Wisdom From The Retiring US Envoy To Afghanistan

Ryan C. Crocker, the departing ambassador to Afghanistan, says American policy makers had “better do some cold calculating.” Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Retiring Envoy to Afghanistan Exhorts U.S To Heed Its Past -- New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — The American diplomat most associated with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan says that American policy makers need to learn the lessons of the recent past as they weigh military options for the future, including for Syria and Iran:

¶ Remember the law of unintended consequences.

¶ Recognize the limits of the United States’ actual capabilities.

¶ Understand that getting out of a conflict once you are in can often be dangerous and as destructive for the country as the original conflict.

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My Comment: Will his advice be listened to .... probably not.

Will $500 Billion In U.S. Defense Cuts Be An Election Issue This Fall?

Parties Look To Make $1 Trillion In Sequestration Cuts A Campaign Issue -- The Hill

The $1 trillion in spending cuts under sequestration are emerging as a major issue in congressional races and the presidential campaign, as both parties think they have a winning hand heading into November.

The reductions in defense spending have been used in attack ads for races in military heavy states like Virginia, and President Obama and Mitt Romney traded barbs over the cuts in back-to-back foreign policy speeches this week.

The word “sequestration” certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue to voters, but campaigns in both parties are banking that the $500 billion reduction to defense spending will still hit home over national security concerns and — perhaps more importantly — the potential loss of jobs.

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My Comment: The public sentiment is clear .... they want defense cuts. The key for the Republicans is to outline what are the consequences if such cuts go through .... but so far .... from my point of view .... their have failed to make their case.

Update: But even though polls favor defense cuts .... the White House is clearly worried.

Picture Of The Day

An EA-18G Growler launches from the USS George Washington during flight operations while under way in the Philippine Sea, July 19, 2012. The pilot is assigned to the Shadowhawks of Electronic Attack Squadron 141. The George Washington is based at Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan. U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Brian H. Abel

F-22s Arriving At Kadena, Japan

Hat Tip: Alert 5

Pentagon-Sponsored Report To Congress Calls For A Buildup Of Forces In Asia

The USS George Washington conducts a replenishment-at-sea mission with the USNS Tippecanoe while under way in the Philippine Sea, July 23, 2012. U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Declan Barnes

The East Asia Pivot -- Washington Free Beacon

Pentagon-sponsored report to Congress calls for buildup of forces in Asia

A Pentagon-sponsored report to Congress outlines the U.S. military’s new pivot to Asia and calls for adding attack submarines and Marines based throughout the Pacific to head off a future war with China.

The report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies presents three options based on impending cuts in defense spending. They include keeping the current status quo forces, mainly in Japan and South Korea, or modestly increasing military forces by adding attack submarines, Marine Air-Ground Task Forces, more warships and bombers, another aircraft carrier strike group, and more intelligence aircraft. A third option looks at sharply cutting forces throughout Asia, which the report said risks undermining stability.

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My Comment: What the Pentagon wants will cost billions of dollars .... a prospect that will not happen in view of the budget cuts that are going to happen just around the corner.

No Police Surveillance Policy Change At Skype

Skype Denies Police Surveillance Policy Change -- BBC

Microsoft's online message, phone and video chat service Skype has denied making changes to its system "in order to provide law officers greater access" to its members' conversations.

It follows reports suggesting infrastructure upgrades had made it easier to hand on users' chat data.

Skype has now posted a blog saying the changes were made solely to improve user experience and reliability.

But it added it would pass on messages to law enforcement when "appropriate".

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My Comment: But everyone now knows that the technology exists to make it possible .... a fact that Skype will never be able to discount. And while the focus is on police agencies .... no one is discussing what the intelligence agencies are doing.

Is Al Qaeda Coming Back?

Image: Flag of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Wikipedia

Al Qaeda’s Arab Comeback: Capitalizing on Chaos in Syria, Mali -- Bruce Riedel, Daily Beast

Destroying Timbuktu in Mali, exploiting the turmoil in Syria, successfully attacking in the Sinai—at the operational level, al Qaeda is stronger than it’s ever been, says Bruce Riedel.

Al Qaeda has exploited the Arab Spring to create is largest safe havens and operational bases in more than a decade across the Arab world. In the 18 months since the Arab revolutions first began, al Qaeda has grown stronger, despite founder Osama bin Laden’s death and a lack of mass appeal.

Like the rest of the world, the terror organization was surprised by the revolutions that toppled dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. Its ideology of violence and jihad initially was challenged by the largely nonviolent revolutionary movements that swept across North Africa and the Middle East. But al Qaeda is adaptive, and it has exploited the chaos and turmoil of revolutionary change to create bases and new strongholds from one end of the Arab world to the other.

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My Comment: I guess reports of Al Qaeda's demise were 'greatly exaggerated'.

Is Al Qaeda Turning The Tide For The Rebels In Eastern Syria

Resistance ... members of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo. Photo: Reuters

Al-Qaida Turns Tide For Rebels In Battle For Eastern Syria -- The Guardian

In his latest exclusive dispatch from Deir el-Zour province, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad meets fighters who have left the Free Syrian Army for the discipline and ideology of global jihad

As they stood outside the commandeered government building in the town of Mohassen, it was hard to distinguish Abu Khuder's men from any other brigade in the Syrian civil war, in their combat fatigues, T-shirts and beards.

But these were not average members of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Khuder and his men fight for al-Qaida. They call themselves the ghuraba'a, or "strangers", after a famous jihadi poem celebrating Osama bin Laden's time with his followers in the Afghan mountains, and they are one of a number of jihadi organisations establishing a foothold in the east of the country now that the conflict in Syria has stretched well into its second bloody year.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: More news and info on Al Qaeda in Syria can be read in this CNN report,
as well as in this New York Times report.

Update: Jihadists push for role in Syrian resistance -- Sydney Morning Herald

Adm. McRaven Gives His First Interview On The Bin Laden Raid With A Journalist

McRaven On Bin Laden Raid: One Of History's "Great Intelligence Operations" -- CNN

While it was one of 11 missions carried out by U.S. special forces that night, the head of U.S. Special Operations command said the raid that killed Osama bin Laden will go down as one of the "great intelligence operations in history."

Admiral William McRaven spoke Wednesday before an audience at the Aspen Institute Security Conference on a panel discussion moderated by CNN's Wolf Blitzer. The talk was his first interview about the raid with a journalist.

McRaven also touched on some of the other pressing issues facing the U.S. military in the discussion that ranged from serious to light-hearted.

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My Comment: Posted this story a few days ago, but it is the fist time that I am seeing the video that has Admiral William McRaven talking about the Bin Laden raid. On a side note .... on the night of the Bin laden raid there were 10 other raids by U.S. special forces. Would love to know what those other 10 were .... but I know that we will never know.

Is A Nuclear Iran America's 'Number One National Security Threat'

Mitt Romney in Israel. Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Romney: Nuclear Iran Is 'Number One National Security Threat' -- CNN

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney clarified his March remark that Russia is the nation's top foe, saying in an interview which aired Monday on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" that Iran potentially poses the greatest national security threat to the U.S.

"The number one national security threat, of course, to our nation is a nuclear Iran," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, speaking in Jerusalem about the nearby nation.

Asked about Israel's borders, the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the London Olympics, and campaign finance, Romney offered little new policy or criticism of President Barack Obama.

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My Comment: What's my take .... I still regard Al Qaeda and it's affiliated groups as our #1 national security threat. Iran's nuclear enrichment program is definitely up there .... but this has been the case for almost 20 years, and probably will continue to be the case for the next few years.