In Our Name

Like most spooks, past and present, we've been watching the NSA affair with a great deal of interest--and more than a little concern.

Readers will note that we didn't refer to the agency's mass acquisition of personal information (on millions of Americans) as a "crisis."  After all, political leaders of every stripe have assured us that accessing your phone records and the data-mining of your internet activities is a necessary tool in the war on terror.  In fact, this may be the only time in recent history that President Obama; Senator Diane Feinstein, Senator John McCain, and Congressman Mike Rogers have agreed on something.  Their logic goes something like this: in the battle against unseen enemies, with the ability to inflict mass chaos and casualties with no warning, it's sometimes necessary to surrender a bit of your privacy, in exchange for "security."  Hold that thought; we'll get back to it in a minute.

Of course, we would have never learned the extent of the NSA's activities without the "efforts" of one Edward Snowden, a high school drop-out who subsequently washed out of Army basic training.  Despite a limited education and tissue-thin resume, Mr. Snowden landed a $200,000 a year job as an employee of Booz, Allen, Hamilton, the venerable defense contractor.

Assigned to a post in Hawaii, Mr. Snowden said he quickly learned of the NSA surveillance program and grew concerned.  So, one day he took a flash drive to work--in direct violation of security policies--and downloaded a trove of documents describing what the agency was up to.  Then, he hopped a plane for Hong Kong, where he shared the information with the UK Guardian.  And the rest, as they say, is history, though we're far from the bottom in the NSA imbroglio.

Since the Guardian's first story appeared last month, Snowden has been described as everything from a hero to a traitor.  The erst-while whistleblower claims he is not trying to evade authorities, but it's clear that he didn't choose Hong Kong on a whim.  Extraditing him from that locale may prove far more difficult than securing his legal return from a place like Canada or Great Britain.  Meanwhile, some are suggesting that Snowden may face a more sinister fate, at the hands of a government assassin, or on the receiving end of a drone-fired missile, the current, preferred method for eliminating certain enemies of the state.

While Mr. Snowden isn't exactly a sure bet for old age, his legacy is far more complex.  For starters, he clearly violated the non-disclosure agreements he signed upon receipt of his security clearance, and his disclosures have clearly damaged national security.  For that, he is deserving of punishment, after a full and fair trial.   If Snowden truly wanted whistle-blower status, there is a mechanism for that, the same one followed by William Binney, J. Kirke Wiebe, Thomas Drake and Edward Loomis, all former NSA officials who filed a formal complaint against the agency in 2002, alleging that it wasted "millions and millions of dollars" on Trailblazer, a system designed to analyze communications traffic carried on various networks, including the internet.

For their troubles, each of these individuals lost their security clearances, while Binney and Wiebe were treated to a full-scale FBI raids on their homes in 2007.  The whistle-blowers were threatened with criminal prosecution, but those charges later evaporated, though Drake eventually entered a guilty plea to a single misdemeanor count of "exceeding the authorized use of a computer."  All paid a steep price for their actions, but they worked within the system.  The same cannot be said of Edward Snowden.

In fact, Mr. Binney believes that Snowden may have already crossed the line from whistle-blower to traitor.  From the Washington Free Beacon:

Snowden “is transitioning from whistleblower to a traitor” by leaking information on clandestine operations designed to gather intelligence on the Russian and Chinese governments, Binney said.

“That’s not a public service,” he insisted.

Certainly he performed a really great public service to begin with by exposing these programs and making the government in a sense publicly accountable for what they’re doing. At least now they are going to have some kind of open discussion like that.

But now he is starting to talk about things like the government hacking into China and all this kind of thing. He is going a little bit too far. I don’t think he had access to that program. But somebody talked to him about it, and so he said, from what I have read, anyway, he said that somebody, a reliable source, told him that the U.S. government is hacking into all these countries. But that’s not a public service, and now he is going a little beyond public service. 

We would argue that Snowden has morphed into full-blown celebrity leaker, following the model of Julian Assange.  There will be more media interviews and perhaps even a book or movie deal before the feds find some way to corral Edward Snowden.  Looking towards his own future, Snowden should remember that Assange is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, avoiding the threat of extradition to Sweden (on sexual assault charges) if he sets foot outside the diplomatic compound.  Meanwhile, the man who supplied many of the documents leaked by Assange (US Army Private Bradley Manning) is facing a long stint at Leavenworth for downloading thousands of classified documents from DoD computer networks, reports that were eventually published at Assange's WikiLeaks website.

Still, even critics concede that Snowden has a point.  As Mr. Binney and his fellow whistle-blowers testified, NSA has been collecting data domestically for years, with the willing assistance of telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon.  And the program has moved well beyond the "selective" program described by intelligence officials when the agency's warrantless wiretapping program was exposed in 2005.

According to various sources, the NSA has the ability to gather virtually every phone call, e-mail and internet search on the planet, then run them through incredibly fast computer networks, mining the data that helps identify activity patterns.  Commercially-available encryption systems still pose a challenge, but NSA is working on that problem, too.  At a research center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, agency scientists and engineers are building super computers capable of running at exaflop speed--that's one million, trillion operations per second.  Very useful in performing complex tasks, such as logging and categorizing every phone call dialed in America every day (emphasis ours), or performing brute force calculations required to break advanced encryption systems.

By some accounts, NSA has already achieved an incredible breakthrough in computer speed, creating machines in the 10-20 petaflop range, optimized for code-breaking.  Others suggest the agency isn't quite there yet, opining that the new Utah Data Center is being built to store vast amounts of information until the next generation of NSA computers can begin plumbing its voluminous haul.

