LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

LFTC - Index 9/4/09

6 posts: (1) An Astonishing American Hero's Tale--The Home Front; (2) CIA Update: Panetta Asks Justice for Leak Probe--The Home Front; (3) Hezbollah & Hamas Update--Us v. Them; (4) Health Care: NHS Update, ObamaCare Unmasked--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (5) Immigration: New Reality--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (6) Lone Star State Outdistances the Coast Biggies--"It's the Earth Stupid!"

LFTC - An Astonishing American Hero's Tale

This Omaha Herald story of one soldier's supreme test & triumph was just brought to my attention.  Though dated a few years it remains today as current as then, a reminder of the fabulous finest we have defending this country.

LFTC - CIA Update: Panetta Asks Justice for Leak Probe

The Washington Times reports that CIA Director Leon Panetta has asked the Justice Department to probe who leaked information to the press about the CIA's never-activated high-value target assassination program.  Originally known to a small circle, disclosure to the House & Senate Intelligence Committees greatly expanded the list of those who knew.  It will be interesting to see if A-G Eric Holder is as interested in this probe as in going after Bush-era interrogators.

LFTC - Hezbollah & Hamas Update

Good news for homeland security, coming from what an Arab official source told a terroism maven: Hezbollah is expanding its global operations. He are the not-so-delightful details:

Hezbollah is expanding its reach worldwide and is gearing up "for something big." This Arab official believes the group is actively seeking a biological/chemical weapons capability, and there is little doubt who would be helping them in that regard: Iran and Syria. He believes Hezbollah is a well-organized, well-funded machine capable of doing great damage both conventionally (missile barrages into Israeli cities) and unconventionally (terror attacks against Israeli, U.S. and moderate Arab interests worldwide). Or, as he described the group, "Bad guys with good strategic vision."

 

"You're going to be reporting a lot on Hezbollah in the future," he told me. "They already have people on the ground in Europe and elsewhere. They will be making front page news soon. They are just waiting for the orders to act – they are not in a hurry."

 

Does anyone out there still seriously believe that Hezbollah is exclusively an "Israeli problem?" Here is your wakeup call.

Meanwhile, Islamism's other "H" movement, Hamas, maintains that teaching Palestinians the Holocaust is a "war crime" (NOT a misprint).  Ready the gory details.  Perhaps special envoy George Mitchell should read it also.

LFTC - Health Care: NHS Update, ObamaCare Unmasked

The National Health Service (NHS) in Britain is hailed by many pro-ObamaCare folks in America.  The Daily Telegraph reports that NHS may be pushing terminally ill patients to die.  NHS is withdrawing potentially life-saving treatment and thus may miss signs that recovery is possible.  To be fair, such judgments are rarely easy to make.  But does anyone think any bureaucracy will be able to make these calls in each patient's best interest?  Economist Richard Rahn advises us in a column that NHS funds Viagra for pedophiles and paid for breast enlargement surgery for an envious teen.

Pat Buchanan unmasks four half-truths needed to sustain ObamaCare: abortion, illegals, death panels & public option.  PB details how Democrats wish to keep these alive without putting specific language on the table for opposition groups to target.  A New York Times front-pager reports that Team Obama is warming to a "public option backup" under which the public option is activated only if private insurers fail to cover.  The proposal is by Maine GOP Senator Olympia Snowe; in 2003 the Medicare drug benefit was enacted with a public backup that was never activated, because private insurers stepped in and offered coverage.

Peggy Noonan sees Obama's cool & his failure to establish trust as undermining his health care initiative.  Put simply, voters are not ready to trust a greenhorn President with radical reform in turbulent times.  WSJ pundit Kimberly Strassel explains why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is AWOL in the health care debate, and why other Democratic senators may go AWOL if Reid does not step forward to take his share of the political heat.

LFTC - Immigration: New Reality?

Michael Barone writes that two sea-changes in the immigration picture drastically shift the national debate on immigration reform: more effective border enforcement and the recession are twin factors that have, at least for the time being, virtually halted the influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal, from south of the border into the United States.

Any effective immigration policy requires three things: (1) knowing who is here legally and illegally--which requires a tamper-resistant national ID card; (2) knowing who is coming and going--which requires fences; (3) having an agency that can effectively enforce whatever rules are on the books.  All else is simple wishful thinking.  As to the first, the IRS can already find you & me; we need the IRS--and the INS--to find those who are underground.  Re the second, every time I travel outside the country of my birth, upon my return I go through a fence called Passport Control, often answering questions about where I went, where I stayed, the purpose of my trip, etc.  Those seeking entry into America should go through checkpoints and be prepared to answer the same questions, at minimum.

Oh, and the INS, which famously cannot find the Washington monument on the sunniest day of the year, needs to be made into a functioning agency.

Stay tuned.

LFTC - Lone Star State Outdistances the Coast Biggies

Newt Gingrich explains why Texas is far better governed--solvent, for one thing--than either The Golden State (CA) or The Empire State (NY).  An excellent op-ed read.  Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels explains why the emerging economic environment means that state finances must inevitably reset, and why states like California are not ready to do so and thus will hit a financial wall.  A WSJ op-ed details how Michigan's 14-year experiment with high-tax high-subsidy budgetary economics has failed to generate promised gains in employment and economic growth; both GOP & Democratic versions have failed.

LFTC - Index 9/3/09

6 posts: (1) Libyan Terror-Deal: Scottish Rebukes, Brown Jukes--Wobble Watch; (2) CIA: Pleading in Court; Playing With Congress?--The Home Front; (3) Americans on Torture: Not With 44--The Home Front; (4) Afghanistan: The Enemy Votes; So Do We--Us v. Them; (5) Another Bailout: FDIC--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (6) Sarah Palin's Ted Kennedy Gene--The Home Front.

LFTC - Libyan Terror Deal: Scottish Rebukes, Brown Jukes

The Daily Telegraph reported that the Scottish Parliament voted 73-50 (with one abstention) to rebuke the Scottish Justice Minister for his decision to release on compassionate grounds a Libyan intelligence agent convicted of taking part in the destruction of PanAm 103.  Scottish MPs voting to condemn the release fear lasting damage to Scotland's global image.  In Britain, PM Gordon Brown denied any deal--a "juke" move if ever there was one.  ("Juke" is an American football term for an open-field fake thrown at a defender by a broken-field runner with the ball.)  Yet in Scotland Brown's earlier comment was noted--that he (Brown) "respects" the Scottish minister's decision.  The Sun reports that polls show Brown and his Labor Party heading for a crushing defeat in next May's elections.

Meanwhile, George Jonas writes in The National Post that Gaddafi is a "fool-genius" in getting the real sponsors off the hooks by sending two flunkies to take the fall for the bombing.  Jonas's piece is credible, and again illustrates the folly of using the law as the primary tool in fighting terror.

