Raised as Catholic in Belgium, She Died as a Muslim Bomber

MONCEAU-SUR-SAMBRE, Belgium, Dec. 5 - Muriel Degauque, believed to be the first European Muslim woman to stage a suicide attack, started out life as a good Roman Catholic girl in this coal mining corner of Belgium known as the black country. She ended it in a grisly blast deep inside Iraq last month.

Virginie Lefour/Agence France-Presse--Getty Images
Muriel Degauque, suicide bomber from the coal fields of Belgium.

Forum: The Transition in Iraq
Ms. Degauque, 38, detonated her explosive vest amid an American military patrol in the town of Baquba on Nov. 9, wounding one American soldier, according to an account received from the State Department and given to the Federal Police in Belgium.

Her unlikely journey into militant Islam stunned Europe and for many people was an incomprehensible aberration, a lost soul led astray. But her story supports fears among many law enforcement officials and academics that converts to Europe's fastest-growing religion could bring with them a disturbing new aspect in the war on terror: Caucasian women committed to one of the world's deadliest causes.

European women who marry Muslim men are now the largest source of religious conversions in Europe, the experts say. While a vast majority of those conversions are pro forma gestures for moderately religious in-laws, a small but growing number are women who willingly adopt the conservative comportment of their fundamentalist husbands...

see more at....
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/international/europe/06brussels.html?ei=5088&en=4153b69cdea6b5a1&ex=1291525200&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1133869576-dA50M69/o/0169aqO7Ojbg

Why Islam and extremism do not go together

Why Islam and extremism do not go together
BY ABID ISHAQ

25 November 2005


OF LATE, the world has been furiously debating why some people in the Muslim lands are turning to violence and whether Islam supports the use of violent means to achieve ends. This debate would be incomplete and flawed without looking at the fundamental teachings of Islam. Allah says in the Holy Quran:


"There is no coercion or compulsion in the Deen (religion). The right way now stands clearly distinguished from the wrong. Hence he who rejects the evil ones and believes in Allah has indeed taken hold of the firm, unbreakable handle, and Allah (Whom he has held for support) is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. —Quran (2:256)

These verses of the Holy Quran are clear in commanding the believers that there is no coercion or use of force in Islam. That is, you cannot coerce someone to embrace the faith or accept a particular viewpoint. One quick look at history over the last 14 centuries is proof that Muslims had no systematic sanction or compulsion to convert people to Islam. The above quoted verse signals the way of Allah and the freedom that He has given to each and every sane individual to pursue the path shown by His messengers or go their own way.

Muslims have honoured this commandment and have been careful in not forcing their faith or viewpoint on the world. The best examples are found in Spain, India and Eastern Europe. Muslims entered with armies and conquered them, yet these countries remained a non-Muslim majority. On the other hand, Muslim armies never entered Sub-Saharan Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia etc., and yet these countries embraced the faith and are now Muslim majority countries. Even today —in the 21st century —when there are no Muslim armies roaming North America or Europe, millions of people are taking to Islam of their own will.

History also shows that from 638 to 1917, the Muslims and Jews have been each other’s friends and also protectors at times. During the period of the Inquisition in Spain, Muslims and Jews suffered together and protected each other. Whenever the Jews faced hostilities in Europe, they fled to North African Muslim-ruled countries, or to the East where the Turks ruled and found the much-needed sympathy, support, rehabilitation and a welcome mat.

Similarly, Christians and Muslims have been living together in peace all over the Arab world, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and many other countries. One example of the Christian-Muslim harmony is found in the Orthodox Church, which had its headquarters in Constantinople before 1453 when Muhammad II conquered it for the Ottoman Empire. Constantinople was the seat of the Orthodox Church and it remained so throughout the Turkish rule. Even today, Constantinople continues to be the seat of the Orthodox Church.

Ironically, many around the globe today hold a tainted view of Islam and a greater majority is unaware of Islam’s glorious past. The literal meaning of Islam is peace and submission. Thus associating the great faith with violence is a great injustice to Islam and its followers. But then the contemporary situation in Muslim world appears to link Islam with violence. Anti-Islam forces love to refer to the cherry-picked Quranic verses to suit their interpretation that Islam preaches violence, not peace. Unfortunately, the ignorant masses of the West have been raised believing that Islam breeds violence. The Western media only reinforces these stereotypes about Islam and Muslims in a bid to check the growing popularity of the faith in the West.

So how should we approach Islam to understand its true message and teachings? The answer lies in an understanding of the Holy Quran.

Here are the ground rules that are crucial to a true understanding of the Quran.

A Quranic verse should be read (a) in the context of the surrounding verses, not in isolation, (b) in the context of its revelation, which may be found in the Hadith (Prophet’s sayings) collections, and (c) in the context of the whole Quran. A fourth requirement frequently presented is to see the words, terms and phrases used and as understood by the Companions of the Holy Prophet and the immediate generations after them. It simply means reading various commentaries of the Quran of the classical period and studying how they were understood and explained a given verse or a passage of the Quran. Ignorance of Arabic is not an excuse because in the 20th century, quite a few commentaries of the holy Book in English and most language have appeared and the commentators have taken into account the interpretation of earlier commentators.

Those who quote Quranic verses with the objective of criticising them and Islam do not meet any of the above given requirements. Yet they interpret Quran according to their own whims and fancy. These people are not driven by any genuine desire to study and understand the holy book but by their prejudice and malice. Allah is certain to help all those who seek the Truth and guidance.

Abid Ishaq can be reached at thelinguist75@yahoo.com

Mohammed for withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq

Mohammed for withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq
By Fadi Fahem

4 December 2005


DUBAI — General Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister, has called on foreign forces in Iraq to withdraw and to give Iraqis the opportunity to govern themselves.


During a question-and-answer session with delegates of the Young Arab Leaders Forum, Gen. Shaikh Mohammed said: "Iraq has been suffering a lot with all the wars. It is time for Iraq to be independent."

"Iraqis must take responsibility for their own security and we all have to help Iraq protect its own territory," he added.

Pointing out that the US is a modern, developed country, a super power, and a great and good nation, he said: "But they made a mistake in choosing Paul Bremer (administrator of the former Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq). Bremer made mistakes in Iraq and the US admits this fact."

He called for the withdrawal of coalition troops, stating: "Armies should withdraw from the cities and streets of Iraq and make efforts for reconstruction."

Reiterating the point that the US is a great nation and a developed country, Gen. Shaikh Mohammed questioned how the US could destroy a country when their intention was to fix it. "Iraq is in chaos with no electricity, no water, no infrastructure and no security. It requires rebuilding and it is time Iraq took independence into its own hands," he said.....

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2005/December/theuae_December112.xml§ion=theuae

Shooting the messenger

Shooting the messenger
BY WADAH KHANFAR

4 December 2005


I HAVE lost count of the number of accusations levelled against al-Jazeera and the incidents of harassment to which it has been subjected since it was founded in 1996. It was rumoured to have been set up by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency with the purpose of improving Israel’s standing in the Arab world.


It has also been accused of being a CIA mouthpiece designed to disseminate Western culture among the Arabs. Some have suggested that it is part of an international conspiracy to break up the Arab world by means of stirring up discord and creating problems for the Arab regimes. Others decided it was a front for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban; or funded by Saddam Hussein. And, at the same time, it has been condemned by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and bitterly criticised by Donald Rumsfeld.

We know that the intelligence services of some Arab regimes have resorted to spreading rumours about Al-Jazeera in an effort to deter Arab viewers from watching it. These are the same regimes that recalled ambassadors from Qatar in protest at its hosting Al-Jazeera, and the same regimes that closed the station’s offices in their countries and detained its correspondents.

Until 2001, Al-Jazeera was perceived in a positive way in the West as a whole and the US in particular. It was seen as the single most important force for reform and democracy across the Arab region. Harassment by Arab regimes was considered proof of its professionalism and testimony to its objectivity. Indeed, Al-Jazeera had from its foundation the slogan of "the opinion and the other opinion" and refused to favour one side over another at the expense of truth. As a result, in record time Al-Jazeera became the Arabs’ number one channel, and last year it was voted the fifth most influential brand name in the world, after Starbucks, Ikea, Apple and Google.

In the aftermath of the September 11 events, Al-Jazeera found itself on the frontline of media coverage in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The greater its reputation became globally, the more frustrated some Western governments became. The "other opinion" this time did not seem to suit international decision-makers. Criticisms started pouring in and created an opportunity for some Arab regimes to incite the US administration against Al-Jazeera; some have even gone as far as demanding the closure of Al-Jazeera as a precondition for full cooperation with the US.

