Security Weekly: Diplomatic Security in Light of Benghazi, September 27, 2012

By Scott Stewart

It has been more than two weeks since the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, yet the attack remains front-page news. One reason is that it has become unusual for a U.S. ambassador to be killed. After the 1968 assassination of John Mein in Guatemala -- the first ever U.S. ambassador to be assassinated -- several others were killed in the 1970s: Cleo Noel Jr. in Sudan in 1973, Rodger Davies in Cyprus in 1974, Francis Meloy Jr. in Lebanon in 1976 and Adolph Dubs in Afghanistan in 1979. However, following improvements in diplomatic security during the 1980s, no U.S. ambassador has died as a result of a hostile action since Ambassador Arnold Raphel, who was killed in the plane crash used to assassinate Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in August 1988.

Another reason for the continued publicity is that it is an election year. Since foreign policy is an area where Republicans believe President Barack Obama is vulnerable, Stevens' death has become highly politicized. In any event, the Benghazi attack remains in the headlines. Unfortunately, as one goes beyond those headlines, there are many misunderstandings that have persisted in both the media coverage and the public discussions of the incident. There simply are not many people who understand how diplomatic facilities work and how they are protected.

With that in mind, and because other U.S. diplomatic facilities remain in harm's way due to the protests occurring throughout the Muslim world, it is an opportune time to again discuss diplomatic security.

Responsibilities

First, whenever discussing the security of diplomatic facilities, it must be understood that, by treaty, the responsibility for the security of diplomatic facilities lies with the host government. This clear responsibility was codified in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which took effect in 1964.

This is generally not a problem in a developed, friendly country. There is little doubt that the Australian government will take the appropriate steps to ensure that the U.S. Embassy and the British High Commission in Canberra remain safe. The problems with the responsibilities outlined in the Vienna Convention occur when a diplomatic facility is located in a country that is either unable or unwilling to provide adequate security.

The U.S. government has learned this lesson the hard way. For example, in 1979, the U.S. embassies in Tehran and Islamabad were overrun. In both cases, the host governments could have taken action to stop the mobs attacking the embassies but chose not to. A few years later in Lebanon, the U.S. Embassy and Embassy Annex were targeted in massive bombing attacks in 1983 and 1984, respectively. In these attacks, it was weakness that prevented the Lebanese government, which had been exhausted by civil war, from providing adequate protection for the facilities.

The situation in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, very much resembled the one in Lebanon at the time of the embassy bombings. The Libyan central government has very little authority outside of Tripoli, the capital, and heavily armed tribal and regional militias control many parts of the country. Some of this has changed since locals angry at Ansar al-Sharia, a group believed to have participated in the Benghazi attack, stormed the compounds of some Islamist militias in the Benghazi area, evicting them and turning the compounds over to the government. Nevertheless, the militias left with most of their weapons and will continue to be a threat in the future.

The U.S. government learned from the incidents of the 1970s and 1980s that host governments cannot always be expected to provide security adequate to counter all threats in a country. In response to this reality and the increased attacks against U.S. diplomatic missions, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz set up a commission in 1984 to study the problem and find ways to increase security at U.S. facilities abroad. The panel, headed by Adm. Bobby Inman, was formally called the Advisory Panel on Overseas Security but is widely referred to as the Inman Commission. In addition to recommending a more robust cadre of agents to protect facilities, the Inman Commission made recommendations on physical and procedural security standards for diplomatic facilities. Embassies and consulates constructed in accordance with these physical security standards are often referred to as Inman facilities.

Based on the findings of the Inman Commission, the Department of State's Office of Security was expanded to become the Diplomatic Security Service in 1985. The U.S. Congress codified and funded these changes in the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986.

Funding Issues

However, as we've previously noted, funding for diplomatic security follows a notable boom and bust cycle. The influx of funding for diplomatic security provided by the 1986 Omnibus Act quickly evaporated. By the early 1990s, security budgets were being severely squeezed again. This budget crunch affected physical security upgrades at embassies as well as the hiring of new Diplomatic Security Service agents and forced cuts in things such as local guard program budgets. The Crowe Commission, which was appointed to investigate the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in August 1998, concluded that these funding cuts had severely hampered efforts to increase security at U.S. facilities abroad.

While there was a spike in funding for diplomatic security (along with security more generally) after the 9/11 attacks, security funding has declined over the past decade. This issue has been complicated by the incredible strain placed on the system by the huge diplomatic facilities in Iraq as well as the large diplomatic presence and severe threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Providing security to these posts has also stretched Diplomatic Security Service personnel thin. The two Diplomatic Security Service special agents injured in the Benghazi attack were on their first tours and had been borrowed from domestic field offices in the United States for a temporary duty assignment protecting Stevens in Libya. The personnel situation is not looking much better for the future. With the agents hired after the Inman Commission in the mid-to-late 1980s retiring at a rapid rate, and with others leaving due to strain placed on their families by multiple tours in places in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 100 new special agents the Diplomatic Security Service is slated to hire this year will not be enough to replace those leaving the service.

Into this dynamic we introduce the Arab Spring and the revolution in Libya. The United States had re-established diplomatic ties with Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's regime renounced terrorism and its nuclear ambitions. In 2004, a U.S. interests section was opened in Tripoli, and in 2006, the United States opened a full embassy. In 2009, the United States opened a new embassy building in Tripoli that was built to meet the department's security standards and provide a safe working environment for American diplomats in the Libyan capital. This building, however, was abandoned in February 2011 when the U.S. government severed diplomatic ties with the Gadhafi government and withdrew U.S. diplomats from Tripoli.

At this time it is worth noting that embassy buildings are intended to protect their occupants from terrorist attacks, but they are not immune to prolonged attacks by angry mobs. Even good physical security measures can be breached by a mob with tools and time. This is what happened in Tripoli in May 2011. The new U.S. Embassy building was ransacked, looted and badly damaged by Gadhafi security forces and a gang of Gadhafi supporters, rendering it uninhabitable. As a result, after the fall of the Gadhafi regime, the U.S. Embassy staff had to move into a temporary facility until the former embassy building could be repaired or a new facility could be constructed. They are still in this temporary facility.

One reality of Libya after the revolution is that, as noted above, the country is very divided and the central government has little authority outside of Tripoli. There has also been a long history of an east-west divide in Libya, with Tripoli and Benghazi as the opposing centers of power. Because of this, it makes a great deal of sense for the United States to want to open an office in Benghazi to take the pulse of eastern Libya. The United States also intervened on behalf of the rebels, who were originally based in Benghazi, and U.S. diplomats, led by Stevens, established an office there in early April 2011 to coordinate U.S. aid for the rebels, eventually moving into the villa that was attacked.

Benghazi and Darnah also have long been hotbeds of jihadism in Libya, so having an office in eastern Libya is a logical step in support of efforts to monitor these groups. Additionally, with the vast quantities of weapons that were looted from arms depots in the Benghazi area, including large numbers of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, Benghazi is a good place to base efforts to monitor the flow of such weapons or even to stage programs to recover and destroy them.

So while it is understandable that the U.S. government would want to base diplomats and intelligence personnel in Benghazi, it encountered a problem: It simply did not have a facility in the city that met security standards. Instead, the personnel had to occupy a temporary facility until a suitable building could be funded and then constructed. While the U.S. State Department has adopted a modular design program that has made this process a little easier, the construction of a new office building is nonetheless an expensive undertaking and something that the department cannot do under its current operating budget without the U.S. Congress allocating funds to pay for the construction project. Anyone who has dealt with the U.S. government should not be surprised, then, that the 11 months since the fall of the Gadhafi regime were not enough for Congress to fund, and the State Department to build, a new secure facility to house the consulate in Benghazi.

Risk and Reward

It is difficult for a large bureaucracy like the U.S. government to adapt to rapidly changing events -- even events it is largely responsible for, such as forcing the Gadhafi regime from power.

During such times of transition, there will always be some tension between the need to get the job done and the need to do it safely. Working and living in an environment such as Benghazi where there are heavily armed Islamist militias is dangerous, but there are simply some things that cannot be done without personnel on the ground. Someone somewhere made the decision that the benefits of having U.S. personnel in Benghazi outweighed the risk of housing them in a building that did not meet security standards, and a waiver was granted for the Benghazi facility.

