Positive Ideas
This “Positive Ideas” news letter goes out once a week or so to about 1,000 friends and colleagues around the USA and in various locations overseas.
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
Tom
571 332 2349
781 626 6667 international
www.TomOConnorGroup.com
Look for us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
· “Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
– John W. Gardner
· “Someone defined genius as intensity of purpose: the ability to do, the patience to wait.
Put these together and you have achievement.”
~ Leo J. Muir …with a few edits
· “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.
Make the most of yourself by building tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”
~ Foster C. McClellan …with a few edits
· “I hope that my achievements in life shall be these — that I will have fought for what was right and fair,
that I will have risked for that which mattered, and that I will have given help to those who were in need…
and that I will have left the earth a better place for what I’ve done and who I’ve been.”
~ C. Hoppe
· “When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion,
by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.”
~ Greg Anderson
· “The wave that has passed by cannot be recalled and the hour which has passed may not return again. The time is now.”
~ Ovid …with a few edits
· “My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success.
She said achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you.
· Success is being praised by others – nice but not as important or as satisfying as achievement.
· Aim for achievement and success will take care of itself.”
~ Helen Hayes …with a few edits
Threats and Accountability
Security Weekly
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Stratfor based on Open Sources
By Scott Stewart and Fred Burton
The U.S. State Department ordered 19 embassies and consulates closed this week based on non-specific intelligence that an attack targeting American diplomatic posts may be in the works. The move comes nearly 11 months after U.S. diplomatic posts in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Sudan and Libya were attacked in September 2012. The most deadly of those attacks occurred in Benghazi, Libya, where heavily armed militants attacked the U.S. Special Mission compound and then a Central Intelligence Agency annex. The Benghazi attack resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and communications officer Sean Smith at the Special Mission Compound and of CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty at the annex. The attack on the annex also saw two Diplomatic Security Service special agents wounded, one seriously.
Because of the loss of life involved in the Benghazi incident, an Accountability Review Board was convened in accordance with the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986, which requires the convening of such a board following major security incidents. The Benghazi Accountability Review Board released a report of its findings Dec. 18, 2012. However, despite the current threat to U.S diplomatic posts, the classified version of the Benghazi report has only been released to a handful of personnel in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security known as the “DS Seniors.”
This means that the regional security officers responsible for securing the posts now closed by the current threat, those protecting diplomatic posts and personnel elsewhere, and the program managers in Washington responsible for overseeing security programs at diplomatic missions globally have still not seen the classified version of the report despite having the required clearances and an obvious need to know.
· Accountability Review Boards
First, it is important to understand the original intent of such review boards. The very first of these panels was convened in the mid-1980s following the attacks against U.S. facilities in Beirut and Kuwait and the systematic bugging of the then-new U.S. Embassy office building in Moscow. These security lapses led to the formation of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Panel on Overseas Security, which was chaired by former Deputy CIA Director Bobby Inman. In diplomatic security circles, that advisory panel is most often referred to as the Inman Commission.
The Inman Commission’s charge was not only to hold people accountable for the security lapses, but more important, to make recommendations for improving security to prevent similar incidents. In furtherance of the latter task, the Inman Commission compiled a lengthy list of recommendations. Congress took many of these recommendations and codified them in the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986. One of that law’s provisions required the convening of accountability review boards where there was significant injury, loss of life, significant property damage or a serious breach of security involving intelligence activities at a diplomatic mission abroad.
Under the law, the State Department has 60 days after such an incident to convene an accountability review board. The board is to be composed of five members with a support staff provided by the State Department. The review board has the authority to subpoena witnesses to provide testimony. When the board’s investigation is completed, the law mandates that it issue a report of the board’s findings, which will include recommendations “to improve the security and efficiency of any program or operation the board has reviewed.” The secretary of state must deliver a report to Congress 90 days after it is issued advising them of the measures taken to address the recommendations outlined in the board’s report.
In the wake of the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, an accountability review board was convened. Ret. Adm. William J. Crowe, the former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, led this board. The Crowe Commission report echoed the points made by the Inman Commission 14 years earlier, noting that many of the same problems had persisted. Like the Inman Commission, the Crowe Commission also dealt with classified material, but that material was distributed to personnel within the Diplomatic Security Service who possessed the appropriate clearances and who had a clear need to know. The intent was to provide the information to those individuals who could help prevent future security failures.
Since 2001, a number of accountability review boards have been convened to address attacks such as the October 2002 assassination of Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan; the December 2004 attack against the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; the September 2005 deaths of DSS Special Agent Stephen Sullivan and seven security contractors in Mosul, Iraq; and the January 2008 assassination of John Granville in Khartoum, Sudan.
With the intent behind the accountability review boards being to learn from past mistakes and improve security to prevent future attacks, the findings of the accountability review boards are widely disseminated within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, where plans are made to implement board recommendations. However, in the case of the Benghazi report, five of the 29 recommendations made by the review board do not appear in the unclassified version of the report and have not been shared with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
This means that the regional security officers assigned to protect the missions now under threat, their supervisors and support personnel in Washington have not seen them. Nor have the agents who are, or who might be, assigned as regional security officers at posts worldwide, as the threat of militant attacks is persistent and not confined to a few posts in the Middle East.
Not only are these personnel cleared to access Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information, but due to their duties and statutory responsibilities, they also have a clear need to know when it comes to matters impacting the security of U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel. These agents have daily responsibility for keeping diplomatic premises and personnel safe, and just as militants learn from past attacks, so must those defending against them. Lessons learned from past security failures like the recommendations from the accountability review board are critical to their mission. Indeed, if there is an attack that results in a significant security loss in the future, these are the individuals who will be held accountable by the next review board, but they simply won’t know if the report contains anything that could assist them in conducting their statutorily dictated mission.
In all fairness to the State Department brass, perhaps the five additional recommendations in the Benghazi Accountability Review Board’s report do not contain anything pertaining to the security of U.S. personnel and facilities abroad — or at least to personnel and facilities under the chief of mission authority, and therefore statutorily under regional security officer responsibility. The State Department has published a long list of measures they have taken to address the report’s recommendations, but without knowing what the report says, it is difficult for these officers to judge if the measures are adequately addressing them. Diplomatic Security Service personnel are left feeling that they are going to be held responsible for things they are being left in the dark about.
While all the other post-2001 accountability review boards have had a professional, experienced security officer on the board, the Benghazi board did not. Not to discount the experience of senior diplomats and military personnel, but in most cases, they have no practical experience dealing with things such as physical security programs and specifications, local guard force regulations, postings and training, emergency plans, or conducting liaison with local police and militia units. If a board is empaneled and charged with evaluating security programs after a significant security failure, and then is charged with making recommendations about how those security programs can be improved, it would stand to reason that there should be at least one security expert on the panel.
· Accounting, not Just Accountability
As we’ve written about in the past, there is a clearly discernible boom and bust cycle to diplomatic security funding, with a large infusion of cash following eachmajor incident. This time will be no exception. However, one problem that has consistently plagued the Bureau of Diplomatic Security has been the effective utilization of cash received during a boom cycle. Some things can be quickly implemented, such as buying smoke hoods for safe havens and placing them there, but many other things, such as designing and constructing new facilities, significant security renovations to existing structures, training and deploying more Marine Security Guards, or hiring and training new agents may take years to plan and execute. Some recommendations are simply not possible without an enormous investment of money (like the mantraps and safe havens suggested for all buildings by the Jeddah accountability review board) which oftentimes leads to charges of lack of accountability, even though the funding needed to execute the recommendations simply is not there.
