Tag Archives: George W Bush

Energizing America

January 23, 2006Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Decision Brief No. 06-D 04 2006-01-23

(Washington , D.C.): One week from tomorrow, President Bush has an opportunity to make a truly historically significant State of the Union address. He can do so by setting forth a program for energy security that will play against type for a man from the “Oil Patch,” by charting a course for setting America free of its dependence on oil. The time demands such leadership, the national security requires it and the American people deserve no less.

An Unsustainable Posture

There are a number of compelling reasons for action: For starters, we in the United States , and industrialized world more generally, are funding both sides in the War for the Free World . On the one hand, since we consume far more oil than is available here at home, we are obliged to import most of what we need from abroad. As a practical matter that means enriching with wealth transfers those who are the principal financiers of Islamofascist terror – notably, Saudi Arabia and Iran . And, on the other, we are paying vast sums to protect ourselves against such terror.

Secondly, we have a proven model for doing things differently. We have diversified sources to meet many of our energy needs (for example, coal, nuclear power, hydroelectric and biomass). Yet, our transportation sector remains reliant upon oil – sixty percent of it imported – for the gasoline and diesel fuel on which it runs almost exclusively. This creates a dependency that is as unsustainable as it is strategically perilous, especially as the appetite for oil of our emerging rival, Communist China, continues to skyrocket.

By offering similar “fuel choice” for the Nation’s cars, trucks, buses and aircraft, we can allow them to be powered by alternatives to oil that we can produce at home and/or purchase from governments other than those of the oil-exporting nations, governments that tend to be unstable at best and, in many cases, are trying to kill us.

In fact, millions of Americans already drive vehicles such as the Ford Taurus, the Dodge Caravan and the Chevrolet Silverado truck that can use alcohol fuels (ethanol or methanol) to reduce dramatically, if not eliminate, their consumption of gasoline. It costs around $100 extra to make a car that allows us to choose what fuel we want to use. Just as every car sold in America has seatbelts and airbags, from now on, they should all be flexible fuel vehicles .

An Electrifying Idea

Existing technology allows one other form of energy to serve as a transportation fuel: electricity . Increasingly, American consumers are looking to hybrid vehicles to reduce their transportation operating costs. Those costs can be reduced far more if such vehicles’ batteries can be charged by the electrical grid. In some areas of the country, electricity can be purchased off-peak (that is, when most people would recharge their cars, as they presently do their laptops and cell-phones) for the equivalent of 24 cents per gallon. If the vehicle’s engine is also flexible-fuel compatible, plug-in hybrids can get 500 miles per gallon of gasoline.

Interest in such plug-in hybrids is about to get a further boost, thanks to a national grassroots campaign being kicked off at the National Press Club on Tuesday. Led by Austin, Texas – a place President Bush used to call home – and its public utility, Austin Energy, this initiative is backed by a coalition of cities and counties from across the country, some 100 power utilities, national security experts (including yours truly) and various public policy organizations. The idea is to raise awareness about and demonstrate demand for plug-ins, while encouraging governments at all levels to provide incentives for manufacturers to meet that demand. (For more on this coalition, see www.PluginPartners.com.)

Congressional Initiatives

Enthusiasm for these sorts of “fuel choice” initiatives is also building on Capitol Hill, even in the absence of the sort of strong presidential leadership Mr. Bush can – and should – provide. Late last year, bipartisan efforts modeled on the Set America Free blueprint for energy security (www.SetAmericaFree.org) were unveiled by Senators Joe Lieberman, Sam Brownback and Jeff Sessions and Representatives Jack Kingston, Eliot Engel and Jim Saxton in the Senate and House, respectively. A forceful endorsement of these initiatives in the State of the Union address would clear the way for their enactment without further delay, which must be avoided at all cost.

This is especially true in light of a grim prospect: Forecasts of this season’s hurricane season indicate that it may be, if anything, worse than last year’s. Clearing the way for the introduction and widespread use of alternative fuels – including ethanol imported from Latin America and the Caribbean, where it can be produced cheaply from sugar cane to the benefit of the local economies and ours – is one of the few things the United States can do to prepare for the disruptive effects of such storms on the Nation’s predominantly Gulf Coast-based energy infrastructure.

The Bottom Line

Fortunately, President Bush has begun to signal his support for this sort of approach to energy security. In his radio address last Saturday, he declared: “Rising energy costs are also a concern…so we’re going to continue to work to develop new technologies and alternative and renewable fuels that will make us less dependent on foreign sources of energy.”

This is almost right: In the State of the Union address, Mr. Bush should make it clear that we are going to use and adapt existing technologies, starting now with a requirement that every car sold in America be flexible fuel-compatible and with incentives for: the manufacture and purchase of hybrids and their plug-in variants, greatly increased production of alternative fuels and the necessary (modest) infrastructure modifications. Set America free, Mr. President.

Mortal threat

January 17, 2006Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Suddenly, the Iranian nuclear program is all the buzz. It appears to be nearing the point at which weapons-grade material, if not actual atomic or nuclear weapons, will be in the hands of one of the world’s most dangerous regimes. Given the magnitude of the danger thus posed, it is astounding that the world’s response to date seems confined to rhetorical hand-wringing and diplomatic maneuvering.

