Category Archives: National Security

Have We Bungled Our Way To Success In Iraq?

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A radical Islamist group called ISIS made major advances this week in Iraq. President Obama is reviewing his options. Is the best bet to let Sunni and Shiite radicals fight it out? [Credit: AP]

A rad­i­cal Islamist group called ISIS made major advances this week in Iraq. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is review­ing his options. Is the best bet to let Sun­ni and Shi­ite rad­i­cals fight it out? [Cred­it: AP]

“We’re leav­ing behind a sov­er­eign, sta­ble and self-reliant Iraq, with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment that was elect­ed by its peo­ple.” – Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Decem­ber 15, 2011

The Pres­i­den­t’s illu­sion that we accom­plished our mis­sion in Iraq evap­o­rat­ed this past week, when Sun­ni mil­i­tants call­ing them­selves the Islam­ic State of Iraq and Syr­ia (ISIS) and fly­ing the black flag of Islamism over­ran Mosul and Tikrit. The embat­tled Iraqi gov­ern­ment still holds Bagh­dad, but its sov­er­eign­ty, sta­bil­i­ty and self-reliance have been exposed for the arti­fice they long have been.

The truth is that things began to unrav­el in Iraq two and a half years ago, when we declared vic­to­ry and with­drew our troops. “This is the start of the Iraqi civ­il war that was so obvi­ous­ly going to break out after we washed our hands of it,” Ken­neth M. Pol­lack of the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion told the Wash­ing­ton Post.

Yet this lat­est in a series of for­eign pol­i­cy fail­ures may actu­al­ly work to our advan­tage.  Hav­ing Sun­ni and Shi­ite mil­i­tants and the Iran­ian Army cross­ing swords in Iraq may not be the worst thing from the per­spec­tive of US interests.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Why Europe Hasn’t Joined Our Ukraine Crusade

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It typically costs $100 to fill a 12-gallon tank in Italy today. The country imports much of its oil from Russia. Which is why its government is reluctant to sign on to President Obama's anti-Putin campaign. [Credit: NWA online]

It typ­i­cal­ly costs $100 to fill a 12-gal­lon tank in Italy today. The coun­try imports much of its oil from Rus­sia. Which is why its gov­ern­ment is reluc­tant to sign on to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s anti-Putin cam­paign. [Cred­it: NWA online]

A gal­lon of unlead­ed gas costs near­ly $9 here in Todi, a tran­quil Ital­ian town whose roots stretch back mil­len­nia to pre-Etr­uscan times.  Diesel is a bit cheap­er at $8.50 per gal­lon, mean­ing that it costs $100 to fill a 12-gal­lon tank.

Which may help explain why Pres­i­dent Obama’s cru­sade to impose sys­tem­at­ic eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on Rus­sia has so far fiz­zled.  Euro­peans are unwill­ing to pay the costs that dis­rup­tions in trade with Rus­sia would impose on them.

One can hard­ly blame them. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

On Ukraine, President Obama Should Heed Merkel

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Russia has seized control of Crimea, the southernmost portion of Ukraine. Resolving the crisis peacefully requires adult leadership. [Credit: Washington Post]

Rus­sia has seized con­trol of Crimea, the south­ern­most por­tion of Ukraine. Resolv­ing the cri­sis peace­ful­ly requires adult lead­er­ship. [Cred­it: Wash­ing­ton Post]

In deal­ing with the Russ­ian incur­sion into Ukraine, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma will hear no bet­ter advice than this: lis­ten to Angela Merkel.

A week ago, it appeared that Ukraine would prove an embar­rass­ment for Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin. Demon­stra­tors in Kiev demand­ed the res­ig­na­tion of the country’s Russ­ian-backed Pres­i­dent, Vik­tor Yanukovych, reject­ing a ten­ta­tive set­tle­ment with protest lead­ers that would have allowed him to retain pow­er tem­porar­i­ly. Yanukovych fled to Rus­sia and a tran­si­tion gov­ern­ment was formed in Kiev, which prompt­ly charged him with mass mur­der. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A Detached President Could Be Just What the NSA Needs

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President Obama was described as "impatient" and "disengaged" during briefings on last year's Syria crisis. That sense of detachment lead him to a constructive resolution of the NSA snooping controversy. [Credit: Pumas Unleashed]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma was described as “impa­tient” and “dis­en­gaged” dur­ing brief­in­gs on last year’s Syr­ia cri­sis. That sense of detach­ment could lead him to a con­struc­tive res­o­lu­tion of the NSA snoop­ing con­tro­ver­sy. [Cred­it: Pumas Unleashed]

Even as the debate about arm­ing the [Syr­i­an] rebels took on a new urgency, Mr. Oba­ma rarely voiced strong opin­ions dur­ing senior staff meet­ings. But cur­rent and for­mer offi­cials said his body lan­guage was telling: he often appeared impa­tient or dis­en­gaged while lis­ten­ing to the debate, some­times scrolling through mes­sages on his Black­Ber­ry or slouch­ing and chew­ing gum.

New York Times, Octo­ber 22, 2013

A Pres­i­dent has enor­mous demands on his time and atten­tion. He can’t focus on every­thing. He must choose. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, if the New York Times account is to be believed, chose to be “impa­tient” and “dis­en­gaged” as his advis­ers last year pre­sent­ed him with options on Syr­ia, per­haps explain­ing why he fol­lowed what the Times termed “an uncer­tain path amid Syr­i­an bloodshed.”

