In his “hearings preview” oped in the WSJ this morning - “America Expects Surveillance” - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asks us to consider the facts [of the NSA controversy] “from both a legal and a commonsense perspective.” I have no expertise in the former and barely any in the latter (according to people who know me), but I will venture forth to say this is one of the great “duhs” of our time.
If we’re going to use common sense, let’s imagine this. Someone is talking on a disposable cellphone for five minutes from, say, Yemen to, say, Boulder Dam. The phone is thrown away in Sanaa. Do we instantly tap the one in the USA or do we duly mosey over to the courthouse to get an order first?
Well, I leave that to you. But when I first read the James Risen reports in the NYT that the White House was ordering such taps, my initial reaction was: this is news? The NSA has a budget the size of South America. What are they supposed to be doing? Indeed what were they doing during the entire Echolon program under other administrations? (Same thing, essentially.)
I waited for the other shoe to drop - to wit, innocent citizens whose privacy was invaded would be coming forward. Never happened. Where are these people? [Burning the Danish Embassy?-ed. Coud be.] So until I understand this better, I am putting this controvery down to three principle causes: 1. Politics. 2. Internal dissension in intelligence ranks. 3. Lower newspaper circulation numbers.
Oh, yes, I guess it would be nice to have more specific laws on this type of activity. But would that stop “controversies” like this from occurring? Not bloody likely.
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72 Comments
1. Always right:Roger,
It is not the “terrorist surveillance” program itself that Dems is making an issue of. Rather they were trying to paint it into a Nixon-style spying on regular US citizens. They want to tie it up with the ìculture of corruptionî as their two main themes for the 06 mid-term campaign issues. Real facts and Americansí approval of the program do not interest them.
Since I came to the States in ë85, I had no idea what the Nixon era was like. But I do remember the abuse of power by the Clintons (e.g., hundreds of FBI files old mediaís been ignoring for years).
For ìregularî folks, NSA program is a non-issue, Dems would be wiser to propose and pass laws for the updated version to account for the technical advances. Do I have concerns about it being abused under Hillaryís term as C-in-C? If she could demonstrate that it is really tied to the national security and have it under regular oversight by the other two branches, I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt (given her prior history). Call me idiot or anything you like, if she gets elected by a majority of citizens, I will swallow my dislike and distrust of her and abide by the majority rule.
Feb 6, 2006 - 8:31 am 2. David Thomson:ìIf we’re going to use common sense, let’s imagine this. Someone is talking on a disposable cellphone for five minutes from, say, Yemen to, say, Boulder Dam. The phone is thrown away in Sanaa. Do we instantly tap the one in the USA or do we duly mosey over to the courthouse to get an order first?î
I agree completely. The problem is that President Bushís fierce foes do not believe in the war on terrorism. They have subconsciously, if not even consciously, embraced the childishly naive world view as seen in the recent movie ìMunich.î It is allegedly our fault that the terrorists are so angry. Opposing the Islamic nihilists in any effective manner whatsoever only makes things worse. Let Oprah and Dr. Phil speak to them. That should take care of everything.
Feb 6, 2006 - 8:40 am 3. jackarmstrong:The constitution protects American citizens from a government seach without probable cause. It’s that simple, right? To perform a search, the government must show probable cause to a court. The court issues a warrant. This is also known as an oversight. It’s a protection. For us. All of us. This is designed to prevent the government from overreaching or abusing their power.
No one is telling the government they can’t spy on Americans if need be, but I want that oversight. I want to know that the government isn’t abusing their power. And I don’t care who sits in the White House.
Rule changes to amend FISA have been proposed in congress but the White House has declined to pursue those changes. They want the power to spy on anyone implicit to the office of the president. Warrant or no warrant.
Confirmed moonbat.
doug
Feb 6, 2006 - 8:52 am 4. jackarmstrong:The constitution protects American citizens from a government seach without probable cause. It’s that simple, right? To perform a search, the government must show probable cause to a court. The court issues a warrant. This is also known as an oversight. It’s a protection. For us. All of us. This is designed to prevent the government from overreaching or abusing their power.
No one is telling the government they can’t spy on Americans if need be, but I want that oversight. I want to know that the government isn’t abusing their power. And I don’t care who sits in the White House.
Rule changes to amend FISA have been proposed in congress but the White House has declined to pursue those changes. They want the power to spy on anyone implicit to the office of the president. Warrant or no warrant.
Confirmed moonbat.
doug
Feb 6, 2006 - 9:02 am 5. RogerA:I think the wording of the fourth amendment include “Unreasonable search and siezure,” thus giving rise to what lawyers tell me is the exception rule.
Feb 6, 2006 - 9:08 am 6. jackarmstrong:The constitution protects American citizens from a government seach without probable cause. It’s that simple, right? To perform a search, the government must show probable cause to a court. The court issues a warrant. This is also known as an oversight. It’s a protection. For us. All of us. This is designed to prevent the government from overreaching or abusing their power.
No one is telling the government they can’t spy on Americans if need be, but I want that oversight. I want to know that the government isn’t abusing their power. And I don’t care who sits in the White House.
Rule changes to amend FISA have been proposed in congress but the White House has declined to pursue those changes. They want the power to spy on anyone implicit to the office of the president. Warrant or no warrant.
Confirmed moonbat.
doug
Feb 6, 2006 - 9:09 am 7. jackarmstrong:The constitution protects American citizens from a government seach without probable cause. It’s that simple, right? To perform a search, the government must show probable cause to a court. The court issues a warrant. This is also known as an oversight. It’s a protection. For us. All of us. This is designed to prevent the government from overreaching or abusing their power.
No one is telling the government they can’t spy on Americans if need be, but I want that oversight. I want to know that the government isn’t abusing their power. And I don’t care who sits in the White House.
Rule changes to amend FISA have been proposed in congress but the White House has declined to pursue those changes. They want the power to spy on anyone implicit to the office of the president. Warrant or no warrant.
Confirmed moonbat.
doug
Feb 6, 2006 - 9:11 am 8. RogerA:My only point about was that there is a qualifier in front of search and seizure the framers put in there–I am not saying the administration should examine legal ways to acquire information; but when the 4th amendment is painted as an absolute proscription, that simply isnt correct.
Feb 6, 2006 - 9:49 am 9. RogerA:PIMF–change should above to should NOT
Feb 6, 2006 - 9:51 am 10. TheRealSwede:Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the law or commonsense - and everything to do with politics.
Feb 6, 2006 - 9:51 am 11. flenser:confirmed moonbat
To perform a search, the government must show probable cause to a court.
This is not true. It is mistaken, erronous, false, whatever term you like. The government does not need to show probable cause to a court to perform a search under all circumstances.
There are circumstances under which a warrant is required, and circumstances under which a warrant is not required. The only question here is, which circumstances apply to the NSA program.
It’s difficult for anyone to answer that question without knowing all the details of this (classified) program. We do know that nobody in Congress has called for the program to be terminated, and that the courts overseeing this project also appearently found nothing wrong with it. So it would seem that no warrents are required, based on what is known so far.
Now, if the self-described “moonbat” above would care to try to present an argument as to why he thinks a warrant is required, then we might be able to have a worthwhile discussion on the topic.
Feb 6, 2006 - 9:57 am 12. BarCodeKing:I’ve been having an e-mail conversation about this with a lefty Democrat friend. Like so many in her party, the only play in her political playbook is to keep looking for a Watergate-style scandal, because it worked once against Nixon a long, long time ago. It’s like throwing up a Hail Mary pass on every play of a football game and then wondering why you keep throwing interceptions and losing games. This ain’t Watergate. If Bush was spying on John Kerry or Cindy Sheehan, that would be a problem. Spying on Mohammed the terrorist in the U.S.A. as he talks with his contacts in the Middle East is NOT a problem! Terrorists shouldn’t be able to work their nefarious plans under the cover of our civil rights. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
I’ve told her that this is a loser issue for the Democrats, because the American people don’t want the program stopped. But like I told her, “keep whaling away at that tarbaby, but don’t expect us to fling you into the brier-patch.”
