The title is Robbery gone very wrong...

But I don't see anything wrong with it!

To the driver, glad you're ok.

To the turd bleeding out on the ground, you got what you deserved and you're a waste of sperm not to be missed from the human gene pool.

And to the turd who left his blood brother to bleed out and ran like the coward you are, smart move. He would have done the same to you. Now stop breaking the law and maybe you will live to 30.

Security Weekly: Understanding Pena Nieto's Approach to the Cartels, May 16, 2013

By Scott StewartVice President of AnalysisMexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's approach to combating Mexican drug cartels has been a much-discussed topic since well before he was elected. Indeed, in June 2011 -- more than a year before the July 2012 Mexican presidential election -- I wrote an analysis discussing rumors that, if elected, Pena Nieto was going to attempt to reach some sort of accommodation with Mexico's drug cartels in order to bring down the level of violence.

Such rumors were certainly understandable, given the arrangement that had existed for many years between some senior members of Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party and some powerful cartel figures during the Institutional Revolutionary Party's long reign in Mexico prior to the election of Vicente Fox of the National Action Party in 2000. However, as we argued in 2011 and repeated in March 2013, much has changed in Mexico since 2000, and the new reality in Mexico means that it would be impossible for the Pena Nieto administration to reach any sort of deal with the cartels even if it made an attempt.

But the rumors of the Pena Nieto government reaching an accommodation with some cartel figures such as Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera have persisted, even as the Mexican government arrests key operatives in Guzman's network, such as Ines Coronel Barreras, Guzman's father-in-law, who was arrested May 1 in Agua Prieta, Mexico. Indeed, on April 27, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest published a detailed article outlining how U.S. authorities were fearful that the Mexican government was restructuring its security relationship with the U.S. government so that it could more easily reach an unofficial truce with cartel leaders. Yet four days later, Coronel -- a significant cartel figure -- was arrested in a joint operation between the Mexicans and Americans.

Clearly, there is some confusion on the U.S. side about the approach the Pena Nieto government is taking, but conversations with both U.S. and Mexican officials reveal that these changes in Mexico's approach do not appear to be as drastic as some have feared. There will need to be adjustments on both sides of the border while organizational changes are underway in Mexico, but this does not mean that bilateral U.S.-Mexico cooperation will decline in the long term.

Opportunities and ChallengesDespite the violence that has wracked Mexico over the past decade, the Mexican economy is booming. Arguably, the economy would be doing even better if potential investors were not concerned about cartel violence and street crime -- and if such criminal activity did not have such a significant impact on businesses operating in Mexico.

Because of this, the Pena Nieto administration believes that it is critical to reduce the overall level of violence in the country. Essentially it wants to transform the cartel issue into a law enforcement problem, something handled by the Interior Ministry and the national police, rather than a national security problem handled by the Mexican military and the Center for Research and National Security (Mexico's national-level intelligence agency). In many ways the Pena Nieto administration wants to follow the model of the government of Colombia, which has never been able to stop trafficking in its territory but was able to defeat the powerful Medellin and Cali cartels and relegate their successor organizations to a law enforcement problem.  

The Mexicans also believe that if they can attenuate cartel violence, they will be able to free up law enforcement forces to tackle common crime instead of focusing nearly all their resources on containing the cartel wars.  

Although the cartels have not yet been taken down to the point of being a law enforcement problem, the Pena Nieto administration wants to continue to signal this shift in approach by moving the focus of its efforts against the cartels to the Interior Ministry. Unlike former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who was seen leading the charge against the cartels during his administration, Pena Nieto wants to maintain some distance from the struggle against the cartels (at least publicly). Pena Nieto seeks to portray the cartels as a secondary issue that does not demand his personal leadership and attention. He can then publicly focus his efforts on issues he deems critically important to Mexico's future, like education reform, banking reform, energy reform and fostering the Mexican economy. This is the most significant difference between the Calderon and Pena Nieto administrations.

Of course it is one thing to say that the cartels have become a secondary issue, and it is quite another to make it happen. The Mexican government still faces some real challenges in reducing the threat posed by the cartels. However, it is becoming clear that the Pena Nieto administration seeks to implement a holistic approach in an attempt to address the problems at the root of the violence that in some ways is quite reminiscent of counterinsurgency policy. The Mexicans view these underlying economic, cultural and sociological problems as issues that cannot be solved with force alone.

Mexican officials in the current government say that the approach the Calderon administration took to fighting the cartels was wrong in that it sought to solve the problem of cartel violence by simply killing or arresting cartel figures. They claim that Calderon's approach did nothing to treat the underlying causes of the violence and that the cartels were able to recruit gunmen faster than the government could kill or capture them. (In some ways this is parallel to the U.S. government's approach in Yemen, where increases in missile strikes from unmanned aerial vehicles have increased, rather than reduced, the number of jihadists there.) In Mexico, when the cartels experienced trouble in recruiting enough gunmen, they were able to readily import them from Central America.  

However -- and this is very significant -- this holistic approach does not mean that the Pena Nieto administration wants to totally abandon kinetic operations against the cartels. An important pillar of any counterinsurgency campaign is providing security for the population. But rather than provoke random firefights with cartel gunmen by sending military patrols into cartel hot spots, the Pena Nieto team wants to be more targeted and intentional in its application of force. It seeks to take out the networks that hire and supply the gunmen, not just the gunmen themselves, and this will require all the tools in its counternarcotics portfolio -- not only force, but also things like intelligence, financial action (to target cartel finances), public health, institution building and anti-corruption efforts.
The theory is that by providing security, stability and economic opportunity the government can undercut the cartels' ability to recruit youth who currently see little other options in life but to join the cartels.

To truly succeed, especially in the most lawless areas, the Mexican government is going to have to begin to build institutions -- and public trust in those institutions -- from the ground up. The officials we have talked to hold Juarez up as an example they hope to follow in other locations, though they say they learned a lot of lessons in Juarez that will allow them to streamline their efforts elsewhere. Obviously, before they can begin building, they recognize that they will have to seize, consolidate and hold territory, and this is the role they envision for the newly created gendarmerie, or paramilitary police.

The gendarmerie is important to this rebuilding effort because the military is incapable of serving in an investigative law enforcement role. They are deployed to pursue active shooters and target members of the cartels, but much of the crime affecting Mexico's citizens and companies falls outside the military's purview. The military also has a tendency to be heavy-handed, and reports of human rights abuses are quite common. Transforming from a national security to a law enforcement approach requires the formation of an effective police force that is able to conduct community policing while pursuing car thieves, extortionists, kidnappers and street gangs in addition to cartel gunmen.

Certainly the U.S. government was very involved in the Calderon administration's kinetic approach to the cartel problem, as shown by the very heavy collaboration between the two governments. The collaboration was so heavy, in fact, that some incoming Pena Nieto administration figures were shocked by how integrated the Americans had become. The U.S. officials who told Dana Priest they were uncomfortable with the new Mexican government's approach to cartel violence were undoubtedly among those deeply involved in this process -- perhaps so deeply involved that they could not recognize that in the big picture, their approach was failing to reduce the violence in Mexico. Indeed, from the Mexican perspective, the U.S. efforts have been focused on reducing the flow of narcotics into the United States regardless of the impact of those efforts on Mexico's security environment.

However, as seen by the May 1 arrest of Coronel, which a Mexican official described as a classic joint operation involving the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration and Mexican Federal Police, the Mexican authorities do intend to continue to work very closely with their American counterparts. But that cooperation must occur within the new framework established for the anti-cartel efforts. That means that plans for cooperation must be presented through the Mexican Interior Ministry so that the efforts can be centrally coordinated. Much of the current peer-to-peer cooperation can continue, but within that structure.

Consolidation and CoordinationAs in the United States, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Mexico have terrible problems with coordination and information sharing. The current administration is attempting to correct this by centralizing the anti-cartel efforts at the federal level and by creating coordination centers to oversee operations in the various regions. These regional centers will collect information at the state and regional level and send it up to the national center. However, one huge factor inhibiting information sharing in Mexico -- and between the Americans and Mexicans -- is the longstanding problem of corruption in the Mexican government. In the past, drug czars, senior police officials and very senior politicians have been accused of being on cartel payrolls. This makes trust critical, and lack of trust has caused some Mexican and most American agencies to restrict the sharing of intelligence to only select, trusted contacts. Centralizing coordination will interfere with this selective information flow in the short term, and it is going to take time for this new coordination effort to earn the trust of both Mexican and American agencies. There remains fear that consolidation will also centralize corruption and make it easier for the cartels to gather intelligence.

