Governor Charlie Crist and Barack Obama at Casino Beach, Pensacola, Florida, June 15, 2010
Barack Obama’s demand, in his June 15 speech, that the former British Petroleum Company create an escrow account, to guarantee the funds that will be needed to deal with the consequences of the continuing catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, should have been made weeks ago, and should surely have been framed more strongly than it was.
The President, in this matter, continues to demonstrate the quality, laudable in itself, but in politics extraordinarily dangerous, of assuming that those he is dealing with are as reasonable and well-intentioned as he is himself. In fact they are often driven by ruthlessly self-interested motives that leave him in a position of seeming weakness and unwillingness to defend not only national but his own political interests.
At the end of May one saw the President on international television walking on a Louisiana beach, accompanied—off-scene—by hundreds if not thousands of newsmen, broadcasters, and cameramen. He seemed abject. He bent over and picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. He shook his head in concern. A cutaway showed his speeches earlier in this affair declaring that his administration is in charge of the great effort to save America’s coast and waters from the terrible pollution that is spreading as a result of a volcano of oil erupting from the sea’s floor and meeting the sickly-colored, toxic chemicals being mixed into the water that are meant to disperse it.
In his June 15 speech, Mr. Obama finally insisted that BP would pay for all the damage and cleanup and would be held responsible for any illegalities; and the next day at the White House BP agreed to an independently administered $20 billion escrow fund, while the full costs to the Gulf region are far from clear.
In the press conferences given by the President and the BP chairman that followed the meeting it was clear that the American government still does not control this situation. BP alone will determine what is done with respect to the oil geyser and its promised closure. While it will make available the $20 billion compensation fund, the timing, terms, and ultimate worth of BP’s assurances of compensation and reparation remain open to interpretation and change.
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How can the President possibly say that his administration has “been in charge”? BP has been in charge from the start—it and its contract companies, all of them desperately trying to plug the hole in the bottom of the sea, and all defending corporate and fiscal interests of their own. The President’s associates and advisers have apparently decided that the agencies of the United States government are technically incompetent to give instructions to BP, which seems improbable. But they certainly can and must tell BP what priorities must be set, and they must establish goals to be met, and on what timescale.
BP’s lawyers and lobbyists have just as desperately been striving to allow BP to unload responsibility upon anyone or everyone else, including incompetent or irresponsible or compromised federal regulators.
Allow me, in the style of the metropolitan columnists who influence Washington, to draft what the President might have said in his June 15 speech:
“My friends:
“The American nation has suffered a grievous blow from the catastrophe produced in the Gulf by what formerly was known as the British Petroleum Company. This is the latest in a series of major accidents produced in this company’s American operations, causing loss of lives among its workers, unforgivable human suffering by private citizens, and great damage to private and public interests, continuing today in the Gulf.
“I have therefore today given orders that the American functions of this company be provisionally seized, or placed in temporary receivership, by the American government, as in recent months we have been forced to seize banks and corporations devastated by economic crisis, such as General Motors, AIG, and certain financial institutions.
“BP’s American management will be placed under public authority and will be instructed to terminate the oil emergency as rapidly as possible and in disregard of whatever costs must be incurred by the company. This effort will be conducted by BP through its own best efforts, closely supervised by officers of the United States Coast Guard and Navy, the Energy and Treasury Departments of our government, and will be accompanied by an investigation by the Justice Department and its executive agencies, including the FBI, for any possible evidence of fraud, malfeasance or profiteering, contributing to this disaster. None of these agencies of government will incur any responsibility whatever for the decisions and actions of BP while conducting its operations to terminate the oil blowout.
“In no circumstances will company, proprietary, or stockholder interest be given priority over measures to terminate this emergency and to safeguard the assets or interests of the United States public or government. No funds of this company shall be expended on political lobbying intended to influence Congress or the executive agencies of federal government until this emergency has formally been determined to have been ended.
“Clearly, losses to British pension funds and other British shareholders of BP should be of concern to the British government. However those individuals and institutions investing in companies with notoriously controversial histories assume the accompanying risks.
“The Oil Pollution Act signed into law in 1990 greatly expanded the US government’s ability and resources necessary to respond to oil spills; and it does not preempt state action to impose additional liability, which may be unlimited, with penalties and damages in addition to federal liabilities that may extend to prison sentences.
“I am instructing that all BP assets within the United States, or in its surrounding waters, including funds immediately at its disposal, and all other BP funds accessible to the United States government, be temporarily seized and sequestered so as to prevent the transfer of any funds or assets of this company outside United States jurisdiction and access. The disposition of those assets will eventually be determined by the courts or by a new independent federal agency, with priority given to the reimbursement of persons and property-holders victimized by this catastrophe, and the redressment of damage or destruction to public assets and municipal, state, and national interests for which the former British Petroleum corporation is deemed by the courts, or by the independent agency, to have been responsible.”
This is what the American people wanted to hear. President Obama wishes to be seen as decisive and a leader? Here was his opportunity. He wants a Democratic Congress elected in the fall? And a second presidential term for himself? This could have made a decisive contribution to those ambitions, as well as assuring necessary help to millions of people and repairing grave damage to the environment.
He then could have concluded his speech by saying to his political opponents that any Republican or Democrat who wishes to run for office in November as an opponent of these Obama administration crisis measures—and as a defender of BP corporate and stockholder interests, or its customary executive remuneration and financial practices—as against the national interest of the United States and redress of the damage that continues at this moment to be done to the United States and its citizens, would be more than welcome to do so.
