spring of 2005, Negroponte's office was all of 11 people stuffed into a secure vault with closet-size rooms a block from the White House. A year later, the budding agency moved to two floors of another building. In April 2008, it moved into its huge permanent home, Liberty Crossing.

Today, many officials who work in the intelligence agencies say they remain unclear about what the ODNI is in charge of. To be sure, the ODNI has made some progress, especially in intelligence-sharing, information technology and budget reform. The DNI and his managers hold interagency meetings every day to promote collaboration. The last director, Blair, doggedly pursued such nitty-gritty issues as procurement reform, compatible computer networks, tradecraft standards and collegiality.

But improvements have been overtaken by volume at the ODNI, as the increased flow of intelligence data overwhelms the system's ability to analyze and use it. Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases. The same problem bedevils every other intelligence agency, none of which have enough analysts and translators for all this work.

The practical effect of this unwieldiness is visible, on a much smaller scale, in the office of Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Leiter spends much of his day flipping among four computer monitors lined up on his desk. Six hard drives sit at his feet. The data flow is enormous, with dozens of databases feeding separate computer networks that cannot interact with one another.

There is a long explanation for why these databases are still not connected, and it amounts to this: It's too hard, and some agency heads don't really want to give up the systems they have. But there's some progress: "All my e-mail on one computer now," Leiter says. "That's a big deal."

----

To get another view of how sprawling Top Secret America has become, just head west on the toll road toward Dulles International Airport.

As a Michaels craft store and a Books-A-Million give way to the military intelligence giants Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, find the off-ramp and turn left. Those two shimmering-blue five-story ice cubes belong to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes images and mapping data of the Earth's geography. A small sign obscured by a boxwood hedge says so.

Across the street, in the chocolate-brown blocks, is Carahsoft, an intelligence agency contractor specializing in mapping, speech analysis and data harvesting. Nearby is the government's Underground Facility Analysis Center. It identifies overseas underground command centers associated with weapons of mass destruction and terrorist groups, and advises the military on how to destroy them.

Clusters of top-secret work exist throughout the country, but the Washington region is the capital of Top Secret America.

About half of the post-9/11 enterprise is anchored in an arc stretching from Leesburg south to Quantico, back north through Washington and curving northeast to Linthicum, just north of the Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport. Many buildings sit within off-limits government compounds or military bases.

Others occupy business parks or are intermingled with neighborhoods, schools and shopping centers and go unnoticed by most people who live or play nearby.

Many of the newest buildings are not just utilitarian offices but also edifices "on the order of the pyramids," in the words of one senior military intelligence officer.

Not far from the Dulles Toll Road, the CIA has expanded into two buildings that will increase the agency's office space by one-third. To the south, Springfield is becoming home to the new $1.8 billion National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency headquarters, which will be the fourth-largest federal building in the area and home to 8,500 employees. Economic stimulus money is paying hundreds of millions of dollars for this kind of federal construction across the region.

It's not only the number of buildings that suggests the size and cost of this expansion, it's also what is inside: banks of television monitors. "Escort-required" badges. X-ray machines and lockers to store cellphones and pagers. Keypad door locks that open special rooms encased in metal or permanent dry wall, impenetrable to eavesdropping tools and protected by alarms and a security force capable of responding within 15 minutes. Every one of these buildings has at least one of these rooms, known as a SCIF, for sensitive compartmented information facility. Some are as small as a closet; others are four times the size of a football field.

SCIF size has become a measure of status in Top Secret America, or at least in the Washington region of it. "In D.C., everyone talks SCIF, SCIF, SCIF," said Bruce Paquin, who moved to Florida from the Washington region several years ago to start a SCIF construction business. "They've got the penis envy thing going. You can't be a big boy unless you're a three-letter agency and you have a big SCIF."

SCIFs are not the only must-have items people pay attention to. Command centers, internal television networks, video walls, armored SUVs and personal security guards have also become the bling of national security.

"You can't find a four-star general without a security detail," said one three-star general now posted in Washington after years abroad. "Fear has caused everyone to have stuff. Then comes, 'If he has one, then I have to have one.' It's become a status symbol."

----

Among the most important people inside the SCIFs are the low-paid employees carrying their lunches to work to save money. They are the analysts, the 20- and 30-year-olds making $41,000 to $65,000 a year, whose job is at the core of everything Top Secret America tries to do.

At its best, analysis melds cultural understanding with snippets of conversations, coded dialogue, anonymous tips, even scraps of trash, turning them into clues that lead to individuals and groups trying to harm the United States.

Their work is greatly enhanced by computers that sort through and categorize data. But in the end, analysis requires human judgment, and half the analysts are relatively inexperienced, having been hired in the past several years, said a senior ODNI official. Contract analysts are often straight out of college and trained at corporate headquarters.

When hired, a typical analyst knows very little about the priority countries - Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan - and is not fluent in their languages. Still, the number of intelligence reports they produce on these key countries is overwhelming, say current and former intelligence officials who try to cull them every day. The ODNI doesn't know exactly how many reports are issued each year, but in the process of trying to find out, the chief of analysis discovered 60 classified analytic Web sites still in operation that were supposed to have been closed down for lack of usefulness. "Like a zombie, it keeps on living" is how one official describes the sites.

