Category Archives: defense policy

The Encryption Divide

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Silicon Valley and Washington have spent the past year arguing over whether technology companies should enable users to encrypt their digital lives in such a way that not even the Federal Bureau of Investigation could unscramble the information.

And

In private conversations, administration officials have said they don’t want Congress to pass a new law or to dictate to how tech companies should write code, said people briefed on the conversations.

That much is appropriate.

There’s no divide here, except in the minds of an overreaching government. The Constitution is quite clear. Get a warrant. That’s often inconvenient to Government. That’s part of the point.

Another VA Failure

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An ex-Army scout and Iraq War veteran tried at two separate Veterans Administration clinics to get treatment for his PTSD. Does he actually have PTSD? I’m spring-loaded to believe so, but I don’t know. And neither does this veteran, unless he’s been previously diagnosed. The problem is that he can’t get that treatment, or even a diagnosis and so effective treatment for what medical problem he might really have.

“The VA isn’t taking new patients.” He got that at both of the Georgia clinics he tried. If you follow the link to the video he recorded, the relevant action starts at around 6:45.

The VA isn’t taking new patients. How does that work? It doesn’t work.

VA spokesman James Hutton gave out the usual VA nonsense:

VA staff should have established a full understanding of Mr Dorsey’s medical situation and determined if an appointment was available for him at another location or if he was eligible for the Choice Program and could be seen outside of VA. The message Mr Dorsey was given, as seen on the video, is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Of course the message Dorsey was given is entirely acceptable and fully tolerated by the VA. It’s still going on. Years after the VA’s mistreatment of our veterans was first exposed. Dorsey has indicated that VA Chief of Staff Rob Nabors has “reached out to him and is trying to help resolve his issue.” Great. We’ll see if Nabors, or anyone at the VA delivers. But that’s small potatoes. This sort of thing is far too widespread to be effectively handled by onesies and twosies.

It’s time to disband the VA altogether and use the VA budget as vouchers to our veterans so they can go to the doctors, clinics, and hospitals of their choice—doctors, clinics, and hospitals that actually do, you know, medical work for, umm, patients.

The Trouble with Being a Leader

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…is that it’s necessary actually to lead.

High level officials from Gulf and other states have told this newspaper [The Telegraph] that all attempts to persuade Mr Obama of the need to arm the Kurds directly as part of more vigorous plans to take on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have failed. The Senate voted down one attempt by supporters of the Kurdish cause last month.

The officials say they are looking at new ways to take the fight to Isil without seeking US approval.

“If the Americans and the West are not prepared to do anything serious about defeating Isil, then we will have to find new ways of dealing with the threat,” said a senior Arab government official. “With Isil making ground all the time we simply cannot afford to wait for Washington to wake up to the enormity of the threat we face.”

Including

At least one Arab state is understood to be considering arming the Peshmerga directly, despite US opposition.

On the other hand,

One of the core complaints of the Kurds is that the Iraqi army has abandoned so many weapons in the face of Isil attack, the Peshmerga are fighting modern American weaponry with out-of-date Soviet equipment.

You’d think that if the Iraqi army didn’t want the guns, they’d at least send them on to their allies, the Kurds. Oh, wait….

US Access to Space

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Last weekend, a SpaceX rocket carrying supplies to the Space Station exploded while staging after launch. This follows an Orbital Sciences resupply rocket explosion last fall and a Russian resupply rocket failure last spring.

USAF General (Ret) William Shelton, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, is lamenting legislation barring the use of Russian rocket engines in our launchers, and his concern is sparked by those failures.

The problem, and it’s a legitimate concern, is that SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, are the only two American reliable rocket companies we have—Orbital Sciences hasn’t succeeded yet—and ULA uses those Russian rocket engines in its launchers. With the legislation, of the two rocket companies (and at least two are strongly desired for safety and redundantly assured access to space), only one will be able to fly until ULA develops another engine.

The other side of the problem, though, is that of the two current American companies, one can fly only with the engines supplied by one of our enemies. That’s not very reliable, either.

Another Reason We Need Regime Change in DC

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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Patrick Leahy sent their third letter since June calling on the DOJ to reveal its questionable cell phone surveillance policies, after yet another whistleblower allegation of abuse.

Keep doing this, absolutely. But don’t expect any answers for another several months.

We’ll need an administration from the other party before the Eric Holder/Loretta Lynch DoJ can be expected to deliver. And with that change, extended to DoJ, the present DoJ incumbents need to be haled into court and sanctioned for their willful obstruction of these investigations.