Feb 6, 2006 - 10:01 am 13. MarkD:So moonbat’s argument is that Customs has no right to stop me coming across the border because I’m an American citizen and thus safe from “unreasonable search?” Fails the common sense test, doesn’t it? This issue isn’t resonating with the public because:
1. there is a war going on.
2. the powers are not being abused.
3. the government has the right to do this.
4. the Supreme Court has already agreed to 3 - assuming what I believe the program to be is accurate.
Now imagine that Al Qaeda struck in the US again, and it was revealed by someone with a “D” after their name that the NSA had the technical means to intercept these communications, but did not. Do you suppose the congress critters of the “D” persuasion would give the president a pass, because he was just protecting the civil liberties of the terrorists?
It’s not like Alberto Gonzalez would be a member of the commission investigating that event either - unlike Jamie Gorelick who belonged before the commission, not on it.
Feb 6, 2006 - 10:22 am 14. Knucklehead:Doug/JackArmstrong,
The US constitution, via the Fourth amendment, states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
One cannot, it should seem obvious, simply look at the words of the constitution or particular amendments and presume that they adequately cover every situation that might arise. Therefore one cannot refer to a constitutional “right” or protection without giving some attention to the caselaw on the topic of the right or protection.
There is a fairly large body of case law in the US regarding the 4th, and reasonably discussion of which can be perused at FindLaw.
There is much in there that I find interesting reading. To narrow down a bit, there is the matter of The Interest Protected by the 4th (it is also important to understand the scope of the 4th) - I recommend a full reading but have cut and pasted only excerpts here:
For the Fourth Amendment to be applicable to a particular set of facts, there must be a “search” and a “seizure,” occurring typically in a criminal case, with a subsequent attempt to use judicially what was seized. Whether there was a search and seizure within the meaning of the Amendment, whether a complainant’s interests were constitutionally infringed, will often turn upon consideration of his interest and whether it was officially abused. What does the Amendment protect? Under the common law, there was no doubt. Said Lord Camden in Entick v. Carrington: 29 “The great end for which men entered in society was to secure their property. That right is preserved sacred and incommunicable in all instances where it has not been taken away or abridged by some public law for the good of the whole….” Protection of property interests as the basis of the Fourth Amendment found easy acceptance in the Supreme Court and that acceptance controlled decision in numerous cases. For example, in Olmstead v. United States, one of the two premises underlying the holding that wiretapping was not covered by the Amendment was that there had been no actual physical invasion of the defendant’s premises; where there had been an invasion, a technical trespass, electronic surveillance was deemed subject to Fourth Amendment restrictions. The Court later rejected this approach, however. “The premise that property interests control the right of the Government to search and seize has been discredited…. We have recognized that the principal object of the Fourth Amendment is the protection of privacy rather than property, and have increasingly discarded fictional and procedural barriers rested on property concepts. Thus, because the Amendment “protects people, not places”, the requirement of actual physical trespass is dispensed with and electronic surveillance was made subject to the Amendment’s requirements.…
The test propounded in Katz is whether there is an expectation of privacy upon which one may “justifiably” rely….
The two-part test that Justice Harlan suggested in Katz has purported to guide the Court in its deliberations, but its consequences are unclear….
While perhaps not clearly expressed in the opinions, what seems to have emerged is a balancing standard, which requires “an assessing of the nature of a particular practice and the likely extent of its impact on the individual’s sense of security balanced against the utility of the conduct as a technique of law enforcement.”
Application of this balancing test, because of the Court’s weighing in of law enforcement investigative needs and the Court’s subjective evaluation of privacy needs, has led to the creation of a two-tier or sliding-tier scale of privacy interests. The privacy test was originally designed to permit a determination that a Fourth Amendment protected interest had been invaded. If it had been, then ordinarily a warrant was required, subject only to the narrowly defined exceptions, and the scope of the search under those exceptions was “strictly tied to and justified by the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible.” But the Court now uses the test to determine whether the interest invaded is important or persuasive enough so that a warrant is required to justify it; if the individual has a lesser expectation of privacy, then the invasion may be justified, absent a warrant, by the reasonableness of the intrusion. Exceptions to the warrant requirement are no longer evaluated solely by the justifications for the exception, e.g., exigent circumstances, and the scope of the search is no longer tied to and limited by the justification for the exception. The result has been a considerable expansion, beyond what existed prior to Katz, of the power of police and other authorities to conduct searches. (emphasis added)
You might also find it interesting to read the section Electronic Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment which, in addition to the major SCOTUS cases that have dealt with this matter also has a section Warrantless ”National Security” Electronic Surveillance which notes
Feb 6, 2006 - 10:23 am 15. Terrye:Doug the moonbat:
I think this whole thing is political. If Bush had a D behind his name it would not even be an issue. Partisan politics and CYA on the part of some intel people who got caught with their pants down on 9/11.
Suffice to say there are numerous precedents that give the Executive branch the authority to do this and all this points out to Americans once again that your average Democrat [and some libertarians as well] can not be trusted to take the necessary steps to protect the public.
BTW, people sell private information about other people everyday with a lot less concern for privacy or civil liberties.
Feb 6, 2006 - 11:12 am 16. Curmudgeon:Whatever else they are on paper, the “proposed changes to FISA” are an attempt by Democrats to change the subject. If you have been following the news at all closely, it’s obvious that they first sought to attack the administration, dishonestly and opportunistically, for doing something that they knew about and went along with before the NYT published the classified information. They are so out of touch with American thinking that they were surprised when the polls came back showing that the majority of us were not only in agreement with the policy, but inclined to view the administration more favorably upon hearing about it. The about face the Dems pulled was breathtaking, and now that the MSM can no longer cover for them, easy to observe. They are now pretending that they never objected to the “spying” itself, only the failure to be sure all the t’s were crossed and all the i’s were dotted.
Feb 6, 2006 - 12:00 pm 17. Ara Rubyan:Of course, before all this hit the fan, the program had a good chance of actually nabbing some previously undiscovered terrorist sleepers. Now, at best it will force them to find another way to communicate.
The NYT and whoever gave them the classified information are traitors in a time of war; the guilty should be tried and executed for treason. Many Democrats are openly seditious, and in more robust times, would be hauled off to prison for the duration of the conflict.
Roger:
Do we instantly tap the one in the USA or do we duly mosey over to the courthouse to get an order first?
You instantly tap the one in the USA and THEN you mosey over to the courthouse to get an order.
First one, THEN the other.
OK?
Feb 6, 2006 - 12:59 pm 18. jackarmstrong:Thanks knucklehead - your information was helpful and appreciated. I will take the time to peruse FindLaw. And I don’t disagree with you that the amendment has become nuanced over the yeras but I’m going to stand by my assertion that the basic thrust of protection from an overreaching government remains. Warrants are required to spy on American citizens. Period.
As for mr terrye, I am not happy to learn that private information is being made available for commercial interests. I’d like to see that curtailed. I think any person would. But I sure as hell wouldn’t use that argument to make a case permitting my government to do the same.
As for the idea that this is a partisan issue, I can only speak for myself. I did not vote for Mr. Gore nor Mr. Clinton. I see this is a far more fundamental challenge to what it means to be an American after eons of government oppression through recorded history. That you trust you government to do the right thing is neither admiriable nor wise. It’s foolhady.
As for Mr. Crumudegeon, well, I think he very neatly wraps up a nice package as to why Americans have sacrificed so much to secure a constitution and a bill of rights. We don’t all agree. We don’t all think alike. My right to dissent, to disagree and to question is perhaps the one absolute that we should all be willing to agree on and fight for.
D.
Feb 6, 2006 - 1:00 pm 19. Ara Rubyan:P.S. It’s what the law both allows AND what it requires.
