Do you remember the scene in the movie “Saving Private Ryan” where after storming a machine gun nest and losing their medic, the Americans have to deal with how to handle a prisoner they captured?  Some say shoot him on the spot others disagree.  They know they can’t take him with them as he will slow them down.  After much vigorous debate Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) decides to untie him, point him toward the American line and tell him to keep walking, with the hope that he will be captured by the advancing American forces. 

Later in the movie as Miller’s unit is in a pitched battle to the last man, the released German prisoner is among those killing Miller’s men.  After reinforcements arrive to turn the battle in the Americans favor and the remaining Germans surrender, the former prisoner smiles and nods to the soldier in Miller’s unit that acted as translator and argued for sparing him as if to say, “Hey, how’s it goin’ pal?”  The soldier lowers his rifle and kills the German.

I am reminded of this by the current situation with Yemen.  Started under President Bush was the insane idea of releasing enemy combatants where they can find their way back to the battlefield.  This stupid policy was, until recently, going to be accelerated under President Obama.  Either we are at war or we are not.  You can’t fight a war with half measures.  Either you fight it to win or let the enemy have their way.  If we are in a war and we capture the enemy they stay captured until the war is over.  We don’t need a bunch of lawyers standing on the sidelines tapping their foot and their watches and saying, “how much longer are you going to hold these people without charging them?”  Answer: until the war ends or hell freezes over, whichever comes first.

 Is It a War Yet Mr. President?

 Backed into a corner, on his fifth (?) try to explain what his administration is doing on the War on Terror (am I allowed to call it that?), he actually called it a war, at least against Al Qaida.  He has spent the better part of his first year in office giving the back of his hand to the Bush administration.  But after seven years of Bush keeping us safe and two terrorist attacks on our soil this year with Obama at the helm and his poll numbers sinking, he has come to the realization that he owns this now.

The tough Harry Truman talk is nice (“The Buck Stops Here”), but it is just words until you actually do something with the buck that just stopped on your desk.  Why is the spectacularly incompetent Janet Napolitano still drawing a salary?  In Obama’s world it seems to be that what he means when he says the buck stops here is that he is the only one subject to firing and since we can’t fire him, everyone under him keeps on keeping on.  But who appointed these people?  It was Obama.  So he should recognize that he blundered and if the underlings don’t have enough sense to fall on their swords and resign, he should flat out fire them.

 Vacations are Important.  Anti-terrorism, Not So Much

 After the terror attack at Fort Hood, you would think that perhaps President Obama would be a little more responsive to another attempted attack, but hey, he was on an Hawaiian vacation.  Nobel Prize?  Chicago trying to win a bid for the Olympics?  President Obama will travel across the sea for that.  But an attempted attack on America?  Chill, baby, chill.  How about his director of National Counterterrorism, Michael Leiter, taking a ski vacation?  Just because stopping such an attack might be considered counterterrorism and just because that organization just failed miserably at stopping such an attack, and just because we didn’t know why it failed or if another attack might be on the way, why interrupt time with the family over that?  Family time is important, so said his boss. Don’t worry, Mike, we’ll wait.

Behind the Curve

It seems that with each attempt the enemy is one step ahead of us.  So discussions heated up about these new body scanners that can find anything, so it is claimed.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a big advocate of technology, but I guess the real problem is best summed up by one pundit comparing our methods to the Israelis:

“The Israelis look for terrorists, we look for tweezers.”

Instead of reading body scanners, perhaps we should be training the TSA agents in reading body language.  That’s what the Israelis do.  If you are a Palestinian, sorry, but you go in a different line and you get more closely screened and questioned.  You may pass, but you are going to be thoroughly checked out. We should do the same.  Where is your passport from?  What visa stamps do you have in your passport indicating where you have been?  Why don’t you have any luggage Mr. Abdulmutallab?  Why did you buy a one way ticket?  Who are you staying with in Detroit?  I see you paid cash for your ticket, how much cash do you have left for your trip after you land in Detroit?  Do you have a credit card?  No?  Hmmm…maybe you should wait over there, while we check further.

