Author Archives: Barry Kelly

About Barry Kelly

Author of "Justice Beyond Law," "Justice Without Mercy," "Shades of Justice," "Justice Without Mercy," and "Run to Freedom," as well as two ,"nonfiction books ,"INSIGHTS-The Transforming of America," and "INSIGHTS-Stepping Stones to Tyranny. He also is the author of the blog "8 Decades of Insights." Barry Kelly is no stranger to the world of espionage, counter-terrorism, weapons, deep cover, and the inner workings of the governmental security apparatus. His immersion in the Cold War began with enlistment in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. Following his discharge, he earned a BA from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree from Duke. His career in the CIA included deep cover operations and overseas experience, primarily in South and Southeast Asia. He has been awarded the Certificate of Merit with Distinction, the Intelligence Medal of Merit, the Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal and the Intelligence Officer of the Year Award. After retiring from the CIA, Kelly served as a special assistant to President Reagan. He holds a first dan black belt in hap-ki-do. Visit www.factsandfictions.com or find the author on Facebook.

by Barry Kelly | January 6, 2014 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS-93 THE ADIVSOR

PREDICTIONS FOR 2014

For the first time in all of his years of sitting in his underground office suite, The Advisor, more out of boredom than anything else, decided to put his predictions for the new year in his Journal. He opened the Journal to a clean new page and began to write.

I am just beginning my sixth year of advising a President who only listens to his own drum. He doesn’t like my straight talk. I believe that is my job to tell him important things that no one else will. As a result he seldom comes to see me. He has had a bad year and knows if he had followed my advice ,both he and the nation would be better off.

It has taken me a while to realize that he does not share my view of the nation or the world. He is like the utopians of our past who believed human behavior could be changed to fit a society based on Karl Marx’s axiom that ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’ The early utopians in their agrarian progressive compounds all failed, as have all the nation states that have tried the communist or progressive approach to governing people.

Does the President have no understanding of history? It is clear. In modern times, Russia, China, Cuba, Eastern Europe, Germany, and even the United Kingdom all have tried varying degrees of wealth distribution. All the economies failed and individual freedom disappeared when power ended up in the hands of a Progressive elite that used an increasing amount of raw power to coerce people into doing what the elite decided was best for them. There is no other way that increasing centralization combined with one person or a party elite exercising all the power can end up.

So my first prediction is: (1) President Obama will continue to push for a one-party government; (2) the Democratic party will lose badly the mid-term elections and the Republicans will take over the Senate. (That will be okay for the President for he believes two years of a do-nothing Republican Congress will set the stage for a decisive victory in the 2016 National Elections and he may be right.) (3) Iran will have a nuclear weapon before the next national election. (Anyone who believes Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful uses or that weaklings can deter them by talk are very wrong.) (4) The Affordable Care Act will fail but not before it has done serious harm to the best medical system in the world. Once reconstructed the whole things will look more like Obamacare than a free market system. (5) China and Russia will increase their influence in the world. (6) Before President Obama leaves office, America will begin to feel the impact of unemployment, over-regulation, and inflation. (6) Lastly, radical Islam will show the beginnings of the organization of an Islamic Empire and the isolation of the Israeli Nation.

The Advisor put his pen away and placed the Presidential Journal back in its place. Maybe one of his successors would read it and find it helps them understand the years he was responsible for keeping the real record of every President.

This is a fictional account of an Advisor that doesn’t exist by the author of the Brandon novels. The author (pictured far right) has 27 years of Government service, including two years serving President Ronald Reagan (middle left) in the 1980s as an advisor. Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.

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Filed under centralization, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, foreign policy, Intelligence & Politics, Israel, Obama, Obamacare, political solutions

Tagged as government, new year, Obama, one-party system, Progressive

by Barry Kelly | December 24, 2013 · 8:01 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS-92 THE ADVISOR

TRUST OR NOT?

The Advisor was pacing in his small underground suite of rooms, lamenting that the President seldom came to see him anymore. It wasn’t that he was bored. He had plenty to do. But his main responsibility was to advise the President.

He wasn’t the first Advisor to have limited visits from the sitting President. Most Presidents were a bit thin skinned when it came to listening to criticism they knew was the honest opinion of the Advisor. President Obama ranked close to the top of all the Presidents, going back to President Washington, who established the Advisor institution, when it came to sensitivity to criticism. Presidential visits or not, the Advisor had to keep his journal current. The Advisor changed with Presidential changes and his successors needed an accurate record of the each President’s term. The Advisor before him had left a record of George W. Bush’s term that emphasized his war time decisions and his role in creating a much larger government than he inherited and a bigger national debt.

The Advisor sighed and opened his Journal to the next blank page and began to write.

Big Government is a danger in itself because when the capability of workers exceeds doing what is necessary and essential, honest and diligent workers don’t lobby to have the work force reduced, they invent more tasks that inevitably provide more regulations for the people they were hired to serve. When the natural drive for centralization and growth are accompanied by an Administration that uses the civil work force for their own political objectives, the freedom of all citizens is threatened. How can Americans be expected to trust their government when they have been lied to and seen the IRS be used to target conservative groups to prevent their growth and funding? Now the citizens are expected to believe the information collected by NSA is both necessary and not a threat to liberty.

