By Henry Mark Holzer

It is an article of faith on the Left and among its fellow travelers that the Bush administration stole two elections, made war on Iraq for venal reasons, tortured hapless foreigners, and conducted illegal surveillance of innocent Americans. A corollary of this mindset is that the press, primarily the Washington Post and The New York Times, has a right, indeed a duty, to print whatever they want about the administration—even if the information compromises national security.

Not true. The press is not exempt from laws that apply to everyone else. The press is not exempt from laws protecting our national security. The New York Times is not exempt from the Espionage Act, as we shall see in a moment.

But first, it’s necessary to understand what an indictment of the Times does not involve.

First, an Espionage Act indictment of The New York Times would not even remotely constitute an attack on a free press. As Justice White wrote in Branzburg v. Hayes, “[i]t would be frivolous to assert . . . that the First Amendment, in the interest of securing news or otherwise, confers a license on either the reporter or his news sources to violate valid criminal laws.”

Nor would an indictment of the Times constitute an attempt to restrain it from publishing news. The anti-anti-terrorists who seek to justify the Times revealing the NSA’s domestic surveillance program and thus prevent their flagship paper from being indicted, rely on a Supreme Court decision entitled New York Times Company v. United States, better known as the Pentagon Papers Case. Their reliance is misplaced.

In 1971 a disgruntled anti-war activist delivered a classified study—“History of U.S. Decision-Making Process on Viet Nam Policy”—to The New York Times and the Washington Post. The government sued to enjoin publication—seeking to impose a prior restraint. If there are any fundamental principles in modern First Amendment law, one is that the burden on government to restrain publication (as compared, for example, with later punishing its publication) is extremely heavy. Accordingly, in a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled for the newspapers, and the publication of the embarrassing Pentagon Papers went ahead.

Thus, New York Times Company v. United States, where the Court rejected a government-sought prior restraint on publication, would have no precedential value in a case where, after publication, the government sought to punish the Times for violating the Espionage Act.

Third, not only was there no legal impediment to the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, there was abundant authority for it. The President possesses broad powers as chief executive and Commander in Chief under Article II of the Constitution. Congress has repeatedly delegated to all presidents considerable war-related powers, and especially post-9/11 to President Bush. It was Congress that created and empowered the National Security Agency. The Executive Branch’s NSA domestic surveillance program, aimed at obtaining intelligence about the foreign-based terrorist war on the United States, was/is an integral element of our national security policy and its implementation. No Supreme Court decision has ever held that the Presidential/Congressionally-sanctioned acquisition of that kind of intelligence was constitutionally or otherwise prohibited.

Accordingly, it is pointless to consider whether the NSA’s domestic surveillance program was legal. It was! If a case involving that program ever reaches the Supreme Court, that’s what its ruling will be.

Fourth, the interesting history of the Espionage Act is irrelevant to whether the Times may have violated it.

Finally, it is a waste of time to consider whether the Act is constitutional. It has been expressly and impliedly held constitutional more than once.

This brings us to whether The New York Times is indictable (and ultimately convictable) for violating the Espionage Act.

The facts are clear. The NSA was engaged in highly classified warrantless wiretaps of domestic subjects in connection with the War on Terror, and the Times, a private newspaper, made that information public.

It is to those facts that the Espionage Act either applies, or does not apply.

Title 18, Section 793 of the United States Code, provides that “(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of . . . any document . . . or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates . . . the same to any person not entitled to receive it . . . (f) . . . [s]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (g) If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.” (Section 794 is inapplicable. It deals with “gathering or delivering defense information to aid [a] foreign government.”)

“It is,” said the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in assessing Section 793 (e) in United States v. Morison, “difficult to conceive of any language more definite and clear.”

Let’s break down the statute into its component parts.

“Whoever”: this would mean the New York Times company, publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., editor Bill Keller, and anyone else privy to the information upon which the story was based.

“Having unauthorized possession”: the information was classified, and the Times was not authorized to have it.

“Of any document . . . or information”: certainly the Times had information, because it published it; it is inconceivable that the newspaper did not have documents of some kind, because the newspaper would never have gone that far out on a limb without at least some corroboration beyond an oral report(s).

“Relating to the national defense”: no comment is necessary; indeed, the Times has conceded that targets of the warrantless wiretaps were persons who may have had some connection to terrorists.

“Which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation”: obviously the Times had “reason to believe,” because it withheld the story for a year.

“Willfully communicates . . . the same”: no comment is necessary; the story was front-page news.

“To any person not entitled to receive it”: even the Times can’t argue that subway straphangers, or any other member of the public, was “entitled to receive” information about the classified operations about one of this country’s most secret and highly protected agencies.

Several years ago Erika Holzer and I wrote a book entitled “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, which proved that her conduct in Hanoi made her indictable for, and convictable of, treason. We discovered that she was not indicted because of a political failure of will by the Nixon administration. To summarize a chapter of our book, suffice to say that the government was afraid to indict a popular anti-war actress who had the support of the radical left. Even today, three decades after Fonda’s trip to North Vietnam and three years after the publication of our book, we receive countless letters lamenting that Hanoi Jane was never punished for her conduct.

We tell them that it’s too late, that any possibility of seeing justice done for Fonda’s traitorous conduct is long gone. That is all the more reason why those of us who remember the Fonda episode, and who understand the nature and importance of today’s War on Terror, should not rest until the government calls to account The New York Times—in a court of law, with an indictment and hopefully a conviction, under the Espionage Act.

from Front Page Magazine

As I stated earlier in the week, this is not an isolated incident. In fact, it goes on often and has been going on for quite a while. During WWII our media revealed that the US could read the Japanese Imperial codes. Had the Japanese bothered to read our papers we might have lost WWII. At the very least hundreds of thousands more Americans would have died.

Our treasonist media today continues to reveal our secrets to our enemies. This kind of crap has been tolerated too long….. and should have been illegal yesterday……..why should it not be an illegal act?

Our stupid media is helping those that would destroy the free press in a heartbeat.

by Curt at Flopping Aces

Ok, it’s rant time.

Nothing can tell us more about the Democratic party then today’s shenanigans with the Detainee bill. That the left would scream about protecting the terrorists right to have Habaes Corpus and access to classified information should tell you and the American people everything we want to know about them:

How far from our historic and Constitutional values are we willing to stray? How mercilessly are we willing to treat those we suspect to be our enemies? How much raw, unchecked power are we willing to hand over to the executive?

The legislation before the Senate today would ban torture, but let Bush define it; would allow the president to imprison indefinitely anyone he decides falls under a wide-ranging new definition of unlawful combatant; would suspend the Great Writ of habeas corpus; would immunize retroactively those who may have engaged in torture. And that’s just for starters.

It’s people like this writer who have lost the Democrats chance at getting back the reins to Congress. This shrill ignorant crying about the poor widdle terrorists is the exclamation point to the Democrats views on the world.

I mean come on…..let Bush define torture? It’s not like no one would raise a stink if Bush said “hey, lets go ahead and allow electrodes to be places on the testicles of these terrorists!” Would you people show just a grain of freakin common sense please! If he authorized this kind of interrogation he would be doomed. This bill lets the interrogators do their damn job. You cannot get information from hardened terrorists by saying pretty please. You cannot get information from hardened terrorists by telling them “you have the right to remain silent”. You cannot get information from hardened terrorists by coddling and tickling them…..

Every time I think the left could not be any more idiotic I see these kind of articles. I don’t even want to travel to the depths of the DummiesU hellhole today…..and that’s usually a fun ride for me but I’m just plain sick of them.

And then I see lefties leaving comments on some blogs like “this means Bush can arrest any American for allegedly plotting terrorist acts, deny him Habaes Corpus, and deny him access to the evidence against him!”

Puhlease. The House bill clearly states there is a process….a Combatant Status Review Tribunal will decide whether someone is to be classified as a enemy combatant, not Bush. So please get your schizo medication refilled……Bush is not the enemy, the terrorists are. Until you Democrats start to come to grips with this fact you will never gain majority power in Congress.

Case in point of someone who needs a refill on his medication is Sen. Leahy. Hugh Hewitt pointed out his disgrace of a speech today:

This is not just a bad bill. This is truly a dangerous bill..I have been asking Secretary Rumsfeld for the last several weeks whether our actions are eliminating more of our enemies than are being created. But now we understand. We are creating more enemies than we are eliminating. Our intelligence agencies agree the global jihadist movement is spreading and adapting, and is increasing in both numbers and geographic dispersions. We aren’t making ourselves safer. We’re putting us more at risk. Intelligence agencies go on to note the new jihadist networks and cells with anti-American agendas are increasingly likely to emerge and the operational threat will grow not only abroad but in the homeland. This is truly chilling.

So let me get this straight. The Left and this blowhard believe if we just stopped fighting them, just stopped killing them, then all would be right in the world. Love, Peace, and Harmony will overtake this planet of ours….

Sigh….I mean what can you say to these kind of people? Can someone really be this stupid or is this all a political game? For the sake of America’s future lets hope its all politics because if these people really think like this, really believe in this kind of moral relativism, and they get into power…..look out!

The Bush Cheney Adminstration not only failed to stop 9/11 from happening, but for five years failed to bring Osama bin Laden to justice even though they had him cornered at Tora Bora –they yanked our special forces out of there to send them into Iraq. We witnessed the growth of additional enemies.

Wha-wha-what! We went into Iraq two freakin years after Tora Bora. Amazing.

When America can be seen abandoning its basic American Democratic values, its checks and balances and its great and wonderful legal tradition, and is seen as becoming more autocratic and less accountable, how’s that going to help foster democratic reforms elsewhere? Do as I say and not as I do is a model that has never successfully inspired peoples around the world, and it doesn’t inspire me.

Democratic values for our own CITIZENS you dummy! Not for those who fly planes into our buildings killing thousands of innocent people’s lives.

And then he rambles on and on about the super secret Republicans twisting their mustaches and rubbing their hands while stirring a pot of magical torture soup…..crying about the worst of the worst in Gitmo having to be held in a jail cell while they attack our troops as they guard them…..mind boggling!

