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HOMELAND SECURITY

Today’s Hyper-Connected Network Systems Face Myriad Security Challenges Chuck Brooks

https://www.securityinfowatch.com/critical-infrastructure/article/53078430/todays-hyper-connected-network-systems-face-myriad-security-challenges

The current state of the cyber ecosystem is a precarious one. The perimeters have become blurred, and as the capabilities and connectivity of cyber devices have grown exponentially, so have cyber intrusions from sophisticated malware to both Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) Industrial Control Systems (ICS), and SCADA networks. The threat is even more amplified as those networks are converging.

According to PMMI Business Intelligence’s “2021 Cybersecurity: Assess Your Risk,” report from, Information Technology (IT) attacks “specifically target the enterprise IT systems at a manufacturer, seeking to gain entry through vectors such as email, a CRM system, or an ERP program, which can span across an operation.” Operational Technology (OT) attacks “are designed to exploit the systems that are directly on the plant floor. An OT attack can originate through vectors such as individual sensors on the production line, SCADA/HMI panels, or even unsecured PLCs.” Cybersecurity 101: The Difference Between IT and OT Attacks | OEM Magazine

But in our increasingly hyper-connected internet environments, most physical security systems have become tethered to IT networks and evolving cloud infrastructure. The trend of integration of Industrial hardware and software combined with growing networked IT sensors is redefining the surface attack opportunities for hackers across all digital infrastructures.

The IT OT Convergence Supply Chain

Protecting the fusion of IT/OT networks from cyber-attacks is an urgent challenge that requires orchestration. They all have unique operational frameworks, access points, and a variety of legacy systems and are intertwined with varying regulation and compliance protocols. And a lack of trained skilled workforce is a continual issue in IT, OT and ISC cybersecurity.

Houthi Terrorists Join Iran’s Axis of Evil Against Israel and the United States Will Biden ever take action against Iran and its terrorist proxies? by Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/houthi-terrorists-join-irans-axis-of-evil-against-israel-and-the-united-states/

The Houthis, who control about 80 percent of Yemen, are yet another one of Iran’s multiple terrorist proxies who are menacing Israel militarily and endangering U.S. military personnel. But the Biden administration, which ended the Trump-era designation of the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organization” in February 2021, has taken no action whatsoever to restore the Houthi terrorist designation or to deter the Houthis with military force. And more generally, the Biden administration has allowed the Iranian regime to acquire the wealth in oil revenues and unfrozen monies it needs to lavishly fund its terrorist proxies.

Using missiles and drones launched from Yemen, the Houthi terrorists have aimed their aerial attacks at Israeli territory, have targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and have threatened at least one U.S. warship. The U.S. has only played defense so far, downing some Houthi missiles and drones. Just recently, according to  the Times of Israel, the U.S. military reported that a United States “warship shot down three drones in self-defense during an hourlong assault.”

Despite the Houthis’ multiple provocations, the Biden administration has not yet taken the offensive and retaliated by going after the Houthis’ missile and drone launching sites in Yemen and knocking out coastal radar sites. The Biden administration’s sheepishness in engaging the Houthis at their source is even more pathetic than the Biden administration’s timid responses to the scores of attacks upon U.S. military facilities in Iraq and Syria by Iran-sponsored terrorist militias.

The Navy: Dead in the Water? By Brent Ramsey

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/12/05/the_navy_dead_in_the_water_996793.html

“Mission: The United States is a maritime nation, and the U.S. Navy protects America at sea. Alongside our allies and partners, we defend freedom, preserve economic prosperity, and keep the seas open and free. Our nation is engaged in long-term competition. To defend American interests around the globe, the U.S. Navy must remain prepared to execute our timeless role, as directed by Congress and the President.” The preceding statement is from the U. S. Navy’s website.

There are many indicators that the Navy is at increasing risk of mission failure.

Missing recruiting goals by thousands for two years in a row, missing its goal for FY 2023 by over 7000 new recruits. The impact of missing recruiting goals is cumulative. Its impact does not subside if in subsequent years deficits are not made up. Lack of manpower adds to the strain of a Navy struggling to meet its national priorities overseas. Failing to recruit enough people to man the Navy is a result of many factors. Since the Afghanistan debacle, the public’s faith in the military has plummeted to new lows. With relatively low unemployment, the competition for young people is high. American youth are less fit, less capable of serving in the military than at any time in our history. Fewer young people want to serve as the political left teaches them to hate our country, academia promotes socialism, and race hustlers malign our country for its supposed racism and white supremacy. Divisive ideologies like Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are now promoted vigorously up and down the chain of command in the Navy. These ideologies alienate the youth of what for generations was the most fertile recruiting grounds, white, southern, Christian Americans. This demographic is now increasingly averse to serving in our new politically correct Navy of DEI, Pride month, correct pronouns, drag queens, and transgender people. If the Navy cannot recruit now for the existing numbers of ships we have, we have no hope whatsoever of filling out the ranks of a Navy with much higher numbers of ships.

