The Chinese art of war . . . and it is war.

India's recent power outage in July of this year of almost 50% of the country's generation capacity was a shocker to most in the West.  Over 640 million people in 19 states in India lost power.  The alleged cause of the power grid failure was the higher demand from the use of water pumps by rural farmers due to drought, causing the need to pump water from distant sources.  However, One India News reported that there may have been another contributing factor, aside from demand.  (http://news.oneindia.in/2012/08/22/china-s-hand-in-india-s-power-blackout-1057676.html)

The blame surrounding the failure of India's northern power grid has been attributed to corruption, graft, greed and, most recently as related in the Washington Times citing One India News, by a purposeful strategy by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to undermine India's power grid.  Whether or not this was a demonstration by the PRC's military of their ability to disable a potential adversary's power grid through a concerted cyber attack as was alleged by India, or a red herring by India's power companies to assuage blame has yet to be determined.  (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/29/inside-china-missile-defense-conspiracy/#ixzz25S8WR6fB)

What is known is that over the last few years, PRC companies undertook the modernization of the northern India power grid with successful bids worth several hundreds of millions of dollars.  These contracts were to install new control infrastructure, new transmission facilities and equipment, including switching centers to transfer loads from one area to another, and key components to modernize and to upgrade the power grid as part of a master plan to modernize India's power grid.

The PRC companies are alleged to have installed "back doors" into the computerized control systems for the power grid.   These "back doors" are alleged to be for the benefit of the Chinese military to exploit. The PRC companies are also alleged to have installed faulty components that broke down under load.  It has been alleged that the PRC's military undertook a concerted cyber attack against the control facilities using the alleged "back doors".

Where have we heard those allegations before?  From our very own Department of Defense. 

SecDef Leon Panetta has complained and warned of electronics parts and machined parts supplied to western defense contractors used in NATO and U.S. equipment as being defective and failure prone.  Panetta has also stated that the PRC suppliers have provided a "back door" to much of the communications and computerized systems purchased from PRC suppliers. 

It was recently disclosed that a major new weapons system, the Boeing P8 Poseidon, a replacement for the Navy's land based P3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft was compromised by defective electronic components and components having a "back door" accessible to the PRC military.  The P8 is a modified Boeing 737-800 aircraft modified for the military sub hunting mission. 

Defective and counterfit integrated circuits supplied by PRC companies have also been found in Thales military communications gear used by NATO and U.S. forces world-wide.

It is simply incredible to think that the United States is buying critical military components from a country that has a nuclear first strike policy against the United States!  Further, the United States Navy has sacked at least one Pacific Fleet Carrier battle group commander for the failure to detect a PRC Navy submarine that actually surfaced to disclose its presence to the American Navy earlier this year.  A submarine the P8 is designed to detect . . ..

PRC telecommunications companies have publically disclosed that they have hacked much of the U.S. telecom infrastructure using PRC supplied equipment installed in the U.S. as a starting point for the hacks.  The assault by the PRC on U.S. companies' mainframes and other computer infrastructure, including power grid and water system control systems has been admitted by U.S. officials.  The loss of data to the PRC is unknown.

The Pentagon has recognized the threat with the creation of the new Cyber Command.  Yet, the PRC military has ignored the assertions by our SecDef that an attack on U.S. power grid or other common control infrastructure that would have national impact would be construed as an act of war.  The cyber attacks against our military computing infrastructure is a daily occurrence.  Same for the attacks attributed to the PRC military against our commercial data infrastructure, and command and control systems for our power grids and water supplies.  Our telecommunications systems are already compromised.

Sun Tzu:  The Art of War

III.  Attack by Stratagem

"1. . . . In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole

and intact;

2.  Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

. . . 6.  Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy’s troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.

  7.  With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph will be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.

 . . . 17. Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:

(1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

(2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.

(3) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.

(4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.

(5) He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign."

If what was conveyed by the Washington Times is true, we have had a precursor of the strategy of the PRC's military in using commercial and military cyber resources to attack the infrastructure of a target state.  Our State Department and our President need to let the SecDef and the U.S. military do their jobs of protecting U.S. infrastructure unfettered by illusions of "good will" on the part of the Red Chinese where there are none on the part of the Red Chinese.

