In the last few years, a few legal cases have made headlines

In the last few years, a few legal cases have made headlines where encryption of personal cell phones possibly containing evidence has hindered investigations.

There are a variety of tools and techniques to perform encryption and its counterpart decryption. Because encryption often uses a mathematical element, decryption is generally best performed in an environment that is optimized for mathematical operations.

Video games and other graphic intensive applications are also mathematically intensive, so the video game environment can provide insight into architecting a decryption environment. Graphic cards can be 50 to perhaps 100 times faster at processing decryption than a normal CPU and physical memory (RAM).

Ultimately, using an specialized decryption environment that has the ability to leverage one or more high-speed graphic cards can be a tremendous boost in decryption time.

The development of cloud computing in recent years has also affected forensic investigations. As more files are stored in the cloud, the chances of evidence being in the cloud has also increased. In this project, you’ll spend some time thinking and writing about this issue as well.

Yvonne, your manager, has asked you to continue to assist law enforcement by working to recover case-related information from encrypted files and artifacts that the law enforcement team has not been able to access. She believes that the case can be cracked with the evidence contained in the encrypted files, so this has become a priority.

This project has five steps. In Step 1, read about encryption. In Step 2, you will use EnCase to attempt to decrypt a number of different types of encrypted files. The computer images are small, so processing time isn’t as long as it would be if there were large computer image files to work through. After you complete the lab, go to Step 3 to write your forensic report. Then, in Step 4, research and evaluate how cloud computing is affecting the field of digital forensics. Finally, submit your report on cloud computing in Step 5.

Now that you have an idea of the tasks ahead, review the scenario below before moving on to Step 1.

Your 11:00 meeting with Yvonne, your manager, just started. The topic for discussion: further investigation of the malware attack and decrypting the attacker’s files.

Yvonne: Excellent work on the malware analysis.

You: Thanks!

Yvonne: A few team members attempted to decrypt those files attached to the e-mails but haven’t had much luck. Can you take the lead on helping them out?

You: Sure. I’ll work on the files in the virtual machine.

Yvonne: I like your plan. We’re all eager to get to the bottom of this case, so keep me updated on your progress.

Step 1: Familiarize Yourself With Methods of Forensic Decryption

While a variety of digital forensic tools exist today, here you will focus on encryption and decryption using EnCase to attempt to decrypt a number of encrypted files.

A variety of approaches can be used to attempt decryption, including for example, the use of brute force and creating word lists based upon your investigation facts. However, in this project, you will follow specific instructions in your lab assignment to gain access to identified encrypted files.

Normally it is a good practice to attempt to locate encrypted files and artifacts for forensic evidence prior to conducting a decryption attack, so that you can plan for the best approach. An analogy can be found in the world of sports: If you know the tendencies, strengths and weaknesses, and general appearance of your opponent, it is easier to prepare for a successful competition. Similarly, you could try dictionary attacks, but if you have a sense as to the encryption technologies used and how encryption may have been employed in a digital forensic situation, you can prepare a more focused and refined decryption approach.

Decryption attacks can take hours, days, even months to conduct, and waiting for the success or failure of the attack can be a lesson in patience. However, this is also a good reminder that planning a decryption attack to be as focused as possible can save considerable processing time.

When approaching offline password cracking, remember that it is common for someone to write down a password for logging into a computer or website. Another fairly common practice is for individuals to document in some way the passwords used when encrypting a file or storage device. People may create a file that contains passwords, then store it on the computer or perhaps email it to themselves for later retrieval.

Another decryption approach is to use various dictionaries, various languages, and subject areas. The subject areas may be relevant to the area of interest in the case. For example, a case involving drugs may include slang terms or regional expressions specific to the drug culture.

Step 2: Decrypt Identified Files

Step 2 will be completed by user – please skip step 2

Step 3: Write Decryption Attack Forensic Report

Minimum Report Writing Content

Consider the following Report Writing content sections as the minimum starting point for your report.

Cover Page

Include your name, project number, title of lab, and course number.

Table of Contents

A list of all sections in the report.