Then the coup de Gras….his plans to fix everything:

We should be doing, focusing on getting the terrorists, securing the nuclear material, doing the things that Senator Kerry has talked about, others have, win the peace in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has regrouped.

Yes, because as you know we are not focused on getting the terrorists right now right? Only 4000 of them have been killed in Iraq alone…not enough for Leahy. Securing the nuclear material? WTF? Win the peace in Afghanistan? Hmmmm, guess they don’t have a Democracy over there already? Or do they?

And this vote should tell the lefties something….

65-34! This is not a vote along party lines. This means Democrats such as Rockefeller (yes, you heard me right…Rockefeller!) can see the handwriting on the walls and they understand the American people don’t agree with you cowards on the left. They want our Government to have the damn ability to make a terrorist a bit cold sometimes so that they can get information that will save our lives.

It’s called letting them do their damn jobs.

The Senate approved legislation this evening governing the interrogation and trials of terror suspects, establishing far-reaching new rules in the definition of who may be held and how they should be treated.

The vote, 65-to-34, came after more than 10 hours of often impassioned debate touching on the Constitution, the horrors of Sept. 11 and the nation’s role in the world, but it was also underscored by a measure of politics as Congress prepares to break for the final month of campaigning before closely fought midterm elections.

The legislation sets up rules for the military commissions that will allow the government to prosecute high-level terrorists including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It strips detainees of a habeas corpus right to challenge their detentions in court and broadly defines what kind of treatment of detainees is prosecutable as a war crime.

The bill was a compromise between the White House and three Republican senators who had pushed back against what they saw as President Bush’s attempt to rewrite the nation’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions. But while the president had to relent on some of the key specifics, it allowed him to claim victory in achieving one of his main legislative priorities.

All I have to say is 65-34! The American public wants us to have the power to protect us, not tie our hands as Clinton did. They know it, and even in this politically charged, highly partisan times, some Democrats know it.

Bush agrees:

Democrats offer nothing but criticism and obstructionism and endless second-guessing. The party of FDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt), the party of Harry Truman, has become the party of cut and run

This is the lasting legacy of today’s Democrats. Cut and run, refuse to fight, refuse to make a terrorist a bit cold , refuse to actually take the steps needed to protect this country.

I hope your proud lefties….

I know I am of my party.

Congratulations to Bush and the Republicans for fighting the good fight and prevailing.

what a bad day for the ACLU…

House passes warrantless domestic spying measure

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would provide congressional authorization for President George W. Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program but subject it to new rules.

With a court battle waging over the program’s legality, the House, controlled by Bush’s fellow Republicans, approved the measure on a largely party-line vote of 232-191.

The Senate, however, has been unable to agree on a bill of its own, preventing Bush from getting a final measure to sign into law before members of Congress go home to campaign for the November 7 elections. That had been a top Republican goal.
the link is here..

and to make their day worse…….

Senate gives final approval to detainee bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday gave final approval to a bill for tough interrogation and prosecution of terrorism suspects, as President George W. Bush prevailed after a series of setbacks on his detainee policies.

The Senate passed the bill 65-34, hours after Bush was on Capitol Hill urging Republicans to stay behind the high-profile measure ahead of November 7 elections that will determine control of Congress.

The House of Representatives passed the same measure on Wednesday and must make a technical change to reconcile it with the Senate’s. Bush was expected to sign it soon afterward.
the link is here.

I can hear those ACLU jerks yelling from here…..and a bad day for the ACLU is a good day for me…..

I wonder how many of the Democrats who voted yeas are in tight races??

And as Powerline pointed out, what would be the chances be of either of these two bills passing if the Democrats controlled Congress??

Zip…….

Mexico opposed to U.S. border fence

MEXICO CITY – Mexico warned Thursday that the U.S. proposal to build miles of border fence will damage relations between the two countries.

The Foreign Relations Department said it was “deeply worried” about the proposal, which is working its way through the Senate, adding it will “increase tension in border communities.”

“These measures will harm the bilateral relationship. They are against the spirit of co-operation that is needed to guarantee security on the common border,” the department said in a statement.

The House of Representatives and Senate are maneuvering to speed construction of a 700-mile fence along the United States’ southern border aimed at keeping migrants and criminals from entering the country illegally.

A House-Senate homeland security funding bill containing $1.2 billion to begin building the fence could be passed and sent to President Bush before lawmakers depart Washington this weekend.

Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said that only a comprehensive immigration reform would stop millions of Mexicans sneaking across its northern desert and swimming over the Rio Grande into the United States.

“A partial measure that is exclusively focused on security does not deal with reality and represents a political answer rather than a viable solution,” it said in the statement.

President Vicente Fox has rallied against the wall, calling it “shameful” and comparing it to the Berlin Wall, which divided Germany.

President-elect Felipe Calderon, who takes over from Fox on Dec.1, has also spoken out against the measure.

There are an estimated 11 million Mexicans in the United States, about half of whom are illegal. Last year, Mexican migrants sent home more than $20 billion in remittances, providing Mexico with its second biggest source of foreign income after oil.
The link is here.

which is why Mexico opposes it……

we have millions of people in our country not paying taxes and using our resources. Even worse, remember the talk by many illegals of Reconquering America?

many Mexicans seriously want to take back the territories lost in the Mexican War.

And the rest of America may fall with it if we do not get this wall built……

by Curt at Flopping Aces

After reading the NIE myself I can honestly say that the Post and the Times have disgraced themselves once again. Their articles are blatant attempts to bring down the Republican side in this election by any means necessary, including mischaracterizing a classified intelligence document.

Lets take a look at the document shall we?

United States-led counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa’ida and disrupted its operations; however, we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization. We also assess that the global jihadist movement—which includes al-Qa’ida, affiliated and independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells—is spreading and adapting to counterterrorism efforts.

Ok, our counterterrorism tactics have worked and seriously damaged our enemy, but they are adapting to our efforts. I mean this is news? We have done a good job in capturing or killing our enemy but it’s just plain common sense to expect them to adapt and change. They are not stupid. Every enemy we have ever faced adapts to the battlefield. They would have to be some dumb mothereffers if they didn’t.

Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim majority nations would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit. Over time, such progress, together with sustained, multifaceted programs targeting the vulnerabilities of the jihadist movement and continued pressure on al-Qa’ida, could erode support for the jihadists.

Hmmm….you mean a Democratic society?

We assess that the global jihadist movement is decentralized, lacks a coherent global strategy, and is becoming more diffuse. New jihadist networks and cells, with anti-American agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge. The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups.

Translation – We have been so successful at tearing apart the enemy they are now basically cockroaches scattering as the lights go on. As they scatter individually it will be harder to find them….

But as long as they are scattered and running we are winning….

The Iraq conflict has become the “cause celebre” for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

Funny, there was deep resentment of US involvement in Afghanistan, in Beirut, in Israel, in Bosnia, on and on and on….face it fellas, the fanatics inside the Islam faith will resent us no matter what we do. Now they changed it to Iraq, surprise surprise. Recall that pre-2003 Osama said his stated goal was to get western troops out of the holy land (Saudi Arabia). When we left the “holy land” after the Iraqi war he suddenly changed his mind and now stated it was to get us out of Iraq. I mean it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out, you would think even a lefty could get it.

Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement: (1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; (2) the Iraq “jihad;” (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims—all of which jihadists exploit.

Is there anything new in this list that hasn’t been on a list for the last 10 years plus? Ok, maybe the Iraqi thing but 10 years ago lets substitute Bosnia for Iraq and Ta-Duh! It’s the same damn list.

Concomitant vulnerabilities in the jihadist movement have emerged that, if fully exposed and exploited, could begin to slow the spread of the movement. They include dependence on the continuation of Muslim-related conflicts, the limited appeal of the jihadistsÂ’ radical ideology, the emergence of respected voices of moderation, and criticism of the violent tactics employed against mostly Muslim citizens.

Now this may be new. Especially the emergence of respected voices of moderation. If this is true then that is a great sign.

The jihadistsÂ’ greatest vulnerability is that their ultimate political solution— – an ultra-conservative interpretation of shariÂ’a-based governance spanning the Muslim world—is unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims. Exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadistsÂ’ propaganda would help to divide them from the audiences they seek to persuade.

No surprise there.

If democratic reform efforts in Muslim majority nations progress over the next five years, political participation probably would drive a wedge between intransigent extremists and groups willing to use the political process to achieve their local objectives. Nonetheless, attendant reforms and potentially destabilizing transitions will create new opportunities for jihadists to exploit.

President Bush’s plan to bring Democracy to the Middle East can work. It will take time and there will be many bumps in the road but over the long term this is the only way to bring hope to those who do not have any. If you bring hope to a poor Arab kid, things CAN change.

You would think the MSM and the leftists would want people to be free. but instead the leftists inside the MSM believe they can somehow shape public opinion in such a way that the public will believe terrorism didn’t exist prior to 2003. Amazing isn’t it? To think that someone can honestly believe this is beyond me.

If you haven’t had a chance to view the video of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan taking the leftist hack reporter Jennifer Loven to task, you should. Hot Air has the video and here is the transcript:

KARZAI: Ma’am, before I go to the remarks by my brother, President Musharraf, terrorism was hurting us way before Iraq or September 11. The president mentioned some examples of it.

These extremist forces were killing people in Afghanistan and around for years, closing schools, burning mosques, killing children, uprooting vineyards with vine trees, grapes hanging on them, forcing populations to poverty and misery.

They came to America on September 11, but they were attacking you before September 11 in other parts of the world.

We are a witness in Afghanistan as to what they are and how they can hurt. You are a witness in New York.

Do you forget people jumping off the 80th floor or 70th floor when the planes hit them? Can you imagine what it will be for a man or a woman to jump off that high?

Who did that? And where are they now? And how do we fight them, how do we get rid of them, other than going after them? Should we wait for them to come and kill us again?

You really should watch the video.

