Category Archives: National Insecurity

National Insecurity

Calling a Snake a Snake

Giuliani: Clinton Spewing ‘Political Venom’ on Iraq

One day after Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., sharply questioned the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Rudy Giuliani blasted his Democratic presidential rival, accusing her of spewing “political venom” in the Iraq war debate. “I don’t know what she’s trying to say when she’s accusing a general of the ‘willing suspension of disbelief,’” Giuliani said Wednesday on the “Randy and Spiff” show, a radio program which airs in Atlanta. The former New York mayor repeated his criticism of the Democratic frontrunner for president later in the day Wednesday during a media availability in Akron, Ohio.

The piece has more details of Rudy’s critique…but you get the drift.

The Chief heartily concurs with the Mayor in this case.

China Watch, National Insecurity

ChiCom Trade Shell Game Unraveling for US

Is China quietly dumping US Treasuries?

The economic shell game that the US has been playing for far too long in maintaining a ruinous trade deficit with the ChiComs may be on the verge of ending…with some very unpleasant consequences for us, and for much of the rest of the world’s economy.

A sharp drop in foreign holdings of US Treasury bonds over the last five weeks has raised concerns that China is quietly withdrawing its funds from the United States, leaving the dollar increasingly vulnerable.
# China threatens `nuclear option’ of dollar sales

Data released by the New York Federal Reserve shows that foreign central banks have cut their stash of US Treasuries by $48bn since late July, with falls of $32bn in the last two weeks alone.

Perhaps not coincidently, Taiwan is making sounds about renewing its quest to re-enter the UN, something the ChiComs harshly reject as being a preliminary move towards independence. Their stated policy is to counter such a move with all means – including military force.

Two top advisers to the Chinese government gave strong hints in August that Beijing should use its estimated $900bn holdings of US Treasuries and agency bonds as a “bargaining chip”, words taken as an implicit threat to trigger as US bond crash if provoked.

The US policy of defending Taiwan could be quietly abrogated, under the threat of ChiCom economic pressure…like dumping off US T-bonds, which could seriously affect the status of the dollar internationally, with immediate further ramifications on the world energy market.

The picture is further complicated by US ATTEMPTS to pressure a currency market revaluation of the ChiCom Yuan to try to stanch the trade hemmorhage, which (surprise, surprise, is being received with little enthusiasm in Beijing.

Neither alternative would be good for us. If YOU were Dubya, do you throw Taiwan off the bridge, or watch the dollar be brought down, triggering a serious recession if not an actual depression. We do have one thing in our favor. They hold so much of our debt paper, if they crash it, they lose a lot of money. Of course, they ARE Communists, and just maybe the money is NOT the object at all.

Looks like the ChiComs are getting ready to score a big win over us, without a shot being fired. Lao Tzu would be proud of his descendants for implementing his ancient advice.

National Insecurity

Same Judge, Same Case, Same Result: Same Sedition

Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act

A federal judge struck down a key part of the USA Patriot Act on Thursday in a ruling that defended the need for judicial oversight of laws and bashed Congress for passing a law that makes possible “far-reaching invasions of liberty.”

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero immediately stayed the effect of his ruling, allowing the government time to appeal. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said: “We are reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time.”

As an alternative philosophy the Chief would offer this tag from Cicero:

SILENT LEGES INTER ARMA. (In time of war, the laws are silent.)

National Insecurity

Getting Loose from the Tar Baby

Endgame: American Options in Iraq

George Friedman at StratFor has given some thought to possible outcomes in Iraq, given the current state of affairs over there. He makes too much sense as he develops his favored scenario:

The new U.S. mission, therefore, must be to block Iran in the aftermath of the Iraq war. The United States cannot impose a government on Iraq; the fate of Iraq’s heavily populated regions cannot be controlled by the United States. But the United States remains an outstanding military force, particularly against conventional forces. It is not very good at counterinsurgency and never has been. The threat to the Arabian Peninsula from Iran would be primarily a conventional threat — supplemented possibly by instability among Shia on the peninsula.

The mission would be to position forces in such a way that Iran could not think of moving south into Saudi Arabia. There are a number of ways to achieve this. The United States could base a major force in Kuwait, threatening the flanks of any Iranian force moving south. Alternatively, it could create a series of bases in Iraq, in the largely uninhabited regions south and west of the Euphrates. With air power and cruise missiles, coupled with a force about the size of the U.S. force in South Korea, the United States could pose a devastating threat to any Iranian adventure to the south. Iran would be the dominant power in Baghdad, but the Arabian Peninsula would be protected.

This goal could be achieved through a phased withdrawal from Iraq, along with a rapid withdrawal from the populated areas and an immediate cessation of aggressive operations against jihadists and militia. It would concede what the NIE says is unattainable without conceding to Iran the role of regional hegemon. It would reduce forces in Iraq rapidly, while giving the remaining forces a mission they were designed to fight — conventional war. And it would rapidly reduce the number of casualties. Most important, it would allow the United States to rebuild its reserves of strategic forces in the event of threats elsewhere in the world.