Investigation Referral

In this short section, you will include who requested your help, what is being requested, and on what authority. If the lab instructions do not provide this, use details from the project’s Start Here and Steps.

Items Analyzed

List each digital device, storage media, etc., that you investigated.

Details of Steps Taken

This should be the longest section. Provide details of forensic tools used and the time/date and duration for each of the items analyzed in your investigation. Give sufficient detail for your methods to be replicated by another examiner.

Notable Files

Identify any files or data you discovered that you deem relevant to the case investigation.

Findings and Conclusion

This is a summary of what you found and your professional opinion about them. If someone were to read only this section of your report, your findings should provide a good sense of what you found as it relates to the request and the case without the lengthier supporting details given above.

Glossary

For nontechnical readers (e.g., attorneys, jurors, detectives), define any terms you used in this report that a lay person might not understand.

Supplemental Items Included With Report

List any CD-ROMs, thumb drives, etc., you created and why you are including them. While you won’t be creating these items for this course, in an actual investigation, you would include them in the report.

Step 4: Research and Evaluate the Challenges Presented by Cloud Computing

Cloud computing, a service that offers data storage and services to businesses and individuals, presents significant challenges to the field of digital forensics.

As an option for convenient offsite storage of large volumes of data, popular cloud platforms offer services that can be attractive to organizations, including infrastructure as a service, software as a service, and platform as a service. These additional services allow organizations to expand productivity without adding costly services in house, while storing additional organizational data on the provider’s servers. As opposed to virtualized environments that offer additional resources at a fraction of the traditional cost, cloud systems are offsite, remote repositories.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides numerous guidelines on the cloud. NIST defines the cloud computing as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” (NIST 2011b, p. 2). Providers offer services in different cloud infrastructures, including private, public, community, and hybrid (NIST, 2011a).

Cloud challenges in the field of digital forensics include ownership data/control of evidence and data location. The digital forensics steps of acquisition and preservation are both impacted by cloud storage, since data may be housed in multiple states and countries (so, governed by multiple jurisdictions), and at this point there is no way to guarantee all of the data is retrieved, even when the provider agrees to access. Further, many users interact with cloud services using mobile devices, which adds the complexity of proliferation of endpoints, as communication channels can involve multiple towers and hops.

The advantages cloud computing offers to organizations and the handling of big data are the same reasons cloud crime has escalated. Cyber criminals can use cloud ervices to conduct malicious activities and then easily leave one service to join another, erasing their digital footprint as the vacated space is quickly written over by the provider. Cybersecurity has a complicated interdependency with cloud, according to the NIST roadmap, which “presents certain unique security challenges resulting from the cloud’s very high degree of outsourcing, dependence on networks, sharing (multi-tenancy) and scale” (NIST, 2014).

The popularity of cloud computing, paired with its unique challenges, makes this technology an important issue for digital forensics. Legal challenges of the cloud involve privacy and jurisdiction, spanning the globe while inviting misuse. Adding to the challenges is a pervasive lack of proven tools for investigators and law enforcement to handle cloud storage. One promising option is forensics as a service (FaaS), whereby cloud providers would offer the forensic steps of data acquisition and preservation as a service for purchase. FaaS still needs to address encryption, as much of the information housed is protected before upload.

As part of the final deliverable for this project, you will write an analysis of how cloud computing challenges—including uses of encryption—are an issue for the field of digital forensics. You will also identify trends in combating these challenges.

Title page

Abstract

Cloud computing overview (reference your own experience in DFC courses when applicable)

Challenges cloud computing creates for digital forensics

Tools and techniques used to combat cloud challenges

Recommendations for handling encrypted data in the cloud

Trends in mitigating cloud challenges for forensic investigators

Lab Report and Analysis of the Decryption Attack from Step 3 (Please note that the customer will complete this portion)

Findings

Summary[supanova_question]

The RN to BSN program at Grand Canyon University meets the requirements

Employment Law The RN to BSN program at Grand Canyon University meets the requirements for clinical competencies as defined by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), using nontraditional experiences for practicing nurses. These experiences come in the form of direct and indirect care experiences in which licensed nursing students engage in learning within the context of their hospital organization, specific care discipline, and local communities.

