Happens a lot. I, for some stupid reason, flipped on Hannity and Colmes this evening and saw the typical "talk-over-each-other" fest going on... actually, this time it wasn't as bad as some. But one of the guys defending Bush and the intercepts of international calls and emails just couldn't seem to close the deal.
He kept going back to "We are at war" -- which is a good start, but the point he should have been making instead of "that means we have to give up some civil liberties" was this:
We are at war, but not with a country. There is a guerilla war being waged against us, and the enemy has agents in our midst.
The intercepts going on were between people here (not even necessarily citizens) to known terrorist operatives outside of the country. They weren't wiretapping aunt Mae talking to cousin Lou-Lou.
The president authorized spying on people who were talking to our enemies. Dude, I got no problem with that. And the same screeching moonbats that blame Bush for not stopping 9/11 are up in arms about this. How in the holy hell do you expect us to stop people who are infiltrating our own culture, our own towns, and learning to blend in so that one day they can strap on a bomb or an airplane and kill a bunch of us because God wants 'em to? I mean, how do you think intelligence is gathered?
"Get a warrant!"
That can take up to 72 hours, and more people know about it. The bigger the number of people who know, the harder it is to keep them from finding out we're on to them. I don't want Al-Salim's sister-in law who works for the CIA or FBI and types up Agent Smith's paperwork to know that we're listening in on his cousin's plot to nuke Los Angeles. I want us to figure out how he plans on doing it, who else is involved, and how we can nab his ass before he pulls the trigger.
In short, what our supposed supporter said was "we are at war" but went no farther into the circumstances describing this war and how radically different it is from WWII, Vietnam, Korea, WWI or any other war we've fought. The enemy has embedded himself within us, and is using our constitutional protections against us. They are exploiting a flaw in our system. I don't want to hear anybody howling about the minor steps we've taken to shrink that flaw a little bit when Muhammed "Eddie" Assad calls up his buddy Zawahiri in Pakistan. I'm going to assume they might be talking about something besides the aroma of roast lamb.
The press fleetingly acknowledges, usually in soundbyte quotes from the president himself, that these are international intercepts, not QUITE the same as domestic spying, but you never hear the reporter repeat it. The headlines and the overall impression the stories leave is that Big Bad BusHilter is spying on us all.
And I agree with many that the timing of the report is highly suspect. After practically denying that the December 15 vote in Iraq had any real significance, they publish this the very next day after having known about it for a year. Why Dec 16? Because they desparately want to deflect the conversation away from Bush's success and keep the attention on the fact that they think he's a big bad meanie for not pulling out of Iraq on 9/12/01 (yes, we were there, and it was a big part of the reason we were attacked here).
They, the Left, are scared. It appears that Bush has been right about a lot of things, and he's not taking it lying down anymore. With undeniable success of the Iraq mission screaming over their hand-covered microphones, the New York Slimes panicked.
Or... just go read what Michelle has to say about it. She has more time to research this stuff, and she does a great job. Besides, she's much better looking than I am.
No comments:
Post a Comment