Quite often, Congress will respond to strong public opinion on a subject like Benghazi by giving an agency too much money. They then demand an immediate solution to the problem, rather than taking a more patient and measured approach. Frankly, it is hard to be measured and take a long-term approach in a rapid political cycle. In many instances, this funding is for a particular fiscal year and must be spent rather than carried over. Because of this, the Diplomatic Security Service scrambles to find ways to allocate the money rather than risk losing it in a bid to get what they can before the next bust funding cycle sets in. But this frenzied spending often results in waste and mismanagement. Most often, by the time the Diplomatic Security Service has figured out a system to effectively metabolize such funding, the bust cycle has set in and finding is cut. These cuts are frequently accompanied by criticism of how the original glut of funding was spent.
In this boom cycle, the challenge to effectively spend security funding may be complicated by the fact that those spending the funds do not have insight into the classified version of the Benghazi report that sparked the funding — and have not seen the full list of report recommendations that the funding is intended to address.
Source: Stratfor
Read more: Threats and Accountability | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
Read The Declaration
July 4, 2012 by Bob Livingston …with a few edits
It has been 236 years since 56 brave men signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming that the 13 original American Colonies were no longer willing to live under tyrannical British rule.
Those men, among them some of the most notable names in American history, risked their own safety and that of their families by signing the document; they were still in the earliest stages of a war against an enemy that outgunned them and was better trained. By signing their names to the very spirit of Patriotism, the men risked being hanged in the event of defeat.
But they were not alone. Thousands of the signers’ fellow countrymen had already taken up arms against the British in the name of American Independence. Seven bloody years after the signing of the Declaration and eight bloody years after the initial shots at Lexington and Concord, a new, free, republican Nation was born.
Those 56 who risked their lives by signing their names to a document that declared in no uncertain terms that they meant to create a better place where freedom reigned supreme might have trouble recognizing their Nation today. Given the state of political discourse and the tendency for bureaucracy to destroy freedom in order to increase centralized power, the Federal government has effectively come to represent much of what those men disdained in the Declaration.
Take the time to read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety. For a thorough historical background and to better understand the Declaration’s signers, read They Signed for Usreadthedeclaration.com to request a free copy of the Declaration and the Constitution and add your name to the list of Americans who read the founding documents over the holiday. To top it all off, write a letter to your Senators and Representatives to let them know that you agree with the principles your Nation was founded upon, and request that they legislate accordingly. which was written by Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur and first published in 1957. If you have a little more time, visit
·
Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure…than to rank with poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they choose to live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
– Theodore Roosevelt ….with a few edits
· Sustained effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to realizing our potential.
~Sir Winston Churchill …with a few edits
· I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.
I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have.
I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right,
and part with him when he goes wrong.”
– Abraham Lincoln
· You become like the 5 people you spend the most time with. Choose carefully.
-As A Man Thinketh
· If you believe in yourself and have courage, determination, dedication, and competitive drive
and if you are willing to sacrifice for things that are worthwhile, anything can be done.
– Vince Lombardi …with a few edits
Positive ideas
This “Positive Ideas” news letter goes out once a week or so to about 1,000 friends and colleagues around the USA and in various locations overseas.
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
Tom
571 332 2349
781 626 6667 international
www.TomOConnorGroup.com
Look for us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
· “Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
– John W. Gardner
· “Someone defined genius as intensity of purpose: the ability to do, the patience to wait.
Put these together and you have achievement.”
~ Leo J. Muir …with a few edits
· “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.
Make the most of yourself by building tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”
~ Foster C. McClellan …with a few edits
· “I hope that my achievements in life shall be these — that I will have fought for what was right and fair,
that I will have risked for that which mattered, and that I will have given help to those who were in need…
and that I will have left the earth a better place for what I’ve done and who I’ve been.”
~ C. Hoppe
· “When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion,
by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.”
~ Greg Anderson
· “The wave that has passed by cannot be recalled and the hour which has passed may not return again. The time is now.”
~ Ovid …with a few edits
· “My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success.
She said achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you.
· Success is being praised by others – nice but not as important or as satisfying as achievement.
· Aim for achievement and success will take care of itself.”
~ Helen Hayes …with a few edits
Threats and Accountability
Security Weekly
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Stratfor based on Open Sources
By Scott Stewart and Fred Burton
The U.S. State Department ordered 19 embassies and consulates closed this week based on non-specific intelligence that an attack targeting American diplomatic posts may be in the works. The move comes nearly 11 months after U.S. diplomatic posts in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Sudan and Libya were attacked in September 2012. The most deadly of those attacks occurred in Benghazi, Libya, where heavily armed militants attacked the U.S. Special Mission compound and then a Central Intelligence Agency annex. The Benghazi attack resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and communications officer Sean Smith at the Special Mission Compound and of CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty at the annex. The attack on the annex also saw two Diplomatic Security Service special agents wounded, one seriously.
Because of the loss of life involved in the Benghazi incident, an Accountability Review Board was convened in accordance with the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986, which requires the convening of such a board following major security incidents. The Benghazi Accountability Review Board released a report of its findings Dec. 18, 2012. However, despite the current threat to U.S diplomatic posts, the classified version of the Benghazi report has only been released to a handful of personnel in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security known as the “DS Seniors.”
This means that the regional security officers responsible for securing the posts now closed by the current threat, those protecting diplomatic posts and personnel elsewhere, and the program managers in Washington responsible for overseeing security programs at diplomatic missions globally have still not seen the classified version of the report despite having the required clearances and an obvious need to know.
· Accountability Review Boards
First, it is important to understand the original intent of such review boards. The very first of these panels was convened in the mid-1980s following the attacks against U.S. facilities in Beirut and Kuwait and the systematic bugging of the then-new U.S. Embassy office building in Moscow. These security lapses led to the formation of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Panel on Overseas Security, which was chaired by former Deputy CIA Director Bobby Inman. In diplomatic security circles, that advisory panel is most often referred to as the Inman Commission.
The Inman Commission’s charge was not only to hold people accountable for the security lapses, but more important, to make recommendations for improving security to prevent similar incidents. In furtherance of the latter task, the Inman Commission compiled a lengthy list of recommendations. Congress took many of these recommendations and codified them in the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986. One of that law’s provisions required the convening of accountability review boards where there was significant injury, loss of life, significant property damage or a serious breach of security involving intelligence activities at a diplomatic mission abroad.
Under the law, the State Department has 60 days after such an incident to convene an accountability review board. The board is to be composed of five members with a support staff provided by the State Department. The review board has the authority to subpoena witnesses to provide testimony. When the board’s investigation is completed, the law mandates that it issue a report of the board’s findings, which will include recommendations “to improve the security and efficiency of any program or operation the board has reviewed.” The secretary of state must deliver a report to Congress 90 days after it is issued advising them of the measures taken to address the recommendations outlined in the board’s report.
In the wake of the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, an accountability review board was convened. Ret. Adm. William J. Crowe, the former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, led this board. The Crowe Commission report echoed the points made by the Inman Commission 14 years earlier, noting that many of the same problems had persisted. Like the Inman Commission, the Crowe Commission also dealt with classified material, but that material was distributed to personnel within the Diplomatic Security Service who possessed the appropriate clearances and who had a clear need to know. The intent was to provide the information to those individuals who could help prevent future security failures.
Since 2001, a number of accountability review boards have been convened to address attacks such as the October 2002 assassination of Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan; the December 2004 attack against the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; the September 2005 deaths of DSS Special Agent Stephen Sullivan and seven security contractors in Mosul, Iraq; and the January 2008 assassination of John Granville in Khartoum, Sudan.
With the intent behind the accountability review boards being to learn from past mistakes and improve security to prevent future attacks, the findings of the accountability review boards are widely disseminated within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, where plans are made to implement board recommendations. However, in the case of the Benghazi report, five of the 29 recommendations made by the review board do not appear in the unclassified version of the report and have not been shared with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
This means that the regional security officers assigned to protect the missions now under threat, their supervisors and support personnel in Washington have not seen them. Nor have the agents who are, or who might be, assigned as regional security officers at posts worldwide, as the threat of militant attacks is persistent and not confined to a few posts in the Middle East.