 No technology is foolproof.  Having worked in technology for over thirty years I can say that with some degree of confidence.  It only takes one failure of the technology for a disaster to strike.  But if we spend less time trying to find that box cutter, shampoo bottle, tweezers, jar of honey, etc., and spend more time spotting someone who doesn’t look like they are on a nice business trip or a visit to relatives or who otherwise fit the profile of a terrorist, that’s right I said it: profile, we could probably become a lot safer without having to lock the bathrooms for the last hour of the flight.  If we had pulled the young Abdulmutallab aside and questioned him, he probably would have cracked like an egg.  Does anyone think for a minute that this kid would have given off no body language signals if questioned by a trained professional?  The right combination of skilled human observers and questioners along with technology, is what we need to be safer.   Rather than this:  We”re the TSA and You Can Count on Us!

Intelligence Sprawl

We also need to collapse the intelligence arms of our government back into one and shut the others down.  Roll back Homeland Security into the Department of Defense, put the myriad intelligence gathering arms back into the CIA, make people accountable and lessen the need for a coordinating center to gather intelligence from a dozen agencies correlate it and send it back out to the dozen agencies.  All that does is create more fiefdoms that don’t want to talk to the dummies in that other agency who aren’t as smart as we are.  As the old saying goes, “When everyone’s responsible, no one is responsible.”  Government is neither nimble nor overly cooperative.  The fewer handoffs between agencies necessary to connect the dots, the better off we will all be.

For the second time in two months there has been a terrorist attack or an attempted attack on U.S. soil.  How is this administration responding?  Well, if grandma is planning to visit the family for the next holiday and she has a bladder problem, she had better drive or take the train, because she won’t be allowed to use the bathroom during the last hour of an airplane flight.  Whew!  That was close.  I feel so much better now that we kept grandma from flying.  Don’t you feel safer?

Who’s Minding the Store?

As pointed out in several other posts, Barack Obama was elected with zero executive experience and we hold our breath as he stumbles about trying to learn what an executive is supposed to do.  He put Janet Napolitano in charge of the Homeland Security department, because her home state borders on Mexico, but without any security experience.  This was put on full display when she went on the Sunday talk shows to say the administration response to the terrorist bomber went very well and then goes on the Monday morning news shows to say they failed.  President Obama put Leon Panetta in charge of the CIA even though he has no intelligence experience.  Feeling a little uncomfortable?

Planning to Fail

President Obama has taken just about every step he can to dismantle what Bush and Cheney put in place and to discredit how they kept us safe.  Even today, Obama insiders were whispering to the Washington Post that this was all Bush’s fault.  Let’s look at the Obama record:

• Closing Guantanamo — this is one of Obama’s top priorities.  Rather than keep these enemy combatants off shore and in military hands, as any battlefield captives should be held, he is planning to release Yemenis back to Yemen.  Where did the bomber obtain instructions?  That’s right Yemen.
• Curtail Interrogation techniques — calling a technique that has no lasting physical effects on prisoner torture, and requiring that prisoners be asked only name, rank and serial number, this administration cuts off sources of valuable information that can save lives.
• Calling the War on Terror, the Overseas Contingency Operation and changing us from a war footing to a law and order footing.
• Letting the bomber lawyer up — instead of treating the bomber as a foot soldier in the War on Terror he is treated like some delinquent trying to knock over a Seven Eleven.  We should be putting him under intense interrogation to find out everything we can from him on the operation behind him.  Instead we are reading him Miranda rights, getting him a lawyer, putting him in one of the best burn center hospitals in the country, and planning to give him skin grafts.  I guess he’s part of the new health care plan.

Correctness or Political Correctness

Profiling works.  When are we going to stop ignoring this simple fact?  Look at any one of the known terrorist attacks around the world.  When someone gets on line at an airport who fits the profile of a young, male, single, Middle Eastern, African or South Asian, then pull them out of the line and give them a more thorough screening.  Pat them down.  Swab every bag for explosive residue rather than a sampling, open and examine closely everything.  Don’t say we can’t check this one because we have already checked two others and until we check our quota of old men, white grandmas, Asian children, etc. we cannot check another Middle Eastern man because we may hurt their feelings.

