CIA shuts down unit targeting bin Laden
Terrorist tracking team reassigned to other duties
Spy agency insists finding Al Qaeda leader still priority
Jul. 5, 2006. 01:00 AM
MARK MAZZETTI
NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON—The CIA has closed down a secret unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials say.
The terrorist tracking unit, known inside the spy agency as "Alec station," was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned to other offices within the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorist Center, the officials said Monday.
The decision is a milestone of sorts for the agency, which created the unit before bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when U.S. President George W. Bush pledged to bring him to justice "dead or alive."
The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, as well as growing concern about Al Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
CIA officials said tracking bin Laden and his deputies remains a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit is not a sign that the effort has slackened. Instead, the officials said, the realignment reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals.
"The efforts to find Osama bin Laden are as strong as ever," said Jennifer Dyck, a CIA spokeswoman. "This is an agile agency, and the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus" for counterterrorism efforts.
The CIA's decision to close the bin Laden unit was first reported Monday by National Public Radio.
The disclosure came as the wife of slain Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said her husband was sold out by fellow Al Qaeda leaders in exchange for a promise to ease up on...
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Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
4 Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills
Have you ever been to a function in a room full of strangers and found yourself lost for words? It can be a very lonely experience, especially if you intend to date.
The art of introducing yourself to others and creating small talk may come naturally for some, but most people confess to feeling shy, embarrassed and don’t know where to start. Your inner ambitions are crying out for you to relate to others – just as other people are deeply interested to know you.
The key to knowing where to start is to understand the four levels of communication.
1. Small Talk
When you meet someone for the first time, the safest place to start is to talk about surface issues. For instance, make a comment about the weather, current events or the surroundings you are in.
This is called “small talk”, and is used to “size up” the other person to determine the comfort zone between the two of you. There is no need to disclose any personal information with the other person at this stage, as this initial interaction assists you to determine how “safe” they are on your first meeting.
If you are comfortable engaging each other at a surface level you can easily slip into the next level of communication: fact disclosure.
2. Fact Disclosure
This level of communication is slightly deeper than small talk in that you disclose facts about yourself without triggering topics of emotional interest.
The purpose of fact disclosure is to find out if you have something in common. You can use these common areas to build a bridge of friendship later on. You may want to talk about your career or occupation, hobbies, where you live, etc.
Avoid topics like marriage and divorce, politics, sex and religion in this second level of communication. With a little creative thinking, and the use of open-ended questions, you should easily find a topic that interests you both.
If you find a topic of mutual interest then you may progress to the next level of communication: sharing viewpoints and opinions.
3. Share Viewpoints and Opinions
Once you have established that the other person is “safe” through small talk, and have found areas of common interest, you can build rapport by sharing your opinions and viewpoints.
By sharing your viewpoints and opinions you allow yourself to become vulnerable to the scrutiny and objections of the other person, so you would only enter this level of communication once you were comfortable that you both share positive feelings through the first two levels.
Some people give an opinion about politics or religion as their starting point at this level. But you may firstly want to comment on the things you have in common that you found through fact disclosure. This is a safe place to start.
Be prepared to listen to the opinions of your new friend. It is just as important to listen to their viewpoint as much as you expect them to listen to yours. This will enable your friendship to survive.
Make sure you don’t use your opinions as a form of “character assassination” of other people. You may be thought of as a negative person and this may cause your new friend to distance himself/herself from you.
Over time you will learn to find a safe distance in your communication levels, and if you are forming a bond of friendship you may eventually enter into the fourth level of communication: sharing personal feelings.
4. Share Personal Feelings
Only solid friendships survive time to enter the fourth level of communication. After building upon trust, finding things in common and listening to the viewpoints and opinions of others, you may be able to share your personal feelings.
This is where an acquaintance becomes a genuine friend. You know that despite having differing opinions and viewpoints you can trust your friend’s judgement, and may go to them for advice.
Things of deep value to you can be shared without feeling threatened. You listen closely to each other without the need to “solve” your friend’s problem. You are happy to reflect their feelings back to them – forming a bond of empathy and compassion between the two of you.