Feb 6, 2006 - 1:00 pm 20. RogerA:Speculation alert–which ranking democrat on the intelligence committee (or his staffers) would know about the program; what ranking democrat on the intelligence had the handwritten letter excuse about his concerns–Gee–nahhhhh; a democratic senator wouldnt do THAT
Feb 6, 2006 - 1:02 pm 21. RogerA:Jackarmstrong: I think you missed one of the basic points: the 4th amendment has never become more nuanced: the framers were smart enough to understand the qualifer “unreasonable” before search and siezure may at some point be warranted.
Now I am not saying that this is one of those cases (although I happen to believe it is); courts will ultimately make that determination–my only point at the very beginning was to try to make the point that, as much as we might care otherwise, there are genuinely NO absolute rights in the constitution; and I would suggest for every example you might want to provide, there will be some countervailing legal decision. If it were black and white and clear cut, then we wouldnt have all of these political contretemps.
Feb 6, 2006 - 1:09 pm 22. Knucklehead:Doug/Jackarmstrong,
Warrants are required to spy on American citizens. Period.
You may state it and put as many periods after it as you like but it is clearly not the case. American citizens are “spied” upon by various government agencies (and even more non-government agencies) constantly. There are security cameras, police cruisers lurking our highways, x-ray equipment peering into luggage, we are bombarded with radar and laser… It is called surveillance, needs no warrant, and isn’t even always nefarious.
Your credit card company, your grocer, Google, and your phone company “spy” on you all the time. It is called surveillance, needs no warrant, and isn’t even always nefarious. Nobody seems the least bit worried about commercial invasions of privacy, why the big concern over government ones? Just curious.
Feb 6, 2006 - 1:13 pm 23. Knucklehead:I am not happy to learn that private information is being made available for commercial interests. I’d like to see that curtailed. I think any person would. But I sure as hell wouldn’t use that argument to make a case permitting my government to do the same.
Do people generally want commercial interests to stop using surveillance? So we really want the grocery chain we shop at to stop sending us coupons or notifications we are interested in rather than ones we could not care less about? Do we really have anything against them making an analyis of our purchasing habits if it means stores have more of what we want in them? Do we really not want the phone company to keep track of our calls and notify if they suddenly see a very odd traffic pattern that has never existed before? And credit card companies do the same sorts of things. Use one particular card for small purchases such as gasoline and then suddenly use if for a large purchase far from home and see if anyone is “watching”.
If cameras at traffic lights curtail the running of red lights (a growing problem in my neck of the woods - you’d best look in your rearview to make sure the jerk on your bumper isn’t going to slam into you trying to “make the light” should you chose not to do so), do we really want the government to stop doing it? Despite the grumbling do we really want all the surveillance on our highways and biways to stop? Many of us may think it has reached ridiculous proportions but I’d say we more or less recognize it as being for our own good. I fail to see how we can recognize the benefits of some forms of surveillance yet be outraged at the idea that the gubmint is listening to phone calls of suspected terrorists.
I suspect a bit of “doth protest too much” going on.
Feb 6, 2006 - 1:35 pm 24. Terrye:doug:
Thanks for being so polite but I am not a mr.
The Constitution was written before there were phones. FISA was written before there was email or cell phones.
That means it is not possible to always get a warrant. [And in the past presidents have taken far greater license with a good deal less hysterical reaction from the opposition. But then again people know jack about history so it is news to them]
And what if the terrorists use call forwarding or find a way to steal someone’s signal? I mean come on thse guys may be nuts, but they are not stupid. We could waste a lot of time getting a warrant that will be useless by the time it is issued.
Feb 6, 2006 - 2:41 pm 25. Knucklehead:Terrye,
I’m not convinced some people are interested in the realities and dangers involved and why it is not always feasible to get a warrant. Or even in the fact that in cases OTHER than the monitoring of electronic communications, everyday items such as automobile searches or luggage searches for air travel, the courts have clearly ruled that warrants are not always necessary.
They want what they want, period, end of story.
Feb 6, 2006 - 2:49 pm 26. zefal:Where did all the nuance go?
Don’t these absolutists know that that shows the lack of intelligence on their part?
I don’t think john kerry would be very happy with these unnuanced liberals posting on this thread.
Not that I’m absolutely sure of that, mind you.
Feb 6, 2006 - 3:32 pm 27. klrfz1:I find it absolutely hilarious that Mr. doug chose as his typekey name the name of a porn star …
http://www.adultfilmdatabase.com/index.cfm/Action/DA/ActorID/9821/Jack_Armstrong/
Yah, that’s gonna help yer credibility, Jack. Post yer opinion 4 more times, idiot.
Feb 6, 2006 - 4:19 pm 28. Ed Poinsett:Entirely too much nuance in this entire argument. Is there, or has there been an injured party? Has anyone identified a John or Jane Doe who has a specific complaint about NSA surveillance of their personal communications? Until someone points out this simple fact the rest is hyperbole. “What ifs” and “may have beens” and “it’s possible that” don’t cut it with most of the American people. Not one shred of evidence has been presented that the NSA intercepts have done anything but look into nefarious communications among possible enemies of the country. I want NSA to keep doing it!
Feb 6, 2006 - 4:31 pm 29. larry:Fourth amendment prohibits UNREASONABLE search, etc. TSA search in airports is a good example of reasonable search without warrant. Powerline has a good explanation of this. Where statute conflicts with the Constitution, I’m guessing the Constitution prevails. Just a layman’s guess, mind you.
This is a D v. R problem, but that’s not all. It’s a power struggle between the Executive branch and Legislative branch, too. That’s why you see R’s insisting there oughta be a law. Please, please, please. We need fewer laws, not more. Don’t forget the ole law of unintended consequences. Haven’t I seen these yahoos on the judiciary committee somewhere before? Am I having deja vu all over again?
Feb 6, 2006 - 6:37 pm 30. David Kline:Personally, what I’m most interested in is, Arfe we succeeding? Is this NSA program working?
(And please spare me the PR blather from the administration.)
Are we winning the wqar on terror?
I don’t know about you guys, but I spent years with these Islamic yahoos as a reporter covering the (anti-Soviet) war in Afghanistan. And I was warning about these nSOBs in 1985!
Look, I’m not trying to be arrogant. I’m just trying to say that it does NOT look like we are winning. And if Americans are not a suicidal people — and I surely do not believe that we are — we have to ask ourselves whether ANY of this mess in Iraq or NSA spy programs are doing anything at all to accomplish the ONE AND ONLY thing that can win the war on terror:
Rally the Muslim “silent majority” to isolate and defeat the extreme Jihadists.
I know you wish you could do it by killing them. But while killing everyone we can find is necessary, anyone in the military can tell you that if you don’t win hearts and minds, everyone you kill just creates another to take his place.
So what the hell are we doing to isolate the terrorists politically???
Until we come up with an answer to that question, we’re all just wanking ourselves over these side issues.
Because in case no one has thought of it, Al Queda really is going to nuke us one day.
unless we isolate them politically.
Sorry to be a broken record.
Feb 6, 2006 - 6:43 pm 31. Luther McLeod:David Kline, thanks for posting. Always good to hear some different thoughts.
A few of ‘my’ answers to your questions.
“Are we winning the wqar on terror?”
Yes, I do believe we are making slow and steady progress, though it is mostly ignored and/or hidden by the paragons of our beloved MSM. I won’t bore you with details. Just google a few milblogs, boots on the ground, so to speak.
“I’m just trying to say that it does NOT look like we are winning.”
Well I would change your emphasis from ‘NOT’ to ‘LOOK’. See my sentence above.
“Rally the Muslim “silent majority” to isolate and defeat the extreme Jihadists.”
Quite honestly, I’m still looking for that ’silent majority.’ When it appears and/or makes its voice known, I will support it in any way I can.
“I know you wish you could do it by killing them.”
Now, frankly, this seems a bit over the top, at least for the majority of the folks who comment at this site. Perhaps you are confusing RLS’s place with some other site?
