Classified Documents

Classified Documents

Col. Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

Read a nonsensical AP story fobbing off some silliness that determining whether a document is classified routinely defaults to a "judgement call" for those using the classified information.

Well, only when you cavalierly or intentionally violate the law. Otherwise, it is a very straightforward process.

If there is no classification on an original official document then -- yes -- you can treat it as unclassified. There is also a category "For Official Use Only" information but the permissions are very broad making them virtually unclassified.

For the rest, classifications range from "Confidential" to "Top Secret" and require considerable care for anyone using the information.

The mere fact that the information is transmitted on a secure system makes the need for care explicit and obvious. 

You CANNOT transfer that information to a non-secure system without going through a number of procedural step approved by the appropriate Special Security Officer each and every time. 

And even then, the odds are that the request will be denied.

In case of written documents, the information is clearly marked and if there are different levels of classification in one document then the classification is designated down to each paragraph or sentence as necessary.

Again, there is no ambiguity or possibility for a "judgement call" by the person gaining access to the information.

Cutting and pasting or retransmitting or rewording/paraphrasing the information taken from a classified document and entering into the unclassified flow of information is a felony that can end in imprisonment of not more than ten years for each offense (18 US Code 798).

It is a serious business.

Again, as for the alleged "judgement calls," there is no "shortcut"/"let me see"/"gee, I deem this unclassified" permissions. 

Probably over 90% of the people who work with classified information never deal with the actual process of classifying or changing a classification or declassifying information.

It has a very structured and detailed process that generates a paper trail. 

No one gets to read classified information and then, "poof," decide that they will change or remove the classification in an informal "judgement call" process and then carry on as usual.

Those with that authority must ensure that proper procedures are followed, documented and those actions entered/recorded.

Mike

THE ASTONISHING WEAKNESS OF HILLARY CLINTON

THE ASTONISHING WEAKNESS OF HILLARY CLINTON
John Hinderraker, Powerline

At The Week, Michael Dougherty makes, powerfully, a point that I have also tried to make more than once, in a piece called “The astonishing weakness of Hillary Clinton.” The original contains links, which I have omitted:

The entirety of Clinton’s campaign has alternated between distancing herself from the legacy of her family name, and stonewalling reporters investigating one scandal or another. In the first category, she has repudiated the tough-on-crime policies of her husband. She has strongly embraced gay marriage even though her previous support for traditional marriage was, according to Clinton, rooted in timeless religious principles. She has joined the new gender politics, despite her own history of slut-shaming her husband’s mistresses. …

Hillary Clinton has never won a competitive election. This can’t be repeated enough. She beat Republican Rep. Rick Lazio for her Senate seat in 2000. And she defeated a mayor from Yonkers in 2006. In her first competitive race, the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, she began as a heavy favorite and she lost. …

She has high name-recognition. Until she started campaigning she was polling well even with Republicans.

Hillary has always coasted on the favorability she acquired as First Lady (which was weak by First Lady standards, but very high by politician standards). And along the way, she got a reputation for being smart, which isn’t particularly true.

She has the Obama coalition, and an electoral map where Republicans need significant pickups. But boy, it all seems underwhelming. What is the task for Democrats in the post-Obama era? Why is Clinton the one to take on this mission?

An excellent question! I think one reason why Democrats obsessively and often absurdly demonize Republicans, in lieu of any other sort of political discourse, is that they have no idea where to go next.

After achieving a policy almost approximating universal health care, the dream of Democrats since Harry Truman, what are the Democrats to do? Are they pro-globalization? Do they have ideas for integrating the great wave of immigration to America that has occurred over the past 50 years? Do they have anything to offer the dying white working class? Are they for reforming any of America’s major institutions?
Clinton just seems like a mismatch for the party and the moment. The center-left darling of Wall Street talking up issues of inequality. The former Walmart board member posing as savior of American jobs. The “Smart Power” leader whose achievement at state was wrecking a nation and turning it over to Sunni terrorists faster than George W. Bush. A champion of women who pretended the leader of the free world was the victim of his intern. The wife of a man who flies on the “Lolita Express” with a porn star that was booked for “massages.” The vanquisher of a Yonkers mayor.

