The Political Conundrum!

The HBO film, Taking Chance, which is a true story that Kevin Bacon is starring in and one I talked about here, http://bouhammer.com/wordpress/?p=2641 premieres on Feb 21st on HBO. Be ready to watch it, set the TIVO or go to you buddy’s house to watch it. This is not something you want to miss.

http://www.military.com/news/article/February-2009/hbo-film-honors-marines-aid-to-family.html

The U.S. military says four American soldiers and an interpreter have been killed in a suicide car bombing in northern Iraq.

A nationwide survey of Afghans out Monday shows plummeting support for US and NATO/ISAF forces in Afghanistan, and a rise in the number who believe attacks on those troops are acceptable.

The Navy on Monday freed a $1 billion guided missile cruiser that had been stuck for more than three days since it ran aground close to the coast of Honolulu.

Retired Air Force Gen. Lester Lyles, who is leading a major study of the nation's future in space, has emerged as one of President Barack Obama's prospective nominees to head NASA.

Keving Bacon, who has twice previously portrayed a Marine, may have delivered his most memorable performance in uniform as Lt. Col. Michael Strobl in the HBO original film, "Taking Chance." The film is based on Strobl's experience escorting the remains of Pfc. Chance Phelps from Dover, Del., to rural Wyoming.

I am certain that I am not the only person who wished that our world was not plagued by the threat of terrorism. I am also not alone in my wish that our nation's economy and the economy of many other countries have been shaken to the core or that international criminals and terrorists are on the move around the globe, plying their trades wherever they can, seeking weaknesses and exploiting those weaknesses. The problem is that those critically important challenges confront our nation and most other nations on the face of this planet. Therefore it is imperative that our nation's leaders put political differences aside and stop pandering to the various special interest groups and business interests and make our nation's security the unequivocal number one priority!

This news article was forwarded to me by one of the many folks I have been in touch with ever since I decided to attempt to provide my insights concerning immigration in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It appeared in a British-based newspaper, the Telegraph, and addresses two of the many areas of concern I have been hammering away at; the Visa Waiver Program and the lack of resources devoted to enforcing the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.

This second article appeared in yesterday's edition of the Washington Post and was entitled, "Obama's NSC Will Get New Power." If the whole point is to seek out and then devise strategies to protect our nation, then our nation's leaders must incorporate the issues of border security and the enforcement and administration of the immigration laws into their national security strategies.

Let's start out considering the Visa Waiver Program that the Bush administration, in its final weeks, expanded from 27 participating countries to 34 countries. The travel and hospitality interests hired Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security to be their "talking head" to hawk their program called, "Discover America." As I have pointed out on many occasions, Mr. Ridge and his deep-pocketed friends in the travel and hospitality industries appear to have forgotten that al-Qaeda and other terrorist and criminal organizations have already discovered America! Remember that citizens of Great Britain are eligible to seek to enter the United States without first applying for a visa.

A vitally important description of one of the nation's vulnerabilities-the failure of counterintelligence- was buried in the Washington Post's Outlook section yesterday. It is worth revisiting.

The author, Michelle Van Cleave, headed the Bush administration's first congressionally mandated national counterintelligence executive, a vital mission, she writes that today, "is on life support."

It is a problem that spans the recent administrations, and one the Obama administration should address forcefully as it looks to reshape the intelligence community. The litany of reasons for the current situation, however, are familiar, including:

-lack of centralized thinking and action on the issue
-stovepiping of information
-lack of coherent policy

The lack of attention is borne out by the fact that Van Cleave was the FIRST national head of counterintelligence, appointed only in 2003.

Counterintelligence has to have true national leadership, and is too important to be left to the hodgepodge of agencies that currently carry out bits and pieces of the policy.

Why? As Van Cleave correctly notes, the Chinese have managed to steal EVERY nuclear weapons design the U.S. has, allowing them not only to leapfrog generations and billions of dollars in development, but also to identify every vulnerability in the current systems.

Russia no longer needs to rely solely on KGB thugs to carry out much of its espionage. It simply carries out the best business intelligence gathering operations through front companies, and hires lobbyists to collect other information of interest.

Most tellingly, the Islamist world is heavily invested in the United States through shell corporations and the governments that host and sponsor terrorists, from Hezbollah and al Qaeda. My full blog is here.

The top U.S. commander in South Korea said today that North Korea should first return to dialogue if it hopes to feel safe from what it claims to be the ever-present U.S. nuclear threat on the divided peninsula.

The American military helped plan and pay for a recent attack on a notorious Ugandan rebel group, but the offensive went awry, scattering fighters who carried out a wave of massacres as they fled, killing as many as 900 civilians.