Bottom Line.  Americans should understand that Scottish & British public and leader opinion is sharply split over the Libyan prisoner release.  With the Brits dying alongside Americans in Iraq & Afghanistan, it is especially important to put this outrage in a broader perspective.  Gordon Brown, for his part, will pay a price for playing footsie on this deal.  The deeper lesson remains the need to treat terrorism as acts of war, and rely on the national security apparatus to combat it, not the legal system.

LFTC - CIA: Pleading in Court; Playing With Congress?

The Gray Lady reports that the CIA, having released some documents on enhanced interrogation, now has filed a brief asking protection from disclosure of sensitive documents that it says would reveal methods of questioning to our enemies.  The case is before federal Judge Allan K. Hellerstein (a Clinton appointee) of the Southern District of New York (the leading trial court in the federal court system) who has sat on several high-profile cases (see link above), including litigation involving matters at Ground Zero.  Judge Hellerstein has ordered disclosure of photos from Abu Ghraib, and ordered disclosure of CIA memos in this case as well.  This same judge in 2008 denied a request for disclosure of documents concerning a witness in the 1951 Rosenberg atomic spy case.  His reason: He accepted the government's argument that disclosure of evidence against the wishes of a living witness could discourage witnesses from coming forward in future cases.

On another CIA note, Jed Babbin of Human Events writes that confidential sources say the administration is not telling Congress how dangerous some Gitmo detainees are, while telling the courts the whole truth in documents filed under seal.  Jed is a straight shooter & sharp cookie, so stay tuned.  This one could get interesting.

LFTC - Americans on Torture: Not With 44

I missed this April 2009 Pew poll on American attitudes towards use of torture.  Overall, 71 percent of Americans accept use of torture in at least some circumstances; and among Independents, 85 percent accept same.  President Obama thus will not defeat former VP Dick Cheney in any terror  interrogation debate.  Even some liberals grasp the potential damage of Team Obama's push against the CIA: David Broder cogently argues the case against further investigation, let alone, prosecution.

Here, once more with feeling, is a discussion by policy maven Peter Ferrara (see p. 2) of why waterboarding is not torture under American law, in that it is not designed to inflict long-term suffering of any kind:

Waterboarding involves laying the detainee on his back with a cloth over his face and pouring water on the cloth. The body naturally reacts to this procedure with feelings of drowning and panic, even if the detainee can still physically breathe and knows it. But the waterboarding does not produce actual physical pain. Moreover, under the CIA's interrogation rules, the water pouring must be stopped and the cloth removed after a maximum of 40 seconds. Also, such applications of waterboarding may be done no more than 6 times in a maximum of 2 hours in a day. Consequently, the CIA's waterboarding did not involve "severe physical pain" or "prolonged mental suffering," and so was not illegal torture under U.S. law.

The CIA required a doctor and a psychologist to be present during waterboarding to ensure that the interrogators complied with the requirements and there was no violation of the legal standard. Specific authorization had to be obtained from CIA headquarters before waterboarding could be applied. Moreover, such waterboarding could only be used if (1) the CIA had credible intelligence that a terrorist attack is imminent, (2) there were substantial and credible indicators the subject had actionable intelligence that could prevent, disrupt or delay this attack, and (3) other interrogation methods had failed or were unlikely to yield actionable intelligence in time to prevent the attack.

As a result, waterboarding was used on just three of the most high level, senior terrorist leaders. One was Khalid Sheik Mohammad (KSM), who was the operational mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was the general who designed the operation, picked the targets, assigned the terrorists to their planes, and gave them their specific marching orders. After 9/11, KSM assumed the role of operations chief for al Qaeda around the world.

Another was Abu Zubaydah, who, the CIA reported, "served as Usama Bin Laden's senior lieutenant" and was "involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by al Qaeda." He also served as "Deputy Camp Commander for al Qaeda's training camp in Afghanistan" and "acted as al Qaeda's coordinator of external contacts and foreign communications."

Despite uninformed media commentary, waterboarding has a history of being highly effective in the most difficult interrogations, and it was so in these cases. Information obtained only by waterboarding Zubaydah led to the capture of KSM. Before waterboarding, KSM laughed off CIA interrogators, saying in regard to questions about future terrorist attacks, "soon you will find out." After waterboarding, he became a fountain of information about Al Qaeda capabilities, methodologies and mindsets.

This included information that stopped two terrorist plots underway which would have killed thousands of innocent Americans. One was Al Qaeda's planned "Second Wave," a second 9/11 on the west coast, involving East Asian Al Qaeda operatives crashing a hijacked airliner into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the tallest building on the west coast. The second was a plot to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge.

LFTC - Afghanistan: The Enemy Votes; So Do We

This Washington Post front-pager on effective Taliban tactics in Afghanistan proves anew the old adage known to all military folks: "In war, the enemy has a vote."  A pair of Brookings Institution foreign policy mavens provide reasons for modest optimism in Afghanistan despite current travails.  Among them: Afghans hate the Taliban, generally like us, are making progress in their armed & police forces, and the elections were better than advertised.  Read this excellent 3-pager that balances much gloom & doom coming out now.  But the authors caution that it will take 12 - 18 months for us to see positive results from current strategic adjustments.

LFTC - Another Bailout: FDIC

Ready for another bailout?  What, you're NOT ready?  Wonder Why.  Well, a WSJ editorial informs us that here it comes: the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC), which insures bank deposits to the tune of $250k--an amount raised last September from $100,000.  The reason for the bailout is that Congress raised the deposit insurance limit (a good idea) but (surprise) declined to appropriate sufficient funds to cover rising bank losses.  FDIC is now funded at 0.22 percent of deposit liabilities, well below the 1.15 - 1.50 percent required by law.

AEI financial scholar Allan Meltzer argues that the 2007-2009 economic decline resembles most the recession of 1973-1975, and not the Depressions of 1929-32 & 1937-38; see the chart accompanying the op-ed for comparisons.  AM blames above all the failure of the Federal Reserve to bail out Lehman Brothers last September, which triggered worldwide financial panic.  AM sees a slow, bumpy recovery, which could be perked up by rescinding federal funding pseudo-stimulus, and instituting a corporate tex cut to spur production.  Do not hold your breath.

LFTC: Sarah Palin's Ted Kennedy Gene?