And yet, weak though she may be, Hillary is, as Dougherty concludes, the best the Democrats have to offer. The Democrats’ consternation will only grow between now and November 2016.

The Evil that is the Islamic Republic

The Evil that is the Islamic Republic

All,

Seeking a better relationship with the leaders of the Islamic Republic’s government is as immoral and unethical as those Americans who sought to have a better relationship with Adolf Hitler’s Nationalist Socialist government in the 1930s. 

There is not one iota of difference.

It is at the very least dishonorable and at worst and in light of the hundreds of American soldiers killed or maimed by Iran’s agents in Iraq, treasonous.

Those Americans are despicable and unworthy of our respect.

Semper Fidel,

Michael M. Walker

Three Lessons from Athens for Washington

Three Lessons from Athens for Washington

Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All

Lesson 1: A government can only run up so much debt. 

At some unpredictable moment during a dramatic rise in the cost of borrowing, a government will hit a tipping point where it cannot borrow money will be forced in a helter-skelter fashion to live within its means. 

As we are seening in Greece, that transition is painful and creates great hardship on those who rely on government spending.

Lesson 2: The combined efforts of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund only managed to keep the Greek Government above water for five (5) years.

That was for a country with a population of about 11 million and a per capita GDP – below that of Mississippi, the poorest state in America. If the United States were in the same position as Greece is today, there is no earthly combination of financial institutions that could keep the U.S. Government above water for even a few weeks. 

Like the ghosts’ warning in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, unless we change our ways in America, what we are seeing in Greece is a harbinger for what we are likely to see in our future.

Lesson 3: The United States is NOT Greece. 

Unlike Greece that embraced a large number of statist socialist forms of governance, the United States economy is not dominated by a central government. In Greece, government expenditures account for over 58% of the national GDP. In the United States, its is about 39% with just over 20% originating in Washington D.C. while State governments spend about 8% and local governments around 11%.

This is why America will fare far better than a Greece if and when a crash comes. 

In Greece, as goes the government in Athens so goes the entire economy. In the United States, the private sector safeguards our economic strength. 

Further, some state and many local government agencies are well run and on firm financial foundations. In tandem with the private sector, they serve as firewalls to contain the contagion of a collapse in Federal Government’s ability to borrow.

Nonetheless, for the millions dependent on Uncle Sam, the transition will be harsh. 

How harsh?

Let us create a very (overly) simplistic model for demonstration purposes. In 2014, Washington spent about 14% more than it took in. An immediate 14% cut would be painful for all save those whose financial wellbeing is not tied to Federal expenditures. 

A rapid 14% cut to Federal salaries and benefits would hurt tens of millions of Americans and while many would argue that a major cut to Government spending is needed for “bad” programs, it is equally true that many Federal programs to good and they would suffer as well. The economic disruption would massive but uneven and its duration unknown.

The wild card would be the number of people who lose their heads and panic. If that number is large, the damage will expand almost exponentially. If the large majority remains calm then the pain would remain for tens of millions but at a mitigated level.

The bottom line is that save a cowardly panic (especially on the part of those in Washington), the United States would re-emerge as an economic powerhouse, only with a diminished Federal Government.

Mike

RUMORS OF GRUBER

Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies.... where is the transparency, oops, "spike" it!

RUMORS OF GRUBER
BY Scott Johnson, Powerline

The late Arnaud de Borchgrave and the still kicking Robert Moss published The Spike in 1980 to expose the power of the media to suppress politically unpalatable stories in the service of covert political interests. The University of Chicago’s Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Charles Lipson draws on the metaphor of “the spike” to describe what has happened to the revelations of Monday’s Wall Street Journal story reporting the substantial evidence of Jonathan Gruber’s instrumental role in the development of Obamacare. The Journal’s story, ah, belied President Obama’s denials of Gruber’s role this past November. Professor Lipson’s column on the ensuing silence is “Spike it! When the media kill a story for political reasons.”