Note: This is an individual assignment. In 1,500-2,000 words, describe the teaching experience and discuss your observations. The written portion of this assignment should include:

Summary of teaching plan

Epidemiological rationale for topic

Evaluation of teaching experience

Community response to teaching

Areas of strengths and areas of improvement

Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Course Materials if you need assistance.[supanova_question]

MGMT 4030: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT CASE 4 PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL Hubert Johnson is

MGMT 4030: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

CASE 4

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Hubert Johnson is a department head.  He has been with the company for 30 years and knows his way around quite well.  He has two employees, Harriet Green and Neil White.  Harriet has been with the company for 15 years and Neil has been with the company for six years.  Harriet has always been cooperative, loyal, dependable, but not an especially good supervisor.  Recently Hubert has noticed that Harriet has begun to ?slip? in the performance of some of her duties.  Neil, on the other hand is a very ambitious, energetic, and dependable supervisor who grasps problems quickly and easily.  Hubert has to complete performance appraisals on both individuals annually.

           Ten months ago he did his appraising with a great deal of displeasure because he hated to face the unpleasantness of a negative performance appraisal review.  As a result, he rated both the employees about the same.  When a discussion about the ratings was conducted, both supervisors appeared to be satisfied with the rating they had received.

           Six months ago business began to fall off and a reduction in force was put into effect.  This week, after a number of other people were laid off or demoted, it became necessary to move either Harriet Green or Neil White from the position of a supervisor to that of a worker until sales picked up.  Hubert wants to keep Neil on the supervisor job, but on the basis of the appraisals there is no difference between the two.  In the past when two employees had the same ratings, the person with the most seniority receives priority.  Hubert must decide today what to do.

Questions

1. Identify the performance appraisal and rating errors in this case

2. How have the inaccurate performance ratings created more problems?

3. What HR and legal issues could be raised in this case

1 Page Maximum (Due by Sunday Midnight)[supanova_question]

CIS4410 Project Document Part 1 Points: 120 The objective of this project

CIS4410
Project Document Part 1
Points: 120

The objective of this project is to provide documentation for evaluating information strategies to address the acquisition of another company of a similar business type.  The instructor is the acquisition manager and each team should interview him/her for more information regarding the desired results of the project.  Part 1 of the Project Document will include a description of the current business and the business to be acquired. Part 1 of the Project Document must include:

Formulate a request for proposal required in information systems planning.

Evaluate the bidding process in an information systems project.

Determine the required information system resources needed for sustainability in a global market.

Use the associated rubric to guide your work.

Click on the assignment title link in the Assignment Submission Folder to submit your assignment as an attachment.[supanova_question]

I. Introduction: An argument is “a form of discourse in which the

I.  Introduction:    An argument is “a form of discourse in which the writer or speaker tries to persuade an audience to accept, reject, or think a certain way about a problem that cannot be solved by scientific or mathematical reasoning alone” (White and Billings 3).   

II.  Topic:   Rhetorical analyses of arguments for and against the war in Afghanistan.   All the articles are located in this folder.   Scroll down.  

            1) Read the ethos, pathos logos handout and the classical model of argument  

            2)Read Phillip Zwerling’s argument the war.

            3)Read Chuy Hinojosa’s response to Zwerling’s commentary.   

            4)Read A.J. Bacevich’s article, “The War We Can’t Win”        

            5)Write an essay that addresses the uses of ethos, pathos, and logos in the arguments by Zwerling, Hinojosa and Bacevich.  Which argument or arguments contain the most effective use of ethos, pathos, and logos.    Then, articulate your own argument on the war in Afghanistan.  Did President Biden make the right decision in withdrawing all the troops and ending the war?   What is your argument?    Make sure to use the persuasive appeals, ethos, pathos, and logos.  

III.  Model:  You must use the classical model of argument (See the handout of this document in the essay folder and see also the model that is located in the Week 1-2 folder and Chapter 3 of your textbook.)   