To be sure, President Bush and his newly installed German counterpart spent much of their recent summit on the subject. Their entente on the matter evidently will clear the way for referring it to the UN Security Council.

Unfortunately, it seems likely to be subjected there to an open-ended gab-fest. After all, economic sanctions against Iran – the worst punishment most diplomats can imagine – will probably be blocked by the threat of vetoes from Iran ‘s friends in Moscow and Beijing . In any event, U.S. officials are at pains to say that military action is not an option, at least for now.

What, Me Worry?

One can only conclude that this rather flaccid response to the prospect of a nuclear-armed, Islamofascist Iran reflects a sense that the threat thus posed will be somebody else’s problem. Certainly, it is a problem for Israel , which Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared should be "wiped off the map." But since many in the so-called "international community" have little more love than he does for the Jewish State (whether they admit it or not – look at their anti-Israel voting record in the UN), the threat to Israel is unlikely to catalyze action against Iran ‘s mullahocracy.

But what if Iran ‘s nuclear weapons were actually intended to bring about one of Ahmadinejad’s other stated objectives: "a world without America "? Would we indulge in still more talk-a-thons like those of the last two-plus years led by the European Union 3 (Britain, France and Germany) – for which the Iranians have publicly expressed appreciation as "buying time" for their nuclear program?

In fact, there is reason to believe that the Iranian regime is working towards a capability that could destroy America as we know it. A blue-ribbon commission’s report to the Congress last year found that a single nuclear weapon detonated in space high above the United States could unleash an immensely powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP). An EMP wave a million times stronger than the most powerful radio transmitter would damage or destroy the electrical grid and unshielded electronic devices upon which our society utterly depends. The effect (visualized in a short video available at www.WarFooting.com) could be "catastrophic" – possibly reducing America from a 21st Century superpower to a pre-industrial society in the blink of an eye.

Iranian missile tests – including firing a Scud missile off a ship and flying the new Shahab 3 missile in a profile apparently designed to deliver a weapon into space – suggest that the mullahs are seeking an EMP capability. The sort of death and destruction such an attack might precipitate seem consistent with the apocalyptic vision of Shiite extremists, who believe such conditions to be the prerequisite for a messianic age ushered in by the arrival of the "12th imam."

If this is, indeed, what the Iranian regime has in mind, would we wait to act? Would we continue to contract out to the Europeans or the UN the job of protecting our security interests? Would we allow the Israelis – who are under no illusion that their country faces an existential threat from a nuclear-armed Iran – to act alone against a danger we may share?

What Needs to Be Done

The truth of the matter is that we now have no choice but to take several steps:

-First, we must seek to deter an attack on this country with credible, reliable and useable nuclear forces. This will require a resumption of nuclear testing and the introduction of new weapons designed to hold at risk what the Iranian regime holds dear.

-Second, we must field at once missile defenses capable of stopping an Iranian EMP attack. This will require immediately expanding the number of Navy ships with the Aegis fleet air defense system that are equipped to intercept ship-launched ballistic missiles.

-Third, we must take active steps to reduce our nation’s vulnerability to EMP attack. Rep. Roy Blunt has expressed his support for such steps. The other candidates to lead House Republicans are among those national leaders who should give this need priority attention.

-As these measures will take time, it is incumbent upon us to make a concerted effort to help the Iranian people overthrow their government. The regime that threatens us oppresses them. We can – and must – energetically find ways to work against our common foe.

-Finally, we may have no choice but to use military force to disrupt, if not destroy, the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Preparations for doing so should be in train now as this option may need to be exercised far more quickly than some would have us believe.

The Bottom Line

Should such force be necessary, it must be used not only to target the regime’s covert nuclear sites, but also the means by which the Iranian government exercises repressive control over its people (e.g., the security services, religious police, intelligence and communication systems). In so doing, we should make clear our solidarity with the people of Iran and that our fight is with their despotic and malevolent mullahs.

It’s ‘triage,’ stupid

December 28, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Decision Brief No. 05-D 66 2005-12-28

One of the most serious threats we face in this War for the Free World is the possibility that terrorists with radioactive material will find ways to detonate it inside the United States.

Such an attack could involve a “dirty bomb,” capable of contaminating large parts of a city with dangerous levels of radiation, effectively making it uninhabitable for many years. Another possibility is that the perpetrators might have access to a crude atomic device, capable of utterly destroying the targeted community.

How serious are these dangers? The former is more likely than the latter, but neither can be ruled out. We know that al Qaeda is interested in such weapons of mass destruction. There have been persistent reports that plots involving radioactive material in one form or another are afoot.

It is the first responsibility of government to prevent these and other sorts of attacks on this country and its people. Consequently, we should not be surprised that federal authorities have been using various means to detect the presence of radiation in unauthorized places. In fact, if no such efforts were being mounted, those authorities would be derelict.

Yet, last week, US News and World Report precipitated a new firestorm of criticism of the Bush Administration when it disclosed that such a program had indeed been instituted shortly after 9/11. Among the sites where air samples reportedly were taken for the purpose of monitoring radiation levels were a number of “prominent mosques and office buildings” in suburban Washington and five other metropolitan areas. The surveillance reportedly was conducted from public property or publicly accessible spaces without search warrants.

