Our Biggest Security Threat In the Pacific Is ……..

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Boston Globe – America’s top military officer in charge of monitoring hostile actions by North Korea, escalating tensions between China and Japan, and a spike in computer attacks traced to China provides an unexpected answer when asked what is the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific region: climate change.

Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, in an interview at a Cambridge hotel Friday after he met with scholars at Harvard and Tufts universities, said significant upheaval related to the warming planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’

“People are surprised sometimes,” he added, describing the reaction to his assessment. “You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.”

Locklear said his Hawaii-based headquarters — which is assigned more than 400,00 military and civilian personnel and is responsible for operations from California to India, is working with Asian nations to stockpile supplies in strategic locations and planning a major exercise for May with nearly two dozen countries to practice the “what-ifs.”

Locklear’s two-day visit to New England, which included meetings with students at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., coincides with the Obama’ administration’s recent “pivot” to Asia — the recalibration of national security strategy after more than decade of war in the Middle East to reemphasize a region with rising military and economic powers such as China and India and where most US trade links are.

In closed-door discussions Thursday and Friday, Locklear met with security and foreign policy specialists, including the Harvard Kennedy School’s Graham Allison, who directs the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Asia specialist Joseph Nye Jr..

Nye said he briefed Locklear on a trip he made last fall at the behest of the Department of State to meet with the top leaders of China and Japan to urge them to peacefully settle the disputes over islands in the South and East China Seas.

China last month was accused of directing one of its navy radars at a Japanese warship near the islands where both countries assert sovereignty and claims to fishing and mineral rights. It came several weeks after Japan said China took similar action with one of its military helicopters.

“We have an ongoing number of disputes,” Locklear said. “It is not just about China and everybody else, because there are disputes between other partners down there, too. Sometimes I think the Chinese get handled a little too roughly on this.

“What we are concerned most about,” he added, “is that they work through these things.”

A larger concern is North Korea, which in recent days has threatened to launch a nuclear weapon against the United States.

Following Pyongyang’s recent long-range missile launch and underground nuclear test, the United Nations Security Council on Thursday voted unanimously to tighten sanctions on the reclusive Communist regime. In response the North Korean government threatened to nullify its nonaggression pacts with South Korea, where the United States maintains a military presence.

Locklear said North Korea’s military has taken recent steps to “visibly increase their levels of readiness” along the demilitarized zone that has separated the two Koreas since the armistice halting the Korean War in 1953. “We are watching very closely what’s going on and we are prepared to defend the alliance as well as our homeland,” he said.

In the interview, he stressed the need for a global set of guidelines for the Internet and cyberspace, which he called the modern version of the 19th century’s “Wild West,” where “the only security you brought with you was what you carried on you.”

“We made cyberspace as kind of an ungoverned territory . . . and we haven’t been able to get our arms around how to govern it yet,” Locklear added.

But when it comes to pragmatic military planning, Locklear said he is increasingly focused on another highly destabilizing force.

“The ice is melting and sea is getting higher,” Locklear said, noting that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast. “I’m into the consequence management side of it. I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore.”

The US military, he said, is beginning to reach out to other armed forces in the region about the issue.

“We have interjected into our multilateral dialogue – even with China and India – the imperative to kind of get military capabilities aligned [for] when the effects of climate change start to impact these massive populations,” he said. “If it goes bad, you could have hundreds of thousands or millions of people displaced and then security will start to crumble pretty quickly.’’

26 Comments

  1. Better Hurry

    Increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and provocations are pushing more South Koreans to raise the once unthinkable: developing their own nuclear deterrent, analysts said Monday.

    South Korean lawmaker Chung Mong Joon of the governing Saenuri, or New Frontier Party, indicated that the South may have to look into a nuclear deterrent given that North Korea is acting like “a gangster.”

    The South Korean newspaper Joong Ang Ilbo suggested in an editorial that the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” may not be enough. Although the South is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty, which means the country cannot legally develop nuclear weapons, the newspaper says the North’s threats mean new defenses must be considered.

    “Nuclear weapons can be stopped only with nuclear weapons, as in the mutual assured destruction that prevented a nuclear conflict during the Cold War,” it said.

    Bruce Klingner, former deputy chief for Korea in the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence under President Bill Clinton, says a nuclear South is a “non-starter.”