New Delhi (Mizzima) – The National League for Democracy party headquarters has transferred about 2.55 million Kyats to its state and division branches yesterday for distribution to families of 605 political prisoners.
The funds donated by ordinary citizens were being distributed under the party’s social aid programme for poor family members of some political prisoners, among the more than 2,100 serving sentences across the country, party vice-chairman and leader of the programme, Tin Oo, said.
“There are more than 200 such families across the Burmese states and divisions and the rest are families in Rangoon Division,” he said. “The money will be distributed to appropriate prisoners [via their families] from their townships of origin.”
Recipients would also comprise human rights activists, those who took part in protests over fuel-price increases in 2007, political activists, students and young people, without them necessarily being affiliated with the NLD, Tin Oo said.
NLD central executive committee member Win Tin added that, “Previously headquarters managed this work but it has now been delegated to party branches in the states and divisions … We give this money not only to our party members but to other prisoners as well.”
“In the new programme, the fund-raising and distribution of money will be carried out by each branch office,” he said.
Since 1996, the party has assisted family members of political prisoners at the rate of 5,000 Kyats per month per prisoner, to enable them to visit their loved ones in jail. The party had spent more than 3 million Kyats each month, it said.
The scheme was suspended temporarily on May 6, the deadline for the party to re-register or be annulled under the junta’s electoral laws, but it has now resumed. Apart from the financial assistance for prison visits between political prisoners and their families, the NLD has since 1996 also given annual donations to students from these families towards education.
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Members of the Kachin ethnic minority who belonged to the junta’s nationalist social organisation applied to the Burma’s electoral watchdog in Naypyidaw to form a new political party last Friday.
Duwa Khet Htein Nan, originally nominated as a candidate for the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) party in the upcoming election, will serve as chairman of the Unity and Democracy Party for Kachin State (UDPKS), sources close to him said.
He also served as an organiser for the USDP in Naug Nan village, eight miles (13 kilometres) north of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State.
But the relationship between the USDP led by serving Prime Minister Thein Sein and the UDPKS remains unclear. The new party has emerged as the electoral watchdog, the Union Election Commission, has been deliberately rejecting applications from other Kachin groups that sought to form political parties.
The total number of ethnic Kachin parties has reached four and include the Kachin State Progressive Party (KSPP), led by former Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) leaders; the United Democracy Party (Kachin State); and the Shan State (North) Progressive Party.
Other leading office holders of the UDPKS, formed in the middle of last month, are also former USDP members: vice-chairman Fowler Gham Phan, lawyer Dwe Bu, lawyer La Mya Gam and adviser Madein Zone Teng, who is also chairman of the Kachin Cultural Organisation. They formed their party in middle of last month.
Dwe Bu attended the junta-sponsored “National Convention” held in Nyaunghnapin, representing Kachin State as an elder and eminent person, Mizzima was told.
Fowler Gan Pham, a party nominee to contest in the Mansi Township constituency, Bamao District, said it was premature to answer questions on party policies.
“It’s a bit premature to answer these questions. We will represent all 18 townships in Kachin State in the upcoming elections and will become the major party to represent all people in Kachin State”, he told Mizzima.
Kachin Cultural Organisation central committee member Duwa Khet Htein was unreachable for comment. Local residents speculated that he would also campaign in Kachin State. He owns the Aung Shwe Kabar gold and jade mining company and is part owner of the My Gin Dai gold mine, a source close to him says.
A local resident in Myitkyina who is close to him said that he had won the respect and trust of Kachin people as he had served four times as head of the Kachin traditional Manau dance festival, which commemorated Kachin State Day. He had also led the 62nd Manau dance festival last year.
“Under his leadership, we are well organised and united. He knows well he is being exploited by the military regime,” the resident told Mizzima. “He is well known and a crucial person for organising the people.”
Observers said that the new Kachin party had entered the fray after the visit to the state last month by Communications, Post and Telegraph Minister Brigadier General Thein Zaw and Ministry of Industry No. 1 Minister Aung Thaung, who had urged participants to form a new ethnic Kachin party.
The Thai government should immediately lift the state of emergency to create conditions for national reconciliation that would allow the building of a new political consensus and the holding of peaceful elections if the country is to return to stability.
Bridging Thailand’s Deep Divide, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, says the protracted tussle between the royalist establishment and those allied with ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has left the country deeply polarised. In April and May it sparked the most violent political confrontations in decades, killing at least 90 people, injuring nearly 2,000 and inflicting deep wounds on the national psyche. Shortly before authorising a violent crackdown on anti-government protestors by the army, the establishment-backed government of Abhisit Vejjajiva unilaterally offered to opposition groups a “roadmap” to national reconciliation. It now persists with this plan despite having created an atmosphere of repression where basic rights of the pro-Thaksin “Red Shirt” movement are denied by emergency laws.
“There is little prospect that genuine reconciliation will succeed when the offer comes from the same government directly responsible for the recent deadly crackdown on the Red Shirts and their ongoing repression”, says Jim Della-Giacoma, Crisis Group’s South East Asia Project Director. “The first gesture that might demonstrate a renewed commitment to building bridges would be to unconditionally and immediately lift the state of emergency”.
Empowered by the emergency decree imposed in 24 provinces – one third of the country – authorities have prohibited Red Shirts’ demonstrations, shut down their media, detained their leaders and banned financial transactions of their alleged financiers. Reconciliation when the government’s partners in resolving this conflict are on the run and denied their political rights is impossible. While the Red Shirts have no opportunity for open and peaceful expression because of draconian laws, their legitimate frustrations are being forced underground and possibly towards illegal and violent actions.