At this level of communication, it is important that you provide a little distance between yourself and your friend. If the distinction between yourself and your friend becomes unrecognizable, it is possible for your relationship to go sour. If you know how to handle your own feelings, attitudes and behaviors while maintaining your friendship at this level, you will build a successful friendship that can last a lifetime.
By using these four levels of communication with prospective 'dates' you will find that they will become interested in you and want to get to know you all the more.
The art of introducing yourself to others and creating small talk may come naturally for some, but most people confess to feeling shy, embarrassed and don’t know where to start. Your inner ambitions are crying out for you to relate to others – just as other people are deeply interested to know you.
The key to knowing where to start is to understand the four levels of communication.
1. Small Talk
When you meet someone for the first time, the safest place to start is to talk about surface issues. For instance, make a comment about the weather, current events or the surroundings you are in.
This is called “small talk”, and is used to “size up” the other person to determine the comfort zone between the two of you. There is no need to disclose any personal information with the other person at this stage, as this initial interaction assists you to determine how “safe” they are on your first meeting.
If you are comfortable engaging each other at a surface level you can easily slip into the next level of communication: fact disclosure.
2. Fact Disclosure
This level of communication is slightly deeper than small talk in that you disclose facts about yourself without triggering topics of emotional interest.
The purpose of fact disclosure is to find out if you have something in common. You can use these common areas to build a bridge of friendship later on. You may want to talk about your career or occupation, hobbies, where you live, etc.
Avoid topics like marriage and divorce, politics, sex and religion in this second level of communication. With a little creative thinking, and the use of open-ended questions, you should easily find a topic that interests you both.
If you find a topic of mutual interest then you may progress to the next level of communication: sharing viewpoints and opinions.
3. Share Viewpoints and Opinions
Once you have established that the other person is “safe” through small talk, and have found areas of common interest, you can build rapport by sharing your opinions and viewpoints.
By sharing your viewpoints and opinions you allow yourself to become vulnerable to the scrutiny and objections of the other person, so you would only enter this level of communication once you were comfortable that you both share positive feelings through the first two levels.
Some people give an opinion about politics or religion as their starting point at this level. But you may firstly want to comment on the things you have in common that you found through fact disclosure. This is a safe place to start.
Be prepared to listen to the opinions of your new friend. It is just as important to listen to their viewpoint as much as you expect them to listen to yours. This will enable your friendship to survive.
Make sure you don’t use your opinions as a form of “character assassination” of other people. You may be thought of as a negative person and this may cause your new friend to distance himself/herself from you.
Over time you will learn to find a safe distance in your communication levels, and if you are forming a bond of friendship you may eventually enter into the fourth level of communication: sharing personal feelings.
4. Share Personal Feelings
Only solid friendships survive time to enter the fourth level of communication. After building upon trust, finding things in common and listening to the viewpoints and opinions of others, you may be able to share your personal feelings.
This is where an acquaintance becomes a genuine friend. You know that despite having differing opinions and viewpoints you can trust your friend’s judgement, and may go to them for advice.
Things of deep value to you can be shared without feeling threatened. You listen closely to each other without the need to “solve” your friend’s problem. You are happy to reflect their feelings back to them – forming a bond of empathy and compassion between the two of you.
At this level of communication, it is important that you provide a little distance between yourself and your friend. If the distinction between yourself and your friend becomes unrecognizable, it is possible for your relationship to go sour. If you know how to handle your own feelings, attitudes and behaviors while maintaining your friendship at this level, you will build a successful friendship that can last a lifetime.
By using these four levels of communication with prospective 'dates' you will find that they will become interested in you and want to get to know you all the more.
Friday, May 26, 2006
America's 21st Century Declaration of Dependence: I Can't Do Anything About It
Let me ask a question. How many people have you noticed recently who shake their heads in frustration, and utter something like, “The war in Iraq was a huge mistake, but I can’t do anything about it.” Or “The Bush Administration’s illegal wire tapping just blows my mind, but what can I do about it?” Or, “I know that politicians on both sides of the isle are owned and controlled by big money, but since I’m not one of the rich and the famous, I just avoid thinking it about it. It’s a waste of my time.”