The real issue is not what NSA collects, it is the use of the information collected. Most citizens will tolerate the NSA collecting what they write or say if it is stored in some secure area where only national security analysts can see the data. The danger to our liberty is that we have a current President that will use any information to benefit his power position. I don’t see how anyone can doubt that conclusion after the IRS was used to target conservative groups, the EPA to kill the coal industry, the Defense and Intelligence Agencies to cover up Ben Ghazi, the security leaks after Bin Laden and the Iranian centrifuges, the Democratic Senate blocking all legislation that doesn’t support his policies, packing the courts to protect the expansion of his executive power, concealing data from HHS that shows the true state of Obamacare … and the list could go on.

Other Presidents from either Party may do the same. If we cannot trust our civil servants to protect the data in their domain, how can we authorize the collectors? Maybe there is a way that a sincere bipartisan effort could find. The defense of liberty and freedom requires eternal vigilance. Without a willingness on the part of government to allow maximum transparency there can be no real vigilance. That is the problem.

This is a fictional account of an Advisor that doesn’t exist by the author of the Brandon novels. The author (pictured far right) has 27

Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.

years of Government service, including two years serving President Ronald Reagan (middle left) in the 1980s as an advisor. Considering today’s volatile political situation, you are encouraged to share this blog and to click the “like” button below. Comments and dialogue are welcome.

Gallup Poll Shows 72% Believe Big Government Greatest Threat To USA (fggam.org)
White House Group Calls For Limits On NSA Surveillance (swampland.time.com)
White House Panel to NSA: Chill (swampland.time.com)

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Filed under centralization, Conservative views, Intelligence & Politics, management theory, NSA, Obama

Tagged as government, nsa, Obama, privacy, trust

by Barry Kelly | December 15, 2013 · 10:26 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS-91 THE ADVISOR

TRIBUTE TO NELSON MANDELA

While Nelson Mandela wasn’t his president, though the Advisor wished he was, he was deeply touched by the passing of one of his lifelong heroes.

The man was about simple things, he thought. He had strong beliefs and the strength to follow his dream. The Advisor felt he was within his rights to enter a tribute to President Mandela in his Journal. He would like to advise his President to copy Mandela’s play book. President Obama’s primary problems and troubles are nearly all the product of his actions and policies.

How about Nelson Mandela’s preparation to be the leader of all his people? Where did he get the insights to plan his ascent to the leadership of a racially divided nation? Maybe there was no plan. Maybe he just did what he thought was right. Maybe he didn’t have to always be right. Maybe he was strong enough to make mistakes and admit them. Not apologize. Just recognize the truth.

Maybe it was 27 years in jail with very little contact with the outside world. Maybe it was the strength of his word and his own code of honor. When offered limited freedom to renounce the use of violence to free the oppressed majority of South Africans, he said, “NO” and stayed in jail for another ten years. How many of our current politicians have ever shown that kind of courage and belief that doing the right thing was worth the sacrifice? President Mandela’s legacy doesn’t have to be made up of half-truths, lies, rewrites, exaggerated successes, or be dependent on the works of sycophant historical writers. His legacy is open, transparent to all who care and will be a living legacy.

It’s too bad the people who traveled from faraway nations were mostly there for their own images rather than to honor him. The real form of honor would be for them to put their narcissistic egos aside, stop pandering and lying to the people. Inspire their entire nations to achieve great things. Don’t divide the people for your own political agenda. Unite them. Listen to them. Enhance their value to each other. Drop the elitist approach of always knowing what the people need. Just listen, they will tell you. By doing those things you will truly honor a man greater than you will ever be.

With those thoughts, the Advisor penned his tribute into his Journal:

A tribute to Nelson Mandela. An incredible man and leader. There were very few Mandelas in the past and no current ones I can think of. In prison or as president of a very troubled country his sense of honor and the value of his word were always with him. I know of no incident in recorded history where the leader of a long oppressed majority gained power and included the minority oppressors as equal citizens in the progress of the nation. A true leader who was always in the front of the struggle for freedom for all his people.

By the author of the Brandon novels. I welcome comments and urge you to pass on this message to your contacts. The above is the result of my own analysis, experience, and beliefs.

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Filed under class warfare, Conservative views, Intelligence & Politics, Obama

Tagged as Barack Obama, Mandela, NELSON, Nelson Mandela, Obama, President of South Africa, South Africa, United States

by Barry Kelly | November 25, 2013 · 6:56 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS-90

From left to right (front): Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured before signing the Munich Agreement. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

OBAMA’S IRAN

When you badly want a deal, you get a bad deal. In the case of the “Peace in Our Time” appeasement of Iran by the Obama Administration, the President wanted and needed the fasade of a successful negotiation with the radical Islamists who run Iran. He needed a deal for domestic political reasons. Without the plummeting poll numbers about his lack of Presidential qualities exposed by the failing of Obamacare, America would have stayed the course to keep real sanctions on Iran. You see in Obama’s world all issues are domestic issues. He just doesn’t care about foreign affairs unless a world journey provides good photo ops and news bites for the American Press. Obamacare’s many slogans apply here. ‘If you like Iran without nuclear weapons, you can keep it.’

