Next time I won’t sugar-coat it!

I think what has kept us safe is the extraordinary covert capability developed by USSOCOM, the fact that we are stationing military covert action teams in assorted countries, and our large scale and active presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa which had deprived transnational terror organizations of funds and safe havens for training camps and planning.

This USSOCOM veteran couldn’t agree more.

If Israel is not objectively victorious, the green light is on for Iran and all its proxies. You don’t annoy the termites that are destroying your house, you eliminate them. And, the terminates aren’t destroying your house because of an ideology.

Hopefully, oil prices will stay very low to provide less funding and help increase the unrest in the oil-rich middle east countries. That would help much more than the BO administration will.

Republicans need to watch and learn from the next three months as Democrats move to undo everything the Republicans have done in living memory. The lesson may not do any good because unless the Rs step up quickly, it may be a generation before there is any hope of being in power again.

Defenses will come down… be relaxed and there will be another attack… ‘the world’ knows he’s weak, and will want to get him to get out… of everything.

And when it does the carnage it will make 9/11 pale in comparison.

Elections have consequences BHO is who ‘the people’ wanted. Now they will get him.

But still, they just seem to be organically unable to get over BDS and their hatred of everything Republican. Collectively, we do have enemies who are capable of inflicting greater damage to the country than Halliburton, Blackwater and Dick Cheney combined.

Their model of behavior relative to the country seems to mimic the relationship between parasitic unions (UAW or SEIU) and their employers. In their single minded power-grabs, they are blissfully unaware that what they’re doing is strangling the host.

But I keep coming back to this point – picking Panetta is pure capitulation. It is capitulation to the left and it is capitulation to the terrorists, and it is a signal that CIA has become a primarily a political organization. Sure, the upper levels of the CIA are against doing their jobs, but those above them and many below them know that what they have been doing for the past seven years is right, and this has kept the loudmouths in the shadows.

This appointment sends a clear signal to everyone that CIA and the war on terror are now secondary. I am surprised that CIA director is still a cabinet position in the Obama administration.

Frankly, the safest thing a government employee can do is make a career of doing as little as possible, attracting as little attention as possible, and living long enough to collect the retirement check. The reason for that fact is Democrats, not Republicans.

You could also look at the progress we’ve made in military operations and conclude that it will be a long time before al Qaeda could organize anything significant against us, though they could do so against various European countries at any time. That, however, is not your issue if you are the US president.

So if you want to minimize the risk of bad things for your two terms I think you can safely reduce covert actions.

The real impact of that will come a decade or so from now when they’ve had a chance to reconstitute and reorganize. Just remember, it took about 20 years for them to get around to taking a shot at us on 9/11, they can wait.

If Obama wanted them to fill the gap, Panetta would be a better choice than someone from inside the agency who would be against the notion from the outset.

The CIA is a do-nothing, asinine, ideological left, career bureaucrat dumping ground. They were wrong about nearly everything during the cold war, and have gotten nothing right about jihad.(when they were not actively conspiring with the state department to undermine the president.

I refer you to a good book by John Diamond. The CIA and the Culture of Failure

1. The senior career people at CIA are hostile to the War on Terror. They have demonstrated that consistently via their leaks, books, etc. If you want the War on Terror to continue to be prosecuted as anything other than a law enforcement action, choosing a DCI who came up through the agency is not the way to go.

2. GHW Bush’s first intelligence job was as DCI. When selected he was head of the RNC. I’m not saying Panetta is GHW Bush but I am saying that GHW Bush was better than Stansfield Turner (military intelligence background) or George Tenet (homegrown CIA). As I pointed out yesterday, when you look at the accomplishments/failures of the CIA they are totally unrelated to the DCI’s background.

To the meat of the matter. If something bad does happen, who would you rather be in charge of the CIA? A career professional who will be tossed under the bus or a politically connected insider who will at least provide some amusement while thumping around the rear duals? (I use the worst case example not because I am hoping for an attack but only because I assume Obama will take credit for any and all successes regardless of who is in charge.)

For the record, I don’t think the CIA has kept us safe and I don’t think they are capable of keeping us safe. Given their reduced role under the current DNI framework, the head of CIA is a lot less relevant than who is the DNI.

I think what has kept us safe is the extraordinary covert capability developed by USSOCOM, the fact that we are stationing military covert action teams in assorted countries, and our large scale and active presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa which had deprived transnational terror organizations of funds and safe havens for training camps and planning.

As you imply, America may soon learn the sad lesson of electing nothing more than a slogan.