Not only are these personnel cleared to access Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information, but due to their duties and statutory responsibilities, they also have a clear need to know when it comes to matters impacting the security of U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel. These agents have daily responsibility for keeping diplomatic premises and personnel safe, and just as militants learn from past attacks, so must those defending against them. Lessons learned from past security failures like the recommendations from the accountability review board are critical to their mission. Indeed, if there is an attack that results in a significant security loss in the future, these are the individuals who will be held accountable by the next review board, but they simply won’t know if the report contains anything that could assist them in conducting their statutorily dictated mission.
In all fairness to the State Department brass, perhaps the five additional recommendations in the Benghazi Accountability Review Board’s report do not contain anything pertaining to the security of U.S. personnel and facilities abroad — or at least to personnel and facilities under the chief of mission authority, and therefore statutorily under regional security officer responsibility. The State Department has published a long list of measures they have taken to address the report’s recommendations, but without knowing what the report says, it is difficult for these officers to judge if the measures are adequately addressing them. Diplomatic Security Service personnel are left feeling that they are going to be held responsible for things they are being left in the dark about.
While all the other post-2001 accountability review boards have had a professional, experienced security officer on the board, the Benghazi board did not. Not to discount the experience of senior diplomats and military personnel, but in most cases, they have no practical experience dealing with things such as physical security programs and specifications, local guard force regulations, postings and training, emergency plans, or conducting liaison with local police and militia units. If a board is empaneled and charged with evaluating security programs after a significant security failure, and then is charged with making recommendations about how those security programs can be improved, it would stand to reason that there should be at least one security expert on the panel.
· Accounting, not Just Accountability
As we’ve written about in the past, there is a clearly discernible boom and bust cycle to diplomatic security funding, with a large infusion of cash following eachmajor incident. This time will be no exception. However, one problem that has consistently plagued the Bureau of Diplomatic Security has been the effective utilization of cash received during a boom cycle. Some things can be quickly implemented, such as buying smoke hoods for safe havens and placing them there, but many other things, such as designing and constructing new facilities, significant security renovations to existing structures, training and deploying more Marine Security Guards, or hiring and training new agents may take years to plan and execute. Some recommendations are simply not possible without an enormous investment of money (like the mantraps and safe havens suggested for all buildings by the Jeddah accountability review board) which oftentimes leads to charges of lack of accountability, even though the funding needed to execute the recommendations simply is not there.
Quite often, Congress will respond to strong public opinion on a subject like Benghazi by giving an agency too much money. They then demand an immediate solution to the problem, rather than taking a more patient and measured approach. Frankly, it is hard to be measured and take a long-term approach in a rapid political cycle. In many instances, this funding is for a particular fiscal year and must be spent rather than carried over. Because of this, the Diplomatic Security Service scrambles to find ways to allocate the money rather than risk losing it in a bid to get what they can before the next bust funding cycle sets in. But this frenzied spending often results in waste and mismanagement. Most often, by the time the Diplomatic Security Service has figured out a system to effectively metabolize such funding, the bust cycle has set in and finding is cut. These cuts are frequently accompanied by criticism of how the original glut of funding was spent.
In this boom cycle, the challenge to effectively spend security funding may be complicated by the fact that those spending the funds do not have insight into the classified version of the Benghazi report that sparked the funding — and have not seen the full list of report recommendations that the funding is intended to address.
Source: Stratfor
Read more: Threats and Accountability | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
Read The Declaration
July 4, 2012 by Bob Livingston …with a few edits
It has been 236 years since 56 brave men signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming that the 13 original American Colonies were no longer willing to live under tyrannical British rule.
Those men, among them some of the most notable names in American history, risked their own safety and that of their families by signing the document; they were still in the earliest stages of a war against an enemy that outgunned them and was better trained. By signing their names to the very spirit of Patriotism, the men risked being hanged in the event of defeat.
But they were not alone. Thousands of the signers’ fellow countrymen had already taken up arms against the British in the name of American Independence. Seven bloody years after the signing of the Declaration and eight bloody years after the initial shots at Lexington and Concord, a new, free, republican Nation was born.
Those 56 who risked their lives by signing their names to a document that declared in no uncertain terms that they meant to create a better place where freedom reigned supreme might have trouble recognizing their Nation today. Given the state of political discourse and the tendency for bureaucracy to destroy freedom in order to increase centralized power, the Federal government has effectively come to represent much of what those men disdained in the Declaration.
Take the time to read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety. For a thorough historical background and to better understand the Declaration’s signers, read They Signed for Usreadthedeclaration.com to request a free copy of the Declaration and the Constitution and add your name to the list of Americans who read the founding documents over the holiday. To top it all off, write a letter to your Senators and Representatives to let them know that you agree with the principles your Nation was founded upon, and request that they legislate accordingly. which was written by Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur and first published in 1957. If you have a little more time, visit
·
Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure…than to rank with poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they choose to live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
– Theodore Roosevelt ….with a few edits
· Sustained effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to realizing our potential.
~Sir Winston Churchill …with a few edits
· I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.
I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have.
I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right,
and part with him when he goes wrong.”
– Abraham Lincoln
· You become like the 5 people you spend the most time with. Choose carefully.
-As A Man Thinketh
· If you believe in yourself and have courage, determination, dedication, and competitive drive
and if you are willing to sacrifice for things that are worthwhile, anything can be done.
– Vince Lombardi …with a few edits
positive ideas and two articles – one old and one new
This “Positive Ideas” news letter goes out once a week or so to about 1,000 friends and colleagues around the USA and in various locations overseas.
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
Tom
571 332 2349
781 626 6667 international
www.TomOConnorGroup.com
Look for us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
- “Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
– John W. Gardner
- “Someone defined genius as intensity of purpose: the ability to do, the patience to wait.
Put these together and you have achievement.”
~ Leo J. Muir …with a few edits
- “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by building tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”
~ Foster C. McClellan …with a few edits
- “I hope that my achievements in life shall be these — that I will have fought for what was right and fair, that I will have risked for that which mattered, and that I will have given help to those who were in need… and that I will have left the earth a better place for what I’ve done and who I’ve been.”
~ C. Hoppe
- “When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.”
~ Greg Anderson
- “The wave that has passed by cannot be recalled and the hour which has passed may not return again. The time is now.”
~ Ovid …with a few edits
- “My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success.
- She said achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you.
- While success is being praised by others – nice but not as important or as satisfying as achievement.
- Aim for achievement and success will take care of itself.”
~ Helen Hayes …with a few edits
- Threats and Accountability Security Weekly
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Stratfor based on Open Sources
By Scott Stewart and Fred Burton
The U.S. State Department ordered 19 embassies and consulates closed this week based on non-specific intelligence that an attack targeting American diplomatic posts may be in the works. The move comes nearly 11 months after U.S. diplomatic posts in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Sudan and Libya were attacked in September 2012. The most deadly of those attacks occurred in Benghazi, Libya, where heavily armed militants attacked the U.S. Special Mission compound and then a Central Intelligence Agency annex. The Benghazi attack resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and communications officer Sean Smith at the Special Mission Compound and of CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty at the annex. The attack on the annex also saw two Diplomatic Security Service special agents wounded, one seriously.
Because of the loss of life involved in the Benghazi incident, an Accountability Review Board was convened in accordance with the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986, which requires the convening of such a board following major security incidents. The Benghazi Accountability Review Board released a report of its findings Dec. 18, 2012. However, despite the current threat to U.S diplomatic posts, the classified version of the Benghazi report has only been released to a handful of personnel in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security known as the “DS Seniors.”