The dis­en­gage­ment from mat­ters of nation­al secu­ri­ty that served him so poor­ly through­out the Syr­i­an affair might unique­ly suit him to resolve the con­tro­ver­sy over whether the gov­ern­ment should con­tin­ue to gath­er large vol­umes of data about US cit­i­zens. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The NSA And Government’s Gradual And Silent Encroachments

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Federal District Court Judge Richard J. Leon on Monday ruled that NSA monitoring of cellphone traffic is unconstitutional. [Credit: Minority Report Blog]

Fed­er­al Dis­trict Court Judge Richard J. Leon on Mon­day ruled that NSA mon­i­tor­ing of cell­phone traf­fic is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. [Cred­it: Minor­i­ty Report Blog]

On March 5, 1976, Patri­cia McDo­nough was robbed.  She report­ed the crime to the Bal­ti­more police. Soon after, McDo­nough began receiv­ing threat­en­ing and obscene phone calls from a man pur­port­ing to be the rob­ber.  At one point, the caller asked her to step onto her porch.  Short­ly after she did, she saw a 1975 Monte Car­lo dri­ving slow­ly past her home.  She recalled see­ing that same car near the crime scene. She report­ed the tag num­ber to the police, enabling them to iden­ti­fy the own­er as Michael Lee Smith.

The police asked the tele­phone com­pa­ny to install a pen reg­is­ter — an elec­tron­ic device that records all num­bers called from a par­tic­u­lar tele­phone line – to mon­i­tor Smith’s home phone.  The device helped police deter­mine that Smith had placed the offen­sive calls to McDo­nough, lead­ing to his arrest and con­vic­tion. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Syria and the Future of US Policy

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credit abc

The August 21 chem­i­cal attack in Syr­ia has iron­i­cal­ly left Assad more secure­ly in pow­er than before, while increas­ing Russ­ian influ­ence in the region. [Cred­it: ABC]

The Syr­ia episode is behind us, but after the President’s ser­i­al impro­vi­sa­tions, our pol­i­cy, aims and inter­ests remain unclear.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Syria and the Budget: Putting Our Money Where Our Morality Is

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credit telegraph

The Pres­i­dent delib­er­at­ed for weeks before decid­ing to ask Con­gress for autho­riza­tion to attack Syr­ia. He’s work­ing the phones to gath­er votes but will his bud­get pro­vide future Pres­i­dents with the resources to car­ry out sim­i­lar actions? (Cred­it: Telegraph)

On August 14, the Sec­re­tary of the Army gave his sub­or­di­nates an order: pro­duce a list of cuts that will reduce spend­ing by 25 percent.

A week lat­er, a chem­i­cal weapons attack near Dam­as­cus left an esti­mat­ed 1,429 dead,  mov­ing the Pres­i­dent to ask the mil­i­tary to pre­pare for a retal­ia­to­ry strike against the Assad gov­ern­ment. Even a lim­it­ed assault would cost hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars, accord­ing to defense experts. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Moral Hazard of Government

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Sting wrote the stalker's anthem, "Every Breath You Take," a song that takes on new meaning in light of newest NSA revelations. [Credit: Davids Zondy]

Sting wrote the stalk­er’s anthem, “Every Breath You Take,” a song that takes on new mean­ing in light of newest NSA rev­e­la­tions. [Cred­it: Davids Zondy]

The intel­li­gence community’s gild­ed rep­u­ta­tion, already tar­nished by months of unau­tho­rized dis­clo­sures, was dragged into the realm of the creepy last Fri­day when an NSA offi­cial told a reporter about an agency employ­ee who had tapped secret gov­ern­ment data to spy on his ex-wife. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

NSA Surveillance: Insulting Our Intelligence?

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Michael Corleone warned his brother-in-law not to insult his intelligence. Does the government insult ours when it defends its snooping activities? [Credit: Rotten Tomatoes]

Michael Cor­leone warned his broth­er-in-law not to insult his intel­li­gence. Does the gov­ern­ment insult ours when it defends its snoop­ing activ­i­ties? [Cred­it: Rot­ten Tomatoes]

“Improp­er pay­ments” by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment totaled an esti­mat­ed $115.3 bil­lion in 2011, accord­ing to a report pre­pared by the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get (OMB), but the government’s own watch­dog agency doesn’t believe those esti­mates.  The Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­i­ty Office (GAO), which exam­ined the OMB analy­sis, thinks the num­ber of mis­spent fed­er­al dol­lars is much high­er. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Harry Reid and Government Power Creep

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Why is this man so sad? [Credit: themediahaven.com]

Why is this man so sad? The Sen­ate’s most pow­er­ful man yearns for more pow­er.  [Cred­it: themediahaven.com]

Nobody does sad­ness like Har­ry Reid (D‑NV). His deflat­ed body slumped over the podi­um atop his Sen­ate desk, head shak­ing slow­ly, his faint raspy voice a mix­ture of res­ig­na­tion and exas­per­a­tion, Reid spends much of his time as the Senate’s most pow­er­ful fig­ure bemoan­ing his lack of pow­er. Con­tin­ue read­ing →