TAS writer Jeffrey Lord poses an intriguing analogy: In her ability to move audiences and make herself a headline, Sarah Palin has the same knack that Ted Kennedy had.  Lord calls this the "head of the table" gene, one possessed by few--and rare even among Presidents:

Whatever one's view of the late Senator, it would be hard to dispute this assessment. The famous statement he made within minutes of President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court is perhaps a classic example of this. Conservatives assailed Kennedy at the time -- and it has been cited all over again in recent days as one of his less glorious moments as a senator.
Yet in fact this criticism of Kennedy's Bork statement misses a very Churchillian fact.
Whether you liked what Ted Kennedy said that day or hated it, whether you loved Ted Kennedy or couldn't stand him -- millions of people paid attention to him when he said it. In fact, in that instance for better or worse, depending on one's politics, Kennedy's statement signaled not just that Bork would have a difficult time being confirmed. His blunt remarks from the Senate floor set the stage for Bork's outright defeat, something initially considered impossible at the time. After all, Ronald Reagan was a popular president and Robert Bork was commonly considered by even opponents to be a legal giant. With his startling speech from the floor of the Senate, the sheer power of Ted Kennedy's personality and rhetoric changed the course of history.
This is precisely what Churchill meant when he (perhaps rudely) told his hostess the obvious truth of the evening. Winston Churchill was dining in her home, and no matter where he sat, no matter whether he was in office or out, no matter the other guests, he quite indisputably would have the attention of everyone else at the table. He was, after all, Winston Churchill.
This is a rare quality in political leaders. In reality it's a human trait, not a political one. Your Aunt Sally could possess Churchill's "head of the table" characteristic and not your Uncle Jim. Yet in the rarefied world of politics, where there is by definition a handful of nationally prominent politicians at any given moment, possessors of Churchill's "head of the table" trait stand out.
They possess, as did Winston Churchill, an unquantifiable capability that can not just electrify a room full of supporters but send them into passionate fits of ecstasy -- while simultaneously sending opponents into a furious, foaming rage. If these politicians master the art of using this quality, they can instantly play a huge role in anything from a winning political campaign to driving a piece of legislation across the legislative finish line. Or stopping it.
By now, a year after her emergence on the national scene, it is crystal clear that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has this "head of the table" gene in spades. She is, in a remarkable way, the real heir -- make that heiress -- to Senator Kennedy. She is charismatic, she has a decided point of view and she is a lightning rod for controversy. Just as Kennedy managed to sink a once sure-thing Supreme Court nomination with his famous Bork speech, Governor Palin has managed to explode Section 1233 of the ObamaCare House bill with her vivid description of "death panels," severely damaging the President's entire legislative priority in the process.
Ted Kennedy was in fact always one of 100 senators at any given moment in his senatorial career. Any one of the other 99 could have been a star at the same time. In fact, only a handful had any lasting impact over the decades, most simply treading water in the historic body leaving nary a footprint behind. Sarah Palin is one of a number of nationally prominent Republican leaders, a field that includes senators, congressmen, governors and party officials. Most Americans had trouble at any moment from 1963 until this past week identifying more than a handful of U.S. Senators -- but everybody knew Senator Kennedy. So too is Sarah Palin an instant standout among her Republican leadership peers, most of whom are unidentifiable to the vast American public.

Lord notes that "Rush" & "Hillary" & "Newt" have this quality, while their rivals lack it.  This does not, he adds, mean that Palin will ever run for, let alone be elected President.  It means that she can be a consequential public figure with huge impact because of her star quality.

As if to prove Lord's point, Palin kicks off her new speaking role September 23 in Hong Kong, on her first ever visit to Asia, addressing a forum previously addressed by Bill Clinton & Alan Greenspan.

LFTC - Index 9/2/09

5 posts: (1) August's Approval Angst: 44 Falls Below 50--The Home Front; (2) Harry Reid Exhumes & Re-Inters Ted--The Home Front; (3) 21st Century Suicide of the West?--Wobble Watch; (4) A Faithful Friend's Finest's Final Journey--Us v. Them; (5) A Faithless Former Friend's Retro-Journey Versus a Faithful Friend's Memoriam--Us v. Them.

LFTC - August's Approval Angst: 44 Falls Below 50

The September 1 Rasumauusen Presidential Tracking Poll shows 45 percent of likely voters approving and 53 percent disapproving of 44's performance; 30 percent strongly approve and 41 percent strongly disapprove.  The Rasmussen Month-by-Month Presidential Tracking poll shows 44 below 50 percent approval among likely voters for the first time in August. Such figures indicate that the Obama presidency has been a polarizing one, with high negative numbers and also a high percentage of voters on each side strongly inclined.  Team Obama has brought change, it seems, some strongly believe in and (more) others strongly disbelieve in.  As noted earlier on LFTC, the percentage of likely-voter Independents opposing the President has increased since January 20.

LFTC - Harry Reid Exhumes & Re-Inters Ted

Incredibly, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put his foot in his mouth yet again, this time on Ted Kennedy's passing and its impact on the health care debate:

Q: "How will U.S. Sen. (Edward) Kennedy's death affect things?"

A: "I think it's going to help us. He hasn't been around for some time. We're going to have a new chairman of that committee, it'll be, I don't know for sure, but I think Sen. (Chris) Dodd, (D-Conn.). He has a right to take it. Either him or (U.S. Sen. Tom) Harkin, (D-Iowa), whichever one wants it can have it. I think he (Kennedy) will be a help. He's an inspiration for us. That was the issue of his life and he didn't get it done."

Bottom Line.  Joe Biden is getting an unfair press for his slip-ups.  They are not in a class with Reid's.

LFTC - 21st Century Suicide of the West?

Thomas Sowell calls "suicide of the West" the UK-Scot freeing of Libya's intelligence agent prisoner and America's inquisition into the CIA's past interrogation practices.  As we mark the 64th anniversary of V-J Day that ended the Second World War, with the 70th anniversary of its start marked yesterday it is timely for reflecting upon the state of the West's will to prevail against this latest threat of jihadist Islamism.

World War II saw the defeat of the first of two monster tyrannies given birth during World War I, taking the place of four collapsed Empires (Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, Romanov & Ottoman).  The monstrous Soviet Empire tyranny that emerged from World War II was, in turn, defeated in the Cold War, which ended in three stages between 1989 & 1994 (Berlin Wall fell 1989, Soviet Union dissolved end-1991 & Soviet troops evacuated from East Germany, 1994).  (China's rulers, for their part, run a gerontocracy that eclipsed the genocidal rule of Mao Zedong and seeks at most, on evidence to date, dominance in Asia/Pacific regions, and not the destruction of the United States, a vital economic trade and financial partner.)

The West thus entered the 21st century facing no major challenge to its civilization--or so it seemed until September 11, 2001.  But jihadist Islam has come to plausibly pose a lethal challenge by co-opting three foundation aspects of Western dominance: its technology, media and legal system.  Weapons of mass destruction technology, media seduction of impressionable young Muslims in Western countries & using "lawfare" to shackle Western responses are the unholy trinity of poison arrows in Islamism's quiver.