The problem with many intelligence reports, say officers who read them, is that they simply re-slice the same facts already in circulation. "It's the soccer ball syndrome. Something happens, and they want to rush to cover it," said Richard H. Immerman, who was the ODNI's assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analytic integrity and standards until early 2009. "I saw tremendous overlap."

Even the analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which is supposed to be where the most sensitive, most difficult-to-obtain nuggets of information are fused together, get low marks from intelligence officials for not producing reports that are original, or at least better than the reports already written by the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency or Defense Intelligence Agency.

When Maj. Gen. John M. Custer was the director of intelligence at U.S. Central Command, he grew angry at how little helpful information came out of the NCTC. In 2007, he visited its director at the time, retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, to tell him so. "I told him that after 41/2 years, this organization had never produced one shred of information that helped me prosecute three wars!" he said loudly, leaning over the table during an interview.

Two years later, Custer, now head of the Army's intelligence school at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., still gets red-faced recalling that day, which reminds him of his frustration with Washington's bureaucracy. "Who has the mission of reducing redundancy and ensuring everybody doesn't gravitate to the lowest-hanging fruit?" he said. "Who orchestrates what is produced so that everybody doesn't produce the same thing?"

He's hardly the only one irritated. In a secure office in Washington, a senior intelligence officer was dealing with his own frustration. Seated at his computer, he began scrolling through some of the classified information he is expected to read every day: CIA World Intelligence Review, WIRe-CIA, Spot Intelligence Report, Daily Intelligence Summary, Weekly Intelligence Forecast, Weekly Warning Forecast, IC Terrorist Threat Assessments, NCTC Terrorism Dispatch, NCTC Spotlight . . .

It's too much, he complained. The inbox on his desk was full, too. He threw up his arms, picked up a thick, glossy intelligence report and waved it around, yelling.

"Jesus! Why does it take so long to produce?"

"Why does it have to be so bulky?"

"Why isn't it online?"

The overload of hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and annual reports is actually counterproductive, say people who receive them. Some policymakers and senior officials don't dare delve into the backup clogging their computers. They rely instead on personal briefers, and those briefers usually rely on their own agency's analysis, re-creating the very problem identified as a main cause of the failure to thwart the attacks: a lack of information-sharing.

The ODNI's analysis office knows this is a problem. Yet its solution was another publication, this one a daily online newspaper, Intelligence Today. Every day, a staff of 22 culls more than two dozen agencies' reports and 63 Web sites, selects the best information and packages it by originality, topic and region.

Analysis is not the only area where serious overlap appears to be gumming up the national security machinery and blurring the lines of responsibility.

Within the Defense Department alone, 18 commands and agencies conduct information operations, which aspire to manage foreign audiences' perceptions of U.S. policy and military activities overseas.

And all the major intelligence agencies and at least two major military commands claim a major role in cyber-warfare, the newest and least-defined frontier.

"Frankly, it hasn't been brought together in a unified approach," CIA Director Panetta said of the many agencies now involved in cyber-warfare.

"Cyber is tremendously difficult" to coordinate, said Benjamin A. Powell, who served as general counsel for three directors of national intelligence until he left the government last year. "Sometimes there was an unfortunate attitude of bring your knives, your guns, your fists and be fully prepared to defend your turf." Why? "Because it's funded, it's hot and it's sexy."

----

Anti-Deception Technologies

From avatars and lasers to thermal cameras and fidget meters, this multimedia gallery takes a look at some of the latest technologies being developed by the government and private companies to thwart terrorists. Launch Gallery »

Last fall, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire at Fort Hood, Tex., killing 13 people and wounding 30. In the days after the shootings, information emerged about Hasan's increasingly strange behavior at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he had trained as a psychiatrist and warned commanders that they should allow Muslims to leave the Army or risk "adverse events." He had also exchanged e-mails with a well-known radical cleric in Yemen being monitored by U.S. intelligence.

But none of this reached the one organization charged with handling counterintelligence investigations within the Army. Just 25 miles up the road from Walter Reed, the Army's 902nd Military Intelligence Group had been doing little to search the ranks for potential threats. Instead, the 902's commander had decided to turn the unit's attention to assessing general terrorist affiliations in the United States, even though the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI's 106 Joint Terrorism Task Forces were already doing this work in great depth.

The 902nd, working on a program the commander named RITA, for Radical Islamic Threat to the Army, had quietly been gathering information on Hezbollah, Iranian Republican Guard and al-Qaeda student organizations in the United States. The assessment "didn't tell us anything we didn't know already," said the Army's senior counterintelligence officer at the Pentagon.

Secrecy and lack of coordination have allowed organizations, such as the 902nd in this case, to work on issues others were already tackling rather than take on the much more challenging job of trying to identify potential jihadist sympathizers within the Army itself.

Beyond redundancy, secrecy within the intelligence world hampers effectiveness in other ways, say defense and intelligence officers. For the Defense Department, the root of this problem goes back to an ultra-secret group of programs for which access is extremely limited and monitored by specially trained security officers.

