What's It All About?

To listen to some of the ads on TV for the various politicians it would seem that we have two men arguing about the same thing, only who is more committed to doing so:  Cut the deficit, cut unemployment, create jobs, grow the economy, reduce taxes, defend the nation, etc., etc., etc.  Both insist that they are the ones who will do it, while insisting that the other guy won’t.  Recently, President Obama has even come out a statement asserting that the problem ‘can’t be fixed from the inside,’ that it can ‘only be fixed from the outside.’

What does he mean by ‘insider?’  Well, he didn’t really elaborate, but the implication was a ‘politico,’ one of those people who ‘live and breath the Washington DC air,’ who have spent their entire lives in politics and who view everything through the lens of politics.

This seems a little odd for someone – President Obama - who has been an insider since he reached law school, and has been the DC ‘fast mover’ since he was the featured speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

But let’s look at it from another perspective.  People have been complaining about the deficit for many years (though, granted it hasn’t been this extreme relative to GDP since World War II), people have been complaining about the growth in entitlement programs (again, it is worse now), people have been complaining about the complexity of the tax code and the seemingly glaring inconsistencies.  And so on and so forth.  But no one does anything about it.  Even when President Obama had overwhelming majorities for two years in both the House and Senate, not only did he not do anything about it, he didn’t even pass complete budgets for those years.  (In fact, in January, win or lose, he will become the first President in history to fail to ever pass a complete budget; another historical first, along with the downgrading of US credit ratings.)

Why, despite all the talk, is nothing being done?  Simply because all of this is, at least to those in power, is theater.  This election, perhaps more than any in recent memory, is about power.  The simple truth is that the President, and many of the leaders in the Democratic Party, is more concerned with power than with any of the problems facing the US.  Simply put, if they were asked a simple either - or question, would you trade your position in office for an elimination of the budget deficit, they would answer no.

The root of this whole mess however is that this election isn't about Republicans and Democrats, its not about foreign policy or tax policy or entitlements; this election is about power, and about the ruling clique holding power - an amorphous association of career politicians, main stream media, academia, a major slice of bureaucrats, and certain elements of the private sector that have long been in cahoots with the government (think GM, elements of the Banking and Housing industries, some union leadership, for example).  The split on the polls are laughable, with poll after poll samples so badly skewed that most of them represent no real data at all.  If President Obama wins in November - and I don't believe he will - it will only prove that those in power can manipulate the organs of government to maintain control - a fact we already knew.  Few if any of the senior members of the Federal Bureaucracy really care if there is a debt problem or a default or a ten year recession or a global depression.  What they care about is whether they maintain, and if possible increase their span of power.  

Where does that leave us?  First, we need to vote in November, vote to remove the incumbent from the White House, and to turn over control of the Senate.  Then we need to hold the Republicans accountable.  And vote them out in 4 years if they fail to improve the state of the nation.  But, more importantly, we find ourselves in a position that is really no different then where most countries have found themselves from time to time throughout history.  What is does beg is the question: What do we really do?  It suggests that there needs to be a few amendments to the Constitution to wrest more power from the 3 branches (and maybe also bringing the '4th branch' (the Federal Reserve) under some sort of control that is responsive to the citizenry.  We must limit the power of the government to tax, limit the power to spend, limit the power to pass eternal legislation, and finally limit the power of the executive to create de facto legislation under the title of ‘regulations.’  Actually, all of that is possible.  But WE THE PEOPLE will have to do it, because the guys in power don’t want to let go.

Some Common Sense on Spending...

Submitted into the Congressional Record, Fall 1949, by Congressman Clarence J. Brown, R - Ohio, who claimed that it had been written by "a prominent Georgia Democrat" (thanks to JB):

DEMOCRATIC DIALOG

Father, must I go to work?
    No, my lucky son.
We're living now on Easy Street
    On dough from Washington.

We've left it up to Uncle Sam,
    So don't get exercised.
Nobody has to give a damn-
    We've all been subsidized.

But if Sam treats us all so well
    And feeds us milk and honey,
Please, daddy, tell me what the hell
    He's going to use for money?

Don't worry, bub, there's not a hitch
    In this here noble plan-
He simply soaks the filthy rich
    And helps the common man.

But, father, won't there come a time
    When they run out of cash
And we have left them not a dime
    When things will go to smash?

My faith in you is shrinking, son,
    You  nosy little brat;
You do too damn much thinking, son,
    To be a Democrat.