This means that the regional security officers responsible for securing the posts now closed by the current threat, those protecting diplomatic posts and personnel elsewhere, and the program managers in Washington responsible for overseeing security programs at diplomatic missions globally have still not seen the classified version of the report despite having the required clearances and an obvious need to know.
· Accountability Review Boards
First, it is important to understand the original intent of such review boards. The very first of these panels was convened in the mid-1980s following the attacks against U.S. facilities in Beirut and Kuwait and the systematic bugging of the then-new U.S. Embassy office building in Moscow. These security lapses led to the formation of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Panel on Overseas Security, which was chaired by former Deputy CIA Director Bobby Inman. In diplomatic security circles, that advisory panel is most often referred to as the Inman Commission.
The Inman Commission’s charge was not only to hold people accountable for the security lapses, but more important, to make recommendations for improving security to prevent similar incidents. In furtherance of the latter task, the Inman Commission compiled a lengthy list of recommendations. Congress took many of these recommendations and codified them in the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986. One of that law’s provisions required the convening of accountability review boards where there was significant injury, loss of life, significant property damage or a serious breach of security involving intelligence activities at a diplomatic mission abroad.
Under the law, the State Department has 60 days after such an incident to convene an accountability review board. The board is to be composed of five members with a support staff provided by the State Department. The review board has the authority to subpoena witnesses to provide testimony. When the board’s investigation is completed, the law mandates that it issue a report of the board’s findings, which will include recommendations “to improve the security and efficiency of any program or operation the board has reviewed.” The secretary of state must deliver a report to Congress 90 days after it is issued advising them of the measures taken to address the recommendations outlined in the board’s report.
In the wake of the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, an accountability review board was convened. Ret. Adm. William J. Crowe, the former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, led this board. The Crowe Commission report echoed the points made by the Inman Commission 14 years earlier, noting that many of the same problems had persisted. Like the Inman Commission, the Crowe Commission also dealt with classified material, but that material was distributed to personnel within the Diplomatic Security Service who possessed the appropriate clearances and who had a clear need to know. The intent was to provide the information to those individuals who could help prevent future security failures.
Since 2001, a number of accountability review boards have been convened to address attacks such as the October 2002 assassination of Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan; the December 2004 attack against the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; the September 2005 deaths of DSS Special Agent Stephen Sullivan and seven security contractors in Mosul, Iraq; and the January 2008 assassination of John Granville in Khartoum, Sudan.
With the intent behind the accountability review boards being to learn from past mistakes and improve security to prevent future attacks, the findings of the accountability review boards are widely disseminated within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, where plans are made to implement board recommendations. However, in the case of the Benghazi report, five of the 29 recommendations made by the review board do not appear in the unclassified version of the report and have not been shared with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
This means that the regional security officers assigned to protect the missions now under threat, their supervisors and support personnel in Washington have not seen them. Nor have the agents who are, or who might be, assigned as regional security officers at posts worldwide, as the threat of militant attacks is persistent and not confined to a few posts in the Middle East.
Not only are these personnel cleared to access Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information, but due to their duties and statutory responsibilities, they also have a clear need to know when it comes to matters impacting the security of U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel. These agents have daily responsibility for keeping diplomatic premises and personnel safe, and just as militants learn from past attacks, so must those defending against them. Lessons learned from past security failures like the recommendations from the accountability review board are critical to their mission. Indeed, if there is an attack that results in a significant security loss in the future, these are the individuals who will be held accountable by the next review board, but they simply won’t know if the report contains anything that could assist them in conducting their statutorily dictated mission.
In all fairness to the State Department brass, perhaps the five additional recommendations in the Benghazi Accountability Review Board’s report do not contain anything pertaining to the security of U.S. personnel and facilities abroad — or at least to personnel and facilities under the chief of mission authority, and therefore statutorily under regional security officer responsibility. The State Department has published a long list of measures they have taken to address the report’s recommendations, but without knowing what the report says, it is difficult for these officers to judge if the measures are adequately addressing them. Diplomatic Security Service personnel are left feeling that they are going to be held responsible for things they are being left in the dark about.
While all the other post-2001 accountability review boards have had a professional, experienced security officer on the board, the Benghazi board did not. Not to discount the experience of senior diplomats and military personnel, but in most cases, they have no practical experience dealing with things such as physical security programs and specifications, local guard force regulations, postings and training, emergency plans, or conducting liaison with local police and militia units. If a board is empaneled and charged with evaluating security programs after a significant security failure, and then is charged with making recommendations about how those security programs can be improved, it would stand to reason that there should be at least one security expert on the panel.
· Accounting, not Just Accountability
As we’ve written about in the past, there is a clearly discernible boom and bust cycle to diplomatic security funding, with a large infusion of cash following eachmajor incident. This time will be no exception. However, one problem that has consistently plagued the Bureau of Diplomatic Security has been the effective utilization of cash received during a boom cycle. Some things can be quickly implemented, such as buying smoke hoods for safe havens and placing them there, but many other things, such as designing and constructing new facilities, significant security renovations to existing structures, training and deploying more Marine Security Guards, or hiring and training new agents may take years to plan and execute. Some recommendations are simply not possible without an enormous investment of money (like the mantraps and safe havens suggested for all buildings by the Jeddah accountability review board) which oftentimes leads to charges of lack of accountability, even though the funding needed to execute the recommendations simply is not there.
Quite often, Congress will respond to strong public opinion on a subject like Benghazi by giving an agency too much money. They then demand an immediate solution to the problem, rather than taking a more patient and measured approach. Frankly, it is hard to be measured and take a long-term approach in a rapid political cycle. In many instances, this funding is for a particular fiscal year and must be spent rather than carried over. Because of this, the Diplomatic Security Service scrambles to find ways to allocate the money rather than risk losing it in a bid to get what they can before the next bust funding cycle sets in. But this frenzied spending often results in waste and mismanagement. Most often, by the time the Diplomatic Security Service has figured out a system to effectively metabolize such funding, the bust cycle has set in and finding is cut. These cuts are frequently accompanied by criticism of how the original glut of funding was spent.
In this boom cycle, the challenge to effectively spend security funding may be complicated by the fact that those spending the funds do not have insight into the classified version of the Benghazi report that sparked the funding — and have not seen the full list of report recommendations that the funding is intended to address.
- Source: Stratfor
Read more: Threats and Accountability | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
- Read The Declaration
July 4, 2012 by Bob Livingston …with a few edits
It has been over 236 years since 56 brave men signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming that the 13 original American Colonies were no longer willing to live under tyrannical British rule.
Those men, among them some of the most notable names in American history, risked their own safety and that of their families by signing the document; they were still in the earliest stages of a war against an enemy that outgunned them and was better trained. By signing their names to the very spirit of Patriotism, the men risked being hanged in the event of defeat.
But they were not alone. Thousands of the signers’ fellow countrymen had already taken up arms against the British in the name of American Independence. Seven bloody years after the signing of the Declaration and eight bloody years after the initial shots at Lexington and Concord, a new, free, republican Nation was born.
Those 56 who risked their lives by signing their names to a document that declared in no uncertain terms that they meant to create a better place where freedom reigned supreme might have trouble recognizing their Nation today. Given the state of political discourse and the tendency for bureaucracy to destroy freedom in order to increase centralized power, the Federal government has effectively come to represent much of what those men disdained in the Declaration.
Take the time to read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety. For a thorough historical background and to better understand the Declaration’s signers, read They Signed for Us which was written by Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur and first published in 1957. If you have a little more time, visit readthedeclaration.com to request a free copy of the Declaration and the Constitution and add your name to the list of Americans who read the founding documents over the holiday. To top it all off, write a letter to your Senators and Representatives to let them know that you agree with the principles your Nation was founded upon, and request that they legislate accordingly.
- Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure
- …than to rank with poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much,
- because they choose to live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
– Theodore Roosevelt ….with a few edits
- Sustained effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to realizing our potential.
~Sir Winston Churchill …with a few edits
- I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.
- I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have.
- I must stand with anybody that stands right,
- and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
– Abraham Lincoln
- You become like the 5 people you spend the most time with. Choose carefully.
-As A Man Thinketh
- If you believe in yourself and have courage, determination, dedication, and competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice for things that are worthwhile, anything can be done.- Vince Lombardi …with a few edits
in Costa Rica
- Thanks for the good you are doing today
- And the prayers you are saying today,
- Particularly the prayers for those
- Going in harm’s way on your behalf.
- Move forward …resolute and confident
– Tom O’Connor
Thanks,
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
Tom
571 332 2349
781 626 6667 international
www.TomOConnorGroup.com
Ex Parte 711 supports access to Competitive Switching
We have appeared in the Opening Round of Ex Parte 711, the Competitive Switching proceeding at the Surface Transportation Board (STB) on behalf of one of our clients. We filed evidence supporting Competitive Switching, as in the NITL proposal. The Opening Statement we filed in Ex Parte 711, the Competitive Switching proceeding at the STB is included on our website. Here is an excerpt:
______________________________________________________________
I. Introduction
My name is Tom O’Connor; I am President of The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC. (“Tom O’Connor Group” or “TOGC”). I have prepared this Verified Statement working in conjunction with John Legieza who is a Principal of The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC. The Tom O’Connor Group is an economic and management consulting company with offices located at 13222 Point Pleasant Drive, Fairfax, VA 22033. Throughout my career my practice has focused primarily on transportation, telecom and logistics industries. A statement of my qualifications and experience is included as Exhibit No. (TOC__1) to this Opening Verified Statement. A statement of John Legieza’s qualifications and experience is included as Exhibit No. (JL__1) to this Opening Verified Statement.
At the request of our client, Glacial Lakes Energy (“GLE”) we reviewed our prior relevant work on behalf of GLE and we have analyzed the record in Surface Transportation Board (“STB”) Ex Parte 711, PETITION FOR RULEMAKING TO ADOPT REVISED COMPETITIVE SWITCHING RULES. Specifically, we focused on the STB Decisions dated July 25, 2012, and October 25, 2012. The October 25, 2012 STB decision extended the filing dates. The July 25, 2012 STB decision can be summarized as follows:
This decision begins a proceeding to consider a proposal submitted by The National Industrial Transportation League (NITL) to increase rail-to-rail competition. Under its proposal, certain shippers located in terminal areas that lack effective competitive transportation alternatives would be granted access to a competing railroad, if there is a working interchange within a reasonable distance (30 miles under NITL’s proposal). The Surface Transportation Board (the Board) is seeking empirical information about the impact of the proposal, if it were to be adopted. Specifically, the Board is seeking public input on the proposal’s impact on rail shippers’ rates and service, including shippers that would not benefit under NITL’s proposal; the proposal’s impact on the rail industry, including its financial condition and network efficiencies; and methodologies for the access price that would be used in conjunction with competitive switching.
II. Initial Analysis and Findings
Our initial analysis and our findings can be summarized as follows:
- We support the NITL proposal
We support the NITL proposal – it helps remedy a number of issues centering on access to competition while recognizing and accommodating the ongoing need for railroads to maintain adequate financial strength and continue to build efficiency and productivity
- Access Price for use in conjunction with competitive switching.
We propose use of a mutually agreed trackage rights fee or haulage rights fee for covering the costs associated with reaching the competitive switching carrier. Both trackage rights fees and haulage rights fees are well established concepts in the rail industry.[1] If the parties in a given switching access situation cannot agree on such fees we recommend that the STB prescribe a reasonable access fee.
- Commodity Focus area
In the prior testimony we focused on the principal commodities transported by Glacial Lakes Energy, our client. These commodities are: Corn, Ethanol and Distillers Dried Grain (DDG). We have analyzed and reflect the 2010 STB Confidential Waybill file made available for use in this proceeding: however we rely primarily on our analyses of Glacial Lakes Energy data.
[1] Trackage rights are agreements whereby a railroad company secures the right to run its trains on tracks owned by another railroad company. Generally speaking, with trackage rights railroad A allows railroad B the authority to operate over railroad A’s tracks using railroad B ‘s locomotive power and crews. Haulage rights are more restrictive – usually railroad A agrees to handle railroad B’s traffic at an agreed upon per car or per mile rate, utilizing railroad A’s crews. Locomotive power for use in haulage rights is also negotiated and could be provided by either railroad A or B depending on the specific agreement.
______________________________________________________________
Our prior testimony in Ex Parte 711 supports access to Competitive Switching. We have already done much of the basic analysis that would be required to produce the data that would support Access to Competitive Switching in the upcoming STB hearings slated for October 2013.
Read the document here
Thanks,
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
571 332 2349
781 626 6667 international
Positive Ideas – WE ARE AMERICANS
This “Positive Ideas” news letter goes out once a week or so to about 1,000 friends and colleagues around the USA and in various locations overseas.
WE ARE AMERICANS
At our place in Barbados
Tom OConnor
Onward;
Today’s note goes out this July 4th to friends and colleagues around the USA and overseas.
Some of you may have received a similar note from us yesterday.
If you believe in yourself and have courage, determination, dedication, and competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice for things that are worthwhile, anything can be done.
– Vince Lombardi …with a few edits
Thanks for the good you are doing today
And the prayers you are saying today,
Particularly the prayers for those
Going in harm’s way on your behalf.
Move forward …resolute and confident
Read The Declaration
by Bob Livingston …with a few edits
It has been 236 years since 56 brave men signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming that the 13 original American Colonies were no longer willing to live under tyrannical British rule.
Those men, among them some of the most notable names in American history, risked their own safety and that of their families by signing the document; they were still in the earliest stages of a war against an enemy that outgunned them and was better trained. By signing their names to the very spirit of Patriotism, the men risked being hanged in the event of defeat.
But they were not alone. Thousands of the signers’ fellow countrymen had already taken up arms against the British in the name of American Independence. Seven bloody years after the signing of the Declaration and eight bloody years after the initial shots at Lexington and Concord, a new, free, republican Nation was born.
Those 56 who risked their lives by signing their names to a document that declared in no uncertain terms that they meant to create a better place where freedom reigned supreme might have trouble recognizing their Nation today. Given the state of political discourse and the tendency for bureaucracy to destroy freedom in order to increase centralized power, the Federal government has effectively come to represent much of what those men disdained in the Declaration.
Take the time to read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety. For a thorough historical background and to better understand the Declaration’s signers, read They Signed for Us which was written by Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur and first published in 1957. If you have a little more time, visit readthedeclaration.com to request a free copy of the Declaration and the Constitution and add your name to the list of Americans who read the founding documents over the holiday. You can also let your Senators and Representatives know that you agree with the principles our Nation was founded upon, and request that they legislate accordingly.
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
Tom
571 332 2349
Look for us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
Thanks,
Tom O’Connor
Positive Ideas
This “Positive Ideas” news letter goes out once a week or so to about 750 friends and colleagues around the USA and in various locations overseas.
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
Tom
571 332 2349
781 626 6667 international
www.TomOConnorGroup.com
Look for us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
Man does not live by a turkey in every oven or a wall mounted color TV set in every home.
Man lives by faith and hope and love, by the star on the horizon, by the trumpet that will not call retreat.
Happy Flag Day
In the United States, Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened on that day in 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. The United States Army also celebrates the Army Birthday on this date; Congress adopted “the American continental army” after reaching a consensus position in the Committee of the Whole on June 14, 1775.