Establishing facts of the recent violence and holding perpetrators of the crimes on all sides accountable is another critical step on the road to reuniting the country. The Independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed by former attorney general Kanit na Nakhon should not only seek truth but also initiate prosecutions of those it finds to have committed violent acts. The government’s use of terrorism charges to go after Red Shirt leaders as well as Thaksin is inappropriate for what was mostly a peaceful political movement that did not target civilians. It is also short-sighted as these are the very people that will need to be brought into a national reconciliation process to address the difficult issues facing the country.
In the long run, Thailand needs to think deeply about much broader political reforms of its system of government, laws and constitution, including the role of the monarch and military. Wealth needs to be shared, justice delivered equitably, and power decentralised.
“An election that should be held as soon as possible will be the beginning and not the end of this process”, says Robert Templer, Crisis Group’s Asia Program Director. “Only a new government, with the legitimacy of a fresh mandate, if it is accepted by all sides, can move forward with such a complex reform agenda”.
Divisions and ideological debates generated by Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), an organisation founded by Indonesia’s best-known radical cleric, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, show the weakness of Indonesia’s jihadi movement.
Indonesia: The Dark Side of Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the many facets of JAT, an ostensibly above-ground organisation whose inner circle has had and continues to have ties to fugitive extremists. It has been in the spotlight since May when three of its officials were accused of helping finance a terrorist training camp in Aceh.
“JAT has a public face, advocating full implementation of Islamic law, condemning democracy as illegitimate and preaching jihad”, says Sidney Jones, Crisis Group’s Senior Adviser. “That face gives ‘plausible deniability’ to the involvement of senior JAT officials in more covert activities”. She notes that Lutfi Haedaroh alias Ubeid, arrested while fleeing the Aceh camp, was on JAT’s executive council.
JAT was founded in 2008 as a vehicle for Abu Bakar Ba’asyir’s absolute leadership. In fact Ba’asyir’s insistence on full decision-making authority within JAT makes it unlikely that involvement of senior officials in clandestine activities could have taken place without his approval. The briefing examines JAT’s structure and ideology and analyses the disputes that have erupted between JAT and other radical organisations, including Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI), exemplifying not only the fractures in the jihadi movement but also Ba’asyir’s own declining influence.
There is no indication that violent extremism is gaining ground in Indonesia, even though the constant shifting and realignment of groups will undoubtedly produce more terrorist plots in the future. “We are seeing the same old faces finding new packages for old goods”, says Jim Della-Giacoma, South East Asia Project Director. “Recruitment continues, but there’s more community pushback”. Ba’asyir was refused permission by the local Islamic council to speak in Banten province last month.
The truth is that the jihadi project in Indonesia has failed. The far bigger challenge for the country is to manage the aspirations of those who joined JAT for its public, non-violent message: that democracy is antithetical to Islam; that only an Islamic state can uphold the faith; and that Islamic law must be the source of all justice.
Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 07/05/2010
To quell public confusion on the state of Indonesia’s military relations with the US, the Defense Ministry confirmed that the world’s largest weapons-maker has completely lifted an embargo banning weapon sales to the Indonesian Military (TNI).
In its first clear statement on the embargo’s end, a Defense Ministry spokesman said that Indonesia could procure any type of weapon from the US because there was no longer an embargo.
“The US embargo on the sale of any type of weapon to Indonesia ended completely in 2005,” Indonesian Defense Ministry spokesman I Wayan Midhio said over the weekend.
“After the embargo ended, there were no more distinctions to be made between lethal or non-lethal weapons sales,” he said.
Indonesia can now purchase lethal weapons from the US and there is no “partial prohibition” of arms sales to Indonesia, as was previously reported, he added.
Many observers — even those well-informed on bilateral military relations — said they did not know if Indonesia could buy lethal weapons from the US or not, even after military ties resumed in 2005.
Indonesia recently proposed a plan to purchase American-made F-16 jet fighters, which are categorized as lethal weapons, and C-130H Hercules cargo jets, which are not considered lethal, if the US lifted its embargo, as previously reported.
Wayan said Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro expressed the government’s intent to buy the aircraft in a bilateral meeting with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
The US Congress imposed an embargo that banned international military education and training (IMET) and military equipment sales to Indonesia almost two decades ago.
The embargo was imposed in response to repeated human rights abuses committed by the Indonesian Army’s Special Forces (Kopassus) in West Papua and Timor Leste (then East Timor), which killed more than 100 unarmed civilians, including two US citizens, and injured dozens.
Some experts maintain that the US encouraged Indonesia’s use of lethal force against civilians in East Timor.
Padjadjaran University international relations expert Teuku Rezasyah said history shows that former US president Gerald Ford and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger gave the Indonesian government a “green light” to send Kopassus to East Timor and ignored reports of violence during official US government visits to Indonesia.
The US Congress said it would lift the ban entirely only if the US government could ensure that Indonesia addressed human rights violations.
An Indonesian government delegation led by former president Megawati Soekarnoputeri, visited the US in 2001 in an attempt to soften the policy.
The meeting between Megawati and former US president George W. Bush resulted in a US commitment to provide US$400,000 in extended IMET and to lift the embargo on non-lethal military weapon sales.
The US Congress has not approved joint military trainings between Kopassus and the US military due to alleged Kopassus human rights abuses.
The report documents how over half the total project revenue — nearly $5 billion — went directly to the Burmese military junta, and examines recent refusals from the Yadana companies to disclose their payments to the Burmese military regime. The report alleges the funds have enabled the country’s autocratic junta to maintain power and pursue an expensive, illegal nuclear weapons program while participating in illicit weapons trade in collaboration with North Korea, threatening the domestic and regional security balance.
