Tuesday’s Top Ten & Farewell Pugsley
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Your profile: headshots. Editor Lindy Kyzer advises, “You may have a top secret security clearance but there’s no reason to hide your identity. A professional headshot makes a great first impression—even online. . . .”
2. Recharge and revive: take a break. Also from Lindy Kyzer, “Today’s generation includes more professionals than ever who are living to work, not working to live. . . . As work and home continue to blend, the idea of taking a true personal day or actual vacation becomes a very foreign concept. Here are a few reasons people often don’t take vacation time . . . .”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Hagel in Baghdad: ISIS a formidable threat. AP’s Robert Burns reports from Baghdad, “Hagel said the Baghdad government must bring the country together after disastrous years of sectarian division that undermined much of what the U.S. did to train Iraqi security forces. . . . The U.S. is committed to helping Iraq roll back the territorial gains the militants made earlier this year, but President Barack Obama has ruled out sending American ground combat forces.” DefenseOne.Com reports, “Islamic State Is On the ‘Defensive’ As a Coalition Builds in Iraq.” DefenseNews.Com reports, “4,600 International Troops Pledged to Train Iraqi Forces.” And Aljazeera.Com reports, “ISIL and Iran to dominate Gulf Arab summit.”
2. Afghan mire. Christian Science Monitor’s Anna Mulrine reports, “The United States military and NATO officially shuttered their combat command in Afghanistan in a little-noticed ceremony Monday, more than 13 years after the start of the longest war America has ever fought. But what had long promised to be a major milestone in the war has been overshadowed by recent strategic changes on the ground. Even as troops lowered the flag of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) joint command—which was in charge of combat operations—Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made it clear that the US will be jettisoning its original plan to cut forces to 9,800 by year’s end.”
3. AQ commander killed in Pakistan. LongWarJournal.Org’s Bill Roggio reports, “A senior al Qaeda commander is reported to have been killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal areas yesterday. If his death is confirmed, it would mean that two al Qaeda leaders have been killed by US and Pakistani forces over the weekend. . . . There is some confusion over the identity of the al Qaeda leader who is reported to have been killed. Both Reuters and Dawn identified him as Omar Farooq (‘alias Omar Ustad and Ustad Farooq,’ according to Dawn), who is described as al Qaeda’s spokesman and emir for Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
4. Talons on the Osprey. DefenseOne.Com’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “Bell-Boeing announced on Monday that it had successfully fired rockets from a V-22 test aircraft. . . . [F] forward-firing rockets, which are lighter and more lethal than the belly gun, could provide a more practical solution and could expand the types of missions flow by the V-22 . . . .”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Call for sensor-fusion tech. MilitaryAerospace.Com Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Navy researchers are reaching out to industry for sensor-fusion technologies to quicken and improve U.S. Marine Corps tactical fire-control decisions and intelligence gathering when countering enemy incoming artillery, rocket, and mortar rounds. Officials of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in Arlington, Va., released a solicitation last week (ONR-BAA-15-0004) for the Target Processing Center Sensor Correlation and Fusion project. This initiative seeks not only to enhance detection of enemy artillery, rocket, and mortar rounds and reduce false alarms, but also to speed counter fire to destroy enemy projectiles, artillery emplacements, and launchers.”
2. Call for lead-edge tech powerhouses. FederalTimes.Com’s Aaron Boyd reports, “The General Services Administration is looking to gauge vendors’ experience with 18 ‘leading edge technologies’ (LETs), including big data, the Internet of things, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics. Alliant II GWAC managers issued a request for information on Dec. 2 that includes a survey for large and small business. The survey asks vendors whether they have experience delivering on each technology, specifically as the prime contractor (not subcontractor).”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Sex, spies, drills, and the CIA. Reuters’ Mark Hosenball and Jeff Mason report, “The report will include graphic details about sexual threats and other harsh interrogation techniques the CIA meted out to captured militants in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States . . . . The report . . . describes how al Qaeda operative Abdel Rahman al Nashiri, suspected mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, was threatened with a buzzing power drill . . . . The drill was never actually used on him. It documents how at least one detainee was sexually threatened with a broomstick . . . .” See also, “Embassies brace for violence with release of CIA report.”
