Homeland Security Watch

Comment by William R. Cumming

December 15, 2008 @ 5:59 pm

The biggest National Security issue facing OBAMA is prioritization. All items on you list above are competing but even now historic postponements of key decisions by Bush for last year have left OBAMA no choice but to use the first 100 days to make some very very tough and very very long term National Security decisions. Actually if I was OBAMA I would not let the Bush National Secuirty Community off the hook but would put them under oath before Congress as to why they did so little long range thinking the last year and was that what they wanted or is that what they were told to do? Example, roles and missions of various military components! Example, terminiation of certain large scale procurements for good of government! Example, dealing with National Guard and Reserve issues from the latest Commission Report of last January? Example, foreign military arms deals that disrupt and make more menacing those who are in or on the fringes of US Ops! AFRICOM and what it should be doing! NORTHCOM and what it should be doing! I am in favor of keeping GATES on for the primary reason that he should coldly lable the political decisions of his term so far and those with which he disageed and why! Admiral Mullen also. And let’s get real! Why have three or four defense appropriations bills? What is that chicanery all about? (1) DOD appropriations; (2) Military Construction; (3) Energy (weapons and labs devoted to DOD; and finally of course (4) Veterans Administration. Let’s finally get honest about the totality of the costs of our various foreign adventures. Some would add in (5) the Intelligence Appropriation; some would add in (6) significant portions of the STATE department; and some would add in portions of various other budgets that should have been coded 050 functionally long ago. Stop the game playing. Its not that the king has NO Clothes it is that he rivals Imelda Marcos and her shoe collection. Redundancy and inefficiency abound in defense procurement. How many armies do we have? How many Air Forces? How many Navies? Do we really need almost 2000 flag rank officers? Who is kidding who? And the brave men and woman who fall between the cracks between active service and the VA is still shocking and if documented and given to every recruit would stop Nick Turse’s “The Complex” cold. Or and let’s audit the FLAG RANKS 1040′s every year.