Something the Houston Chronicle really expects us to believe.....

It's such a blessing to see you Dear Leader, 

thank you for taking time out of your day! 

Oh, gracious God, thank you so much!"

Not that the Houston Chronicle is a leftist propaganda rag that has pushed the Obama regieme more and more, but this is beyond the pale.  This is the cover picture of this morning's edition. The caption reads:

Thailandia Alaffita, front left, views the president's address Friday in a crowd at Houston's Baker-Ripley Neighborhood Center. 

Now you can read the article here and there is no question of the does the president have the power to do this by executive fiat, the wisdom of back door immigration,  etc.  But look at that first picture.  Does that look as staged as the day is long?  Sorry, but these people have TVs.  Why are they all just walking down to a big room to be seen watching an address from the Dear Leader?  Could it be just a bunch of propaganda put out by the Chronicle to support the moron they will, I have no doubt, support again this fall.  But the last two paragraphs inadvertently states the purpose of this:

..."We're excited, but we know at the same time it is just a first step," said Claudia Muñoz, a 25-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico who graduated from Prairie View University in 2009.


Muñoz, a community organizer in Houston, said because the policy is essentially an administrative order, she is afraid "it could be taken away" if Obama loses to Romney, who has voiced opposition to the DREAM Act. She predicted that likely will motivate supporters of the change to head to the polls to vote for Obama in November.


"The timing is just so perfect," she said.

Couldn't have said it better Claudia.  Hopefully we are seeing the last nail in the coffin of the Obama regime.  Remember in 2007 when George W Bush tried amnesty the legit way, through Congress.  The Republicans members of the House and Senate were almost pulled out of their cars by people outraged by this.  Yes Claudia, this will motivate people.  Your man-child's days are dwindling, Oh gracious God, thank you!

Israel and its neighbors.....

Good article on real issues in the Middle East. I wonder if Mrs Bill Clinton has this on her To Do list.

Security and Defense: Chemically unstable

It was July 2007 and in Aleppo, Syria, the muezzins were just starting to issue the early-morning call for prayers. It was a different Syria at the time – Bashar Assad’s rule appeared stable and was not threatened by rebels. Barely anyone knew that not far from the city, Assad was building a nuclear reactor that would be destroyed a few months later in a lightning Israeli airstrike.

But then the city was rocked by an explosion. Looking out their windows, residents could see smoke rising from a military base located on the outskirts of the ancient city.

The damage was isolated to a single building, one that very few people – even those who served in the base – knew the purpose of.

Fifteen people were reported killed and several dozen more were rushed to the Aleppo University Hospital nearby with severe burns all over their bodies. Later, some residents would hear rumors about a number of Iranians being among the wounded and yelling out in Farsi as they were treated for their wounds.

The Syrians immediately blocked off the base and prevented the media from reaching the scene. They also tried to destroy any evidence of the work that was taking place inside.

Syrian state TV ran a story claiming that the hot summer temperatures, which can reach up to 50 degrees Celsius in the area, set off some explosive material that was being stored in an old arms depot.

The problem with the Syrian claim was that the explosion took place at 4:30 a.m., almost two hours before sunrise, when cool breezes were still coming in over the hilltops from the Mediterranean Sea some 150 kilometers away.

A few months would pass before the real nature of the explosion was to be revealed.

Apparently, the base everyone in Aleppo thought was an old arms dump was really one of the most secretive installations in Syria’s chemical program. The nondescript building that was destroyed in the blast had been a sophisticated laboratory used to manufacture non-conventional warheads with VX, Sarin and mustard gas.

The explosion took place as Syrian and Iranian engineers were reportedly trying to weaponize a Scud missile with a mustard gas warhead. The blast led to the dispersion of various chemical agents, causing the severe burns on people outside the facility who were not wearing the necessary protective gear.

One report quoted Syrian opposition sources who claimed that the base was also used to manufacture car bombs under the supervision of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps for attacks inside Iraq.

The Syrian-Iranian alliance was the result of a series of defense agreements the countries had signed since 2005 aimed at advancing military cooperation, including assistance each side would provide the other in the event of a military confrontation with Israel or the United States. The agreements also reportedly included a Syrian commitment to allow Iran to store weapons on Syrian soil if it ever needed to.

Two years later, Maj.-. (.) Amos Yadlin, then-head of Military Intelligence, gave a little more insight into the way the relationship worked between the countries.

Weapons were usually designed and developed in Iran, Yadlin said in 2009, while production took place in Syria. When it was time to test the weapons, special invitations would be sent to Hezbollah and Hamas headquarters as well as to North Korea, which often sent its own military representatives to the events.

In recent weeks, The Jerusalem Post spoke with a number of senior government and military officials – some retired and others currently in office – about the nature of the threat that Israel faces from Syria’s chemical weapons and what it might need to do to stop it.

Israel’s concern focuses on two stark possibilities.

The first is that the weapons will fall into rogue hands – either al-Qaida or Hezbollah, which is believed to already be working to move some of the advanced military systems it has been storing in Syria to Lebanon out of fear that they will be captured by rebel forces. The earlier this week of an air defense base in Syria by rebels underscores that fear.

The second option – considered more unlikely – is that Assad will use the weapons against Israel if he starts to think that his end is near. This way, he will try to divert attention away from the massacres his military forces have been perpetrating throughout Syria and instead have his people rally behind him in a war against Israel.

Syria’s chemical weapons program began in the mid 1970s. According to Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yehoshua Saguy, who served as head of Military Intelligence from 1979 to 1983, Egypt assisted the Syrians in starting the program.

“It was after the Yom Kippur War which they ultimately lost, and there were rumors about Israel’s purported nuclear capability,” Saguy recalled this week. “It was a totalitarian regime so they just diverted funds, purchased some basic capabilities from Egypt and later, with the help of experts from the former Soviet Union, began to build their own independent infrastructure.”

It took only a few years for the program to take off, and in 1982 the world witnessed what a dictator with chemical weapons was capable of doing. Hafez Assad ordered his military to quell Muslim Brotherhood protests in Hama. In addition to heavy shelling, the forces also used poisonous gas to kill the protesters.

At a later stage and as a cover, the Syrians established a civilian research facility near Damascus – called the Scientific Studies and Research Center – to purchase the dual-use technologies it needed for the production of its various chemical weapons: Sarin and VX nerve agents as well as mustard gas.

According to Maj.-Gen. (res.) Shlomo Gazit, Saguy’s predecessor as MI chief, the chemical program gained importance following the First Lebanon War in the summer of 1982.

“The Israel Air Force’s elimination of Syria’s surface-to-air missile systems during the war led to an understanding by the Syrians that they had nothing to do with an air force or combat aircraft,” Gazit said.

“Instead, they began to invest in surface-to-surface missiles as well as chemical weapons.”

As Syria began to upgrade the capability, Israeli and American intelligence agencies watched with grave concern. The CIA, the MI and the Mossad led the intelligence efforts and no resources were spared as the countries learned more about the program.

Saguy said that a main point of concern was the Soviet scientists’ involvement in the program. Israel had some experience in dealing with foreign scientists from the 1960s when German scientists were helping Egypt develop a rocket capability.

The covert campaign then – overseen by Mossad head Isser Harel – started with warnings to the scientists to stop their involvement in the program.

When they ignored the warnings, the scientists became targets....

I figure the Israeli's are taking a similar attitude to Iranian nuclear scientistS. I doubt the current regime in DC thinks like that.

Excellent article and well worth the time. I've only put about a third here.

Thanks to Legal Insurrection.com for the link.

Actual decent story in the NY Times

The NY Times is a typical leftist rag that is living off a dying readership and faulty management that puts ideology in front of it's real job, putting out the truth. But I gotta give credit where credit is due. This is an interesting article that explains why there is a pay gap between the sexes. Because women go into certain fields but more importantly they take time off for motherhood.

Next thing you know the Times might actually ask the Obama regime where are the shovel ready jobs? Naa.

Here is the critical part.

