Grandma’s 5 Rules: Obama’s Terrorist Report Has to Find Solutions to These Issues
Jan 7th, 2010 | 13 responses
True, there’s no silver bullet for terrorists to be closed off ever and always, Mr. President. True, there’s no foolproof method of surveillance, even though many of us feel strength and honor in those who run security for our government.
But in the systems you oversee, there are issues you barely covered or omitted entirely today in your speech on tightening down on terrorists.
The following core issues have to be put high on your list for strengthening security:
1.ill-training of not highly qualified people hired to be ‘watchers.’
Just saying, knowing quite a few agents and employees from CBI, FBI, and TSA, some are just outstanding. But some are not anywhere near choice in perception, quickness of intellect, focus or good judgment, or even physical fitness. If the President wants a squad of watchers; each watcher has to be tightly trained. There is no room any more for those who have poor instincts or who give far more attention to the speck on the wall than to the termites that are chewing the house to the ground.
Grandma’s Rule: The best watcher over the cookie jar is one who
a) is well trained in human nature, that is, knowing all sneak-tactics possible…
b) and does not like cookies.
2. nepotism and favoritism
Hiring practices in many areas of ‘watchers’ has way too much nepotism involved, way too much opening the newest position by law to all comers, but already having chosen the new hire from among friends and acquaintances, and thereby rejecting all comers. The days of “You need a job? I can get you on the line” are way over, and never ought be part of security company hires, whether private or governmental. The President can make the walls fall down about the too interior hiring practices that bloat instead of choosing intelligent brawn coupled with bravery.
Grandma’s Rule: Dont use a dull spoon for a day, when you really need a sharp knife to do the job for years’ on end.
3. egotism and small-town protectionism
by those on watch: hoarding their information, lists, reports, intelligence, holding out to be ‘the one’ to gain credit… instead of freely encrypting and sharing critical data with other cleared ‘watchers.’ The President can cut through all small-group protectionism immediately. Governors and Mayors need to cut through all that with their investigative, security forces, and law enforcement groups. Otherwise it’s like the nation has a map for security, safety, tracking… but with most of the major and minor roadways completely erased.
Grandma’s Rule: In order for your life to continue happily, no matter where you are, you must tell me immediately about any possible blood loss, harm, or death… to anyone.
4. political correctness vs political directness
Being politically direct takes, as they say, huevos. It’s often difficult to be direct about the realities of our times– as some say, “someone might be offended.” But we no longer live in the even then falsified ‘poof’ reality of the 1950s when we were told all bad people had been vanquished in wwII. The President must act as a ‘knowing man’ and let his most highly trained and disciplilned government agencies suspect what they suspect with good reason, and know what they know. too. Holding hatred of a group of people by nationality, color or any other attribute has no place, in my opinion, in reliable, and accurate assessment of ANY person who may harbor ill will toward others, be ill mentally, a danger to themselves or others. However, it would help immeasurably if all in oversight, security, surveillance and investigative positions were truly trained in more than just an absurd pop psychology, so all had knowledge in depth, about certain mental disorders and their often predictable deteriorations that occur over time, their often highly deleterious outcomes.
Grandma’s rule: Be sharp and kind… not kind and stupid.
5. Systems that dont work infect systems that already work well
Laws of the land and habeus corpus can most certainly remain as the guiding principles and necessities. But the President has to truly clean house in all his agencies. Watching the evidences even minimally covered by MSM, many US citizens are convinced that parts of every US agency built to protect us, including all security, and all safety such as the FDA for instance, are too often larded with poor documentation, half-baked theories, lack of action, being as we military wives say, ROD, which means acting ‘retired on duty”, squirreling away info privately to create one’s own little fiefdom, living high off the hog, spending more time reveling than reviewing, blocking the truly talented from progressing, not giving best missions to best experts… all that has to be pulled out into the open in all agencies… and assesssed. And cleared.
Grandma’s rule: Never allow Kudzu to take root in the fields you keep for food.
_________
CODA
Kudzu is a miraculous plant in its right environ. But it is also an invasive plant that given root, in a forest, for instance, grows thrice as fast than any other plant, propagating itself wildly, and soon climbs over the tops of the trees, canopying them, cutting them off from sunlight, and thereby killing to blackness, the entire forest itself. Kudzu was mistakenly planted by the ton during the dust bowl days, and still today, in the South, one can see whole dead forests while the kudzu waves on green and wild atop the dead heap.
