Brown strategist: national security the sleeper issue of the campaign (updated)

AmericanThinker.com
January 20, 2010
Clarice Feldman

NRO's Robert Costa interviewed Scott Brown strategist Eric Fernstrom who revealed something from their internal polls which no pundit to my knowledge has observed.

The key issue for Massachusetts voters was not healthcare or spending. It was national security and the treatment of enemy terrorists. If the White House polls bear this out, Eric Holder's decisions on trying the terrorists in civilian courts and the botched handling of the Christmas underwear bomber should mean a shake up in the Department of Justice and Homeland Security.

Is there room under the bus for Holder and Napolitano?

On the issues, "people talk about the potency of the health-care issue, but from our own internal polling, the more potent issue here in Massachusetts was terrorism and the treatment of enemy combatants," says Fehrnstrom. Health care, he says, was helpful in fundraising, but it was the campaign's focus on national security in the final week that he believes helped to give voters another issue to associate with Brown. [Emphasis supplied.]Plus, he says, Brown supported the Romney health-care plan, so he couldn't "be painted as a ‘just say no' Republican, but could articulate a message as a ‘just start over' Republican."

Even removing those two officials, however, which seems essential to get independent (and women ) voters back onboard, would hardly be enough I think to persuade them that this President and his party really get it. They are, it seems to me, wedded to a feckless series of policies which will cost them dearly at the polls.

h/t:jmh

Update: Rosslyn Smith adds:

Brown followed through on this theme of national security in his victory speech when he stated to cheers that tax dollars should pay to protect us, not pay their lawyers.

Among the many lessons for other Republicans in Brown's victory is that both parties have been losing voters to the ranks of independents because office holders in both parties have ignored the voters in favor of their own agendas once in office. Brown promised Massachusetts voters he would be independent. I think most voters consider that to mean that he'll listen to those who elected him more closely than he will listen to party bosses and lobbyists in Washington, DC. He didn't say he'll always agree, but that he'll listen and he won't sell his vote to party bosses for special favors.

The other lesson is that we need never apologize for keeping our own citizens safe. Andrew McCarthy notes that while the Bush Administration had sound policies on defense and counterterrorism, it refused to defend them vigorously. As McCarthy states:

Scott Brown went out and made the case for enhanced interrogation, for denying terrorists the rights of criminal defendants, for detaining them without trial, and for trying them by military commission. It worked. It will work for other candidates willing to get out of their Beltway bubbles.

Yes, the Left will say you are making a mockery of our commitment to "the rule of law." MSNBC will run segments on your dark conspiracies to "shred the privacy rights of Americans." The New York Times will wail that you're heedless of the damage you'll do to "America's reputation in the international community."

The answer is: So what? The people making these claims don't speak for Americans - they speak at Americans, in ever shrinking amounts. If you're going to cower from a fight with them, we don't need you. Get us a Scott Brown who'll take them on in their own backyard. And he'll take them on with confidence because he knows their contentions are frivolous - and he knows that Americans know this, too.

Why Intelligence Keeps Failing

AmericanThinker
By Herbert E.Meyer


In the wake of our country's latest intelligence failure -- allowing a Nigerian terrorist to board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit when his own father had alerted us to the dangers posed by his son -- President Obama demands to know why our intelligence service failed to "connect the dots."

So he's ordered investigations led by the very same officials who presided over our country's intelligence failures. That would be John Brennan, the president's counter-terrorism adviser whose job it was to keep Umar Abdulmutallab from boarding that flight, and John McLaughlin, the hapless, now-retired career CIA official who, as deputy director of the CIA and then as acting director, signed off on the two most screwed-up National Intelligence Estimates in our country's history: the NIE about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then that preposterous 2007 NIE which concluded that Iran had abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons.

There isn't a chance that these clowns will come up with the right answer, because they're the problem. Simply put, the reason our intelligence service keeps failing to connect the dots is because the officials in charge don't know how. And the blame lies squarely with President Obama -- and alas, with President George W. Bush before him -- for appointing managers rather than dot-connectors to run our intelligence service.

