Winning in Afghanistan

May 31st, 2009

I fear, with the new administration’s people-to-people (or, let’s talk with everyone) approach to things international (like war), we have forgotten a basic definition that I learned many years ago at West Point; the objective of warfare is to defeat the enemy’s will to make war. The “proper thinking” military officer in Afghanistan may well be measuring victory by how many times their troops are breaking bread with village elders—and not the fruit of such effort (can you say actionable intelligence?) and numbers of patrols conducted. We certainly can win in Afghanistan, but only if warriors are running the war.

An EMT attack on the US

May 30th, 2009

I was just reading the American Legion Magazine when a comment jumped out and grabbed my attention. Here it is: Our nation is now spending trillions of dollars to make our lives more comfortable and easier; yet it is not spending a single dime on to deter or defend against an EMT attack. That’s both true and terrible.I’ve discussed EMT attacks before. A small nuclear burst far above the US (one so small that it wouldn’t even be noticed by those directly below it) would fry all the radio receivers in the US. That would simply end all satellite, cell phone, wireless communications instantly. Cars wouldn’t start, credit cards couldn’t be used, electronic communication that was not hard-wired would be gone; America would shut down totally and instantly.Iran already has the missile and warhead necessary–or could have one quickly; North Korea isn’t far off. Perhaps there are other rogue states out there who could do the same thing. By why worry? Everybody loves us now, right. Our president went out and apologized to the world for who we are–that’s cheaper than defending the country against an EMT attack. And, no, the previous administration didn’t do much in this area, either.

It’s about national security

May 27th, 2009

The controversy regarding Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t going away and it isn’t political – she may call it that, and the media may think it is. But it’s about national security. The question is whether Pelosi was informed, at a briefing by intelligence officers on September 4, 2002, that the CIA had used and was using enhanced interrogation techniques – specifically waterboarding – on captured al Qaeda terrorists.br /Prior to her infamous press conference earlier this month, she insisted that the CIA had not told her anytime in 2002 that waterboarding and other enhanced techniques were being used. At the press conference she went beyond this to assert that “the only mention of waterboarding at [the September 2002] briefing was that it was not being employed.”However, CIA director Leon Panetta wrote a memo to CIA employees stating that “our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of [Al Qaeda terrorist] Abu Zubaydah, describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed.’”But Speaker Pelosi did not confine the question to the reliability of memory. Instead, she made the allegation that the CIA intentionally misled her – misled Congress – and not just once, but routinely. “They mislead us all the time,” she said. In other words, she charged that the CIA, as a matter of policy, violated the law by lying to Congress.Speaker Pelosi’s wildly unbelievable charges require that all good Americans must demand the she step down from being the Speaker of the House, which is second in line (after the VP) to presidential succession. Pelosi has to go!

Memorial Day

May 25th, 2009

To some, today, Monday, 25 May 09, is Memorial Day. To others it will always be the traditional 30 May. What day we remember that others have died so that we may be free is not important; that we remember is very important. I went to the local ceremony where the local American Legion did the honors; perhaps a hundred people were there, not counting the vets and scouts who participated in the ceremony. I’d like to think that many, many more local citizens did remember–but I fear that they did not, or not in a way that their children understood. Our children don’t understand that freedom isn’t free; teaching them that is our nation’s great challenge.

West Point rocks!

May 23rd, 2009

As a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point who is about to attend his 45th reunion (yes, I’m old), I was surprised and delighted to find that a href=”http://forbes.com/” target=”_blank”Forbes.com/a pronounced West Point as the Best Public College or University in America for undergraduate education, US News and World Report called us the Best Public Liberal Arts College in the country, and the Princeton Review designated the Academy as one of the 100 Best Value Colleges for 2009. Hey, Alma Mater, way to go.