Political Cancer of the 21st Century
To be honest, I hear this sentiment so often that I’ve come to think of it as a America’s 21st century Declaration of Dependence, our modern day battle cry…or battle whine. And to the degree that Americans are convinced that they can do nothing about it, they won’t even try to do anything about it. And if you refuse to try, you’re destined to fail, at which point the whole thing devolves into one big self-fulfilling, self-defeating prophecy. We fiddle while modern day Rhome burns, using the excuse that we can’t do anything about it. It’s 21st century political cancer…American style.
The Antithesis of I Can’t Do Anything About It
But allow me to introduce you to a friend of mine who’s the antithesis of the “I can’t do anything about it,” mentality. I won’t use his real name because I know he prefers to operate in the background. But this much I can tell you. He’s an immigrant from thousands of miles away who won his American citizenship the hard way, as opposed to having it handed to him at birth. He came to our shores at a young age, specifically to study engineering at one of our nation’s most prestigious universities.
He’s a family man who raised three happy, healthy kids. He had a distinguished engineering career from which he’s now retired. But during his working days, he was required to travel extensively, and as such, his perspective is international in scope.
It’s Unbelievable Who He’s Influencing
He’s a devout Catholic, and in his “retirement years” this seventy something gent now uses his ingenuity, his persistence, his optimism, and his computer to play an active role in helping to resolve problems ranging from the war in the Iraq, to political shifts in South America, to our own Gulf Coast disaster, and world poverty. Recently he’s even taken an active interest in childhood obesity. In other words, while natural born Americans all around me are constantly declaring their impotence, my seventy something friend is all about DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
He Will Be There…But you’ll Never See Him
I will close this part of my commentary on this note. If there’s ever a democratic solution to Iraq, it’s likely that my friend will have played an active role. If there’s ever a democratic solution to Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, it’s likely that my friend will have played an active role. If we ever come to grips with the Gulf Coast disaster and poverty, around the world and in America, it’s likely that this gent will have been in the middle of it all. But since he operates backstage, in the shadows, and he will take no credit, encouraging others take the bows. That’s just the way he likes it.
Even If You Have Mouths To Feed
Now to be totally honest, I’m not trying to suggest that my other acquaintances have the discretionary time that my retired friend has to work with. They don’t. Like most of us, they still have mouths to feed, and bills to pay, which restrict them from doing all the altruistic kinds of things that my very active friend participates in. But that certainly doesn’t mean that they can’t do anything about it either. In this spirit I will list ten things that anyone can do…if theywant to do something about it. Here goes…
1. Despite encouragement to the contrary, you can understand and operate from the perspective of enlightened self-interest, which contends that what’s good for my family is good for me, what’s good for my neighbors and my neighborhood is good for me, what’s good for my township, my county, my state, and my country is good for me…and vice versa. It’s the infinite we VS the finite me.
2. You can stay informed by tuning into good, thoughtful electronic programming on TV and Radio, reading newspapers, magazines, books, and web sites, all from the perspective of enlightened self-interest.
3. You can take the time to think over, ponder, and meditate on the information that you absorb daily.
4. You can ignore the conventional wisdom that warns against talking about politics and religion (the powerful certainly want you to avoid talking about these topics), and actively dialogue with others on these topics because they’re so incredibly important to the world and to future generations.
5. You can have confidence in your own intellect, your own integrity, and as the result you can draw your own hard won conclusions, and avoid allowing others to think for you…unless you prefer being a vegetable.
6. You can recognize that in the end, word of mouth advertising is the single most powerful form of promotion on earth, and all the bought and paid for stuff is just a commercial attempt to influence word of mouth advertising. People telling people can overcome all the money and all the ads, as long as the real people avoid being intimidated and manipulated by the controlling few.