This is not meant as a policy prescription. Rather, we see it as the likely evolution of U.S. strategic thinking on Iraq. Since negotiation is unlikely, and the three conventional options are each defective in their own way, we see this redeployment as a reasonable alternative that meets the basic requirements. It ends the war in Iraq in terms of casualties, it reduces the force, it contains Iran and it frees most of the force for other missions. Whether Bush or his successor is the decision-maker, we think this is where it must wind up.

If this doesn’t seem to be a very tidy outcome, check out the alternatives detailed in the piece. It could be FAR worse.

National Insecurity

“The Company” Needs Reorganization

Tenet’s Pre-9/11 Efforts Faulted

The Chief NEVER had any faith in this holdover Clinton appointee from the get-go. After all, he was part of the same establishment as Jamie Gore-lick who was responsible for the so-called “wall of separation” between the CIA, FBI, etc. that prevented their sharing and coordinating intel/counter-intel information. I never saw that Tenet ever had any problems with this…it’s no wonder that the CIA fell off the cliff when it (attempted) its operations under these conditions.

Former central intelligence director George J. Tenet and his top lieutenants failed to marshal sufficient resources and provide the strategic planning needed to counter the threat of terrorism in the years before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a long-secret CIA report released yesterday.

Despite promises of an all-out war against terrorism in the late 1990s, leaders of the spy agency allowed bureaucratic obstacles and budget shortfalls to blunt the agency’s efforts to find and capture al-Qaeda operatives, said the report, by the CIA’s inspector general. It also faulted agency leaders for failing to “properly share and analyze critical data.”

The executive summary of the formerly Top Secret report is available in PDF format here, direct from the CIA!

National Insecurity

More UN Corruption

U.N. translator charged in U.S. visa scheme

As if we needed any more reasons to dissociate the US from the UN…

U.S. authorities today arrested a U.N. translator and two other persons on charges of running an extravagant scheme to sell U.S. visas, mostly to Russian and Uzbek nationals. Vyacheslav Manokhin, a relatively low-ranking U.N. staffer, was accused of providing requests on U.N. letterhead for U.S. visas to allow aliens to attend U.N. conferences that didn’t exist or that the visitors did not attend. The scheme had apparently been in operation for years.

“Manokhin used his position at the U.N. to make it appear as though the U.N. supported the visa applications, so that the aliens could enter the United States, purportedly to participate in conferences organized by non-government organizations, by the U.N. or by entities associated with the U.N.,” according to a statement issued yesterday by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “In most instances, the alien was successful in obtaining a visa and entering the United States.”

National Insecurity

Donk Candidate a Pakistan Warhawk?!

Obama warns Pakistan on terror

HUH?

Sen. Barack Obama yesterday said he would send U.S. troops into Pakistan if President Pervez Musharraf fails to more aggressively hunt down and eliminate al Qaeda strongholds and terrorist training camps there.

“Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan,” said Mr. Obama, setting benchmarks on millions of dollars in future military aid to Pakistan.

Let’s see now? B. Hussein Obama expresses repeated statements of total opposition to the war in Iraq. given the situation in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal areas, a large US intervention would make Iraq look like a cakewalk.

The Illinois Democrat acknowledged the military and political difficulties of such an effort in the “wind-swept deserts and cave-dotted mountains.” He said it would be difficult to convince nomadic tribes living there with few ties to the Musharraf regime or any government that the U.S. is not there to occupy their lands. “It’s a tough place. But that is no excuse,” Mr. Obama said.

Uh…what’s so magical about the need to do this in Pakistan that doesn’t apply in Iraq, or for that matter, Syria, and Iran?

B. Hussein Obama is apparently untroubled by the presence of logical consistency in his consciousness.

National Insecurity

GITMO Recividists

Freed prisoners return to jihad, says US military

At least 30 former prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against US and allied forces following their release, the US military says. They have been discovered in Afghanistan and Pakistan but not in Iraq, a US Defence Department spokesman said yesterday.

Commander Jeffrey Gordon said that while in custody the men had falsely claimed to be farmers, truck drivers, cooks, small-arms merchants, low-level combatants or had offered other false explanations for being in Afghanistan.

WHAT!?? You mean that GITMO isn’t just filled with innocent camel drivers and date farmers as the anti-war moonbats would have us all believe?

Shocking, simply shocking!

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

Pentagon: Hillary Aiding Terr Cause

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Pentagon Rebukes Sen. Clinton on Iraq

The Pentagon told Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton that her questions about how the U.S. plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq boosts enemy propaganda. In a stinging rebuke to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman responded to questions Clinton raised in May in which she urged the Pentagon to start planning now for the withdrawal of American forces.

A copy of Edelman’s response, dated July 16, was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

“Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia,” Edelman wrote. He added that “such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks.” (emphasis added)

YES! It’s high time this has been highlighted instead of supinely accepting Hil’s seditious (if not treasonous) conduct.

Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines called Edelman’s answer “at once outrageous and dangerous,” and said the senator would respond to his boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Yeah. Dangerous to her image as a responsible candidate for the office of President.

Clinton has privately and publicly pushed Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace two months ago to begin drafting the plans for what she said will be a complicated withdrawal of troops, trucks and equipment. “If we’re not planning for it, it will be difficult to execute it in a safe and efficacious way,” she said then.

First, planning ANY military maneuver is NOT a part of the responsibility of Congress collectively, or any individual member thereof, no matter what sort of demi-god status is granted by the MSM.

Second, there is no way to withdraw from Iraq under current conditions in “a safe and efficacious way” as far as the US national security is concerned, to say nothing of the probable fate of our in-country allies and associates after a US retreat.

Edelman’s letter does offer a passing indication the Pentagon might, in fact, be planning how to withdraw, saying: “We are always evaluating and planning for possible contingencies. As you know, it is long-standing departmental policy that operational plans, including contingency plans, are not released outside of the department.”

Quick! Somebody get the cluebat out and slap her to MAYBE get a clue about a concept she is apparently incapable of understanding: “operational security”.

Of course since she evidently doesn’t care about homeland security, or national security, why should the troops actual operational security be any different.

National Insecurity

Donks Seek Terr Whistleblower Liability

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Democrats cut ‘John Doe’ provision

Congressional Democrats today failed to include a provision in homeland security legislation that would protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leaders.

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THESE DONKS?!

“This is a slap in the face of good citizens who do their patriotic duty and come forward, and it caves in to radical Islamists,” said Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Couldn’t have said it any better myself.

National Insecurity

Bush Turns Away from Reagan, Again

White House LOST at Sea

LOST here refers to the long-pending Law Of the Sea Treaty. As a fromer naval personage, this is something that has attracted my attention at various times. When the original push for this was on in the 80’s, Ronaldus Magnus, Reagan himself, turned away from this proposal as a seriously flawed instrument whose impact will negatively affect US national security.

We are set to take a policymaking trip down memory lane with the Bush Administration urging accession to the Convention on the Law of the Sea in a recent statement made by the President on the issue. The Treaty was crafted from 1973 to 1982 and 154 countries have become signatories to it, along with the European Community.

In 1982, President Reagan refused to sign the Treaty, claiming specific objections to its terms. Those objections have not been resolved.

This piece from Tech Central Station goes on to note the specific problems with this treaty, and also notes some of the more recent arguments advocating its ratification by the US as proposed by John Negroponte and Gordon England from within the depths of the Pentagon bureaucracy. Why are they arguing this? Essentially to give the Euros (and others) a warm fuzzy glow when they think of us! (Cough! Gasp! Retch! Spit!)

…if anyone suggested the Negroponte-England rationale for acceding to the Law of the Sea Treaty as a rationale for agreeing to Kyoto, the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the re-establishment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, they would be laughed out of policymaking circles. Fair arguments can be made for joining any one of these treaties. But those arguments need to be made on the substance of the treaties, not just because “all the cool countries are doing it.”

The Law of the Sea Treaty remains flawed. It does little to advance American interests when it comes to freedom of navigation, it could prove environmentally harmful, it restricts American military and intelligence naval operations and it calls for technology transfers that could run afoul of intellectual property laws and be dangerous to boot. President Reagan was right to reject calls to sign the Treaty in 1982. The Bush Administration should reverse course and refuse to push for the enactment of the Treaty in the present day.

National Insecurity

Russian Realpolitik

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What they didn’t say at Kennebunkport

Spengler, one of the Chief’s favorite writers has this over at Asia Times.

Nothing like the imagined dialogue below will have occurred at the Bush family compound on the Maine sea coast during President Vladimir Putin’s July 1 retreat with US President George W Bush.

Putin, I expect, will have done his best to humor his American counterpart and keep him off his guard. Bush is prepared neither intellectually nor psychologically to understand what a Russian leader must do, and a practical man like Putin would not waste
words explaining the unexplainable to the uncomprehending. Putin’s unenviable task is to persuade Bush of his good intentions, while gaining maneuvering room to take measures that the US will regard as hostile. I have no idea how he tried to bring this off in Kennebunkport.

But it is sobering to imagine how the conversation might have gone if Putin had told Bush the unvarnished truth.

The dialog follows. It’s well worth reading, and adds a very interesting perspective to the US-Russia situation. It’s semi-lengthy, and doesn’t lend itself well to fragmentary quotation, so go check it out – it makes far too much sense to ignore!

National Insecurity

Read it and Weep!

Tanya, Terrorism and Our Phoney War

Although the Chief doesn’t think that Newt is able to walk on water…what he does well, he does exceedingly well…and this piece of historical perspective is some of his best.

One place we visited in St. Petersburg in particular has got me thinking about the threats we face as a country and as a civilization — and how our leaders and elites have yet to honestly face up to these threats. They are, in significant ways, deluding themselves — and endangering us in the process.