So why does this matter?  In the post 9-11 era, most Americans believe that increased surveillance is a necessity, to prevent future, disastrous attacks on our country.  But that begs an obvious question: why does Verizon hand over the phone records for my 90-year-old neighbor, a retired school teacher who spends most of her time gardening?  Clearly, she poses no security threat, but her monthly phone logs have been dutifully passed on to Fort Meade, along with those of millions of other Americans who simply signed on with a telecom company for internet or phone service.  Her only "crime" was selecting a communications provider who decided to get in bed with the NSA, perhaps in exchange for future, favorable rulings from the FCC and other government regulators.  

And what happens to that data?  In recent weeks, we've learned that another federal agency, the IRS, shared information from Tea Party groups (and other conservative organizations) with left-wing media organizations, which then published or broadcast the "leaked" data.  Clearly, the IRS (and its databases) were utilized to suppress the activities of political groups the government didn't like.  What assurances do we have that the mountains of data being collected by NSA--which absolutely dwarf what the IRS has on hand--won't be used for similar, nefarious purposes?

Or for that matter, can we trust the government with information collected (supposedly) for the public good?  The same metadata on your personal habits, financial transactions and other activities can be easily gathered by other federal agencies as well.  Suppose your credit or debit card activities reveal a pattern of frequenting fast food joints, visiting bars or liquor stores and purchasing cigarettes.  Wonder what the Obama death panels would do with that data?

Of course, the feds would tell you that such ideas are far-fetched--even ludicrous.  Besides, increased surveillance is necessary to keep us safe (or so we're told).  The government also insists that its domestic monitoring has actually foiled "several" terrorist plots; the exact number depends on who you're talking to.  That invites an obvious retort: if the program was working so well, why did it fail to detect such obvious threats as Major Nidal Hassan, the Army psychiatrist who was communicating with known Al Qaida terrorists overseas before going on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood?

Or how about the Tsarnaev brothers, who carried out the bombings at this year's Boston Marathon.  Russian security services provided two separate warnings about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who had just returned from a year in Dagestan, a visit that (reportedly) included visits with Muslim terrorists.  If the NSA program is working so well, how did the older sibling escape the NSA dragnet, even with a tip-off from a foreign security service?  No intelligence agency is perfect, but the examples of Hassan and the Brothers Tsarnaev offer disturbing counter-points to the "success" of the NSA program.

Edward Snowden deserves to be punished, but the debate he has spurred must also be a part of the public discourse.  Wisconsin Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who will never be confused with an ACLU member, says on-going surveillance activities go "far beyond" what was envisioned in the 2001 Patriot Act, a law that Mr. Sensenbrenner played a key role in crafting.  It's time to ask exactly what is being done in our name, and what we've surrendered in our collective yearning for "safety."                                                      

Will Assad Prevail?

Not long ago, it was difficult to find any credible analyst who thought Syrian President Bashir Assad would remain in power more than a few weeks.  Conventional wisdom held that Assad was a goner; it wasn't a matter of if he would be overthrown, but when.  With Rebel forces gaining ground (and Assad's army crumbling around him), the demise of the Syrian dictator seemed all-but-inevitable.

But such predictions proved premature, to say the least.  Not only has Mr Assad managed to fend off the rebels, there are signs he may be gaining the upper hand.  Just last week, regime forces recaptured Qusayr, a key town that links Damascus with its Iranian and Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.  Fighting in that area was described as fierce and key Hezbollah units suffered heavy casualties, but for now, Assad and his partners hold the key terrain, sustaining an overland route needed to keep the regime in power.  In fact, a senior Israeli official recently stated that be expects Assad to prevail.  While other Israeli representatives quickly distanced themselves from that comment, a growing number of analysts (in the Middle East and Washington) privately concur with that assessment.

Why have Assad's fortunes improved so dramatically?  For starters, his friends in Tehran and Beirut have gone "all in" with their support.  Thousands of fighters from Hezbollah and the IRGC Qods force are fighting alongside Assad 's troops.  Russia has also made a dramatic show of support, promising to send S-300 air defense missiles to Syria.   Delivery of those weapons would greatly complicate Israeli or western efforts to establish no-fly zones over civilian areas or target arms transfers to Syrian or Hezbollah.  The tepid U.S. response to that vow suggests that Moscow, Tehran and Hezbollah have little to fear from Washington.

Conversely, the Syrian opposition remains beset by in-fighting and factionalism.  Most of the early, secular leaders have been replaced by Islamic radicals, who are now fighting among themselves.  Obviously, it's hard to topple a dictator when the various anti-regime elements are battling each other.  And of course, the intramural fighting lessens some of the pressure on Assad's forces, giving them more time to re-arm and regroup.

Just how much has the situation changed?  Experts interviewed by The Wall Street Journal say that Assad's fall is "unlikely" in the foreseeable future, a remarkable shift from assessments offered only two months ago:

Some intelligence analysts now think Mr. Assad could hold onto power or even prevail in the conflict. That view is at odds with those of others within the intelligence community who think recent military gains by Syrian government forces and Hezbollah fighters aren't likely to alter the overall trajectory of a conflict that they still think will end with Mr. Assad's removal, the officials said.

In April, the U.S.'s top intelligence official told Congress that the opposition was slowly but surely gaining the upper hand in the civil war and that Mr. Assad's capabilities were deteriorating more rapidly. U.S. officials now say the U.S. underestimated the extent to which Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Russia would double down in support of Mr. Assad, staving off—if not reversing—the regime's decline. 

While some members of Congress have urged the administration to provide lethal aid to the Syrian rebels, the Obama Administration has been reluctant to pursue that course.  Fox News military analyst Ralph Peters, a retired Army intelligence officer, believes the window for providing effective aid to the rebels has "passed," and believes the U.S. should remain on the sidelines--permanently.

