Senate Dem: National debt is not 'a threat to our country'

(Hat tip: KimR) - Senate Democrats on Wednesday couldn't agree that federal debt is a national security problem, in a hearing aimed at assessing the long-term strategic implications of the government's $19 trillion debt. --"A realistic discussion about it, and accepting expert opinion that this debt that we have is not actually right now a threat to our country, is I think a more realistic and honorable way of talking to the American people about it," Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday. Read more at the Washington Examiner Read More......

UK condemns Muslim Brotherhood in break from Obama administration

A powerful report by the U.K. government accuses the Muslim Brotherhood of being sympathetic to terrorists and a risk to British national security, striking a contrast with the Obama administration’s more conciliatory approach – and fueling criticism that the U.S. government should wake up to the threat.

Read more at Fox News
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Sailor faces 30 years in prison for keeping pics of classified submarine equipment

Since the issue of classification has emerged in the past day or so again, it’s worth remembering just how important it is for national security. This news item from the Hartford Courant in Connecticut demonstrates just how seriously officials are supposed to protect classified material and systems. The Department of Justice has charged a former Navy submariner with multiple crimes involving his retention of cell-phone pictures of classified systems on his boat.

Read more at Hotair.com
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

WSJ: Sarah Palin Searches for the Great Outdoors

The former VP candidate on politics and social media, running for office again, and her new TV show, 'Amazing America.'

Excerpt: Ms. Palin also resents government surveillance, as she makes clear in referring to Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked documents about the agency's collection of data, including the phone call records of millions of Americans. "Snowden isn't the problem!" she says. "The American government spying on its own people is the problem!" She finishes her thought by saying, "The smaller the government, the bigger the people, and this show talks about big, bold, beautiful America."

Read More......

Which is worse, outsourcing jobs or our national security? The Obama Administration decided to do both.

Americans for Job Security is outraged by the Obama administration’s recent decision to turn its back on the proven American aerospace manufacturing community and instead award a $1 billion defense contract to Embraer, a Brazilian owned and operated aircraft manufacturing company. ✧ Our nation has seen a lot of reckless actions come from the Obama White House over the last three years, but this one could be the most damaging.

Take action now! Send Letters to tell your U.S. Congressmen to Support American Defense Jobs. Read More......

TWS: The President And The Generals

THE WEEKLY STANDARD, 12/3/2011 (12/12/2011 Vol. 17 No. 13), (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - The New York Times reported last week that President Obama decided not to apologize to Pakistan about the U.S. airstrikes that killed Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border in part because he did not want to be seen to be overruling his military commanders yet again. How ironic that the president should feel the need to accept the advice of his military leaders on diplomatic matters while regularly disregarding their opinions on military matters. This most recent incident illuminates the ongoing confusion in the White House and among the American political elite generally about how the president should take advice from his senior military commanders. The situation has become very dangerous for an administration that has overruled its commanders dramatically and frequently and is reportedly considering doing so again by announcing accelerations of the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan beyond what military commanders have recommended. Read more at The Weekly Standard... Read More......

Panettagate?

ACCURACY IN MEDIA (AIM), 6/14/2011 by Cliff Kincaid - Panettagate: A Real Scandal Involving National Security

[Snip] ...[I]n the spirit of public service, which the Post is apparently encouraging, my friend and associate Trevor Loudon and I have dug into the background of CIA director and Secretary of Defense nominee Leon Panetta. It’s too bad that we didn’t have this material [.pdf] assembled before now, but better late than never. The evidence shows that Panetta had a close and personal relationship with a member of the Communist Party by the name of Hugh DeLacy, whose record included meeting with communist espionage agents. By any objective standard of journalism, this should be big news. But the question now is whether the media, liberal and conservative, will take time off from Weinergate to pay attention and examine the evidence. Read more at AIM...

Reuters, 6/14/2011 - Senate panel approves Panetta as defense chief: "He is expected to win a Senate floor vote in the near future as the next U.S. defense secretary but the exact timing of that vote is still uncertain."
UPDATE at AIM, 6/15/2011 - Who Checked Out Leon Panetta? Read More......

Interesting local letters

Gazette-Times, 12/15/2010 by Linda Weimer - Letter: There’s nothing funny about soda that references Communism. (Also read some interesting comments.

Gazette-Times, 12/15/2010 by Jane Newton - Letter: Thanks to FBI, TSA; local Muslims could start anti-terrorism effort. Read More......

CIA Book

VIA EMAIL, 11/3/2010 (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - As President George W. Bush's top speech writer, Marc Thiessen was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM). ∴ Now, his riveting new book, "Courting Disaster", How the CIA Kept America Safe (Regnery), has been published. ∴ Here is an excerpt from "Courting Disaster":

Just before dawn on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed Pakistani tactical assault forces move in and surround a safe house in Rawalpindi . A few hours earlier they had received a text message from an informant inside the house. It read: "I am with KSM."

Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into custody. In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, documents, cell phones and other valuable "pocket litter."

Once in custody, KSM is defiant. He refuses to answer questions, informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a lawyer. Instead he is taken to a secret CIA "black site" in an undisclosed location.

Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of Americans. He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or what his fate will be.

Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk. He spews contempt at his interrogators, telling them that Americans are weak, lack resilience, and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals. He has trained to resist interrogation. When he is asked for information about future attacks, he tells his questioners scornfully: "Soon, you will know."

It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved for use only on the most high-value detainees. The techniques include waterboarding.

His resistance is described by one senior American official as "superhuman." Eventually, however, the techniques work, and KSM becomes cooperative-for reasons that will be described later in this book.

He begins telling his CIA debriefers about active al Qaeda plots to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets. He holds classes for CIA officials, using a chalkboard to draw a picture of al Qaeda's operating structure, financing, communications, and logistics. He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens, and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer records seized in terrorist raids. He identifies voices in intercepted telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded terrorist communications. He provides information that helps our intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists,

KSM's questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world.

In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the "Bojinka plot" to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean .

Years later, an observant CIA officer notices that the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM's description of his plans for a Bojinka-style attack.

In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot. On the night of Aug.9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find A USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other:

* United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 2:15 p.m.;
* Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 p.m.;
* Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 p.m.;
* United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 p.m.;
* United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 p.m.;
* American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 p.m; and
* American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 p.m.

They seize bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared.

Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much. Few Americans are aware of the fact that al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude.

And still fewer realize that the terrorists' true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Editor's Note: For other foiled terrorist plots, see page 9 of Courting Disaster.

In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda

Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda-how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks-came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.

Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: "I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."

Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said: "The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work."

Even Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: "High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country."

Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA Director, has said: "Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon."

And John Brennan, Obama's Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in an interview if enhanced-interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, replied : "Would the U.S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities? I would say yes."

On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all interrogations by U.S. personnel must follow the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual.

The morning of the announcement, Mike Hayden was still in his post as CIA Director, He called White House Counsel Greg Craig and told him bluntly:

"You didn't ask, but this is the CIA officially nonconcurring". The president went ahead anyway, overruling the objections of the agency.

A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists. This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA directors –including Obama's own director, Leon Panetta -- objected. George Tenet called to urge against the memos' release. So did Porter Goss. So did John Deutch. Hayden says: "You had CIA directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, 'Don't do this.'"

In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the agency's covert field operatives. A few weeks earlier, Panetta had arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives at risk. The President reportedly listened respectfully-and then ignored their advice.

With these actions, Barack Obama arguably did more damage to America's national security in his first 100 days of office than any President in American history.

Read More......

Obama to Limit Potential Uses of Nuclear Weapons

FOXNews.com, 4/6/2010 - The United States will pledge not to use nuclear weapons against most non-nuclear countries -- no matter what they use against us -- but will keep "all options" on the table for nations like North Korea and Iran, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday. Read more at FOX... Read More......

53% Now Trust Republicans More Than Democrats on Health Care

RASMUSSEN REPORTS, 4/3/2010 - Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on nine out of 10 key issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports, but the gap between the two parties has grown narrower on several of them. ∴ Following the passage of the health care bill, 53% now say they trust Republicans on the issue of health care. Thirty-seven percent (37%) place their trust in Democrats. A month earlier, the two parties were essentially even on the health care issue. Read more at Rasmussen's... Read More......

NRO: It’s the Enemy, Stupid

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE, 1/20/2010 by Andrew C. McCarthy - National-security strength lifts Scott Brown. ∴ It was health care that nationalized the special election for what we now know is the people’s Senate seat. But it was national security that put real distance between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley. “People talk about the potency of the health-care issue,” Brown’s top strategist, Eric Fehrnstrom, told National Review’s Robert Costa, “but from our own internal polling, the more potent issue here in Massachusetts was terrorism and the treatment of enemy combatants.” There is a powerful lesson here for Republicans, and here’s hoping they learn it. [Emphasis added] Read more at NRO... Read More......

Victor Davis Hanson: Obamanoia

WORKS AND DAYS, 10/21/2009: Victor Davis Hanson wrote - [Excerpt/pg. 2] "But imagine that you are a small business owner, and just consider—why expand now or rehire? since (a) I have no idea what the new taxes will be; (b) I have no idea about what all these new regulations, cap and trade, card check; etc will cost me; (c) I am beginning to think all this trash talk about bad doctors, insurance companies, the Chamber of Commerce, CEOs, the wealthy, etc. suggests this administration does not like me or what I do; (d) the government is everywhere: Ford now must compete against Government Motors; Banks against government-affiliated Citibank; Blue Cross against the public option; and so on. If I have a business, somewhere down the line there is going to be a government-run rival, sort of like your local can’t go broke PBS station in every avenue of commerce. Why insist on ensuring hustling employees when the rival, overpaid DMV-like work force can’t go broke whatever they do?"

Hanson covers much more than business in "Obamanoia." Read more at Works and Days... Read More......

Fred Thompson Interview

Breitbart.tv offers an exclusive interview with Fred Thompson regarding his potential 2008 run for the presidency. In the interview, Mr. Thompson states, "I've never casually run for anything." It appears that he is waiting to hear from the people that national security is their top issue. He believes every other issues pales by comparison. Watch the interview here. Read More......