IV.  Evidence:  You must make reference to A. J. Bacevich’s article and one addition article of your choosing to support your argument.    

The Classical Model of Argument

The Classical Model of Argument

(see Aristotle’s Rhetoric)

I.       Introduction

          A.  Lead-in

          B.  Overview

          C.  Background

II.      Position statement (thesis)  

III.    Appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) and evidence 

A.  Appeals to

ethics, character, authority (ethos);

to emotions (pathos); to reason (logos)

B. Evidence:  citing of statistics,

results, findings, examples, laws, relevant passages from authoritative texts

IV.   Refutation

(often presented simultaneously with evidence)

V.      Conclusion

          A.  Highlights of key

points presented

          B.  Recommendations

          C.  Illuminating

restatement of thesis

COMMENTARY: Too many endless US wars

DR. PHILIP ZWERLING | MONITOR BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORS | Posted: Thursday, January 14, 2016 5:15 am

Philip Zwerling

Philip Zwerling writes for The Monitor’s Board of Contributors.

My grandfather Harry lied about his age and enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of 17 to fight the Hun in World War I. Perhaps he saw it as an escape from the crowded New York City orphanage where his mother, an immigrant from Germany, had abandoned the six children she was unable to care for as a single parent. Harry came home from the Western Front with a hole in his forehead where shrapnel had splintered away bone from his skull, wheezing as he walked from the mustard gas that clawed at his lungs.

He never talked about the war. Like any kid, I asked: “Grandpa what was it like?” “Horrible,” he said and no more.

I never heard stories of battlefield gallantry or heroic feats of arms. He was there. He saw it. And he could not, would not, talk about it. I wonder what he would have made of today’s video games — blasting, atomizing, vaporizing and killing enemies to win points.

Between the battles and the resulting starvation and pestilence, some 80 to 100 million perished in World War 1.

Wait, you can’t type or read a line that says 80,000,000 humans died without a pause, an attempt to bring to the mind’s eye of your imagination even one young man, one child, one young mother cut down, felled, bayoneted, gassed, dismembered, raped, wounded, disemboweled by the Biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. What names were they called? Who closed their eyes as they breathed their last? Which fathers and mothers wept?

And the end result of all that killing and dying? The Russian Czar fell to a Bolshevik Revolution ushering in 80 years of Cold War. The German Kaiser gave way rather quickly to new leader, a wounded veteran of the Western Front himself, the Austrian with a funny little moustache. The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, birthing a plethora of antagonistic Balkan states. A worldwide depression of catastrophic proportions descended upon the West. It was not the “war to end all wars” nor did it “make the world safe for Democracy.” Rather, World War I neatly laid the groundwork for World War II and its own unique horrors.

World War II preceded the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. How many millions died? Let’s not overlook the U.S. invasions of Panama, Grenada, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Lebanon, etc. Or the hundreds of wars

fought without overt U.S. participation like those between Iraq and Iran and Pakistan and India. What exactly was won?

Harry’s son, my uncle Ed, served in WWII hitting the beaches on forgotten Pacific atolls, somehow surviving to serve in the occupation of Japan where he remembers a small, hungry boy approaching his guard post one night to pimp out his mother in hopes of scoring a meal for them both.

Military parades, patriotic poems and newspaper reports overlook these sordid details and praise our “heroes” as they seek to brainwash us to march off to war in mindless uniformity. Beneath these words, unspoken but understood too well, lies the reality that war, military adventure and the killing and raping of other humans — called crimes at home in Mission, Pharr, or McAllen — somehow rise to the height of nobility when committed on a distant, foreign battlefield.

War, this social madness, both inhumane and profane … enriches defense contractors, corporations and jingoistic politicians. You and I just pay with our blood. It ends when we say “no more.” It ends when we say “we shall not serve.” It ends when we say “we shall not kill.”

Philip Zwerling is a local university professor and member of The Monitor’s Board of Contributors.

