Category Archives: defense policy

Benghazi and Clinton

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From the House GOP Interim Progress Report…on the Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi Libya:

During 2012, in numerous communications with the State Department, officials from the U.S. Mission in Libya stress both the inadequacy of security as well as the need for additional personnel. Two critical cables warrant specific mention:

March 28, 2012, Ambassador Cretz sends a cable to Secretary Clinton requesting additional security assets.

April 19, 2012, the response cable from the Department of State to Embassy Tripoli, bearing Secretary Clinton’s signature, acknowledges Ambassador Cretz’s request for additional security but instead articulates a plan to scale back security assets for the U.S. Mission in Libya, including the Benghazi Mission.

In her testimony before Congress in January, Clinton said,

With specific security requests they didn’t come to me.  I had no knowledge of them.

It’s true enough that the boss’ signature is routinely added to correspondence that has been prepared by subordinates and then sent out.  This, of course, does not absolve the boss of responsibility for the content or outcome of that correspondence.  The addition of the boss’ signature is solely at the discretion of that boss.  Secretary of State Clinton had, to coin a phrase, constructive knowledge of her cable acknowledging the deteriorating security conditions at her Benghazi Consulate, and she ordered the continued withdrawal of security from that Consulate, anyway.  Furthermore, by her position and her decision to delegate the application of her signature to her correspondence, she had imputed knowledge of the situation and of her decision to proceed with her security drawdown.  She simply lied in her testimony before Congress.

The Interim Report can be seen here and here.

Remember this in 2016.

Some Remarks on Terrorism

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Congressman Tom Cotton (R, AR) had some on the House floor earlier this week.

I rise today to express grave doubts about the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism policies and programs.  Counterterrorism is often shrouded in secrecy, as it should be, so let us judge by the results.  In barely four years in office, five jihadists have reached their targets in the United States under Barack Obama: the Boston Marathon bomber, the underwear bomber, the Times Square Bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, and in my own state—the Little Rock recruiting office shooter.  In the over seven years after 9/11 under George W Bush, how many terrorists reached their target in the United States?  Zero!  We need to ask, “Why is the Obama Administration failing in its mission to stop terrorism before it reaches its targets in the United States?”

Indeed.

Now couple this with Obama’s decision on Thursday, through his Attorney General, Eric Holder, to intervene in an FBI terrorist investigation by marching a Federal Magistrate into the surviving Boston Marathon terrorist’s hospital room, mid-questioning by the FBI, to Mirandize that terrorist.  Which terminated the FBI’s questioning of the terrorist.

Are We Projecting?

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The People’s Republic of China, in its latest national defense report, is accusing the US of “destabilizing” the Asia-Pacific region, because we’re shifting the focus of our attention there instead of keeping it on Europe.

PRC Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun, referring to enhancements of our ties with our friends and allies around the Pacific and the South China Sea, and to our strengthening (a little bit) our military presence in the area:

Certain efforts made to highlight the military agenda, enhance military deployment and also strengthen alliances are not in line with the calling of the times and are not conducive to the upholding of peace and stability in the region[.]

We hope that the relevant parties would do more to enhance the mutual trust between countries in the region and contribute to peace and stability

Never mind that the PRC defense budget is second in the world only to our own, it’s grown by 500% over the last dozen, or so, years, and they’re currently engaged in a massive sea grab.  Things would be much more stable if we’d just abandon our allies, friends, and trading partners, and let the PRC get on with it.

Projecting, are we, Mr Yang?

YGTBSM, Again

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Here’s this bit of news from Tech News Daily.

The Department of Defense (DoD) recently conducted an audit to evaluate how well the most powerful military force on Earth handled the security issues concerning personal mobile devices in conjunction with its professional duties.

The result: [failure]

DoD audited “use of iOS, Android, and Windows mobile devices among Army personnel and in Army facilities, where the devices joined on-site Wi-Fi networks.”  The audit found no requirement to:

  • secure storage for data on mobiles
  • insist on keeping devices free of malware
  • monitor mobiles while hooked up to computers or even
  • employ training or user agreements to keep military secrets under wraps
  • authorize personal mobile devices: almost 15,000 unauthorized devices in use (as a practical matter; the Army nominally requires prior authorization before use)

The audit also found these examples of failure:

  • a programmer failed to report a damaged iPhone, disposing of it on his own and replacing it out-of-pocket
  • mobile devices with no password protection
  • devices using outdated operating systems (leaving them open to exploits)
  • no protective software installed

If this is typical, our Army seems wholly unprepared for its role in a cyber strike.

This is Foolish

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A regularly scheduled ICBM test at Vandenberg AFB that had been planned for this week has been delayed by DoD, ostensibly in an effort to lower the tension on the Korean peninsula.  This delay comes as northern Korea has moved ballistic missiles to its east coast.  At least one of those missiles has the range (if not known to have the accuracy) to hit sites in Guam, Japan, Alaska, and Hawaii.  It’s also important to note that the move is more an effort to conceal the missiles’ locations than an effort to get closer to any targets—the distance gained is trivial compared to the distances to be covered.

If this is the reason—tension management—it’s hard to see how it works.  Coming on the heels of last week’s decision by the Obama administration to reduce overflights of the Republic of Korea with nuclear-capable aircraft and to stop moving combat ships into nearby waters, also supposedly to lower tensions, this seems more likely to encourage Kim the Youngest by seeming to display timidity and weakness on our part.

Is the delay in order to arm and retarget what was a test article at Vandenberg?  This seems unlikely (and it would suggest ugly things about the flexibility of our missile force), as northern Korea wouldn’t seem worth the trouble or expense of using an increasingly scarce warhead, when that part of the peninsula has so little of targeting value beyond its army and missile launchers—and these are more promptly, efficiently, and cheaply destroyed with more conventional systems already in place or nearby.

Or is President Barack Obama setting us up for making another round of concessions, of paying another installment of tribute, to another generation of Mad Kims, as past administrations have done in response to other outbursts of verbose threats?

The dog is barking.  There’s no need to take it seriously.