In the report, EarthRights International further asserts that gas revenues are stored in private offshore bank accounts, where the money “could be used for many purposes, including the illicit acquisition of nuclear technology and ballistic weaponry.” This follows a report by ERI in 2009 that exposed two offshore banks in Singapore as repositories of the Burmese generals’ ill-gotten gains from foreign investment including the gas project. Both named banks – the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and DBS Group – previously denied the allegations.
The report also reveals on-going, serious human rights abuses associated with the Yadana project, including the recent extra-judicial killing of two ethnic Mon villagers in the pipeline area confirmed by EarthRights International in February of this year. The report goes on to analyzes how both Total and Chevron remain liable for these and other serious human rights abuse in their home countries.
EarthRights International previously sued Unocal Corporation (now Chevron) for complicity in murder, rape, torture, and forced labor in connection to the same gas pipeline. In 2005, Unocal paid Burmese plaintiffs a confidential settlement before the company was acquired by Chevron.
My research currently focuses on two themes: (1) the political economy of Islamic political mobilization in democratic Indonesia and (2) financial politics in emerging market economies, both in Southeast Asia and beyond. I maintain a broader interest, however, in the political economy of reform and adjustment and Southeast Asian politics.
Below is a list of research projects and data. Click the titles to view.
Decentralization, Indonesia-Style January 2010 with Maria M. Wihardja Presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (Toronto).
•‘Religion, Media and Cultural Studies’. Martin Marty Center’s Religion and Culture Web Forum, May 2009. (A pre-publication version of a chapter to appear in Theory/Critique/Religion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches. Richard King (ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. Forthcoming, 2010.)
•‘Afterword’. Entertainment Media in Indonesia. Edited with Mark Hobart. New York and London: Routledge. 2008. (Reprinted from Asian Journal of Communication. 16/4 [2006]: 432-8; Afterword.pdf).
•‘Visions of Terror: On the Use of Images in Mass-Mediated Representations of the 2002 Bali Bombings’. (Visions of Terror.pdf) In Media and Political Violence. Annabelle Sreberny et al. (eds.) Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Pp. 211-45. 2007.
•‘Substantial Transmissions: A Presuppositional Analysis of “The Old Javanese Text” as an Object of Knowledge, and Its Implications for the Study of Religion in Bali’. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. 159/1 (2003): 65-107.
Snr-Gen Than Shwe is facing a mutiny among his subordinates. Although no rebellion is expected, there are growing signs of discontent among his cabinet ministers. The reason—they have been betrayed by their boss.
Than Shwe quietly ordered his uniformed cabinet ministers to resign from their army posts. In Burma, shedding the uniform means losing protection, security and livelihood. Like it or not, army uniforms are a symbol of authority in Burma. Those who wear them always get priority over those who don't; they are respected and can expect easy cooperation from others. Suddenly, they will lose that privilege.
Another reason Than Shwe's cabinet ministers are upset is that the army chief is holding the cards for the one-quarter of representatives in the People's Assembly who will be drawn from the ranks of the military. They wanted to be in that 25 percent to secure a place for themselves in the parliament. Now, they are on their own. They will have to contest the election, and unless Than Shwe supports them with some dirty deals from behind the scenes, they are sure to lose. Once this happens, they will be down the drain.
These are people who reached high positions through loyalty to their army bosses, nothing else. They are almost completely devoid of professionalism. Look at what happened to our country under their rule for more than four decades. Their track record reflects their total lack of creativity. But those who keep quiet about what is happening are rewarded with many privileges that are unthinkable in any transparent society. These privileges have made them very rich, and they want to keep their stolen goods forever. Now, however, they can only watch helplessly as they are quietly kicked out of their positions.
Furthermore, if they intend to run for parliament, they will have to declare their assets to the Election Commission. But that would be suicidal, because it would immediately reveal the extent of their corruption. No minister would ever dare to disclose what he actually owns. Even their houses are worth far more than they could ever afford on their official salaries. How could they ever account for the 10 luxury cars that are the bare minimum for anyone in a position of power to possess?
They can smell danger. They know that Than Shwe can easily find ways to put them in jail indefinitely. Look at what happened to Gen Khin Nyunt and his cronies. So they know they're in a very precarious position right now. But they also know that if they show any signs of rebellion, they're doomed.
But there is also some peril in this situation for the senior general himself. For every step of the election process, the Election Commission has the final say, subject only to the orders of Than Shwe. But this means that he has to instruct the commission to rig the vote in such a way as to ensure that all of his lieutenants get their assigned places. If he doesn't go about this very carefully, he could be hoisted by his own petard.
To change the system without changing people is a dangerous game. Late dictator Gen Ne Win tried it, with disastrous results. Unless Than Shwe can put a truly democratic system in place before he leaves the scene, his future is not safe at all. His deputies are the same fish in the same ponds; but if they ever find themselves in positions of real power someday, they may think nothing of turning on their old master. After all, these are people who have risen to high positions by concealing the depths of their ambition, much as Than Shwe himself did through most of his career. Treachery would be second nature to them.
More immediately, Than Shwe faces a few other obstacles if he plans to proceed with his rigged election.
On the ethnic front, his efforts to convince the armed cease-fire groups to transform themselves into border guard forces has met with a coordinated rejection from all the major ethnic armies. Moreover, China has said that it won't turn a blind eye if the Burmese army launches an offensive against armed groups based along the border between the two countries. In any case, the Burmese army is in no state to wage a major war with anybody. If they fight, they will lose.
