Here we are with yet another Bush-era policy Barack “Vote For Me Because I Am Not Bush” Obama:

The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search — without suspicion of wrongdoing — the contents of a traveler’s laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.

The policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department of Homeland Security directives, describes more fully than did the Bush administration the procedures by which travelers’ laptops, iPods, cameras and other digital devices can be searched and seized when they cross a U.S. border. And it sets time limits for completing searches.

But representatives of civil liberties and travelers groups say they see little substantive difference between the Bush-era policy, which prompted controversy, and this one.

“It’s a disappointing ratification of the suspicionless search policy put in place by the Bush administration,” said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. “It provides a lot of procedural safeguards, but it doesn’t deal with the fundamental problem, which is that under the policy, government officials are free to search people’s laptops and cellphones for any reason whatsoever.”

Why, yes – it is “disappointing.” WTH with these groups who always use that word when Obama retains yet another egregious Bush program. “Disappointing.” Uh, yeah. That’s one (incredibly lame) word for it:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday framed the new policy as an enhancement of oversight. “Keeping Americans safe in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully screen materials entering the United States,” she said in a statement. “The new directives announced today strike the balance between respecting the civil liberties and privacy of all travelers while ensuring DHS can take the lawful actions necessary to secure our borders.”

For instance, searches conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers should now generally take no more than 5 days, and no more than 30 days for searches by Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents. The directives also require for the first time that automated tools be developed to ensure the reliable tracking of statistics relating to searches, and that audits be conducted periodically to ensure the guidelines are being followed, officials said.

Did I read that right? 5 days and 30 days?? That’s supposed to be an IMPROVEMENT? Holy freakin’ smokes!!

Some people are happy with it, though:

Such measures drew praise from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who called the new policy “a major step forward,” and from Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), who introduced legislation this year to strengthen protections for travelers whose devices are searched.

And these are our representatives. That’s just jake.

Others, those who actually care about the Constitution, for example, aren’t quite so upbeat about it:

But the civil liberties community was disappointed.

“Under the policy begun by Bush and now continued by Obama, the government can open your laptop and read your medical records, financial records, e-mails, work product and personal correspondence — all without any suspicion of illegal activity,” said Elizabeth Goitein, who leads the liberty and national security project at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.

Goitein, formerly a counsel to Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), said the Bush policy itself “broke sharply” with previous Customs directives, which required reasonable suspicion before agents could read the contents of documents. Feingold last year introduced legislation to restore the requirement.

Jack Riepe, spokesman for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, said the guidelines “still have many of the inherent weaknesses” of the Bush-era policy.

Between October 2008 and Aug. 11, more than 221 million travelers passed through CBP checkpoints. About 1,000 laptop searches were performed, only 46 in-depth, the DHS said.

Once again, I am SO “disappointed” to have my civil liberties curtailed. Sheesh. Seriously, people, there are stronger terms for having our Constitution dismantled by The One over whom you ooh-ed! and ah-ed! as such a great Constitutional Scholar, and the Anti-Bush. All I can say is, perhaps you wouldn’t have experienced this “disappointment” had you bothered to actually listen to what he man said (remember the return to Bush I’s foreign policy? How about voting for the Bush/Cheney Energy Bill?) or what he did (remember that FISA vote? Yeah, you were “disappointed” then, too.). So many examples, so little time. The point is, had your eyes been open instead of closed as you swayed in rapture to the tones of The One and TOTUS, perhaps you wouldn’t be oh-so-surprised by this.

The rest of us aren’t.

White House Reveals Obama Is Bipolar, Has Entered Depressive Phase

See?? Doesn’t that make everything make more sense? It sure does for me…

But what isn’t a joke is this recent revelation: “Bill Would Give President Emergency Control Of Internet” (h/t to Mary Ellen, aka, Nunly, for this). Yep, you read that right – Obama wants to be able to control the “internets” when he deems it necessary. Oh, I WISH this was an Onion piece too, but no:

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

“I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. “It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill.”

Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller’s aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.

A spokesman for Rockefeller also declined to comment on the record Thursday, saying that many people were unavailable because of the summer recess. A Senate source familiar with the bill compared the president’s power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when grounding all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. The source said that one primary concern was the electrical grid, and what would happen if it were attacked from a broadband connection.

When Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the original bill in April, they claimed it was vital to protect national cybersecurity. “We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs–from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records,” Rockefeller said.

Isn’t this just such a comfort to you? Yeah, me, too:

The Rockefeller proposal plays out against a broader concern in Washington, D.C., about the government’s role in cybersecurity. In May, President Obama acknowledged that the government is “not as prepared” as it should be to respond to disruptions and announced that a new cybersecurity coordinator position would be created inside the White House staff. Three months later, that post remains empty, one top cybersecurity aide has quit, and some wags have begun to wonder why a government that receives failing marks on cybersecurity should be trusted to instruct the private sector what to do.

Rockefeller’s revised legislation seeks to reshuffle the way the federal government addresses the topic. It requires a “cybersecurity workforce plan” from every federal agency, a “dashboard” pilot project, measurements of hiring effectiveness, and the implementation of a “comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy” in six months–even though its mandatory legal review will take a year to complete.

The privacy implications of sweeping changes implemented before the legal review is finished worry Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “As soon as you’re saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it’s going to be a really big issue,” he says.

Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to “direct the national response to the cyber threat” if necessary for “the national defense and security.” The White House is supposed to engage in “periodic mapping” of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies “shall share” requested information with the federal government. (”Cyber” is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)

“The language has changed but it doesn’t contain any real additional limits,” EFF’s Tien says. “It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)…The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There’s no provision for any administrative process or review. That’s where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it.”

Translation: If your company is deemed “critical,” a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.

The Internet Security Alliance’s Clinton adds that his group is “supportive of increased federal involvement to enhance cyber security, but we believe that the wrong approach, as embodied in this bill as introduced, will be counterproductive both from an national economic and national secuity (sic) perspective.”