Libya, Egypt, Yemen, et al

We begin by noting the brutal murders of the Ambassador and three other Americans – staff and support for the Embassy.  These acts, and the storming of the embassies in several other countries, are intolerable and unless the governments of the respective countries condemn them immediately, in the strongest possible terms, and then take every possible step to round up those responsible, the US should take steps to alter the relationship between the US and that country (note: the other guy already has).  It is little solace to their families and friends that the dead were heroic and noble.  It is also of little note in trying to determine what happens next.  But several points need to be made.

First, and it must be said: This was predicted.  Everyone seems to willfully forget that this kind of behavior had been quite accurately forecast, and equally ignored by the President and the Secretary of State.  Both government officials and others, writing publicly in blogs and journals (including this author), noted over the past 2 years that: 1) we did not have a coherent policy in the Arab world; 2) providing moral and military support to rebels without knowing who they were was likely to recoil against us; 3) complicity in the overthrow of an ally would in no way endear us to those who led the overthrow; 4) wishful thinking as to the future of these various countries was a miserable substitute for a meaningful plan that had real ‘teeth’ in it; and finally, the Muslim Brotherhood may be many things, but it most assuredly is not a friend of the US, and would sooner or later get around to attacking US interests.  The administration has failed on these issues.  Saying otherwise is a lie.  When several US embassies have been overrun, when the US flag is torn down and al Qaeda’s flag is flying over a US embassy, when an Ambassador is killed inside a US Consulate – you have lost that round Mr. President.  That is YOUR failure.

Second, it should come as no surprise to any sentient being that September 11^th is a day when the US embassies ought to be not only aware of what is happening around them, but that also a good day to take extra precautions and a good day to have some prepared responses – both from an information management perspective and a security perspective.  The administration failed on this issue.

Third, while there was clearly a sense that things might happen on the 11^th, the intelligence community apparently failed to penetrate the Muslim Brotherhood sufficiently to learn of the plans to coordinate demonstrations.  This is not a failure of case officers; this is a failure of the senior personnel who set the guidance for the various agency offices around the world.  Is the Muslim Brotherhood on the list of organizations of interest to the intelligence community?  Certainly.  But it is now also clear that the level of effort/acceptable level of risk calculus failed.

There is an old saw that goes: ‘Once accident, twice coincident, three times enemy action.’

Simply put, anyone who believes that it is simply coincidence that independent riots in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Sudan and elsewhere sprang up within 24 hours of each other, all directed at the US Embassies is beyond naïve.  But again, this is not ‘news’ to many in the intelligence community.  There has been clear concern about this type of action for years.  But the question is this: was enough done to ensure that the US had reliable sources inside the Muslim Brotherhood and other like minded organizations who could keep our people informed as planning developed for this kind of operation?  Clearly, the answer is no.  The fact that we are holding this conversation is proof. 

But the question is why?  Are our case officers incapable of finding sources who could penetrate these organizations?  To the contrary, the facts have shown that they can.  It can be difficult, but it can be done.  So where was the failure?  There can only be one answer: failure of leadership: in the intelligence community, in the State Department and particularly in the Oval Office. In the Intelligence Community it is a combination of not enough case officers, not aggressive enough leadership, risk averse leadership, and a desire among the very senior members of the intelligence community to view certain elements through politically correct lenses all contributed to this current problem.  And all of these issues are, in the end, a failure of leadership – the leadership of the IC and a failure of policy at the very highest levels of government. 

In the State Department it is a willful disregard of the simple truth that many people not only disagree with the US, they hate us and want to do evil things to the US. The Administration can seek to point fingers, and can assign blame to a wide range of forces – including I am sure (somehow) the last President, but the fact remains that multiple US embassies were unprepared for assault, 4 good people are dead, several US embassies were at least for a short time overrun, US interests have been damaged, and the US strategic message has been badly mauled by the public image of rioters on top of embassies, US flags being burned, another flag flying on our flag poles, and our Ambassador being dragged through the streets.

But finally, this is the President’s fault.  While the President plays golf, produces campaign ads, and appears on talk shows, he fritters away any sense that the rest of the world needs to take seriously the President of the United States.  Mr. Obama, as much as you believe it is about you, it isn’t.  Someday, hopefully soon, you will no longer be the President.  But there will still be a president.  That office is more important than you, as hard as it is for you to grasp that.  You need to take seriously the office and your responsibilities.  That means you are not supposed to be high-fiving talk show hosts or practicing your one-liners, but trying to lead.  You have shown yourself to the mob as frivolous and vacillating and weak.  That is what they will read out of this – weakness.  And weakness does not lead to peace, it leads to violence and war.  We already have seen the violence start – Thank you, Mr. President, Good Job.