?...Most economists believe the gap between women’s and men’s wages does not stem primarily from employers paying women less than men for the same job. It occurs mostly because men and women take different jobs and follow different career paths. Part of this difference may be a result of discrimination in hiring and promoting. Much, though, is a result of the constraints of motherhood.

There are policies that could help diminish women’s pay deficit by increasing flexibility in the workplace and easing women’s family burden. Reducing the nation’s vast income inequality would also go a long way. Many European countries have smaller gender pay gaps because the difference between the earnings of low-wage and high-wage workers, men or women, is much smaller than in the United States. But mandating equal pay for equal work is unlikely to make much of a difference.

Teasing out pay discrimination is tough because many attributes and behaviors may account for differences in pay. Women choose different educational paths than men. Female engineers earn considerably more than female educators straight out of college. Nonetheless, women account for only 18 percent of engineering majors versus 79 percent of education majors, according to a study by the American Association of University Women.

Female doctors are more likely to be pediatricians than higher-paid cardiologists. They are more likely to work part time. And even those working full time put in 7 percent fewer hours a week than men. They are also much more likely to take extended leaves, most often to give birth and start a family....

Security Weekly: 'Dark Angel' and the Mexican Meth Connection, June 13, 2012

By Ben West

In a U.S. operation dubbed "Dark Angel," local and federal law enforcement officers on May 30 arrested 20 individuals involved in methamphetamine trafficking across five states. Authorities confirmed that the leader of the trafficking network, Armando Mendoza-Haro, has links to Mexico, where the methamphetamine was likely produced. The group appears to have used legitimate companies to transport methamphetamine from California to the Denver area and elsewhere in the Western and Midwestern United States. The group then sent the profits back to California, where the cash was wired to banks in China and the Cayman Islands.

Mexico's methamphetamine trade seems to be booming these days. Earlier in 2012, the Mexican military made the largest single seizure of methamphetamine ever (15 tons, worth around $1 billion) outside Guadalajara. As the United States increased its restrictions on the pharmaceutical chemicals used to produce methamphetamine, Mexican producers stepped in to meet the growing demand. Details from Operation Dark Angel provide insight into how traffickers in the United States are getting their product to market and, more interestingly, how they are laundering their profits.

Compartmentalizing

The Mendoza-Haro organization appears to be a midsized trafficking operation. Agents who arrested the group and raided properties seized only 2.7 kilograms (6 pounds) of methamphetamine and $715,340 in cash (the approximate street value of 7.2 kilograms of methamphetamine). However, this only represents a single shipment. The group handled what appear to be dozens of similar-sized shipments, so total revenues likely added up to millions of dollars over time. According to The Denver Post, authorities involved in Operation Dark Angel believe the drugs were made in Mexican methamphetamine labs. Additionally, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agent in charge of the operation said the group was transferring drug proceeds to drug cartel members in Mexico.

One of the defendants, Miguel Angel Sanchez, owned Playboyz Trucking LLC in San Bernardino, Calif. Authorities say that some of the Playboyz drivers knowingly transported the group's methamphetamine and cash revenues between California and Colorado, while other drivers were unaware of their cargos' contents. For example, the $715,340 in cash that authorities seized during the May 30 raid was found hidden in a truck carrying milk.

According to the indictment, more than a dozen people in Colorado, California, Utah and Iowa were involved in trafficking methamphetamine under the command of Mendoza-Haro and Sanchez. The evidence comes from intercepted telephone conversations between Mendoza-Haro, Sanchez and the other defendants that indicate the defendants knowingly participated in the drug smuggling. And there is a pattern in the intercepted phone calls: Mendoza-Haro was evidently in contact with nearly all of the accused smugglers, but there were very few conversations among the smugglers themselves. This group is a good example of how trafficking rings tend to compartmentalize their operations for the sake of operational security.

Money Laundering

The indictment connects two individuals in California to most of the money-laundering charges: Ricardo Paniagua-Rodriguez and Carlos Martin Segura Chang. There are no public records available for Paniagua-Rodriguez that explain how he may have been involved in the trafficking group. He was arrested near the U.S.-Mexico border in San Ysidro, Calif., a location that would easily allow him to facilitate financial transactions with groups in Mexico. As for Chang, public records indicate that he used to own (and may still own) Schang Import/Export Service, which is registered under a residential address in Downey, Calif., where police arrested him.

The indictment does not specifically mention the import/export company as a part of the operation; according to public records, the company opened its doors in August 2008 and reported trade activity only in November 2008, so it's difficult to say definitively whether the company was used to help launder drug money. However, the only country Schang was licensed to import from was China, which means the company would most likely have bank accounts to transfer money to China to buy goods. Since some of the trafficking group's laundered money was going to China, we find it likely that Chang served as some kind of international conduit for the Chinese money-laundering aspect of the operation.

The details of this case aren't necessarily normal operation procedure for drug traffickers in the United States. Many midsized, U.S.-based trafficking gangs like the Mendoza-Haro group purchase drugs wholesale from intermediary groups in the border area who have already paid the cartels in Mexico and derive most of their profits from simply getting the drugs across the border -- a specialized, value-added skill in its own right. But DEA evidence of the Mendoza-Haro group's links to Mexico and the routes the group's revenues were laundered through suggest that it may not have exclusively dealt with border intermediaries.

The border drug trade is complicated and diverse. There is not necessarily a standardized practice that everyone follows. It is likely that in this case, the Mendoza-Haro group was purchasing from a contact in Mexico. If so, then routing drug sale revenues through China would make sense. Many money-laundering cases have involved U.S.-based launderers transferring illicit funds to China to purchase consumer goods like refrigerators and televisions that were then shipped to Mexico and sold legitimately to recuperate the profit from the methamphetamine sales. Another possible motive for moving the money to China would be to purchase precursor chemicals in China that would then be exported to Mexico to make more methamphetamine. Additionally, the group could have used the Cayman Islands' banking system -- which is known for its privacy -- to transfer money to drug kingpins anywhere in the world.

It appears that the leaders of the Mendoza-Haro group compartmentalized the money-laundering arm of the operation as well as the transportation arrangements. The indictment charges Paniagua-Rodriguez and Chang only with money laundering; there is no indication that they were involved in actual trafficking. Frequently, owning a legitimate business is a boon to money launderers because it provides a legal cover for illegal activities -- much as Sanchez's legitimate trucking company gave him a way to move methamphetamine discreetly.

Authorities allege that the Mendoza-Haro group laundered money using the "smurfing" tactic. This involves breaking a lump sum -- likely valuing in the hundreds of thousands of dollars -- into smaller individual deposits under $10,000 that are then put into various accounts. (It is standard banking practice to issue suspicious activity reports for deposits of $10,000 or more.) In this case, Denver police alerted the DEA of the group's activities in July 2011, so the authorities were able to track the group's smurfing tactics even though the deposits were too small to be automatically flagged by the banks. The police also probably retrieved banking statements after the fact to confirm the amounts deposited. Charges in the indictment support the smurfing allegations: According to the indictment, members of the gang typically engaged in a flurry of financial activity over the span of a day or two, followed by a week of inactivity before another flurry of deposits. This financial activity likely corresponded with the arrival of cash shipments that went from Colorado back to California on Sanchez's Playboyz trucks.

While the Mendoza-Haro group was able to utilize a legitimate trucking company and possibly Schang's import/export company, it does not appear that it had much legitimate help depositing the money. Larger trafficking and money-laundering operations usually set up shell companies with high cash turnovers, such as restaurants or casinos, to blend illegitimate funds with legitimate funds by fudging the accounting books. This more sophisticated approach makes smurfing unnecessary but also requires more organization and a wider network of individuals. Once the money is cleanly deposited into a bank account, it can be moved around through legitimate financial channels to reach its intended recipients.

A small group like the Mendoza-Haro organization, however, probably didn't have sufficient funds to justify an elaborate system of concealing their payments, which were likely in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If a group is only moving hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenues at a time, rather than millions of dollars, smurfing is much more feasible than creating and using shell companies.