“So what the hell are we doing to isolate the terrorists politically???”
Well, perhaps your best point, but I would say the freeing of 50 million individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq is a pretty good start to our isolating the terrorists.
“Because in case no one has thought of it, Al Queda really is going to nuke us one day.”
Yes, most here are quite aware of this.
“unless we isolate them politically.”
You really need to flesh this thought out a bit, to me, they are somewhat diametrically opposed.
Feb 6, 2006 - 7:50 pm 32. larry:David Kline: “Rally the Muslim “silent majority” to isolate and defeat the extreme Jihadists.”
I think it’s a matter of time, David. We have liberated 50 million Muslims from tyrants in the last 4 years. I’d be highly suspicious of us from our past actions, too. But our greatest ambassadors, American G I’s, are winning hearts and minds, gradually as the Jihadists show their willingness to kill innocent Muslims indiscriminately. Once-hostile natives in the Sunni triangle of Iraq are turning increasingly against the Jihadists. Moderate Muslims are speaking out against the ‘toon fomenters and rioters. Color me very cautiously optimistic.
Gratuitous profanity: *$()@#$%@!~+%^$#@ TypeKey sucks.
Feb 6, 2006 - 7:54 pm 33. larry:Grape mines, Luther. I didn’t mean to step on your post, but I was busy copying mine and signing back in and didn’t see yours.
Feb 6, 2006 - 7:59 pm 34. Luther McLeod:Heh, larry, grape mines is a new one on me. But you did not step on anything. Made the points quite well yourself.
Feb 6, 2006 - 8:18 pm 35. Luther McLeod:Ah, I forgot, yes, Typekey is quite the miserable b*****d.
Feb 6, 2006 - 8:20 pm 36. Knucklehead:David Kline,
we have to ask ourselves whether ANY of this mess in Iraq or NSA spy programs are doing anything at all to accomplish the ONE AND ONLY thing that can win the war on terror:
Rally the Muslim “silent majority” to isolate and defeat the extreme Jihadists.
There are numerous parts to this, IMHO. First off, the notion of a “Muslim Silent Majority” is probably even more ephemeral that the idea of a “silent majority” in the US.
The majority of people, muslim, yanks, wanks, or otherwise don’t raise hell. They don’t do it in a positive or a negative sense. They just live their lives. They aren’t prone to being “rallied”. Once in a while some significant portion of them will get behind some “movement” and more or less make sure it happens. Believe it or not that it is precisely what made the civil rights movement work as well as it has in the US. The silent majority decided to stop sanctioning active bigotry. But I digress.
The “Islamic world” is not politically, culturally, ethnically, linguistically, or even fully religiously united. So there is no single “silent majority” among moslems.
Last, but not least, in order to “rally” (in so far as they can be “rallied”) the vast majority of moslems to “our side” requires that they be exposed to “our side”. They are, by and large, the products of an astonishingly failed and brutal educational system. Notfuhnuttin, but I have no doubt it is a piece of cake to find a school age kid in Pakistan who just hate the heck out of “Jews” yet it would be nearly impossible to find a Jew in Pakistan. Same with Saudi Arabia.
The majority of moslems do not believe as they do because there is some evidence to support their beliefs - they believe as they do because they have never been exposed to anything that contradicts what they are told.
Which is all to say that “rallying the moslem silent majority” is not a matter of sending out some Radio Free Islam signals, Up With People, and a few hard months of PR. It is a generational effort. And exposing them doesn’t simply mean talking to them, it means freeing them to explore alternatives.
So, are we doing anything that moves the ball in that direction? I think so. Others have pointed to potentially bringing democracy to 50 million moslems who didn’t otherwise have it. Slowly but surely help to convert that into 100 million and now you’ve got something that can’t be kept off the radar screens of the “silent majority”.
I know you wish you could do it by killing them. But while killing everyone we can find is necessary, anyone in the military can tell you that if you don’t win hearts and minds, everyone you kill just creates another to take his place.
By “killing everyone we can find” I presume you mean jihadis. I personally harbor the anxiety that this whole thing will eventually become a war that will make the slaughter of the big 20th century wars look like fun and games. But I ferverntly hope we arrive at something close to peace with Islam within my lifetime by means other than industrialized slaughter.
I don’t think many people “wish” we could just kill them all. How do we go about winning hearts and minds? That’s pretty much what we talked about above. There’s no magic incantation of potion. Its a long, hard slog over generations.
As for “everyone you kill just creates another”… perhaps you’d like to rephrase that more carefully. Short of total warfare (see WWI & WWII) there is a level of truth to this. Deciding one will fight with an enemy will invariably bring forth more of the enemy. If you don’t resist they don’t need a whole lot of troops. If you do resist they need to go get more troops. This isn’t any big secret.
Waging total war, if it were to come to that, changes this. Winning a total war contests is a matter of exhausting the enemy. Germany was no longer capable of replacing their losses. Neither was Japan. It didn’t matter that the Japanese were seemingly willing to turn every man, woman, and child into a suicide instrument of war. They would not have been effective soldiers and we would have wiped them out. We (either the US alone or the West in some level of unity) is fully capable of bringing that level of destruction upon the Islamic world. We can exhaust them demographically. It does not matter if they are theoretically capable of raising an army of a hundred million. They cannot arm it or turn it into a fighting force.
So what the hell are we doing to isolate the terrorists politically???
Keep defeating them. Keep denying them successes. Accept the fact that we will not win every skirmish or deny them every success. Engage in the struggle, recognize the fact that it requires sacrifice and there will be setbacks, but don’t stop. Keep going. That’s how we will isolate the jihadis. Slowly but surely the futility of their methods will become obvious to the “silent majority” and they will, over time, stop sending their children to wage jihad.
Until we come up with an answer to that question, we’re all just wanking ourselves over these side issues.
There’s no answer. There are a variety of “answers”. And we’ll guess some of them incorrectly and wind up just wanking ourselves. Wanna give us an example of any great human struggle that didn’t include plenty of cases of mistakes made and successes achieved that the average person could not see as either mistakes or successes.
The first US offensive (other than some token bombing runs) against the Japanese in WWII was Tulagi and Guadalcanal. Do you really think the American people in general recognized those as necessary? If your son or husband died for freakin’ Tulagi you think you were happy about it?
Our first offensive, other than bombing, against the Germans was in North Freakin Africa. Did that make sense to Americans of the time? I doubt it. Even today a case can be made that it was little more than wanking ourselves. Yet we prevailed. Funny how that works.
Feb 7, 2006 - 7:31 am 37. Luther McLeod:Well sure Knuck, if you want to go into detail… :-). Good job.
Feb 7, 2006 - 8:39 am 38. David Kline:Great comments, evryone. Thanks for responding to my rushed and poorly-typed venting.
I guess the main point I’m trying to make is that, while military action is absolutely necessary, primarily the war on terror can only be won politically.
Meaning, the Muslim masses themselves, diverse in culture though they may be, must do it.
Which is exactly how we won the Cold War — i.e., politically, by helping to create the conditions for isolating and defeating the Marxist-Leninists among the world’s people, especially Europeans.
It’s hard to remember right now, but after World War 2, the majority of the people of this planet lived under communist rule. Millions of dedicated Marxists believed just as fervently in their ideology as the Jihadists do today.
But while we fought where we needed to fight — Korea, for example, primarily we waged political struggle. Support for free trade unions and democratic media. Ideological work. Trade and cultural work. And we had the benefit of a comparison that people could see between the freedoms and success of capitalism vs. the bankruptcy and oppression of communism.
Vietnam, to my mind, was a terrible political mistake that breathed an extra decade’s life into revolutionary Marxism — by giving them the chance to portray us as imperialists.