    A nuclear-armed South Korea could cause Japan, a U.S. ally that has tense relations with South Korea, to go nuclear, too, creating unnecessary instability in the northeast Asia region, Klingner said. Besides, he said, South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953 has had the same assurances that the United States would defend it that Western Europe has had since the end of World War II.

    “We are bound to defend South Korea by all means necessary,” Klingner said. “You can question whether any individual president would trade New York for London or Los Angeles for Seoul, but the guarantee is that we would do so.”

    Tokyo member of parliament Shintaro Ishihara of the Japan Restoration Party has said Japan should have nuclear bombs to counter China and North Korea. Though its constitution restricts Japan’s ability to possess certain weaponry, recently elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe supports revising the document to allow for more military defenses.

    Over the weekend, North Korea canceled an armistice agreement that has been in place nearly all of the 60 years since the end of the Korean War. It said it would cut ties such as a telephone “hotline” between the North and South that can be used in times of crisis.

    This comes a week after the North threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USA and all-out war with the South over stricter sanctions passed last week by the United Nations Security Council to punish North Korea for its third test of a nuclear weapon in February and missile tests.

    Heightened tensions continue this week as U.S. and South Korean forces engage in a joint military exercise. North Korea’s military is holding drills of its own near the line that demarcates North from South. Both sets of exercises are an annual event.

    When such a large grouping of military forces are in close proximity to each other, “there’s an increased opportunity for a clash,” Klingner said.

    Despite his belief that a nuclear South is a bad idea, Klingner agreed that North Korea’s steady progress toward developing a deliverable nuclear weapon is causing South Korean attitudes to harden.

    About 70% of South Koreans say their country should develop its own nuclear deterrent, according to several polls. Several columnists and conservative politicians are questioning whether they can count on the United States to risk a nuclear attack if it comes to the South’s defense in a nuclear contest, he said.

    Bruce Bechtol, a former China and Korea analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency who teaches at Angelo State University in Texas, said South Koreans are probably right about one thing: Even in the case of a North Korean nuclear attack on the South, the United States would be unlikely to respond with in kind, Bechtol said.

    South Korea is under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, but the best response to an attack would probably be with conventional weapons, Bechtol said.

    “If we’re fighting a war with North Korea, the end state of that war would be a unified country with a capital in Seoul,” Bechtol said. “If we used nuclear weapons, we’d be creating a mess that the South Koreans would have to deal with. … My guess would be that the (South Korean) government themselves would want us to use nuclear weapons as a last option.”

    South Koreans pushing for their own nuclear capability “are anticipating the day when North Korea can hit the continental United States with nuclear weapons,” says Richard Bush, who served as an East Asia specialist in the National Intelligence Council under Clinton.

    They’re asking, “Is the United States willing to sacrifice San Francisco if deterrence fails?” Bush said. “This is the same logic that led Great Britain, France, China and Israel to want their own deterrent.”

    The South’s conservative new president, Park Geun Hye, has not advocated following the nuclear path, but she promised to respond “exponentially” to any North Korean attack. South Koreans were unhappy with her predecessor’s restraint in 2010, when North Korea sank a South Korean patrol ship, then shelled the South’s Yeonpyeong Island, killing four people.

    Park’s promise to deliver a non-proportional response to future provocations from the North is a departure from past practice and could result in war because the North’s reaction is impossible to predict, Klingner said.

    “If you respond, you are unsure how your opponent will respond,” he said. “Will he call it even or will he then raise the stakes?”

  3. Send In The I-Team

    The Pentagon’s Cyber Command will create 13 offensive teams by the fall of 2015 to help defend the nation against major computer attacks from abroad, Gen. Keith Alexander testified to Congress on Tuesday, a rare acknowledgment of the military’s ability to use cyberweapons.

    The new teams are part of a broader government effort to shield the nation from destructive attacks over the Internet that could harm Wall Street or knock out electric power, for instance.

    Alexander warned that budget cuts will undermine the effort to build up these forces even as foreign threats to the nation’s critical computer systems intensify. And he urged Congress to pass legislation to enable the private sector to share computer threat data with the government without fear of being sued.

    As he moves into his eighth year as director of the National Security Agency and his third year as head of the fledgling Cyber Command, Alexander told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the strategic-threat picture is worsening. “We’ve seen the attacks on Wall Street over the last six months grow significantly,” he said, noting there were more than 160 disruptive attacks on banks in that period.

