Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Obama's "Intelligence": Off Fighting Global Warming?

While Obama witters away in public about how "intelligence officials failed to connect those dots", and ominously uses words like "unacceptable" when referring to the terrorist plot to bring down an airplane on Christmas Day, it appears as if his lack of intelligence in this case may have been caused by his own policy directives:

C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists

The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.

Secrecy cloaks the monitoring effort, as well as the nation’s intelligence work, because the United States wants to keep foes and potential enemies in the dark about the abilities of its spy satellites and other sensors....About 60 scientists — mainly from academia but including some from industry and federal agencies — run the effort’s scientific side. All have secret clearances.

The Obama administration has said little about the effort publicly but has backed it internally, officials said. In November, the scientists met with Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director.
“Director Panetta believes it is crucial to examine the potential national security implications of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels and population shifts,” Paula Weiss, an agency spokeswoman, said.


Wow. This is so wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin. First - is there any further evidence needed that Barack Obama and the Democrats are not serious about fighting the war on terror and protecting our citizens, when they have chosen to divert national-security apparatus to the study of so-called "global warming"? Is it any wonder that there are gaps in intelligence when the president is more concerned about what they are telling him about the movements of icebergs as opposed to the movement of anti-American jihadis?

And how will this effect the upcoming "cap and trade" debate? Will we be told, once again, that we have to "trust Obama", because he has spy satellite pictures that prove beyond a doubt that global warming is real, but we're not allowed to seem them because, alas, they are "classified"?

How far-fetched is that, when you have a government takeover of the medical profession in progress as we speak, being conducted in secret, while leaders like Nancy Pelosi laugh in the face of those who beg for transparency?

And climate scientists with top-secret security clearances? Given their reputation as cheats, liars, and funding whores, how safe is that??

If Bush had diverted resources as Obama has, we would have heard howls of outrage from the media (as in " It is unclear why Project Medea died in the early days of the Bush administration, but President George W. Bush developed a reputation for opposing many kinds of environmental initiatives"). Instead, we'll hear how smart and insightful this use of national security hardware is ( “I’m extremely pleased with what’s been happening,” said Michael B. McElroy, an atmospheric scientist at Harvard University and a senior member of the group. “It’s really first-rate.”) from a media more concerned about climate change than a few redneck grunts getting shot up at Fort Hood.

All this, while passenger planes narrowly avert disaster and our troops are massacred at home, and Barack Obama points fingers in every direction...except inward.

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