Finally I have to talk up a great post by The Anchoress, and in particular this paragraph which sums all this up quite nicely:

The bottom line is, we were attacked all through the 1990’s and even before…and no one ever asked “what did Clinton,” or “Reagan” do to “make them mad at us?” The answer is, of course, nothing. They’ve been “mad at us” for at least 30 years. But somehow they only got mad at us once Bush went into Iraq. Yeah, that’s it. Except, it’s not.

That’s the bottom line people. This is partisan politics before a election, and the whole MSM is pulling out the stops.

from Haider Ajina

On Thursday a Shiite religious leader in Karbala province called upon the Sunnis who left Karbala to please return to their homes. These Sunnis left after the attack on Askariah Shrine in samara last February. Please return to your homes to help of our national unity and national reconciliation programs started by Iraqi PM Alamliki to succeed.

Mr. Ahmad Alhussieny, a member of the Karbala provincial assembly (thus an elected official) and committee chair talked to Aswat Aliraq (an independent Iraqi news agency). Alhussieny said; ‘the return of displaced Sunnis to Karbala province (a heavily Shiite province) and the return their mosque’s use, which was vacated after the explosion at the Askariah shrine in Samara, is essential to the success of national reconciliation. This is very important and a way for the people of Karbala to show that we are committed to peace and reconciliation and will not be drawn, by the enemies of Iraq, into sectarian or religious strife. Alhussieny then called on the other provinces to follow Karbalas’ lead, by opening their hearts and their doors to their dear Sunni brethren who have been with us through out history’.

He added, ‘In Karbala we have four Sunni tribes who carry prestige and influence, they are well known tribes like the Alsarifat & Alzakariet. We have over four thousand Sunnis brethren living in Karbala, none of who have suffered any harm since the fall of Saddam. The proclamation (or petition) calling for the return of any Sunni who has left Karbala for any reason was signed by the people of Karbala. The proclamation also demanded the return of the Sunni Alabasiah Mosque, to allow the Sunnis to practice their rituals and prayers. The Sunni residents of Karbala left their homes after sectarian strife was ignited by the Samara incidence; they locked up their Abasiah Mosque’.

My comments,
We continue to hear about what are reported as sectarian attacks. Most these attacks are by Saddamists and Alqaida in Iraq and their ilk. These groups are working together to continue to destabilize the government and try to start the fire of civil war and sectarian violence. Try as hard as they may Iraq is not going to draw Iraqis to that. Most of religious and political leaders both Sunni and Shiite are continually calling for national reconciliation and national unity. There are few fiery leaders who are not of the main stream and for their political benefit and to try to gain more power are preaching strife and non-cooperation. Iraqis know who they are and continue calling on them to stop this behavior. Most of these leaders are supported by Iran, Syria & Saudi Arabia, directly or indirectly.

Recently the Iraqi president Jelal Talebani (in an interview, on September 26, during his visits to the USA) warned Iraq’s neighboring countries that Iraq can cause difficulties for them if they do not stop meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs. He added that Syria, Iran and Turkey (Turkey was accused of shelling some Kurdish villages and sending some troops in and out of the boarder with Iraq) are interfering with Iraq’s affairs and warned them that Iraqi patience is on the verge of running out. We demand that you (Iran, Syria and Turkey) stop interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs, and respect its sovereignty and independence, or we will be forced to make certain statements’.

Very interesting words indeed. It appears that those who are truly afraid of a strong, independent, democratic, secular, strong, law respecting Iraq are pushing harder and harder to stop that from happening. Is that because Iraq is gradually moving in the right direction?

By Robert Farrow

If one ever wondered what it was like to live in a one party system, they would only have to travel to Maryland, where apparently it is almost illegal to be both Republican and black. (not that white and Republican is much better.) In November African-American Democratic leaders including Maryland state senator Verna Jones said Republican Senate Candidate Michael Steele (who is black-for those who do not know Maryland politics) invited comparisons to an oreo and Uncle Tom because he is a republican. Recently Democratic opponent Ben Cardin brilliantly attacked Steele in an effort to try to link Katrina and anti-Republican sentiments, which of course has everything to do with Baltimore’s failing school system and high murder rate. Cardin also stated he would not use race in the senate race The simple fact that the candidates say they will not talk about race shows you how far we have to go in the issue of race.

Sadly, the latest Cardin Steele poll confirms the fact that too many blacks still view any black Republican as traitors. I have tried to have a rational dialogue on the various political merits of the different parties with many in that community, but with many politics have devolved into name-calling. More may be lost here then is first thought.
For when the ability is lost to consider new ideas and evaluate your own beliefs and values rationally, you have ceased evolving as an individual and a society. And as the old adage goes, an idea and a belief that cannot stand up to scrutiny is not a belief worth having. As I heard an African-American co-worker defend the oreo comment, I noticed that a culture that prides itself on diversity appears to be intellectually and politically discriminatory

For as much as a disagree with liberal Democrats I would never want their kind to disappear from the world entirely, as it keeps the Conservatives intellectually honest.
And there are real, valid differences between the parties that deserve real consideration and merit. But it is so much easier, and often more politically damaging just to say that republicans hate the poor, gays, blacks, or just insert your target group here. But again, there are real differences that too often get lost in the name-calling. For examples, the Democrats believe the best way to fight poverty is handouts and welfare programs, where the republicans think the best thing to do is create a business climate where the poor can get a job, car, house, and become the middle class. (After all, what has decades of social programs done for urban society?) Simply, the difference between Democrats and Republicans is the Democrats think you cannot get by with them and the Republicans think you will do best if we just stay out of your way and let you keep all your money.
But they were not listening.

I could have also talk to them about the history of the GOP, and who was the anti-slavery party, or in what party the first black senator sat, or who voted in greater numbers for the civil rights act, or what party had the most people of color in positions of power, but no one was listening. I could point out that decades of Democratic rule in Baltimore city has only left whole blocks in rubble, and regardless of what O’Malley says Baltimore has the highest murder rate in the US and the second worse graduation rate. But still, no one is listening

And if you stop listening, you stop thinking. And if you stop thinking you stop evolving and you get taken advantage of. Welcome to Maryland, the closest one can get to a one-party system in American. Such is the effect of intellectual discrimination and a lack of political diversity

A system of one party, one thought, benefits nobody.

by Curt at Flopping Aces

Kinda funny how the MSM chose to put up a headline like this:

Poll: Iraqis back attacks on U.S. troops

and

Most Iraqis Favor Immediate U.S. Pullout, Polls Show

and even this one from the polling company itself:

Most Iraqis Want US Troops Out Within a Year

When the actual meat of the poll states: (of course it’s not in the article itself, you have to read the whole report to find this passage)

Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very).

Views of Osama bin Laden are only slightly less negative. Overall 93 percent have an unfavorable view, with 77 percent very unfavorable. Very unfavorable views are expressed by 87 percent of Kurds and 94 percent of Shias. Here again, the Sunnis are negative, but less unequivocally—71 percent have an unfavorable view (23% very), and 29 percent a favorable view (3% very).

So the Iraqi’s hate Al-Qaeda, absolutely hate them. Good news, since this would also be the opposite of what the Democrats are schreeching about lately with the NIE that was leaked out recently. Mainly that our presence in Iraq is breeding more hatred, while in fact it appears Al-Qaeda’s presense in Iraq is the one breeding the hatred. One other good aspect, one in which this news article seemed to view as a negative, is that the Iraqi’s are trusting their military and police to keep them safe. If this poll is correct they feel they can do a better job of protecting their own people now then we can.

This is good news since this was not the case a year ago. Then they were begging for us to stay, since they had not been completely trained up. Now they believe they can do the job themselves.

Why is this:

An overwhelming majority believes that the US military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing and there is growing confidence in the Iraqi army. If the US made a commitment to withdraw, a majority believes that this would strengthen the Iraqi government.

and this:

Another factor that may be contributing to Iraqi’s readiness to have US-led forces leave is a growing confidence in Iraqi security forces. Asked to assess the readiness of Iraqi security forces to stand on their own in six months, 53 percent say that they “will be strong enough to deal with the security challenges Iraq will face” while 46 percent say they “will still need the help of military forces from other countries.”

When those who thought Iraqi security forces will still need the help of foreign forces six months were asked how much longer they thought this help would be needed, 9 percent (of the total sample) said one year, 21 percent two years and 16 percent three years. Thus 62 percent overall believe that Iraqi security forces will be able to stand on their own in one year.

A bad thing? It’s not. This means we have almost completed our job. Yes, they view that we are creating more problems due to the attacks but they believe their OWN military can now handle the job…….

You would think this would make the liberals happy, but no…..

Erika (1000+ posts) Wed Sep-27-06 12:37 AM
Response to Original message
1. Duh..Only W’s corporate Iraqi puppets want us there n/t

LibDemAlways (1000+ posts) Wed Sep-27-06 01:29 AM
Response to Original message
5. The Bush Crime Family neither knows nor cares what

the Iraqis want. What they want is the oil, and they’re not planning to leave while there’s a drop to be had.

The Iraqi’s starting to stand on their own two feet is not good because Bushitler will just shove them back down…didn’t you know that?

One last thing that may interest you is this little tidbit on page 3 of the whole report:

The poll was fielded by KA Research Limited/D3 Systems, Inc. Polling was conducted September 1-4 with a nationwide sample of 1,150, which included an oversample of Arab Sunnis.

Funny since Sunni’s comprise of only 32-37% of the population. They chose to oversample them in this poll?

Smells fishy to me.

Other’s Blogging:

by Brujo Blanco

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.

1st Amendment, US Constitution

Perhaps the founding fathers had a reason for putting the first amendment first. Maybe they felt that it should be number one because it is very important. Nowhere in this amendment is there an identified restriction on individuals. The ACLU and other leftie organizations such as Americans for the Separation of Church and State have morphed this amendment, in their minds, as a weapon against religion and free speech. Their fictional “Separation of Church and State” is being used to restrict freedom.

