At the risk of dating myself and start off this column by saying, “You kids don’t remember anything,” I’m getting the sense that we’re not just in a 9/10/01 mindset again, we’re actually worse off than we were the day before the world changed forever.
After 19 foreign jihadists abused our visa system or entered the country illegally, box cutters were the weapon of choice, and the soft underbelly of commercial aviation was exploited to turn four aircraft into guided missiles. The Intel community knew there was an increased threat. There was an idea within at least some parts of our national security apparatus that something bad was up. But the rules in place at the time were that agencies of the federal government that had at least a partial role in our overall national security were not allowed to share intel and coordinate with each other.
9/11, the creation of the Homeland Security Department, lowering that wall of separation and ordering agencies to cooperate specifically to analyze and react to prevent future attacks, and eventually the 9/11 Commission, theoretically changed all that.
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For years, as part of the daily news, we learned what threat level the country was under. It was a five-tiered system distinguished by color. The warmer the color, the bigger threat we faced based on chatter the intel community was monitoring. You might be old enough to remember this.
Fun fact: For the decade it existed, the Homeland Security Advisory System was never once lowered to Guarded (Blue) or Low (Green). In 2009 it was recommended to remove those levels if officials would never actually use them. The system was ended in 2011. https://t.co/kfPMBxLF1b pic.twitter.com/S2tGvU6gog
— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) October 29, 2021
We complained about it at the time, but when we were at orange or red, you had to allow yourself a lot of extra time to be screened at the airport. In fact, on red alert days, you had to stop your car a mile from the airport to have it looked at before you were even allowed to proceed. It was often annoying and people complained about it, but there was a Churchillian “Keep Calm and Carry On” attitude that developed. The country knew after 9/11 that it was entirely likely that we were going to get hit by a mass terrorist attack somewhere in the United States, but at least the government was on top of things, albeit belatedly, and was doing its level best to protect the homeland. How’s that trust factor in government intentions these days?
The color code system went the way of all things in 2011, but the threats to the country never abated. Only the interest in those threats by most media reporters did.
Every news entity in the country had teams of reporters that were assigned not only to be embedded reporters with the military in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also had reporters assigned to the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and the intel community to keep Americans up to speed on whether we were at an elevated risk for attack or not. Most recently in that class of reporters is Catherine Herridge. Naturally, CBS News just blew her out along with 800 colleagues as part of an economic purge.
I have lots of friends that are still in media today. Most of them are very good reporters. But I’m absolutely astonished that today, there really only is a couple reporters out there who are looking around and seeing a story that no one seems to care much about – Chad Pergram and Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News.
2) Turner: I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 14, 2024
Okay, that got my attention. What is going on? We don’t know. They’re not telling us, us being the people allegedly the recipients of this threat to national security. And the ‘they’ we’re referring to are the big four in Congress – the chair and ranking members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House National Security Council team.
Most of the committees in Congress today have degraded into performance art shows entertaining their ideological bases. Some committees remain bipartisan or non-partisan as the case may be, the House Select Committee on China being one of them. But historically, and thankfully still the case, the House and Senate Intel committees have largely been above politics and are legitimately trying to glean information about threats the country faces and how to shape Congressional response and support to handle these threats. So when Mike Turner says this, and it’s followed up by this statement by Speaker Mike Johnson, I’m now very concerned.
2) Johnson: In response to that letter, a meeting is now scheduled tomorrow on this matter here at the Capitol with the Gang of Four and with the president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 14, 2024
4) Johnson: We are going to work together to address this matter as we do all sensitive matters that are classified. And beyond that, I’m not at liberty to disclose classified information and really can’t say much of that
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 14, 2024
5) Johnson: But we just want to assure everyone, steady hands are at the wheel, we’re working on it. There’s no need for alarm.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 14, 2024
I think I like Mike Johnson thus far as Speaker, although now with a two-vote majority on anything, it’s an impossible job he’s got to get anything substantive done. But steady hands are at the wheel? To whom, exactly, is he referring as steady? Who are we? Is he referring to the House now working together with the guy they just impeached Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas? Or are they bypassing him entirely now and only dealing with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the White House, the one who played partisan politics by criticizing Republican efforts in the House to remove woke funding from the Pentagon? Or are they getting briefed directly by this guy, allegedly the boss?
