Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2009/04/28/nine_questions_the_left_needs_to_answer_about_torture?page=full&comments=true
April 28, 2009
Any human being with a functioning conscience or a decent heart loathes torture. Its exercise has been a blight on humanity. With this in mind, those who oppose what the Bush administration did to some terror suspects may be justified. But in order to ascertain whether they are, they need to respond to some questions:
1. Given how much you rightly hate torture, why did you oppose the removal of Saddam Hussein, whose prisons engaged in far more hideous tortures, on thousands of times more people, than America did -- all of whom, moreover, were individuals and families who either did nothing or simply opposed tyranny? One assumes, furthermore, that all those Iraqi innocents Saddam had put into shredding machines or whose tongues were cut out and other hideous tortures would have begged to be waterboarded.
2. Are all forms of painful pressure equally morally objectionable? In other words, are you willing to acknowledge that there are gradations of torture as, for example, there are gradations of burns, with a third-degree burn considerably more injurious and painful than a first-degree burn? Or is all painful treatment to be considered torture? Just as you, correctly, ask proponents of waterboarding where they draw their line, you, too, must explain where you draw your line.
3. Is any maltreatment of anyone at any time -- even a high-level terrorist with knowledge that would likely save innocents’ lives -- wrong? If there is no question about the identity of a terror suspect , and he can provide information on al-Qaida -- for the sake of clarity, let us imagine that Osama Bin Laden himself were captured -- could America do any form of enhanced interrogation involving pain and/or deprivation to him that you would consider moral and therefore support?
4. If lawyers will be prosecuted for giving legal advice to an administration that you consider immoral and illegal, do you concede that this might inhibit lawyers in the future from giving unpopular but sincerely argued advice to the government in any sensitive area? They will, after all, know that if the next administration disapproves of their work, they will be vilified by the media and prosecuted by the government.
5. Presumably you would acknowledge that the release of the classified reports on the handling of high-level, post-Sept. 11 terror suspects would inflame passions in many parts of the Muslim world. If innocents were murdered because nonviolent cartoons of Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper, presumably far more innocents will be tortured and murdered with the release of these reports and photos. Do you accept any moral responsibility for any ensuing violence against American and other civilians?
6. Many members of the intelligence community now feel betrayed and believe that the intelligence community will be weakened in their ability to fight the most vicious organized groups in the world. As reported in the Washington Post, former intelligence officer “(Mark) Lowenthal said that fear has paralyzed agents on the ground. Apparently, many of those in the know are certain that life-saving information was gleaned from high level terror suspects who were waterboarded. As Mike Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit in charge of tracking Osama bin Laden, said, ”We were very certain that the interrogation procedures procured information that was worth having.” If, then, the intelligence community has been adversely affected, do you believe it can still do the work necessary to protect tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people from death and maiming?
7. Will you seek to prosecute members of Congress such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who were made aware of the waterboarding of high-level suspects and voiced no objections?
8. Would you agree to releasing the photos of the treatment of Islamic terrorists only if accompanied by photos of what their terror has done to thousands of innocent people around the world? Would you agree to photos -- or at least photo re-enactments -- of, let us say, Iraqi children whose faces were torn off with piano wire by Islamists in Iraq? If not, why not? Isn’t context of some significance here?
9. You say that America’s treatment of terror suspects will cause terrorists to treat their captives, especially Americans, more cruelly. On what grounds do you assert this? Did America’s far more moral treatment of Japanese prisoners than Japan’s treatment of American prisoners in World War II have any impact on how the Japanese treated American and other prisoners of war? Do you think that evil people care how morally pure America is?
If you do not address these questions, it would appear that you care less about morality and torture than about vengeance against the Bush administration.
Dennis Prager is a radio show host, contributing columnist for Townhall.com, and author of 4 books including Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Nine Questions the Left Needs to Answer About Torture by Dennis Prager
Sunday, April 26, 2009
100 DAYS, 100 MISTAKES: Joe Scarborough, Glenn Beck And Others On Obama's Short, Error-Prone Time In Office
Source: http://www.nypost.com/seven/04252009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/100_days__100_mistakes_166177.htm?page=0
April 25, 2009
1. "Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of 'earmarks,' urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them, some that members of his own staff shoved in last year when they were still members of Congress. 'Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,' Obama said." -- McClatchy, 3/11
2. "There is no doubt that we've been living beyond our means and we're going to have to make some adjustments." -- Obama during the campaign.
3. This year's budget deficit: $1.5 trillion.
4. Asks his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million -- a whopping .0027%!
5. "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties." -- ABC News, 4/15
6. "Mr. Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the 'teleprompt president' over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech." -- Sky News, 3/18
7. In early February, the 2010 census was moved out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House, politicizing how federal aid is distributed and electoral districts are drawn.
8. Obama taps Nancy Killefer for a new administration job, First Chief Performance Officer -- to police government spending. But it surfaces that Killefer had performance issues of her own -- a tax lien was slapped on her DC home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She withdrew.
9. Turkey tried to block the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new NATO secretary general because he didn't properly punish the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed. France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel were outraged; Obama said he supported Turkey's induction into the European Union.
10. . . . and he never mentioned the Armenian genocide.
11. The picture of Obama and Hugo Chavez shaking hands.
12. Hugo Chavez gave him the anti-American screed "The Open Veins of Latin America." Obama didn't remark upon it. At least it wasn't DVDs.
13. Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega went on a 50-minute anti-American rant, calling Obama "president of an empire." Obama didn't leave the room. "I thought it was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought," he said.
14. Executives at AIG get $165 million in bonuses, despite receiving an $173 billion taxpayer bailout.
15. "For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back." -- Associated Press, 3/18
16. "After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway." -- New York Post, 2/15
17. MEGHAN CLYNE ON: "I WON" AND THE DEATH OF BIPARTISANSHIP
"Obama soared to victory on the hopeful promise of a new era of bipartisanship. During his inaugural address he even promised an 'end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.'
"Too bad it took all of three days for the promise to ring hollow.
"Start with Obama's big meeting with top congressional leaders on his signature legislation -- the stimulus -- on the Friday after his inauguration. Listening to Republican concerns about overspending was a nice gesture -- until he shut down any hopes of real dialogue by crassly telling Republican leaders: 'I won.' Even the White House's leaking of the comment was a slap at the Republican leadership, who'd expected Obama to adhere to the custom of keeping private meetings with congressional leadership, well, private.
"It's only gone downhill from there. The stimulus included zero Republican recommendations, and failed to get a single House Republican vote.
"It's not just the tactic of using Republicans for bipartisan photo-ops, and then cutting them loose before partisan decisions, that irks Obama's opponents. The new president wasted no time rushing forward with policies and legislation guaranteed to drive Republicans nuts. The first bill he signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act -- a partisan hot-button that drew all of eight Republican supporters in the entire Congress. Then there was the swift reversal of Bush policies on abortion and embryonic-stem-cell research -- issues dear to the Republican base.
