There are three pieces that you should read at your convenience. The first contributed by Mike Walker followed with two from the Weekly Standard. The second piece is from William Kristol and the third from Stephen Hayes. All are part of a set that reflects our current position on Foreign and National Security policies: what we see and what we don't. Question: Do you feel safer with this administration?
Where is our national security policy heading?
Mike walker
All,
You will be getting a full dose from the media regarding key unfilled jobs within our national security/defense umbrella.
Is this a bad thing?
I am not sure.
The President gets it.* He termed our defense against the attack a "systemic failure."
But who are the people nominated for the senior security jobs and what is their stand on the war against terror?
If they will not admit that the war exists then who needs them?
Are they espousing more of the Napolitano attitude that what we need is a "backward looking" defense where the goal is to be able to react to the deaths and injuries?
Are they "thoughtcrime" nominees who will continue to define success as the ability to roll the fire trucks after the attack has taken place?
If they take office what will happen to their subordinates in our national security agencies who openly profess that we are at war with a very capable and utterly ruthless enemy? What will happen to the professionals who will not buy into the “lone wolf” mindset?
Is the "Team Napolitano" era nothing more than a return to the time of Rumsfeld when dissent in the ranks was crushed by the "doublethink" dictated from the top?
We had a miraculous gift presented to us this Christmas. Not only were the lives of hundreds of innocents saved but we also got a wake-up call to redouble our defensive efforts for the future.
That means a focus on PREVENTING the deaths of innocents, not “ex poste facto” actions by first responders followed by endless investigations.
The real goal should be to not have to respond in the first place.
If the nominees do not get that then it is better to have the jobs go empty.
We will all be safer with these folks on the outside of our security agencies looking in.
Semper Fi,
Mike
*Contrary to some reporting, the President used the words war, terrorists, extremists, etc numerous times in his 27 March 2009 speech on the subject.
Napolitano: No War Here
William Kristol, Weekly Standard
It's worth reading (don't worry, it's short) Janet Napolitano's op-ed in USA Today. As if to confirm Dick Cheney'sclaim that the Obama administration doesn't understand we're at war, Napolitano never uses the word...war. Nor does she mention Islam, Yemen or Nigeria -- nor any of the details of the incident, nor the particulars of the government failures over the last few months.
Lots of op-eds ghost-written for cabinet secretaries are stupid. But this one may outdo them all in its vagueness and avoidance of substance, in its managing to be at once bureaucratic and cloying, and in speaking to the American people as if they are children. She attempts to reassure, and fails.
By the way, since this was a plot hatched overseas by people whom our intelligence agencies are listening in on and trying to bump off -- is Napolitano really the appropriate lead official? It's revealing who the White House put out Sunday -- Napolitano and press secretary Robert Gibbs. For the Obama White House, it's all spin and TSA procedures. Do we still have a CIA director? I'd heard Panetta wasn't getting along with the White House...but is he even in the loop?
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Iran Burns, Obama Seeks More Engagement
Stephen Hayes
With President Barack Obama's year-end deadline to Iran just one day away, the Washington Post's Glenn Kesslerreports that the Obama administration is preparing "targeted sanctions" on Iran. But with an asterisk.
Ten months after President Obama set a year-end deadline for Iran to engage with world powers on its nuclear program, the government in Tehran has failed to respond in kind, other than an abortive gesture in the fall.
Now, in what may be a difficult balancing act, officials say the administration wants to carefully target sanctions to avoid alienating the Iranian public -- while keeping the door ajar to a resolution of the struggle over Iran's nuclear program. The aim of any sanctions is to force the Tehran government to the negotiating table, rather than to punish it for either its apparent push to develop a nuclear weapon or its treatment of its people.
So the year-end deadline for engagement is upon us and the Obama administration is carefully crafting sanctions to force...engagement.
The Iranian regime -- fragile now as never before -- continues to support terrorism, to kill US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, to enrich uranium and to arrest and murder its own citizens. And the goal of US policy continues to be non-punitive engagement? Shameful.
Now, the Iranians are reporting that Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and shadow Secretary of State, has officially requested to visit Tehran. As Mike Goldfarb notes, there are many reasons to be skeptical of such reports from a regime in turmoil. But neither Kerry's office nor the White House has directly denied the reports -- something that would have been easy enough to do if the claims were untrue.
Is it the case that the Obama administration, rather than pivoting to the confrontational posture that Iran's intransigence requires, is simply preparing a more aggressive outreach campaign? It won't work.
As Hillary Clinton, the real Secretary of State, said on December 14: "I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of a positive response from the Iranians."
Even senior Obama officials understand that engagement hasn't worked. Why is it still the goal?