The Mendoza-Haro operation is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of midsized, U.S.-based trafficking groups likely using legitimate businesses to move their drugs and launder the proceeds. In this case, a trucking company and possibly an import/export business appear to have provided cover for the group's illegal activities. While this particular organization doesn't appear to have used legitimate companies to deposit its money, many other trafficking groups have the resources for sophisticated laundering operations that do utilize the legitimate economy. The largest criminal organizations are powerful enough to enlist the aid of corrupt bankers and other financial service providers.

While the violence associated with the Mexican drug trade is highly visible to the public, less visible financial crimes stemming from the drug trade occur on a daily basis and receive far less attention from the media. The scale of violence seen in Mexico has not yet crossed the border into the United States, but the financial crimes that fund the violence certainly have.

COPYRIGHT: STRATFOR.COM

The Army and what it's becoming. It's not pretty.

I've posted on how political correctness is infecting and weakening the services. Recently some idiot decided we need to have women in Ranger School. This great article is from the Wall Street Journal and I can't say it better. But his last paragraph kinda sums it up.

After all, the military does not exist to provide careers. It is a responsibility, a way of life and a higher calling that only 1% of our citizens choose to follow. A top-notch fighting force composed of dedicated and strong men who are the very best at what they do is what defines our armed forces—and the Rangers as among their best. Let's not destroy this small but incredibly important culture under the banner of "me."

I again drawn to what MacArthur said in his address to the 1960 Class of the US Military Academy:

...And through all this welter of change and development your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purpose, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishments; but you are the ones who are trained to fight....

Here is the full article. Thank you Mr Kilcullen.

Stephen Kilcullen: Women Don't Belong in Ranger School

By STEPHEN KILCULLEN

The United States Army is debating whether to admit women to Ranger School, its elite training program for young combat leaders. Proponents argue this is to remove a final impediment to the careers of Army women. But the move would erode the unique Ranger ethos and culture—not to mention the program's rigorous physical requirements—harming its core mission of cultivating leaders willing to sacrifice everything for our nation.

The Army's 75th Ranger Regiment traces its roots back to World War II, when it won acclaim for penetrating deep behind Japanese lines. Founded in 1950, Ranger School teaches combat soldiers small-unit tactics and leadership under extreme duress. It pushes men harder than any other program in the Army's curriculum.

Competition to attend the course is fierce, with about 4,000 men eligible to attend each year. Only about half graduate. Of those, only 20% make it through without having to retake various phases. For decades, completion of Ranger School has been the best indicator for determining which young men can handle the enormous responsibility of combat leadership.

The Ranger School debate is upon us because the Army is considering whether to overturn regulations excluding women from infantry battalions. This is part of a broader trend in the U.S. military. The Air Force allowed women to serve as combat pilots at the start of the first Gulf War in 1991. Following suit, the Navy in 2010 embarked on a taxpayer-funded retrofit of its submarines to accommodate 10-20 women in its submarine force each year. Now the Navy finds itself embroiled in controversy surrounding its process for determining their suitability.

Army women are not currently allowed to serve in frontline squads, platoons or rifle companies. But they can serve on battalion staffs: groups of 10 to 15 headquarters personnel who coordinate the actions of the smaller units in the organization. These roles do not involve small-unit combat leadership, tactics or direct combat—core aspects of the infantry mission. Ranger School develops those men best suited for precisely this infantry mission.

"Ninety-percent of our senior [infantry] officers are Ranger qualified," Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno recently said. "If we determine that we're going to allow women to go into infantry and be successful, they're probably at some time going to have to go to Ranger School."

But does changing the fabric of the military culture to improve the odds of individual achievement make sense for the military? Do individuals serve the military or does the military serve them? Remember, this is an all-volunteer force.

To answer your question, no, in a sane world. The fact the Chief of Staff thinks otherwise shows me enough of what he is made of. Something like this is a time to say, "Sorry, I'll call my career a night but you will not do this with on my watch."

Ranger School isn't about improving the career prospects of individual candidates. Our motto is "Rangers lead the way." Many a Ranger has lived these words before being killed in action—certain that if a Ranger couldn't accomplish the mission, nobody could. This unique culture lures the kind of young, smart soldiers needed to get the toughest jobs done. The promise of something bigger than oneself—bigger than any career track—is what motivates these men.

It is this culture of excellence and selflessness that attracts young men to the Ranger brotherhood. The Ranger ethos is designed to be deadly serious yet self-deprecating, focused entirely on teamwork and mission accomplishment. Rangers put the mission first, their unit and fellow soldiers next, and themselves last. The selfishness so rampant elsewhere in our society has never existed in the Ranger brotherhood.

And that is the secret of the brotherhood's success. Some call it "unit cohesiveness" but what they are really describing is a transition from self-interest to selfless service. The notion of allowing women into Ranger School because denying them the experience would harm their careers makes Ranger graduates cringe. Such politically correct thinking is the ultimate expression of the "me" culture, and it jeopardizes core Ranger ideals.

The military has changed many policies in recent years, based on individual self-interest masquerading as fairness and antidiscrimination. As we debate new policies, decision makers need to ask two simple questions: Is a proposed move good for the majority of service members? And does it improve or hinder our ability to execute our mission?

After all, the military does not exist to provide careers. It is a responsibility, a way of life and a higher calling that only 1% of our citizens choose to follow. A top-notch fighting force composed of dedicated and strong men who are the very best at what they do is what defines our armed forces—and the Rangers as among their best. Let's not destroy this small but incredibly important culture under the banner of "me."

Mr. Kilcullen was commissioned in 1993 from Vanderbilt ROTC and is a Ranger School graduate. He served as an officer in light, mechanized and mountain infantry before leaving the Army in 2004.

I retired two years ago from 23 years of service in the Army and the Reserves. I spent a long time working with some great female soldiers and civilians in the service. But they have no business in infantry in gereral or the Rangers in particular. Where this is going is TBD, but one thing can be assured is if women are allowed into Ranger School it's standards will be lowered. And that is an insult to the men who have endured it and a dangerous move for our nation's security.

God I'm glad I'm out. And I really hate to say that.

Geopolitical Weekly: Spain, Debt and Sovereignty, June 12, 2012

By George Friedman

Eurozone countries on June 9 agreed to lend Spain up to 100 billion euros ($125 billion) to stabilize the Spanish banking system. Because the bailout dealt with Spain's financial sector directly rather than involving the country's sovereign debt, Madrid did not face the kind of demands for more onerous austerity measures in exchange for the loan that have led to political instability in countries such as Greece.

There are two important aspects to this. First, yet another European financial problem has emerged requiring concerted action. Second, unlike previous incidents, this bailout was not accompanied by much melodrama, infighting or politically destabilizing threats. The Europeans have not solved the underlying problems that have led to these periodic crises, but they have now calibrated their management of the situation to minimize drama and thereby limit political fallout. The Spanish request for help without conditions, and the willingness of the Europeans to provide it, moves the European process to a new level. In a sense, it is a capitulation to the crisis.

This is a shift in the position of Europe's creditor nations, particularly Germany. Berlin has realized that it has no choice but to fund this and other bailouts. As an export-dependent country, Germany needs the eurozone to be able to buy German products. Moreover, Berlin cannot allow internal political pressures to destabilize the European Union as a whole. For all the German bravado about expelling countries, the preservation and even expansion of the existing system remains a fundamental German interest. The cycle of threats, capitulation by creditors, political unrest and then German accommodation had to be broken. It was not only failing to solve the crisis but also contributing to the eurozone's instability. In Spain, the Germans shifted their approach, resolving the temporary problem without a fight over more austerity.

The problem with the solution is that it does nothing to deal with the larger dilemma of European sovereignty and debt. Germany is taking responsibility for solving Spain's banking problem without having any control over the Spanish banking system. If this becomes the norm in Europe, then Germany has moved from the untenable threat of expelling countries to the untenable promise of underwriting them. Europe, in other words, has accommodated itself to the perpetual crises without solving them.

In our view, the root of the problem is the struggle to align the world's second-largest exporter with a bloc of nations that ought to be enjoying positive trade balances but are instead experiencing trade deficits. Germany, however, views the root of the problem as undisciplined entitlement and social program spending that leads to irresponsible borrowing practices. Thus the Europhiles, led by Germany, don't look for solutions by redefining the European trading system, but rather by disciplining countries, particularly within the eurozone, on their spending and borrowing practices.