Whether we like to admit or not, another layer of strategy of the PRC in its undeclared conflict with the United States may have been revealed by the alleged cyber attacks against India's power grid in July of this year.  We can either pay attention and focus on eliminating our weaknesses in our cyber control systems, or, we can pay the price:  ". . . He will win who . .  .waits to take the enemy unprepared." 

The PRC is not playing games.

Sarah Palin running for President?! NOOOOOOOO!!!!

I just read an article on Real Clear Politics that confirmed my worst fears. Sarah Palin is definitely going to make a run for the brass ring of the Presidency. This egotistical, paranoid, soap opera queen and failed governor of the GREAT STATE of ALASKA, this individual who stated time and again while running for that high office "This is the greatest job that I could have," and who promised that she would never leave that office for national office before her two potential terms were up . . . Sarah Palin would be a disaster as a President.

I worked for that campaign as a volunteer, I wrote in support of her campaign, I talked to people, I did what I could to support her in her race for governor. Sarah called me, I did not call her and volunteer.

When Sarah Palin took her oath of office, she closed the door to most of the peons like me, and on her promises regarding change and open, conservative, pro-family, pro-life, constitutional State government.

Her administration was characterized as being left to itself without clear leadership or direction from her. She did something none of us thought that she would do. Instead of a new start for State government as she campaigned on--the Palin Revolution, remember?--she rehired many of her predecessors' commissioners and appointees. She changed nothing. If anything, she muddied the waters of State government further.

Her theme of open and transparent government was a joke. Contact with her office was a trial, without much chance of any call being returned. I heard this again and again from people who tried to contact the governor’s offices for one reason or another and were told that their call would be returned, but never was.

I have personal experience with her administration's public access policies. Open and transparent? Anything but.

I understand that the commissioners were left to work out amongst themselves what they thought she wanted from them. Sarah Palin was described as being above details, and uninterested in anything other than what she was trying to accomplish at the moment. A recent interview with Walt Monaghan, the former Dept. of Public Safety Commissioner under Palin, confirmed this characteristic of her administration. She was distant and aloof and out of touch with her commissioners.

As time went on, she increasingly made public appearances to respond to specious and idiotic attacks upon her family, character and ethics. Something she should have left out of her job as governor. It seemed she was making more retorts to these detractors than policy statements. Instead of hiring a publicist, attorney, attack dog, whatever, it was the governor's office that was dragged into the soap opera that was Governor Sarah Palin. She embarrassed us, and she acted immaturely, and foolishly by letting herself be swayed from her responsibilities as governor. She failed as a leader to keep the governor's office above the circus atmosphere, and, instead, used that office a bludgeon against those she did not like. The governor’s office was allowed to enter into the realm of a family feud between her sister and her former husband, an Alaska State Trooper.

Sarah is not a conservative. At best, she is a RINO with a great public persona who says all the right things, but shows her true colors in the record of her administration as governor.

Sarah Palin added 800 employees to the State of Alaska and oversaw the biggest expenditures since Statehood. She handed out a $1,200 fuel rebate to Alaskans in a shameless exhibition of pandering to the public with the public’s money. She expanded her cabinet to include a sub-cabinet that was devoted to . . . get this . . . climate change. She named the sub-cabinet the Climate Change Sub-Cabinet whose executive director was a federal EPA employee. According to her commissioner of DNR, and her Climate Change Sub-cabinet, global warming was a man-made problem.

Worse, the Climate Change Sub-Cabinet composition was the antithesis of her claims of supporting the State's sovereignty over ever increasing federal encroachment.

It is difficult to believe that she really supported the State of Alaska's sovereignty as expressed under AS 38.05.500-505 when she let a federal employee act as management in her offices. Especially, when a single source contract for approximately $80,000 was let to Climate Change Strategies (CCS), a progressive, anti growth, anti-development, population control cookie cutter global warming consultant to give the liberals the tools that they needed to feel better about destroying an economy through carbon tax initiatives. CCS was contracted to set up and administer her sub-cabinet. Sarah Palin signed up the State as an observer in the Western Climate Initiative arm of this organization.

Sarah Palin a supporter of the Second Amendment and our military? Highly suspect, given what she ordered where the 32 USC §109(c) Alaska State Defense Force is concerned.