In short order, the disclosure of this highly classified program, conducted by the FBI and the Energy Department’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST), prompted denunciations from organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In a December 23rd press release, CAIR seized upon the published report to promote the idea that Muslims writ large were being subjected to unwarranted government surveillance: “All Americans should be concerned about the apparent trend toward a two-tiered system of justice system, with full rights for most citizens, and another diminished set of rights for Muslims.”

Actually, the sorts of facilities that were reportedly subjected to monitoring were in all likelihood under surveillance not because they are Muslim. Rather, it is probably because they have ties to the radical Islamofascist political ideology promoted by Saudi Arabia?s Wahhabi sect.

Far from engaging in the surveillance of all Muslims, or even Muslims per se, the federal government would appear to be making a focused effort to do its sampling for radioactivity in places known to have ties to Islamist causes and organizations. For example, by some estimates, as many as 80% of the mosques in America have their financing held by Saudi or Saudi-associated institutions.

Typically, such financial support translates into ominous Saudi influence over such decisions as: the installation of Wahhabi-trained imams to lead the congregation; the nature of the curriculum in mosque-associated schools (which may, like Saudi-backed madrassas elsewhere, offer only Koranic education); the choice of material disseminated in the mosques and their schools (including rabidly intolerant and jihadist publications produced by the Saudi government itself); the selection of which congregants will be allowed to make the required pilgrimage to Mecca (known as the haj); and the use of members’ charitable contributions to the mosque (in some cases, these have gone to terrorist organizations).

Observing the air outside such facilities for radioactivity is not dastardly “profiling.” Rather, it is known in the medical lexicon as “triage,” the effort to use limited resources efficiently to minimize the loss of life in emergency situations.

As with other controversies of the moment (notably, National Security Agency wiretaps of international communications involving al Qaeda-connected phone numbers and e-mail addresses in the United States, alleged CIA “secret prisons” in Europe and treatment of terror suspects that they, or the American advocates, might find “degrading”), one thing is clear: The use of such measures is the exception, not the norm.

Moreover, these initiatives have in common a single purpose. They are aimed at preventing another attack in this country by people determined to kill as many of us as possible. The test of whether these sorts of counter-terrorism activities are justified should not be whether they are exactly what we would do in peacetime.

Rather, the question should be: Would we forgive ourselves, and our leaders, if out of an unwillingness to infringe in any way upon civil liberties in time of war we fail to bring such tools to bear, only to discover after another horrific attack occurs that these measures would have enabled it to be prevented?

President Bush and his subordinates are exercising common sense, something generally in greater supply outside the Beltway than inside it. They are worrying about real threats and trying to respond to and mitigate them in responsible ways. While the caviling of Islamist-sympathizers and their lawyers will continue, we had all better hope that the “triage” being sensibly applied today will spare us further, horrific loss of life in the future.

50 Patriot Act supporters warn against Act’s lapse

December 21, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

As a minority of the Senate considers whether to continue to jeopardize reenactment of the Patriot Act, a distinguished group of the legislation’s supporters weighed in. Fifty leaders in the fields of national security, law enforcement, public policy and academia called on the Congress not to allow the expiration of key parts of this "vital tool in our national effort to prevent further terrorist attacks against the United States."

Among the signatories of the attached Open Letter to the congressional leadership were: four former Attorneys General Edwin Meese, Richard Thornburgh, William Barr and John Ashcroft, former National Security Advisor William P. Clark, former Secretaries of Defense James Schlesinger and Caspar Weinberger, Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger, former Solicitors General Judge Robert Bork and Theodore B. Olson, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey and actor Ron Silver.

The letter addresses the adverse national security effects that would be associated with allowing the Patriot Act’s "sunsetted" provisions to lapse. These include:

"The Wall" that impeded information sharing and cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence authorities – which contributed to the Nation’s vulnerability at the time of the 9/11 attacks – will be reconstituted.

The use of wiretaps for terrorist-related activities – including those where the possible use of lethal chemical agents or other weapons of mass destruction or espionage involving computers is suspected – will be precluded.

Wiretaps that prevent terrorist suspects from eluding surveillance by switching phones will no longer available.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may become safe-havens for terrorists, encouraging the Internet’s use for plots aimed at harming Americans.

It will be more difficult to access "pen registers" and business records in connection with terrorism-related investigations than it is with respect to other crimes.

In releasing the Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law’s new letter, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy (which sponsors the Coalition) said: "The distinguished signatories of this letter speak for millions of Americans who understand that the Patriot Act has helped keep the Nation free from attack since 9/11. Its provisions must not be allowed to expire ten days from now. As President Bush and others have observed, the threat against which the Act protects us certainly will not."

In its lead editorial today, the Wall Street Journal observes that, "After 23 congressional hearings with testimony by 60-plus witnesses, both houses passed amended versions of the Patriot Act. The final bill that emerged from the conference committee this month contains more than 30 new civil liberties protections." It goes on to note the irony that the alternative being proposed by opponents of the original act is to perpetuate for the next three months and without these additional protections the legislation they consider to be so defective.

The Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law regards the Patriot Act as a cornerstone of the effort to preserve and protect the American homefront – a critically important battlefield in the War for the Free World. Congress must not allow key elements of that essential building block to be eliminated.

Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law

21 December 2005

The Honorable Dennis Hastert
Speaker of the House
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Minority Leader
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.

The Honorable Bill Frist
Majority Leader
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C.

The Honorable Harry Reid
Minority Leader
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C.

The Honorable James Sensenbrenner
Chairman, House Judiciary Committee
Washington, D.C.

The Honorable John Conyers
House Judiciary Committee
Washington, D.C.

The Honorable Arlen Specter
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
Washington, D.C.

The Honorable Patrick Leahy
Senate Judiciary Committee
Washington, D.C.

Dear Leaders:

In September 2004, many of us wrote an open letter in support of the reenactment of the Patriot Act before the end of this year. We did so out of a conviction that this legislation represents a vital tool in our national effort to prevent further terrorist attacks against the United States.

Our joint letter noted:

"The government’s success to date in preventing another catastrophic attack on the American homeland since September 11, 2001, would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, without the USA Patriot Act. The authorities Congress provided have substantially enhanced the ability of our law enforcement and intelligence officials to prevent, investigate, and prosecute acts of terror. It is an essential law that provides for checks and balances while enabling the government to fight what will, no doubt, be a challenging and prolonged war against terrorists determined to kill us and destroy our society."

These observations remain as valid today as they did then. Clear majorities in the House and Senate agree. Yet, we find ourselves at a point where thanks to opposition from a minority of the Senate – opposition that seems rooted more in partisan posturing than in legitimate differences on substantive matters – key provisions of the Patriot Act may be allowed to lapse. Among these are the following:

Rebuilding "The Wall": The so-called "Wall" that had been allowed, prior to the Patriot Act, to prevent the exchange of information and other cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence personnel must not be reconstituted. Successive inquiries have confirmed that this artificial barrier contributed to the Nation’s vulnerability at the time of the 9/11 attacks. It is unimaginable that, knowing what we now know, we would consciously allow such a grievous impediment to our national security to be reconstituted.

Denying the use of wiretaps for terrorist-related activities: The Patriot Act’s renewal will ensure investigators’ continued ability to obtain authority for wiretaps in cases where the possible use of lethal chemical agents or other weapons of mass destruction or espionage involving computers is suspected. The potential for harm arising from such activities requires that this authority remain on the books.

Preventing roving wiretaps: The Patriot Act allows federal officials, pursuant to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court authority, to track the telecommunications of suspected terrorists, despite their efforts to defeat such monitoring by changing phones or service providers. Do we really want to afford our enemies once again the opportunity to avoid such surveillance?

Re-establishing ISPs as safe-havens for terrorists: One provision of the Patriot Act (Sec. 220) due to expire shortly allowed federal judges to issue nation-wide search warrants so that investigators could examine unopened e-mails stored on an Internet Service Provider’s computer server, even one located outside of the judge’s district. This is a critically important tool in dealing with large ISPs.

Another sunsetted provision (Sec. 212) affords protection to ISPs from lawsuits if they turn over to the authorities customer records that suggest an immediate risk of death or serious physical injury. Since the Patriot Act’s adoption, this provision has prevented the loss of life and will surely do so in the future – unless it is allowed to lapse.

Losing access to "pen registers" and business records: The Patriot Act’s Sections 214 and 215 extend to terrorism-related behavior access already long afforded to the investigation of other crimes. Were these provisions allowed to expire, the preponderance of terrorism investigations would be adversely affected.

The cumulative effect of these and other changes in law that would follow from a failure to reenact the Patriot Act will be to put the Nation at greater risk of terrorist attack. Accordingly, we call upon you and your colleagues to complete action on the conference report at once.