Uh huh. Um, does it bother anyone else – besides us, that is – that Obama is the biggest micromanager on the face of the planet, especially since he is the most inexperienced leader on the face of the planet? Hey, I’m just asking here…

One last thing:

Update at 3:14 p.m. PDT: I just talked to Jena Longo, deputy communications director for the Senate Commerce committee, on the phone. She sent me e-mail with this statement:

The president of the United States has always had the constitutional authority, and duty, to protect the American people and direct the national response to any emergency that threatens the security and safety of the United States. The Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity bill makes it clear that the president’s authority includes securing our national cyber infrastructure from attack. The section of the bill that addresses this issue, applies specifically to the national response to a severe attack or natural disaster. This particular legislative language is based on longstanding statutory authorities for wartime use of communications networks. To be very clear, the Rockefeller-Snowe bill will not empower a “government shutdown or takeover of the Internet” and any suggestion otherwise is misleading and false. The purpose of this language is to clarify how the president directs the public-private response to a crisis, secure our economy and safeguard our financial networks, protect the American people, their privacy and civil liberties, and coordinate the government’s response.

Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for an on-the-record answer to these four questions that I asked her colleague on Wednesday. I’ll let you know if and when I get a response.

Oh, yippee!! Doesn’t the thought of Obama taking over the internet make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?? I know it does me. I just hope it doesn’t happen when he has one of his mood swings…

It’s time to slap an official seal on our Vice President’s yapper. This otherwise likeable guy is also a one-man blooper extravaganza.

Now he’s done it again. But this time it isn’t as laughoffable as asking a man in the wheelchair to stand up and take a bow. Or as whacky as telling people that we must spend money to keep from going bankrupt. Or only flubbing names, such as referring to Justice Roberts as “Justice Stewart.” Or John McCain as “George” during his VP acceptance speech. Or demoting Sara Palin to “Lieutenant Governor” of Alaska. Or reinventing history by recounting President Roosevelt’s televised 1929 commentary on the stock market crash. (Besides no TV yet, Hoover was President at that time.)

This time Biden’s so-called gaffe caused us some real trouble!

In an interview with the Wall street Journal, our Vice President referred to Russia as a “limping and humbled nation.”

…Mr. Biden pointed out that the U.S. and Russia aren’t strategic equals. “I think we vastly underestimate the hand that we hold,” he said, noting that Russia’s economy and population are “withering.” “They’re in a situation where the world is changing before them and they’re clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.” As for the arsenal Russia inherited from the U.S.S.R., Mr. Biden said, “They can’t sustain it.”

Tensions were already palpable between the two superpowers, and Biden’s suggestion that Russia’s economic troubles would force the Kremlin to cooperate with us on national security issues did not play as another “crazy Joe gaffe” over there.

Ellen Barry writing for the New York Times has this take:

Within hours, a top Kremlin aide had released a barbed statement comparing Mr. Biden to Dick Cheney. Commentators announced Mr. Biden’s emergence as Washington’s new “gray cardinal” — the figure who, from the shadows, makes all the decisions that matter. Others said Washington’s mask had been torn off, revealing Mr. Obama’s “reset” as at best insubstantial and at worst duplicitous.

It will also be hard to convince the Kremlin that the comments don’t indicate a deeper drama. Russians have spent months searching for clues to Mr. Obama’s true intentions; when Mr. Obama killed a fly during a television interview shortly before traveling to Moscow, for example, several analysts here interpreted it as a message to Russia.

One can hope that the creation of a bilateral commission led by Presidents Obama and Medvedev will soften Biden’s verbal assault and lead to better communications and mechanisms for ongoing cooperation. Fortunately for us, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be in charge of this project. Secretary Clinton also tried to help clean up Biden’s oral poop during her appearance on Meet the Press by noting that, “We view Russia as a great power. I don’t think that’s at all what the vice president meant. Every country faces challenges. We have our challenges; Russia has their challenges.”

Finally, here is my favorite Biden gaffe. On September 11, 2008, almost a month before the election, in Nashua, New Hampshire Biden blurted out, “Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me.”

I think he got that one right.

Jane Harman hits back with a sweeping, supple victim’s style in a star-turn appearance with Andrea Mitchell re the surprise smear of the California potentate as a Zionist tool.

Shrewdly, Jane Harman’s counter strike on TV is not about the dull facts of the Bush administration case against AIPAC ops, which is likely to be dropped by Obama Justice.

Instead the counter strike is about the NSA spying on a member of Congress.   Andrea Mitchell frames the story immediately –  “Are private Congressional phone calls being eavesdropped on by other government agencies?” – and what Jane Harman must then do is act surprised, disappointed, alarmed, inquiring, patriotic, doubtful, resilient, responsible, comprehensive, curious and patient.

This is a hypnotic coloratura soprano victim performance.  “I know what I read in the press, Andrea, the first time I had any clue…”  Every note precise and thrilling.  As for the mute NSA, it spies on all members of Congress when it must, when the key words come up on the recordings.

What is startling is that the NSA provided the transcript to Justice, and then Justice decided not to go ahead on the case, and then someone decided to leak the transcript.

Suspects of leakers?  Obama Justice is suspect No. 1.  Outgoing Bush politicos are also suspect, since they pursued AIPAC and lost, and this is a stink bomb tossed back inside the building.  Also suspect — let us be nimble — is Jane Harman and/or AIPAC.   Again, Jane Harman, bravissima!

CQ Politics:

"Rep. Jane Harman, the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections."  Jeff Stein

—————————————————

Life is just not fair.  Rod Blagojevich was impeached for corruption, is under massive indictment for the same and was pilloried for seeking to bargain with people (various) over President Obama's vacated senate seat.

Jane Harman (according to CQ and Jeff Stein) bargained with a suspected foreign espionage and covert action agent (Israeli) on an open telephone line in a discussion as to whether or not she would attempt to have espionage charges reduced in the case of two men who are still awaiting trial for illegally handing over US secrets to the Israeili embassy.  In return the suspected Israeli operative (not an American) offered to go to Nancy Pelosi to influence her to appoint Harman chair of the House Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), a position in which she would have been able to do a lot for Israel (or anyone else).

Firstly, consider the fact that this spook was comfortable enough with Harman to make her an offer like that…  Harman and her husband, Sidney, are major figures in the world of political think-tankery, charity, etc.  BENS, WINEP, AIPAC, JINSA, etc.  They get around.  She has had to "settle" for a lesser committee chairmanship.  As I said, life is not fair.

