Posted on 02/09/2006 8:29:47 PM PST by smoothsailing
Death Wish
By Oliver North
February 10, 2006
"[T]he president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
So reads "S.J. Res. 23," a Joint Resolution of the Congress, sponsored by then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and signed into law on Sept. 18, 2001, seven days after the most devastating attack that has ever occurred on American soil. Honest people may disagree about whether the Congress needed to give -- or should have given -- the commander in chief the power "to use all necessary and appropriate force." But the Senate voted 98 to 0 and the House 420 to 1 to pass Public Law 107-40 -- giving him just such authority.
Now, in the fifth year of a war America did not start or want, the Congress seems intent on reigning in the president's ability to fight the Global War on Terror.
That is clearly the intent of many -- perhaps even a majority -- on the Senate Judiciary Committee that grilled Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez during a nine-hour-long public hearing this week. The issues -- cloaked in a mind-numbing array of acronyms and the arcane jargon of intelligence collection -- are really quite simple:
First, since the 1970's, Congress has sought to circumscribe the president's powers to collect intelligence and use military force by various laws -- among them, the War Powers Resolution and FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. During a war, does President Bush -- or any other commander in chief -- have the inherent constitutional authority to gather all manner of intelligence on our enemies using a full range of electronic and other collection capabilities?
Second, does Public Law 107-40 -- widely described in Washington as the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) -- supersede normal peacetime proscriptions in intelligence collection?
The Bush administration says "yes" in response to both questions. Many, perhaps most, in Congress seem prepared to say "no" to both. Setting aside the partisan rhetoric from the likes of Sens. Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy, there are members who understand the stakes: a delicate balance between Constitutionally protected civil liberties for the American people -- and the legality of intercepting communications between and among those plotting attacks on the American people. What is not at issue is the ability of the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect such information -- using methods that were never envisioned when FISA was written.
The 4th Amendment is very explicit that, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause." To enshrine these protections, FISA requires -- with very limited exceptions -- that a warrant be obtained before any government listening or peeking is conducted against Americans. Given what we now know of those who attacked us on Sept. 11, and those who killed in London, Madrid, Bali, and Casablanca, Morocco, such "collection restrictions" make it possible to determine who plotted an attack in its aftermath -- but unlikely that we will be able to prevent such an attack before it occurs.
A retired NSA official and friend put it this way: "Our problem, given the broad array of modern telecommunications technology, is that we don't know what we have until we have it." Put differently, we have the ability to monitor massive amounts of information between persons in the United States and others overseas. Any one of millions of messages, phone calls, faxes, e-mails or data transfers could be an instruction to carry out another Sept. 11. Do we want our government to intercept and act on such communications before an attack and save lives? It has worked before.
Nineteen years ago this month, our intelligence services intercepted a message from an overseas capital instructing a terrorist "sleeper cell" in a Washington, D.C. suburb to assassinate a U.S. military officer living in northern Virginia. The FBI alerted the target, and the Department of Defense secretly moved the officer, his wife and children to a military base in North Carolina. The terrorists were apprehended as they prepared to carry out their attack. The technology used to detect the attack is still secret. The lives that were saved were mine and those of my wife and children.
Do we want our government to be able to save lives like this -- very likely on a far broader scale -- in the future? If so, then at the very least, we should take the debate behind closed doors and stop risking the compromise of very sensitive collection capabilities.
Attorney General Gonzales put it succinctly in his testimony before the Judiciary Committee this week: "Our enemy is listening. And I cannot help but wonder if they aren't shaking their heads in amazement at the thought that anyone would imperil such a sensitive program by leaking its existence in the first place -- and smiling at the prospect that we might now disclose even more or perhaps even unilaterally disarm ourselves of a key tool in the war on terror." Failing to heed this advice is nothing short of a death wish.
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COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.
At the behest of the President....are you gonna start bad mouthing RR now?
Your a flake PP.....and in the extreme minority here.
LOL!
Actually it was North and Poindexter who bad mouthed Reagan, Ollie tried to save his own hide by claiming Reagan knew about his crazy scheme. Reagan strongly denied this as did the President's father. Imagine if Reagan had been impeached over Ollie's boondoggle, where would the conservative movement be today? It nearly happened, it was clearly a dark day for Reagan when Ollie's lies forced him to go before the nation and say this
"First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I'm still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior. And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds -- well, as the Navy would say, this happened on my watch.
Let's start with the part that is the most controversial. A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not."
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1987/030487h.htm
Sounds to me like he wanted tear Ollie a new one!
Wow... what a GREAT pic of you and Ollie! May I use it from time to time in my Ollie pings? I'll always ping you when I do. :D
Sure!! (And you can crop me out if you want to! LOL)
He autographed two books -- one for me and one for my brother. And then about a month later my mom, dad and daughter were travelling and stopped at the AF Museum in Ohio and ran into him there. So my daughter got her pic with him as well! LOL
LOL, sowwy! And there you go again - providing ANOTHER awesome Ollie pic!
LOL -- in that case -- you might want to get permission from Bahbah to use hers!!
The terrorists' plot was uncovered and they were arrested while Ollie, and his family, was in a secure place on a militry installation in North Carolina.
Who were they? Are they still in prison?
Sorry, I'm unsure of those details. I remember the incident but what the disposition was; I'm not sure. Check out Ollie's website for today's article on it.
BahBah has a pic of /with Ollie too? :D
Yes -- I have one of her with Ollie and I think she has one too.
Getting in bed with the same people who destroyed the BLT in Beirut, killing 220 of his brother Marines in the process, was probably North's biggest pooch screwing in a long line of pooch screwings. It's good to see him now talking tough about dealing with terrorists but he has a hell of a lot of sins to expiate in that regard. Ironically, had the White House properly vetted North when he applied to work with the NSC in '81, Iran Contra more than likely never would have occurred.
Chuck Krulak, who was North's company commander in Viet Nam, had him pegged a long time ago as a BS artist.
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