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"The
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| "The system worked" |
The Daily Mail blogs
comments
on the mad bomber who came within seconds of blowing up Flight 253
headed to Detroit. What does the Obama's chief of Homeland
Security plan on doing to prevent a repeat?
Nothing -- Janet
Napolitano said: "The system worked" -- she really, really said
that.
 "The system worked"
If by "system" she means
having a passenger quick, brave and smart enough to fly over other
passengers to get the guy, yes, I suppose in the Land of Lalala the
system worked.
But a real security chief who is more concerned
about the safety of the public than her own public relations would be
angry, would be upset, would be apologetic and would be promising to get
to the bottom of this and to overhaul the system. We need someone
who find out why the system failed to keep this terrorist off the
airplane and why it failed to detect
the bomb in his underpants,
planted by al-Qaeda in Yemen, and why
it failed to prevent him from detonating the bomb.
Jonah Goldberg
adds, "Napolitano has a habit of arguing that DHS is a first
responder outfit. Its mission is to deal with
'man-caused-disasters' after they occur. It appears she really
believes it. If the White House wants to assure people that it
takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning
by the way), they could start by firing this patently unqualified hack."
Like Obama, Janet Napolitano is
in way over her head, but that's what you get when "diversity" is a
primary job requirement. |
|
A Strategic Redefining Of Homeland Security's Mission |
Obama delivered the nation's first Quadrennial Homeland Security
Review to Congress, defining homeland security for the first time as
including hazards beyond terrorism, in a strategic document intended to
drive long-term budget decisions.
Congress mandated the
high-level strategic review in 2007, two years after Hurricane Katrina
exposed failings in the government's response and four years after the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The initiative
was modeled after the Quadrennial Defense Review, another
congressionally mandated effort that directed the Defense Department to
reset its strategies and budgets against evolving threats every four
years.
Analysts said that production of the 88-page document
marked a successful milestone for DHS, even though it is not as thorough
as the Pentagon's version and will not be as influential.
"It is
an incredible achievement," said James Jay Carafano, homeland security
expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, noting
that it came months after a Democratic administration's takeover of the
department, that the Obama administration had never before run a
quadrennial review for homeland security and that DHS lacked the Defense
Department's resources.
"This study has given them a road map
for how they are going to think through tough problems," including
developing department human resources, analytical capabilities and
research priorities, Carafano said.
Stewart Baker, former DHS
assistant secretary of policy from 2005 to 2009, said that while the
attempt to link DHS budget, strategy and threat information might be
"lightweight compared to the Quadrennial Defense Review, it's
heavyweight compared" to how, a couple years ago, officials in George W.
Bush's administration had to make decisions based on "budget politics of
the moment."
A copy of the review, obtained by The Washington
Post, shows that the government's approach to homeland security
continues to evolve away from a singular focus on terrorism.
The
issue is still vexing because many experts still struggle to explain,
"What is homeland security?" "How is the homeland best made
secure?" and "What does it mean to be prepared?," the review notes.
Continue reading
here . . .
Kinda makes
you feel safe, huh? -- "What is homeland security?" -- and, "defining
homeland security for the first time as including hazards beyond
terrorism, in a strategic document intended to drive long-term budget
decisions." -- this document isn't about security -- it's about "driving
long-term budget decisions" -- including hazards beyond terrorism --
that's bureaucratese for more reparations and redistribution.
These people aren't working on security issues. They're spending all
their time figuring out how to loot America. |
|
Did He Or Dind't He? |
Did Barack Obama personally consult with Homeland Security Secretary
Janet Napolitano on Christmas Day, when suspected al Qaeda terrorist
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
allegedly tried to detonate a suicide bomb aboard Northwest Flight 253?
Asked that question by CNSNews.com, Napolitano initially declined to
answer and then, when asked again, said "we were in contact with the
president’s office" that day.