The homo promo crowd has been campaigning for the acknowledgement, acceptance, and celebration of homosexuality. They have been very successful at using the media. In many circles they have succeeded in equating homosexuals with groups such as blacks and other minorities. They have a behavior group, homosexuals, that have been identified as a minority group. The problem that we are facing now is that their forays into the legislative arena has been somewhat successful in furtherance of their cause. My great fear is that at some point these pinheads are going to be looking to protect the rights of pedophiles.

On August 9, 2006 Governor Arnold Swarzenegger has offered his assistance by signing a new law in California. This California law SB1441 has tossed out all sexual moral codes throughout his state if any of these institutions receive any type of aid from the state or federal government. In fact the new law mandates the condoning of sexual behavior such as homosexuality, bisexuality, and transvestites. There are no exceptions granted. This law covers both public and private schools. If a private or religious school accepts funds, accepts any students receiving any type of government aid the school has been rendered subject to this new law.

This new law actually prohibits the teachings of the Bible regarding homosexuality. It is now illegal to teach anything negative about these perversions. (Oh my! How politically incorrect of me!)

Here’s a list of some of the programs that would render an institution subject to this new law:

-Medical

-State Disability Insurance

-Calworks

-Food Stamps

-Unemployment Insurance

-Worker’s Compensation

-Child Support Services

-Veteran’s Services

-Home Loan Programs

This bill will, without a doubt, restrict the ability of individuals and institutions to express their views against homosexuality.

In California they are now requiring a teaching curriculum regarding homosexual subjects. This law actually prohibits any negative teachings regarding homosexuality and the like. In other words teachers are not free to teach any other point of view.

Our friends to the north in Canada have gone much further. There are now hate speech statutes in Canada that reach deep enough that they have touched the pulpit. In this country it is unlawful to do or say anything that would make an identifiable minority uncomfortable.

There is some speculation that this law could result in some institutions, such as churches, no longer being eligible for police or fire protection if the institution fails to comply with this law.

Now one might ask what this has to do with Maryland. The answer lies in something called precedence. Some states if they intend on going this route look to other states and their statutes to use as a template. One might ask why a foreign law was mentioned and the answer is that the federal courts from time to time put some reliance in foreign courts and laws for precedence.

When writing and reviewing laws legislative bodies and courts respectively should be looking to primary law which is the US Constitution. Anytime a new law is drafting primary law should be not only the guide but the mandate.

California has stepped over the line. Hopefully, the courts will strike this down and others will come to their senses.

Physi­cists say they have made an ob­ject move just by watch­ing it. This is in­spir­ing them to a still bold­er proj­ect: put­ting a small, or­di­nary thing in­to two places at once.

It may be a “fan­ta­sy,” ad­mits Keith Schwab of Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty in Ith­a­ca, N.Y., one of the re­search­ers. Then again, the first ef­fect seemed that way not long ago, and the sec­ond is re­lat­ed.

The re­search comes from the edge of quan­tum me­chan­ics, the sub­mi­cro­sco­pic realm of fun­da­men­tal par­t­i­cles. There, things be­have with to­tal dis­re­gard for our com­mon sense.

They can show signs of be­ing in two places at once; of be­ing both waves and par­ti­cles; of tak­ing on some cha­r­ac­ter­is­t­ics on­ly at the mo­ment these are meas­ured; and of act­ing syn­chro­nous­ly while far apart, with no ap­par­ent way to com­mu­ni­cate.

Al­though these ti­ny build­ing blocks of our uni­verse do this, the re­l­a­tively huge things we see eve­ry day don’t. The un­can­ny be­hav­ior fades the big­ger a thing be­comes.

This is be­cause when quan­tum en­t­i­ties are com­bined to make or­di­na­ry ob­jects, the rules go­vern­ing each com­po­nen­t’s be­ha­v­ior add up to pro­duce new rules. These in­c­rea­s­ing­ly re­sem­ble the laws of our fa­mi­l­iar re­a­li­ty as more ad­di­tions take place.

But just how big can some­thing be and still show signs of slip­ping back in­to its quan­tum-me­chan­i­cal na­ture?

Schwab and his col­leagues de­cid­ed to find out. In work de­s­cribed in the Sept. 14 is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Na­ture, they built a de­vice co­los­sal by quan­tum stan­dards: about nine thou­sandths of a mil­li­me­ter long, con­tain­ing some 10 tril­lion atoms.

The ob­ject was a sliv­er of alu­mi­num and a type of ce­ram­ic, fixed at both ends but free to vi­brate like a gui­tar string in be­tween. To meas­ure its move­ments, the sci­en­tists set near­by a ti­ny de­tec­tor called a su­per­con­duct­ing sin­gle elec­tron tran­sis­tor.

They found that ran­dom mo­tions of charge-carrying par­ti­cles, elec­trons, in the de­tec­tor em­a­nat­ed forc­es that af­fect­ed the me­tal­lic sliv­er. When the de­tec­tor was tuned for max­i­mum sen­si­tiv­i­ty, these forc­es slowed down the sliv­er’s shak­ing, cool­ing it as a re­sult. This ef­fect, Schwab said, is a ba­si­cal­ly quan­tum-me­chan­i­cal phe­nom­e­non called back-action, in which the act of ob­serv­ing some­thing ac­tu­al­ly gives it a nudge.

Back-action in quan­tum me­chan­ics al­so makes it im­pos­si­ble to know a par­ti­cle’s ex­act lo­ca­tion and speed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. This lim­i­ta­tion is called the un­cer­tain­ty prin­ci­ple. A com­mon ex­am­ple: meas­ur­ing place and speed re­quires some de­tec­tor that can “see” the par­ti­cle. But this in­volves bounc­ing a light wave off it, which gives it a ran­dom push.

“We made meas­urements of po­si­tion that are so in­tense—so strongly cou­pled—that by look­ing at it we can make it move,” said Schwab. Nor­mal­ly, such mo­tion would­n’t cool an ob­ject. But the mo­tion can be such as to op­pose on­go­ing move­ments and slow them down. This re­duces an ob­ject’s heat, which is just the jig­gling of par­ti­cles in it.

If back-action ap­plies such a large item, Schwab rea­sons, may­be that can al­so be true of oth­er quan­tum-me­chan­i­cal rules. Particularly in­tri­guing, he said, is the superpo­si­tion prin­ci­ple, which holds that a par­ti­cle can be in two places at once.

A classic ex­am­ple is the shoot­ing of light par­ti­cles, called pho­tons, through two slits in a bar­rier. Past the slits, they will be­have as if they were waves. This alone is no sur­prise: it’s a well-known quan­tum me­chan­i­cal phe­nom­e­non that par­ti­cles can par­a­dox­i­cal­ly act like waves in some sit­u­a­tions. The pho­tons’ wav­i­ness then makes them “in­ter­fere” with each oth­er. In oth­er words, they make pat­terns like those seen when you toss two peb­bles in a pond, and the rip­ples they make overlap.

When the waves passing the two slits mu­tu­al­ly in­ter­fere, the pat­tern be­comes vi­si­ble if you set up anoth­er wall where the pho­tons can land. There, al­ter­nat­ing bright and dark stripes ap­pear.

But bi­zarre­ly, this works even if you fire just one pho­ton at a time through the slits. You can see the ef­fect then by put­ting pho­to­graph­ic film on the land­ing wall, so each pho­ton leaves a last­ing mark. Keep fir­ing pho­tons, and the marks grad­u­al­ly add up to make the stripes again.

It’s as if each pho­ton is in­ter­fer­ing with it­self—that is, go­ing through both slits si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. This al­so works for big­ger par­ti­cles, up to a point. But what point? Schwab wants to know. “We’re try­ing to make a me­chan­i­cal de­vice be in two places at one time. What’s real­ly neat is it looks like we should be able to do it,” he said. “The hope, the dream, the fan­ta­sy is that we get that superpo­si­tion and start mak­ing big­ger de­vices and find the break­down.”

In a com­men­tary in the same is­sue of Na­ture, Mi­chael Roukes of the Cal­i­for­nia In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy in Pas­a­de­na, Calif., wrote that Schwab’s work with the cool­ing is part of an emerg­ing field, quan­tum electrome­chan­ics. This, he added, fo­cus­es on sub­mi­cro­scop­ic de­vices called nanome­chan­i­cal sys­tems, “poised mid­way be­tween two seem­ingly an­ti­thet­i­c do­mains” of size: fun­da­men­tal par­ti­cles at one end, the ob­jects of eve­ryday life at the oth­er.

from World Science

Has it always been this way? Has mainstream journalism always been so transparently agenda-driven as it is today? Probably. It’s just that we didn’t notice it until the rise of alternative media in the form of talk radio and blogs that began challenging our state religion of illiberal leftism.

The question is again raised because of the fraudulent reporting of those slimese twins, the New York Times and the Washington Post, on the National Intelligence Estimate. Now that President Bush has declassified the document, we see that its overarching conclusion is the exact opposite of what the liberal media would have you believe.

There’s plenty of good blogging on this story already (e.g., Dr. Sanity, Right Wing Nuthouse, American Thinker, et al), so there’s little I can add in that regard. As always, I will try to consider the cosmic implications.

There is absolute truth and there is relative truth. Ironically, contrary to what most sophisticates will tell you, it is possible to know absolute truth absolutely. Being that truth is another matter, but knowing it is a human birthright. For example, we may know absolutely that reality is One, that appearance is not the same as reality, that the world is intelligible, and that human beings possess free will with which they may choose good or evil. This is the realm of perennial religious truth, which expresses metaphysical knowledge in sometimes mythological language accessible to virtually everyone.

As I mentioned in my book, you might think of religion as the science of the Ultimate Subject, and science as the religion of the ultimate object. While we may possess objective knowledge of the ultimate subject–e.g., he is love-truth-beauty, or being-consciousness-bliss, or father-son-holy spirit–we can possess no similar knowledge of the relative world, where everything is tinged with human subjectivity. But “subjective” should not be confused with “arbitrary” or “untrue.”