Not hardly. Again some history. When Neville Chamberlain made his infamous deal with Hitler in 1938 he was a hero to every liberal in the world. “Peace in our time” sounded so good. Once you could sit across the table from your adversary everything could be worked out. Except, Hitler was only buying time. Sound Familiar? When he was ready, his Panzers roared across the border into Czechoslovakia and later into Poland. “Peace in Our Time” was over. Chamberlain and the dangers of appeasement were exposed. Millions of lives later, the historical monumental mistake of Chamberlain and his liberal supporters was corrected.

I believe to improve his poll numbers President Obama has positioned himself as the American Chamberlain. Iran has sacrificed years of hardship to pay for the development of nuclear weapons. It is their number one strategic objective. No words by Secretary Kerry or President Obama will deter Iran from its goal of becoming a nuclear power and using that power to dominate the Middle East.

President Obama claims that if Iran doesn’t follow the terms of the agreement, he will ‘crank up’ the sanctions. It will be too late and neither Russia nor China will cooperate. China wants Iranian oil and Russia views Iran as a market for the sale of its weapons. Europe and the rest of the world are tired of the whole process. The time window for sanctions will very soon be over. As it was in Europe in WWII, the Jews will be the first victims. The vows of the Supreme Ayatollah to wipe Israel off the map are not just rhetoric. Hitler’s Mein Kampf wasn’t just a book either.

This is yet another example of the President’s word that no one should trust.

By the author of the Brandon novels. I welcome comments and urge you to pass on this message to your contacts. The above is the result of my own analysis, experience, and beliefs.

There Are A Lot People Comparing Obama’s New Iran Deal With a Significant (and Very Bad) Moment in History (theblaze.com)
Doc’s Talk: The Nuclear Deal With Iran is a Foreign Policy Disaster (docstalk.blogspot.com)
Obama’s Iran Deal: Worse than Munich (conservativebyte.com)
Why Obama’s Iran Nuke Deal Is a Good Thing (frontpagemag.com)

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Filed under Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, foreign policy, Intelligence & Politics, Israel, Obama, Obamacare, Poland, Russia

Tagged as Adolf Hitler, BarackObama, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Neville Chamberlain, Obama, United States

by Barry Kelly | November 19, 2013 · 7:45 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS-89

TEA PARTY??

What? Where? Why? How? If we answer those classic questions, we should have a better understanding of the Tea Party. Almost all of the national media coverage of the Tea Party has been by those who are very negative about this upstart group. “It’s a redneck, racist, and radical extremist group that will destroy the Republican Party.” Both the Progressives and the long-term Republican politicians and theoretical pundits heap abuse on the Tea Party. With good cause because neither of these vocal opposition groups hold the core values of the Tea Party groups and I doubt any of them have ever been to a Tea Party meeting.

I have been to Tea Party meetings and have never seen signs nor heard speakers using racial innuendos. I live in a predominately white part of the South Carolina coast. Our area sent a Tea Party backed representative to the House and later to the Senate. I first heard this black candidate speak at a Tea Party rally in Georgetown, SC. The “radical” core values of Tea Party groups are smaller government, less interference by government in the lives and businesses of citizens, adherence to the Constitution, and restrained government spending. That’s radical? I think not.

The Tea Party Movement is a grass-roots American approach to “enough is enough.” They are astounded at the response of the elected Republican leaders to the excesses of the Obama Administration. How can the leaders of the Republican Party in the House, especially, and in the Senate sit quietly while President Obama trashes the Constitution and the historical checks and balances of the three branches of government? President Obama acts as if he makes, amends, and enforces the law. He even has a Supreme Court Chief Justice who rewrites legislation to enable the Court to proclaim Obamacare is a tax and, therefore, is judged to be Constitutional. Talk about an activist court! There are no checks and balances as long as timid go-along-to-get-along men and women hold Republican seats. Is it time for new leaders. Yes!

I believe only the Tea Party can bring the grass-roots folk of America to return their country to its historical Constitutional foundation. America has had enough of the radical change of Obama. We have seen it and its ugly. Nowhere in the world has the change Obama wants brought anything but tyranny, poverty, and hopelessness. Just look at where the Progressives (Socialists) won power. Which model do you prefer? The Soviet, Chinese, Iranian, Cuban, North Korean, Venezuelan, East Germany, Eastern European in Communist time, or one of the several failed utopian settlements in America? I am constantly amazed at how many educated Americans are willing to happily march like lemmings off the cliff into a Socialist sea. Where have they been? Can they possible believe the patter of their leader? Don’t they understand what’s behind the lies and socialist rhetoric?

By the author of the Jack Brandon novels. This blog is solely the idea and analysis of the author. You are encouraged to pass all or part of it to friends and contacts. Comments are welcome and will be acknowledged or answered. Thank you. Continue reading →