The presence of a U.S. ambassador at a post with a security waiver located in such a volatile environment on the 9/11 anniversary is another issue, especially given the previous attacks against the U.S. Consulate and the British ambassador's motorcade in the city. The situation is even worse if the rumor that Stevens was on a jihadist hit list proves to be true. Former Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering will chair the accountability review board that has been established to investigate the attack in Benghazi. In addition to reviewing the physical security of the facility, the board will certainly be reviewing the rationale behind the decision to allow the ambassador to travel to Benghazi and whether that decision was made at the local level or in Washington.

But the issue of temporary facilities is not just confined to Tripoli and Benghazi. It comes up frequently when there is a rapid change in a nation, or even in the case of a natural disaster. For example, the U.S. recognition of the new nation of South Sudan in July 2011 necessitated the rapid establishment of an embassy in the country's capital, Juba. If the environment continues to improve in Somalia, it is possible that the United States will increase its presence in Mogadishu, and establishing an embassy in Mogadishu will also pose a problem until a secure facility can be constructed.

The issue of temporary facilities is also not a new problem. The December 1972 earthquake that shattered Managua, Nicaragua, destroyed the U.S. Embassy there. Following the earthquake, the embassy was housed in a temporary prefabricated facility -- essentially a large mobile home -- until a new embassy building was completed in 2007. (Much of this delay was due to tensions with the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and its desire to keep the U.S. Embassy insecure.)

The diplomatic missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will continue to consume substantial portions of the U.S. overseas security budget and the shrinking cadre of Diplomatic Security Service special agents for the foreseeable future. This means that smaller posts seen as less important, like Benghazi, will remain vulnerable -- especially against a prolonged attack by a large and heavily armed force. U.S. authorities will have to continue to make uncomfortable decisions regarding the risks and benefits of having such outposts.

Diplomatic Security in Light of Benghazi is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Of all things to lose a career over....

Cheese.

I remember thinking "How pathetic" when Anthony Wiener lost his promising political career for pictures of his wiener. Now we have cops loosing their jobs over cheese.

Cop charged in Canada cheese-smuggling ring NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario — Authorities are investigating cheese smuggling across the U.S.-Canadian border and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reports sources say police may be the mules. 

Niagara Regional Police have been going from pizzeria to pie shop in the Niagara Falls, Ontario, area trying to track down the international smugglers of cheap cheese. The CBC reported Monday several Niagara police sources say charges are expected soon against a few officers who are alleged to have been involved in schlepping caseloads of cheese from the United States back into Canada to sell to pizzerias and restaurants. 

They allegedly have been loading cases of "brick" cheese that costs as little as a third of what it costs in Canada into their vehicles and making the run back north across the border. 

Sources told the CBC drivers can make $1,000-$2,000 a trip. Brandon Elms at Volcano Pizzeria in Fonthill, west of Niagara Falls, told the CBC police investigators had been in a couple of times to ask about cheese shipments. 

"We get all our stuff legit," he said. "We thought it was a joke at first. Who is going to go around trying to sell smuggled cheese? "The cheese bandits, the mozzarella mafia!"

I was speaking with a deputy over how to lose it all and he made a good point. "Twenty minutes is not worth twenty years." I wonder what these guys are thinking about what they sacrificed their careers and their pensions for.

Officer Down

Sergeant Mary K. Ricard
Colorado Department of Corrections
End of Watch: Monday, September 24, 2012
Age: 55
Tour: 9 years

Sergeant Mary Ricard was killed when she was stabbed in the neck as an inmate attacked her and another correction's sergeant at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in Crowley, Colorado.

The inmate, a convicted child rapist, attacked the two female sergeants in the kitchen area of the medium-security prison while breakfast was being prepared. The inmate was able to inflict serious wounds on both sergeants before being subdued. Sergeant Ricard succumbed to her injuries while the other sergeant was critically injured.

Sergeant Ricard had served with the Colorado Department of Corrections for nine years.

Rest in Peace Sis…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.

Life and little annoyances

I’ve been a cop for just over 14 years and as such I’m highly visible in the community. Sometimes a perfect stranger walks up and asks me for directions and if I can assist them, I do. I have on occasion been told words to the effect “Thank you for the job you do....” But this was a bit much.

Last Saturday Houston Police had a officer involved shooting where a mentally handicapped man who’s weapons was found to be an ink pen was killed. There are a lot of questions but there are two things I know for certain. One, a man is dead and that has to be investigated. Two, I know the full story is not out yet. That hopefully comes out soon enough.

With that as background I had an interesting incident at dinner tonight. I was with a couple of other cops when a civilian walked up and said “I’ve got something for you...here is a back up” and he holds up a pen.

I was a little, to put it politely, pissed at this. One, I don’t walk up to strangers for no reason and interrupt their dinner. My mother raised me better than than. Two I don’t like being accused by implication of something.

I simply said “Good night sir” in a tone that told this moron I would not be polite soon enough if he didn’t leave.

Other cops out there, how would you have handled that?

Geopolitical Weekly: Understanding the China-Japan Island Conflict, September 25, 2012

By Rodger Baker
Vice President of East Asia Analysis

Sept. 29 will mark 40 years of normalized diplomatic relations between China and Japan, two countries that spent much of the 20th century in mutual enmity if not at outright war. The anniversary comes at a low point in Sino-Japanese relations amid a dispute over an island chain in the East China Sea known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan and Diaoyu Islands in China.

These islands, which are little more than uninhabited rocks, are not particularly valuable on their own. However, nationalist factions in both countries have used them to enflame old animosities; in China, the government has even helped organize the protests over Japan's plan to purchase and nationalize the islands from their private owner. But China's increased assertiveness is not limited only to this issue. Beijing has undertaken a high-profile expansion and improvement of its navy as a way to help safeguard its maritime interests, which Japan -- an island nation necessarily dependent on access to sea-lanes -- naturally views as a threat. Driven by its economic and political needs, China's expanded military activity may awaken Japan from the pacifist slumber that has characterized it since the end of World War II.

An Old Conflict's New Prominence

The current tensions surrounding the disputed islands began in April. During a visit to the United States, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, a hard-line nationalist known for his 1989 book The Japan That Can Say No, which advocated for a stronger international role for Japan not tied to U.S. interests or influence, said that the Tokyo municipal government was planning to buy three of the five Senkaku/Diaoyu islands from their private Japanese owner. Ishihara's comments did little to stir up tensions at the time, but subsequent efforts to raise funds and press forward with the plan drew the attention and ultimately the involvement of the Japanese central government. The efforts also gave China a way to distract from its military and political standoff with the Philippines over control of parts of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

For decades, Tokyo and Beijing generally abided by a tacit agreement to keep the islands dispute quiet. Japan agreed not to carry out any new construction or let anyone land on the islands; China agreed to delay assertion of any claim to the islands and not let the dispute interfere with trade and political relations. Although flare-ups occurred, usually triggered by some altercation between the Japanese coast guard and Chinese fishing vessels or by nationalist Japanese or Chinese activists trying to land on the islands, the lingering territorial dispute played only a minor role in bilateral relations.

However, Ishihara's plans for the Tokyo municipal government to take over the islands and eventually build security outposts there forced the Japanese government's hand. Facing domestic political pressure to secure Japan's claim to the islands, the government determined that the "nationalization" of the islands was the least contentious option. By keeping control over construction and landings, the central government would be able to keep up its side of the tacit agreement with China on managing the islands.

China saw Japan's proposed nationalization as an opportunity to exploit. Even as Japan was debating what action to take, China began stirring up anti-Japanese sentiment and Beijing tacitly backed the move by a group of Hong Kong activists in August to sail to and land on the disputed islands. At the same time, Beijing prevented a Chinese-based fishing vessel from attempting the same thing, using Hong Kong's semi-autonomous status as a way to distance itself from the action and retain greater flexibility in dealing with Japan.

As expected, the Japanese coast guard arrested the Hong Kong activists and impounded their ship, but Tokyo also swiftly released them to avoid escalating tensions. Less than a month later, after Japan's final decision to purchase the islands from their private Japanese owner, anti-Japanese protests swept China, in many places devolving into riots and vandalism targeting Japanese products and companies. Although many of these protests were stage-managed by the government, the Chinese began to clamp down when some demonstrations got out of control. While still exploiting the anti-Japanese rhetoric, Chinese state-run media outlets have highlighted local governments' efforts to identify and punish protesters who turned violent and warn that nationalist pride is no excuse for destructive behavior.

