FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCE JOBS.COM
1. Inspectors General at the Department of State – a mighty task ahead. Contributor D.B. Grady sets the scene for the State Department’s next IG: “In the years since State last had a permanent inspector general, a culture of cronyism and corruption has proliferated in unexpected and troubling places. Examples of mismanagement have materialized in such catastrophic financial and planning disasters as the Jeddah New Consulate Compound in Saudi Arabia, which was announced in 2007 and set to open in 2009. Six years later, only the ‘shell’ of a compound, as it has been described, exists, housing precisely zero State Department personnel. The project has gone over budget by tens of millions of dollars, on top of the new $100,543,000 contract signed last year to actually build the thing.”
2. Happy Fiscal New Year! With 2014 fast approaching, opportunities are popping up like Whack-a-Moles, and contributor Jillian Hamilton has her hammer at the ready: small business contractors, independent contractors, recruiting tools, hiring, firing, and more.
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. War crimes, diplomacy, and fightin’ words – snapshot on Syria as it stands. Reuters’ Stephanie Nebehay and Louis Charbonneau report from Geneva, “Diplomatic efforts to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international control intensified on Wednesday as Russia warned that a U.S. strike could unleash extremist attacks and carry the country’s bitter civil war beyond Syria’s borders. . . . U.N. ambassadors of China and Russia as well as Britain, France and the United States met for about half an hour at the Russian U.N. mission. . . . a U.N. commission of inquiry documented eight mass killings, attributing all but one to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. . . . Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against a U.S. strike on Syria, saying such action risked escalating the conflict beyond that country and unleashing terrorist attacks.”
2. Scant options with the wolves at the door in Syria. AP’s Karin Laub reports from Beirut, “The crisis over chemical weapons in Syria has underlined a central dilemma for the West as it tries to deal with the country’s civil war – the lack of attractive alternatives to President Bashar Assad. . . . rebels are also divided. Fighters linked to the al-Qaida terror network have become increasingly dominant, even as the U.S. and its allies try to strengthen rebels seen as moderates with better training and military equipment. Rebels and Islamic radicals fighting alongside them have already come to blows in some cases, and their divisions could turn into outright battles without the common enemy of Assad.” See related, Americans joining Al Qaeda’s fight.
3. In Iraq, fears of sectarian violence grow. Aljazeera reports, “A car bomb has exploded near a Shia place of worship in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing at least 33 people and wounding up to 55 others. . . . al-Qaeda-linked Sunni Muslim groups have been regaining momentum and striking on a near daily basis this year. About 800 Iraqis were killed in August, according to the UN, with more than a third of the deadly attacks happening in Baghdad.”
4. Kandahar Boardwalk closing – the beginning of the end of an era. McClatchyDC.Com’s foreign correspondent Jay Price reports from Kandahar, “The Kandahar Airfield boardwalk, for a decade the surreal yet comfortingly familiar heart of the biggest NATO base in Afghanistan, is closing down. The festive, elevated rectangle of shops and fast-food vendors built around a small soccer field and running track will inevitably live on in the war stories of tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops and contractors who’ve lived at Kandahar Airfield or passed through it on the way to smaller combat outposts. . . . McChrystal . . . hated the boardwalk . . . . His command sergeant major, Michael T. Hall, once wrote a blog post denouncing it. ‘This is a war zone – not an amusement park’ . . . .”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Eagle II has landed – $22 billion (split 13 ways) in its talons. FederalTimes.Com contributor Andy Medici reports, “The Department of Homeland Security awarded 13 small businesses with spots on a seven-year, $22 billion contract to provide and maintain IT systems . . . .”