7. You can cast an informed vote. On a side note here, did you know that only 35% of all Americans are registered to vote, and are thus eligible to vote. And of that 35% fourteen percent vote a straight Republican ticket, and fourteen percent vote straight Democratic ticket, without even thinking about it. This leaves 7% of the people, the ones they call swing voters, to decide on the future of our nation. If you win over half of that 7%, or a mere 3.6%, you control America. This effectively leaves over 96% of Americans without a voice in their democracy. If you do nothing else, cast an informed vote.
8. You can multiply yourself by inspiring ONLY two other people to register, and to cast an informed vote. If everyone did that, we’d overcome our problems in a heartbeat, despite the Big Brother/Big Money controllers.
9. You can make up your own list of ten things to do, AND DO THEM!
10. You can stop saying “I can’t do anything about it,” and like my incredible seventy something friend, you can take action, one step at a time, and pretty soon, you’ll lose your self-imposed impotence, and in the spirit of America’s original Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine, and democracy worldwide, you will be able to do something about it. Carpe Diem.
Political Cancer of the 21st Century
To be honest, I hear this sentiment so often that I’ve come to think of it as a America’s 21st century Declaration of Dependence, our modern day battle cry…or battle whine. And to the degree that Americans are convinced that they can do nothing about it, they won’t even try to do anything about it. And if you refuse to try, you’re destined to fail, at which point the whole thing devolves into one big self-fulfilling, self-defeating prophecy. We fiddle while modern day Rhome burns, using the excuse that we can’t do anything about it. It’s 21st century political cancer…American style.
The Antithesis of I Can’t Do Anything About It
But allow me to introduce you to a friend of mine who’s the antithesis of the “I can’t do anything about it,” mentality. I won’t use his real name because I know he prefers to operate in the background. But this much I can tell you. He’s an immigrant from thousands of miles away who won his American citizenship the hard way, as opposed to having it handed to him at birth. He came to our shores at a young age, specifically to study engineering at one of our nation’s most prestigious universities.
He’s a family man who raised three happy, healthy kids. He had a distinguished engineering career from which he’s now retired. But during his working days, he was required to travel extensively, and as such, his perspective is international in scope.
It’s Unbelievable Who He’s Influencing
He’s a devout Catholic, and in his “retirement years” this seventy something gent now uses his ingenuity, his persistence, his optimism, and his computer to play an active role in helping to resolve problems ranging from the war in the Iraq, to political shifts in South America, to our own Gulf Coast disaster, and world poverty. Recently he’s even taken an active interest in childhood obesity. In other words, while natural born Americans all around me are constantly declaring their impotence, my seventy something friend is all about DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
He Will Be There…But you’ll Never See Him
I will close this part of my commentary on this note. If there’s ever a democratic solution to Iraq, it’s likely that my friend will have played an active role. If there’s ever a democratic solution to Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, it’s likely that my friend will have played an active role. If we ever come to grips with the Gulf Coast disaster and poverty, around the world and in America, it’s likely that this gent will have been in the middle of it all. But since he operates backstage, in the shadows, and he will take no credit, encouraging others take the bows. That’s just the way he likes it.
Even If You Have Mouths To Feed
Now to be totally honest, I’m not trying to suggest that my other acquaintances have the discretionary time that my retired friend has to work with. They don’t. Like most of us, they still have mouths to feed, and bills to pay, which restrict them from doing all the altruistic kinds of things that my very active friend participates in. But that certainly doesn’t mean that they can’t do anything about it either. In this spirit I will list ten things that anyone can do…if theywant to do something about it. Here goes…
1. Despite encouragement to the contrary, you can understand and operate from the perspective of enlightened self-interest, which contends that what’s good for my family is good for me, what’s good for my neighbors and my neighborhood is good for me, what’s good for my township, my county, my state, and my country is good for me…and vice versa. It’s the infinite we VS the finite me.
2. You can stay informed by tuning into good, thoughtful electronic programming on TV and Radio, reading newspapers, magazines, books, and web sites, all from the perspective of enlightened self-interest.