Despite the forced dissolution of the National League for Democracy, Than Shwe's attempts to silence the democratic opposition once and for all are also faring rather poorly. Aung San Suu Kyi remains a hugely charismatic presence, with or without her party. The US, EU and now Asean have all indicated that Than Shwe's carefully orchestrated “democratic” transition will lack credibility without her participation. In other words, if he really wants to move on, he will need Suu Kyi's blessings.
The economy is something else that Than Shwe can't afford to ignore forever. Corruption is rampant and is only likely to get worse if the same old crooked generals and their cronies continue to control the country's assets. Chronic mismanagement of Burma's resources could become a flashpoint for social unrest, and could even weaken Than Shwe's hold over the military. No patriotic citizen, soldier or civilian, can be happy to see the country falling ever deeper into poverty while a handful of dirty officials become obscenely wealthy.
To our wild guess, the election will be held in October, during the school holidays, with schoolteachers as poll watchers. They are presently being trained in various places. An election law stipulates that representatives of candidates will be watching during the vote count. In other words, if the election is fair as it was in 1990, the ex-minister candidates will lose. If their dismissal from army positions was a deliberate move to eliminate them once and for all, Than Shwe is moving in the right direction. The next step we should see is the release of political prisoners and Suu Kyi. If we see Suu Kyi’s involvement in the next ruling council, Than Shwe will be remembered as a true national hero.
We hope the senior general will seize this opportunity for the sake of our country.
When looking for my first full-time job about six years ago, I didn't really consider tapping my personal networks online. Friendster and MySpace -- the big names in social media at the time -- were just vehicles for sharing pictures and finding out what old friends were up to (without having to actually talk to them). And that newfangled thing called Facebook, which still required a college e-mail account to join, just seemed redundant.
Today you're falling woefully behind in the race for open jobs if you're not plugged into social-networking sites. Facebook, for example, has exploded with more than 400 million active users, each of whom averages 130 friends. That's a whole lot of people who could help with your job hunt. LinkedIn, with more than 70 million members, offers a more professional networking platform for you to post your résumé and connect with former and current co-workers. And many other sites, including Twitter, can also help you find employment. Wherever you surf, here are tips on how you can work the social-networking scene to land your next (or first) job:
Build your professional brand. Just as you would with a traditional résumé and cover letter, you should create an online presence that represents you best. If you're active on Facebook or other sites for personal use, consider creating separate accounts specifically for your professional efforts.
Make sure all your profiles are complete, highlighting your skills and filled with keywords and phrases that recruiters might search for. Andrea Sittig-Rolf, author of "Revolutionize, Revitalize & Rev Your Résumé," recommends including a mission statement of five words: "I help companies . . . "
You should also start a blog or Twitter account that can establish you as an expert in the field you'd like to pursue. "A blog will enable you to become more visible in search engines, such as Google, which hiring managers use to screen a lot of candidates," says Ivan Misner, author of "Networking Like a Pro" and founder of networking company BNI.com.
Part of building and maintaining a brand is monitoring what others have to say about you. Watch out for anything about you (or someone with a similar name) floating around cyberspace that might put you in a bad light -- which could be anything from photos of you drunk to bad language or even excessively poor spelling. Google yourself regularly, and delve deeper into your online presence with sites such as Pipl.com and Spokeo.com.
Keep in touch. Social-networking sites have made it easier than ever to maintain relationships with distant relatives, old classmates, former co-workers -- just about anyone you've ever met (who's also plugged in). Facebook suggests people you may know through your existing contacts, and LinkedIn shows you first-, second- and third-degree connections.
Advertise your professional intentions. Misner suggests letting your networks know the top five companies you'd like to work for. Send out tweets and status updates asking, for example: "I'd really love to work for Kiplinger. Can anyone put me in touch with someone there?"
"That laser specificity is counterintuitive, but it's very powerful," he said. When you're explicit, people are more likely to remember connections they might have and offer them to you. Also, ask for an introduction, not just contact information.
Research prospective employers. Use your social-media savvy to dig up all you can about any companies and jobs that interest you. Check out a company's Web site and Google the heck out of it, but also search social-networking sites for company pages, as well as employees. Or follow them on Twitter; some companies even offer feeds specifically for job postings, including AT&T (@attjobs), MTV (@mtvnetworksjobs) and Thomson Reuters (@TRCareers). You can also check on career sites, such as Vault.com -- where you can find loads of information on companies for free, plus additional details for $10 a month.
Showcase your tech savvy. Ours is the first full generation raised on computers. Social-networking skills and knowledge that feel natural to us (no, Mom, you don't say the Facebook) can be a great advantage, especially in workplaces looking to enhance their online exposure. Be sure to include your social-networking expertise on your résumé.
Now that you've plumbed the Internet for opportunities to jump-start your career, remember that your online persona can only get you so far. You have to continue your job search with in-person meetings.
By Laura Blumenfeld Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 4, 2010; A01
Headlights approach on an empty road. A government agent steps out of an armored SUV, carrying a locked, black satchel.
"Here's the bag," the agent says, to the intelligence official. "Here's the key."
The key turns, and out slides a brown leather binder, gold-stamped TOP SECRET. The President's Daily Brief, perhaps the most secret book on Earth.
The PDB handoff happens in the dead of every night. The book distills the nation's greatest threats, intelligence trends and concerns, and is written by a team at CIA headquarters.
"This is the one for the president," the intelligence official says, moving inside a secure building, opening the binder.