The West's manifest failure to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, apparently nearing completion, its poor performance in the global war of ideas (noted last week in LFTC) and the increasingly successful use of Western legal systems--aided by hyper-legalists in the West--make for a serious challenge to the West, and thus, to the continuance of Western civilization.  Our war is not strictly speaking a "clash of civilizations": Our enemies decline to engage even in the pretense of being civilized, as they celebrate death & destruction, not the life & creation all true civilizations cherish.  But it is a war of survival for the West.

Whether the West can win hinges above all on whether the West can summon the clarity of purpose and firmness of will to deny or counter our enemies access to our technology, media and legal systems.  Denial of media access may be impossible, and there are ready counters the West can employ to use media to the West's advantage.  But denial of WMD technology is essential to prevent infliction of vast, irreparable harm upon the West's psyche.  and denial of lawfare weapons awaits Western governments wiser than those governing America and other major allies today.

Bottom Line.  It would have been unthinkable for any of our allies to afford access during wartime to our adversaries to technology, media and legal resources.  The Allied Powers won World War II.  It increasingly appears as if the West is embarking upon an experiment: trying to win this 21st century war for the survival of Western civilization whilst affording our enemies access to these powerful resources.

On a list of experiments to conduct, this one seems foolish and likely to lead to grave harm--possibly even civilizational ruin.

LFTC - A Faithful Friend's Finest's Final Journey

The BBC Reports that the bodies of Australia's last two Vietnam MIAs were at long last returned to their homeland:

A military band was on hand, and so, too, an honour guard, as the remains of the two airmen were carried from the plane in flag-draped coffins.

With this brief ceremony a chapter in Australian military history came to a close.

Flying Officer Michael Herbert and Pilot Officer Robert Carver were both aged 24 when their Canberra bomber went missing after a night-time raid over central Vietnam in November 1970.

Last April, the wreckage of the bomber was found in remote jungle near the border with Laos, after a search conducted by an Australian army history unit.

Three months later the remains of the airmen were found, and then identified by Australian and Vietnamese forensic specialists.

In Australia, America has no finer friend; in Officers Michael Herbert & Robert Carver, America counts two of our finest friend's finest as true friends forever of America.  LFTC salutes the soldiers and their families for their sacrifice in a war nearly all America's allies shunned (the other notable ally who fought on America's side was South Korea).

LFTC - A Faithless Former Friend's Retro-Journey Versus a Faithful Friend's Memoriam

Meanwhile, as Poland commemorated yesterday the 70th anniversary of history's most destructive war, Russia aired Communist propaganda claiming Poland was complicit in the Nazi invasion:

As world leaders gather in the Polish city of Gdansk today to commemorate the first shots of the conflict, Poles are fuming over what they perceive as an insulting Russian propaganda campaign targeting their nation.

In the days leading up to anniversary, Russian media has aired a string of accusations against Poland, claiming that Warsaw intended to collaborate with Hitler in an invasion of the Soviet Union, and that Jozef Beck, Poland's foreign minister in 1939, was a German agent. Moscow broadcasters have also claimed that there was a "German hand" in the 1940 Katyn massacre of thousands of Polish PoWs, an atrocity generally held to have been the exclusive work of Stalin's secret police.

Keep in mind: Nothing of consequence airs inside Russia these days without at least tacit regime approval.  Thus it is easy to understand Polish anger.  And sadly, it is equally easy to understand Polish anger at America over its behavior leading up to this memorial date: As Helle Dale, ever astute on foreign policy, writes in a Washington Times op-ed, Team Obama--too busy sucking up to our enemies (think: Putin, Palestinians) to tend to a true friend (Poland has over 2,000 troops in Afghanistan & helped us in Iraq too)--snubbed the Poles on this grim anniversary.  HD gives the seedy diplomatic details:

The Polish 70th anniversary commemorations of the beginning of World War II take place in Gdansk today. This unfortunately involves the latest in a long series of U.S. snubs felt keenly in Poland. On Sept. 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, resulting in six years of war in Europe, the Holocaust and the deaths of 20 million people. The leaders of Russia, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and other countries will attend the ceremony, presided over by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The head of the United States government -- unbelievably -- will be absent.

The Polish government sent out the invitation three months ago to the White House, but an answer was received only on Wednesday, a mere five days before the ceremony. Repeated attempts over the summer by the Poles to contact the White House and the State Department met with a long period of silence. One White House aide actually replied that everyone was on vacation until after Labor Day, which caused a Polish official to say he apologized that Adolf Hitler had invaded his country on Sept. 1.

The initial answer from the White House almost defied belief. The head of the official U.S. delegation was not to be a member of the Obama administration but former Clinton Defense Secretary William J. Perry. Over the weekend, a change was announced, and the U.S. delegation is to be headed by National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones. Gen. Jones will head the U.S. delegation, rather than President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Gen. Jones will stand alongside Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Anyone want to play "who doesn't belong in this picture?"

The lack of understanding of European history and sensitivities was not lost on the Polish chattering classes. They have been in a justifiable uproar over this mother of all snubs, feeling a mixture of humiliation and neglect. For an administration that pledged to prioritize public diplomacy, this treatment of an ally was appalling. Unsurprisingly, popular opinion of the United States took a serious nose dive in Poland.

HD notes that young Poles celebrated 44's election, a show of naivete to be sure.  To top all, Team Obama is preparing to sell the Polish missile defense deployment down the river if Russia yields a little on Iran.  There is no way that Russia will allow truly effective sanctions, and selling a faithful ally down the river is not the way to get them anyway.

In the event, as ace diplomat John Bolton wrote earlier this week in a WSJ op-ed, it is too late for sanctions to stop Iran's nuclear program.  A New York Times op-ed today penned by an American expatriate living in Tehran explains why sanctions on Iran in place now are easily circumvented: Iran's economic ties with Europe and the Mideast create countless avenues of import evasion, unlike the North Korean case.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that, incredibly, Josef Stalin's grandson is suing over a newspaper story that recounted how the Soviet dictator signed death warrants ordering the murder of Soviet citizens.  He seeks some $15M in damages, 95% from the paper & 5% from the article's author.  Wiki's Stalin Death Toll resource suggests around 20M killed by the Soviet tyrant.

Bottom Line.  It is one thing for Russia, historic tormentor of Poland, to anger the Poles on a day of painful national remembrance.  It is quite another for America, whose historic friendship Poles avidly reciprocate, to do the same.  Team Obama regularly brags of its diplomatic deftness, in contrast to the tone-deaf Bush 43 Team.  But this one Team Bush 43--and almost any other prior American administration--would have handled far better.  To have done so would have been a cakewalk.