The philosophical tragedy of our day is that the postmodernists use this subjective opening–which is an inevitable artifact of our humaness–to come in with their wrecking ball and destroy the whole idea of objective truth, thus elevating relativity to an objective truth. In so doing, they promulgate the “false vertical” idea that there are absolutely no absolutes, a metaphysical absurdity if ever there was one. In other words, as soon as you say it is absolutely true that all knowledge is relative, you have disproved your own statement. You have actually acknowledged that humans may objectively know absolute truth.

In order to understand the relative world, we must begin with an objectively true framework or paradigm that puts everything in its proper place and allows us to “see” what is important or significant. But the secular assault on religion has badly damaged the extraordinarly bountiful framework (“fruitfulness” being an aspect of truth) that guided western civilization for hundreds of years , only to replace it with their own thoroughly secularized pseudo-religion that we know of as “leftism.” (Memo to moonbats: I am not making the absurd suggestion that all leftists are somehow “bad people.” Rather, I am drawing out the implications of the leftist world view, implications that the average well-meaning leftist surely doesn’t even understand, much less approve of.)

I have heard estimates from reputable members of the elite media that the typical newsroom probably tilts fifteen or twenty to one, liberal to conservative. But at the same time, virtually every one of them believes that they can see beyond their own biases and report the news “objectively.” One wonders what they would say if the situation were reversed, and all newsrooms, not to mention universities, had twenty times as many conservatives as leftists. Especially given their built-in victim mentality and sense of entitlement, there would be howls of indignation. There would be calls for civil rights investigations, ACLU lawsuits, boycotts.

But because of their absurd philosophy, these leftists would see only a structural problem of “not enough liberals” instead of recognizing the truth that their own opinions, attitudes and perceptions are thoroughly colored by their own leftist assumptions. They would have to concede that “I see the world completely differently because I am a liberal,” and they would have to abandon their pretense of journalistic objectivity.

This is why so few people trust the liberal media anymore, because they will not admit their biases. Whatever President Bush’s perceived level of trustworthiness, you can be sure that the MSM’s is significantly lower. And yet, the latter will arrogantly opine on the former, as if their opinions about Bush’s trustworthiness are trustworthy! If they were forthright, they’d say, “don’t trust me on this, but I don’t think Bush is very trustworthy.”

And this is why people flock to alternative sources of news such as talk radio, blogs, and Fox news–because they are transparent. I don’t pretend that I see the world through anything other than the lens of classical American liberalism. Viewed through that lens, the world is an entirely different place than it is when viewed through the lens of illiberal leftism. We literally see different things. We have different assumptions, different ideas about what is important, different values, different notions of good and evil, even entirely different ideas about fundamental causes.

For example, the typical liberal unreflexively believes that “poverty causes crime” (thus the New York Times’ clueless headline, “Crime Down Despite Rise in Prison Population”) whereas I believe that bad values cause crime. The difference is that the typical liberal has never thought this through. They are generally quite naive about their beliefs, for the simple reason that they have never been challenged. They don’t experience the kind of constant cognitive friction that a conservative does, so they don’t even know how to argue or defend their ideas, which we saw with Clinton last Sunday.

Liberals will typically say that Israeli policies somehow have something to do with Palestinian terror, while I believe that Palestinian terror is caused by their psychotic death cult theology. After all, there are no Christian Palestinian terrorists. They are just as “occupied” as Palestinian Muslims, and yet, it doesn’t occur to the Christians to strap on bombs with pieces of twisted metal and rat poison in order to kill and maim as many women and children as possible.

You and I are not even able to entertain thoughts so evil. We cannot even go there. Under no circumstances whatsoever can we imagine decapitating an innocent journalist or murdering a baby. But could I waterboard a terrorist to stop a terror attack? In a hearbeat. I literally cannot understand the mind of the person who wouldn’t (or the truly “pro-torture” mind of someone who makes excuses for Palestinian terror, which is to essentially say that they would not rule out engaging in it themselves). Different values. Different world. If fighting Islamo-nazis means that more of them are willing to fight for the cause of evil, that’s okay. There is a ready solution: kill them faster.

If you unreflexively believe that poverty causes crime or that the cause of terror is fighting it, then all of your reporting is going to reflect those basic assumptions, something we constantly see in the liberal media. For them, these notions are simply “reality,” whereas the idea that bad values cause crime or an evil theology causes terror are “conservative” ideas. Neither point of view is absolutely true, but one is much more true.

Thus, we should not be surprised when liberals take things out of context and distort reality to fit their peceptions. For them to say “the war on terror causes terrorists” is simply a cherished assumption dressed up as a conclusion. If you give it a moment’s thought, their whole world view is just so stupid. Would they ever report that terrorists are the cause of the American military that liberals so despise, and that if terrorists would only appease America, our military would stop trying to harm them? Or that Islamo-nazis have to stop their unwinnable war on the west, because it will only create more George Bushes and Tony Blairs and John Howards?

Or that they themselves must stop mindlessly attacking conservatives, because it will just make us stronger?

Personally, I hope they never figure out that last one.

from One Cosmos

The UN is in Lebanon, and it’s about as useless as a vote for Dennis Kucinich:

TIBNIN, Lebanon, Sept. 24 — One month after a United Nations Security Council resolution ended a 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, members of the international force sent to help keep the peace say their mission is defined more by what they cannot do than by what they can.

They say they cannot set up checkpoints, search cars, homes or businesses or detain suspects. If they see a truck transporting missiles, for example, they say they can not stop it. They cannot do any of this, they say, because under their interpretation of the Security Council resolution that deployed them, they must first be authorized to take such action by the Lebanese Army.

The job of the United Nations force, and commanders in the field repeat this like a mantra, is to respect Lebanese sovereignty by supporting the Lebanese Army. They will only do what the Lebanese authorities ask.

The hills are aliiiiiive with the sound of bullcrap…………..
from Stop the ACLU

What a useless organization. And what is worse, it has become a corrupt organization where dictators lecture democracies, where a strongman and friend of tyrants can come into the best country on earth and call their leader evil. If we called Hugo evil in his country, we would go to jail

I would pull out of the UN tomorrow it I could.

Stop the ACLU also reports that House Passes Public Expression Of Religion Act: 244 to 173. The legislation still needs to pass the Senate and for that to happen we will need all the support we can get.

Americans United for Seperation of Church and State are quite upset!

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said the House leadership is obsessed with playing to powerful Religious Right lobbying groups that have been pressing for the legislation.

“This bill is a sop to the Religious Right, but even worse a dangerous attack on the First Amendment,” Lynn said. “The House leadership is openly hostile to federal courts for upholding church-state separation and this bill reflects that motivation. The bill seeks to slam the courthouse doors on citizens who challenge government-sponsored religious activities. It is a repugnant affront to the civil rights of all Americans.”

No it doesn’t…it seeks to level the playing field so the ACLU cannot intimidate small towns and cash-strapped schools are not beholden to the anti-American, extra-constitutional ACLU agenda.

The hysterical editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune this morning is typical of the half-truths and deceptive practices within the MSM that has brought it so low in respect for its reliability and, consequently, its profitability and viability.

Titled “A Soviet secrets act,” as purposely inflammatory a headline as the editorialist can imagine, the editorial rails against the Senate Bill 3774 that (the editorial only mentions Senator Bond) Senators Chris Bond, Lott, Chambliss, Stevens, Cochran, Burns, Hatch, Santorum, Cornyn, Domenici, Bennett and Alexander introduced last summer, with the endorsement of the 4,500-member current and former Association for Intelligence Officers.

For fairness, more than the editorial considers appropriate, the entire editorial is below. Then we’ll add what the editorial doesn’t consider relevant for the public to know. That epitomizes the abuse of position and public trust and ears that the MSM has fallen to, in effect, demands for official irresponsibility both on the part of government officials to whom we entrust our very lives and on the part of leaders in media who expect it’s their right to ignore that trust.

These are not good days to be whistle-blowers or investigative reporters. Between the federal government’s relentless push to put more of its activities under wraps and the increasing readiness of prosecutors at all levels to try to force journalists to give up their sources, the whole notion of a watchdog media sometimes seems under siege.

If that seems a tad melodramatic, consider Senate Bill 3774. Sponsored by Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., the bill is a de facto Official Secrets Act, under which for the first time the disclosure of any classified information would be a criminal act. Contrary to the contentions of the measure’s loudest supporters, there are already laws to punish those whose disclosures harm national security. Also contrary to their contentions, there are hundreds of examples of government scandal, waste and perfidy that only came to light because of whistle-blowers’ courage and reporters’ digging.

This is not to belittle the concerns of those who worry that at a time of war, the media are insufficiently worried about national security. Yet those who voice their fear often seem inclined to give undue deference to politicians whose opposition to disclosure may be driven by less-worthy concerns. It is hardly outrageous, for example, to wonder whether the secrecy surrounding domestic electronic eavesdropping was more about delaying the inevitable legal challenges to its legitimacy than any other factor.

The Supreme Court may yet declare such eavesdropping to be illegal. Yet Bond and his allies would have us live in a country where the disclosure of government lawbreaking is itself against the law.
This is outrageous. We are not the Soviet Union. We are not Saudi Arabia. We hope this occurs to a majority of senators before they embrace Bond’s atrocity of a bill.

I wrote at length on this subject last June, before the reintroduction of this Bill. Please refer to it for links about what is summarized below.

This Bill has a history that is not told us by the editorial. As Senator Bond makes clear in his August 2, 2006 Statement introducing the Bill, it is the “legislation that was passed by the Intelligence Committee in 2000. It had been adopted by unanimous vote, but it was vetoed at the time.”

In other words, prior to 9/11, prior to the Democrats shamelessly exploiting or manufacturing any charge against the prosecution of the war in Iraq for the political purpose of bringing down Bush and reimplanting their own boot on Congress and the presidency, the U.S. Congress in November 2000 passed this Bill, only to have then President Clinton veto it the following month in one of his last official acts, after intense lobbying by the major media organizations.

The new Bush administration’s conciliatory stance toward the media, in the wake of 9/11, was reflected in then Attorney General John Ashcroft’s concurrence with the veto in October 2002. Ashcroft, recognizing that prior efforts to enforce security leaks had been slight, encouraged government agencies to increase their security safeguards.