COMMENTARY: Proud to have served the US

STATE SEN. JUAN ‘CHUY’ HINOJOSA | MONITOR BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORS | Posted: Wednesday, January 20, 2016 5:13 am

State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen

Wars are horrible, vicious and violent. And, yes, many innocent women and children are killed — whether in a war or act of terrorism. None of us like wars, which cost lives, money and in which many of our soldiers return home emotionally and physically wounded. However, a Jan. 14 commentary in The Monitor by Dr. Philip Zwerling, “Endless US wars — Patriotism scam masks the social madness of war deaths,” disappointed me and reinforced my belief that patriotism is important.

While one war is one too many, it is nai?ve to say “no more,” “we shall not serve,” and “we shall not kill.” There are evil people and evil countries who want to destroy our country, our families, our way of life and do away with our freedom. If we do not fight and are not willing to serve our country then who will defend us?

Military parades, patriotic poems and newspaper reports are meant to honor our soldiers — the American soldier. And who is this American soldier? This soldier is our fathers, our mothers, our brothers and sisters, our friends and neighbors who are willing to risk their lives so that others can live. When we enjoy our families, attend our churches and schools, and live our liberties each day, we must know that a soldier had to have the courage and valor to defend and fight for our country to ensure our freedoms.

Unspeakable atrocities do occur in wars including war crimes, but to say we, veterans, were brainwashed to march off to war in mindless uniformity offends all Americans who paid the ultimate sacrifice with their life so that we could be free.

I proudly volunteered and served my country in the U.S. Marine Corps and I fought in Vietnam. I do know stories of heroic gallantry by our soldiers throughout the history of our nation. And if not for these courageous actions, we would not be enjoying our liberties today.

We must honor and respect all our soldiers — those who lost their lives, those of us who came back from wars with scarred memories, and those who continue to serve our country and defend our freedom. Veterans are heroes. Semper Fi!

State Sen. Juan ‘Chuy’ Hinojosa is a Democrat who represents Senate District 20, which includes McAllen. He is vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and he served as the Senate’s President ProTempore during the 84th Legislature.

November 2009 · Readings · Previous · Next PDF

The war we can’t win

By A.J. Bacevich

By Andrew J. Bacevich, in the August 15 issue of Commonweal. Bacevich is a professor of international relations at Boston University and the author, most recently, of The Limits of Power. He served as an officer in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1992.

History deals rudely with the pretensions of those who presume to determine its course. In an American context, this describes the fate of those falling prey to the Wilsonian Conceit. Yet the damage done by that conceit outlives its perpetrators.

From time to time, in some moment of peril or anxiety, a statesman appears on the scene promising to eliminate tyranny, ensure the triumph of liberty, and achieve permanent peace. For a moment, the statesman achieves the status of prophet, one who in his own person seemingly embodies the essence of the American purpose. Then reality intrudes, exposing the promises as costly fantasies. The prophet’s followers abandon him. Mocked and reviled, he is eventually banished—perhaps to some gated community in Dallas.

However brief his ascendancy, the discredited prophet leaves behind a legacy. Most obvious are the problems created and left unresolved, commitments made and left unfulfilled, debts accrued and left unpaid. Less obvious, but for that reason more important, are the changes in perception. The prophet recasts our image of reality. Long after his departure, remnants of that image linger and retain their capacity to beguile: consider how the Wilsonian vision of the United States as crusader state called upon to redeem the world in World War I has periodically resurfaced despite Woodrow Wilson’s own manifest failure to make good on that expectation. The prophet declaims and departs. Yet traces of his testimony, however at odds with the facts, remain lodged in our consciousness.

So it is today with Afghanistan, the conflict that George W. Bush began, then ignored, and finally bequeathed to his successor. Barack Obama has embraced that conflict as “the war we must win.” Those who celebrated Bush’s militancy back in the intoxicating

days when he was promising to rid the world of evil see Obama’s enthusiasm for pressing on in Afghanistan as a vindication of sorts. They are right to do so.