Another attempt at command control and coordination is in the Pena Nieto administration's current efforts to implement police consolidation at the state level. While corruption has reached into all levels of the Mexican government, it is unquestionably the most pervasive at the municipal level, and in past government operations entire municipal police departments have been fired for corruption. The idea is that if all police were brought under a unified state command, called "Mando Unico" in Spanish, the police would be better screened, trained and paid and therefore the force would be more professional.

This concept of police consolidation at the state level is not a new idea; indeed, Calderon sought to do so under his administration, but it appears that Pena Nieto might have the political capital to make this happen, along with some other changes that Calderon wanted to implement but could not quite pull off. To date, Pena Nieto has had a great deal of success in garnering political support for his proposals, but the establishment of Mando Unico in each of Mexico's 31 states may perhaps be the toughest political struggle he has faced yet. If realized, Mando Unico will be an important step -- but only one step -- in the long process of institution building for the police at the state level.

Aside from the political struggles, the Mexican government still faces very real challenges on the streets as it attempts to quell violence, reassert control over lawless areas and gain the trust of the public. The holistic plan laid out by the Pena Nieto administration sounds good on paper, but it will still require a great deal of leadership by Pena Nieto and his team to bring Mexico through the challenges it faces. They will obviously need to cooperate with the United States to succeed, but it has become clear that this cooperation will need to be on Mexico's terms and in accordance with the administration's new, holistic approach. 

A Poem from a Fallen Officer

During this Police Week, a poem from our fallen.

Messages from a Fallen Officer

To My Partner

You did all that you could, I fell and you stood.
You know sadness was never my style.
Those were the cards that we drew, nothing else more to do,
Except remember me, friend, with a smile.

To My Spouse

Don’t think me gone, but away, though I wish I could stay,
I’m not there, but our love did not end.
We had faith, we had love, sure as God is above
I feel your love from here that you send.

To My Children

I know for you it is hard to be alone in the yard
In that place where we laughed and we played.
My girl, my boy, know you still give me joy,
Live your life as I did, unafraid.

To Officers Left Behind

Each day you hit the street to cover your beat,
Prepare for the dangers you face.
Train hard, wear your vest - you’ll be put to the test.
Each day with your family embrace.

To the Criminals

Now that I’m here and God’s plan is so clear
To you there is but one thing to say.
You steal, rape and kill and abuse your free will
Your time will come, when there’s Hell to pay.

To All

I seem gone from you now, but I know that somehow
We will reunite in another place.
For “The good they die young,” is a song often sung,
But this verse is flawed on its face.

You see the good don’t die young, but instead they live on,
In memories, and many a heart.
The good that you do does not die when you do.
For the good, death’s not an end, but a start.

Lt. Dan Marcou in PoliceOne.com

Geopolitical Weekly: Geopolitical Journey: Europe, the Glorious and the Banal, May 14, 2013

By George Friedman

We flew into Lisbon and immediately rented a car to drive to the edge of the Earth and the beginning of the world. This edge has a name: Cabo de Sao Vicente. A small cape jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, it is the bitter end of Europe. Beyond this point, the world was once unknown to Europeans, becoming a realm inhabited by legends of sea monsters and fantastic civilizations. Cabo de Sao Vicente still makes you feel these fantasies are more than realistic. Even on a bright sunny day, the sea is forbidding and the wind howls at you, while on a gloomy day you peer into the abyss.

Just 3 miles east of Cabo de Sao Vicente at the base of the Ponta de Sagres lies Sagres, a pleasant little town of small villas and apartments. For the most part, these are summer homes, many owned by Germans and British, judging from the flags flying. It was here in 1410 that Prince Henry the Navigator founded a school for navigators. If Cabo de Sao Vicente is where the Earth ended for the Europeans, Ponta de Sagres became the place where the world began.

The Making of the Modern World

Prince Henry was the second son of Portuguese King John I. As a member of the royal class, he had the means to finance his ambitions. Those who attended his school included Vasco da Gama, who made the first voyage from Europe to India, and Magellan, whose expedition first circumnavigated the globe. Columbus was once shipwrecked and rescued off the coast, subsequently learning many of his later nautical skills in Portugal. This school gave rise to the most extraordinary alumni association imaginable.

How prosaic business opportunities generate the most risky and grandiose undertakings has come to interest me. This school arose with the specific goal of training sailors to go farther and farther south along the African coast in search of a sea route to India. The Portuguese sought this route to cut out the middleman in the spice trade. Spices were wealth in Europe; they preserved and seasoned food, and were considered medicinal and even aphrodisiacs. But they were fiendishly expensive, since they came to Europe via the Silk Road through Muslim-controlled territory, with each merchant along the way increasing their price.

Henry didn't just train seamen, he also financed explorations. During the 15th century, year after year, ships went out. Many, even most, never returned, but all of them pushed just a bit further south. Each voyage produced logs that Henry collected, collated, studied and relied on when planning future expeditions.

The more I learn more about Henry, the more his program reminds me of NASA and of Tom Wolfe's classic, The Right Stuff, about America's space program. Like NASA, each mission built on the last, trying out new methods in an incremental fashion. Henry didn't try to shoot to the moon, as they say. He was no Columbus, risking everything for glory, but rather a methodical engineer, pushing the limits a little at a time and collecting data.

His school has long since disappeared along with his palace. Only a single round marker on the ground remains, perhaps 30 feet wide, segmented in equidistant lines emanating outward to a circle. There is speculation that this is a sundial or a wind gauge of some sort. It could also be nothing; scholars never find an object that isn't filled with meaning, oftentimes religious. Of course, the physical remains of his school don't mean much. History was made here.

It was the place where Europe discovered the world, not only in the physical sense, but also in the direct encounters over time with the myriad cultures that made up the world. Europe wasn't kind to the world it discovered. But over time it did force each culture to become aware of all the others; after centuries, a Mongol student might learn about the Aztecs. Instead of a number of isolated worlds, each believing itself to be the center of the Earth, each new discovery fed the concept of a single world.

The Buccaneering Spirit

On this cape, early in the 15th century, well before Columbus sailed, Henry planned Europe's assault on the world. In the process, he laid the foundation of the modern world and modern Europe. Standing on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic, even on this cheerful day, it is possible to imagine the courage it took to sail into probable death. I can't help but think of the voyages of astronauts and cosmonauts, one part dispassionate engineering and science, one part pure hubris.

The Americans and Russians, not the Europeans, undertook space programs. Europe got in late and never launched a manned flight. There are those who say that we can explore space with unmanned rockets. That may be true, but we cannot own space, we cannot claim it that way. If Henry created his school solely for knowledge, then perhaps sending messages in a bottle and waiting for a reply would have done that. But Henry, the prince who became a monk, also acted for wealth, God's glory and to claim his place in history.

Today, we have entered a phase of history where the buccaneering spirit has left us. The desire for knowledge has separated itself from the hunger we have for wealth and glory. Glory is not big today, cool is. Cool does not challenge the gates of heaven, it accepts what is and conforms to it. This is a passing phase, however. Humans will return to space to own it, discover unknown wealth and bring glory.

The Wright brothers made bicycles, in those days not cool and certainly not glorious. Their heirs "touched the face of God," as John Gillespie Magee put it in his poem High Flight. Like Kipling, scholars do not regard Magee as a serious poet. Perhaps they are right, but he still captured something lesser poets of the inner neuroses failed to capture: a way to speak of glory.

Out in West Texas and other desolate places, private companies -- privateers -- are reinventing the space program. They are searching for what Henry sought -- namely, wealth and glory. Like the pioneers of flight or Columbus, they might be a little mad, much too hungry and filled with hubris. But like Henry's explorers, they will take a government program and transform the world while making themselves and their country rich.

These are extreme thoughts, but Sagres makes you wild if you let it. What was done here staggers the imagination and causes me to hunger for more. Certainly, European imperialism brought misery to the world. But the world was making itself miserable before, and has since: One group of people has always been stealing land from other groups in a constant flow of history. What culture did not live on land stolen from another culture, either annihilated or absorbed? Ours has always been a brutal world. And the Europe Henry founded did not merely oppress and exploit, although it surely did those things. It also left as its legacy something extraordinary: a world that knew itself and all of its parts.

The European Legacy

It is odd to be thinking of Europe's legacy while sitting here in Portugal. Only the dead leave legacies, and Europe is not dead. Yet something in it has died. The swagger and confidence of a great civilization is simply not there, at least not on the European peninsula. Instead, there is caution and fear. You get the sense in Europe -- and here I think of conversations I had on previous trips in the last year or so -- of a fear that any decisive action will tear the place apart. Eastern Europeans are wondering what happened to the European Union and NATO, their twin guarantees of never having to worry about anything again. Western Europeans are worrying about how to return to the smug satisfaction of a prosperity that has disappeared.