Recently, due to the international wars simultaneously in Ukraine and Israel, and high tension in the Taiwan strait/South China Sea, the U.S. Navy had an almost unprecedented 8 Carriers at sea at the same time. The only three not at sea were unavailable due to long-term maintenance. Normally, the Navy might have three or four carriers at sea at one time. Navy ships and crews continually operating wear out rapidly. Typical deployments last 6 months. The USS Ford has been deployed for 7 months and SECDEF just extended its deployment in the eastern Med for the second time. The longer the deployment the more worn out the crew and the higher rates of equipment failures become. As deployments go on for longer and longer, the size of the crew shrinks due to illness, pregnancy, injury, and suicides. Typically ships returning to home port after a lengthy deployment are missing a substantial number of the deploying crew. This puts much more stress and strain on the remaining crewmen. The international situation with multiple wars demanding our attention simultaneously is eroding our Navy’s readiness at a high rate. When the ships and their crews wear out, there will be no alternative but to return them to port for re-fit and rest for the crews regardless of whatever pressing mission the ship is on. That the Navy does not have enough ships is now obvious to even the most casual observer when multiple hot spots in distant seas occur. When the proverbial stuff hits the fan, the very first question everyone, including the President asks is, “Where is the nearest carrier?”
The Navy’s high suicide rate over a lengthy period demonstrates the leadership’s tragically being unable to ameliorate the problem.

Pentagon Says that American Arms Industry is Struggling to Keep Up with China By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/04/pentagon-says-that-american-arms-industry-is-struggling-to-keep-up-with-china/

Despite historically being the most technologically advanced military in the world, the Department of Defense (DOD) admitted recently that the American military is now struggling to keep up the pace with China when it comes to the current high-tech arms race.

According to Politico, the Pentagon is set to release its first-ever “National Defense Industrial Strategy,” compiled by the Pentagon’s acquisition chief William LaPlante. The study is set to be a comprehensive observation of what the DOD needs to catch up with China in the development of new military technology, including the possibility of cooperation with smaller tech firms and traditional companies.

At this time, the American military “does not possess the capacity, capability, responsiveness, or resilience required to satisfy the full range of military production needs at speed and scale,” the report’s draft, dated November 28th, reads in part.

“Just as significantly,” the report continues, “the traditional defense contractors in the [defense industrial base] would be challenged to respond to modern conflict at the velocity, scale, and flexibility necessary to meet the dynamic requirements of a major modern conflict.”

The main problem, according to the report, is not that America cannot build the most advanced weapons in the world, but rather, it is incapable of producing them fast enough.

“This mismatch presents a growing strategic risk as the United States confronts the imperatives of supporting active combat operations…while deterring the larger and more technically advanced pacing threat looming in the Indo-Pacific,” the study states.

One Senator is Blocking Hundreds of Biden DEI Nominees From Taking Over the Military 40% have expressed support for the imposition of DEI policies upon our armed forces.” by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/one-senator-is-blocking-hundreds-of-biden-dei-nominees-from-taking-over-the-military/

It’s unfortunate that the destruction of our military isn’t a bigger story and it’s also a shame that so few Republicans and conservatives have backed Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s principled stand to block Biden’s radical military nominees.

Senate Republicans are seeking to bypass his insistence that Biden’s nominees pass proper confirmation with appropriate scrutiny instead of being shoved through.

And that may mean the end of the military as an American institution committed to defending the nation. Instead, it will become another DEI operation.

As this letter from Save America’s Military warns, “independently conducted research has revealed that some 40% of the promotable officers now awaiting Senate approval have publicly expressed support for the imposition of Diversity,
Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies upon our armed forces.”

We’re talking about hundreds of DEI nominees. Here’s the kind of thing we’re talking about.

In the weeks following George Floyd’s death in 2020, a U.S. Air Force officer—currently awaiting promotion to brigadier general—accused his fellow “white colonels” of being the “biggest barriers” to addressing “racial injustice” in the military and being “blind to institutional racism.”