The Dead of the Siege of Leningrad

On Sunday, we visited the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, dedicated to the victims of the siege of Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was called at the time) during World War II. For nearly 900 days, from September 1941 until January 1944, the German Army surrounded and besieged the city. At least 641,000 people died and perhaps as many as a million — the vast majority of them civilians — mostly from starvation and disease.

More than 500,000 of these victims are buried in the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery. On its own, this massive place of death is sobering enough. But in the cemetery’s museum are two chilling displays, shown side-by-side, that speak volumes about the consequences for average people when their leaders fail to heed the words of evil men.

The Diary of Tanya Savicheva

The first display is the diary of an 11-year-old girl named Tanya Savicheva, written during the siege of Leningrad.

In seven short entries below, she documents the deaths of her entire family — first her sister, then her grandmother, then her brother, her uncle, another uncle and finally her mother.
* Jenya died on 28th Dec. at 12.30 AM 1941
* Grandma died on 25th Jan. at 3 PM 1942
* Leka died on 17th March at 5 AM 1942
* Uncle Vasya died on 13th Apr. at 2 o’clock after midnight 1942
* Uncle Lesha on 10th May at 4 PM 1942
* Mother on 13th May at 7.30 AM 1942
The last entry in Tanya’s diary says simply, “Savicheva died. Everyone died. Only Tanya is left.”
And then Tanya herself died of starvation.

So what’s the point of recapping this sad piece of WW-II history?

Side-by-side with Tanya’s diary in the museum is another display that makes Tanya’s diary all the more disturbing. It is a September 1941 German High Command order to the German army in Russia. The order states with evil simplicity that “the Fuhrer has decided to raze the city of St. Petersburg from the face of the earth.”

The German army is ordered to attack and eliminate the city’s supply lines — to isolate the city and literally starve its inhabitants to death. “There is no point to prepare for the subsistence of the population….In this existential war, there is no point in maintaining these people.”

The Suicidal Behavior of Gordon Brown

As I stood there looking at this call for the annihilation of an entire city and the extermination of its residents and as I read the tragic story of a young girl just a few years older then my own granddaughter watching the slow death of her entire family, I was reminded of a recent book about the terrible consequences of attempting to appease evil.

Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England by Lynne Olson tells the story of how the British establishment lied to the British people and sought to avoid doing anything to antagonize Hitler even in the first year of World War II.

And then I thought about the suicidal behavior of new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown after the attempted terrorist bombings in London and Glasgow. Prime Minister Brown has reportedly banned his ministers from using the word “Muslim” in connection with the terrorism crisis in Britain. And he had also banned the phrase “War on Terror,” apparently because of its close association with his former Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush.

We aren’t quite this bad…yet…but the trend is set.

Newt has the situation NAILED in his conclusion:

Our ‘Phoney War’ on Terrorism

And as I thought about the new British prime minister’s unwillingness to tell the truth about the terrorists who are seeking to destroy Western civilization, I realized this: for the past six years, we have been engaged in a “phoney war”.

The period during World War II from 1939-1941 became known as the “phoney war.” After Hitler had attacked and occupied Poland, the Nazis had made their intentions clear, but the Allies did little to respond to Hitler’s aggression. In this period of “phoney war,” the British people eventually came to believe that they could avoid war. Children who had been evacuated from the cities began to return to their families.

And then, in May 1940, Hitler attacked France. The “phoney war” was over. The real war had begun.

How Many More Tanyas Will There Be?

Standing in that cemetery in St. Petersburg last week, I thought of all the other Tanyas who had died because their leaders refused to believe the evil words of evil men and refused to convey that truth to their people. I thought of today’s Tanyas — all the young girls and their families who are threatened by the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam.

Just as in the years leading up to World War II, the signs are all around us. The rise of Hamas. The re-arming of Hezbollah. The Iranian dictatorship’s relentless drive for nuclear weapons. Terrorists from New Jersey to London to Iraq and Pakistan who are saying repeatedly and publicly that they want nothing more than to kill us.

So my question is this: In our own existential war, do our leaders hear these voices that are determined to destroy us? And will our “phoney war” end on our terms, or the terms of our enemies?

Words to ponder, and act on.

National Insecurity

Slouching towards Cut and Run

Iraq fails to meet all reform goals, report will say

A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration’s reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said yesterday.

The “pivot point” for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on President Bush’s “surge” plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said. “The facts are not in question,” the official told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion. “The real question is how the White House proceeds with a post-surge strategy in light of the report.”

The administration situation is akin to closing the barn door after the stock has already escaped.

It didn’t have to be this way!
If the war had been pursued as WAR, not a police action, it wouldn’t be this way.
If the war had let the troops do what they are trained and prepared to do – pursue and destroy the enemy, it wouldn’t be this way,
If the administration hadn’t forced our troops to fight with one hand tied behind their back by legalistic rules of engagement, it wouldn’t be this way.

It’s often stated that our first priority had to be concern with “winning hearts and minds”. It seems to the Chief, that based on historical evidence (ref: WW-II with Germany and Japan) that if you grab them by the gonads and pull, that their hearts and minds will follow right along.