Others disagree.  Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee sent a letter to President Obama this week, urging him to provide weaponry to the rebels.  But, as many observers have noted, the administration's actions in Syria have often failed to match its rhetoric.  With Assad now gaining the upper hand, it seems unlikely that Washington will step in and provide more lethal support to the rebels.  It is also worth noting that Damascus has a few "friends" in the administration (including Secretary of State John Kerry), making it even tougher to cobble together a military aid package for the rebels.

To be sure, Assad's survival is far from guaranteed.  But he's in a much better position now than he was a couple of months ago.  Now, with rebel forces in disarray--and logistical support dwindling--Bashir Assad may be able to weather the storm and eventually prevail.  Indeed, if the current trajectory holds, we may look back on the past two years as another lost opportunity, much like Iran's Green Revolution of 2009.  Given an opportunity to significantly damage (or even remove) an implacable foe, the west blinked, and allowed an enemy to survive.  The consequences of that decision will be felt for decades to come.          

A Time for Reflection

A radar image on the El Reno, Oklahoma tornado on 31 May; the convergence of red and green shows the location of the twister; the small, pink dots represent the GPS locations of storm chasers pursuing the storm.  Three of those killed by the tornado were experienced chasers (Twitter image @JustinHobson85, via The Capital Weather Gang)  


As a native of tornado alley (southern branch), I was riveted by last night's images from Oklahoma City.  In some respects, they represented a nightmare scenario for meteorologists, law enforcement, rescue teams and emergency managers: powerful, long-track tornadoes taking direct aim at a major metropolitan area, during the evening rush hour.  So far, at least ten individuals are confirmed dead in the region's second major tornado outbreak in as many weeks.  Three of the victims were veteran storm chasers, once featured on a Discovery Channel reality show.

While that loss of life is tragic, it could have been much worse.  The Friday night tornadoes moved through some of the most heavily populated communities in central Oklahoma, including the city of Moore, which is still recovering from last month's deadly twister that killed 24 residents.  Watching those deadly funnels plow through suburban and urban neighborhoods served as a stark reminder of nature's fury and the fact that some tornadoes will exact a human toll, particularly if you're caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Last night, the "wrong place" were the interstate highways that bi-sect Oklahoma City.  The evening's first deadly twister literally followed I-40 across the region, while other tornadoes moved along I-35, which runs north and south through the state.  On a late Friday afternoon, both freeways were crowed with commuters, truckers, vacationers, storm chasers and local residents trying to flee the storm.

Which brings us to a rather interesting post in today's "Capital Weather Gang" blog in the Washington Post.   Based on what happened in OKC, they have (rightly) described Friday as the "day that should change tornado actions and storm chasing forever," noting that some of the storm's victims were motorists caught on local interstates when the tornadoes arrived.  And the storm chasing community wasn't immune, either.  A GMC Yukon that was part of the Weather Channel's chase team was caught in a tornado near El Reno, Oklahoma, sending the vehicle tumbling more than 200 yards.  Meteorologist Mike Bettes and two videographers in the SUV were injured.  An vehicle driven by another chaser lost its hood when it ventured too close to the same funnel.

Mr. Bettes later stated that his "life flashed before his eyes" during those horrifying moments.  And he counts himself lucky.   According to state officials, five of the nine people killed in the Friday tornadoes died in their cars.  Now, authorities are trying to figure out why so many individuals were on the road as life-threatening storms approached.

One reason was timing; super-cell thunderstorms developed rapidly on Friday afternoon and began generating tornadoes as thousands of motorists were heading home.  The interstates became parking lots; traffic slowed to a crawl as the twisters arrived, tossing cars into the air and tipping 36-ton tractor-trailer rigs on their sides.  Portions of I-35 and I-40 were closed for several hours during the height of the storms, as first responders tried to reach stranded and injured motorists.

But there is also evidence that some residents took to the roads in an effort to escape the approaching twisters.   At one point, TV meteorologist Mike Morgan of KFOR-TV suggested that viewers might be able to drive away from the El Reno storm (the Post has a link to that portion of the station's coverage, around the 8:30 mark in that segment).  Other media outlets have published or broadcast accounts of individuals who evaded the Moore tornado in their cars.  Collectively, that coverage may have encouraged more people to take to the roads, and "drive to safety."

Obviously, that "approach" is fraught with peril.  Motorists trying to flee the storm only create more congestion on the roads.  Making matters worse, they are often driving into conditions that are already dangerous--even when you exclude the tornado threat.  Heavy rains, street flooding, inoperable traffic signals and high winds are just some of the hazards faced by drivers attempting to flee the storm.  And in some cases, residents actually abandon safe locations and wind up in the middle of a tornado.

One of the best examples of this mistake occurred on "Terrible Tuesday," the storms that struck Wichita Falls, Texas and surrounding areas on April 11, 1979.  Forty-two people died in the twister that struck the Texas city, and researchers who studied the storm made a startling discovery: 25 of the victims perished in their cars, and many left homes that were undamaged by the storm.  Attempting to flee the tornado, many residents actually drove into danger and some paid for that mistake with their lives.  

More than 30 years later, it's hard to believe that people in the heart of tornado country are still trying to outrun storms.   It also a bit puzzling that some media outlets may be encouraging individuals to take to the roads when they may be safer at home.   In fairness, some people do need to bug out before a tornado, most notably those who live in mobile homes.  There is also a school of thought that residents who don't have an underground shelter should evacuate when facing an "unsurvivable" storm, like the one that struck Moore last month, or the 1997 F-5 tornado that devastated Jarrell, Texas, leveling homes and sucking asphalt from local roads.

