FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Filling the talent pool—Employee Referral Program. Contributor Jillian Hamilton explains, “It is a tricky business setting up a successful employee referral program (ERP). Success depends on buy-in from three parties: management, employees, and recruiters. . . . Hire employees that buy into the office culture and then work really hard to make it easy for those employees to bring in others that are also top performers and culture-minded.”
2. Fed job opportunities and advice. Jillian Hamilton’s high five: “This is a good time to check out the federal landscape. Budget cuts and employee morale are not ideal right now; however, with over 2 million federal employees and about a quarter of them eligible for retirement, the odds are in your favor. . . . Here are five tips for applying for a federal government job.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Bowe Bergdahl, “the lone wolf.” Washington Post’s Stephanie McCrummen reports, “Before he became a Taliban prisoner, before he wrote in his journal ‘I am the lone wolf of deadly nothingness’ . . . . a trove of Bergdahl’s writing—his handwritten journal along with essays, stories and e-mails provided to The Washington Post—paint a portrait of a deeply complicated and fragile young man who was by his own account struggling to maintain his mental stability from the start of basic training until the moment he walked off his post in eastern Afghanistan in 2009.” See also from American Forces Press Service, “Bergdahl Recovery Consistent With U.S. Laws, Values.”
2. Back to Iraq? TIME’s P. Nash Jenkins reports, “With Islamist militants marching on Baghdad, the enfeebled democratic government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has expressed a willingness to allow the U.S. to conduct airstrikes on the insurgents . . . .” Aljazeera.Com reports, “Iraq’s prime minister has asked the United States to carry out drone and air strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters, but the US has so far refused to get involved . . . .” See also, “Iraq Said to Seek U.S. Strikes on Militants,” “Insurgents . . . advance toward Baghdad,” and “Iraq’s Mosul crisis creates strange bedfellows.”
3. ISIS 102—Questions and Answers. The Telegraph’s Richard Spencer asks ISIS some questions: “Nouri al-Maliki, the Shia prime minister of Iraq, has been unable or unwilling to reach out to Sunni parts of the country—partly because his major electoral opposition in Iraq’s sectarian politics comes from more extreme Shia factions. The United States left behind an informal militia of anti-al-Qaeda tribal chiefs known as the Sahwa, or Awakening, movement. But Mr Maliki saw them as hostile to him politically and reduced the salaries the Americans were paying them, making them gradually more and more alienated.” See also Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe’s “Mosul is burning, and Iraq could still get worse. Here are 5 reasons why.”
4. Bi-Partisan for Veterans. AP’s Matthew Daly reports, “After two overwhelming votes in two days, members of Congress say they are confident they can agree on a bill to improve veterans’ health care and send it to the president’s desk by the end of the month. The Senate easily approved a bill Wednesday to help shorten wait times for thousands of military veterans seeking medical care, a day after the House unanimously adopted a similar measure.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Contractor guards finally on trial. AP’s Pete Yost reports, “Four former Blackwater Worldwide security guards went on trial Wednesday in the killings of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of at least 18 others. Over the next few days, a jury of 12 residents from the District of Columbia will be chosen from a pool of 111 people to decide the guards’ fate. The trial is expected to last months. . . . The shootings occurred Sept. 16, 2007, at the Nisoor Square traffic circle in Baghdad.”
2. Acquisition reforms pass the House. FederalTimes.Com’s Andy Medici reports, “A bill that would reform the acquisition process at the Department of Homeland Security and require DHS to report all cost overruns for major projects to Congress was approved by the House in a voice vote June 9. . . . The department would also have to develop an incentive program for project managers to help bring projects in on time and on budget.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Commercial drone launch. AP’s Joan Lowy reports, “The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday it has granted the first permission for commercial drone flights over land, the latest effort by the agency to show it is loosening restrictions on commercial uses of the unmanned aircraft. Drone maker AeroVironment of Monrovia, California, and BP energy corporation have been given permission to use a Puma drone to survey pipelines, roads and equipment at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska . . . . The first flight took place on Sunday.”
2. Off-the-shelf tech. DefenseNews.Com’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “Global defense companies need to import and adapt more commercial technology into military weapons and systems of the future, a former US deputy defense secretary turned industry CEO said Wednesday. The Pentagon is more often using these types of technologies, such as 3-D printing and IT systems, allowing troops to use smartphones to view real-time reconnaissance information.”
3. Set for digital threat. DefenseNews.Com’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “The CIA must adjust itself for a future that includes pursuing evolving terrorist networks across multiple continents amid sweeping technological changes, the agency’s director said Wednesday. . . . Information readily available on the Internet gives terrorists the ability to study bomb-making, case targets remotely and coordinate among associates spread out over vast distances. This, and cyberattack threats, pose problems for the intelligence community, expanding the number of threats the government most monitor, specifically in the digital realm . . . .”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. The King is dead; God save the King: “The race to succeed Rep. Eric Cantor as House Majority Leader began Wednesday morning, just hours after the Virginia Republican was ousted in a GOP primary in stunning fashion. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California and House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas, two fierce rivals within the senior GOP leadership ranks, began courting members almost immediately upon Cantor’s loss to upstart challenger Dave Brat, a college economics professor. . . . With the midterm elections around the corner, Republicans said they need an individual in place who can do those jobs—and immediately.”
2. Don’t touch it—just let it happen: “Democratic operatives were just as surprised as everyone else by Eric Cantor’s defeat — but now they’re trying to figure out how to make the most of it. The early thinking: Stay out of the GOP’s way. . . . [Dems] see the attention to the defeat as another cut at the House Republicans as extremists, a new way to highlight congressional dysfunction, a chance to pump more GOP distrust into the Latino voters Democrats are hoping to turn out in force in November, an argument that Republicans are in much worse shape than they’ve purported to be. Of course, Democrats have seemed to seize the momentum many times before, only to lose it—though never worse than when the buoyancy of winning on the shutdown immediately disappeared into the Obamacare website launch. But on this one, they feel like Republicans are doing the work for them.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Afghanistan: Quisling with the Taliban?” Aljazeera.Com contributor Prince Ali Seraj argues, “Many Afghans now believe that the US was bluffing about their policy on negotiating with terrorists. It would appear the terrorists called their bluff—and they won.”
2. “Finding the real Bowe Bergdahl in the fog of news.” Washington Post’s Jack Shafer argues, “I wish I had a list of recommendations for journalists that, if observed, would permanently lift the fog of news. But no such list exists. Breaking news is rarely perfect. But I can offer news consumers advice. Bring doubt and skepticism to everything the media produces. Read from a wide range of sources, spin the dial when viewing the news on TV. Remember, all is provisional. The final edition never gets published.”
3. “What the Army’s New COIN Manual Is Missing.” DefenseOne.Com contributor Walter C. Ludwig argues, “Despite some important improvements in the new version of FM 3-24, the central problem of getting a local government to adopt the counterinsurgency approach you think they should remains.”
THE FUNNIES
1. Partisan Ship.
2. Cold War II.