There is a great deal of discussion about Europe's economic crisis and finding a way to return to the lost promise of the European Union. But what was that promise? It was a promise of comfort and security and what they called "soft power," which is power without taking risks or making anyone dislike you. The European search for comfort and safety is not trivial, not after the horrors of the 20th century. The British and French have given up empires, Russia has given up communism, Germany and Italy have given up fascism and racism. The world is better off without these things. But what follows, what is left?

I am not talking here of the economic crisis that is gripping Europe, leaving Portugal with 17 percent unemployment and Spain with 26 percent. These are agonizing realities for those living through them. But Europeans have lived through more and worse. Instead, I am speaking of a crisis in the European soul, the death of hubris and of risk-taking. Yes, these resulted in the Europeans trying to convert the world to Christianity and commerce, in Russia trying to create a new man and in Germany becoming willing to annihilate what it thought of as inferior men. The Europeans are content to put all that behind them. Their great search for the holy grail is now reduced to finding a way to resume the comforts of the unexceptional. There is something to be said for the unexceptional life. But it cannot be all there is.

Looking out a window at the cape on which Henry's school was built, it is difficult to connect today's Europe with his. His was poorer, more diseased, more unjust than this one. Life was harder and bleaker than we can imagine. As someone closer to the harder and bleaker side of Europe than to its glories, I can understand not wanting Europe to go there again. But there is no one without guilt, especially those who carefully catalogue the guilt of others. It is also impossible to imagine a truly human life without the hunger hidden inside the princely monk Henry.

We humans are caught between the hunger for glory and the price you pay and the crimes you commit in pursuing it. To me, the tension between the hunger for ordinary comforts and the need for transcendence seems to lie at the heart of the human condition. Europe has chosen comfort, and now has lost it. It sought transcendence and tore itself apart. The latter might have been Henry's legacy, but ah, to have gone to his school with da Gama and Magellan.

COPYRIGHT: STRATFOR.COM

Kids, always in trouble....

What is a mother supposed to do.

Security Weekly: Ordinary Citizens: The Last Line of Defense Against Terrorism, May 9,2013

By Scott Stewart
Vice President of Analysis

The April 15 Boston Marathon bombing has rekindled interest in the topic of grassroots terrorism, specifically the kind conducted by grassroots jihadists. We define grassroots jihadists as individuals who have been inspired by the al Qaeda core or franchise groups but who are not members of these groups.

Some grassroots operatives, such as Najibullah Zazi, who pleaded guilty to charges related to a New York City Subway bomb plot in 2009, travel to places, such as Pakistan, Somalia or Yemen, where they receive training from jihadist franchise groups. Other grassroots jihadists, such as accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, communicate but have no physical interaction with members of a franchise group. Some grassroots militants have no direct contact with other jihadist elements. Lastly, some would-be grassroots militants seek out other jihadist elements but accidentally make contact with government informants. In recent years, such cases have been occurring more frequently, resulting in sting operations and arrests.

Stratfor first began discussing the threat posed by grassroots jihadists in 2005, when we described how the al Qaeda threat was devolving from one based on the core al Qaeda group to a wider movement. But in the big picture, grassroots actors are not just a jihadist phenomenon. We've also extensively discussed the move to leaderless resistance operational models by both left- and right-wing extremists.

Grassroots operatives are a very big problem for government counterterrorism efforts. Indeed, that is why militant ideologues promote the leaderless resistance model. That doesn't mean that such operatives cannot be stopped, but in order to stop them, citizens must think differently about counterterrorism. In the face of a growing grassroots threat there is a growing need for what Stratfor calls "grassroots defenders."

Grassroots Threats

In recent decades, governments have become fairly efficient at identifying and gathering intelligence on known groups that could conduct violent attacks. This is especially true in the realm of technical intelligence, where dramatic improvements have been made in the ability to capture and process huge amounts of data from landline, cellphone and Internet communications. Governments have also become quite adept at penetrating known groups and recruiting informants. Even before 9/11, government successes against militant groups had led white supremacist and militant animal rights and environmentalist groups to adopt a leaderless resistance model for their violent and illegal activities.

In the post-9/11 world, intelligence and security services dramatically increased the resources dedicated to counterterrorism, and the efforts of these services have proved very effective when focused on known organizations and individuals. In fact, because of these successes we have seen jihadist groups, such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the al Qaeda core, since 2009 encourage aspiring militants to undertake lone wolf and small-cell activities rather than travel to places like Pakistan and Yemen to link up with the groups and receive training in terrorist tradecraft.

We see no sign that this trend toward leaderless resistance will reverse in the near future, and our forecast is that the grassroots threat will continue to grow, not only from the jihadist realm but also from far-right and far-left actors.

Stretched Thin

As noted above, most counterterrorism intelligence efforts have been designed to identify and track people with links to known militant groups, and in that regard such efforts are fairly effective. By contrast, counterterrorism efforts have been largely ineffective in identifying those grassroots militants who do not contact known terrorist entities. The focus on identifying and monitoring the activities of someone connected to an established militant group is understandable given that operatives belonging to groups such as Hezbollah or al Qaeda have access to much better training and far greater resources than their grassroots counterparts. Simply put, counterterrorism agencies focus more of their attention on the more potent threat.

However, grassroots operatives can and do kill people. Although they tend to focus on softer targets than operatives connected to larger groups, some grassroots attacks have been quite deadly. For example, the July 2005 London bombings killed 52 people, and Anders Behring Breivik was able to kill 77 in his July 2011 twin attacks in Norway. While the Boston Marathon bombing killed only three, it wounded hundreds.

One problem for most counterterrorism agencies is that counterterrorism is not their sole mission -- or in some cases even their primary mission. Often, as is the case with MI5 in the United Kingdom, the primary counterterrorism agency also has substantial foreign counterintelligence responsibilities. In the case of the FBI, it has not only counterterrorism and foreign counterintelligence missions but also a host of other responsibilities, such as investigating bank robberies, kidnappings, white-collar crime, online crime and public corruption. Also, while counterterrorism was the primary focus of almost every law enforcement and intelligence agency immediately after 9/11, as time has passed, the emphasis on counterterrorism has lessened.

The resources of the primary counterterrorism agencies are also quite finite. For example, the FBI has fewer than 14,000 special agents to fulfill its many responsibilities, and while counterterrorism has become its top mission in the post-9/11 era, only a portion of its agents (estimated to be between 2,500 and 3,000) are assigned to counterterrorism investigations at any time. Some FBI contacts also tell us that counterterrorism assignments are not viewed as career enhancing, and thus many billets remain vacant.

Counterterrorism investigations can also be very labor intensive. Even in a case in which a subject is under electronic surveillance, it takes a great deal of manpower to file all the paperwork required for the court orders, monitor the surveillance equipment and, if necessary, translate conversations and run down or task out additional investigative leads developed during the monitoring. Seemingly little things like conducting a "trash cover" on the subject (sifting through a subject's trash for evidence and intelligence) can add hours of investigative effort every week. If full, 24/7 physical and electronic surveillance is put in place on a subject, it can tie up as many as 100 special agents, surveillance operatives, technicians, photographers, analysts, interpreters, lawyers and supervisors.

It is also important to recognize that the bar is set pretty high for the FBI to investigate people. The FBI cannot just open an investigation on someone on a whim. It needs an identifiable objective and purpose in order to open a preliminary inquiry into a potential suspect, what is referred to as an "assessment." The FBI can't open a case based on activity protected by the First Amendment or on a subject's race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. Even once an assessment is launched, it can't become a full field investigation unless it finds some indication that there is a potential criminal violation. Assessments also have a limited time frame and must be closed unless an indication of a criminal violation is found.

Again, given the potential threat posed by known or suspected al Qaeda, Hezbollah or domestic terrorist suspects, it is understandable that most of the counterterrorism resources would be devoted to investigating and neutralizing that threat. However, the problem with the focus on known actors is that it leaves very little resources for proactive counterterrorism tasks such as looking for signs of potential operational activities, including pre-operational surveillance and weapons acquisition, conducted by previously unknown individuals. Such efforts are a huge undertaking for agencies with limited resources.

Furthermore, in the case of a lone wolf or small cell, there simply may not be any clear-cut chain of command, a specific building to target or a communication network to compromise -- the specialties of Western intelligence agencies. The leaderless resistance organization is, by design, nebulous and hard to map and quantify. This lack of structure and communication poses a problem for Western counterterrorism agencies. Also, since the grassroots threat can emanate from a variety of actors, it is impossible to profile potential militants based on race, religion or ethnicity. Instead, their actions must be scrutinized for indicators of radicalization and attack planning.