LFTC - Index 9/1/09

5 posts: (1) Obama's Israel Problem; Israel's Fifth Column Problem (Soon America's Too?)--Wobble Watch; (2) PanAm 103: Libya's Real Role; Team Obama's Multiple Laxities--Us v. Them; (3) Deficits & Health Care: Team Obama Levitates--The Home Front; (4) Honduras: State Sides With (Who Else But) Hugo Chavez--Wobble Watch; (5) Edward Kennedy: Mainstream Media & Mary Jo--MSM Murders.

LFTC - Obama's Israel Problem; Israel's Fifth Column Problem (Soon America's Too?)

A poll taken last week shows only 4 percent--yes, FOUR percent--of Israelis who consider President Obama a friend of Israel, down from 6 percent two months ago and 31 percent in May (the last number from Fox News, not the linked Huffington Post article), before Obama's June 8 Cairo speech.  In that speech Obama equated the Nazi Holocaust with Israeli settlements on the West Bank.    The HP article also noted that two months ago 88 percent of Israelis saw former President Bush 43 as a friend of Israel, versus only 35 percent now saying the same of President 44.

Meanwhile, Israel faces hostility from another--domestic--quarter: the Jerusalem Post reports that Arab educators in Israel have threatened civil disobedience if the order of Israel's Education Minister to remove the word nakba (Arabic for "catastrophe") from Israeli Arab textbooks is carried out.  JP's story gave these details:

"In the past five months since its formation, the government, along with the Education Ministry, has announced a number of dangerous decisions," the head of the Follow-up Committee on Arab Education in Israel said at a press conference. "Such as a prohibition to commemorate the Nakba of the Arab people in schools, the changing of road signs, forcing the singing of the 'Tikva' national anthem at schools and setting the promotion of military service or national service as a criterion for rewarding schools and staff."

"We reject these decisions outright," Atef Moaddi said. "And we stress that if an attempt is made to carry them out in Arab schools - the response will be refusal and civil disobedience."

Committee members vowed to continue to fight "for the rights of half a million Arab students to an education that respects their national and cultural uniqueness." They promised to continue to commemorate "central historical events such as Nakba Day, the Kafr Kassem massacre, Land Day and the October 2000 events."

The EM justifies his proposal by stating that nakba is used by the Arabs as the equivalent of the Holocaust for Jews, and that this is untrue.  The Arabs reply that taking the term out of the schools will not prevent Arab children from learning the same on the Internet or from parents.  On this latter point (though not the former) the Arabs are, of course, right.

The controversy raises a painful question for Jewish Israel and its Arab citizens.  The Jewish state was founded on liberal principles--including accepting Arabs as citizens with equal rights.  This ideal has not been achieved, but at least, in law, is the principled aspiration--no multi-racial country has fully realized this ideal.  Yet the Arabs living in Israel, where they enjoy far more civil & political rights than Arabs living in any Arab country--even given persistent anti-Arab discrimination--regards the idea of a Jewish state as anathema.

Thus, an irresistible force (Arab nationalism & anti-Semitism) faces an immovable object (Israel's creation as a Jewish state).  As the 1955 Johnny Mercer American Songbook lyric says, when the two meet, "Something's gotta give...."

Turn the globe back to Orlando, Florida, where a 17-year old Muslim convert is fighting extradition to Ohio to rejoin her Muslim parents, fearing she will be killed for converting.  The issue is best framed in an open letter from Hudson Institute President Herb London to Judge Dawson, the judge hearing the case; read it in full.  America may soon have a Fifth Column growing in its midst if the girl is sent home, and the law defers to the dictates of militant Islam.

LFTC - PanAm 103: Libya's Real Role; Team Obama's Multiple Laxities

Ace foreign affairs reporter Arnaud de Borchgrave recounts the real story of Libya's role in PanAm 103's destruction.  Put simply, Gaddafi did not retaliate for Ronald Reagan's 1986 air strike against Libya; rather, he did Iran's work as retaliation for the July 1988 downing by a Navy Aegis cruiser of an Iranian Airbus.  De Borchgrave's column fills in the details on Britain's oil deal for prisoner exchange, but his money paragraphs detail what led to PanAm 103's bombing:

Al-Megrahi was a small cog in a much larger conspiracy. After a long interview with Col. Gadhafi in 1993, this editor-at-large of The Washington Times asked Libya's supreme leader to explain, off the record, his precise involvement in the bombing of Pan Am 103 (which killed 270 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, for which Libya paid $2.7 billion in reparations). He dismissed all the aides in his tent (located that evening in the desert about 62 miles south of Tripoli) and began in halting English without benefit of an interpreter used in the on-the-record part of the interview.

Col. Gadhafi candidly admitted that Lockerbie was retaliation for the July 3, 1988, downing of an Iranian Airbus. Air Iran Flight 655, on a 28-minute daily hop from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in the Strait of Hormuz to the port city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates on the other side of the Gulf, was shot down by a guided missile from the Aegis cruiser USS Vincennes.

The Vincennes radar mistook it for an F-14 Tomcat fighter (which Iran still flies). The missile killed 290, including 66 children. A year before, in 1987, the USS Stark was attacked by an Iraqi Mirage, killing 37 sailors. The Vincennes skipper, Capt. William Rogers, received the Legion of Merit, and the entire crew was awarded combat-action ribbons. The U.S. paid $61.8 million to the families of those killed on IR 655.

Col. Gadhafi told me "the most powerful navy in the world does not make such mistakes. Nobody in our part of the world believed it was an error." Retaliation, he said, clearly was called for. Iranian intelligence subcontracted retaliation to one of the Syrian intelligence services (there are 14 of them), which, in turn, subcontracted part of the retaliatory action to Libyan intelligence (at that time run by Abdullah Senoussi, Col. Gadhafi's brother-in-law). "Did we know specifically what we were asked to do?" Col. Gadhafi asked rhetorically. "We knew it would be comparable retaliation for the Iranian Airbus, but we were not told what the specific objective was."

As he got up to take his leave, he asked me to please "tell the CIA that I wish to cooperate with America. I am just as much threatened by Islamist extremists as you are."

A TAS article details Team Obama's "lax on Libya" stance regarding the release of the Libyan intelligence agent who either was guilty (alone or in concert) of carrying out the bombing of PanAm 103 or of covering up for who did conduct it.  It seems that as the Scottish drama was unfolding President Obama was (mal)practicing diplomacy with Gaddafi at the G-8 Summit.  The Justice & State Departments could not get their collective acts together to make more than pro forma protests, despite having been flagged by Her Majesty's government that stronger protest would be needed to have a chance to stop Scotland's imminent decision to release the unrepentant agent.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the British & Scottish governments have committed to making all correspondence on the L'Affaire Libya public.  Already known is that in 2007 a top Blair minister sent a letter to the Scots arguing that the UK's foreign policy interests dictated releasing the prisoner, in pursuit of commercial deals with Libya.  Amanda Bowman, CEO of The Atlantic Bridge, a US-UK friendship organization, sees UK & US governments "going wobbly" (Lady Thatcher's famous admonition to Bush 41) UK laxity on Libya as less damaging than US inquiry into CIA practices.