Then there is the fact that this spook said that he, a foreigner, would go to the minority leader of the House of Representatives (Pelosi) with some prospect of success to ask for Harman to be made chairman of the HPSCI.  Chutzpah indeed!  There must have been a good case that he knew Pelosi well enough for Harman to think that plausible.  I guess if enough people go to enough dinner parties, eventually everyone knows everyone?

Who was this person, the mysterious voice on the phone?  Did he flee the country at some point?  Is he now likely to visit Washington soon as a member of a new government?  Will there be a dinner party?  pl

PS.  There is some thought that the "Israeli operative" may be a naturalized dual Israeli/American national.  This is unclear, but not very important.

For today’s A.P. story, “Obama draws praise, but piracy escalation feared,” Larry Johnson was telephoned and interviewed extensively by London-based A.P. reporter Gregory Katz:

[...]

Some military strategists believe it may ultimately be necessary to attack the pirates’ base in Somalia, much as the British used to do two centuries ago. But few have the appetite for another land operation in Somalia, where a U.S. military foray in the early 1990s ended in humiliation. And the cost in civilian casualties would likely be extremely high, some warn.

“That would be nuts,” said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and State Department counterterrorism specialist. “These people are not organized into any military force, they are intermingled with women and children. You’re talking about wiping out villages.”

He said the U.S. action—and a French attack a few days earlier on a pirate-held yacht with hostages on board—were corrective measures that did not solve the underlying problem.

“When you allow a bunch of Somali clans to grab their weapons and head to sea and collect millions of dollars in ransom, you can’t be surprised when it gets out of control,” he said. “You need an international coalition, with all the countries that have flag ships, to make it impossible for the pirates to get in a boat and leave the shore. Otherwise the ships will continue to be sitting ducks.”

Johnson has in the past criticized Obama as inexperienced, but he said the new commander in chief deserves credit for using established national security procedures to deal with the crisis while refraining from making comments that would have inflamed the situation.

“He stepped back and let the professionals do what they are supposed to do,” Johnson said. “Since the 1980s we’ve built national security doctrine for how to handle these matters, and Obama allowed these procedures to operate.”

Charles Heyman, a defense specialist and former British army officer, said the Obama administration showed its resolve by refusing pay ransom for Phillips’ release.

“That would have been disastrous,” he said. “America would have been a laughingstock and we really don’t need that.”

But he said history shows pirates can only be defeated if nations unite, which is not happening.

“As long as governments don’t come together and defeat it, it goes on like a plague,” he said. “People have to be very, very tough with this.”

The U.S. rescue effort was a clear success in tactical terms, but Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, warned that it could lead to increased violence in the region. … Read all.

h/t American Girl In Italy

SusanUnPC’s April 8th note: When even Keith Olbermann lowers the boom — calling President Barack Obama’s decision “change you cannot believe in”, condemning Obama for going further than Bush in his expansion of invasive, extra-Constitutional powers — you know the Obama Administration is going to the “dark side,” as Jane Mayer describes in her esteemed book. Howard Fineman explains the administration’s amoral political calculus and its “newbie” problem, and refers to Mayer’s book. When Mayer is a guest on No Quarter Radio soon, we will ask her about this astonishing abandonment of key principles touted by Obama during his candidacy, when he said whatever it took. Question of the Day: Didn’t the Kossack crowd scream for Bush’s impeachment over precisely this issue? Why not threaten Obama with impeachment?

P.S. Do you remember this Boston Globe article about Hillary Clinton on October 11, 2007? “Clinton vows to check executive powers.” If but for the willful Obamabots’ delusions and caucus thuggery, we’d have a president who would stand up to the intelligence community because, for one thing, Hillary wouldn’t have a learning curve hurdle and already knows who’s who, while Obama, as always, thinks he can cover up his ignorance by charming people through doing their bidding. My hunch is that, to a one, the intel community has disdain for his ignorance and unctuous collusion.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and friend of Larry Johnson’s, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. Originally published at Antiwar.com.

Those who hoped that the change promised by candidate Barack Obama would include repeal of the various acts that have stripped Americans of their constitutional rights should be disappointed.

Benjamin Franklin supposedly wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” The citation is likely apocryphal, at least in terms of its attribution to Franklin, but it is useful shorthand for the unfortunate abandonment of many of the liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution as a consequence of 9/11.

The trauma of 9/11 created an opportunity for those seeking to centralize executive power, an objective of recent presidents from both political parties. Many Americans initially accepted that there had to be some abridgment of fundamental liberties while fighting a multi-faceted and unconventional war against terrorism, but few realize just how much the constitutional rights that all citizens take for granted have been eroded. History also teaches us that once a right is suspended, in all likelihood it is gone forever.

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 might well be described as one of history’s more spectacular euphemisms employed to gut a constitution, somewhat akin to Hitler’s “emergency act” in the wake of the Reichstag fire of 1933. It is better known as PATRIOT Act I. PATRIOT Act I became law six weeks after the fall of the Twin Towers and was followed by PATRIOT Act II in 2006. The two laws together diminish constitutional guarantees of free speech, freedom of association, freedom from illegal search, the right to habeas corpus, prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and prohibition of the illegal seizure of private property. The First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments in the Bill of Rights have all been discarded or abridged in the rush to make it easier to investigate, torture, and jail both foreigners and American citizens. The PATRIOT Act also incorporates the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of Oct. 17, 2001, which permits the freezing of assets and investigation of individuals suspected of being financial supporters of terrorism. “Suspected” is the key word, as there is no oversight or appeal in the process.

The Military Commission Act of 2006 (MCA) followed the PATRIOT Acts, creating military tribunals for the trying of “unlawful enemy combatants,” including American citizens. Unlike a civil or criminal court, the accused needs only a two-thirds vote by the commission members present to be convicted. The act permits the indefinite jailing of suspects in a military prison without being charged with a crime or given access to a lawyer. The government is not required to produce any normally admissible evidence at a commission hearing and can rely on hearsay or even information obtained overseas during torture to make its case. Detainees do not have access to any classified information used against them and cannot cross-examine or even know the identity of witnesses. The MCA suspends habeas corpus for anyone charged and forbids the application of the Geneva Conventions to mitigate conditions of confinement or to challenge the judicial process or verdict. The Geneva Conventions also cannot be invoked if the accused subsequently claims he was tortured or otherwise abused, protecting overly zealous interrogators from later charges of “war crimes.” The act was also designed to cover all cases that were pending, meaning that it was retroactive.