Law enforcement has thwarted many grassroots plots, but in those plots the suspects have either planned an attack that was beyond their means, leading them to seek assistance from someone who turned out to be a government informant, or they have contacted a known militant actor and, in doing so, come to the attention of the authorities. Grassroots actors who do not seek assistance and who do not get caught communicating with known terrorist entities can often launch their attacks undetected. In those cases, the attack will either fail, like the 2010 Times Square bombing, or succeed, like the Boston Marathon bombing.

Grassroots Defenders

All grassroots militants engage in activities that make their plots vulnerable to detection. Due to the limited number of dedicated counterterrorism practitioners, these indicators (and sometimes blatant mistakes) are far more likely to be witnessed by someone other than an FBI or MI5 agent. This fact highlights the importance of what we call grassroots defenders -- that is, a decentralized network of people practicing situational awareness who notice and report possible indications of terrorist behavior such as acquiring weapons, building bombs and conducting preoperational surveillance.

It is important to note that grassroots defenders are not vigilantes, and this is not a call to institute the type of paranoid informant network that existed in East Germany. It is also not a call to Islamophobia -- the Muslim community is an important component of grassroots defense, and many plots have been thwarted based upon tips from the Muslim community. Grassroots defenders are citizens who take responsibility for their own security and for the security of society and who report possible terrorist behavior to the authorities.

The most important pool of grassroots defenders is police officers on patrol. While there are fewer than 14,000 FBI agents in the entire United States, there are some 34,000 officers in the New York City Police Department alone and an estimated 800,000 local and state police officers across the United States. While the vast majority of these officers are not assigned primarily to investigate terrorism, they often encounter grassroots militants who make operational security errors or who are in the process of committing crimes in advance of an attack, such as document fraud, illegally obtaining weapons or illegally raising funds for an attack.

For example, in July 2005, police in Torrance, Calif., thwarted a grassroots plot that was uncovered during the investigation of a string of armed robberies. After arresting one suspect, Levar Haney Washington, police searching his apartment uncovered material indicating that Washington was part of a small jihadist cell that was planning to attack a number of targets. Hezbollah's multimillion-dollar cigarette smuggling network was uncovered when a sharp North Carolina sheriff's deputy found the group's activities suspicious and tipped off the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, launching the massive Operation Smokescreen investigation.

Traffic stops by regular cops also have identified several potential grassroots jihadists. In August 2007, two Middle Eastern men stopped by a sheriff's deputy for speeding near Goose Creek, S.C., were charged with possession of a destructive device. Likewise, a traffic stop in September 2001 in Alexandria, Va., led to an investigation that uncovered the so-called Virginia Jihad Network. In fact, at the time of the 9/11 attacks, the operation's leader, Mohamed Atta, was the subject of an outstanding bench warrant for failing to appear in court after being stopped for driving without a license.

But police are not the only grassroots defenders. Other people, such as neighbors, store clerks, landlords and motel managers, can also notice operational planning activities. Such activities can include purchasing bombmaking components and firearms, creating improvised explosive mixtures and conducting pre-operational surveillance.

On July 27, 2011, an alert gun store clerk in Killeen, Texas, called the local police after a man who came into the store to buy smokeless powder exhibited an unusual demeanor. They located the individual and, after questioning him, learned he was planning to detonate an improvised explosive device and conduct an armed assault at a local Killeen restaurant popular with soldiers from nearby Fort Hood. The clerk's situational awareness and decision to call the police likely saved many lives. There are reports that just last week authorities in Montevideo, Minn., arrested a man who was reportedly preparing to conduct an attack. Concerned neighbors alerted authorities of his suspicious behavior. The man, a convicted felon, was reportedly affiliated with a militia group. Authorities allegedly found an AK-style rifle, Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs during a search of his home.

Ordinary citizens exercising situational awareness can and have saved lives. This reality has been the driving force behind programs like the New York Police Department's "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign, a program subsequently adopted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a means of encouraging citizens to report potential terrorist behavior.

It is unrealistic to expect the government to uncover and thwart every plot. There are too many potential actors and too many vulnerable targets. Individuals need to assume some responsibility for their own security and the security of their communities. This does not mean living in fear and paranoia, but rather living with a relaxed level of situational awareness, being cognizant of potential dangers and alert to indicators of them. People who accept this responsibility and who practice this awareness are the true grassroots defenders.

Copyright: STRATFOR.COM

He's in the back, he's searched and cuffed, end of discussion.

The title of this post if from a list of rules I read my rookies when they start field training with me. This could have come out really bad. From PoliceOne:

Searching for safety: Armed, uncuffed, and in the back of a squad

Two police officers in Minneapolis are lucky to be alive after an incident in which they allowed an armed man to sit uncuffed in the back of their patrol car.

Metro Transit Officers Jason Malland and Adam Marvin found “an open bottle of liquor” on 21-year-old Wesley Rogers, but their pat-down failed to reveal the revolver secreted in the waistband of his pants.

Because Rogers was determined to be “obviously drunk,” the two officers decided to take Rogers to his North Minneapolis home as a “courtesy.”

Video of the incident — which happened in December — was released this week, showing Rogers pulling the gun during transit, and briefly pointing it in the direction of the two officers in the front seat before twice dropping it to the floorboard of the squad...

You can read the rest but these two are lucky to be alive. Lesson leaded, bull searches, period.

Star Trek: The logical TOS vs new school competition.

Won't spoil with any comments!

Geopolitical Weekly: Geopolitical Journey: Nostalgia for NATO, May 7, 2013

By George Friedman
Founder and Chairman

Several years ago, I wrote a series of articles on a journey in Europe. It was intended both to be personal and to go beyond recent events or the abstract considerations of geopolitics. This week I begin another journey that will take me from Portugal to Singapore, and I thought that I would try my hand again at reflecting on the significance of my travels.

As I prepare for my journey, I am drawn to a central question regarding the U.S.-European relationship, or what remains of it. Having been in Europe at a time when that relationship meant everything to both sides, and to the world, this trip forces me to think about NATO. I have been asked to make several speeches about U.S.-European relations during my upcoming trip. It is hard to know where to start. The past was built around NATO, so thinking about NATO's past might help me put things in perspective.

On a personal level, my relationship with Europe always passes through the prism of NATO. Born in Hungary, I recall my parents sitting in the kitchen in 1956, when the Soviets came in to crush the revolution. On the same night as my sister's wedding in New York, we listened on the radio to a report on Soviet tanks attacking a street just a block from where we lived in Budapest. I was 7 at the time. The talk turned to the Americans and NATO and what they would do. NATO was the redeemer who disappoints not because he cannot act but because he will not. My family's underlying faith in the power of American alliances was forged in World War II and couldn't be shaken. NATO was the sword of Gideon, albeit lacking in focus and clarity at times.

I had a more personal relationship with NATO. In the 1970s, I played an embarrassingly unimportant role in developing early computerized war games. The games were meant to evaluate strategies on NATO's central front: Germany. At that time, the line dividing Germany was the fault line of the planet. If the world were to end in a nuclear holocaust, it would end there. The place that people thought it would all start was called the Fulda Gap, a not-too-hilly area in the south, where a rapid attack could take Frankfurt and also strike at the heart of U.S. forces. The Germans speak of a watch on the Rhine. For my generation, or at least those millions who served in the armies of NATO, it was Fulda.

In the course of designing war games, I spent some time at SHAPE Technical Center in The Hague. SHAPE stands for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. The name itself is a reminder of the origins of NATO, deep in World War II and the alliance that defeated the Germans. It was commanded by SACEUR -- Supreme Allied Commander Europe -- who was always an American. Over time, the name became increasingly anachronistic, as SACEUR stopped resembling U.S. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and started resembling the chair of a fractious church board, where people showed up for the snacks more than to make decisions.

To me, in the 1970s, SHAPE and SACEUR were acronyms that recalled D-Day and were built around the word "supreme." I was young and in awe, with a sense of history and pride in participating in it. Why I should be proud to participate in what might lead to total catastrophe for humanity seems odd in retrospect, but there is little in any of our lives that does not seem odd in retrospect. However, I was proud that I got to go into a building designated as SHAPE's technical center. I felt at the center of history. History, of course, is deceptive.

Games and Reality

It was never clear to me what those above us (whom we called "EBR," echelons beyond reality) did with the games that were built and played, or with the results, but I believe I learned a great deal about the war that was going to be fought. What cut short my career as a war gamer was my growing realization of the triviality of what we were doing and that the intelligence that we were building the games from was inherently deficient. Moreover, the commanders weren't all that interested in what we were doing. And there was the fact that I was genuinely enjoying and actually looking forward to a war that would test our theories. When the pieces on a map represent human beings and their loss means nothing to you, it is time to leave.