I fear the same thing is happening now with respect to Iraq. I know most of the folks here support this war, and I don’t want to restart an endless debate over it. Suffice it to say that in my view, if the necons who engineered this war believed it would lead to a “Domino effect” of democracy spreading through the region, many honest people would argue that it has ironically prodcued a domino effect of spreading anti-Americanism and pro-Jihadist sentiment.
Look, I’m as confused as anyone else. The only thing I have going for me is that I know the Jihadists, I lived with them, and I’ve been writing and warning about them for 21 years, since 1985. I know that they are absolutely NEVER going to stop until (like the Marxists) their movemjent is politically isolated among their own people.
They’ll do much of the work (as all fanatics do) themselves, by (for example) indiscriminately attacking Shia civilians in Iraq or building 7th century regimes that no one wants to live in, like the Taliban did.
But there is more that we can do to take the (propaganda) wind from their sails. We can engage more consciously and effectively in ideological and political struggle.
Feb 7, 2006 - 9:54 am 39. Knucklehead:Sorry about that, Luther. I do tend to go on… and on… and on…
On the surface, items such as we have to ask ourselves whether ANY of this mess in Iraq or NSA spy programs are doing anything at all to accomplish… are valid. But what are they really asking?
What do the vast capabilities for electronic surveillance of the NSA do to get “moderate moslems” on “our side”. Well, nothing. At least not directly. It is probably not a bad guess to make that 99% of everything the NSA sucks in and pays any attention to is ultimately useless to national security. Does that mean it is ineffective? Probably not. I certainly hope so. Has what the NSA does prevented a single jihadi attack against the US? Idunno. I certainly hope so. In the absence of any demonstrated harm to real, innocent US citizens I’m willing to allow them the benefit of the doubt. Keep doing what you are doing guys but please, try to enhance efficiency and do your best not to trample on innocents.
If the NSA program slowly but surely contributes to denying the jihadis successes without injuring the lives of innocent US citizens, then I’m all for it and, honestly, where’s the rub? It should be abundantly clear, however, that agencies such as the NSA do not directly contribute to trying to convince anyone of anything. They listen, analyze, and report.
How has “the mess in Iraq” contributed? Five years ago the Elvis of International Jihadis had his own freakin’ country of 20+ million people. Pakistan was an ally of that country. Iran, Syria, Libya, and Iraq were all busily doing their little part in the great jihad against the Great and Little Satan and a clandestine little bunch of Paki scientists was selling them nuke notions.
Well, Jihadi Graceland no longer belongs to Elvis. Pakistan has become about as good an ally against the international jihad as we could possibly have hoped. Libya has abandoned folded its cards and withdrawn from the game. Syria is marginalized but still has fangs and Iran is, well, what it has been - the single most dangerous contributor to internationa jihad.
By any measure Afghanistan, the first campaign, has to be considered a success. Pakistan was “converted” (however tenuously) from a wild-card and rogue into an ally. That is a huge bullet dodged. Pakistan had potential to be a MAJOR enemy. Compared to the first campaigns of other wars Afghanistan stacks up pretty favorably.
Iraq was the second campaign, or theater, in the shooting part of the war against international jihad. Is it going well? Hard to say at this point - there just isn’t enough hindsight available to make a decent judgment. If nothing else Saddam’s billions are no longer in play to whatever extent they were. A huge case of international kleptocracy has been ended. A murderous scumbag tyrrant is reduced to political theater in a courtroom. Syria has been geographically isolated, its grip on Lebanon severely weakened if not lost, and despite opportunistic attempts to save itself it will probably have to drop out of the game relatively soon.
That leaves only Iran and it leaves Iran with US forces on two of its borders - hardly an envious geostrategic position to be in.
I just don’t see how US actions to this point can be positioned as “messes” or “failures”. Five years ago we were worried about Brutal Afghan Winter and the Graveyard of Empires. Today our primary concern is how to go about the third campaign when it could easily be the fourth or fifth campaign. Pakistan and Syria could easily have required military engagement as seperate campaigns. Syria may still require it.
I just don’t see the “Big Mistake” so many people see. I’m open to listening but the case made has to be a bit stronger than “Iraq is a mess”. Kasserine Pass was a “mess”. Italy was a “mess”. Guadalcanal was a “mess”. Okinawa was a “mess”. Iraq is a cakewalk by comparison.
Feb 7, 2006 - 10:25 am 40. Knucklehead:David Kline,
Do your really want to juxtapose the “success” of the Cold War against the “failure” of the War Against International Jihadism?
Fifteen years into the Cold War Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic states, half of Korea (at the cost of some 60,000 western lives) had been lost and the Soviets had nukes in Cuba. We were on our way to losing another 50,000 US lives in Vietnam. There were proxy wars going on all over Africa and South America was not headed in a very good direction. Nicaragua was soon to be lost. Grenada was lost.
When Reagan took office there was very seriously held ideas that we needed to throw in the towel. The prospects of success in the Cold War could not have been more bleak.
Feb 7, 2006 - 10:42 am 41. tomlynk:I think the wording of the fourth amendment include “Unreasonable search and siezure,” thus giving rise to what lawyers tell me is the exception rule.
Posted by: RogerA at February 6, 2006 09:08 AM
The problem arose when some lackey in the administration misread “unreasonable” as “unseasonable”. Who knew that such a small error would lead to congressional hearings and possibly to the Supreme Court?
Feb 7, 2006 - 10:44 am 42. flenser:David Kline
You seem to be well intentioned, but like so many others who approach this issue from your perspective you are oddly short on concrete recommendations.
What exactly does it mean to say that we should “engage more consciously and effectively in ideological and political struggle”, for example? How about fleshing this out with some actual actions you would recommend?
many honest people would argue that it [Iraq] has ironically prodcued a domino effect of spreading anti-Americanism and pro-Jihadist sentiment.
First off, I dislike the oblique references to what “many” would do. If you yourself have opinions then I encourage you to share them.
Assuming that you are one of the “many” then it would be useful if you could in fact make the argument you described. The “domino effect of spreading anti-Americanism ” is not appearent to me or to most people here.
Feb 7, 2006 - 11:15 am 43. CMars:Sorry, but everybody here is missing the point. FISA allows them to do pretty much whatever they want so long as they get a warrant within 72 hours AFTER the start the tap. But the real issue is whether the Prez (any president)can “pick and choose” what laws he will or will not obey under the conceit that “’cause I’m President I can do whatever the hell I want & if the courts or Congress want to get in the way, you can impeach me.”
That, in a nutshell, is the beginning of a dictatorship…
Congress passed a law that says you have to get a warrant if you initiate a domestic tap. They have changed this law a number of times to accommodate Administration requests since 9/11, but when asked if they needed precisely the type of standard that they are apparently using for this program, the Administration responded that it wasn’t necessary, because they could do anything they needed under the FISA.
Turns out, they were lying. This is nothing new from these incompetent blowhards, but unless you want to write Article I out of the Constitution, there is a reason for Congress to exist, and the President is charged by his oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” and “to uphold the laws” of the land.
I guess next time you decide not to pay your taxes you can argue to the IRS that you have a right to pick & choose what laws you will obey. No doubt they will disagree with you, but there we are.
If they wanted to do this legally, he could have. Instead, the Administration has decided that the loyalty of the ranking members of Congress and of a SECRET court that has NEVER had a leak come out of it is in doubt.
Thus we slide down the road towards the Stalinism.
Feb 7, 2006 - 11:31 am 44. Knucklehead:Flenser,
Thanks for raising the point about the “spreading anti-Americanism” part of David Kline’s posts. I had meant to address this in my Cold War Juxtapose comment.
It is difficult to judge whether anti-American sentiment is higher now than it was during the Reagan days, especially the early Reagan days, at the height of the Cold War. Anti-Americanism was at a fever pitch in those days. The crescendo may be even louder now but I find that unlikely. If the US had run its policies according to whether or not anti-Americanism is “spreading” we’d still be 13 little British colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast. We certainly would not have won the Cold War.
One of the oddities of human behavior is that people sometimes scream loudest that they hate someone at just the moment they most deeply hope that someone will save them from themselves.