Iraq has been a crucial turning point not only in Al-Jazeera’s work but for media coverage as a whole; 74 journalists, crew and their translators have lost their lives since the start of the war — two of them belonging to Al-Jazeera. As far as harassment goes, Al-Jazeera has incurred the biggest share. It has been accused by the US of inciting violence through the broadcast of Al-Qaeda tapes and of playing footage of beheadings. Our viewers know that no beheadings whatsoever were shown on our screens. And we follow strict professional rules in handling the tapes of Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders; we only play short, carefully selected and clearly newsworthy clips, and they are followed by analytical discussion, frequently including American commentators. Al-Jazeera’s offices in Kabul and Baghdad were bombed; we were told at the time that both bombings were mistakes. We pushed for an official investigation, but thus far have received neither the findings of any investigation nor any official apology. The Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Hajj was arrested in Afghanistan and has for the past four years been detained in Guantanamo. We have repeatedly asked for an explanation, but none has been given to us.

We believe that all this harassment has been a worthwhile price for our professional commitment to reporting the truth. However, the story in the Daily Mirror, which published a leaked document it claimed was a transcript of a meeting in April 2004 between George Bush and Tony Blair, points to a level of threat to our very existence that had never occurred to us or to our viewers before. If it is true that Bush had indeed thought of bombing the Al-Jazeera headquarters in Doha, this will undoubtedly constitute a watershed in the relationship between government authorities and the free media. I decided, in view of the great shock and bewilderment felt by many people around the world, to travel to London to look for the truth behind a Press report whose reverberations across the Middle East — where reform and democracy have been promised — are far from over.

My colleagues have submitted a memorandum to 10 Downing Street, urging the British government to reveal the truth about the alleged document, and stressing that publishing the part within it relating to Al-Jazeera is essential to put an end to speculation.After all, the matter concerns an institution that has never perceived itself to be an enemy of anyone. Our journalists are civilians who have gained the confidence of most Arabic-speaking viewers around the world. The failure to disclose the contents of the memo will cause a great deal of harm and will seriously undermine relations between media and government, and between the Western and Arab worlds.

I brought many questions with me to London; it would seem that I shall return to Doha — where Al-Jazeera is based — with even more misgivings. Officials in Britain have come up with nothing, and their silence is likely to reinforce suspicion and mistrust. This will not be the end of the road; we are taking legal advice and won’t rest until we know the full truth.

However, I shall be returning to Doha with a lot of hope. The support and sympathy that I have sensed from colleagues in the British media represent the best consolation for me and my colleagues at Al-Jazeera, whose viewers have seen for themselves the view of British and other Western journalists that the truth should be disclosed in full. The issue does not only concern Al-Jazeera; it concerns the truth for which we have withstood nine years of pressure and harassment, and for which many journalists around the world have endured all forms of intimidation; it is the truth for which Tayseer Allouni is serving a prison sentence in Spain, for which Sami Al-Hajj continues to be detained in Guantanamo and for which Tariq Ayoub died in Iraq.

Wadah Khanfar is the director-general of Al-Jazeera television based at Doha, Qatar

Donald Rumsfeld: Old Man in a Hurry

August 31, 2005
Donald Rumsfeld: Old Man in a Hurry
By Thomas P. M. Barnett
(This article originally appeared in the July 2005 issue of Esquire magazine)

THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE'S suite of offices in the Pentagon is on the third deck, outermost, or E-ring of the five-sided building, in the wedge between corridors eight and nine. It's one of the older wedges, on the far side of where the new ones are to be found or are being renovated, and on the opposite side of the building, one thousand feet away, from the section that was destroyed on September 11, 2001.

Room 3-E-880 overlooks the Potomac in the direction of the White House and Capitol, but the famous skyline is hard to recognize on a rainy afternoon through the queer greenish tinting that covers all the windows here. You're tempted to adjust the picture on your screen, but this special coating repels electronic surveillance and denies enemy spies a view inside the Building.....

see the link above

The Iraq story: how troops see it

from the November 28, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1128/p01s02-usmi.html

The Iraq story: how troops see it

By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BROOK PARK, OHIO - Cpl. Stan Mayer has seen the worst of war. In the leaves of his photo album, there are casual memorials to the cost of the Iraq conflict - candid portraits of friends who never came home and graphic pictures of how insurgent bombs have shredded steel and bone.

Yet the Iraq of Corporal Mayer's memory is not solely a place of death and loss. It is also a place of hope. It is the hope of the town of Hit, which he saw transform from an insurgent stronghold to a place where kids played on Marine trucks. It is the hope of villagers who whispered where roadside bombs were hidden. But most of all, it is the hope he saw in a young Iraqi girl who loved pens and Oreo cookies.

Like many soldiers and marines returning from Iraq, Mayer looks at the bleak portrayal of the war at home with perplexity - if not annoyance. It is a perception gap that has put the military and media at odds, as troops complain that the media care only about death tolls, while the media counter that their job is to look at the broader picture, not through the soda straw of troops' individual experiences.

Yet as perceptions about Iraq have neared a tipping point in Congress, some soldiers and marines worry that their own stories are being lost in the cacophony of terror and fear. They acknowledge that their experience is just that - one person's experience in one corner of a war-torn country. Yet amid the terrible scenes of reckless hate and lives lost, many members of one of the hardest-hit units insist that they saw at least the spark of progress.

"We know we made a positive difference," says Cpl. Jeff Schuller of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, who spent all but one week of his eight-month tour with Mayer. "I can't say at what level, but I know that where we were, we made it better than it was when we got there."

It is the simplest measure of success, but for the marine, soldier, or sailor, it may be the only measure of success. In a business where life and death rest on instinctive adherence to thoroughly ingrained lessons, accomplishment is ticked off in a list of orders followed and tasks completed. And by virtually any measure, America's servicemen and women are accomplishing the day-to-day tasks set before them.

Yet for the most part, America is less interested in the success of Operation Iron Fist, for instance, than the course of the entire Iraq enterprise. "What the national news media try to do is figure out: What's the overall verdict?" says Brig. Gen. Volney Warner, deputy commandant of the Army Command and General Staff College. "Soldiers don't do overall verdicts."

Yet soldiers clearly feel that important elements are being left out of the media's overall verdict. On this day, a group of Navy medics gather around a table in the Cleveland-area headquarters of the 3/25 - a Marine reserve unit that has converted a low-slung school of pale brick and linoleum tile into its spectacularly red-and-gold offices.

Their conversation could be a road map of the kind of stories that military folks say the mainstream media are missing. One colleague made prosthetics for an Iraqi whose hand and foot had been cut off by insurgents. When other members of the unit were sweeping areas for bombs, the medics made a practice of holding impromptu infant clinics on the side of the road.

They remember one Iraqi man who could not hide his joy at the marvel of an electric razor. And at the end of the 3/25's tour, a member of the Iraqi Army said: "Marines are not friends; marines are brothers," says Lt. Richard Malmstrom, the battalion's chaplain.

"It comes down to the familiar debate about whether reporters are ignoring the good news," says Peter Hart, an analyst at Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, a usually left-leaning media watchdog in New York.

In Hit, where marines stayed in force to keep the peace, the progress was obvious, say members of the 3/25. The residents started burning trash and fixing roads - a sign that the city was returning to a sense of normalcy. Several times, "people came up to us [and said]: 'There's a bomb on the side of the road. Don't go there,' " says Pfc. Andrew Howland.

Part of the reason that such stories usually aren't told is simply the nature of the war. Kidnappings and unclear battle lines have made war correspondents' jobs almost impossible. Travel around the country is dangerous, and some reporters never venture far from their hotels. "It has to have some effect on what we see: You end up with reporting that waits for the biggest explosion of the day," says Mr. Hart.

To the marines of the 3/25, the explosions clearly do not tell the whole story. Across America, many readers know the 3/25 only as the unit that lost 15 marines in less than a week - nine of them in the deadliest roadside bombing against US forces during the war. When the count of Americans killed in Iraq reached 2,000, this unit again found itself in the stage lights of national notice as one of the hardest hit.

But that is not the story they tell. It is more than just the dire tone of coverage - though that is part of it. It is that Iraq has touched some of these men in ways that even they have trouble explaining. This, after all, has not been a normal war. Corporals Mayer and Schuller went over not to conquer a country, but to help win its hearts and minds. In some cases, though, it won theirs.