"And when Obama and the Democrats in Congress took up SCHIP -- the children's health-insurance bill that Republicans say vastly expands government's role in health care -- they had an easy chance for real bipartisanship. After all, the bill had been hashed out in the previous Congress, and a bipartisan accord was reached before President Bush responded with a veto. Did the Obama team push for the compromise version in the 111th Congress? Nope. They went back to the drawing board, ramming through the Democrats' dream version.
"Of course, the lack of bipartisanship isn't limited to Capitol Hill. Obama has taken gratuitous swipes at the Republicans who recently decamped Washington, blaming President Bush for everything from the economy and the war to the lack of sufficient puppies and rainbows. And who could forget the Rush Limbaugh flap -- in which Obama's top advisers, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, orchestrated a public relations campaign meant to undermine the Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, by framing talk-radio personality Limbaugh as the real head of the Republican Party.
"For now, Obama's back-pedal on the bipartisanship promise just makes him look insincere. But the real consequences of the mistake will be felt soon enough. As Presidents Bush and Clinton could tell him, congressional majorities do change -- and at some point, Obama will need Republicans on his side. He'd be smart to spend his second 100 days making up for the serious snubs of his first."
-- Meghan Clyne is a DC-based writer.
18. "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." -- Department of Homeland Security intelligence report
19. Nixes a "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill.
20. "Yes, Canada is not Mexico, it doesn't have a drug war going on. Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there." -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The 9/11 hijackers did not come across the Canada border
21. "The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as 'the largest middle-class tax increase in history.' " -- New York Times, 3/14
22. JOE SCARBOROUGH ON: PROMOTING FEAR
"During his historic inaugural speech, Barack Obama promised to usher in a transformational age where hope would replace fear, unity would overtake partisanship, and change would sweep aside the status quo. But early in President Obama's first 100 days it is obvious that the only thing that is changing is the Candidate of Change, himself.
"The same politician who proclaimed during his inauguration that 'on this day we have chosen hope over fear' soon warned Americans that the US economy would be forever destroyed if the stimulus bill was voted down.
"Why was it that same man who promised to put Americans' interests ahead of his own political ambitions chose instead to use the suffering of citizens to advance his agenda?
"Maybe he was following the guidance of Rahm Emanuel, who famously said, 'You never want to waste a good crisis.'
"They didn't.
"The White House's warnings were so over-the-top that Bill Clinton felt compelled to warn the new president against making such grim pronouncements. Americans would quickly warn that the White House would not channel FDR's eternal optimism but rather embrace the gloomy worldview of Edgar Allen Poe.
"The Candidate of Hope also quickly adopted the Nixonian worldview that Americans voted their fears rather than their hopes. Over Mr. Obama's first 100 days, that cynical calculation paid off politically for a White House that seemed most interested in appeasing the most liberal members of his Democratic Party.
"I expected more from Barack Obama. For the sake of my country, I hope I get it from the new president over the next 100 days."
-- Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and author of "The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise" (Crown Forum), due out June 9.
23. Sanjay Gupta was in discussions to become Surgeon General, but the TV personality withdrew after he was criticized for his flimsy political record.
24. Rasmussen finds 58% of Americans believe the Obama administration's release of CIA memos endangers the national security of the United States.
25. Only 28% think the Obama administration should do any further investigating of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects.
26. "Obama thanked CIA employees for their work and said they're invaluable to national security. He explained his decision to release the memos, then told everyone not to feel bad because he was now acknowledging potential mistakes. Theirs, not his. 'That's how we learn,' Obama said, as though soothing a room full of fourth-graders." -- The Oklahoman, 4/23
27. By releasing the torture memos, Obama opened American citizens up to international tribunals. A UN lawyer said the US is obliged to prosecute lawyers who drafted the memos or else violate the Geneva Conventions.
28. In their first meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama gave him 25 DVDs that don't work in Europe.
29. TIM CARNEY ON: PICKING BILL RICHARDSON AS SECRETARY OF COMMERCE
"Richardson's value in Obama's Cabinet had everything to do with appearances. First, he was the Hispanic pick. Second, because Richardson had run against Obama for President, tapping him for the Cabinet helped the media write the Obama-Lincoln comparisons by burnishing the 'Team of Rivals' image.
"But Richardson withdrew before Obama was even inaugurated when news came out about a criminal investigation involving David Rubin, president of a firm named Chambers, Dunhill, Rubin & Co. (although there was no Chambers or Dunhill), who had donated at least $110,000 to Richardson's campaign committees and had also profited from $1.5 million in contracts from the state government.
"This was an early warning sign about Obama's vetting process (various tax problems and the Daschle problem would reveal this as a theme), but picking Richardson to run Commerce also highlighted that Obama and Richardson's promise of 'public-private partnerships' -- such as Detroit bailouts, Wall Street bailouts, and green energy--was an open door for corruption and was at odds with Obama's promise to diminish the influence of lobbyists.
"The Richardson mistake was one of Obama's first, and it was emblematic. Richardson embodied Obama's attention to self-image and the problems inherent in his vision of an intimate business-government connection."
-- Tim Carney is a Washington Examiner columnist
30. Timothy Geithner nomination as Secretary of Treasury was almost torpedoed when it was discovered he had failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes. He also employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper. He was confirmed anyway.
31. . . . Not so lucky, Annette Nazareth, who was nominated for Deputy Treasury Secretary. She withdrew her name for undisclosed "personal reasons" after a monthlong probe into her taxes . . .
32. . . . or Caroline Atkinson, who withdrew as nominee for Undersecretary of International Affairs in Treasury Department, with a source blaming the long vetting process. Geithner still has a skeleton crew at Treasury, with no one qualified -- or willing -- to take jobs there.
33. "Barack Obama has been embroiled in a cronyism row after reports that he intends to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador in London. The selection of Mr. Susman, a lawyer and banker from the president's hometown of Chicago, rather than an experienced diplomat, raises new questions about Mr Obama's commitment to the special relationship with Britain." -- Telegraph, 2/22
34. Obama's doom-and-gloom comments and budget bill push the Dow below 7,000, from which it's only recently recovered.
35. "You're sitting here. And you're -- you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, 'I mean, he's sitting there just making jokes about money--' How do you deal with -- I mean: Explain. Are you punch-drunk?" -- Steve Kroft, "60 Minutes," 3/22
36. "We have begun to modernize 75% of all federal building space, which has the potential to reduce long-term energy costs by billions of dollars on behalf of taxpayers. We are providing grants to states to help weatherize hundreds of thousands of homes, which will save the families that benefit about $350 each year. That's like a $350 tax cut." -- Obama, describing something that doesn't cut taxes.