But it's almost impossible for a casual observer--or frightened resident--to make that determination  in the moments before a tornado arrives.  That's reason enough for most people to stay put and stay off the roads.  At the height of Friday's tornado emergency, the NWS in Norman tweeted that I-35 looked like a "parking lot," jammed with motorists who--literally and figuratively--had no place to go.  As bad as it was, it could have been much worse.
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As for the storm chasers, they know the danger and accept the risks that come with their occupation.  You can also make a case that their observations aid meteorologists in understanding tornadoes.  But there may be limits to their contributions.  The Capital Weather Gang reposted an item from Dr. Charles Doswell, a veteran storm chaser and severe weather expert who bemoaned the devolution of chasing:

I can’t say I have any wish whatsoever to seek to keep up with what chasing has become…

I look at the videos people claim are fantastic on FB [Facebook] but I see almost no quality video. Most of it is the “edgy” sort of “reality video” that’s all the rage these days. People cheering and having “stormgasms” while they bounce down some road on the way to a close encounter. In those close encounters, for the most part, the video sucks (by my standards).

And that brings us to one of the real culprits behind all of this: the media.  While TV coverage of severe weather provides a valuable public service, it's no secret that the "wall-to-wall" attracts more eyeballs.  By some estimates, non-stop coverage of weather events boosts a station's audience by 15-20%, the same viewers who may come back for the local news, featuring the same reporters, anchors and meteorologists who were covering the storm.  So it's little wonder that many local stations spend hours tracking severe weather, touting their contributions to public safety, while quietly watching their audience share.  

The same holds true for cable outlets like Discovery and The Weather Channel.  Both have found ratings gold in storm chasing, and events like the annual "Tornado Hunt" on TWC are heavily promoted and publicized.  Attracting--and keeping--an audience, depends (in part) on getting the most spectacular video, giving some chasers more reason to push the envelope.  TV executives should examine their own motives in airing that footage and putting such programs on the air.  Unfortunately, that group is the least likely to engage in any degree of introspection.

It is worth noting that the three chasers who died Friday, Tim Samaras, his son Paul and Carl Young had decades of experience and had a reputation for being cautious.  Both Tim Samaras and Young were meteorologists and Paul Samaras provided photographic support for their expeditions.  Much of their work focused on developing instruments that could be placed in the path of a tornado and provide better measurements of its fury.  But nature has no respect for scientific curiosity and on a street in El Reno, Oklahoma, the three men ran out of room.  And time.                            

   

          

Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day, we offer a column first published four years ago at Examiner.com.  As we remember.

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Slowly and sadly, Memorial Day is becoming just "another" holiday, better known for cookouts and retail deals than its intended purpose--honoring our fallen military heroes.  If you doubt this trend, watch TV for a few minutes this weekend.  There are plenty of ads for cars, furniture and clothes, (but unless you're watching Fox News), little is little mention of why Monday is a solemn, special day.  

But for anyone who ever wore the nation's uniform--or those who understand the high price of freedom--Memorial Day will never lose its meaning.  For us, the last Monday in May brings memories of friends and family members who gave their lives on the battlefield, or died in service-related mishaps.  This may sound quaint, but their sacrifice (and the day that honors it) should not be a pretext for a mattress sale.  

That's one reason I stay away from the malls and the beach on Memorial Day.  Instead, my thoughts usually focus on three individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice and touched my own life in the process.  For me, Memorial Day is about Walter, Ken and Mike.  

I never knew my Uncle Walter.  He was my mother's kid brother, a child of the Great Depression who grew up poor in a small Mississippi town.  After graduating from high school in 1942, he followed the path taken by many young men: he joined the Marine Corps.  Two years later, he was a trained rifleman, part of the 1st Marine Division that had been assigned to the invasion of Peleliu, in the southwestern Pacific.  

Seven decades later, the battle remains steeped in controversy.  Historians and military analysts argue that the invasion was unnecessary.  But General Douglas MacArthur argued that he needed the island to support the planned re-taking of the Philippines.  MacArthur's plans were eventually approved by FDR and the attack on Peleliu began on September 15, 1944.   

What followed was--arguably--one of the toughest battles fought by U.S. forces in World War II, complicated by countless blunders and miscalculations.  General William Rupertus, commander of the 1st Marine Division, confidently predicted that his crack unit would wrap up the battle in just three days.  Rupertus didn't know that his division was out-numbered by Japanese defenders (dug into a honeycomb of defensive positions), or that the preliminary naval bombardment inflicted virtually no damage on the enemy.    

General Rupertus was also unaware that the Japanese had changed their tactics, shifting most of their fortifications away from the invasion beaches.  As the Marines moved inland, they ran into an almost impenetrable wall of pillboxes, machine-gun nests and carefully-concealed artillery positions.  The invasion quickly bogged down--it would take U.S. forces more than two months to secure the island--and the Marines paid dearly for their commanders' mistakes.  

One of them was my Uncle Walter.  He died on the second day of the battle, as his regiment advanced under withering fire.  A fellow Marine later told my mother that Walter was literally vaporized by a Japanese artillery shell.  To this day, my uncle is classified as Missing in Action; graves registration teams couldn't find enough remains to confirm his death in battle.  

I met Ken during my own military career, some forty years later.  He was an F-4 driver in the same unit where I served as the intelligence officer.  In some respects, he was a typical fighter jock; supremely confident and highly skilled.  But he was also a genuinely nice guy, one of the most popular members of our squadron.  Though only a Captain, he was widely regarded as one of the best pilots in our wing.  His future seemed limitless.   

But like my uncle, Ken's future also went unrealized.  We lost him on a "routine" training mission, though that adjective is often misused.  Little is routine about taking high-performance combat jets on simulated combat missions.  En route to a bombing range in northeastern Georgia, four of our F-4s descended for the low-level portion of their flight, practicing skills they would use to evade Soviet air defenses in central Europe.  It was something our crews did on a daily basis.  