To understand why the absence of dot-connectors at the top lies at the core of our intelligence failures, you must understand the relationship between management and talent.

In most organizations, failure or success depends on the quality of management. That's why in the business world, competent chief executives are so highly compensated; they're rare, and they're worth every penny they're paid. But there are some highly specialized organizations in which failure or success depends not so much on the quality of management or the structure of the organization, but on talent. For example, an opera company. You can have the best manager in the history of the performing arts, but if you're staging La Bohème, then you'd better put two superstars like Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón on the stage, or you'll have a flop on your hands. Likewise with a scientific research institute: It isn't the administrator setting budgets, monitoring grants, and assigning parking spaces who will find the cure for cancer. It's the world-class scientists working in the labs.

Talent at the Top

And if you're running one of these specialized organizations whose success depends more on talent than on management, then you put a talented individual in charge. First, he or she can actually do the job, rather than run around looking important while managing people, who in turn manage other people, who themselves manage the people who are actually doing the job. Second, he or she will be able to recognize and recruit other talented people. This is why organizations whose success depends on talent tend to be led by people who themselves have it and have proven that they have it. For example, the Washington National Opera's general manager is the great tenor Placido Domingo. The president of Rockefeller University is Paul Nurse, himself a Nobel laureate in biology.

An intelligence service is one of these highly specialized organizations whose success depends more on talent than on management. And the precise talent that an intelligence service needs is the ability to connect dots -- to spot a pattern with the fewest possible facts -- not only to intuitively grasp what lies in the future, but to grasp it soon enough, and clearly enough, so that there's time to change the future before it happens.

We used to understand this. Our country's World War II intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services, was led by William J. Donovan. He was a brilliant Wall Street lawyer with a razor-sharp analytic mind and a talent for spotting talent. For example, when all the experts told Donovan that it was impossible to get spies into Nazi Germany, he gave the job to a young tax attorney he'd worked with who seemed to have a knack for accomplishing impossible things. His name was William J. Casey, and from his base in London as head of secret operations for the OSS, he organized 103 missions behind Nazi lines. The OSS was perhaps the greatest intelligence service in world history, and its roster of stars included Arthur J. Goldberg -- later President Kennedy's secretary of labor, Supreme Court justice, and U.N. ambassador -- and even Julia Child.

After the war, we formed the CIA, and among its great directors were Allen Dulles, John McCone, and Bill Casey himself during the Reagan administration. These were men of enormous intellectual firepower. Time and again, they saw the future before anyone else could, and they spotted patterns when everyone else saw dots. I had the great privilege of serving under Bill Casey -- I was among those few people he brought into the CIA to help redirect the agency's analysis. Here's my favorite story of Bill's extraordinary talent for connecting dots:

On the day the Soviet Union's long-time leader Leonid Brezhnev died, the CIA went into massive overdrive to analyze what his death might mean for U.S.-Soviet relations -- and more importantly, who might emerge as the Kremlin's next boss. Top-secret telexes were pouring in from CIA stations around the world, and throughout the building, analysts were churning out reports and sending them up to the director's seventh-floor office. By late afternoon, there was literally no more room on Bill's massive desk for another document, and his secretary started making piles on the floor.

Boiling It Down for Reagan

At about 6pm, when I walked into Bill's office to ask if there was anything he wanted me to do, he was leaning back in his swivel chair, calmly writing on a yellow pad. "Just leave me alone for a few minutes," he said, pointing with his pen at the piles of paper. "I want to boil all this down for the president."

A few minutes later, he called me back into his office and handed me a typed copy of his note to President Reagan. It was a short, informal, but amazingly comprehensive summary of what we knew about the goings-on in Moscow -- and it ended with what may be the breeziest and most brilliant prediction in the history of intelligence: "As for me, Mr. President, I bet Andropov on the nose and Gorbachev across the board."