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day; in August 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress.
Related articles
- FLAG DAY …. June 14, 2013 (hrexach.wordpress.com)
- Flag Day and Its History (dcclothesline.com)
- Honoring Flag Day (grumpyelder.com)
Positive Ideas
This “Positive Ideas” news letter goes out once a week or so to about 750 friends and colleagues around the USA and in various locations overseas.
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
571 332 2349
Look for us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
Today I will do what others won’t,
so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.
~Jerry Rice
Action without study is fatal. Study without action is futile.
~Mary Ritter Beard
To be happy doesn’t require a certain set of circumstances,
it only requires a certain set of attitudes.
~Hugh Downs …with a few edits
We can let circumstances rule us,
or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.
~Earl Nightingale
A NEW WAY TO LOOK AT FEAR OF FAILURE
By Cherri Walston
The biggest obstacle to success for some people is the fear of failing. Failure is only a negative event when you allow it to become an obstacle to your success.
One year ago, I grasped the concept of failure when I decided to explore a new and different approach in my business. My first attempt bombed! The second attempt was slightly better, but I still don’t get the results I was hoping for. These attempts along with constant tweaks in the process showed me a new way of looking at failing that I’d never recognized in my past failures.
Here’s what I discovered in the process: Failing was a natural process for me to collect data and knowledge; so I could try it again. The quality and quantity of that data and knowledge was tied to my success. The faster I was willing to accumulate the data/knowledge, the quicker I could weed out dead ends and create the results I was looking for. The fastest way for me to increase my success cycle was to eliminate the fear by assessing my mistakes and implement a brand new action.
Don’t be afraid to try new things in your personal and professional life. The more you fail, the faster you learn and grow. The word (failure) conjures up negative energy, concepts and images for some people. Let’s say you tried something and the results weren’t favorable. Instead of giving up, use this opportunity to evaluate the experience. This is the time to step back and observe, tweak, plan and take action again. And it’s the easiest way to at look fear straight in the eyes; that’s what it takes to increase your success rate.
We also have to be aware of how our ego might be getting in the way of fear of failure. Is your fear of failure tied to your status, finances or position? And, are you more concerned with what others might think?
Life itself is failure-based. We wouldn’t be where we are and who we are if it wasn’t for our own experiences and mistakes.
So, fail forward. It’s a quick way to shortening your success cycle.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cherri Walston is recognized for empowering women to live their vision and is the founder of My Big Picture Coach. She is known as The Big Picture Catalyst who is dedicated to helping women solo-entrepreneurs, small-business owners seize the most time in their day so they can generate more clients, make more money and have fun doing what they love – helping other people. She is also an author, inspirational speaker, facilitator and training. Her website is: http://mybigpicturecoach.com.
Action is the foundation, the key to all success.
~Pablo Picasso …with a few edits
Read The Declaration
July 4, 2012 by Bob Livingston …with a few edits
It has been 236 years since 56 brave men signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming that the 13 original American Colonies were no longer willing to live under tyrannical British rule.
Those men, among them some of the most notable names in American history, risked their own safety and that of their families by signing the document; they were still in the earliest stages of a war against an enemy that outgunned them and was better trained. By signing their names to the very spirit of Patriotism, the men risked being hanged in the event of defeat.
But they were not alone. Thousands of the signers’ fellow countrymen had already taken up arms against the British in the name of American Independence. Seven bloody years after the signing of the Declaration and eight bloody years after the initial shots at Lexington and Concord, a new, free, republican Nation was born.
Those 56 who risked their lives by signing their names to a document that declared in no uncertain terms that they meant to create a better place where freedom reigned supreme might have trouble recognizing their Nation today. Given the state of political discourse and the tendency for bureaucracy to destroy freedom in order to increase centralized power, the Federal government has effectively come to represent much of what those men disdained in the Declaration.
Take the time to read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety. For a thorough historical background and to better understand the Declaration’s signers, read They Signed for Us which was written by Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur and first published in 1957. If you have a little more time, visit readthedeclaration.com to request a free copy of the Declaration and the Constitution and add your name to the list of Americans who read the founding documents over the holiday. To top it all off, write a letter to your Senators and Representatives to let them know that you agree with the principles your Nation was founded upon, and request that they legislate accordingly.
The start is what stops most people.
~Don Shula Former NFL Coach
Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure…than to rank with poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they choose to live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
– Theodore Roosevelt ….with a few edits
Defeat is temporary, giving up makes it permanent.”
– Marilyn Von Savant …with a few edits
Sustained effort – not strength or intelligence –
is the key to realizing our potential.
~Sir Winston Churchill …with a few edits
If you believe in yourself and have courage, determination,
dedication, and competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice for things that are worthwhile,
anything can be done.
– Vince Lombardi …with a few edits
_______________________________________________
Thanks for the good you are doing today
and the prayers you are saying today,
Particularly the prayers for those
Going in harm’s way on your behalf.
Move forward …resolute and confident
Tom O’Connor
Tom OConnor
Positive ideas and concepts
Tom OConnor
This “Positive Ideas” news letter goes out once a week or so to about 750 friends and colleagues around the USA and in various locations overseas.
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
Tom
571 332 2349
781 626 6667 international
Look for us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
Security does not exist in nature nor do the children of man as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure to danger. Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing.
~Helen Keller …with a few edits
“I studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm.” – Harry Truman
“Nothing can stop the person with the right mental attitude from achieving the goal; nothing on earth can help the person with the wrong mental attitude.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in all we think, say, want and do.
~Emmanuel Swedenborg
What you do today can change the course of your life far into the future. What you do Today is critical. Today really counts.
~Ralph S. Marston, Jr. …with a few edits
Read The Declaration
July 4, 2012 by Bob Livingston …with a few edits
It has been 236 years since 56 brave men signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming that the 13 original American Colonies were no longer willing to live under tyrannical British rule.
Those men, among them some of the most notable names in American history, risked their own safety and that of their families by signing the document; they were still in the earliest stages of a war against an enemy that outgunned them and was better trained. By signing their names to the very spirit of Patriotism, the men risked being hanged in the event of defeat.
But they were not alone. Thousands of the signers’ fellow countrymen had already taken up arms against the British in the name of American Independence. Seven bloody years after the signing of the Declaration and eight bloody years after the initial shots at Lexington and Concord, a new, free, republican Nation was born.
Those 56 who risked their lives by signing their names to a document that declared in no uncertain terms that they meant to create a better place where freedom reigned supreme might have trouble recognizing their Nation today. Given the state of political discourse and the tendency for bureaucracy to destroy freedom in order to increase centralized power, the Federal government has effectively come to represent much of what those men disdained in the Declaration.
Take the time to read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety. For a thorough historical background and to better understand the Declaration’s signers, read They Signed for Us which was written by Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur and first published in 1957. If you have a little more time, visit readthedeclaration.com to request a free copy of the Declaration and the Constitution and add your name to the list of Americans who read the founding documents over the holiday. To top it all off, write a letter to your Senators and Representatives to let them know that you agree with the principles your Nation was founded upon, and request that they legislate accordingly.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
– Wayne Gretzky
Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them.
When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in all we think, say, want and do.
~Emmanuel Swedenborg
“A Dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. You can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay that price.”
– Vince Lombardi
You become like the 5 people you spend the most time with. Choose carefully.
-As A Man Thinketh
“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
Thanks for the good you are doing today
and the prayers you are saying today,
Particularly the prayers for those
Going in harm’s way on your behalf.
Sunset at Sea Off the coast of Central America
Move forward …resolute and confident.