Feb 7, 2006 - 11:32 am 45. Knucklehead:Oh, pulleeze, CMars. Spare us the slippery slope to Stalinism stuff.
Here is a link to Cornell Law School’s Historic Supreme Court Decisions - By Topic. Poke around in any number of the topics (Police Power, Presidency, Search and Siezure, Sedition, Seperation of Powers are often very interesting) and you’ll have no trouble finding nearly no end of examples of where we’ve survived abuses of power as well as disagreements regarding who has what power.
Feb 7, 2006 - 11:43 am 46. CMars:There are laws, and there is disregard for the law. Yes, there have been numerous instances of abuses of power, but there have rarely been instances like this one, where one branch of the government said “I don’t particularly give a …, I’m going to do what I want whether you like it or not, & I’m not even going to tell you about it, because you might tell me to stop.”
One of the hallmarks of this Administration has been its brazeness. At least in Iran-Contra there was some modicum of contrition. The standard response from this Administration to anyone going “you can’t do that without our approval” is “So? Bite me.”
I might also point out that this is (at least until January of 2006) already a one-party state.
I wonder what you all would be saying if it were Al Gore or Bill Clinton who had started this “program.”
Feb 7, 2006 - 11:59 am 47. CMars:Actually, the more I contemplate the friendship that has existed since Day 1 between Bush & Putin, the more I have come to think that at least a part of it is because they have similar views of the value of “democracy” in a post-industrial nation-state.
I would challenge anyone to find any president who didn’t feel that they were “overly-constrained” by Congress and/or the judiciary.
Feb 7, 2006 - 12:11 pm 48. Knucklehead:David Kline,
Should you return, and at the risk of seeming to shill for YARGB, you might find the “Prospero” comment of 6:41AM in this thread thought provoking re: the matter of what the “mess in Iraq” does to help get the “moslem silent majority” on “our side”. He discusses the notion of providing them with recognizable “rules of engagement” by which they may determine who their friends and allies are moving forward. It is an interesting concept, IMO.
Feb 7, 2006 - 12:17 pm 49. Knucklehead:Cmars,
Are you full of, ummm…, stuff or do you really not understand how profoundly preposterous your statement is?
Yes, there have been numerous instances of abuses of power, but there have rarely been instances like this one, where one branch of the government said “I don’t particularly give a …, I’m going to do what I want whether you like it or not, & I’m not even going to tell you about it, because you might tell me to stop.”.
Feb 7, 2006 - 12:24 pm 50. Knucklehead:Wow! You can’t make this stuff up. Sen. Leahy really did say, about this topic,
“My concern is for peaceful Quakers who are being spied upon, and other law-abiding Americans and babies and nuns who are placed on terrorist watch lists,” Leahy said.
(ht: flenser for tracking it down.)
And the Democrat Party wonders why Americans find them unserious about national security. Babies, nuns, and Quakers. The above is from the senior Democrat senator on the panel.
Feb 7, 2006 - 12:33 pm 51. David Kline:By noting the spread of “anti-Americanism,” I was referring specifically to the Muslim world — the only force *ultimately* able to defeat the Jihadists.
Shortly after 9/11, the majority of the world’s Muslims sympathized with us and condemned terrorism, according to polls at that time. Even after our correct and effrective intervention in Afghanistan, that majority still held because most people recognized that we had the right of self-defense (and besides, the Talibanm were a rump illegal regime unrecognized by the UN and all but 2 nations on earth).
Iraq was a different story. The invasion has fractured our alliances, turned the majority of Muslems against us, and impaired our ability m(and the ability of pro-democracy Muslims) to politically isolate Jihadist extremism. Even Karen Hughes’s Office of Public Diplomacy admits that Iraq has hurt US prestige and influence, although she denies that a wiser approach would have been to avoid invasion in defiance of the wishes of the world and instead keep Saddam contained.
Militarily, we need to be savvier about when and where we engage. That’s just basic “Art of War” 101 — never go to war when it makes more enemies than friends and drives the middle forces into the political embrace of the people trying to kill you.
Feb 7, 2006 - 12:36 pm 52. AABFJS1284:“let’s imagine this. Someone is talking on a disposable cellphone for five minutes from, say, Yemen to, say, Boulder Dam. The phone is thrown away in Sanaa. Do we instantly tap the one in the USA or do we duly mosey over to the courthouse to get an order first?”
Yeah, I’m a hysterical liberal democrat. . . the FISA law says you can get a tap on your terroris - and not have to get the warrant right away. You have 72 hours to “mosey over to the courthouse to get the order”.
Why are you overlooking the fact that this President categorically refuses to provide an “audit trail” of who he is tapping? There is no excuse for getting the warrants - after the fact. There is no excuse for providing a trail.
I would like to believe his rhetoric - “we’re only tapping “terrorists” - but given his credibility factor which is nil . . . . he is committing illegal acts, I don’t care which way they spin it - it is ILLEGAL and they are doing it DELIBERATELY and BLATANTLY in defiance of the law.
This President has lied, fabricated, bent, twisted, misrepresented, and otherwise invented facts to be truths. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and company have masterminded the art of tailoring to Bush’s naked emporer. But we the people have look on - willing to believe the lavish and ornate dressing that they want us to believe they’ve wove. Oh, but a tangle web we weave when we practice to deceive. The truth is in the fabric.
And the fabric is non-existent.
Bush as president, may be Commander and Chief of the Armed Services - but that is not Commander and Chief of the Country, the Presidency is supported by the checks and balances of Congress. The Authorization to Use Military Force did not negate FISA and the Bush Administration knows this or they would not have attempted to have Ashcroft authorize language to allow them to wiretap without warrants. Why would they try to include language if they thought they already had the authorization? Covering their behinds, covering up, now we have the dog and pony show of we can do whatever we want because we have the Authorization to Use Military Force . . . .
Are you willing to give up your rights as American citizens to allow this President to bend the rules as he sees fit, whenever he chooses to ?
He says he’s only tapping terrorists. But how do we know. Therein, lies the problem.
Bush’s history of lying vs. you can get a wiretap now - you just have to authorized within 72 hours.
Mr. Bush - what exactly is your problem with following up with authorization?
Feb 7, 2006 - 12:51 pm 53. Knucklehead:If you can’t answer that question - then there is a problem indeed.
David,
I’ll have to ask you to provide some evidence that Shortly after 9/11, the majority of the world’s Muslims sympathized with us and condemned terrorism, according to polls at that time.
Now, onto this little matter:
Iraq was a different story. The invasion has fractured our alliances, turned the majority of Muslems against us, and impaired our ability m(and the ability of pro-democracy Muslims) to politically isolate Jihadist extremism.
Let’s accept these as true. What, specifically, about the invasion has “fractured our alliances” and with whom? (Hint - you might want to take into account the UN Oil-for-food “program” and the contracts Total had worked out with Saddam.)
Regarding the “ability of pro-democracy Muslims to politically isolate Jihadist extremism” would you please be kind enough to provide some example of pro-democracy Muslims who had demonstrated, prior to the invasion of Iraq, any ability whatsoever to politically isolate jihadist extremism. You are claiming that we damaged something that, to the best of my knowledge, didn’t exist. And it if did exist it was clearly inept. Jihadi extremism has been on the rise for quite some time, clearly has support within large segments of the Muslim population, and has no demonstrably effective opposition within the Muslim population.
I am unimpressed with this point. You might as well tell me that I’ve alienated the 90-lb weakling who might have been willing to help me defend myself against an onslaught by a coked-up Mike Tyson. Gee, bummer, that really changes my prospects, doesn’t it.
As for Saddam and “containment”… sigh. That really is such a worn out old trope. The famous “box” that was “containing” Saddam was leaking like a sieve. The UN was willfully turning it’s back while “friends” and foes alike gleefully drilled holes in it. France could barely manage to pretend that they didn’t want the sanctions lifted ASAP and the only thing that kept them able to manage even the slightest pretense was the money being siphoned out of OFF. You have to do better than the “contained” nonsense. He wasn’t the least bit contained and he had ISS agents roaming the world prepping his revenge.