The Curious Case of Rob Malley by Peter Schweizer

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20166/rob-malley

More bad news for Malley emerged recently when a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails was revealed by Semafor and Iran International. In email exchanges between Iranian Foreign Ministry officials working under the supposedly moderate then President Hassan Rouhani, they congratulate each other for the public success of what they called the “Iran Experts Initiative (IEI),” a propaganda effort they created back in 2014, and reportedly “funded and directed by an IRGC official…

The IEI cultivated a network of sympathetic academics and intellectuals “with the aim of shaping political and public opinion as the Iranian government, then led by Hassan Rouhani, pursued a nuclear deal with the U.S.”

Other former officials told the Daily Caller that Malley and a previous advisor of his, Ariane Tabatabai, who holds a senior, security clearance level job at the Defense Department, are “compromised” and had no place running Washington’s Iran policy.

Tabatabai is still employed at the Pentagon where, noted the investigative reporter Lee Smith, “she has been serving as chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, Christopher Maier… Tabatabai’s emails show her enthusiastically submitting to the control of top Iranian officials, who then guided her efforts to propagandize and collect intelligence on U.S. and allied officials in order to advance the interests of the Islamic Republic.”

“The contents of the emails,” wrote Lee Smith, “are damning, showing a group of Iranian American academics being recruited by the Iranian regime, meeting together in foreign countries to receive instructions from top regime officials, and pledging their personal loyalty to the regime….

Tabatabai still has high-level security clearance and access to classified information. The FBI has reportedly “refused to remove her.” So, while Israel fights for its existence, a genocidal Iran is using three of its proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen — Tabatabai, who according to Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), “had the mission of influencing U.S. policymakers to agree with what the Iranian government wanted,” may be sending classified information about planned U.S. and Israeli military moves back to Iran…. What could possibly go wrong?

[The] use of the term “cosmopolitan” here hits on a core tenet of New Left ideology, where concern for one’s own country is seen as jingoism, and the welfare of other nations, even those openly hostile to the US, occupies the highest priority.

How was [Ms. Tabatabai’s] “top level security clearance” approved and why is she still employed in a senior position at the Pentagon?

[T]he case of Rob Malley indicates a deeper rot in our politics…. [Malley] is far closer to those Ivy League professors currently tweeting gleefully in favor of… the terrorist group Hamas, just to cite the most current example.

It is a wonder Malley ever passed a background check in the first place.

Urgently Needed: An Economic and National Security ‘War Cabinet’ by Pete Hoekstra

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20149/economic-national-security-war-cabinet

In World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill formed a wartime cabinet to unify the UK to fight the threats the country faced.

In 2023, the political leadership of Israel formed a war cabinet to confront and defeat Hamas.

In light of the recent, stark warnings given by the Five Eyes security leaders on the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party and so many others, it is time for the U.S. to propose an economic and national security “war” cabinet to coordinate, strategize, and implement plans to address the China challenge as well as the national debt’s impact on our ability to confront it.

Voters in a small Michigan township ousted their entire township board over the board’s support for building a Michigan-taxpayer subsidized, Chinese battery manufacturing plant in their midst. History might not remember them as among the first Americans to take a stand against the creeping Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence growing in the United States, but their vote should serve as a historic and valiant wake-up call for all Americans and their leaders.

How then should their leaders respond to the valid concerns over the threat posed by the CCP’s efforts in America?

The Israeli government’s political response to the barbaric Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 shows one potential avenue of response to Communist China’s rapidly increasing national security threat – critically, before a crisis or an attack forces a response.

Later on the day of the attack, leaders of four of Israel’s opposition parties issued a joint statement in which they said, “In times like these, there is no opposition and coalition in Israel.” The statement reinforced the unity of nearly all political parties in Israel to defeat the existential threat posed to Israel by Hamas and Iran.

On October 11, a war cabinet was formed. There was a unity of purpose to protect the Israel today and in the future.

Threats to the United States now at a Whole New Level By Scott S. Powell

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/11/threats_to_the_united_states_now_at_a_whole_new_level.html

It turns out that nations do not stumble into wars and conflict. Wars are generally the result of globalist forces with ulterior motives or political leaders who seek to shore up and protect their political position by demonizing a target, like Russia, and then rallying the people’s support around the enemy of that target, like Ukraine, in the name of patriotism and American interests.