The White House told news
organizations on Christmas Day that Obama had ordered heightened air
travel security immediately after he was first briefed on the attempted
attack at about 9:00 a.m. Hawaii time (2:00 p.m. Eastern) on Christmas
Day and that he was repeatedly briefed on the incident during that day
In Jan. 20 testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee,
however, Napolitano testified that she had not been consulted in advance
about the specific decision to read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights --
which took place on Christmas night about 10 hours after the suspected
terrorist was arrested. Director of National Intelligence Dennis
Blair, FBI Director Robert Mueller and National Counterterrorism Center
Director Michael Leiter all told congressional committees that they were
also not consulted in advance about the Christmas-Day decision to
mirandize Abdulmutallab.
On Jan. 27, Napolitano failed to attend
a hearing on the Christmas Day attack held by the House Homeland
Security, the committee that has principal oversight over her
department. Senior Democrats on the committee publicly scolded her
during that hearing for her failure to attend.
On Feb. 4,
Napolitano met privately with the Democratic -- but not Republican --
members of the committee. After that meeting, she also met
privately with Rep. Pete King (R.-N.Y.), the committee’s ranking
Republican.
When she emerged from her Feb. 4 meeting with
committee Democrats, CNSNews.com asked Napolitano: "Madame Secretary,
did the president personally consult with you at all in real time during
the day of the Christmas Day attack about the Abdulmutallab situation?"
Napolitano said: "I’m not going to talk about my conversations with
the president."
Later, after her meeting with Rep. Pete King
(R-N.Y.), CNSNews.com asked Napolitano: "Before I was asking you about
if you spoke to the president at all on Christmas Day about the
Abdulmutallab situation -- not the nature of the conversation. I
just want to know if you spoke to him."
Napolitano said: "Yes, we
were in contact with the president’s office." |
| National Security Meeting "Surreal" |
The Northeast Intelligence Network is
reporting that
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and
John Brennan, Barack Hussein
Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and
Counterterrorism, spoke at the National Governors Association's Special
Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety in Washington last
Sunday. A close aide to one of the longtime governors in
attendance, who was present for much of this meeting, spoke to this
investigator about the oddities that she noted at this event, asking
that her name not be used due to the sensitivity of her job.
She
described a strange and "almost surreal" usage of terms, phrases and
jargon that dominated their presentations to the governors, and noted an
obviously deliberate avoidance of other more specifically accurate terms
that seemed to obscure their messages.
"During both of their
presentations… the best way that I can explain it, it was like listening
to a teacher in health class giving a lecture about sex to a pre-teen,
yet prohibited from or unwilling to use certain proper anatomical terms
or even the necessary anatomical references," she stated, adding that
both Napolitano and Brennan were very careful to avoid using words and
phrases that in any way associated terror concerns with Islam or Islamic
ideology. Although she did not recall the prominent use of
"man-caused disasters" in place of terrorism by either speaker, she
noted their obvious unwillingness to make any references to Islamic
terrorism in their descriptions of recently disrupted terror plots.
For example, this source described Napolitano talking about
Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old, Afghan-born Muslim resident of
Denver and a follower of al Qaeda. Zazi, who pleaded guilty to
charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction on Monday, was
identified by federal authorities as a key player in what has been
described as the most serious terror plot since 9/11.
Investigators found evidence that Zazi was motivated to kill and injure
Americans based on of his beliefs in Islamic jihad.
Napolitano
instead described him generically as a "domestic extremist" and "never
once used the phrase Islamic terrorism" or made any reference to Islam,
jihad, or the ideology and mechanism that motivated Zazi and his
co-conspirators to plot attacks in New York, according to this source.
Rather, Napolitano spoke of the "need to study and analyze the
motivation behind these extremists, something that I thought should have
been quite obvious based on the amount and type of evidence uncovered in
that case, especially when speaking to a body of governors," stated this
source.
"I would characterize their entire presentation as quite
bizarre to say the least," she added.