According to a report in German magazine Der Spiegel, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso are drafting a plan to stabilize the system. Under the purported plan, all eurozone members would be required to balance their budgets. Borrowing would be permitted only if approved by a Europe-wide finance minister, a position that would have to be created and supported by a select group of eurozone finance ministers. If approved, money could be borrowed by issuing eurobonds.

The report appears to be well grounded, with European leaders confirming that the four individuals are working on a plan (though they did not confirm the plan's details). The approach outlined in the report would attempt to resolve Europe's problems by increasing the Continent's political integration -- a concept that has been discussed extensively, particularly by the Germans and Europhiles. Given the circumstances, this would seem to be a reasonable position. If all of Europe is going to be responsible for sovereign debt issued by member countries, then the stakeholders who have the most invested in the European project must have control over borrowing. The moral hazard of de facto guarantees on borrowing without such controls is enormous.

There are two problems inherent in this approach. The first, as we have said, is the assumption that Europe's core problem is irresponsible borrowing and that if borrowing were controlled, the European problem would be solved. Irresponsible borrowing is certainly part of the problem, but the deeper issue is trade.

The European Union is built around Germany and therefore the sort of economic dynamism that Germany enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s, when the country benefited from access to the U.S. market while retaining some protection for its own emerging industries. Eurozone countries' inability to cover debt payments stems in part from their inability to compete with Germany. Under normal circumstances, the economies of developing countries grow through exports driven by lower wage rates, but the shared currency prevents developing European countries from taking advantage of low wages. Borrowing may be too high, but Germany's dependence on exports makes it impossible for Berlin to allow a Greece or a Spain the time and space to develop critical economic sectors in the way that the United States allowed Germany to develop after World War II.

The second problem is the more serious one. The ability to manage a national budget, including the right to borrow, is a central element of national sovereignty. If the right to borrow is transferred from national governments to unelected functionaries appointed by a multinational entity, a profound transformation of democracy in Europe will take place. The European Union has seen transfers of sovereign rights from national governments and their electorates before, but none as profound as this one. Elected governments will not be able to stimulate their economies without approval of this as-yet-unnamed board, nor will they be able to undertake long-term capital expenditures based on the issuance of bonds. This board thus will have enormous power within individual countries.

This prospective solution involves more than simply an attempt to solve banking and debt problems. It reflects a fundamental principle of European political philosophy: the belief that disinterested officials are likely to render better decisions than interested politicians. This idea derives from deep in European intellectual history. Georg Hegel, a German philosopher, made the argument that the end of history was its full rationalization, represented by the rational and disinterested civil servant. Jean-Jacques Rousseau distinguished between the general will and the popular will. He argued that the latter did not represent the interests of the people but that the general will, the source of which was not altogether clear, did.

There is a strand of thought in Europe that regards the disinterested professional as both safer and likely to make better decisions than the popular will and its politicians. This is not an altogether anti-democratic view, but it is a view that says that politics must be moderated by disinterested experts. This idea heavily influenced the structure that was created to manage the European Union and is clearly behind the idea of a European budget board.

The question of the budget is central to a democracy and a highly politicized process. It is one of the places in which the public and its representatives can debate the direction in which the nation should go. The argument has been made that the public and its politicians cannot be trusted with absolute power in this area and that power should be limited to unelected people. In a sense, it is the same argument that has been made for central banks, with even greater power.

The problem, of course, is that the decisions made by this board will be highly political. First, the board must be appointed. The selection of the chief eurozone finance minister and the finance ministers represented on the board will be determined in some process that likely will not take the views of average European citizens into account. Second, the board will make decisions that will determine how the citizens of individual nations live. The board derives from a political process and shapes national life. It is apolitical only in the sense that its members don't stand for election by the populations they oversee and thus are not answerable to them.

There was a similar agreement before the current crisis called the Stability and Growth Pact, which said that the national deficit of a European nation could not exceed a certain percentage. If the deficit did, the nation would pay massive fines. The French (and even the Germans) consistently exceeded these limits but did not pay fines. They were too powerful to be sanctioned, so the system broke down.

Today, we see a concept that goes far beyond the Stability and Growth Pact. The idea is that nations will have no deficits without the permission of an appointed board and that any debt they do take on will be issued through an EU mechanism. That mechanism will eliminate the option of cheating. It may be possible to issue unauthorized bonds, but without a European guarantee, the market would charge a country like Greece prohibitively high interest rates.

But the core problem is the decision about who will and will not be allowed to borrow. Ideally, this decision would be completely transparent and predictable. In practice, the differences and needs of different countries will be so vast that the board will have to make some decisions. Given that the board will be composed of the finance ministers of some eurozone countries -- and that they will have to go home after a decision -- the question of who will be denied permission will be perceived as highly political and, in some cases, as extremely unfair. In some cases, both will be true.

The ultimate issue has nothing to do with economics, save for the trade issue. It is a question of the extent to which European publics are prepared to cede significant elements of national sovereignty in exchange for secured lines of credit, subject to the authority of people they never elected. For EU supporters, the notion that political leaders must be selected by the people they govern is not an absolute. Rational governance by disinterested leaders is an alternative and, at times, a preferred alternative. This is not entirely alien to the European tradition. In practice, however, it could create an explosive situation. The board will determine its willingness to grant deficits based on its own values. It may not permit deficits to fund hospitals for the poor. It may allow borrowing to fund bank bailouts. Or the reverse.

In any event, by taking power from the electorate, it risks a crisis of legitimacy.

The system has evolved to a point where, to some Europeans, this crisis of legitimacy may be preferable to the current cycle of endless crises. It may work for a time. But the first time a nation's government is thwarted from borrowing to fund a project while another nation is allowed to borrow for its project, a new crisis will emerge. Who in the end will determine which deficit is permitted and which is denied? It will not always be the representatives of the country denied. And that will create a crisis.

During the U.S. Civil War, the future of the Union was challenged by the secession of the South. The decisions were made on the battlefields where men were willing to die either for the Union or to break away from it. Who will die for the European Union? And what will hold it together when its decisions are unpopular? The concept of extended integration can work, but not without the passion that moves a Greek or a German to protect his and his country's interest. Without that, the glue that holds nations together is missing in the European Union. The greater the integration, the more this will reveal itself.

Spain, Debt and Sovereignty COPYRIGHT: STRATFOR.COM

A decent look at the Field Training Officer-Rookie Officer (aka Victim) program

I've been teaching new cops for almost four years now and my only regret is I didn't it sooner. I really enjoying teaching a new cop things they don't know. When I get a fresh victim I take them to a Starbucks for a private conversation and I have a list of things to I want to go over to set the tone of our training phase. Top on my list is "I'm not here to be your friend, I'm here to get your ass ready for evaluation. If I'm unpleasant, tough."

I guess I'm a little sadistic like that but it does get the point. Hey guys, this ain't high school, this is the real world.

Here is a look at some of the issues a FTO/Rookie can have.

I Can't Stand My FTO!
Getting along and learning are hard work.

You've got the job, passed the police academy, and entered the field-training segment of your new career. Yes, you're on the career path of your dreams. But what should you do if you can't stand your FTO!

This can be a problem on several fronts, so let's talk about this before it gets out of hand.

The role of the Field Training Officer (FTO) is more or less defined as that of a one-on-one supervisor and trainer. They're the direct connection between graduates of the academy and self-actuated functioning police officers. The FTO has a defined mission to be the trainer, evaluator, supervisor, confessor and many other roles.

Most departments don't have an articulated job description for the FTO. All too often, it's clumped into the "other assigned duties as directed" category. This can be a legal issue in several ways. For instance, if the recruit doesn't meet the departmental standards, the FTO may not have the authority to evaluate, recommend, and directly comment to the training or personnel files. Ideally, the FTO program should be codified within departmental procedures to strengthen the FTO and the program itself.

The FTO is a one-on-one supervisor of the recruit and may have the toughest job in Policeland. We all need breathing space; I don't like having someone standing over my shoulder. There's something about driving down the road with a person next to you who's evaluating your every move. You may feel like you're reliving your teenage DMV test.