Presently, both China and Japan are working to keep the dispute within manageable parameters after a month of heightened tensions. China has shifted to disrupting trade with Japan on a local level, with some Japanese products reportedly taking much longer to clear customs, while Japan has dispatched a deputy foreign minister for discussions with Beijing. Chinese maritime surveillance ships continue to make incursions into the area around the disputed islands, and there are reports of hundreds or even thousands of Chinese fishing vessels in the East China Sea gathered near the waters around the islands, but both Japan and China appear to be controlling their actions. Neither side can publicly give in on its territorial stance, and both are looking for ways to gain politically without allowing the situation to degrade further.

Political Dilemmas in Beijing and Tokyo

The islands dispute is occurring as China and Japan, the world's second- and third-largest economies, are both experiencing political crises at home and facing uncertain economic paths forward. But the dispute also reflects the very different positions of the two countries in their developmental history and in East Asia's balance of power.

China, the emerging power in Asia, has seen decades of rapid economic growth but is now confronted with a systemic crisis, one already experienced by Japan in the early 1990s and by South Korea and the other Asian tigers later in the decade. China is reaching the limits of the debt-financed, export-driven economic model and must now deal with the economic and social consequences of this change. That this comes amid a once-in-a-decade leadership transition only exacerbates China's political unease as it debates options for transitioning to a more sustainable economic model. But while China's economic expansion may have plateaued, its military development is still growing.

The Chinese military is becoming a more modern fighting force, more active in influencing Chinese foreign policy and more assertive of its role regionally. The People's Liberation Army Navy on Sept. 23 accepted the delivery of China's first aircraft carrier, and the ship serves as a symbol of the country's military expansion. While Beijing views the carrier as a tool to assert Chinese interests regionally (and perhaps around the globe over the longer term) in the same manner that the United States uses its carrier fleet, for now China has only one, and the country is new to carrier fleet and aviation operations. Having a single carrier offers perhaps more limitations than opportunities for its use, all while raising the concerns and inviting reaction from neighboring states.

Japan, by contrast, has seen two decades of economic malaise characterized by a general stagnation in growth, though not necessarily a devolution of overall economic power. Still, it took those two decades for the Chinese economy, growing at double-digit rates, to even catch the Japanese economy. Despite the malaise, there is plenty of latent strength in the Japanese economy. Japan's main problem is its lack of economic dynamism, a concern that is beginning to be reflected in Japanese politics, where new forces are rising to challenge the political status quo. The long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party lost power to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan in 2009, and both mainstream parties are facing new challenges from independents, non-traditional candidates and the emerging regionalist parties, which espouse nationalism and call for a more aggressive foreign policy.

Even before the rise of the regionalist parties, Japan had begun moving slowly but inexorably from its post-World War II military constraints. With China's growing military strength, North Korea's nuclear weapons program and even South Korean military expansion, Japan has cautiously watched as the potential threats to its maritime interests have emerged, and it has begun to take action. The United States, in part because it wants to share the burden of maintaining security with its allies, has encouraged Tokyo's efforts to take a more active role in regional and international security, commensurate with Japan's overall economic influence.

Concurrent with Japan's economic stagnation, the past two decades have seen the country quietly reform its Self-Defense Forces, expanding the allowable missions as it re-interprets the country's constitutionally mandated restrictions on offensive activity. For example, Japan has raised the status of the defense agency to the defense ministry, expanded joint training operations within its armed forces and with their civilian counterparts, shifted its views on the joint development and sale of weapons systems, integrated more heavily with U.S. anti-missile systems and begun deploying its own helicopter carriers.

Contest for East Asian Supremacy

China is struggling with the new role of the military in its foreign relations, while Japan is seeing a slow re-emergence of the military as a tool of its foreign relations. China's two-decade-plus surge in economic growth is reaching its logical limit, yet given the sheer size of China's population and its lack of progress switching to a more consumption-based economy, Beijing still has a long way to go before it achieves any sort of equitable distribution of resources and benefits. This leaves China's leaders facing rising social tensions with fewer new resources at their disposal. Japan, after two decades of society effectively agreeing to preserve social stability at the cost of economic restructuring and upheaval, is now reaching the limits of its patience with a bureaucratic system that is best known for its inertia.

Both countries are seeing a rise in the acceptability of nationalism, both are envisioning an increasingly active role for their militaries, and both occupy the same strategic space. With Washington increasing its focus on the Asia-Pacific region, Beijing is worried that a resurgent Japan could assist the United States on constraining China in an echo of the Cold War containment strategy.

We are now seeing the early stage of another shift in Asian power. It is perhaps no coincidence that the 1972 re-establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan followed U.S. President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China. The Senkaku/Diaoyu islands were not even an issue at the time, since they were still under U.S. administration. Japan's defense was largely subsumed by the United States, and Japan had long ago traded away its military rights for easy access to U.S. markets and U.S. protection. The shift in U.S.-China relations opened the way for the rapid development of China-Japan relations.

The United States' underlying interest is maintaining a perpetual balance between Asia's two key powers so neither is able to challenging Washington's own primacy in the Pacific. During World War II, this led the United States to lend support to China in its struggle against imperial Japan. The United States' current role backing a Japanese military resurgence against China's growing power falls along the same line. As China lurches into a new economic cycle, one that will very likely force deep shifts in the country's internal political economy, it is not hard to imagine China and Japan's underlying geopolitical balance shifting again. And when that happens, so too could the role of the United States.

Understanding the China-Japan Island Conflict is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Another candidate for Mother of the Year

As woman flees police, 5-year-old ejected from her pickup

HOUMA, La. - A fleeing shoplifting suspect dropped the merchandise, jumped into a pickup truck and drove off so quickly that her 5-year-old flipped out of the accelerating vehicle, head first onto the parking-lot pavement, police said.

Nakeisha White, 28, of Norman Street, was trying to escape Wednesday from Walmart, ... with two young children when the older child was thrown from the truck, Houma Police Chief Todd Duplantis said.

White allegedly stopped, put the girl back into the pickup bed with the younger child and drove away.

Hours later, Duplantis said, police were called to Terrebonne General Medical Center where a child was being treated for a head fracture.

White told investigators she was pregnant and feeling ill, using the ploy to escape a second time. White, who remains at large, is wanted on charges of cruelty to a juvenile, theft, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of juveniles, two counts of child-restraint violations and reckless operation.

Please can we spay this female. She is no woman and definately not a lady. Or a mother, but an egg donor.

If this keeps them from being young and stupid again by voting for B Hussein Obama this fall....

All I can say is Thank God!

Report: Roughly half of the 2008, first-time youth vote now unsure of registration status

Nearly half of the young voters who in 2008 registered and cast their first presidential ballot may have not updated their voter registration, according to a new survey, a situation that could most impact President Obama considering that voting bloc helped him to victory four years ago.

The finding by the non-partisan group HeadCount found that seven out of 10 young voters changed residence in the past four years, and 43 percent of those potential voters have yet to update their voter registration.

The so-called “youth vote” is the estimated 15.5 million U.S. citizens who are 18 to 24 years old, according to the Census Bureau. Roughly 49 percent of them voted in 2008, compared with 47 percent in 2004 and an historical rate of about 40 percent.

Obama won roughly 66 percent of the youth vote in 2008 in his successful race against Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

More than half of those who participated in the HeadCount survey said they were either not confident or unsure about whether they were registered to vote at their current address.

"A lot of people just don't remember to update their voter registration when they change their address," said Andy Bernstein, HeadCount's executive director. "When you move, you have a lot of things to think about. Updating your voter registration doesn't always make it to the top of the list."...

I was 18 once and voted for Edwin Edwards. I was young and stupid but at least the damage was limited to one state, not the nation and world (literally).

Hopefully this keeps these YAS (Young And Stupid) people from justing walking in with no thought and voting to destroy their own futures.

And it's tragic I have to hope for people to not vote. Then again if I can stop the November 6th Election-Resurection that would be nice.

Romney and the end of the Republican Establishment

Interesting article from Scott Rasmussen on the Washington Establishment Republicans (i.e. RINO’s) who gave us John McCain as the nominee in 2008, Jim Jeffords in the Senate (before be became a Democrat) and who wanted Charlie Crisp as the Senator from Florida. You know, the same Charlie Crisp who endorsed Obama at the DNC last month.

