Category Archives: defense policy

Another Faded Pink Line

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“I think it’s fair to say the parties are planning to stay past the 30th to keep negotiating as we have always said we may have to,” the US State Department official said.

Who needs deadlines?

There’s this killer [sic], too:

The final nuclear agreement is meant to block any smooth Iranian path to nuclear weapons by committing to Tehran to tight inspections and concrete measures to wind back their nuclear program for 10 to 15 years.

Not block Iran from getting nuclear weapons, only to make it more “difficult.”

In Which I Disagree with Jason Chaffetz

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A little bit. Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Jason Chaffetz (R, UT) led a letter to President Barack Obama in which he and 17 other Congressmen called for OPM Director Katherine Archuleta and OPM Chief Information Officer (CIO) Donna Seymour to be fired.

My disagreements are two. Chaffetz, in his letter, said

Director Archuleta and her leadership team failed to correct serious vulnerabilities to OPM’s network and cybersecurity posture….

He said much the same thing about Seymour. This was no failure to correct, though. These are two highly intelligent women, at the pinnacle of their careers whose talents have taken them to upper reaches of our Federal government. They knew what they were doing and not doing. They chose not to correct the vulnerabilities and security.

My second point of disagreement is this. Chaffetz closed his letter with this request of Obama:

Therefore, we respectfully request that you address this serious issue by removing Director Archuleta and Ms. Seymour from their positions.

That’s inadequate. Archuleta’s and Seymour’s number twos in their respective offices also knew what was going on and what was not being done, as did Archuleta’s and Seymour’s senior staffs. Those folks condoned the inaction by their decision not to scream bloody murder about their boss’ decisions not to act. Judgment like that cannot be acceptable in such positions; those people should be fired, also.

There is one point on which I do agree with Chaffetz most definitely. These two…officials…and their number twos, and on down the respective senior staffs, should be fired. Not allowed to resign, not allowed to retire—fired.

Terror Sponsors

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And yet we’re going to let them have nuclear weapons.

James Clapper, DNI, has made the call.

Iran remains the foremost state sponsor of terrorism and is increasing its ability to influence regional crises and conduct terrorism. This has been the consistent view of the IC [Intelligence Community] for more than three decades.

And

Iran and Hizballah’s efforts in Syria have been instrumental in preventing the collapse of the Assad regime, which they view as critical to maintaining their “axis of resistance” against Israel and the West.

Hmm….

We’re a Helpless Victim

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That’s OPM Director Katherine Archuleta’s claim regarding the hack of her agency’s computer systems that now appear to expose as many as 18 million…what shall we call these, since OPM has laid claim to the victimhood in this failure…Americans.

I don’t believe anyone is personally responsible[.]

Fox News cited her further:

Archuleta said only the perpetrators should be blamed—she said current failures result from decades of meager investment in security systems, but said changes are being made and in fact helped detect the latest breaches.

Then there are these, via The Wall Street Journal:

Way back in March 2014, OPM knew that Chinese hackers had accessed its system without having downloaded files.

And

While little noticed, the IRS admitted this spring it was also the subject of a Russian hack, in which thieves grabbed 100,000 tax returns and requested 15,000 fraudulent refunds. Officials have figured out that the hackers used names and Social Security data to pretend to be the taxpayers and break through weak IRS cyber-barriers. As Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has noted, the Health and Human Services Department and Social Security Administration use the same weak security wall to guard ObamaCare files and retirement information. Yet the Administration is hardly rushing to fix the problem.

There’s speculation elsewhere that Snowden’s thefts and travels have had a hand in these. Frankly, I think his hands are clean on this one, except perhaps as a sanity check for Russia and the PRC in the before and aftermath stages of these hacks. These hacks are the direct result of long-standing utter incompetence and of this administration’s disdain for anything having to do with security.

It’s long past time for folks to be fired for cause at the OPM and IRS—and elsewhere, if they show no concrete progress in a very short time—down to middle management level in the CIOs’ areas. Why so far down the food chain? If they haven’t been screaming bloody murder over these vulnerabilities, they’re either incompetent themselves, or they put their job security ahead of our nation’s security.

This incompetence also seems to necessitate a pretty thorough removal and replacement of Federal government officials and employees—through no fault of their own, but from OPM (et al.) incompetence. They’ve become vulnerable, and through them, our government has become vulnerable. The only way to reduce the threat to these people is to reduce their value to our enemies by removing them from government. That’s what Archuleta’s victimhood has wrought.

Paying Ransom

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President Obama on Wednesday announced a new US government policy for dealing with Americans who are kidnapped abroad, and as always he stressed compassion for the hostages and their families.

Compassion? Where’s Obama’s compassion for the kidnap victim, who’s exposed to further kidnapping, since snatching him clearly pays off? Where’s Obama’s compassion for other Americans, now at increased risk or kidnapping themselves, by ransom paying that is nothing more than aiding and abetting the criminals/terrorists masqueraded as “compassion?”

…a government-wide review of US hostage policy, which has drawn criticism for inconsistency and lack of coordination. “The families of hostages have told us—and they’ve told me directly—about their frequent frustrations in dealing with their own government: How different departments and agencies aren’t always coordinated,” Mr. Obama said[.]

Those departments also don’t inform very much, if at all, the victim’s families of the status of efforts to get the victim back. The right answer, though, is not to reward the kidnappers for their efforts but to create consistency and coordination—and to summarily fire those bureaucrats who fail at this—and to pass information freely and on demand to the victims’ families. Certainly, many efforts are and should remain secret, but in those events, swear the families to secrecy—they need to be inside the loop, not outside of it.