John Brennan, who spoke of
the five Pakistani natives living in Virginia who traveled to al Qaeda
training camps in Pakistan, was equally circuitous in his presentation.
He specifically referred to a general concern of 'Americans' becoming
'domestic terrorists,' a phrase that seemed to intentionally include all
Americans and not any particular group. "Both seemed to purposely
include all Americans while refusing to cite any nationality or
ideology, which is something I found troubling in light of recent
historical events," stated this source.
"I could not believe that
Mr. Brennan used the generic reference 'non-governmental organization'
in place of actually naming the Council on American
Islamic Relations, the 'Islamic advocacy' group to which he was
referring. Also, the term 'religious leader' was used frequently
when describing a
Muslim imam associated with a terror plot, and 'religious
institutions' were used instead of mosques even when it was clear those
were being specifically referenced.
"The entire presentation
seemed quite 'strained' and an obvious departure from previous meetings
I've attended," she added. |
| Homeland Security Can't Even Protect Itself |
Corruption Chronicles is
reporting that the Homeland Security department has lost hundreds of
weapons.
In a baffling example of government incompetence, the
federal agency created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep America
safe has lost hundreds of weapons and some have ended up in the
possession of violent gangbangers and felons.
Remiss officers
working for the embattled Department of Homeland Security have lost
government-issued guns in bowling alleys, public bathrooms, unlocked
cars and a variety of unsecure areas, according to a scorching
27-page report published by the agency's inspector general.
Most of the lost weapons -- including military rifles, handguns and
shotguns -- have never been found, and at least 15 have been recovered
by local law enforcement officials in the possession of criminals, gang
members, and known drug dealers.
The majority of the losses
occurred because Homeland Security officers did not sufficiently secure
firearms in their possession, investigators determined. They
further point out that the lost firearms created an unnecessary risk to
the public -- which goes without saying. Americans may be relieved
to know however, that the abhorrent negligence has been met with "extra
training" and in some cases disciplinary actions.
Pretty bad,
huh? But, there's more.
According to Todd Shepherd,
Homeland Security also
lost more than 1,000 computers in in fiscal year 2008.
New
documents show that component agencies of DHS, specifically Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP),
combined to lose no less than 985 computers in fiscal year 2008.
Along with other component agencies in DHS, well over 1,000 computers
were lost.
But the inventories of lost stolen and damaged
equipment don't stop with just computers. They include radiation
detectors, night vision scopes (hundreds of them), night vision goggles,
lost vehicles, lost blackberries, computer servers, expensive radios and
radio repeaters. |
| Homeland Security Blows 1.3 Billion |
Skookums says the Department of Homeland
Security Reports that it has nothing to show for spending 1.3 billion
during the last five years to build a fence to keep out illegal aliens,
the fence along our border with Mexico doesn’t exist and the money is
gone.
Mark Borkowski, executive director of DHS’s
Secure Border Initiative, told a hearing of the House Subcommittee
on Management, Investigations and Oversight that the department will
likely scale back its plans to install sensors, cameras and radar
towers along the Southwest border.
Borkowski’s
admission came after withering testimony from Randolph Hite of the
Government Accountability Office on the state of the virtual fence
program, known as SBInet.
Hite said SBInet has been troubled
since its outset and plagued by frequently changing milestones,
management weaknesses and performance shortfalls. As a result,
he said, the Department has little to show after spending most of
the program’s $1.3 billion budget.
"In effect
DHS is saying it will have to invest more than a billion dollars
into SBInet before it will know whether doing so was economically
justified or cost effect vis-à-vis other technology alternatives,"
Hite said.
Apparently, management weakness is an excuse to
waste or abscond with 1.3 Billion dollars, in private industry
people would be fired and prosecuted; our government seems to think
we should give them another billion dollars to see if they can
manage the money more efficiently.
Continue reading
here . . . |
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Copyright Beckwith 2010
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