Now you can see why President Reagan was so fond of the man he liked to call "Director Bill." A president wants one thing from his intelligence service, and that's to connect the dots and get it right -- to tell the president the future. And how do you get an intelligence service that can connect the dots? You put a world-class dot-connector in charge of it.

Our country has no shortage of world-class dot-connectors. They're in politics, in business, at think tanks, in the academic world, and at our leading research institutes. You catch glimpses of them in articles they write, speeches they give -- and sometimes even as talking heads on television. Ask a dozen smart people to make lists of people they consider to be world-class dot-connectors, and you'll get a wide range of names, some of which will appear on more than one list. Now, do you really believe that any of these lists will include, say, counter-intelligence chief John Brennan, or CIA director Leon Panetta, or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, or Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair? Are you kidding?

No one among us is perfect, or even close to perfect. In the real world, intelligence failures will happen from time to time no matter how honorable, hardworking, or talented the men and women are on whom we rely to keep us safe. But after so many intelligence failures in such a short time, we have got to stop making the same mistake over and over again. This week's Washington cliché is that our system failed. No. Systems don't fail; people fail. Put the right people in charge, and the "system" will fail much, much less frequently.

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. He is the author of How to Analyze Information and The Cure for Poverty.

Connecting the terror dots (Houston-Terrorism)

By Doug Hagmann Sunday, January 3, 2010

Nabilaye I. YANSANE, Al Maghrib Institute, Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab

As detailed by Dave Macy and published on Canada Free Press Friday, police in Houston responding to a domestic disturbance found something they did not expect: an AT-4 shoulder-mounted rocket launcher that can shoot a missile nearly 1,000 feet through buildings and tanks.

Channel 2 in Houston also reported that police found Islamic terrorist literature at the same location. According to news reports, the items belong to Nabilaye I. YANSANE, who was charged with criminal trespassing related only to the domestic incident. No charges were filed for possession of the launcher or the literature. (A video provided by KPRC Channel 2 in Houston can be viewed at this link).

The reasoning for lack of criminal charges, of course is that the “once used” AT-4 rocket launcher, in its present state, is essentially nothing more than an elaborate paper weight due to its single use application. It can be legally purchased on the open market, from gun shows to army surplus stores. With regard to the Islamic terrorist literature found at the same location, our own Bill of Rights allows us the ability to possess certain writings within the scope of the law, despite the increasingly unpopular fact under the Obama administration and the reign of Napolitano that we are fighting Islamic terrorists on our own soil.

Except for inquiring minds, this story could almost end here. But as the saying goes, “Houston, we have a problem.” Picking up where the media left off, this investigator looked deeper into this incident and the background of the suspect, finding some facts that should raise some important questions about events that have been taking place inside the U.S., and perhaps connect some dots in the asymmetrical war being waged against us by Islamic terrorists from within.

First, a cursory background investigation into Nabilaye I. YANSANE, 39, (DOB October 7, 1970), a resident of the Bellaire Wood Apartments, 5414 Elm Street, Houston, Texas, found recent unrelated brushes with the law, including a misdemeanor charge of possession of a prohibited weapon accompanied by a drug possession charge-both filed on October 5, 2009. The drug possession charge was dismissed, while the weapons charge was adjudicated.

The misdemeanor charges notwithstanding, further investigation conducted over the last several days with area residents familiar with YANSANE indicates a possible “connection” with the Al-Maghrib Institute in Houston, an Islamic center located less than 6 ¬Ω miles from his home. According to two area residents, YANSANE might have some level of involvement with the Institute, participating in classes or events at that location within the past year.

If the al Maghrib Institute sounds familiar, it should. As we previously reported, the Al Maghrib Institute is the Islamic center that terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab, the Muslim terrorist who attempted to bomb Delta-Northwest flight 253 out of the sky on Christmas Day, attended in 2008.

