Sep 11 2006
Al Qaeda Threatens, Dems Still Desparate To Surrender
If you stand back and look at how badly the Democrats are doing in their attempt to take Bush on over national security it is stunning. Sherrod Brown, OH Dem Senate candidate claimed Iraq was a training ground infested with Al Qaeda. His plan – get out of Iraq as quick as possible. Sen Jay Rockefeller came out pining for the days when Saddam was in power. Days when he was supporting terrorism across the ME. And who can ignore the left’s gleaful attempts to eliminate the Patriot Act – which simply treats terrorists the same a drug lords and organized crime figures. But the big one on everyone’s minds right now is the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program which a liberal-nut judge decided was unconstitutional (but without any legal basis for the decision, which itself should be illegal).
The NSA listens in on our enemies overseas. In doing so it picks up communications with people here in the US. The people here in the US are not being spied upon. They have been caught talking to our enemies. Prior to 9-11 these leads the NSA discovered were never passed onto the FBI. Intelligence leads were deemed unethical for establishing probable cause in criminal efforts. That was the tradition instantiated in the Gorelick Wall – intelligence and law enforcement rarely meet, and never give intelligence the lead or driving position.
After 9-11 Bush opened the information flow, because the 9-11 highjackers had been detected calling back to Hamburg and elsewhere for coordination and money transfers. They were detected but we stopped ourselves from acting because of some irrational fears about the ghost of Nixon using intel for dirty tricks. 3000 people died for that mistaken fear. The left is still calling for an end to this common sense approach. The NSA passes leads it gleans from monitoring terrorists to the FBI who investigate the lead. If it looks to be a serious threat the FBI-DoJ goes to the FISA Court for warrants (not bypassing the court as the NY Times so infamously misreported). The left want to end this practice.
Now we have another clear warning of impending attack by Al Qaeda:
A new videotape message from Ayman al-Zawahiri issued on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks contains a threatening message directed to “the Western peoples.”
“Your leaders are hiding from you the extent of the disaster which will amaze you. And the days are pregnant and giving birth to new events, with God’s permission and guidance,” says Zawahiri in a videotape message dated September 2006.
The Democrats are going to still call for the end of the NSA monitoring of Al Qaeda in the face of this threat? Are we going to see Ned Lamont and others say we should not pass leads to the FBI from the NSA because some theoretical risk to some mythical person’s civil rights might be violated? We have a self proclaimed threat right in front of us in this Al Qaeda missive, yet the Dems are looking back seeing the shadow of Nixon? Talk about not keeping your eye on the ball. The Dems deserve to lose the elections if their answer to threats is run away, change the subject, challenge the rightwing boogeymen.
Re: many of AJ’s much-repeated, unsupported, and unsupportable statements re: the NSA Question (the gist of the “warrantless monitoring” controversy), readers are referred to comments in the following threads:
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/2450
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/2441
AJ consistently fails to support several statements of his re: the NSA Question, and likewise fails to meaningfully respond to materials and argument which I have provided, which show those statements to be false.
This should be of some interest to those interested in developing a reality-based view of the world.
Caveat Lector. Trust But Verify. Etc., etc. etc.
— Regards
DGF,
Please go whine someplace else. I have answered your arguments. You just don’t like the answers.
Very good juxtaposition there.
It is so true… they are killing us.
IMO, it is exactly their kind of thinking, a rot from the 60s which has just gotten more rancid over the years, that is the very weakness of this country.
Since Carter they have been gutting our intelligence agencies.
AJ –
This isn’t about whining. It’s about facts. And you have provided no factual support re: your comments that Ihave taken issue with.
Of course, every reader has the right to judge for him or herself whether your version or mine (or both) is bollocks.
But why in heavens name and honest dealing would you delete my comment, where readers are referred to the threads which would allow them to come to an informed judgment?
— Regards
DGF must have struck a nerve but here are two brief points of which Strata has previously refused to accept the logic: Brown can be justified by the simple argument that US occupation of Iraq INCREASES worldwide membership in jihadist groups, leaked CIA and many other intelligence analyses assert. And Rockefeller’s lament can be justified by noting that Iran, the winner thus far of the Iraq War, subsidized “terror” groups more substantially than did Saddam.
Of course when neocons complain about Saddam’s modest
gift of 25,000$ to Palestinian families to rebuild the homes the
Israeli government, contrary to American ethics and law, bulldozed in
retaliation for one family member’s actions, they both conflate
America’s interests with Israel’s unwisely and grossly
exagerrate the “evil” of the gift itself.
I see that my original comment on this thread is now displayed. Kudos.
– Regards
I believe AJ is correct, as the logic is inescapable and makes common sense. Something the left does not possess. Brown’s statements are the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard backed up with more ignorace by KEN and DGF. The problem with all of you on the left and the entire democrat leadership is that you don’t view Islamic Jihadis as a threat. You view GWB, the GOP and America as the threat. ANY winner as a threat. Believing this will always result in you and your ilk being the loser.
DGF,, it gets to the point sometimes where certain statements just don’t need support and/or justification. An example would be. Saddam was/is a bad man.