This disaster is yours – no one else did this.  You have had more than 3 years to establish your foreign policy and it is now close to a burning wreck.  And your answer is to go to Vegas, and to have your minions attack your opponent because he pointed out that the US response to this disaster was week.

This is a foreign policy disaster of high order.  It has the possibility of getting worse.  People should be fired, policies need to be changed, and You, Mr. President need to show the world that you are going to start taking seriously all of your duties, not just campaigning and doing the things you like.

Neil Armstrong

A good man, a great American, a Navy fighter pilot (VF-51) and the first man on the moon; died August 25^th, 2012.  About 25 years ago I ran into Neil Armstrong – or sort of did.  I was sitting in an airport lounge waiting for a connecting flight.  A man and his family walked in and several people recognized him and immediately a small crowd gathered around him.  The man was the head coach of a professional football team that had won the Super Bowl the year before.  I sat and watched the light flurry of noise around this man.  After several minutes I noticed another man, sitting against the far wall, watching the scene, a slight smile on his face.  I stared at him for a second and realized it was Neil Armstrong.  I was about to get up and walk over to him when a small ‘voice’ inside told me to stay seated: something told me that he was enjoying the idea that he was ‘unrecognizable’ while the coach of a football team was nearly instantly recognized.

It is far too easy, at this distance in time, to think that the entire Mercury – Gemini – Apollo effort was a ‘given,’ that of course it would work.  What the NASA spaceflight team, and the astronauts did, was remarkable by any measure.  And the men who flew and led those missions were exceptional characters.  And in listening to them and reading their various books one thing stands out again and again: they all had the highest regard for Neil Armstrong.  We need to remember him, we need to remember what they all did, and we need to consider what they did as an example of what we are capable of if we put our minds to it.

His family said it best:

"Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."

NEIL ARMSTRONG - RIP

General Dempsey, OpSec and Citizenship

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs thinks that “If someone uses the uniform, whatever uniform, for partisan politics, I am disappointed because I think it does erode that bond of trust we have with the American people.” This is in response to some citizens – all of whom have served the nation either in uniform or as intelligence officers, none of whom are now working for the government – who castigated the Administration for what they believed was using the actions of military personnel (and in particular the raid on Abbottabad that resulted in the death of Usama bin Ladin) for political gain, while leaking operational details that they believe place at risk US personnel.

There are several points that need to be made.  The first is that whoever was advising President Obama to say what he said, and use the phraseology that he did, in regard to the raid, belongs on Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour.  Every President gets the chance to shine in the glow generated by the deeds of others – it goes with the job.  But if they want to take advantage of it to best effect, the answer is to say a whole lot about ‘them’ and ‘those guys’ and point at a bunch of folks around you who did all the real work, and use the word ‘I’ as little as possible.  When someone asks you “What was your role in all this, Mr. President?” you shrug and say “Me, I didn’t do anything, I just sat there and signed the order they put in front of me.  These guys did everything.”  And while that is, for the most part, true in every case, everyone will nod and say “Damn, he’s humble, but they couldn’t ‘a done it without him.”  So, for the buffoons in the White House who let the President do this, go back to high school – you need to start all over.

Second, while the security and OpSec issue is serious - glaring, the guys who are running the video suffer from a similar – though not as egregious – problem: simply put, they look petty by focusing too much on the President.  Forget the President for just a second; if you hate him, fine, that’s politics and democracy, we are all free to love or hate our elected officials, and I certainly don’t have any love lost for the President or many in Washington.  But the issue is OpSec – not the President.  Stick with the issue, focus on the facts and the events, and if there is ‘stink’ that should belong on the President or someone else in the administration, it will eventually find its way there.  Your credibility rests on your professionalism, so, stay professional.  You can call for better Opsec, you should call for better OpSec, you can call for the President to do a better job providing OpSec, but you maintain the ‘high ground’ by focusing - as a friend of mine says - ‘like a laser beam on OpSec.'  As for the President (and much like the President’s own statements), sometimes, understatement of some facets of an issue is the best way to make an impact.  In this particular slice of the issue, less is more.

