In From the Cold

Memorial Day

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 25 May 2018 16:03:00 +0000

On this Memorial Day weekend, we offer a column first published more than a decade ago. As we remember:

Slowly and sadly, Memorial Day is becoming just "another" holiday, better known for cookouts and retail deals than its intended purpose--honoring our fallen military heroes. If you doubt this trend, watch TV for a few minutes this weekend. There are plenty of ads for cars, furniture and clothes, (but unless you're watching Fox News), little is little mention of why Monday is a solemn, special day.

But for anyone who ever wore the nation's uniform--or those who understand the high price of freedom--Memorial Day will never lose its meaning. For us, the last Monday in May brings memories of friends and family members who gave their lives on the battlefield, or died in service-related mishaps. This may sound quaint, but their sacrifice (and the day that honors it) should not be a pretext for a mattress sale.

That's one reason I stay away from the malls and the beach on Memorial Day. Instead, my thoughts usually focus on three individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice and touched my own life in the process. For me, Memorial Day is about Walter, Ken and Mike.

I never knew my Uncle Walter. He was my mother's kid brother, a child of the Great Depression who grew up poor in a small Mississippi town. After graduating from high school in 1942, he followed the path taken by many young men: he joined the Marine Corps. Two years later, he was a trained rifleman, part of the 1st Marine Division that had been assigned to the invasion of Peleliu, in the southwestern Pacific.

Seven decades later, the battle remains steeped in controversy. Historians and military analysts argue that the invasion was unnecessary. But General Douglas MacArthur argued that he needed the island to support the planned re-taking of the Philippines. MacArthur's plans were eventually approved by FDR and the attack on Peleliu began on September 15, 1944.

What followed was--arguably--one of the toughest battles fought by U.S. forces in World War II, complicated by countless blunders and miscalculations. General William Rupertus, commander of the 1st Marine Division, confidently predicted that his crack unit would wrap up the battle in just three days. Rupertus didn't know that his division was out-numbered by Japanese defenders (dug into a honeycomb of defensive positions), or that the preliminary naval bombardment inflicted virtually no damage on the enemy.

General Rupertus was also unaware that the Japanese had changed their tactics, shifting most of their fortifications away from the invasion beaches. As the Marines moved inland, they ran into an almost impenetrable wall of pillboxes, machine-gun nests and carefully-concealed artillery positions. The invasion quickly bogged down--it would take U.S. forces more than two months to secure the island--and the Marines paid dearly for their commanders' mistakes.

One of them was my Uncle Walter. He died on the second day of the battle, as his regiment advanced under withering fire. A fellow Marine later told my mother that Walter was literally vaporized by a Japanese artillery shell. To this day, my uncle is classified as Missing in Action; graves registration teams couldn't find enough remains to confirm his death in battle.

I met Ken during my own military career, some forty years later. He was an F-4 driver in the same unit where I served as the intelligence officer. In some respects, he was a typical fighter jock; supremely confident and highly skilled. But he was also a genuinely nice guy, one of the most popular members of our squadron. Though only a Captain, he was widely regarded as one of the best pilots in our wing. His future seemed limitless.

But like my uncle, Ken's future also went unrealized. We lost him on a "routine" training mission, though that adjective is often misused. Little is routine about taking high-performance combat jets on simulated combat missions. En route to a bombing range in northeastern Georgia, four of our F-4s descended for the low-level portion of their flight, practicing skills they would use to evade Soviet air defenses in central Europe. It was something our crews did on a daily basis.

Ken's Phantom was the last in a four-ship formation. As they flew over a river, a flock of birds suddenly lifted out of the tree line, directly into the path of the F-4. Multiple bird strikes took out both engines, fatally crippling the aircraft. Ken did everything right; he pulled back on the control stick to gain altitude, called "Mayday" over the radio, and started the ejection sequence for himself and his weapons system officer (WSO).

The back seater escaped unharmed, but something went wrong when Ken's ejection seat deployed . Parachute Lines became wrapped around his upper body and snapped Ken's neck as the chute deployed. Searchers found the faulty chute and his body about 24 hours later, hanging from a tree near the crash site. The following week we gathered in the base chapel to remember our departed comrade. I had the honor of reading "High Flight" at the end of the Memorial Service. Even today, I cannot read or recite the lines of John Gillespie Magee Jr.'s epic poem without thinking about Ken, another pilot who died too young, in the service of his country.

Sacrifice also defined the life of Mike, the third hero who occupies my thoughts on Memorial Day. He originally hoped to become an Air Force officer through the ROTC program where I was an instructor, but struggled academically. When it became apparent that Mike would not meet the required time line for graduation and commissioning, it became my job to release him. Having never been a scholarship student, Mike didn't owe the Air Force--or the country--anything. He had the option of simply fading back into the student population, earning a degree, and getting on with life.

But Mike--predictably--had other ideas. After learning that a commission was out of reach, He promptly asked about enlisting as an airman, and I put him in touch with a local recruiter. In hindsight, Mike's reaction was anything but surprising. He was always the first cadet to volunteer for a project and see it through. His determination was inspiring, and Mike earned the respect and admiration of his fellow cadets and the detachment staff.

A few months after Mike enlisted, I got a phone call from his recruiter. He reported that Mike hit another academic buzz saw in the airborne radio operator's course, and had dropped out of that program. I remember writing a letter of recommendation, urging the service to retain Mike, and assign him to a new career field. Happily, the Air Force concurred and sent Mike to an Army base in Virginia, where he was trained as a Black Hawk helicopter crew chief.

It soon became apparent that Mike had found his niche. He became an outstanding crew chief in a search-and-rescue squadron, maintaining HH-60 Pave Hawks helicopters. Mike's performance led to his selection as a flight engineer, part of a helicopter aircrew.

On March 23, 2003, Mike and the other members of his crew were deployed to Afghanistan. They received word that two young Afghan girls were in desperate need of medical evacuation and treatment at a U.S. hospital. The girls' village was located high in the mountains; the weather was already bad and deteriorating.

Despite those risks, Mike and his crew took off, in an HH-60 with the call-sign "Komodo 11." They were accompanied by a second rescue helicopter. En route to the distant village, Komodo 11 crashed, killing Mike and five other crew members. He was 29 years old,

You won't find the names of Mike, Ken and Walter on the list of America's revered military heroes. But they are heroes nonetheless, brave men whose selfless sacrifice embodies the best of our nation. On this (and every) Memorial Day, they deserve thanks, gratitude and remembrance from a nation whose freedom they helped secure.

They deserve nothing less. .

The Next Nuclear Incident?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 22:53:00 +0000

An Air Force WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft, like the one currently deployed to a U.S. base in Great Britian. The jet's arrival last Friday--coupled with a spike in Iodine 131 levels in Europe--has touched off speculation about a possible Russian nuclear test or reactor mishap (USAF photo)

***UPDATE/22 Feb/1130EST***

Various military tracking sites report the WC-135 departed RAF Mildenhall in the UK, on an apparent nuclear detection mission over the Barents Sea. The Constant Phoenix aircraft was accompanied by an RC-135 Rivet Joint SIGINT platform, which monitored Russian reaction and provided threat warning, as required. Aerial refueling support for the mission is being provided by 3 x KC-135 tankers.

***

President Tump's next National Security Adviser will have to hit the ground running. Along with the litany of issues already on the plate, the new NSA may also inherit a nuclear incident involving Russia.

And we're not referring to Vladimir Putin's on-going efforts to expand his nation's nuclear arsenal, including the recent cruise missile deployment that violated the INF treaty. According to various media outlets, Moscow deployed the SSC-8 missile system last December, during the waning days of the Obama Administration. While President Obama and his advisers were aware of the deployment, they did not respond, pushing that responsibility off on Mr. Trump and his fledgling national security team.

While the SSC-8 has the range to threaten European capitals and NATO bases from launch positions in Russia, it may not represent the most immediate nuclear issue. Over the past month, there have been indications that Moscow may conducted some sort of small-scale nuclear test, probably in the Arctic Region, or suffered a reactor mishap in the same area. A French nuclear safety institute recently released a summary of radioactive material detected across the continent:

Iodine-131 (131I), a radionuclide of anthropogenic origin, has recently been detected in tiny amounts in the ground-level atmosphere in Europe. The preliminary report states it was first found during week 2 of January 2017 in northern Norway. Iodine-131 was also detected in Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, France and Spain, until the end of January.

Iodine-131 is a radionuclide with a short half-life (T1/2 = 8.04 day). The detection of this radionuclide is proof of a rather recent release.

[snip]

It must be pointed out that only particulate iodine was reported. When detectable, gaseous iodine is usually dominant and can be estimated to be 3 to 5 times higher than the fraction of particulate iodine.

[snip]

The data has been shared between members of an informal European network called Ring of Five gathering organizations involved in the radiological surveillance of the atmosphere. In France, IRSN is responsible for monitoring the radioactivity of the atmosphere on a nation-wide scale. Its surveillance network OPERA-Air includes high-volume aerosol samplers (700 to 900 m3 of air per hour) and measurement equipment capable of detecting trace amounts of radioactivity.

No explanation has been given for the sudden detection of Iodine 131 across Europe. There has been no confirmation of a resumption of nuclear testing by Russia, or reports of a reactor incident in the Arctic region.

But the area was once a key component of Moscow's nuclear research and development effort. During the Soviet era, the Novaya Zemlya archipelago was the site of more than 200 nuclear weapons tests, both above and below ground. In 1961, the Soviets conducted the largest atmospheric nuclear blast in history, the Tsar Bomba test, with an estimated yield of more than 50 megatons. All told, the scores of nuclear blasts conducted at Novaya Zemlya had a collective yield of more than 265 megatons of TNT; for comparison, all detonations during World War II (including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) had a combined yield of only two megatons.

The last official nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya occurred almost 30 years ago, but sub-critical experiments, involving only a few grams of weapons-grade plutonium, have been conducted on a yearly basis since the late 1990s. Additionally, some analysts believe there may have been a larger test staged at the site in 1997, based on a small earthquake detected beneath the ocean. The event, which occurred in mid-August of that year, may have been triggered by a small nuclear test, measuring between 100 and 1,000 tons of TNT. Russia has long been interested in perfecting nuclear weapons with very small yields, perhaps for use in penetrating or silo-busting bombs and warheads.

There have also been rumors of renewed activity at Novaya Zemlya in recent months, ahead of the Iodine 131 release. But so far, no linkage has been established between the reported activity and detection of Iodine 131 at monitoring stations across Europe. The Russian Navy's Northern Fleet also maintains an extensive presence in the area, including nuclear-powered surface vessels and submarines stationed at bases on the Kola Peninsula. But there has been no confirmation of any recent mishaps involving those units.

Whatever the source, the spike in Iodine 131 has attracted the attention of the Department of Defense, which dispatched a WC-135 Constant Phoenix "sniffer" aircraft to the U.K. on Friday. Part of the 55th Wing at Offut AFB, Nebraska, Constant Phoenix is equipped to detect radioactive particulate and gases released after a nuclear explosion. There are only two WC-135s in the active inventory (and one of the aircraft is said to be in depot maintenance), making the deployment highly significant, particularly in light of on-going requirements to monitor nuclear activity in North Korea. On occasion, the WC-135 has stopped at RAF Mildenhall before heading to the Far East, but there has been no indication the Phoenix bird that arrived Friday has continued a deployment flight to Asia.

Assuming the operational focus is Russia, the WC-135 will conduct collection flights in the coming days--if they're not already underway. Data gathered by Constant Phoenix will help U.S. policy makers determine the source of the Iodine 131, and formulate a potential response. Particulate iodine would be more consistent with some sort of low-level nuclear detonation, while the gaseous variant is often associated with a reactor mishap. To date, levels of Iodine 131 detected in Europle have been well below those reported after the Chernobyl disaster in the 1980s, or the more recent Fukushima mishap in Japan.

If Russian has resumed low-level nuclear testing--and that's a very big "if" at this point--it will create another contentious issue between Moscow and Washington, landing squarely on the desk of the new NSA. Confirmation of testing, coupled with the afore-mentioned cruise missile deployment, would demand a response from the U.S., while many at the White House favor a more collegial approach. Threading that sort of needle will be Job #1 for Mike Flynn's replacement. To be sure, this incident began unfolding while Barack Obama was still in office, but to no one's surprise, he punted to the incoming administration.

Welcome to the West Wing.

***ADDENDUM***
Strategic Sentinel, which covers a variety of military and intelligence topics, reports the WC-135 has not flown since deploying to the U.K.

A Death in Malaysia

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 22:33:00 +0000

It sounds like something from a second-rate spy novel, or a B-grade gangster film. But it's not the stuff of fiction; it's the story of family rivalry, money, political assassination and North Korea. And it happened in Kuala Lumpur just hours ago.

Kim Jong-nam, half-brother to DPRK dictator Kim Jong-un, died at a hospital in the Malaysian capital, apparently after being poisoned by a pair of female North Korean operatives. More from Reuters:

Malaysian police official Fadzil Ahmat said the cause of Kim's death was not yet known, and that a post mortem would be carried out.

"So far there are no suspects, but we have started investigations and are looking at a few possibilities to get leads," Fadzil told Reuters.

According to Fadzil, Kim had been planning to travel to Macau on Monday when he fell ill at the low-cost terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

"The deceased ... felt like someone grabbed or held his face from behind," Fadzil said. "He felt dizzy, so he asked for help at the ... counter of KLIA."

Kim was taken to an airport clinic where he still felt unwell, and it was decided to take him to hospital. He died in the ambulance on the way to Putrajaya Hospital, Fadzil added.

South Korea's TV Chosun, a cable-TV network, reported that Kim had been poisoned with a needle by two women believed to be North Korean operatives who fled in a taxi and were at large, citing multiple South Korean government sources.

Claims that Kim Jong-nam was poisoned could not be verified by Reuters. A spokesman for the ROK foreign ministry declined comment on the matter and there was no immediate reaction from South Korean intelligence agencies.

But the "hit"--if it can be confirmed--would hardly be surprising. Since taking power after the death of his father in 2011, Kim Jong-un has ordered the execution of more than 40 high-ranking officials and family members, including his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who was appointed to guide him through the transition process. Some of the executions have been particularly brutal, even by Pyongyang's standards. Two officials were killed with anti-aircraft guns; another was murdered with a mortar.

Despite this bloody history, the assassination of Kim Jong-nam is puzzling. He was something of a black sheep in North Korea's ruling family. The son of one of Kim Jong-il's mistresses, Kim Jong-nam was only briefly viewed as a serious contender for power--and whatever chance he had vaporized in 2001, when he was detained in Japan, after trying to enter the country on a forged passport.

Instead, Kim Jong-nam spent much of his time outside the DPRK, traveling to countries like Malaysia, which allows North Koreans to enter without a visa. He also made periodic excursions to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau, home to some of the banks which handle the money of the DPRK's ruling elites. Kim Jong-nam was conspicuously absent from his father's funeral six years ago, and said publicly that he opposed "third generation succession," an obvious reference to his half-brother, the latest member of the Kim dynasty to lead North Korea's oppressive, communist government.

Still, Kim Jong-nam was more of an embarrassment or public relations problem than a threat to North Korean leadership. So, why go to the effort of dispatching an assassination team to Malaysia to bump off the 'ner-do-well half brother? Some analysts believe that Kim Jong-un and
"regime loyalists" had him marked for death long ago. But the real answer may lie in Kim Jong-nam's lifestyle, and how that presented a potential threat to the regime.

By North Korean standards, Kim Jong-un's half-brother lived a luxurious lifestyle, with the freedom to travel wherever he chose. And someone had to pick up the tab. That "someone" was the North Korean treasury, run by the current dictator. There are reports that Kim Jong-nam's "allowance" was terminated in 2012, for criticizing its succession policy. He was reportedly kicked out of a luxury hotel in Moscow (another favorite haunt) after running up a $15,000 bill he was unable to pay. Yet, he still lived a nomadic existence, and at least some of his travel and living expenses were still being paid.

Yet, it is also noteworthy that the hit occurred in the economy terminal of the Kuala Lumpur airport, suggesting that Kim Jong-nam wasn't enjoying the jet set style he once lived. And that raises an obvious question: if Kim Jong-il's older son was experiencing cash flow problems, was he exploring a potential solution to those ills, namely a defection? Traditionally, South Korea has payed handsomely for high-ranking political and military defectors from the North. Securing the defection of a member of the ruling family would be an enormous propaganda victory for Seoul--and provide ample reason for Kim Jong-un to dispatch his assassins.

And, for a man long out of favor in Pyongyang, Kim Jong-nam might have something else of value: details on the Kim family fortune and how North Korea's ruling establishment hides their wealth. Such information would be extremely helpful in future sanctions against the DPRK; if senior political officials and military officers couldn't access their money, it would weaken Kim Jong-un's hold on power. A recent diplomatic defector--the former number two diplomat at the North Korean embassy in London--told ROK debriefers that Kim Jong-un's grip is slipping, although there is little outward evidence to support that claim.

Was Kim Jong-nam about to flee to South Korea or the west? We may never know. Available evidence suggests that any contacts between Kim Jong-nam and foreign intelligence services was tentative--if they existed at all. He was apparently traveling alone, with no handlers or protection, allowing DPRK operatives to get close enough to administer a lethal dose of poison.

This much we know: Kim Jong-nam did enough to get himself killed, simply by being a perennial embarrassment to Pyongyang, or engaging in activities deemed far more dangerous by his younger brother. And, an accurate accounting of those "activities"--if it ever comes--may provide a much better picture of North Korea's newest tyrant and what's really going on inside the hermit kingdom.
***ADDENDUM**

Updated media coverage has offered a few more details, but those "revelations" must be taken with a large grain of salt. Outlets in South Korea suggest that Kim Jong-un signed off on his half-brother's assassination back in 2011, shortly after taking power. That raises obvious questions as to why the hit took so long. True, Kim Jong-nam traveled a lot, but his whereabouts weren't exactly a state secret. If nothing else, North Korean operatives only had to trail Japanese journalists to find Kim Jong-nam; reporters from various publications in Japan had no trouble locating Kim Jong-il's oldest son, yet the assassination didn't occur until this week.

Other reporting suggests that DPRK operatives "approached" Kim Jong-nam a few days before the hit and invited him to return to Pyongyang, an invitation he declined. Given the number of high-ranking officials executed in recent years, Kim Jong-nam decided to take his chances outside North Korea. His refusal set in motion the long-ordered assassination plot.

One final note: in an interview with a Japanese reporter, Kim Jong-nam said he made his living from "investments." That would affirm that he had access to at least a portion of the Kim family fortune, and had details on how much money there is, where it's invested and how it's spent. That's the kind of information that Kim Jong-nam might have offered to ROK intelligence or a western service, in exchange for asylum, protection and a sizable financial bounty. Obviously, there's no evidence of such contacts (at least not publicly), but something happened in recent weeks that made Kim Jong-nam's elimination a priority. We still believe the answer lies in his financial dealings and the billions plundered by the Kim family.

The Week's Most Under-Reported Story

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 16:36:00 +0000

Amid the hoopla over the Patriots epic Super Bowl comeback and the on-going legal battle over President Trump's executive order on immigration, there was a third story over the weekend, one that deserves much more attention than it's getting.

So far, coverage of this developing scandal appears has belonged largely to the Daily Caller, where investigative reporter Luke Rosiak provided a major update on Saturday. He learned that three Capitol Hill IT staffers--all brothers--have been "relieved from their duties" for allegedly accessing Congressional computer networks without authorization. Previous accounts suggested the three were under investigation only for stealing computer equipment from the various Congressmen who employed them.

Three brothers who managed office information technology for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other lawmakers were abruptly relieved of their duties on suspicion that they accessed congressional computers without permission.

Brothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives Thursday, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.

Three members of the intelligence panel and five members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs were among the dozens of members who employed the suspects on a shared basis. The two committees deal with many of the nation’s most sensitive issues and documents, including those related to the war on terrorism.

Also among those whose computer systems may have been compromised is Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Florida Democrat who was previously the target of a disastrous email hack when she served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 campaign

The brothers are suspected of serious violations, including accessing members’ computer networks without their knowledge and stealing equipment from Congress.

All there were "shared staffers," working for multiple Congressional offices which contributed towards their salary and benefits packages. Along with Wasserman-Schulz, Imran Awan also worked for two members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Democratic Representatives Andre Carson of Indiana and Jackie Speier of California.