The picture of the 13 indigenous grandmothers at the top of this article, is from a meeting in 2004. The intention amongst them was to “create opportunities for individuals from different nations to meet and share their ways of life, heal relations, create collaborative relationships, and combine resources in order to manifest solutions to the challenges that currently threaten the global village.”
13 Responses to “Grandma’s 5 Rules: Obama’s Terrorist Report Has to Find Solutions to These Issues”
Thank you grandma, you're the tops.
We actually got lucky. Current defenses were breached (or their weaknesses exploited), but the attack on Christmas failed. It's less painful to have to learn from a failed attack than from a successful attack.
Kudzu, eh? Nepotism and favoritism? What about this? May it not affect our security as it has banking (and potentially, other policy areas like energy). We're still waiting for that transparency and swamp-draining.
“The Federal Reserve Bank of New York told American International Group Inc. not to disclose key details of their agreements to make big payouts to banks in the insurer's regulatory filings in late 2008, according to a set of email exchanges released Thursday. …
A Treasury spokeswoman played down Mr. Geithner's role in the latest disclosure issue.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487…
I don't know of any training – or airport security device that would help detect someone who was using a suppository to smuggle in a mini-bomb. (One partially successful Saudi Arabian attack used just such a method -which is-of course-widely known to drug smugglers.)
The only way I know of is to tick off a lot of people by maintaining an accurate, up-to-date “exclusion list”.
As some Justice once said (Brandeis ?): The Constitution was never intended to be a suicide pact.
“airport security device that would help detect someone who was using a suppository “
I suspect the “body scanners” that are currently in the news (they were actually a news item some time ago — the photo of Susan Hollowell that I wrote about on another thread is old — see photo at link below) will be able to detect these items (and in fact, I'm confident this has been thought about, with the Drug War as well as with the War on Terrorism).
Here:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2…
“a method -which is-of course-widely known to drug smugglers”
This method is fought, by other things, by the “hold them in custody for several hours, make them use a waste basket for a toilet, and examine the contents” method. I suspect the authorities would prefer to use a screening method instead, most of the time, and save the current methods to confirm suspicions.
America is a free nation built on the Constitution,As wars have made their way into our lives since worldwarII in form of conflicts from Korea to VietNam to other parts of the asian continent, and will be perceived to manisfest in some form that contradicts our capitalistic system as evil.
We could never completely solve the problem in my opinion altho grandma,s list is pretty far-sighted vision that sums up an awful task before us. terroism can be as simple as walking across our porous borders, but the real lesson is not how easy it would be, but the 'impact' such act would affect our society, our ideals and sense of justice for its 'own'.
Rule no 4 hits the mrk, [4. political correctness vs political directness] says it all.
Its not about color or nationality or hate for another,s religion, because to follow that directive is to not listen to what your conscience dictates how well you are seated in knowing yourself.
1. Sure intelligence, alertness, perceptiveness goes along way whether one is running a bank, defending a client, or policing a demonstration, It gets more complicated though when our lack of intelligence means infiltrating everything from protest groups to international terrorist organizations. In the spy vs spy game, we sometimes win and sometimes lose as we saw with the deaths of CIA and Blackwater staff in Afghanistan recently. We thought the bomber was one of our own. In strictly tactical terms this is a victory for their intelligence community. In other words, in order to get access to “watch” we sometimes have to rely on newly acquired “assets” for our intelligence. This is trickier than one can easily imagine. Our side is quick to throw our “cookies” (money) around, thinking we can buy “surges” and control others in such a way, but built in is the requirement that the cookie jar be a magical one that never runs out of golden eggs.
2. I don’t know about “way over”—IMHO nepotism/cronyism is as old as prostitution and was brought to new heights under Bush, Jr, and Obama seems to want emulate Clinton and hires many previous Clinton appointees. Cronyism seems to be related, for the one doing the hiring, to elevate the quality of loyalty….it gives the one doing the hiring a perception, perhaps illusory, of greater safety. I wonder what percentage of any company/organization is bloat? I like the coupling of intelligence with brawn, a seemingly missing category in all things requiring authority. Is courage not something only partly determined beforehand? The rest of the equation determined by the situation at hand…..and sharp knives eventually dull for reasons you specify elsewhere. Prisoners know how to sharpen a dull spoon into a mortal weapon.