While you're writing, they're watching or criticizing every word selection and sometimes you want to scream. I hope you can fully understand the direct supervision of the dangerous and critical tasks you perform. We operate several dangerous instruments and safety must never be compromised. Sometimes the pressure of staying under the direct and all-seeing eye of the FTO creates a self-imposed drama within recruits.

There's a reason for this. If you can't perform under controlled pressure, how will you handle real-world pressures. If you can't stand the FTO asking you why you wrote a report in a particular way, how will you defend this to the sergeant, the district attorney or under cross examination on the stand?

I often equate the constant eye of a trainer to learning to tie your shoes or riding a bike as a youth. You think you know how and want to show the trainer that you can, but you can't avoid the glaring frustration of attempting a skill you have yet to master. We all need space, but in order to proceed, the FTO must verify that they've explained and demonstrated a task and you've performed it.

Asking the FTO for a "do over" may sound simple enough. Just remember the next time you need to perform this skill in the real street environment; you may not be afforded any "do overs."

An FTO must also be the all-knowing prophet or confessor for your police career. Stop and think. Who taught you certain methods of performing police tasks? More than likely, it was the FTO who reaffirmed that you were performing as taught in the academy. The FTO was also likely directing you to get your skills up to required departmental performance.

The FTO will also be the one to help you over the phobias, hang ups, and uncertainties of police life. Every recruit I've ever trained has always asked the "how do you handle this, if…" question. The FTO must grasp your skill level before they respond. This is a difficult task and takes years to develop.

Before you decide that you can't stand your FTO, step back and view their role in your world as well as the department. Learn to get along. Understand that there is a method to their madness. Before you know it, you'll be requesting FTO School. You see, good FTOs also produce good FTOs for the future. Drive on and train hard. 

About a week before I hit evaluation I met my evaluator at the station and he introduced himself. He left me with three points that calmed me down as I was entering the really graded part of Field Training and I've shared this wisdom with my victims as they go past me. This has also gotten me though my career.

One, know the basics. Two, don't compromise your safety. And three, know who to call when you don't know something.

Policework in a nutshell.

Officer Down

Deputy Sheriff William Charles "Charley" Coen
Harper County Oklahoma Sheriff's Office
End of Watch: Sunday, June 10, 2012
Age: 57
Tour: 1 year

Reserve Deputy Charley Coen was killed in a single-vehicle crash shortly after midnight while responding to an emergency assistance call in Laverne.

He was traveling on Highway 64, about two miles west of Buffalo, when his Dodge Charger patrol car left the roadway on a curve and struck several large hay bales. The collision caused him to become trapped in the vehicle as the it caught fire. It took rescue crews three hours to extricate Deputy Coen from the vehicle.

Deputy Coen had graduated from the academy exactly one year prior to the crash.

Rest in Peace Bro…We’ll Continue 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.

You should have seen this coming

We all know there is a bounty on the head of many an al Qaeda leader. Now they have upped us one.

Al Qaeda Offshoot Offers Camels for Obama's Head, Hens for Hillary Clinton's

The al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia has mocked the new $33 million bounty on its top leaders heads by offering its own bounty for President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – 10 camels for Obama and 20 chickens for Clinton.

"Anyone who helps the Mujahideen find the whereabouts of Obama and Hillary Clinton will be rewarded with 10 Camels to the information leading to Obama and 10 hens and 10 cocks for Hillary," said senior Shabaab commander Fuad Mohamed Khalaf in a statement reported on numerous websites...

...In his response to the U.S. rewards, Khalaf said that "infidels" offering bounties for Muslims was "nothing new."

"There is nothing new in the fact that infidels pay to have Muslim leaders killed," said Khalaf. "They already did that by offering camels for the head of Prophet Mohammed, and the dollar is the camel of today."

Khalaf was referencing a passage in the Koran in which 100 camels were offered for the Prophet Mohammed as he fled Mecca for Medina.

"I can assure you that these kind of things will never dissuade us from continuing the holy war against them," said Khalaf.

I would say keep the camels, sheep, B Hussein Obama and Mrs Bill Clinton except for three words that would terrify any sane human being. President Joe Biden.

Federal Flight Deck Officer Program

A few years ago a pilot out of somewhere in California made quite a stir when he YouTubed the fact he as to go through the abuse of TSA morons but the crew that services the plan (i.e. fills the drinks, cleans it up, etc) just has to scan in at an unmanned gate. One of the points he made was he was the only man authorized to be armed on the plane (other than Federal Air Marshals). He also made the simple point if he was compromised it was "game over", the flight was doomed. Not that logic, common sense or intelligence has ever guided this process.

Last week I was at Heritage.org and found this interesting article on how the B Hussein Obama regime wanted to cut back on the Federal Flight Deck Program. Seeing it is mostly funded by the airlines as opposed to the taxpayers kinda makes since. He is saying "I want your toys, if I can't have them you can take them and leave!"

In all seriousness this was an interesting read. I've cut out some of the background material (still recommend the full article) and here is some of the more interesting stuff on the hostility of the TSA on armed pilots.

Federal Flight Deck Officer program: Planned Disarming a Mistake

...A Pattern of Institutional Hostility

They (the TSA) refused to accept a database we handed to them with 10,000 volunteer pilots on a CD. That could have gotten them started contacting pilots and putting them in the program right away, but they refused to accept it. They also refused to accept a program outline that we developed in concert with the FBI, some agents with the FBI that had designed a cockpit protection program. They completely ignored the fact we had initiated a Professional Standards program for the pilots who would eventually be armed.

They were also hostile to the design of the program itself, and they designed it to discourage participation. They created excessive background checks that were redundant, checks that we had already endured just to become an airline pilot—checks with regard to security, financial, and criminal background checks.

The initial weapon choice was inadequate. we called it the Barney Fife pistol because it was a six-shot revolver. We produced a video that showed them it was inadequate for the job.

We had an enactment of terrorist actors on video that attacked the cockpit, and we were not able to handle them with either the six-shooter or the tasers that they asked us to use. Then we ended up with a more appropriate weapon.

Also, the carriage procedures that they designed were illogical and unsafe. They required us to transport the weapon except when in the cockpit where we could carry it—the difference being that carrying is on-person; transport is in some sort of bag or some other carriage method. No other law enforcement agencies in the world transport their weapons in that fashion.

Conclusion

The Administration’s institutional hostility toward the program continues to this day, as we can see from the Administration’s budget submission for FY 2013. They want to kill the program by cutting the funding in half when the funding should be increased so that we can get more pilots into the program.

We knew when we set out to design this program that we would have to spend the rest of our careers trying to protect it. I’ve been retired for seven years now, and here I am again.

—Lieutenant Colonel Al Aitken (USMC, Ret.), a retired commercial airline pilot and former U.S. Marine Corps test pilot, is Director of the Airline Security Consulting Group.

Not that a pilot or Marine officer would know anything about securing an airline flight. No, we need guys who were last week spotted at the park in a 20 year old van looking at children to pat down old ladies and kids for that.

But there was some good news on this front.

House kills Obama proposal to slash spending on armed airline pilot program

Who says Barack Obama isn’t working to reduce government spending as promised? Why, in March he proposed reducing funding by half for the Federal Flight Deck Officer Program. This is a program that permits commercial airline pilots to keep firearms in the cockpit and to use lethal force to defend against air piracy. The measure would have saved taxpayers $12.5 million, which doesn’t amount to much, but the president also recommended trimming the Federal Air Marshal Service by $36.5 million.

Yesterday, Obama’s proposed cuts were rejected by the House of Representatives, according to a press release from Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John L. Mica (R-Fla.). The provision to override the cuts was included in the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act (H.R. 5855), approved last night. Of the Obama cuts, Mica said:

Having armed pilots in the cockpit is an important layer of defense against terrorism, especially given the endless examples of the massive TSA bureaucracy’s other failures. It would be foolish to gut security programs that actually work, like the Federal Flight Deck Officer Program, in which our airline pilots bear much of the training costs and help ensure the cockpit is defended.

