Working and success are not the same

When something 'works', that means that it is operating in a normal fashion.

When something is 'successful', that means it achieves its objective.

The backtracking of Janet Napolitano, who heads up DHS, in the previous Detroit attempted terrorist attack was telling in that regard, this from the Telegraph, 28 DEC 2009:

On Sunday, Miss Napolitano told CNN that "one thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked" and ABC News that "once the incident occurred, the system worked".

After widespread condemnation of her comments, she told NBC on Monday that she had been quoted "out of context", claiming that she was referring to the system of notifying other flights as well as law enforcement on the ground about the incident soon after it happened.

"Our system did not work in this instance,' she said. "No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way."

She moved from the categorical of the system working to the specific of it working after the incident to the categorical of the system not working. All of that in the space of a day.

Now we move to the current attempted terrorist attack, this from Politico on 02 MAY 2010:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the car bomb police found in New York's Times Square Saturday night could be a "one off," but that authorities are nonetheless treating the incident as a "potential terrorist attack."

“We’re taking this very seriously,” Napolitano said on CNN's "State of the Union." “We are treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack. The derivation of that we do not know and that’s what the investigation will tell us.”

She said they have not pinpointed particular suspects but a lot of forensic evidence investigators are working through, including a possible video.

“We view this very, very seriously,” she said.

“We have no evidence that it is anything other than a one-off,” Napolitano said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding that federal investigators are nonetheless alerting state and local authorities.

“Times Square,” she said, “I think is now safe.”

Times Square is just as safe, today, as the Twin Towers were at 8:00am on 11 SEPT 2001.

Of course so is every other place in the Nation so similarly 'safe'.

And the evidence of the attempted car bombing is that it would not have been a well made device and that it was found because of the premature way the system acted when it was being armed. Thus when President Obama says the following, from the White House blog at Fox News 04 MAY 2010:

On Tuesday the president credited "ordinary citizens" with the failure of Saturday's Times Square incident. Two street vendors alerted the NYPD to the suspicious Nissan Pathfinder packed with explosives in Manhattan's busy epicenter. "I've had the opportunity to personally thank the citizens and law enforcement officers whose quick thinking may have saved hundreds of lives." the president said before remarks to the Business Council.

and you know he has beaucoup experts in the CIA, FBI, NSA, BATFE and so on, he must certainly of known this sort of thing as pointed out at Threats Watch on 04 MAY 2005 by Steve Schippert:

The contents of the vehicle, a Nissan Pathfinder SUV, included two plastic five-gallon containers of gasoline, three metal propane tanks (the type commonly used for outdoor grills), dry fertilizer in a lock metal gun cabinet described as containing "eight bags (over 100 pounds) of an unknown, fertilizer-like substance and an inverted pot with a "bird's nest" of wires. There were two analog alarm clocks wired to arrangements of M-88 firecrackers. The bomber expected the M-88 firecrackers to go off and puncture the gasoline and propane tanks to spark the explosion. This clearly did not happen. Some of the M-88's ignited, as heard by nearby pedestrians and vendors, but failed to penetrate either the plastic gasoline containers or the propane tanks.

The fertilizer still in bags and clearly expected to explode or add to the impact is another sign of a bomb maker of low skill and knowledge perhaps following poor or unclear instructions. In order for an ammonium nitrate fertilizer to be transformed into an explosive, it must be combined with diesel fuel and stirred into a slurry. The fertilizer was reportedly not an ammonium nitrate based type to begin with, slurry or none.

It should be noted here that the crude, technically lacking bomb design itself should be no source of reassurance that the threat to New York City, its citizens, its tourists and its workers is minimal. It was a mistake for authorities and experts to publicly describe it as "amateurish." Americans taking in their information from news reports who see this written and hear it spoken will instinctively conclude that the threat is significantly less than feared. This is a mistake, because upwards of 80% of a successful attack comes from the motivation and desire of the attacker. This is far harder for terrorists to cultivate among recruits than skill levels and tactics. And the motivation and desire to kill innocents on New York City streets was clearly demonstrated Saturday.

