Tag Archives: national security

International news, military news, national news, political news

Trump to get access to top-secret info

Protection Lock

Since 1952, the custom has been to give major-party presidential nominees access to top-secret security briefing material.

The idea has been to keep these individuals in the loop on pressing issues involving the safety of the nation. The 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, got the information from the Obama administration as he ran against Barack Obama; four years earlier, the Bush administration provided the briefings to Sens. Obama and John McCain while they ran against each other. That’s been the norm dating back to the days of the Truman administration.

Consider, then, that in just a few weeks the next Republican Party presidential nominee is going to receive these briefings and will be privy to some highly sensitive material.

Yes, that means Donald J. Trump is going to peek under the national security tent and know much of what the president and his military and intelligence staffers know about the dangers that threaten us.

I am not sure what is more frightening: the material to which Trump will have access or that he’ll actually be given that information in the first place.

This is the guy who this past year told “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that he derives his national security “expertise” by watching “the shows” on Sunday morning, meaning the news talk shows presented on several of the broadcast and cable news networks.

Trump most recently said that former GOP rival Ted Cruz’s father might have been complicit in the murder of President Kennedy. His source for that disclosure? The National Enquirer.

The real estate mogul also said he wouldn’t have any problems with South Korea and (gulp!) Japan developing nuclear arsenals to deter the idiot/madman who runs North Korea.

President Obama will make the final call on the classification level of the information to be disseminated to the major-party nominees. There’s no law that mandates any of this. It’s strictly a judgment call. The president cannot let one nominee see more than the other, however, which means that Trump and probable Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton will get the same information.

I mentioned all this briefly last night to my wife, that Trump is going to get these national security briefings the moment he becomes the GOP presidential nominee.

Her response? “Oh … my.”

Exactly, my dear.

 

International news

Taliban aren’t ‘terrorists’?

taliban_053115getty

Let us hit the reset button for a moment.

When the United States secured the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who’d been held captive by the Taliban for five years, the rationale was that the Taliban aren’t a “terrorist organization.” That’s what the White House press flack, Josh Earnest, said about the negotiation that led to Bergdahl’s release.

Our policy has been that we don’t negotiate with terrorists, Earnest said. Since the Taliban isn’t a terrorist outfit, well, that gave our side the opportunity to secure Bergdahl’s release from captivity in Afghanistan.

Then we awake this morning to news that at least 20 people have been killed in a terrorist attack at a Pakistan university.

Who took responsibility for the tragedy? The Taliban!

Someone has some explaining to do.

Many of us out here haven’t bought the notion that the Taliban is anything but a terrorist organization. The ultraconservative extremists have been terrorizing Muslim women for longer than any of us can remember. They’ve been denying citizens of Pakistan and Afghanistan access to education. How do they do that? By killing them.

Isn’t that the ultimate form of terror?

It appears to be time for President Obama’s national security team to take another look at how it defines the Taliban.

They got it wrong about this monstrous organization.

national news, political news

‘Protecting the homeland’?

Forgive me, please, for expressing this, but Jeb Bush might be suffering from brotherly-love blindness.

He was questioned by Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” news talk show.

Schieffer asked the former Florida governor and likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate what he learned from his brother, former President George W. Bush.

“Well, the successes clearly are protecting the homeland,” the former Florida governor opined. “We were under attack, and he unified the country, and he showed dogged determination, and he kept us safe.”

And he kept us safe. He said that.

OK, let’s reel this back a bit. The 9/11 attacks occurred on President Bush’s watch, which Jeb has acknowledged. It’s been reported from various sources that the president likely ignored warnings from his national security team that a major attack was imminent. He was briefed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, about the threat that al-Qaeda posed.

And yet …

The attack occurred on that bright Tuesday morning in New York and Washington.

President Bush “kept us safe”?

Yes, but only after all hell broke loose.

Uncategorized

Snowden to get released from airport custody

Edward Snowden, the man on the lam from U.S. officials for leaking national security information to the world, is making a break for “freedom” from Russian airport arrest.

The Russians have given Snowden temporary asylum, which has angered U.S. officials deeply. Snowden had been holed up in a Moscow airport transit lounge since fleeing there from Hong Kong several weeks ago.

I can hear President Obama’s critics now: BHO is a feckless president; he’s getting pushed around by Russian President/strongman Vladimir Putin; we need to do something, anything, to punish the Russians.

What, precisely, is the United States supposed to do to Putin and the Russian? Bomb them? Invade? Slap an embargo on them?

Barack Obama is not without some options. The first one is to get on the phone, call his pal Vlad and tell him how angry he is. I’ll bet real money that Putin, the former KGB spook, won’t budge. He doesn’t frighten easily.

I also believe the president should cancel his upcoming summit with Putin in Russia. The two men will nothing else to discuss than what to do about Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked the secrets.

Perhaps the president should remind Putin what he said just a few weeks ago, that Putin didn’t want to do anything to upset his American “partners.” Well, he’s just done it.