Some Duncan Hunter stories we may have missed....

Google Archives/various | 1982-1993 | Various

[pissant]

Congressmen: get aid to fight guerrillas

The Ledger, June 25, 1983

Washington - Nineteen congressmen, eight of them just back from Central America, urged President Reagan on Friday to "hang tough" in his demand for another $110 million from Congress this year to help fight communist guerrillas in El Salvador.

Elsewhere, Senate Democratic Whip Alan Cranston of California, a candidate for the 1984 presidential nomination, said he would introduce legislation designed to avert "the danger....that Ronald Reagan will want to send troops to El Salvador."

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said that the amount should be increased to $300 million and suggested it should include 20 Huey helicopters "so the Salvadoran government can react" to guerrilla attacks.

"If we increase the military aid while we still have a government in control, while the balance of power is not with the guerrillas then sending US troops to the region would not be necessary,", Hunter said.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lz8VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pPsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7096,3877608&dq=duncan-hunter&hl=en

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Church Unlocked; Illegal Classes Resume

Spokane Chronicle, Oct 21, 1982

Louisville, Neb. - Sixteen children prayed with visiting ministers and then returned to classes in a church basement today after authorities removed a padlock from the church door.

No law officers were present, and Roy Thompson, a fundamentalist minister from Cleveland now in charge of the non-accredited Christian school at Faith Baptist Church, said the illegal school would return to its routine. (snip)

Among those at the church was Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who said he traveled to this community of 1000 because it was "incredible" that authorities would lock a church in America.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=V7MSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Y_kDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7093,1437508&dq=duncan-hunter&hl=en

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Viet War Widows Make System Work

Washington Post - Dec 28, 1982

This is a story of how a small group of women, with a just cause, has prevailed on Congress and the White House to right a wrong. It is also the story of a system that works and a government that keeps its commitments.

In the summer of 1981, when Congress curtailed Social Security benefits for widows and eliminated Social Security benefits for students after the age of 18, it reduced the benefits to an estimated 26,000 widows and 70,000 children of men killed in the Vietnam war. Whle the continued to receive Veterans Adminstration benefits, they lost, as of last May 1, an average of $265 a month per dependent from Social Security.

When Madeline Van Wagenen, widow of a Marine Corps helicopter pilot and mother of a son who is now 14, realized the benefits were being cut, sh wrote letters to Washington but got no response. Then she and other widows formed a group called Survivors of Sacrifice and they began writing congressmen and coming to Washington to tell their stories.

What made their situation unusual was that they were able to prove that the Social Security payments were an integral part of the deal the government made with their husbands. "Our basic argument was that you ought to keep your word to a man that gives up his life for you", says Van Wagenen.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., sponsored a bill to restore their benefits, and soon the group was using his office as their headquarters.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_80TAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QuIDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6790,7226946&dq=duncan-hunter&hl=en

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NOMINATION OF MORTON HALPERIN TO BE THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR DEMOCRACY AND PEACEKEEPING

GlobalSecurity.org - Oct 21, 1993 Congressional record

Statement by Congressman Duncan Hunter

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and the members of the Armed Services Committee for providing me with the opportunity to outline my views concerning the nomination of Morton Halperin to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Democracy and Peacekeeping.

After careful consideration, I am in complete agreement with Senator Strom Thurmond (SC), the ranking Republican on this Committee, and I urge you to reject this nomination. Morton Halperin's persistent activities show a complete disregard for the procurement, use and protection of classified intelligence. I believe he would be a clear security risk, and his past activities have been very detrimental to the national security interests of the United States. Senator Thurmond has said Morton Halperin `is dangerously out of step with the mainstream national security community * * * I am concerned that we may be letting the fox into the hen house should Mr. Halperin be confirmed.'

The Wall Street Journal has described Mr. Halperin, who headed the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union for eight years, as a `left-liberal spearthrower.' They went on to describe him as `wildly naive on most issues of the Cold War, especially in perceiving a `defensive' Soviet Union.'

Morton Halperin has consistently advocated his strange belief that the use of intelligence for purposes of national security is somehow antithetical to our Constitution. In his book, `The Lawless State: The Crimes of U.S. Intelligence Agencies,' Halperin states, `Using secret intelligence agencies to defend a constitutional republic is akin to the ancient medical practice of employing leeches to take blood from feverish patients.' He says, `Secrecy * * * does not serve national security. * * * Covert operations are incompatible with constitutional government and should be abolished.'