Professor Lipson writes:
What happens when the news media catch the White House in a demonstrable lie? That depends entirely on whether they like the administration. If they loathe the administration, it’s front-page news. If they like it, they spike the story. As Momma used to remind us, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. What a great motto for reporters.

That is exactly what the national media have done to an important story about the White House’s intimate working relationship with MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, who helped craft the Affordable Care Act. You may remember Gruber from his infamous videotapes, the ones in which he called the American public too stupid to understand the law. He added their stupidity was helpful to Obama, Pelosi, and Reid in passing the law.

The Obama administration snapped into action. At a press conference, the president noted that Gruber was not employed by the White House and said flatly that he had not played an important role in drafting the law. Nancy Pelosi said the same thing. On background, senior White House officials reinforced the story. They vaguely remembered somebody named Gruber or Goober or something but, fortunately, he played only a marginal role in health care. Thanks for asking. Next question?

Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out the White House knew Gruber very well and knew he played a crucial role in the health care bill. The White House simply decided to lie about it. Perhaps they agree with Gruber’s judgment about your intelligence.

How do we know about Gruber’s role? Not because the White House released any documents, not because the media dug into it, but because the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, got MIT to turn over the relevant emails. There were 20,000 pages of emails back-and-forth between Gruber and the White House in the crucial months when the bill was being crafted and passed.

The Wall Street Journal just revealed the news about the Oversight Committee getting these emails in a major story. The key points are that Gruber was deeply involved in crafting the health care law, he worked very closely with the White House, and, when he became a political liability, the president and his senior aides simply lied about it.

Is that a big story? Not if you are a national TV network or major U.S. newspaper. Except for the Wall Street Journal, they maintained radio silence. Not a peep.

UPDATE: A friend writes to comment: “Why didn’t he connect the dots? isn’t the head of CBS News (David Rhodes) the brother of someone who works high up in the Obama administration (Ben Rhodes)? And what about reporters married to WH operatives? Isn’t it time for the kind of chart the NYT made of the Straussian connections and their supposed links to the Iraq war? That was fanciful, and this is real.”

Three Keys to Understanding the Greek Governments Financial Crisis

Three Keys to Understanding the Greek Governments Financial Crisis

Col. Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

Do not spend any serious time reading about all the nuances and complexities of the current fiscal crisis facing the Greek Government. Here is everything you need to know in a nutshell:

Austerity = Our Government spent its way into bankruptcy and now we have to reduce spending (by the way, for years we lied to everyone about how bad it was).

Bailout Loans = We ran out of our money and now need to spend other people's money.

Anti-Austerity = We are dead broke but refuse to admit it.

Mike

21st century Marxism is stupid (save Groucho!)

21st century Marxism is stupid (save Groucho!)

Col. Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

Do not get me wrong. Marx should be required reading for economists but in its rightful place amongst other classical writers like Smith or Ricardo or Malthus and nothing more.

He is no one’s messiah and never was. 

That is the price Marx must pay when he thought the events of his lifetime provided unerring insights, a key to unlock the future.

To prove the failure of Marxism, two examples will suffice (although many more are quickly available).

Fist, let us visit volume I of Das Kapital (1867) to compare it to the arguments of James Hessen in Learning by Doing (2005) and more specifically to the now obscure case of English cottage handloom weavers. 

For Marx, who was stuck in the 18^th century, loom machines brutally and unjustly destroyed the handloom industry.

Their introduction by capitalists was a degradation ending with the worker as an automaton, a slave. 

Similarly, protecting wagon/horse & buggy workers was better than creating many more higher paying automotive jobs in the early 20^th century and in a later example, a righteous society should have kept paper file clerks on the payroll instead of replacing their jobs with superior information technology positions. 

What nonsense (except in Greece). 

The world is a better place when it progresses. 

Hessen opines that if we are to look to the descendants of the 19^th century English hand-loom workers, any objective observer must conclude that their offspring’s lives are far better off by any “quality of life” measurement: education, health care, housing, nutrition, leisure activities, old age protections, etc.’’ 

Plain and simply, Marx’s nihilistic assessment of free market economies was dead wrong.

That is not all. Marxist "historical determinism" also took a hit and one need only look to feudalism to see the wreckage.  