37. "The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government." -- Defense News, 2/19
38. Backtracking on a campaign promise he made to black farmers, Obama significantly lowered the amount of money they could claim in a discrimination settlement against the Agricultural Department. "I can't figure out for the life of me why the president wouldn't want to implement a bill that he fought for as a US senator," said John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association.
39. "I've been practicing bowling. I bowled a 129. It was like the Special Olympics or something." -- Obama on "The Tonight Show"
40. Obama lifts travel and remittance restrictions on Cuba.
41. Obama considers dropping the embargo on Cuba.
42. After warming signs from Raul Castro, Fidel Castro says Obama "misinterpreted" his brother's words, and that Cuba would not be willing to negotiate about human rights.
43. Obama is considering dropping a key demand to Iran, allowing it to keep nuclear facilities open during negotiations.
44. In a letter to Dmitri Medvedev, Obama offered to drop plans for a missile shield in Europe in exchange for Russia's help in resolving the nuclear weapons issue in Iran.
45. Medvedev said he would not "haggle" on Iran and the missile shield.
46. Obama asked Congress for an extra $83.4 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a special funding measure of the kind he opposed while in the senate. As a candidate, Obama promised to cut the cost of military operations.
47. After trying to woo Europe as the "anti-Bush," Obama made an impassioned plea for more troops in Afghanistan. "Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone," he said. "This is a joint problem it requires a joint effort." Only the UK offered substantial help, most others refused.
48. "While the online question portion of the White House town hall was open to any member of the public with an Internet connection, the five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama's campaign in 2008." -- Washington Post, 3/27
49. Obama bows to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London.
50. "It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah." -- An Obama aide
51. DANA PERINO ON: REMAINING IN CAMPAIGN MODE
"Has it really only been 100 days? In many ways it feels like a lot longer.
"That's partly because the new administration remains in campaign mode most of the time. Now that's not in itself a bad thing if you can do that and accomplish your agenda. But what's happened is that a popular new president has laid out a very bold agenda in the midst of an economic crisis, and I don't think Congress is going to get a lot of work done on those big ticket items this year. They'll eke out a couple of small wins on issues like healthcare and maybe energy, but the Democrats will hail them as big victories. The Republicans have been working like a cohesive and loyal opposition party, and they need to continue to outline positive new ideas like the recent one to help grow American's savings.
"The early stumbles on the administration's high profile nominations -- Daschle and Richardson for just to examples -- acted like weights around their ankles. In addition, the partisan shots from the White House were unbecoming and I don't think we'll see more of that. Our allies and our enemies -- heck, even we ourselves -- are trying to understand the new foreign policy direction, which in some ways seems to be change just for the sake of change. The next moves by the leaders of other countries -- like Iran, North Korea and Venezuela -- probably will prove that really not much will change just because America has a new president.
"In many ways, it's the next 100 days that will tell us more about our new president and what he'll be able to accomplish than we can forecast based on the first 100 days."
-- Dana Perino was White House press secretary in the Bush Administration
52. "We can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary." -- Obama, describing the stimulus bill
53. Three candidates for ambassador to the Vatican -- including Caroline Kennedy -- were turned down by the Holy See because they supported abortion, according to reports.
54. After saying he wouldn't have lobbyists in his administration, Obama made 17 exceptions in the first two weeks in office.
55. . . . including Tom Daschle, who worked as a top lobbyist yet was going to be appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services -- until his failure to pay income taxes derailed his nomination.
56. For an April 14 speech at Georgetown, the administration asked the university to cover up all signs and symbols -- including the letters "IHS" in gold, a symbol for Jesus.
57. Samantha Power, who resigned from the Obama campaign after calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a "monster," was hired to a position on the National Security Council.
58. "Chicago has yet to recoup the $1.74 million cost of President Obama's victory celebration in Grant Park -- despite a burgeoning $50.5 million budget shortfall that threatens more layoffs and union concessions." -- Chicago Sun-Times, 2/20
59. Firing Rick Wagoner as president of GM.
60. Threatening to fire Vikram Pandit as CEO of Citigroup.
61. Threatening to fire anyone the administration doesn't like from any company.
62. Not adopting a dog from a shelter.
63. "The GAO study asserts that officials from most of the states surveyed 'expressed concerns regarding the lack of Recovery Act funding provided for accountability and oversight. Due to fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff -- limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds.' " -- ABC News, 4/23
64. "The National Newspaper Publishers Association named Obama 'Newsmaker of the Year.' The president is to receive the award from the federation of black community newspapers in a White House ceremony this afternoon. The Obama White House has closed the press award ceremony to the press." -- Los Angeles Times, 3/20
65. "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards." -- Attorney General Eric Holder
66. "I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances." -- Obama, on consulting with only "living" presidents
67. Obama quietly announced that he would not press for new labor and environmental regulations in the North American Free Trade Agreement, going back on a campaign promise.
68. NICOLE GELINAS ON: MISSPENT STIMULUS
"One of Obama's most poignant missed opportunities was in not using the historic $787 million stimulus package to reorder state and local government's spending priorities. As states and cities continue to spend ceaselessly and without results on education and healthcare, they're crowding out investments in the physical infrastructure that the private sector needs to rebuild the economy.
"In the stimulus, of the more than $200 billion that went directly to states and cities, nearly 70% went to education and healthcare spending. Only 24% went to infrastructure spending.
"But the states and cities in the most trouble already spend way too much on education and healthcare, pushing taxes up and sending private industry away. They don't spend nearly enough on infrastructure, which attracts the private sector and builds the real economy.
"As David Walker, former comptroller general of the US, said at the Regional Plan Association's annual meeting a week ago, nationwide, we are the 'highest in the world' on education. We are 'the highest in the world' on healthcare. 'Nobody comes even close.' On infrastructure, by contrast, we are 'below average' in both critical new investments and in much-needed maintenance spending.
"And, as Democratic governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell said at the same conference, when President Dwight Eisenhower left office, infrastructure spending was about 12.5% of non-military domestic spending. Today, it's about 2.5%.
"This shortfall is obvious to anyone who's ridden on an "express train" to the outer boroughs or driven on the Cross Bronx Expressway recently. But in New York, as elsewhere, the stimulus money has just allowed the state to ramp up spending on its wasteful, inhumane Medicaid program and its nosebleed public-school spending.
"Meanwhile, the subways are about to crumble into oblivion -- taking the economy with them. The same is true of decaying infrastructure in California and in aging states across the nation.
"The stimulus was a once-in-a-generation chance to change this. Instead, it made the situation worse."
-- Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to City Journal
69. "The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to overrule Michigan v. Jackson, the 1986 Supreme Court decision that held that if police may not interrogate a defendant after the right to counsel has attached, if the defendant has a lawyer or has requested a lawyer. This isn't the first time the Justice Department, under President Obama, has sought to limit defendants' rights." -- TalkLeft blog
70. "By any measure, my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster." -- Obama
71. "Ahh, see. I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here." -- Brushing off questions from the White House press corps
72. On Earth Day, Obama took two flights on Air Force One and four on Marine One to get to Iowa, burning more than 9,000 gallons of fuel.
73. "President Obama's plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of troops injured in service has infuriated veterans groups who say the government is morally obligated to pay for service-related medical care." -- Fox News, 3/17
74. "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." -- Obama during his first State Of The Union address. A German invented the automobile
75. RALPH PETERS ON: FUMBLING IN AFGHANISTAN, FAKING IT IN PAKISTAN
"We're squandering blood and treasure in Afghanistan. Instead of concentrating fiercely on the vital task of destroying al Qaeda and its friends, the Obama administration's determined to erect a modern nation where no nation exists. Afghanistan isn't a country. It's a dysfunctional reservation inhabited by tribes that hate each other. There's no 'Afghan' identity. And even if our blind-to-reality efforts succeeded perfectly, the result would be meaningless.
"Except as a target range where we can gun down terrorists, Afghanistan doesn't matter. Next door, Pakistan matters immensely. But we don't know what to do about it. With 170 million anti-American Muslims descending into chaos as Pashtuns, Baluchis, Punjabis, Sindhis and others claw each other over the country's shabby remains, Pakistan's corrupt president shrugs, its military cowers, its loathsome intelligence services collude with Islamist extremists, and the safety of its nuclear weapons grows doubtful.
"Pakistan may be this generation's chamber of horrors.
"The Obama administration's response? Drill more wells in the Afghan countryside. Dramatically reinforce our troops in Afghanistan, sticking them with an impossible mission of modernizing a pre-medieval landscape while exposing them at the end of an insecure 1,500-mile supply line through, of all places, Pakistan.
"As for Pakistan itself, the Obama administration wants to send billions of dollars to a thieving government that makes Nigeria's look like a Quaker meeting and to hand Pakistan's military more arms -- weapons that might soon be used against us.
"Pakistan was a bad idea when it was created in 1947. It's a worse one now. Afghanistan wasn't even an idea, just an accident of where other borders ended. We can't 'save' either one -- because neither wants to be saved on our terms.
"Obama said the right things -- that Afghanistan isn't Iraq and that our goal should be the destruction of al Qaeda. But his policies just regurgitate our Iraq strategy (one he opposed) in a profoundly different context, while ambitious generals echo Vietnam-era calls for more forces.
"Our troops will do whatever we ask, to the best of their magnificent abilities. But we should ask them to do things that make sense. We need creative strategic thought, but we're succumbing to sheer inertia. And the president's supporters who howled that we should abandon Iraq to concentrate on their candidate's 'good war' don't seem to be volunteering to do any fighting. Meanwhile, our president's trapped himself inside his own campaign promiseing, Vietnam!"
-- Ralph Peters is the author of "Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a BeW"
77. "President Obama failed to consult Congress, as promised, before carving out exceptions to the omnibus spending bill he signed into law -- breaking his own signing-statement rules two days after issuing them -- and raised questions among lawmakers and committees who say the president's objections are unclear at best and a power grab at worst." -- Washington Times, 3/24
78. Adolfo Carrion was confirmed as Director of White House Office of Urban Affairs, but is serving under a cloud after allegations that he accepted thousands of dollars in cash from developers whose projects he approved.
79. KYLE SMITH ON: GOING AFTER RUSH LIMBAUGH
"Every so often an unfocused athlete forgets about the field of play and climbs into the stands. Ty Cobb did it. Ron Artest did it. Maybe no one did it with more sick flir than the greasy, furious Hanson Brothers who, in 'Slap Shot,' climbed into the stands to give a beatdown to a fan.
"In March, Barack Obama sent his own personal Hanson Brothers, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and spokesman Robert Gibbs, out to attack a non-politician -- Rush Limbaugh -- who was sitting innocently in the stands jeering the action. Limbaugh didn't even throw a cup of beer.
"Senior White House staffers, who have already fallen into the classic trap of paying more attention to polls than fixing the country's problems, had become obsessed with surveys showing that Limbaugh was an unpopular figure with swing voters. Pretty soon Emanuel and Gibbs developed Limbaugh Tourette's. To paraphrase Joe Biden's witty putdown of Rudy Giuliani, for a few days every sentence they uttered contained three things: a subject, a verb and Rush Limbaugh.
"El Rushbo, chuckling over his cigar as his ratings skyrocketed, could not have been more pleased if a picture had emerged of Obama wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and burning the American flag on Harvard Square. Even that portion of the public that doesn't like Rush squirmed at the embarrassing spectacle of the president's men going all Mean Girls on an entertainer. George W. Bush's spokesmen maintained a dignified silence about Michael Moore. Picture them fanning out over the Sunday talk shows to denounce, and drive up the box-office receipts of, 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' Wouldn't you have loved that, Michael?"
-- Kyle Smith is a Post columnist
80. Forced banks that didn't want TARP money to take it, then added on stipulations about pay and government control after the fact. Secretly forced Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch, then allowed the bank to be criticized for overpaying.
81. "More than 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States," Obama said in Mexico, yet factcheck.org says, "The figure represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials. We can find no hard data on the total number of guns actually 'recovered in Mexico,' but US and Mexican officials both say that Mexico recovers more guns that it submits for tracing. Therefore, the percentage of guns 'recovered' and traced to US sources necessarily is less than 90%."
82. Obama: "[Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc.], said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off." Jim Owens: "I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again."
83. "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." -- Obama in Strasbourg, France
84. Joe Biden: "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong."
85. Joe Biden: "You all worked for change. You wanted to see change. Well, that wasn't a hard thing to try to communicate to the American people. Obviously, obviously, we needed a change almost no matter who was running."
86. Joe Biden: "You know, I'm embarrassed. Do you know the Web site number? I should have it in front of me and I don't. I'm actually embarrassed."
87. "There are more than 6.5 million trucks in the United States. The program Congress terminated allowed 97 Mexican trucks to roam among them. Ninety-seven! Shutting them out not only undermines NAFTA. It caused Mexico to retaliate with tariffs on 90 goods affecting $2.4 billion in U.S. trade coming out of 40 states." -- Charles Krauthammer, 3/20
88. DAVID M. DRUCKER ON: BOWING TO CONGRESS
"Although the president possesses enormous political capital -- both because of high approval ratings and because his administration is still in its infancy -- he has generally declined to exercise it with Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, including when it comes to crafting legislation key to moving his agenda forward.
"Rather he has allowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) to craft legislation as they see fit -- even though the very bills in question were proposed by the president and involve key planks in his agenda. Among them were Obama's signature $787 billion economic stimulus bill, his first major piece of legislation that was signed into law in February; and now health care reform, currently being negotiated on Capitol Hill with minimal input from the White House.