As dawn draws near, intelligence briefers distribute more than a dozen locked copies to Washington's nocturnals, a group of top officials charged by the president with guarding the nation's safety: CIA Director Leon Panetta, national security adviser James L. Jones, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, among others.
With two wars, multiple crises abroad and the threat of growing terrorist activity at home, these national security officials do not sleep in peace. For them, the night is a public vigil. It is also a time of private reckoning with their own tensions and doubts. They read the highest classification of intelligence. They pursue the details of plots that realize the nation's vague, yet primal, fears.
It is all here, inside the brown leather binder. Black typeface on white paper, marked by red tabs and yellow highlighter, an accumulation of the dangers hidden in the dark. Compiling them is an all-night process, and it begins every day at sundown.
8:40 p.m.
On board special air mission
Andrews Air Force Base
There is no sun. The day fades from gray to black. It's raining, and the motorcades are late.
"Are they coming soon?" the aircraft commander radios from the cockpit. Jet fumes seep into the government C-40, which was supposed to take off for Islamabad 10 minutes ago.
Leon Panetta boards first, drenched, wearing work boots. "Where do you want me?" he asks, looking around the cramped cabin. He flies to the Middle East so often, he says, "my body is probably somewhere over Ireland."
Tonight the CIA director will bunk with the national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, at the back of a C-40, sharing a chair, a small couch and a lavatory stocked with Tylenol. The men will fly 16 hours and then drive into midnight meetings about terrorist networks in Pakistan. "The pressure is on," Panetta says. "We can't afford to sleep. It's like the nighthawk that has to keep circling."
The CIA is engaged in some of the most aggressive actions in the agency's history. Panetta is required to sign off on operations two or three nights a week.
"When I was [White House] chief of staff, Bill Clinton used to call in the middle of the night" to talk, Panetta says. "But in this job, when I get a call, it's a decision about life and death."
"Dr. Panetta!" Jones calls out as he strides onto the plane. He holds up his phone. "I'm trying to get in touch with my Russian counterpart."
Panetta nods, sympathetic. "I have a call with Dianne Feinstein."
The crew urges them into their seats. Jones sets his watch to Pakistani time. Panetta keeps his synched with his home state, California. "What we do -- doesn't get done in regular time," Jones says. The White House situation room wakes him two to three nights a week. "We operate on a different clock."
A Panetta aide prepares 200 pages of background material, which maps the terrorist landscape in Pakistan. Jones calls his son, concerned about his pregnant daughter-in-law who's having complications: "I'm leaving. Let me know about Beth."
The plane lifts off, bumping and lurching through black clouds. The air ahead is rough. No one expects a good night.
10:52 p.m.
The Intercontinental Hotel, a hallway
Kansas City
"Good night!" says Robert Gates, on his way down the hall to his suite, stopping by Room 718, where Air Force sergeants are testing secure lines.
To prepare for a one-night hotel stay in Kansas City, Mo., advance team members paid a $125 fee to clear the furniture out of Room 718. Then they filled it with 15 cases of communications equipment. They put a satellite dish on the balcony. They replaced the bed with a tent for reading secret cables, to shield it in case of concealed spy cameras. When a maid knocked to ask whether she could straighten the pillows, one guy blinked: "Well, you could try."
The defense secretary must be reachable at all hours. He transmits orders from the White House to the Pentagon in an era when troops operate in every time zone. If North Korea tests a nuclear weapon or Iran tests a new missile, Gates needs to know now. "I don't feel like I'm ever really off," he said earlier. "I have security and communications people in the basement of my house. They come up and rap on the basement door."
Next to his bedroom at home, he confers in a soundproof, vault-lock space. He calls it "The Batcave."
Gates smiles. He radiates control: Individual white hairs lie combed into place; a crack in his lips is smoothed repeatedly with ChapStick. But even this confident Cabinet secretary -- the slightly feared Republican whose status others covet by day -- slips, at night, into the shadows of doubt.
At home, at a military compound in Washington, he'll change into jeans and a baseball cap and take a walk after 11 p.m. He'll count the number of surveillance cameras watching him and look out into the dark and reflect on the "persistent threat. You know, and you wonder, what more can you be doing? What have we missed?"
"The actual physical threat to Americans today from abroad, in reality, is worse than it was in the Cold War. All you have to do is look at these repeated attempts to set off bombs in populated places. I think if you asked any of us what keeps us awake at night, it's the idea of a terrorist with a weapon of mass destruction."
And once Gates is awake and walking beneath the hundred-year oaks, "the one thing that weighs on me most is knowing that our kids are out there getting wounded and getting killed, getting attacked." His voice falters. "And I sent them."
Wherever he is, whether the Batcave or Kansas City, he is followed by killed-in-action reports. They arrive by secure e-mail, slide into the room by a secure fax.
11:45 p.m.
Janet Napolitano's guestroom
"This old fax keeps jamming," Janet Napolitano says, sticking her hand into the secure fax. Crumpled paper. "Oh, Lord."
The secretary for homeland security can't go to bed until she reviews a secret fax. She asks an aide to have it re-sent. She puts up water for black tea.
"This time of night is the fourth act," says Napolitano, an opera fan. She rode home an hour ago in a motorcade accompanied by flashing lights and Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte." "There is the normal workday -- Act 1 -- with all the hearings on the Hill, banquets and news shows. But the real drama is behind the scenes, at very odd hours."
Recently Homeland Security has been trying to intensify efforts against home-grown extremism, pushing Napolitano's own home life to the extreme. Although Napolitano lives by herself, tonight her apartment all but sings with characters and action. A Secret Service agent hulks outside. The kitchen answering machine bleats messages from her chief of staff. Rand Beers, the counterterrorism coordinator, rings her bedside phone as she's stepping toward her gray slippers.