His feudalistic certainty in 1860s gave way to doubt in the 20^th century that forced his acolytes into tortured definitions of feudalism intended to explain away the ever growing contradictions as historical research expanded our understanding of the past. 

In the end, the "historical determinism” artifice that shored up Marxist theory collapsed like a dry rotted house in a gale. And therein lies the trap Marx laid for himself. 

By seeking to be immediately relevant to a 19^th century audience he killed off the value of the scientific analytic process he took such pains to articulate.

His scientific method was rendered meaningless as it closed itself off to new knowledge. When Marx set in stone “eternal” diktats and prescriptions based on the limited knowledge available in the 19^th century he doomed himself.

So where are we in the 21^st century?

We are at the point where we must once and for all throw out the concept that Marxism holds transcendental truths.

It is a stale philosophy and a failed religion whose rigid dictums have not stood the test of time and no serious thinker should adopt such a fatally flawed treatise.

Would anyone have a home built based on an 1860s plan without electricity, using coal or wood burning heating and candles or kerosene or gas for lighting?

Would anyone send their children to a dentist who used an 1860s textbook that eschewed the cleansing of instruments and held that a good shot of brandy would take care of the pain?

Would anyone undergo surgery by a doctor who held to 1860s methodologies that used deadly metal probes in lieu of x-rays, MRIs or CT scans? Who thought sterilization silly, had no knowledge of antibiotics and thought amputation followed by leaching as an ideal technique in treating traumatic injuries?

Please read Marx but only in the context of a remarkable but outdated thesis.

Mike

Failure of TAA/TPA in the House

Failure of TAA/TPA in the House, Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

The Trade Adjustment Assistance/Trade Promotion Authority did not pass today.

The consequences are simple to comprehend.

If you are an isolationist and believe that America's interests end at the ocean shores then you are happy. The hell with the rest of the world.

If you understand that when America quits a major world stage we are weakened then you get it.

The failure to pass TAA/TPA in East Asia is tremendous victory for China who will fill the vacuum in East Asia as quick as it can. 

This is just one more victory for China in its cold war to marginalize America (on the heels of hacking four million gov't employees private data). Shame on us.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Reflections on Ramadi

Reflections on Ramadi

Editor's Note: This analysis was written by Stratfor's lead military analyst, Paul Floyd, who served in the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, a core component of the United States Army Special Operations Command. He deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan in a combat role. This piece was written for the American holiday called Memorial Day, commemorating the lives of U.S. veterans killed in combat. 

The Iraqi city of Ramadi has fallen again into the hands of the Islamic State, a group born of al Qaeda in Iraq. That this terrorist organization, whose brutality needs no description, has retaken a city once fought for by American soldiers troubles me. I served two deployments in Ramadi, fighting al Qaeda. Comrades died in that fight. I was shot in Ramadi. My initial reaction, like that of many veterans, is to ask what the hell it was all for, when nothing seems to change. The whole endeavor was a costly bloodletting and it seems the price we paid yielded no actual benefit. Yet, Memorial Day is as much a day for reflection as it is for remembrance and commemoration. And in reflecting, I have had to sit back and define exactly what we are memorializing on this day.

Memorial Day is about honoring those who died fighting for our country. Often those memories — and the honor we attribute — are anchored to a specific place. It makes sense: soldiers fight and die in a physical, tangible environment, invariably somewhere that is far from home. Human nature makes us hold onto that tangibility for memory. Okinawa, Antietam, the Chosin Reservoir, Ia Drang and Belleau Wood are just a handful of names that evoke the weight of battles long since past. I have a reverence for those names, those places. We all do to a point: We bestow these places with an unconscious solemnity based on how many died there. As imperfect as it is, this is the way we measure any particular fight. Certain places become emblematic, normally where the fighting was at its most ferocious. I am often asked where I was wounded. I always respond Ramadi, though technically it was in the middle of farmland between Ramadi and Fallujah. Giving the technical answer, however, loses something in translation. Saying Ramadi instills a sense of significance in people's minds. Our mission that day was a function of what started in the city, but had spilled out into the periphery. 