While intending to make a bomb, the bomb maker, instead, had some fertilizer that doesn't add to an explosion, along with a couple of gas cans and propane tanks, plus some firecrackers. You might get something if you know what you are doing with that, but what was made was not going to kill anyone, unless the gasoline fire got out of control at the very worst of prospects. The will to kill does not bestow skill.

Thus the noting of the M-88s going off was the earliest warning sign of a potential terror attack in Times Square. There was no increase in 'chatter' from typical INTEL sources, a single posting from the Tahreek-e-Taliban that they were going to do many attacks in the US, but nothing directly about NYC until after the attack failed.

But after THAT the system 'worked', right?

This from Fox News 05 MAY 2010:

Shahzad had been under constant watch at his Bridgeport, Conn., home since 3 p.m. Monday and federal authorities had planned to arrest him there that evening, two people familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press. Authorities believe he decided to flee after being spooked by news reports that investigators were seeking a Pakistani suspect in Connecticut, one of the people said.

Shahzad somehow lost the investigators who were trailing him, the two people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.

The Obama administration played down that Shahzad had made it aboard the plane. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano would not talk about it, other than to say Customs officials prevented the plane from taking off. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the security system has fallback procedures in place for times like this, and they worked.

And Attorney General Eric Holder said he "was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him."

So the Attorney General believes that the great power of those watching Shahzad meant that after losing track of him they could find him again. Brilliant!

And that great No-Fly List? Wasn't consulted.

So we have a terrorist who fails to construct a bomb, attempts to detonate that mass of materials which wasn't a bomb, a local vendor hears the firecrackers go off and calls the cops thus saving tens if not hundreds of people who weren't going to be killed, and then the ever prescient authorities find the man at his home, watch him to make sure he doesn't leave and then LOSE TRACK OF HIM and Shahzad is only stopped when his plane is on the damned tarmac ready to take off for Dubai due to the laxity in checking him out until his name popped up in the system.

And the only thing that 'worked'?

Well the system of National Intelligence (NSA, CIA, and a few other spook houses) failed in tagging the guy early on. And even if they did, no one paid attention to their tags and warnings.

The State Department failed in not doing a more thorough background check on him before he applied for US Citizenship, which he got a year ago.

There is no way on Earth to track all fertilizer, firecrackers and diesel so you can forget anything along those lines, as nothing can work on that score.

He bought a vehicle with cash in a private transaction, and even if he went to a dealer his name wouldn't have popped up for much of anything.

Whatever 'training' he got from Pakistan didn't work, though not for lack of trying.

The authorities on the police side that found him, lost him.

The TSA system that was supposed to prevent him from getting on a plane didn't work.

And only once his name was actually in the system, with him on-board the plane, did the system finally respond in the nick 'o time to stop the plane from taking off for Dubai with said terrorist on-board.

Thank heavens the Taliban are piss poor trainers, huh?

Otherwise we would now be talking about the blown in facade of the building Viacom is in, the folks who own Comedy Central that censored the South Park - Mohammad episode, and the dead due to shrapnel and debris in Times Square which would now be a massive 'crime scene' that would be, in actuality, an impromptu battlefield in the war with no fronts.

And the system that deprived the Taliban of good trainers and training facilities?

The US Armed Forces.

The fizzled attack in Times Square was stopped by the ineptitude that the Taliban now have in training because they have lost so many people in Afghanistan and Pakistan that their high value trainers are gone. Mostly dead.

DHS didn't work.

TSA didn't work.

The police didn't stop the device, and lost the suspect.

The DOJ with its firm belief in the ability to re-find said suspect shows that they don't understand that their system didn't work, either.

Out of all the official agencies, parts of the multiple governments both in the US (federal, State, local, municipal) and overseas (Pakistan and Afghanistan), the only part of this entire system that is working to deprive the terrorists of the skill, personnel and materials to attack the US successfully is the US Armed Forces.

For the attack did 'work'.

It was just not 'successful'.

And as we are reminded by KSM: they do revisit failed attack sites to carry out a successful one, just as they did at the Twin Towers.

There is no safety in our system, save for the part that works and it can't do everything for us.

I'm very glad that folks in Times Square weren't blown to smithereens, and that they noticed this failed almost-bomb attack and notified authorities.

They did their job because our soldiers can't be everywhere.

Save for one man who first noticed the event and called it in.