Jamal Awan handled IT functions for Texas Democrat Jaoquin Castro, who serves on both the intelligence and the House Foreign Affairs committees. He also worked for Louisiana Democrat Cedric Richmond, a member of the Homeland Security Committee. Abid Awan was an IT specialist for Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who was elected to the Senate in November. He performed similar duties for Florida Congresswoman Lois Frankel, who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

The Daily Caller account differs significantly from a brief item in Politico, which appeared on Thursday. That initial report emphasized the theft element of the allegations, mentioning the illegal access of Congressional systems only in passing. As Mr. Rosiak's report indicates, that latter charge could be far more serious, given the classified material that some of the representatives have access to.

And for that matter, federal officials still haven't revealed which systems were breached. Members of the intelligence committee, for example, are cleared for information to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI) level and various special access programs (SAP), which include the crown jewels of American intelligence. Members of the foreign affairs panel are also typically cleared to the TS/SCI level.

That means the Congressmen (and women) who employed the Awan brothers had access to at least three computer networks; the Congressional version of NIPRNET, used for routine, unclassified information; SIPRNET (which handles information up to the Secret level), and JWICS, which is cleared for material at the TS/SCI level.

At this point, we don't know if the three men held security clearances, or the current status of their access to classified information. Media coverage suggests the brothers were among five Hill staffers under investigation since last year; in many cases, the opening of a criminal inquiry is sufficient grounds to suspend a clearance, and with it, access to information stored and transmitted on SIPRNET and JWICS.

As with any other governmental organization, classified material may be accessed or reviewed at only designated places on Capitol Hill. But if the Awan brothers had security clearances--and the ability to access SIPRNET or JWICS accounts assigned to members of Congress--they could review or even copy extraordinarily sensitive information, material that (if revealed or passed to a hostile power), could cause extremely grave damage to national security.

At this point, it must be cautioned that the clearance status of the three men has not been revealed. But, given the committee assignments of the Congressmen they worked for, it would be unusual for the brothers not to have a security clearance (emphasis ours). And, if the brothers had active clearances, they would have access to areas where Congressmen and their staffers review classified material, including Sensitive Compartmentalized Intelligence Facilities (SCIFs) where TS/SCI information is retained. With the user IDs and passwords of Congressional representatives and/or staff members, they could access and even download reams of classified material.

Again, no federal official has stated publicly that the Awan brothers used this technique. But it's a convenient and effective means of gaining access to the nation's secrets. According to The New York Times, investigators looking into the activities of NSA traitor Edward Snowden determined that the system administrator likely used the passwords of colleagues or supervisors to access classified information, and to partly cover his tracks. Snowden also used "web crawler" software to "scrape" information out of NSA archives, following links in classified documents, and copying everything in its path. The insider attack was relatively simple, but devastatingly effective, allowing Snowden to gather vast amounts of intel secrets, which he later shared with Wikileaks and Russian intelligence services.

So far, there is no confirmation that the Capitol Hill IT staffers engaged in similar activities. But with the right clearance, need-to-know and access to the login info for superiors and colleagues, they were in a position to access highly classified information.

Unfortunately, there are a number of unanswered questions about this incident, and it's unclear if more information will be forthcoming. A number of issues related to this investigation strike us as curious, to say the least. Among them:

1) Where is the FBI? Obviously, Congress operates by its own rules, but the unauthorized access of government computer systems is a federal crime, and falls under the bureau's purview. But limited press coverage suggests the investigation is being run by the Capitol Hill police. Perhaps Mr. Rosiak can do a little additional digging and determine what role--if any--if being performed by the bureau.

2) Exactly what systems were accessed? The Daily Caller specifically refers to IT systems, in the plural, based on information provided by the Capitol police and the House Sergeant-at-Arms. In this case does "systems" refer to computers in each members' office (which are linked to the wider, unclassified network), or unclassified and classified systems?

3) How did the Awan brothers gain employment on Capitol Hill? The youngest, Jamal, is only 22 years old and began working in the House when he was only 20. What particular IT skills did the men offer that landed them high-paying jobs working for members of Congress? Records show each of the men had annual salaries of $160,000 each, roughly three times the average IT salary on the Hill.

4) Why did House security managers ignore warning signs about Abid Awan? His car was re-possessed in 2009 and he declared bankruptcy in 2012, facing multiple lawsuits. Recurring financial problems are among the most common reasons for suspending (or terminating) a security clearance, but there are no indications that Mr. Awan lost his clearance--assuming her had one--or access to Congressional IT systems until the investigation began last year.

5) Finally, what is the role of Hina Alvi in all of this? Ms. Alvi is a female House IT staffer who works for many of the representatives that employed that Awan brothers, along with the House Democratic Caucus. She is also their landlord, listed as owner of the Lorton, Virginia home where them men have lived in recent years. Public records indicate there are multiple mortgages on the property. She is also the wife of Imran Awan.

Currently, the Capitol Hill IT scandal is barely a blip on the D.C. radar scope. But don't be surprised if it metastasizes into something far beyond a "procurement" matter.

***ADDENDUM***

PJ Media reports that some of the IT staffers under investigation are still working. The reason? As "shared employees," they must be terminated by all members of the House who employ them. Imran Awan and Alvi remained employed by at least one Congressman as of Monday evening, though their access to House IT systems has been blocked.

And We're Back....

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 14:05:00 +0000

...despite popular demand, after a two-month sabbatical. We'll try to be more diligent in posting, while offering other opinions at the rate of 140 characters per message.

Don't say you weren't warned.

Final Justice for Major Anderson

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 14:49:00 +0000

USAF Major Rudolf Anderson, who died when his U-2 was shot down over Cuba on 27 October 1962. The event pushed the U.S. and the Soviet Union closer to nuclear war; intelligence information discovered later suggests that Fidel Castro may have played a key role in the incident (USAF photo via Wikipedia)

Various pundits and politicians--as they often do--made fools of themselves over the weekend, offering effusive praise for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who finally assumed room temperature at the age of 90.

El Commandante was a hero to leftists around the world, who conveniently ignored his real record as a brutal despot who killed thousands in his gulag, and thousands more through the deprivations that come with a failed, socialist economic system. Castro was hailed for Cuba's "advances" in education and health care, but such claims masked the reality of everyday life in Fidel's Workers Paradise. The Cuban leader gave everyone a taste of poverty, with little access to basic consumer goods and services that were readily available in other Latin American countries. No wonder that so many took to the seas in rickety boats, trying to escape Castro's living hell. We may never know how many drowned attempting to cross the Florida Strait, or disappeared in the regime's prisons after being recaptured by the Cuban coast guard.

Of all the tributes to Castro, none was more pathetic than the eulogy offered by Justin Trudeau, Canada's liberal prime minister. In a statement released shortly after the dictator's death, Mr. Trudeau noted that the Cuban dictator was a "controversial" figure, but praised his "tremendous dedication and love for his people." That was too much for Senator Ted Cruz of Texas; the son of a Cuban immigrant who was forced to flee the island because of Castro's tyranny. As Mr. Cruz tweeted:

Disgraceful. Why do young socialists idolize totalitarian tyrants? Castro, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot -- all evil, torturing murderers. #truth https://t.co/mYJonVK7JB
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 26, 2016

Unfortunately, President Obama's comments on Castro's passing weren't much better. In an official statement, Mr. Obama whitewashed the dictator's decades of killing and enslaving the Cuban people, unwilling to say anything that might jeopardize the recent "normalization" of relations between Havana and Washington.

There were celebrations in Miami (and elsewhere) when Castro's death was announced, and rightfully so. Virtually everyone in the Cuban exile community--or a member of their family--experienced Fidel's terror first-hand. For them, his appointment with the Grim Reaper was long overdue, and they can take some solace in the thought that Castro is receiving his eternal punishment.

The same holds true for the friends and family of U.S. military members who perished as a result of Castro's actions. That list includes eleven airmen who were crew members on RB-47 reconnaissance aircraft that went down during and after the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. The same holds true for members of the Alabama Air National Guard who were shot down during the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. On temporary assignment to the CIA, they flew B-26s that provided air support for Cuban exiles trying to establish a beachhead and begin the liberation of their country. The Alabamians died while President Kennedy refused to commit a much larger American force to the fight. Their sacrifice wasn't acknowledged by the CIA until almost 20 years later, and the agency refused to comment publicly on their mission until the late 1990s.

Castro's passing may also offer some closure for the family of USAF Major Rudolf Anderson, who found himself literally in the cross-hairs of the missile crisis, and became the only American to die in action over Cuba. A graduate of the Air Force ROTC program at Clemson University, Anderson earned his pilot wings and flew F-86s during the Korean War. Five years later, he was selected for the U-2 program and quickly established himself as one of the best at piloting that difficult and unforgiving aircraft.

When the missile crisis began, Anderson was part of the 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, based at Laughlin AFB, Texas. With more than 1,000 hours in the "Dragon Lady," it was a given that Anderson would be among the pilots flying the daily, high-altitude missions over Cuba. Launching from their base in west Texas, the U-2s would head east across the Gulf of Mexico. Over Cuba, the U-2 pilots would typically fly a long, looping track over suspected missile sites and other facilities before heading north and recovering at McCoy AFB, near Orlando, Florida. Missions staged from McCoy followed a similar path, with the pilot flying on to Laughlin after photographing targets in Cuba.

The U-2 missions began in early October and by the mid-month, photographs collected by the U-2 confirmed what the CIA had suspected. Russia had placed nuclear-capable, intermediate range missiles in Cuba, placing much of the CONUS under the threat of nuclear attack. As tensions mounted and the U.S. implemented a naval blockade, the U-2 flights continued, providing valuable intelligence for President Kennedy and his military advisers.

But there were growing concerns about the potential vulnerability of the U-2s and their pilots. Along with the nuclear delivery systems, the Russians had also deployed SA-2 surface-to-air missiles. Two years earlier, an SA-2 downed a CIA U-2 over the Soviet Union, leading to the capture of pilot Francis Gary Powers and an embarrassing international incident. As the crisis wore on, there was mounting fear that a Cuba-based SA-2 would again engage a U-2. At altitude, there was little a pilot could do, except fly an S-shaped maneuver, designed to increase the "miss" distance between his aircraft and the early-generation SAM.

Anderson was on the flying schedule for 27 October, one of four U-2 flights scheduled for that day. Electronic intelligence (ELINT) information confirmed a growing threat to American recce aircraft and three of the U-2 missions scrubbed. But senior officers at Strategic Air Command (which controlled Air Force U-2 assets) decided to go ahead with Anderson's sortie. He launched from McCoy, following a mission profile that would carry him over key locations in eastern Cuba, then on to Laughlin.

In the early 1960s, most military pilots had nothing more than their eyeballs to detect enemy missile launches. The CIA had developed and installed an early radar warning receiver (RWR) in the cockpit of their U-2s. When a tracking radar (like the one associated with the SA-2) was detected, a yellow light illuminated on the device. A missile launch was indicated by a bright red light.

American ELINT assets detected a spike in SA-2 radar activity from eastern Cuba, including the site near Banes. But the RB-47s and other platforms monitoring the signals had no way of providing warning to the U-2 pilots. Given the escalating SAM threat, the Air Force "borrowed" RWR-equipped U-2s from the CIA, and it is believed Anderson was piloting one of those aircraft on the 27th.

Unfortunately, the spooks were missing key pieces of the puzzle--information that would have likely prompted cancellation of Anderson's mission. The night before his flight, Fidel Castro visited Russian air defense headquarters in Cuba and urged commanders to put the network on combat status. Russian officers, increasingly worried about a potential U.S. attack, needed little encouragement. That's why American ELINT operators noted an increase in "Spoon Rest" and "Fruit Set" radars at SA-2 sites, as Anderson passed overhead.

But Castro's involvement in the U-2 incident may have gone beyond that meeting with Russian air defense commanders. In 1964, almost two years after the missile crisis, cryptologists at NSA broke a Soviet military cipher and began working their way through old message traffic, hoping to glean additional insights about Russian operations. A number of messages originated with Soviet forces in Cuba, during the nuclear face-off with the United States.

Some of that traffic provided new--and startling--insights about the status of Soviet air defenses in Cuba. Several messages alluded to a firefight at the SA-2 site at Los Angeles, near the Cuban naval base at Banes. Russian commanders at the scene reported the SAM complex had come under fierce attack and their troops responded. The attackers were never identified, but with no reports of internecine combat among Soviet troops on the island, the assault was almost certainly carried out by Cubans, presumably under the orders of Fidel Castro.

Other reports suggest that Cuba gained joint control of the SAM sites about the same time, a significant change from established Russian operating procedures. Was the sudden change a product of Fidel's visit to Soviet commanders and the apparent attack on the Banes SA-2 complex? The answer to that question remains unclear, as does the issue of who was in control when the site launched a pair of missiles against Anderson's U-2. At least one exploded near the aircraft; shrapnel punctured the pilot's pressurized flight suit; the rapid decompression killed him in a matter of seconds. Wreckage of the spy plane landed near the SAM complex; some of it remains on display to this day at military museums in Cuba. Major Anderson's body was returned to the U.S. a few weeks later, after the crisis ended. He is buried in his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, where an F-86 on static display serves as a monument to Anderson's life and sacrifice.

The issue of who was in charge at Banes on that fateful day is critical. Word of the shoot down quickly made its way to the White House, where JFK and his advisers assumed the Russians made the decision on their own, dramatically escalating the crisis. And to be fair, the order to fire was made by Moscow's senior air defense officer on the island. But if his decision was influenced by Castro's lobbying--or a Cuban assault on the Banes complex--it puts his directive in a completely different context. Subsequent interviews with Cuban and Russian participants have provided confirmation--and denials--of the attack on Banes, and the role of Fidel Castro. It remains one of the unanswered questions regarding the darkest moment of the missile crisis.

Despite the loss of the U-2 and Major Anderson, the U.S. never lost interest in aerial reconnaissance over Cuba, and tweaking Fidel whenever the opportunity arose. In the 1980s, as a junior intelligence officer, I met an F-4 squadron commander with a background in the SR-71. On one occasion, he amazed us with 8mm "home movies," shot from the cockpit of the Blackbird (amazing).

And, he would gladly tell the story behind another of his prized possessions. It was a photograph of Castro, greeting Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev as he stepped off the plane in Havana. Both men are shaking hands, but they are looking straight up. Their skyward gaze was caused by our squadron commander, who was at the controls of an SR-71 over Cuba that day. Brezhnev's arrival ceremony was interrupted by the distinctive double sonic boom of the Blackbird, leaving Fidel to explain why the Yanqui air pirates were operating with impunity in his airspace.

In some respects, those flights--which went on for years--provided a measure of justice for Major Anderson and the other U-2 pilots who risked their lives over the island during the missile crisis. Our departure from Cuban skies was only temporary. When we returned, it was with a vengence, and there was nothing El Commandante could do about it.

Prepare to Board!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 22:08:00 +0000

J.M.W Turner's famous painting of the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). The Royal Navy's pending loss of anti-ship missiles on surface combatants will force a return to closer-range engagements, with potentially deadly consequences (Wikipedia image)

Just another, sad, reminder that Britannia no longer rules the waves.

The Royal Navy--which set the sea power standard for centuries--has announced plans that will further reduce its combat power and leave its ships vulnerable in potential engagements with Russian, Chinese and even Iranian vessels.

From the UK Telegraph:

Royal Navy warships will be left without anti-ship missiles and be forced to rely on naval guns because of cost-cutting, the Ministry of Defence has admitted.

The Navy’s Harpoon missiles will retire from the fleet’s frigates and destroyers in 2018 without a replacement, while there will also be a two year gap without helicopter-launched anti-shipping missiles.

[snip]

Harpoon missiles are unlikely to be replaced for up to a decade, naval sources said, leaving warships armed only with their 4.5in Mk 8 guns for anti-ship warfare. Helicopter-launched Sea Skua missiles are also going out of service next year and the replacement Sea Venom missile to be carried by Wildcat helicopters will not arrive until late 2020.

Without the Harpoon, the strike range of Royal Navy frigates and destroyers will be effectively reduced by 75%. The U.S.-built Harpoon, introduced more than 30 years ago, can hit surface targets up to 80 miles away. Without that capability, RN combatants will be forced to rely on their deck guns, which have a maximum range of 17 miles.

Needless to say, senior British naval officials, past and present, are more than a bit concerned:

Rear-Adml Chris Parry, said: "It's a significant capability gap and the Government is being irresponsible. It just shows that our warships are for the shop window and not for fighting."

Lord West of Spithead, a former First Sea Lord, said: “This is just another example of where the lack of money is squeezing and making the nation less safe.

“We will have this gap of several years without missiles. Well, that’s fine if you don’t have to fight anybody in the meantime.”

The problem, of course, is that we're entering an era when global sea lanes are becoming a contested environment. Russia is rebuilding its fleet from the ruin of the early 90s and recently deployed a carrier battle group to the eastern Mediterranean, to support operations in Syria. China is building its own blue-water navy, and will have 4-5 carrier battle groups (with commensurate power-projection capabilities) within the next 10 years. Even regional powers like Iran and North Korea have sea and shore-based anti-ship missiles that can out-range the deck guns of Royal Navy surface vessels.

To be fair, the Royal Navy still has strike options beyond a 4.5-inch naval round. British attack subs, like their USN counterparts, are equipped with Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM), with a maximum range of up to 1,500 miles, depending on the variant. But the TLAM is most effective against fixed targets, not maneuvering ships, and U.S. plans to halt its production will limit availability for the RN in the future.

Another strike option is based on Great Britain's two, new fleet carriers, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and the HMS Prince of Wales. The largest warships ever built in the UK, the carriers will embark an air wing that includes F-35 Lightning IIs and helicopters capable of attacking surface targets. But the weapons employed on those fixed and rotary-wing assets are range-limited, and the aircraft would have to run the gauntlet of advance air defenses (on Russian and Chinese ships) to deliver their ordnance. And there are a number of operations where Royal Navy destroyers and frigates will not be operating with a carrier.

What to do in the decade between retirement of the Harpoon and the arrival of replacement weapons? The Brits can increase joint ops with the U.S. Navy, which will retain an anti-ship missile capability for the foreseeable future. But even the USN's position is far from optimum; the Harpoon variants in widest service are older models and vulnerable to anti-missile defenses. Work on a replacement (the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM) is in development, and won't reach the fleet for years.

Making matters worse, the range of naval strike aircraft is also dropping, thanks to limitations of the F/A-18 airframe and dwindling tanking capabilities within the fleet, so USN Super Hornets and the F-35 will have to run the same air defense gauntlet to get a crack at the surface combatants of peer/near-peer competitors. Meanwhile, both Russia and China have fielded advanced, supersonic anti-ship missiles (most notably, the SS-N-22 Sunburn) and Beijing has invested heavily in the DF-21, a ballistic system widely touted as a "carrier killer." Collectively, these systems could create operational "no go" zones for U.S. and allied naval groups, impacting our ability to control global sea lanes.

That's not to say that deck guns are completely worthless. They're still quite useful in supporting troops ashore--as long as you can dodge anti-ship missiles launched from coastal batteries. But even "revolutionary" gun technology has its limitations. Case in point? The Long-Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP), developed for the 155mm main gun on the USN's Zumwalt-class destroyers. While LRLAP is extremely accurate, it's also very pricey at roughly $1 million a round.

The projectiles are so expensive, in fact, that the Navy has cancelled the planned buy of 2,000 rounds, to be divided among the three Zumwalts that will be built. A small number will be produced for testing, but the idea of using the weapon to support Marines ashore seems like a pipe dream. Needless to say, the Royal Navy won't be looking at its own version of LRLAP to compensate for Harpoon's retirement.

In the interim, the RN may have to dust off employment manuals from the eras of Lord Nelson and Admiral Jellicoe. As we noted on Twitter (@NateHale), Royal Navy surface engagement tactics from 2018 on may look something like this:

1. Form battle line.

2. Engage with main guns

3. Lure enemy into CIWS range

4. Distribute cutlasses, small arms and prepare to board!

And the USN doesn't have much room to brag. As our favorite naval blogger, Cdr Salamander, recently observed, the number of Burke-class DDGs that can no longer fire a Harpoon is both surprising and alarming.

Winners and Losers (Election Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 22:02:00 +0000

The earth is spinning backwards on its axis. Aliens have landed. Donald Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States.

