Posted on 05/15/2006 12:39:01 PM PDT by LSUfan
Now we know. The Sunday morning CNN program hosted by Wolf Blitzer provided an explanation for at least some of the bizarre behavior in evidence lately in Washington.
In response to a video clip of Senator Jon Kyl (Republican of Arizona) making the sensible point that it is "nuts" in a time of war to be disclosing our intelligence sources and methods, former Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski declared that "we are not at war." While he acknowledged that there are serious threats, he suggested that it was fear-mongering to talk about being in a war, a practice used to justify otherwise insupportable infringements on the privacy and equanimity of Americans.
Breaking the Code
This is a useful prism through which to view this week's hearings on the nomination of Air Force General Michael Hayden to become the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. We can expect Democratic Senators and even some Republican ones to showboat as they take the nominee to task for his work in a previous incarnation as the head of the National Security Agency (NSA). In that role and at presidential direction, the general strove to use NSA's powerful and exceedingly sensitive computing and eavesdropping tools to protect us against another terrible attack by enemies bent on our destruction.
Specifically, Gen. Hayden will be excoriated for having used warrantless wiretaps to try to monitor the battlefield communications of such foes. Battlefield signal intercepts in time of war are the stock-in-trade of the National Security Agency and, indeed, of military intelligence more generally. That such intercepts involve phone calls, faxes and e-mails to or from people inside the United States simply underscores the fact that we are, indeed, at war, one that amounts to a global conflict that is different - and potentially far more dangerous - than any we have fought before.
Legislators will also assail the general for having sought phone records - not wiretaps - for millions of Americans. Such information could allow the NSA to establish links between terrorist operatives and cells in this country based on calling patterns or connections between known targets and unknown associates. Again, this is the sort of activity the public would expect our government to be doing in time of war. Indeed, polling suggests the American people overwhelmingly support the NSA's efforts on our behalf.
Still, the denunciations of such eminently sensible and legal practices as unacceptable invasions of our privacy, as illegal activity and possibly as impeachable offenses are an important foretaste of what could happen if the critics get to run one or both house of Congress after November's elections: Instead of prosecuting the war for the Free World, official Washington will be consumed with prosecuting George W. Bush.
Confirmed: There is an Anti-Bush 'Camp' at the CIA
A front-page article in Sunday's Washington Post confirms what many have long believed: Those who disagree with the President's view that we are at war with a very dangerous, state-sponsored Islamofascist ideology include "a camp within the Central Intelligence Agency that considers the war to be a diversion from counter-terrorism activity." With no hint of irony, one of the Post reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize for publishing classified information apparently leaked to the paper by one of those CIA operatives, Mary McCarthy, refers to such a cabal within the ostensibly objective, non-partisan ranks of the Agency by way of trying to rehabilitate Ms. McCarthy - who had been fired by former director Porter Goss.
Mr. Goss was subsequently dismissed by President Bush at the insistence of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Negroponte. Now, Mr. Bush seems about to accede to another, no less ill-advised recommendation by the DNI. Mr. Negroponte wants to rehire another member of the anti-Bush "camp," former senior CIA official Steve Kappes, to be the Agency's Number 2. Such an appointment would be, to use Sen. Kyl's term, "nuts."
After all, Kappes was reportedly removed from his previous post as CIA Deputy Director for Operations when Goss discovered that he and his deputy were engaged in unauthorized disclosures of classified information to members of the press and Congress - then defiantly refused to desist when called on it. Fortunately, members of the congressional leadership have indicated strong opposition to the Kappes candidacy. They may insist that he be subjected to the sort of polygraphing about Kappes' alleged backchanneling of information to critics of the Bush Administration that resulted in Ms. McCarthy's confession to having done the same thing.
The Bottom Line
The fate not just of this presidency but control of Congress and the security of the country may depend on whether the public is clear that we are at war - and with whom and the exceedingly high stakes associated with losing. Toward this end, the President must make a redoubled effort to drive that message home, starting with assuring that his own staff and that of the Nation's intelligence agencies share his understanding of the nature of this war and his determination to win it - both of which seem to be true of Michael Hayden.
Those who feel otherwise are certainly entitled to their view. They are even entitled to work to advance it - just not from a vantage point inside the executive branch, especially by masquerading as objective, non-partisan intelligence analysts and operatives.
PLUS, and it's a really big PLUS, remnant, renegade elements of the former Islamic Caliphate have declared war against us. They didn't need an act of Congress to do so.
"they have both declined to declare war." OH REALLY - PERHAPS YOUR DEFINITION IS TO NARROW. WHERE IS THE APPROVED FORM SPECIFIED IN THE CONSTITUTION ?
The War is over!!!?????? Geez, has anybody let Mother Sheehan know? Maybe she can now go get a job.
"ZB" is correct in the same way that a judge is correct when he let's a murderer walk because his Miranda rights weren't read properly. The President declined to ask for a formal declaration of war because he didn't want to be perceived as "making war on a Muslim nation", and because he wanted a near-unanimous vote in Congress on a "Use of Force" resolution to show that "the American people were united behind him". As unsatisfactory as a "Use of Force Resolution" is to those of us who would like to see those who have committed treason and sedition behind bars right now (as they might well have been in a declared war), it is none the less "war by any other name", just as Korea was a war (even if Harrya$$ Truman called it a "police action").
There is so much more to the People of the United States invoking their War Power through their representatives in Congress assembled than the use of military force against a sovereign state.
Censorship, propaganda, internment, revocation of naturalization, trials by military tribunal, restriction of the US mails, extraordinary intervention in the economy including nationalization of industry and rationing - all of these flow from the War Power of the People.
And all of them are missing in Iraq, were missing in Korea, were missing in Vietnam - is there a trend?
Yeah, we have gotten so much better at kicking ass that we don't need all of those things at the moment.
"We DID declare war. See my post above on this thread."
I think a lot of people need to go back and read what the constitution actually says in article 1, section 8:
"...To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water..."
By my read, Congress get wide latitude not only in the type of authorization they issue, but in DEFINING what constitutes an offence that we will act against. We can split hairs on the definition of "war", but it is clear to me, at least, that Congress has authorized one.
It is a suprise to know that the Fed can handle the millions of phone records generated by the average American
How in the heck do they handle all that info and to what purpose?
I don't even know an arab, much less a radical islamic one.
But I do call my congress and senate critters, do they want that information and if so for what purpose? We really don't know do we. I would like a lot more information on what this information is collected for before giving it a rubber stamp approval.
Brzezinski has few accomplishments to put him in the category of "authority". The MSM continues to play his song with backup by the Jimmie Carter choir.
I'd be more inclined to listen to the "there's a war on" verbiage if I had a congressional declaration of war to read.
Okay, I read your article. I don't necessarily disagree with anything you wrote, but I think you must acknowledge that there are a lot of people, to include Harry S. Truman, serving Congressmen, judges and Zbiggy Brezhinski, who firmly believe that there is such a thing as a "Use of Force" that does not have the same practical effect as a "declaration (formal or otherwise) of War". Were it not so, we could have been looking at Michael Moore's ugly mug behind bars at Leavenworth by now.
Exactly it has been obeyed, but the other poster was saying we weren't doing things we did during total war, and I said its because we don't feel its necessary to break our constitution to fight third world nations.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.