Schuller, a heavyweight college wrestler with a thatch of blond hair and engine blocks for arms, cannot help smiling when he speaks of giving an old man a lighter: "He thought it was the coolest thing." Yet both he and the blue-eyed, square-jawed Mayer pause for a moment before they talk about the two 9-year-old Iraqis whom members of their battalion dubbed their "girlfriends."

The first time he saw them, Mayer admits that he was making the calculations of a man in the midst of a war. He was tired, he was battered, and he was back at a Hit street corner that he had patrolled many times before. In Iraq, repetition of any sort could be an invitation of the wrong sort - an event for which insurgents could plan. So Mayer and Schuller took out some of the candy they carried, thinking that if children were around, perhaps the terrorists wouldn't attack.

It was a while before the children realized that these two marines, laden with arms to the limit of physical endurance, were not going to hurt them. But among the children who eventually came, climbing on the pair's truck and somersaulting in the street, there were always the same two girls. When they went back to base, they began to hoard Oreos and other candy in a box.

"They became our one little recess from the war," says Mayer. "You're seeing some pretty ridiculous tragedies way too frequently, and you start to get jaded. The kids on that street - I got to realize I was still a human being to them."

It happened one day when he was on patrol. Out of nowhere, a car turned the corner and headed down the alley at full speed. "A car coming at you real fast and not stopping in Iraq is not what you want to see," says Mayer. Yet instead of jumping in his truck, he stood in the middle of the street and pushed the kids behind him.

The car turned. Now, Mayer and Schuller can finish each other's sentences when they think about the experience. "You really start to believe that you protect the innocent," says Schuller. "It sounds like a stupid cliché...."

"But it's not," adds Mayer. "You are in the service of others."

For Mayer, who joined the reserves because he wanted to do something bigger than himself, and for Schuller, a third-generation marine, Iraq has given them a sense of achievement. Now when they look at the black-and-white pictures of marines past in the battalion headquarters, "We're adding to that legacy," says Schuller.

This is what they wish to share with the American people - and is also the source of their frustration. Their eight months in Iraq changed their lives, and they believe it has changed the lives of the Iraqis they met as well. On the day he left, Mayer gave his "girlfriend" a bunch of pens - her favorite gift - wrapped in a paper that had a picture of the American flag, the Iraqi flag, and a smiley face. The man with the lighter asked Schuller if he was coming back. He will if called upon, he says.

Whether or not these notes of grace and kindness are as influential as the dirge of war is open to question. But many in the military feel that they should at least be a part of the conversation.

Says Warner of reaching an overall verdict: "I'm not sure that reporting on terrorist bombings with disproportionate ink is adequately answering that question."

Security Flaws Allow Wiretaps to be Evaded

Signaling Vulnerabilities in Wiretapping Systems

Micah Sherr, Eric Cronin, Sandy Clark and Matt Blaze

University of Pennsylvania
Contact E-mail: blaze at-sign cis.upenn.edu
11 October 2005; revised 30 November 2005

Note: For those in the Philadelphia area, these results will be presented at the Penn Computer Science Research Seminar on Thursday, December 1st, at 3pm in the Levine Hall auditorium (on the Penn campus at 3330 Walnut Street).

Overview

In a research paper appearing in the November/December 2005 issue of IEEE Security and Privacy, we analyzed publicly available information and materials to evaluate the reliability of the telephone wiretapping technologies used by US law enforcement agencies. The analysis found vulnerabilities in widely fielded interception technologies that are used for both "pen register" and "full audio" (Title III / FISA) taps. The vulnerabilities allow a party to a wiretapped call to disable content recording and call monitoring and to manipulate the logs of dialed digits and call activity. These countermeasures do not require cooperation with the called party, elaborate equipment, or special skill. Preliminary drafts of the paper have been made available to the law enforcement community; contact the authors at the above email address.

We found exploitable vulnerabilities present in virtually all analog "loop extender" or "dialup slave" wiretap systems and in at least some systems based on the newer J-STD-025A CALEA interfaces. These systems depend on unsecured "in-band" signals that can be spoofed or manipulated by an interception target via his or her own telephone line.

In the most serious countermeasures we discovered, a wiretap subject superimposes a continuous low-amplitude "C-tone" audio signal over normal call audio on the monitored line. The tone is misinterpreted by the wiretap system as an "on-hook" signal, which mutes monitored call audio and suspends audio recording. Most loop extender systems, as well as at least some CALEA systems, appear to be vulnerable to this countermeasure. Audio examples (in MP3 format) of this countermeasure can be found below.

Loop extender systems are susceptible to other countermeasures as well. In particular, a subject can employ a simple computer-aided dialing procedure (which we call "confusion/evasion dialing") that prevents the dialed outgoing telephone numbers from being recorded accurately by the tap. Wiretap subjects can also falsely indicate the ending times for calls they make and receive and can inject false records of outgoing and incoming calls (appearing to be to or from any numbers they choose) into pen register logs.

Our analysis was based entirely on information obtained from published sources and equipment purchased openly in the retail and surplus markets. It is therefore possible (and perhaps even likely) that similar countermeasures have already been discovered and actively employed by motivated wiretap targets, e.g., in organized crime. Currently fielded telephone interception systems should be evaluated with respect to these vulnerabilities and re-configured or modified where possible to reduce their susceptibility. In addition, the possibility of these or similar countermeasures should be considered in analyzing previously collected wiretap evidence and intelligence.

Recommendations

A detailed technical analysis of the vulnerabilities and their implications can be found in the full paper at http://www.crypto.com/papers/wiretap.pdf.

There is unfortunately little room to make conventional loop extender interception systems more robust against these countermeasures within their design constraints; the vulnerabilities arise from inherent properties of their architecture and design.

Some CALEA systems, on the other hand, may be able to be made more robust against these countermeasures with relatively modest configuration changes. In particular, CALEA equipment that processes call audio may have features that control recording via in-band C-tone (sometimes called "continuity tone") signals on "Call Content Channel" (CCC) audio streams. These features should be disabled. Instead, these systems should be configured to rely exclusively on "Call Data Channel" (CDC) messages to determine when recording commences and stops. Telephone companies and law enforcement agencies should confirm the configuration and behavior of their CALEA delivery and collection systems with their vendors.

Wiretap evidence, whether collected by loop extender or CALEA systems, should be evaluated for signs of signaling countermeasures. In particular, records of dialed numbers and call times should be examined for discrepancies against telephone company call detail records. This reconciliation should be performed routinely and as soon as possible after the records become available.

We strongly urge that J-STD-025A and other interception standards and practices be evaluated critically against countermeasures such as those described in our paper and, more generally, against a broad threat model. Our analysis was by design limited in scope, with no attempt made to be comprehensive or exhaustive, and yet easily exploitable weaknesses were quickly found. It appears that a systematic search for vulnerabilities under a threat model that includes subject-initiated countermeasures was not a part of the development process for either the J-STD-025A standard or many of the systems that implement it. We suggest that the law enforcement community develop and articulate security and assurance requirements for interception systems, against which existing and future standards and technologies can be measured.

Audio example

In these MP3 audio captures, Alice and Bob are suspected of illegal activity and are the subjects of a full audio Title III wiretap interception on Alice's line. Alice uses C-tone spoofing to selectively suppress recording of part of the conversation. The recordings were created in our laboratory on a simulated telephone network with various wiretapping products.
Use the browser "back" button to return here after visiting these links:


This link [observed.mp3] gives the audio stream as captured and recorded by a Recall Technologies NGNR-2000 law enforcement loop extender wiretap system connected to Alice's line. Note the C-tone burst at the end of the recording (which ordinarily indicates that the tapped party has hung up and which causes recording to terminate). To the law enforcement agency, this appears to be a normal recording of a brief call.

This link [unobservered.mp3] gives the full conversation between Alice and Bob, as captured by an inexpensive, consumer-grade telephone recorder interface (sold by Radio Shack) connected to Alice's line.

Full paper

The full version of our research paper can be found online (PDF format, 500KB file) at http://www.crypto.com/papers/wiretap.pdf, and appears in the November/December 2005 issue of IEEE Security and Privacy.



Crypto.com home page here.
http://www.crypto.com/

Where is the Iraq war headed next?