Until about 3 am Wednesday morning, most of the media nobility and political elites would have given you better odds on the first two scenarios. Mr. Trump, the real estate billionaire and reality TV host was someone who could never be allowed to occupy the Oval Office--especially if it denied the presidency to Hillary Clinton, acclaimed by the same elites to be the "best-qualified candidate of all time." Never mind that she is (arguably) the most corrupt individual ever to seek the nation's highest office, someone who has clearly committed serious crimes that would send an ordinary person to prison for decades.

Trump was also a flawed candidate, described at various turns as a misogynist, bigot, charlatan, liar and worse--an orange-haired carnival barker with no relevant who experience who offered a "dark vision" (to use a favored Democrat talking point) and appealed to our worst fears.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Mrs. Clinton's appointment with inevitability. Despite having huge advantages in organization, fund-raising and decades on the political stage, she was a terrible candidate. Clinton couldn't run on her record as a senator (she accomplished nothing) or secretary of state, where, in league with President Obama, she literally set the world aflame. And if that wasn't enough, she promised more of his policies; fixing Obama care, another bloated stimulus, higher taxes and more government regulation. Her legal and ethical issues were just rancid icing on a rotten cake.

That's why Trump is making plans for his inauguration while Clinton gave a concession speech that supposedly outlined a "way forward." You read that right. Is that a hint at another run in 2020? One shudders at the prospect of another Hillary campaign, but with the Clintons, you can never rule anything out. Our guess is that Mrs. Clinton and her husband may have some legal matters to work out between now and then, thanks to that little pay-for-play scheme they perfected during her tenure at State. A new FBI Director and a de-politicized DOJ may have something to say about that.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's still the post-election autopsy, complete with our list of those who succeeded beyond expectations and those who failed ignominiously.

WINNERS

Donald J. Trump. That may seem like a no-brainer, but the president-elect's road to the White House was anything but conventional--or easy. Despite his vast wealth, Trump was dismissed as a side-show candidate when he entered the race in 2015. The "experts" predicted he would fade quickly against the likes of political pros like Jeb (!) Bush. But Trump knows a little bit about staging, marketing and image-making, thanks to those years on The Apprentice and his successful real estate career. But more importantly, he championed the issues that resonated with ordinary Americans--illegal immigration; stagnant wages, the failure of Obamacare, the mass-exporting of U.S. jobs to locations overseas. At times, his effort looked like a dumpster fire (Trump went through three campaign managers) and could be his own worst enemy on the stump. But in the words of one pundit (more on them in a bit), Trump was the candidate who never quit; he hammered his opponent relentlessly and touted his vision relentlessly. It paid off last night, in spades. He not only won the presidency, he reshaped the Republican electoral map and re-ordered the adopted party. Quite a feat for someone who had never run for elected office.

Kellyanne Conway. Ms. Conway has been a fixture in Republican campaigns--and on the talking-head circuit--for years. When she was elevated to the post of campaign manager in early summer, she became the third person to hold that title in less than a year. While acknowledging her competence, most of the experts doubted that Conway and campaign chairman Steve Bannon could keep Trump on track. There were inevitable problems--and gaffes. Trump wasted time in dust-ups that could have been better spent touting his message. But Conway brought a discipline to the campaign that Trump previously lacked; stream-of-consciousness speeches were replaced with teleprompter addresses that helped eliminate unforced verbal errors. Ms. Conway is also one of the architects of Trump's "rust-belt strategy" that led him to narrow victories in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and (likely) Michigan that shattered the so-called "blue wall" and gave Trump his electoral win. Regardless of what happens in the White House, Conway's campaign management was a marvel. Honorable mentions to staffers like Jason Miller and Jessica Ditto, who played leading roles in Matt Bevin's election as Kentucky governor one year ago. The parallels between Bevin's triumph and Trumph's winning campaign are strikingly similar.

The Forgotten Man (and Woman). Many of the voters targeted by Team Trump were outside the demography of post-modern political coalitions. Mr. Trump aimed his appeal at individuals who had been cast aside in the rush towards a globalist, post-modern world, including thousands of factory workers who have watched their jobs move overseas since the 1980s. Or those still at work who haven't had an actual pay raise in 20 years; endured the erosion of their savings during last decade's financial collapse of 2008-2009, and now face skyrocketing healthcare costs under Obamacare. The forgotten men and women of America cast their lot with Trump and paid a price for their support. As Michael Goodwin wrote in the New York Post:

"...Trump’s voters often took great risks and were routinely insulted and demeaned for their passion.
But they wore those insults as badges of honor, proudly calling themselves the “deplorables” and the “irredeemables.”

The factory workers, the veterans, the cops, the kitchen help, people who plow the fields, make the trains run, pick up the trash and keep the country together and keep it moving — they are all now winners. As one, these cogs of our daily life rose up in a peaceful revolution, their only weapons the ballot box and their faith in the future.

Trump voters had the courage of their conviction to go against all their betters, all the poobahs and petty potentates of politics, industry and, above all, the fraudulent hucksters of the national liberal media."

And for once, their voice was heard.

Pat Caddell. While most members of the pollster and pundit class took a beating this cycle, Mr. Caddell was one of the exceptions. A veteran of presidential campaigns since the Jimmy Carter era, Caddell has been predicting a middle class uprising against the elites since at least 2012. In various appearances on talk radio and Fox News, Caddell noted the growing anger from working and middle class Americans over declining economic opportunities, including the loss of jobs, and perceptions that the system is "rigged" against them. Not sure if Donald Trump listened to Caddell or met with him at some point, but many of the arguments from the Democrat pollster made their way into this year's GOP platform, and netted millions of votes, particularly in the upper Mid-West.

The Homeless. This might seem like a strange choice until you remember that members of this group virtually disappear during a Democratic administration. That doesn't mean there are fewer homeless, it's simply that the media doesn't cover the story as often when a Democrat is in power. Beginning in January (if not sooner) any homeless person living Trump Tower stands a good chance of getting on the evening news, while the press speculates about the new president's sympathy for the downtrodden.

Roger Wicker. The Republican Senator from Mississippi had the herculean (some would say thankless) task of supporting re-election efforts for GOP incumbents in the upper chamber this year. Republicans had to defend 24 seats, and a number of those were considered vulnerable. Wicker and his team worked tirelessly to support GOP Senate candidates and their efforts were largely successful. Incumbents like Ron Johnson (Wisconsin); Roy Blunt (Missouri) and Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania) were considered all-but-dead just a few weeks ago. All won re-election. As of this writing, Republicans have lost only two Senate seats, Kelly Ayotte's in New Hampshire and Mark Kirk in Illinois. Senator Kirk was considered dead meat a year ago, and Ayotte lost by less than 1,00 votes. But along with the plaudits, Wicker also deserves some darts for missing opportunities. Darryl Glenn, the retired Air Force officer who took on Michael Bennett in Colorado, ran an underfunded campaign in a light-blue state and lost by only three points. Glenn didn't get a dime from the RSCC.

Trafalgar Research. The Atlanta-based polling firm was very accurate throughout the campaign and they did something no one else could--proved there was a reservoir of "hidden" Trump votes, which was completely missed by Trafalgar's competitors. Company CEO Robert Cahaly discovered a novel way to identify undetected or "under-developed" Trump voters. Realizing that many supporters didn't want to admit they were voting for the GOP nominee, Cahaly also quizzed voters on who their neighbors were voting for. When he found someone with two or more neighbors supporting Trump, he assessed the respondent was in the Trump camp as well. Mr. Cahaly estimates the hidden vote could have been worth up to three points for the Republican candidate and may have provided the margin of victory in the Rust Belt.

In fairness, we should also salute two surveys that also got it right, polls from the Los Angeles Times daily tracking and the Investors Business Daily. The LA Times used a different approach, surveying the same sample group throughout the campaign, and they showed a consistent Trump lead. IBD has had the most accurate poll for the last four election cycles. There are lessons to be learned from IBD's approach.

The Kremlin. It was obvious early on that V. Putin had a dog in this year's presidential fight, and his name was Donald Trump. The GOP nominee tirelessly advocated for closer relations with a Moscow regime that annexed Crimea; is actively supporting an insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and conducted an armed intervention in Syria, in support of the Assad regime (and did we mention that most of the Air Force bombing runs have been conducted against U.S.-backed rebels instead of ISIS). Better yet, a senior Putin aide admitted yesterday that Russian intelligence services "helped a bit" with the stream of Wikileaks revelations unleashed on Democrats over the past six months. It looks like Putin has his guy in the White House and the impact of U.S. national security policy could be dramatic.

Losers

Hillary Clinton. Difficult to underestimate the scope of Mrs. Clinton's defeat. As the Washington Post noted, the former senator and secretary of state looking like a "President-in-waiting" just two years ago, with vast advantages in fund-raising, party support and organization. Now, she's just another failed presidential candidate, with serious legal problems that will dog her in retirement. And she has no one but herself to blame. Following the time-honored Clinton tradition of flaunting rules, regulations and the law, Mrs. Clinton elected to create her own e-mail system, triggering the scandal that tainted her campaign, and amplified public perceptions that she is corrupt and untrustworthy. She offered little in the way of solutions for the nation's problems and by her campaign's own admission (via Wikileaks), Clinton was badly out of touch with middle class voters. People in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennnsylvania already knew that and cast their ballots accordingly.

The Clinton Foundation. For decades, the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative were hailed as models of modern philanthropy, delivering financial support and needed services to poor communities arond the world. But that was a scam, first exposed by author Peter Schweitzer (Clinton Cash) and later by Wikileaks revelations. Both unearthed a trail of coruption, with Bill and Hill gladly selling access to the U.S. government in exchange for multi-million dollar donations to their charities. Financial records suggest the organizations were little more than slush funds for the Clintons and their friends. The list of current/former employees reads like a list of former administration and campaign officials. Meanwhile, other documents suggest the Clinton charities delivered only 6% of their proceeds to designated programs and there are new revelations that Chelsea Clinton used the foundation to help pay for her lavish $3 million wedding and funded her living expenses for a decade. While the Clintons touted the FBI's decision not to recommend prosecution for her illegal e-mail activities, they are also aware the agency's probe into the foundation is continuing, and potential indictments/prosecution could shutter the foundation for good.

Obama's Legacy. Voters chose Trump to repudiate the Obama agenda. Eliminating Obamacare, enacting a pro-growth economic plan and restoring America's military strength will go a long way towards reversing the Obama legacy and (rightfully) relegating him to the dustbin of failed presidents.

Democratic Party. While Democrats basked in the glory of Obama--and awaited the "third term" with Hillary--something was happening to their party outside of D.C. Republicans have redoubled efforts to take over more governorships and state legislatures since 2008, and they've been hugely successful. As Obama and Hillary exit the stage, the GOP controlls 33 governorships and both houses of the legislature in more than 30 states. Not only does that provide a tremendous advantage in enacting low-tax, low-regulation, pro-growth legislative agendas that are popular with voters, it also gives the GOP a leg up on re-districting and provides a tremendous incubator for rising talent. Losses at the state level have dramatically thinned the Democratic bench. As of today, the leading Democratic contenders to take on Trump in 2020 are Hillary Clinton (who will be 73); retiring Vice President Joe Biden (who turn 77) and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who will be 79. The "kid" of the bunch is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who celebrates her 71st birthday in 2020. To be fair, Trump will be 74 at the time of a re-election bid, but he presents a far more vigorous image than his Democratic challengers. And beyond Trump, there is a wide and deep pool of experienced Republican governors and senators who have their own oval office ambitions and many are only in their 40s and 50s.

Media, Pollsters and the Pundit Class. This is the post-mortem equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel, but there isn't a more deserving group. Over the past 36 hours, members of the political press; the number crunchers that drive their coverage and "analysts" of all stripes have been forced to admit they got campaign 2016 completely wrong. We'll begin with polling that offered up a steady diet of surveys based on 2012 turnout models that assumed members of the Obama coalition would turn out in similar numbers for Hillary Clinton. Even a Poly Sci 101 students would have a hard time buying that argument, but flawed turnout predictors gave us polls that (at varying points) told us the election was in the bag for Clinton. The LA Times and IDB were viewed at outliers, and could not be trusted. Making matters worse, virtually all pollsters missed the "hidden" Trump vote that carried him to victory.

As for the media, their coverage was blatantly slanted, at least when it came to Trump and his supporters. Since Election Night, there have been a fair number of mea culpas from more honest members of the press, confessing they missed the year's biggest electoral trend--the disaffected, working class voter--and didn't do much to look for it. To be fair, there were exceptions; Salena Zito of the New York Post drove more than 70,000 miles across battleground states and spoke with hundreds of residents who were angry and fed up with politics as usual. Back in August, she offered growing evidence of a rising Trump tide in places that usually go Democrat:

"..In interview after interview in all corners of the state, I’ve found that Trump’s support across the ideological spectrum remains strong. Democrats, Republicans, independents, people who have not voted in presidential elections for years — they have not wavered in their support.

Two components of these voters’ answers and profiles remain consistent: They are middle-class and they do not live in a big city. They are suburban to rural and are not poor — an element I found fascinating, until a Gallup survey last week confirmed that what I’ve gathered in interviews is more than just freakishly anecdotal.

[snip]

The study backs up what many of my interviews across the state have found — that these people are more concerned about their children and grandchildren.

While Trump supporters here are overwhelmingly white, their support has little to do with race (yes, you’ll always find one or two who make race the issue), but has a lot to do with a perceived loss of power.

Not power in the way that Washington or Wall Street boardrooms view power, but power in the sense that these people see a diminishing respect for them and their ways of life, their work ethic, their tendency to not be mobile. (Many live in the same eight square miles that their father’s father’s father lived in.)

Thirty years ago, such people determined the country’s standards in entertainment, music, food, clothing, politics, personal values. Today, they are the people who are accused of creating every social injustice imaginable; when anything in society fails, they get blamed.

Ms. Zito will testify that evidence of these trends was abundant and readily observable. So, why did so much of the media miss it? For starters, there's the inconvenient fact that virtually all of the national media was in the tank for Hillary. Remember this little happy snap from inside her campaign plane a few weeks ago?

Take a look; you may see some familiar faces, including NBC's Andrea Mitchell on the right. Most of the reporters are wearing looks of absolute adulation, affirming that Secretary Clinton was, indeed, their candidate. There were also surveys indicating that 86% of donations from reporters (and other members of the media) went to Democrat. It's more difficult to provide fair and honest coverage when you're already invested in one particular party.

The other problem stems from the media "bubble" that envelops the press contingent on the campaign plane. Many grew up aspiring to be one of the boys or girls on the bus, and having achieved that goal, they don't want to give it up such a plum assignment. So, they travel with the candidate from one stop to another, fed a constant diet of leaks, press releases and statements from the campaign. They arrive at the event site, gather their information, then it's on to the next stop. There is often minimal contact with the ordinary folks who show up to the candidate, though many reporters expressed "concern" after some Trump supporters yelled crude comments at members of the press, accusing them of being unfair (among other things). There wasn't much effort--at least, until after the election--to find out why those average Americans were also mad at the media.

Our guess is the introspection won't last very long. The media elites who live and work in places like New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles really don't have much appetite for dealing with the common folk, who are contemptuously viewed as Bible-thumping, ignorant hayseeds or worse. Much better to retreat to the comfortable suburbs that surround their urban bubble and start focusing on what a hash Donald Trump will make of things, and tell voters their 2016 insurrection was a mistake. After all, the folks who anchor and appear on cable news shows or write for Politico are so much smarter than the rest of us, and those rubes in Jesusland will never learn.

Just one more sign of how divided this country is between the elites and everyone else. And why members of the chattering class may have been the biggest losers on Tuesday.

The Gathering Storm (Russia Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 15:11:00 +0000

This post is being written late Sunday afternoon, about three hours before the second presidential debate from Washington University in St. Louis. At this point, we (officially) don't know what questions will be posed to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump by moderators Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC, along with members of the studio audience. But you don't need to be a political pundit to discern that many of tonight's queries will focus on Mr. Trump and his contemptible remarks about women, made to Billy Bush (then a co-host of "Access Hollywood") almost 12 years ago.

Conversely, we'll be greatly surprised if Mr. Cooper, Ms. Raddatz and the audience questioners spend much time outside the realm of the salacious, and actually inquire about issues that actually matter to the nation's security. And we're not referring to the border, immigration or other issues that are clearly security-related, and have dominated much of the campaign season. Instead, it's time for a discussion on equally-pressing matters that are reaching the crisis level at hot spots around the globe.

The logical starting point is Russia. As John Schindler recently noted in the New York Observer, we are facing a likely nuclear standoff with Russia in the Baltics region, probably before President Obama leaves office. It's no secret that Vladimir Putin has no regard for the American leader, and he is determined to inflict another humiliation on Mr. Obama before he leaves office.

It’s long been obvious that Vladimir Putin and his inner circle view Barack Obama with utter contempt. To the hard men in Moscow, who got their schooling in the KGB, our diffident, wordy Ivy League lawyer president is a weakling—almost a caricature of everything they despise about the postmodern West.

Here the Kremlin mirrors most Russians, who find Obama a puzzling and contemptible man. This is nothing new. I’ve heard remarkable put-downs of our commander-in-chief for years, going back to 2008, even from the mouths of highly educated Russians. Their comments are invariably earthy, insulting, and nowhere near politically correct.

It’s therefore no surprise that Russians view Obama with contempt—and so does their leader. As our president winds up his second term and prepares to move out of the White House, the Kremlin simply isn’t bothering to hide that contempt any longer, even in high-level diplomacy, where a modicum of tact is expected.

Of course, Mr. Obama hasn't exactly helped his cause by ignoring Russian provocations and refusing to make tough choices--and stand behind them. That non-existent "red line" in Syria was followed by Putin making (and keeping) his own vow to support long-time ally Bashir Assad. Pentagon analysts claim Russia's military efforts in Syria have been far from a victory, but that misses the central point. Putin didn't go to war to defeat ISIS; his primary objective was to prevent Assad's military collapse and weaken the U.S.-backed rebel groups trying to depose his regime. By those metrics, the deployment has been successful.

The Russian President has derived additional benefits by showing off his modernized arsenal, and vowing to challenge the U.S. and NATO. In recent months, Moscow has deployed two advanced surface-to-air missile systems to Syria, to protect its forces and Assad's troops from western air attack. Shortly after the second system (the SA-23) arrived, a senior Russian military official vowed to attack U.S. aircraft over Syria, if they pose a military threat.

And, upping the ante even more, Putin is dispatching a carrier battle group to the eastern Mediterranean, extending his air defense network well beyond the Syrian coast, and posing a potential threat to U.S. naval forces in the region. Defense analysts have speculated that any American attack against Assad would likely be a cruise missile strike, mounted by ships and submarines assigned to the 6th Fleet.

Mr. Putin is also on the move in Europe. Elite airborne units--potentially useful in operations against Ukraine and the Baltics--have been training west of Moscow, near Russia's borders with Poland, Latvia and Estonia. In some instances, airborne elements have deployed out of garrison with a full complement of equipment, rehearsing mobility skills that would be useful during future operations. The most recent airborne drills come on the heels of a command post exercise involving many of the same units; it's a textbook example of the building-block approach favored by the Russian Army (and other military elements around the world). Start off with the command units, then broaden the exercise to include troops in the field.

But the airborne drills aren't the most disturbing aspect of Russia's on-going military activity. Concurrently, Moscow is holding a massive civil defense drill, involving more than 20,000 Radiological, Chemical and Biological defense troops and other first responders, along with upwards of 40 million civilians. The exercise scenario is reportedly based on a limited nuclear conflict between Russia and the west, a concept Russia has embraced in military doctrine developed over the last 20 years. With the loss of massive conventional forces that were disbanded with the fall of the USSR, Russian doctrine is now built around the potential first use of nuclear weapons, and employment of defensive measures to protect key military, economic and leadership assets.

While this doesn't mean a nuclear conflict is Miminent, there are other, troubling signs that should give everyone pause. In recent days, Moscow has deployed SS-26 Iskander ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that lies between Poland and Lithuania. The SS-26 has a maximum range of 435 NM; it is extremely accurate and (as you might have guessed) it can carry a nuclear warhead. From launch positions in Kaliningrad, the Iskander can strike targets throughout Poland and even reach Berlin--a fact that isn't lost on our increasingly nervous NATO allies.

This is not the first time the SS-26 has been dispatched to Kaliningrad, but given the current tensions, Putin is using the deployment to send a very clear signal. With Obama in the White House, he views NATO as rudderless and weak, and Putin ratchet up the pressure to further divide the alliance during the run-up to our presidential election.