Remember, B Hussein Obama will not rest until every passenger is safe in the air....

Hopefully this survives the budget process and then after (Please God please!) Obama is sent back to Chicago we can expand it. Again, if the pilot is compromised the flight and it's passengers are doomed and no amount of TSA morons making handicapped people in wheelchairs strip will stop that. Next if we can delete TSA from the budget we can start making some real progress on bringing the airlines back.

Officer Down

Deputy Sheriff Dwayne Charles Hester
Bladen County North Carolina Sheriff's Office
End of Watch: Friday, June 8, 2012
Age: 39
Tour: 5 years

Deputy Sheriff Dwayne Hester was killed in a vehicle collision while responding to an assault in-progress call.

Deputy Hester had served with the Bladen County Sheriff's Office for one year and had previously served with the Elizabethtown Police Department for four years. He is survived by his wife and two children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We’ll Continue 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.

Officer Down

Deputy Sheriff Michael Smith
Upton County Texas Sheriff's Department
End of Watch: Friday, June 8, 2012
Age: 44
Tour: 2 years, 6 months

Deputy Sheriff Mike Smith was killed in an automobile accident while responding to a fire at an oil tank battery just before 7:00 a.m.

He was traveling northbound on Route 349, north of Rankin, when an oil-field truck crossed the center line and struck his patrol car head-on.

Deputy Smith had served with the Upton County Sheriff's Office for two years. He is survived by his wife, three sons, and a daughter.

Rest in Peace Bro…We’ll Continue 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.

Ok another stupid criminal story....

I mentioned yesterday how four idiots from my home town were the latest example of some reason stupid criminal out there. Well here is another example of one.

Amanda Bynes pleads not guilty to DUI, tweets Obama

(Reuters) - Former child star Amanda Bynes pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to drunk driving, after sending a Twitter message to U.S. President Barack Obama asking him to fire the police officer who arrested her.

Bynes, 26, who starred in her own comedy sketch TV series "The Amanda Show" at age 13, was charged with driving under the influence in West Hollywood in the early hours of April 6. Police said the actress struck a sheriff's patrol car, refused to take a sobriety test, and was arrested on suspicion of driving while drunk...

...But the actress took to Twitter on Tuesday to ask Obama for his support. "Hey @BarackObama... I don't drink. Please fire the cop who arrested me. I also don't hit and run. The end," Bynes tweeted.

Bynes has been trailed by Los Angeles paparazzi for weeks on visits to various night clubs. Her father Rick Bynes told People magazine after her April arrest that his daughter "didn't have a single drink that night. My daughter doesn't drink."

Bynes found fame as a child comedy star on the Nickelodeon TV variety show "All That," leading to her own series, "The Amanda Show", from 1999-2002.

The actress segued into films such as "She's the Man," "Hairspray" and "Easy A", working with the likes of Emma Stone, Colin Firth and Harry Connick, Jr.

But in 2010, Bynes announced she was retiring from acting at age 24, tweeting that she no longer loved it.

Yo Amanda, B Hussein Obama don't hire or fire any of those cops, the Chief of Police there does. And you may want to get back to acting girl, lawyers ain't cheap.

Security Weekly: Tensions and Operational Challenges in Pakistan, June 7 2012

By Scott Stewart

On June 4, four U.S. diplomats assigned to the Consulate General of the United States in Peshawar, Pakistan, were stopped at a military checkpoint and temporarily detained after refusing to allow their two vehicles to be searched. The diplomats -- including a vice consul -- were traveling in a two-vehicle motorcade and were accompanied by three Pakistani Foreign Service National (FSN) security officers.

According to media reports, the Pakistani military has charged that the diplomats had traveled to Malakand without first obtaining permission from the Pakistani government. Malakand is a city located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Peshawar in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, formerly known as the Northwest Frontier Province. Because of the problems Pakistan has had with foreign jihadists in its border badlands, all foreigners are required to obtain something called a No Objection Certificate from Pakistan's Interior Ministry before visiting areas in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the adjacent Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Furthermore, the Pakistani press noted that the Pakistani military also objected to the Americans and their Pakistani FSNs' being armed and operating vehicles with fake license plates to disguise the diplomatic vehicles.

At its core, though, this incident is not about these small infractions. Indeed, Peshawar is the capital of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and diplomats stationed there already have received host country permission to be in the province. Additionally, U.S. diplomats assigned to Peshawar rarely venture outside of their secure compounds without a protective detail because of the extreme security threat in the city. Rather, this incident is a product of the strain in U.S.-Pakistani relations.

Motorcade Operations

The threat against U.S. diplomats in Peshawar is quite acute. In August 2008, American Consul General in Peshawar Lynne Tracy survived a small-arms attack against her motorcade. In November 2008, the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Peshawar, Stephen Vance, was assassinated in an attack on his vehicle. In June 2009, Peshawar's Pearl Continental Hotel, which housed many foreign diplomats and U.N. personnel, was attacked with a massive vehicle borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), and in April 2010 the American Consulate building was the target of an elaborate VBIED plot. In May 2011, a U.S. diplomatic motorcade was attacked in Peshawar using a remotely detonated VBIED that was activated as the motorcade drove past. Jihadists also have attacked numerous Pakistani targets inside the city, including military, police and other government officials.

Given the threat in Peshawar, it makes sense that the vice consul would travel in an armed motorcade to attend a meeting -- especially in Malakand, which is even more remote than Peshawar and even more dangerous for a U.S. government employee. The use of fake vehicle tags is also logical. There are places where it is beneficial to announce one's diplomatic status, but in Peshawar, diplomatic vehicles and premises are targeted specifically for attacks. It is also an environment in which the militants possess the weaponry to engage a fully armored vehicle, so it is much better to attempt to be low key than to maintain a high-profile protective detail. American and other diplomats frequently do this in Pakistan, so it was somewhat disingenuous of the Pakistani military to raise it as a point of contention in this case.

From the configuration of the motorcade as shown on Pakistani television, it appears that it was intended to safeguard the vice consul, who was presumably riding in the rear seat of the first vehicle with a U.S. driver and the agent in charge of his protective detail riding in the vehicle's front passenger seat. The security follow-car appears to have been staffed by a U.S. shift leader riding in the front passenger seat and a Pakistani FSN driver and two FSN security officers in the rear of the vehicle.

It is not clear if the three U.S. security officers are full-time government employees or contractors. They reportedly were carrying U.S. diplomatic passports at the time of the incident, but not everyone who holds a diplomatic passport is afforded full diplomatic immunity. Still, it is likely they were at the very least members of the administrative and technical staff and that they would be afforded functional diplomatic immunity for activities related to their official duties.

This case is quite unlike the January 2011 Raymond Davis case, in which a contract security officer assigned to the U.S. Consulate General in Lahore shot and killed two men who he claims attempted to rob him. In the June 4 incident, the security officers were with the diplomat they were protecting and clearly were performing their assigned duties. This means they would be immune from prosecution for any violations the Pakistanis can cite in this incident. However, the FSN security officers could find themselves in a much worse position if the Pakistani government decides to pursue charges against them.

U.S.-Pakistani Tensions

While the June 4 incident is unlike the Davis case, it certainly is related to the growing tension between the United States and Pakistan exacerbated by the Davis shootings. The countries' relationship deteriorated further after the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan. Relations between the two countries reached an all-time low in November 2011 after U.S. airstrikes against a Pakistani military post along the country's northwestern border with Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers. In response, the Pakistani government shut down NATO's supply route into Afghanistan, asked U.S. forces to vacate an air base used to fly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and suspended military and intelligence cooperation.

After the November 2011 airstrike, the United States noticeably scaled back its UAV strikes in Pakistan. From Jan. 1 to May 21, the United States conducted just 13 UAV strikes while it sought to persuade the Pakistanis to reopen the NATO supply lines. However, since the conclusion of the NATO summit May 21, there have been eight U.S. airstrikes, including three strikes on June 2, 3 and 4. The June 4 strike reportedly resulted in the death of al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi.