The war gaming was not the problem; properly done, as I hope it is by now, it can aid in victory and save lives. But then, knowing the men (women came later) who would stand and fight at Fulda if the time came, I felt I had been given a frivolous job. There was one thing I got from that job, however: I came into contact with troops from all the armies that might be called to fight. I had a profound sense that they were not just my colleagues but also my comrades. Some didn't like Americans, and others didn't like me, but this is no different than any organization. We were peering into the future, with our fates bound together.

The U.S. and Soviet Views of NATO

The United States believed that the Soviet conquest of Western Europe would integrate Soviet resources and European technology. This same fear led the Americans and Europeans to fight Germany in two wars from two very different perspectives. For my European colleagues, it meant the devastation of their countries, even if NATO won the war. The Dutch, for example, had lived under occupation and even preferred devastation over capitulation. For me, it was an abstract exercise, both in the strange mathematics of the war games and in the more distant consequences of defeat for my country. At the same time, there was a shared sense of urgency that formed the foundation of our relationship: War might come at any moment, and we must consider every possible move by the Soviets, and we must propose solutions.

The Americans were always haunted by Pearl Harbor. This is why 9/11 was such a blow. The historical recollection of the attack out of nowhere was always close. Doctrine said that we would have 30 days' warning of a Soviet attack. I had no idea where this doctrine came from, and I suspected that it came from the fact that we needed 30 days' warning to get ready. The Europeans did not fear the unexpected attack; rather, they dreaded the expected attack for which preparations had not been made. World War II haunted them differently. They were riveted on the fact that they knew what was coming and failed to prepare. The Americans and Europeans were united by paranoia, but their paranoia differed. For the Americans, staying out of alliances and not acting soon enough was what caused the war. The United States was committed to never repeating that mistake. NATO was one of many alliances. The Americans love alliances.

It is interesting to recognize now what the Soviets were afraid of. When World War II came to them, they had no allies. Their one ally, Germany, was the one that betrayed them. The Soviets were both taken by surprise and fought alone until the Americans and British chose to help them. The Soviets had played complex diplomacy with traditional alliances, and when it failed the Soviet Union committed itself to never again depending on others. It had the Warsaw Pact because the West had NATO, but it did not depend on its allies. The Americans threw themselves into alliances as if an alliance solved all problems. The Soviets, however, acted as if allies were the most dangerous things of all.

In the end, when we look back on it, war was much less likely than we felt. The West was not going to invade the East. On the defensive, the Soviets would have annihilated our much smaller force. And, truth be told, no one had the slightest interest in conquering Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union.

As for the Soviets, on paper they were an overwhelming force, but paper is a bad place to think about war. The Soviets did not want a nuclear exchange, and in their view the United States was itching to have one. They knew if they moved westward there would be an exchange. Plus, it turned out, the Soviets would have a great deal of trouble keeping their tanks fueled as they moved to the west. They had a plan for laying plastic pipes from their fuel depots and rolling them out as the tanks advanced. The problem was that the pipes never worked very well, and their fuel depots were slated for annihilation by airstrikes, possibly the day before the war began officially.

All of this is past and I recollect it with a combination of pride -- not for what I did, which was little, but for simply being there -- and chagrin about how little we understood the enemy. Both sides were ready for war. Both sides were expecting actions that the other side had no intentions of undertaking. But all of the plans that we created were, in the end, irrelevant. The only way to win the game -- as the movie War Games said -- was not to play it. Not surprisingly, the leaders -- Eisenhower and Khrushchev, Nixon and Brezhnev, Reagan and Gorbachev -- knew it better than the experts. It has always struck me as the world's great fortune that the two great superpowers were the United States and the Soviet Union, who managed the Cold War with meticulous care in retrospect. Imagine the European diplomats of 1914 or 1938 armed with nuclear weapons. It is easy to believe they would not have been as cautious.

NATO's Legacy and Disarray

What NATO provided that was priceless, and the unexpected byproduct of all of this, was a comradeship and unity of purpose on both sides of the North Atlantic. Even the French, who withdrew from NATO's military command under Charles de Gaulle, remained unofficially part of it. There was little question but that if "the balloon went up" -- the enemy took action -- the French would be there, arguing over who would command whom but fighting as hard as the Underground did before D-Day. But through NATO, I got to know Germans at a time when knowing Germans was not easy for me because of what my family went through during the war. I was forced to distinguish Germany from Franz who could play the ukulele.

I had a son in 1976. When I went to Europe, I met an Italian and we became friends. We would talk about what we would tell our families to do if the balloon went up. The conversation -- strange and perhaps pathological as it was -- bound us together. It was not war, it was not peace, but it was a place in the mind where the preparation for war and the anxiety that it generated created strange forms, such as plans for the movement of children in order to avoid a nuclear holocaust.

NATO, far more than a model United Nations or a Fulbright, allowed ordinary Americans and Europeans to know each other and understand that with linked fates, they were comrades in arms. After World War II, that was a profound lesson. Millions of draftees experienced that and took the lesson home.

The end of the Cold War is no great loss, although my youth went with it. Losing the unity of purpose that the Cold War gave Western Europe and the United States is of enormous consequence. For a while, after 1991, the two sides went on as if the alliance could exist even without an enemy. However, NATO started to fragment when it lost its enemy. The passion for a mission gave NATO meaning, and the passion was drained. The alliance continued to fragment when the United States decided to invade Iraq for the second time. The vast majority of countries in NATO supported the invasion -- a forgotten fact -- but France and Germany did not. This damaged the United States' relations with Europe, particularly with the French, who have a way of getting under the skins of Americans while appearing oblivious to it. But the greater damage was within Europe -- the division between those who wanted to maintain close relations with the United States, even if they thought the Iraq War was a bad idea, and those who wanted Europe to have its own voice, distinct from the Americans'.

The 2008 global financial contagion did not divide the Americans and Europeans nearly as much as it divided Europe. The relationship between European countries -- less among leaders than among publics -- has become poisonous. Something terrible has happened to Europe, and each country is holding someone else responsible. As many countries are blaming Germany as Germany is blaming for the crisis.

There can be no trans-Atlantic alliance when one side is in profound disagreement with itself over many things and the other side has no desire to be drawn into the dispute. Nor can there be a military alliance where there is no understanding of the mission, the enemy or obligations. NATO was successful during the Cold War because the enemy was clear, there was consensus over what to do in each particular circumstance and participation was a given. An alliance that does not know its mission, has no meaningful plans for what problems it faces and stages come-as-you-are parties in Libya or Mali, where invitations are sent out and no one RSVPs, cannot be considered an alliance. The committees meet and staffs of defense ministers prepare for conferences -- all of the niceties of an alliance remain. SACEUR is still an American, the Science and Technology Committee produces papers, but in the end, the commonality of purpose is gone.

My European colleagues and I were young, serious and dedicated. These are all dangerous things because we lacked historical perspective (but then, so did many of our elders). What we had together, however, was invaluable: a moment in history, possibly the last, when the West stood shoulder to shoulder in defense of liberal democracy and against tyranny. Still, I look back on the Soviets and then look at al Qaeda and I miss the Soviets. I understood them in a way I can never understand al Qaeda.

So I will be asked to speak about U.S-European relations. I will have to tell the Europeans two things. The first is that there is no American relationship with Europe because Europe is no longer an idea but a continent made up of states with diverse interests. There are U.S.-French relations and U.S.-Russian relations and so on. The second thing I will tell them is that there can be no confederation without a common foreign and defense policy. You can have different tax rates, but if when one goes to war they don't all go to war, they are just nations cooperating as they see fit.

I remember the camaraderie of young enlisted Americans and Europeans, and the solidarity of planning teams. This was the glue that held Europe together. It was not just the commanders and politicians, but the men who would have to cover each other's movement that created the foundations of NATO's solidarity. My recollections are undoubtedly colored with sentimentality, but I do not think I've done the idea an injustice. NATO bound Europe together because it made the nations into comrades. They were able to face Armageddon together. Europe without NATO's solidarity has difficulty figuring out a tax policy. In the end, Europe lost more when NATO fell into disuse than it imagined.

I don't know that NATO can exist without a Cold War. Probably not. What is gone is gone. But I know my nostalgia for Europe is not just for my youth; it is for a time when Western civilization was united. I doubt we will see that again.

Geopolitical Journey: Nostalgia for NATO is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Officer Down

Master Deputy Sheriff Joseph "Shane" Robbins
Polk County Florida Sheriff's Office
End of Watch: Friday, April 26, 2013
Age: 40
Tour: 15 years

Master Deputy Sheriff Shane Robbins was killed in a single-vehicle crash on Bomber Road, near Spruce Road, at approximately 9:15 am.