If enough of them get their feelings hurt, maybe all the other fair minded and peace loving Muslims around the world will rise up and take back their faith from those who have hijacked it for their own murderous aims.  Until then, we should err on the side of caution and pray that this administration figures out what they are doing to protect us.  If they don’t know what to do they should leave what Bush and Cheney did well enough alone.  It kept us safe for seven years.

Over the past eleven months, have you ever gotten a feeling that you are watching a magician, rather than a president run our country?  As any practitioner of the art of the illusionist will tell you, one of the key things is to keep the audience distracted.  Have them watch the left hand, while the right is slipping the coin into the pocket.  The Obama Administration is about to unleash their greatest trick yet, trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civil court in New York for the 9/11 attack on America.  Why?

The Greatest Show On Earth

The trial will become an absolute three ring circus, with all the world watching closely.  The liberal pundits say, “this is our chance to show the world our justice system.  We can demonstrate how civilized we are, and show the Muslim world how fair we are.”  Really?

Remember to the footage in the Muslim world immediately following the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.  They were dancing in the street, laughing and singing, shouting praise to Allah.  What do you think the reaction will be if Khalid Sheik Mohammed, jumps up in court and screams out, “Kill the infidels! This is a fraud meant to disguise these devil’s tricks!”  Do we let him ramble with a global audience?  Do we have the bailiffs wrestle him to the ground?  Do we put him in restraints for the rest of the trial?  Who exactly is going to show the world what?

We Have No Secrets

In a civilian trial there is a process called discovery, where the defense is told everything the prosecution plans on bringing to court, including witnesses, so that the defense has a chance to prepare their rebuttal case.  How much of the CIA’s methods and contacts are we prepared to reveal to the world and to Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s allies?  Or, how much are we not going to use in order to protect that information and at the same time increase the chances that he will be acquitted?

Can Anybody Say O.J.?

Do you remember the O.J. Simpson trial?  A slam-dunk if ever there was one.  There was blood evidence, DNA evidence, means, motive, opportunity, it couldn’t get any easier.  But what happened?  Judge Lance Ito, lost control of his court room in the kleig lights of national television.  One of O.J.’s attorneys or advisors told O.J. to stop taking his arthritis medication  so his hands would swell and then the famous glove trick, abra cadabra, “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”  What happened after that trial?  Dancing in the streets of the black community.

The Jury Pool

Are Muslims going to be excluded from the jury pool?  If so, on what grounds and would a judge allow it?  In the O.J. case we had what was called jury nullification, where a jury handed up a verdict not based on the evidence presented, but based on a social determination.  O.J. was a symbol for all black men put on trial and all past injustices.  He was a sports hero to millions and he wasn’t going down, no matter what.  What if a someone with strong beliefs sees disrupting the outcome of the trial as the new jihad?  Don’t use suicide bombers in New York, that’s so Middle East, let’s kill them softly by getting Khalid Sheik Mohammed acquitted or a give them a hung jury.  What better way to humiliate the Great Satan.  It will be like David and Goliath all over again.

The Real Trial

Or is it really the Bush Administration that Obama wants to put on trial?  The Obama administration’s popularity is sinking link a stone.  The stimulus package was a bust.  Cap and Trade is a disaster.  Health care a debacle.  Tea Party’s are breaking out all over.  The Democrats got trounced in Virginia and New Jersey, and even New York’s 23rd is still alive as recounts have dramatically closed the gap. A show trial of the Bush Administration is just what the Obama Adminstration needs to keep the focus off what they are really doing.

This is a tragedy and a travesty and there should be no end to the shame heaped upon this administration if they follow through on this.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Joe Biden said the Obama administration “misread how bad the economy was” but stands by its stimulus package and believes the plan will create more jobs as the pace of its spending picks up.

Does that mean Obama lied?  Biden lied?  Where’s the outrage?

