Appropriate cartoon posted by LibWhacker on another thread.
Posted on 01/08/2006 11:12:35 PM PST by FairOpinion
Dana Priest of The Washington Post sounds shocked - shocked! - to discover that George W. Bush ordered a complete remobilization and reinvigoration of the CIA immediately after September 11th:
"The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al-Qaida has grown into the largest CIA covert-action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over clandestine tactics . . . ."
This is news? Isn't this just what W. told the country he would do in the aftermath of September 11th?
"Ours will be a broad campaign, fought on many fronts. It's a campaign that will be waged by day and by night, in the light and in the shadow, in battles that you will see and battles you won't see. It's a campaign waged by soldiers and sailors, marines and airmen; and also by FBI agents and law-enforcement officials and diplomats and intelligence officers. . . . Our campaign will be difficult, and it will take time. But I can promise you this: It will be waged with determination, and it will be waged until we win. We will do whatever it takes to protect our country." - George W. Bush, Oct. 17, 2001.
Apparently W. meant it. According to the Post's Ms. Priest, the president signed an order six days after September 11th empowering American intelligence agencies in a way not seen since the Second World War.
Gosh, just as if we had suffered a surprise attack and thousands of our people had been killed in a second Pearl Harbor.
Do you think maybe the president decided to fight this like a world war because, far ahead of his critics, he realized we were in one? The result: A moribund CIA was suddenly brought to life, just as the FBI and OSS were during the last great world war.
To quote Ms. Priest: "The CIA faced the day after the attacks with few al-Qaida informants, a tiny paramilitary division and no interrogators, much less a system for transporting suspected terrorists and keeping them hidden for interrogation."
A lot has changed since then. The CIA proved instrumental, if not decisive, in winning a war in Afghanistan. It is helping to win another in Iraq. It has made covert alliances with foreign intelligence services across the globe, has been given billions of dollars to set up counter-terrorism operations in two dozen countries, and is reported to have set up secret prisons - excuse me, ahem, detainment centers - in at least eight other friendly countries. And inevitably, to borrow a phrase Ronald Reagan used a couple of decades ago, Mistakes Were Made. Just as they are in every war.
And yet this president has persisted even as his critics at home and abroad profess to be shocked at his having carried out his promise to the American people.
Other presidents have been careful to arrange political cover when they authorize a covert war; this one proclaimed his. What ever happened to deniability, a phrase that grew familiar during the Nixon presidency and debacle?
This president not only gave the order to launch this campaign but has taken responsibility for it. What's more, he apparently wants to know just how his orders are being carried out. As if he were commander-in-chief. Goodness. Some of us thought they'd stopped making presidents like that after Harry Truman.
John Radsan, a former counsel with the CIA, seems unhappy with the president's insistence on knowing just what's going on: "In the past, presidents set up buffers to distance themselves from covert action. But this president, who's breaking down the boundaries between covert action and conventional war, seems to relish the secret findings and the dirty details of the operations."
Gosh, just as if we were engaged in a new, unconventional world war that needs to be fought in a new, unconventional way. It's called asymmetrical warfare, one in which an aggressor without a national base can use a worldwide network of terrorists to wreak havoc on an unprepared country.
In this new kind of warfare, an ever-surprised, ever-vulnerable America, was supposed to be easy pickings for these new kamikazes. This country was going to be reduced to cowering behind defenses full of holes.
Instead, this president and this country have taken the offensive - "in battles that you will see and battles you won't see." And at home and abroad, those unhappy with the results are joining in a single chorus: Unfair!
And the unfairest thing of all is the way the CIA has been conducting this secret war - well, mostly secret till The New York Times reveals still another classified document.
Naturally the new, reborn CIA would rile our enemies most; it has been the most successful of American agencies in this war on al-Qaida. To quote Ms. Priest, "The CIA, working with foreign counterparts, has been responsible for virtually all of the success the United States has had in capturing or killing al-Qaida leaders since Sept. 11, 2001."
What's more, the CIA apparently intends to continue tracking down every one of these killers. It seems to feel it's engaged in defending the country, as when it uses predator drones to dispatch al-Qaida leaders with the help of a Hellfire missile or two. Instead of first reading the suspect his rights.
To quote the deputy director of national intelligence, a general named Michael Hayden: "We're going to live on the edge. My spikes will have chalk on them. . . . We're pretty aggressive within the law. As a professional, I'm troubled if I'm not using the full authority allowed by the law."
Yes, shocking. Some of us had no idea they made American intelligence agents that way anymore. And we're much assured they still do.
Why not treat the attacks on this country as a problem in civil law enforcement and escape all the criticism now being directed at this administration?
Because, to quote a former CIA agent named Dewey Clarridge, "You have a spy agency because the spy agency is going to break laws overseas. If you don't want it to do those dastardly things, don't have it. You can have the State Department." Yes, just leave national security to the State Department. Now that's frightening.
But what, in the end, do we have to show for these tactics that have raised eyebrows in every law school in the country? Only that Americans haven't experienced a terrorist attack on our shores since September 11, 2001.