UP IN THE AIR
Where is the Iraq war headed next?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2005-12-05
Posted 2005-11-28

In recent weeks, there has been widesprea speculation that President George W. Bush confronted by diminishing approval ratings an dissent within his own party, will begin pullin American troops out of Iraq next year. Th Administration’s best-case scenario is that th parliamentary election scheduled for Decembe 15th will produce a coalition government tha will join the Administration in calling for withdrawal to begin in the spring. By then, th White House hopes, the new government wil be capable of handling the insurgency. In speech on November 19th, Bush repeated th latest Administration catchphrase: “As Iraqi stand up, we will stand down.” He added, “When our commanders on the ground tell m that Iraqi forces can defend their freedom, ou troops will come home with the honor the have earned.” One sign of the political pressur on the Administration to prepare for withdrawal came last week, when Secretary o State Condoleezza Rice told Fox News that th current level of American troops would no have to be maintained “for very much longer, because the Iraqis were getting better at fightin the insurgency
A high-level Pentagon war planner told me, however, that he has seen scant indication that the President would authorize a significant pullout of American troops if he believed that it would impede the war against the insurgency. There are several proposals currently under review by the White House and the Pentagon; the most ambitious calls for American combat forces to be reduced from a hundred and fifty-five thousand troops to fewer than eighty thousand by next fall, with all American forces officially designated “combat” to be pulled out of the area by the summer of 2008. In terms of implementation, the planner said, “the drawdown plans that I’m familiar with are condition-based, event-driven, and not in a specific time frame”—that is, they depend on the ability of a new Iraqi government to defeat the insurgency. (A Pentagon spokesman said that the Administration had not made any decisions and had “no plan to leave, only a plan to complete the mission.”)
A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President’s public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by U.S. warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even the weakest Iraqi combat units. The danger, military experts have told me, is that, while the number of American casualties would decrease as ground troops are withdrawn, the over-all level of violence and the number of Iraqi fatalities would increase unless there are stringent controls over who bombs what.
“We’re not planning to diminish the war,” Patrick Clawson, the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told me. Clawson’s views often mirror the thinking of the men and women around Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “We just want to change the mix of the forces doing the fighting—Iraqi infantry with American support and greater use of airpower. The rule now is to commit Iraqi forces into combat only in places where they are sure to win. The pace of commitment, and withdrawal, depends on their success in the battlefield.”
He continued, “We want to draw down our forces, but the President is prepared to tough this one out. There is a very deep feeling on his part that the issue of Iraq was settled by the American people at the polling places in 2004.” The war against the insurgency “may end up being a nasty and murderous civil war in Iraq, but we and our allies would still win,” he said. “As long as the Kurds and the Shiites stay on our side, we’re set to go. There’s no sense that the world is caving in. We’re in the middle of a seven-year slog in Iraq, and eighty per cent of the Iraqis are receptive to our message.”
One Pentagon adviser told me, “There are always contingency plans, but why withdraw and take a chance? I don’t think the President will go for it”—until the insurgency is broken. “He’s not going to back off. This is bigger than domestic politics.”

Current and former military and intelligenc officials have told me that the President remain convinced that it is his personal mission to brin democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious t political pressure, even from fello Republicans. They also say that he disparage any information that conflicts with his view o how the war is proceeding
Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that “God put me here” to deal with the war on terror. The President’s belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that “he’s the man,” the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.
The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: “I said to the President, ‘We’re not winning the war.’ And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’ ” The President, he said, “appeared displeased” with that answer.
“I tried to tell him,” the former senior official said. “And he couldn’t hear it.”
There are grave concerns within the military about the capability of the U.S. Army to sustain two or three more years of combat in Iraq. Michael O’Hanlon, a specialist on military issues at the Brookings Institution, told me, “The people in the institutional Army feel they don’t have the luxury of deciding troop levels, or even participating in the debate. They’re planning on staying the course until 2009. I can’t believe the Army thinks that it will happen, because there’s no sustained drive to increase the size of the regular Army.” O’Hanlon noted that “if the President decides to stay the present course in Iraq some troops would be compelled to serve fourth and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and 2008, which could have serious consequences for morale and competency levels.”
Many of the military’s most senior generals are deeply frustrated, but they say nothing in public, because they don’t want to jeopardize their careers. The Administration has “so terrified the generals that they know they won’t go public,” a former defense official said. A retired senior C.I.A. officer with knowledge of Iraq told me that one of his colleagues recently participated in a congressional tour there. The legislators were repeatedly told, in meetings with enlisted men, junior officers, and generals that “things were fucked up.” But in a subsequent teleconference with Rumsfeld, he said, the generals kept those criticisms to themselves.
One person with whom the Pentagon’s top commanders have shared their private views for decades is Representative John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The President and his key aides were enraged when, on November 17th, Murtha gave a speech in the House calling for a withdrawal of troops within six months. The speech was filled with devastating information. For example, Murtha reported that the number of attacks in Iraq has increased from a hundred and fifty a week to more than seven hundred a week in the past year. He said that an estimated fifty thousand American soldiers will suffer “from what I call battle fatigue” in the war, and he said that the Americans were seen as “the common enemy” in Iraq. He also took issue with one of the White House’s claims—that foreign fighters were playing the major role in the insurgency. Murtha said that American soldiers “haven’t captured any in this latest activity”—the continuing battle in western Anbar province, near the border with Syria. “So this idea that they’re coming in from outside, we still think there’s only seven per cent.”
Murtha’s call for a speedy American pullout only seemed to strengthen the White House’s resolve. Administration officials “are beyond angry at him, because he is a serious threat to their policy—both on substance and politically,” the former defense official said. Speaking at the Osan Air Force base, in South Korea, two days after Murtha’s speech, Bush said, “The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. . . . If they’re not stopped, the terrorists will be able to advance their agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, and to break our will and blackmail our government into isolation. I’m going to make you this commitment: this is not going to happen on my watch.”
“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” the former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said. Bush’s public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. “Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,” the former official said, “but Bush has no idea.”

