This afternoon, President Obama, John Brennan, Deputy National Security Adviser, and Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, outlined what they think went wrong concerning the Christmas day bomber and how they are going to fix the security problems that allowed this terrorist to board a plane and come within seconds of blowing it up. I was especially interested in the later two as they outlined new procedures being implemented to make certain that United States citizens are safer, both home and abroad.

Before I continue, you should know something about my introduction to security matters. While in the Air Force it was my daily responsibility to read secret security briefs from around the world, summarize them, and then brief the base commander. I was given this job when I was eighteen years old and had been in the Air Force for about four months. I quickly learned how to absorb this raw data, information, propaganda, etc., do the proper analysis, and then decide what the commander of an F-111 base needed to know. I was not given one hour of training on how to do this; I was tasked to do it and I did it.

In addition, it was my responsibility to initiate all background investigations for base personnel and ten Air National Guard units. On top of that I was OSI liaison for all serious off base military incidents and reported directly to the base commander on these as well. I was young, inexperienced, and had a boat load of responsibility.

Listening to today's speeches, and the "new" security measures being implemented, I kept thinking, "Every one of these policies should have already been implemented." In other words, these security agencies have been operating in some type of "maintenance" mode, not the forward thinking, pro-active mode that every one of them should have operating in.

Security demands having an intimate understanding of how the enemy thinks, why he thinks that way, and how he will act on what he's thinking about. Security demands looking forward, expecting the unexpected, and planning to thwart what the enemy is planning. But, real security must go one step further: it demands thwarting what the enemy hasn't even thought of yet.

Security also demands using words and phrases that accurately describe and define the threats, not in grays and half tones but stark black and white. Security calls a threat a threat, a war a war, a terrorist a terrorist, and doesn't use politically correct words and phrases to "soften the blow", or, even worse, to "protect" the American people.

Intelligence has been hindered, hampered, and even thwarted by the policies of not only this administration but many that preceded it. Operatives have been hamstrung for fear they will be prosecuted for doing their jobs. Military warriors wonder if they should kill the enemy or read them their Miranda rights. Captured terrorists are treated as criminals; they lawyer up and they shut up. Fresh, accurate intelligence data is lost forever, as happened when the panty bomber was given the rights of an American citizen. He will now be tried as a criminal rather than a combatant at war with the American people.

Are we safer now? I don't believe we are. I'm flying to Nigeria in a couple of months and none of the speeches encouraged me to believe otherwise. The people in charge of our security still do not get it and I'm not sure they're capable of getting it. Their philosophy does not allow them to get it.

I pray to God above that at some point warriors will be allowed to be warriors, sleuths will allowed to be sleuths, and politicians will respectfully maintain oversight but stay out of their way and let them do their jobs.

Then I might feel safe.