Doug Hagmann Most recent columns

Copyright © Douglas Hagmann
Douglas Hagmann, founder & director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, and a multi-state licensed private investigative agency. Doug began using his investigative skills and training to fight terrorism and increase public awareness through his website.

Doug can be reached at: director@homelandsecurityus.com

Obama blames al-Qaida for foiled attack

Jan 2, 2010 11:02 | Updated Jan 2, 2010 12:17
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
HONOLULU

US President Barack Obama laid blame Saturday on an al-Qaida affiliate for a Christmas Day terrorist attack that has prompted a top-to-bottom review of how the nation's intelligence agencies failed to prevent the botched bombing aboard a Detroit-bound airliner.

In his most direct public language to date, the president described the path through Yemen of 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to destroy Northwest Flight 253. The president also emphasized that the United States would continue its partnerships with friendly countries - citing Yemen, in particular - to fight terrorists and extremist groups around the globe.

Obama's homeland security team has been piecing together just how Abdulmutallab was able to board the plane. Officials have described flaws in the system and by those executing the strategy and have delivered a preliminary assessment.

A senior administration official had said the United States was increasingly confident there was a link between Abdulmutallab and an al-Qaida affiliate, but Obama's statement is the strongest connection between the two.

"We're learning more about the suspect," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that the White House released on Saturday as the president vacationed in Hawaii.

"We know that he traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined anaffiliate of al-Qaida, and that this group - al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula - trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America," the president said.

Officials have said Abdulmutallab's father warned the US Embassy in Nigeria that his son had drifted into extremism in the Al Qaida hotbed of Yemen. Abdulmutallab's threat was only partially digested by the US security apparatus and not linked with a visa history showing the young man could fly to the United States.

Obama has ordered a thorough look at the shortcomings that permitted the plot, which failed not because of US actions but because the would-be attacker was unable to ignite an explosive device.

Intelligence officials prepared for what was shaping up to be uncomfortable hearings before Congress about miscommunication among anti-terror agencies and sweeping changes expected under Obama's watch. The president has been vocal in his criticism of the agencies and against extremists who would harm the United States.

"This is not the first time this group has targeted us," Obama said. "In recent years, they have bombed Yemeni government facilities and Western hotels, restaurants and embassies, including our embassy in 2008, killing one American."

"So, as president, I've made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government - training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al-Qaida terrorists," he said.

The United States provided Yemen $67 million in training and support under the Pentagon's counterterrorism program last year. Only Pakistan got more, with some $112 million.

Obama said the money had been well spent: "Training camps have been struck, leaders eliminated, plots disrupted. And all those involved in the attempted act of terrorism on Christmas must know - you too will be held to account."

At the same time, administration officials warned this week that Obama also would hold accountable his own government. To that end, Obama has summoned homeland security officials from across the government to meet with him in the White House Situation Room on Tuesday.

Obama was expected to run the meeting and press his team on how they missed what appear to be clear connections.

Officials: U.S., Yemen reviewing targets for possible strike

A Yemeni army helicopter carries out operations against al Qaeda suspects on December 17 in the Sanaa province

By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
December 29, 2009 8:27 p.m. EST

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. and Yemen are now looking at fresh targets in Yemen for a potential retaliation strike, two senior U.S. officials told CNN Tuesday, in the aftermath of the botched Christmas Day attack on an airliner that al Qaeda in Yemen claims it organized.

The officials asked not to be not be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information. They both stressed the effort is aimed at being ready with options for the White House if President Obama orders a retaliatory strike. The effort is to see whether targets can be specifically linked to the airliner incident and its planning.

U.S. special operations forces and intelligence agencies, and their Yemeni counterparts, are working to identify potential al Qaeda targets in Yemen, one of the officials said. This is part of a new classified agreement with the Yemeni government that the two countries will work together and that the U.S. will remain publicly silent on its role in providing intelligence and weapons to conduct strikes.