"This soft-pedal style of leadership runs the risk of forcing Obama to embrace legislation constructed for narrow partisan interests rather than in a manner capable of garnering broad bipartisan support. Over time, the public might come to see Obama's deference to Pelosi and Reid as a weakness of leadership not befitting a president in tough times."
-- David M. Drucker is a staff writer for Roll Call
89. "It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census, there are irresolvable conflicts for me." -- Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who became the second failed Commerce Secretary nominee
90. In the third sentence of his first speech as president, Obama said, "44 Americans have now taken the presidential oath." The correct number is 43, as Grover Cleveland served twice.
91. The $49 million inauguration -- triple what taxpayers spent at Bush's first inauguration.
92. Giving the Queen of England an iPod full of his own speeches.
93. Three prime-time briefings in his first 100 days, eating into television revenues and this Wednesday pre-empting "American Idol."
94. "The United States government has no interest in running GM. Your [GM] warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it's ever been, because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty." -- Obama
95. GM is given $15.4 billion in loans from the government.
96. The Obama Administration is trying to scuttle a lawsuit filed in federal court against Iran by former US embassy hostages. The lawsuit alleges that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-takers who interrogated the captives.
97. GLENN BECK ON: BAD ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS
"Ten days before his inauguration, the President's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Rohmer, released a report describing what to expect economically during the first 100 days and beyond. It presented two starkly different scenarios: one good (if the stimulus were to be passed), and one terrifyingly bad (if we did nothing). Amazingly, the report estimated that if the stimulus package were to pass, the unemployment rate would not go above 8% at any time until at least 2014.
"It's already at 8.5%.
"In fact, while there is an acknowledged level of uncertainty, the projections estimated that the unemployment rate would be lower today if we had done nothing at all. This suggests one of two things: either the administration misjudged the seriousness of our economic problems, or the stimulus plan is actually making things worse. I suspect it's a little of both.
"Remember, when the President's budget was released, he was roundly criticized for his never ending deficits, even under his own optimistic scenarios for growth. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected deficits that were even uglier. But, if the President and his economic planners were this far off, this soon, how much worse does the future look now?
"The election was supposed to bring 'change,' but I was hoping for more than the letter after the President's name, the positivity of the media coverage, and the hypoallergenic qualities of the White House puppy. President Obama didn't get us into this situation, but so far he's doubling down on the same spending philosophy that did. Common sense tells us that new debt is not the cure for old debt. No matter what the slogans say, that won't change in 100 days or 100 years."
-- Glenn Beck is the host of the "Glenn Beck" show, weekdays at 5 p.m. on Fox News.
98. "Education Secretary Arne Duncan has decided not to admit any new students to the D.C. voucher program, which allows low-income children to attend private schools ... For all the talk about putting children first, it's clear that the special interests that have long opposed vouchers are getting their way." -- Washington Post, 4/11
99. Obama enrolled his daughters in a DC private school.
100. "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." -- Obama to Rep. Peter DeFazio, after the Democratic congressman voted against the stimulus bill.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Pelosi's Claims Of Powerlessness
Source: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=325469989421567
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, April 24, 2009
Oversight: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's contention that she and other Democrats were not told about waterboarding terrorists is dubious enough. Her claim that they could do nothing anyway is blatantly false.
Read More: Global War On Terror
The highest-ranking member of the House of Representatives says that back during the first term of President George W. Bush, when the 9/11 terror attacks were still fresh in the minds of Americans, she and other key Democrats briefed by the CIA "were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used."
That contradicts the statements of others who where there, such as former House Intelligence Committee chairman and CIA director Porter Goss, plus intelligence officials interviewed on the subject going back to 2007.
But Speaker Pelosi, who was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee in 2002, further claimed that there was nothing she and her fellow Democrats in Congress could have done about it. "They don't come in to consult," the speaker said last week. "They come in to notify . . . you can't change what they're doing."
Funny that Rep. Jane Harman, the California Democrat who succeeded Pelosi as ranking member of the intelligence panel, and so was included in CIA briefings, didn't feel that her hands were tied. She sent the CIA a classified letter in February 2003 objecting to the interrogations.
In fact, Congress' oversight powers regarding the CIA have for years gone beyond just sending private hate mail. L. Britt Snider, who served as Bill Clinton's inspector general of the CIA, staff director of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry and investigator on the Senate committee that probed Nixon-administration intelligence abuses, calls the CIA "perhaps the most scrutinized agency in the executive branch."
Snider's 2008 book, "The Agency & The Hill: CIA's Relationship With Congress, 1946-2004," notes that since 1986, under the law "no funds could be spent for any intelligence activity for which Congress had denied funding."
To illustrate how swiftly Congress can jump into action when it discovers something the CIA is doing that it doesn't like, consider what happened after the leaders of the two intelligence committees and other congressional leaders were briefed at the White House on the Iran arms-for-hostages initiative in mid-November 1986.
"By the end of the year," Snider says, "no fewer than seven investigations had been launched of what had become known as the Iran-Contra affair." Some 300,000 documents were perused, more than 500 witnesses interviewed and 40 days of congressional hearings conducted.
In 1989, congressional oversight was further enhanced by the establishment of the office of CIA inspector general, giving "the committees a place they could go within the Agency to ask for oversight inquiries that exceeded the committees' own capabilities," as Snider describes it.
The 1992 Intelligence Organization Act went further again, specifying the CIA director's responsibility to provide intelligence to Congress that is, as the law states, "timely, objective, independent of political considerations, and based upon all sources available to the intelligence community."
In 1993, after hearing testimony accusing the CIA of misconduct in Guatemala, both the Senate and House panels investigated, as did the CIA inspector general, who followed the committees' requests and went all the way back to 1984 in examining agency knowledge of human rights abuses by its clandestine sources in Guatemala.
Those investigations led to major changes, including the CIA's setting up "on its own initiative, a systematic notification process to protect against another failure to notify Congress of significant information concerning its operations," as Snider writes.
Former CIA director of congressional affairs John Moseman, in describing the new process, said of Congress: "They couldn't come back to us anymore when something went wrong and claim they'd never been told about it. If they had a problem with something, then it was up to them to let us know about it."
It was up to Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and the other Democrats briefed by the CIA to let be known their objections to enhanced interrogations.
They didn't because back then 9/11 still stung. As Goss remembers of the briefings detailing waterboarding and other tough methods, "the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement." And as two officials present at such briefings told the Washington Post in 2007, at least two lawmakers in the room actually called on the CIA to push harder.
The speaker and her fellow top liberal Democrats were not powerless, as she now claims. But they were, and remain, gutless.