Romney May Be the End of the Line for the Republican Establishment - Rasmussen Reportsâ„¢

A Commentary By Scott Rasmussen

Mitt Romney's comments about 47 percent of Americans being dependent on government and locked in to vote for President Obama highlight a fundamental reality in American politics today: The gap between the American people and the political class is bigger than the gap between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C.

Romney's remarks are the GOP equivalent of Obama's notorious comments about small-town Pennsylvania voters bitterly clinging to their guns and religion.

Both Romney and Obama highlighted the condescending attitude that political elites hold of the people they want to rule over. A National Journal survey found that 59 percent of political insiders don't think voters know enough to have meaningful opinions on the important issues of the day. That's a handy rationalization for those who want to ignore the voters and impose their own agenda.

In the nation's capital, this gap creates bigger problems for Republicans than Democrats. Democratic voters tend to think that their representatives in Congress do a decent job representing them. That's because Democrats are a bit more comfortable with the idea of government playing a leading role in American society. However, 63 percent of Republican voters believe their representatives in Washington are out of touch with the party base.

Establishment Republicans in Washington broadly share the Democrats' view that the government should manage the economy. They may favor a somewhat more pro-business set of policies than their Democratic colleagues, but they still act as if government policy is the starting point for all economic activity.

Republican voters reject this view. They are more interested in promoting free market competition rather than handing out favors to big business. They detest corporate welfare and government bailouts, even though their party leaders support them.

The GOP base sees government as a burden that weighs the private sector down rather than a tool that can generate growth if used properly. Ninety-six percent of Republican voters believe that the best thing the government can do to help the economy is to cut spending and free up more money for the private sector.

The Republican base is looking for someone like a 21st century Ronald Reagan, who will display his faith in the American people. The Washington Republicans are more comfortable with politicians like George W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Though the establishment has dominated the party since Reagan left the White House, the 2012 election could well be the end of the line.

If Romney loses in November, the Republican base will no longer buy the electability argument for an establishment candidate. From the view of the base, the elites will have given away an eminently winnable election. Someone new, from outside of Washington, will be the party's nominee in 2016.

If Romney wins and does nothing to change the status quo, the economy will falter. He will end up as the second straight one-term president, and the nation will desperately be searching for an authentic outsider in 2016.

If he wins the White House, the only way for Romney to succeed will be to side with the nation's voters and throw out the club in Washington. That will be great news for the country but bad news for political insiders on both sides of the partisan aisle.

Last year I posted on an interesting article from The American Spectator on America’s Ruling Class and it showed how there is not much difference between the Washington Elites, no matter which party. Any Republican with any standards (IMHO) would not be scene with the likes of Harry Reid or Teddy Kennedy except when necessary (Yes, John McCain, we’re talking about you). As they said in the Spectator article, “Differences between Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are of degree, not kind.”

I might add Romney.

I’ve often said Romney was the weakest of the serious candidates the Republicans fielded and he would not do what is needed to reverse the damage of the Obama years. Hey, maybe he will surprise me. We can only hope.

Then again, hope is not a plan.

Officer Down

Police Officer Jason Gresko
Willoughby Ohio Police Department
End of Watch: Friday, September 21, 2012
Age: 32
Tour: 9 years, 6 months
Badge # S63

Police Officer Jason Gresko was killed in a vehicle collision on Harmony Lane while responding to an emergency call at approximately 9:35 pm.

His patrol car collided with a pickup truck and then struck a tree, causing serious injuries. He was transported to Lake West Medical Center where he succumbed to his injuries.

Officer Gresko was a part-time officer with the Willoughby Police Department and also served as a full-time officer with Cleveland Clinic Police Department. He had served in law enforcement for 9-1/2 years. He is survived by his wife, 2-year-old daughter, parents, three brothers, and sister.

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. 

Geopolitical Weekly: From Gadhafi to Benghazi, September 18,, 2012

By George Friedman

Last week, four American diplomats were killed when armed men attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The attackers' apparent motivation was that someone, apparently American but with an uncertain identity, posted a video on YouTube several months ago that deliberately defamed the Prophet Mohammed. The attack in Benghazi was portrayed as retribution for the defamation, with the attackers holding all Americans equally guilty for the video, though it was likely a pretext for deeper grievances. The riots spread to other countries, including Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, although no American casualties were reported in the other riots. The unrest appears to have subsided over the weekend.

Benghazi and the Fall of Gadhafi
In beginning to make sense of these attacks, one must observe that they took place in Benghazi, the city that had been most opposed to Moammar Gadhafi. Indeed, Gadhafi had promised to slaughter his opponents in Benghazi, and it was that threat that triggered the NATO intervention in Libya. Many conspiracy theories have been devised to explain the intervention, but, like Haiti and Kosovo before it, none of the theories holds up. The intervention occurred because it was believed that Gadhafi would carry out his threats in Benghazi and because it was assumed that he would quickly capitulate in the face of NATO air power, opening the door to democracy.

That Gadhafi was capable of mass murder was certainly correct. The idea that Gadhafi would quickly fall proved incorrect. That a democracy would emerge as a result of the intervention proved the most dubious assumption of them all. What emerged in Libya is what you would expect when a foreign power overthrows an existing government, however thuggish, and does not impose its own imperial state: ongoing instability and chaos.

The Libyan opposition was a chaotic collection of tribes, factions and ideologies sharing little beyond their opposition to Gadhafi. A handful of people wanted to create a Western-style democracy, but they were leaders only in the eyes of those who wanted to intervene. The rest of the opposition was composed of traditionalists, militarists in the Gadhafi tradition and Islamists. Gadhafi had held Libya together by simultaneously forming coalitions with various factions and brutally crushing any opposition.

Opponents of tyranny assume that deposing a tyrant will improve the lives of his victims. This is sometimes true, but only occasionally. The czar of Russia was clearly a tyrant, but it is difficult to argue that the Leninist-Stalinist regime that ultimately replaced him was an improvement. Similarly, the Shah of Iran was repressive and brutal. It is difficult to argue that the regime that replaced him was an improvement.

There is no assurance that opponents of a tyrant will not abuse human rights just like the tyrant did. There is even less assurance that an opposition too weak and divided to overthrow a tyrant will coalesce into a government when an outside power destroys the tyrant. The outcome is more likely to be chaos, and the winner will likely be the most organized and well-armed faction with the most ruthless clarity about the future. There is no promise that it will constitute a majority or that it will be gentle with its critics.

The intervention in Libya, which I discussed in The Immaculate Intervention, was built around an assumption that has little to do with reality -- namely, that the elimination of tyranny will lead to liberty. It certainly can do so, but there is no assurance that it will. There are many reasons for this assumption, but the most important one is that Western advocates of human rights believe that, when freed from tyranny, any reasonable person would want to found a political order based on Western values. They might, but there is no obvious reason to believe they would.

The alternative to one thug may simply be another thug. This is a matter of power and will, not of political philosophy. Utter chaos, an ongoing struggle that leads nowhere but to misery, also could ensue. But the most important reason Western human rights activists might see their hopes dashed is due to a principled rejection of Western liberal democracy on the part of the newly liberated. To be more precise, the opposition might embrace the doctrine of national self-determination, and even of democracy, but go on to select a regime that is in principle seriously opposed to Western notions of individual rights and freedom.

While some tyrants simply seek power, other regimes that appear to Westerners to be tyrannies actually are rather carefully considered moral systems that see themselves as superior ways of life. There is a paradox in the principle of respect for foreign cultures followed by demands that foreigners adhere to basic Western principles. It is necessary to pick one approach or the other. At the same time, it is necessary to understand that someone can have very distinct moral principles, be respected, and yet be an enemy of liberal democracy. Respecting another moral system does not mean simply abdicating your own interests. The Japanese had a complex moral system that was very different from Western principles. The two did not have to be enemies, but circumstances caused them to collide.

The NATO approach to Libya assumed that the removal of a tyrant would somehow inevitably lead to a liberal democracy. Indeed, this was the assumption about the Arab Spring in the West, where it was thought that that corrupt and tyrannical regimes would fall and that regimes that embraced Western principles would sprout up in their place. Implicit in this was a profound lack of understanding of the strength of the regimes, of the diversity of the opposition and of the likely forces that would emerge from it.

In Libya, NATO simply didn't understand or care about the whirlwind that it was unleashing. What took Gadhafi's place was ongoing warfare between clans, tribes and ideologies. From this chaos, Libyan Islamists of various stripes have emerged to exploit the power vacuum. Various Islamist groups have not become strong enough to simply impose their will, but they are engaged in actions that have resonated across the region.