So far, the response from Washington has been muted, to say the least. There was a blistering comment from the Army Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, who warned "those who wish to do us harm" that the U.S. military, "despite all our challenges," will stop you, and we will beat you harder than you have ever been beaten before." But Milley's superiors, including the Commander-in-Chief, have been remarkably silent in the face of Russia's latest provocations.

Maybe it's the long holiday weekend (our hard-working federal bureaucrats are enjoying a three-day break for Columbus Day). Or perhaps the president's political advisers counseled against a high-level statement ahead of last night's debate. Or maybe our latest bluster over Syria will go the same way as that infamous red line of a few years ago. Put another way: we don't have anything beyond rhetoric, and Mr. Obama leaves office in less than 100 days. He is quite happy to play out the string and leave the Baltics as yet another mess for his successor.

But he may not get off that easy. Putin is quite aware of how America is now perceived on the world stage and he understands the potential impact of one last humiliation before Obama exits the White House. A Baltic version of the Cuban missile crisis? Don't discount that possibility.
***
ADDENDUM: As predicted, the Baltics didn't make the cut for questions in last night's presidential debate. Russia was mentioned, in the context of hacking and trying to influence the U.S. election next month. But the looming crisis on NATO's eastern flank was conveniently ignored--rather curious considering that one of the moderators, ABC's Martha Raddatz, has reported extensively on national security issues. Then again, Ms. Raddatz (along with CNN's Cooper) seemed to abandon at pretense at impartiality, interrupting Trump five times more often than they challenged Clinton. Against that backdrop, it's no surprise that Russian moves in the Baltics never entered the debate.

Diversified

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 04:23:00 +0000

Before he heads out the door, President Obama is pushing a few of his pet initiatives, with little regard for their long-term impact on the nation.

Let's begin with global warming, climate change or whatever catch-phrase is now being used to perpetuate that hoax. As the Washington Times recently reported, Mr. Obama is claiming that rising temperatures (and sea levels) will trigger new waves of massive migration, creating problems far beyond those now being experienced in the Middle East and Europe.

Never mind that the "science" behind climate change has been notoriously politicized--and global temperatures haven't risen a single degree over the past 18 years; President Obama has never been one to let the facts stand in the way of a convenient narrative. Just the other day, he suggested that droughts (brought on, of course, by global warming) were one of the factors that caused the Syrian civil war. So. stop blaming Bashir Assad; those barrel bombs being dropped on civilians in Aleppo are a by-product of climate change, and not the repressive tactics of a brutal dictator.

Mr. Obama has also jumped back on the diversity bandwagon. On Wednesday, the President directed national security agencies to "strengthen the talent and diversity of their organizations." More from the Washington Post:

National security agencies “are less diverse on average than the rest of the Federal Government,” including at the senior leadership levels, Obama said in the memorandum. “While these data do not necessarily indicate the existence of barriers to equal employment opportunity, we can do more to promote diversity in the national security workforce.”

Obama told the agencies to take a series of steps to improve diversity, including collecting, analyzing and disseminating workforce data, providing professional development opportunities and strengthening leadership accountability. He said his directive “emphasizes a data-driven approach in order to increase transparency and accountability at all levels.”

In other words, agencies like the CIA, NSA, DIA, the State Department--and others--need to hire more minorities. Decades of affirmative action programs, specialized recruiting efforts and other initiatives have failed to place enough individuals of color in the senior ranks of the military, the diplomatic corps and the intelligence community.

National Security Adviser Susan Rice (of Benghazi infamy) is the administration's point-person for the diversity push. In recent remarks, she described the need to recruit and promote more blacks, Latinos and Asians as a "national security imperative." Dr. Rice expressed disappointment that people of color represent about 40% of the nation's population, but only 15-20% of the nation's senior diplomats, military officers and intelligence officials. So, it's a safe bet that a candidate's race will play an even more important role in future hiring and promotion decisions.

And not surprisingly, the military is rushing to re-embrace diversity as well. Last Friday, the Air Force released a memo--signed by service secretary Deborah James; chief of staff General David Goldfein and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Cody--outlining 13 new "inclusion" initiatives. According to Air Force magazine, the new mandates include diversity requirements for certain promotion candidate pools; membership on command selection boards and panels considering airmen for recruiting duty. Additionally, the Air Force will create a new "human capital analytics office," which will use microtargeting capabilities to better attract and retain talent.

But the diversity push doesn't end there. Air Force ROTC will receive an extra $20 million over the next five years to fund 200 new scholarships for students from "under-served and under-represented population centers. One of the primary goals is to increase minority representation in career fields that have historically "lacked diversity," including pilot, air battle manager, missile and space operations and intelligence. Leaders in those fields have been tasked to submit plans to reverse those trends.

Obviously, there's nothing wrong with getting more minorities into the cockpit, behind a radar console, or as part of a missile or space operations crew. But certain words are often missing from such discussions, including "standards" and "qualifications." When the military needs more bodies, there is often a temptation to lower standards; it happened at the height of the Iraq War, when the Army was struggling to meet recruiting quotas. Minimum scores were lowered on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), and standards were relaxed in other areas as well, to get enough recruits into uniform.

Recruiting someone to be a pilot or intelligence officer is a different matter, but many of the same issues persist. In the rush to get more people with the "right" background into selected AFSCs, there is tendency to relax requirements. Minority applicants with lower scores on the Armed Forces Officer Qualification Test (AFOQT) may be admitted, in hopes of achieving diversity goals.

To be fair, there have been no reports (yet) about a serious erosion of standards among candidates who will be recruiting for those new ROTC scholarships. But such slippage has occurred during the past. During the mid-1990s, your humble correspondent was an Air Force ROTC instructor at an SEC school. One of our "sister" detachments was at a historically black college and university, about 75 miles away. We met with the instructor cadre from the other school on a periodic basis, to share best practices and lessons learned.

At the same time, the USAF was in the middle of another diversity push, trying to send a minimum number of minority candidates to pilot and navigator training each year. I remember asked the commander of our sister detachment about his thoughts on the efforts. His answer was shorting and stunning: "it's a dumb idea," he told me, and "doomed to fail."

As the Lieutenant Colonel recounted, his detachment had sent an average of two cadets a year to pilot and navigator training during the previous four years, a period that predated his arrival at the school. Most of the cadets were African-American, though some were white, students at a third school who completed ROTC at the HBCU.

From the Colonel's perspective, most of those young people heading to UPT and UNT were doomed to fail, and it had nothing to do with their skin color. But it had everything to do with their educational background and preparation for pilot and nav training. Virtually all of the young officers had graduated from high school in the state--a state with notoriously poor public schools. Many had struggled to complete their undergraduate studies, but they met the requirements for ROTC and earned their commissions. And with the diversity push of that era, one or two headed off each year to pilot or navigator training, among the most demanding training courses in the Air Force.

According to the commander, not a single lieutenant from his detachment had completed UPT or UNT during the previously-cited four-year period. Most of the pilot candidates washed out during the first half of UPT (a year-old program); roughly half were retained by the Air Force and trained in a different career field. The rest were discharged, after hundreds of thousands of dollars had been spent on their training. According to the detachment commander, most of the selectees from his school were marginal candidates, with AFOQT scores that were borderline for pilot and navigator. Obviously, the test results weren't the only predictor of potential success, but they were a useful barometer.

The Air Force persisted in its effort for a few more years, but the number of minority pilots, navigators, missileers and intel officers remained relatively low. The detachment commander who warned about marginally-qualified candidates being thrown into the fire at UPT and UNT suggested better screening of candidates, with additional funds to help them complete ground school and earn some "stick time" towards a private pilot's license, since Air Force data shows that applicants with flight experience tend to do better in undergraduate pilot or navigator training. His idea was rejected due to the projected cost and the perceptions that the service would be giving minority applicants an unfair advantage.

Fast forward 20 years, and the USAF appears to be back as square one. So far, the Air Force hasn't offered any details on how it plans to meet its diversity goals, but the effort is getting off on the wrong foot. Consider those 200 additional ROTC scholarships. What service leaders fail to mention is that minority applicants who meet requirements for those awards are typically bombarded with scholarship offers from top schools--with no requirement for military service. And, for a student accepting a four-year ROTC scholarship out of high school, there is no military commitment until the end of their sophomore year. Not surprisingly, many quit the program before their service obligation begins, getting two free years of college on the taxpayers' dime. For those who remain, the overall washout rate for the four-year scholarship program is 70%, since many can't handle the rigors of an engineering curriculum (ROTC schollys are heavily weighted towards engineering and the hard sciences).

So, the Air Force faces a tough choice: lower academic standards (and hope some of those students make it to the cockpit, an intel billet or cyber unit, regardless of race, sexual preference or gender), or try to convince more highly-qualified minority applicants to become USAF officers. But the odds of success for either option are decidedly slim. It's quite likely that the Air Force secretary and chief of staff will face the same "diversity" issue in 2025 that they're facing in 2016 (and previously confronted in the 1990s). And did we mention that the percentage of young Americans who qualify for military service is decreasing, even among those who might be competitive for a commissioning program?

Ironically, there are more viable options for increasing diversity in the Air Force officer corps, but (so far the service hasn't shown much interest in them. We refer to those "13-week wonders" who earn their commission through Officer Training School, the USAF version of OCS in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. There are thousands of minority NCOs who have earned their college degree on active duty and are candidates for OTS, but most will never earn a slot in the program for various reasons.

First, there's the academic factor. As noted previously, the Air Force has always had a preference for officers with degrees in engineering, mathematics, computer sciences, physics and similar disciplines. Many of the NCOs who complete their bachelor's while on active duty major in business, liberal arts or other subjects that are available on-line, or through classes at the base education center. Of course, there is a certain irony in the service's preference for technical degrees. While no one doubts the rigor associated with an engineering, math or IT curriculum, completion of those degrees is no guarantee of success in pilot training, as a missileer, or as an intel officer.

Age can also pose a barrier. Candidates for OTS must be commissioned by their 35th birthday, allowing them to complete 20 years of service by their 55th birthday. And, individuals who want to be pilots must enter flight training by the age of 30. Unfortunately, by the time most NCOs finish their degrees, they are at (or past) that age limit. And here's the ultimate irony: Air Force OTS only commissions about 500 officers a year (roughly one-sixth of the production rate during the Reagan era) and half of the current slots are reserved for civilian applicants. So, it's very difficult for active-duty NCOs--from the groups the USAF is targeting--to trade their stripes for a second lieutenant's bars. Never mind that these individuals already have outstanding service records, and are more likely to make the military a career. The existence of these obstacles make little sense if the service is truly committed to "diversity."

Expanding the OTS pool would also address issues about experience and competence among junior officers, particularly if the service selects airmen and NCOs from high-demand career fields to serve in officer positions in those same vocations. Obviously, that won't work for pilot (the USAF only recently approved the training of enlisted drone pilots), but the enlisted-to-officer pipeline works very well in the intel career field and air battle manager, where enlisted surveillance technicians can easily make the transition to surveillance officers and weapons directors. The Air Force would also do well to consider other possible solutions, such as a reintroduction of the warrant officer ranks, and following the lead of other services in creating limited duty officers, who provide exceptional technical expertise in various career fields.

Unfortunately, those concerns often become secondary when service secretaries, agency heads and general officers sign on for the latest diversity gambit. The fanfare associated with the launch of such initiatives is rarely followed by the same level of enthusiasm in measuring the success (or failure) of the current scheme to increase minority representation in critical career fields. However, there is a silver lining for members of those groups who enter the service and make it a career. Under the new promotion systems being developed, a select number will be virtually guaranteed command slots. That will make this latest initiative less of a outreach effort and more of a quota system. Not that anyone at the White House or the Pentagon really cares.

"Sea of Fire"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 14:36:00 +0000

At some point in the upcoming presidential debates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will (again) square off on the issue of national security. Recent polls indicate that security concerns--such as terrorism--rank low on the list of voter priorities, but that doesn't lessen their importance.

And you don't need to be a foreign policy wonk to understand why. As he ambles toward the exit, Barack Obama is leaving a world in shambles. His signature foreign policy achievement (the Iranian nuclear deal) has put the Islamic republic squarely on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons, along with missiles capable of delivering those weapons to targets in Israel, Europe and eventually, the United States.

Elsewhere, Vladimir Putin is also on the march, considering more mischief in Ukraine, the Black Sea or the Baltics. Beijing is openly challenging the U.S. in the South China Sea, expanding its network of man-man islands, many of which have been fortified. Chinese leaders are even exploiting a personal rift between President Obama and his Filipino counterpart, cozying up to Manila which (until recently) was expressing grave concern about the PRC's expansionist policies.

And did we mention the war against ISIS is far from won?

But in some respects, the most pressing security concerns can be found on the Korean peninsula. Last week, Pyongyang conducted its fifth nuclear test and the most powerful since Kim Jong-un took power in 2011. Intelligence analysts put the blast in the 10 kiloton range, roughly twice the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

If that isn't troubling enough, the situation on the peninsula may get worse--possibly much worse. According to the UK Sun, some experts believe the DPRK may have enough material for up to 20 nuclear weapons by the end of the year. That would lend credence to Pyongyang's claims that it could conduct additional nuclear tests "at any time."

To be fair, such claims represent the upper range of North Korea's potential nuclear capabilities. But it is clear that the Hermit Kingdom has made tremendous progress in its nuclear program; from the early tests that were only marginally successful almost a decade ago, Kim Jong-un's scientists and engineers have created a system that can produce multiple devices each year, demonstrating greater explosive power with each succeeding generation of weapons. It is also likely that Pyongyang is making progress towards miniaturizing warheads, making it easier to fit them atop land and sea-based ballistic missiles, giving it more options for hitting targets in South Korea, Japan and beyond.

North Korea's heightened WMD activity has clearly caught the attention of its neighbors. During a recent spate of DPRK missile tests, Japan threatened to shoot them down if they threatened its territory. Tokyo has made such vows in the past, but as North Korea launches missiles into the Sea of Japan with greater frequency, those promises have taken on a new urgency. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) has six destroyers equipped with the Aegis system and standard missiles designed to shoot down ballistic missiles. Japan's Aegis destroyers have been regular participants in joint missile defense exercises with the U.S. Navy, and Tokyo plans to upgrade its Patriot land-based SAMs before 2020. With over-lapping coverage, the Japanese are capable of engaging various types of North Korean missiles. The question becomes: when does Tokyo finally determine the missile tests post a sufficient threat to pull the trigger?

The issue is even more critical for South Korea, which lies just across the 38th parallel from Kim Jong-un's growing nuclear and missile arsenals. In the wake of last week's nuclear test, Seoul borrowed a page from the North Korean playbook and promised retaliatory strikes that would "erase" Pyongyang from the map, if the DPRK fired a nuclear missile at South Korea.

Seoul also announced plans for "decapitation" strikes as a part of its response, aimed at eliminating Kim Jong-un and other senior North Korean officials. While South Korea has a growing capability to conduct precision strikes, its ability to locate and eliminate North Korea's supreme leader is doubtful, at best. Dictators have a knack for survival and resources that improve their odds of living to see another day.

It's a lesson the U.S. learned during the first Gulf War, when we tried--and failed--to take out Saddam Hussein with a specially-planned decapitation mission. An eight-inch artillery shell, modified to function as a laser-guided bomb, was flown non-stop from California to Saudi Arabia, where it was uploaded on an F-111 that would target a bunker where the Iraqi dictator was believed to be hiding. Timing was so critical that the F-111 had already started its engines when the C-141 arrived with the weapon. The pilot and WSO were literally briefed in the cockpit on employing the weapon, and they did their job--the artillery shell-turned-LGB burrowed deep into the ground worked as advertised, destroying the bunker.

But there was only one problem. Saddam had moved to another location before the strike occurred. With almost limitless intelligence and operational resources, the U.S. found it almost impossible to accurately pin-point the location of the most important target in Iraq. South Korea would find it even more difficult to locate Kim Jong-un, who almost never announces his movements in advance, and has a vast network of underground facilities that offer protection from U.S. and ROK strikes.

Beyond plans to take out the North Korean dictator, it is very clear that Seoul is deeply concerned about its enemy's rapidly-expanding nuclear arsenal and is willing to consider "unusual" steps to counter the threat. According to Ashai Shinbaum, the South Korean government approached the U.S. about "re-deploying" nuclear weapons to the peninsula, during bi-lateral talks conducted in May. A source familiar with the talks told the paper that ROK officials suggested an arrangement similar to those in western Europe, where NATO partners allow the U.S. to maintain nuclear weapons on their soil, at American-controlled installations. The host nation helps provide security for the weapons and offers advice on potential employment, but the ultimate operational decision rests with the U.S.

It is difficult to underestimate the gravity of the South Korean offer. The United States removed its nuclear weapons from the peninsula 25 years ago, and there was little consideration about a re-deployment--until the DPRK joined the nuclear club. Officials familiar with the recent talks say the U.S. rejected Seoul's offer, fearing the reintroduction of nukes would further destabilize the region.

This may come as a surprise to members of the Obama national security team, but east Asia has devolved into a strategic mess during their watch. North Korea's nuclear program has stoked new fears in South Korea, Japan and even Taiwan, raising whispers that some of those countries--perhaps all three--might develop their own nuclear weapons in response. Further south, China's aggressive posturing in the South China Sea threatens trade routes used to carry trillions of dollars in raw materials and finished goods each year. Outside of diplomatic rhetoric--and a slight increase in military patrols--there has been little response from Washington.

And that's a major reason regional tensions are boiling over from the Korean peninsula to the Malacca Strait. With American leadership largely absent, hostile regime are aggressively pursuing their agendas. Meanwhile, our allies feel betrayed and alone, forcing them to consider options that were unthinkable a few years ago.

That's why a debate moderator should ask Clinton and Trump if they would support a re-deployment of nuclear weapons to South Korea, along with our willingness to use WMD to protect our allies in the region. It's a choice that will face the next president, perhaps very early in their administration.

Hillary's Unnoticed Revelation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Sep 2016 17:16:00 +0000

Let's be charitable and say both presidential candidates were less-than-impressive during last night's Commander-in-Chief forum, which was broadcast by NBC and hosted by the Today's show's Matt Laurer. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump appeared separately, fielding questions about national security and foreign policy from Mr. Laurer and an audience comprised of military retirees and veterans.

There had to be moments when those in the audience--and at home--were asking themselves: is this the best we can do? (Or) is there another option? Sadly, the answer to that one appears to be "no." Anyone thinking of voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson might want to reconsider after his disastrous answer on the Syrian civil war during an interview on MSNBC this morning. It will be Hillary versus Trump for the big prize in November; the Queen of Lies versus the King of Exaggeration. Your choice between a candidate who promises more of the same, failed policies of the last eight years, or a national security novice who needs desperately to get up to speed on a host of critical issues.

Mrs. Clinton appeared first on the forum and right out of the gate, Laurer began pressing her on the e-mail issue. Her body language and tone suggested Clinton was angry at Mr. Laurer for mentioning the scandal. But she tried to muddle through, repeating the tired excuse that none of the classified messages sent or received on her "home brew" server had security "headers" at the top of the page, or paragraph markings identifying the highest classification of material.

What a crock. While some systems automatically generate a header and declassification instructions for e-mails or reports produced at the classified level, most of the markings are created by the originator. It's their responsibility to determine the overall classification level of the document and its various sections and mark it appropriately. Additionally, U.S. government security regulations make it very clear: individuals with access to classified should recognize and protect that information--even in the absence of security markings--and immediately report any violations to the appropriate authorities. By that standard, Hillary and her staff failed miserably, and contrary to James Comey's "assessment," they clearly broke the law.

But there was also a new revelation from Mrs. Clinton last night. In her response to a question from Jon Lester, a retired Naval Flight Officer, the former Secretary of State claimed that she also used secure systems to discuss classified material:

I communicated about classified material on a wholly separate system. I took it very seriously. When I traveled, I went into one of those little tents that I’m sure you’ve seen around the world because we didn’t want there to be any potential for someone to have embedded a camera to try to see whatever it is that I was seeing that was designated, marked, and headed as classified.

Lieutenant Lester wasn't allowed a follow-up and Mr. Laurer didn't seem interested in pursuing the matter, but the answer was an eye-opener for anyone who's ever held a TS/SCI clearance. Mrs. Clinton's referral to a "wholly separate system" was an apparent reference to the classified intranets used by DoD, the intelligence community and the State Department to share extremely sensitive material. The systems have been renamed in recent years, but they are widely known by their original designations, SIPRNET, which handles information up to and including the SECRET level, and JWICS, for material up to and including TOP SECRET/SCI level.