Memorializing a place because of the weight associated with it is problematic on two fronts — it sets up a partial fallacy while ignoring what I believe to be another critical component that is often overlooked: Time....

The partial fallacy is in how we tie the significance of a soldier's last valiant action to the place where it happened. A soldier might die taking or defending a critical hill, for example, but they do not lay down their life just for the hill. No one joins the military to fight for a specific piece of terrain, city or inanimate object. We join to serve our country, which is accomplished by finishing the missions we are called upon to take. Viewing warfare as an extension of diplomacy by other means, soldiers are the ultimate executors of the national political will. A specific mission may well include the taking of a particular hill, but the soldier is not there for that specific piece of ground. They are there because the mission required them to be.

The other component we ignore is time. Once death is attached to a place and its significance established in our minds, it is meaningful from then on. It is hard to think of a permanent, physical place as having only temporary relevance in time when blood has been spilt there. There is a reason why the World War I battlefields of a century ago have such special relevance. The problem is, holding permanent unyielding sentiment for a place can override better judgment.

I ruminate on all of this when I hear calls to reintroduce U.S. combat troops to Iraq because of recent events in Ramadi. Many of the justifications for such action are not centered on military strategy, U.S. foreign policy or what would be best for Iraq. Instead, they are invoked by the fact that American lives were spent to win Ramadi in the past. The question remains: If Ramadi is back in the hands of militants, what did American soldiers die for in the first place?

My initial thoughts were informed by that exact reasoning. However, further questions immediately sprang to mind. I settled on two. Does the enemy's taking of a place that people died fighting for disparage their memory, and, should we let it influence our actions? For the first question I concluded no, though it is painful. The soldiers who gave their lives accomplishing a mission had an effect. Those effects were not limited to a single place. Wars are waged over an area and influenced by all the infinite actions that occur in that space at that time in history. An enemy's success in the present, even if it is in that same place, does not take away from a soldier's effect in the past. In this light, I find it hard to justify sending more soldiers to fight, where some will inevitably die, solely in an effort to protect the memories of those already dead.

Those memories do not need physical protection. This is why we have a day like today. Memorial Day is our formal acknowledgement of our comrade's sacrifice. We remember their actions and their willingness to give all to accomplish the mission. These memories are of course tied to place, but it should not be the defining feature. What happens now in a location such as Ramadi does not debase the past actions of those that fell there. They defined themselves outside of place, in service to country, and that is what I personally want to memorialize.

"Reflections on Ramadi is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

Democrats Say: We Fear Marco!

Democrats Say: We Fear Marco!
John Hinderaker, Powerline

The New York Times headlines: “Prospect of Hillary Clinton-Marco Rubio Matchup Unnerves Democrats.” As well it should:

They use words like “historic” and “charismatic,” phrases like “great potential” and “million-dollar smile.” They notice audience members moved to tears by an American-dream-come-true success story. When they look at the cold, hard political math, they get uneasy.

An incipient sense of anxiety is tugging at some Democrats — a feeling tersely captured in four words from a blog post written recently by a seasoned party strategist in Florida: “Marco Rubio scares me.”

The one who should really scare them is Hillary Clinton, as her ineptitude as a candidate becomes more palpable with every passing day. But the strategists quoted by the Times have a point: at this stage, the Republican who poses the starkest and most favorable contrast with Hillary is Rubio:

Democrats express concerns not only about whether Mr. Rubio, 43, a son of Cuban immigrants, will win over Hispanic voters, a growing and increasingly important slice of the electorate. They also worry that he would offer a sharp generational contrast to Mrs. Clinton, a fixture in American politics for nearly a quarter-century who will turn 69 less than two weeks before the election.

Do you think? Are Democrats really figuring this out just now?

Characteristically, even as they acknowledge his potential strength as a candidate, the Democrats can’t resist ripping him. Note the silly stereotypes they engage in while doing so:

“I think they do underestimate him,” [John] Morgan added. “He’s energetic, he’s photogenic, and he will say whatever you want him to say.”