Ken's Phantom was the last in a four-ship formation.  As they flew over a river, a flock of birds suddenly lifted out of the tree line, directly into the path of the F-4.  Multiple bird strikes took out both engines, fatally crippling the aircraft.  Ken did everything right; he pulled back on the control stick to gain altitude, called "Mayday" over the radio, and started the ejection sequence for himself and his weapons system officer (WSO).

The back seater escaped unharmed, but something went wrong when Ken's ejection seat deployed .  Parachute Lines became wrapped around his upper body and snapped Ken's neck as the chute deployed.  Searchers found the faulty chute and his body about 24 hours later, hanging from a tree near the crash site.  The following week we gathered in the base chapel to remember our departed comrade.  I had the honor of reading "High Flight" at the end of the Memorial Service.  Even today, I cannot read or recite the lines of John Gillespie Magee Jr.'s epic poem without thinking about Ken, another pilot who died too young, in the service of his country.  

Sacrifice also defined the life of Mike, the third hero who occupies my thoughts on Memorial Day.  He originally hoped to become an Air Force officer through the ROTC program where I was an instructor, but struggled academically.  When it became apparent that Mike would not meet the required time line for graduation and commissioning, it became my job to release him.  Having never been a scholarship student, Mike didn't owe the Air Force--or the country--anything.  He had the option of simply fading back into the student population, earning a degree, and getting on with life.    

But Mike--predictably--had other ideas.  After learning that a commission was out of reach, He promptly asked about enlisting as an airman, and I put him in touch with a local recruiter.  In hindsight, Mike's reaction was anything but surprising.  He was always the first cadet to volunteer for a project and see it through.  His determination was inspiring, and Mike earned the respect and admiration of his fellow cadets and the detachment staff.   

A few months after Mike enlisted, I got a phone call from his recruiter.  He reported that Mike hit another academic buzz saw in the airborne radio operator's course, and had dropped out of that program.  I remember writing a letter of recommendation, urging the service to retain Mike, and assign him to a new career field.  Happily, the Air Force concurred and sent Mike to an Army base in Virginia, where he was trained as a Black Hawk helicopter crew chief. 

It soon became apparent that Mike had found his niche.  He became an outstanding crew chief in a search-and-rescue squadron, maintaining HH-60 Pave Hawks helicopters.  Mike's performance led to his selection as a flight engineer, part of a helicopter aircrew.  

On March 23, 2003, Mike and the other members of his crew were deployed to Afghanistan.  They received word that two young Afghan girls were in desperate need of medical evacuation and treatment at a U.S. hospital.  The girls' village was located high in the mountains; the weather was already bad and deteriorating.   

Despite those risks, Mike and his crew took off, in an HH-60 with the call-sign "Komodo 11."  They were accompanied by a second rescue helicopter.  En route to the distant village, Komodo 11 crashed, killing Mike and five other crew members.  He was 29 years old,    

You won't find the names of Mike, Ken and Walter on the list of America's revered military heroes.  But they are heroes nonetheless, brave men whose selfless sacrifice embodies the best of our nation.  On this (and every) Memorial Day, they deserve thanks, gratitude and remembrance from a nation whose freedom they helped secure.

They deserve nothing less.  .

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Your Federal Betters

It's been quite a month for Lois Lerner.  In the span of just a few weeks, she's gone from being a faceless--but powerful--federal bureaucrat, to the eye of a political storm involving the IRS's targeting of conservative non-profit groups.

But if Ms. Lerener's name rings a bell, it should.  Many conservatives remember Lerner from her days as an attorney at the Federal Election Commission, where she toiled for many years before moving to the IRS in 2001.  Turns out that Ms. Lerner was pushing a similar agenda 25 years ago, as chief of the FEC's enforcement branch.  As a former co-worker told National Review:

Before the IRS, Lerner served as associate general counsel and head of the enforcement office at the FEC, which she joined in 1986. Working under FEC general counsel Lawrence Noble, Lerner drafted legal recommendations to the agency’s commissioners intended to guide their actions on the complaints brought before them.

“I’ve known Lois since 1985,” says Craig Engle, a Washington, D.C., attorney who from 1986 to 1995 served as the executive assistant to one of the FEC’s commissioners and later worked as general counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “I’m probably one of the few people in Washington who really knows her whole career as opposed to those who have come across her lately.”

Engle describes Lerner as pro-regulation and as somebody seeking to limit the influence of money in politics. The natural companion to those views, he says, is her belief that “Republicans take the other side” and that conservative groups should be subjected to more rigorous investigations. According to Engle, Lerner harbors a “suspicion” that conservative groups are intentionally flouting the law. 

[snip]

Mark Hemingway at The Weekly Standard has documented what he calls Lerner’s “politically motivated harassment” of the Christian Coalition. At her direction, the FEC in 1994 sued the group in the largest enforcement action in history, accusing it of “expressly advocating” the election of Republican candidates. In a deposition, FEC lawyers asked Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North whether and why the former Southern Baptist minister Pat Robertson was praying for him and why he thanked Robertson in a letter for his “kind regards.” Five years later, in 1999, the group was cleared of any wrongdoing. 

Not long after the Christian Coalition was finally cleared, Ms. Lerner was on her way to the IRS, which (apparently) offered new opportunities to push her same agenda, culminating in the recent harassment and bureaucratic persecution of tea party groups and other conservative organizations.  

So what can be done about the Lois Lerners of the world?  Not much, according to Daniel Foster, who has a companion piece currently posted at NRO.  As a career civil servant, individuals like Lois Lerner are just about impossible to fire, as he reminds us.  