Clinton's answer suggests she was viewing material or one or both networks. Her access to SIPRNET and JWICS also suggests she had accounts on both systems, which is standard practice for anyone with that level of clearance and the need-to-know. And did we mention that access to those systems also comes with an e-mail account?

Mrs. Clinton's admission invites an entirely new line of relevant questions which (to our knowledge) have not been discussed, either in Congressional testimony, or the FBI's "review" of her e-mail practices. Here are just a few of the queries that demand immediate answers:

(1) When she went into one of those "little tents" (apparent reference to a temporary Sensitive Compartmentalized Intelligence Facility, or SCIF), did the Secretary of State access SIPRNET, JWICS, or both?

(2) During those "communication" sessions, was she logged onto the network using her own account, or someone else's? And if the account(s) belong to others, who were those individuals?

(3) Did Mrs. Clinton have her own SIPRNET and JWICS accounts, as anyone with her position should? Did she have e-mail accounts on those networks?

(4) If she was accessing SIPRNET and JWICS for classified matters, why did she find it necessary to set up her own, unsecure network, and use that system to transmit extremely sensitive material, up to the TOP SECRET/SI-GAMMA level? (The answer to that one is painfully clear)

(5) Did any of Clinton's inner circle utilize SIPRNET, JWICS and e-mail accounts on those networks. If so, what material did they review and how does that compare to what appeared on the unsecure system? (The classified material on the Clinton network was obviously lifted from SIPRNET and JWICS, but the question of how it migrated (file transfer, paraphrasing) has never been explained.

(6) How did Clinton factotum Sidney Blumenthal--out of government service for more than a decade--gain access to TS/SCI information, which he relayed to Mrs. Clinton in his intelligence "assessment" of the situation in Libya. As John Schindler has noted in the New York Observer, Blumental's information is almost a verbatim copy of National Security Agency (NSA) assessment on the same matter. Blumenthal's memo, sent to Clinton on her unsecure system, even duplicated the unique reporting format used by NSA. As far as we know, Mr. Blumenthal is not under investigation for any security violations, and strangely enough, the FBI notes on the Clinton e-mail probe never mention the GAMMA material that found its way onto that infamous bathroom server. Note: the official FBI probe found only one government e-mail account associated with Hillary Clinton, which was operated "on her behalf" and used to send routine, unclassified administrative messages to the State Department staff.

While there's a steady drip of new information about e-mail gate almost every day, Mrs Clinton may not have to answer many questions about it. Amazingly, the subject never came up during a hastily-scheduled presser this morning, just before Hillary flew to a campaign stop. Congress is still looking at the matter, though it's doubtful anything will happen before the election, and FBI leadership considers the matter closed. So, Clinton will try to keep avoiding the issue, right up until--and after--November 8th.
****

As for Mr. Trump, last night was not his finest hour, underscoring the need for him to dig deeper (and solicit more advice) on issues relating to national security. Defeating 16 opponents in the primary is quite a political feat, but it doesn't mean you're immediately qualified to be commander-in-chief. We agree that judgment is an important quality for a a president, but without experience--or the willingness to surround yourself with advisers with the right expertise--presidents can make critical mistakes. Mr. Trump also needs to re-think his mutual admiration society with Vladimir Putin; just hours before the forum, a Russian SU-27 fighter came dangerously close to a Navy P-8 patrol aircraft over the Black Sea. Trading compliments will only encourage Russia's aggressive posturing against the west.

Currently, Trump enjoys a solid lead among military personnel and veterans; most figure he can't be worse than the last eight years, while others reject Clinton for her criminal behavior. As they contemplate a Flight 93 election, read this recent piece by someone who truly understands today's global environment and the hard choices that must be made by the next commander-in-chief. Mattis 2016. What might have been.

What Might Have Been (Iran Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 13:50:00 +0000

For the second time in three days, there has been a confrontation between U.S. and Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf. During today's incident, an American patrol craft fired three warning shots into the water after four Iranian boats harassed U.S. and Kuwaiti Navy vessels in the northern Persian Gulf. As CNN reports:

"At one point, the Iranian boat came within 200 yards of one of the US Navy boats. When it failed to leave the area after the Navy had fired flares and had a radio conversation with the Iranian crew, the US officials said, tthree he USS Squall fired three warning shots. Following standard maritime procedures, the Navy fired the shots into the water to ensure the Iranians understood they needed to leave the immediate area."

The episode came just two days after four Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels staged a "high-speed intercept" of the guided missile destroyer USS Nitze in the Strait of Hormuz.

American officials said two of the vessels slowed and turned away only after coming within 300 yards of the US guided-missile destroyer as it transited international waters near the Strait of Hormuz, and only after the destroyer had sent multiple visual and audio warnings. In response, a senior IRGC naval officer said Iran will continue its close-quarters intercepts of American vessels, maneuvers deemed "unsafe" and "unprofessional" by the U.S. Navy.

The most recent showdowns in the Gulf are merely the latest in a string of dangerous incidents involving Iranian military forces. Last December, one of its vessels fired a rocket near the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman; that was followed by the capture and brief detainment of 10 American sailors whose Riverine broke down during a transit from Kuwait to Bahrain and drifted into Iranian waters. And just last month, one of Iran's naval craft sailed close to the USS New Orleans while the Commander of US Central Command, General Joseph Votel, was on board.

And, did we mention recent revelations that the Obama Administration paid a $400 million ransom to secure the release of four American hostages from Iran last year? Or that more money is on the way, helping Tehran finance its own military modernization program, and fund terrorist proxies around the world.

Then, there's the nuclear deal, which places Iran squarely on the path to developing those weapons. Iran's partnership with North Korea will provide the expertise needed to extend the range of Tehran's ballistic missiles, so an Iranian ICBM--capable of a nuclear warhead to the CONUS--is a virtual certainty, and perhaps by the end of this decade.

Against that grim backdrop, it's a fair question to ask what might have been, particularly if the U.S. had pursued regime change as a priority in Iran. And there were opportunities, most recently during the so-called "Green Revolution" in 2009. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his faction won the presidential election ("stole" is probably a better term), thousands of Iranians took to the streets, demanding change.

The widespread unrest threatened to topple the Tehran regime, which responded brutally. Between 800 and 3,000 protesters were killed in the street; hundreds more disappeared and were executed in Iranian prisons. President Obama refused to lift a finger in support, claiming the demonstrators--which represented a broad cross-section of Iranian society--didn't represent "real change." He never admitted publicly that the Iranian election was riddled with fraud, aimed at keeping Ahmadinejad and the mullahs in power.

Why was Obama so insistent on letting the Iranian revolution die on the vine? We finally have some answers, thanks to Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon and his new book, The Iran Wars. Eli Lake of Bloomberg devoted a recent column to Solomon's work and its revelations. He affirms what many long suspected; Obama's obsession over reaching some sort of deal with Iran overruled any other considerations; he was quite willing to let the Green Revolution die on the vine, to preserve his then-secret overtures to Tehran. As Mr. Lake writes:

It's worth contrasting Obama's response with how the U.S. has reacted to other democratic uprisings. The State Department, for example, ran a program in 2000 through the U.S. embassy in Hungary to train Serbian activists in nonviolent resistance against their dictator, Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic, too, accused his opposition of being pawns of the U.S. government. But in the end his people forced the dictator from power.

Similarly, when Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze met with popular protests in 2003 after rigged elections, George W. Bush dispatched James Baker to urge him to step down peacefully, which he did. Even the Obama administration provided diplomatic and moral support for popular uprisings in Egypt in 2011 and Ukraine in 2014.

Iran though is a very different story. Obama from the beginning of his presidency tried to turn the country's ruling clerics from foes to friends. It was an obsession. And even though the president would impose severe sanctions on the country's economy at the end of his first term and beginning of his second, from the start of his presidency, Obama made it clear the U.S. did not seek regime change for Iran.

And, as Mr. Solomon reveals, the president's over-arching desire to strike a deal with Iran influenced critical decisions in other areas. It's the main reason he walked away from the infamous "red line" in Syria three years ago. Iranian negotiators told their American counterparts the nuclear talks would end if the U.S. intervened against Syrian dictator--and Iran ally--Bashir Assad. Obama blinked. The President also took the unusual steps of ending U.S. programs that documented human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic and wrote letters to Iran's Supreme Leader, assuring him that the we had no plans to overthrow him.

In the end, Obama got his badly-flawed nuclear deal--and a lot more. Iran is more belligerent and aggressive than ever before, as evidenced by the recent naval encounters in the Gulf. And the situation isn't likely to improve anytime soon. Tehran got everything it wanted in the nuclear accord, and the return of long-frozen Iranian assets in the U.S. will provide a funding stream for new military hardware, the nuclear program and various terrorist allies.

To be fair, there is no guarantee that American support would have guaranteed the success of the Green Revolution. But as Mr. Lake writes, it was definitely worth a gamble. Installing a new Iranian regime would have been a game-changer across the Middle East, likely resulting in a nuclear deal that effectively dismantled the Iranian program and eradicated the emerging threat. The situation in places like Syria might have become more manageable and there's even the possibility that Tehran's support for groups like Hezbollah would fade. Without that assistance, the group would become less of a threat to Israel and its stranglehold over Lebanon might decrease as well.

Unfortunately, all of those scenarios are permanently banished to the realm of what "might have been," thanks to the obsessive and feckless behavior of Barack Obama. Mr. Solomon's book is on our reading list, since he clearly breaks new ground in reporting one of the story's most important diplomatic stories. One thing we're wondering about: what role did Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett play in all of this? Ms. Jarrett, the president's closest confidante was born in Iran to American parents and, by some accounts, retains a certain affinity for the land where she grew up.

Nothing wrong with that, but Jarrett seems to be an invisible hand in the diplomatic activity that pursued the nuclear deal to the exclusion of everything else. One report indicates that Ms. Jarrett played an active role in secret talks with Iran before the public negotiations began. Never mind that the presidential adviser has no real experience in diplomacy or national security matters. But she does have Mr. Obama's ear, and some observers believe that Jarrett played a role in the departure of Ambassador Dennis Ross from the president's national security team early in his tenure. Ross, a veteran Middle East hand, favored a much tougher approach in negotiations with Iran. Needless to say, that didn't sit well with Mr. Obama or Ms. Jarrett.

In the end, the president's singular focus on "winning over" Iran--encouraged by members of his inner circle--spelled doom for brave Iranians who rose up during the Green Revolution. Some of them still languish in prison to this day. Not surprisingly, the Obama administration isn't doing anything to help them, since we no longer track human rights abuses in Iran.

Mr. Putin's New FOB

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 22:07:00 +0000

As we noted on Twitter (@natehale) earlier today, the difference between Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama can be summed up rather succinctly. Mr. Putin plays geo-political chess; President Obama is stuck on "Words With Friends."

Evidence of that analogy can be found in the Russian president's latest move, which took many observers by surprise. In a matter of a few hours, Putin not only altered the balance of power in the Middle East, he also established a serious threat to one of our military trump cards--the ability of U.S. carrier battle groups to operate and project power in the Persian Gulf and beyond.

Al-Masdar, the Israel-based Arabic news service, was among the first to report Mr. Putin's move: the deployment of TU-22M "Backfire" bombers to Hamadan Airbase in west-central Iran. Photos published on Al-Masdar's website (and re-posted at Southfront.org) revealed at least four Backfires at Hamadan, along with support aircraft.

Russian TU-22M "Backfire" bombers on the ramp at Hamadan Airbase, Iran, just hours before striking targets in Syria (Al-Masdar photos via Southfront.org)

And less than 24 hours after they arrived, the Russian bombers launched a highly-publicized strike against terrorist targets in Syria. It marked the first time since the 1979 revolution that Iran has allowed a foreign power to conduct military operations from its territory. From the U.K. Telegraph:

“Flying with full bomb loads from Iran’s Hamadan airbase, the aircraft carried out group attacks on Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra positions,” the ministry said. Jabhat al-Nusra is the former name of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, a powerful rebel jihadist group previously affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Fighter escorts for the mission flew out of Russia’s Hmeymim airbase in western Syria. All aircraft returned to their respective bases after the mission, the ministry said.

Iranian officials confirmed that the country has offered Russia use of military infrastructure for its air campaign in Syria on Tuesday.

[snip]

Tuesday’s mission is thought to be the first time Russian aircraft have flown missions from Iran since Moscow launched air strikes in Syria in September last year, and potentially marks a major expansion of Russia’s military presence in the Middle East.

Not surprisingly, many media accounts focused on Hamadan's relative proximity to targets in Syria. Operating from Iran, the TU-22Ms (and other Russian strike aircraft) can reach the battlefield sooner, carrying larger bomb loads and burning less fuel.

But Mr. Putin has another reason for deploying bombers to a forward operating base in Iran--and it has nothing to do with Jabhat al-Nusra, or efforts to prop up Bashir Assad's regime. Moscow's motive for sending the Backfires to Hamadan is also rooted in sending a message to the U.S., and specifically, our naval forces which patrol the Persian Gulf.

For decades, our ability to project power in the region has been predicated (at least in part) on the Navy's ability to send carrier battle groups into the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The presence of a carrier helps ensure control of vital sea lanes of communication (SLOCs), used by supertankers carrying oil to markets in the Far East, Europe and even North America.

The presence of TU-22Ms at Hamadan poses a new threat to those shipping lanes--and our ability to keep them open. While the Backfire is an aging weapons system--it first entered operational service in the early 1970s--it remains a potent threat to naval vessels. In fact, the Russians largely designed it as a "carrier killer," firing anti-ship missiles at long range. The threat posed by the Backfire (and other Soviet-era bombers) was one of the key factors in development of the F-14 Tomcat and AIM-54 Phoenix missile, which were built to destroy enemy strike aircraft before they could launch against the carrier and its escorts.

For a naval strike mission, the newest TU-22M (NATO reporting name Backfire C) carries up to nine missiles, three AS-4 "Kitchen," mounted internally or on wing pylons, or up to six AS-16 "Kickback," carried on a rotary launcher in the weapons bay. The AS-4 first appeared in the early 1960s and remains in production today; newer variants have been updated with a datalink (to allow mid-course updates). The Kitchen can carry either a nuclear or conventional warhead; it has a maximum range of 320 nautical miles.

Like the AS-4, the Kickback was originally fitted with a nuclear warhead, and designed to blast through enemy defenses, allowing Russian bombers to reach their targets. With a range of 160 NM, the Kickback was similar to the U.S. Short-Range Attack Missile (SRAM), which was carried on our strategic bombers for decades. The AS-16 follows a dive profile, climbing to 40,000 feet before plunging down on its target. At least one variant of the missile is designed to target enemy ships, including aircraft carriers.

Operating from Hamadan (or other bases in Iran), Russian TU-22s could target U.S. battle groups in the Persian Gulf while remaining over land, inside the coverage of S-300s and other advanced surface-to-air missile systems. Moscow recently began delivering S-300 batteries to Iran and if they follow operational practices in Syria, the Russians could deploy their own SAMs near forward operating bases and integrate them with the host nation air defense network.

To be fair, the U.S. Navy has a number of counter-measures to deal with Backfires and their missiles. In addition to the F/A-18s on the carrier, there are interceptor missiles (SM-2/3) on Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers, along with short-range defensive systems (Sea Sparrow, CIWS) on virtually all vessels. TU-22M deployments to Hamadan--or other Iranian bases--won't keep our carrier groups from sailing into the Persian Gulf, but it will be one more factor naval commanders must account for. The same holds true for other American military assets in the region.

Which brings us back to Mr. Putin, who understands a thing or two about geopolitics and power projection. In the span of less than a year, he has established a military presence that threatens both the eastern Mediterranean (and the Suez Canal) along with the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, the reaction here at home has been troubling, to say the least. President Obama and his minions keep telling us that Putin's strategy is doomed to fail--never mind the recent gains by Russian surrogates on the ground, and the return of Moscow's military presence in key regions. There is no evidence Hillary Clinton would try a different approach in dealing with Putin.

As for Donald Trump, he seems to favor giving Russia a free hand in the Middle East, as part of "better relations" with Moscow. Such thinking is both naive and dangerous--no wonder Putin is on the march. Leadership is on vacation in the U.S. and the former KGB Colonel is going keep rolling the dice; he has much to gain and virtually nothing to lose, both now and after election day.

Cooking the Intel Books

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 20:58:00 +0000

You remember the refrain: "Bush lied, people died." That phrase took on a life of its own following the invasion of Iraq; the "failure" to discover Saddam's alleged WMD arsenal, and allegations that intel assessments had been altered--if not actually fabricated--to support administration policies.

As a grand conspiracy, it had to be the greatest of all times. Turns out that not only did U.S. intelligence believe that Saddam Hussein had resurrected his WMD program, so did the spooks in the UK, France, Germany, Russia and just about every other country with a credible intel service. The problems, as later documented by independent review panels in the U.S. and Great Britain, was "group think" among intelligence experts who feared down-playing a potential threat in the post 9-11 world.

It's a phenomenon I've experienced first-hand. As a analyst, I know the perils of challenging the status quo or what the community refers to as the "consensus" about a particular situation or threat. Once the template is set, it takes very compelling evidence to change an assessment, particularly on something as important as an enemy's WMD capabilities and a potential decision to go to war.

Journalist Judith Miller, who would never be described as a member of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," nicely summarized the issue--and its impact on policy decisions--in a piece written earlier this year:

"No, President Bush did not take America into a war because he was strong-armed by a neoconservative cabal. As President Bush himself famously asserted, he was the “decider.” And no, he didn’t go to war for oil. If we wanted Saddam’s oil, we could have bought it.

President’s Bush decision to go to war was based on the information that he and his team relied on -- information that was collected by the world’s top agents and analyzed by the world’s top analysts, including the intelligence agencies of France, Germany and Russia, countries whose leaders did not support going to war. But they all agreed on one thing -- Saddam had and was continuing to develop WMD.

Our intelligence professionals, and those of major European countries, overestimated Saddam’s capabilities. Mistakes like that filter through the system -- from the White House to Congress to journalists to the public. And those mistakes impact policy. But here’s the key thing to remember -- they were mistakes…not lies."

But what if intelligence estimates were "sexed-up" (borrowing the Brits' term) to support a favored narrative or policy option? According to a House of Representatives Joint Task Force, that's exactly what happened at US Central Command (CENTCOM), after intel analysts filed a whistle-blower complaint, alleging that assessments were manipulated to "present an unduly positive outlook" on CENTCOM efforts to train the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and combat ISIS.

Appointed by the chairmen of three House committees (Armed Services, Intelligence and Oversight), the task force has released its interim conclusions on the matter. And it's not a pretty picture; Congressional investigators found that changes in the command's intelligence directorate (J-2) "resulted in the production and dissemination of intelligence products that were inconsistent with the judgments of many senior, career analysts at CENTCOM."

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. According to the report, the work environment in the J-2 began to deteriorate after the departure of CENTCOM commander General James Mattis and his senior intelligence leadership. Mattis, a legend in the Marine Corps and one of the finest general officers of his generation, was forced out in Tampa in 2013, after running afoul of President Obama and his national security team.

Mattis's replacement brought in a new J-2, Army Major General Steven Grove. Under his leadership, the directorate established a new Analytic Review Team (ART) to improve the "quality and consistency" of products generated by analysts working in the command's Joint Intelligence Center (JIC). According to investigators, the ART quickly grew from a single reviewer to a multi-member team, and resulted in slower production of intelligence assessments. The analyst who filed the whistle-blower complaint alleged that the ART was used by senior intel leaders to exert more control over J-2 reporting and its contents. Other analysts claimed the rationale for the ART was never fully explained and CENTCOM's previous, three-step review process provided a "more than adequate" quality control process.

About the same time (summer of 2014), General Grove also created a "fusion center" within the J-2 to provide additional reporting that focused on ISIS and related issues. Some analysts told investigators that it was "never clear" how JIC personnel would contribute to the new center; others claimed the fusion team actually became something of a dumping ground for intel specialists whose views disagreed with those of senior intelligence leaders.

Analysts also stated that changes in the J-2s daily intel summary (or INTSUM) were also used by leadership to tighten control over assessments and their findings. Additionally, the task force found that CENTCOM's intelligence directorate relied too heavily on operational reporting to "soften" their estimates, and (perhaps most damning), they discovered that the more "optimistic" assessments were not supported by estimates from other elements of the intel community.