That conciliatory stance has not been reciprocated, either by the major media or the Democrat Party or its allies within government bureaucracies, especially some within the CIA. Instead, leak after leak of national security secrets have been vaingloriously trumpeted, and selectively exposed for maximum damage, by the major media, without regard either for the stakes of a nation at war.

In August, the 1917 Espionage Act was upheld by the U.S. District Court in Virginia, saying: “[E]ven private citizens who do not hold security clearances can be prosecuted for unauthorized receipt and disclosure of classified information.” That’s the reasonable judgment the editorial hopes for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn.

Every body examining the wiretapping program exposed by the media has found it legitimate and lawful, most recently the Europeans (although the NYT’s seeks to obscure that). More importantly, the program has proven itself essential to the war against our enemies. Yet, the editorial blithely misinforms and slanders the program and its supporters by accusing its secrecy as being solely for the purpose of hiding lawbreaking, ignoring the rest of the truth.

As the Associated Press report on the Bill states:

Government workers, contractors or anyone who has signed a nondisclosure agreement with the federal government could be prosecuted under Bond’s bill if they “knowingly and willfully” disclose classified information to someone who is not authorized to receive it.

So, what part of responsibility for adhering to one’s written agreement in order to be on the public’s payroll doesn’t the media, this editorialist, understand? There are within government inspector generals and within the Justice Department enforcers of law and within Congress legislators all authorized to investigate and disclose and correct infractions by government agencies, to whom whistle blowers may turn. No one deputized the New York Times or Washington Post, for example, with this legal responsibility. Nor do they have the necessary background, nor the necessary impartial integrity, to investigate and reveal wrongdoing.

Instead the editorial and major media expect, misuse their platform, to endorse what should be called official irresponsibility acts, on their part and by those in whom we’ve legitimately entrusted our nation’s safety. The extremist partisanship of this posture is deserving of the scorn the MSM has so widely earned.

As the Association for Intelligence Officers wrote in support of the Bill:

…a crisis now exists. With no serious punishments nor enforcement of penalties, we lack any meaningful impediment to this growing willful harm to the national interest. As a result, the leaks grow — essentially sabotaging our own intelligence and military operations and causing the deaths of our troops and intelligence operatives. Our allies, understandably, are losing trust that we can engage in mutual operations and hesitate to share crucial intelligence and battlefield information with us.

I’ll take their knowledgeable word for that, particularly over that of an obviously ignorant and self-centered and deceptive editorialist.
from the Democracy Project

In WWII our media revealed that the US could read the Japanese Imperial codes. Had the Japanese bothered to read our papers we might have lost WWII. At the very least hundreds of thousands more Americans would have died.

Our treasonist media today continues to reveal our secrets to our enemies. This kind of crap has been tolerated too long….. and should have been illegal yesterday……..why should it not be an illegal act?

Our stupid media is helping those that would destroy the free press in a heartbeat.

by Curt at Flopping Aces

I find it curious that the recent leaks to the Post and the Times about the National Intelligence Estimate recently issued seem to say that because of the Iraqi war we have more terrorists then we did before:

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

So let me see…..fanatics inside Islam didn’t hate us as much prior to the Iraqi invasion? Ok then, please explain 9/11 itself. Why were we attacked with such viciousness and violence if there really wasnt that much radicalism? How about the Afghanistan invasion, they were a little bit miffed about that also. The Danish cartoons? Our support for Israel? Our support for the Saudi royal family?

Maybe Mark Mazzetti, the Times author, could explain why were attacked in Beirut 83′, NYC 93′, Africa 98′, Cole 00′, if the “radicalism” wasn’t as deeply “fueled”?

Please note that there has not been an attack against American interests since 9/11. Does this mean we are actually winning this thing? Well, there can be no doubt we have been for the last five years. We have taken the fight to them overseas, just as Bush wanted, and it’s working.

But instead we get this kind of hyperbole from the Times about a document none of us can see.

Thankfully the author of In From The Cold, a former intelligence agent, has been able to talk to those who have actually seen the thing and they come away with a completely different assessment:

According to members of the intel community who have seen the document, the NIE is actually fair and balanced (to coin a phrase), noting both successes and failures in the War on Terror–and identifying potential points of failure for the jihadists.

[…]In one of its early paragraphs, the estimate notes progress in the struggle against terrorism, stating the U.S.-led efforts have “seriously damaged Al Qaida leadership and disrupted its operations.” Didn’t see that in the NYT article.

Or how about this statement, which–in part–reflects the impact of increased pressure on the terrorists: “A large body of reporting indicates that people identifying themselves as jihadists is increasing…however, they are largely decentralized, lack a coherent strategy and are becoming more diffuse.” Hmm…doesn’t sound much like Al Qaida’s pre-9-11 game plan.

This sentence pretty much kills the Times assertion that the Iraqi war is “fueling radicalism”:

And, some indication that the “growing” jihad may be pursuing the wrong course: “There is evidence that violent tactics are backfiring…their greatest vulnerability is that their ultimate political solution (shar’a law) is unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims.” Seems to contradict MSM accounts of a jihadist tsunami with ever-increasing support in the global Islamic community..

Did the Times just ignore these sentences? You bet your ass they did. They went right to any statement that would describe the Iraqi war in a negative context. It’s a textbook case of the bias in our MSM. Powerline agree’s:

In my addendum to this post by Paul, I repeated a point I’ve made several times before: one of the sinister aspects of leaks of classified information is that they are by nature selective. The leaker has access to lots of material, but he doesn’t leak it all: he only leaks what he thinks will best serve his political agenda. The recent leaks of alleged conclusions from the National Intelligence Estimate that was completed last spring is a perfect case in point. Paul and I talked about an article in the Washington Post by a reporter who obviously had not read the report. All she could do was pass on the Democrat leaker’s spin. Which, in all likelihood, she was happy to do.

The only way to combat this would be to declassify this document and embarrass the paper once again. An editorial at the Wall Street Journal agree:

Since some of our spooks are leaking selectively to make the President look bad, Mr. Bush should return the favor by letting the public inspect the quality of analysis that their tax dollars are buying.

Releasing the NIE would also show that the White House has learned something since 2003, which is when the last pre-election bout of selective intelligence leaks began. That leak du jour claimed that an October 2002 NIE had contradicted Mr. Bush’s claims in his State of the Union address about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa. We happened to gain access to the complete NIE, however, and reported on July 17, 2003, that the leaked accounts were incomplete and misleading. The Senate Intelligence Committee vindicated our account a year later, but the Bush Administration could have reduced the political damage by declassifying that 2002 NIE immediately.

And guess what? We may get our wish:

The Bush administration said on Tuesday it may declassify an intelligence report in order to respond to Democrats who say the document shows the Iraq war has been a distraction from the war on terrorism.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said officials were “giving serious consideration” to releasing the National Intelligence Estimate on the U.S. terrorism threat to demonstrate that the section being seized on by Democrats is only one part of the overall picture.

The Democrats trumped once again. When will they ever learn to stop underestimating President Bush?

UPDATE

The Political Pit Bull has the video of Bush announcing he will declassify the NIE:

Here is the MSNBC report on the announcement by Bush:

“Some people have guessed what’s in the report and concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree,” Bush said, referring to a New York Times report over the weekend that described what it said were conclusions from the classified analysis made last April.

The key judgments from the analysis will be released “as quickly as possible,” he added.

Bush said he had directed National Intelligence Director John Negroponte to declassify those parts of the report that don’t compromise national security.

“You read it for yourself. Stop all this speculation,” Bush told a reporter who asked about the analysis.

UPDATE II

The head of the Intelligence disagrees with the Times and the Post it seems:

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte acknowledged Monday that the jihad in Iraq is shaping a new generation of terrorist operatives, but rejected characterizations stemming from a leaked intelligence estimate that the United States is at a greater risk of attack than it was in September 2001.

Rather, he said, the high-level assessment from the nation’s top analysts doesn’t “really talk about” an increased threat inside the U.S. border.

“We are certainly more vigilant. We are better prepared,” said Negroponte. “We are safer. The threat to the homeland itself has — if anything — been reduced since 9/11.”

UPDATE III

Anyone remember this?

Following is the text of a memo written by a Democrat on the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that suggests how to make the greatest gain off of intelligence data leading to the war against Iraq. The memo was obtained by Fox News.

We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as follows:

1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials. We are having some success in that regard.[…]

2) Assiduously prepare Democratic “additional views” to attach to any interim or final reports the committee may release. Committee rules provide this opportunity and we intend to take full advantage of it. In that regard, we have already compiled all the public statements on Iraq made by senior administration officials. We will identify the most exaggerated claims and contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since been declassified.[…]

3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation at any time– but we can only do so once.[…]

Summary

Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public’s concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet, we have an important role to play in the revealing the misleading — if not flagrantly dishonest methods and motives — of the senior administration officials who made the case for a unilateral, preemptive war. The approach outline above seems to offer the best prospect for exposing the administration’s dubious motives and methods.

Any wonder this leak came a few weeks prior to the November elections?

from the Opinion Journal

BY JAMES TARANTO

A guest on CNN’s “Larry King Live” last Wednesday offered President Bush some wise and mature counsel:

Look what President [Hugo] Chavez just said about President Bush. You know, we–and we try to teach our children to get over it. I mean, you’ve got kids. You know, one of the most important things you can teach a child is that not everything that happens to you will be nice. But you are in control of how you respond to everything that happens to you. You do not have to respond with violence or anger or hatred or bitterness or demeaning conduct, and you cannot be diminished by what someone else says about you.

There’s no indication that Bush needed this advice, but it’s good advice nonetheless. And the man who gave it speaks from experience. He is Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States.

One man who could use Clinton’s advice is . . . Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States. Yesterday he appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” where host Chris Wallace asked him the question he said was most on viewers’ minds: “Why didn’t you do more to put [Osama] bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?”

