The lead story in today’s New York Times, titled “U.S. Said to Order an Expanded Use of Secret Action,” describes an order issued by General Petraeus in September to expand the use of special operations forces from the Pentagon for operations beyond combat zones into a number of countries in the Middle East region including Iran.

The order seemingly bypasses the C.I.A., traditionally in charge of clandestine activities, despite the attempts by sources in the article to vow cooperation and stating that “there’s enough work to go around.” More significantly, this expansion of Pentagon activities is largely shielded from oversight by the Congress and impacts relations among traditionally friendly countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia.

The directive still seems largely mysterious, and it largely seems to give the Pentagon a free hand to do whatever it wants, wherever it wants. Military sources seem to be cloaking it in the context of 9/11 and the need to combat militants around the globe, but the article reflects on a possible boomerang effect on the safety of U.S. soldiers.

The idea seems to be that spies are not shielded by the Geneva Convention, and if American military forces are blended with spies, their protection will evaporate also. It certainly does not do wonders in combating the image of an American empire promulgated by our adversaries.

This story has legs, and I expect to see follow up articles in the future.

The lead article in today’s New York Times is titled, “U.S. and Britain Close Embassies in Yemen Capital.” It describes the decision to close these buildings based on new information regarding a possible Al Qaeda attack.

The focus on Yemen has grown since the backing of the Al Qaeda group there, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, for the failed Christmas Day terror attack on a plane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit. The decision to close the embassies was based on a credible threat and occurred after a private meeting between General Petraeus, now responsible for the entire Middle East, and the President of Yemen.

In my opinion, the current reaction is purely defensive in nature. The United States must avoid “fighting the last war” because the next attack will come from a different country in a different way. Al Qaeda learns and adapts, and they will avoid attacking us where we expect it. Human intelligence is far more important than responding to past weaknesses.

For human intelligence, you need to start to infiltrate terrorists groups. And this will only occur if we provide a crash course in the Arab language and Arab customs for our operatives. We can’t anticipate the next terrorist attack through improving security measures or fiddling around with the terrorist watch list. With millions of bits of information, more than the Library of Congress every day, we simply don’t have the manpower to review them all, never mind trying to connect the dots.

We need to get men in the inside of Al Qaeda to anticipate their next move.  This should be the main focus of all our intelligence agencies moving forward.

The lead article in The New York Times today is titled, “U.S. Can’t Trace Foreign Visitors on Expired Visas.” It describes the failure of the U.S. government to effectively monitor immigrants with a temporary visa to ensure they don’t overstay the legal limits of their visit. Apparently, there is no organized system for visitors to check out of the country, and they are able to easily blend into U.S. society without creating any alarm among law enforcement officials.

The lack of an effective checkout system was highlighted by the recent arrest of a Jordanian immigrant who entered the country legally but then failed to depart. The immigrant, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, was plotting to blow up a skyscraper in Dallas when he was arrested. Before that, he was able to obtain jobs, a California identification car, rent apartments and even get married without raising any alarms. It was only his postings on Jihadist web sites that alerted U.S. officials to his presence.

It’s amazing the gaps the Bush administration has left in our security structure. Despite all their bluster about 9/11, and their continuing efforts to instill fear among the American people (read Dick Cheney’s continuing campaign and vendetta), the most basic steps to protect this country remain unexecuted. It makes you wonder what their real agenda was while they held the reins of power.

A new military command for cyberspace was described in the lead story in today’s New York Times. It comes not a moment to soon. This country has lagged in its response to cyber attacks and security, and the prospect of an attempt to shut down computer systems controlling everything from energy to water to communications satellites is chilling.

The new cyber effort, originally designed primarily for defensive purposes, will have a multi-billion dollar budget and a cyber czar with an office in the White House. It remains to be determined whether the cyber division will fall under the umbrella of the National Security Council or the Defense Department.

The very real prospect of an enemy power attempting to influence our computer networks during hostilities, and the impact of a successful attempt to do so, clearly led to today’s action. The Internet is a wonderful thing, but as we come to rely on it more and more, it means increased vulnerability as well. They may be used to living in caves in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in advanced civilizations, this is not an option.

Government inevitably lags a few steps behind the rest of society, so this new cyber office provides a chance for it to catch up.