3. IMHO, I don’t know what can be done about egotism, since we all have one, and from time to time succumb to thinking in self serving, if not narcissistic mode. I have always had a certain disdain for the many uses of secrecy and “intelligence”—as a means of taking action that could not stand the light of day. But accepting that it already exists, it seems self defeating to have not one but many (who knows how many?) competing with each other for budgets, function, and credit……so in that situation I guess I am advocating for consolidation. To withhold information from the family of watchers would seem to be criminal both in terms of data accumulation but also in terms of consequence. Who pays the price for all the infighting?
4. political correctness vs political directness
Whoa……..this is a biggy………even here at TMV……what news gets reported, what news doesn’t get reported, and at the level of commentators too, crossing the coded lines of offense can yield a negative result.
As you say, “Being politically direct takes,,,,huevos, and apparently you have them, though you shy away from naming the tactics such as “profiling” and the other rather brutal treatment of Muslims inside and outside the USA. It is said and documented elsewhere that higher than 80% of Guantanamo prisoners are innocent. It is said, that we have lumped all Muslims together such that when we bomb we kill thousands upon thousands of innocent people.
I love the standard you advise about “nationality, color or any other attribute” having no place in making an accurate assessment. It seems though to have a war (terror) you have to have an enemy, and it seems necessary to demonize the enemy to assuage the conscience (for killing them) and that is a part of military training, graduates of whom often morph into police work at varying levels, including intelligence.
I agree too with the recommendation that intelligence officers be better trained in psych, but keep in mind that the entire torture program was put forth by psychologists. Members of the American Psych. Association, have been in some turmoil, some big names resigning, because of the involvement of psychologists in creating and monitoring torture programs. The AMA refused involvement, insisting on their credo to “do no harm.” It means that the preferred occupation for helping people to right human suffering is/was deeply engaged with the undoing of the mental/emotional/spiritual apparatus. In other words in their zeal to extract information, they drove people crazy, literally. In the aftermath, APA members are attempting to heal themselves. Yes, grandma, intelligence and compassion can exist side by side. ?
5. It would appear to many that Kudzu is an apt description for the state we the country and we the world– are in. Our legal system to anyone watching is turning into a mockery and fodder for the enemy, and it’s all laid out there for anyone to see…..trials only when we know we can win, different levels of justice for different people……….individual terrorism over here/state terrorism over there. War crimes? Nay, and if the world disagrees, we could just hire the arrogant one (Bolton) to run the UN, or just use our power to block the truth from seeing the light of day.
Actually, if Obama, did somehow, miraculously determine that he made a bad start, and decided to have a redo……reassessing and reapppointing….well that just might make me uncork a bottle of champagne.
Thank you for the post Dr. E………and the opportunity to comment.
.tx spirasol for your comment. I thought you might like to see this article I wrote for themoderatevoice about the APA and some of their members seemingly gladly participating in torture of human beings (as you referenced in your comment, you are correct) http://themoderatevoice.com/16419/torture-did-t…
I wrote one other article on this topic for tmv as myself and my colleagues were outraged that it took well over a year for the APA to determine that psychologists colluding with torture was not acceptable. (Some very brave shrinks within the APA spoke out and kept speaking out, no small thing at such an old hierarchy). Also Shaun Mullen and I wrote a third article together on the horrible psychological effects of torture. If I can find these other two, I'll post links for readers. I still reel to think people in the profession of helping could ever ever do such evil. Yet, coming from a slave labor camp/ refugee family, I know humans can act beyond evil. But so can humans also bring good. Thankfully.
I would not choose to condemn the entire security community, but high marks for intention (the best laid plans of mice and men) do not necessarily translate to good results. Destroying an individual's mind through torture is a little like bombing a country because a terrorist group exists (somewhere?) in it. Even if we hit the target, there is likely to be much loss of innocent life, which, in turn, results in growing the hatred toward us. On some level, I think as well, that the fear we experience is largely exaggerated, and our reactions over the top. It has become a funding and a political tool. If anyone is keeping score on who takes more innocent life, both Israel and the USA are way, way ahead.