The desire to overthrow Gadhafi came from two impulses. The first was to rid the world of a tyrant, and the second was to give the Libyans the right to national self-determination. Not carefully considered were two other issues: whether simply overthrowing Gadhafi would yield the conditions for determining the national will, and whether the national will actually would mirror NATO's values and, one should add, interests.

Unintended Consequences
The events of last week represent unintended and indirect consequences of the removal of Gadhafi. Gadhafi was ruthless in suppressing radical Islamism, as he was in other matters. In the absence of his suppression, the radical Islamist faction appears to have carefully planned the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. The attack was timed for when the U.S. ambassador would be present. The mob was armed with a variety of weapons. The public justification was a little-known video on YouTube that sparked anti-American unrest throughout the Arab world.

For the Libyan jihadists, tapping into anger over the video was a brilliant stroke. Having been in decline, they reasserted themselves well beyond the boundaries of Libya. In Libya itself, they showed themselves as a force to be reckoned with -- at least to the extent that they could organize a successful attack on the Americans. The four Americans who were killed might have been killed in other circumstances, but they died in this one: Gadhafi was eliminated, no coherent regime took his place, no one suppressed the radical Islamists, and the Islamists could therefore act. How far their power will grow is not known, but certainly they acted effectively to achieve their ends. It is not clear what force there is to suppress them. It is also not clear what momentum this has created for jihadists in the region, but it will put NATO, and more precisely the United States, in the position either of engaging in another war in the Arab world at a time and place not of its choosing, or allowing the process to go forward and hoping for the best.

As I have written, a distinction is frequently drawn between the idealist and realist position. Libya is a case in which the incoherence of the distinction can be seen. If the idealist position is concerned with outcomes that are moral from its point of view, then simply advocating the death of a tyrant is insufficient. To guarantee the outcome requires that the country be occupied and pacified, as was Germany or Japan. But the idealist would regard this act of imperialism as impermissible, violating the doctrine of national sovereignty. More to the point, the United States is not militarily in a position to occupy or pacify Libya, nor would this be a national priority justifying war. The unwillingness of the idealist to draw the logical conclusion from their position, which is that simply removing the tyrant is not the end but only the beginning, is compounded by the realist's willingness to undertake military action insufficient for the political end. Moral ends and military means must mesh.

Removing Gadhafi was morally defensible but not by itself. Having removed him, NATO had now adopted a responsibility that it shifted to a Libyan public unequipped to manage it. But more to the point, no allowance had been made for the possibility that what might emerge as the national will of Libya would be a movement that represented a threat to the principles and interests of the NATO members. The problem of Libya was not that it did not understand Western values, but that a significant part of its population rejected those values on moral grounds and a segment of the population with battle-hardened fighters regarded them as inferior to its own Islamic values. Somewhere between hatred of tyranny and national self-determination, NATO's commitment to liberty as it understood it became lost.

This is not a matter simply confined to Libya. In many ways it played out throughout the Arab world as Western powers sought to come to terms with what was happening. There is a more immediate case: Syria. The assumption there is that the removal of another tyrant, in this case Bashar al Assad, will lead to an evolution that will transform Syria. It is said that the West must intervene to protect the Syrian opposition from the butchery of the al Assad regime. A case can be made for this, but not the simplistic case that absent al Assad, Syria would become democratic. For that to happen, much more must occur than the elimination of al Assad.

Wishful Thinking vs. Managing the Consequences
In 1958, a book called The Ugly American was published about a Southeast Asian country that had a brutal, pro-American dictator and a brutal, communist revolution. The novel had a character who was a nationalist in the true sense of the word and was committed to human rights. As a leader, he was not going to be simply an American tool, but he was the best hope the United States had. An actual case of such an ideal regime replacement was seen in 1963 in Vietnam, when Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam was killed in a coup. He had been a brutal pro-American dictator. The hope after his death was that a decent, nationalist liberal would replace him. There was a long search for such a figure; he never was found.

Getting rid of a tyrant when you are as powerful as the United States and NATO are, by contrast, is the easy part. Saddam Hussein is as dead as Gadhafi. The problem is what comes next. Having a liberal democratic nationalist simply appear to take the helm may happen, but it is not the most likely outcome unless you are prepared for an occupation. And if you are prepared to occupy, you had better be prepared to fight against a nation that doesn't want you determining its future, no matter what your intentions are.

I don't know what will come of Libya's jihadist movement, which has showed itself to be motivated and capable and whose actions resonated in the Arab world. I do know that Gadhafi was an evil brute who is better off dead. But it is simply not clear to me that removing a dictator automatically improves matters. What is clear to me is that if you wage war for moral ends, you are morally bound to manage the consequences.

From Gadhafi to Benghazi is republished with permission of Stratfor.

I needed a laugh and SNL helped...

I'm watching my team play like crap but this made things better....

Thanks guys...now Saints stop dropping the damned ball!

Have a great weekend!

Sometimes cop work has its little pleasures...

My partner and I were transporting a suspect to jail and she was screaming all the way there (three feet from my head) that she was going to jail for nothing, she was innocent. Get to jail and after initial medical screening she continues to scream "Why am I here, why was I arrested?!"

Finally I had enough of her (and a headache) and screamed at her "Shut up!"

She was really upset about that and keep screaming "I didn't do nothing!"

I looked at the jailer and said "I know there is not one guilty person in this place!" The jailer smiled, my prisoner was pissed but the other prisoner was almost white with fury.

A small humorous moment in my work life.

Have a great weekend and Geaux Saints!

No, this isn't the Democratic Party of old...

I've often said what you see today is not the Democratic Party of the 40s, 50s and even early 60s. In the late 60s the Democrats were taken over by the radical left in this county and it hasn't given up it's hold.

Can you see a moron like B Hussein Obama saying "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Will you ever hear Joe Bite-Me say "The only thing we have to fear is feat itself."

Or any major Democrat saying "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel."

‘Whose Democratic Party?’

A new advertisement scheduled to run in Florida makes the case that President Obama has pushed the Democratic Party to embrace anti-Israel policies, according to a copy of the ad obtained by the Free Beacon.

In the coming days, the Emergency Committee for Israel, a pro-Israel advocacy organization, will release an ad entitled, “Whose Democratic Party?”

The spot, which will air during Sunday’s football game between the Miami Dolphins and the Oakland Raiders in what is being described as a “significant ad buy,” accuses Obama of leading his party to weaken the U.S.-Israel alliance.

Coming on the heels of the Democrat’s controversial omission and contentious reinsertion of language in the party platform declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the ECI ad asks voters: “Is this still your Democratic Party?”

Following footage of DNC delegates vociferously booing the pro-Israel declaration, the ad reminds viewers in the critical swing state that the Obama administration has on multiple occasions refused to state that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

ECI Executive Director Noah Pollak told the Free Beacon that ECI wants Democratic voters to ask themselves if they are comfortable with the party’s direction under Obama.

“The debacle at the DNC signifies where Obama is going in a second term. The first four years have been bad enough, but what happens when he has more ‘flexibility?’” Pollak wondered.

I've often wondered how any Jew can support the modern Democratic party. They are the biggest threat Israel has and they bury their heads in the sand as the Iranian build nukes and missiles to reach the Jewish state.

Please, vote these radicals out of office.

Officer Down

Sergeant Ian Loughran
Harford County Maryland Sheriff's Office
End of Watch: Thursday, September 13, 2012
Age: 43
Tour: 16 years
Badge # 463

Sergeant Ian Loughran suffered a fatal heart attack while attending funeral services for Corporal Charles Licato, who was killed in the line of duty the previous week.

He had unknowingly started to suffer heart attack symptoms at the funeral and passed away at home early the next morning.

Sergeant Loughran had served with the Harford County Sheriff's Office for 16 years and was assigned to the Police Services Bureau, Patrol Division, Northern Precinct. He is survived by his wife and one young son.

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. 

An update to the world's oldest profession. With modern technology.

From the Daily Beast. How young savy ladies of the evening, call girls, what ever you call them are using modern technology for their own business.

The Oldest Profession Evolves—How the Web Transformed Prostitution

The Internet has lowered the bar for entry, and brought new buyers and sellers into the sex market, reports Greg Gilderman.

An interview with "Brittany," a sex worker who got her start on Craigslist and Backpage.com

Once upon a time, becoming a prostitute was difficult.