An executive order issued on July 17, 2007, which is still in effect, authorized the president to seize the property of anyone who “threatens stabilization efforts in Iraq.” As the administration’s own Justice Department decides what constitutes “threatening stabilization efforts,” the order can be used to go after any critic of the government. Most disturbing, the order does not permit a challenge to the information the seizure is based on, and it also permits the confiscation of the property of anyone who comes to the assistance of the suspected de-stabilizer.

The threat to civil liberties is real. Under the authority of the PATRIOT Act, the FBI requested more than 30,000 national security letters in 2007, and the number was surely higher in 2008. The letters enable the FBI to look at anyone’s personal information without any judicial oversight or showing of cause. Anyone who is presented with a letter and compelled to cooperate to provide information on a suspect cannot reveal that the letter has been received. Are there 30,000 terrorists roaming the United States? If there were, the country would surely be a bombed-out ruin by now. The government is instead using the security letters and the other tools provided by the PATRIOT Act legislation to look at people who are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, because it is convenient to be able to do so without the bother of having to go to a judge for a search warrant.

Sen. Barack Obama opposed the MCA and voted against it. He was not in the Senate when the first PATRIOT Act was passed, but he criticized the second version for its abuse of civil liberties before voting for an amended version. Candidate Obama ran on his record of opposition to the various pieces of legislation, noting consistently that they had authorized the abuse of authority by law enforcement and had abridged the rights of every American. Unfortunately, President Obama appears to have forgotten the principled positions he took as a senator and presidential candidate. After his inauguration, he moved quickly to publicly ban the CIA’s use of torture, a meaningless gesture in that the Agency had already abandoned the practice, but it now appears that he will do nothing to revoke Bush-era legislation like the MCA that he once strongly criticized. There is every indication that he will also endorse renewal of the PATRIOT Act when it expires at the end of the year, afraid that if he does not do so and there is a terrorist attack he will pay a significant political price. The Obama administration has also been silent about the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretaps and has invoked the “state-secrets privilege” in connection with a lawsuit by the Islamic charity al-Haramain in an apparent bid to prevent disclosure of the warrantless wiretap procedure.

President Obama is not just contradicting his progressive campaign promises and betraying many of the people who voted for him. As a lawyer, he surely understands that protecting the government’s questionably legal “rights” to monitor citizens completely subverts the rule of law, because it guarantees that there will be no accountability. Currently, judges who rule on the state-secrets issue are not themselves allowed to see the alleged classified information, meaning that there is absolutely no transparency to the process in which the government is asserting an extralegal privilege that is surely unconstitutional.

If the Obama administration is beginning to sound like the Bush White House, it should. To be sure, the new president is relying on the advice of many Bush administration holdovers like FBI Director Robert Mueller. Mueller asserts, without providing any evidence, that the tools provided by the PATRIOT Act have been effective in preventing terrorism, just as Bush-era intelligence chiefs claimed that torture and extraordinary rendition were essential to meet the terrorist threat. All such claims should be viewed with extreme skepticism, particularly as they are rarely backed up by any evidence. The government also often lies when it wants to make a case for some illegal action. Claims made in 2008 that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida produced a flood of information that frustrated terrorist plots are now revealed to have been false. Zubaida confused his interrogators and sent them off on wild goose chases with information that was either deliberately deceptive or flat-out wrong. In reality, the government cannot cite a single instance where the use of draconian new legislation or illegal procedures like torture has either prevented a terrorist incident or led to the arrest of anyone who was ready, willing, and able to carry out a violent act.

Obama would have been wiser to ignore the experts and sit back and consider the broader picture. Does the creation of a monstrous Department of Homeland Security supported by a bloated defense and intelligence establishment really make sense in light of the threat that the U.S. actually faces? How did we arrive at a 400,000-name no-fly list and an NSA that has conducted hundreds of millions of interceptions of telephone calls without any oversight?

That a small group of terrorists holed up in an isolated and backward part of the world got lucky against an unsuspecting America on 9/11 is clear, but the odds of them repeating that spectacular success are minimal. More than seven years later, the actual vulnerability of international terrorism should be completely clear and the government should be telling the people the good news, that al-Qaeda is on its last legs and that the other Salafist terrorist groups that have a similar philosophy have been hounded and contained all around the world. There has been no successful terrorist action within the United States, and the appeal of jihadist terrorism is on the wane everywhere else. Its moment has passed.

In spite of the reduced threat, under Obama the business of fighting terrorism goes on with a change in the rhetoric but not in the policy, buttressed by an enlarged military budget to spread the cheer to Afghanistan and increased spending on intelligence. And there is no sign that the liberties that Americans have bartered away are about to be returned. Having an amorphous foreign threat hanging around is always good politics, as it can be used to divert attention from more serious problems at home. Having the mechanisms at hand to investigate an American citizen can also be useful when the critics become too loud. Those who feared that George W. Bush would give his successors unconstitutional tools that they would be reluctant to relinquish have apparently been vindicated.

Honestly, I’m getting tired of saying, “We told you so.” There are people who can be so easily deluded by a speech, which is an entirely different thing than ACTIONS and DEEDS. Do only grown-ups get that “talk is cheap”? And where are those grown-ups?

The grown-ups never drank the Kool-Aid. They saw that a pretty speech did not a president make.

(Thanks to LDP for the video link!)

“… I guarantee you we are safer today, our interests are more secure today than they were any time during the eight years” of the Bush administration.

Just how stupid this is is proved by some terrifying examples below the fold, and makes me deeply concerned that Obama et al. are not sufficiently concerned and proactive:

How in the hell can you claim that, Joe? No one – no one – can predict what might be ’round the bend.

Further, besides our perilous economic circumstances, our military is stretched to the breaking point and Obama feels he can’t even afford to send the number of troops that the military itself is requesting be dispatched to Afghanistan.

A couple weeks ago, everyone was atwitter over the crises in Mexico, filled with fear that drug cartel gangs would invade our country and create murder and mayhem. (Of course, as soon as the media had done their stories, and checked out of the border cities’ Marriotts, that story died and nobody’s worrying about that crisis anymore.)

But the point is that we don’t know what might occur tomorrow, or what crisis might seize and hold the attention of the nation.