The nominee told a Congressional committee in 1975 that intelligence activities should cease to exist. `I believe the United States should no longer maintain a career service for the purpose of conducting covert operations or covert intelligence collection by human beings. I also believe the United States should outlaw as a matter of national policy the conduct of covert operations.' He reaffirmed this view in 1987 before the House Intelligence Committee.

Not only is Mr. Halperin against the use of intelligence in general, but he is also opposed to the classification of sensitive information. Mr. Halperin stated in 1980 that `Under the First Amendment, Americans have every right to seek to `impede or impair' the functions of any federal agency, whether it is the FTC or the CIA, by publishing information acquired from unclassified sources.'

In 1985 he supported the editors of the Progressive magazine when they published information about the design and manufacturing of nuclear weapons. When the government was prosecuting Samuel Morrison for disclosure of classified satellite photos, Mr. Halperin said the case posed `an extraordinary threat to the First Amendment.'

While dedication to the protection of Constitutional rights is certainly commendable, the nominee clearly takes this protection well beyond prudent limits when the national security interests of the United States are concerned. There is also no reason why his past statements will not reflect future action he takes as Assistant Secretary. Furthermore, at the Pentagon he will of course have full access to classified information.

The nominee has specifically stated he would like to see the following information declassified:

All activities regarding U.S. covert operations;

Detailed nuclear weapons design information;

All commitments to employ American forces;

Research on a new weapon systems;

Diplomatic negotiations; and

Many activities regarding all of our intelligence organizations.

The entire national security community was very disturbed when Morton Halperin assisted Philip Agee in his campaign to expose the identities of CIA agents. At the American Civil Liberties Union he served as Agee's legal counsel and argued that Agee's travel should not be restricted.

Agee described the CIA as `the secret police of American capitalism.' His single minded aim, so he avowed, was to destroy that agency in order to `purify the American role in the world.' Agee's treachery included naming 170 CIA colleagues and friendly agents, all previously under essential and presumably inviolable cover, whom he had worked with. Halperin defended him despite the fact that Agee revealed a number of intelligence operations which he was sworn, by the oath of his employment, never to divulge.

Morton Halperin was Agee's legal counsel and his major defender after the former intelligence operative wrote `Inside the Company: CIA Diary.' In the words of the bipartisan American Security Council, `few books by an unknown writer have caused so much damage to a national institution.'

According to ASC, `The careers of CIA officers, many of them in the prime of usefulness, were summarily interrupted and diverted by Agee's work and Halperin's defense. The anguish visited upon their families, not to mention the physical danger to them, that went with exposure, must be included in the final cost. For example, Agee's publication CounterSpy, named Richard Welch as the CIA Station Chief in Athens, Greece. Welch was assassinated after Agee's publication put him in the bull's eye by naming him as a CIA officer.'

Former Senator Barry Goldwater, who previously served as Chairman of this Committee, said that Agee should be stripped of his citizenship. Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen, while he was a U.S. Senator, said Agee should be imprisoned. Nevertheless, Morton Halperin rushed to his defense after the British House of Commons upheld Agee's expulsion order by a vote of 138 to 4.

Philip Agee orchestrated a betrayal verging on treason, and Morton Halperin was one of his principal defenders. Both Agee and Halperin were both ring leaders in a campaign to harass, intimidate and deform our national intelligence services.

Morton Halperin's activities were instrumental to the disgraceful and dangerous decline of the prestige and vigilance of our intelligence community in the 1970s. In responding to the Agee/Halperin onslaught, Admiral Stanfield Turner, who served as Jimmy Carter's CIA Director, said in 1978, `I almost hold by breath every morning until I know if today's disclosures include some of our sensitive sources of intelligence * * *. Allied intelligence services are losing confidence that we can keep a secret. We suspect that some are holding back information.' I would remind the Committee that Halperin's activities were occurring at a time the CIA was reporting 1,900 `spies' from the Soviet bloc were operating inside our borders.

Halperin's views on constitutional rights came into direct conflict with the Supreme Court which stated that `Restricting Agee's foreign travel * * * is the only avenue open to the Government to limit these activities * * * Agee's disclosures, among other things, have the declared purpose of obstructing intelligence operations and the recruiting of intelligence personnel. They are clearly not protected by the Constitution.'

