Category Archives: defense policy

The Entire Island

Posted on by
Reply

Repair crews worked through the night trying to restore electricity to Puerto Rico’s 3.5 million people early Thursday after a fire at a power plant blacked out the entire U.S. territory.

Officials said they hoped to restore service by morning….

It turns out that they didn’t make by the morning, and the outage extended into a second day—lengthened not just by the severity of the problem, not unique in itself to Puerto Rico, but also by Puerto Rico’s lack of money with which to fund repairs or even parts and equipment to replace the damaged/failed parts and equipment.

I have to wonder about similar vulnerabilities, similar single points of failure, extant on our separated States and other separated territories and within CONUS.  I have to wonder about these vulnerabilities not only in our power distribution grids, but in our communications grids, and cascading from those, in our financial networks and our government effectivity networks.

As Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said,

The system is not designed to withstand a failure of this magnitude.

Neither are any of our systems.  Nor are they designed to any large degree to minimize, if not eliminate, single points of failure.

Security Issues

Posted on by
Reply

In the end, it seems that former Secretary of State and present Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton isn’t the only one who has them.  Amazingly, former JCS Chairman and former Secretary of State Colin Powell has them, also.

Of course, it’s only Israel, though, so who cares?  Not this reluctant (or so he says) Clinton supporter.

In a private email exchange last year leaked this week by hackers, former Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed Israel’s nuclear weapons capability with a friend, saying the country has 200 warheads.

To be clear: that’s a private, unclassified and unsecured email exchange.  Not even treated as FOUO (which such information plainly is not).

The existence of its weapons program is considered classified information by both the Israeli and US governments.

Naturally,

Powell…told The Associated Press on Friday through a spokeswoman he was referring to public estimates of Israel’s nukes.

Sure.  Of course he was.

Even President Barack Obama’s (D) State Department knows better than this:

Asked about the issue at a briefing Friday, State Department spokesman John Kirby also declined to comment.

“I’m not going to discuss matters of intelligence,” Kirby said.

Again I ask: do any Democrats, Democrat supporters, or closet Democrats care about security?  Other than Admiral Kirby, I mean?

Pardon Me?

Posted on by
Reply

There is a campaign afoot by folks like George Soros, Daniel Radcliffe, Susan Sarandon; other guys of the Left including Steve Wozniak and Jimmy Wales; the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International to get President Barack Obama (D) to pardon Edward Snowden.  It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, either; recall President Bill Clinton’s (D) pardon frenzy in his last days in office.

Anthony Romero, ACLU’s National Director, even acknowledges that Snowden broke the law, but that shouldn’t matter—there are mitigating circumstances.

No.  If Snowden truly believes what he did was a righteous act of civil disobedience or an act of whistle-blowing or that there are mitigating circumstances, let him come back to the US, stand trial for his actions, and make his case to the nation and to its representatives in his case, the jury of his peers.

Consequences

Posted on by
Reply

Two more prisoners who were released from the Guantanamo Bay detention center in the first six months of the year have returned to the battlefield, the White House said Wednesday.

Seventeen of the 161 prisoners released by President Barack Obama (D) have returned to the “battlefield” to continue their butchery.  This much isn’t only on Obama; President Bush the Younger released 532, of whom 113 went back to their butchery.

However, this return of prisoners to their fighting is what Obama is extending and accomplishing—even with the example of Bush’s results before him—whether he intends it or not, with his insistence on releasing all the Guantanamo prisoners so he can try, again, to close the place.

An Outcome of Leading from Behind

Posted on by
Reply

This isn’t just harassment, or actions taken to embarrass us and humiliate our Navy in the Arabian Gulf, though it’s those things, too.  It’s also both a technique to desensitize us to these close approaches by enemy combat vessels and to give those combat vessels and the navies that operate them operational combat practice through exercises that are live in every important way, lacking only live fire.   This time, at least the third incident of this nature just in the last month or so, the

USS Firebolt, a coastal patrol ship, was shadowed by seven Iranian vessels. Three of the vessels came within 500 yards and shadowed Firebolt for eight minutes. Then one of the Iranian vessels broke off and raced in front of Firebolt and “came to a stop directly in front of the ship” at a range of 100 yards, according to the official.

That’s the closest approach, yet, by Iranian Navy combat vessels.  The meek response by the Firebolt, and the other ships in those earlier incidents—responses mandated by President Barack Obama (D), not by our Navy—only encourages more, and more dangerous, such actions.

“Clearly the Iranian behavior has to change,” Capt Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday.

Davis refused to outline any specifics on how to bring about that change.

Davis could not identify any specifics because Obama has none; Obama has no plan at all other than to put in his time until the next President takes over and must deal with his mess.

There have been nearly twice as many cases of harassment by Iranian vessels against the US Navy in the first half of 2016 as the first half of 2015.

Oddly, that’s about the time Obama’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran has been in practical effect after Obama signed it last October.

This is one result of leading from behind following along behind events/other nations’ initiatives.  This isn’t likely to end well.