"No suspects or targets?" Napolitano asks Beers. "We'll talk to the undersecretary for intelligence about that."
She hangs up. Nighttime calls about terrorism investigations are "not unusual in the weird, sick world I inhabit." At 2 a.m., she has been called about adjusting outbound rules at airports to catch a fleeing suspect and about emergency communications with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. On a trip to Asia, a senior Napolitano staffer set her BlackBerry alarm to ring every hour, all night, so the staffer could check e-mail alerts.
To fall asleep, "to calm down my brain," Napolitano reads on the couch. "A lot of times I'm reading, and I'll wake up and the book is on my face." She lifts the 1,184-page "Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years." "I don't want to read this one before bed. If it falls on my face, I'll break my nose."
A shriek pierces the air -- the tea kettle boiling: "Let me get that, before the Secret Service comes in." The secure fax whirrs -- the secret memo: "Ah, bueno. Here it is. It's hot."
Napolitano reads the hot document. Drinks her hot tea.
12:01 a.m.
Eric Holder's kitchen
"Iced tea for me!" Eric Holder says. He jokingly cracks the door of his liquor cabinet. If Napolitano's nights are operatic, the attorney general's are notably calm.
At 11 p.m., Holder turned off the lights in his son's room where he's sleeping. He removed the iPod earbuds from his sleeping teenage daughter. His wife, a gynecologist who for years was jangled awake -- "I could do her calls by now, 'How far apart are your contractions? Okay, you're 5 centimeters' " -- is also in bed upstairs.
Holder now sits down at the kitchen table. He spreads legal papers across the round, granite surface and puts his legs up. At his Justice Department office, he plays Tupac and Jay-Z. Not here. He keeps it so quiet, he notices when the refrigerator motor clicks off.
All day, voices bombard Holder, advocating discordant legal remedies for terrorism. "So much of national security has been politicized," he says. "There's a lot of noise."
Only at night can he contemplate: "What's best for the case? What's best for the nation?" Here, he makes his most difficult, controversial decisions. At 1 a.m., eating Chips Ahoys, Holder determined that 9/11 detainees should stand trial in New York and that terrorist suspects should be tried in federal court. The conflicting demands filled him with tension: "That tension to be independent, yet part of the administration."
Of all the nighthawks, Holder occupies the loneliest perch. He is the president's friend, yet as the government's chief law enforcer, he has to stand aloof. White House aides roll their eyes behind his back; Hill critics roll their eyes to his face. His predecessors understand: "There's an AG's club. Former Republican AGs call and say, 'Hang in there!' "
Holder does, one midnight at a time. He turns off the lights around the house, even in the kitchen, except for the bulb above the round table. Sitting alone, in a cone of light, he listens. "I need a place and time to step away from the opinions and other voices, and almost -- "
The house is silent. " -- hear my own voice."
12:35 a.m.
White House Situation Room
The night duty officer can't hear his own voice. A White House maid is vacuuming. "Can you wrap it up?" He plugs a finger in his ear and presses his mouth to the classified, yellow phone: "This is the Situation Room. We are going to try to connect Gen. Jones with his Russian counterpart."
"Yes, sir," replies a communications officer at the end of the line, cruising with Jones on the C-40 toward Pakistan.
The national security adviser is 37,000 feet over the Atlantic, bunking with Leon Panetta. Jones has changed out of charcoal pinstripes into a Georgetown sweat shirt. He checked an e-mail update about his pregnant daughter-in-law. "No baby yet," his son said. There are complications, and Jones is concerned.
Before he can sleep, Jones also needs to talk to Kremlin foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko, to help negotiate a tougher stance on Iran's nuclear program. The Situation Room officer who handles secure calls for the West Wing is trying to locate Prikhodko, who's traveling in Kiev.
Jones stands by. He is a 6-foot-4, heavily decorated Marine and a light sleeper. He heard about his own son's birth in a monsoon on a hilltop near Cambodia, over the battalion radio at 1 a.m. As supreme allied commander in Europe, he learned that when darkness falls, opportunities rise.
Even as a boy, Jones was not afraid of the dark. He was afraid of Russia. His parents would talk soberly about the iron curtain. The image "terrified me as a child. Millions of people in prison, behind a so-called curtain."
Now a presidential envoy, Jones finds himself on many nights dialing Moscow, capital of his boyhood bogeymen. If the cold war of Jones's youth seemed scary, "this world has me more concerned. The threats we face are asymmetric and more complex." So he calls, at all hours, old adversaries to connect against the new threat.
It is 12:53 a.m., almost 8 a.m. in Kiev. The White House night officer reports, "Prikhodko's secretary said it might be an hour, or an hour and a half, to reach him." The officer mutters: "Our guys are up and working at 6 a.m."
On board the C-40, the CIA director takes a pillow and lies on the couch. Jones covers himself with a thin blanket and dozes in a chair.
At the White House, they dial the Russian's cellphone again. It rings 12 times. Another officer stands: "Got to go to the 1 a.m. Threat SVTC."
1 a.m.
National Counterterrorism CenterOps Center conference room
Virginia
The 1 a.m. Threat SVTC organizer says, "One minute to kickoff."
The secure video teleconference, convened by the National Counterterrorism Center, marks the apex of Washington's night watch. Feeds from 16 watch-floors blip onto a large screen. Dimly lit faces of men and women at the State Department, Coast Guard, NORTHCOM and others, cover a wall.