Is the Senate Intel Committee up to speed on this unspecified very serious threat about which we don’t need to be alarmed? Are they worried, too? Yes.
2) Warner/Rubio: In the meantime, we must be cautious about potentially disclosing sources and methods that may be key to preserving a range of options for U.S. action.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 14, 2024
At the White House press briefing, Sullivan appeared and responded cryptically to the threat, saying he would indeed brief the Congress’ big eight – Intel chairs/ranking members, majority/minority leaders in both chambers. Here’s what he said.
I’m all for keeping the public at large from full-scale panic, but clearly, something bad is about to go down, and I, for one, would be more likely to not panic if some questions were asked and answered as to the nature of the threat.
What is the origin of the threat? Are we talking about an Iranian threat? Is it the Russians? The Chinese?
Is this a cyberattack threat that we’re talking about? An EMP that is attempting to screw up Super Tuesday’s election, perhaps? A hit on the banking system?
Is the threat related to a terrorist or two, or hundreds that came across the Southern border and slipped untraced into the country sometime during Joe Biden’s administration?
Has Russia discovered what The ChiComs have with regards to hypersonic missiles that we can’t intercept as of yet? Are the Russians going to hit us or one of our NATO-allied interests with a tactical nuke?
We have read that the Chinese are infiltrating our electrical grid. Is this the threat being discussed behind closed doors?
Have the space aliens infiltrated us once and for all, and are the ships about to fill the skies around the globe over our major population centers?
Jacqui Heinrich, Fox’ Pentagon reporter, adds this nugget this afternoon.
More: Pentagon official tells me this threat has to do with space. https://t.co/bBc7eSCME7
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) February 14, 2024
Whatever the ‘it’ is that’s a threat, if it’s a big enough threat that all members are being advised by the Intel committees that something is coming. What seems to be shaping up is everyone attempting to lay down markers and cover their own rear ends from culpability whenever the bad event or events happen. Whatever “it” is, they all know about it. They’re just not talking about it. Is it too much to ask for some member of the administration, say, the President, to address whatever the ‘it’ is, and either what already has been done to prevent it, or what is currently being done to address it, or at the very minimum, what the penalty will be to the bad actor about to wreak havoc on it will be? I mean, besides Joe Biden saying, “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t?” Yes, yes it is too much to ask.
May God protect our Speaker. Perhaps the first thing on which I’ve agreed with Joe Biden in a long, long time, because Secret Service Codeword: Tapioca and his 25th Amendment insurance policy, Kamala ‘I didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree’ Harris, aren’t exactly filling me with confidence they’re up to the job of handling whatever this grave threat is.
If we still had an alert system, seems to me it would be elevated, based on what we’re hearing. Can we do something about it? If it’s a space threat, probably not. But it sure would be nice if we had a modicum of journalistic curiosity outside of a couple of reporters.
We don’t have that. We have people who dutifully take notes as spokespeople for this administration mock the very agency created to deal with the threat that perhaps is facing us right now.
Flashback to 2021, when Biden’s top spokeswoman mocked Space Force: “Wowwwww, Space Force. It’s the plane of today!” pic.twitter.com/eq7Lk5S1Cd
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 14, 2024
Back to my original premise, that we are worse off now than we were on 9/10/01. Back then, only a handful of people had in inkling that something bad was about to go down. The rest of government was caught flat-footed. Today? They all know something’s afoot. They all know. If and when it happens, the blame game away from culpability will become an Olympic level. But will there ever be full transparency with the American public? Nah, that’s not going to happen. We’ll see accountability about who knew what and when regarding this threat about the same time we’ll see the transcript of Joe Biden’s testimony to Special Counsel Robert Hur – around half past never.
In the meantime, rest assured knowing that Joe Biden is at the top of his game. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said so.
And by top of his game, this is apparently what she means.
I remain unconvinced that Joe Biden’s brain processes at the speed of either a Russian or Chinese hypersonic missile. God protect us…and the Speaker.