Sincerely,

Dr. Mark Albrecht, former Executive Secretary, White House National Space Council
Morris J. Amitay, Esq., Vice Chair, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
John D. Ashcroft, former Attorney General, former United States Senator and former Governor of Missouri
David Ayres, former Chief of Staff to the Attorney General
Dr. Thomas G. Barnes, Professor of History and Law, University of California, Berkeley
William Barr, former Attorney General
William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education, former Director Office of National Drug Control Policy and Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute
Bradford A. Berenson, former Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush and Co-Founder of Citizens for the Common Defense
Robert H. Bork, former acting Attorney General, former Solicitor General and former Circuit Court of Appeals Judge
Dr. Stanley C. Brubaker, Professor of Political Science, Colgate University
William P. Clark, former National Security Advisor, former Secretary of Interior, former California Supreme Court Justice
Robert J. Cleary, former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and Southern District of Illinois
Barbara Comstock, former Director of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice
Cesar V. Conda, former Assistant for Domestic Policy to Vice President Cheney
Viet Dinh, former Assistant Attorney General
Richard A. Falkenrath, former Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Homeland Security Advisor
Vincent E. Falter, Major General, USA, (Ret)
Frank Gaffney, former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense and President of the Center for Security Policy
Todd Gaziano, Director, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, the Heritage Foundation
Fred Gedrich, former State and Defense Department official
Steven J. Greer, Command Sergeant Major, US Army, (Ret)
Peter Heussy, President, National Defense University Foundation
Mark Holman, former Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security
Dr. Robert Kaufman, Professor of Political Science, Pepperdine University
Jack Kemp, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Co-Chairman of FreedomWorks
Frederick J. Kroesen, General, USA, (Ret)
Robert S. Khuzami, former Prosecutor, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
Dr. Peter Leitner, GMU National Center for Biodefense, Higgins Counter Terrorism Research Center
Dr. Douglas Macdonald, Professor of Political Science, Colgate University
Heather MacDonald, Fellow, Manhattan Institute
Clifford D. May, President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Andrew C. McCarthy, former Prosecutor, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
Tidal W. McCoy, former Acting Secretary of the Air Force
Edwin Meese, former Attorney General and Counselor to the President
Larry A. Mefford, former FBI Executive Assistant Director, Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence
Theodore B. Olson, former Solicitor General of the United States
Edward L. Rowny, former Ambassador and Lieutenant General USA (Ret.)
James R. Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense, former Secretary of Energy and former Director of Central Intelligence
Gary Schmitt, Resident Scholar and Director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Program on Advanced Strategic Studies
Dr. William Schneider, Jr., former Under Secretary of State, Department of State
Dr. Dennis Showalter, Professor of History, Colorado College
Ron Silver, Actor and former president of Actors’ Equity
Dr. Joseph M. Skelly, Professor of History, College of Mount Saint Vincent
George J. Terwilliger III, former Deputy Attorney General
Richard T Thornburgh, former Attorney General and Governor of Pennsylvania
Dr. William R. Van Cleave, Professor Emeritus, Defense & Strategic Studies Department, Southwest Missouri State University
Caspar W. Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and former Director, Office of Management and Budget
William F. Weld, former Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division and Governor of Massachusetts
R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence
Dr. John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General

A war to the death

December 19, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

The news from Iraq today features a video of a terrorist murdering a man believed to be a kidnapped American civilian. The victim was trying to help rebuild that country. His cold-blooded execution is a reminder of what our Islamofascist enemies have in mind for all of us, non-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Perhaps the murder was committed by putting a bullet into our countryman’s head, rather than removing it, in deference to the recently disclosed injunction from an al Qaeda leader to one of his franchisees in Iraq that beheadings have proven counterproductive to the cause.

The question now occurs: Will the image of a man’s brains being blown out prove less discomfiting to American viewers than that of a decapitation? Or will they be shaken from their growing complacency by this latest reminder of what we are up against? Will this episode provide vital context for them, and their leaders, at a time when many are indulging in increasing paroxysms about the steps President Bush and his administration have taken to protect us against such enemies?

Surveilling Possible Enemies at Home

The latest example is the swivet produced by the New York Times’ publication on Friday of an article disclosing that the National Security Agency had been monitoring the international calls and e-mails of certain unnamed people in this country without warrants. The newspaper had sat on the leak of this highly classified program for a year, then calculatedly released it on the day the Senate was scheduled to vote on the reenactment of the Patriot Act.

The reaction was predictable: Critics of the Act seized upon this revelation to denounce the Bush Administration as Big Brother, evidently viewing it as a more serious threat to American citizens and the rule of law than the enemies we need the Patriot Act to defeat. As a result, critical parts of that legislation – including provisions allowing information-sharing between intelligence and law enforcement agencies that have been recognized post-9/11 to be vital to our security – may be allowed to lapse at year’s end.

Lost in the brouhaha has been a highly relevant fact. The numbers and e-accounts that were monitored in this manner were discovered in places like the hard-drives and phone books of captured al Qaeda operatives. This possible connection to terrorists may or may not have been sufficient "probable cause" to obtain orders for wiretaps, even from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts.

Yet, the common sense brought to bear on such questions by most Americans – although not necessarily civil libertarians (especially those of the far Left and far Right) and Democrats angling for partisan advantage – argues for doing just as the President has done: Undertake this sort of selective monitoring in order to protect us against murderous enemies bent on our destruction, some of whom may be operating in this country. They may even be, as was true of the London bombers last July, legally present and, in some cases, citizens. Conferring Constitutional Rights on Terrorists?

Common sense seems to be in no less peril with respect to another frenzy of the moment – the posturing about our national attitude towards torture. The President, Secretary of State and others have made clear that American policy eschews the use of torture. We are, however, about to have adopted an amendment by Senator John McCain, that precludes as well any activity involving terror suspects that can be construed as "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment.

The implications of the McCain amendment, which President Bush was obliged to endorse last week, could also prove to be highly detrimental to the war effort. Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who successfully tried terrorism cases prior to 9/11, warns in a powerful essay distributed by National Review Online that:

McCain borrows the term cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (CID) from the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT). When the Senate ratified UNCAT in 1994, it enacted a significant reservation: the CID terms were limited to what was already covered under U.S. law by three Bill of Rights provisions: the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution.
This caveat reduced CID to a virtual nullity. The Bill of Rights does not apply to non-Americans situated outside U.S. territory. Under current law, UNCAT’s CID terms are thus unavailing to alien enemy combatants captured and held in foreign countries during wartime. Such captives may not be tortured, but CID poses no legal obstacle to aggressive tactics that fall short of torture. Tactics that yield intelligence which saves the lives of American citizens and soldiers.