    Describing an attack on Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, he said: “Last summer, in August, we saw a destructive attack on Saudi Aramco, where the data on over 30,000 systems were destroyed. And if you look at industry, especially the anti-virus community and others, they believe it’s going to grow more in 2013. And there’s a lot that we need to do to prepare for this.”

    The U.S. intelligence community has indicated that the assaults on the banks and Saudi Aramco were the work of Iran in retaliation for U.S. financial sanctions imposed to deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

    Alexander’s remarks came as U.S. intelligence officials elsewhere on Capitol Hill testified about the growing cyberthreat. At a national security threat hearing, ­Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. called on China to stop its “cyber-stealing” of corporate secrets from U.S. networks.

    Alexander said the 13 teams would defend against destructive attacks. “I would like to be clear that this team . . . is an offensive team,” he said, in a rare admission that the military has developed the capacity to conduct offensive cyberattacks.

    Twenty-seven other teams would support commands such as the Pacific Command and the Central Command as they plan offensive cyber capabilities. Separate teams would ­focus on protecting the Defense Department’s computer networks. He said the first third of the forces, which officials have said will total several thousand civilians and uniformed personnel, will be in place by September and the second third a year later.

    Some teams are already in place, Alexander said, to focus on “the most serious threats,” which he did not identify.

    But he said uncertainty about the budget is affecting the ability to fill out the teams. About 25 percent of the Cyber Command’s budget is being held up by congressional wrangling over the fiscal 2013 budget, he said. And across-the-board ­cuts that took effect March 1 are forcing civilian furloughs. “By singling out the civilian workforce, we’ve done a great disservice,” said Alexander, noting that one-third of the command workforce is made up of Air Force civilians.

    He said some cybersecurity recruits have taken a salary cut to work for the government, only to be faced with a furlough. “That’s the wrong message to send people we want to stay in the military acting in these career fields.”

    The attacks hitting the banks are “distributed denial of service attacks” — or barrages of network traffic against Web site servers — that are best handled by the Internet service providers, he said. The issue is “when does a nuisance become a real problem” that ­forces the government to act, he said. The administration is debating that now, he said.

    To detect major attacks on industry, the department needs to see them coming in real time, Alexander said. The Internet service providers are best positioned to provide that visibility, but they lack the authority to share attack data with the government, he said. In particular, he said, the companies need legal protection against lawsuits for sharing the data.

  4. Taiwan Sees Threats Other Than Climate Change

    Taiwan Tuesday confirmed it plans to study the feasibility of building a submarine fleet on its own in a move which suggests it is running out of patience over a long-stalled US offer to supply eight of the warships.The navy hopes to come up with an in-depth report in four years on items ranging from design and acquisition of equipment, to construction capabilities and product tests and evaluation, according to a defence ministry statement.The report will cost around Tw$140 million ($4.7 million) to be financed by a defence ministry-controlled fund, it said.”The move is a crucial sign showing that the navy has dropped the idea of purchasing submarines from the United States and decided to build them at home,” a naval source was quoted by the Liberty Times as saying.The paper said an initial naval evaluation report indicated that the island’s leading shipyard CSBC Corporation had acquired expertise to build the sophisticated warships.

    But Taiwan is still short of critical know-how on development of submarine fighting systems, sonars and torpedo launch tubes, it said.In April 2001, then US president George W. Bush approved the sale of eight conventional submarines as part of Washington’s most comprehensive arms package to the island since 1992.

    Since then, however, there has been little progress as the United States has not built conventional submarines for more than 40 years and Germany and Spain have reportedly declined to offer their designs for fear of offending China.

    The Taiwanese navy currently operates a fleet of four submarines, but only two of them, Dutch-built, could be deployed in the event of war. The other two were built by the United States in the 1940s.

    Tensions between Taiwan and China have eased markedly since President Ma Ying-jeou came to power on a platform of beefing up trade links and allowing more Chinese tourists to visit. Ma was re-elected in January 2012.But Taiwan, which has governed itself since 1949, still sees a need to modernise its armed forces because China regards the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.

  5. But Taiwan is still short of critical know-how on development of submarine fighting systems, sonars and torpedo launch tubes

    Why don’t they ask Beijing for it? China already has all the US sub info on file.