Herewith Martin Peretz's assessment of Libya and Obama's Mideast view:

 I have my theory about the inertness (perhaps that's too kind a description) of the Obama response to this grotesque spectacle [of the released Libyan Pan-Am 103 bomber]: He is befuddled. His entire grand strategy rested on our ability to transform dozens of Libyas; his persuasive powers would make allies out of the rogue's gallery of the Middle East. That was never an approach grounded in the hard realities of history or more than a surface understanding of his supposed interlocutors. It is a dream that should have died, once and for all, with the pep rally greeting al-Megrahi. But will this humiliation of Anglo-America change our policy? Unlike Obama, I have no illusions.

Bottom Line.  Libyan terror diplomacy exposes anew the West's inability to grasp two things: (1) goodwill gestures intended to curry favor with nasty types invariably earn instead their contempt; (2) pursuit of commercial advantage can undermine anti-terror strategy.

LFTC - Deficits & Health Care: Team Obama Levitates

George Will wittily eviscerates an administration he calls "unserious"--promising the unachievable, backed by absurd pie-in-the-sky budgetary numerology.  Economist Irwin Stelzer asks, "What's $2 trillion among friends?" and notes that unprecedented economic growth rates are needed to make this the last adjustment upward in projected budget deficits.  Robert Samuelson provides historical context on deficits and debt.

It is precisely seriousness that Democrats lost with the passing of Edward Kennedy.  He alone combined the three things needed to pass major health care reform: credibility with the President, with the base and with the opposition party.  He could have told 44 to get real, and abandon impossible ideas; he could have said same to his party's base; and above all, he had the stature--in terms of trusting his word and genuine friendships--to reach across the aisle.  Put simply, virtually no one in the GOP trusts the likes of Harry Reid or Chris Dodd or other top liberals in the Senate, or Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman & the other liberal firebrands like Barney Frank in the House.  (In the House, Steny Hoyer is respected, but lacks the stature to play this role; and John Dingell has the stature, but was pushed aside from senior leadership by Pelosi & Waxman.)  Ted Kennedy was thus uniquely trusted, and could have promised that nothing would be slipped in at the eleventh hour, after conference, to be discovered after the bill is signed; famously, Kennedy's word, once given to a fellow legislator, was invariably kept.

Some among Team Obama cite Britain's National Health Service (NHS) as a model.  They will hardly be helped by this Daily Mail gem: Scientists report that patients in NHS hospitals are more likely to go hungry than criminals locked up in Britain's jails.  Read the astonishing details.

Also hardly helping is a Rasumussen poll showing that 57 percent of Americans would like to replace the ENTIRE Congress.  Ominously for Team Obama, 70 percent of Independents wish to do so, up from 62 percent last fall, when the Senate was still in GOP hands (the House has been controlled by the Democrats since January 2007).  David Brooks adds detail on how the position of Democrats has deteriorated significantly since Team OBama's accession to power: 44's approval rating has fallen from 67 to 50 percent, faster than that of any new President in his first 7 months, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is down to 39 percent approval in his home state of Nevada; public attitudes on ObamaCare now match those on ClintonCare in 1994.  Add to this the fact that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the most disliked major office-holder in America, on recent polling numbers--the Washington Post reported that as of May 2009, in the wake of her fiasco confronting the CIA, NP's rating stood at 38 percent.

For a dissenting view--holding that 44's health care strategy is savvy--read AEI scholar Norm Ornstein's Washington Post op-ed.  I do not see it NO's way, but at least he makes such a case as can be made for the tactics chosen on ObamaCare.

LFTC - Honduras: State Sides With (Who Else But) Hugo Chavez

WSJ pundit Mary Anastasia O'Grady spotlights how Foggy Bottom is twisting arms to help a Chavez wanna-be reclaim power in Honduras, and resume violating the Honduran Constitution's bar against seeking a second term:

Mr. Obama's methods are decidedly uncool. Prominent Hondurans, including leading members of the business community, complain that a State Department official has been pressuring them to push the interim government to accept the return of Mr. Zelaya to power.

When I asked the State Department whether it was employing such dirty tricks a spokeswoman would only say the U.S. has been "encouraging all members of civil society to support the San Jose 'accord'"—which calls for Mr. Zelaya to be restored to power. Perhaps something was lost in the translation but threats to use U.S. power against a small, poor nation hardly qualify as encouragement.

Elsewhere in the region there are reports that U.S. officials have been calling Latin governments to demand that they support the U.S. position. When I asked State whether that was true, a spokeswoman would not answer the question. She would only say that the U.S. is "cooperating with the [Organization of American States] and [Costa Rican President] Oscar Arias to support the San José accord."

In other words, though it won't admit to coercion, it is fully engaged in arm-twisting at the OAS in order to advance its agenda.

This not only seems unfair to the Honduran democracy but it also seems to contradict an earlier U.S. position. In a letter to Sen. Richard Lugar on Aug. 4, the State Department claimed that its "strategy for engagement is not based on any particular politician or individual" but rather finding "a "resolution that best serves the Honduran people and their democratic aspirations."

A lot of Hondurans believe that the U.S. isn't using its brass knuckles to serve their "democratic aspirations" at all, but the quite-opposite aspirations of a neighborhood thug.

Read O'Grady's excellent column in full.

LFTC - Edward Kennedy: Mainstream Media & Mary Jo

Mark Steyn rips into MSM for virtually ignoring Mary Jo Kopechne, and notes some Ted-worshipers even think Mary Jo would have been happy to drown (at 28) to create a great senator in so disappearing.  MS notes how former British minister John Profumo, after being forced to resign in 1963 for lying about an affair with a call girl, went into obscurity and did charitable penance the rest of his life:

You can’t make an omelette without breaking chicks, right? I don’t know how many lives the senator changed — he certainly changed Mary Jo’s — but you’re struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the basic equation: How many changed lives justify leaving a human being struggling for breath for up to five hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy’s Oldsmobile? If the senator had managed to change the lives of even more Americans, would it have been okay to leave a couple more broads down there? Hey, why not? At the Huffington Post, Melissa Lafsky mused on what Mary Jo “would have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history . . . Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.” What true-believing liberal lass wouldn’t be honored to be dispatched by that death panel?