He was traveling westbound when his vehicle left the roadway for unknown reasons. A nearby resident who heard the crash called 911 to report the crash and responding rescue workers extricated him from his patrol car. He was transported to Winter Haven Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Master Deputy Robbins had served with the Polk County Sheriff's Office for 15 years and was assigned to the Northeast District. He is survived by his wife and five children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Am I just an idiot magnet this weekend.

Rhetorical question for someone on patrol I know, but here we go.

Last night I’m working DWI overtime and after getting one processed, another unit was nice enough to transport her to jail for me. My department frowns on working more than 16 hours in a shift because of fatigue and other issues. I was about to finish my report then I file the charges (20 minutes work tops) and I’m gone just in time for the end of a 16 hour shift.

Well another female suspect decided to make life interesting. After being informed the officer had obtained a warrant for a blood draw she screamed “You’re not taking my blood” and a few other choice words I will not mention here. The officer then asks me and a couple of others to help and it takes almost five minutes to get her cuffed. Then she will not cooperate so we have to bring in the chair we use for blood draws, strap her in, wheel her to the room and then she resist the nurse. We had to flatten her hand so the nurse could use the butterfly on her. Well that wastes a half hour so I finish the report and start working on my charges. To my joy I find the charge system (some of the best technology 1980 could buy...it’s amazing how primitive our software is) has gone down.

I wait five minutes and it comes up. Oh boy. I log one and as I finish the first page (my information and the DA’s info) the system locks up and dies.

Repeat five more times until I say screw it, I’ll try it at at a computer at the station.

It’s working and I get through the first page. Then I finish the second page (identifying information on the suspect) and SOP, it locks up and dies.

Repeat multiple times but at least it was stable enough I was able to get through one page at a time before it crashed.

I get more or less finished by 730 and called another officer who said she would enter the last witness’s data for me. Get home and asleep around 830 after a 17.5 hour shift.

I’m getting too old for this. As I was really to leave I met some friends from the night shift and mentioned “A sign you’re getting old is when you were 20 you went to bed around 6....now you get up at 6!”

Well after a few hours sleep I’m’ getting ready for for Saturday watch. I’ve put on my uniform, went to the truck to drop off a few things before leaving. I’m about to depart when there is a knock at the door. A complete stranger asks me “Are you a police officer?”

As I”m standing in my uniform a few thoughts came to mind, but I was courteous to one of my elders and said “Yes ma’am I am. How can I help you.”

She asks me to help her get her granddaughter in her car.

Now one thing I’ve been learned since the academy is don’t police off duty, with exceptions. If a stranger is getting his ass kicked it’s incumbent upon me as a peace officer to take action on or off duty. This is not one of those exceptions. It’s a family issue and I’m not required to assist and I don’t want to pry into a neighbor’s family matters.

I try and explain this to the grandmother and she is not happy, but after about five minutes she leaves. Pissed off but welcome to life.

After getting to work praying for a short shift I get on the street. I get called to an accident on the freeway and they are very dangerous. The side of a freeway is an excellent place to get killed. Well I drive up and the two cars are on the shoulder. I get out and go to the first vehicle where the driver is in intense conversation with someone. I knock to get her attention and she raises her hand with a finger (not the middle) like to say “one minutes”. I knock harder, she opens the window and I have to explain the facts the life very quickly.

“Are you hurt?

“No, but my insurance company....”

“Excuse me, give me your license and insurance. We are getting off this highway now!”

I go to the other car where they have two children in the back and get the driver’s license and explain we’re leaving. I tell both we’re about to move and my first pain in the ass waves me over.

“Officer, my insurance company says the children need to be checked....”

“Ma’am, we’re going to take care of that off this highway!” After knowing her for less than two minutes I’m getting to think of her as a modern version of Mrs. Kravitz and she is that annoying. She is completely oblivious to the fact even in that car of hers she can get killed right now.

Well we get off the highway alive, I”m starting my investigation and one of the questions I always ask for my report is “What do you do for a living?‘ Sounds simple enough, kinda like “How old are you?” or “What is your name?” It gets complicated. I ask my driver that question and her answer is “I work.”

I resist the answers coming into my head and I have to pry a bit. “Ok, what exactly do you to. I’m a police officer?”

“I work at an office”

“Got it. What do you do at the office? Secretary? General admin? “ I resisted the temptation to ask if Mrs Kravitz was there to clean the office because that is what I’m figuring her common sense quotient is not too high. Well after about two minutes I determine she is an office manager. I won’t go there.

Anyway, after starting my initial interview with the driver of the other car who have two kids (two and three months) they ask for a medic to check the kids out. I request an ambulance. After about five minutes I can hear the siren and then I can here Mrs. Kravitz.

“Officer there is an ambulance, you can flag it down.”

I hold it back even though I’m on limited sleep, no rest, not enough caffeine and in desperate need of some scotch.

“Yes ma’am, I called for them.”

Another simple question I had to ask Mrs Kravitz. “Ma’am, what lane were you in at the time of the accident?”

“The fast lane.”

“Ma’am, I take it you mean the left lane...”

It took a couple of minutes to verify this was a correct assumption on my part. Can’t be too sure with her.

The medics check the kids out, they are fine and in a few more minutes it’s done. Or so I thought. Mrs Kravitz asks for directions to get back on the highway. I point out where the on ramp is, tell her how to get there (it’s not not like I haven’t patrolled this area for over seven years) and she proceeds to drive in a completely different way than what I told her.

Don’t go there man, get out before she comes back asking for more directions.

Finish the report, finish my shift with no more contact with unintelligent life forms and am now at home with an excellent cigar and some 12 year old scotch, actually looking forward to catching up on some house work tomorrow and the ride to the state capital on Monday for the Texas Peace Officers Memorial Services

Life is improving. The temperature has dropped so I’m finishing this in shorts, a t-shirt and a light jacket. I gotta finish my Romeo y Julieta, although Elmer wants his Daddy back in the house.

Have a great weekend!

OK, we want more stupid people with guns. What court genius thought this was good.

One of my favorite sayings as a cop is "Don't knock stupid people, they are job security." I was referring to the criminals and in certain cases, the general public. Hey, you get a call from a moron about McDonalds not having a chicken sandwich and tell me he it's not stupid.

Well, maybe I was more right than I thought.

Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops

A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.

“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”

He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.

Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

Most Cops Just Above Normal The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.

Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.

But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover...

OK, I could make comments about my command staff and their IQs but I won't. I'm getting promoted in a few months and I won't go there. But you have a man who is intelligent enough to guard the criminals but not to catch them. Hey New Town, did you think (rhetorical question, I know) that maybe someone this smart would make a good investigator? Or a superior sergeant/lieutenant/captain?

I don't know who started this crap but I would love to see their IQ.

IT IS DONE!

Daddy, come in please!

My final paper that is.

I made a mistake on New Year’s Eve. I enrolled the first class in my master’s program, starting the class in the two months before my wedding. Add to that a lot of unplanned for overtime from Field Training, Traffic and DWI. Love the money and I really needed to pay off the wedding but it resulted in me having to push it with the class...barley made it in with the final paper last night and it was not my best work. I’ll start my next class in June and I shouldn’t have any major things come up till later this summer/fall when I get promoted.
So I’m on the way to my master’s degree, my promotion is later this year and summer is almost upon us. Time for summertime resolutions.

I generally don’t make New Year’s resolutions. They are never kept. But for the new summer, here we go. In no particular order:

Get back into reading. My goal is one average size book a week. Been off the for a while and I miss it. Plus read my magazines on Sunday morning with the Chronicle.

Get to church more often. Period.

Keep up with my STRATFOR and other readings and start posting on the blog again on what is happening in the world.

Get to the gym regularly and especially the pool.

Clean up the office and the garage. Office first. It needs it after the last few days.

Enjoy the family more. We’re going to the museum with the girls on Sunday, the in-laws for Sunday dinner and got the family coming over in a few weeks for the yearly crawfish boil.

Get out of the house more, period. The walls are closing in. Take Elmer for a daily walk. Pick up a hammock so I can relax outside more with Beth or just a good book.

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head. Enjoying a Rocky Patel with some excellent coffee It’s Friday morning on a gorgeous day in Houston. Not a cloud in the sky, no humidity and it’s in the 50s. In May. ALGORE must be in town talking about Global Warming or something. And the NRA is in town. I’ll try and sneak over there for a bit. Monday is the

Have a great weekend!

This is sick....

Someone in the past said (paraphrasing) "you can well judge a man by how he treats animals." I wonder how to judge these waste of sperm.

