War crimes, Military compensation, and USMC AAV upgrade plan

FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM

1. Tom Clancy 101. Contributor D.B. Grady takes you on a tour of the background of genius Tom Clancy and makes you want to read them all again: “Clancy was a prodigious novelist and father of the modern ‘techno-thriller.’ His works are known and enjoyed for their close attention to detail, and for their pre-9/11 glimpses into the veiled worlds of the intelligence community and military special operations. Clancy obviously took liberties with his spy teams and commando units, but they feel plausible even today, when SEAL Team 6 is a name so well known that Disney tried for a piece of the ‘brand.’”

2. The employee you seek may be your own. Contributor Jillian Hamilton explains, “Staff members could help fill the open positions, but maybe the program doesn’t motivate the staff to find potential candidates. . . . Training and employee growth incentives are not only key retention strategies, but they could be the answer to filling leadership positions.”

THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

1. Accusation: Special Ops War Crimes in Afghanistan. Rolling Stone’s Matthieu Aikins’ story: “. . . over the past five months, Rolling Stone has interviewed more than two dozen eyewitnesses and victims’ families who’ve provided consistent and detailed allegations of the involvement of American forces in the disappearance of the 10 men, and has talked to Afghan and Western officials who were familiar with confidential Afghan-government, U.N. and Red Cross investigations that found the allegations credible. In July, a U.N. report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan warned: “The reported disappearances, arbitrary killings and torture – if proven to have been committed under the auspices of a party to the armed conflict – may amount to war crimes.”

a. Khaama.Com reports, Human Rights Watch urges investigation.

b. In February 2013, Time reported, “In a statement from Karzai’s National Security Council, the government said that, “It became clear that armed individuals named as U.S. special force stationed in Wardak province engage in harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people. A recent example in the province is an incident in which nine people were disappeared in an operation by this suspicious force and in a separate incident a student was taken away at night from his home, whose tortured body with throat cut was found two days laterunder a bridge. However, Americans reject having conducted any such operation and any involvement of their special force.”

c. In May 2013, PressTV.Com reported, “According to Afghan officials, investigators have substantial proof that American Special Forces have been involved in kidnapping, torturing and killing of Afghan civilians in Maidan Wardak Province back in February. . . . Local residents said hundreds of families had left their homes due to harassment and torture by US-backed military units in the province in recent months.” In April, “Afghans protest U.S. led civilian killings.”

2. Girls with guns: Women read for Navy’s Riverine Delta Company. AP’s Lolita C. Baldor reports from Camp Lejeune, “The military services are struggling to figure out how to move women into battlefront jobs, including infantry, armor and elite commando positions. They are devising updated physical and mental standards – equal for men and women – for thousands of combat jobs and they have until Jan. 1, 2016, to open as many jobs as possible to women, and to explain why if they decide to keep some closed. The common requirements for men and women for each post would be based on specific tasks. Military officials say standards will not be lowered in order to bring women into any combat posts.” Listen while you read.

3. Frustrated with Israel, Kerry condemns West Bank settlements. Aljazeera.Com reports, “John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has said that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are ‘illegitimate’ and not helpful to ongoing efforts for peace between Palestine and Israel. Kerry’s comments on Wednesday came after he met Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, in Bethlehem. ‘Let me emphasise that the position of the United States is that we consider now, and have always considered, the settlements to be illegitimate,’ he said. He added that there was no deal that the Palestinians recognised the illegal settlements in return for peace.” Kerry will stay another day to get back with Netanyahu.

4. SecDef Hagel warns – a too compensated unprepared military. In his NPR interview, Hagel makes some disturbing predictions, according to American Forces Press Service’s Jim Garamone: “’Health care costs are consuming a larger and larger percentage of our budget every year,’ Hagel said. ‘Personnel costs right now, including retirement compensation [and] health care, are about 50 percent of our total budget.’ If this continues, the Defense Department cannot afford it, the secretary said. . . . If we don’t make some tough choices here along the way, … then we’ll have a military that is heavily compensated, but probably a force that is not capable and not ready.’ This is not a subjective evaluation, Hagel said, and it is the way the military is heading, unless changes are made” Read or listen to the interview with SecDef Hagel, here.

CONTRACT WATCH

1. Storm the beach, again, and again: Marines’ Assault Amphibious Vehicle upgrade plan. DefenseMediaNetwork.Com’s Scott R. Gourley walks us through the complicated contracting plan: “With contract award currently planned for the spring of 2014, the program will be divided into a series of sub-phases – like the preliminary design review (PDR) phase and the critical design review (CDR) phase – and options (including the building of prototype vehicles and support as well as low rate initial production (LRIP)). According to the statement of work, if the EMD prototype vehicle build option is exercised, the contractor will produce 8-10 EMD prototype AAV Survivability Upgraded vehicles based on the CDR baselined design. The contractor will receive government-provided IROAN [Inspect and Repair Only As Necessary] vehicles, procure and manufacture materials, assemble materials, and test the resulting AAV Survivability Upgrade vehicles based on the baselined CDR design.”