That being said, you need to show that the issue is OpSec.  The word has now come out in the press that a member of the raiding party has written a book about the raid.  Further, it has not been cleared by either the DOD or CIA, as it must per the documents that everyone must sign.  If these reports are accurate, that is a violation of the rules and shouldn’t be tolerated.  Further, assuming that the book contains additional details of the raid, it too constitutes a breach of OpSec and you should condemn it as well (again, assuming that the facts released in the paper are correct).

As for the Chairman – he sounds like he’s ready to retire.  Maybe he hasn’t kept up with US history but one or two soldiers have run for office in the past, and their comments on military duty have figured in their campaigns.  Some of them were fairly senior officers: Eisenhower, Grant, Jackson, Taylor, etc.  All were supported by other military personnel as they ran their campaigns, using their professional reputations for political purposes.  Others who served include Kennedy, Truman, Roosevelt, and well, you get the picture.

And one other point: the guys who are commenting are not on active duty.  They are citizens.  General Dempsey: do you think that folks who leave active duty shouldn’t be involved in politics?  Or that folks who were in the military and who are now engaged in public life shouldn’t refer to their military careers to establish their bona fides?  It makes me wonder what planet you are from.  And what Constitution you swore to protect.

Here’s a little something from some other general who led the army in wartime, a fellow who knew a little bit about ethics, and leading men and a nation through difficult times.  Maybe General/Citizen Dempsey has heard of him:

“When we assumed the soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen.”  - George Washington

Oscar Pistorius, Ray Kroc and President Obama

He didn’t do it.  He didn’t perform the surgery, he didn’t make the prosthesis, he didn’t force him to go outside and play with his brother, he didn’t change the rules of the International Olympic Commission, he didn’t pick the South African track team, he didn’t make the uniforms, or the blades, or fly the airplane that got the team to London.  In fact, once you consider it all, Oscar Pistorius didn’t do much of anything.  At least if you use President Obama’s logic.

Because that is exactly President Obama’s argument about business.  Substitute mentors, parents, business partners, infrastructure and joint ventures and you have precisely the same argument.  Let’s face it, that’s a pretty goofy argument.

The simple truth, and one understood by everyone who watched even a few minutes of the Olympics or read even one or two articles about it, is that Mr. Pistorius is a remarkable guy, with a lot of grit, and we should all tip out hat to him.  What he has done is remarkable.  And HE did it. 

Every step has been a struggle, every step a challenge, every step an opportunity to quit.  No one else kept him from quitting, no one else did the training, no one else ran those races.  It is an example we need to take to heart, and no one more than President Obama.

The fact is, the market place is as unforgiving as the running track.  If you don’t put in the time, don’t train, don’t watch your diet, then you won’t win, you won’t place, you won’t even show. We all know that the small businesses fail at alarming rates: 50% fail after 5 years, 70% fail after 10 years.  But here is a better statistic: the average billion dollar per year business lasts 12 years.  Only 12 years.  Of course, there are some that get bailed out by the government, and some get absorbed by other companies or merge with other companies, and in some of those cases the stockholders do well.  But many just unravel, and fade away – even when everyone is working hard some don’t make it.

Consider that of the original Dow Jones 30 Industrials of a century ago, only one remains on the list – General Electric.  The others are gone.  Or consider how many aircraft companies were in business in the US in 1945 and how many remain today.  Airlines, shipping firms, steel corporations, etc., etc., etc.  They get started, some survive, some thrive, and then many unravel and die off, their remains bought up by their competitors.

What part of that did the government help in?  What part of that was a ‘gimme,’ a term with which the First Golfer should be familiar?  The problem with many politicians is that they have so little exposure to the real world and the real economy that these facts mean nothing to them.  For many in the White House, the idea of a Ray Kroc risking every dime he had, and committing every waking moment for years and years, to buy five hamburger restaurants from the McDonald brothers is an alien concept.  More disturbingly, they don’t seem to see that Kroc’s acceptance of risk, his willingness to not accept things as they are, but to act on his own despite what anyone else might think or say or do, is the essential foundation stone of progress – economic, technological or cultural.

Oscar Pistorius would understand Ray Kroc, and vice versa.  The problem is, President Obama and his staff understand neither of them.

Syria

The situation in Syria is going to get worse before it gets better.  We all need to accept that it will also go in directions we have not anticipated.  And we need to accept that we – the US – are now involved, and in a major way.