We have North Korea firing off a missile with complete freedom and no penalties, proving Obama’s weakness in relying on the United Nations and not taking strong U.S. action.

We have Iran building redundant underground (bunker-bomb-proof) nuclear facilities across its nation so that no attack can end their program to build a nuclear bomb. If Iran gets the bomb, do you think that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps other nations might not be far behind? And you’re CLAIMING that we’re “safer today”???

For example, there’s this highly disturbing story from Lou Dobbs’s blog at CNN, under “Issues That Matter“:

Red Storm Rising: Selling Nuclear Material to Iran
The Manhattan district attorney has uncovered a plot by a Chinese national to sell millions of dollars in potential nuclear material to Iran. The Chinese national used a false identity and set up four fake companies to do business with six Iranian shell firms. Several banks in New York were used, unwittingly, to make the deals.

And how about this terrifying doozy?!?!?!

Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies, Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2009:

WASHINGTON — Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” said a senior intelligence official. “So have the Russians.”

The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn’t target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. “There are intrusions, and they are growing,” the former official said, referring to electrical systems. “There were a lot last year.” … READ ALL of the well-research, highly disturbing Wall Street Journal article and check out the related posts and stories listed at Memeorandum.

Joe, shut the f–k up. And take a look around our own country. This report isn’t good news: “Boom in Gun Sales Fueled by Politics and the Economy.” That’s on your watch, Joe.

While you’re jawing, Joe, here’s the worker working to truly make us safer:

From the State Dept.’s announcement on this important collaboration, given both countries’ number of seaports:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully signed on April 7, 2009, an arrangement for cooperation on nonproliferation assistance. This arrangement supports collaborative work between the United States and New Zealand to secure nuclear and radioactive materials that could be used in a nuclear or radiological weapon and to detect and deter illicit trafficking in these materials by improving monitoring capabilities at priority border crossings, airports, and seaports. …

Also check out DipNotes, the State Department’s blog, with numerous entries about Hillary’s progressive steps around the world.

Oh, readers, here’s the video if you must punish yourself:

[T]he streets were littered with anti-NATO and anti-Obama fliers. “Leave NATO — get rid of the gladiators,” one flier said, demanding that Turkey abandon the alliance. (WaPo)

“[The protestors] say his visit will bring more turmoil to the Middle East, and that he’s armed with demands that could divide Turkey,” writes Al Jazeera.

The reporter warns that Obama had better demonstrate that his talk will lead to something. We all know that that won’t happen and, insofar as Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned, he’s basically Bush II. He turned down the constructive nation-building ideas proposed by General David Petraeus, SecState Hillary Clinton and Envoy Richard Holbrooke in favor of a narrow, military-only strategy in Afghanistan with insufficient troop numbers, which — as John Batchelor’s panel (including Larry Johnson) pointed out tonight — will just add a few more soldiers in a largely wasted effort due to the incoherent and confusingly managed hodgepodge of multinational forces and teams. NOW for the video:

Anchor Q: That which we know that Barack Obama went to the NATO meeting to get, did he get that? What did he get if not that?

Patrick Buchanan: Well, he said he got the NATO allies behind the strategy. Fine, this is an American-designed strategy. But he got very, very, very thin gruel out of the allies.

We were down to talking about 3,000 troops. He doesn’t even know if these are combat troops or replacement troops for the allies who are already there.

When you consider that 3,000 meager contribution, even if it is net, compare that to the 30,000 to 40,000 more American troops going in, the President was defensive. He said this is not a pledging conference. I think the president has got to be dissatisfied with the fact that he did not get more out of this summit. His first summit where he’s extraordinarily popular, and where if he’s going to get anything, he’s going to get it now. [Personally transcribed from MSNBC News Live, 11 a.m. ET, April 4, 2009.]

NOTE: There’s MORE BUCHANAN BELOW.

Once again, Obama is down-ranking the United States’ world standing as he behaved deferentially, slavishly grateful for that thin gruel: “Obama Praises NATO for Afghanistan Support.” This man has too little experience at this kind of meeting — you’ll recall that, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations’ subcommittee on Europe and NATO, he failed to hold a single hearing or to visit any member of NATO, let alone NATO headquarters. After all, his seat in the Senate was merely a resume builder (as Nocturnal Warrior so smartly noted on his Tuesday night show — LISTEN). He did not WORK at his jobs; he used them as launching pads.

President Obama needed advisers by his side who had a clue: SecState Hillary Clinton, SecDef Robert Gates, NSA James Jones, envoy Richard Holbrooke. One of them! If you are merely a prop, you need people around you to help you stand up.

See also: “Obama Wants NATO Troop Support,” A.P./AOL, April 4, 2009:

[B]oth Merkel and Sarkozy stressed the need for Afghanistan’s government and security forces to shoulder an increasing share of the burden. They gave no sign they were prepared to send more troops. Both countries believe civilian aid and training for police are what is needed to stabilize Afghanistan. …

Of note: I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that, later in the hour, Buchanan said that Obama’s symbolism was meaningful. Another analyst said that the “my way or the highway” approach [clearly referring to Bush] was gone, which is true.

But, I also want a president who is sensibly tough. The word “sensibly” is an important qualifier because, if we look to Obama’s action last week in firing GM’s Rick Wagoner, that was a nonsensical but highly symbolic gesture. I quote Larry Johnson in his must-read “Obama’s Economy of Torture“:

The firing of Rick Wagoner was not made for any rational economic reason. This is pure politics, designed in part to portray Barack as a tough guy who is taking charge on the eve of his international debut at the G20 summit. Not a single person on the Obama economic team has ever run a business or met a payroll. Barack and his team of bozos could not find a Secretary of Treasury who felt it important to pay taxes and wanted to appoint Tom Daschle to run Health and Human Services even though he was a lobbyist taking freebies on the side. And these are the people who want us to believe that they know how to run a car company?

BELOW: You can view the VIDEO of Obama’s press conference today, and more news articles:

More detritus, via the A.P., from the NATO meeting:

British officials traveling to the summit with Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters aboard his plane that Brown will offer to send more troops to Afghanistan but that depended upon other NATO members being prepared to send additional forces, Britain’s Press Association reported.