Statistically speaking, the firing of a federal employee is a rare event. A Cato Institute study showed that in one year, just 1 in 5,000 non-defense, civilian federal employees was fired for cause.

A widely cited analysis by USA Today found that in FY 2011, the federal government fired just 11,668 out of 2.1 million employees (excluding military and postal workers). That’s a “separation for cause” rate of 0.55 percent, roughly a fifth the rate in the private sector.

And the firing of employees who fit Lerner’s profile is rarer still. Lerner is very much a “white-collar” employee, and the same analysis found that blue-collar employees (such as food-service workers) were twice as likely to be fired. Lerner is a twelve-year vet at IRS, and before that was associate counsel at the Federal Elections Commission for many years. But fully 60 percent of federal employees fired were in their first two years on the job. Lerner has averaged $185,000 in salary from 2009 to 2012, but only 0.18 percent of federal employees making more than $100,000 were let go for cause. Most relevant of all, Lerner is a lawyer, and just 27 of the government’s 35,000 lawyers lost their jobs in 2011 — six fewer than left federal employment via the Big Sleep.    

Late today, it was announced that Lerner has been placed on administrative leave.  That means she'll be collecting her yearly pay of $180,000 at home for at least a few months.  Incidentally, no one knows exactly how many federal employees are in this status at any given time, but the paid vacation can be rather lengthy.  In 2012, the Washington Post detailed the status of an inspector general at the National Archives, who had been accused of misconduct by a subordinated.  As the paper reported at that time, the IG's faced an extended period in highly-paid limbo because the special panel that investigated complaints against departmental IGs met only four times a year. 

And what if Ms. Lerner is indicted--and convicted--in federal court?  Even then, there's a strong chance she'll retain her federal pension.  Consider the case of Darleen Druyun, the Air Force's former senior civilian acquisition official.  In 2005, Ms. Druyun was sentenced to nine months in prison for passing information on a competitor's bid to Boeing, the company she joined after retiring from civil service.  Despite her federal conviction, Druyun retains her federal retirement benefits, based on her "retirement" before going to prison, and years of honorable service prior to her sentence. 

So, if Lerner finds herself facing a trial and possible jail time, she will simply retire before her case goes to court.  Her benefits will be in place during legal proceedings, and will continue--even if she is convicted.  In fact, there are several federal pensioners who are currently guests of Uncle Sam, including disgraced former Representatives Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) and William Jefferson (D-LA).  Cunningham is actually double-dipping, collecting both a military pension (he is a retired Navy pilot and Vietnam figher ace), along with his Congressional retirement benefits.  Jefferson's retirement check is also rolling in, while he serves a 10-year sentence on corruption charges.  Obviously, Congress operates under a different set of rules, but you'll find several former federal employees who are currently in prison, but are still receiving pension benefits.   

Needless to say, any sort of action against Ms. Lerner could take years, so she'll remain on the IRS payroll while the legal and administrative processes slowly grind along.  If it's any consolation, ideologues like Lerner remain a minority--but they tend to gravitate towards high-paying (and highly influential) positions.  Far more numerous are the career "civil servants" who are incompetent, lazy, or both.  

I know; I met plenty of them during my service as a military officer, and later a defense contractor.  Some of the biggest slugs were encountered during my tenure at an intelligence agency.  Our building was literally populated with senior civilians (GG-13/14/15s) who were more concerned about their professional advancement--and building their bureaucratic empires--than accomplishing the unit's mission.  

One of the consummate operators in the organization was a woman (GG-14) who ran a specialized analysis division.  She had been in the building almost 30 years; in fact, it was the only place she ever worked.  Her father, a former senior civilian in the building, helped her secure an entry-level job fresh out of college, despite (by her own admission) a fondness for recreational drugs and "wild times" as a university student.  Later, a messy affair with a co-worker wrecked her first marriage, but her security clearance was never in jeopardy, and she kept climbing the ranks.  

By the time I met her a decade ago, she had carved out a nice little empire, supervising a dozen staffers and managing a travel budget that totaled more than $300,000 a year.  Analysts who worked for the woman told me that most of that money covered travel by the GG-14 and her deputy.  The supervisor enjoyed trips to Europe; she spent three years working on an unclassified threat guide with our "NATO" partners that was virtually useless to the operational community, but it guaranteed her regular flights to the continent, including one $5,000 trip to Norway.  Her assistant once bragged about being "TDY" six weeks in a row, and routinely buttonholed co-workers about sightseeing opportunities at his various destinations.  

As you might expect, the amount of work produced by this "team" was meager, at best.  One analyst told me his annual "production plan" amounted to five items.  That didn't mean he had to generate five major studies or analyses; he could simply contribute a few paragraphs to the work of another analyst and that counted.  So did contributions to products from other intel organizations.  But, in the finest civil service tradition, no one was checking the annual output, so as long as the analysts showed up and pretended to work, everything was fine, and most of these slugs, led by their esteemed supervisor, collected annual bonuses for their "performance."  

In fairness, there are hard-working civilians in the federal workforce, but in my experience, they are few and far between.  A friend of mine spent several years in the education and training directorate at Air Force Material Command Headquarters at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH.  One of their staffers was a GS-14, nearing 40 years of federal service.  However, this particular individual had stopped performing useful work years earlier, but no one was willing to go through the gymnastics required to discipline--let alone, dismiss--this federal gold brick.  

Finally, the director hit on an idea.  Since the non-performing GS-14 was often observed reading at his desk, he was assigned to read (and review) new books on education and training techniques and their potential applicability to the Air Force.  So, at annual salary of more than $100,000 a year, the U.S. taxpayer got the highest-paid book reviewer this side of The New York Times.  I have no idea if "the reader" (as he was known) is still on the federal payroll.  The Navy reportedly has a civil service employee in his 80s, with no plans to retire.  The longest-tenured federal worker (that we could find) spent 71 years working for the Department of Agriculture before moving on to that big bureaucracy in the sky back in 2009.  