Seven Positive ideas and two articles
This “Positive Ideas” news letter goes out once a week or so
to about 750 friends and colleagues around the USA and in various locations overseas.
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC
Economic and Management Consultants
A Veteran-Owned Company
571 332 2349
781 626 6667 international
Look for us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
__________________________________________________
| “Choose carefully your habitual thoughts. Such also will be the character of your mind; for your soul is shaped by your thoughts.”
…with a few edits |
“Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad.
It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.”
~ Tom Blandi
“… if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose — somehow we win out.”
~ Ronald Reagan
“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life;
not so much by what happens to you as by the way you look at and respond to what happens.”
~ John Homer Miller …with a few edits
“Your goals are the road maps that guide you and show you what is possible for your life.”
~ Les Brown
The Jewish state ranked 14th on global Happiness Report. What’s its secret?
Israel ranked 14th in the United Nations’ first World Happiness Report. The list is headed by Denmark, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands, the paradises of political correctness, welfare, anti-war, ultra-liberal and anti-nationalistic feelings, beacons which, according to the Global Peace Index, topped the list of the most “peaceful” places in the world.
So how can we explain the happiness of Israel, the only civilized country under mortal danger, the only nation without recognized borders and globally selected to be an emblem of evil?
To people who don’t live in Israel, this is a mystery. Many Israelis probably can’t figure it out, either. How is it possible that a population living under a perpetual emotional strain and ghettoizing itself behind new Maginot lines is so happy?
How can the Jews be happy when Iran is going nuclear and threatening to wipe them off the map? How can they be happy when the Arabs are firing rockets every day at civilians in Ashkelon, Beersheba, Ashdod and Sderot? What are the sources of the happiness of the only UN member condemned to death and boycotted all over the world?
Israel is much happier than all the European countries that experienced their last war six decades ago. The Jewish state’s population exceeds 7.5 million, nine times that of 1948, the year of the state’s creation. Israelis are happy because they succeeded demographically; considering the Diaspora’s low birth rates and high assimilation rates, it may not be long before most of the world’s Jews will be Israelis.
Despite Jewish heroism and Israeli collectivism giving way to Western individualism, self-criticism and frivolous hedonism, Israeli happiness is much more than the American dream of a large house and a nice car. It lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning, “a nation like all other nations” but also “a light unto the nations.”
Belief in God
Israelis, which have one of the longest life expectancies of any nation in the world, are happy because their country has a history of scintillating enlightenment, with the highest production of scientific publications per capita in the world, more museums per capita and the highest worldwide publication of new books. In a war-ravaged country like Israel, the past few years saw five Israeli Nobel Prize winners.
Another reason is economic success. No other industrialized country does it better, especially for a nation that doesn’t have natural resources and has a population roughly half of Belgium’s. Israel’s high-tech industry is flourishing, making the country known as “start-up nation.”
While Israel’s social fabric is deeply divided between ultra-Orthodox Jews and “Hellenistic” Israelis, nationalists and leftists, two-thirds of Israelis believe in God, therefore maintaining the hope and feeling that there is higher meaning and purpose to their lives. There is also the attachment to the Jewish land, while love for one’s land is a nationalistic taboo in the West.
Overall, Israel’s population is very resilient. A new governmental study just found that Intifada-era violence did nothing to affect Israel’s national morale. Israelis are also happy because they know that Dimona and the IDF are there to protect them, even if the army lost some of its famous deterrence.
Finally, there is the most important reason why Israeli happiness is an enchanting and heartening mystery for all free men. When comparing the fertility rate to the suicide rate, one can see the proportion of people who choose to create new life against the proportion who choose to destroy their own. This is why the Jews will ultimately win a centennial war against an enemy ready to sacrifice all of its children in order to throw all Israelis into the sea.
In Israel, the celebrations of life are far more numerous than the memories of death. That’s Israel’s secret for happiness: it’s a lighthouse of life on the border between survival and destruction. Ultimately, life will prevail over death.
This article originally appeared on ynetnews.com
The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking
part. The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.
— Baron de Coubertin, The Olympic Creed
Never Fight a Land War in Asia
March 1, 2011 |
Stratfor
By George Friedman …with a few edits
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at West Point in 2010, said that “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.”
In saying this, Gates was repeating a dictum laid down by Douglas MacArthur after the Korean War, who urged the United States to avoid land wars in Asia. Given that the United States has fought four major land wars in Asia since World War II — Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq — none of which had ideal outcomes, it is useful to ask three questions: First, why is fighting a land war in Asia a bad idea? Second, why does the United States seem compelled to fight these wars? And third, what is the alternative that protects U.S. interests in Asia without large-scale military land wars?
The Hindrances of Overseas Wars
Let’s begin with the first question, the answer to which is rooted in demographics and space. The population of Iraq is currently about 32 million. Afghanistan has a population of less than 30 million. The U.S. military, all told, consists of about 1.5 million active-duty personnel (plus 980,000 in the reserves), of whom more than 550,000 belong to the Army and about 200,000 are part of the Marine Corps. Given this, it is important to note that the United States strains to deploy about 200,000 troops at any one time in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that many of these troops are in support rather than combat roles. The same was true in Vietnam, where the United States was challenged to field a maximum of about 550,000 troops (in a country much more populous than Iraq or Afghanistan) despite conscription and a larger standing army. Indeed, the same problem existed in World War II.
When the United States fights in the Eastern Hemisphere, it fights at great distances, and the greater the distance, the greater the logistical cost. More ships are needed to deliver the same amount of material, for example. That absorbs many troops. The logistical cost of fighting at a distance is that it diverts numbers of troops (or requires numbers of civilian personnel) disproportionate to the size of the combat force.
Regardless of the number of troops deployed, the U.S. military is always vastly outnumbered by the populations of the countries to which it is deployed. If parts of these populations resist as light-infantry guerrilla forces or employ terrorist tactics, the enemy rapidly swells to a size that can outnumber U.S. forces, as in Vietnam and Korea. At the same time, the enemy adopts strategies to take advantage of the core weakness of the United States — tactical intelligence. The resistance is fighting at home. It understands the terrain and the culture. The United States is fighting in an alien environment. It is constantly at an intelligence disadvantage. That means that the effectiveness of the native forces is multiplied by excellent intelligence, while the effectiveness of U.S. forces is divided by lack of intelligence.
The United States compensates with technology, from space-based reconnaissance and air power to counter-battery systems and advanced communications. This can make up the deficit but only by massive diversions of manpower from ground-combat operations. Maintaining a helicopter requires dozens of ground-crew personnel. Where the enemy operates with minimal technology multiplied by intelligence, the United States compensates for lack of intelligence with massive technology that further reduces available combat personnel. Between logistics and technological force multipliers, the U.S. “point of the spear” shrinks. If you add the need to train, relieve, rest and recuperate the ground-combat forces, you are left with a small percentage available to fight.
The paradox of this is that American forces will win the engagements but may still lose the war. Having identified the enemy, the United States can overwhelm it with firepower. The problem the United States has is finding the enemy and distinguishing it from the general population. As a result, the United States is well-suited for the initial phases of combat, when the task is to defeat a conventional force. But after the conventional force has been defeated, the resistance can switch to methods difficult for American intelligence to deal with. The enemy can then control the tempo of operations by declining combat where it is at a disadvantage and initiating combat when it chooses.