And, there was an unprecedented amount of "coordination" between the J-2 and officials at the top of the intel chain. From the task force summary:

The CENTCOM Director of Intelligence or his deputy had, and continue to have, secure teleconferences with the Joint Staff Director of Intelligence and senior ODNI leaders—frequently including the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). These calls took place several times per week before daily intelligence briefings by the DNI to the President. Senior CENTCOM Intelligence Directorate leaders reported that neither the Director of the DIA nor other COCOM Directors of Intelligence have participated in these calls.

The frequency of these interactions could have provided CENTCOM leaders with outsized influence on the material presented to the President outside of formal coordination channels. These frequent interactions are at odds with the DNI James Clapper’s testimony to Congress that “intelligence assessments from CENTCOM…come to the national level only through the Defense Intelligence Agency.

In other words, Clapper was "consulting" with CENTCOM just before his daily brief to President Obama, but the information he received was never vetted against data from other agencies. At best, that's sloppy, inexcusable tradecraft. At worst, it's "cooked" intelligence, offering carefully-tailored analysis from a single source that fits a desired narrative. Obviously, that the more "sunny" assessments from CENTCOM meshed nicely with administration claims of "progress" in the war against ISIS.

This is intelligence malpractice of the first magnitude, and the analysts at Central Command were justified in filing a formal complaint. Unfortunately, it looks like nothing will come of it, although the DoD Inspector General is continuing its own probe into the matter. General Grove has moved on to a new assignment, and his civilian deputy (identified as a key participant in the analytic scheme) remains in place at CENTCOM. And Jim Clapper is still gainfully employed as well.

Many spooks, current and former, once had great respect for General Clapper, who enjoyed a brilliant career in the Air Force and later, won plaudits for his management of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) under President Bush. But as DNI, he has been a tremendous disappointment. He lied in testimony before Congress on NSA domestic collection efforts in 2013, and now, he's been caught in another fib about how military intelligence on ISIS reaches the highest levels of our government.

But DNIs serve at the pleasure of the commander-in-chief and Clapper isn't going anywhere. He has apparently mastered the fine art of telling his boss what he wants to hear, which speaks volumes about that "modified" analytic and production processes at CENTCOM, and the preferences of the man who is the ultimate consumer of that intelligence.

Selective Outrage (Cyber Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 17:30:00 +0000

It's always fun to watch politicians and their flunkies try to spin a bad situation, and those tactics were clearly on display during Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal. Before receiving that "Stay Out of Jail" card from the FBI and Obama's Justice Department, Mrs. Clinton and her minions tried various arguments to excuse her illegal behavior, without too much success. From the "grooveyard of forgotten favorites," as El Rushbo might say:

"Other secretaries of state did it (used private e-mail accounts for government business)." There's a kernal of truth to that, with some important qualifiers: first, none ever utilized a private account on the industrial scale pioneered by Mrs. Clinton. Additionally, her predecessors never sent the nation's most closely-guarded secrets on a personal system that lacked even basic security features, and none ever plotted to evade public disclosure and archiving laws by creating their own domain and server network.

"I never sent or received classified information." This is another howler, since the defense is largely based on claims that information in the e-mails lacked classification markings. Never mind that the lack of classification headers and paragraph markings is not an excuse for mishandling classified data or transmitting it improperly--or that Mrs. Clinton (in one message) directed aides to remove classification markings so sensitive material could be sent over an unclassified fax machine. Hillary and her senior aides clearly chose to ignore (read: violate) security requirements, and the hits just keep on coming. Friday, Vice News disclosed that Mrs. Clinton sent at least 22 Top Secret e-mails to senior aides in 2011 and 2012. The messages are among those withheld from public release by the State Department, since they contain information that would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security."

But not to worry, we were told. There was no firm evidence that enemy hackers accessed her server system, and might have collected all the information stored there--including "missing" e-mails that were deleted by Clinton's aides and members of her legal team. That claim has been refuted by a number of IT and counter-intelligence professionals, who note that foreign intel services are quite capable of accessing a system, collecting whatever they want and exiting--all without leaving a trace.

After down-playing the "foreign hacker" threat for months, the Democrats are now doing a 180, after Wikileaks began publishing thousands of e-mails pilfered from the DNC archives. The first dump came on the eve of this week's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and it revealed a number of interesting nuggets, including unassailable proof that party leaders worked actively to deny Bernie Sanders their presidential nomination. That revelation forced party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to resign in disgrace, as e-mails detailed suggestions by Democrat officials to use anti-Semitic tactics against the Vermont Senator.

There were also messages that revealed collusion between the DNC and the mainstream media. One e-mail described a private meeting with a senior executive at NBC News and in another message, Ms. Wasserman Schultz told network anchor Chuck Todd that a critical line of coverage "had to stop." Wikileaks also published an e-mail from a CNN producer who vowed to keep the focus on the Democrats and another from a Politico reporter, who sent his story to the DNC for review before submitting it to his editor.

To deflect attention away from the messages--and their damning content--the Democrats are playing the victim card (as only they can) and focusing on the hack. Almost immediately, party officials blamed the Russians and there may be some evidence to support that accusation. While Wikileaks denies any connection with Putin's intelligence services, many current and former western intel officials have long believed that the organization and its founder, Julian Assange, are little more than Russian cut-outs. As John Schindler recently noted in the New York Observer, it's rather curious that Mr. Assange, currently holded up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London (to avoid rape charges in Sweden) has requested protection from the Russian FSB. Assange also counseled American turncoat Edward Snowden to flee to Moscow after he released thousands of classified NSA documents. Snowden remains in Russia to this day, with round-the-clock security from an FSB protective detail.

At this point, the Democrats' collective pucker factor must be at an all-time high. If hackers tied to Russian intelligence made off with all of the DNC's secrets, it's a fair bet they have all of Hillary's e-mails as well. Holding all the high cards, Mr. Putin has the luxury of choosing his options. He can sanction the continued release of Democratic party e-mails and start adding missing messages from HRC's server as well, inflicting an ultimately fatal blow to her campaign. Or, the Russian leader can offer to turn off the tap, in exchange for whatever he wants on the world stage. Given Mrs. Clinton's past pliability in dealing with Moscow, it's easy to see her caving to any blackmail demands from the Kremlin. Our allies in places like the Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics and elsewhere should be very, very nervous.

The notion of Mr. Putin using spycraft to influence our presidential election should be disquieting to all Americans, regardless of their political affiliation. And, it's absolutely mind-boggling that GOP nominee Donald Trump is calling on the Russians to "locate" Hillary's missing e-mails and publish those as well. While Mr. Trump has chummy relations with the Russian leader, he might also be concerned about what the GRU's 6th Directorate has retrieved from his computer networks. Putin can easily use the same tactics against Trump, if the situation dictates.

It's also important to view the current hubbub through the lens of politics. Fact is, the Democrats weren't overly concerned when Wikileaks was publishing secrets that made George W. Bush look bad, and they down-played serious security breaches at OMB (and other federal agencies) during Obama's time in office. But now that their party--and presidential nominee--have been targeted, the Democrats are demanding an all-hands-on-deck effort to pinpoint the source of the hack and punish the offenders. Good luck with that; the odds of us actually getting our hands on the hackers is pretty much non-existent. I'm sure Putin and his cronies are getting a good laugh out of spoiling Mrs. Clinton's coronation in Philadelphia, with the promise of more "fun" in the weeks ahead.

And one final thought, before giving too much sympathy to Hillary or the Democrats. Lest we forget, the party's cyber woes began with HRC's attempts to circumvent the law (and potential scrutiny) with her infamous home-brew server network and e-mail domain. It's quite possible the alleged Russian foray began penetration of her servers and led them on to the DNC. Apparently, Ms. Wasserman-Schultz was presiding over a network that was only marginally more secure than Mrs. Clinton's. Yet, she allowed staffers to conspire against Sanders in terms that are vile at best, racist at worst. Of course, she never believed any of those e-mails would enter the public domain--just as Hillary thought she could get away with her on-line crimes.

Both were woefully mistaken. And the worst is yet to come.

Ataturk's Last Stand (Today's Reading Assignment)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 21:56:00 +0000

If you read just two articles this week, may we suggest this opinion piece from Fox News strategic analyst Ralph Peters, and the latest column from former NSA senior spook John Schindler? Both offer important insight into the failed "coup" in Turkey, and what it means for Ankara and the West.

While we've had minor differences with Lt Col Peters in the past, his analysis of the abortive military revolt in Turkey is spot-on. When the coup fizzled on the streets of Istanbul and other major Turkish cities, so did Ataturk's lasting vision of a modern, secular state firmly oriented towards Europe and western values. As Peters writes:

Friday night’s failed coup was Turkey’s last hope to stop the Islamization of its government and the degradation of its society. Reflexively, Western leaders rushed to condemn a coup attempt they refused to understand. Their reward will be a toxic Islamist regime at the gates of Europe.

Our leaders no longer do their basic homework.The media relies on experts-by-Wikipedia. Except for PC platitudes, our schools ignore the world beyond our shores. Deluged with unreliable information, citizens succumb to the new superstitions of the digital age.

So a great country is destroyed by Islamist hardliners before our eyes—and our president praises its “democracy.”

That tragically failed coup was a forlorn hope, not an attempt to take over a country. Turkey is not a banana republic in which the military grasps the reins for its own profit. For almost a century, the Turkish armed forces have been the guardians of the country’s secular constitution. Most recently, coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980 (with “non-coup” pressure in 1997) saw the military intervene to prevent the country’s collapse.

[snip]

So who is the man our own president rushed to support because he was “democratically elected?” Recep Tayyip Erdogan is openly Islamist and affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which President Obama appears to believe represents the best hope for the Middle East. But the difference between ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t one of purpose, but merely of manners: Muslim Brothers wash the blood off their hands before they sit down to dinner with their dupes.

With barely a murmured “Tut-tut!” from Western leaders, Erdogan has dismantled Turkey’s secular constitution (which the military is duty-bound to protect). His “democracy” resembles Putin’s, not ours. Key opposition figures have been driven into exile or banned. Opposition parties have been suppressed. Recent elections have not been held so much as staged. And Erdogan has torn the fresh scab from the Kurdish wound, fostering civil war in Turkey’s southeast for his own political advantage.

Erdogan has packed Turkey’s courts with Islamists. He appointed pliant, pro-Islamist generals and admirals, while staging show trials of those of whom he wished to rid the country. He has de facto, if not yet de jure, curtailed women’s freedoms. He dissolved the wall between mosque and state (Friday night, he used mosques’ loudspeakers to call his supporters into the streets). Not least, he had long allowed foreign fighters to transit Turkey to join ISIS and has aggressively backed other extremists whom he believed he could manage.

And if that weren't enough, there is ample evidence that Erdogan has allowed the purchase of ISIS oil by various Turkish middlemen, helping the terrorist army fund its operations. At the same time, Turkey's leader tries to maintain his image as a loyal NATO ally, allowing U.S. aircraft to stage missions against ISIS targets from Incirlik Airbase. It's a strategy roughly akin to that of Pakistan, which has played all sides of the war in Afghanistan, trying to advance its own agenda. But Erdogan has played a much more active role than his counterparts in Islamabad, allowing foreign fighters, weapons and oil to flow across the border, clamping down only when it suits his interests, typically before a NATO summit, or when the Obama Administration offers a rare bit of criticism.

Making matters worse, Erdogan has tacitly aided ISIS on the battlefield. While Turkey is ostensibly committed to attacking the terrorists, much of Turkey's military activity in Syria has focused on targeted Kurdish militias who have been the most effective forces battling ISIS and the Assad regime. But Erdogan fears a free Kurdish enclave in Syria more than the terrorists, so ISIS has received little attention from Turkish military forces.

Which brings us back to Friday's "coup" and accelerated cleansing of Turkey's officer corps under Erdogan. Since assuming power more than a decade ago, Mr. Erdogan has worked systematically to reduce the power of the Turkish General Staff, guarantors of a secular state for nearly a century. The TGS leads the second-largest military in Europe, a force that has been extensively modernized over the last 25 years. And, leaders of the armed have never been hesitant about seizing power to save Turkey from extremist elements; there have been three coups since 1970 and the military pressured the government into major changes in 1997. As various analysts have noted, military coups have generally been a stabilizing influence for Turkey and that was the apparent motivation behind last week's revolt; the generals, admirals and lower-ranking officers who led the rebellion hoped to wrest control of the country from Erdogan and his Islamist factions.

But it wasn't much of a coup. As Dr. Schindler notes in the New York Observer, the plotters could only muster about a battalion worth of troops--not enough to take over a mid-sized village, let alone an entire country. And the narrative grows even stranger as more details emerge; as Erdogan flew back to Ankara from vacation, F-16 pilots supporting the coup locked onto the Turkish president's jet multiple times, yet no one gave the order to open fire, reinforcing Rule #1 of a military takeover: you'd better be prepared to kill the king (or president) if you want to succeed. Instead, Erdogan landed, and began suppressing the coup in earnest. The last of the ringleaders wasn't arrested until Monday afternoon, but for all practical purposes, the revolt ended almost as soon as it began.

The coup's stunning failure has prompted speculation that perhaps it was a false flag operation, staged by Erdogan and his supporters. While there's no definitive proof to support that charge, it is very clear the Turkish president will make the most of this opportunity. As of this writing, more than 25% of the nation's flag officers have been detained, along with more than 2,000 judges. Even in a nation with a liberal view of interrogation techniques, you can't elicit that many confessions in less than 72 hours. After the coup failed, Erdogan simply dusted off his enemies list and sent loyalist security forces to round them up. Mr. Erdogan has already suggested that Turkey may restore the death penalty, so it's likely that many of the coup leaders will pay for their actions with their lives.

Throughout the crisis, the Obama Administration has stood behind the Turkish president and his Islamist government. To be fair, it is a difficult situation, with Ankara being a key NATO ally, sitting astride some of the world's most important real estate, and home to Incirlik Airbase, where USAF F-16s and A-10s fly daily missions against ISIS. And did we mention that Incirlik is also home to an unspecified number of tactical nuclear weapons? While some sources maintain the nukes were withdrawn years ago, the U.S. has spent millions to upgrade nuclear storage facilities at Incirlik in recent years, suggesting the weapons are still there, or may return in the near future. A few hours after the coup, Erdogan ordered the cut-off of water and power to the base, to underscore his displeasure with Washington.

Why is he mad at us? A moderate imam named Fethullah Gülen (who was once an Erdogan ally) fled the country during a previous purge and now lives in Pennsylvania. Mr. Erdogan describes him as the "spiritual leader" of the rebellion and is demanding his extradition. Not surprisingly, Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. government is willing to listen to Ankara's demands.

What comes next? Erdogan has promised a "thorough cleansing" of the "virus" infecting his country, meaning that the military, judiciary and other bastions of opposition will be completely purged. The Turkish military will lose thousands of competent officers to prison, execution or exile, further weakening the one institution that kept Turkey stable and oriented to the west. Their departure, along with other Kemalists will leave the "sick man of Europe" that much weaker and push it further into the Islamist orbit. Dark days lie ahead for Turkey, but our leaders are too busy cheering on Erdogan to notice. And we will pay for that folly.

Opportunity Missed

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 21:21:00 +0000

Donald Trump was served the political equivalent of batting practice last night. He took a mighty cut and swung for the fences. The presumptive GOP presidential nominee didn't whiff, but he didn't knock it out of the park, either. Call it a golden opportunity that was missed.

We refer to his speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, delivered just hours after FBI Director James Comey announced he would not recommend prosecution for Hillary Clinton in her e-mail scandal. And while Mr. Comey did a grave disservice to the rule of law, he methodically destroyed the various defenses that Clinton has offered for her "home-brew" e-mail system, which was used to transmit hundreds of classified messages. Comey's point-by-point demolition of Mrs. Clinton's arguments played perfectly into Trump's claims about "Crooked Hillary" and the wholesale corruption associated with her political machine.

Comey finished his announcement before 12 noon (eastern time); Mr. Trump didn't take the stage in Raleigh until roughly eight hours later. That was, presumably, enough time to craft a speech that expounded on the corruption and cronyism themes illustrated by the FBI decision; Hillary's "convenient" weekend interview with the bureau and that "chance" meeting last week between her husband Bill and Attorney General Loretta Lynch in Phoenix. "The system is rigged" Trump tweeted after Comey's announcement. That (supposedly) teed things up for a full-throated indictment of Clinton corruption during his Raleigh speech, with the e-mail scandal as merely the latest example.

To his credit, Trump did offer a couple of zingers about Hillary and her e-mails:

"We're talking about the life blood of our country, the safety of our people," said Trump, who took no time at all is using this ammunition against Clinton's questionable judgment.

"Stupidity is not a reason that you're going to be innocent," Trump said.

But overall, the Raleigh address was merely a variation on his typical, rambling stump speech. Build the wall; protect our borders, strengthen our military, take care of our vets, repeal Obamacare--the same stuff you've heard a hundred times before.

To be fair, those are critically important themes and they do resonate with conservative voters. And every politician has a standard campaign address that is typically delivered at every stop. We'll even give Mr. Trump credit for doing something most politicians avoid; he speaks from a few notes, rarely using the teleprompter that President Obama and Mrs. Clinton rely on like a crutch.

But last night wasn't a time for the regular stump speech. The Raleigh forum provided an excellent opportunity to go after Mrs. Clinton's illegal handling, transmission and storage of classified material--and the lies she used to justify her practices. An expanded speech, focused on those points, would have played very well in North Carolina for very important reasons, which were apparently lost on the Trump campaign.

For starters, the Tarheel State has one of the largest military populations in the nation. Well over 100,000 active duty personnel are stationed at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville; Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro and the Marine Corps Air Stations at New River and Cherry Point. Additionally, there are National Guard and Reserve units scattered across the state and North Carolina is home to hundreds of thousands of veterans and military dependents.

What do all of those service members--current and former--have in common? Virtually all of them hold (or have held) a security clearance. They are intimately aware of the requirements for gaining access to the nation's secrets, and the standards of conduct necessary for maintaining a security clearance. Based on what we've learned from the FBI investigation, Hillary Clinton would no longer be eligible for a security clearance, based on her patterns of conducts and lies.

In other words, that Army Specialist at Fort Bragg, the Marine Lance Corporal at Lejeune and the Airman First Class at Seymour Johnson are being held to a higher standard than the woman who was First Lady, a Senator, Secretary of State and now wants to be Commander-in-Chief. The contrast could not be more stark--or compelling.

And, it's a fair bet there were a number of military personnel at that Trump rally. We're betting the room would have exploded if Trump had compared their conduct with that of Hillary Clinton, and told the crowd that she is not fit to lead those men and women.

Instead, we got the usual from Donald Trump. And it wasn't a bad speech--just the wrong speech for that time and place. Maybe his handlers decided there wasn't enough time to roll out an address on the e-mails and give him enough time to rehearse it before arriving in North Carolina. Or, perhaps the pollsters determined that such a speech would be too narrowly focused; better stick to the usual script and offer a little something for everyone.

Unfortunately, that calculation was a tactical error which (hopefully) won't become a strategic mistake. Having escape prosecution yet again, Mrs. Clinton is desperate to change the topic, so she's attacking Trump's business record and his use of bankruptcy laws when a handful of his deals went bad.

Hillary is betting that Trump will take the bait and spend the coming days (or weeks) defending his business practices, and neglecting other issues. Obviously, Mr. Trump has every right to defend his long and successful career in various enterprises. But he shouldn't take his eye off the prize; Hillary Clinton remains very vulnerable on the e-mail issue (and related corruption charges). And, even in a day when only 1% of the population serves in the military, most Americans can understand the difference between a junior enlisted member and a cabinet official. We're also betting they can appreciate the difference in how those young troops uphold the highest standards of conduct and Mrs. Clinton doesn't.

Mr. Trump needs to draw that distinction, every time he faces a campaign crowd or a TV camera. And his "ad team" (assuming they exist) need to craft spots which reinforce those themes, and air them in the swing states where Hillary now dominates the airwaves. In Norfolk, Virginia, for example, the Clinton campaign will air more than 1,000 TV spots before the end of the summer. We're still waiting for the first Trump ad.

And did we mention that the Norfolk/Hampton Roads area has an even larger military/veterans population than North Carolina?
***
ADDENDUM: Thoughts in a similar vein from Kyle Foley at RedState and none other than El Rushbo.

Adrift, Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 17:05:00 +0000

The Navy has released its report on the January incident that resulted in 14 sailors being captured and detained by Iran, after a patrol boat suffered a mechanical failure and drifted into hostile waters.