Considering this dynamic, it was no coincidence that the U.S. diplomatic motorcade was stopped the evening of June 4. The incident was meant to send a message to the Americans -- and perhaps even more important, a message to the Pakistani public, which has been full of anti-American sentiment since well before the Davis case. In fact, the Pakistani government has used anti-American sentiment as a tool for many years now, spanning several military administrations and now a civilian administration. The presence of a television crew at the scene also raises the possibility that the Pakistani military staged the entire incident.

The video shot by the television crew revealed another interesting point aside from the continuing tensions between the Americans and Pakistanis. Based on the footage, it is apparent that even though it has been two-and-a-half years since the suicide bombing against the CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, and a year and a half since the Davis case, Washington continues to send Caucasian-looking men to work in this very hostile region rather than recruiting officers who could blend in on the street. The presence of Caucasians in a city like Malakand would draw even more attention than diplomatic vehicle plates.

Following 9/11, there was a rapid increase in the number of case officers assigned to collect information pertaining to al Qaeda and bin Laden, and the CIA was assigned to be the lead agency in the hunt. According to government sources, one big problem with this was that most of the case officers hired were young, inexperienced and ill suited to the mission. The CIA was simply unable to recruit case officers who understood the region's culture, issues and actors and who could move imperceptibly within the local milieu. Instead, the case officers are obviously foreigners. Along with the threat level in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan, this ensures that these officers, like other U.S. government employees in the region, receive protection when they leave secure compounds.

Not only does the United States lack officers who can blend in within the region, but also the Americans' operational security is typically worse than al Qaeda's. The areas where the remaining al Qaeda leadership is hiding are remote and insular. Visitors to the area are quickly recognized and identified -- especially if they happen to be Caucasian. Local residents who spend too much time talking to such outsiders often are labeled as spies and killed. These conditions have helped the jihadists maintain a superior human intelligence (and counterintelligence) network in the area.

The June 4 incident highlights the persistence of these organizational problems as they continue hampering U.S. efforts to collect intelligence in Pakistan.

Tensions and Operational Challenges in Pakistan COPYRIGHT: STRATFOR.COM

News from the old home town!

The future of America here folks...our strength is our diversity!

I call New Orleans my home but I was really born in Houma and lived the first half of my childhood in Thibodaux. My buddy Buddy linked to this on Facebook....man, makes you proud of the old town and thinking this is who will be paying for my Social Security in my declining years!

Police: Home invasion solved after suspect returns to crime scene for keys

THIBODAUX, La. – The Thibodaux Police Department has arrested four people in connection with the home invasion of an elderly man after one of the suspects returned to the scene of the crime looking for her keys....

...Ricky Ross, a spokesman for the police department, said 22-year-old Emily Lemmon, 21-year-old Megan Landry, 26-year-old Brandy Landry and 22-year-old Anthony Noel were all booked with simple burglary.

Ross said the three female suspects entered the victim’s home wanting to buy pain medication. While the victim was speaking to the women, Noel came into the home, grabbed his medication bag and fled, Ross said.

But the case didn’t go unsolved for long. One of the suspects returned to the scene to retrieve her keys that she dropped inside the victim’s home, Ross said, and the suspects were arrested not long after.

The four suspects are being held in the Lafourche Parish Detention Center on a $75,000 bond.

In all seriousness I was back in Thibodaux in 2007 and looked at a public housing project I lived in for a while. Back then we would leave our cars unlocked, I always left the dirty cloths hamper in the laundry room, etc. Not any more. I'm glad I had my gun next to me.

Oh well...another part of my youth gone! Have a great day...and remember it's almost Friday. Hopefully these punks haven't made it our on bail yet!

Geopolitical Weekly: The End of Counterinsurgency and the Scalable Force, June 5, 2012

By George Friedman

The U.S. military for years has debated the utility of counterinsurgency operations. Drawing from a sentiment that harkens back to the Vietnam War, many within the military have long opposed counterinsurgency operations. Others see counterinsurgency as the unavoidable future of U.S. warfare. The debate is between those who believe the purpose of a conventional military force is to defeat another conventional military force and those who believe conventional military conflicts increasingly will be replaced by conflicts more akin to recent counterinsurgency operations. In such conflicts, the purpose of a counterinsurgency is to transform an occupied society in order to undermine the insurgents.

Understanding this debate requires the understanding that counterinsurgency is not a type of warfare; it is one strategy by which a disproportionately powerful conventional force approaches asymmetric warfare. As its name implies, it is a response to an insurgency, a type of asymmetric conflict undertaken by small units with close links to the occupied population to defeat a larger conventional force. Insurgents typically are highly motivated -- otherwise they collapse easily -- and usually possess superior intelligence to a foreign occupational force. Small units operating with superior intelligence are able to evade more powerful conventional forces and can strike such forces at their own discretion. Insurgents are not expected to defeat the occupying force through direct military force. Rather, the assumption is that the occupying force has less interest in the outcome of the war than the insurgents and that over time, the inability to defeat the insurgency will compel the occupying force to withdraw.

According to counterinsurgency theory, the strength of an insurgency lies in the relationship between insurgents and the general population. The relationship provides a logistical base and an intelligence apparatus. It also provides sanctuary by allowing the insurgents to blend into the population and disappear under pressure. Counterinsurgency argues that severing this relationship is essential. The means for this consist of offering the population economic incentives, making deals with the traditional leadership and protecting the population from the insurgents, who might conduct retributive attacks for collaborating with the occupying force.

The weakness of counterinsurgency is the assumption that the population would turn against the insurgents for economic incentives or that the counterinsurgents can protect the population from the insurgents. Some values, such as nationalism and religion, are very real among many populations, and the occupying force's ability to alter these values is dubious, no matter how helpful, sincere and sympathetic the occupying force is. Moreover, protecting the population from insurgents is difficult. In many cases, insurgents are the husbands, brothers and sons of civilians. The population may want the economic benefits offered by the occupying force, but that does not mean citizens will betray or ostracize their friends and relatives. In the end, it is a specious assumption that a mass of foreigners can do more than intimidate a population. The degree to which they can intimidate them is doubtful as well.

An Alternative to Counterinsurgency?

There is of course another dimension of asymmetric warfare, which encapsulates guerrilla warfare and special operations warfare. This is warfare by which highly trained light infantry forces are deployed on a clearly defined mission but are not dependent on the local population. Instead, these forces avoid the general population, operating on their own supplies or supplies obtained with minimal contact with the population. Notably, either side could adopt these tactics. What is most important in considering guerrilla warfare from the perspective of the counterinsurgent is that it is not merely a tactic for the insurgent; it is also a potential alternative to counterinsurgency itself.

Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that the U.S. military is not very good at counterinsurgency. One could argue that the United States should improve its counterinsurgency capabilities, but there is little evidence that it could master such capabilities. There is, however, another form of light infantry warfare to consider, and it is a form of warfare the United States is good at. The alternative does not seek to win over the population but is designed to achieve very definable military objectives, from the destruction of facilities to harassing, engaging and possibly destroying enemy forces, including insurgents.

Special Operations Forces are highly useful for meeting these objectives, but we should also include other types of forces. The U.S. Marine Corps is one such example. Rather than occupying territory, and certainly rather than trying to change public opinion, these forces have a conventional mission carried out in relatively small unit operations. Their goal is to assert military force in highly defined if limited missions designed to bypass the population and strike at the opposition's capabilities. This is exemplified best in counterterrorist operations or the assault on specific facilities. These operations are cheap and do not require occupation. More important, these operations are designed to terminate without incurring political cost -- the bane of prolonged counterinsurgency operations. The alternative to counterinsurgency is to avoid occupational warfare by rigorously defining more limited missions.

To illustrate these operations, consider what we regard as a major emerging threat: Non-state actors potentially acquiring land-based anti-ship missiles. Globalism brings with it intensified maritime trade. Meanwhile, we have seen the dissemination of many weapons to non-state actors. It is easy to imagine that the next stage of diffusion would be mobile, land-based anti-ship missiles. A guerrilla group or insurgency, armed with such weapons, could take advantage of land cover for mobility but strike at naval vessels. In fact, we have already seen several instances where groups employ this strategy. Hezbollah did so in operations against Israel in 2006. Pirates off the coast of Africa are a non-state threat to maritime shipping, though they have yet to use such weapons. Likewise, we see this potential in suicide boat bombs launched from the coast of Yemen.