Spain said ahead of the summit that it would add a small contingent to help train Afghan army officers. Belgium said it will add some 65 soldiers to a force of 500 and send two more F-16 jet fighters, bringing the total number it has sent to six. [WOW! BE STILL MY HEART!]

A senior U.S. official traveling with Obama said Saturday that the administration expects that pledges and commitments from other NATO nations would come in over the next several weeks.

[...]

Looking to the future, the leaders are expected to issue a declaration Saturday that formally launches the creation of a new “strategic concept” or road map to define NATO’s roles, missions and way of functioning.
It would be the first such revision of the alliance’s purpose and function since 1999.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

UPDATE #1: Pat Buchanan goes on, later in the hour on MSNBC:

They’re going to come home [from NATO meetings], and his guys are going to say to him — Gates and these other guys — “Mr. President, we didn’t get a thing on Afghanistan in terms of troops.” They got as many people in Western Europe under NATO as we’ve got here in the United States. We carry the hod in Iraq.

We carry the hod in Afghanistan. We’re putting in 40,000 guys. They’re giving us nothing. At that point Barack Obama is going to have to say, “Look, are we maybe going to have to go to the whip here as the #1 power here and tell these guys, ‘Look we had a nice summit here and now starting ponying up’.”

So I think they’re giving him a [inaudible], they’re lathering over there, but he’s got to wait until he gets home to find out what he’s gotten.

As for that IMF money, Peter, I don’t think you’re going to get it out of the United States Congress. …

Update 2: The prescient former ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote numerous op-eds WARNING voters about Obama’s failure to do his job as a senator and his utter lack of experience. If only voters had THOUGHT instead of FEELING. From “Obama’s illusions on foreign policy” written April 8, 2008:

[...]

In fact, Obama’s understanding of foreign policy is extraordinarily limited. He has had one job in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: chairman of the Europe and NATO subcommittee. He has not held a single policy hearing in that capacity because, as he said in a debate, he has been too busy running for president. He has not even taken a fact-finding trip or provided any other oversight.

As to Obama’s self-promoted “judgment,” which judgment would that be? Would it be to follow the path of Bush 41: tough diplomacy backed by the threat of military action, as in the first gulf war? Would it be to ignore the rationale put forward by Colin Powell in the debate on the second gulf war? Would it be to vote exactly the same way Sen. Clinton did on war-related issues since he became a U.S. senator, which he has? Or is it simply to criticize from the sidelines with the benefit of never having had to face tough decisions with real consequences?

The next president will be presented with two difficult wars, U.S. moral authority at low ebb, and unprecedented complexity of our relations with the rest of the world. Obama has no record whatsoever, only his utter absence from his committee responsibility. His claim to be the one true heir to George H.W. Bush is a misguided illusion and no substitute for offering more about what foreign policies he would actually follow.

And now, CLASS: Please compare, and contrast, these two examples of television journalism:

Yes, well. Actually, there was some news in there.

And, Rachel, I’d flat-out kill for Hillary’s coat BUT it is NOT your lead, Rachel. So not your lead! (North Korea, for example

Hillary, you rock. Rachel? You not so much.

And why oh god why Rachel do you over-enunciate and over-emote every single word that comes out of your mouth in a very much too-high-pitched way?

Breathe, Rachel.

Take it from an old former French horn player: Use your diaphragm.

You’re supposed to be engaging, not grating!

Oh, that second example? That’s from the new PBS world news program that I’m very fond of, WorldFocus. Besides the above video, there’s this “blog” report:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Tokyo on Monday night on her first trip as the nation’s chief diplomat.

“I have come to Asia as my first trip as secretary of state to convey that America’s relationships across the Pacific are indispensable to addressing the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the twenty-first century,” Clinton said to a crowd in Tokyo.

Sheila A. Smith, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Martin Savidge to discuss how Clinton will approach North Korea, Japan and how the Japanese view China’s growing economic and military power.

Read what a Worldfocus contributing blogger had to say about Clinton’s stop in Japan and what her visit means for internal Japanese politics: Clinton plans for a rare meeting with Japan’s opposition.

Check out MORE at WorldFocus.

P.S. Last night’s program included a quite disturbing if fascinating examination of the fascination with and admiration for Joseph Stalin that today’s Russians have: “Stalin Makes a Comeback With Russia’s Youth.”

A conversation about National Intelligence with David R. Ignatius author and columnist for “The Washington Post”, Mark Lowenthal, President and CEO of the Intelligence & Security Academy and John McLaughlin, former American Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and former Acting Director of Central Intelligence

What else is going on in the world?

NOW on to the BUMPING UP of Larry Johnson’s EXCEPTIONAL essay that sensible people everywhere should read. We realize that the KoolAid dipsomaniacs are unable to see, let alone comprehend, but we’ll persist.

By LARRY JOHNSON, originally published on November 11, 2008:

If you enjoyed the George W. Bush era, you are gonna love the Barack Obama regime, because Obama is relying on some of the same folks who helped create the mayhem and failures in the CIA. That’s right, boys and girls. Take a look at today’s Wall Street Journal:

President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies, advisers say, an approach that is almost certain to create tension within the Democratic Party. . . .

The intelligence-transition team is led by former National Counterterrorism Center chief John Brennan and former CIA intelligence-analysis director Jami Miscik, say officials close to the matter. Mr. Brennan is viewed as a potential candidate for a top intelligence post. Ms. Miscik left amid a slew of departures from the CIA under then-Director Porter Goss.

Advisers caution that few decisions will be made until the team gets a better picture of how the Bush administration actually goes about gathering intelligence, including covert programs, and there could be a greater shift after a full review.

The Obama team plans to review secret and public executive orders and recent Justice Department guidelines that eased restrictions on domestic intelligence collection. “They’ll be looking at existing executive orders, then making sure from Jan. 20 on there’s going to be appropriate executive-branch oversight of intelligence functions,” Mr. Brennan said in an interview shortly before Election Day.

Putting John Brennan in charge of this effort is mind numbing. Brennan was one of the George Tenet toadies who defended the former CIA Director when I, along with a group of other retired CIA officers, demanded that Tenet donate part of the proceeds of his book to the families of U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq and to return his medal of freedom.