Clinton responded with anger and hatred and bitterness and demeaning conduct–though not with violence, so he’s 1 for 5. He repeatedly interrupted Wallace, wagged his finger at him (oh, for the good old days of 1998), invaded his personal space, and offered paranoid theories as to why Wallace was asking this perfectly reasonable question. It has to be seen to be believed, and it can be, here and here.

“I still have no idea what set him off,” Wallace tells MediaBistro.com. “Clinton is a very big man. As he leaned forward–wagging his finger in my face–and then poking the notes I was holding–I felt as if a mountain was coming down in front of me.” Hey Chris, you better put some ice on that.

What set him off seems pretty obvious: Wallace had him dead to rights. His administration did fail to deal with the terrorist threat in more than a desultory way. In fairness, the same can be said of all pre-9/11 administrations going back to Jimmy Carter’s, including George W. Bush’s for the first 234 days. But history is likely to accord Clinton the bulk of the blame for failing to pre-empt the 9/11 attacks. Clinton had eight years to deal with the problem; Bush had less than eight months.

Clinton’s outburst has drawn much online commentary and analysis; rather than try to deal with every point, we’ll single out one about which we have a special interest. Clinton made this claim:

And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. . . . All the right-wingers who now say I didn’t do enough said I did too much–same people. . . .

The people on my political right who say I didn’t do enough spent the whole time I was president saying, “Why is he so obsessed with bin Laden? That was ‘wag the dog’ when he tried to kill him.”

We didn’t remember anyone faulting Clinton for being “obsessed with bin Laden,” so we did a Factiva search. The closest we were able to find was this, from a Feb. 17, 1999, Washington Post story:

But skeptics abound. Yossef Bodansky, staff director of the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, credited recent U.S. successes but said they would have little impact if U.S. counterterrorism remains obsessed with bin Laden to the point that it forgets about the states–including Sudan, Iran and Pakistan–where he has help financing and directing his followers.

“We’re working with allies and not-so-allies and, yes, consequently, some people have been arrested and some operations have been thwarted,” Bodansky said. “Having said all of that, bin Laden is an instrument of sponsoring states. He’s not a lone ranger or free agent. Even if we whack bin Laden, we’re not going to solve the problem, as long as these states have an interest. There will be more of them.”

This criticism was not of Clinton personally but of the policies of his administration; and Bodansky’s argument was that the administration was concentrating too much on bin Laden personally, not that it was too obsessed with the terror threat. (It must be said that Democrats today are doing exactly the same thing, constantly harping on the failure to capture bin Laden while obsessing over “civil liberties” and the Geneva Conventions at the expense of intelligence-gathering efforts.)

As for the “wag the dog” point, this refers to the Aug. 20, 1998, strike on Afghanistan and Sudan, which was a response to al Qaeda’s bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania 13 days earlier. It is true that some Clinton critics thought the timing suspicious (as they did a few months later when Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox against Iraq just as he was being impeached). But it’s certainly not true that all pooh-poohed his efforts against bin Laden.

As blogress Claudia Rosett notes, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial on Aug. 21, which, while acknowledging that questions about the president’s motives were “hard to challenge,” went on to say:

There is a reverse side to the coin. Terrorists and other foes of America stand warned that no matter how damaged, a President of the United States still is a force to be reckoned with. Unlike some king or dictator, he is not one isolated personage but the representative of a far broader society and political system, a system that does not depend on the individual on top in responding to crisis or lethal provocation.

The editorial also said, “We only hope that there is some follow-through.” And that is what was sorely lacking for the remaining 29 months of the Clinton administration and the first eight months of the Bush administration.

As with all things Clinton, this has led to speculation about his political motives. Blogger Tom Maguire:

Bill’s temper tantrum may not help any Dems in 2006 but the obvious beneficiary for 2008 is Hillary. If he bullies interviewers away from that question, she wins. Or if asked, any answer she gives will seem calm and sensible by comparison.

The only negative–do we want a First Spouse complaining about right wing media bias? Been there, overcame that.

Somehow we doubt that calling attention to the failures of one Clinton is going to persuade Americans to elect another one, even if she seems calm and sensible by comparison. Most likely, Clinton’s anger and defensiveness were genuine. He accused Wallace of sandbagging him–”So you did Fox’s bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me.”

Blogger Edward Morrissey argues that “it’s time to give it a rest”:

The time has come–it has long since come–for that history to become just that: history. None of us can pretend that Bill Clinton could ever have declared war on al-Qaeda in the manner Bush did without having a 9/11-type event as a catalyst. Not only would the Left have screamed much as they do now, albeit without the Hugo Chavez-type conspiratorial thinking, Republicans would have never given Clinton the kind of support needed to send American troops into Afghanistan. The political climate had been thoroughly poisoned by the time of the African bombings and Congress would never have put aside its deathmatch with Clinton to unite in a war effort, especially against a band of terrorists most Americans didn’t know existed.

It’s telling that a conservative blogger is able to offer a much more persuasive defense of Clinton’s antiterror record than Clinton himself is. In the interview with Wallace, the ex-president seemed unprepared for the question. Probably he is more used to answering questions like these from Larry King:

Now, the purpose of your initiative overall is to make the world a better place, right? . . .

And the four things it covers is to make the world a better place. . . .

Is it a better place? . . .

How’s your health? . . .

The greatest thing you almost did was peace in the Middle East. . . .

Want to just briefly discuss some of the initiatives at this conference. We love coming here every year. Poverty alleviation. Possible?

It’s another example of how liberal media don’t really help liberals. Years of this sort of sycophantic treatment left Clinton unable to answer the sort of tough question that Republican politicians have to face all the time.

I don’t think it is time to give it a rest…..if we do give it a rest and forget it, we may once again elect another of the same mindset. And we cannot afford another 4 to 8 years of a Commander-in -Chief asleep at the wheel as our enemies bare down on us…..

Maybe politically Bill could not have did as much as Bush did, considering the political timeperiod, but he could have did ALOT more then he actually did (which is almost nothing), and I believe even a little might have upset Bin Laden’s plans. Of course this is all all hypothetical, however…..

…but the fact still remain that the Democrats still have done nothing to combat terrorism. Until they change their Neville mindset, we cannot afford to have them back into power.

by Larwyn

Australia, the Beacon of Sanity

Australia is once again making more sense than any other country on earth with regard to issues of culture and immigration. Like its Anglosphere cousins the United States and Canada, Australia’s political economy, personal freedom, rule of law, and other characteristics inherited from the British, make it an extremely attractive place for immigrants. A continental land mass able to accommodate a greater population completes the package luring many, including many Muslims, to dream of a better life there than in their own home countries.

But unlike Canada, which has embraced a self-effacing attitude toward its own cultures, and the United States, which also pays obeisance to the pernicious self-abnegating doctrines of multiculturalism, Australia is unafraid to stand up and say that those wanting to come to Australia must adapt to the existing realities, not expect to change Australia into their home country, only with better weather and welfare benefits.

The BBC reports:

Australia is planning a radical strengthening of immigration laws that would require prospective citizens to take tough English language tests as well as a quiz on history and culture.

Critics have said the plans are patronising and insulting.

Actually, the critics have it backwards. It is quite insulting and patronizing to immigrate to a country and expect it to adapt to the very things one left behind. This is the behavior of a conqueror, not an immigrant.

By definition, an immigrant asks for the privilege of being allowed to live in a country not his or her own. Immigrants have no right to demand change. No more than I have a right to barge into your house and demand you rearrange the furniture, knock out the wall between the kitchen and family room, and paint the parlor walls a different color.

An immigrant stipulates that the country to which he or she goes has a superior system. Without such an attraction, why else leave behind family, friends, and the attachments of sentiment?

Lacking any thoughtful points, the opponents of testing in Australia resort to the cry of racism. Pardon me, but if race were the issue, certain races would not be allowed in. That, in fact, was characteristic of Australian immigration policies in an earlier era. But that is no longer the issue.

The BBC also reports that employers supposedly are worried that the new barriers will keep necessary workers from coming to Australia. That, too, is utter nonsense. Workers unwilling to adapt to local language and culture are not likely to be very good employees, willing to learn new skills, able to deal with fellow workers or customers.

The honest truth is that the Anglosphere has a superior political economy, and that is why the world wants to emigrate to our lands. Leftist multiculturalists, angry at their homelands and haunted by their own demons, have a need to believe that there is something wrong at home. Thus the insane mental construct that any change will be an improvement, even changes proposed by Sharia-embracing migrants.

As Prime Minister Howard said recently, those who want to live under Sharia have quite a number of countries in which to live. There is no reason for Australia (or Canada or America or Britain or France, for that matter) to accommodate them. Other than their own confusion, self-loathing, and moral weakness of their elites, riven with self-soubt and cravenly seeking approval from the cosmopolitan smart set.

My admiration for Prime Minister Howard continues to grow. My love for Australia and Australians, always deep, has turned into utter infatuation. If I couldn’t live in my beloved America, I would be off to Australia in a heartbeat.

Where, oh where, are the poltiical leaders of America? Don’t they understand that anyone with the guts to follow the lead of PM Howard would become an instant hero?

Evidently, they are too cowed by fear of being called racist to embrace the common sense doctrine that those who seek to enter our culture deserve to have it remain intact for them and their children.

Hat tip: Joseph Crowley

I’ve long loved their PM Howard. He deserves our respect and the Diggers should be very proud of the this plain speaker of truth.

by Curt at Flopping Aces

Scott Malensek has written a rebuttel to the Senate report released a few weeks ago in which they try to allege that Saddam had no ties to Al-Qaeda. This is actually far from a rebuttal, more like a whole report. You can download the 124 page PDF file at a link on my site. (h/t Rocket’s Brain Trust)

For those of you who don’t know Scott, here is a short bio:

Scott Malensek is the author of: Black Rain For Christmas, The Secret War in South Asia, Sixth Fleet Under: Aircraft Carrier Combat in The Eastern Mediterranean, The X-MAS War, The Weekend Warriors, and 50+ Ways to Play With Your Paintballs. He’s also written several books on the Global War on Terror and Iraq under the pen name, Sam Pender. These books include: Iraq’s Smoking Gun, The Ignored War, America’s War With Saddam, How Did It Come To This?, and Saddam’s Ties to Al Qaeda

A sample:

The people who wrote the SSCI Phase II report distort and deny that reality. The mainstream media seeks to pretend that all these jihadis were not affiliated with Al Queda based on claims from Saddam and his regime clearly lied. We are expected to believe Saddam’s word and the words of lawyer politicians in DC rather than that of soldiers, Marines, and reporters who were there during the invasion. To do so is to deny history, and deny those who served the honor of recognizing the specifics of their experiences and sacrifices. They deserve to have their stories told honestly-not politically as the Senate has chosen.