This is what a human does to an animal in the truck of a car.

Miami-Dade County Animal Services rescued a group of dogs believed to be used for trunking.

A Good Samaritan called animal services Wednesday, saying a pet owner in the Goulds repetitively threw dogs in a trunk and let them fight to the death.

"[They] put the dogs in the trunk, lock it up, and they run around, put the music on very, very loud so no one can hear it," said Dahlia Canes with Miami Coalition Against Breed Specific Legislation. "After 10 or 15 minutes, they stop. The dead dog they throw out and the winner keeps going with it."

When authorities responded, they found five adult dogs and four puppies in crates.

"The kennels did not have any water, food, or adequate shelter," said Luis Salgado with Miami-Dade County Animal Services. "They were in feces and urine so the conditions were pretty bad." 

Many were covered in scars and open wounds. One of the dogs had teeth marks on his face.

"There are puncture wounds," said Salgado. "One of the dogs had a broken wrist, an injured eye. One of the dogs is just bit up all over the place and [has] open wounds on his face."

Authorities didn't find the pet owner. The animals were friendly with the veterinarians.

"Usually, dogs that are used for fighting are very loving of their owner. They actually fight to please the owner," said Salgado.

"They deserve better," said Canes.

Yes but the turds who did this don't.  Who is the son of a bitch here?  Rhetorical question, I know.  How can people be this sick?

Security Weekly: The Cuban Spy Network in the U.S. Government, May 2, 2013

By Scott Stewart
Vice President of Analysis

On April 25, the U.S. government announced that it was unsealing an indictment charging Marta Rita Velazquez with conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of the Cuban government. Velazquez, a former attorney adviser at the U.S. Department of Transportation and a legal officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development, fled the United States for Sweden in 2002 and was indicted in 2004. Velazquez apparently selected Sweden because the country considers espionage to be a political offense, therefore it is not covered under its extradition treaty with the United States. She and her husband also lived in Sweden from 1998 to 2000, so the country was familiar to them.

Though the Velazquez indictment is several years old, it provides a detailed and fascinating account of Cuban espionage activity inside the United States. It also raises some significant implications about the daunting challenges facing American counterintelligence agencies.

The Story

According to the indictment, Velazquez was born in Puerto Rico. She graduated from Princeton University in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in political science and Latin American studies, obtained a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1982 and then received a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington in 1984. She was hired by the U.S. Department of Transportation in August 1984.

The U.S. government alleges that Velazquez was first recruited by the Cuban intelligence service in 1983 while a student at Johns Hopkins. She reportedly traveled from Washington to Mexico City where she met with a Cuban intelligence officer and was formally recruited as an agent. During her studies at Johns Hopkins, the government claims that Velazquez served as a spotter agent who helped the Cuban intelligence service identify, assess and recruit people who occupied sensitive national security positions or who had the potential to move into such positions in the future.

The indictment asserts that in this role, Velazquez identified and befriended Ana Belen Montes, a fellow student at Johns Hopkins, in 1984. In addition to their Puerto Rican heritage, the two students reportedly shared a strong disdain for the Reagan administration's policy toward Nicaragua's Sandinista regime. Velazquez reportedly told Montes that she had friends (the Cubans) who could help Montes in her desire to help the Nicaraguan people.

During the early 1980s, a left-wing movement developed in many American universities. The movement opposed Reagan's Central American policies, such as opposition to the Sandinistas, support for the Contra rebels and support of the regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala. This movement was perhaps most readily seen in one of its larger and more active organizations, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. The movement radicalized some students who went on to work with Marxist groups in Latin America, such as Christine Lamont, who joined the Salvadoran Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, and Lori Berenson, who moved to Peru to join the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. According to the FBI, the Cuban intelligence service also recruited students like Velazquez and Montes from within this movement.

The indictment alleges that in the fall of 1984, while Montes was working as a clerk at the Department of Justice, Velazquez took her to New York to meet a friend who Velazquez said could provide Montes an opportunity to help the Nicaraguan people. The friend was an intelligence officer assigned to the Cuban mission to the United Nations. The women again traveled to New York together in early 1985 and met the Cuban intelligence officer a second time. He arranged for the two women to secretly travel together to Cuba via Spain.

In March of 1985, Velazquez and Montes traveled to Madrid, Spain, where they were met by a Cuban intelligence officer, who provided them with false passports and other documents. They then used these documents to travel to Prague in what was then Czechoslovakia. Once in Prague they were met by another Cuban intelligence officer who provided them with yet another set of false documents, as well as new sets of clothing. The Cuban officer they met in Prague then traveled with the women to Havana.

Once in Havana, the women reportedly received training in espionage tradecraft subjects, such as operational security and secure communications, including receiving and encrypting high frequency radio transmissions. The women were also allegedly subjected to practice polygraph examinations and taught methods to deceive polygraph operators.

Upon completion of their training, the women then returned to Madrid via Prague using their assumed identities. Once in Madrid they took tourist photographs of each other to support the story that they had been in Spain and then returned to Washington.

Upon returning to Washington, Montes applied for a job at the Defense Intelligence Agency using Velazquez as a character reference. She was hired by the Defense Intelligence Agency as an analyst in September 1985. Montes would excel at the agency and eventually became the Defense Intelligence Agency's most senior Cuba analyst. She served at that agency until the FBI arrested her in September 2001. Montes pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage charges in March 2002 and is currently serving a 25-year sentence.

Velazquez's trip to Havana with Montes occurred after she had been hired by the U.S. Department of Transportation in August 1984 and had been granted a Secret clearance in September 1984. In March 1989, Velazquez took a position as a legal adviser for Central America with the U.S. Agency for International Development. She was a regional legal adviser for the agency in Managua, Nicaragua, from 1990 to 1994, in Washington from 1994 to 1998 and in Guatemala City, Guatemala, from 2000 to 2002.

In June 2002, when it was announced that Montes had pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the U.S. government, Velazquez resigned from her position at the U.S. Agency for International Development and moved to Sweden, where she remains.

Cuban Intelligence

The Velazquez case, when studied in conjunction with those of Montes and Walter and Gwendolyn Myers, provides a fascinating window into the scope and nature of Cuban intelligence efforts inside the United States. With Velazquez at the U.S. Agency for International Development, Montes at the Defense Intelligence Agency and Myers in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Cubans had incredible coverage of the American government's foreign policy and intelligence community. Even after Montes was arrested and Velazquez fled to Sweden, Myers remained at the State Department until his retirement in 2007.

It is also quite interesting that all three of these cases are linked to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Velazquez and Montes were students in the program in the early 1980s, and Myers taught there until 1977, after receiving a Ph.D. from the school in 1972. He returned to the school following his retirement in 2007 and worked as a professor of European Studies until his arrest in June 2009. The school is a high-profile institution that has a proven track record of placing graduates in the American foreign affairs and intelligence communities -- and of hiring former government personnel to serve as professors. Still, it is not the only program with such a profile, and the Cubans would almost certainly have recruited a promising agent from Georgetown's Walsh School, Harvard's Kennedy School or any other program if provided the opportunity. The fact that there were three high-profile Cuban agents who penetrated the U.S. government and who were all associated with the School of Advanced International Studies would seem to be an incredible coincidence. The FBI is probably still looking for potential agents who Myers could have spotted for recruitment when they studied there from 2007 to 2009.

When considering espionage cases, we often refer to an old Soviet KGB Cold War acronym -- MICE -- to explain the motivations of spies. MICE stands for money, ideology, compromise and ego. Traditionally, money has proved to be the top motivation for Americans arrested for espionage, but as seen in the Velazquez, Montes and Myers cases, the Cubans were very successful in recruiting American agents using ideology. Like the Montes and Myers complaints, there is no indication in the Velazquez complaint that she had ever sought or accepted money from the Cuban intelligence service for her espionage activities. While Velazquez and Montes were both of Puerto Rican descent, Myers' recruitment shows that Cuban intelligence officers did not just confine their recruitment activity to Hispanics.

In addition to the Cuban preference for ideologically motivated agents, this case also shows that the Cuban intelligence service is very patient and is willing to wait years for the agents it recruits to move into sensitive positions within the U.S. government rather than just focus on immediate results. It took several years for Velazquez to get a job with access to Top Secret information. Although it must be recognized that this is often the case with ideologically motivated agents who are commonly recruited while students. It is also clear that Cuban espionage efforts against the United States did not end with the Cold War and continue to this day.