The misguided and mismanaged global war on terror reduced Bush’s presidency to ruin. The candidate whose run for high office derived its energy from an implicit promise to repudiate all that Bush had wrought now seems intent on salvaging something useful from that failed enterprise—even if that means putting his own presidency at risk. Candidate Obama once derided the notion that the United States is called upon to determine the fate of Iraq. President Obama expresses a willingness to expend untold billions—not to mention who knows how many lives—in order to determine the fate of Afghanistan. Liberals may have interpreted Obama’s campaign pledge to ramp up the U.S. military commitment to Afghanistan as calculated to insulate himself from the charge of being a national-security wimp. Events have exposed that interpretation as incorrect. It turns out—apparently—that the president genuinely views this remote, landlocked, primitive Central Asian country as a vital U.S. national-security interest.

What is it about Afghanistan, possessing next to nothing that the United States requires, that justifies such lavish attention? In Washington, this question goes not only unanswered but unasked. Among Democrats and Republicans alike, with few exceptions, Afghanistan’s importance is simply assumed—much the way fifty years ago otherwise intelligent people simply assumed that the United States had a vital interest in ensuring the -survival of South Vietnam. Today, as then, the assumption does not stand up to even casual scrutiny.

Tune in to the Sunday talk shows or consult the op-ed pages and you might conclude otherwise. Those who profess to be in the know insist that the fight in Afghanistan is essential to keeping America safe. The events of September 11, 2001, ostensibly occurred because we ignored Afghanistan. Preventing the recurrence of those events, therefore, requires that we fix the place. Yet this widely accepted line of reasoning overlooks the primary reason the 9/11 conspiracy succeeded: federal, state, and local agencies responsible for basic security fell down on the job, failing to install even minimally adequate security measures at the nation’s airports. The national-security apparatus wasn’t paying attention. Indeed, consumed with its ABC agenda—“anything but Clinton” were the Bush Administration’s watchwords in those days—it ignored or downplayed all sorts of warning signs, not least of all Osama bin Laden’s declaration of war against the United States. Averting a recurrence of that awful day does not require the semipermanent occupation and pacification of distant countries like Afghanistan. Rather, it requires that the United States erect and maintain robust defenses.

Fixing Afghanistan is not only unnecessary, it’s also likely to prove impossible. Not for nothing has the place acquired the nickname Graveyard of Empires. Americans, insistent that the dominion over which they preside does not meet the definition of empire, evince little interest in how the British, Russians, or others have fared in attempting to impose their will on the Afghans. As General David McKiernan, until

recently the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, put it, “There’s always an inclination to relate what we’re doing now with previous nations,” adding, “I think that’s a very unhealthy comparison.” McKiernan was expressing a view common among the ranks of the political and military elite: We’re Americans. We’re different. Therefore, the experience of others does not apply.

Of course, Americans like McKiernan who reject as irrelevant the experience of others might at least be willing to contemplate the experience of the United States itself. Take the case of Iraq, now bizarrely trumpeted in some quarters as a “success” and even more bizarrely seen as offering a template for how to turn Afghanistan around. Much has been made of the United States Army’s rediscovery of (and growing infatuation with) counterinsurgency doctrine, applied in Iraq beginning in early 2007 when President Bush launched his so-called surge and anointed General David Petraeus as the senior U.S. commander in Baghdad. Yet technique is no substitute for strategy. Violence in Iraq may be down, but evidence of the promised political reconciliation that the surge was intended to produce remains elusive. America’s Mesopotamian misadventure continues. Pretending that the surge has redeemed the Iraq war is akin to claiming that when Andy Jackson “caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans” he thereby enabled the United States to emerge victorious from the War of 1812. Such a judgment works well as folklore but ignores an abundance of contrary evidence.

More than six years after it began, Operation Iraqi Freedom has consumed something like a trillion dollars—with the meter still running—and has taken the lives of more than 4,300 American soldiers. Meanwhile, in Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities, car bombs continue to detonate at regular intervals, killing and maiming dozens. Anyone inclined to put Iraq in the nation’s rearview mirror is simply deluded. Not long ago, General Raymond Odierno, Petraeus’s successor and the fifth U.S. commander in Baghdad, expressed the view that the insurgency in Iraq is likely to drag on for another five, ten, or fifteen years. Events may well show that Odierno is an optimist.