Within the military, the prospect of usin airpower as a substitute for American troops o the ground has caused great unease. For on thing, Air Force commanders, in particular have deep-seated objections to the possibilit that Iraqis eventually will be responsible fo target selection. “Will the Iraqis call in ai strikes in order to snuff rivals, or othe warlords, or to snuff members of your own sec and blame someone else?” another senio military planner now on assignment in th Pentagon asked. “Will some Iraqis be targetin on behalf of Al Qaeda, or the insurgency, or th Iranians?
“It’s a serious business,” retired Air Force General Charles Horner, who was in charge of allied bombing during the 1991 Gulf War, said. “The Air Force has always had concerns about people ordering air strikes who are not Air Force forward air controllers. We need people on active duty to think it out, and they will. There has to be training to be sure that somebody is not trying to get even with somebody else.” (Asked for a comment, the Pentagon spokesman said there were plans in place for such training. He also noted that Iraq had no offensive airpower of its own, and thus would have to rely on the United States for some time.)
The American air war inside Iraq today is perhaps the most significant—and underreported—aspect of the fight against the insurgency. The military authorities in Baghdad and Washington do not provide the press with a daily accounting of missions that Air Force, Navy, and Marine units fly or of the tonnage they drop, as was routinely done during the Vietnam War. One insight into the scope of the bombing in Iraq was supplied by the Marine Corps during the height of the siege of Falluja in the fall of 2004. “With a massive Marine air and ground offensive under way,” a Marine press release said, “Marine close air support continues to put high-tech steel on target. . . . Flying missions day and night for weeks, the fixed wing aircraft of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing are ensuring battlefield success on the front line.” Since the beginning of the war, the press release said, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing alone had dropped more than five hundred thousand tons of ordnance. “This number is likely to be much higher by the end of operations,” Major Mike Sexton said. In the battle for the city, more than seven hundred Americans were killed or wounded; U.S. officials did not release estimates of civilian dead, but press reports at the time told of women and children killed in the bombardments.
In recent months, the tempo of American bombing seems to have increased. Most of the targets appear to be in the hostile, predominantly Sunni provinces that surround Baghdad and along the Syrian border. As yet, neither Congress nor the public has engaged in a significant discussion or debate about the air war.
The insurgency operates mainly in crowded urban areas, and Air Force warplanes rely on sophisticated, laser-guided bombs to avoid civilian casualties. These bombs home in on targets that must be “painted,” or illuminated, by laser beams directed by ground units. “The pilot doesn’t identify the target as seen in the pre-brief”—the instructions provided before takeoff—a former high-level intelligence official told me. “The guy with the laser is the targeteer. Not the pilot. Often you get a ‘hot-read’ ”—from a military unit on the ground—“and you drop your bombs with no communication with the guys on the ground. You don’t want to break radio silence. The people on the ground are calling in targets that the pilots can’t verify.” He added, “And we’re going to turn this process over to the Iraqis?”
The second senior military planner told me that there are essentially two types of targeting now being used in Iraq: a deliberate site-selection process that works out of air-operations centers in the region, and “adaptive targeting”—supportive bombing by prepositioned or loitering warplanes that are suddenly alerted to firefights or targets of opportunity by military units on the ground. “The bulk of what we do today is adaptive,” the officer said, “and it’s divorced from any operational air planning. Airpower can be used as a tool of internal political coercion, and my attitude is that I can’t imagine that we will give that power to the Iraqis.”
This military planner added that even today, with Americans doing the targeting, “there is no sense of an air campaign, or a strategic vision. We are just whacking targets—it’s a reversion to the Stone Age. There’s no operational art. That’s what happens when you give targeting to the Army—they hit what the local commander wants to hit.”
One senior Pentagon consultant I spoke to said he was optimistic that “American air will immediately make the Iraqi Army that much better.” But he acknowledged that he, too, had concerns about Iraqi targeting. “We have the most expensive eyes in the sky right now,” the consultant said. “But a lot of Iraqis want to settle old scores. Who is going to have authority to call in air strikes? There’s got to be a behavior-based rule.”
General John Jumper, who retired last month after serving four years as the Air Force chief of staff, was “in favor of certification of those Iraqis who will be allowed to call in strikes,” the Pentagon consultant told me. “I don’t know if it will be approved. The regular Army generals were resisting it to the last breath, despite the fact that they would benefit the most from it.”
A Pentagon consultant with close ties to the officials in the Vice-President’s office and the Pentagon who advocated the war said that the Iraqi penchant for targeting tribal and personal enemies with artillery and mortar fire had created “impatience and resentment” inside the military. He believed that the Air Force’s problems with Iraqi targeting might be addressed by the formation of U.S.-Iraqi transition teams, whose American members would be drawn largely from Special Forces troops. This consultant said that there were plans to integrate between two hundred and three hundred Special Forces members into Iraqi units, which was seen as a compromise aimed at meeting the Air Force’s demand to vet Iraqis who were involved in targeting. But in practice, the consultant added, it meant that “the Special Ops people will soon allow Iraqis to begin calling in the targets.”
Robert Pape, a political-science professor at the University of Chicago, who has written widely on American airpower, and who taught for three years at the Air Force’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies, in Alabama, predicted that the air war “will get very ugly” if targeting is turned over to the Iraqis. This would be especially true, he said, if the Iraqis continued to operate as the U.S. Army and Marines have done—plowing through Sunni strongholds on search-and-destroy missions. “If we encourage the Iraqis to clear and hold their own areas, and use airpower to stop the insurgents from penetrating the cleared areas, it could be useful,” Pape said. “The risk is that we will encourage the Iraqis to do search-and-destroy, and they would be less judicious about using airpower—and the violence would go up. More civilians will be killed, which means more insurgents will be created.”
Even American bombing on behalf of an improved, well-trained Iraqi Army would not necessarily be any more successful against the insurgency. “It’s not going to work,” said Andrew Brookes, the former director of airpower studies at the Royal Air Force’s advanced staff college, who is now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in London. “Can you put a lid on the insurgency with bombing?” Brookes said. “No. You can concentrate in one area, but the guys will spring up in another town.” The inevitable reliance on Iraqi ground troops’ targeting would also create conflicts. “I don’t see your guys dancing to the tune of someone else,” Brookes said. He added that he and many other experts “don’t believe that airpower is a solution to the problems inside Iraq at all. Replacing boots on the ground with airpower didn’t work in Vietnam, did it?”

The Air Force’s worries have bee subordinated, so far, to the political needs of th White House. The Administration’s immediat political goal after the December elections is t show that the day-to-day conduct of the wa can be turned over to the newly trained an equipped Iraqi military. It has already planne heavily scripted change-of-comman ceremonies, complete with the lowering o American flags at bases and the raising of Iraq ones
Some officials in the State Department, the C.I.A., and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government have settled on their candidate of choice for the December elections—Iyad Allawi, the secular Shiite who served until this spring as Iraq’s interim Prime Minister. They believe that Allawi can gather enough votes in the election to emerge, after a round of political bargaining, as Prime Minister. A former senior British adviser told me that Blair was convinced that Allawi “is the best hope.” The fear is that a government dominated by religious Shiites, many of whom are close to Iran, would give Iran greater political and military influence inside Iraq. Allawi could counter Iran’s influence; also, he would be far more supportive and coöperative if the Bush Administration began a drawdown of American combat forces in the coming year.
Blair has assigned a small team of operatives to provide political help to Allawi, the former adviser told me. He also said that there was talk late this fall, with American concurrence, of urging Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite, to join forces in a coalition with Allawi during the post-election negotiations to form a government. Chalabi, who is notorious for his role in promoting flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction before the war, is now a deputy Prime Minister. He and Allawi were bitter rivals while in exile.
A senior United Nations diplomat told me that he was puzzled by the high American and British hopes for Allawi. “I know a lot of people want Allawi, but I think he’s been a terrific disappointment,” the diplomat said. “He doesn’t seem to be building a strong alliance, and at the moment it doesn’t look like he will do very well in the election.”
The second Pentagon consultant told me, “If Allawi becomes Prime Minister, we can say, ‘There’s a moderate, urban, educated leader now in power who does not want to deprive women of their rights.’ He would ask us to leave, but he would allow us to keep Special Forces operations inside Iraq—to keep an American presence the right way. Mission accomplished. A coup for Bush.”
A former high-level intelligence official cautioned that it was probably “too late” for any American withdrawal plan to work without further bloodshed. The constitution approved by Iraqi voters in October “will be interpreted by the Kurds and the Shiites to proceed with their plans for autonomy,” he said. “The Sunnis will continue to believe that if they can get rid of the Americans they can still win. And there still is no credible way to establish security for American troops.”
The fear is that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would inevitably trigger a Sunni-Shiite civil war. In many areas, that war has, in a sense, already begun, and the United States military is being drawn into the sectarian violence. An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who were “rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them.” The officer went on, “They were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites,” with the active participation of a militia unit led by a retired American Special Forces soldier. “People like me have gotten so downhearted,” the officer added.
Meanwhile, as the debate over troop reductions continues, the covert war in Iraq has expanded in recent months to Syria. A composite American Special Forces team, known as an S.M.U., for “special-mission unit,” has been ordered, under stringent cover, to target suspected supporters of the Iraqi insurgency across the border. (The Pentagon had no comment.) “It’s a powder keg,” the Pentagon consultant said of the tactic. “But, if we hit an insurgent network in Iraq without hitting the guys in Syria who are part of it, the guys in Syria would get away. When you’re fighting an insurgency, you have to strike everywhere—and at once.”

Ex-Powell aide: Bush 'too aloof'

President was detached during Iraq postwar planning, Wilkerson says

Tuesday, November 29, 2005; Posted: 11:57 a.m. EST (16:57 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff says President Bush was "too aloof, too distant from the details" of post-war planning, allowing underlings to exploit Bush's detachment and make bad decisions.

In an Associated Press interview Monday, former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson also said that wrongheaded ideas for the handling of foreign detainees after Sept. 11 arose from a coterie of White House and Pentagon aides who argued that "the president of the United States is all-powerful," and that the Geneva Conventions were irrelevant.

Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. Wilkerson said that Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard."

Wilkerson suggested his former boss may agree with him that Bush was too hands-off about Iraq.

"What he seems to be saying to me now is the president failed to discipline the process the way he should have and that the president is ultimately responsible for this whole mess," Wilkerson said.

He said Powell now generally believes it was a good idea to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but may not agree with either the timing or execution of the war. Wilkerson said Powell may have had doubts about the extent of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein but was convinced by then-CIA Director George Tenet and others that the intelligence girding the push toward war was sound.

Powell was widely regarded as a dove to Cheney's and Rumsfeld's hawks, but he made a forceful case for war before the United Nations Security Council in February, 2003, a month before the invasion. At one point, he said Saddam possessed mobile labs to make weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

Cheney may have deliberately ignored contrary intelligence

Wilkerson criticized the CIA and other agencies for allowing mishandled and bogus information to underpin that speech and the whole administration case for war.

He said he has almost, but not quite, concluded that Cheney and others in the administration deliberately ignored evidence of bad intelligence and looked only at what supported their case for war.

A newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002 said that an al Qaeda military instructor was probably misleading his interrogators about training that the terror group's members received from Iraq on chemical, biological and radiological weapons. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi reportedly recanted his statements in January 2004. (Full Story)

A presidential intelligence commission also dissected how spy agencies handled an Iraqi refugee who was a German intelligence source. Codenamed Curveball, this man who was a leading source on Iraq's purported mobile biological weapons labs was found to be a fabricator and alcoholic.

On the question of detainees picked up in Afghanistan and other fronts on the war on terror, Wilkerson said Bush heard two sides of an impassioned argument within his administration. Abuse of prisoners, and even the deaths of some who had been interrogated in Afghanistan and elsewhere, have bruised the U.S. image abroad and undermined fragile support for the Iraq war that followed.

Cheney's office, Rumsfeld aides and others argued "that the president of the United States is all-powerful, that as commander in chief the president of the United States can do anything he damn well pleases," Wilkerson said.

On the other side were Powell, others at the State Department and top military brass, and occasionally then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Wilkerson said.

Powell raised frequent and loud objections, his former aide said, once yelling into a telephone at Rumsfeld: "Donald, don't you understand what you are doing to our image?"

Wilkerson also said he did not disclose to Bob Woodward that administration critic Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, joining the growing list of past and current Bush administration officials who have denied being the Washington Post reporter's source.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Good Advice

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

III.

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

V.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

VI.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

VII.

So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation
January 17, 1961
Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040

Hack's dead now

hack's dead now but I still think this is relavant


10-18-2004

Hack's Target

Memo for the President-Elect

By David H. Hackworth

Since our commander-in-chief announced “mission accomplished” on May 1, 2003, the insurgents have seized the initiative in Iraq. And we’re also not winning the even-more-consequential worldwide battle against the Islamic jihadists. All because our forces are trying to do too much with too little the wrong way.

Lately, I’ve been shoveling through literally truckloads of reader queries along the lines of “OK, Hack, you spent most of the past two years griping, so what’s your solution?” It’s a question that needs an answer. So, as a long-term student of insurgent warfare and a soldier who’s fought guerrillas in post-World-War-II Italy, during the Korean War and for more than four years in Vietnam, here’s what I would do:

* Immediately fire SecDef Donald Rumsfeld, all of his Pentagon senior civilian assistants and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers.

* Replace Rumsfeld with retired Gen. Anthony Zinni and give this tough, smart, proven leader a free hand to bring in the best people to reshape and streamline our armed forces for the long counterinsurgency fight ahead.

* Fire National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and replace her with retired Gens. Wes Clark or John Sheehan.

* Establish a military objective – an often-neglected Principle of War – that will include: how the U.S. is going to regain the lost initiative (another neglected Principle of War) and how we’re going to take and hold the turf seized by insurgents; how we will then win the Iraqi people to our side in the fight against the insurgents; how the nascent Iraqi defense shield will eventually replace our forces; and a detailed, coherent exit plan.

* Force our coalition partners in Iraq to either move out of the safety of their forts and start participating in the campaign or go home. So far, they’ve added little to the fight except providing an opportunity for politicos to crow about the unity of a coalition in which we’re doing almost all the heavy lifting.

* Replace our conventional-thinking generals in Iraq and in other hot spots with leaders – preferably Special Forces – who understand the nature of insurgency, and leave them in place until we execute our exit plan.

* Double and then triple the size of our forces in Afghanistan – or we’ll soon be following in the Soviets’ loser boot-steps. This is one of the main events in our global fight with insurgents and should receive top priority.

* Establish a comprehensive course on counterinsurgency warfare that every commander from lieutenant to general would be required to pass, culminating in a butt-busting final exam certifying that graduates have qualified for counterinsurgency warfare at their particular level. A fail would mean immediate discharge.

* Toughen boot-camp standards for all soldiers and make them as realistic, demanding and disciplined as those sweated through by past generations. Then maintain this level throughout the regular and Reserve forces.

* Merge the Army National Guard and Reserve forces into one formation modeled after the Marine Corps Reserves but configured for the post-Cold War fight against international insurgency.

* Provide the states with limited funds to establish a light infantry/military police/state militia force for emergencies such as fires and storms, and for Homeland Defense missions.

* Reorganize the Army from A to Z, starting with doubling the size of Special Ops Forces and maneuver units, gutting the Cold War stuff and adding more civil-affairs, psych-war and military-police units. Deep-six the folks who excel in PowerPoint briefings but add nothing to the critical missions at hand, beginning with the pernicious, pervasive Pentagon blubber and working down to brigade level.

* Overhaul the Army’s antique personnel system, which has fostered the current corrosive corporate general officer system that’s made many officers and senior NCOs careerists rather than two-fisted leaders. Use Maj. Donald Vandergriff’s book, The Path to Victory, as a primer for this desperately needed reform.

* Reduce or scrap most of the multibillion-dollar porker programs such as Star Wars II, and spike orders for platinum-plated Cold War II ships and aircraft. Then use the funds to arm and equip our warriors appropriately.

* Make every military leader from buck sergeant to four-star memorize Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and Imperial Hubris, by “Anonymous.”

That’s, of course, for openers .…

--Eilhys England contributed to this column.

Col. David H. Hackworth (USA Ret.) is SFTT.org co-founder and Senior Military Columnist for DefenseWatch magazine. For information on his many books, go to his home page at Hackworth.com, where you can sign in for his free weekly Defending America. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. His newest book is “Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts.” © 2004 David H. Hackworth. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.

yellow journalism

If the ratings increase then it's justified:

All Hannity quotes from Hannity and Colmes unless otherwise noted.

1. WMD

HANNITY: "You're not listening, Susan. You've got to learn something. He had weapons of mass destruction. He promised to disclose them. And he didn't do it. You would have let him go free; we decided to hold him accountable." (4/13/04)

FACT: Hannity's assertion comes more than six months after Bush Administration weapons inspector David Kay testified his inspection team had "not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material" and had not discovered any chemical or biological weapons. (Bush Administration Weapons Inspector David Kay, 10/2/03)

2. Colin Powell on Iraq

HANNITY: "Colin Powell just had a great piece that he had in the paper today. He was there [in Iraq]. He said things couldn't have been better." (9/19/03)

FACT: "Iraq has come very far, but serious problems remain, starting with security. American commanders and troops told me of the many threats they face--from leftover loyalists who want to return Iraq to the dark days of Saddam, from criminals who were set loose on Iraqi society when Saddam emptied the jails and, increasingly, from outside terrorists who have come to Iraq to open a new front in their campaign against the civilized world." (Colin Powell, 9/19/03)

3. Saddam/Al-Qaeda Connection

HANNITY: "And in northern Iraq today, this very day, al Qaeda is operating camps there, and they are attacking the Kurds in the north, and this has been well-documented and well chronicled. Now, if you're going to go after al Qaeda in every aspect, and obviously they have the support of Saddam, or we're not." (12/9/02)

FACT: David Kay was on the ground for months investigating the activities of Hussein's regime. He concluded "But we simply did not find any evidence of extensive links with Al Qaeda, or for that matter any real links at all." He called a speech where Cheney made the claim there was a link "evidence free." (Boston Globe, 6/16/04)

4. 9/11 Investigation

HANNITY: "[After 9-11], liberal Democrats at first showed little interest in the investigation of the roots of this massive intelligence failure...[Bush and his team] made it clear that determining the causes of America's security failures and finding and remedying its weak points would be central to their mission." (Let Freedom Ring, by Sean Hannity)

TRUTH: Bush Opposed the creation of a special commission to probe the causes of 9/11 for over a year. On 5/23/02 CBS News Reported "President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11." Bush didn't relent to pressure to create a commission, mostly from those Hannity would consider "liberal" until September 2002. (CBS News, 5/23/02; ABC News, 9/20/02)

5. The Recession

HANNITY: "First of all, this president -- you know and I know and everybody knows -- inherited a recession...it was by every definition a recession" (11/6/02)

HANNITY: "Now here's where we are. The inherited Clinton/Gore recession. That's a fact." (5/6/03)

HANNITY: "The president inherited a recession." (7/10/03)

HANNITY: "He got us out of the Clinton-Gore recession." (10/23/03)

HANNITY: "They did inherit the recession. They did inherit the recession. We got out of the recession." (12/12/03)

HANNITY: "And this is the whole point behind this ad, because the president did inherit a recession." (1/6/04)

HANNITY: "Historically in every recovery, because the president rightly did inherit a recession. But historically, the lagging indicator always deals with employment." (1/15/04)