He is a vet, NY Daily News 04 MAY 2010:

"I'm overwhelmed," Lance Orton, 56, told the Daily News. "Do something good one day and you'll see."

The Vietnam veteran remains a reluctant hero. "I'm just an average guy," he insisted. "A glory hound seeks attention - that ain't me."

Terror, terrorism and Ft. Hood

To the family and loved ones of those that have died in the recent tragedy at Ft. Hood you have my deepest condolences and sympathy for your sudden loss.  My words cannot express my feelings adequately.

To those that have been wounded in this attack, you also have my sympathy and my regard for surviving such an attack.  Many of your comrades around you were not wounded because of you just as the fallen have died in place of another so you, too, have received the sharp end of the unexpected.  My deepest regards to you, your families and loved ones, and I wish you a speedy recovery.

To Police Sergeant Kimberly Munley:  thank you for your courage and cool under fire while wounded.  You have saved many lives by your action and that of your fellow officers to end this tragedy and ensure that it would end.  My best and dearest wishes for a speedy recovery from your wounds and return to health.

 

Any act in which an individual reclaims their negative liberty of warfare, to act as an animal, is one that is of pure terror as it is the loss of civilized controls upon the self and a return to the state of an animal.  It does not matter if it is a calculated dropping of such restraints or pure blinding animal impulse overwhelming the individual: the source of such reclaiming does not change the event, itself, save when those dropping the restraints of civilization act together without cause.  Those that commit such acts do not deserve our pity nor our attempts to exculpate them by blaming such an uncivilized act on conditions.  Guilt or innocence is for a jury to decide, and then source and reason indicates level of punishment.  The presumption for any charged is innocence and proof must be beyond a reasonable doubt of a jury.  Juries can get it wrong, yes.  Trying an individual in the court of public opinion guarantees a wrong verdict as our media play up to emotions, not facts, and thus misguide our thinking via intent through lack of content.  That is why we have juries: to avoid emotional based conviction or decree of innocence as neither weighs the facts.

During my time working on the civil side of DoD, I visited many bases and facilities fully under military control.  The level of self-control and civility was and is astonishing and when any individual within the armed forces reverts to their animal nature it is a double pity as such an individual not only became uncivilized but betrayed the trust of their comrades in arms who depend upon them.  As we depend upon them to defend our Nation, this is the highest form of loss we can suffer as it erodes the trust within the very organization we use to keep us safe.  No higher loss of trust can be found, save for treason, and when plotted with malice aforethought and intent to change the course of a Nation through one's actions, then the act, itself, is treason as well as reclaiming one's negative liberty of Private War.

Those individuals who step forward to learn the trade of arms do just that: learn the trade of arms.  We ensure that they get the highest level of training not only in the arms but in themselves so that they come to understand themselves and their place in our common defense.  These individuals are trained in more than just arms, but in treatment of wounds, first aid and many other areas that allow them to survive the harshest conditions that humanity offers them, which is the battlefield.  The battlefield is that place where civilization falls apart most directly, and yet we try to place civilized rules so as to keep the carnage and atrocities down.  Our soldiers are taught to uphold civilization not where it is easy and comfortable, in their homes and offices, but where it is least likely to be upheld which is that chaotic field of battle.  That training is done to help distinguish between those that are uncivilized and need to be stopped, and those that are civilized and need to be protected.  Due to the chaotic nature of the battlefield this is never easy, and such laws of war have come about so that the innocent are not destroyed by the nature of war, itself.

When on such bases I never wondered if soldiers were kind, courteous and competent.  They were US soldiers.