  6. Germany and Spain … for fear of offending China

    Tensions between Taiwan and China have eased markedly since President Ma Ying-jeou came to power on a platform of beefing up trade links and allowing more Chinese tourists to visit.

    We just Chartered the Fed’s Reserve bank for another Hundred years. That was a major historic event and we didn’t even talk about it. The elites have been looking forward to this for years and talking behind closed doors. Any chance of real hope for change went out the window with unanimous Congressional support.

  9. UN says US drones violate Pakistan’s sovereignty……

    …and just where was Osama…

    ISLAMABAD (AP) — The head of a U.N. team investigating casualties from U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan declared after a secret research trip to the country that the attacks violate Pakistan’s sovereignty.

    Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, said the Pakistani government made clear to him that it does not consent to the strikes -- a position that has been disputed by U.S. officials.

    President Barack Obama has stepped up covert CIA drone strikes targeting al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal region along the Afghan border since he took office in 2009.

    The strikes have caused growing controversy because of the secrecy surrounding them and claims that they have caused significant civilian casualties -- allegations denied by the United States.

    According to a U.N. statement that Emmerson emailed to The Associated Press on Friday, the Pakistani government told him it has confirmed at least 400 civilian deaths by U.S. drones on its territory. The statement was initially released on Thursday, following the investigator’s three-day visit to Pakistan, which ended Wednesday. The visit was kept secret until Emmerson left.

    Imtiaz Gul, an expert on Pakistani militancy who is helping Emmerson’s team, said Friday that the organization he runs, the Centre for Research and Security Studies, gave the U.N. investigator during his visit case studies on 25 strikes that allegedly killed around 200 civilians.

    The U.N. investigation into civilian casualties from drone strikes and other targeted killings in Pakistan and several other countries was launched in January and is expected to deliver its conclusions in October.

    The U.S. rarely discusses the strikes in public because of their covert nature, but officials have said privately that they have caused very few civilian casualties.

    A 2012 investigation by the AP into 10 of the deadliest recent drone strikes in Pakistan found that a significant majority of the casualties were militants, but civilians were also being killed.

    Pakistani officials regularly criticize the attacks in public as a violation of the country’s sovereignty, a popular position in a country where anti-American sentiment runs high.

    But the reality has been more complicated in the past.

    For many years, Pakistan allowed U.S. drones to take off from bases within the country. Documents released by WikiLeaks in 2010 showed that senior Pakistani officials consented to the strikes in private to U.S. diplomats, while at the same time condemning them in public.

    Cooperation has certainly waned since then as the relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. has deteriorated. In 2011, Pakistan kicked the U.S. out of an air base used by American drones in the country’s southwest, in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

    But U.S. officials insist privately that cooperation has not ended altogether, and key Pakistani military officers and civilian politicians continue to consent to the strikes.

    However, Emmerson, the U.N. investigator, came away with a black and white view after his meetings with Pakistani officials.

    “The position of the government of Pakistan is quite clear,” said Emmerson. “It does not consent to the use of drones by the United States on its territory and it considers this to be a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

    The drone campaign “involves the use of force on the territory of another state without its consent and is therefore a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty,” he said.

    Pakistan claimed the drone strikes were radicalizing a new generation of militants and said it was capable of fighting the war against Islamist extremism in the country by itself, said Emmerson.

    A major reason why the U.S. has stepped up drone attacks in Pakistan is because it has failed to convince the government to target Taliban militants using its territory to launch cross-border attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.

    Emmerson met with a variety of Pakistani officials during his visit, as well as tribal leaders from the North Waziristan tribal area -- the main target for U.S. drones in the country -- and locals who claimed they were injured by the attacks or had lost loved ones.

    The tribal leaders said innoncent tribesmen were often mistakenly targeted by drones because they were indistinguishable from Taliban militants, said Emmerson. Both groups wear the same traditional tribal clothing and normally carry a gun at all times, he said.

    “It is time for the international community to heed the concerns of Pakistan, and give the next democratically elected government of Pakistan the space, support and assistance it needs to deliver a lasting peace on its own territory without forcible military interference by other states,” said Emmerson.

    OK Emmerson you dick..why don`t you take your candy ass to those tribal areas..dick wad…

  10. So the Navy has officially lost its mind? We go back to the same seashore every year, I’m not seeing the sea encroaching there. Tell me what islands have officially disappeared? Shrunk significantly?