Calling the assessment "devastating" might be an understatement. From CNN:

"This incident was the result of failed leadership at multiple levels from the tactical to the operational," investigators wrote in the detailed, partially redacted, report.

The report found the crews were poorly prepared, their boats not properly maintained, communication almost entirely lacking, and their conduct after being captured by the Iranians wasn't up to military standards.

In a stunning finding, the report said the sailors veered off course almost immediately after heading out to sea and had no idea where they were when a mechanical failure struck one of the boats.

"The boat crews could visually see Farsi Island, but were not concerned as they were unaware that it was Iranian or that they were in Iranian waters," the report said.

The report details a lax culture for U.S. Navy sailors who routinely patrol the Persian Gulf which ultimately led to a highly embarrassing incident for the U.S. military just as crippling economic sanctions were set to be lifted as part of the Iranian nuclear deal.

"The culture ... (was) characterized by informality. They conducted no patrol briefings, and missions were supported by no formal mission analysis, standard planning factors, risk assessment, or overwatch," investigators wrote.

And, a number of sailors will pay the price for those mistakes. Captain Kyle Moses, the commodore in charge of the task force that included the patrol boats and crews, was dismissed from his post and has been recommended to face non-judicial punishment, which will end his career. The commodore who led the patrol squadron at the time of the incident has also been fired and will face sanctions as well. According to Navy Times, at least seven other sailors, officer and enlisted, are also expected to receive punishment for their actions in the incident.

The Navy's final report paints a picture of a unit with little discipline that was completely unprepared for a 250-mile transit from Kuwait to Bahrain. Crew members on the two boats did not recall seeing the mandatory, written patrol briefing before departure, and investigators believe it was never prepared. The report also found that the crew was never familiarized with the region, and didn't know about weather, geography or potentially hostile threats--fundamental knowledge for any personnel preparing to go in harm's way.

Equally damming is the Navy's assessment of the sailors' conduct after being capture:

The report found that during the 24 hours they were held some crew provided more information to their Iranian captors than they should have, and that they ate food while being filmed -- something they should not have done because it can be and was used as propaganda. One crew member disobeyed a direct order, the report said.

Asked by their captors how it was possible a boat like theirs could have traveled such a distance, one sailor replied, "Yeah, I wish you could tell my people that because we told them these boats don't do that" -- a statement investigators said was inappropriate.

But to no one's surprise, the Navy inquiry also leaves many questions unanswered. We posed many of these back in January, shortly after the crews were captured, detained and and released. A few points worth re-examining:

The most direct route from Kuwait to Bahrain is along the western side of the Persian Gulf; Farsi Island is more centrally located. If the boats were following a direct route, they must have drifted for some time before reaching the Iranian-controlled island. If only one vessel was affected by the engineering casualty, why didn't the second boat take it under tow? Why weren't additional assets--including airpower--dispatched by 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain? The presence of Navy helicopters and F/A-18s overhead might have caused the Iranians to think twice.

And what about distress calls from the [Swedish-built] CB-90s to Navy command elements? Early reports suggested the Navy "lost track" of its assets. Perhaps someone can explain why the vast surveillance assets of the United States Navy couldn't maintain radio and/or radar contact with a pair of patrol boats--or provide warning of Iranian activity. Major surface combatants (along with airborne assets) give the Navy an impressive SIGINT capability on the high seas; assuming we were tracking Iranian activities, it would be nice to know what information commanders had as the episode unfolded and how it impacted their decision-making.

There are also issues involving the commander of the boat element, believed to be the junior officer who issued the on-camera apology. Why did he offer no resistance when the Iranians began boarding his craft. Article II of the U.S. Military Code of Conduct states "I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they have the means to resist." A CB-90 is heavily armed, with .50-caliber machine guns, GAU-19 mini guns and individual weapons for the crew. Obviously, no officer wants to see his command slaughtered; on the other hand, would it have been possible for the crew to resist, particularly with air support?

According to the Navy report, the crews of the two patrol boats had no idea where they were. That admission is stunning in the GPS era, but let's assume for a second (as some intel analysts have suggested) that Iran was jamming that navigation system at the time. Whatever happened to old-fashioned navigation, using the sun, stars, charts and a sextant. The junior officer in charge of the boats is an Annapolis grad; at last report, midshipmen were required to take courses in navigation and master the operation of small craft before graduation (emphasis ours). Perhaps the Naval Academy ought to ask for their diploma back.

Likewise, many service members (current and former) are scratching their heads over the crew's willingness to cooperate with their Iranian captors. That raises serious questions about the level and frequency of Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training provided to riverine crews. Most naval personnel who go into harm's way (aviators, SEALs, special warfare small craft operators and EOD teams) receive specialized training in those critical skills. Based on the video released by Iran--and the Navy report--the patrol craft crews captured in January either didn't receive that training, or forgot everything they learned at SERE school. One Navy contact suggested that riverine crews are only required to complete an on-line SERE course, despite the fact they operate in hostile waters and may be subject to capture by the enemy. If that report is accurate, it is a damning indictment of Navy leadership and its training system.

And senior commanders--above the task force and squadron level--should also be criticized for their reaction to the incident. Back in January, reports suggested the Navy commanders somehow "lost track" of the two patrol craft; indeed, the just-released report suggests that a control element assigned to keep tabs on the transit failed to perform its mission, and had no idea the boats were drifting into hostile waters.

But that explanation only goes so far. Fact is, the U.S. Navy has impressive surveillance and intelligence collection capabilities in the Persian Gulf, for obvious reasons. As the Iranians began to react to the patrol boats approaching Farsi Island, there was radio chatter between command elements and IRCG vessels assigned to the intercept. That activity was almost certainly detected and reported by SIGINT assets afloat and ashore--and quickly relayed to 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain. The sudden spike in radio chatter provided an early indication that something was unfolding, and should have spurred additional efforts to determine what the Iranians were after, and the potential presence of allied assets in the area.

Then, there is this little nugget, which attracted little attention six months ago. It suggests that the USS Harry Truman battle group was in the early stages of mounting a response as the situation developed:

"A senior Iranian naval officer said the Truman and other allied ships began "maneuvering" as the American sailors were detained. The Iranian admiral also claimed that his country's anti-ship missiles were "locked on" to the Truman as the disabled U.S. patrol boats drifted towards his country's territorial waters."

The "maneuvering" was likely a turn into the wind, a prelude to launching air operations. But we can't find any mention of that in the Navy report. Was it a mere coincidence, or (taking a page out of the Benghazi playbook), did someone issue a "standdown" order, deciding it was too late to provide assistance. Clarification of the Truman's tasking during those critical minutes is something Congress should demand, along with details of communications between the carrier battle group, 5th Fleet Headquarters and senior officials in Washington, D.C.

And there's another important element that deserves a more detailed explanation. In mid-May, Virginia Congressman Randy Forbes said details about Iran's treatment of the captured sailors would "shock" the nation. Mr. Forbes, who recently lost his primary for re-election, said information about the sailors ordeal was provided in a classified military briefing and he encouraged other members of Congress to view the presentation as well. To date, the Obama Administration has refused to disclose the details of that briefing and Congressman Forbes suggests it may be a year--or longer--before the information is released.

Mr. Forbes is one of the leading defense experts on Capitol Hill and not given to rash remarks, so there is no reason to doubt the veracity of his account. Obviously, if sailors were watching their comrades being subjected to mock executions (or similar tactics), it would influence their behavior before the enemy, particularly if they lacked the proper SERE training. But we may not know what really happened to those sailors until after Team Obama leaves office. In the interim, those nine sailors will likely see their careers come to an end, and the Navy will (hopefully) make the training, operational and maintenance changes needed to prevent similar incidents in the future.

But we still haven't learned the full story of what transpired near Farsi Island back in January. And the rest of those details may be a long time coming.

Loose Ends

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 02:44:00 +0000

The House Select Committee on Benghazi released its final report this morning. Republican members of the panel (and their staff) crafted the document; committee Democrats, who dismissed the two-year inquiry as a political witch-hunt--and worse--marked the occasion with more criticism of their GOP colleagues, while claiming the report provided no evidence of wrong-doing by Hillary Clinton.

By that standard, it should also be noted that the assessment doesn't exactly cover Mrs. Clinton in glory, either. House investigators affirmed what most Americans have known for years; the former Secretary of State ignored hundreds of requests from Ambassador Chris Stevens to upgrade security at U.S. diplomatic facilities in Libya, but his pleas were ignored. Stevens was one of four Americans who died when Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi on the night of September 11, 2012.

Indeed, the report documents 10 previous terror attacks in area during the months leading up to Benghazi, including two IED strikes against the American compound. Yet, Mrs. Clinton's State Department elected to decrease security in the weeks before the final attack. One unnamed security official summed it up well: noting the escalating violence in Benghazi, he predicted that "people are going to die" if the State Department didn't upgrade security for its personnel.

And when confronted with the truth, Hillary fell back on her most tried-and-true tactic: she lied. Not just once, but repeatedly. As David French notes at National Review, the House report is particularly effective at noting the blatant contradictions between public statements on the debacle (which initially blamed that infamous internet video) and private communications, where Mrs. Clinton immediately classified it as a terrorist attack.

Indeed, one of the more revealing sections of the report details a video conference, led by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough as the U.S. facilities were under siege. It paints a picture of a national security team that was confused and mired in political correctness. From Politico:

According to the report, some participants on the videoconference were unsure about what each agency was doing to rescue Americans.

State Department officials on the call also brought up concerns about whether Marines who might have been deployed to Benghazi were wearing uniforms, the report found — something officials previously said could hurt diplomacy in the region. One commander told the committee he and his men over the course of three hours kept having to change from uniforms to civilian clothes.

Panel Democrats said witnesses told investigators that the overall focus of the teleconference was first and foremost the safety and security of U.S. personnel in Benghazi. Adm. Kurt Tidd, director for operations at the joint staff at the Pentagon, said they "went down the list of the types of forces that are potentially available."

"[W]e came out of that meeting with basically: send everything,” he said.

But GOP sources said that urgency to ensure help was moving on the ground was not reflected in notes and action items. Half of the action items that conference participants wrote down in their notes had nothing to do with rescuing Americans, they said. Many of the action items were about the anti-Islamic video on which the administration would incorrectly blame the attack.

Hillary Clinton briefly participated in the teleconference, though it's unclear what directives she offered (if any). A short time later, she went home for the evening, while Americans were still under attack at the CIA Annex. In the end, no American military forces were dispatched to Benghazi.

Quite predictably, Mrs. Clinton's court stenographers in the MSM view the House report as vindication. Absent a smoking gun, they glad accept the Democrat narrative that the two-year investigation was a waste of time and money.

But moving beyond the spin, the narrative depicts a foreign policy establishment that was completely dysfunctional. After securing the desired "win" by removing Libyan dictator Mummar Qadhafi, Mrs. Clinton and her minions--along with President Obama and his national security team--had no plan for moving forward in Libya. Instead, the nation foundered and became a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists, including those that killed four Americans on that terrible night almost four years ago.

Unfortunately, the report leaves many unanswered questions about our failure to respond. After originally deciding to "send everything," the administration and its top military officers apparently determined that nothing could be done. There were no available assets, they argue; the distance was too great and the forces that could be mustered would arrive too late to make a difference.

And, at various points in their assessment , Committee Chair Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and his colleagues seem quite willing to go along with that narrative. Responding to questions about sending F-16s from Aviano AB, Italy, the Air Force told Mr. Gowdy's investigators that jets and crews at that installation were busy with an inspection. "Live" munitions had not been assembled and could not be prepared quickly enough to mount a response to Benghazi.

But that rather tidy explanation has been debunked by individuals at the scene. Last month, an airman who was at Aviano at the time told Adam Housley of Fox News that Aviano's 31st Fighter Wing was alerted for "real world" tasking that night, and the base flighline was abuzz with activity, as pilots and ground crews prepared for possible tasking in Benghazi.

In his interview with Mr. Housley, the airman made it clear that the preparations were in response to events in Libya--not the inspection. Indeed, Air Force policy has long mandated that real-world tasking always trumps evaluations. At the moment a unit is alerted, the evaluation stops. Of course, the USAF has never specified what type of inspection was taking place at Aviano. Was it a local operational readiness exercise (ORE), or a formal evaluation by the U.S. Air Force in Europe (USAFE) Inspector General? Such questions could be easily answered by the committee requesting a copy of the inspection report--or interviewing the wing commander--but there is no evidence Gowdy or his investigators ever made those requests.

The committee also raised red flags about potentially incomplete displays of available forces in theater. The report notes that a C-17 which flew an evacuation mission to Libya on 12 September (apparently from a base in Europe) was not included in a graphic depiction of on-hand assets during that period. Did anyone from the committee bother to check with the command post or base ops at Ramstein AB, Germany, RAF Mildenhall in the UK, or other bases that support C-17 missions--and would track the arrival and departure of transient aircraft?

Likewise, the panel sheds no light on USN assets in the Mediterranean. While there was no carrier in the region that night, there were almost certainly guided missile destroyers, cruisers or attack submarines that (as a last resort) could have mounted a cruise missile strike against terrorist targets in Benghazi, using updated coordinates provided by an unarmed UAV, orbiting overhead.

Additionally, there is no information on the status of airlift assets available to move SOF elements from Croatia, or a Marine FAST team from Rota, Spain. Such data should be readily available through the theater operations center, or the Tanker Airlift Coordination Center, part of Air Mobility Command (AMC) at Scott AFB, Illinois. The report provides no indication that investigators contacted AMC or other airlift control elements as part of the probe.   This much we know: it took more than five hours for the Pentagon to begin moving assets towards Benghazi, unacceptably slow given the deteriorating situation on the ground in Libya.

Equally disturbing is the (apparent) inability of the committee to fill in the "missing hours" in President Obama's schedule on the night in question. Officially, we know that he met with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and JCS Chairman General Martin Dempsey in the late afternoon, about two hours into the attack. A few hours later, he placed a call to a foreign leader, but there is no indication of his whereabouts (or actions) in the time leading up to that conversation, or in the hours that followed. Publicly, Mr. Obama would not be seen again until 9 am the following morning, as he departed for a campaign trip to Nevada.

In fact, no one seems really sure who was calling the shots in the situation room that night, with Mr. Obama apparently indisposed and Mrs. Clinton at her home.   The scenario is mind-boggling; American diplomatic and intelligence facilities are being overrun; our ambassador is dead, and the Commander-in-Chief and SecState are nowhere to be found.

As Mr. French observes, the Benghazi disaster would be enough to end the career of a mere mortal, but no one describes Hillary Clinton in those terms. She has proclaimed it is time to "move on," and her friends in the media are ready to follow suit. Benghazi will now fade in the nation's rear-view mirror as Clinton sets her sights on November.

Mr. Gowdy and his Republican committee members should be commended for their work, but in the end, it merely affirms the worst qualities of Mrs. Clinton, which the media and political elites are all-too-happy to ignore, regardless of the consequences. And unfortunately, the Gowdy reports still leaves many questions unanswered. Hillary Clinton wasn't the only senior official who failed miserably that night, and like the former Secretary of State, they will never be held accountable.

Correcting History

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 19:39:00 +0000

There is something quite predictable about The New York Times article which presents a new twist on one of the most iconic images in history--Joe Rosenthal's 1945 photograph of Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima. Here's the lede from reporter Michael S. Schmidt, who has covered military topics for many years, and quite frankly, should know better:

"An internal investigation by the Marine Corps has concluded that for more than 70 years it wrongly identified one of the men in the iconic photograph of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II."

Mr. Schmidt goes on to detail the results of an official inquiry which has determined that Navy Corpsman John Bradley was not one of the flag-raisers in photograph, which was taken atop Mount Suribachi as the battle still raged on 23 February 1945. The possibility that Bradley was not in the photo was first detailed in an article published by the Omaha World Herald in 2014; a pair of World War II history buffs took a closer look at Rosenthal's epic photo and decided that the figure identified as John Bradley did not match other images taken of him that day. Those photos, culled by two amateur historians from various archives and published by the Herald, show Bradley wearing "cuffed" uniform pants, while all of the men in the flag-raising photo are wearing trousers without cuffs.

Joe Rosenthal's famous photo of the Iwo Jima flag raising, with the participants identified. Prior to a recent USMC inquiry, it was accepted that five Marines and a Navy Corpsman (John Bradley) appeared in the image. Now, it is believed that the man identified as Bradley was actually a sixth Marine.

Other clues also emerged. A photo of Bradley, taken earlier that day, shows him wearing a belt and pouches that don't match those of the man in the Rosenthal photo. Indeed, the figure identified as John Bradley for eight decades has a pouch with wire cutters dangling from his belt--an item that was not standard issue for Navy Corpsmen. Over a period of weeks, the two historians, one from Ireland, the other in Omaha, became increasingly convinced that the man believed to be Bradley was actually a Marine named Harold Schultz.

Needless to say, these claims generated tremendous controversy. The flag-raising photo won a Pulitzer Prize in 1945; it is the most widely-reproduced image of all time and it became the model for the Marine Corps Memorial in Washington, D.C. In fact, sculptor Felix de Weldon, who created the massive figures that form the centerpiece of the monument, began working on a maquette for his design when the photo first appeared--years before receiving the actual commission. The memorial was dedicated in 1954, and remains one of the most popular attractions for visitors to Washington, D.C.

John Bradley's role in the flag-raising was also the focus of a best-selling book (Flags of Our Fathers, written by his son, James), which also became the basis of a Clint Eastwood film, released in 2006. Until those Marine history buffs began comparing old photographs, the weight of evidence suggested that the elder Bradley was the man who helped raise Old Glory on that February day long ago.

But to their credit, both the Marine Corps and James Bradley were willing to consider the possibility of mistaken identity, stretching over 75 years. The Corps appointed a panel of experts, led by a retired Lieutenant General, who eventually arrived at the conclusion that the figure in the photograph was PFC Harold Schultz and not the Navy Corpsman. And last month, James Bradley expressed doubt that his father is one of the men in the Rosenthal photo.

Which brings us back to the folks at the Times and today's update on the controversy. For whatever reason, Mr. Schmidt and his editors claim the figure in the photo, the memorial and countless reproductions was "wrongly identified" as John Bradley, hinting at motives that were somehow sinister and conspiratorial.

A complete telling of the episode casts events in a much different light. The inaccurate identification of Harold Schultz as John Bradley is the product of the fog of war and the reluctance of many Iwo survivors to talk about the horrors of the campaign, which claimed the lives of more than 6,000 Marines and sailors.

As any student of the battle knows, there were two flag-raisings on Mount Suribachi that day. The first was performed by members of a 40-man led by lLt Harold Schrier, who reached the top of the peak around 10:30 am. John Bradley was a Corpsman assigned to that group and participated in the first flag raising, which was recorded by Marine Corps combat photographer Sergeant Lou Lowery.

A photo taken just moments after the initial flag-raising on Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945. Navy Corpsman John Bradley is the sixth man from the left, with his right hand on the flagstaff. The image was taken by Marine Corps combat photographer Sgt Lou Lowery and first appeared in Leatherneck magazine in 1947.

The second flag-raising, also supervised by Lt Schrier, occurred about two hours later. By that time, Lowery was heading down from the summit to deliver his film for processing. He ran into Joe Rosenthal and another Marine photographer, Sergeant Bill Genaust, who was carrying a motion picture camera. Lowery told them he had recorded the flag raising, but encouraged them to continue up Suribachi, because of the good view from the top of the peak. The second flag went up shortly after Rosenthal and Genaust arrived. Rosenthal, on assignment for the AP, shot the moment hurriedly, not really sure of what his Speed Graphic had captured.

With the battle still raging, Rosenthal didn't have time to record the names of the flag raisers. But, as the photo gained instant acclaim, there was a clamor to identify the men in that image, led by President Roosevelt, and bring them home. By the time the search began in earnest, three of the Marines (Mike Strank, Franklin Sousley and Harlan Block) had been killed in action, and John Bradley was recovering from battle wounds.

Among the survivors, Private Rene Gagnon (who served as a runner during most of the battle) was quickly identified as a flag raiser, and officers leaned heavily on him to identify the rest. He signed an affidavit naming himself, Strank, Sousley, Bradley, Hank Hansen and Ira Hayes as the men in the photo. Hansen, he claimed, was the Marine closest to the base of the flag pole--a mistake that was not corrected until Harlan Block's mother saw the image and claimed the man in question was actually her son. At that point, Gagnon revised his account. Hansen also died on the island and Hayes was a very reluctant participant in the fanfare that followed. Haunted by his experiences in combat, Hayes died of alcoholism in 1955.