The example of the capitulation of Germany and Japan in World War II is frequently cited as a model of U.S. forces defeating and pacifying an opposing nation. But the Germans were not defeated primarily by U.S. ground troops. The back of the Wehrmacht was broken by the Soviets on their own soil with the logistical advantages of short supply lines. And, of course, Britain and numerous other countries were involved. It is doubtful that the Germans would have capitulated to the Americans alone. The force the United States deployed was insufficient to defeat Germany. The Germans had no appetite for continuing a resistance against the Russians and saw surrendering to the Americans and British as sanctuary from the Russians. They weren’t going to resist them. As for Japan, it was not ground forces but air power, submarine warfare and atomic bombs that finished them — and the emperor’s willingness to order a surrender. It was not land power that prevented resistance but air and sea power, plus a political compromise by MacArthur in retaining and using the emperor. Had the Japanese emperor been removed, I suspect that the occupation of Japan would have been much more costly. Neither Germany nor Japan are examples in which U.S. land forces compelled capitulation and suppressed resistance.
The problem the United States has in the Eastern Hemisphere is that the size of the force needed to occupy a country initially is much smaller than the force needed to pacify the country. The force available for pacification is much smaller than needed because the force the United States can deploy demographically without committing to total war is simply too small to do the job — and the size needed to do the job is unknown.
U.S. Global Interests
The deeper problem is this: The United States has global interests. While the Soviet Union was the primary focus of the United States during the Cold War, no power threatens to dominate Eurasia now, and therefore no threat justifies the singular focus of the United States. In time of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States must still retain a strategic reserve for other unanticipated contingencies. This further reduces the available force for combat.
Some people argue that the United States is insufficiently ruthless in prosecuting war, as if it would be more successful without political restraints at home. The Soviets and the Nazis, neither noted for gentleness, were unable to destroy the partisans behind German lines or the Yugoslav resistance, in spite of brutal tactics. The guerrilla has built-in advantages in warfare for which brutality cannot compensate.
Given all this, the question is why the United States has gotten involved in wars in Eurasia four times since World War II. In each case it is obvious: for political reasons. In Korea and Vietnam, it was to demonstrate to doubting allies that the United States had the will to resist the Soviets. In Afghanistan, it was to uproot al Qaeda. In Iraq, the reasons are murkier, more complex and less convincing, but the United States ultimately went in, in my opinion, to convince the Islamic world of American will.
The United States has tried to shape events in the Eastern Hemisphere by the direct application of land power. In Korea and Vietnam, it was trying to demonstrate resolve against Soviet and Chinese power. In Afghanistan and Iraq, it was trying to shape the politics of the Muslim world. The goal was understandable but the amount of ground force available was not. In Korea, it resulted in stalemate; in Vietnam, defeat. We await the outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan, but given Gates’ statement, the situation for the United States is not necessarily hopeful.
In each case, the military was given an ambiguous mission. This was because a clear outcome — defeating the enemy — was unattainable. At the same time, there were political interests in each. Having engaged, simply leaving did not seem an option. Therefore, Korea turned into an extended presence in a near-combat posture, Vietnam ended in defeat for the American side, and Iraq and Afghanistan have turned, for the time being, into an uncertain muddle that no reasonable person expects to end with the declared goals of a freed and democratic pair of countries.
Problems of Strategy
There are two problems with American strategy. The first is using the appropriate force for the political mission. This is not a question so much of the force as it is of the mission. The use of military force requires clarity of purpose; otherwise, a coherent strategy cannot emerge. Moreover, it requires an offensive mission. Defensive missions (such as Vietnam and Korea) by definition have no terminal point or any criteria for victory. Given the limited availability of ground combat forces, defensive missions allow the enemy’s level of effort to determine the size of the force inserted, and if the force is insufficient to achieve the mission, the result is indefinite deployment of scarce forces.
Then there are missions with clear goals initially but without an understanding of how to deal with Act II. Iraq suffered from an offensive intention ill suited to the enemy’s response. Having destroyed the conventional forces of Iraq, the United States was unprepared for the Iraqi response, which was guerrilla resistance on a wide scale. The same was true in Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency is occupation warfare. It is the need to render a population — rather than an army — unwilling and incapable of resisting. It requires vast resources and large numbers of troops that outstrip the interest. Low-cost counter-insurgency with insufficient forces will always fail. Since the United States uses limited forces because it has to, counterinsurgency is the most dangerous kind of war for the United States. The idea has always been that the people prefer the U.S. occupation to the threats posed by their fellow countrymen and that the United States can protect those who genuinely do prefer the former. That may be the idea, but there is seldom enough U.S. force available.
Another model for dealing with the problem of shaping political realities can be seen in the Iran-Iraq war. In that war, the United States allowed the mutual distrust of the two countries to eliminate the threats posed by both. When the Iraqis responded by invading Kuwait, the United States responded with a massive counter with very limited ends — the reconquest of Kuwait and the withdrawal of forces. It was a land war in Asia designed to defeat a known and finite enemy army without any attempt at occupation.
The problem with all four wars is that they were not wars in a conventional sense and did not use the military as militaries are supposed to be used. The purpose of a military is to defeat enemy conventional forces. As an army of occupation against a hostile population, military forces are relatively weak. The problem for the United States is that such an army must occupy a country for a long time, and the U.S. military simply lacks the ground forces needed to occupy countries and still be available to deal with other threats.
By having an unclear mission, you have an uncertain terminal point. When does it end? You then wind up with a political problem internationally — having engaged in the war, you have allies inside and outside of the country that have fought with you and taken risks with you. Withdrawal leaves them exposed, and potential allies will be cautious in joining with you in another war. The political costs spiral and the decision to disengage is postponed. The United States winds up in the worst of all worlds. It terminates not on its own but when its position becomes untenable, as in Vietnam. This pyramids the political costs dramatically.
Wars need to be fought with ends that can be achieved by the forces available. Donald Rumsfeld once said, “You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” I think that is a fundamental misunderstanding of war. You do not engage in war if the army you have is insufficient. When you understand the foundations of American military capability and its limits in Eurasia, Gates’ view on war in the Eastern Hemisphere is far more sound than Rumsfeld’s.
The Diplomatic Alternative
The alternative is diplomacy, not understood as an alternative to war but as another tool in statecraft alongside war. Diplomacy can find the common ground between nations. It can also be used to identify the hostility of nations and use that hostility to insulate the United States by diverting the attention of other nations from challenging the United States. That is what happened during the Iran-Iraq war. It wasn’t pretty, but neither was the alternative.
Diplomacy for the United States is about maintaining the balance of power and using and diverting conflict to manage the international system. Force is the last resort.
But when force is used, it must be devastating and overwhelming. The argument I have made, and which I think Gates is asserting, is that at a distance, the United States cannot be devastating in wars dependent on land power. That is the weakest aspect of American international power and the one the United States has resorted to all too often since World War II, with unacceptable results. Using U.S. land power as part of a combined arms strategy is occasionally effective in defeating conventional forces, as it was with North Korea (and not China) but is inadequate to the demands of occupation warfare. It makes too few troops available for success, and it does not know how many troops might be needed.
This is not a policy failure of any particular U.S. president. George W. Bush and Barack Obama have encountered precisely the same problem, which is that the forces that have existed in Eurasia, from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in Korea to the Taliban in Afghanistan, have either been too numerous or too agile (or both) for U.S. ground forces to deal with. In any war, the primary goal is not to be defeated. An elective war in which the criteria for success are unclear and for which the amount of land force is insufficient must be avoided. That is Gates’ message. It is the same one MacArthur delivered, and the one Dwight Eisenhower exercised when he refused to intervene in Vietnam on France’s behalf. As with the Monroe Doctrine, it should be elevated to a principle of U.S. foreign policy, not because it is a moral principle but because it is a very practical one.
Read more: Never Fight a Land War in Asia | Stratfor
Effort and courage are good but one also needs purpose and direction.
~John F. Kennedy …with a few edits
At a rain forest in Costa Rica
Thanks for the good you are doing today
and the prayers you are saying today,
Particularly the prayers for those
Going in harm’s way on your behalf.
Move forward …resolute and confident.
Tom O’Connor
The Tom O’Connor Group, LLC
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