I know the folks responsible for the CIA's secret successes aren't interested in public recognition. Quite the contrary. But let's hope they all get medals. In a secret ceremony.
Paul Greenberg is the Editorial Page Editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Instead, this president and this country have taken the offensive - "in battles that you will see and battles you won't see." And at home and abroad, those unhappy with the results are joining in a single chorus: Unfair! "
We really should give some advantage to the terrorists, according to the Dims. That's why they cannot be trusted with National Security and we need to keep pointing out the obvious, to make sure the American public understands.
Bump for later read.
"Shocking discovery: President determined to defend U.S."
People should vote for Republican presidents if they don't want the nation defended...
There's a reason Dana Priest is just another prematurely aging writer for the Washington Post --
and George W. Bush is President of the United States.
I think you got that backwards. People should NOT vote for Republican presidents if they don't want the nation defended.
Thanks for catching that typo
I definately meant:
People should NOT vote for Republican presidents if they don't want the nation defended...
sorry about that.
Silly stuff they write, isn't it? I can only think of one reason why Dick Cheney was staying at undisclosed locations with a small shadow government: a credible threat of a nuclear terrorist attack on the US. If that doesn't justify a massive CIA response, then nothing does. Why do we spend $40 billion annually on intelligence agencies if we're not going to put them to use in a crisis?
That's what the Dims are doing these days. They so want to say "There is no terrorist threat!" but they can't. And you know the Chomskyites among them want to say "We should be losing more civilians because it's really not fair that since 9-11 George Bush hasn't let anymore of them die."
Many of us are disappointed with certain aspects of the Bush presidency, but some day I believe it will be looked back on the way the Reagan presidency is. Remember, after he left office, we heard plenty of instant rewriting of history by the libs. When Reagan died, though, I was surprised how many of them suddenly gave up and said, "You know, he was a great President." Even on DU they were saying "At least he was a great American, unlike The Chimp!!!"
Once the political battles are forgotten, people will have no choice but to look back on the post-9-11 era and realize that Bush did SOMEthing right to prevent further attacks. The rational people, at least.
It's one thing to be just another aging writer for the Washington Post --
and quite another thing to be President of the United States.
But I guess all they'll ever know is how to be another prematurely aging writer for the Washington Post --
and think all there is possible.
"It's like a newspaper having a breaking story revealing that your mailman actually WALKS right up to your private property--your mail box--and has the audacity to OPEN IT! in plain sight of others, and....put DOCUMENTS into it! Is this what the Founding Fathers intended?!?!?!?!?! "
heheheh, good comparison.
Fortunately, they reward them by their seniority.
For decades the democrats and the likes of JOhn Kerry and been seeking to destroy the CIA and our military, and now we see the Clintonastas within the CIA and the NSA are determined to destroy Bush by these leaks & illegal disclosures.
If I had a penny for every two-bit newspaper writer trying to prove they were smarter than the President of the United States, I'd be a very rich man.
In fact, they'd have to build another mint just to increase the supply of pennies.
I would be shocked if the post ever reported something that wasn't liberal biased.
Appropriate cartoon posted by LibWhacker on another thread.
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I can't speak for any Dims, but Americans have an advantage called the Bill of Rights that no president is empowered to take away. I have yet to see a justification for ignoring the FISC and obtaining warrants (even after the fact as the law permits) for searches conducted on Americans. Instead I see attacks on the patriotism of anyone who questions the executive's claims of limitless power to search Americans without obtaining a warrant.
I mean have the Dims turned into Civil Libetarian Mavins overnight?
The reason the Dims are squealing so much is quite simple, all the little prick, civil servants who were appointed by Clinton, and who are leaking items to the press in order to subvert US policies established by our president, are being detected and called onto the mat! This is a GOOD thing, and Americans are loving it.
Squeal you Liberals Squeal, just like the stuck pigs you are!
The President is not empowered to violate the 4th amendment. FISA provides the FISC to review and approve searches of Americans pursuant to national security. It even permits the FISC warrant to be pursued after the fact. Nothing empowers the president to ignore the 4th amendment.
If you accept that the president can disregard the Bill of Rights at his whim then we have substituted tyranny for constitutional government. I don't want an America where a President Hillary Clinton can read any American's mail or tap their phones without following the established legal process of obtaining a warrant.
The POTUS doesn't need a warrant to surveil enemy agents and their domestic contacts in time of war when national security is at stake, there are established legal precedents for this, anybody who doesn't understand this is either an idiot or an unpatriotic liberal politician trying to topple a GOP led administration.
"The government had long maintained that it had extensive discretion to conduct wiretapping or physical searches in order to protect national security. In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), the Supreme Court acknowledged that the President had claimed special authority for warrantless surveillance in national security investigations, and explicitly declined to extend its holding to cases "involving the national security." Id. at 358 n. 23. Similarly, Congress in Title III stated that "nothing in Title III shall . . . be deemed to limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the United States against the overthrow of the Government by force or other unlawful means, or against any other clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government."
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