Even on the most open of bases and facilities before 9/11 I did wonder about the lack of even side arms for self-protection.  As we have come to understand Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, we have come to learn that normalizing of the mind takes many forms and soldiers now employ those forms from immediate de-compression via violent video games to meditation and counseling.  Thus I had no worries about soldiers who had been in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Colombia, Philippines, and elsewhere being in harms way.  We have changed how we deal with the aftermath of battle upon the minds of our soldiers, and in many ways we now come to understand the more ritualized techniques of primitives and those before modern times that required similar forms of purification, understanding and re-acclimating themselves to civil society after the horrors of warfare.  They are far better prepared to identify danger and how to respond to lethal threats and even the non-lethal sort that involve warfare than any police officer can be.  While both see similar threats, the field of war goes far deeper into how a soldier will asses a lethal situation and respond.  While they could not respond to stop the attacker at Ft. Hood, they served instantly to care for the fallen and stabilize the wounded and save lives immediately.  There was no question of paperwork, training and instant reaction as that had all been done.  Not all who were there were veterans, that is true, but the response between soldiers in different units points to a coherence of understanding that goes far deeper than any civil set of forces that require higher levels of coordination between them outside of the immediate realm.  Soldiers responded to treat the wounded, secure the area, and ensure communications and supply lines for that is their job.

My question is simple:  why are our citizen soldiers denied the right of self-protection due to any citizen of the United States?

They are citizens first.

Soldiers second.

We trust them to fight for us and correctly identify the enemy in the heat of battle and uphold the highest laws of warfare in doing so.

Why do we not trust them as citizens with the positive right of self-defense?

If our Armed Forces were remiss in identifying an individual with troubles, a person with deep personal misgivings of the armed forces and their mission, then that must be addressed, to be sure.

But to deny our citizens the right to protect themselves openly when they are trained in the highest morals and ethics of warfare to distinguish between minor events and lethal ones on the urban battlefield?

A soldier by taking up arms to protect our Nation is a target on and off the battlefield as they are openly stating their willingness to die for us.  In uniform or out of it, they are targets of our enemies who wish to destroy our will to fight and our Nation.  There is no safety when there are lack of arms as those who revert to their base, animal instincts will always and ever find a way to kill to assert their will over others.

That is the nature of man.

That negative liberty and right of asserting one's will over others also creates, simultaneously, the positive right and liberty for self-defense, to uphold one's existence and to assert the civil right to survive without being threatened by death by those wishing to control you.  When taking that animal liberty against a citizen working with civil means, the positive liberty and right spring into being so that there is a higher authority to be invoked when man turned as animal against all mankind arises: yourself who will hold yourself accountable to civil laws for your actions.

Can we not entrust our soldiers to understand that at home, too?

They know the laws of war and the laws of peace and the differences between them.

If we, on the civil side, cannot make that distinction, then we are seeking to dissolve that compact which allows our society to flourish and inviting the law of nature to rule over us with no means to address it.

No good will ever come of that.

Give to a good CAUSE, helping those protecting us

H/t: Ace

The wounded men and women of the Armed Forces have a wishlist at Amazon for things they would like to help keep their minds busy while on the mend. Mostly movies and some computer games wanted by those who have sacrificed much to protect our liberty and freedom.

From Ace's:

The movies and games are part of a larger effort by CAUSE, a group founded
in 2003 by 4 West Point grads who had served together in Vietnam. The idea
behind CAUSE is that morale among active and recovering soldiers and Marines can
be dramatically improved through R&R activities. At Walter Reed, CAUSE has
facilities at the Mologne House, which is an outpatient dormitory for personnel
and their families. The CAUSE library carries DVDs, as well as video games and
equipment and is open to anyone at Walter Reed, free of charge.

My goal this summer is to try and fulfill the wish list...

And please feel free to pass this link on for others to contribute and
for those of you with blogs (you know who you are), please consider publicizing
this effort.

Help those that need it, our fellow citizens who have paid the price to secure the blessing of our land and lives for us. They have asked for little, those who give so much.

America's other Army

From Strategypage - America's Secret Army

Most American men are unaware that they are in the army, or, as described by the Militia Act of 1903 (popularly known as the Dick Act), the unorganized militia. The main purpose of the Dick Act was to sort out over a century of confusion over the relationship between the state militias (now known as the National Guard) and the federal forces. The 1903 law was the first of many laws hammered out to create the system now in use. But in the last century, not much attention has been paid to the little known "unorganized militia" angle. This force contained every able-bodied adult male who was not a part of the organized militia. The 1903 law legalized the right not to be part of the organized militia, because a 1792 law had mandated that every adult male be part of the militia. The problem was, most men didn't want to be bothered. To deal with this, state governors created two classes of militia; paid (who trained and were armed and organized into units) and unorganized (everyone else.)