Mr. McCarthy warns that the effect of the McCain amendment, however, could be to supplant this sensible attitude with one that affords terrorist suspects the protections of our Bill of Rights, including the privilege against self-incrimination:

If that is the case, then al Qaeda terrorists captured on overseas battlefields in the war on terror would have to be given Miranda rights before they could be interrogated. Forget about water-boarding. They would actually have to be advised that they are under no obligation to speak to interrogators, that if they do speak their statements can be used against them as evidence in court, and that they are entitled to have a lawyer – paid for by the American people – present and assisting them at all times during questioning."

The Bottom Line

In the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln infuriated civil libertarians by suspending for the duration the touchstone right of habeas corpus. It appears that in this War for the Free World, we are about to suspend common sense – at least until the next, possibly catastrophic attack demonstrates anew what the latest terrorist murder in Iraq showed all-too-graphically: We will enjoy no civil liberties if we are destroyed.

The NYT goes to war-and President Bush fights back

December 17, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Decision Brief No. 05-D 64 2005-12-17

(Washington, D.C.): On December 16, the Nation’s so-called “paper of record” joined the War for the Free World. Unfortunately, the New York Times entered the fray on the side of America’s enemies.

In a lengthy front-page article, the Times disclosed that, shortly after 9/11, President Bush had authorized the surveillance of certain individuals’ international phone calls and e-mails in which one of the parties was on American soil – without seeking warrants for such monitoring. The newspaper not only gave this revelation its most sensational spin – “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts” read the headline. It deliberately held the publication of this report for one year after being told the effect would be to damage national security, then published it on the day the Senate was scheduled to vote on the reenactment of the Patriot Act.

By so doing, the Times has compromised a highly sensitive intelligence program, possibly jeopardized the prosecution of individuals whose terrorist-related activities were discovered in the course of the surveillance it made possible and created the unfounded impression that Americans in general are at risk of such monitoring. Predictably, this irresponsible action caused some in the Senate to recoil from approving the reenactment of the Patriot Act – as though that legislation was somehow involved.

The President Responds

President Bush responded to this assault on his leadership, authority and integrity with what may be the most important presidential Saturday morning radio address since Ronald Reagan began the practice two decades ago. In it, he reminded the American people why the Patriot Act was important, then called for its immediate reenactment (emphasis added throughout):

As President, I took an oath to defend the Constitution, and I have no greater responsibility than to protect our people, our freedom, and our way of life. On September the 11th, 2001, our freedom and way of life came under attack by brutal enemies who killed nearly 3,000 innocent Americans. We’re fighting these enemies across the world. Yet in this first war of the 21st century, one of the most critical battlefronts is the home front. And since September the 11th, we’ve been on the offensive against the terrorists plotting within our borders.

One of the first actions we took to protect America after our nation was attacked was to ask Congress to pass the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act tore down the legal and bureaucratic wall that kept law enforcement and intelligence authorities from sharing vital information about terrorist threats. And the Patriot Act allowed federal investigators to pursue terrorists with tools they already used against other criminals. Congress passed this law with a large, bipartisan majority, including a vote of 98-1 in the United States Senate.

Since then, America‘s law enforcement personnel have used this critical law to prosecute terrorist operatives and supporters, and to break up terrorist cells in New York, Oregon, Virginia, California, Texas and Ohio. The Patriot Act has accomplished exactly what it was designed to do: it has protected American liberty and saved American lives.

Yet key provisions of this law are set to expire in two weeks. The terrorist threat to our country will not expire in two weeks. The terrorists want to attack America again, and inflict even greater damage than they did on September the 11th. Congress has a responsibility to ensure that law enforcement and intelligence officials have the tools they need to protect the American people.

The House of Representatives passed reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Yet a minority of senators filibustered to block the renewal of the Patriot Act when it came up for a vote yesterday. That decision is irresponsible, and it endangers the lives of our citizens. The senators who are filibustering must stop their delaying tactics, and the Senate must vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act. In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment.

The President then went on to address the New York Times leak and the facts concerning the surveillance program he authorized shortly after 9/11:

To fight the war on terror, I am using authority vested in me by Congress, including the Joint Authorization for Use of Military Force, which passed overwhelmingly in the first week after September the 11th. I’m also using constitutional authority vested in me as Commander-in-Chief.

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.

This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday, the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.

Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.

As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, it was clear that terrorists inside the United States were communicating with terrorists abroad before the September the 11th attacks, and the commission criticized our nation’s inability to uncover links between terrorists here at home and terrorists abroad . Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn’t know they were here, until it was too late.

The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September the 11th helped address that problem in a way that is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities. The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time. And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.

The activities I authorized are reviewed approximately every 45 days . Each review is based on a fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland. During each assessment, previous activities under the authorization are reviewed. The review includes approval by our nation’s top legal officials, including the Attorney General and the Counsel to the President. I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups.

The NSA’s activities under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice Department and NSA’s top legal officials, including NSA’s general counsel and inspector general. Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it. Intelligence officials involved in this activity also receive extensive training to ensure they perform their duties consistent with the letter and intent of the authorization.

