Source: Associated Press
With one war over and another ending, President Obama has unveiled a new defense strategy that aims to cut spending dramatically without undermining America’s military readiness.

Source: Associated Press
President Barack is shaking up his national security team by naming a new secretary of defense and director of the CIA. AP White House Correspondent Mark Smith reports.

The Huffington Post is reporting that a major rift now exists between civilian policymakers at The White House and military brass at The Pentagon over Libya. The DOD is pissed off about the stalemate in Libya and warned the president ahead of time that this would likely be the outcome.

Obama told The Pentagon he felt a “limited” intervention was necessary but any kind of American boots on the ground was off the table. He wanted the military to give him a “low cost” regime change plan for Libya that did not require US infantry. The military told him that such a thing is not possible and no such plan would be forthcoming. White House officials accused The Pentagon of “disrespecting” the president by refusing to give him the plan he wanted.

The Pentagon in turn accused The White House of failing to understand what is and is not possible in military campaigns.

So the military and civilian leadership remain at loggerheads over the way forward in Libya. Military officials say this half-hearted intervention has made America look weak and created a terrible mess.

“It’s a mess,” lamented a senior U.S. official. Washington took the bold step of committing military force, but not enough to win. The administration waited to apply very limited military force until it was almost too late, and now, the official says, it has painted the U.S. “into a corner.” In the resulting stalemate, Libyan rebels and civilians are being ruthlessly pursued and killed while the United States, in effect, stands helplessly by.

Personally, I’m of two minds on the situation in Libya. On the one hand I think if we’re going to use force we should do so decisively and overwhelmingly. One thing we do better than anyone is attack from the air. We should have decimated the Libyan military in 48 hours to the point that any remaining soldiers simply surrendered.

On the other hand, I don’t think we should be getting into another war. But even if I did, Libya would not be the place to do it. I don’t really care about Libya.  The so-called “rebels” we’re protecting do not tug on my heart strings. I think most of them are simply putting their hatred for us on hold while they go after Gaddafi. They’re saying all the right things about wanting “democracy” and “human rights” so long as NATO is providing air cover. These folks are not our friends and anyone who believes they are is dangerously naive.

I’m glad President Obama took ground troops off the table. The Libyan people are not worth a single American soldier or Marine’s life. Moreover, it’s about time other NATO members starting pulling their weight. France was the most vocal about going into Libya so they should take the lead. They have a great military they never use.

Britain announced this week that they’re sending is special forces (SAS) to train the rebels on the ground. They waited around to see if we would cave and send in our people. When we didn’t they finally sent in their people. Good. If this is so important to Europe then they should be willing to send their boys to die there. I’m speaking mostly of France, because Britain has steadfastly stuck with us in Afghanistan. As always, the Brits have fought bravely and honorably with us and paid a heavy price in blood and treasure. But the French, Germans, and Italians like to squawk an awful lot until it’s time to do some dying. Then they look to America and the UK. F*ck that.

But again, since we did intervene in Libya we should stop bullshitting and kick some ass (from the air only). It’s beyond pathetic that a broke down third world regime like Gaddafi’s is still hanging on weeks after NATO intervened. This thing should have been wrapped up in a week tops.

Source: Reuters

Defense Secretary Robert Gates urges Senators to repeal a 17-year-old policy which allows gays to serve in the armed forces as long as they keep their sexual orientation private. Jon Decker reports.

Many bloggers (myself included) have been highly critical of the Pentagon’s so-called “Muslim Outreach” program. A program that reeks of political correctness. While Obama has certainly intensified the phony Muslim outreach, it was out of control under Bush also.

Now comes word that CIA’s most wanted terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki attended a lunch at the Pentagon with top military brass shortly after 9/11.

He was invited to the lunch as part of DOD’s “Muslim Outreach” after 9/11. He was considered a “moderate” up and coming member of the Islamic community.

This comes on the heels of a similar situation with the FBI. FBI officials invited known Hamas terrorist Kifah Mustapha to tour the top secret National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). The literal nerve center for the War on Terror. This too was part of the so-called “Muslim Outreach.”

Has anyone noticed that when our government reaches out to so-called “moderate” Muslims we keep ending up with terrorists. It makes you wonder how many so-called “moderate” Muslims really exist.

I wish the Pentagon would focus on the terrorist killing business instead of the Muslim outreach business. We’re losing a war in Afghanistan in case anyone cares.

The only “reaching out” that should be done is with 1500 lb. bombs.

The Pentagon is lobbying the Obama administration to speed-up the deployment of a new massive bunker busting bomb called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP).

The 30,000-pound MOP carries more than 5,300 pounds of explosives and can reach even the deepest underground bunker complexes. Once deployed, it would be the biggest non-nuclear bomb ever used.

Boeing says it’s already in the testing phase and could have the bombs loaded onto B-2 stealth bombers by 2010.

The MOP is something we need more than anything at this point. After the dust settled in Iraq, the Pentagon studied the impact of the air campaign against the Saddam Hussein government and were less than impressed.

Many of Saddam’s hardened bunkers were left intact after being hit multiple times with the largest bunker busters in our arsenal. Saddam’s legendary bunkers were simply too deep for our bombs to reach.

Iran has allegedly buried their nuclear program in bunkers that exceed even the depth of Saddam’s bunkers.

Accelerating the deployment of the MOP bomb should be a top priority of this administration — sadly, I fear it won’t be.