Brennan was part of the group of the insiders who saw no problem with George Tenet helping cook the intelligence and mislead the American people about the threat in Iraq. Here’s what Tim Shorrock wrote about that dust up:

Tenet’s ties with contractors were underscored last week in a dispute between two groups of former CIA officials over Tenet’s legacy. On April 28, six former intelligence officers wrote to Tenet, saying he shared culpability with President Bush and Vice President Cheney for “the debacle in Iraq,” and suggesting he donate half the royalties from his book to Iraq war veterans and their families. All of the signatories had severed their ties to U.S. intelligence, although three of them, Phil Giraldi, Larry Johnson and Vince Cannistraro, work as consultants for news organizations, corporations and government agencies outside of intelligence.

A few days later, six recently retired officers responded. They called the first letter a “bitter, inaccurate and misleading attack” on Tenet and pointed out that it was drafted by officers who “had not served in the Agency for years.” Tenet, his supporters said, “literally led the nation’s counterterrorism fight.” And three of its six signatories were directly involved in that fight — as contractors. They included John Brennan of the Analysis Corp.; Cofer Black, Tenet’s former counterterrorism director and vice chairman of Blackwater, the private military contractor; and Robert Richer, the former deputy director of the CIA’s clandestine services. Richer recently left Blackwater to become the CEO of Total Intelligence, a new company formed with Black and other ex-CIA officials to provide intelligence services to corporations and government agencies.

In the immediate aftermath of 9-11 Brennan was in charge of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (which was replaced subsequently by the National Counter Terrorism Center) and failed to give the U.S. State Department the correct statistics on the number of terrorist attacks in 2003. He forgot to count an entire month’s data. I discovered the error and alerted folks at State Department.

Professors Alan Krueger and David Laitin independently discovered the discrepancies and published an op-ed in the Washington Post. Here’s a link for a comprehensive article discussing that intelligence failure.

So you think I am being too hard on Brennan? Sure, anyone can make a mistake. However, he was back in the news in 2005. I learned in March of that year that the State Department was not going publish the CIA stats on terrorism because the number of attacks had dramatically increased and the Bush Administration thought that made it look like they were losing the war on terror. John Brennan was part of that effort to keep the truth from the American public. Here’s the piece I wrote to help draw attention to this issue back in 2005:

The numbers are in and the news is not good for U.S. efforts to contain and reduce the threat of international terrorism. 2004 marked the highest number of significant incidents of terrorism since the intelligence community started keeping statistics in 1968. (An incident is counted as significant if an attack results in the death, injury or kidnapping of one or more persons or property damage in excess of $10,000). Attacks jumped from 175 in 2003 to 651 in 2004. This surpasses the previous high of 273 significant attacks in 1985.

The bad news kept on coming. One thousand nine hundred and seven (1907) people died in international terrorist attacks last year. This marks the second highest death toll since 1968; falling short of the infamous record of 2001.

Unfortunately, former 9-11 Commission Staff Director, Phil Zelikow, and chief of the National Counter Terrorism Center, John Brennan, tried with some success to confuse the press and suggest that the numbers do not matter. In a deft display of obfuscation and spin Messrs. Zelikow and Brennan made several points. It started with Zelikow’s claim that:

The compilation of data about terrorist attacks is not a required part of the report, but traditionally had been provided by the State Department, going back to the years in which the State Department was basically the public voice of the U.S. Government on international terrorism, generally. . . . But what’s important for our purposes is what the law said the NCTC should do. It said the NCTC was the primary organization for analysis and integration of — and I’m quoting from the law now — “All intelligence possessed or acquired by the United States Government pertaining to terrorism or counterterrorism.” The law further stated that the NCTC would be the United States Government’s “shared knowledge bank on known and suspected terrorists and international terror groups, as well as their goals, strategies, capabilities, and networks of contact and support.” (Phil Zelikow)

State Department’s role as the lead for coordinating international terrorism was established by a National Security Decision Directive signed by President Reagan in early 1986. This was in response to an interagency fight that broke out during an effort to apprehend the terrorists responsible for the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship. While flying over Italy in late 1985 in pursuit of Abu Abbas, a State Department official and a CIA officer argued heatedly over who was in charge of the mission. Recognizing the need for a clear chain of command the Department of State was put in charge of coordinating the efforts of CIA, DOD, and FBI efforts to track and deal with terrorism. The first man put in charge of this effort was L. Paul (Jerry) Bremer.

Mr. Zelikow is misleading the media by asserting that the State Department “traditionally compiled the data”. That is simply not true. The State Department never was in charge of collecting or compiling the statistics. It simply coordinated the process of assembling the data in order to provide the Congress and the American people with a comprehensive view of international terrorist activity. Since 1986 the Counter Terrorism Center at the CIA had the task of compiling the data and writing the narrative analysis. Don’t take my word for it, just ask the former Chiefs of the Counter Terrorism Center starting with Dewey Claridge and ending with Cofer Black.

By splitting the statistics on terrorism from the country reports, Zelikow is creating the kind of stovepiping of information which the 9-11 Commission claimed helped undermine US efforts to detect and defeat Al Qaeda’s effort to launch their suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There is nothing in the new law requiring this move.

John Brennan, the head of the National Counter Terrorism Center, made the unbelievable admission that when the CIA shifted responsibility for counting terrorist incidents to the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) in the fall of 2003 only three part time people were assigned to the task. Brennan said:

To ensure a more comprehensive accounting of terrorist incidents, we in the NCTC significantly increased the level of effort from three part-time individuals to 10 full-time analysts, and we took a number of other steps to improve quality control and database management. This increased level of effort allowed a much deeper review of far more information and, along with Iraq, are the primary reasons for the significant growth in a number of terrorist incidents being reported.

The American people are asked to believe that nobody at TTIC understood in the aftermath of 2001 that we needed to keep a comprehensive count of terrorist events. Implicit in this criticism is a smear on the good work done previously at the Counter Terrorism Center. CTC did not consider counting terrorism events an afterthought. They used a sound methodology of monitoring news media reports, FBIS reports, and cables from US Embassies and Defense Attaches to identify possible acts of international terrorism. An act of violence did not necessarily mean that terrorism was involved. Instead expert analysts from CTC and State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) would meet periodically to review and decide what incidents represented acts of international terrorism.