These are called Special Access Programs - or SAPs - and the Pentagon's list of code names for them runs 300 pages. The intelligence community has hundreds more of its own, and those hundreds have thousands of sub-programs with their own limits on the number of people authorized to know anything about them. All this means that very few people have a complete sense of what's going on.

"There's only one entity in the entire universe that has visibility on all SAPs - that's God," said James R. Clapper, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and the Obama administration's nominee to be the next director of national intelligence.

Such secrecy can undermine the normal chain of command when senior officials use it to cut out rivals or when subordinates are ordered to keep secrets from their commanders.

One military officer involved in one such program said he was ordered to sign a document prohibiting him from disclosing it to his four-star commander, with whom he worked closely every day, because the commander was not authorized to know about it. Another senior defense official recalls the day he tried to find out about a program in his budget, only to be rebuffed by a peer. "What do you mean you can't tell me? I pay for the program," he recalled saying in a heated exchange.

Another senior intelligence official with wide access to many programs said that secrecy is sometimes used to protect ineffective projects. "I think the secretary of defense ought to direct a look at every single thing to see if it still has value," he said. "The DNI ought to do something similar."

The ODNI hasn't done that yet. The best it can do at the moment is maintain a database of the names of the most sensitive programs in the intelligence community. But the database does not include many important and relevant Pentagon projects.

----Because so much is classified, illustrations of what goes on every day in Top Secret America can be hard to ferret out. But every so often, examples emerge. A recent one shows the post-9/11 system at its best and its worst.

Last fall, after eight years of growth and hirings, the enterprise was at full throttle when word emerged that something was seriously amiss inside Yemen. In response, President Obama signed an order sending dozens of secret commandos to that country to target and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda affiliate.

In Yemen, the commandos set up a joint operations center packed with hard drives, forensic kits and communications gear. They exchanged thousands of intercepts, agent reports, photographic evidence and real-time video surveillance with dozens of top-secret organizations in the United States.

That was the system as it was intended. But when the information reached the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington for analysis, it arrived buried within the 5,000 pieces of general terrorist-related data that are reviewed each day. Analysts had to switch from database to database, from hard drive to hard drive, from screen to screen, just to locate what might be interesting to study further.

As military operations in Yemen intensified and the chatter about a possible terrorist strike increased, the intelligence agencies ramped up their effort. The flood of information into the NCTC became a torrent.

Somewhere in that deluge was even more vital data. Partial names of someone in Yemen. A reference to a Nigerian radical who had gone to Yemen. A report of a father in Nigeria worried about a son who had become interested in radical teachings and had disappeared inside Yemen.

These were all clues to what would happen when a Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab left Yemen and eventually boarded a plane in Amsterdam bound for Detroit. But nobody put them together because, as officials would testify later, the system had gotten so big that the lines of responsibility had become hopelessly blurred.

"There are so many people involved here," NCTC Director Leiter told Congress.

"Everyone had the dots to connect," DNI Blair explained to the lawmakers. "But I hadn't made it clear exactly who had primary responsibility."

And so Abdulmutallab was able to step aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253. As it descended toward Detroit, he allegedly tried to ignite explosives hidden in his underwear. It wasn't the very expensive, very large 9/11 enterprise that prevented disaster. It was a passenger who saw what he was doing and tackled him. "We didn't follow up and prioritize the stream of intelligence," White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan explained afterward. "Because no one intelligence entity, or team or task force was assigned responsibility for doing that follow-up investigation."

Blair acknowledged the problem. His solution: Create yet another team to run down every important lead. But he also told Congress he needed more money and more analysts to prevent another mistake.

More is often the solution proposed by the leaders of the 9/11 enterprise. After the Christmas Day bombing attempt, Leiter also pleaded for more - more analysts to join the 300 or so he already had.

The Department of Homeland Security asked for more air marshals, more body scanners and more analysts, too, even though it can't find nearly enough qualified people to fill its intelligence unit now. Obama has said he will not freeze spending on national security, making it likely that those requests will be funded.

More building, more expansion of offices continues across the country. A $1.7 billion NSA data-processing center will be under construction soon near Salt Lake City. In Tampa, the U.S. Central Command's new 270,000-square-foot intelligence office will be matched next year by an equally large headquarters building, and then, the year after that, by a 51,000-square-foot office just for its special operations section.

Just north of Charlottesville, the new Joint-Use Intelligence Analysis Facility will consolidate 1,000 defense intelligence analysts on a secure campus.

Meanwhile, five miles southeast of the White House, the DHS has broken ground for its new headquarters, to be shared with the Coast Guard. DHS, in existence for only seven years, already has its own Special Access Programs, its own research arm, its own command center, its own fleet of armored cars and its own 230,000-person workforce, the third-largest after the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

Soon, on the grounds of the former St. Elizabeths mental hospital in Anacostia, a $3.4 billion showcase of security will rise from the crumbling brick wards. The new headquarters will be the largest government complex built since the Pentagon, a major landmark in the alternative geography of Top Secret America and four times as big as Liberty Crossing.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/print/#



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