The militia is a state institution, and predates the founding of the United States. It harkens back to the ancient tribal practice, where every able bodied male turned out to defend the tribe. During the colonial period, this really only meant anything in frontier areas, where hostile Indians sometimes required the use an armed militia force. In the late 18th century, only about ten percent of American families possessed a firearm, usually a musket or shotgun. Weapon ownership was much more common on the frontier, and in more settled areas, men with muskets often joined the organized militia more to be with their hunting buddies, than to prepare for war. The urban militia was sometimes used as a paramilitary force, when there was civil disorder or some kind of natural disaster. During the American Revolution, the militia served mainly as a police force, especially since about a third of the population were loyalists.

Currently, the "unorganized militia" is expected to come up when the Supreme Court again considers the laws pertaining to the right to possess firearms. Many localities have outlawed or regulated that right, which is guaranteed (but not precisely spelled out) in the Constitution. Nevertheless, if you are an adult American male between the ages of 17 and 45, you are part of the militia, whether you knew it or not, whether or not you want to be, and whether or not you are armed. Just so you know.

This is fully in line with my view of the rights of the citizens and the States as seen in multiple previous posts. In the first of those I looked directly at the issue of these two pieces of the Constitution. While everyone with weapons looks at Amendment II, it is the Article I, Section 10 escape clause that allows the mustering of the militia by the States when invaded or in imminent Danger that will not admit delay. Perhaps of all the 'civil rights' we have and the least *used* or supported by the population, the right to defense of the State is one that gets forgotten.

Almost completely these days.

In that forgetting, however, we forget one of the deepest roots of our democracy, which goes back, not to the Greek but to the Nordic lands, and their views of exactly who would rule and how accountability was meted out. That was via the traditional form of democracy known as the Thing (or ting) done at the local level and then the Althing done at a proto-National level. A Thing was a social gathering (usually to renew ties during spring) and it was also a 'settling of accounts' under the law. In Sweden, and elsewhere in the Nordic climes, the King soon came to realize that the crown may rest upon his head, but only by the assent of the Althing. While still aristocratic in nature, the Things allowed, at the lowest level, for local Chieftans and lawgivers to reconcile the community with the rest of its neighbors and the King and State as a whole. The power of the Thing was the community that backed it: every able bodied man.

This, in its rawest of forms, is the ability to put government in check by the People. The fealty of a given ruler or King would be *to* that assembly and the King would need to act in accord with it to continue ruling. That basic of all pacts between rulers and the ruled would migrate through the British Isles and mix with other forms of local governing via the Scots and Irish and infuse itself more southwards into England. The Nordic rulers of England would change that common view into the Common Law, and the fealty of a King to the Assembly or Parliament is the exact, same as the King to the Althing. In the US the local Chieftans would be represented by the individual State and the ruling group would be the federal government. That same tie via the Common Law which itself comes from the Norse exists, to this day, in the unorganized militia language, which the States may call upon to defend the State when the federal government is not able or not *willing* to respond to invasion or Danger.

While ancient it is a sacred bond and perhaps the most sacred to any people who consider themselves to be free: they can hold government absolutely accountable to themselves and dissolve that government whenever they want and that is backed by force of arms at the very last and yet most important times when governments seek to remove freedom from their People.

If you try to wish this away or regulate all arms out of the hand of individuals, you no longer have a free society: you have a tyranny.

Even worse, if you try to suppress the teaching of arms along with removing them, you then encounter the ancient martial arts that unarmed individuals may perform. Any move to stop all teaching of arms is something that can and will be resisted as it is uncivilized to wish for government that is unhindered by any limit or any accountability. Remove the last limit and then government may do as it pleases as the People have become slaves.

In an era where individuals practice Private War and keep such war-making in the shadows until they strike, unlike civilized armies and Nations, the only defense the population can ever be assured of is: themselves. That, too, is backed by the Law and the Constitution, not only given in the language, above, but in the English Common Law before the United States was even formed, and also within the Law of Nations... not that you will ever be taught these things in school.

There appears to be some work going on the last couple of generations to help Americans forget what it means to have and hold Freedom by using their Liberty to safeguard it. Let us hope that we do not have to put that faulty memory to the test any time soon, as we just might fail the test of 1776 these days... because grasping and holding freedom is ancient.