In, say, 1992, you could risk your life as a streetwalker—if you lived near a street where one could walk provocatively and reasonably expect to find customers. You could make and place an ad for sexual services in your local alternative weekly, at least if you lived in a city—but the responses wouldn’t begin until well after said weekly was printed and distributed. Of course, there were brothels, massage parlors, agencies, and so on back then, even an escorts section of the yellow pages. But it wasn’t as if any 20-year-old with a flash of curiosity about sex work could within hours find a client or a pimp and go into business selling herself.


Which brings us to 2012, and Room 216 of a Holiday Inn, somewhere in New Jersey.

It’s early afternoon and a 23-year-old college student—she asked that we use the name Brittany—is sitting on the room’s leather couch, waiting for the first of the day’s three clients to arrive, talking to me about her job. Brittany is blonde, attractive but not beautiful, a native of a blue-collar town in Camden County, N.J.

In a few hours she’ll be counting out nearly two thousand dollars in cash, not including $300 one of the men, a new client, deposited in advance into her PayPal account.

“I feel like on TV, you see things like the escorts are all crackheads,” she tells me. “They do drugs. They have pimps. They were abused by their parents and they were strippers. Not all of that is true.”

She’s part of a group of prostitutes who some have called the profession’s silent majority: independent, part-time, doing it as a matter of choice after entering the business by placing their own ad on public classified sites, and often keeping the work private from friends and family.

“When you take the profile of Internet prostitutes versus street prostitutes, you find there’s more education, and that more work temporarily, then exit,” says Scott Cunningham, an economist at Baylor University who has studied the impact of the Internet on prostitution markets. “They also are significantly less likely to work for a pimp.”

Internet prostitutes even look different than street prostitutes, according to Cunningham. He found that when Craigslist first entered a new area—this was in the days when it still had its “erotic services” category—the body weight of the women advertising sex gradually shifted to, in his words, “a more athletic body type. It moves from less attractive to more attractive in the eyes of the john.”

'When you take the profile of Internet prostitutes versus street prostitutes, you find there’s more education, and that more work temporarily, then exit.'

While critics have charged classified sites with facilitating sex trafficking, for women like Brittany, who have freely chosen prostitution and whose clients freely choose them, the Internet has made the transactions fast, simple, and discreet. New research suggests it hasn’t merely moved online and indoors those who once worked the street, but done something more transformative: created a different sort of sex worker—more educated, younger—and a bigger market of women selling sexual services in the United States and men purchasing those services.

If fewer women found a path into prostitution in the pre-Internet era, the same held true for johns: there was simply no practical way for a man to compare the looks and prices of large numbers of escorts, anonymously contact them, and receive reliable information that a provider was, in fact, not working for the police. Craigslist changed that.
An audio slide show featuring "Iris," a 19-year-old, Philadelphia-based sex worker who got her start on Craigslist

Until 2009, the hugely popular classifieds site offered sex ads, with no charge to post or read. There had always been sex ads on the Internet, in chat rooms or niche websites, but their presence on Craigslist was something like the difference between a brothel on a side street in the bad part of town and a brothel in the Mall of America. On a single day in 2007, The New York Times reports, nearly “9,000 listings were added to the site’s ‘Erotic Services’ category in the New York region alone.”...

Who say there are no jobs in Obama's America! OK ladies, a business opportunity...just saying ;<)

In all seriousness this is an intersting read and watch the video's.

Security Weekly: When Things Go Bad, September 13, 2012

By Scott Stewart

Over the past several weeks, we have discussed a number of different situations that can present a common problem to people caught up in them. First, we discussed how domestic terrorism remains a persistent threat in the United States, and that despite improvements in security measures since 2001, soft targets still remain vulnerable to attack by terrorist actors driven by a variety of motivations. Due to the devolution of the jihadist threat toward the grassroots, there is also a growing trend of jihadist actors using armed assaults instead of bombing attacks. We also discussed the continuing problem of workplace violence, and finally, we discussed last week evacuation plans for expatriates due to natural disaster, civil unrest or war.

People caught in any of these situations could find themselves either confronted by an armed assailant or actually coming under fire in an active shooter scenario. Of course, there are other situations where people can find themselves confronted by armed assailants, from street muggings and carjackings to bank robberies. Because of this, we thought it might be useful to our readers to discuss such situations and how to react when caught in one.

Mindset

Perhaps the most important factor affecting a person's reaction to a life-threatening incident is their mindset going into the situation. As we have previously noted when discussing situational awareness, the way the brain is wired makes it very difficult for a person to go from a state of being "tuned out" and completely unaware of what is going on around them to a state of high alert. When confronted by such a jump, it is not uncommon for people to freeze, go into shock and become totally unable to respond to the situation confronting them. This type of panic-induced paralysis can be extremely deadly, and at that point the only hope of surviving an incident is sheer luck or divine providence. People in such a state can do nothing to save themselves.

Another factor of this mindset is the need for people to recognize that there are bad people in the world who want to hurt innocent people, and that they could be potential targets. This means that people must not only practice situational awareness but also trust their gut when they feel something isn't quite right. Denial can be a very dangerous thing when it overrides or rationalizes away gut feelings of danger. Over my former careers as a special agent and corporate security officer, I have interviewed numerous people who allowed denial to override suspicious indicators they noted, and who then proceeded to do things that resulted in their victimization -- all because they had the mindset that they could not possibly become victims. These situations ranged from a mugging victim, who thought there was something odd about the way three guys on the corner looked at her, to the kidnapping victim who spotted the deployed abduction team but proceeded into the attack zone anyway because he thought the team would target someone with more money than his family had. In shooting situations, I have spoken with victims who did not realize that shots were actually being fired and instead dismissed them as pranks or fireworks. I have seen media reports of similar remarks from witnesses regarding recent shooting incidents, such as the July 20 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. In short, denial is deadly.

By practicing the proper level of situational awareness and understanding the possibility of being targeted, a person will be mentally prepared to realize that an attack is happening -- something we call attack recognition. The earlier a target recognizes the attack, the better. In the kidnapping case noted above, the victim recognized the attack before it was sprung, and could have avoided a long (and costly) hostage ordeal, had he taken immediate action to avoid the attack site. As we have mentioned repeatedly, criminal and terrorist attacks do not appear out of a vacuum. Instead, they are part of a planning process that can be recognized if one is looking for it. We have also noted over the years that criminals and terrorists tend to be very bad at camouflaging their actions, and their suspicious demeanors often leave them vulnerable to early detection.

Admittedly, there is the slight danger of embarrassment in the aftermath of a false reaction. I have blushed after hitting the ground and rolling to cover in response to unexpected celebratory gunfire in Yemen, but in general it is far better to initially overreact when there is no threat than it is to underreact in a truly dangerous situation.

But even if one cannot avoid an attack, recognizing danger immediately and then quickly taking action to avoid it can often mean the difference between survival and death.

Run, Hide, Fight

Some people have been critical of the simplicity of the "Run, Hide, Fight" public service video available on YouTube, which was produced by the City of Houston and funded by the Department of Homeland Security. In our assessment, the video does a good job achieving its goal of raising awareness of active shooter situations and of providing a simple, easy-to-remember mantra similar to the "stop, drop and roll" fire-prevention slogan. The video also discusses the necessity of having an evacuation plan and being aware of surroundings. Is the video a complete self-defense course? Clearly not, but it does meet its limited objectives.

Once a person has recognized that an attack is taking place, a critical step must be taken before they can decide to run, hide or fight -- they must determine where the gunfire (or threat) is coming from. Without doing so, the victim could run blindly from a position of relative safety into danger. We certainly encourage anyone under attack to get out of the attack site and run away from danger, but you must first ascertain that you are in the attack site before taking action. Many times, the source of the threat will be evident and will not take much time to locate. But sometimes, depending on the location -- whether in a building or out on the street -- the sounds of gunfire can echo and it may take a few seconds to determine the direction it is coming from. In such a scenario, it is prudent to quickly take cover until the direction of the threat can be located. In some instances, there may even be more than one gunman, which can complicate escape plans.