2. DoD’s Long Range Research and Development Plan (LRRDP). DoDBuzz.Com’s Kris Osborn reports, “The Pentagon is starting a massive research and development effort aimed at finding and developing next-generation technologies able to ensure the U.S. military retains its technological edge. Described as an effort to create a new technological offset strategy like that which the U.S. pursued in the 1950s and 1980s, the Long Range Research and Development Plan, or LRRDP, involves a solicitation to industry, academia, and small business to begin enterprising ideas on areas of focus for new weapons and technology research and development.”
3. Justice Departments’ cybercrime central. FierceGovernmentIT.Com’ Dibya Sarkar reports, “A top Justice Department official last week announced the creation of a new cybersecurity unit that will provide ‘a central hub for expert advice and legal guidance’ regarding U.S. and international laws that help law enforcement fight cyberattacks. This new unit will help ensure that law enforcement agencies are effectively using tools to conduct complex cyber investigations that ‘bring the perpetrators to justice while also protecting the privacy of every day Americans’ . . . .” Read Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell’s cybercrime remarks.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Boehner’s bane—who am I ? “I’m the bane of his existence. If I did much less, he’d get much less complaints from other chairmen that I was investigating things that they think are theirs. He’d get less complaints from former Speaker Pelosi. He definitely would have an easier life. But he also wouldn’t have had the deep investigations that showed where this administration [failed] … It’s kind of one of those things where you don’t like the messenger but you love using the message. And that’s OK. We fight hard to be allowed to do our job, and the speaker has generally supported me. But I do make his life difficult. An aggressive chairman makes it harder on leadership, but to the benefit of everyone.”
2. Newk-Yule-Yer options: “Republicans are split over whether to change the Senate’s rules to allow filibusters on executive and judicial nominations. . . . The GOP was outraged last year after Reid and Democrats used a procedural move known as the ‘nuclear option’ to unilaterally change the Senate’s rules to deprive the minority from being able to block most of President Obama’s nominations. . . . But other Republicans say now that Democrats have changed the rules to allow nominations aside from those to the Supreme Court to clear by majority vote, the GOP should go with the flow.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Want Bipartisan Success in Congress? Pass Defense Acquisition Reform.” DefenseOne.Com contributor Andrew Hunter argues, “The elements are all in place for significant legislation to improve defense acquisition in 2015. The new Congress should make this issue a top early priority, and demonstrate that Congress can again come together in the cause of applying sound practices to defense acquisition.”
2. “Mosul—a city on death row.” Aljazeera.Com contributor James Denselow argues, “An effective and joined up political and military strategy led by Iraq’s new government must make the residents of Mosul hate the caliphate and, at tremendous risk to themselves, take on ISIL from within rather than allow their city to become yet another Middle East urban graveyard. Mosul is a city of immense history but currently stares at the fate of becoming history itself.”
3. “Ready or not, here come they come: Why laws to ban drones won’t work.” VentureBeat.Com contributor Vivek Wadhwa argues, “There are valid concerns that the proliferation of drones will endanger commercial flights and cause serious accidents. The U.S. military is rightfully worried that drones will be weaponized as killing machines and become autonomous flying IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that target a specific individual by means of facial recognition. But banning commercial drone use will not solve these problems; it will just give us a false sense of comfort and kick the can further down the road.”
4. “A light on Iran’s dark powers.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “In China, power is still flowing to Mr. Xi. In Iran, Rouhani may have limited ability to change Iran’s power structure. But telling the truth is a start.”
THE FUNNIES
1. Peculiar things.
2. Go get ‘em, boys.
3. Bear wrestlin’.