Perhaps the most disturbing revelation from the Velazquez case for American counterintelligence officials, though, is the fact that Velazquez was not caught due to some operational mistake or intelligence coup. The only reason she was discovered is because of Montes' arrest and confession, which uncovered her activities. This means that her espionage tradecraft was solid for the nearly 18 years that she worked as a Cuban agent within the U.S. government. Furthermore, the background investigations conducted for the security clearances she held with the Department of Transportation and the Agency for International Development did not pick up on her anti-American sentiments -- even the "full field" investigation that would have been conducted prior to her being granted a Top Secret clearance.

It is not surprising that the background investigations failed to uncover Velazquez's espionage activities. Background investigations often are seen as mundane tasks, and thus are not given high priority -- especially when there are so many other "real" cases to investigate. Furthermore, these investigations are most often done by contract investigators whose bureaucratic bosses emphasize speed over substance, meaning important leads are often ignored because of a case deadline. In fact, contractors who do attempt to dig deep are sometimes accused of trying to milk the system in an effort to acquire more points (the basis upon which contract investigators are paid) by running additional leads and interviewing additional people.

Quite frankly, when it comes to background investigations, the prevalent attitude is to do the minimum work necessary to check off the prerequisite boxes and get the investigation over as quickly -- and as superficially -- as possible. Background investigations have become perfunctory bureaucratic processes that lack the ability to uncover the type of information required to catch a spy who does not want to be caught.

Velazquez would not have been required to pass a polygraph at the U.S. Agency for International Development like Montes had to at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Nevertheless, the portion of the indictment that discussed the training in deceiving the polygraph that Velazquez and Montes received during their first trip to Cuba underscores the limitation of polygraph examinations -– they only work really well on honest people.

Finally, it is interesting to look at these Cuban cases in light of what they may tell us about the larger challenges facing U.S. counterintelligence officials. If a small, poor nation like Cuba can successfully recruit so many agents and place them in critical positions within the U.S. government for so long, what does this portend about the efforts and successes of larger or richer countries with aggressive intelligence agencies like China, Russia, Israel and India?

Copyright: Stratfor.com

What a man...he invents the Internet...he's the inspiration for a character in Love Story...and now he lays down his lifelong ambition for the sake of the country. I am touched!

The Most Interesting Man in the World has nothing on ALGORE!

Am I the only one who shutters when you think he was a heartbeat away from the presidency for eight years and he did win the popular vote in 2000.

Great quote from the bottom of Breitbart:

Zachary Goldberg

Yes Mr. Gore. You were also the nations 43rd president and invented the internet. Now take your pill, sit over by the window, and keep an eye on the pigeons.

I like Ted!

Someone with this little time in office I would generally like to see get a few more years under his belt. But we need help NOW and this may be the New Hope we've been praying for!

Cruz 2016 | National Review Online

Freshman senator Ted Cruz is considering a presidential run, according to his friends and confidants.

Cruz won’t talk about it publicly, and even privately he’s cagey about revealing too much of his thought process or intentions. But his interest is undeniable.

“If you don’t think this is real, then you’re not paying attention,” says a Republican insider. “Cruz already has grassroots on his side, and in this climate, that’s all he may need.”

“There’s not a lot of hesitation there,” adds a Cruz donor who has known the Texan for decades. “He’s fearless.”

For the moment, Cruz’s inner circle is small: mostly aides from his Senate campaign; his father, Rafael; and his wife, Heidi. They didn’t plan on having these presidential conversations so early in his first term. Yet Cruz’s rapid ascent and a flurry of entreaties from conservative leaders have stoked their interest — and Cruz’s.

“Ted won’t be opening an Iowa office anytime soon, but he’s listening,” says a longtime Cruz associate. “This is all in the early stages; nothing is official. It’s just building on its own.”

Behind the scenes, there is a palpable fear on the right that the GOP will nominate a moderate Republican in 2016. There’s also growing unease with the field of likely contenders.

Don't argue with that. The morons running the Republican Party leadership who gave us McCain, Romney and Dole are gunning to give us another RINO like Jeb Bush. Hey guys, in case you haven't been keeping up on current events, each one of them got their asses kicked in the general election. And the reason is the party base, the flyover country hicks you are embarrassed of will not support you or your candidate. So if you want to keep loosing, give us a moderate again. But I digress.

Enter Cruz. His supporters argue that he’d be a Barry Goldwater type — a nominee who would rattle the Republican establishment and reconnect the party with its base – but with better electoral results.

Republican power brokers from the early-primary states have noticed. They tell me that the Cruz factor is a frequent topic of discussion among state-based strategists.

“You bet, he’s on my radar,” says Chad Connelly, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. “Conservatives think he’s a rock star. I hear about him from everybody.”

Cruz’s allies whisper that the 42-year-old attorney, who holds degrees from Harvard Law and Princeton, doesn’t take the groundswell of enthusiasm lightly. Besides talking with conservative grandees, he has called his peers in the legal community and raised the prospect.

“We all see a path, and he does, too,” says a former Cruz colleague. “This isn’t someone who needs to be told the obvious. He didn’t run for the Senate to get cozy, so no one who knows him is surprised that he’s at least looking at it.”

Cruz isn’t worried that his birth certificate will be a problem. Though he was born in Canada, he and his advisers are confident that they could win any legal battle over his eligibility. Cruz’s mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born, and he considers himself to be a natural-born citizen.

I think he can show a birth certificate saying born of American parents while overseas or something like that. Unlike the current occupant of the White House.

As Cruz considers a run, his staff keeps adding new speaking appearances to his calendar. This week, he’ll headline the South Carolina GOP’s Silver Elephant dinner; in late May, he’ll speak to Wall Street heavies at the New York GOP’s annual dinner.

Earlier this year, Cruz gave the keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he was greeted with a raucous reception and praised by Sarah Palin. She touted Cruz as a conservative who “chews barbed wire and spits out rust.”

Love it! Thanks Sarah for a great quote!

The debates over gun control, immigration, and President Obama’s appointees have fueled his rise. He has been out front on each issue, brashly battling Democrats and, if need be, his fellow Republicans. “He’s the purest of the young conservative senators — that’s how we see him,” says a consultant who works for a leading conservative group.

That ideological purity and Cruz’s presidential maneuvers make aides close to other Republican contenders nervous. The backroom Republican consensus is that a Cruz insurgency would hardly be a quixotic publicity stunt. He’d outflank almost all of the other candidates on the right, and his debating skills, which once won him national awards, would be formidable. It doesn’t hurt that much of the media already hates him with a passion.

He’s also tighter with Republican donors than most people realize. Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, is a close friend — one of many donors with Cruz ties. Four years ago, Thiel poured more than $250,000 into Cruz’s aborted race for Texas attorney general, and he has recently donated millions to groups supporting Cruz, such as the Club for Growth. Sources close to other top Republican donors tell me that the senator is as good at wooing financiers as he is at wooing the Tea Party.

Cruz is obviously only one of several Senate conservatives gunning for the nomination. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, among others, have been busy traveling to the early states and slowly building up their political staffs. So have GOP governors such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal.

For now, Cruz is running behind in terms of organization. But sources say that doesn’t deter him in the slightest. “If he thinks this country needs bold leadership, he’s not going to shy away,” the former colleague says. “He is one of the most confident people I know, and he’d run to win.”

At least this keeps him on the farm team even if he doesn't jump in in 2016. However, the usual suspects (mainstream media, Democrats (redundant I know), RINOs) are starting to throw stuff at him. I pray he doesn't let those charges sit out there. Ted knows how to answer them better than others, but he cannot let a baseless charge like his birth sit unanswered.

Thank you Ted for shaking things up again!

747 crash in Afghanistan

No words are really needed.

US Boeing 747 crash and burn caught on dashcam in Afghanistan

Harrowing footage of a US cargo plane in Afghanistan plummeting to the ground immediately after takeoff and erupting in a massive ball of flames has emerged online. All seven passengers onboard were killed.

Video apparently shot from a vehicle dashcam shows the National Airlines Boeing 747 taking off from the Bagram Airfield military base, just north of the Afghanistan capital of Kabul, on Monday.

The plane’s nose pitches up heavily on its ascent, stalls, and then falls from the sky in a matter of seconds. It immediately explodes upon impact, sending a massive, think plume of smoke up into the sky.

While the video appeared within 24 hours of the crash and appears to be authentic, the date on the dash cam is wrong. National Air Cargo later confirmed the videos authenticity.

Seven passengers – all of them American citizens – were killed in the crash. Shirley Kaufman, VP for National Air Cargo, said five of the seven causalities were from Michigan.

“We are not yet releasing the identities of the colleagues we lost out of respect for their families who need a little more time to reach their loved ones,” The Pentagon Post cites Kaufman as saying...

...The crash appears to be the deadliest aircraft-related accident at Bagram Airfield since its conversion into a massive base of military operations following the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan...

God bless and keep the passengers and crew.