I searched the entire 400 pages of this “Phase II report” (or rather both reports that make up the Phase II report), and I couldn’t find those two words: “Bush lied.” I can’t even find, “Bush mislead” in the 400 pages. What I did find was 400 pages of evidence showing that the intelligence community used small amounts of weak intelligence from a decrepit litany of agencies, and then poorly communicated that to policy makers (Bush Admin, Democrats who ran the Senate, and Republicans who ran the House).

I searched the British Butler Report and their Hutton inquiry, and neither stated that President Bush lied or mislead anyone. Australian Parliamentary investigations (bi-partisan and independent) failed to say President Bush lied or mislead anyone. The Independent and bi-partisan WMD Commission didn’t say it either. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s “Phase I” report didn’t say the President lied or mislead either. In reading and re-reading all of the thousands of pages in these bi-partisan reports, I have never once seen the words, “President Bush lied” or “President Bush mislead.” I’ve never seen, “President Bush pressured analysts” or “President Bush manipulated intelligence.” Never once did I see even evidence of that. Instead, all these reports say one thing, and it’s the same thing that the 21 investigations (including the independent 911 Commission) all stated clearly. They all point the finger at small amounts of weak and bad intelligence reporting from decrepit, poorly lead, under-funded intelligence agencies.

[…]America’s war with Saddam had to end someday, and that meant regime change. Uprisings of Iraqis demanding democracy failed and resulted in 400,000 deaths. At least five CIA supported coups and uprisings had failed. The ISG “Duelfer Report” shows that sanctions were almost completely and irrevocably failed. Diplomacy clearly had failed. 50+ assassination attempts on the first night of OIF failed. Four Clinton Administration air campaigns and two sustained 11-year-long air campaigns all failed. All else failed. Another invasion really was the last resort; the inevitable last resort.

Al Queda didn’t attack the United States 5yrs ago because President George W Bush manipulated intelligence, mislead, or lied so he could invade Iraq and line oil barons’ pockets. No. Al Queda attacked the United States because no one before George W Bush had the nerve to invade Iraq, because the US had practiced a foreign policy of engage and retreat (i.e. “redeploy”), and their attacks succeeded because when the Soviet Union collapsed so did support, leadership, and efficiency in America’s intelligence networks.

There is truth in history-not in the mouths of politicians pandering for their jobs or for bigger and more powerful jobs. The lesson of Pearl Harbor was for Lady Liberty to never leave her guard down, and never ignore a belligerent’s threats. A more tactical lesson was to always strive to have the best intelligence-not the smallest and cheapest. President Bush didn’t lie. The war in Iraq and 911 both happened largely America had sought the smallest and cheapest and most PC intelligence networks possible, and because when Osama Bin Laden declared war on the US…he had to do it five times. He had to level two entire zip codes before the nation really went to war with him, and the CIA assigned more than 40 people to searching for him.

America ignored those lessons in 1941 and in 2001.

He ends the report with some corrective measures to fix this sorry Senate report and then gives the SSCI members some advice:

Finally, I believe the SSCI members owe the families of the fallen, their constituents, the American people, and the world an apology for releasing such a politically distorted report, for allowing others to believe that it was a definitive piece with conclusive conclusions and not the real body of work that it is-based on contradictory detainee interrogations, less than 1/5 of the captured documents and media, and completely ignorant of open source intelligence, mass media reports, foreign intelligence, reports from other bi-partisan investigations, and from published works.

I highly advise you download this report of Scott’s. He goes over the original report line by line and offers evidence, quotes, and citations to rebut much of the Senate’s findings.

No ties to Al-Qaeda….please.

Thank God for Fox…..

if it wasn’t for Fox, Democrats would still get the softball questions…..

Why Didn’t Wallace Ask the Bush Administration? He Did

In his interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, Bill Clinton came across as embarrassingly low-class, as in this exchange:

So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you[r] nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..
WALLACE: Now wait a minute sir…

CLINTON:..

WALLACE: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked why didn’t you do anything about the Cole. I want to know how many you asked why did you fire Dick Clarke.

When Wallace replied that such questions had been asked, Clinton responded: “I don’t believe you asked them that.”

He did, though, as Patterico documents:

[H]ere is what Wallace asked Donald Rumsfeld on the March 28, 2004 episode of Fox News Sunday:
I understand this is 20/20 hindsight, it’s more than an individual manhunt. I mean — what you ended up doing in the end was going after al Qaeda where it lived. . . . pre-9/11 should you have been thinking more about that?
. . . .

What do you make of his [Richard Clarke’s] basic charge that pre-9/11 that this government, the Bush administration largely ignored the threat from al Qaeda?

. . .

Mr. Secretary, it sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority.

The difference is that Republican officials like Rumsfeld are used to being asked tough questions; Clinton isn’t. Also, Rumsfeld has good answers to those questions. Clinton doesn’t.
from Powerline

Only FOX asked this question…..which is scary. Besides it being biased reporting……giving the Democrats a free pass on security endangers this country…..

but what do we have to put up with here……

just ask our ex-Gov., Mayor, and Comptroller…

“I don’t leave happy because I’ve never had such a biased newspaper in my life,” Schaefer said.

by Larwyn

The NY Times, gives us their spin on a April 2006 NIE that they say tells us that Iraq is worsening the terror threat.

” stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.”

Well, Mr. Anonymous is welcome to his opinion, but I beg to differ. Isamic Jihad existed long before the Iraq war, and if to press the point, before the Gulf War. On a second point, I see that our distractors are still infecting our IC community, that’s a pity, especially in light of the fact that it was this kind of agenda assessment that got us to 9/11 in the first place.

Is Iraq a “breeding ground”? Perhaps. But it was necessary for this to take place. Again, and people are forgetting this. From the beginning both the President and knowleable members of the IC told us that this would be a LONG war lasting many, many years. We’re not fighting an “army” we’re fighting an ideology that has been around for many years.

People in their “Starbucks/30 minutes to resolution” mentality think that the GWOT is going to be solved in three years or even ten are deluded. It’s going to take a lot longer than that to defeat Islamic Fanaticism.

Back to the story, let me lead by example.

Let’s say the world is a house, and as a house will be over the years you noticed a few cockroaches running out of a wall. To address the issue over time you adopt a policy of spraying individual cockroaches, only to find over time, it just “masks” the problem. However one day you decide to just knock down the wall to see where they’re are all coming from and when you do suddenly thousands of them come scurrying out. Have you made the problem worse? Perhaps, but you are a lot closer to the cure.

The problem isn’t what we have done, because we had to do something. Remember WTC-1, Kohbar Towers, the USS Cole, and 9/11 didn’t happen because we were necessarily attacking Al Qaeda, it was because they are terrorist and they are an evil people who need to be destroyed.

Iraq was necessary in that it will be the catalysts by which we have gained the upper ground on terrorism. Point of fact for all the handwringing and worry, terrorism is on it’s down-swing. There has been no attack on US soil since 9/11. There have been many foiled attacks since then because of the efforts of the Bush administration. Top this off with the complete and utter relegating of Al Qaeda to an “also ran” in terrorism, with Osama either dead or heading there, and they being reduced to using a former “head banger” California dude for a spokesman.

Reqardless of the spin, we are winning.

UPDATE: I’ve done some checking on this report and being that the NIE is still classified we have yet another example of leaking to the MSM. But the motivation is obvious as the Washington Post lets slip out.

“The NIE, whose contents were first reported by the New York Times, coincides with public statements by senior intelligence officials describing a different kind of conflict than the one outlined by President Bush in a series of recent speeches marking the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”

That is the reason some of these “officials”, mostly State Department pukes got to yacking it up with the media for this story. It’s designed to “stem the tide” of the Bush rise in the polls.

The only problem is of course is that this isn’t at all what the NIE says.

Several officials I’ve spoken with, who actually worked on, and have seen the final assessment actually reached a different conclusion than what is being reported. This of course means that we simply have yet another designed hit piece reminiscent of those during election 2004.
from MacsMind

MacRanger and AJ see this as another leak by Bush Administration’s enemies within the IC and a stupid spin by the anon. leaker & NYT.

Once Britain declared war on Hitler’s Germany, a lot more Nazis also appeared. What stupid logic…..

Was that also very surprising that the NYT’s also condemned Churchill for declaring war?

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Hundreds of Pakistani Islamists held street protests to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for remarks they regard as anti-Islamic, with one leader saying the pontiff should be crucified.

Demonstrators Friday poured out of mosques after the main weekly Muslim prayers in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore, the capital Islamabad and other urban centres.

“If the pope comes here we will hang him on the Cross,” Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a senior leader of Pakistan’s main alliance of radical parties, told around 200 noisy demonstrators in Islamabad.

The alliance, called the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal or United Action Front, forms part of the parliamentary opposition and is often heavily involved in street protests in mostly Muslim Pakistan.

Ahmed also said the pope had joined US President George W. Bush’s “crusade” against Muslims, referring to Christians who fought against Muslims from the 11th through the 13th centuries.
the link is here.

another day, another protest of hate……..

War has been declared on us…and yet we refuse to notice. Have you ever heard of a situation were a country ignores a Declaration of War? For a Declaration of War is what too many in the muslim world declare almost daily.

You know what the result would be in the muslim world if we talked similarly?

You know what it would be…..