What to do now? How ’bout actually going to war for a change! Unfortunately, given our nearly totally screwed up subservience to political correctness, the chance of this happening is not likely.

The results of what the Chief fears will happen, ain’t going to be pretty…and it will be GUARANTEED that the Islamoterrs will be back with a vengeance, with full support from Syria, Iran, and the apparently soon to be Islamofascist Iraq.

islamic-peace.jpg
Click on image for larger view. http://www.savage-productions.com/

The Chief REALLY REALLY hopes that he’s being overly pessimistic here…but…?

China Watch, Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

ChiCom Space Militarization

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China’s Space Threat: How Missiles Could Target U.S. Satellites

The Chief has noted these sorts of developments, very often from coverage by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times. Here’s some more from another source – Popular Mechanics, which has lately been covering some serious topics, such as debunking the 9-11 conspiracy theorists that think the buildings came down from internal explosives.

For China, a nation that has already sent humans into space and developed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the technology involved in the test was hardly remarkable. But as a demonstration of a rising military posture, it was a surprisingly aggressive act, especially since China has long pushed for an international treaty banning space weapons. “The move was a dangerous step toward the abyss of weaponizing space,” says Theresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, an independent defense research group in Washington, D.C. “China held the moral high ground about space, and that test re-energized the China hawks in Congress. If we’re not careful, space could become the new Wild West. You don’t just go and blow things up there.” In fact, after the Chinese test, India publicly stepped up its development of anti­satellite technology. And some Israeli officials have argued that, given China’s record of selling missile technology to Iran, Israel should develop its own program.

As always, the ChiComs bear close watching.

National Insecurity

Prospects for Iran War?

A couple of pretty good commentators have noted an increasing probability of war with the Iranians. Since they have apparently accumulated enough material to make nukes, this prospect should make one check to see that their powder is being kept dry.

Actual damage from a limited number of weapons would be minimal…but then again…what if they did an EMP attack designed to fry microchip electronics? Visualize no cars (control computers gone), no computers, no cell (or other modern phones), no radio/TV (all modern gear uses chips), etc. NOT a pretty picture.

“Classic” or other vehicles that lack computers, EFI, electronic ignition, etc. would still work, as would old “tube” based electronics.

Anyway…the first of these notes goes back a few weeks to May, from the inimitible Spengler in Asia Times. The other is more recent warning note from veteran commentator Arnaud de Borchgrave.

Why Iran will fight, not compromise

What can the West offer the Islamic Republic of Iran in return for giving up its nuclear ambitions and kenneling its puppies of war? The problem calls to mind the question regarding what to give a man who has everything: cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, kidney failure, and so forth. Iran’s economy is so damaged that it is impossible to tell how bad things are. Except perhaps for the oilfields of southern Iraq, and perhaps also northern Saudi Arabia, there is nothing the West can give Iran to forestall an internal breakdown….

What strategic consequences ensue from Iran’s economic misery? Broadly speaking, the choices are two. In the most benign scenario, Iran’s clerical establishment will emulate the Soviet Union of 1987, when then-prime minister Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged that communism had led Russia to the brink of ruin in the face of vibrant economic growth among the United States and its allies. Russia no longer had the resources to sustain an arms race with the US, and broke down under the pressure of America’s military buildup.

The second choice is an imperial adventure. In fact, Iran is engaged in such an adventure, funding and arming Shi’ite allies from Basra to Beirut, and creating clients selectively among such Sunnis as Hamas in Palestine.

I continue to predict that Iran will gamble on adventure rather than go the way of Gorbachev….

Which leads to this rather unpleasant conclusion:

An old piece of diplomatic wisdom states that one always should give one’s enemy a way out. But I see no way out for the pocket empire of Persia. Ahmadinejad and his generation of Revolutionary Guards will fight, and cautious old men like Rafsanjani will not be able to stop them.

Guns of August?

An impressive sampling of US establishmentarians seem to be salivating at the prospects of taking on, and presumably taking out Iran.

“The case for bombing Iran,” was the headline over Mr. (Norman) Podhoretz’s long piece in the June issue of Commentary, the magazine he edited for 35 years (until 1995) and where he serves as editor at large. “I hope and pray that President Bush will do it,” Mr. Podhoretz wrote. His son-in-law Elliott Abrams is deputy national security adviser to President Bush. His son John is a columnist for the New York Post.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Independent, added his powerful voice recently to the case for military action against Iran in response to its purported killings of U.S. troops inside Iraq. “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq… and to me that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers,” he said.

Denials from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice notwithstanding, it is an open secret in Washington Vice President Dick Cheney does not believe diplomacy-cum-sanctions will persuade the mullahs to forgo their nuclear ambitions. David Wurmser, a former member of the Douglas Feith politico-military team at the Pentagon, is deputy assistant to Mr. Cheney for national security — and a hawk on Iran. A co-author, with Mr. Feith and Richard Perle, of the controversial 1996 White Paper “Saving the Realm,” which referred to Israel and advised then incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to repeal the Oslo agreements on a Palestinian solution, keep Gaza and the West Bank, and establish a democracy in Iraq by overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

The word among the neocon family is Mr. Cheney believes Mr. Bush will stick to his pledge not to leave office 16 months hence with Iran’s nuclear facilities unscathed. Either Iran comes clean and stops its nuclear fuel enrichment process under IAEA control, or Tehran faces Mr. Bush’s military option. Two U.S. aircraft carriers are now 30 miles off Iran’s coastline in the Persian Gulf.