HANNITY: "Congressman Deutsch, maybe you forgot but I'll be glad to remind you, the president did inherit that recession." (1/20/04)

HANNITY: "He did inherit a recession, and we're out of the recession." (2/2/04)

HANNITY: "The president inherited a recession." (2/23/04)

HANNITY: "The president inherited a recession." (3/3/04)

HANNITY: "Well, you know, we're going to show ads, as a matter of fact, in the next segment, Congressman. Thanks for promoting our next segment. What I like about them is everything I've been saying the president ought to do: is focusing in on his positions, on keeping the nation secure in very difficult times, what he's been able to do to the economy after inheriting a very difficult recession, and of course, the economic impact of 9/11." (3/3/04)

HANNITY: "All right. So this is where I view the economic scenario as we head into this election. The president inherited a recession." (3/16/04)

HANNITY: "First of all, we've got to put it into perspective, is that the president inherited a recession." (3/26/04)

HANNITY: "Clearly, we're out of the recession that President Bush inherited." (4/2/04)

HANNITY: "Stop me where I'm wrong. The president inherited a recession, the economic impact of 9/11 was tremendous on the economy, correct?" (4/6/04)

HANNITY: "[President George W. Bush] did inherit a recession." (5/3/04)

HANNITY: "[W]e got [the weak U.S. economy] out of the Clinton-Gore recession." (5/18/04)

HANNITY: "We got out of the Clinton-Gore recession." (5/27/04)

HANNITY: "We got out of the Clinton-Gore recession." (6/4/04)

FACT: "The recession officially began in March of 2001 -- two months after Bush was sworn in -- according to the universally acknowledged arbiter of such things, the National Bureau of Economic Research. And the president, at other times, has said so himself." (Washington Post, 7/1/03)

6. The Hispanic Vote

HANNITY: "The Hispanic community got to know him in Texas. They went almost overwhelming for him. He more than quadrupled the Hispanic vote that he got in that state." (9/16/03)

FACT: Exit polls varied in 1998 governors race, but under best scenario he increased his Hispanic vote from 24 to 49 percent – a doubling not a quadrupling. He lost Texas Hispanics to Gore in 2000, 54-43 percent. (Source: NCLR , NHCSL)

7. White House Vandalism

HANNITY: "Look, we've had these reports, very disturbing reports -- and I have actually spoken to people that have confirmed a lot of the reports -- about the trashing of the White House. Pornographic materials left in the printers. They cut the phone lines. Lewd and crude messages on phone machines. Stripping of anything that was not bolted down on Air Force One. $200,000 in furniture taken out." (1/26/01)

TRUTH: According to statements from the General Services Administration that were reported on May 17, little if anything out of the ordinary occurred during the transition, and "the condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy." (FAIR)

8. Patriotism

HANNITY: "I never questioned anyone's patriotism." (9/18/03)

FACT:

HANNITY: (to attorney Stanley Cohen) "Is it you hate this president or that you hate America?" (4/30/03)

HANNITY: "Governor, why wouldn't anyone want to say the Pledge of Allegiance, unless they detested their own country or were ignorant of its greatness?" (6/12/03)

HANNITY: "You could explain something about your magazine, [the Nation]. Lisa Featherstone writing about the hate America march, the [anti-war] march that took place over the weekend..." (1/22/03)

HANNITY: "'I hate America.' This is the extreme left. There is a portion of the left -- not everybody who's left -- that does hate this country and blame this country for the ills of the world..." (1/23/02)

HANNITY: (speaking to Sara Flounders co-director of the International Action Center) "You don't like this country, do you? You don't -- you think this is an evil country. By your description of it right here, you think it's a bad country." (9/25/01)

9. Separation of Church and State

HANNITY: "It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state." (8/25/03)

FACT: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." (1st Amendment)

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." (Article VI)

10. James Madison

HANNITY: "You want to refer to some liberal activist judge..., that's fine, but I'm going to go directly to the source. The author of the Bill of Rights [James Madison] hired the first chaplain in 1789, and I gotta' tell ya' somethin', I think the author of the Bill of Rights knows more about the original intent--no offense to you and your liberal atheist activism--knows more about it than you do." (9/4/02)

TRUTH: The first congressional chaplains weren't hired by James Madison--they were appointed by a committee of the Senate and House in, respectively, April and May, 1789, before the First Amendment even existed. James Madison's view: "Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative." (James Madison)

11. Alabama Constitution

HANNITY: "But the Alabama Constitution, which Chief Justice Roy Moore is sworn to uphold, clearly it says, as a matter of fact that the recognition of God is the foundation of that state's Constitution." (8/21/03)

FACT: While the preamble of the Alabama Constitution does reference "the Almighty," section three provides: "That no religion shall be established by law; that no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect, society, denomination, or mode of worship; that no one shall be compelled by law to attend any place of worship; nor to pay any tithes, taxes, or other rate for building or repairing any place of worship, or for maintaining any minister or ministry; that no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this state; and that the civil rights, privileges, and capacities of any citizen shall not be in any manner affected by his religious principles." (Alabama Constitution, Section 3)

12. Rent for Public Housing

HANNITY: Betsy, they're not going to lose it [public housing], because if you work less than 30 hours a week -- if you work more than 30 hours a week, you don't have to do it. If you're between the ages of 18 and 62 and you're not legally disabled and you have free housing -- in other words...

BETSY MCCAUGHEY: No. Wait a second, Sean. Let me correct you. Most people in public housing are not receiving free housing. Many of them are paying almost market rates.

HANNITY: Betsy, that is so ridiculous and so false, it's hardly even worth spending the time. (10/23/03)

FACT: Residents of public housing pay rent scaled to their household's anticipated gross annual income, less deductions for dependents and disabilities. The basic formula for rent is 30 percent of this monthly adjusted income. There are exceptions for extremely low incomes, but the minimum rent is $25 per month. No one lives in public housing for free. (Department of Housing and Urban Development)

13. Kerry Tax Plan

HANNITY: "The Kerry campaign wants to cut taxes on people who make two hundred thousand dollars. She [Teresa Heinz Kerry] only paid 14.7 percent of her income in taxes, because their plan doesn't go to dividends, only income. So they don't want to tax themselves." (5/12/04)

FACT: Kerry's plan would "Restore the capital gains and dividend rates for families making over $200,000 on income earned above $200,000 to their levels under President Clinton. (Kerry Press Release, 4/7/04)

14. Kerry and Weapons Systems

HANNITY: "He's [Kerry's] flip-flopped all over the place... on the issue of Iraq. All the munitions that we have built up, most of them wouldn't be there." (1/30/04)

HANNITY: "But he wanted to cancel…every major weapons system. Specific votes that he would have canceled the weapons systems we now use." (2/26/04)

FACT: "In 1991, Kerry opposed an amendment to impose an arbitrary 2 percent cut in the military budget. In 1992, he opposed an amendment to cut Pentagon intelligence programs by $1 billion. In 1994, he voted against a motion to cut $30.5 billion from the defense budget over the next five years and to redistribute the money to programs for education and the disabled. That same year, he opposed an amendment to postpone construction of a new aircraft carrier. In 1996, he opposed a motion to cut six F-18 jet fighters from the budget. In 1999, he voted against a motion to terminate the Trident II missile." (Slate, 2/25/04)

15. Kerry and the CIA

HANNITY: "If he (Kerry) had his way and the CIA would almost be nonexistent." (1/30/04)

FACT: John Kerry has supported $200 billion in intelligence funding over the past seven years - a 50 percent increase since 1996.

Kerry votes supporting intelligence funding:

FY03 Intel Authorization $39.3-$41.3 Billion
[2002, Unanimous Senate Voice Vote 9/25/02]

FY02 Intel Authorization $33 Billion
[2001, Unanimous Senate Voice Vote 12/13/01]

FY01 Intel Authorization $29.5-$31.5 Billion
[2000, Unanimous Senate Voice Vote 12/6/00]

FY00 Intel Authorization $29-$30 Billion
[1999, Unanimous Senate Voice Vote 11/19/1999]

FY99 Intel Authorization $29.0 Billion
[1998, Unanimous Senate Voice Vote 10/8/98]

FY98 Intel Authorization $26.7 Billion
[1997, Senate Roll Call Vote #109]

FY97 Intel Authorization $26.6 Billion
[1996, Unanimous Senate Voice Vote 9/25/96]

Dick and Jack are hawks. that's ok.

