I don't know about you but I don't think one of our brave men or women's lives are worth someone's desire for political gain!

I wonder what I will come up with for today? It is Tuesday, May 24, 2011. How about the way in which the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden has been politicized? Here's a teaser headline from a newsfeed site: "I ME MINE: Obama praises CIA for bin Laden raid, while saying 'I' 37 times..." Way over the top. Almost criminally so. The Navy Seals, the CIA, and other security operatives believe their ability to function has been compromised by the amount of talk about this mission. Because of the radicalized nature of those who hate America, even the families of our men and women who serve in these areas are at risk. I noticed last Friday that the head of the CIA had issued an order for everyone within their domain to cease all discussions about the raid immediately under penalty of disciplinary action or even prosecution. I think someone needs to send a cease and desist order to all the politicos over at the White House who think they have found a winning story for the President. Surely these folks would not do anything to jeopardize any of our fighting men and women. Would they? Okay. I will put on my hat marked resident cynic for a moment. These folks will do anything to help President Obama's reelection bid, period, end of story. That does not mean they would do anything intentionally to compromise any of our security operations. But would they intentionally NOT do anything to make certain nothing like this could happen? I do hope we all can see the difference. It reminds me of when I was a kid and when something messed up, my graddad would ask me about it. I would typically say that wasn't what I intended. He would always be interested in exactly what I did intend. And, we could use a little of that as it relates to protecting those who risk their lives for us all.

I had a top secret clearance once when I worked for the US Army in the public affairs office. It is all serious stuff and we were expected to handle any and all documents marked based on their security status. To have done otherwise would have been grounds for immediate dismissal. You would think that Vice President Biden, after years in the US Senate, would be well aware of the danger in leaking information. In his case it always seems to be inadvertant as a gaffe with many folks passing it off as a quirk. There are some areas where the end result is the only thing that counts and any compromise of sensitive data, intentional or not, certainly qualifies. How serious could it be? According to published reports about the Bin Laden mission, we would not dare share any of the mission information with the Pakistanis because of the potential compromise that could have occurred which would have put the lives of those involved in the raid in grave danger. Just think about some of the recent Wiki-Leaks reports where secret operational information was published for public consumption, including to be read by our enemies. The young military private accused of passing this information on may have contributed to the actual deaths of some of our military men and women. If he is guilty of this crime, he also very much hurt relationships with many of our allies. Information regarding war, military preparedness, and even factual assessments of our partners, is secret for a reason. It is used to formulate plans and strategies that eventually involve boots on the ground. I would say to all those who are careless with sensitive classified information that it is deadly serious and we should not laugh about it when it happens.

We should never be surprised how that our enemies and our friends are attempting to know everything they can about information that should be protected. There is a huge amount of industrial espionage that goes on and it is pervasive as nations attempt to gain an advantage in the global marketplace. We recently saw how one mega technology company actually hired a P/R firm to plant negative information about a rival mega technology company. The courts are jammed with suits where one company is accusing another of stealing their ideas for a new product or service. Add to this almost instituitionalized form of spying and kick it up to levels that we might not even imagine when thinking about the dollars spent for gaining information by our enemies. The complexity in technologies have made this even more of an issue as tech savvy people use their skills to penetrate and steal intelligence inforrmation. We actually had the spectacle a few years ago of the Department of Defense computer systems being hacked by the Communist Chinese. I think it may be time for us to quit singing "We Are the World" long enough to evaluate our exposure to all these vunerabilities. While I don't believe in isolationism per se, I do believe in the prinicple of protecting America first and it should be a show stopper, not after the fact which is how it is mostly done today, but it should dictate our behavior before, during, and after all that we do as a country. We could easily become paranoid. Worth the risk. But some folks out there in the world may not like us. They already don't like us enough to want to destroy us. America first means just that. And, it means just that for everyone. Not just the intelligence community but everyone, including the free traders who pay little attention to the technoligies they share with anyone and everyone all over the world. For those who think we can have it all and not compromise our way of life, well, history and even current affairs paint a completely different picture. The question remains about who we have that is really paying attention to all of this and if enough attention is being paid. Okay. I've had my say now. Enough already. This has gone on long enough, so I bid you farewell until the next time you pull up your chair and see that I have again intruded into your inbox. Until then, may God bless. Amen.      ...More later.