PAM: It's Just Sick

Unbelievable headline of the day: "Pentagon's Futures Market Plan Condemned":

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is setting up a stock-market style system in which investors would bet on terror attacks, assassinations and other events in the Middle East. Defense officials hope to gain intelligence and useful predictions while investors who guessed right would win profits.

L. pointed this out to me and neither of us can believe it. How could anyone think for even a second that this was a good idea?!? But it appears to be real. Read all about the "Policy Analysis Market" (PAM)—it's got its own website with examples of what will be traded: "Issue A: Overthrow of Jordanian Monarchy"; "Issue B: Iraqi Regime persists after One Month of Hostilities." Oh yeah, great idea.

Not surprisingly, some of the bright lights behind this little scheme are from DARPA, which gave us the great idea of the TIPS Program, evidence of which has now been deleted. One of the things erased was information about retired Adm. John Poindexter, apparently because people started spying on him. That Poindexter—what a guy! So is he involved with this new
PAM game to create a betting parlor for terrorism and U.S. imperialism? And will PAM suffer the same fate as TIPS? Stay tuned for the next episode in the ongoing saga of the complete imbecility of the U.S. military and intelligence community!

Oh, if you have any comments about this whole PAM thing, be sure you send them in!

Posted July 29, 2003 06:36 AM | general politics