It looks like rolling back successful anti-terror policies isn’t the only thing on president Obama’s agenda. He also seeks to make the long held liberal fantasy of nuclear disarmament (at least for America) a reality. Time has an interesting piece looking at the policy Obama has already set in stone of “no new nuclear weapons” for America. This runs contrary to the military’s position and to that of secretary of defense Gates who has been pushing for the funding of a RRW (Reliable Replacement Warhead) program.

Gates doesn’t want “new” nuclear weapons as in additional weapons for our stockpile, but rather a new generation of warheads to replace our aging ones. The majority of our nukes are from the 1970′s and 1980′s and may no longer function correctly if it becomes necessary to use them. The plutonium core of a nuke suffers radioactive decay over time which lessens their effectiveness and can make them either not function correctly or fail to detonate entirely.

Gates argues the reason we need to have such a large stockpile of nukes now is because the Pentagon must operate on the assumption that a certain percentage of the weapons may not function correctly. If we had a new generation of warheads to replace the aging ones we could significantly cut down on the overall size of our stockpile since the new ones would be certain to work.

Obama and his liberal cronies don’t want that, because in their naive mind they hope the nukes will quit working and we can just get rid of them entirely — thus ushering in a new era of nuclear free peace around the world. That’s a nice pipe dream but it will never happen. Liberals operate on the false premise that other countries only have nukes because America has nukes. If America no longer had nukes the rest of the world wouldn’t need them. That’s of course absurd to the point of being laughable, but it’s nevertheless what the lefties believe.

Nuclear weapons are a horrible thing. I cannot imagine a reason to ever use a nuke except in response to a nuclear attack on us or our allies. Having said that, the nuclear genie is unfortunately out of the bottle and it’s never going back in. As long as a single country in the world possesses nuclear weapons or the ability to produce them, America must maintain a nuclear deterrence. Russia will NEVER give up its nukes, China will NEVER give up its nukes, Israel will NEVER EVER give up its nukes, and therefore America must always have better and badder nukes than anyone else.

Even if by some miracle every country agreed to give up nukes, you could never be sure they didn’t have a couple squirreled away somewhere. The bottom line is that America can never be caught flat footed when it comes to nukes. You don’t get a second chance to deter a nuclear attack or respond to one in kind.

Obama is determined to weaken our national security with his pinko liberal ideology of peace and love instead looking at the world the way it really is. He’s a fool to close Gitmo, he’s a fool to end harsh interrogation, and he’s a dangerous fool to weaken our nuclear deterrence.

-Chris Jones

From The Washington Post:

Prosecutors called Chi Mak the “perfect sleeper agent,” though he hardly looked the part. For two decades, the bespectacled Chinese-born engineer lived quietly with his wife in a Los Angeles suburb, buying a house and holding a steady job with a U.S. defense contractor, which rewarded him with promotions and a security clearance. Colleagues remembered him as a hard worker who often took paperwork home at night.Eventually, Mak’s job gave him access to sensitive plans for Navy ships, submarines and weapons. These he secretly copied and sent via courier to China — fulfilling a mission that U.S. officials say he had been planning since the 1970s.

Mak was sentenced last week to 24 1/2 years in prison by a federal judge who described the lengthy term as a warning to China not to “send agents here to steal America’s military secrets.” But it may already be too late: According to U.S. intelligence and Justice Department officials, the Mak case represents only a small facet of an intelligence-gathering operation that has long been in place and is growing in size and sophistication.

The Chinese government, in an enterprise that one senior official likened to an “intellectual vacuum cleaner,” has deployed a diverse network of professional spies, students, scientists and others to systematically collect U.S. know-how, the officials said. Some are trained in modern electronic techniques for snooping on wireless computer transactions. Others, such as Mak, are technical experts who have been in place for years and have blended into their communities.

“Chi Mak acknowledged that he had been placed in the United States more than 20 years earlier, in order to burrow into the defense-industrial establishment to steal secrets,” Joel Brenner, the head of counterintelligence for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in an interview. “It speaks of deep patience,” he said, and is part of a pattern.

Spies like Chi Mak should get the death penalty for living here all these years and pretending to be a honorable American, but betraying his country all along.

At the same time, U.S. agents could probably learn a lot from these guys. You have to admire the dedication and patience it takes to pull off an intelligence operation that lasts 20 years.

This guy was sent here more than twenty years ago to be educated, employed, and then send back information to China. Imagine how many opportunities there was for Chi Mak to stop reporting back and just live a normal life. I’m sure China sends these kind of operatives to many countries around the world to the exact same kind of thing.

I’m not sure an American agent could pull off something like that. I don’t think you could find a CIA agent willing to move to a foreign country for the rest of his life and work as an undercover operative.

The whole thing is pretty amazing, and it really shows what a cunning adversary China truly is.

-Chris Jones 

A Pentagon official pleaded guilty Monday to passing US military secrets to an agent working for China after being showered with gifts and gambling money, the Department of Justice said.

Gregg William Bergersen, 51, faces up to 10 years in jail after admitting to one count of conspiracy to disclose national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, the department said in a statement.

It said Bergersen started handing secret information in March 2007 to Tai Shen Kuo, 58, a Taiwan-born US citizen with business interests in New Orleans.

Bergersen worked as a weapons systems policy analyst at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which implements the Pentagon’s foreign military sales program.

I can’t think of anything more disgraceful or repugnant than selling your own country out for a few gifts and some gambling money. Actually, I can’t imagine selling my country out for any amount of money or gifts.

Bergersen deserves a hell of a lot more time than 10 years in prison. In fact, the most appropriate punishment would be for him to hang.

-Chris Jones