There is none, which is how it should be.  But it is instructive to contrast this with what happened with President Bush.  Bush relied on intelligence from the CIA, the French, the British and others.  It all pointed in the same direction.  The information was shared with Congress and there was overwhelming bi-partisan support authorizing the use of force in Iraq with 40% of Democrats voting in favor in the House and 58% in the Senate.  The senior members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Republicans and Democrats saw the intelligence.  When it was later determined that weapons of mass destruction could not be found, the mantra was “Bush lied.”  The Democrats hid under their desks rather than refute that remark.

In the case of the stimulus, the projections of unemployment capping out at 8% rather than where it is today, prompting Biden’s mea culpa, was entirely within the control of the administration.  It wasn’t corroborated by other nations’ agencies.  In addition, every Republican in the House voted against it and all but three in the Senate.  So in which situation would there be a more credible charge of lying?

But unlike the Main Stream Media and the statists, I am reluctant accuse them of deliberately lying about their policies.  Perhaps, the aforementioned Main Stream Media and the statists will show some restraint in the future and return to the days of a spirited but honest debate on the issues?  I’m not holding my breath.

Sometimes I wonder if this is all a bad dream and I will wake up at some point, in a cold sweat, comforted in knowing that it was just that.  With the enhanced interrogation techniques, aka waterboarding, that was used on exactly three very bad men, and yielded 60% of what we learned about Al Queda, we are now Mirandizing terrorists on the battlefied.  For those who never got a sufficient dose of crime dramas on TV here is how the Miranda rights start:

“You have the right to remain silent…”

Say no more.  That is all you have to know.  From using a technique to compel these murderous fiends to give up information about their likeminded associates, we have moved to telling them it is their right not to say anything.  Here’s my advice… steer clear of tall or government buildings.

How 9/11 Happened

This is exactly how 9/11 happened.  The Clinton Administration treated terrorism as a law and order issue rather than a war on our way of life.  They constructed walls between the FBI and CIA forbidding them to share information.  What the CIA learned about the terrorists before 9/11 they couldn’t tell the FBI and vice versa.  As a result we got blindsided.

It is interesting to note that in putting together the 9/11 Commission to investigate how it all happened and what we could do to prevent it happening again, Jamie Gorelick, the individual who constructed this barrier in her role in the Clinton White House, was added to the Commission panel when she should have been testifying before it.  (Later, without any financial background she was appointed Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae, made millions during her tenure, and Fannie Mae’s actions led to the current financial debacle).

What more will the Obama Administration do to weaken our defenses?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi continues to cling to the thin thread that everyone is lying but she.   Considering all the details surrounding the topic of waterboarding, she is either a liar or an idiot, take your pick.  But either character trait is reason enough for her to step down.  The American people deserve better.

We need politicians with integrity.  We need politicians who don’t split hairs over whether or not they were told something could be done or something was already done.  Either way, if she thought it was wrong she should have spoken up. Now she is calling the CIA liars and ones who do it regularly at that.  How much more can she demoralize those who are dedicated to defending us?

In the stimulus bill she voted to give the American taxpayer $8 per week in relief, while giving the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse $30 million.  Let them eat cake!

She can no longer effectively lead, if she ever could.  It’s time to go.

I Didn't Know About any Stinkin' Waterboarding!

I heard a Democratic pundit on TV today say that calling Nancy Pelosi a liar was way out of line. It was far too strong a term to use regarding this delicate matter.  As Tony Snow used to say from the podium in the White House briefing room, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?”

A Flexible Lexicon

How many times did we hear the phrase, “Bush lied, {fill in the blank}”?  Bush was accused repeatedly, lustily, full throated, spittle flying, of lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  What is the definition of a lie?

“To make a statement that one knows is false, esp. with intent to deceive.” — YourDictionary.com

So, the CIA, the intelligence agencies of several allies, all provided information that indicated that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.  Saddam had used weapons of mass destruction on the Kurds, and the Iranians.  So Bush reached the conclusion, which was backed by Congress, by their vote authorizing the use of force, and the UN that weapons of mass destruction existed.  Yes, they were all wrong, but how was Bush to know this information was false, when his advisors and the advisors of our allies said it was true?  So, how is this a lie?  Simple, a Republican is held to a higher standard than a Democrat.  For a Republican, a lie is whatever the Democrats say it is.  For a Democrat, a lie is whatever the Democrats say it is.

