I find it hard to believe the United States is bringing back debtor prisons, but that appears to be the case, as reported in the Guardian, arguably the best and most independent newspaper in the English language. The elimination of debtor prisons was something the Founders took as a very serious goal for their new country. So much for the Founders, they are trumped by the new private for-profit prison trend.
I was a CIA spy from 1979 to 1988, leaving when invited to be a co-creator of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center from 1988 to 1993. Since 1993, I have been one of the more persistent published proponents of intelligence reform around the world.
In 2010, I was among those interviewed for the position of defense intelligence senior leader for human intelligence (HUMINT). I made two points during that interview: First, in a declining fiscal environment, the best way to pay for a defense spy program would be by cutting in half the Measurements and Signatures Analysis Intelligence program, which is under the oversight of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) director. It is the most over-hyped and underperforming national collection program.
Second, micro-pockets of excellence notwithstanding, no one serving in the Pentagon (or CIA) was qualified by mindset or experience to create the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS). I was particularly pointed about the complacency and ineptitude of the entrenched civilian cadre, and the inexperience and uncertainty of their constantly changing uniformed counterparts.
Here are my observations on whether there should be a DCS, and if so, how it should be trained, equipped and organized.
From day one, the Obama Administration has neglected the imperative to modernize the country’s defense forces, underplayed the amount of forces needed for the national defense, and failed to implement any serious reform agenda. Rather than deliver on its promise to provide more bang for the buck, the White House has done little more than call cuts “efficiencies.” Indeed, how the White House has failed to utilize resources efficiently is more damaging than the spending reductions themselves. Exacerbating this downward spiral, the President has emboldened enemies, strained relations, and undercut the confidence of traditional allies—leaving the nation less safe than when he took office. The President’s re-election squandered the opportunity to reverse a dangerous trend. As a result, by the end of his presidency, America’s military will be “hollow.” The armed forces are already inadequate to protect all the nation’s vital national interests because of shortfalls in training and maintenance. By the endof his second term, the shortfalls in readiness will be compounded by reductions in military capabilities. It is not an overstatement to conclude that the capabilities- requirements mismatch will rival the hollow forces of the 1970s under President Jimmy Carter.
Those caught in conflict and natural disasters are part of growing trend exemplified by Syria, South Sudan and the Philippines
David Miliband
The Guardian, 28 February 2014
For the first time the UN has declared three simultaneous crises – in South Sudan, Syria and the Philippines – as level 3, the highest band of emergency. So this is a period of intense activity for NGOs such as the International Rescue Committee. But it is also a good time to reflect on the goals and working methods of the humanitarian system.
This is a movie that has been in development for years and is still not finished partially due to lack of funds. It could turn out to be the most important movie on American education ever made.
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the agency that builds and operates U.S. intelligence satellites, frequently makes mistakes when it classifies national security information, according to an assessment performed last year by the NRO Inspector General.
“From the classified documents we reviewed at NRO headquarters, 114 of 134 documents contained classification errors,” the IG report said.
Agency classification officials “lack sufficient knowledge of classification principles and procedures necessary to perform their duties,” the NRO Inspector General found. “One OCA [original classification authority] had almost no knowledge of his responsibilities.”
“Because of the lack of full compliance in multiple areas, the NRO is susceptible to the risk of persistent misclassification,” the IG said.
Pierre Sprey and I have authored an analysis of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's statements this past Monday on the A-10. It follows:
Chuck Hagel's A-10 Legacy
By Winslow T. Wheeler & Pierre M. Sprey
When he spoke about next year's defense budget on February 24, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel addressed his decision to go along with the Air Force and retire all existing A-10 close air support aircraft. In that statement, he made the following assertions:
·“To fund these investments [the new long range bomber, the new tanker and the F-35], the Air Force will reduce the number of tactical air squadrons including the entire A-10 fleet. Retiring the A-10 fleet saves $3.5 billion over five years and accelerates the Air Force's long-standing modernization plan – which called for replacing the A-10s with the more capable F-35 in the early 2020s.”
·“The ‘Warthog' is a venerable platform, and this was a tough decision. But the A-10 is a 40-year-old single-purpose airplane originally designed to kill enemy tanks on a Cold War battlefield. It cannot survive or operate effectively where there are more advanced aircraft or air defenses. And as we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, the advent of precision munitions means that many more types of aircraft can now provide effective close air support, from B-1 bombers to remotely piloted aircraft. And these aircraft can execute more than one mission.”
·“Moreover, the A-10's age is also making it much more difficult and costly to maintain. Significant savings are only possible through eliminating the entire fleet, because of the fixed cost of maintaining the support apparatus associated with the aircraft. Keeping a smaller number of A-10s would only delay the inevitable while forcing worse trade-offs elsewhere.”
Many of these statements are questionable; several are poorly informed; at least one of them is materially incorrect.