We are all flawed, and most of us are weak, and in hellish moments, at a split-second’s notice, confronting the choice that will define us ever after, many of us will fail the test. Perhaps Mary Jo could have been saved; perhaps she would have died anyway. What is true is that Edward Kennedy made her death a certainty. When a man (if you’ll forgive the expression) confronts the truth of what he has done, what does honor require? Six years before Chappaquiddick, in the wake of Britain’s comparatively very minor “Profumo scandal,” the eponymous John Profumo, Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for War, resigned from the House of Commons and the Queen’s Privy Council, and disappeared amid the tenements of the East End to do good works washing dishes and helping with children’s playgroups, in anonymity, for the last 40 years of his life. With the exception of one newspaper article to mark the centenary of his charitable mission, he never uttered another word in public again.

Ted Kennedy went a different route. He got kitted out with a neck brace and went on TV and announced the invention of the “Kennedy curse,” a concept that yoked him to his murdered brothers as a fellow victim — and not, as Mary Jo perhaps realized in those final hours, the perpetrator. He dared us to call his bluff, and, when we didn’t, he made all of us complicit in what he’d done. We are all prey to human frailty, but few of us get to inflict ours on an entire nation.

Steyn has a point: The brighter side of Ted Kennedy--the master legislator--doesn't wipe away the dark side; rather, it stands alongside.  It does for all of us, and so it should for a Kennedy.  MSM is especially obligated to note this, its task being to judge at a distance, with a measure of dispassion.

LFTC - Index 8/31/09

5 posts: (1) The CIA's Senior Post-Waterboarding Asset--9/11, 3/11 & N/11; (2) Justice Department: "Ready, Fire, Aim!" (at CIA)--9/11, 3/11 & N/11; (3) Israel Surprise Strike on Iran Increasingly Likely?--Wobble Watch; (4) Free Speech: Federal Film Follies--The Home Front; (5) Public Diplomacy: Time to Reset--Us v. Them.

LFTC - The CIA's Senior Post-Waterboarding Asset

A Washington Post 3-pager offers rich details on how 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad became an intelligence asset--after he was deprived of sleep & forced to wear diapers & shackles for 7-1/2 days, and waterboarded 183 times.  Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard assesses the latest CIA revelations in a crisp article, and Thomnas Joscelyn adds more interrogation fruits detail.  In a WSJ op-ed ex-CIA office Reuel Marc Gerecht explains in a must-read why the CIA will not push the interrogation envelope unless a bigger 9/11 happens.  The folly of legalist excess--protecting detainees from nasty treatment short of torture--is perfectly illustrated.

Here once again is the pertinent section of the Code of Federal Regulations governing Implementation of the Convention Against Torture (8 CFR sec. 1208.18), that are the actual rules enacted pursuant to America's criminal torture statute, 18 U.S.C. 2340 (U.S.C. = United States Code).  The first 6 sections convey the heart of the issue: (1) torture is the intentional infliction of severe pain & suffering for such purposes as extracting confessions; (2) torture does not include lesser forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treat; (3) torture does not include pain inflicted incidental to lawful sanctions, including the death penalty; (4) torture entails threatened or actual prolonged physical or mental harm; (5) torture covers acts "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain & suffering"--the result must be actually intended; (6) torture can only be conducted upon someone in the offender's physical custody or control--battlefield combat doesn't apply.

The key here is that torture entails specific intent.to inflict severe long-term pain & suffering.  Under a general intent rule, if X throws a baseball at mortal enemy Y, intending to harm Y, but instead hits best friend Z, whom X did not intend to harm, X is liable for the tort (civil wrong) or battery (an intentional unconsented contact).  Applying general intent, to intend an act is to intend its reasonably foreseeable consequences; one foreseeable outcome of throwing a ball at one target is to miss and hit another.  But under a specific intent rule X would NOT be liable to Z, because X intended to hit & harm Y.

On to Guantanamo: In waterboarding KSM, CIA interrogators did NOT intend to inflict lasting harm upon KSM.  They intended to inflict extreme temporary discomfort in waterboarding him; parading him around in diapers and shackles is surely degrading, sleep deprivation is perhaps cruel, and both are perhaps inhumane--our Western culture makes it hard for us to find any unpleasant treatment inhumane.

The above rules are America's 1995 enactment of the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT, signed Feb. 4, 1985).  NRO's Andy McCarthy's article, Eric Holder's Hidden Agenda, which I posted recently on LFTC, I re-post today because it bears directly on what Team Obama wants to do:

I believe the explanation lies in the Obama administration’s fondness for transnationalism, a doctrine of post-sovereign globalism in which America is seen as owing its principal allegiance to the international legal order rather than to our own Constitution and national interests.

Recall that the president chose to install former Yale Law School dean Harold Koh as his State Department’s legal adviser. Koh is the country’s leading proponent of transnationalism. He is now a major player in the administration’s deliberations over international law and cooperation. Naturally, membership in the International Criminal Court, which the United States has resisted joining, is high on Koh’s agenda. The ICC claims worldwide jurisdiction, even over nations that do not ratify its enabling treaty, notwithstanding that sovereign consent to jurisdiction is a bedrock principle of international law.

As a result, there have always been serious concerns that the ICC could investigate and try to indict American political, military, and intelligence officials for actions taken in defense of our country. Here it’s crucial to bear in mind that the United States (or at least the pre-Obama United States) has not seen eye-to-eye with Europe on significant national-security matters. European nations, for example, have accepted the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, while the United States has rejected it. Protocol I extends protections to terrorists and imposes an exacting legal regime on combat operations, relying on such concepts as “proportional” use of force and rigorous distinction between military and civilian targets. That is, Protocol I potentially converts traditional combat operations into war crimes. Similarly, though the U.S. accepted the torture provisions of the U.N. Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), our nation rejected the UNCAT’s placing of “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” on a par with torture. By contrast, Europe generally accepts the UNCAT in toto.

#pageAs long as we haven’t ratified a couple of bad human-rights treaties, why should we care that Europe considers them binding? Because of the monstrosity known as “customary international law,” of which Koh is a major proponent. This theory holds that once new legal principles gain broad acceptance among nations and international organizations, they somehow transmogrify into binding law, even for nations that haven’t agreed to them. That is, the judgment of the “international community” (meaning, the judgment of left-wing academics and human-rights activists who hold sway at the U.N. and the European Union) supersedes the standards our citizens have adopted democratically. It is standard fare among transnational progressives to claim that Protocol I is now binding on the United States and that what they define as cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is “tantamount to torture.”

And the transnational Left has still another treat in store: its notion of “universal jurisdiction.” This theory holds that individual nations have the power to prosecute actions that occur in other countries, even when they have no impact on the prosecuting nation. The idea is that some offenses — such as torture and war crimes — so offend the purported consensus of humanity (i.e., so offend left-wing sensibilities) that they may be prosecuted by any country that cares to take the initiative. In fact, many countries (the United States included) open their justice systems to civil suits against government officials — again, even if the country where the suit is filed has nothing to do with the alleged offenses.

