Remember when counter terrorism expert Richard Clarke described "hair on fire" moments at the beginning of W's presidency as his CIA director tried to get the president focused on a potential terrorist attack in the lead up to 9/11? Yeah, well, Obama's national security officials have been diligently prepping for the transition to the next national security team since last summer, producing some 275 briefing documents and 1,000 pages of classified material and, writes Mark Landler: Nobody in the current administration knows whether anyone in the next has read any of it. Really, Trump has made such a big show of whom he was going to pick for certain cabinet posts that he just hasn't had time to get the national security team in placenot to mention someone who isn't a purveyor of fake news and conspiracy theories to lead it. But lead it retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn will, and in an apparent information vacuum, according to outgoing national security adviser, Susan Rice. We really wanted to make sure there was nothing a new team needed to know that we hadnt told them, Ms. Rice said in an interview. It took them more time than we expected for them to be ready to engage with us. Now, she added, were racing to make up lost time. Rice's team has reportedly been scrambling to make unclassified versions of their original reports because, true to Trump's stellar management skills, most of the National Security Council (NSC) personnel he installed to run the transition didn't have security clearances. Perfect. Lets remember that none of the NSC positions require Senate confirmation, so the slow start represents nothing less than sheer incompetence. The transitions at the State Department and Pentagon are equally behind schedule if not more, but the national security deficit is perhaps more critical because the NSC is tasked with culling information from State, the Pentagon, and the CIA and relaying what's most critical to the president. This is the nerve center of the White House, said David J. Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor of the FP Group, who has written a history of the N.S.C., Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power. If your brain isnt functioning, your arms and legs arent going to function. Fortunately, Trump has a good brain, so he probably doesnt need any help from the NSC. And yes, that sarcasm is a complete mask for how terrifying the prospect of Trumps tenure is, particularly in the realm of national security and foreign policy. Taegan Goddard writes: President-elect Donald Trump admitted that receiving intel briefings has shown him that the U.S. faces some formidable enemies but said he will solve the problems, ABC News reports. Said Trump: Ive had a lot of briefings that are very I dont want to say scary because Ill solve the problems. But we have some big enemies out there in this country and we have some very big enemies very big and, in some cases, strong enemies. He added that he likes his briefings short: I like bullets or I like as little as possible. I dont need, you know, 200-page reports on something that can be handled on a page. That I can tell you. Apparently, his national security advisers dont need those 200-page reports either. Cramming a 200 page counter terrorism report into one page will certainly leave our new, committed, super smart (in his own mind, anyway) president much more time to twitter, but will it cover enough information for a president with the nuclear football to make an informed decision? Hum..... sounds doubtful.....
Granny says, "Dat's right... ... with the Donald in charge... ... dem jihadis gonna be... ... quakin' in dey's boots.
Shall we wait until the man is in office and has his whole team in place before we start kvetching about things over which he currently has no control.
I predict the next four years will make a lot of people yearn for the do-nothing presidency of Dubya Bush. Compared to Trump, Dubya was a statesman....