Dear Nancy

Nancy Pelosi sat in a room where she and Porter Goss were briefed on waterboarding, but she says she wasn’t briefed.  Documents prove she was there.  Porter Goss remembers her being there.  Did she have her fingers in her ears, stamping her feet, and yelling, “Nah, Nah, Nah, I can’t hear you!”?  Now let’s apply the above definition to dear Nancy.  She made several statements, all caught on video tape, vehemently denying that she knew waterboarding was actually used.  This was for one purpose only, to deceive the American people and her supporters, that she was not involved, nor did she approve in what has now been redefined as torture.

International Embarrassment

I don’t know about you, but I find it embarrassing to have such gutless people in positions of authority in government.  Say want you mean, mean what you say.  The bottom line is that these statists, have no principles.  They have no moral compass to guide their behavior.  Their only guide is how to tighten their grasp on power and how to take away as much liberty as possible from the American people.  In doing so, those same people will depend more and more on government and keep these moral midgets in power.

Don't Anyone Dare Say Government Caused This Mess

You can never solve a problem if you do not face up to the full scope of the problem.  In listening to President Obama, and reading liberal columnists like Maureen Dowd, in the description of what caused the current economic calamity, the government is always given a pass.

We are in an economic morass because of the eight years of failed Bush policies, greed on Wall Street, tax breaks for the rich, etc.  Government’s culpability which, I believe, is really the gravamen of our economic problems is never mentioned at all.  Democrats and Liberals don’t dare point to Democrats and liberal policies as having anything to do with the collapsing economy.  That is why they always say that this is the worst economy since the Great Depression, as they also said when Clinton ran for President.  They don’t dare say it is the worst economy since Jimmy Carter, since that would remind the American people that the Democrats screwed up that one as well.

Unmentionable Causes of the Current Economic Mess

• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of control.  Explosive increases in debt taken on under the leadership of Franklin Raines (Democrat), and Jaime Gorelick (Democrat), remember she also gave us the firewall between the CIA and FBI that hamstrung the investigation of al Queda.  Raines made over $90 million while at Fannie Mae and at the same time was accused of overstating earnings by $10.6 billion.  So, where’s the demand for a clawback of Raines’s salary?
• Barney Frank (Democrat) and Chris Dodd (Democrat) — Frank blocked every attempt to put in place greater regulation over Fannie Mae.  The Bush Administration tried to increase regulation over Fannie Mae, but Frank blocked it.  What you hear today is that the reason for the economic problems are a lack of regulation.  Chris Dodd got VIP mortgage treatment from Countrywide mortgage before they went belly-up.  Asked to come clean on the mortgages, Dodd first said sure, we’ll get around to it.  Then he made some papers available for viewing, but not copying, and has since clammed up.
• Community Reinvestment Act — Carter (Democrat) administration program to push home ownership for low income people, by forcing banks to report how much they were offering loans in low income neighborhoods and face the consequences if it wasn’t enough.
• Janet Reno (Democrat) — in the Clinton Administration Reno threatened action against financial institutions if they weren’t lending enough low income individuals.  What bank doesn’t want to be publicly branded a racist institution?

So we have homeowners, who should have never qualified for a mortgage, about to receive bailouts from all the responsible people who took mortgages they could afford, when they could afford them.  Do you ever hear about any of this cast of characters mentioned by President Obama or the main stream media? No.  It wasn’t the government actively pushing social policy on those people least able to handle it.  It was greedy banks and unscrupulous lenders, trying to avoid being branded racists, who took advantage of these poor ignorant people.  Perhaps if the government hadn’t destroyed our education system, these people might have read what they were about to sign.

How Do you Solve Only Half a Problem?