Given the embarrassing yet indisputable fact that this was an utterly needless war—no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction found, no ties between Saddam Hussein and the jihadists established, no democratic transformation of the Islamic world set in motion, no road to peace in Jerusalem discovered in downtown Baghdad—to describe Iraq as a success, and as a model for application elsewhere, is nothing short of obscene. The great unacknowledged lesson of Iraq is the one that Norman Mailer identified decades ago: “Fighting a war to fix something works about as good as going to a whorehouse to get rid of a clap.”

For those who, despite all this, still hanker to have a go at nation building, why start with Afghanistan? Why not first fix, say, Mexico? In terms of its importance to the United States, our southern neighbor—a major supplier of oil and drugs among other commodities deemed vital to the American way of life—outranks Afghanistan by several orders of magnitude.

If one believes that moral considerations rather than self-interest should inform foreign policy, Mexico still qualifies for priority attention. Consider the theft of California. Or consider more recently how the American appetite for illicit drugs and our lax gun laws have corroded Mexican institutions and produced an epidemic of violence afflicting ordinary Mexicans. Yet any politician calling for the commitment of 60,000 U.S. troops to Mexico to secure those interests or acquit those moral obligations would be laughed out of Washington—and rightly so. Any pundit proposing that the United States assume responsibility for eliminating the corruption endemic in Mexican politics while establishing in Mexico City effective mechanisms of governance would have his license to pontificate revoked. Anyone suggesting that the United States possesses the wisdom and the wherewithal to solve the problem of Mexican drug trafficking, to endow Mexico with competent security forces, and to reform the Mexican school system (while protecting the rights of Mexican women) would be dismissed as a lunatic. Meanwhile, those who promote such programs for Afghanistan, ignoring questions of cost and ignoring as well the corruption and ineffectiveness that pervade our own institutions, are treated like sages.

The contrast between Washington’s preoccupation with Afghanistan and its relative indifference to Mexico testifies to the distortion of U.S. national-security priorities adopted by George W. Bush in his post-9/11 prophetic mode—distortions now being endorsed by Bush’s successor. It also testifies to a vast failure of imagination to which our governing classes have succumbed. This failure of imagination makes it impossible for those who possess either authority or influence in Washington to consider the possibility (a) that the solution to America’s problems is to be found not out there— where “there” in this case is Central Asia—but here at home; (b) that the people out there, rather than requiring our ministrations, may well be capable of managing their own affairs, relying on their own methods; and (c) that to disregard (a) and (b) is to open the door to great mischief and in all likelihood to perpetrate no small amount of evil. Needless to say, when mischief or evil does occur—when a stray American bomb kills a few dozen Afghan civilians, for instance—the costs of this failure of imagination are not borne by the people who inhabit the leafy neighborhoods of northwest Washington, who lunch at the Palm or the Metropolitan Club and school their kids at Sidwell Friends.

So the answer to the question of the hour—What should the United States do about Afghanistan?—comes down to this: A sense of realism and a sense of proportion should oblige us to take a minimalist approach. As with Uruguay or Fiji or Estonia or other countries where U.S. interests are limited, the United States should undertake to secure those interests at the lowest cost possible.

What might this mean in practice? General Petraeus, now in charge of U.S. Central Command, recently commented that “the mission is to ensure that Afghanistan does not again become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and other transnational extremists,” in effect “to deny them safe havens in which they can plan and train for such attacks.” The mission statement is a sound one. The current approach to accomplishing the mission is not sound and, indeed, qualifies as counterproductive. Note that denying Al Qaeda safe

havens in Pakistan hasn’t required U.S. forces to occupy the frontier regions of that country. Similarly, denying transnational extremists safe havens in Afghanistan shouldn’t require military occupation by the United States and its allies.