Prosecuting Heroes
Source: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=325294257456431
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 4:20 PM PT
National Security: The Justice Department may launch a witch hunt against those who organized the enhanced interrogation of terrorists. That's no way to treat people who saved so many lives.
Read More: Global War On Terror
The American public has just seen how policy based on campaign rhetoric can come crashing into the reality of a successful past policy.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, as a retired admiral who commanded the Navy in the Pacific and served on the White House's National Security Council, must be smarter than his recent statements make him out to be.
In a private memo to spy agency employees last week, made public by Blair this week, he conceded that "high value information" was obtained by the enhanced interrogation techniques the Bush administration authorized the CIA to use on terrorist detainees.
They gave "a deeper understanding of the al-Qaida network," according to President Obama's choice to oversee America's network of 16 intelligence agencies.
In a subsequent statement, however, Blair added that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means."
In the original memo, he remarks that "(I) like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given."
It looks like a troubling case of angst has taken hold of those charged with keeping our country safe.
But you simply cannot have it both ways. When Blair agonizes about hoping he "would not have approved those methods," does he not realize that not approving those methods would have meant hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans killed?
"Read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, (those interrogations) appear graphic and disturbing," Blair said. Yet those methods foiled terrorist plots, in particular Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's graphic and disturbing plan to fly a passenger jet into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the West Coast's tallest skyscraper.
How can Blair really believe, as he claimed this week, that "the bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security"?
How can "image" trump the saving of lives in national security policy?
On Tuesday, the president called it "a decision for the attorney general" whether those in the Bush administration who provided legal backing for the enhanced interrogations would be prosecuted — this after claiming he wasn't interested in any such witch hunts.
Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., has released a report claiming that CIA and Pentagon officials prepared groundwork for the enhanced techniques before receiving a legal OK — as if being prepared to help protect the nation constitutes a smoking gun.
Levin contends they "bear significant responsibility for creating the legal and operational framework for the abuses."
Far from abuse, they were serving the nation more than the average senator. All those involved in this program are owed a debt of gratitude from all of us.
They certainly don't deserve to be hounded by the Justice Department or Congress.
Blair: 'High Value' Information Obtained in CIA Interrogations
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/21/intelligence-director-high-value-information-obtained-harsh-interrogations/
Obama's national intelligence director says in a private memo that information obtained from harsh interrogations resulted in "a deeper understanding of the Al Qaeda network."
April 22, 2009
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair wrote a memo claiming valuable information was obtained using harsh interrogation
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's top intelligence official privately told employees last week that "high value information" was obtained in interrogations that included harsh techniques approved by former President George W. Bush.
"A deeper understanding of the Al Qaeda network" resulted, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said in the memo, in which he added, "I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the memo.
Critics of the harsh methods -- waterboarding, face slapping, sleep deprivation and other techniques -- have called them torture. President Obama said Tuesday they showed the United States "losing our moral bearings" and said they would not be used while he is in office. But he did not say whether he believed they worked.
Obama ordered the release of long-secret Bush-era documents on the subject last week, and Blair circulated his memo declaring that useful information was obtained at the same time.
In a public statement released the same day, Blair did not say that interrogations using the techniques had yielded useful information.
As word of the private memo surfaced Tuesday night, a new statement was issued in his name that appeared to be more explicit in one regard and contained something of a hedge on another point.
It said, "The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means."
The emergence of Blair's memo added another layer of complexity to an issue that has plagued the Obama administration in recent days.
The president drew criticism from Republicans last week for releasing the Justice Department memos that outlined the legal basis for waterboarding and other techniques. At the same time, some Democrats and liberal groups have expressed disappointment that he signaled his opposition to possible legal action against senior officials who had approved their use in the first place.
On Tuesday, the president told a reporter it would be up to Attorney General Eric Holder to make such a decision.
Blair, in his memo to employees in the intelligence community, wrote: "Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing. As the President has made clear, and as both CIA Director Panetta and I have stated, we will not use those techniques in the future.
"I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given."
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/22/raw-data-blair-memo-employees-interrogations/
RAW DATA: Blair Memo to Employees on Interrogations
April 22, 2009
The following is a copy of the memo National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair sent to employees on interrogation techniques.
Dear Colleagues:
Today is a difficult one for those of us who serve the country in its intelligence services.
An article on the front page of The New York Times claims that the National Security Agency has been collecting information that violates the privacy and civil liberties of American citizens.
The release of documents from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) spells out in detail harsh interrogation techniques used by CIA officers on suspected al Qaida terrorists.
As the leader of the Intelligence Community, I am trying to put these issues into perspective. We cannot undo the events of the past; we must understand them and turn this understanding to advantage as we move into the future.
It is important to remember the context of these past events. All of us remember the horror of 9/11. For months afterwards we did not have a clear understanding of the enemy we were dealing with, and our every effort was focused on preventing further attacks that would kill more Americans. It was during these months that the CIA was struggling to obtain critical information from captured al Qaida leaders, and requested permission to use harsher interrogation methods.
The OLC memos make clear that senior legal officials judged the harsher methods to be legal, and that senior policymakers authorized their use. High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country. As the OLC memos demonstrate, from 2002 through 2006 when the use of these techniques ended, the leadership of the CIA repeatedly reported their activities both to Executive Branch policymakers and to members of Congress, and received permission to continue to use the techniques.
Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing.
As the President has made clear, and as both CIA Director Panetta and I have stated, we will not use those techniques in the future. I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.
Even in 2009 there are organizations plotting to kill Americans using terror tactics, and although the memories of 9/11 are becoming more distant, we in the intelligence services must stop them.
One of our most effective tools in discovering groups planning to attack us are their communications, and it is the job of the NSA to intercept them. The NSA does this vital work under legislation that was passed by the Congress. The NSA actions are subject to oversight by my office and by the Justice Department under court-approved safeguards; when the intercepts are conducted against Americans, it is with individual court orders. Under these authorities the officers of the National Security Agency collect large amounts of international telecommunications, and under strict rules review and analyze some of them. These intercepts have played a vital role in many successes we have had in thwarting terrorist attacks since 9/11.
On occasion, NSA has made mistakes and intercepted the wrong communications. The number of these mistakes are very small in terms of our overall collection efforts, but each one is investigated, Congress and the courts are notified, corrective measures are taken, and improvements are put in place to prevent reoccurrences.
As a young Navy officer during the Vietnam years, I experienced public scorn for those of us who served in the Armed Forces during an unpopular war . Challenging and debating the wisdom and policies linked to wars and warfighting is important and legitimate; however, disrespect for those who serve honorably within legal guidelines is not. I remember well the pain
of those of us who served our country even when the policies we were carrying out were unpopular or could be second-guessed.
We in the Intelligence Community should not be subjected to similar pain . Let the debate focus on the law and our national security . Let us be thankful that we have public servants who seek to do the difficult work of protecting our country under the explicit assurance that their actions are both necessary and legal.