Sarah Palin was the first Republican Governor to reduce the military forces of the State of Alaska by disarming the Alaska State Defense Force and rendering it from an operational, disaster response unit with an outstanding record of achievement over eight years to that of an unarmed "reserve of last resort". In doing so, then Governor Sarah Palin ignored the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, Art. 1 Sec. 19 of the Constitution of the State of Alaska, AS 26.05.070, AS 26.05.100, and the intent of NGR 10-4 sec. 5 and sec. 6, something her Adjutant General, LTG Craig Campbell should have been most aware of.

Her zeal for diminishing the Alaska State Defense Force and thereby removing from the State’s disaster response resources a proven operational unit that was a state military police constabulary has only been exceeded by her successor, Gov. Sean Parnell. Both former Governor Sarah Palin and Governor Sean Parnell have shown an incredible indifference to the fact that by their actions against the Alaska Sate Defense Force that they have shown a complete disregard for the militia’s right to bear arms. They also demonstrate a callous disregard for the fact that unarmed troops cannot afford protection and safety to those whom they serve. Alaskans are less safe because of Sarah Palin’s acts against the Alaska State Defense Force.

In diminishing the military forces of the State of Alaska, then Gov. Sarah Palin, and Gov. Sean Parnell,her successor and her former Lt. Gov., both went against the Alaska Republican Party's plank in support of the military in Alaska:

“C. We recognize Alaska’s strategic military location and unparalleled training opportunities and welcome the expansion of forces in Alaska, including our Active Duty, Reserves, Alaska National Guard, naval Militia, Coast Guard and Alaska State Defense Force.”

That this was done in a time of WAR should cause serious consternation on the part of any who might be considering Sarah Palin as qualified for the Presidency. That she stepped all over the Second Amendment and Alaska's constitution in doing so by diminishing the right of the organized and unorganized State militia to be armed should give cause to all who own weapons to worry about our Second Amendment rights if she actually achieves the presidency. That she did so during time of war should give considerable consernation to any who is concerned about the security of this great country.

Sarah Palin is not intellectually or politically qualified to be president. By intellectually, I mean that she has never studied or been interested in international affairs. Sarah Palin has demonstrated that she lacked the judgment necessary to weigh local and State issues concerning Alaskan much less weigh global issues against national interests. Sarah Palin failed miserably as the governor of the Great State of Alaska, as she did not even make it through her first term. She did not even make it two years into her administration. If Frank Bailey’s book has any truth to it, Sarah Palin can be characterized as a petulant, spoiled child who wanted to quit, because she could not stand the criticism.

You think criticizing Obama produces a spectacle, wait until Sarah Palin becomes President.

I have only seen one other as poor a candidate for the highest office. That one other is the communist and Muslim sympathizing, socialist, apologist heretic that is currently occupying the highest elected office of the United States: Barack Hussein Obama. A close second is former president James Carter.

Unfortunately, I personally believe that Sarah Palin as President would make Obama into a statesman by comparison.

That Sarah Palin just purchased a house in Scottsdale, Arizona for $1.695M is an indication of how much an Alaskan this woman really is.

Yeah, she is good looking and she says the right things that resonates with conservatives and most middle class family oriented, hard working Americans. However, that is all that Sarah Palin is and does. She is a mouthpiece and a lightning rod for the opposition.

Can you imagine her soap opera on national television with her as President? We would be more of a laughing stock than we are under Obama. She is worse than Obama where a sleight is concerned. She would rail publically against any who dared criticize.

Surely, we won't be that stupid to elect someone who is clearly unqualified for the presidency so soon after getting rid of the pretender that is now in that office?

The Republican Party has some serious soul searching to do. There has to be a candidate that has a consistent record of fiscal and social conservatism, who will not compromise our Constitution and our social and moral values, who is not afraid to say that they are an American and that our culture is distinct, that English is our language, and who will not BOW to a foreign potentate, and who has the credentials to be President. Who, like Ronald Reagan will not place his/her ego above that of the country, and who will not only say the right things about America, but will act upon those words to make it so.

Sarah Palin is NOT that candidate.

Real Clear Politics piece on Palin:

Alaska's Congressional Delegation Votes with the libs

The “hate crimes” rider to the defense appropriations bill just passed had the votes of Alaska’s entire congressional delegation.

Yes, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, two staunch, conservative Republicans voted with the pack, rather than voice their disapproval of this dirty trick by the Reid Senate and the Pelosi House. Of course, Sen. Mark Begich voted with his party to further establish homosexuals as a “protected” class under a system of law that was supposed to be based upon the fact that none stand above any other.