Fortunately, most attackers engaging in active shooter scenarios are not well-trained. They tend to be poor marksmen who lack tactical experience with their weapons. For example, in his attack on a Los Angeles Jewish community center daycare Aug. 10, 1999, Buford Furrow fired 70 shots from an Uzi-style submachine gun but only wounded five people. The Uzi is an effective and highly accurate weapon at short distances, meaning the only reason Furrow did so little damage was his poor marksmanship. During the July 20 shooting in Aurora, James Holmes only managed to kill 12 people -- despite achieving almost total tactical surprise in a fully packed theater -- due to a combination of poor marksmanship and his inability to clear a malfunction from his rifle.

This typical lack of marksmanship implies that most people killed in active shooter situations are shot at very close range. There are some obvious exceptions, like the shooting at the University of Texas on Aug. 1, 1966, when ex-Marine Charles Whitman shot several people from the top of a tower on the college campus. But even then, most of Whitman's victims were shot early on in his attack, and his ability to successfully engage targets declined rapidly as victims realized where the shots were coming from and either moved away from the threat or took cover and waited for the authorities to respond.

MDACC

As seen in the Whitman case, potential victims can do several things to reduce their chances of being shot, even with a trained shooter. We use an old acronym to describe these steps: MDACC, which stands for motion, distance, angle, cover and concealment.

First, it is much harder to shoot a moving target than a stationary one, especially if that target is moving at a distance. Most tactical shootings happen at distances of less than 7 meters. Indeed, there are very few people who can consistently hit a stationary target beyond 25 meters with a pistol, much less a moving target. Most people can put 25 meters between them and an attacker in just a few seconds, so motion and distance are your friends.

The angle between the target and the shooter is also important, because shooting a target running away in a straight line is easier than shooting a target running away at an angle, since the second scenario would require the shooter to swing the barrel of the weapon and lead the target. Both require a good deal of practice, even with a rifle or shotgun. If the target can run at an angle behind objects like trees, cars, office furniture or walls that obstruct the shooter's view of the target (concealment) or stop bullets (cover), that is even more effective.

Whether running or trying to hide, it is important to distinguish between concealment and cover. Items that provide concealment will hide you from the shooter's eye but will not protect you from bullets. A bush or tree leaves may provide concealment, but only a substantial tree trunk will provide cover. A typical office drywall-construction interior wall will provide concealment but not cover. This means that if a person is forced to hide inside an office or classroom, they might be able to lock the door but the shooter will in all likelihood still be able to fire through the walls and the door, should they choose to do so. Still, if the shooter cannot see his or her target, they will be firing by chance rather than intentionally aiming.

In any case, those hiding inside a room should attempt to find some sort of additional cover, like a filing cabinet or heavy desk. It is always better to find cover than concealment, but even partial cover -- something that will only deflect or fragment the projectiles -- is better than no cover at all.

The Inner Warrior

Mindset also becomes critical when a person is wounded. In active shooter situations it is not unusual for many more people to be wounded than killed; this also relates to the issue of poor marksmanship discussed above. In such a situation, it is extremely important for the wounded person to understand that, unlike what is portrayed in the movies, most wounds are not immediately fatal and rarely immobilize the victim right away. However, it is not uncommon for people to drop to the ground when they are shot and freeze in panic or go into shock. This gives the shooter an opportunity to approach them for a point-blank coup de grace.

It is very important for people to realize that most gunshots are survivable and that, even after being wounded, their bodies can continue to function to get them away from the attack site and to safety. Certainly, once a target gets out of the immediate danger zone they will want to seek first aid or treat themselves with improvised pressure bandages to stop the bleeding and avoid going into shock. Modern trauma medicine is very good, and as seen in the Aurora shooting, most victims wounded in these types of attacks will survive if they get prompt medical assistance.

It is no mistake that training regimens for special operations forces soldiers and serious athletes place so much emphasis on the mental aspect of combat and sports -- that is, learning that your body can keep functioning and continue to do amazing things, even after your mind has told you that it is time to quit. That same sense of drive and determination, the inner warrior, can help keep a person's body functioning after they have been wounded. The inner warrior is also critical when it is time to fight rather than to run or hide, but that is a topic for another time.

When Things Go Bad is republished with permission of Stratfor.

A traitor as Nancy Reagan...why do I not have a warm and fuzzy on this....

From Deadline.Com:

Here’s a first look at the unlikely casting but uncanny resemblance of Jane Fonda as former First Lady Nancy Reagan. Alan Rickman plays President Ronald Reagan in The Butler, currently filming in New Orleans. Fonda reportedly appears in just a few scenes. The pic stars Forest Whitaker as White House butler Eugene Allen whose career spanned 34 years there. Director Lee Daniels adapted the screenplay with Danny Strong from a Washington Post article.

I first posted on the Thatcher bio in February 2011 and the first reviews of The Iron Lady were not good. After seeing it earlier this year I have to say Meryl Streep did an incredible job of physical portrayal of the former British PM. Although the script was a hatchet job.

Now we have this with an American traitor portraying the wife of the best President of the second half of the 20th Century. Sorry, bad choice. The bitch Fonda may actually act very well but her odor precedes her. Suffice to say (and yes, it's a minor role in the film, she's only one of many First Ladies shown) may be ok, her personal rot will ruin the acting.

Another film I will have little interest in seeing.

Officer Down

Police Officer Patrick O'Rourke
West Bloomfield Michigan Police Department
End of Watch: Sunday, September 9, 2012
Age: 39
Tour: 12 years

Police Officer Patrick O'Rourke was shot and killed while making entry into a home on Forest Edge Lane after responding to a domestic dispute and reports of shots fired inside of the house.

He and four other officers had responded to the initial call shortly after 10:00 pm. Several family members who had been in the home had exited it prior to the arrival of the officers and informed them that the man inside may have committed suicide.

The officers entered the home and made their way to a bedroom. Before entering the bedroom they called out the subject's name but were met with gunfire through the bedroom door. Officer O'Rourke was struck by the gunfire and critically wounded. He was transported to McLaren Hospital where he succumbed to his wounds.

The subject was found dead in the home the following evening following an entry by members of the Special Response Team.

Officer O'Rourke had served with the West Bloomfield Police Department for 12 years. He is survived by his wife and four 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. 

Geopolitical Weekly: War and Bluff: Iran, Israel and the United States, September 11, 2012

By George Friedman

For the past several months, the Israelis have been threatening to attack Iranian nuclear sites as the United States has pursued a complex policy of avoiding complete opposition to such strikes while making clear it doesn't feel such strikes are necessary. At the same time, the United States has carried out maneuvers meant to demonstrate its ability to prevent the Iranian counter to an attack -- namely blocking the Strait of Hormuz. While these maneuvers were under way, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said no "redline" exists that once crossed by Iran would compel an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The Israeli government has long contended that Tehran eventually will reach the point where it will be too costly for outsiders to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

The Israeli and American positions are intimately connected, but the precise nature of the connection is less clear. Israel publicly casts itself as eager to strike Iran but restrained by the United States, though unable to guarantee it will respect American wishes if Israel sees an existential threat emanating from Iran. The United States publicly decries Iran as a threat to Israel and to other countries in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, but expresses reservations about military action out of fears that Iran would respond to a strike by destabilizing the region and because it does not believe the Iranian nuclear program is as advanced as the Israelis say it is.

The Israelis and the Americans publicly hold the same view of Iran. But their public views on how to proceed diverge. The Israelis have less tolerance for risk than the Americans, who have less tolerance for the global consequences of an attack. Their disagreement on the issue pivots around the status of the Iranian nuclear program. All of this lies on the surface; let us now examine the deeper structure of the issue.

Behind the Rhetoric

From the Iranian point of view, a nuclear program has been extremely valuable. Having one has brought Iran prestige in the Islamic world and has given it a level of useful global political credibility. As with North Korea, having a nuclear program has allowed Iran to sit as an equal with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, creating a psychological atmosphere in which Iran's willingness merely to talk to the Americans, British, French, Russians, Chinese and Germans represented a concession. Though it has positioned the Iranians extremely well politically, the nuclear program also has triggered sanctions that have caused Iran substantial pain. But Iran has prepared for sanctions for years, building a range of corporate, banking and security mechanisms to evade their most devastating impact. Having countries like Russia and China unwilling to see Iran crushed has helped. Iran can survive sanctions.

While a nuclear program has given Iran political leverage, actually acquiring nuclear weapons would increase the risk of military action against Iran. A failed military action would benefit Iran, proving its power. By contrast, a successful attack that dramatically delayed or destroyed Iran's nuclear capability would be a serious reversal. The Stuxnet episode, assuming it was an Israeli or U.S. attempt to undermine Iran's program using cyberwarfare, is instructive in this regard. Although the United States hailed Stuxnet as a major success, it hardly stopped the Iranian program, if the Israelis are to be believed. In that sense, it was a failure.