Exploding underwear and shoe bombs, massice Medicare fraud, and unbacked credit-default swaps, an odd grouping, but I would like to posit a hypothesis as to why we see these failures to security, medical, and economic systems. The problem is systemic in all three areas and result from a management style cursed with a simple fatal flaw. Management believes that its job is to devise policies and list objectives, but implementation procedures are never created in a detailed way. Checklists are too mundane an idea for management to concern themselves with, and lower echelon personnel are left to hammer out the minutiae of implementation. These specific instructions work because the people who devise them know what needs to be done, but they lack the political juice to enforce them outside of their proscribed area. Management believes that policy alone will solve problems, and the little guy who knows what to do is unable to act.
Exceptions to this management style prove my point. The brashest Top Gun in the Air Force cannot leave the ground without running through his preflight checklist, and any lowly mechanic on the ground can stop that fight if procedures are not followed. The concept that lower level personel can stop business as usual makes flying safer. When a little guy doesn't have any power in the process, we see the effects. Harry Markopolos repeatedly warned the SEC of B Madoff's pyrimid scheme, but his worries fell on deaf ears. The “regulators” from the SEC that regularly inspected Madoff's books clearly had no checklist of what to ask, what to verify, or how to uncover the obvious. How many millions would have been saved if somebody had to address Markopolos' concerns.
Changing management culture is tough. There has been inroads, however. Medical changes have been developed recently that demonstrate the power of checklists.
http://charlottesville.injuryboard.com/medical-…
“One major component of the Institute’s plans are checklists for every patient, which have become known as “bundles:” a “ventilator bundle” for patients on a ventilator, “UTI bundle” for patients with urinary catheters, and a “central line bundle” for those with central lines. There is even a bundle for doctors, requiring them to wear a sterile gown, mask and gloves before placing a central line.
While these checklists may include what should be routine behavior from doctors and nurses, routine procedures are typically never followed 100 percent. Without these written guides set by the IHI, checklists are expected to be followed by memory, which is unrealistic.”
Additionally, a nurse now has the ability to question a doctor if steps have been left out. As you may well know, there are traditionally few managers with the absolute power that Doctors wield, and until now, nurses never could contradict that autocratic rule. The result, “implementing the checklists caused a 50 percent decline in ICU infection rates and a 21 percent reduction in cost per ICU discharge.”
The solution to systemic failures is to fix the system. I know everybody is wanting to blame some guy for the BVD bomber, but the failure is in management style, not personal failure.
DLS,
First, thank you for the trifecta of replies yesterday evening. I was, yet again, detained at a Bacchanalian event and unable to respond at the time.
Dr. E, as always, joins lore and ancient wisdom with the needs of a technological and a dangerous world.
You will no doubt face off with the ACLU on body scanners, though I do not object to their use. And, who will be the waste basket watchers?
The key to airport security is hiring,. training and retaining highly capable people and training them well. Our lackluster performance seems to me another indication of our love of technology over human resources, our miserly attitude about the people who should be considered most important to us, the best trained and best treated for our own good (not only airport screeners, but police, fire, teachers, day care workers, nurses etc.) Instead we have no head of our TSA because one Senator thinks he may favor -gasp- unionization. Heaven forbid we should allow critical employees to be well compensated with good benefits so we could attract and keep the best.
The best of the best is Israeli airport security, and SUCH a different approach:
http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2010/01/should-…
Note this comment too, from frequent TMV commenter Ron Beasley: “The most important consideration here in the USA is not security but that some corporation has the opportunity to make a lot of money on ineffective but expensive “hi tech” machines. Keep in mind that Obama's nominee for head of the TSA was held up out of fear the TSA might become unionized. You don't get well trained professionals for $12.00 an hour.”
I think we need more grandmothers and less politicians, bankers and CEO's. They have the right idea about how to fix things. And by the way, I've been a nurse for 25 years, and I wasn't just granted the power to question an almighty doctor. You just have to have the balls to open your mouth.
keep on speaking up newtothis. SO needed in medicine where nurses know often and up close far more than those docs who are drive-by docs. (puts head in room, how ya doing?ok, keep doin' that…zoom, doc gone… and $350 charge on bill for 'dr, visit/ follow up) Elder power. Young-un power; a good combo. thank you