Halperin also favorably reviewed Agee's book `Inside the Company: CIA Diary,' saying that in it `we learn in devastating detail what is done in the name of the United States.' He did not criticize the book for releasing over 30 pages of names of U.S. covert operatives overseas, or the fact that Agee acknowledges in the preface the help he received from the Cuban Communist Party.

Halperin concluded the review by saying, `The only way to stop all of this is to dissolve the CIA covert career service and to bar the CIA from at least developing and allied nations.'

Then there is the matter of Mr. Halperin's involvement in the unauthorized publication of the so-called `Pentagon Papers.' The nominee's role was crucial to giving Daniel Ellsberg access to this classified material. In fact, Mr. Halperin had the central responsibility for deciding who would have access to the `Pentagon Papers.' Mr. Halperin invited Ellsberg to participate in a classified study of U.S. policy in Vietnam even though Ellsberg had previously said he felt these top-secret papers should be made public.

Unfortunately, Morton Halperin's involvement did not end there. Ellsberg lived in Halperin's home while the `Pentagon Papers' were being illegally copied and stored, and while Ellsberg gave the `Pentagon Papers' to the radical Institute for Policy Studies. Henry Kissinger was so concerned about the nominee's activities in leaking sensitive information to the news media that he ordered a tap placed on Mr. Halperin's telephone. Whether the nominee directly participated or not, it is certainly clear Halperin knew Ellsberg was releasing classified information about the Papers. Halperin's involvement was brought to a conclusion when he later went on to help with Ellsberg's legal defense.

All of the members of the Armed Services Committee have received an indepth policy paper prepared by Frank Gaffney, the former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and his Center for Security Policy. This outstanding research document, entitled `The Case Against the Halperin Nomination,' contains numerous examples of statements the nominee has made over the past two and a half decades which clearly raise serious concerns about his commitment to our national security interests. I have also reviewed an analysis of Morton Halperin's positions prepared by the bipartisan American Security Council. According to ASC, the nominee's entire record can be described as `blaming America first' for many adverse activities throughout the world.

From the early 1970s, Morton Halperin consistently forgave and defended the former Soviet Union. In the Nation magazine, he wrote, `Every action which the Soviet Union and Cuba have taken in Africa has been consistent with the principles of international law. The Cubans have come in only when invited by a government, and have remained only at their request . . . Soviet conduct reflects simply a different Soviet estimate of what should happen in the African continent and a genuine conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.'

In his 1971 book, `Defense Strategies for the Seventies,' he states: `The Soviet Union apparently never even contemplated the overt use of military force against Western Europe. * * * The Soviet posture toward Western Europe has been, and continues to be, a defensive and deterrent one. The positioning of Soviet ground forces in Eastern Europe and the limited logistical capability of these forces suggests an orientation primarily toward defense against a Western attack.'

The nominee always diminished the military threat the Soviet Union posed to the world. He consistently focused on portraying a `defensive' Soviet Union. Such ideas run counter to what was widely believed at the time, and to what we now know to be the truth.

It is clear the nomination of Morton Halperin to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Democracy and Peacekeeping is a security risk we cannot afford to take. Mr. Halperin is completely opposed to the use of intelligence agencies, and he strongly believes that much of the top-secret information concerning national security should be declassified.

The nominee has demonstrated this not only in his extensive writings, but also in the actions he has taken to achieve these goals. It would be a mistake to allow a person with this background to be confirmed in a senior program in the Department of Defense.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/1993_cr/s931021-halperin.htm

[pissant]

Just some more background nuggets for our potential next CIC.

[pissant]

ping

[pissant]

FUROR ON ABORTION ENDING IN SILENCE

NY Times - Oct 28, 1992

After a furious debate in its waning hours, Congress earlier this month approved a bill to allow military personnel and their dependents to have abortions at military hospitals overseas.

President Bush opposes the bill, as he has for the past three years, and is trying to let the measure die a quiet death. Strangely enough, the bill’s most fervent supporters have barely protested, even though the legislation has never before advanced this far.

(snip)

At issue is whether thousands of American military personnel and their dependents stationed abroad, where good medical care is not always available, should be given access to safe and affordable abortions. The proposal would not include public financing for the abortions.