We saw in the press that a White House source announced that the President approved support to the Syrian rebels and, in one way or another supports the ouster of President Assad.

Assad is a butcher, and the world would be better off without him.  But we need to be clear as to what the President just did: he de facto declared war on Syria.  And he declared unlimited war.  Calling for the removal of the current government is the true definition of unlimited war.  Simply put, there will be no negotiated settlement.  All well and good if you are prepared to pay for the costs.  But what that effectively does is remove any inhibitions on the part of the other party in the fight.  It means the fighting is going to get dirtier, and it means that if the other side can strike at you he will.

Syria of course, is not acting alone.  Syria has a strong ally in Iran, and, Russia and China have both found it politically expedient to back Syria if for no other reason then it is of low (Russia) or no (China) cost to them, and it is of significant political cost to the US.  But it also speaks to what may be happening in the region: the political maps are breaking down.

Over the past nearly 200 years the world – and the west in particular – has become quite fond of the boundaries as drawn on the map.  In the few cases where they have been changed the change has usually been accompanied with some reference to the borders having been ‘drawn by British politicians sitting in London with no regard for the people who live here.’  But the simple truth is that throughout history boundaries have always been drawn by generals and politicians with as little regard as possible to the people of the region at hand.  From Ramses II and Hattushilish III through Alexander, Julius Caesar, Hadrian, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, all the Mogul emperors, up through Saddam Hussein, borders have been regarded as things to be crossed and then redrawn.  Syria in particular is perhaps the most redrawn parcel of land in history, with nearly every great or want to be great empire in history occupying that land.  The land itself is currently occupied by a patchwork of people who view themselves not as ‘Syrian’ but Sunnis, Shias, Alawites and Druze, as Arabs and Armenians and Turks, Palestinians, Kurds, Assyrians, and Circassians.

In fact, much of the Middle East is a similar patchwork, which upon close examination is further splintered into tribes, huge family networks in which people have real allegiance to their extended families ahead of any allegiance to country.  If you have closely followed the events in Libya over the past several years you have probably seen tribal names such as Awaqir and Misurata and Obeidat – tribes that had major roles in the power structure of the Qaddafi government.  But these tribes can trace their heritage back in time for centuries and centuries, many to before the founding of Islam 1400 years ago.  And it is important to recognize that for many of these people there is little real devotion to nations or boundaries, particularly when that nation, such as Syria, was physically ‘constructed’ by treaty after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by France, and then gained independence 66 years ago (1946).

But, there is much more to this current problem.  It would seem, in fact, that the violence is already spreading across borders.  There have been intimations that the governments of one or more regional powers played a role in the attack on Assad’s cabinet meeting on 18 July, which killed the Syrian minister of defense and at least 3 other senior members of the cabinet and pushed Assad to seek sanctuary outside the city.  (For the record, this should not be labeled as terrorism; these men were all legitimate military targets as they are all parts of the command and control process of the government.  War may be ugly, but whoever did this didn’t target civilians, they attacked the government.)  Just several days later there was a similar attack on Saudi Intelligence headquarters in Riyadh.  Was it retaliation?  Was it coincidence?  That hardly seems likely.  Was it done by the Syrians?  Or did they have assistance?  If so, who?  Iran would seem to be a good bet, though certainly not a given.

The point here is that the situation is escalating.  And spreading.  The US needs to be well thought out and deliberate.  Perhaps covert aid to the rebels in Syria is appropriate.  But, the US needs to have a clear plan.  One of the problems with wars is that they seldom go the way you want them to go.  And the less your investment on the battlefield the more likely that is to be true.  When you try to fight wars cheaply and through proxies you have essentially no control as to the course of events, you are simply adding gasoline to the barbecue.  And so our ‘plan’ needs to have enough ‘branches’ that there are well thought out – and ‘executable’ – options in the event this war takes a different direction then the one we want.  And if we haven’t done that planning, or there are branches we can’t execute – for whatever reason – then we shouldn’t be doing this.

Politics inside the ‘Beltway’ is fine, but wars require professionals and clear assessments of real risk, not ‘hip-shots’ and stories leaked to friendly reporters so that the administration can look tough for voters.

And meanwhile we have a White House staffed by people who can’t seem to keep their mouths shut, who don’t appreciate the value of secrets, and really seem to believe that it’s all just a game being played in newspapers and TV news shows.  At a time when we clearly need some professionals in the White House we appear to be watching the recreation of ‘Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour.’