There will almost certainly be more media articles about the actions of intelligence agencies in the past, and as we do our vital work of protecting the country we will make mistakes that will also be reported. What we must do is make it absolutely clear to the American people that our ethos is to act legally, in as transparent a manner as we can, and in a way that they would be proud of if we could tell them the full story .
It is my job, and the job of our national leaders, to ensure that the work done by the Intelligence Community is appreciated and supported . You can be assured the President knows this and is supporting us. It is your responsibility to continue the difficult, often dangerous and vital work you are doing every day.
Sincerely,
Dennis C . Blair
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Enhanced Protection
Source: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=325121124043870
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
National Security: The establishment media are obsessed with the newly revealed details of our enhanced terrorist interrogation techniques. Their most important detail is the many American lives they saved.
Read More: Global War On Terror
There's nothing like a big number in a top-of-the-fold headline to sell newspapers — and seal misconceptions. The supposedly big news of the weekend regarding disclosure of declassified memos specifying the methods used by the CIA to question captured terrorists was that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah were waterboarded a combined 266 times.
That number certainly is big if you think about what most media and leading Democrats have been telling us about use of the water board. They claim it constitutes torture, that no one can resist such a pseudo-medieval practice for more than a few seconds — yet at the same time it doesn't really work.
But the number itself refutes those accusations. If KSM was forced to undergo such a drowning sensation 183 times in the course of one month about a year after the 2001 attacks, and Zubaydah 83 times in the course of a month the summer before KSM's sessions, it suggests the interrogators were getting places.
The released paper makes that clear. The May 30, 2005, memo from the Justice Department to the CIA, for instance, noted that "no technique is used on a detainee unless use of that technique at that time appears necessary to obtaining the intelligence."
Khalid and Zubaydah were two of only three detainees on whom waterboarding, "the most traumatic of the enhanced interrogation techniques," was used. Yet the number of sessions employed makes it clear that as harsh as the method is, it clearly can be resisted, especially if a terrorist has been conditioned to do so. Otherwise, so many repeated sessions would be unnecessary.
As the guidelines of the CIA's Office of Medical Services stated, "The general goal of these techniques is a psychological impact, and not some physical effect." The OMS described the "specific goal" as being to "dislocate" the terrorist's "expectations regarding the treatment he believes he will receive."
Unfortunately, by making the details public and thus available for al-Qaida and other terrorist groups to study, that "dislocation of expectations" becomes impossible for future terrorist detainees.
This is an incalculable blow to U.S. national security.
As former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey pointed out last week, half of the U.S. government's knowledge of al-Qaida's structure and activities is the fruit of enhanced interrogation.
That information let the U.S. and other governments foil numerous 9/11-style operations, saving hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives.
We understand that people have legitimate concerns about the U.S. being involved in torture. But enhanced interrogation — a reasonable (but now rescinded) response to the deadliest of threats to our homeland — should be seen for what it is: a tough, but effective, way to save lives.
And those devoted U.S. government personnel who took part, who saved so many, deserve medals.
A Foundation For The Future Built On Sand
Source: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=325120687330139
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER | Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 4:20 AM PT
Franklin Roosevelt gave us the New Deal. John Kennedy gave us the New Frontier. In a major domestic policy address at Georgetown University last week, Barack Obama promised—eight times—a "New Foundation."
For those too thick to have noticed this proclamation of a new era in American history, the White House Web site helpfully titled its speech excerpts "A New Foundation."
As it happens, Obama is not the first to try this slogan. President Carter peppered his 1979 State of the Union address with five "New Foundations" (and eight more just naked "foundations"). Like most of Carter's endeavors, this one failed, perhaps because (as I recall it being said at the time) it sounded like the introduction of a new kind of undergarment.
Undaunted, Obama offered his New Foundation speech as the complete, contextual, canonical text for the domestic revolution he aims to enact. It had everything we have come to expect from Obama:
The Whopper: The boast that he had "identified $2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade." It takes audacity to repeat this after it had been so widely exposed as transparently phony.
Most of this $2 trillion is conjured up by refraining from spending $180 billion a year for 10 more years of surges in Iraq. Hell, why not make the "deficit reductions" $10 trillion — the extra $8 trillion coming from refraining from repeating the $787 billion stimulus package annually through 2019.
The Puzzler: He further boasted of his frugality by saying that his budget would reduce domestic discretionary spending as a share of GDP to the lowest level ever recorded. Amazing.
Squeezing discretionary domestic spending at a time of hugely expanding budgets is merely the baleful residue of out-of-control entitlements and debt service, which will increase astronomically under Obama. To claim these as achievements in fiscal responsibility is testament not to Obama's frugality but to his brazenness.
The Non Sequitur: "To make sure such a crisis (as we have today) never happens again," Obama proposes his radical health care, energy and education reforms, the central pillars of his social democratic agenda. But Obama's own words contradict this assertion.
Notes the Washington Post: "But as his admirable summation of recent history made clear, these pursuits have little to do with the economic crisis, and they are not the key to economic recovery." Obama rarely fails to repeat this false connection. A crisis — and the public's resulting pliability to liberal social engineering — is a terrible thing to waste.
The Swindle: The Obama administration is spending money like none other in peacetime history. Obama is smart. He knows this is fiscally unsustainable. He has let it be known privately and publicly that he intends to cure the imbalance with entitlement reform.
An excellent strategy. If it takes throwing nearly $1 trillion of "porky" (to quote Sen. Charles Schumer) stimulus spending to soften up a Democratic Congress and make it amenable to real entitlement reform, then fine.
Reforming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid would save tens of trillions of dollars, and make the current money-from-helicopters spending almost trivial by comparison.
In the New Foundation speech, Obama correctly (again) identifies the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid as the key fiscal problem. But then he claims that Medicaid and Medicare reform is the same as his health care reform, fatuously citing as his authority a one-day meeting of handpicked interested parties at his "Fiscal Responsibility Summit."
Here's the problem. The heart of Obama's health care reform is universality. Covering more people costs more money. That is why Obama's budget sets aside an extra $634 billion in health care spending, a down payment on an estimated additional spending of $1 trillion.
How does the administration curtail the Medicare and Medicaid entitlement by adding yet another (now universal) health care entitlement that its own estimate acknowledges increases costs by about $1 trillion?
Which is why in his March 24 news conference, Obama could not explain how — when the near-term stimulative spending is over and his ambitious domestic priorities kick in, promising sustained prosperity and deficit reduction — the deficits at the end of the coming decade are rising, not falling.
The Congressional Budget Office has deficits increasing in the last seven years of the decade from an already unsustainable $672 billion annually to $1.2 trillion by 2019.