During the 2004 vice presidential debate, when he was asked what he could do about the "deeply divided electorate," Dick Cheney acknowledged that it was a "disappointment," and went on to say that things used to be different. "One of my strongest allies in Congress when I was secretary of defense was Jack Murtha, a Democrat who was chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5018733


Office of the Vice President
November 21, 2005
Vice President's Remarks on the War on Terror
American Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C.
11:01 A.M. EST
"My remarks today concern national security, in particular the war on terror and the Iraq front in that war. Several days ago, I commented briefly on some recent statements that have been made by some members of Congress about Iraq. Within hours of my speech, a report went out on the wires under the headline, "Cheney says war critics 'dishonest,' 'reprehensible.'"

One thing I've learned in the last five years is that when you're Vice President, you're lucky if your speeches get any attention at all. But I do have a quarrel with that headline, and it's important to make this point at the outset. I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof. Disagreement, argument, and debate are the essence of democracy, and none of us should want it any other way. For my part, I've spent a career in public service, run for office eight times -- six statewide offices and twice nationally. I served in the House of Representatives for better than a decade, most of that time as a member of the leadership of the minority party. To me, energetic debate on issues facing our country is more than just a sign of a healthy political system -- it's also something I enjoy. It's one of the reasons I've stayed in this business. And I believe the feeling is probably the same for most of us in public life.

For those of us who don't mind debating, there's plenty to keep us busy these days, and it's not likely to change any time soon. On the question of national security, feelings run especially strong, and there are deeply held differences of opinion on how best to protect the United States and our friends against the dangers of our time. Recently my friend and former colleague Jack Murtha called for a complete withdrawal of American forces now serving in Iraq, with a drawdown to begin at once. I disagree with Jack and believe his proposal would not serve the best interests of this nation. But he's a good man, a Marine, a patriot -- and he's taking a clear stand in an entirely legitimate discussion.

Nor is there any problem with debating whether the United States and our allies should have liberated Iraq in the first place. Here, as well, the differing views are very passionately and forcefully stated. But nobody is saying we should not be having this discussion, or that you cannot reexamine a decision made by the President and the Congress some years ago. To the contrary, I believe it is critical that we continue to remind ourselves why this nation took action, and why Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, and why we have a duty to persevere."....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051121-2.html

ANd now for some Murtha Comments:
White House spars with critics
Vice President Dick Cheney jumped into the fray Wednesday by assailing Democrats who contend the Bush administration manipulated intelligence on Iraq, calling their criticism “one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.”

Murtha, a Marine intelligence officer in Vietnam, angrily shot back at Cheney: “I like guys who’ve never been there that criticize us who’ve been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don’t like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done.”

Cheney calls war critics ‘opportunists’

The top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Murtha has earned bipartisan respect for his grasp of military issues over three decades in Congress. He planned to introduce a resolution Thursday that, if passed by both the House and the Senate, would force the president to withdraw U.S. troops....

...First elected to Congress in 1974, Murtha is known as an ally of uniformed officers in the Pentagon and on the battlefield. The perception on Capitol Hill is that when the congressman makes a statement on military issues, he’s talking for those in uniform.

Known to shun publicity, Murtha said he was standing up because he had a constitutional and moral obligation to speak for the troops.

His voice cracked and tears filled his eyes as he related several stories of visiting wounded troops, including one who was blinded and lost both his hands but had been denied a Purple Heart because friendly fire caused his injuries.

“I met with the commandant. I said, ‘If you don’t give him a Purple Heart, I’ll give him one of mine.’ And they gave him a Purple Heart,” said Murtha, who has two.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10084428/


I cannot find the transcript but Murtha stated everything that the VP restated on Monday at AEI. Murtha said this is nto about partisan politics and that he is friends with Cheney. When asked about the attack by the freshman congresswoman from Ohio. Murtha said that he bore no ill will and that there where certain conservatives in the Republican camp that viewed everything as a republicna vs. a democrat issue. He felt that she was just new and corruptable and that he understood how she might have wanted to say this for the media. He was not there to address it nor was he offended. Murtha is one of those few men you meat whom you cannot help but admire as he is standard that we try to admire in elected officials. When Rebublicans tried to gerrymander his district a number of years of Republicans IN HIS DISTRICT changed thier party affiliation to a DEM jsut so Murtha would stay as their congressman.

The Party of Cut and Run

The Party of Cut and Run?

By David Frum
Posted: Tuesday, November 22, 2005

ARTICLES
National Post (Canada)
Publication Date: November 22, 2005

At last, a little reality. On Thursday, Democratic congressman John P. Murtha delivered a dramatic, tearful denunciation of the Iraq war. The speech carried special force because Murtha is one of the more hawkish members of the Democratic caucus: a Vietnam vet, a former Marine, a past chairman of the House Armed Services committee.

Murtha announced that he would soon introduce a resolution calling for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. The proposed resolution was lengthy, wordy and argumentative. It contained eight "whereas" clauses before ending with a euphemistic demand for "redeployment" of troops out of Iraq.

The Republicans maneuvered quickly and introduced a stripped-down version of Murtha's resolution. No "whereas" clauses, no long preliminary arguments, no euphemisms, just a clear, plain text: "Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately."

Democrats exploded in outrage.

The Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, called the resolution a "disgrace." The number two Democrat, Steny Hoyer, called it a "shabby, petty political maneuver." Veteran Democratic lawmaker David Obey sputtered "How dare you? How dare you?"

Why were they so angry? It has been the Democrats' strategy ever since last year's election to shun any discussion of the future course of the Iraq war. They will angrily criticize the management of the war. They never tire of arguing and rearguing the original decision to go to war. But when asked what should be done now, they respond--in the words of Democratic national committee chairman Howard Dean: "Right now it's not our job to give out specifics."

Ah. And when will it be their job? "When the time is right," says Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic congressional campaign committee.

So you can see why Democrats would mightily resent being pinned down before Dean's and Emanuel's magic hour arrives. Faced with a clear choice, they retreated from their own wild words. The House voted 403 to three against immediate withdrawal, with John Murtha himself joining the majority against withdrawal.

But here's what I don't get.

Democrats know they have a problem on national security. They know that Americans do not trust them on defense issues. They remember losing the presidency in 1968, 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988 very largely because Americans perceived them too dovish. After 9/11, Democrats vowed not to repeat their past mistakes--which is one reason that so many of them voted for war with Iraq in October, 2002. (Of the 50 Democratic senators in office at the time, 29 voted for war, including both John Kerry and John Edwards. Eighty-one Democrats voted for war in the House, including then-House leader Richard Gephardt.)

The puzzle for me, then, is this: Knowing all that, why can't any leading Democrat resist the temptation to wobble?

Why, in the hours after Rep. Murtha's speech on Thursday, didn't some ambitious Democrat--Evan Bayh, say, or Hillary Clinton--publicly repudiate the idea of withdrawal? Go to the floor of the House or Senate, attack the mismanagement of the Bush administration, blah, blah, blah, but then add: "We Democrats are not the party of cut and run. We are not the party of the white flag. We are the party of Harry Truman and John Kennedy, not George McGovern and Michael Moore. George Bush is losing the war in Iraq. We Democrats are determined to win."

Why can't a Democrat say that? What is in the water that they drink that even a tough nut like John Murtha reacts to a frustrating military situation by saying he's had enough and it's time to quit?

The public opinion numbers on Iraq are bad right now. The latest CNN-Gallup poll reports that 63% of Americans disapprove of George Bush's handling of it. The same poll finds that 54% now regard the war as a "mistake." Those are tempting numbers to an opportunistic politician. But they are also dangerous numbers. Calling for a bug-out may raise Democratic numbers in the overnight polls. But it will not serve them in the 2006 and 2008 elections, any more than it did in 1972 or 1968. The American voter may allow himself to grumble and falter--but that same voter will not forgive grumbling and faltering in a would-be leader.

Right now, the talk of Washington is how cleverly Hillary Clinton has positioned herself slightly to the right of left-of-centre by eschewing the anti-war talk of a Howard Dean. The other major candidates are attempting their own variants of this maneuver. But a maneuver that looks like a maneuver is no maneuver at all. If Democrats want to be seen as tough on defense, they must actually be tough on defense. Toughness is tested and proven in times of adversity. And once again the Democrats are flunking.

David Frum is a resident fellow at AEI.

...perhaps we should not be viewing this as party politics. perhaps we should look at the situation in the field and how it will affect the US. ....and maybe forget about how it will affect the elections.