2. Raytheon’s $231 million Navy win. GovConWire.Com contributor Ross Wilkers announces, “Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) has won a potential $231 million contract from the U.S. Navy to remanufacture and update weapon systems, as well as to build anti-ship missile defense systems. The award contains $136.2 million in base funds from federal fiscal year 2013 and a $94.8 million option for fiscal 2014.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Reviving the NSA – giving up some security . . . and Alexander. TheAtlantic.Com contributor Bruce Schneier reports, “The NSA’s most intimate secrets are front-page headlines, week after week. Morale at the agency is in shambles. Revelation after revelation has demonstrated that Alexander has exceeded his authority, deceived Congress, and possibly broken the law. Tens of thousands of additional top-secret documents are still waiting to come. Alexander has admitted that he still doesn’t know what Snowden took with him and wouldn’t have known about the leak at all had Snowden not gone public. He has no idea who else might have stolen secrets before Snowden, or who such insiders might have provided them to. Alexander had no contingency plans in place to deal with this sort of security breach, and even now – four months after Snowden fled the country – still has no coherent response to all this.”
2. Forget your pin – the answer is at your fingertips. Wired.Com contributor Marcus Wohlsen figures, “If science fiction has taught us anything, it’s that humans are meant to interact with computers using only our bodies, not through tools such as keyboards or mice. Smartphones and tablets have started us down the path toward devices that respond to immediate human contact, but the fingerprint sensor on the new iPhone 5S could be the first real gateway leading to a widespread embrace of good ol’ skin as the best form of personal digital security.”
3. The future of fingerprint analysis. iPhone has pop-cultured it, and TheVerge.Com’s Casey Newton examines the broader implications of “one-tap authentication”: “By tying the phone’s owner to a physical identity, Apple opens up a world of possibilities around payments and authentication into third-party applications. Today, there is no way for other applications to access the sensor. But over time, the scanner could become the centerpiece for login, authentication and password management across the company’s range of devices and services.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Bachman [Tuner] over-drive. The House Ethics Committee continues its probe while the Representative from Minnesota looks “forward to a successful conclusion to this matter.” TheDailyBeast.Com contributor Ben Jacobs reports, “The House Ethics Committee announced Wednesday that it is extending its investigation into alleged campaign finance irregularities by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). At issue is whether the congresswoman’s 2012 presidential campaign used money from her political action committee to pay staff and whether she used campaign staff and resources on her book tour.”
2. A man behind the curtains – the “Governor” of D.C. WaPo’s Ann E. Marimow and Philip Rucker pull together the story of Jeffrey E. Thompson and his campaign shenanigans: “Court documents and interviews indicate that in early 2008, as Clinton struggled to make up ground against Obama in the primaries, White directly approached the Clinton campaign, pitching his ability to help organize supporters in urban areas. After campaign officials declined his services, a longtime Clinton adviser, Minyon Moore, helped connect White with Thompson, who agreed to fund his canvassing operation, according to the documents and interviews.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. Vladimir Putin – “A Plea for Caution from Russia.” Putin argues in his New York Times Op-Ed, “The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.”
2. “Stumbling toward Damascus.” Time contributor Joe Klein argues, “In my lifetime, more lives, including American lives, have been lost in the pursuit of American credibility than by any legitimate military factor. It was what led Lyndon Johnson to double down in Vietnam. It was what helped propel George W. Bush into pulling the trigger in Iraq, even after it was clear that most of the world and, quietly, the American military thought it would be a disastrous exercise. It was what led Obama deeper into Afghanistan. Make no mistake, Obama has already lost credibility in the world, given his performance of the past few weeks. But American credibility is easily resurrected, given our overwhelming strength, by prudent action the next time a crisis erupts, a clear strategic vision and a rock-steady hand on the wheel.”
3. “It’s time to end the injustice of Guantanamo and Bagram.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Andy Worthington argues, “Yesterday, on September 11, as the world remembered the dreadful terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC 12 years ago, it is time also to remember that, in its response to those attacks, the US embarked on a dangerous flight from the law that led to the use of torture and indefinite detention without charge or trial. At Guantanamo and Bagram, these policies have, to this day, left hundreds of men stranded without access to justice.”
THE FUNNIES
1. Stuck in the middle with you.
2. Duh.