This is the sand on which the new foundation is constructed. Obama has the magic to make words mean almost anything. Numbers are more resistant to his charms.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Tea Party System
Source: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=324775037199992
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, April 16, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Politics: The hundreds of tea parties thrown Wednesday were part of one of the most extraordinary grass-roots uprisings in our history. And they spell a golden opportunity for freedom-loving politicians.
Read More: Budget & Tax Policy
Less than three months after a landmark election, throngs of demonstrators everywhere gathered to object to the revolution that our new president is steamrolling into law. It was a landmark protest in the history of the republic.
But how can the voices of tens if not hundreds of thousands of angry taxpayers be turned into concrete political action?
Investor's Business Daily attended one of these historic events, the Fishkill Tea Party in upstate New York, just east of the Hudson River. The original Fishkill Tea Party took place Aug. 26, 1776, when 100 women forced a storekeeper named Abram Brinckerhoff to sell them tea at the lawful price of 6 shillings per pound. This year's Fishkill Tea Party nearly filled Dutchess Stadium, the county's minor-league ballpark.
In a region of liberal New York state where Democrats have been consolidating their power during the last two elections, thousands traveled long distances to support pretty much the classic Reagan political agenda — and not just on taxes and spending.
Banners and placards sported slogans that included "Don't Spread My Wealth. Spread My Work Ethic," "Who'll Bail Me Out?" "Atlas Will Shrug," "Tea Today. No Kool-Aid," and "Acorn Didn't Have To Bus Us Here," referring to the left-wing activist group that specializes in voter registration drives benefiting liberal Democrats.
The crowds responded with thunderous applause to the various local activists' rallying cries, ranging from "How about those Navy Seals!" referring to the recent rescue of Americans from Somali pirates, to attacks on Hollywood for its role in moving America away from traditional Judeo-Christian values.
The audience roared when resentment was expressed toward illegal aliens who eat away the social welfare resources funded by taxpayers. When unemployed information technology manager Troy Johnson took the podium, he elicited an ovation with the quip:
"Just to prove how radical I am, I believe we should all be speaking English!"
The throng cheered calls for term limits to curb the power of elitist career politicians; applauded taunts that the establishment media would proceed to underestimate and misreport the size of the turnout; shouted in approval for blocking the president's planned federal intrusion into health care; and rose from its seats for a speaker who called Washington's march toward socialism "a slap in the face to those who have served in the military."
It was quite clear, however, that the tea partiers feel betrayed by Republicans, not just the Democrats now in power in both the executive and legislative branches in Washington.
One youthful speaker described the cause of the financial crisis as an "assault on our free market system paired with corporate bailouts." The Bush White House late last year lobbied skeptical congressional Republicans hard on a $14 billion auto industry bailout.
Johnson pointed out that "we know that they know that nobody can read 1,000 pages overnight," referring to the rush to get a stimulus bill passed and to the lawmakers who signed it without knowing much of what was in it.
The crowd may not have been aware that apart from liberal Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter, the GOP in Congress formed a united front against the Democrats' tax-and-spend behemoth. But the Republican brand is blemished.
During 12 years of dominance in Congress and eight years in the White House, the GOP failed to kick its addiction to pork and make tough decisions on controlling entitlement spending. It found it too politically risky to secure the U.S. borders — even in the post-9/11 years when homeland security trumped all other concerns.
It's almost as if Republicans were daring the kind of people who attended this week's events to go the dead-end route of starting their own third political party.
The tea party movement proves that even in the left-leaning Northeast, a huge natural constituency exists for these bread-and-butter American issues — lower taxes, less government, a strong military that's allowed to win, tough measures to end illegal immigration, term limits and family values.
It's all there, waiting to be tapped into — if only a few smart politicians would grasp the opportunity.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Obama's stance worries Israelis By Jason Koutsoukis
Source: http://www.theage.com.au/world/obamas-stance-worries-israelis-20090417-aa90.html?page=-1
April 18, 2009
CAN Israel still call the United States its best international friend? Apparently not, if you believe the tone of the local media.
Watching the drama unfold inside Israel, the increasingly tense dialogue between US President Barack Obama and new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking on all the trappings of a duel.
Almost every day brings news of another sore point between the two countries, a source of yet further inflammation of their once warm relations.
One could be forgiven for thinking that the more immediate threat to Israel's national security lay across the Atlantic rather than from closer to home.
It is bad enough that President Obama uses almost every opportunity he can to set the parameters of a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Now US officials are openly using Israeli anxiety over Iran's fledging nuclear program as a bargaining chip to force Israel's hand on giving up control of the West Bank Palestinian territory.
No less a figure than White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel — whose father fought with the militant Zionist group the Irgun, and whose appointment had provided such reassurance to Israeli officials — was quoted this week laying down the law to Israel.
If Israel wants US help to defuse the Iranian threat, Mr Emanuel was reported to have told Jewish leaders in Washington, then get ready to start evacuating settlements in the West Bank.
Talkback radio blazed with fury across the country the same day, as Israelis protested that no US official had the right to tell them where to live.
Then on Thursday came the news that Mr Netanyahu's planned first meeting with President Obama in Washington next month had been called off.
Mr Netanyahu had hoped to capitalise on his attendance at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington to visit the White House.
But Administration officials informed Mr Netanyahu's office that the President would not be "in town".
Washington sources added that the Obama Administration would not be continuing the tradition that had developed during the Bush years of hosting Israeli prime ministers whenever they showed up in town, sometimes with just a phone call's notice.
It might have been no more than coincidence, but yesterday Israeli defence officials told the liberal daily Haaretz that Israel's $US15 billion ($A21 billion) purchase of 75 US-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets was now under review due to "the unexpected high cost and disagreements with the manufacturer".
Contrary to initial expectations, President Obama has wasted no time becoming fully engaged in the Middle East peace process, despite the magnitude of his domestic political agenda. While Mr Netanyahu has refused to endorse a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict agreed to by his predecessor, President Obama has made it abundantly clear that the US will accept nothing less than Israel living side by side with a sovereign Palestinian state.
Mr Obama is also demanding a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, and has dropped the Bush administration's opposition to Hamas being part of a future Palestinian Authority government.
According to prominent Israeli political commentator Maya Bengal, who writes for the country's second-largest selling newspaper Maariv, the holiday is over.
"As Passover comes to an end, so comes to an end, it seems, the days of grace granted to the Netanyahu Government by the American Administration," says the commentator.
Tel Aviv barman Meir Avraham, 30, says he can feel on the street the tensions being played out between the US and Israel.
"This is one of the the main things that the people are talking about at the moment," says Mr Avraham, who recently returned to Israel after several months in Townsville.
All Israelis, says Mr Avraham, understand the vital nature of the relationship between Israel and the US. "If we lose America, then we are alone," he says. "So we must listen to what America wants. But really I think this is more about the little brother testing the limits of the big brother."