"Good morning, everyone," the organizer says, pressing a button on the microphone. "We're gonna brief three items." The FBI and NSA present terrorism reports.
Many nights an item prompts a call to wake the NCTC director, Michael Leiter, 41, the junior member of the nighthawks. He displays a copy of the Declaration of Independence next to a deck of baseball-style cards of high-value terrorist targets: "I keep the ones who are dead on top. It's a little macabre, but that's the world we live in." When the NCTC calls in the middle of the night, he is often half-awake.
"Bed is the worst place for me," Leiter says one evening, nodding toward his blue comforter, under the blades of his bedroom ceiling fan. "The mind keeps running."
The NCTC, created after 9/11 to integrate intelligence, produces a daily threat matrix, which averages 15 or more wide-ranging terrorist threats against American interests, outside Iraq and Afghanistan. In a 12-hour shift, analysts sift through 4,000 reports. "I can't shut that off; what else might be going on?"
Of all the jobs, counterterrorism intelligence seems the most likely to induce nightmares. Days before he resigned in May, Leiter's boss, director of national intelligence and retired Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair, talked about his dream he first had years before as head of the Pacific Command and was now having again: "I'm running the ship aground. I'm sitting out on the bridge and I see it coming -- but I can't keep it from happening. I see a crumpled bow of the ship and sailors dying."
Leiter, a Bush appointee, also has had anxiety dreams ever since Christmas, when his agency failed to detect a man who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane: "I'm getting called. Someone says there's been another attack. Oh, my God -- "
Then he wakes up. And he reaches for a pad in the dark and scribbles ideas. "I terrify my staff at 7:15 a.m. and say, I was having trouble sleeping last night and I thought of something."
Leiter's nighttime tension is haunting, yet oddly creative: "My brain keeps working while I'm sleeping." New ideas churn, the ceiling fan turns and the blades chop at black air.
3:42 a.m.
Mike Mullen's front yard
No sound, no movement, except rotor blades chopping black air, as a helicopter buzzes over Adm. Mike Mullen's brick Colonial. Minutes later, a light blinks on in his second-floor window. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is starting his day.
Mullen opens his front door at 4:03 a.m. in shorts and sneakers, his eyes still slitty, his voice a note deep. "Let's go," he says to his security detail.
Mullen drives to the Navy Yard gym, where he gulps a protein shake and bench-presses 255 pounds. Big Dave, his trainer, barks: "The baddest chairman ever!"
The admiral understands that to be baddest, he has to get ahead -- every day -- of the day. Fight the current war; anticipate the next one. Where will the next terrorist attack originate? "Yemen is a great worry. Somalia is a failed state. But we have to try to pay attention to the rest of the world, too. We don't anticipate well where stuff comes from in these wars. Our ability to predict is pretty lousy."
As senior military adviser to the president, Mullen steeps his predawn routine in anticipation. He drives to the gym through a night fog, scans headlines, reads e-mails from commanders, clips four stars to his collar and packs his seven briefcases of paperwork, all before 6:30 a.m.
Yet for all his talk about anticipating the future, Mullen is the nighthawk who is drawn deeply to the past. A Bible sits on his kitchen microwave. He buttons his dress service khakis, while reading the ancient wisdom of the Proverbs.
The enemy America's fighting, he says, "killed 3,000. But they would like to kill 30,000, or 300,000. They're still out there, trying. It's not their religion. It's not Islam. It's an evil that doesn't believe in anything we believe in. They don't value civilization. They have no limits in what they'll do to kill us. "
A Jerusalem, olive-wood cross swings from his rear-view mirror. His headlights shine on the empty road.
Dead of Night
Undisclosed location
Headlights approach on the empty road. A government agent steps out of an SUV, carrying a locked, black satchel. An intelligence aide approaches him.
"Good morning."
"Good night."
The two silhouettes merge for a moment. "In this city, people have no idea what's going on," the intelligence aide says, nodding toward buildings with darkened windows.
The agent drives away, after handing off the brown leather binder, gold-stamped "TOP SECRET." The President's Daily Brief.
Briefers fan out across the city, distributing locked copies, modified for each department.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's briefer rolls her satchel in on wheels. FBI Director Robert Mueller gets briefed, he says, "365 days a year, even on Christmas, even on vacation." Napolitano scours her book over one of her four morning cups of coffee. Holder unzips his while riding in the motorcade to his office: "If you read it, you're left with the reality of how many organizations are trying to harm our people. . . . I'm not in a good mood when I get to work. You don't get used to it. You just don't." He taps his window: "It's armored."
At the White House, outside the Oval Office, a briefer arrives to deliver the president's report. Rahm Emanuel is there, as is counterterrorism adviser John Brennan. National security adviser James Jones joins them. Since Jones returned from Pakistan, Russia agreed to toughen Iran sanctions. Jones's daughter-in-law gave birth to a boy.
"The baby was 10 weeks premature," the general says quietly. His grandson is being kept at the hospital under round-the-clock watch.
The president walks out. "All right," says Obama, eating a handful of cherries between meetings. "Come on, guys. Let's go."
Nine men file into the Oval Office, under the wings of an American eagle carved into the ceiling. Obama and Vice President Biden sit in the middle. Jones sits on a side couch. They all are holding the gold-lettered brown binders, the book of threats, written in the hours of darkness.
Morning light from the Rose Garden pours in from the east and the south. A mahogany grandfather clock ticks loudly. Jones takes a deep breath, runs his finger to the edge of the binder.
The room is bright. The president crosses his legs and looks at his men. What happened in the night?
Researchers Alice Crites and Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
