September 2, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

The U.S. has abandoned plans to install a missile defense system in Europe, according to a report. If true, this is a major strategic error that will have serious consequences for our allies in Europe and for us.

http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336351734192480

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September 1, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

ctcsentinel-vol2iss81.pdf

Combating Terrorism

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August 25, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

Obama’s health care plan will:

• Be written by a committee whose head says he doesn’t understand it.
• Be passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it (but exempts themselves from it).
• Be signed by a president who smokes (and also hasn’t read it).
• Have funding administered by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes.
• Be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese.
• Be financed by a country that is nearly broke.

What could possibly go wrong?

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August 24, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

“Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program. One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.” –Ronald Reagan on health care in 1961.

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August 21, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

On 20 August 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli released a Warden Message which reads in part as follows: “This warden message alerts U.S. citizens to avoid demonstrations and large crowds on August 20 and 21, and to maintain vigilance in daily activities.

“The Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy is located in Serraj neighborhood on the connection road with Krimia neighborhood. The Chinese Ambassador’s residence is on the same road. Our phone numbers are (091) 379-4560 during business hours or (091) 366-2696 (which is also the after-hours number for emergencies involving American citizens).”

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August 19, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

Subject: Congressman John Fleming’s Amendment

Congressman John Fleming (Louisiana physician) has proposed an amendment

that would require congressmen and senators to take the same healthcare

plan they force on us (under proposed legislation they are curiously exempt).

Congressman Fleming is encouraging people to go on his Website and sign

his petition (very simple - just first, last and email).  http://fleming.house.gov/ .

If Congress forces this on the American people, the Congressmen should have

to accept the same level of health care for themselves and their families.

If you can’t get on because of “too many people accessing the web site”… just put in to your browser the www.fleming.house.gov <http://www.fleming.house.gov> Scroll down the middle of Fleming’s home page after you get to his site. Under “Express your opinion” sign your name & email address, and click the box beneath the explanation of Fleming’s proposal, and hit SUBMIT. A page came up for me that said there were too many folks accessing his site right then, but it had a link to “refresh.” When I clicked that, his page came back with a note “Your message has been sent.”

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August 13, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

Some vendors are concerned that the recent online publication of a contract proposal to overhaul the Recovery.gov Web site could set a precedent to publish other proposals, and they are urging the government to be cautious about disclosing corporate or national security information. The General Services Administration released what is typically un-published pricing information, and technical and management proposals for the winning bid to renovate the Web site that monitors Recovery Act spending.
The practice worries some vendors and technology lobby groups. “I’m concerned that this is the wave of the future,” said Trey Hodgkins, vice president for national security and procurement policy at Tech America, an industry group in Washington. Disclosing the location of a defense project could jeopardize national security, Hodgkins noted. In addition, the accidental publication of employee names could sabotage a company or a government project, if a competitor poaches an employee with mission-critical skills.

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090804_9922.php?oref=rss?zone=NGtoday

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July 30, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

A group of private and government organizations has launched a program to build the next generation of U.S. cyber defense leaders. The U.S. Cyber Challenge is looking for 10,000 young Americans with the skills to be cybersecurity practitioners, researchers, guardians, and cyberwarriors. The program will provide participants with competition, training, recognition and a chance to win scholarships. It is led by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and includes the Defense Department’s Cyber Crime Center, the Air Force Association and the SANS Institute.

Experts say there is an urgent need to expand the federal cybersecurity workforce. The Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton recently released a report that said the government will be unable to combat cyber threats without “a more coordinated, sustained effort to increase cybersecurity expertise in the federal workforce.” The study said the “pipeline of potential new talent is inadequate.”

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July 30, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

A security researcher has discovered a Trojan that is designed to extract account data from as many as 4,600 of the world’s most popular and wealthy businesses. In “one of the largest and most professional thieving operations on the Internet,” a Trojan called Clampi (also known as Ligats, llomo, or Rscan) has spread across Microsoft networks in a worm-like fashion, and may already have infected hundreds of thousands of corporate and home PC users, according to SecureWorks researcher Joe Stewart, one of the world’s foremost authorities on botnets and targeted attacks.

“We weren’t all that worried about Storm, and we weren’t all that worried about Conficker,” Stewart says. “This one you need to worry about.” The Trojan uses PsExec — a popular, lightweight Telnet replacement tool that lets one system execute processes on other systems — and a sophisticated process of encryption and packing to hide its origins and targets. So far, Stewart says, the Trojan appears to be targeting 4,600 Websites, of which he has identified approximately 1,400 in 70 countries. Among the industries being targeted are banks, credit card companies, stock brokerages, insurance, retail, advertising networks, and utilities.