3. You can take the time to think over, ponder, and meditate on the information that you absorb daily.
4. You can ignore the conventional wisdom that warns against talking about politics and religion (the powerful certainly want you to avoid talking about these topics), and actively dialogue with others on these topics because they’re so incredibly important to the world and to future generations.
5. You can have confidence in your own intellect, your own integrity, and as the result you can draw your own hard won conclusions, and avoid allowing others to think for you…unless you prefer being a vegetable.
6. You can recognize that in the end, word of mouth advertising is the single most powerful form of promotion on earth, and all the bought and paid for stuff is just a commercial attempt to influence word of mouth advertising. People telling people can overcome all the money and all the ads, as long as the real people avoid being intimidated and manipulated by the controlling few.
7. You can cast an informed vote. On a side note here, did you know that only 35% of all Americans are registered to vote, and are thus eligible to vote. And of that 35% fourteen percent vote a straight Republican ticket, and fourteen percent vote straight Democratic ticket, without even thinking about it. This leaves 7% of the people, the ones they call swing voters, to decide on the future of our nation. If you win over half of that 7%, or a mere 3.6%, you control America. This effectively leaves over 96% of Americans without a voice in their democracy. If you do nothing else, cast an informed vote.
8. You can multiply yourself by inspiring ONLY two other people to register, and to cast an informed vote. If everyone did that, we’d overcome our problems in a heartbeat, despite the Big Brother/Big Money controllers.
9. You can make up your own list of ten things to do, AND DO THEM!
10. You can stop saying “I can’t do anything about it,” and like my incredible seventy something friend, you can take action, one step at a time, and pretty soon, you’ll lose your self-imposed impotence, and in the spirit of America’s original Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine, and democracy worldwide, you will be able to do something about it. Carpe Diem.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Help!
Help Me If You Can!
His most debilitating character flaw was an overriding inability to ask for help. It was a radical sense of independence, bordering on fear of being dependent on anyone for anything. After all, dependence is a sign of weakness so you could think of this condition as a bad case of testosterone fever, egocentrism, or as some would say, pridefulness, resulting in impotence, an inability to multiply oneself. It was the feeling that if there was a job to be done, work to accomplish, or a challenge to be met, that he’d do it, he’s accomplish it, and he’d meet it without needing to ask for anyone’s help.
In the words of John Lennon, his favorite Beatle, “When I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed anybody’s help in any way.”
He Was Disconnected
He was in this sense disconnected from the world and the people who surrounded him. He suffered from a level of self reliance (a distrust of others) that cut him off, alienated him, and radically minimized his own ability to do what he passionately wanted most to do…help others to help themselves. He was a rock, he was an island, and ironically he was unable to give help to others because he was unwilling, and so unable to ask for or receive any help himself.
What He’d Failed To Understand
What he failed to understand was the reality that being able to give help goes hand in hand with the ability to ask for help and actually receive it. When you close your door to one, you also close it to the other. In Lennon’s words, “But now these days are gone I’m not so self-assured. Now I find I changed my mind, I’ve opened up the door.”
The trick, as he was about to learn, is to open the door, to reconnect, and to recognize that nobody in this world is or ever has been completely self-reliant. In one sense, those who seem to be the most independent are the ones who ask for, and then receive the most help from others.
Sinking In A Sea Of Independence“
How ironic,” he thought to himself. “How incredibly ironic. And why has it taken so long for me to see this? Maybe it was because I refused (or was afraid) to look,” he answered to himself. But the fact was, he was sinking in an infinite sea of independence and suddenly found that he needed somebody to throw him a life-line, somebody to help!
What he suddenly was coming to recognize (at least he was catching the initial glimpses of) was that it’s not so much independence, but disconnectedness that’s the true sign of weakness, impotence, resulting in the inability to multiply oneself. On the other hand, when you connect, you can multiply yourself infinitely, even miraculously.