This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties. And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I’m the President of the United States.

The Bottom Line

The decision by nearly all Senate Democrats (with the laudable exception of Senators Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who voted with all but four Republicans to extend the Patriot Act) to filibuster the reenactment of this legislation’s key provisions is further evidence that official Washington is suffering from an outbreak of unseriousness about the magnitude of the danger we face.

Defending a free society in time of war – especially a war against a totalitarian ideology like Islamofascism, which has taken hold in our own country and is adept at exploiting our civil liberties against us – requires a balancing act between infringements on our rights and providing for our security.

The President appears to have struck that balance sensibly and he should be supported in his efforts to do so – both with respect to the Patriot Act and the need for its reenactment, and with respect to the classified surveillance of individuals in this country with direct links to terrorists.

Secure America

November 28, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Decision Brief No. 05-D 61 2005-11-28

(Washington, D.C.): President Bush is a man on a mission this week. He is seeking to reinvigorate his leadership and rehabilitate his public standing by addressing an issue of enormous import to the country and of no less concern to its citizens: the insecurity of our borders and the dysfunction of our immigration policies.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Bush will benefit politically from his visits to border states and meetings with those charged with protecting them and the rest of us from illegal aliens – many of whom are looking for economic opportunity, but some of whom may well be terrorists.

The Secure America Pledge

More importantly, whether the country will benefit from the President’s current, intense focus on immigration-related issues will depend on whether he agrees with the following ten principles:

1. The purpose of U.S. immigration policy is to benefit the citizens of the United States.

2. Since immigration policy can profoundly shape a country, it should be set by deliberate actions , not by accident or acquiescence, with careful consideration to ensure that it does not adversely affect the quality of life of American citizens and their communities.

3. Immigration policy should be based on and adhere to the rule of law. Immigration laws must be enforced consistently and uniformly throughout the United States.

4. Non-citizens enter the United States as guests and must obey the rules governing their entry. The U.S. government must track the entry, stay, and departure of all visa holders to ensure that they comply fully with the terms of their visas or to remove them if they fail to comply.

5. The borders of the United States must be physically secured at the earliest possible time. An effective barrier to the illegal entry of both aliens and contraband is vital to U.S. security.

6. Those responsible for facilitating illegal immigration shall be sought, arrested, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law and shall forfeit any profits from such activity. This applies to smugglers and traffickers of people, as well as to those involved in the production, procurement, distribution, or use of fraudulent or counterfeit documents.

7. U.S. employers shall be given a simple and streamlined process to determine whether employees are legally eligible to work. Employers who obey the law shall be protected both from liability and from unfair competition by those who violate immigration law. The violators shall be subject to fines and taxes in excess of what they would have paid to employ U.S. citizens and legal residents for the same work.

8. Those who enter or remain in the United States in violation of the law shall be detained and removed expeditiously. Illegal aliens shall not accrue any benefit, including U.S. citizenship, as a result of their illegal entry or presence in the United States.

9. No federal, state, or local entity shall reward individuals for violating immigration laws by granting public benefits or services, or by issuing or accepting any form of identification, or by providing any other assistance that facilitates unlawful presence or employment in this country. All federal and all law-enforcement agencies shall cooperate fully with federal immigration authorities and shall report to such authorities any information they receive indicating that an individual may have violated immigration laws.

10. Illegal aliens currently in the United States may be afforded a one-time opportunity to leave the United States without penalty and seek permission to reenter legally if they qualify under existing law. Those who do not take advantage of this opportunity will be removed and permanently barred from returning.

These principles are contained in a platform called the “Secure America” Pledge. The pledge has been endorsed by more than thirty organizations concerned with the national interest and the threat posed to it by insecure borders and illegal immigration. The hope is that every serving or would-be office-holder in the country will be asked whether they support the Secure America principles, starting with the President of the United States. (For more on this initiative, see War Footing: Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World (Naval Institute Press, 2005)).

Applying the Pledge

By so doing, the voters can establish at last whether they are supporting candidates who will represent their commonsense views on such things as:

-the need to secure our borders – starting with a fence along the U.S.-Mexico boundary (see www.WeNeedaFence.com) and the augmentation with military personnel of those who patrol it to prevent futher millions from entering this country illegally every year;

-the imperative of cracking down on employers who hire illegal aliens;

-ensuring that we are at least as rigorous about monitoring who comes into and leaves this country as are video rental stores and credit card companies about the status of their products;

-calling on all law enforcement agencies to support the mission of our sorely overstretched immigration authorities; and

-dramatically tightening up on visa procedures, not least by abandoning the “visa lottery” that amounts to playing Russian roulette with terrorist applicants.

The Bottom Line

If George W. Bush can now embrace such principles and pledge to work for their implementation in the foregoing ways, he has an excellent chance of securing anew the the support of the American people. Without this commitment, he is unlikely to do so – and, worse yet, he will be unable to fulfill his first duty, which is to secure America.

