Homeland Security

J. Edgar Hoover is grinning in his grave.

The FBI’s adopted a plan to recruit 15,000 covert informants in the United States to help keep America safe. Their job? Reporting to the FBI anybody “suspicious” — in other words, anybody with a different accent, skin color, lifestyle, hairstyle, religion or sexual orientation. Read more...

I was watching the news the other day, and I saw an advertisement put up by the Democrats thanking the Democrats for all their success in the first seven months of their majority.

Talk about chutzpah.

Talk about smart.

My mom always told me that if you don’t believe good things about yourself, nobody else will. Well, it is time for the Republicans to start believing that their philosophy has led to some real progress for the American people. If we don’t start believing it, nobody else will.  Read more...

10. Do Democratic primary voters really want candidates like John Edwards and Barack Obama who speak fondly of the Great Society? In a word: yes.

9. Why do we demand from government absolute security against terrorism but are so tolerant about other government negligence that can also result in random harm, such as the broken steam pipe that resulted in injury and death in New York City? Mayor Bloomberg pays no price for failing to maintain an aging and dangerous infrastructure, but would be heavily criticized if the damage were done by terrorists.

8. Isn’t it a risky strategy for a candidate’s wife, Elizabeth Edwards, to attack another candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton? Can’t John Edwards do his own attacking?   Read more...

In the spring of 2003, President Bush dismissed any questions about Osama bin Laden. “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and don’t care. It is not important, and it is not our priority.” He added: “I am not truly concerned about him.”

He should have been. In a stunning admission of failure, the Bush administration admitted this week that the war on terror is a total bust. “FUBAR,” as we used to say in college. Read more...

Remember the old expression "Don’t put the emphasis on the wrong syllable"?

The Bush administration has been doing just that in the war on terror ever since Sept. 11, 2001. Now their own National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) proves it. Al Qaeda is stronger, not weaker, because we have neglected them in Pakistan and provided them the opportunity to get a foothold in Iraq, where they were non-existent before Sept. 11.

We have actually harmed worldwide efforts to undermine terrorism by focusing the bulk of our attention, money, troops and Pentagon and intelligence resources on Iraq and not on al Qaeda. We have put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.  Read more...

It is repeated today by Republicans on the floor of the Senate and restated on this site, only yesterday, and it goes like this:

The Democrats have an al Qaeda problem, and this war, which was started with the Big Lie that claimed it was necessary to defeat bin Laden, must be continued to promote the Big Lie that to change the policy would help the terrorists, when the exact opposite is true.  Read more...

The Democrats have an al Qaeda problem. As they beat the GOP bushes for votes against the war, intelligence showing a healthy al Qaeda presence growing ever stronger in Iraq could turn the current war debate on its head. According to an Associated Press report today, al Qaeda will "likely leverage its contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on U.S. soil, according to a new National Intelligence Estimate."

War opponents can make a case that the terrorist network hardly existed in Iraq before we invaded and that sectarian strife remains the worst threat to security there. But you can't fight apples with oranges — even if the al Qaeda threat takes a back seat to the civil war in Iraq, it remains a threat to our national security nonetheless. Read more...

Last week brought sobering news in America’s six-year war against terrorism. First, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said in an interview that he had a “gut feeling” that America was about to be attacked, offering no further details. Then came a report from the National Counterterrorism Center, a U.S. government entity composed of elite analysts, that was titled “Al Qaeda Better Positioned to Strike the West.” The report noted that al Qaeda is strengthening and reconstituting itself in the nether regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan beyond the reach of Pakistani and U.S. forces. Naturally, the question arises: Are we losing the war on terror?  Read more...

Let's look at the latest report card:

First of all, we had the White House assessment of the Iraq war. It's clearly a case of the glass that's half-empty or half-full. And that's the White House glass.

At the same time, a top official with the National Intelligence Council was telling Congress that there have been "Few appreciable gains" in Iraq. So maybe the glass is one-eighth full.  Read more...

Dwight Eisenhower warned us against George Bush and the kind of government he would bring to Washington when a president who pursues an obsessive war combines with those who pursue the obsessive profits and corruptions that surround his war.

George Washington warned us about George Bush and the unwise foreign entanglements that could corrupt our system and so gravely damage our country.

James Madison warned us about the threats to our liberty from factions that seek to dominate our democracy and fears that are created and exploited in the cause of eroding our freedoms.

Jesus Christ warned us about a society where the hungry become more hungry, the poor become more poor, the ill become more pained — all while others gorge themselves on their greed and bloat themselves on their unjust enrichments.  Read more...