Would this REALLY happen? The Chief would not bet against it, especially considering the demented state of mind of the Iranian “leadership”.

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

Deep History of SECDEF

THE GATES INHERITANCE, Part 1
The tortured world of US intelligence

Asia Times, has come out with with a very interesting and lengthy deep background on the US Intel establishment, and one of its leading lights, none other than our current post-Rummy SECDEF Gates:


Robert Gates has returned to Washington as secretary of defense with a quiet vengeance and with all the skills acquired in his rough-and-tumble years in the intelligence bureaucracy still intact. His laden resume, gathered over many decades, is evidence that Washington’s tortuous, often misguided foreign policies did not begin with the Bush administration, and will not end with it. In this three-part series, Roger Morris, formerly a senior staffer of the National Security Council, provides not just a portrait of the real Robert Gates, but a history of America’s global covert action and intervention.

Although this piece IS lengthy, it has a lot to show and tell about how we got to be where we are today. I’m not sure that I buy into the whole deal, but there’s enough substance there to bear some close thought.

This is only part I of 2 more to follow. The content does NOT fill the Chief with optimism concerning the conduct of US foreign policy. Maybe it really IS too late to work within the system any more, but I truly hope that’s an overly pessimistic assessment.

But still…what if it’s not?

National Insecurity

US Losses in Gaza, Says More Where that Came From

Hamas lists seized U.S. weapons

When the Chief hear that military supplies and equipment was being funneled to the Paleswinian Authority, there was a LOT of doubt in his mind that any good would come of it. My bet would have been THEN that this stuff could well end up being used against us. That sad prospect is even more likely to come to pass, since FAT-ah was too absent minded to keep HAM-ASS from getting its hands on whole piles of US weapons and other logistics.

Last week, Hamas took complete control of all Fatah positions and U.S.-backed security compounds in the Gaza Strip, including Fatah’s major Ansar complex – where American-provided weapons were delivered and stored – and Abbas’ presidential guard complex.

The U.S. in recent years reportedly transferred large quantities of weaponry to build up Fatah forces against rival Hamas. Hamas officials told WND in multiple interviews they would seize the American weapons.

Hamas’ Al Aqsa Television last week broadcast footage of Hamas gunmen brandishing American assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and ammunition the U.S. reportedly provided to Fatah over the past few months.

We sow the wind and wonder why we reap the whirlwind. What makes the farce even more surreal is that Condie & the Foggy Bottom Boysâ„¢ plan on repeating the same non-strategy.

Rice said she will ask Congress to rework a previous $86 million aid package to Abbas that was lowered following concerns by some lawmakers some of the money would end up financing terrorism. Congress in April only approved about $59 million of the aid package and stipulated the money cannot be used to purchase weapons. Rice intends to request Congress now grant the full $86 million. Rice also said the U.S. would contribute an additional $40 million to the United Nations to help Palestinians, particularly in the Gaza Strip, which is now controlled by Hamas.

According to Palestinian and Israeli diplomatic sources, the bulk of the $86 million is slated to be used to fund Force 17, which serve as de facto police units in the West Bank and previously patrolled the Hamas-seized Gaza Strip. Many members of Force 17 are also openly members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, which took responsibility together with Islamic Jihad for every suicide bombing in Israel the last two years.

The hallucinatory nature of this policy beggars the imagination!

National Insecurity

Donk Defeatism Reigns Supreme

1 Comment

Reid adjusts antiwar strategy

After reportedly getting beaten up by a bunch of leftDonk bloggers, Dusty Harry apparently feels the need to swing more in their direction on the war.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has refocused his antiwar crusade as his and Congress’ job-approval ratings plummet to all-time lows. Mr. Reid began the week Monday by vowing to “push very, very hard” for troop withdrawal from Iraq in a Defense Department budget authorization bill in two weeks.

The Chief can’t help thinking that Reid, et al have a poor case of situational awareness, and that the country as a whole does NOT want to surrender SW Asia to the Islamofascists. We had all better hope so, or the future will be bleak indeed.

National Insecurity

U-Boat Threat in Gulf of Mexico? (Looks that way!)

Venezuela’s Chavez to finalise Russian submarines deal

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is expected to finalise a deal on buying up to nine Russian submarines during a visit here later this month, a Russian newspaper reported on Thursday. Caracas has already ordered five 636-type diesel submarines and four of a new model of diesel submarine, the 677E Amur, the Kommersant broadsheet said, quoting unnamed sources in the ship-building and arms export sectors.

Somebody needs to liberate Chavez from his concerns for earthly life.