Using nuclear weapons against Israel would be catastrophic to Iran. The principle of mutual assured destruction, which stabilized the U.S.-Soviet balance in the Cold War, would govern Iran's use of nuclear weapons. If Iran struck Israel, the damage would be massive, forcing the Iranians to assume that the Israelis and their allies (specifically, the United States) would launch a massive counterattack on Iran, annihilating large parts of Iran's population.

It is here that we get to the heart of the issue. While from a rational perspective the Iranians would be fools to launch such an attack, the Israeli position is that the Iranians are not rational actors and that their religious fanaticism makes any attempt to predict their actions pointless. Thus, the Iranians might well accept the annihilation of their country in order to destroy Israel in a sort of megasuicide bombing. The Israelis point to the Iranians' rhetoric as evidence of their fanaticism. Yet, as we know, political rhetoric is not always politically predictive. In addition, rhetoric aside, Iran has pursued a cautious foreign policy, pursuing its ends with covert rather than overt means. It has rarely taken reckless action, engaging instead in reckless rhetoric.

If the Israelis believe the Iranians are not deterred by the prospect of mutually assured destruction, then allowing them to develop nuclear weapons would be irrational. If they do see the Iranians as rational actors, then shaping the psychological environment in which Iran acquires nuclear weapons is a critical element of mutually assured destruction. Herein lies the root of the great Israeli debate that pits the Netanyahu government, which appears to regard Iran as irrational, against significant segments of the Israeli military and intelligence communities, which regard Iran as rational.

Avoiding Attaining a Weapon

Assuming the Iranians are rational actors, their optimal strategy lies not in acquiring nuclear weapons and certainly not in using them, but instead in having a credible weapons development program that permits them to be seen as significant international actors. Developing weapons without ever producing them gives Iran international political significance, albeit at the cost of sanctions of debatable impact. At the same time, it does not force anyone to act against them, thereby permitting outsiders to avoid incurring the uncertainties and risks of such action.

Up to this point, the Iranians have not even fielded a device for testing, let alone a deliverable weapon. For all their activity, either their technical limitations or a political decision has kept them from actually crossing the obvious redlines and left Israel trying to define some developmental redline.

Iran's approach has created a slowly unfolding crisis, reinforced by Israel's slowly rolling response. For its part, all of Israel's rhetoric -- and periodic threats of imminent attack -- has been going on for several years, but the Israelis have done little beyond some covert and cyberattacks to block the Iranian nuclear program. Just as the gap between Iranian rhetoric and action has been telling, so, too, has the gap between Israeli rhetoric and reality. Both want to appear more fearsome than either is actually willing to act.

The Iranian strategy has been to maintain ambiguity on the status of its program, while making it appear that the program is capable of sudden success -- without ever achieving that success. The Israeli strategy has been to appear constantly on the verge of attack without ever attacking and to use the United States as its reason for withholding attacks, along with the studied ambiguity of the Iranian program. The United States, for its part, has been content playing the role of holding Israel back from an attack that Israel doesn't seem to want to launch. The United States sees the crumbling of Iran's position in Syria as a major Iranian reversal and is content to see this play out alongside sanctions.

Underlying Israel's hesitancy about whether it will attack has been the question of whether it can pull off an attack. This is not a political question, but a military and technical one. Iran, after all, has been preparing for an attack on its nuclear facilities since their inception. Some scoff at Iranian preparations for attack. These are the same people who are most alarmed by supposed Iranian acumen in developing nuclear weapons. If a country can develop nuclear weapons, there is no reason it can't develop hardened and dispersed sites and create enough ambiguity to deprive Israeli and U.S. intelligence of confidence in their ability to determine what is where. I am reminded of the raid on Son Tay during the Vietnam War. The United States mounted an effort to rescue U.S. prisoners of war in North Vietnam only to discover that its intelligence on where the POWs were located was completely wrong. Any politician deciding whether to attack Iran would have Son Tay and a hundred other intelligence failures chasing around their brains, especially since a failed attack on Iran would be far worse than no attack.

Dispersed sites reduce Israel's ability to strike hard at a target and to acquire a battle damage assessment that would tell Israel three things: first, whether the target had been destroyed when it was buried under rock and concrete; second, whether the target contained what Israel thought it contained; and third, whether the strike had missed a backup site that replicated the one it destroyed. Assuming the Israelis figured out that another attack was needed, could their air force mount a second air campaign lasting days or weeks? They have a small air force and the distances involved are great.

Meanwhile, deploying special operations forces to so many targets so close to Tehran and so far from Iran's borders would be risky, to say the least. Some sort of exotic attack, for example one using nuclear weapons to generate electromagnetic pulses to paralyze the region, is conceivable -- but given the size of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem-Haifa triangle, it is hard to imagine Israel wanting to set such a precedent. If the Israelis have managed to develop a new weapons technology unknown to anyone, all conventional analyses are off. But if the Israelis had an ultrasecret miracle weapon, postponing its use might compromise its secrecy. I suspect that if they had such a weapon, they would have used it by now.

The battlefield challenges posed by the Iranians are daunting, and a strike becomes even less appealing considering that the Iranians have not yet detonated a device and are far from a weapon. The Americans emphasize these points, but they are happy to use the Israeli threats to build pressure on the Iranians. The United States wants to undermine Iranian credibility in the region by making Iran seem vulnerable. The twin forces of Israeli rhetoric and sanctions help make Iran look embattled. The reversal in Syria enhances this sense. Naval maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz add to the sense that the United States is prepared to neutralize Iranian counters to an Israeli airstrike, making the threat Israel poses and the weakness of Iran appear larger.

When we step back and view the picture as a whole, we see Iran using its nuclear program for political reasons but being meticulous not to make itself appear unambiguously close to success. We see the Israelis talking as if they were threatened but acting as if they were in no rush to address the supposed threat. And we see the Americans acting as if they are restraining Israel, paradoxically appearing to be Iran's protector even though they are using the Israeli threat to increase Iranian insecurity. For their part, the Russians initially supported Iran in a bid to bog down the United States in another Middle East crisis. But given Iran's reversal in Syria, the Russians are clearly reconsidering their Middle East strategy and even whether they actually have a strategy in the first place. Meanwhile, the Chinese want to continue buying Iranian oil unnoticed.

It is the U.S.-Israeli byplay that is most fascinating. On the surface, Israel is driving U.S. policy. On closer examination, the reverse is true. Israel has bluffed an attack for years and never acted. Perhaps now it will act, but the risks of failure are substantial. If Israel really wants to act, this is not obvious. Speeches by politicians do not constitute clear guidelines. If the Israelis want to get the United States to participate in the attack, rhetoric won't work. Washington wants to proceed by increasing pressure to isolate Iran. Simply getting rid of a nuclear program not clearly intended to produce a device is not U.S. policy. Containing Iran without being drawn into a war is. To this end, Israeli rhetoric is useful.

Rather than seeing Netanyahu as trying to force the United States into an attack, it is more useful to see Netanyahu's rhetoric as valuable to U.S. strategy. Israel and the United States remain geopolitically aligned. Israel's bellicosity is not meant to signal an imminent attack, but to support the U.S. agenda of isolating and maintaining pressure on Iran. That would indicate more speeches from Netanyahu and greater fear of war. But speeches and emotions aside, intensifying psychological pressure on Iran is more likely than war.

War and Bluff: Iran, Israel and the United States is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Officer Down

Police Officer Bruce St. Laurent
Jupiter Florida Police Department
End of Watch: Sunday, September 9, 2012
Age: 55
Tour: 20 years
Badge # 323

Police Officer Bruce St. Laurent was killed when his police motorcycle was struck by a pickup truck on the I-95 on-ramp, at 45th Street, at about 4:40 pm.

Officer St. Laurent was assigned to the motorcade escorting President Barack Obama from a campaign event in Palm Beach County. He was struck as he was preparing to close access to the highway from the on-ramp as the presidential motorcade neared. The impact pushed him and the motorcycle into a guardrail.

He was transported to St. Mary’s Medical Center where he succumbed to his injuries.

Officer St. Laurent had served with the Jupiter Police Department for 20 years. He is survived by his wife and four 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.