As for John Bradley, he also had no taste for celebrity and was long traumatized by what he witnessed on Iwo. But he also understood the military, and when directed to take part in the bond drive, the young Corpsman obeyed his orders. Yet, he also moved to quickly distance himself from the fame accorded to the flag-raisers. After leaving the Navy, Bradley became a successful funeral director in his home state of Wisconsin, fathered a large family and became a pillar of the community.

While acknowledging his service in World War II--and participation in the flag-raising--Bradley refused to provide any details. As recounted in Flags of Our Fathers, John Bradley struggled with the demons of war, weeping in his sleep for many years, and rejecting all media requests for interviews. Even members of his family knew only the barest details of time in battle. After Bradley's death in 1994, his widow and children found a Navy Cross in a shoebox in his closet. John Bradley received the Navy's second highest award for valor on Iwo (for braving withering enemy fire to treat wounded Marines) and never told anyone about it, even his wife of 50 years.

Likewise, Harold Schultz did his best to bury the past and move on. Wounded in battle, he returned to the U.S. to recuperate and was discharged from the Marine Corps in the fall of 1945. He spent the rest of his career working for the Post Office in southern California, living a quiet and humble existence. Schultz didn't marry until he was 60 and only mentioned the flag-raising once, over the supper table with his wife and step-daughter in 1992. When his daughter exclaimed "My gosh, Harold, you're a hero," he said "No, I was a Marine." It was the last time he mentioned the event, although a copy of the Rosenthal photo was among his belongings when Schultz died in 1995.

The Marine Corps is now updating its records to reflect Schultz's position as one of the flag-raisers. But why did the mistake persist for so long? Perhaps the answers can be found in the era that produced such remarkable men. Both John Bradley and Harold Schultz came from a time when most Americans didn't eagerly seek fame, or to capitalize on their exploits. Most viewed military service as a necessary obligation after their country was attacked and they willingly did their job--not necessarily for freedom, democracy or any other lofty ideal, but for their buddies who were serving alongside.

Raising the flags on the bitterly-contested island was part of a job they had to do. And when confronted with extraordinary circumstances--namely, being identified as a part of that iconic image and instructed to perform fund-raising and publicity functions that came with the territory--John Bradley reluctantly agreed. As depicted in his son's book and the Eastwood film, there was enormous pressure to find the men in the photo and leverage that moment to push the nation on towards final victory, particularly in regards to funding the war effort through one last bond drive. It is very clear that the elder Bradley and Ira Hayes were uncomfortable with their sudden fame and acclaim, and sought to return to a normal life as quickly as possible. It is also clear that neither tried to profit from the experience; books and films about their lives appeared after their passing.

The same can be said for Harold Schultz. He was apparently quite happy to fade into the anonymity of everyday life and saw no need to correct the historical record. Schultz was likely haunted by the same ghosts that troubled John Bradley, Ira Hayes and the other men who lived through Iwo. They left too many friends behind to worry about about who might have been in a photo--even if it is one of the most famous images in history. And if called on to discuss such matters, they did so with great reluctance and the utmost humility.

That is not to say that historical inaccuracies should not be corrected. But perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from Harold Schultz, John Bradley and the other men who did their duty on that remote island so many years ago. It is a lesson in deference and respect, virtues that appear to be fading as quickly as the last men and women from the Greatest Generation.

God and Airmen at Travis AFB

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 16:58:00 +0000

Returning after an extended break from the blog, I came across this disturbing headline (and accompanying video) at Breitbart:

"Veteran Forcibly Dragged from Air Force Ceremony for Mentioning God."

The video was recorded on 3 April of this year, at a ceremony for Master Sergeant Charles Roberson, who was retiring from active duty after more than 20 years of honorable service. MSgt Roberson, like many leaving the service, requested a flag-folding as part of the event. While there is no "official" flag-folding ceremony, it is well-established in military tradition, and there are several narrations which accompany the ritual.

And that's where the controversy at Travis begins. Sergeant Roberson, like many departing service members, requested a narrative which highlights (in part) our religious heritage and liberties. Here are a few excerpts:

"The fourth fold represents our weaker nature, for as American citizens trusting in God, it is to Him we turn in times of peace as well as in times of war for His divine guidance."

[snip]

"The eleventh fold, in the eyes of a Hebrew citizen, represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon and glorifies, in their eyes, the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.

The twelfth fold, in the eyes of a Christian citizen, represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies, in their eyes, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost."

Needless to say, those references didn't sit well with politically-correct Air Force leadership, which issued its a secular version back in 2005. Religious themes were dumped in favor of "factual information, that shows respect for the flag and expresses our gratitude for those individuals who protect our country, both at home and abroad."

Unfortunately for the USAF's PC Police, many retirees--like MSgt Roberson--preferred the religious narrative and kept using it at their retirement ceremonies. The vast majority of commanders allowed the choice, figuring (correctly) that the honoree deserved that much, after decades of wearing the nation's uniform and enduring the sacrifices associated with military service.

But Roberson's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Sovitsky, had other ideas. As retired Senior Master Sergeant Oscar Rodriguez began reciting the religious-themed flag-folding narrative, at least four of Sovitsky's non-commissioned officers surrounded the narrator and dragged him from the room. Members of Travis's 60th Security Forces Squadron were summoned and Rodriguez was escorted from the base.

All because a retiring NCO requested a flag-folding narrative that spoke to his religious beliefs. Let the record show that MSgt Roberson personally invited SMSgt Rodriguez to his retirement ceremony and specifically requested that he render the religious version of the flag-folding narration. Roberson made his preferences known well in advance, so claims by Air Force p.r. flacks that Rodriguez "disrupted" the ceremony or showed up unannounced are pure bunk.

In fairness, it is worth noting that leadership in the 749th Maintenance Squadron (Roberson's outfit) were aware of his request and opposed it from the start. The estimable John Q. Public blog has been on the story from the start and reports that Roberson's chain of command provided "guidance" on the narrative once Roberson made his preferences known: Rodriguez was not to perform the "unauthorized" flag speech. MSgt Roberson passed on the directive to the narrator, while making clear his preference for the religious-themed narrative. According to J.Q.P., Roberson left the final decision to Rodriguez as to whether he would stand and speak during the flag folding. SMSgt Rodriguez chose to exercise his First Amendment rights, and for his efforts, was unceremoniously dragged from the ceremony and kicked off post.

Some might argue that the Air Force had a right to eject Rodriguez. His narrative could be construed as an endorsement of Judaism and Christianity, and it took place on public property, specifically a building at Travis AFB. Volumes of court rulings would seem to support the USAF, no matter how repugnant its actions were.

But J.Q.P. raises important counter-arguments that demolish the Air Force's position. He notes that military chaplains often deliver religious invocations at retirement ceremonies and other official events, often appearing in the same frame as the American flag. As for the Air Force Instruction (34-1201) that mandates use of the "secular" flag-folding script, the reg doesn't carry the weight of law and "creates an unwarranted limitation" on the ability of service members to draw inspiration from the flag and express it publicly. Such expressions are not contrary to the maintenance of good order and discipline, so the USAF's position is further eroded. And, there's the very real possibility that leaders of the 749th issued illegal detention orders when they directed those NCOs to remove Oscar Rodriguez.

And here's the kicker: the flag-folding is not part of the official retirement ceremony, so the Trotskyites in the 749th were attempting to dictate content and participation of a private ritual--requested by the retiree--after the conclusion of events that fall under Air Force purview. Instead, the "leadership" of the unit (and we use that term advisedly) tried to exert total command influence over the event. What was supposed to be a fitting send-off for a retiring airman instead became a strong-armed spectacle, thanks to commanders who seem to care only about their P.C. agenda--and not those who serve under them.

J.Q.P. describes the Travis debacle as more proof of the "moral rot" that is crippling the USAF. Sadly, we can't disagree.

***ADDENDUM***
In response to media queries, the Air Force says an investigation into the matter is underway. For those keeping score at home, the probe is being handled by the 60th Security Forces Squadron, the same unit involved in removing Oscar Rodriguez from Travis after he was ejected from MSgt Roberson's retirement ceremony.

We're quite sure it will be the very model of impartiality and fairness.

Idiot of the Week (VA Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 May 2016 21:37:00 +0000

It's been far too long since our dubious honor was bestowed and we appeared to have an easy winner in Bill Kristol, the neocon pundit who's been trolling for a third party candidate to run against Trump and Hillary. So far, he's had no luck in finding anyone who's willing to waste six months (and hundreds of millions of dollars) in a futile bid against the presumptive GOP and Democratic nominees.

To be fair, the contest between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton is a bit like deciding between arsenic and hemlock; the outcome will be grim, perhaps fatal, regardless of your choice. But the idea of recruiting a candidate who would personally deliver the White House to Hillary Clinton is nothing short of a suicide run. For that alone, Dr. Kristol would normally be a slam-dunk for Idiot of the Week.

Luckily for him, VA Secretary Robert McDonald jumped into the gap and rightfully claimed the booby prize. In case you haven't heard, the man charged with fixing our broken veterans' health care system told a Washington breakfast that wait times for medical services really don't matter; it's the experience that "counts:"

More from Sarah Westwood at the Washington Examiner:

[The] Veterans Affairs Secretary on Monday compared the length of time veterans wait to receive health care at the VA to the length of time people wait for rides at Disneyland, and said his agency shouldn't use wait times as a measure of success because Disney doesn't either.

"When you got to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what's important? What's important is, what's your satisfaction with the experience?" McDonald said Monday during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. "And what I would like to move to, eventually, is that kind of measure."

[snip]

McDonald faced questions at the breakfast about the VA's lack of transparency surrounding how long veterans must wait to receive care at VA facilities around the country. The agency has weathered controversy over the past several years due to its struggle to provide timely care for many patients.

The VA secretary said most veterans report being satisfied with their care and argued that the average wait time for a veteran seeking VA treatment is only a matter of days.

He said he did not believe a measure called the "create date," which gauges a veteran's wait time by counting from the day the veteran first requests care, was a "valid measure" of a veteran's VA experience.

Of course, Secretary McDonald is wrong on all counts. Perhaps he's forgotten why he was hired in the first place: because thousands of veterans spent months--sometimes years--waiting for health care that was never delivered and some of them died in the process. Meanwhile, legions of VA bureaucrats created phony lists to hide the delays and made it appear that patients were being seen in a timely manner, so they could collect their annual bonuses.

And things have actually gotten worse since McDonald replaced the equally hapless Eric Shinseki at the VA. Less than a year ago, the Washington Post reported that wait times for some VA services have actually increased during McDonald's watch, despite the infusion of billions of dollars in new funding.

Making matters worse, the new VA Secretary has made little progress in weeding out the criminals and incompetents who populate the workforce at various veterans hospitals and other facilities around the country. Testifying before Congress, McDonald claimed to have fired 900 workers, including many with ties to the appointment scandal. But a closer examination revealed that most were probationary employees who were let go after one year on the job. The same post investigation found that only 60 VA staffers had been disciplined in connection with the scandal, and most remained on the job.

Even more disturbing: not a single VA employee has been faced criminal sanctions for the appointment scandal. We're not federal prosecutors, but it would appear that creating falsified records to collect a bonus might be grounds for fraud charges, at a minimum. But then again, no one at the VA seems particularly anxious to punish the guilty. Lest anyone forget, the agency's inspector general, in an impressive feat of oversight gymnastics, determined in 2014 that excessive wait times "weren't directly responsible" for the deaths of scores of veterans. Obviously, the long delays for service didn't exactly promote good health, but the IG's contortions bought the agency--and it's new director--a little daylight.

Two years later, it's apparent that Mr. McDonald is playing out the string and has abandoned any hope at meaningful reform. Not that the commander-in-chief is pushing him to make things better for those who wore the nation's uniform. Having weathered the storm, Mr. Obama has long since moved on to other things. In fact, the VA scandal is a model for all the controversies that have engulfed the Obama Administration, and how they are handled. Faced with a crisis and/or potential activity, the White House adopts the "right" narrative, feeds it to a compliant media and hunkers down, waiting for the scandal to blow over.

Indeed, the VA controversy was squarely on the back burner until McDonald opened his mouth this morning. But don't look for the one-time Proctor & Gamble CEO to lose his current gig. The President doesn't want to go through the hassle of finding another VA Secretary for the last six months of his term, and so far, we haven't found a single Republican politician who has called for McDonald to resign. Better to use him as campaign fodder and let the agency keep lurching along. If the "VA experience" kills a few more vets, no big deal. The smart boys and girls in D.C. view veterans as a shrinking voting bloc--they're much more concerned about courting the federal employees who work at the VA, a much more reliable constituency for Democrats.

In a sane world, Robert McDonald would already be on his way out the door. You'd think that a former Titan of the Business World might have more of a clue about customer service. Clearly, the stores that sell P&G products--and the consumers who buy them--would never tolerate the kind of "service" that McDonald is providing through the VA. And for that matter, neither would the folks who run Disney. Contrary to Mr. McDonald's assertions, the Mouse keeps very close tabs on wait times at its theme parks, because Disney understands that unhappy "guests" are less likely to return and spend more money. Wait times for various Disney attractions is as close as the internet; you can even download an app and find out how long you'll wait in line for Space Mountain or Cinderella's Castle.

And we're talking about an amusement park, not a vast health care network whose service level can mean the difference between life and death. That's one reason why there will never be a smart phone app for wait times at the VA; those are still measured with a calendar and no one at the agency wants to admit that the situation may be worse than before. Leading that parade is a West Point grad who ought to know better, but sadly, he's just our Idiot of the Week.

Wiped Out

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 May 2016 22:53:00 +0000

Few people realize it, but the U.S. Air Force has been at war for 25 years. Beginning with Operation Desert Storm in January 1991 and continuing through the current conflict against ISIS, the USAF has been continuously deployed, enduring an exhaustive operations tempo that has taken its toll on aircraft and personnel.

And, making matters worse, the Air Force is much smaller than it was a quarter-century ago. Many of the squadrons that took the fight to Saddam have been inactivated; their aircraft now sit in the "Boneyard" at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, baking in the Arizona sun. Thousands of airmen who flew, maintained or supported those aircraft have moved on as well; the service has trimmed more than 100,000 personnel from its ranks over the past 25 years, and sequestration-mandated cuts have accelerated that trend.

Now, with on-going operations in the Middle East, a resurgent Russia and growing threats from China and Iran, the Air Force finds itself in an increasingly precarious position. Some airmen openly question whether their service could carry out missions it performed only five years ago, during the limited air campaign against Libya. As Fox News reports:

Many of the Airmen reported feeing “burnt out” and “exhausted” due to the current pace of operations, and limited resources to support them. During the visit to Ellsworth earlier this week, Fox News was told only about half of the 28th Bomb Wing’s fleet of bombers can fly.

“We have only 20 aircraft assigned on station currently. Out of those 20 only nine are flyable,” Pfrommer said.

“The [B-1] I worked on 20 years ago had 1,000 flight hours on it. Now we're looking at some of the airplanes out here that are pushing over 10,000 flight hours,” he said.

"In 10 years, we cut our flying program in half," said Capt. Elizabeth Jarding, a B-1 pilot at Ellsworth who returned home in January following a six-month deployment to the Middle East for the anti-ISIS campaign.

In fairness, the aircraft at Ellsworth are undergoing a major systems upgrade that required the B-1 to take a break from the war on terror. The "Bone" (as its known to aircrews and maintainers) will return to the fight, but in the interim, a number of airframes will be grounded as the aircraft acquires new and improved capabilities.

But it's not just the B-1 fleet that is facing operational problems. At Shaw AFB, South Carolina, home to the 20th Fighter Wing, mission-capable rates for the assigned F-16CJ squadrons remain abysmally low; of the 79 Vipers at the base, only 42% can actually deploy. The CJ model is viewed as a critical resource by air planners, since it performs the suppression of air defenses (SEAD) mission. Obviously, ISIS doesn't have much in the way of AD assets, but in a conflict against a regional power, the F-16CJ would play a vital role.   The problems at Shaw are identical to those at Ellsworth:

That's because they, too, are missing parts. One F-16 squadron that recently returned last month from a deployment to the Middle East had a host of maintenance issues.

“Our first aircraft downrange this deployment, we were short 41 parts,” Chief Master Sgt. Jamie Jordan said. To get the parts, the airmen had to take parts from another jet that deployed, leaving one less F-16 to fight ISIS. At one point, Jordan said they were taking parts from three separate aircraft.

When asked about the efficiency of taking parts from expensive fighter jets, Jordan said the costs were not just in dollars: “From a man-hour perspective, it's very labor intensive and it really takes a toll.”

Overall, the Air Force has 30% fewer airmen, 40% fewer aircraft and 60% fewer fighter squadrons than it did 25 years ago. The average "age" of a USAF aircraft is 27; many are older than the pilots who fly them and the maintenance troops than maintain them.

Responding to a query from FNC, Pentagon press spokesman Peter Cook was asked if Defense Secretary Ash Carter believed the maintenance and budget issues affecting flying units was widespread. "No, I don't think so," Mr. Cook replied. He claims the issue has been discussed "at length" and is being addressed.

That exchange probably left a lot of Air Force commanders scratching their heads. If talk equated action, then every squadron in the USAF would have a Fully Mission Capable (FMC) rate approaching 100%. But the reality is reflected in those numbers at Ellsworth, Shaw and virtually every other Air Force installation. Aging jets are breaking more frequently; the service doesn't have the money to fully fund its maintenance program, and in some cases, spare parts can't be found because production stopped years ago, or the vendor is no longer in business. And, at the same time, aircrews and maintainers burned out by non-stop deployments are voting with their feet and leaving the service.

It's a vicious cycle that is compromising America's dominance in the skies, with damning consequences for future military campaigns. It's also worth remembering that any solution to this problem will require time and a massive investment of defense dollars. The timeline from the hollow force of the late 70s to the military juggernaut that smashed Saddam stretched out over 10-15 years. Even if this administration--and the next one--were truly interested in fixing this problem, the airmen at Ellsworth, Shaw and other bases won't see any relief for years to come.

Calling the Air Police, Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 May 2016 18:40:00 +0000

A Russian transport is shadowed by an RAF Typhoon of NATO's air policing force near the Baltic coast (UK MoD photo via Sky News)

Recently, we've taken a few shots at NATO's "Air Policing" mission in the Baltics. And, we think the crews of the USS Donald Cook and USAF RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft would probably agree. Fighter detachments from the UK and Portugal, which recently assumed the air police mission, were noticeably absent when Russian SU-24 strike fighters buzzed the Cook in the Baltic Sea and SU-27 interceptors did barrel rolls around RC-135s on two different missions off the Baltic coast.

In fairness, we should point out that the primary mission of the air police contingent is to protect NATO's Baltic members, which lack their own air forces. The Cook and the RC-135s were in international territory when they were harassed by Russian aircraft. Perhaps NATO commanders determined that RAF Typhoons and F-16s from Portugal were too far away to respond, or they simply didn't want to escalate the incident. So, the Rivet Joint crews were on their own, as were the men and women manning the Cook.

But we are happy to report that the air police contingent is doing more than sitting on the ramp at their deployment bases in Estonia (where the Typhoons are based) and Lithuania, home for the Portuguese detachment will spend the next four months. The UK MoD has proudly announced that its fighters conducted intercepts of three Russian transport aircraft in recent days, including an IL-76 Candid, the Russian equivalent of our long-retired C-141.

Interestingly, the Typhoons were scrambled because the Russian aircraft were not transmitting a recognized IFF code. That's the same excuse Moscow has used for those recent, aggressive intercepts of the RC-135s. According to an RAF officer, intercepts of those lumbering transports were carried out in textbook fashion.

Well, jolly good, old boy. Unfortunately, no one has yet answered why the air policing force won't respond to incidents like those involving the Cook and the RC-135s. While a UK official described the transport flights as "acts of aggression," they pale in comparison to Russian harassment of the U.S. destroyer and aggressive maneuvering in close proximity to RJ aircraft. Those episodes have the potential for disaster and you'd think the Atlantic alliance would be a little more forceful in its response. But at least we can keep up with the Candids, Coots and Curls.

At this point, we're guessing the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians are wondering what it would take to field their own air forces. NATO's intercept program--which appears to be a bit selective in nature--doesn't inspire confidence.