Feb 7, 2006 - 1:08 pm 54. CMars:Knucklehead,
Perhaps you think that making patronizing statements is intelligent debate. I am not very impressed.
The point I have been trying to make that you keep ignoring is that under normal rules of statutory construction, the more specific language of FISA (50 U.S.C. 1801, if you need to look it up) trumps anything that was in the post-9/11 force authorization, because the legal question is whether the 2001 resolution created an exception to the 1978 law depends on whether “necessary and appropriate force” includes surveillance of the enemy. Neither detentions nor surveillance was mentioned in the resolution. Under last month’s Supreme Court decision in the Oregon assisted-suicide case, this would be too general to trump the specific holdings of the FISA.
In addition, in his A/G confirmation hearings last year, Gonzalez responded to a direct question from Sen. Feingold regarding “warrantless surveillance” by stating that it was “not the policy or the agenda of this president” to authorize actions that conflict with existing law, but since Gonzales knew perfectly well the White House had repeatedly authorized warrantless wiretaps in violation of the FISA act, he was lying.
What’s even more notable if you read the transcript of that hearing is that Gonzales rather plainly didn’t promise that the president would never violate the law. What he said is that if he did ignore a statute, he would do it with a “great deal of care and seriousness.” And furthermore that it was not the president’s “policy or agenda” to violate the law ó meaning, I suppose, that he would only do it occasionally.
Wow.
Maybe by your lights my statement was “preposterous,” but I still happen to live in a universe where truth isn’t as relativistic as apparently it has become in the Rovian one that exists in DC.
Feb 7, 2006 - 1:31 pm 55. Bostonian:My goodness, this topic certainly brings out the BDS patients, doesn’t it?
Knucklehead, you have a lot more patience than I do. I’m tired of repeating myself on these points, esp. with people whose political outlook starts with “Republicans are evil.” Such people cannot make any sense out of their continual electoral defeats. It’s a waste of breath to bother with them.
Feb 7, 2006 - 1:33 pm 56. Knucklehead:AAB and so on,
Sorry, you don’t get to determine whether or not the 72-hour “post facto” warrant provisions of the FISA statute are applicable in this case.
Clearly there are legal opinions which agree with you. Thankfully they make the case more eloguently and without relying on ridiculous “McChimpy Bu$hitler is a psychopathic liar” nonsense.
Just as clearly there is legal argumentation on the other side. Here is the DOJ Whitepaper.
Here is a long technical legal analyis from the Volokh site that arrives at the conclusion:
Don’t expect much success at impeaching McChimpy Bu$hitler for remaining within his constitutional authority even if he violated FISA law. Constitutionality ultimately trumps federal statute.
Legal analysis runs pro and con from either side of the political divide. Indepth analysis and conficting opinions suggests a slightly stronger case than “Bush is a liar”.
Feb 7, 2006 - 1:35 pm 57. Knucklehead:Bostonian,
My patience was just exhausted. There is no reasoning with BDS sufferers.
Feb 7, 2006 - 1:37 pm 58. CMars:Knucklehead,
In response to your question about evidence of sympathy in the muslim world towards us after 9/11, I would note that on the Sunday after the attacks, the Iranians observed a minute of silence in honor of the WTC victims at the soccer games in Teheran.
The fact that the Administration may have been lucky enough to prevent terrorist attacks on “American soil” obviously doesn’t extend to our boys and girls in Iraq. The WaPost also notes in a Sunday story that reported “intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use.
More: “Valuable information remains valuable even if it comes from one in a thousand intercepts. But government officials and lawyers said the ratio of success to failure matters greatly when eavesdropping subjects are Americans or U.S. visitors with constitutional protection. The minimum legal definition of probable cause, said a government official who has studied the program closely, is that evidence used to support eavesdropping ought to turn out to be ‘right for one out of every two guys at least.’ Those who devised the surveillance plan, the official said, “knew they could never meet that standard ó that’s why they didn’t go through” the court that supervises the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.”
Feb 7, 2006 - 1:38 pm 59. Knucklehead:There seems to be a point that the BDS sufferers just cannot come to grips with. The executive branch (that elected position is currently held by George W. Bush) may exercise the power granted it by the US constitution regardless of federal law seeking to restrict that power. The congress cannot trump the executive via legislation. It doesn’t work that way. Should this seperation of powers catfight ever get to the Supreme Court the SCOTUS is very likely to rule in favor of the executive.
BDS sufferers, unfortunately for all of us, cannot seperate the office from the man.
Feb 7, 2006 - 1:46 pm 60. vegetius:“The minimum legal definition of probable cause, said a government official who has studied the program closely, is that evidence used to support eavesdropping ought to turn out to be ‘right for one out of every two guys at least.’ Those who devised the surveillance plan, the official said, “knew they could never meet that standard ó that’s why they didn’t go through” the court that supervises the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.”
So, one out of two (50%) is required.
Would you fly on an airplane that had a one (1%)
chance of crashing?? What risk analysis expert set the threshold at 50%? This seems to be entirely arbitrary and totally irrational given the amount of international communications traffic.
You mean if there were 1 million discrete mesages a day the legal requirement would be the proability of finding 500,000 messages from AQ??
Feb 7, 2006 - 1:55 pm 61. David Kline:This is nonsensical.
Here’s one example of the poll data, Knucklehead:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3600.htm
As for whether we should care about Muslim opinion or not, I submit that Muslims and Muslims alone are the only ones able to ultimate isolate and defeat the Jihadists within their societies.
The Jihadists will do much of the work themselves, thank you very much, because like the Marxists of old, they end up alienating people.
But the US, as the prime Jihadist target and principal spokesman for freedom in the world, has a potent role to play.
Statesmen and military leaders have always designed strategy with the “decent opinion of mankind” in mind. You can’t win an epic struggle such as the one we are engaged in against Islamic extremism without popular support.
Too bad are current leaders design strategies that alienate precisely the people we need to win over as allies. For this is not a war we can win just by killing terrorists. It is profoundly a war for hearts and minds.
I’m not too worried in the long run, though. Just as American leaders in the past realized that covertly toppling governments and napalming villages in Vietnam did us no good in the war against communism because these acts seemed to prove communist charges against us, today’s leaders will eventually develop strategies that will more effectively isolate the enemy instead of ourselves — or they’ll be replaced with leaders who will.
Americans are not a suicidal people. We always get smart, eventually.
Feb 7, 2006 - 2:37 pm 62. Bostonian:“You can’t win an epic struggle such as the one we are engaged in against Islamic extremism without popular support.”
Yup.
This is EXACTLY why we are recruiting the people of Iraq and Afghanistan to our side, to the side that says people should rule themselves (in opposition to Al Qaeda, who says it is blasphemy for man to write his own laws).
This is EXACTLY why Al Qaeda has been killing election workers & bombing polling stations in those countries.
Where have you been for the last three years?
Feb 7, 2006 - 2:54 pm 63. Knucklehead:David,
Thanks for the link. Just a couple things that pop to mind while reading it.
First, it is from June of 2003. It doesn’t tell us much about what the “silent majority” thinks today. Not that I would expect the US to be beloved (the plain fact of the matter is that it never has been, call it the New York Yankees syndrome - loved or hated, not much in between).
Next thing that jumps to mind is:
The poll of more than 15,000 people in 20 countries and the Palestinian Authority, conducted in May by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, also showed a significant loss of faith in two major international institutions created out of the ashes of World War II - the United Nations and NATO.
“The figures show that the publics - the European public and our public - are feeling that the ties that have bound us together for the last 50 years are weakening,” said Madeleine Albright, the former U.S. secretary of state and chair of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. “I see this as very serious.”