The Challenge
The question at this point was, how was he going to go about making a change in his life? How was he going to detonate the wall that he’d constructed between himself and other people? How would he go about swallowing his pride, and admitting to other humans that he himself needed help, and that he really isn’t this totally self reliant, self contained, self-absorbed vessel that he had always portrayed himself to be? That was the challenge that was staring him right between the eyes. “I’m going to need some help with this,” he thought to himself smiling.
Despite Being Armed…
Despite being armed with the greatest idea of the 21st century, he’d generated little interest and no real buy in. As he percolated on this dilemma he thought of the classic Stone Soup fairly tale that his Mom used to read him decades before (insert) and the Sermon on the Mount where Christ fed the masses, starting with only 12 loaves of bread, and finishing with lots more at the end (insert). In both cases, the hero asked for help and had miraculously received it.
Lennon’s haunting lyrics came echoing back again and again. “Help me if you can I’m feeling down. And I do appreciate your being ‘round. Help me get my feet back on the ground. Won’t you please, please help me?”
His most debilitating character flaw was an overriding inability to ask for help. It was a radical sense of independence, bordering on fear of being dependent on anyone for anything. After all, dependence is a sign of weakness so you could think of this condition as a bad case of testosterone fever, egocentrism, or as some would say, pridefulness, resulting in impotence, an inability to multiply oneself. It was the feeling that if there was a job to be done, work to accomplish, or a challenge to be met, that he’d do it, he’s accomplish it, and he’d meet it without needing to ask for anyone’s help.
In the words of John Lennon, his favorite Beatle, “When I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed anybody’s help in any way.”
He Was Disconnected
He was in this sense disconnected from the world and the people who surrounded him. He suffered from a level of self reliance (a distrust of others) that cut him off, alienated him, and radically minimized his own ability to do what he passionately wanted most to do…help others to help themselves. He was a rock, he was an island, and ironically he was unable to give help to others because he was unwilling, and so unable to ask for or receive any help himself.
What He’d Failed To Understand
What he failed to understand was the reality that being able to give help goes hand in hand with the ability to ask for help and actually receive it. When you close your door to one, you also close it to the other. In Lennon’s words, “But now these days are gone I’m not so self-assured. Now I find I changed my mind, I’ve opened up the door.”
The trick, as he was about to learn, is to open the door, to reconnect, and to recognize that nobody in this world is or ever has been completely self-reliant. In one sense, those who seem to be the most independent are the ones who ask for, and then receive the most help from others.
Sinking In A Sea Of Independence“
How ironic,” he thought to himself. “How incredibly ironic. And why has it taken so long for me to see this? Maybe it was because I refused (or was afraid) to look,” he answered to himself. But the fact was, he was sinking in an infinite sea of independence and suddenly found that he needed somebody to throw him a life-line, somebody to help!
What he suddenly was coming to recognize (at least he was catching the initial glimpses of) was that it’s not so much independence, but disconnectedness that’s the true sign of weakness, impotence, resulting in the inability to multiply oneself. On the other hand, when you connect, you can multiply yourself infinitely, even miraculously.
The Challenge
The question at this point was, how was he going to go about making a change in his life? How was he going to detonate the wall that he’d constructed between himself and other people? How would he go about swallowing his pride, and admitting to other humans that he himself needed help, and that he really isn’t this totally self reliant, self contained, self-absorbed vessel that he had always portrayed himself to be? That was the challenge that was staring him right between the eyes. “I’m going to need some help with this,” he thought to himself smiling.
Despite Being Armed…
Despite being armed with the greatest idea of the 21st century, he’d generated little interest and no real buy in. As he percolated on this dilemma he thought of the classic Stone Soup fairly tale that his Mom used to read him decades before (insert) and the Sermon on the Mount where Christ fed the masses, starting with only 12 loaves of bread, and finishing with lots more at the end (insert). In both cases, the hero asked for help and had miraculously received it.
Lennon’s haunting lyrics came echoing back again and again. “Help me if you can I’m feeling down. And I do appreciate your being ‘round. Help me get my feet back on the ground. Won’t you please, please help me?”
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