It would be much better to let local authorities do the heavy lifting. Provided appropriate incentives, the tribal chiefs who actually run Afghanistan are best positioned to prevent terrorist networks from establishing a large-scale presence. As a backup, intensive surveillance complemented with precision punitive strikes (assuming we can manage to kill the right people) will suffice to disrupt Al Qaeda’s plans. Certainly, that approach offers a cheaper and more efficient alternative to the establishment of a large-scale and long-term U.S. ground presence—which, as the U.S. campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated, has the unintended effect of handing jihadists a recruiting tool that they are quick to exploit.

In the aftermath of 9/11, all the talk—much of it emanating from neoconservative quarters—was about achieving a “decisive victory” over terror. The reality is that we can’t eliminate every last armed militant harboring a grudge against the West. Nor do we need to. As long as we maintain adequate defenses, Al Qaeda operatives, in their caves, pose no more than a modest threat. And unless the Taliban can establish enclaves in places like New Jersey or Miami, the danger they pose to the United States falls several notches below the threat posed by Cuba, which is no threat at all.

As for the putatively existential challenge posed by Islamic radicalism, that project will prove ultimately to be a self-defeating one. What violent Islamists have on offer—a rejection of modernity that aims to restore the caliphate and unify the ummah—doesn’t sell. In this regard, Iran—its nuclear aspirations the subject of much hand-wringing— offers considerable cause for hope. Much like the Castro revolution that once elicited so much angst in Washington, the Islamic revolution launched in 1979 has failed resoundingly. Observers once feared that the revolution inspired and led by the Ayatollah Khomeini would sweep across the Persian Gulf. In fact, it has accomplished precious little. Within Iran itself, the Islamic republic no longer represents the hopes and aspirations of the Iranian people, as the tens of thousands of protesters who recently filled the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities made evident. Here we see foretold the fate awaiting the revolutionary cause that Osama bin Laden purports to promote.

In short, time is on our side, not on the side of those who proclaim their intention of turning back the clock to the fifteenth century. The ethos of consumption and individual autonomy, privileging the here and now over the eternal, will conquer the Muslim world as surely as it is conquering East Asia and as surely as it has already conquered what was once known as Christendom. It’s the wreckage left in the wake of that conquest that demands our attention. If the United States today has a saving mission, it is to save itself. Speaking in the midst of another unnecessary war back in 1967, Martin Luther King got it exactly right: “Come home, America.” The prophet of that era urged his

countrymen to take on “the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.”

Dr. King’s list of evils may need a bit of tweaking—in our own day, the sins requiring expiation number more than three. Yet in his insistence that we first heal ourselves, King remains today the prophet we ignore at our peril. That Barack Obama should fail to realize this qualifies as not only ironic but inexplicable.[supanova_question]

CIS4410 Project Document Part 2 Points: 200 Part 2 of the Project

CIS4410
Project Document Part 2
Points: 200

Part 2 of the Project Document will be an analysis of the acquisition of the new company including details regarding the following decisions:

How management strategies impact the function of an information systems enterprise.

Opportunities for a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.  The need to analyze assets which include the hardware and software of each company for current compatibility and future projections.

The importance of creating new products and services for business survival.

The need to make data driven decisions for acquisitions.

The problems acquisitions impose on information systems.

Explain issues surrounding the opportunities within the acquisition.  Include company diagrams before and after the acquisition.

Use the associated rubric to guide your work.

Click on the assignment title link in the Assignment Submission Folder to submit your assignment as an attachment.[supanova_question]

Initial Post Instructions: Describe the relationship between leadership, power, and influence. Additionally,

Initial Post Instructions:

Describe the relationship between leadership, power, and influence. Additionally, include one action step you will personally take to develop one or more of those aspects. Support your response with information from the readings and from the lecture (provide pg. numbers where appropriate). Your initial response should be at least 400 words, contain at least two references, and should be based upon sound reasoning and logic.

Reply Instructions:

The purpose of your reply is to critically evaluate a colleague’s initial response. For example, you may contest assumptions, raise additional questions, identify underlying hypotheses, or expand on content. The idea is to expand the development of your colleague’s response. Your reply should be at least 300 words, contain one additional reference, and should focus on the argument or claim, not the individual.

Picture below here (pick one to reply please)[supanova_question]