As these characters are never mentioned as having a role in the problem, how can you ever hope to fix the problem if these bad actors are still going about their business doing what caused the crisis and blaming everyone else.  President Obama demonstrates his inexperience more profoundly every day, seemingly making things up as he goes along.  That is not leadership and what we need now in times of crisis is leadership.  Obama has never shown the courage or willingness to take on his own party.  Without rooting out these characters and really fixing the whole problem, it will only happen again down the road.

What we need now is a leader.  Someone who actually has experience running the executive branch of a state.  Someone who is not afraid to take on the entrenched power of their own party and has succeeded in doing so.  Is there anyone out there who fits that bill?  Gee, that sounds like Sarah Palin.

Guantanamo

In less than one week the lack of experience of Barack Obama, that the media chose to ignore, was on radiant display this week.  His two executive orders, one, to close Guantanamo Bay, and two, to only interrogate enemy combatants as per the Army Field Manual, began the process of compromising our safety.

Today’s New York Times carries a story about a Saudi, who was released by the U.S. from Guantanamo is now a deputy leader of al Queda’s Yemeni branch.  He was suspected of involvment in the deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.  He was realeased to Saudi Arabia to go through a rehabilitation program in that country before being released.  He is back on the front lines, ready to kill Americans.

So what is the president’s plan?  He doesn’t have one. Over the course of the next year, he’ll get back to us with whatever plan a commission or a committee recommends.  Maybe it was a political bone that he felt he had to throw to the left to keep them at bay.  Speaking of hope….

Interrogation

After more than seven years where President Bush kept us safe, President Obama rushed to put us at risk.  He abolished the practice of aggressive interrogation.  Now the enemy with whom we are engaged has no qualms about decapitating a prisoner (Daniel Pearl), no concern about torturing people and hanging the remains from a bridge for all to see (Blackwater contractors), and has one objective, that is, to see us all dead.  How do you negotiate with someone whose only demand is that you die?

The techniques used in very rare circumstances, were thoroughly reviewed and legal opinions issued that permitted their use.  Information was obtained that saved lives.  But now, the CIA has a much harder job to keep us safe.  In the Clinton administration the FBI was prohibited from sharing information with the CIA and vice versa.  Over 3,000 Americans died when those two agencies could not share information and connect the dots.

It was encouraging to hear President Obama in his inaugural address say tht this enemy will be defeated.  But to follow it up by closing Guantanamo and taking an important tool away from the CIA.  You can almost envision Osama bin Laden, sit up in his cave and smile and say, “Just like Clinton.  The paper tiger is back.  Now is the time to strike and the dog will run with its tail between its legs just like in Somalia.”

I hope not.  This is not the change we were waiting for.

I was wondering how long it would take for Barack Obama’s lack of experience or a power base to manifest itself, but it appears the moment has arrived, and the problems keep coming.

His recent announcemnt or leak by his aides that Leon Panetta is his choice for head of the CIA is confounding, to say the least.  Panetta may be a nice man, and a good administrator, but in the midst of the War on Terror who but a rookie would put a rookie as head of the CIA?  Apparently Obama couldn’t push back those on the left who want no one who agrees with the Bush Administration in the post.  Two other potential appointees got hooted down by Obama’s supporters so he had to go with this pick.  The CIA is notorious for not liking outsiders.  Panetta has no intelligence experience, other than listening in on security briefings as Clinton’s Chief of Staff.

Bill Richardson withdraws his name from nomination as Commerce Secretary, due to a gathering scandal.

Eric Holder as Attorney General pick approved pardons for the FALN terrorists while working in the Clinton Justice Department and now he is responsible for prosecuting terrorists.

The Blogojevich scandal doesn’t want to go away and now the Democrats are battling over whether or not they will seat the man appointed to replace Obama in the Senate

We have the Coleman/Franken fiasco in Minnesota; Charlie Rangel under investigation for not paying taxes despite being chairman of the committee that writes the tax laws (Ways and Means); an item in the NY Times about a donation to the Clinton library from an individual who benefited from legislation supported by Hillary Clinton…

How long before the press decides the honeymoon is over?