Officially the U.S. has not said it conducted previous airstrikes in Yemen, but officials are privately saying the Yemeni military could not have carried out the strikes on its own.

By all accounts, the agreement would allow the U.S. to fly cruise missiles, fighter jets or unmanned armed drones against targets in Yemen with the consent of that government.

One of the officials said Yemen has not yet consented to the type of special forces helicopter-borne air assault that would put U.S. commandos on the ground with the mission of capturing suspects for further interrogation. That is also a capability the U.S. would like the Yemenis to eventually develop the official said.

At this point, the U.S. believes there may be a few hundred al Qaeda fighters in Yemen centered around a group of key network leaders. U.S. intelligence believes some key leaders were killed in recent airstrikes but is still working to confirm details.

U.S. military and intelligence officials describe to CNN an al Qaeda network with organized command and control that has evolved and grown over the past year. U.S. intelligence concludes there are several training camps similar to those established in other countries where one or two dozen fighters at a time train.

The U.S. and Yemenis are also looking into the possibility the Nigerian suspect in the airliner incident trained at one of the camps.

One of the camps was among the targets in each set of airstrikes earlier this month.

Obama: 'Full investigation' launched

HONOLULU — In his first public statement since the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, President Barack Obama called the incident “a serious reminder of the dangers we face” and tried to assure Americans that they are safe while urging them to remain vigilant.

“A full investigation has been launched into this attempted act of terrorism, and we will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable,” Obama said in brief remarks at Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay, a short drive from the rented beachfront house where he is spending the holidays with his family and friends.

Obama called a 23-year-old Nigerian man’s alleged attempt to ignite explosives on the flight as it descended into Detroit Metropolitan Airport “a serious reminder of the dangers we face and the nature of those who threaten our homeland.” The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has claimed ties to Al Qaeda and said that he obtained the explosive device in Yemen. Less than an hour before Obama was scheduled to speak, the terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the attempted attack.

Obama did not address Al Qaeda directly but said he directed his national security team “to keep up the pressure on those who want to attack our country.”

“We do not have all the answers on this latest attempt, but those who would slaughter innocent men, women and children must know that the United States will do more than simply strengthen our defenses,” Obama said. “We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us — whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere.”

Obama said that he spoke earlier Monday with Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and his counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, and said that “the American people should be assured that we are doing everything in our power to keep you and your family safe and secure during this busy holiday season.”

But the president offered no new details about steps the federal government has taken, since the incident occurred Friday, to ensure that air travel is safe, and his remarks, the first he has made since the incident, came as the White House struggled to send a clear message in the aftermath of the attempted attack.

On Sunday Napolitano said that “the system worked.” But she said on Monday that her words had been taken out of context and that she was referring to what happened after the incident occurred.

“Our system did not work in this instance,” she said on NBC's "Today" show. “No one is happy or satisfied with that.”

Dressed casually in a blue jacket with no tie and taking no questions from reporters, Obama reiterated the steps the administration has taken since Friday — adding federal air marshals on flights into and out of the United States, stepping up its coordination with local law enforcement and ordering reviews of airport screening procedures and of the government’s process for compiling terrorist watch lists.

The reviews were announced after it was determined that Abdulmutallab made it through airport security with the bombing materials attached to his body and was not on a no-fly list or a larger list of individuals who are flagged to receive additional searching before they can board an airplane.

“We need to determine just how the suspect was able to bring dangerous explosives aboard an aircraft and what additional steps we need to take to thwart additional future attacks,” he said.

Obama called on Americans to remain vigilant and praised the crew and passengers aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 for subduing and restraining Abdulmutallab after he caught on fire in trying to detonate the device.

Abdulmutallab was charged Saturday with attempting to detonate explosives on the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

“Thanks to the quick and heroic actions of passengers and crew, the suspect was immediately subdued, the fire was put out and the plane landed safely,” Obama said. “

“The American people should remain vigilant but also remain confident. ... We will continue to do everything we can to keep America safe in the new year and beyond.”