So that's your federal workforce.  The ideologues like Ms. Lerner are bad enough, but when you factor in all of the deadbeats, sycophants, crooks, empire-builders and the rest, you can see why our government is a mess.  And that doesn't include the folks at the top of the steaming pile, our elected leaders, the same bunch Mark Twain once referred to as "America's native criminal class."  

Maybe it's time to bring back the Spoils System.      

Whereabouts Unknown

Remember the closing sequence of Animal House?  Just before the final credits rolled, we learned that Hoover became a public defender in Baltimore; Otter established an OB-GYN practice in Beverly Hills and Bluto became a U.S. Senator.  As for Daniel Simpson Day ("D-Day," played by Bruce McGill) his whereabouts were officially unknown.

Oddly enough, we can say the same thing about the Commander-in-Chief on the night of September 11, 2012.  As the U.S. consulate in Benghazi came under attack and Ambassador Chris Stevens died (along with three other Americans), President Obama essentially disappeared.  Officially, we're told that he had a previously-scheduled meeting with then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey, at 5:30 eastern time, during the early stages of the assault.  While the session with Panetta and Dempsey had been previously scheduled, events in Libya were discussed during the meeting.

After that...well, we don't know.  The next time Mr. Obama was seen publicly was 9 am the next morning, en route to a fund raiser in Las Vegas.  Where was he during the 12-14 hours from the time his meeting with Mr. Panetta and General Dempsey ended, and the moment he boarded Marine One for the trip to Andrews AFB, and his flight to Nevada?  Supposedly, he was somewhere in the White House but to this day, there have been no photographs of the President in the Situation Room (or any other venue), monitoring events in Libya as they unfolded.  

Eight months after Benghazi, the usually incurious Washington media (and various pundits) have apparently discovered Mr. Obama's disappearing act, and they're finally asking questions.  To be fair, most of the queries have come from Fox News, which has been on the story from Day One.  On the May 8th edition of Special Report, Charles Krauthamer pointedly asked "where was the Commander-in-Chief in all of this?" noting the stand-down order given to a U.S. special forces team that was in Libya at the time, and awaiting permission to fly to Benghazi and provide assistance.

So far, no one has bothered to pose that question to Mr. Obama himself, but Chris Wallace attempted to follow-up on that query this morning, in an interview with White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer on Fox News Sunday.  Predictably, Pfeiffer offered no additional details on the president's whereabouts during the Benghazi debacle, but he did offer this observation--the commander-in-chief's physical location on the night of September 11th is an "irrelevant fact."  Here's the complete exchange between Pfeiffer and Wallace, posted at The Weekly Standard:

WALLACE: let's turn to benghazi. he had a meeting with panetta in the afternoon, heard about this on an unrelated subject, wanted them to deploy forces as soon as possible. the next time he shows up, hillary clinton says she spoke to him at around 10:00 that night after the attack at the consulate, not the annex, but the attack at the consulate had ended. question, what did the president do the rest of that night to pursue benghazi?

PFEIFFER:  the president was kept up to do throughout the entire night, from the moment it started till the end. this is a horrible tragedy, people that he sent abroad whose lives are in risk, people who work for him. i recognize that there's a series of conspiracy theories the republicans are spinning about this since the night it happened, but there's been an independent review of this, congress has held hearings, we provided 250,000 pages of -- 250,000 pages of documents up there. there's been 11 hearings, 20 staff briefings. everyone has found the same thing. this is a tragedy. the question is not what happened that night. the question is what are we going to do to move forward and ensure it doesn't happen again? congress should act on what the president called for earlier this week, to pass legislation to actually allow us to implement the recommendations of the accountability review board. when we send diplomats off into far-flung places, there's inherent risk. we need to mitigate that risk.

WALLACE: with all due respect, you didn't answer my question. what did the president do that night?

PFEIFFER:  kept up to date with the events as they were happening.

WALLACE: he didn't talk to the secretary of state except for the one time when the first attack was over. he didn't talk to the secretary of defense, he didn't talk to chiefs. the chairman of the joint who was he talking to?

PFEIFFER:  his national security staff, his national security council.

WALLACE: was he in the situation room?

PFEIFFER:  he was kept up to date throughout the day.

WALLACE: do you know know whether he was in the situation room?

PFEIFFER:  i don't know what room he was in that night. that's a largely irrelevant fact.

WALLACE: well --

PFEIFFER:  the premise of your question, somehow there was something that could have been done differently, okay, that would have changed the outcome here. the accountability roof board has looked at this, people have looked at this. it's a horrible tragedy, and we have to make sure it doesn't happen again.

WALLCE: here's the point, though, the ambassador goes missing, the first ambassador in more than 30 years is killed. four americans, including the ambassador, are killed. dozens of americans are in jeopardy. the president at 4:00 in the afternoon says to the chairman of the joint chiefs to deploy forces. no forces are deployed. where is he while all this is going on?

PFEIFFER:  this has been tested to by --

WALLACE: well, no. no one knows where he is, who was involved, the --

PFEIFFER:  the suggestion of your question that somehow the president --

WALLACE: i just want to know the answer.

PFEIFFER:  the assertions from republicans that the president didn't take action is offensive. there's no evidence to support it.

WALLACE: i'm simply asking a question. where was he? what did he do? how did he respond in who told him you can't deploy forces and what was his president?

PFEIFFER:  the president was in the white house that day, kept up to date by his national security team, spoke to the joint chiefs of staff earlier, secretary of state, and as events unfolded he was kept up to date.