    Technically there is only one ocean, the level of which depends much more on lunar tides than on any other factor. If there were significant rise in the ocean from melt, we’d be able to observe it. My guess is there is no threat, but rather a bunch of assertions never countered by logical argument at any level by the other side. As long as we allow gasbags like Al Gore, who hope to profit from the carbon futures market, to pontificate on areas outside their expertise, we are lost.

    Honestly, someone tell me one place that’s in peril of disappearing. And we can’t count crazy islanders preparing for some future disaster either. That’s the equivalent of giving religious cults credence regarding their predictions of comet-induced apocalypses.

  11. The Islands are gaining area

    Tarawa has survived Polynesian invasions, slave traders, western introduced disease, Japanese occupation, American Marine Assault, and nearby Nuclear Explosions ……. but only climate changers are offering to pay them for their suffering.

    Their real problem is over-population in the urban centers. Too much fucking going on. Thats why they’re “contemplating moving their entire population to another country” …… where else are they going to spend our money?

  12. Tarawa does have one island or islet called Bikeman Island that is now submerged although the cause of this is not entirely clear. Wikipedia says it is because of “changing currents and the construction of a causeway between Betio and Bairiki”. This makes sense as the island is in the middle of the atoll and if you joined the islands together then no current would flow between them so currents would be redirected. Bikeman was probably no more than a shoal or sandbar barely above water so the currents probably just eroded it away rather than building it up as before. This article has a picture of someone walking on the submerged island and claims it is because of global warming. The text talks about “cemeteries upended by rising waters” yet no pictures of that. Coastlines change all the time due to current changes, storms and earthquakes.

  14. It’s kind of funny that at one point you see the stars and stripes alongside the Chinese communist flag as if in battle. Chinese are depicted as the most wonderful and peaceful types. Not much mention yet of the raging civil war and Japanese attempts to reinstate the emperor. Nice piece of propaganda from the “Morale Services Division” reminding American people “Why we Fight” cause, like, we need to be reminded because its not that obvious.
    Can’t roll the movie back or fast forward or start in the middle which is a bit annoying.
    Update:…just worked out now I can if I view film using flash.
    Update2..Its a really interesting movie. Lots of battle action. I’d rate it much higher than a James Bond movie or any Die Hard.

    Update3: These were heroic times:
    “Here was their mad dream.
    Phase One -- the occupation of Manchuria for raw materials.
    Phase Two -- the absorption of China for manpower.
    Phase Three -- a triumphant sweep to the south to seize the riches of the Indies.
    Phase Four -- the eastward move to crush the United States.”

    Hmm, phase two’s not working out. Jump to phase four.
    Note to would be conquerors of the world: Always look a little grim. Film of you smiling juxtaposed with slaughtered civilians is a bad look.

  15. Absolutely no one in the media comments on the semantic shift from global warming to global change. Since it was becoming impossible to prove warming against a huge body of evidence, the Left decided it wasn’t warming that concerned them, it was change.

    How fucking ludicrous is that? You don’t want the climate to change? Like there was some damn wall thermostat where Sheryl Crow could set it to 72 and we’d all be happy?

    Some idiots are so entertaining.

  16. I guess “climate change” is something similar to alien invasion from outer space; a cause that can unite us all. Just what we need in the twilight phase of Western civilization. Because there is nowhere else to go once you have reached the phase of total individual liberty and every man living in his own castle like royalty. Ultimately the driving force will be “will to power”. Who has der Wille zur Macht?

    …every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Nietzsche

  17. If we had “total individual liberty” we could resist the directives of authoritarian collective leftists who wish the deprive the rest of us of a future of our choosing in order to follow theirs.

    Libertarians continue to threaten to take over the world and leave you alone. Horrors. Amazed

  18. Arms Trade Treaty Could Make Guns as Scarce as Ammo
    breitbart

    Contrary to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) contention that the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) “is consistent with the Second Amendment” and “would not require new domestic regulations” to hamper the exercise of the rights therein, the reality is that if ratified, the ATT could make guns as scarce as ammo and the exercise of the Second Amendment difficult indeed.

    And here’s how this would happen--the ATT contains ambiguities regarding the application of new firearm regulations and import restrictions. And this means the moment the ATT goes into effect--should it be ratified--the types of guns allowed to enter America would largely depend on each U.S. Presidential administration’s opinion of what is or isn’t appropriate.

