Category Archives: defense policy

Progress

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Veterans face delays when applying for education benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), making it more difficult for them to receive an education after leaving the military, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed last week.

And [emphasis added]

veterans lack information on the timeline for receiving their GI benefits and face a backlogged call center at the Department of Veterans Affairs when they have questions, on top of delays in actually receiving the benefits.

And

It took the VA 31 days on average to process a new application for GI benefits under the post-9/11 GI bill in fiscal year 2012, 8 days longer than the VA’s goal, while it took the VA 17 days to process benefit payment claims, 5 days longer than the VA’s target.

Those might seem like trivial delays, until you have to live through them.  I was a beneficiary of an earlier GI benefit program, and at the time the money was the difference between bankruptcy and paying bills—like tuition, books, etc—which is what it’s like living paycheck to paycheck.  A day’s delay can be a disaster, not just 8, or 5 days.

More, this is in addition to the VA’s existing disability claim arrears.

Of the nearly 900,000 pending disability claims, nearly 600,000 are backlogged, meaning they have been waiting for over 125 days. The average wait time is between 270 and 330 days, depending on how you calculate the figure, while the number of backlogged claims has risen by 2,000 percent since 2009[.]

But the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, General Eric Shinseki, says progress is being made in the dysfunctional VA, and Shinseki is an honorable man—so are they all, all honorable men in the VA.

The GAO’s report can be seen here.

Answering the Phone

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Adam Housley, writing for Fox News, had this on the Benghazi fiasco:

On the night of the Benghazi terror attack, special operations put out multiple calls for all available military and other assets to be moved into position to help—but the State Department and White House never gave the military permission to cross into Libya[.]

Normal ops in locations like Benghazi has the Chief of Mission in charge—Ambassador Chris Stevens in this case—who has procedures for calling for help and transferring authority in exigent circumstances.  With Stevens (and such protection as he was allowed to have) trapped, his “distress button” was pushed, and authority was transferred to State, where again in the Benghazi case, response oversight and authority transferred to then-Secretary Hillary Clinton and one of her Undersecretaries, Patrick Kennedy.

Housley cited some of his sources:

Sources said that shortly after the attack began around 9:40 pm, special forces put out the calls for assets to be moved into position.

“What that does is that enacts…every asset, every element to respond and it becomes a global priority,” one source said.  “I would tell you that was given and the only reason it was given is because of special operations pack.”

However, the source said, “Assets did not move.”

It seems apparent that when the phone rang at 4 am, Clinton said, “What difference does it make,” rolled over, and went back to sleep.

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?