Another example, at least to me, would be: I want the NSA to listen in to anyone, anywhere that are talking to terrorists, that wish to do me harm.
and I don’t give a damn if they have a warrant or not(even tho they are not required) and that doesn’t need to be justified either, it just requires more than one brain cell rubbing together.
Your claims that his statements are not supported etc are not correct. He and many others have given you plenty of justification, and as AJ said, you just don’t like the answers.
Tell all of us why you feel that it is important that NSA require a warrant for listening in on terrorists. Be specific and don’t talk in theory. And don’t use the crap that they may be violating “my” rights, I’m not talking to any terrorists.
KEN, and I suppose the fact that NeoDems don’t see anything wrong with Saddam giving the families of terrorists a $25,000 reward(call it a building fund if you may) for their son’s terrorists acts speaks volumes for neodems.
Actually, it is AJ who struck a nerve… as I see this thread, quite down on the page, is being swarmed.
I haven’t seen anything interesting on the NSA issue. Ultimately, legally, it remains a non-issue which we do not have many facts of. The problem can be legal for numerous reasons, eg, presidential power and the definition of “reasonable” in ‘right to not be afflicted with unreasonable search’…
DGF doesn’t even appear to be from here… if the “bollocks” word identifies him as being from Britain… we have far, far more potent freedoms then Europe has — or anywhere else. They tend to not have any idea.
On the issue of being anti-security:
There are two reasons people are anti-security… be that being opposed to giving our intelligence agencies greater freedom to fight international, organized terrorism… or be that in supporting our fights out there in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else… these two reasons are: cowardice or hatred of our country.
Usually the motives are a mixture of the two.
Leave Iraq now and you proclaim to the whole world that the terrorists have defeated us.
Iraq is a front on the war of terrorism where we are killing Islamists.
Iraq does not create terrorists anymore then the fact that we buy oil from Saudi Arabia creates terrorists… even more then the fact that they buy US technology from us creates terrorists.
Islam creates terrorists.
People who send a message to terrorists that ‘terrorism works’ create terrorists.
Whose side are such people on? Not on our side.
DGF,
Your comments needed to be moderated by me. Contrary to what you may think, I don’t wait around all day seeing if your comments need to be moderated.
One last time – the NSA has no standing to go to a court for a warrant. This pretty basic stuff.
For Enforcement –
“Your claims that his statements are not supported etc are not correct. He and many others have given you plenty of justification, and as AJ said, you just don’t like the answers.
Tell all of us why you feel that it is important that NSA require a warrant for listening in on terrorists. Be specific and don’t talk in theory. And don’t use the crap that they may be violating “my†rights, I’m not talking to any terrorists.”
As indicated above, on two threads I set forth my arguments – supported by FACTS — which address the assertions of AJ’s which I have taken exception with.
The distinction between my presentation and AJ’s is that I have set forth record facts in support of it, while AJ simply makes assertions. Any reasonably careful reader will have noted the difference.
I would be happy to respond to any claims that a particular step or steps in my analysis is faulty, provided that such criticism is itself supported by fact (rather than simple assertion/opinion)
You write that
“DGF,, it gets to the point sometimes where certain statements just don’t need support and/or justification. An example would be. Saddam was/is a bad man.”
In a limited sense, I agree with you; that is, in dealing with an UNCONTROVERSIAL statement, as a general rule, the marshalling and recitation of facts in support of the statement is not generally required or particularly helpful.
But, as AJ himself admits, his position (re: the NSA question) is not uncontroversial: he claims (among other things) that the NYT misreported the matter and that all the talking heads are fools in presenting the matter as they do. There is, therefore, a controversy. AJ on the one side, and pert near the rest of the world on the other. And AJ refuses (and is unable) to present facts in support of the several assertions of his which I have questioned.
You write (immediately following the quote excerpted above):
“Another example, at least to me, would be: I want the NSA to listen in to anyone, anywhere that are talking to terrorists, that wish to do me harm. and I don’t give a damn if they have a warrant or not(even tho they are not required) and that doesn’t need to be justified either, it just requires more than one brain cell rubbing together.”
The question is not whether you care if the NSA is legally obliged to get a warrant to perform the new regimen of monitoring which Bush authorized post 911, or whether I care one way or the other about that subject. The question is simply whether the assertions of AJ’s which I have challenged are true. I have demonstrated that they are not, and AJ has failed to demonstrate (versus to simply assert) that they are true. Indeed, AJ has failed to explain the inconsistencies in his own several statements.
All this, of course, is contained in the above-referenced posts.
You write:
“Tell all of us why you feel that it is important that NSA require a warrant for listening in on terrorists.”
As set forth in the referenced posts, and as supported there by facts, the “importance” of the NSA’s securing FISA Court approval to target monitor US Persons in the US is because that is what FISA requires. (Whether or not this new NSA regimen is otherwise exempted from the FISA requirements, because of other Congressional action or because of supposed inherent authority of the President is, of course, a different matter, as I likewise acknowledged in one of the prior threads). [As a further parenthetical, the point of my comments has not been to express “why [I/DGF] feel it is important that NSA require a warrant…”, but rather to set the record straight, factually, in light of AJ’s several demonstrably false assertions re: the NSA Question.]
