NATIONAL SECURITY

By Michael Babich

Congress needs to be not only a policymaker, but watchdog inthis regard. For example, the President, the Commander-in-Chief, only spoke with our top Commander in Afghanistan only once in 70 days while soldiers were being killed. Where was Congress? It is a shame that we have to first hear information from news-people and talk radio...followed by "great comments" by our Representatives that only amount to reactive responses that sound good. As miltary veteran I would provide a PROACTIVE stance for this job.

• Foreign policy is a major aspect of national security. Whenever feasible, we should heed the advice of Thomas Jefferson who said, "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."

• Terrorism. Terrorists are always going to look for the loopholes in our security. We can, and must, improve our abilities to anticipate terrorist penetration. Just look at what happened recently at the Detroit Metro Airport and the shooting in Ft. Hood, Texas...see how we are in the defensive and reactionary posture? This, in part, represents political correctness run amok. We need to not only anticipate, but to have specific, non-politically correct actions by our military to reverse the recent successes by our enemies against us.

• Border protection. We have thousands of miles to be concerned with. It is not only about airports.

• Streamline the military. Rapid response teams for quick in-and-out action to discrete locations. Enhanced intelligence operations are critical for success of such "rapid-jab" missions. Some examples include: 1) United States (Operation El Dorado Canyon; April 15, 1986) conducted air-strikes against Libya in response to the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing. 2) Israel's top-secret air raid on Syria (2007) that destroyed a bomb factory assembling warheads fueled by North Korean plutonium; 3) Israeli F-16s (2001) entered Iraqi airspace and destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad.

• Afghanistan and Iraq. What are the missions and end-points? It's easy for a Representative to say "we either need to be all in or all out", but that is not enough. Such statements do not help us move forward. They only re-state the obvious. We should also accelerate the training and role of the indigenous military.

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