The world is filled with chokepoints, where the ocean narrows and constricts the flow of ships into corridors within range of land-based anti-ship systems. Some chokepoints, such as the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca and the Strait of Gibraltar, are natural, while others, such as the Panama and Suez canals, are man-made, and they are vulnerable to weapons far less sophisticated than anti-ship missiles. These chokepoints, as well as other critical coastal waters, represent the vulnerabilities of the global economic system to state and non-state actors. Occupying them is the logical next step up from piracy.

Providing naval escorts to protect commercial vessels would not solve the problem. The escorts would not be in a position to attack the land-based attackers, whose location would be unknown. Airstrikes are possible, but as we have learned in places like Kosovo, camouflage is an effective counter to airstrikes despite its shortcomings.

These are the circumstances under which scalable, self-contained units would be needed. U.S. Marines, who have forces of sufficient scale to engage attackers in relatively larger areas, are particularly well suited for such missions. Special operations teams would be useful against identified and static hard targets, but amphibious light infantry in various sized units would provide the ability to search, identify and destroy attackers who are constantly moving or redeploying. Because these would be land-sea operations, cooperation between naval forces and ground forces would be critical. These clearly are Marine missions, and potentially urgent ones.

This is one mission among many that can be imagined for smaller-unit operations against non-state actors in a hybrid war scenario, which would avoid the obvious pitfalls of counterinsurgency. Most of all, it would provide boots on the ground distinguishing between targets, camouflage and innocent victims and still be able to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles and other assets.

The issue is not between peer-to-peer conflict and counterinsurgency. While increasingly rare, peer-to-peer conflict still represents the existential threat to any country. But the real problem is matching the force to the mission without committing to occupation -- or worse still, the social transformation of the country.

Scale and Mission

The type of government that Afghanistan has is not a matter of national interest to the United States. What is of national interest is that terrorist attacks are not planned, practiced or launched from Afghanistan. Neither occupation nor transformation of the social structure is necessary to achieve this mission. What is necessary will vary in every conflict, but the key in each conflict is to contain the commitment to the smallest level possible. There are three reasons for this. First, doing so defines the mission in such a way that it can be attained. This imposes realism on the mission. Moreover, minimizing commitment avoids the scenario in which prudent withdrawal is deemed politically unacceptable. Last, it avoids the consequences of attempting to transform an entire country.

Military intervention should be a rare occurrence; when it does occur, it should be scaled to the size of the mission. In the chokepoint scenario addressed above, the goal is not to defeat an insurgency; an insurgency cannot be defeated without occupying and transforming the occupied society. The goal is to prevent the use of land based missiles against ships. Missions to destroy capabilities are politically defensible and avoid occupational warfare. They are effective counters to insurgents without turning into counterinsurgencies.

These missions require a light force readily transportable by multiple means to a target area. They should be capable of using force from the squad level to larger levels if necessary. Forces deployed must be able to return as needed and remain in theater without needing to be on the ground, taking casualties and engaging in warfare against non-essential targets and inevitably against civilians. In other words, the mission should not incur unnecessary political costs.

The key is to recognize the failure of counterinsurgency, that warfare is conducted on varying scales of size and that any force must be able to adapt to the mission, ideally operating without large onshore facilities and without moving to occupation.

The current debate over counterinsurgency opens the door to a careful consideration of not only the scalability of forces but also the imperative that the mission includes occupation only in the most extreme cases. Occupation leads to resistance, resistance leads to counterattacks and counterattacks lead to counterinsurgencies. Agile insertion of forces, normally from the sea, could beget disciplined strategic and operational planning and war termination strategies. Wars are easier to end when all that is required is for ships to sail away.

Not all wars can be handled this way, but wars that can't need to be considered very carefully. The record for these wars does not instill optimism.

The End of Counterinsurgency and the Scalable Force COPYRIGHT: STRATFOR.COM

Officer Down

Police Officer Kevin Ambrose
Springfield Massachusetts Police Department
End of Watch: Monday, June 4, 2012
Tour: 36 years
Badge # 7

Police Officer Kevin Ambrose was shot and killed while responding to reports of a domestic disturbance at the Lawton Arms Apartments on Lawton Street shortly after 1:00 pm.

The subject also killed a female at the scene before committing suicide.

Officer Ambrose had served with the Springfield Police Department for 36 years. He is survived by his wife, two children, and one grandchild.

Rest in Peace Bro…We’ll Continue 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.

RIP Richard Dawson

CPL Newkirk

Host of Family Feud

Another great one passes.

'Family Feud' TV host Richard Dawson dies at 79


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Richard Dawson, the wisecracking British entertainer who was among the schemers in the 1960s TV comedy "Hogan's Heroes" and a decade later began kissing thousands of female contestants as host of the game show "Family Feud" has died. He was 79.


Dawson, also known to TV fans as the Cockney prisoner-of-war Cpl. Peter Newkirk on "Hogan's Heroes," died Saturday night from complications related to esophageal cancer at Ronald Reagan Memorial Hospital, his son Gary said.


The game show, which initially ran from 1976 to 1985, pitted families who tried to guess the most popular answers to poll questions such as "What do people give up when they go on a diet?"


Dawson won a daytime Emmy Award in 1978 as best TV game show host. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called him "the fastest, brightest and most beguilingly caustic interlocutor since the late great Groucho bantered and parried on 'You Bet Your Life.'" The show was so popular it was released as both daytime and syndicated evening versions.


He was known for kissing each woman contestant, and at the time the show bowed out in 1985, executive producer Howard Felsher estimated that Dawson had kissed "somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000."


"I kissed them for luck and love, that's all," Dawson said at the time.


He reprised his game show character in a much darker mood in the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film "The Running Man," playing the host of a deadly TV show set in a totalitarian future, where convicts try to escape as their executioners stalk them. "Saturday Night Live" mocked him in the 1970s, with Bill Murray portraying him as leering and nasty, even slapping one contestant (John Belushi) for getting too fresh.


The British-born actor already had gained fame as the fast-talking Newkirk in "Hogan's Heroes," the CBS comedy about prisoners in a Nazi POW camp who hoodwink their captors and run the place themselves...


..."I've had the most incredible luck in my career," he told viewers.


"I never dreamed I would have a job in which so many people could touch me and I could touch them," he said. That triggered an unexpected laugh...

I've often said a great performer's talent is shown by his taking on a new challenge. In the things he's best known for (Hogan's Heroes and Family Feud) he played a "good character". In The Running Man he did an excellent job of playing a jerk (to put it nicely).

In this scene he's about to send Arnold into the running game and Schwarzenegger gives his trademark line, "...I'll be back." Dawson's retort, "Only in a rerun."

Damned, another great one down. Of the original cast of Hogan's Heroes he is the sixth of the cast to pass (John Banner (SGT Schultz 1973), Bob Crane (COL Hogan 1978), Werner Klemperer (COL Klink 2000), Larry Hovis (SGT Carter 2003) and Ivan Dixon (SGT 'Kinch' Kinchloe, 2008).

RIP Richard...you will be missed.

Elmer misses me

Daddy, come back in!

As I sit on the front porch smoking a cigar, drinking a scotch I am reviewing more stuff to get ready for the test and Elmer is watching me from the front of the house. Damned I hate reading this crap!

Less than four weeks and I know I’m gonna be at a library daily. But I’m wondering what’s happened to libraries now. I’ve had to get up with a over multiple times this week to tell people if they want to keep talking on the cell phone to take it outside. Or to “keep it down” when they start laughing out loud. And they look at me like “what’s your problem?!” God forbid you control you kid lady, if he wants to play around take him to the children’s section which is away from the people trying to study.

Damned I’ll be glad when this is over. I miss Elmer. I miss working. And I’m looking forward to a long ride on the bike to clear my head of this.

June 27th can’t come soon enough.

Elmer, Daddy will be back soon, I promise!