Well, the world changes. It certainly isn’t the same world it was a half-century ago. Declining opinions, even in June of 2003, of the UN are well deserved. The UN earned every shred of it. As for NATO, well, it is an organization struggling to find a purpose. It doesn’t have much to do with Iraq in particular or waging war against jihadism in general.
As could be expected, this feeling is strongest in the Muslim world, where negative attitudes toward the United States have soared since the war on Iraq began March 20 with a wave of American air attacks over Baghdad.
One of the most extreme shifts was seen in Turkey, where the government, heeding popular sentiment, decided not to allow United States to use its soil as a base for attacks on Iraq although Washington and Ankara are partners in NATO.
The poll found that 83 percent of Turks now have an unfavorable opinion of the United States, up from 55 percent last summer.
Ummm…. notice the “up from 55%” part of that last sentence. And that is from what at the time was, what, one of the two or three Islamic allies we had. It doesn’t suggest there was ever much positive sentiment among Moslems for the US to draw upon.
Also note that this poll is from 3 months after the war began. As I said above it doesn’t reflect the current situation. For example,
The swing was even sharper in Indonesia, where Islamic radicalism has been rising since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
This hardly suggests that 9/11 gave the US any particular opportunity to cash in on some groundswell of sympathy from Indonesian moslems. Apparently they saw 9/11/01 as a good reason to get radical.
While 75 percent had a favorable opinion of the United States in 2000, 83 percent now have an unfavorable view. Similar levels of animosity hold sway in the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.
Anyway, with little or no change in US treatment of Indonesia events far away radically shifted Indonesian opinion of the US. Yet more recent events directly involving Indonesia and US actions toward it produce nothing close to that level of swing in “public opinion” (here’s the 6/05 Pew Poll, BTW. This suggests, to me at least, that Indonesian public opinion - and quite probably general “moslem” public opinion - of the US is disconnected from the realities of their lives.
What point is there in playing to public opinion that does not reflect any reality. They decided they didn’t like us when we went into Iraq and they aren’t going to change their minds much even when we come to their assistance.
As recent events (the Cartoon Wars) suggest, public opinion in Islamic nations is very sensitive to any perceived insult or threat, regardless of proximity or connection to any actual effect upon their lives, and very insensitive to any assistance regardless of the effect upon their lives.
You may wish US policy to be driven by Islamic public opinion but I fail to see the potential gain in doing so.
Now, back to your other points.
Statesmen and military leaders have always designed strategy with the “decent opinion of mankind” in mind. You can’t win an epic struggle such as the one we are engaged in against Islamic extremism without popular support.
A couple things here. You’d have a hard time backing up the first sentence there. There has been lip service paid to the “opinions of mankind” but it rarely shows up in actual military strategy. Hitler and his generals certainly didn’t give it more than passing thought. And they certainly didn’t give a rat’s patoot about the decent opinions of large swaths of mankind. British and US leadership gave such things some thought, but when push came to shove and the strategy called for massive bombing of the Third Reich…
As for the second sentence, please keep in mind that even the “favorable opinion” that some portions of some of the moslem population might once have held about the US, that doesn’t automagically equate to “popular support”. We are not going to have the “popular support” of the general moslem population in the war against jihadism until THEY decided to stop supporting jihadis. We cannot do anything to change their opinion.
The jihadis are helping out by showing their true stripes and killing no end of fellow moslems. So, maybe agressively defending ourselves and fighting the jihadis on their own turf is the best way to eventually gain moslem popular support. Show them what jihadism is really all about rather than leaving them to cheer attacks far away against infidels.
Feb 7, 2006 - 3:25 pm 64. flenser:David Kline
We figured out what you believe on the first post.
The questions which some of us have asked were intended to explore why you believe it.
So its unfortunate that you find it preferable to repeat your initail talking points over and over. Yes, we get it, you think Iraq is like Vietnam. Now how about if you explain (1) why you think this and (2) what you think ought to be done. Please be specific in your answers.
Feb 7, 2006 - 3:26 pm 65. Knucklehead:David,
I missed the following in your most recent post.
Just as American leaders in the past realized that covertly toppling governments and napalming villages in Vietnam did us no good in the war against communism
Umm… covertly toppling governments… Well, if one needs a government toppled one can do it covertly (as per Chile) or one can do it overtly. There are several ways to go about doing it overtly. We can openly supporting local movments who will do the actual fighting or whatever is required (Nicaragua) or direct invastion (Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq).
The “napalming villages” charge is a toss away that doesn’t deserve a response.
because these acts seemed to prove communist charges against us,
We cannot develop strategies by what “seems” to be or is perceived to be. Other people’s delusions and ignorance are no basis for strategy.
today’s leaders will eventually develop strategies that will more effectively isolate the enemy instead of ourselves
Got any examples of any recent leadership that has accomplished this isolation of our enemies? I’m struggling to understand how this is accomplished - you haven’t offered any suggestions for alternative ways to deal with the global war against jihadism, so perhaps I can draw them from examples of leaders who have accomplished what your are talking about.
…or they’ll be replaced with leaders who will.
And these might be?
Feb 7, 2006 - 4:12 pm 66. CMars:Knuckhead,
“BDS sufferers, unfortunately for all of us, cannot seperate the office from the man.”
So I guess you would have supported this “program” if Al Gore or John Kerry were president.
Feb 7, 2006 - 5:23 pm 67. Knucklehead:Yes. The question is, of course, moot.
Feb 7, 2006 - 5:53 pm 68. larry:CMARS: “So I guess you would have supported this “program” if Al Gore or John Kerry were president.”
Did you support the Echelon program when Prez Clinton claimed constitutional authority?
Feb 7, 2006 - 5:54 pm 69. klrfz1:What ever happened to doug/Jack Armstrong? His posts were at least entertaining. Made CMars posts look like so much slowly drying drool, he did. Man, those were the good ole days, weren’t they?
Feb 7, 2006 - 6:29 pm 70. larry:I’m pretty dadgum fed up with the so-called conventional wisdom that Vietnam was a mistake and a military failure and the domino theory was mistaken. As to the latter, ask millions of Cambodians.
The North Vietnamese military was practically destroyed in the infamous Tet offensive. Giap was ready to fold his tent until he saw the traitorous American media reaction. US and allies won every major battle, in spite of the worst war-time SecDef of all time’s micro-management. South Vietnamese forces were conducting virtually all major ops on their own when the US Congress decided to discontinue all aid. That’s about as condensed as I can tell it. That failure of will was the beginning of troubles that we still feel the effects of today. Perception of America as a paper tiger has led our enemies to think we can be endlessly provoked without reacting effectively,
Feb 7, 2006 - 6:31 pm 71. flenser:kirfz1
Ahh, those were the days.
Those Canaan days we used to know
Where have they gone, where did they go?
Eh bien, raise your berets
To those Canaan days.
It’s funny but since we lost doug-jack
Feb 7, 2006 - 8:47 pm 72. Knucklehead:We’ve gone to the other extreme
Perhaps we all misjudged the lad
Perhaps he wasn’t quite that bad
And how we miss his entertaining dreams.
This thread has probably run its course but just in case anyone drops back in, in addition to the arguments and sources cited in various posts above, Paul Mirengoff of Power Line addresses the legal aspects of the NSA surveillance program in A legal dispute or a lie? where he summarizes a portion of the legal dispute and addresses the “Bush is lying!” charge thusly:
John Hindraker (Power Line again), in A Liberal Speaks also takes a look at the “liberal” argument which seems to be the heart and soul of the case made by some participants in this thread. Excerpts:
There is more within each short article (they summarize detailed articles made by these writers and others) that is well worth reading for those who haven’t yet dug at least that deeply into the underlying arguments in the case. But the excerpts above suffice to make the basic point that as far as the legality is concerned there is ample room for argumentation on both sides of the issue and that the “lie” meme is just plain stupid and tossed out only by stupid, angry people.
Feb 8, 2006 - 5:25 am