What is that supposed to mean? Marco has always been his own man. He got his start taking on the establishment, in the form of incumbent Republican Governor Charlie Crist. And he has been remarkably consistent on the issues.

This one is equally oblivious:

Mr. Gelber praised Mr. Rubio’s ability to use his family’s story to convey compassion for people marginalized by society, but he said he believed, as many Democrats do, that this was disingenuous.

“It’s a little maddening when his policies are so inconsistent with that,” Mr. Gelber said. “My head would explode.”

The Democrats have been in power for six years, while wages have fallen, unemployment and underemployment have persisted, poverty has increased, food stamp usage has reached unprecedented heights, and economic inequality has widened. Yet they are so thick-skulled that they think it is tautological that their policies favor the poor and the downtrodden. They apparently are unable to comprehend that conservatives like Rubio (and us) actually believe that conservative policies work best, especially for those who are trying to climb the ladder of opportunity.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why Democrats tend to underestimate not just a politician like Marco Rubio, but Republicans in general.

Invading Iraq

Invading Iraq

Mike Walker, Col USMC (retired)

All,

While watching a clip of Senator Marco Rubio being questioned about the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, I could not help but think of Dustin Hoffman in the Marathon Man.

“Is It Safe?” hissed Lawrence Olivier.

“Yes” moans Hoffman followed by painful drilling of teeth sans Novocain.

“Is It Safe?” Lawrence Olivier demanded again.

“No” moans Hoffman followed by painful drilling of teeth sans Novocain.

As a Marine who spent two tours in Iraq, I could empathize with Rubio. What is the answer to the question?

Beyond the ideologues that declared the War in Iraq a success or failure before Day 1, the answer is not so simple and for this veteran, it remains elusive.

Why? Because time has been of no help. 

If you had asked me when I was in Iraq in June 2003, my answer would have been an unqualified “Yes,” going into Iraq was the right call. Having been thrust into the horrors of the Saddam Regime, the idea of ridding the world of such an evil was an unmistakable good (see below if you are interested in my thoughts on that).

If you had asked me in June 2005, after reflecting on the price in blood and treasure – the deaths and injuries suffered by my fellow Marines, some of the greatest men and women I had and will ever know – while an insurgency that did not exist in June 2003 had spread across 13 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, the answer had to be “No.”

If you had asked me in June 2011, my answer was back to “Yes,” it was the right call. Violence was down by 90% and al Qaeda-in-Iraq was on the ropes, a beaten foe. The schools were open and a building boom unlike any since the mid-1970s was in full swing. Iraq was the 6^th fastest growing economy in the world, its GPD had quadrupled and unemployment had fallen from over 50% in 2004 to 11%. 

The future looked so bright and then in Syria came the rise of the Islamic State. 

What do I say now? The answer seems an obvious “No” as in 2005 but what about the “Yes” in 2003 and the “Yes” 2011? Nothing seems obvious anymore and what the future will hold is anyone's guess.

So here I sit, hands bracing the chair arms awaiting the question: Is IT Safe? Was IT a mistake?

And like Hoffman, I do not have the answer.

Semper Fi,

Mike

 

Really...?

Well, sheep are used to taking orders and clinging to their "known" patch of hillside.

A painter friend from Northern California who used to come down for the winters and stay with us, told me while I was complaining about Bill Clinton (while president), "Well, we didn't elect the pope!"

No, we elected the leader of the free world to manage our internal and external affairs. We have to be able to trust our leaders implicitly. Bill's wife and daughter couldn't trust him on a basic level.... Monica was just a year or two older than Chelsea, and he didn't even have to be out of the most public office in the world. If they couldn't trust him on that level how could we on vastly more complex issues? My friend didn't get it. 

There is a fundamental disconnect happening for so many that don't require leaders to be absolutely honest and focused on the role they have assumed. Without a doubt, the Clintons are a breed apart. They are not transparent, are not responsible for their actions, have agendas that supersede those of the citizens that depend on them and are really into having enough cold cash to "pay their bills". In spite of this, they have a following that appreciates the view of the Clinton's giving  the "whatever will float your boat crowd" the thumbs up... and not the rubes they are made.