    In this way, the ATT actually hands the executive branch the power to work with other governments around world to shut down portions of the U.S. import firearms market as they see fit. This will be possible by seizing on ambiguous terms and phrases within the ATT--from claiming certain classes of gun are “inappropriate” to claiming others endanger “women and children”--then barring whole groups of firearms from import.

    And since firearm imports make up 35% of the overall new firearm market in America, a significant cut here could lead to an all-out frenzy on the part of consumers.

    Americans like the Second Amendment because phrases like “the right to keep and bear arms” and “shall not be infringed” are not ambiguous. Rather, the amendment clearly bolsters what Americans already know in their consciences--that we have a natural, God-given right to keep and bear arms. It’s a right which the Founding Fathers did their utmost to protect.

    “shall not be infringed”
    …can someone explain that statement..

  19. Things like the ATT are dead in the water. There is simply no political will to enforce such a piece of tripe and Obama knows it.

    “…should it be ratified” goes right up there with “should we be invaded by superior life forms”. There are far too many false flags raised by the Right and we need to concentrate on the possible, not the impossible. We have enough loonies within our borders to worry about without doing the Chicken Little over foreign gun sales. We’re not giving up our guns, period. And anyone who tries to convince you otherwise (Right or Left) is delusional.

  20. I think “total individual liberty” is good…although you do have to follow some rules. It is the best time to live in the life cycle of a civilization. The early stages of a civilization and the building of empire stage can be arduous and often calls for great sacrifice, lack of liberty and generally hard-core attitudes. Sounds fun in theory but in actual practice not so much.

    It will be interesting to see how things develop. There have been four epic changes in my lifetime that have significantly changed the world.

    1. Mass immigration from third world to first world. I’m surrounded by Chinese and Indians. Now Africans and Middle Easterners are popping up everywhere.
    2. The urbanization and industrialization of China. (more Chinese now live in cities than countryside). Everything is made in China.
    3. The Internet -- connecting everyone to everything.
    4. The declining birthrate and status of Europeans -we still enjoy a bit of a glow but animosities lie just below the surface. We need to make sure we will always be needed.

    The future looks to be heading toward some sort of global socialist society where everyone carries an interactive screen around with them wherever they go. Where everything is recorded and monitored and nothing is ever forgotten.

  21. We need to make sure we will always be needed.

    Like when the Fed runs out of money and can’t borrow no mo and raising taxes on working asses is no longer an option?

  23. …well…?
    nationalreview

    Chris Walsh didn’t set out to punish businesses that don’t allow him to carry his concealed handgun. He’s just a software designer from Richmond, Va. He started the website Friend or Foe in 2009 to keep track of where he could shop and eat without running afoul of business policies and local regulations. But then gun owners started using his website. As word got out on gun-rights blogs, people began adding more business ratings to Friend or Foe, highlighting the establishments that ban firearms and those that don’t. Before long, Walsh found he’d become an activist, and his fast-growing website was helping to fortify a civil-liberties movement. He’s okay with that. He has big plans for how to separate friends of the Second Amendment from foes.

    His latest deed was integrating Google-mapping software. Now anyone can easily log in and rate businesses. A red thumbtack signifies a business that’s not friendly to gun owners. A green thumbtack represents a place that openly welcomes gun owners. A gray thumbtack is a business where folks have carried a concealed firearm without incident, but where the official policy is not known. There are now over 11,000 places rated, and users are adding more everyday.

    Walsh’s website is an Angie’s List for Second Amendment advocates. Each rating can have a note attached; click on the thumbtack to see it. For Dr. Jagadish Potluri’s office in Leesburg, Va., for example, a note says, “Signs on all entryways barring firearms.” For Grioli’s Italian Bistro in Bealeton, Va., a note reads: “I placed the first, that is NEGATIVE, rating. I have since received an apology from the CEO/President of the chain. He has done his homework and seen his manager was incorrect and taken steps to educate the staff that handguns ARE legal in the restaurant.”