The American people are wising up after spending $8 trillion over some twenty years in the so-called war against terror in the Middle East in Iraq and Afghanistan — protracted engagements that cost lives and ended in failure, often creating resentment from the native people we were purportedly trying to help. In 2001, the year of 9/11 that triggered the war on terror, total U.S. national debt stood at about $3.4 trillion. Today U.S. national debt has grown by 10-fold to $34 trillion.

The permanent elite in Washington recently assured the American people (with no discussion or accounting for costs) that the U.S. military could fund and prevail in a two-front war — one against Russia in the European theater to defend Ukraine; and the second against China in the Pacific theater to defend Taiwan.

That was until the Middle East blew up on October 7th, thrusting the United States into a new kind of war with multiple fronts. Radical Muslim jihadis never conceded that 9/11 would be the final attack on the United States. In fact, the Iranian mullahs and Hezb’allah have stated repeatedly that they seek to inflict death and destruction on both Israel and America on a mass-casualty scale never seen before.

The American people are also finally wising up about the harm that globalists at the U.N., the international banking cabal and the World Economic Forum have already wrought in Europe with their replacement migration policies that induced European nations to open the doors to immigration from Middle Eastern and North African countries. As a result, the population of Muslims increased 16-fold — to about 30 million, spread out across most European and Scandinavian countries with disastrous social costs — bringing cultural and political division, riots, and crime.

Hamas Ally CAIR Has Been Operating With Impunity Inside America for 30 Years The FBI is doing nothing about it By Paul Sperry

https://amgreatness.com/2023/11/09/hamas-ally-cair-has-been-operating-with-impunity-inside-america-for-30-years/

After Hamas massacred 1,400 men, women and children in Israel last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that the terror group “and its allies” could inspire attacks on Americans “here on our own soil.” He also told the Senate that the FBI is conducting “multiple, ongoing investigations” into people affiliated with the U.S.-designated terrorist group.

What Wray didn’t say is that the FBI has been investigating Hamas’ biggest ally in America for the past 30 years – without filing any charges. Launched in 1994 as a secret front organization to support Hamas, according to declassified FBI wiretap transcripts and FBI testimony, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has, in the decades since, become an accepted member of Washington’s lobbying community. The New York Times and other influential newspapers routinely describe CAIR as a “Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.”

Although it has not repudiated its support for Hamas – which is committed to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people – CAIR was enlisted by the Biden administration in May to take part in a White House initiative to fight antisemitism.

On Oct. 7, the day Hamas terrorists butchered 1,400 Jews, including 33 Americans – raping many and abducting some 240 others to Gaza from southern Israel – CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, delivered an anti-Israel message in Arabic which seemed to justify what Hamas did. Translated into English, it read: “All Arab peoples must go out on Sunday, Oct. 8 – and every day – in demonstrations in support of the Palestinians and in rejection of normalization with the occupier and the apartheid regime [Israel].”

On Saturday afternoon, CAIR helped rally more than 100,000 Muslims in D.C. to instead condemn Israel for supposedly carrying out “genocide” in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 attacks. Multiple speakers called for the destruction of Israel – and, by implication, the Jewish people there – by demanding Palestinians take all the lands “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.”

Terrorists and Saboteurs Are Surging into America by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20128/terrorists-saboteurs-border-migrants

Those who want to cross the U.S. southern border and do not live in this hemisphere usually fly to Quito because Ecuador allows visa-free entry to Chinese and others, such as those from the Middle East and the Central Asian “stans.”

At the end of last month, 17 Chinese nationals landed at Key Largo from Cuba.

Venezuela’s regime has been using migration as a weapon against the United States. [Joseph] Humire terms it “Strategic Engineered Migration.”

“It took only 19 terrorists to carry out 9/11,” Humire points out. “America is likely heading toward an era of increased terrorist attacks in the homeland.”

And Biden is welcoming the attackers onto American soil.

“The migration is going into hyperdrive,” Anthony Rubin, owner of investigative journalist site Muckraker.com, told Gatestone this week. He was referring to individuals traveling by foot, boat and truck to America’s southern border.

A caravan of some 7,000 people, one of the largest ever, is now making its way to the U.S. During the last few weeks, Rubin has been reporting on this mass movement of humanity as it surges toward America.

Those who want to cross the U.S. southern border and do not live in this hemisphere usually fly to Quito because Ecuador allows visa-free entry to Chinese and others, such as those from the Middle East and the Central Asian “stans.”