If you buy Mr. Pfeiffer's explanation, it really doesn't matter where the President actually was, given the communications capability that supports the commander-in-chief.  It doesn't matter if he is in the Oval Office, the residential quarters, the limosuine, or half-way around the world on Air Force One; the President has the ability to stay in touch with senior advisers, utilizing a full range of secure voice and data networks.

But if President Obama was in the White House that evening, why not move to the Situation Room, which is maintained--and equipped--for crisis management?  Mr. Obama has used that facility during past contingencies, ranging from the bin Laden raid to Hurricane Sandy.  The chief executive's presence has often been documented through official photos, released by the White House press office.  But so far, no photo has emerged of Mr. Obama in the situation room during Benghazi, suggesting he was at another location in the White House.  But where?

And what's the hang-up about releasing that location?   Needless to say, Mr. Pfeiffer (and the White House) have opened another can of worm by refusing to disclose the President's whereabouts on the evening of 11 September was and providing more details of the interaction with his national security team.

Such information is critical, because the version of events now available depicts a commander-in-chief who was out-of-the-loop by his own choosing (emphasis ours).  Obviously, no one expects a President to manage every single engagement in the War on Terror, but Benghazi was different.  A U.S. diplomatic facility was under attack for hours; four Americans died and it's unclear who was in charge.  Who gave the order for the special ops team in Tripoli to stand down?  Who determined that other assets could not be mustered in time to provide assistance?  These are questions that demand answers, beginning with the actions of the President.

However, there are ways of determining what the President knew, in terms of information available to him.  As we noted last fall, the National Security Agency (NSA) almost certainly issued FLASH/CRITIC intelligence reports on the situation in Benghazi.  A CRITIC, or Critical Intelligence Report is reserved for the highest-priority SIGINT reporting (an attack on a US. diplomatic compound would certainly meet the criteria for that type of reporting.  FLASH priority dictates the CRITIC must be delivered to the commander-in-chief within 10 minutes.

Perhaps it's time for the House Intelligence Committee to summon General Keith Alexander, the NSA Director, for testimony on his agency's reporting from Benghazi.  A review of CRITIC traffic (along with delivery confirmations) would provide additional insights into the amount of information received by the POTUS and how he accessed it.  Incidentally, there would be no need to disclose the intelligence details of the CRITICS; just the timelines for NSA issuing the reports and when they were received by the White House.

As for the President's location, the Secret Service is responsible for keeping tabs on that.  Maybe Congressman Issa should subpoena the Secret Service visitor logs and related documents for the White House on the evening in question.  That would offer some idea as to who was present in the situation room, and where the President was hunkered down as events unfolded in Benghazi.

Mr. Pfeiffer's parsing suggests the White House has something to hide.  What might that be?  Our guess goes something like this: initial reports from Libya were bad; in the middle of a re-election campaign, Mr. Obama took the advice of his political advisers and tried to distance himself from Benghazi--even before the attack ended.  Key decisions were deferred to subordinates, part of a strategy to muddle through the situation and "manage" the disaster on the back end.

This strategy is reflected in the lack of communication between Mr. Obama and his senior national security advisers on that fateful evening.  To date, there is no record of additional conversations between the President, Defense Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey beyond their 5:30 meeting.  Similarly, there appears to be only one phone call between the President and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the attack in Benghazi. That conversation reportedly occurred at 10:00 pm Eastern Time, hours before the assault ended.

Clearly, it's hard for a President to manage a crisis when he has limited communication with his advisers.  And it's even more difficult when he is outside the Situation Room, apparently by design.  If there's anything worse than a commander-in-chief who is AWOL, it's a President who deliberately takes himself out of the loop during a serious foreign policy crisis.  The political calculations of Barack H. Obama are now being laid bare, and the White House is doing all it can to minimize the damage.                              

      

        

Risk Avoidance

Call it "Spook's Razor:" Opportunities for timely blogging decrease in proportion to the demands of one's "real job," and that decline usually coincides with significant, even earth-shattering events.  Put another way, we've been way too busy to post, even as the truth on Benghazi finally emerges--or should we say, can no longer be ignored--and the IRS scandal explodes with full force.

We'll have more thoughts on both tomorrow but in the mean time, Bing West has a great column at National Review on-line.  Mr. West, a Marine combat veteran of Iraq observes that the nation's senior military leaders (active and retired) didn't exactly cover themselves in glory with their handling of Benghzi, or trying to explain away the "decision-making process."  A few excerpts:

Sunday was quite a day for Benghazi and the U.S. military. At the platoon level, you are expected to admit errors in firefights in order to correct mistakes and do better the next time. We all make mistakes. But as we saw on yesterday’s talk shows, once you reach the top level, whether retired or not, you deny any possibility of error and label any question about military performance idiotic. This is not the behavior of a healthy organization, and if it persists, we are in for a nasty shock in a future crisis or conflict.

On CBS, former secretary of defense Bob Gates launched an impassioned defense of the Obama administration, sneering at critics for holding a “cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces.” He staunchly defended the administration’s high-level decision-making surrounding Benghazi, citing four reasons.

First, he said, sending fighter jets "ignored the number of surface-to-air missiles that have disappeared from Qaddafi's arsenals.  I would not have approved of a sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi."  

How many aircraft has the U.S. lost in hundreds of thousands of combat flights since 2001? Zero. The former SecDef is so afraid of an unknown risk that he would not send an aircraft capable of destroying a mortar site while Americans died? This is the pinnacle of risk avoidance.   

Hammer, meet nail. Read the whole thing; it's a sad reminder that those on the E-ring and in unified command billets are sometimes more motivated by politics than their military judgment.  Which brings us to the $64,000 question: exactly who was calling the shots on the night of September 11, 2012?