    “I never meant for this site to be used to persuade businesses to change their policies,” Walsh says. “But when a business finds they’re losing customers, they often clarify or change their policy.” Whereas the Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., posted the names and home addresses — also via a Google map — of some New York residents who have concealed-carry permits, Friend or Foe doesn’t invade personal privacy. It helps gun owners follow laws and regulations and take their business that respect their freedom. “I’m a big believer in property rights,” Walsh says. “I don’t dispute a business’s right to ban firearms on their property. I’ve just decided to take my business elsewhere. Some other gun owners are choosing to do the same.”

    As the website grows, Walsh is modifying its security and finding the best ways to make sure ratings are accurate. When a rating seems odd, website users flag it and Walsh or others check on the establishment and adjust the rating if necessary. He prefers establishments to have multiple ratings so users can see an average rather than a single opinion. He also wants to create an app that allows travelers to search for restaurants and hotels that don’t bar them from carrying a gun.

    Walsh doesn’t require people to sign in or give any personal information. “Many gun owners are very private people,” Walsh says. “They shouldn’t have to give personal information before they can help others chose where to take their business.”

    Tom Gresham, host of Gun Talk (a nationally syndicated radio talk show about firearms, shooting, and gun rights), points out that Friend or Foe is only one example of citizens’ becoming educated consumers. There is so much peaceful, grassroots Second Amendment activism afoot that Gresham compares today’s gun-rights movement to the civil-rights movement of the 1960s. “Gun owners are standing up for a basic human right,” says Gresham. “I want to support the companies that also support my constitutional freedoms. Technology is now making it easier for us to do this.”

    Gresham’s stance on this issue solidified after he invited someone from Wounded Warrior Project, a charity that helps veterans, to come on his radio show on Veteran’s Day. After sending the invite, Gresham received a statement from Leslie Coleman, the public-relations director for WWP, saying they were declining because Gun Talk is “related to firearms.” This shocked Gresham, because many gun companies and hunting groups have done a lot to financially support WWP.

    After Gresham talked about this hypocrisy on his show, many gun owners spoke out on blogs and elsewhere. To subdue the controversy, WWP’s CEO, Steve Nardizzi, agreed to do an interview on Gun Talk. But Nardizzi only inflamed the tension during his appearance, distancing WWP from those who cherish the Second Amendment.

    Gresham was torn. WWP does great work, but other organizations also help wounded warriors. He decided it was time to take a stand. He wrote, in an op-ed for the Shooting Wire:

    There is a major push to demonize and marginalize gun owners, gun makers, and the shooting sports. It is in this light that I see the WWP policy of prohibiting gun and knife makers from using the WWP logo. What are they telling the world? 
Take the longer view. Ebay blocked firearms from being listed. Paypal blocks the use of its service for buying guns. Google blocks guns, dealers, and makers from searches in its shopping service. We have reports of banks closing the accounts of gun makers simply on the basis that they won’t do business with the firearms industry. Each of these is a very public way of saying, “We don’t do business with ‘those people.’” Each is a way of saying that reasonable and responsible people should have nothing to do with the firearms business. We are being put into the same box as pornography. . . . No longer will we just shrug when faced with a distorted media report about guns. No longer will we just go about our business when a politician makes outrageous claims about gun owners. No longer will we continue to give money to, or do business with, any outfit that in any way labels us as “undesirables.” To shrug and just go on is to not just accept the demonization, but it actually agrees with it and supports it. No longer.

    Now, as the U.S. Senate deliberates another “assault weapons” ban and other measures that target the right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms, the more than 100 million Americans who own guns are learning to separate their allies from their enemies. Friend or Foe is just one example.

    When I asked Walsh if he has had to give up his favorite restaurants or stores, he said: “I had to give up going to Costco, as they have a corporate policy banning guns. Locally, I also had to stop going to Buffalo Wild Wings. As you educate yourself and try to give your hard-earned dollars only to those who stand with your freedom, you find there are sacrifices. For me, though, it’s worth it. For the handful of places I’ve had to give up, I’ve easily found new places that support gun owners.”

    Meanwhile, the comments about local businesses from gun owners around the country keep filling in the map on Walsh’s website; one person in Washington, Penn., gave Washington Ford a red thumbtack and wrote: “Was asked by one of the salesmen to cover up [my handgun] because it upsets people. Well, upset him out of the sale of a new Focus hatchback.”

  26. Internment Camps?

    …. who exactly is going to come put me in one?

    ….. The anti-gun Left?

    ….. the Redneck populated National Guard and Military?

    ….. maybe WE are building them for the community activists.

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