2. $14.8 billion potential. Fool.Com (aptly named) reports, “The Department of Defense announced 11 new defense contracts on Tuesday. That may not sound like much, but thanks to two multibillion-dollar contracts among them, the total value of contracts awarded on the day could surpass $14.18 billion. The biggest winner of the day was the Bechtel Group. The privately held construction and engineering firm won a ‘modification’ adding $7.1 billion to the value of its contract to perform naval nuclear propulsion work at the Bettis & Knolls Atomic Power Laboratories.”

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

1. Drone ethics. DefenseOne.Com’s Sarah Holewinski and Larry Lewis offer POTUS “Five Ways Obama Can Fix Drones Right Now”: “We’re watching the renewed drone debate this week, much of which is focused on whether drones are legal and justified — a critical discussion to have, but there’s another one, which is how the use of drones can be made more responsible in the immediate term. . . . We believe the United States can live up to this admirable standard with deliberate effort. The good news is that we know it’s possible because it’s been done before.”

2. E-mail help. Wired.Com with some simple advice on the e-mail battle: “Create a filter for incoming mail that flags anything containing the word ‘unsubscribe’ and shunts it into a folder of its own. Since almost all bulk emails include a footer with a link to unsubscribe, this trick will catch just about every piece of mass mail you get, filing it someplace out of the way so you can read it at your leisure.”

3. Silk Road 2.0. The FBI shut it down, but now it’s back – the internet’s nefarious black market. VentureBeat.Com’s Meghan Kelly explains: “Silk Road lives on the Tor Network, a network built by the Navy that makes it easy to keep yourself anonymous. It’s an online marketplace where people can use anonymous-friendly currency such as Bitcoin to buy and sell a number of goods. The original version of the Silk Road was shut down in early October and its owner, known as the Dread Pirate Robers, arrested on drug trafficking charges. The new site was also launched by someone under the same pseudonym. Ross Ulbricht, the original Dread Pirate Roberts, now faces money laundering charges, computer hacking conspiracy charges, and a charge for allegedly hiring a hitman to kill one of his employees.”

4. And what were those Google “Mystery Barges”?

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

1. Sebelius – Latin for spanking. Wednesday was “vent your frustration” day in Congress, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took her licks: “During two hours in the Senate Finance Committee witness chair, Sebelius parried some thrusts and listened impassively to others. Treated more gently by Democrats than Republicans, she said at one point: “Clearly the opposition is still quite ferocious, and I’m just hoping that people understand what their options are, what their benefits could be and what their opportunities are.”

2. Taking it easy on Iran – not so fast. Senator Bob Corker ripostes to Obama’s parry with Iran: “Corker said that his new legislative language would freeze the administration’s ability to waive sanctions currently in place until or unless Iran agrees to large concessions on its nuclear and missile programs. The concessions Corker is demanding go way beyond the incremental deal being contemplated this week in Geneva, where Iran will meet with officials from the U.S. and the other countries in the P5+1 group, which includes Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany.”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

1. “What John Kerry Should Have Said in Egypt.” TheAtlantic.Com’s Steve Clemons argues, “During his visit to Cairo on Sunday, which included a meeting with Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Kerry said nothing about the upcoming trial of the coup-ousted Mohammed Morsi, which began on Monday. In sending a message to Egypt’s military overlord that U.S.-Egypt strategic relations are vital and that America wants Egypt back in its fold, the secretary could be fueling the rise of another Mubarak, with enormous consequences for whether young Egyptians, whose ranks are swelling, choose violence or democratic methods to realize their collective goals.”

2. “John Kerry’s Wishful Thinking About Egypt.” Time’s Lee Smith argues, “The Obama administration seems to have overlooked the fact that two and a half years of street protest have shown the population of Egypt to be broadly anti-American and more dangerously yet anti-Israel. If Sisi doesn’t want to wind up out of power, his leadership will amount to him having to follow the crowd, whichever way it’s going. The signs are already there for the White House to see: this is not a return to the stability of Mubarakism, because Abdel Fattah Sisi is no Hosni Mubarak.

3. Taking it easy on the NSA. WaPo’s Walter Pincus argues, “As Congress considers reforms in the NSA’s collection of electronic intelligence, the focus should be on legislation protecting the privacy of U.S. citizens, not foreigners overseas, no matter who the foreigners are or what positions they hold.”