National Insecurity

Palestinian Turmoil

Hamas Overruns Rival Fatah’s Key Posts

This situation ALMOST reminds the Chief of the situation if one were hiking along a desert trail, and comes upon a rattlesnake fighting with a scorpion. Who would choose sides? And if so, why would you do so?

Hamas fighters overran two of the rival Fatah movement’s most important security command centers in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, and witnesses said the victors dragged vanquished gunmen into the street and shot them to death execution-style.

In this case, one side is slightly better less evil than the other. Ham-ass is totally evil, Fatah isn’t historically much better, but at least they have acquired SOME degree of civilization over the years they have been trying to run the Paleswinian Authority.

Hamas also seized control of Rafah in the south, Gaza’s third-largest city, according to witnesses and security officials. It was the second main Gaza city to fall to the militants, who captured nearby Khan Younis on Wednesday, and gave Hamas control of the porous border with Egypt, which has been the source of arms smuggling.

How truly wonderful THAT is! (WARNING: Sarcasm alert!)

Responding to Hamas’ gains, President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah declared a state of emergency, fired Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, dissolved the Hamas-Fatah coalition and said he would form a new government.

TRANSLATION: Stick a fork in the Paleswinian Authority – it’s done! This also means that there is no one that Israel has any prospects of negotiating anything with over there.

Batten down the hatches, and keep the powder dry!

National Insecurity

Huh? Arabic Public School in NYC?

An Arabic Public School

The Chief had to look twice at this one…plans are afloat for NYC to set up an Arabic language school…AS PART OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM? WTF?

This is a bad idea for SOOOOOO MANY reasons. This link goes to a pro/con set-up in the NY Sun site. They go crying around about being short on resources, and then plan on spending for THIS? They had better do some serious checking into the quality of the NYC water system…something must be seriously wrong.

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

Air Force Chief: ChiCom Build-up Worrisome

Moseley’s Warning

The Air Force Chief of Staff is warning about the ChiComs’ progress in their aerospace capabilities.

In the days after China blasted an orbiting satellite to bits, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said, in effect, it was no big deal. “I don’t think we should be overly worried about this,” opined the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “We have ways to deal with that ability.” Biden’s content-free statement, though soothing to some, was contrary to mainstream thinking. From serious analysts, the anti-satellite shot elicited only grim words. A sampling:

“Troubling” (Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates). “Very worrisome” (Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). “A wake-up call” (Robert Joseph, then undersecretary of state for international security). A “threat,” and a “provocation” (Sen. Jon L. Kyl, R-Ariz.)

For shock value, though, even Gates, Pace, Joseph, and Kyl did not come close to Gen. T. Michael Moseley, USAF Chief of Staff. The top airman called the Jan. 12 (China time) test against a defunct Chinese weather satellite “a strategically dislocating event.” In fact, he added, “This is no different than when the Russians put Sputnik up.”

He’s not only worried about this one technology, either!

…the [Air Force] Chief took an equally dim view of China’s airpower advances. “This is not … a country that has just discovered the Wright brothers’ airplane,” he said. “This is a country that is very serious” about making the big league in airpower. After decades of defense spending increases, China’s overall program now is on a par with Japan, Britain, and Russia, he said, and its long-range aviation is “increasingly capable and lethal,” as witness four advances: New fighters…Airborne early warning…Aerial refuelers…Stand off munitions.

You can go and check out the details of all that in the article…not that it’ll make you feel any better…but at least you’ll be informed.

Another unpleasant thought…these are the same ChiComs that have been all too willing to sell military equipment and technology to the likes of Iran, Syria, Pakistan, etc. Joy, joy!

National Insecurity

Dr. Strangelove Now for Real?

Bush makes power grab

Stuff like this is grist for the conspiratorial mill for sure, but like the expression says: “Just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they really aren’t after me.”

President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.

The “National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive,” with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator.

That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for “National Essential Functions” of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president’s directives in the event of a national emergency.

The directive loosely defines “catastrophic emergency” as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”

A lot of this latest edict is similar to stuff already on the books in something else called the “National Emergency Act” but differs in that it removes any provision for Congressional review or removal of emergency measures. Not Good!

Military positioned to launch action – here

The United States military is being positioned to be put into action under presidential authority in any one of a dozen scenarios within the United States – including natural disasters, epidemics, terrorist attacks, insurrections, or domestic violence including conspiracies, according to a report from WND columnist Jerome R. Corsi.

He has concluded that under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, the military of the United States and Canada are turning NORTHCOMM into a domestic military command structure, with authority extending to Mexico, even though Mexico has not formally joined with the current United States-Canadian NORTHCOM command structure. “President Bush appears to have positioned the U.S. military and the National Guard acting under presidential authority to intervene in a wide range of domestic incidents that could occur anywhere in North America,” he wrote.

He cited a number of developments, including the 2002 order establishing NORTHCOM as response for “homeland defense” of the U.S., Canada, Mexico and parts of the Caribbean and some Atlantic and Pacific waters. That organization already controls the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint U.S.-Canadian effort, he said. Secondly, section 1076 of the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007 grants the president the right to commandeer federal troops or state National Guard to use them domestically, he noted.