This process broke down when the responsibility for doing this was shifted from CTC and put under Mr. Brennan’s stewardship at the Terrorist Threat Integration Center in late 2003. Mr. Brennan in fact shares much of the responsibility for the debacle with the statistics that were misreported in the report issued in April 2004. He did not ensure that his part time employees could count.

With the beefed up work force at NCTC we now know that 10 analysts were involved in counting 651 significant international terrorist attacks in 2004. Geez, I guess that means it took each analyst one year to keep track of 65 attacks.

Brennan asks the media and the American people to believe that the rise in attacks is simply the result of better counting by more people. Not true. An independent data source from RAND-MIPT shows a similar dramatic rise in attacks and deaths. This is not an artifice of methodology. Something bad is going on out there.

Two countries account for a major portion of the increased terrorist activity—the Kashmir region of India and Iraq. With respect to Kashmir, it is important to note that since 1998 this area has consistently appeared in the appendix in Patterns of Global Terrorism that described significant incidents. I have used this data in briefing for foreign governments during that period to point out that not only was India being repeatedly attacked by Islamic jihadists (who were funded and trained by Pakistan), but that the people of Kashmir repeatedly suffered one of the highest death tolls of any country in the world from terrorist attacks. The sad fact is that media, and to a lesser extent the U.S. Government, tended to ignore these attacks.

It is worth recalling that the cruise missiles fired by President Clinton in August of 1998 in retaliation for the Al Qaeda bombing of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania struck a camp in Afghanistan and killed members of one of the groups that carried out attacks in the Kashmir as well as two Pakistani intelligence officers. In the war against Islamic extremists Kashmir matters.

Brennan’s response on Iraq is more puzzling:

QUESTION: Do you regard the Iraq numbers that you just gave us — for which, thank you — as comparable? And the reason I ask is that I’ve got to figure that if there’s one piece of real estate that the U.S. intelligence community has devoted enormous resources to in the last two years, it’s got to be — two-and-a-half years — it’s Iraq. Therefore, do you think those figures are comparable, ‘03 to ‘02?
MR. BRENNAN: In terms of what the term you’re using — “comparable” — to sort of denote here, I’m not certain. The rigor that we applied worldwide for the 2004 data also applied to Iraq. So it was Iraq, Kashmir, and others. So that number, I think, is the result of exhaustive search and research on that. Also, as I pointed out, the number of civilians that have come not just from the United States, but also from other countries — the number of individuals who, in fact, are in different places in Iraq that have been involved in some of the attacks that have taken place there, I think that is the reason why, in fact, we’re seeing an increase in that number.

Although Brennan is not certain about the comparability of the numbers we do not have to rely on him. Data maintained by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is reported on at least a weekly basis to the Secretary of Defense, shows clear unambiguous data that the level of terrorist activity in Iraq mushroomed in 2004. In fact, the highest level of attacks ever recorded in Iraq occurred in December 2004.

Iraq is relevant to the threat of international terrorism principally because it is serving as a drawing card for jihadists throughout the Islamic world. I have had recent discussions with senior government officials representing three countries in the Persian Gulf. To a man they were alarmed by the images coming out of Iraq showing US soldiers abusing muslim women and the shooting of unarmed insurgents. The perception of the United States as an invader is inciting terrorism in the region, not quelling it. Several commented on the perceived parallel of the U.S. presence in Iraq as comparable to what the Soviets did in Afghanistan during the 1980s. They worry that we are sowing the seeds of future jihadist terrorism.

The real news from the press conference of Messrs. Zelikow and Brennan is that they have not finished counting the incidents from last year and that the numbers are likely to go up when revised statistics are issued in June. Moreover, both conceded that events in Russia and Philippines, where several hundred were killed, were excluded from the data.

I welcome Mr. Brennan’s commitment to look at the methodology and recommend corrections. The failure to count attacks inside Russia by Chechen separatists, for example, needs to be re-examined. While ten years ago there was no evidence that the Chechen were receiving outside assistance, that is not the case today. In fact Chechen fighters in the battle of Anaconda in Afghanistan in March 2002 killed American soldiers. The Chechen movement has clear economic and military ties to international jihadists. In future reports it would be entirely appropriate to classify as international attacks something carried out by any group with established ties to groups outside of their country.

There is no single statistic that can tell us what is happening in the war on terrorism. Reporting multiple attacks does not necessarily mean that casualties will follow. As Brennan and Zelikow correctly note most of the casualties were caused by a relatively small number of attacks. But, those attacks were carried out by Islamic extremists that have clear ties with Al Qaeda.

In light of this it is breathtaking that someone with Zelikow’s intellect can argue that numbers don’t matter. The following exchange occurred during the Wednesday afternoon press conference:

QUESTION: Um, 651 attacks in 2004, compared to 175 attacks in your report in 2003. That’s a sharp increase in terrorist attacks. What does that tell us about the war on terrorism — the global war on terrorism and the cooperation? . . . .
MR. ZELIKOW: I mean, the short answer is it doesn’t tell us anything about the war on terror. The statistics are simply not valid for any inference about the progress, either good or bad, of American policy. I think that’s the honest answer. If you just look at what the statistics are and what kind of inferences can legitimately be drawn from them, I can’t come up with a defensible inference.

Here’s the bottom line. Numbers do matter. If more people are being killed in Iraq and India then we need to ensure that US policy for combating terrorism is focused on those areas. To pretend that the threat of terrorism is as great in Brazil as in Iraq is delusional. And to pretend that objective facts say nothing about the reality of terrorism perhaps shows us why the US effort to deal with Islamic extremists is going in the wrong direction.

Friends in the intelligence community tell me that Zelikow, when confronted with the higher numbers, tried to have those numbers suppressed. Once word of this leaked out Zelikow shifted gears to damage control and constructed the artificial and misleading explanation that NCTC is now doing something new that was never done before. Oh yeah, and it is mandated by law.

Sadly this simply shows how uninformed Zelikow is about the history of counter terrorism policies and procedures during the last 25 years, notwithstanding his post as staff director of the 9-11 Commission. Maybe this explains why the Commission had such difficulty identifying who failed in their duty to prevent those terrible attacks in September 2001. Phil Zelikow by his own admission has trouble making sense of numbers.

So you thought Barack Obama would bring change to the abuses at CIA? Think again. He’s relying on folks who helped debase and embarrass the CIA. That’s not change I want to believe in.