Again, I am more than happy to engage in a detailed debate, for example, of why my analysis of several of AJ’s baseless assertions is incorrect, but any such debate must be fact based and supported to be profitable for anyone. (e.g., Where has DGF erred, precisely? What factual support (versus mere assertion) is there to contest what DGF has said re: “x” “y” or “z” ?; if DGF can in fact be shown to have erred on point “q”, what is the impact/import of that error on his analysis with respect to issue “z”?)
DGF
As has been discussed here before it is well documented that there has been congressional oversight on a recurring basis of the legality and validity of the NSA program. All congressional tests have been met.
Even the judges sitting on the FISA court have testified in agreement and it was furthur exponeded on in the hearings on the approval of Gen Hayden to head the CIA.
These are facts, each of which counters your NSA warrant requiremnt basis.
How many more items do you need?
DGF
FISA does not require a warrant to listen to non US communications
NSA does not require a warrant to listen to any wartime communications of the enemy.
AUMF gives President authority to use whatever force is necessary against the enemy and it does not limit his ability to intercept communications with the enemy.
Some of the enemy is within the US.
Any one, whether in the US or not, that would be covered by the AUMF can be dealt with in any way necessary, without a warrant,(by the military, which includes the NSA) and that includes listening to their conversations whether or not they are US citizens. (note: some US citizens ARE the enemy).
Can you imagine that during the D-Day landing, if we could have listened in to the Germans talking about their defenses, according to DGF we would have had to get a warrant beforehand, That would have involved waking up a FISA judge in Washington and asking him if it was ok. What are the neodems (or is it neolibs) coming to?
DGF:
The majority of the American people support programs like this and think people like you are partisan suicidal morons.
If you want to die, go ahead, but don’t even think about taking the rest of us with you.
Has it ever occured to these people that all these people have to do is use call forwarding and make sure one end of the conversation is here in the US and these people are home free. Internet, disposable phones, all of this makes new rules necessary.
Ken
I note your extreme lack of any explanation of Sudan, Darfur and Russian issues with their “Moslem problem”
Also what basis do you think is the reason for the little bitty French carbbq summer fun. Their only involvement with IRAQ was supply and oil for food. If anything they should have been getting a pass by your logic.
I should be very clear from the Clinton years that the concept of a problem ignored is a problem solved resulted in a less than optimal outcome.
Also you indirect support of a suicide murder of innocent civilians and the followup consequences is to say the least somewhat distasteful.
Merlin
Let me extend my condolences to you. You apparently cannot grasp the difference between “assertion” and “supported fact”. Your assertions may or may not be true (may or may not be “factually accurate”), but you (like AJ) provide no factual support to back up your assertions. (And indeed, your assertions are so broad, that you’d be writing a longish post to attempt to substantiate them). To put it simply, why should anyone believe your assertions to be true? [footnote 1] Is this distinction – assertion vs. demonstrated fact — really that hard for you to understand ?
As I have stated several time before, it really should be easy to refute my analyses, if they are faulty.
Of course, that would entail actually reading the posts, attempting in good faith to understand what was written, evaluating the supporting materials, and disputing point “x” or authority “m” or logical conclusion “q”; marshalling contrary authorities (etc.), and then communicating the results of that effort. Such an exercise in clear-thinking and truth-seeking is admittedly more difficult than simply shooting one’s mouth off, and making unsupported assertions (assertions that may or may not be germaine to my analyses to begin with [footnote 1])
Regards
[footnote 1]
Parenthetically, I confess that it is unclear what exactly it is that you are asserting (this is apart from the question of your failure to point me to any source in support for the assertions). It is unclear what you mean, for example, by writing “all congressional tests have been met.” [What, precisely, are those “congressional tests”? how were they met? what is the support for the answers to these questions? If the assertion thus qualified in fact is demonstrably supported, how does it impact on DGF’s analyses?]
Of course, one of the benefits of not attempting to provide support for one’s assertions is that one needn’t actually give much thought to what one actually means in making the assertion.
For Enforcement –
You write:
“Can you imagine that during the D-Day landing, if we could have listened in to the Germans talking about their defenses, according to DGF we would have had to get a warrant beforehand,”
That’s a remarkably stupid thing to say, and reflects simply that you haven’t bothered either to read my posts or (if you have) to have engaged your mind in drive beforehand.
Terrye —
You have no idea what my feelings are on the NSA Question. Indeed, I doubt if you even know what *you* mean when you write that “The majority of the American people support programs like this”, for there is no indication that you understand what “programs like this” are. If your understanding is seriously influenced by the rubbish which AJ tries to pass of as being true (while all the while studiously avoiding providing any record support for), then I’m sure you don’t.
DGF,
You have not once explained how you were so factually wrong when you claimed the NSA can get a warrant from the FIS Court. Prove the NSA can get a warrant!
LOL!