(snip)

Opponents said the measure was tantamount to military-approved abortions on demand.

Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, argued, “The unborn children who are going to be subjected to this very, very radical act through this particular provision are those children who are going to be aborted in military hospitals around the world, and I think it is a tragedy that this Department of Defense is going to be used as a Department of Aggression against unborn children.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/28/us/furor-on-abortion-ending-in-silence.html

[Dan Middleton]

Who says he’s out potential next CiC? The same six people who did last year?

[pissant]

Gee, and to think the millions that thought a RINO like Mccain could beat the boy marxist, eh?

[SZonian]

Make that 7 people.

Duncan Hunter is a true conservative and his record shows it. Who are you behind?

SZ

[pissant]

BUMP

[Dan Middleton]

"Duncan Hunter is a true conservative and his record shows it."

What's your point?

"Who are you behind?"

Nobody, because it's 2009 and we have a midterm election we should be focusing on.

[pissant]

Here is a simple tip for that. Find the conservatives in the races, support them with time and money, and get your friends fired up to vote

[Dan Middleton]

Thanks for that, never would have figured it out otherwise. Hopefully all my friends won’t be too busy slitting each other’s throats over their preferred 2012 messiah to make it to the polls.

[SZonian]

I would ask you “what’s your point”? If you aren’t behind DH, then why make a smartass post on a thread that shouldn’t interest you in the least.

I’m focused on the midterms as well. But it’s never too early to start getting the word out about DH.

I for one welcome the thread and feel it’s about damn time that we throw our support behind a candidate who can energize the base with a common cause, conservatism.

Hunter/Palin 2012

SZ

[pissant]

You never know. but if you scroll through this, you might see some people can multi-task.

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:pissant/index?tab=articles

[Kimberly GG]

what do you think the chances are?

I’d love to see a Hunter/Bachman or Hunter/DeMint ticket!

[Dan Middleton]

"I for one welcome the thread and feel it’s about damn time that we throw our support behind a candidate who can energize the base"

Yeah, DH has got a great track record on that front.

[pissant]

We won’t know if he’s going to run for quite some time. The only thing he’s said is that he hasn’t ruled anything out. But even if he doesn’t run, he needs to influence the debate again. Notice how all the china appeasers and open borders hacks were sounding Churchillian on China and Hunter-esque on the border towards the end of the last campaign? LOL.

Of course they didn’t really mean it.

[pissant]

No worries, mate, there will be plenty of milquetoasts for you to choose from running again.

[Dan Middleton]

Along with the few token laughable no-hopers.

[demkicker]

I absolutely LOVE Duncan Hunter and had an extraordinarily personal experience with him back in 2003. I was flying back from Corpus Christi to Houston after my mother's heart bypass and valve surgery when I met him on the plane. He had been invited on a hunting trip in south Texas and was en-route back to California. After days in the hospital, I had to place my heroic mother and invalid step-father in an assisted living facility until my mother got her strength back and could go home.

Mom wasn't very happy there and my sister and I regretted that we didn't live nearby so that the re-cooperation could take place in their own home. I'll never forget Duncan Hunter's questions about my mother and step-father and his genuine concern that I felt so helpless. I was so impressed with our conversation that I asked him what he did for a living. He cracked a slight smile and told me that he was a US Rep from California. I could tell that he wold have preferred to be anonymous. He was the most down to earth ‘politician’ I've ever met and I really do feel that he is one of God's angels.

As our plane was descending upon Houston, Rep Hunter asked me the names of my mother and step-father and if I mined that he say a prayer for ‘Mary and Eric’. Of course I accepted his truly genuine offer and he proceeded to say the most beautiful prayer for perfect strangers.

I've been in the sales profession for years and can spot a phony from a mile away. Duncan Hunter is ONE OF THE MOST GENUINE CHRISTIAN CARING PATRIOTS THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER KNOWN. PLEASE SUPPORT HIM.

[Kimberly GG]

“The only thing he’s said is that he hasn’t ruled anything out.”

Really? I’m so please to know that. I had no clue he was even interested anymore.

[Kimberly GG]

Great story...thanks for sharing it!

Duncan Hunter got my vote in 2008 and he’ll get it again!