On the radio a bit ago this evening, Corsi was talking about the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear command post being transformed in a domestic emergency center for the new NORTHCOM.

Hmmmmmm. Brings to mind the final solution shown in the Peter Sellers classic film Dr. Strangelove. Hey – that makes as much sense as anything else these days!

National Insecurity

Officials, Media Discover “Islamberg” Training Camp

CATSKILLS SITE EYED

From the NY Post:

A remote Muslim commune nestled in the Catskill Mountains has come under the scrutiny of state and federal authorities for possible ties to terrorism, according to law-enforcement sources

Reports of gunfire and military-style physical training at the camp have led some investigators to believe that the group’s members are preparing for homegrown jihad. According to one account, a neighbor said he has seen commune members dressed in Port Authority uniforms.

Some additional signs of consciousness…this can only be a good thing!

National Insecurity

Getting Ready for the Bug-out Boogie

Iraqis: Take us with you

With pressure building in Washington for an American troop pullout, Iraqis who have worked closely with U.S. companies and military forces are begging their employers for assurances that they will be able to leave with them.

This gives the Chief a REALLY bad feeling…not that these good guys are trying to set up a bolt-hole if the SHTF (see Site Jargonology), but that with the goings on of the Donk Copperheads in Congress and elsewhere, they feel the need to do so.

When the Americans leave, all those who worked with them “must leave also,” said another woman who has been forced to move to Jordan. She asked that her name not be used in order to protect her extended family still living in Baghdad.

Americans and other Westerners rely on Iraqi men and women who serve as interpreters, engineers, repairmen, security guards, computer and telecommunications technicians, drivers, cooks, cleaners and so on. Private security companies and contractors working to support the military and rebuild Iraq’s teetering infrastructure also employ thousands of locals.

Unfortunately, this is not an inappropriate fear based on this expression of the state of mind of the administration.

Many have risked their lives on a daily basis for years to get to work and to protect their U.S. colleagues. But American officials say it is unlikely that the United States will open its doors to all of them. “They are not going to the United States,” Command Sgt. Maj. Jeff Mellinger told The Washington Times in an interview in late April. “We don’t have a plan to do anything with them. They are Iraqis, and this is their country,” said Sgt. Maj. Mellinger, at that time the top enlisted soldier in Iraq.

How sad if an earlier incident in our history is repeated:

For one former Special Forces operative who has worked closely with Iraqis for three years, any U.S. pullout that fails to protect Iraqi allies would bring unhappy memories of the final withdrawal 32 years ago from Vietnam. “When we leave, all these people that helped us and fought for us will be hunted down and exterminated just like the Montagnards and South Vietnamese,” he said in a telephone interview. “In many ways, this is my second Vietnam,” he said bitterly.

One wonders how long our military will be forced to implement the feckless policies of incompetent if not outright traitorous politicians interested more in their own careers than in the good name and interest of the United States.

F.E.T.E.

National Insecurity

Donks Blink: War Funds w/no Timeline

Democrats capitulate on war funds

Congressional Democrats yesterday backed down in the standoff with the White House over war funds, abandoning their veto-instigating effort to link deadlines for withdrawing troops from Iraq to President Bush’s request for more than $100 billion in emergency spending.

They ran that idea up the flagpole, and it turned out that no one except Nancy Pelosi, the KosSacks, the MoveOn caucus, and others of that ilk saluted it, so Harry Reid, showing that he’s not TOTALLY bereft of reason, has moved forward on the funding without a surrender date-certain.

In essence, the Donks blinked on the key point.

National Insecurity

Islamberg Update II

Investigation of Moslems of America / Jamaat al Fuqra

The Politics of CP has a report up on the Islamberg group that has quite a bit more background and information than the CFP article that has seemed to kick up a lot of attention in the blogosphere, and even in some spots in major media.

Unfortunately, more information does NOTHING to make one feel more comfortable with the situation…au contraire, it’s even worse than the first impression looked like. For instance, they have a listing of incidents including multiple bombings, shootings, arsons, and other attacks IN THE US that have been perpetrated by this group SINCE 1979!

So much for the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan driving their hatred of us.

National Insecurity

Sharia Taxicabs? Not any more!

Cabbies on edge as penalties begin

There has been something of an ongoing controversy up at the Minneapolis-St.Paul airport, with Somali moslem cab drivers refusing to pick up people who were carrying packages of alcoholic beverages, thereby seeking at least a partial imposition of Islamic law on the Twin Cities.

The airport commision has finally said “Enough is enough” and has sharpened penalties for such refusal to a 30 day suspended airport permit for the first offense, and a year bad for the second.

The cabbies are concerned.

Oh well! If they don’t like the rules at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport because the rules there are not in accord with the Moslem traditions, then perhaps they should seek new employment – driving cabs out of the airport at say, Riyadh, or perhaps Mogadishu.