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July 6, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

An American President lands in Moscow today to negotiate an arms control treaty. Befitting that retro theme, thousands of Russian troops are in the midst of the biggest war games in the south Caucasus since the end of the Cold War, menacing the small, independent nation of Georgia.

President Obama’s two days in Moscow are supposed to foster, in an adviser’s words, “a more substantive relationship with Russia” — the substance being Iran’s atomic ambitions, the war in Afghanistan and a replacement for the soon-to-expire Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. You know, the stuff of a quasi-superpower partnership. But Russia hardly looks super, or inclined to forge a partnership, except on its own terms.

Instead, Supreme Leader Vladimir Putin wants to settle old scores and establish what he calls “a zone of privileged interest.” He must appreciate Mr. Obama’s eagerness to change the subject from Russian belligerence to nuclear weapons, which plays up Russia’s remaining claim to superpower status. How that serves America’s interests isn’t clear.

As in the weeks before Russia invaded Georgia in August, tensions are again on the rise. At least 8,500 Russian troops are involved in exercises around Abkhazia and South Ossetia, breakaway Georgian regions recognized as independent solely by Russia and Nicaragua. Last month, Moscow vetoed the renewal of U.N. and European observer missions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both had been there since the early 1990s. President Mikheil Saakashvili, a young Columbia-trained lawyer who turned Georgia westward, remains an irritant for Russia. A pro-Kremlin regime in Georgia would give Moscow control over the energy routes through the Caucasus and influence independent-minded Azerbaijan and Armenia.

While Russia has failed even to comply with the terms of the truce, the U.S. and its allies are acting as if that war never happened. At this summit, Mr. Obama is to announce the restoration of bilateral military relations with Russia suspended by the Bush Administration. The NATO-Russian Council is also back in business. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama has put on hold plans by Poland and the Czech Republic to allow the U.S. to deploy American missile defenses on their soil. In a letter to Kremlin frontman Dmitry Medvedev earlier this year, Mr. Obama floated the idea of trashing those deals if Russia can prod Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions.

U.S. officials say they’ve ruled out quid pro quos on missile defense or Ukraine and Georgia’s future. Nonetheless, Russian officials are all too happy to consider grand bargains. All start with America abandoning any future NATO expansion. In pre-summit interviews, Mr. Obama also skipped over such touchy Kremlin subjects as human rights and its designs on neighboring states. “The main thing that I want to communicate to the Russian leadership and the Russian people is America’s respect for Russia,” he told Russian media, noting that “it remains one of the most powerful countries in the world.” Someone keeps telling American Presidents to stroke the bear’s fragile ego above all else. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also pursued this strategy, to little good effect.

Here’s an idea. Set aside the dime-store national psychoanalysis and return to first American principles and interests. This summit rests on a fiction: That Russia is an equal power to the U.S. that can offer something concrete in return for American indulgence. Some Russians see through the pretense. “Let’s be frank: There’s not a single serious global issue where the United States is dependent on Russia today,” the pro-Kremlin political analyst, Gleb Pavlovsky, wrote in Nezavisimaya Gazeta last week. Russia’s decision to let the U.S. resupply its Afghan troops over Russian airspace is a goodwill gesture, but it was only offered after Russia failed to stop resupply via Kyrgyzstan.

From the moment Communism collapsed, America’s overriding national interest in Europe and Eurasia has been to extend prosperity and freedom. In short, to offer formerly captive nations a choice to join the West. This can be done in part through membership in NATO, the EU or the World Trade Organization. The “West” is an idea as well as a place, a voluntary and open association. Successive U.S. Presidents, when push came to shove, have defended the right to make this choice freely and ignored Russian caterwauls.

The choice to join the free world is open to Russia, too. Mr. Putin is the one who has taken that option off the table — most recently by pulling Russia’s application to join the WTO. In the Putin decade, nationalism, corruption and cronyism have flourished while Russia has missed another chance to modernize. That’s not America’s fault.

Any U.S. administration will have plenty of business to carry out with Russia. But an American President in Moscow needs to keep his eyes on the bigger prize in Russia and the region. And that prize is an expansion of freedom, not a new START treaty.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124683484600997771.html

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