Consider now the Constitution of the United States.  Specifically, consider Article VI, Clause 2, the Supremacy Clause:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

When America ratifies a treaty, it often does so conditionally--with specified reservations.  This is not minor technical stuff: President Woodrow Wilson's refusal to accept any compromise on the League of Nations Treaty resulted in the Senate rejecting ratification, in 1919.  Thus, in ratifying UNCAT, the US narrowed its application.  We define torture more narrowly than does UNCAT.  Some acts that constitute torture under UNCAT do not constitute torture under American law.  The Supremacy Clause says that American law prevails--our Founders & Framers did not break away from one foreign despotism to accept in its stead another.  What Holder and Harold Koh seek--Obama too--is just such a despotism: Using "customary international law" made outside the US to override the Supremacy Clause.

Bottom Line.  Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was not tortured, under the specific, narrow rules of American law.  By fair inference, after being subjected to enhanced Interrogation Techniques, KSM provided useful information that saved countless innocent lives.  If Team Obama gets its way, we will learn less from future senior terror detainees, save fewer lives, and find ourselves subjected to rule by foreign law imposed upon us without our Constitutional consent via Senate ratification.

LFTC - Justice Department: "Ready, Fire, Aim!" (at CIA)

On "Fox News Sunday" former VP Dick Cheney gave a wide-ranging interview to Chris Wallace (transcript--6 pages; video clip-- approx. 25 min.).  The CIA investigation was the centerpiece, but Cheney covered other matters as well.  DEFINITELY either read or see this one.  Asked by Wallace, "So even these cases where they went beyond specific legal authorization, you're OK with it?", Cheney answered: "I am."  Cheney noted that the documents released last Monday by the White House show that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad & Abu Zubaydah provided most of the intelligence re al-Qaeda that we garnered after 9/11; KSM & AZ were 2 of the 3 detainees who were waterboarded (the other was the mastermind of the Oct. 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole).  Cheney did endorse the stepped-up use of Predators by Team Obama.

Newt Gingrich calls for 44 to fire A-G Eric Holder for siccing a special counsel upon CIA interrogators who were already cleared by career Justice Department prosecutors.  An Andy McCarthy posting I missed in July shows one example of the kind of lawyer Holder is now hiring at Justice: a lady lawyer who worried that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's guilty plea was not genuine.  Pajama's Media editor Jennifer Rubin offers the inside scoop at Justice: how Justice thoroughly reviewed CIA interrogations during Bush 43 and how Holder has politicized Justice to burnish his own "independent" credentials.  Read the details and weep.

Then read Joseph Finder's New York Times op-ed on CIA Double Jeopardy, which begins by juxtaposing Eric Holder Geneva Convention quotes from 2002 versus 2008.  Finder's must-read 2-pager notes that defense lawyers will cite the legal principle of estoppel--a concept that runs through many areas of law, holding that having taken one legal position, a party is estopped from changing position later on in pursuit of expedient legal advantage---in making their case.   Finder also notes that violating the principle of institutional continuity in matters like this undermines the legitimacy of governmental action itself.

Bottom Line.  Even if all those probed by the special counsel are exonerated, and even if all legal fees are paid for defending anyone charged and acquitted, immense, irreparable damage has been done to our intelligence community.  No administration's assurance of protection for good faith action can retain value, because no future administration need feel bound by same.  Errors of judgment made under a complex set of rules face possible harsh judgment in future administrations even if forgiven initially.  Our enemies can rejoice, while we repent at leisure--in all likelihood, it will be a painful repentance.

LFTC - Israel Surprise Strike on Iran Increasingly Likely?

Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in a Los Angeles Times op-ed that history suggests Israel will indeed strike Iran, without informing the US prior to the action.  MZ notes that in Suez (1956), the Six-Day War (1967), and strikes on the Iraqi (1981) & Syrian (2007) nuclear reactors Israel acted alone and did not tell us beforehand.  With Team Obama tilting heavily towards the Palestinians & twisting Israel's arm there is no doubt Israel will not ask for approval from us; besides, though MZ doesn't discuss this, our ability to keep a secret like that is effectively near zero.

Most telling in MZ's article: During the past near three months of turmoil in Iran, production of uranium hexaflouride and centrifuges has not slowed down one iota, according to Friday's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report.  Here is a summary 5-page link for the August 28, 2009 IAEA report.  It notes that: (1) the IAEA made "no substantive progress" in evaluating Iran's military program; (2) Iran could enrich enough uranium for a nuclear bomb in 3 to 6 months; and (3) Iran, which had enough material last February to make one nuclear bomb, would have enough material by February 2010 to make two bombs.

Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland, a wise voice always, compares the Libyan welcome with the status Iran's nuclear program enjoys, and finds a lesson in Libya's behavior that applies equally to Iran: Iran will never give up its nuclear program, which gives it a seat at the table with the world's major powers.  A WSJ editorial urges Team Obama to get more serious on stopping Iran, else Israel will strike.

The nuclear clock keeps ticking.

LFTC - Free Speech: Federal Film Follies

In his op-ed What's Wrong With 'Hillary: the Movie'?, former Federal Election Commission (FEC) Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky shreds the FEC's absurd rules, and calls on the Supreme Court to overturn two prior egregious decisions sanctioning federal censorship of political speech.    Since the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) passed in 1972 it has grown like Topsy. FECA now comprises 244 pages of statute, 568 pages of regulations enacted pursuant to the law, with 1,278 pages of explanations & justifications, supplemented by nearly 1,800 advisory opinions.  Everything is perfectly clear, right?

Well, not quite: Rules differ for 70 different types of entities, and there are no less than 33 forms of political speech, each with its own rules.  General Electric is unregulated, because it owns a media company (NBC).  General Motors is not so lucky.

Read the 2-pager in full.  And stay tuned for September 9, when, as a New York Times front-pager reports, the Supreme Court, in a special pre-October session, hears an appeal seeking to overturn the rules.  Supreme Sonia will sit for the first time as an Associate Justice, readying her Empathy Enveloper.  More on that come September.

LFTC - Public Diplomacy: Time to Reset

A Heritage Foundation report, Ideas Matter: Restoring the Content of Public Diplomacy (23 Pages), cogently argues for better public diplomacy vis-a-vis the world's Muslims.  The New York Times reported Friday that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen sharply criticized US diplomacy towards Muslims.  Mullen's comments say more about his attitude than anything else, but are worth a look.  The Heritage paper is excellent.  Especially focus on its first 6 or 7 pages, and the last 3.  In its beginning, our hapless efforts to date are crisply demolished; at its end, a terror detainee proves to have more intellect that the idiot library staff at Gitmo.  The middle is well-written philosophical discussion, but less interesting than the bookends.