(ATN Aries MK 410 Spartan NVG rifle scope).

I heard the first gunshot of this deer-hunting season yesterday around 0550. I was mildly surprised, since it was still as dark as the inside of a black cat on a moonless night.

Actually, it was two shots, blam blam. Then silence.

It looked like someone got their deer for the season, and quickly. I had to think for a moment about how one did precision shooting in the dark, and then it was clear. I slapped my forehead: one of my neighbors, or a visiting hunter, had procured a night vision device similar to the ones that enabled our troops to rule the night where we have had them fighting for a dozen years.

The technology is proliferating. I looked to see what might be available this long-gun season, and found a likely candidate: the ATN Aries MK 410 Spartan rifle scope.

It is a 1st generation night vision scope with powerful 5x magnification, improved optical configuration, low F-stop factor, and increased optical resolution, which permits more light down the tube. It also boasts a precision “Red on Green” aiming system, easy push button operation and reticle brightness adjustment. You can strap it on anything with a standard Weaver or Picatinny rail on the barrel or receiver. The unit comes with hard carrying and storage case; titanium-mounting system, and is water and fog resistant. Requires 2 each – 3V lithium CR123A batteries, which are thoughtfully included.

That is an impressive capability to be able to purchase at Amazon, and hardly seems sporting. It is also a little alarming that the military technology is proliferating so dramatically, and is available to anyone with a credit card. Thankfully, Amazon reminds potential purchasers that there are Important Export Restrictions in bold type that will preclude any bad guys from getting these things and sniping our kids.

It is pretty tough language: “It is unlawful and strictly prohibited to export, or attempt to export or otherwise transfer or sell any hardware of technical data or furnish any service to any foreign person, whether abroad or in the United States, for which a license or written approval of the US Government is required.”

Whew. That was comforting.

Anyway, I was going to continue Mac Shower’s account of being a player in the reforms that followed the egregious conduct of the Intelligence Community, 1950-1970. There were some amazing things that went on, the most disturbing of which is probably going to remain a mystery through the rest of our lives, and maybe forever.

Mac was a key action officer in the establishment of the FISA Courts, for example, the secret judicial review of Government requests for authority to conduct surveillance on the agents of foreign espionage services. The system seemed to work pretty well for a quarter century. Then things began to fall apart with the 9/11 attacks and the bewildering proliferation of technical capabilities to collect all sorts of things from the phone companies, the internet and the good old US Postal Service.

I was going to try something sly about the difference in the response to Richard Nixon’s attempt to dragoon the CIA into his Watergate struggle and the ability of the last two Administrations in our time being able to target and execute persons of interest with drones.

You will forgive my concern, I hope. It is not that I don’t think some worthless dirt-bags don’t deserve execution- but I remember the faux shock that radiated from Capitol Hill during the 1970s. Targeting people for assassination? Horrors!

Anyway, I have lost interest in pointing out that our institutions have become dysfunctional. There are plenty of people who point that out every day; half of one third of our divided government blocking everything it can, the other half is prepared to do anything to maintain control, the judicial branch that seems to be ignoring so many things that appear to be unconstitutional, and an Executive Branch that copes with the system simply by issuing decrees and denials.

I was going to try something either witty or caustic (or both) this morning, but the whole thing got subsumed in a discussion with a pal about the secret award of the Navy Cross last week, the second highest medal for gallantry the sea service can bestow, just behind the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Apparently it is a secret because it was for action in connection with the Benghazi affair, and my pal thought it was curious that it had taken so long and that it was done with so little fanfare. It got even stranger when the hero was identified as a Marine who was serving with the Army’s elite DELTA Force.

Anyway, I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole this morning, either. I have no access to classified information any more, and certainly no insight into what was going on that night that Ambassador Chris Stevens was murdered, or the eight hour fire-fight that went on after that, apparently with some authentic heroism by persons unknown.

My buddy mentioned that the very morning last year that the news was spreading about the matter, we correctly identified it as a military attack, based on the weapons employed and the fact that they appeared to be pre-targeted at the annex where the two former SEALS were murdered, that it was probably commissioned to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA, (duh!) and once we learned that there had been a meeting with Turkish officials, that the reason for everyone to be there was probably to supervise the bulk transfer of Libyan weapons to the Syrian rebels to undermine President Assad.

It appears we were right about that, and it only took a couple news cycles to figure it out, though some people were still saying something about the immense impact of a video that no one had seen.

Anyway, I imagine the full story will come out someday, not that anyone seems to care.

So, what I was going to say is that our policy in the Middle East is sort of interesting. We are negotiating with the Iranians to lift some of the sort-of effective sanctions which are very irritating to the people of that nation, though they apparently don’t bother the theocrats who run that asylum enough to deter them from inching closer to getting a Shia bomb.

I have little confidence that people who have been selling rugs for a couple thousand years can be out-negotiated by earnest and idealistic American diplomats. If you do, more power to you. But with the furor here about other things, you may not have seen the headlines this morning. I was up early for perfectly understandable reasons and caught the BBC reporting that trumpeted “Saudi Nuclear Weapons ‘on order’ from Pakistan!”

Duh. The Saudis are many things, but they are no fools. The Kingdom, for good or ill, considers itself the guardian of the Sunni Umma, and is implacably opposed to the Shia theocracy cross the Gulf. They bankrolled the Paki nuke program, starting in the 1980s, and purchased dozens of Chinese CSS-2 ballistic missiles.

(Chinese-built CSS-2 Road Mobile medium range ballistic missile).

Anyone can tell you these turkeys- no offense to Mr. Erdogen in Ankara- have the CEP of Culpeper County, so there is only one plausible explanation for their acquisition. Whatever goes on top doesn’t have to be particularly accurate.

The Saudis have The Bomb, too. So, we are on the verge of having South Asia and the Middle East represented at the nuclear table by Iran, Saudi, Israel, Pakistan and India.

When I was a young officer, an old hand explained the three grounding principals of our Middle East policy, violation of any one was done at extreme peril:

· The Saudis have the oil.
· The Israelis, for all their flaws, are our allies.
· Don’t f**k with the Hashemite Kingdom.

It would appear that the Saudis have chosen to go their own way over our confused Syrian policy, and in retrospect, construction of the Keystone XL pipeline might have been a good thing to be completing, rather than dithering about. The Israelis seem to think we are going to get snookered by the Iranians at the bargaining table, and will be looking at the worst of all worlds: Islamic bombs in both flavors, Sunni and Shia.

And the Jordanians? They were thrown under the bus months ago.

I know, I know. I am probably just getting alarmed over nothing. After all, there are treaties and stuff that will prevent something bad from happening. Like those night vision scopes. Amazon would never sell them to someone with ill intent, you know? There are rules.

I’ll be jiggered. That deer just walked across my front yard, bold as brass. She is looking at me right now from my garden, the one that never got off the ground this year. She must think I am a paper tiger or something.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303