And necessary.

To: CinC Armed Forces of the US, RE: blogging

Dear Mr. President,

It has come to my attention that the leadership under your command has decided to stifle the voices of the Voluntary Citizen Soldiers of the United States with regards to Operational Security (OPSEC) of the mission in Iraq. And while all Citizens understand that the right to Freedom of Speech needs some oversight during wartime, that is usually limited to censorship regarding vital information that would aid Our enemies. OPSEC has been a harsh realm, in the case of World War II, but lesser for other conflicts of the past. Unfortunately those conflicts did not have inexpensive, global communications available for general use for the enlightenment of the common man on a global scale.

Today that has changed, to the point of instantaneous communications globally, so that older rules and views on how OPSEC and Information Security (INFOSEC) are viewed. Heretofore the Citizen Soldiers of the United States had little venue for expressing their views and opinions outside of the irregular letter home and, if lucky, an interview with a reporter from a larger organization. Those days, however, have gone with the advent of the late 20th century communications network that is now global in scope and presence. The letter home can now be something done in mere minutes and nearly instantly sent from place to place and even Instant Messaging uses an informal form of Person to Person communication that is very expansive in its abilities including the use of video and audio, plus file transfers.

Your Administration has been most lax in safeguarding the security of this Nation's historical documents of a physical sort, and has shown inability to actually bring the proper scope of charges against an individual who has wantonly destroyed historical documentation on an era vital to understanding how the Federal Government responded to terrorism. While that was purely on the Civilian side, the documents themselves fell under National Security regulations and were not safeguarded properly and little was done to show the severity of the offense involved. When punishment includes the ability of that individual to *regain* access to such documents, then one must begin to question the actual care that the Administration places on ANY form of INFOSEC or OPSEC.

Thus to deny Citizen Soldiers of a well regulated right to have timely expression of their views and insights with their fellow Citizens and the world brings into question the capability of your Administration to actually differentiate between Citizen Soldier Volunteering to risk their lives for the good of the Nation to help a people who had been under a Tyrant's rule for three decades and the non-applicability of stewardship shown in the case of one Sandy 'Big Socks' Burger. There is no equivalence in this treatment and assuming the Citizen Soldiers to be leaking information like a sieve while the vital and historical records under Security Regulations can be walked off with and destroyed with only a slap on the wrist.

There is no equivalence in outlook or of Justice to assume that those fighting for their lives and freedom will purposely endanger themselves with that of a known miscreant trying to perform historical CYA to make something 'go away' that might point a finger of blame at the prior Administration. The lax enforcement of the Laws of the Land in that case is no reason to assume that innocent Citizens who have Volunteered to place themselves in harms way for the good of the Nation are fool enough to want to endanger their active mission upon which their very lives depend.

As OPSEC and INFOSEC have, in the past, meant delay for censorship, and that such orders to cease, totally, is an absolute infringement on free expression of ANY sort by our Citizen Soldiers, and that such information is purely technical in nature, then it is up to the Armed Forces and Federal Government to provide free expression forum that can be monitored and messages delayed for automated inspection and further human inspection if need be.

Working in the INFOSEC area under National Security Regulations I am aware of multiple pieces of software to do a 'dirty word' and 'phrase' look up for things that would normally impair National Security. That is a very simple tool to implement and use. Additionally a no cost to the Soldier venue for free blog and email that would automatically be screened by such software is not only possible but available from many suppliers on the Open Market, many of them already on the Federal Supply Schedule.

Thus the draconian use of 19th century prohibition against free communication for Volunteer Citizen Soldiers is not only unwarranted, but unfeasible due to the general openness of the communication channels even in Iraq. Provide a good hosting platform with basic monitoring for ALL Soldiers should be something the United States Federal Government can provide gratis to those risking their lives for us so that their mission can go on and we can learn of what that mission is like.

Until this Administration actually gets serious about safeguarding the Nation's past documents and enforcing the National Security Regulations to the fullest, it has ZERO excuse to allow across-the-board censorship on the innocent.

As Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces I ask you to countermand this order.

Sincerely,

A Jacksonian

Sent to the email addresses available at the Whitehouse for comments and Vice President.