Granted, the defense appropriations bill was important, even though it was cut $2.6 billion by Pelosi and Reid to build monuments to Teddy Kennedy and to payback the party faithful in ear marks. That $2.6 billion was pretty important to our troops. For that reason alone, the bill should have been rejected.

That money was out of the budget for ammunition, weapons, training, and equipment for the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters. Money taken from our troops and put in the pockets of cronies. Money needed for spares and more helicopters, especially CH-47 Chinooks that can operate above 14,000ft, the current ceiling limitation of the H60 Blackhawks used by the Army and Hueys of the USMC.

Meanwhile, in our Congress, the priority is keep pedophiles and homosexuals from being offended by heterosexuals. Once again the liberal congress and Alaska’s congressional delegation said to Hell with our troops and their needs. Why, the egos of this evolutionary dead end faction of our society takes precedent over the welfare of our troops in harms way.

I cannot express my contempt.

Politicians disgust me. They are such cowards. And, liberals have such strange, and perverse priorities.

Another Gold Star Family
Today, Alaska has another Gold Star family. An Alaskan was killed in service to his country yesterday. CPL Gregory M. W. Fleury died when a UH-1N and a AH1W Sea Cobra collided in mid air yesterday in Helmand Province Afghanistan while supporting a DEA drug interdiction mission. CPL Fleury, USMC, was a 2005 graduate of Service High School in Anchorage, Alaska.

Another Marine is on duty in Heaven.

Please pray for this young man’s family.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

On 18 August, 2008, near Sarobi, Afghanistan, 10 French soldiers were killed. They had recently taken over security for the area from the Italian contingent to NATO for OEF.

The London Times is reporting a disturbing discovery. The Times alleges that the Italians were bribing the Taleban to keep them from attacking Italian construction crews and Italian troops in the area. This is an outrageous conduct on the part of one of NATO’s longest standing members.

The allegations claim that the French had no idea of the bribery to keep Italian troops safe before taking over security duties for the area. When the French troops took over, they were hit hard. The French troops thought they had inherited a relatively quiet area from the Italian’s experience there.

This is a very serious situation. NATO cannot have each contributing country making separate deals with the enemy to keep them from attacking their troops. That is simply traitorous in its scope and intent. Such conduct frees up the Taleban resources in that area for use against the rest of NATO’s forces fighting in their areas to rid Afghanistan of the Taleban’s insanity.

Surely the Italians realized that the monies paid would be used to buy arms and IED components to use against their brothers in arms?

An investigation needs to be undertaken at the highest levels of government. If Italy had a policy to bribe the enemy, then Italy should be forced to pay reparations for all NATO troops killed and wounded during the period their troops were protected by bribes to the enemy. Further, whomever authorized this policy should face trial as a traitor, and be imprisoned for life. Any Italian military who were aware of this policy should face courts martial, and imprisoned for their dishonorable conduct. One cannot fight a war in which one’s trusted allies are buying off the enemy.

Worse to me, as reported in the Washington Times, is the fact that our government has taken $2,600,000,000 ($2.6B) from our military budget that was to be used to support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, it was reappropriated to feel good projects, such as a Teddy Kennedy Educational Institute for $20,000,000. How much ammunition, equipment, medical supplies, helicopters and spares parts for helicopters could this money have purchased?

On the one hand, we have the Italians bribing the big bad Taleban to leave their troops unharmed. On the other, we have the Obama Administration and its socialist Congress stealing from the defense budget to pay off special interests.

Anyone with a loved one in the military should contact their congressman and the Obama Administration and demand they restore the soldiers’ funding. Cutting the military’s ability to support our troops is simply insane. In that vein, the Italians’ duplicity and the Obama Administration’s failure to support our troops serve the same purpose. This conduct degrades NATO’s ability to wage a war and gives the enemy comfort and solace in the knowledge that the Western governments lack the will to see the conflict through.

How long before the radical Muslim element gets lucky and we are hit again, as on 9-11? Not as if they are not trying, given the recent revelations about CAIR and its association with HAMAS, and the conspiracies broken up by the FBI.

Yet, Obama/Pelosi/Reid et al are going hell bent for leather to establish the U.S. as a socialist state while short sheeting our troops in the field. It can be said that the Italians were just trying to mitigate casualties and avoid controversy at home. By cutting money out of the budget intended for necessary supplies and training, Obama et al have acted with open eyes to endanger our troops in a time of war.