Get real about China

November 15, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

This week, President Bush will be visiting the People’s Republic of China. As with all such high-level diplomatic missions, he will doubtless be tempted to accentuate the few, putatively positive aspects of the Sino-American relationship, and gloss over the increasing number of negative ones. Should that happen, history may record this as a moment when the failure to speak truth to the Chinese Communists in power in Beijing condemned the two nations to conflict down the road.

That grim prospect might just be avoided if Mr. Bush reads in the course of his visit to the Far East the report on this important bilateral relationship issued last week by the congressionally mandated, blue-ribbon US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Its bipartisan conclusion is that "over the past year, on balance, the trends in the US-China relationship have negative implications for our long-term economic and security interests."

The Commission backs up this finding with nearly 170 pages of analysis based on fourteen hearings. It represents the only "second opinion" on China that is both informed by full access to classified information and available to the American people, as well as their elected representatives. This panel performs a real public service and its conclusions deserve careful scrutiny – by President Bush, as well as the rest of us.

Such a review is made all the more necessary insofar as the US-China Commission notes the United States lacks a "coherent strategic framework…grounded in a clear-eyed understanding of how the Chinese military and political leadership leads the country, how decisions are made and how their economy works….China is an authoritarian regime and a non-market command economy still controlled by the Communist Party. The central goal of its leadership is maintaining its own power, at all costs."

It flows from this basic insight that we must be concerned about such developments as:

-The persistent assertion by the Chinese leadership to their political cadre and military officers that America is the "main enemy" and that war with the United States is "inevitable."

-The Chinese government is working not only to secure energy resources from all over the world to meet its yawning needs (notably for oil, coal and natural gas). It is doing so in a way that seems intent on denying such resources to the United States and other global competitors.

-The PRC’s predatory trade practices and intellectual property theft continue in violation of past commitments and World Trade Organization obligations. In part, the result is a bilateral trade deficit that has increased "over 140 percent in only four years." The wealth thus garnered by China is being used – among other things – to fuel the plundering of America’s remaining high technology industrial base and the utter liquidation of our manufacturing sector.

-Wealth transfers from the United States are underwriting Beijing’s ominous build-up of its armed forces, as well. The Commission puts it this way: "China is engaged in a major military modernization program, the motives of which are opaque and unexplained. It is building a modern navy and air force, upgrading its nuclear-armed ICBM force and beginning to operate in a power-projection mode. It has markedly expanded its information warfare operations to a level that is clearly designed to disrupt American systems."

-The Commission has also helpfully warned about the PRC’s increasing practice of bringing economic dinosaurs – its biggest "banks" and other state-owned enterprises – to the U.S. capital markets. By so doing, it is offloading the financing of what are otherwise unsustainable entities onto American investors. As a result, the latter are unwittingly helping to underwrite the unsavory activities of such enterprises – including: China’s proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, arms build-up, environmental depradation, technology theft (including the Navy’s Aegis fleet air defense system and nuclear warhead designs), espionage and slave-labor manufacturing operations, etc.

-Finally, China is engaged in activities that pose a more immediate danger. Two of its nationals were recently arrested trying to sell Chinese-made QW-2 man-portable surface-to-air missiles in this country. Had they succeeded, the result could have given rise to a potentially grave threat to American airliners. And Chinese micro-satellites are being readied to attack our space assets as another, potentially devastating manifestation of Beijing’s pursuit of what the Pentagon calls "asymmetric warfare" capabilities against the United States.

-The argument will be made that President Bush should refrain from expressing too much concern about these developments, lest he aggravate relations with the PRC and jeopardize the help they are giving us on denuclearizing North Korea and fighting terror. The truth is that we are getting precious little help from Beijing on either of these fronts. The Chinese could bring intolerable pressure to bear on Pyongyang if they wanted to, and have not. Their $70 billion energy deal with Iran is hardly supportive of our efforts to counter one of the most dangerous state-sponsors of terror.

In fact, few things would be more dangerous than to continue to give Communist China a pass as it becomes ever more brazen about its strategic goal: to displace this country as the world’s leading economic power and to defeat us militarily, if necessary. Mr. Bush must use the occasion of his visit to China to disabuse its leaders of the notion that we are indifferent to that agenda, or unwilling to resist it. The valuable US-China Commission has laid out in its fifty-seven recommendations things we should be doing now. The President should make clear that we are fully prepared to go farther, if need be, by helping the Chinese people liberate themselves from a regime that oppresses them and increasingly threatens us.

The UN-internet

October 18, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

(Washington, D.C.): Every once in a while an idea so goofy comes along that one is inclined to dismiss it as just absurd rumor. More often than not, it seems, such ideas involve the United Nations and the ambitions of some of its staff and member nations to convert the “world body” into a world government. However hare-brained the scheme, if the UN is involved, it is wise to prepare for the worst.

‘Globotaxes’

A case in point is the idea that the United Nations should be able to fund its operations by collecting international taxes (“globotaxes”), starting with international airline tickets. This notion has been kicking around Turtle Bay for some time but now it is beginning to gain traction.

One particularly ambitious version has in mind having the UN charge a couple of pennies for every dollar’s worth of international currency transactions. By some estimates, this globotax could net the UN $13 trillion each year in revenues. Why even the kleptocratic international civil servants of Oil-for-Food notoriety could manage to cobble together a world government with that kind of income stream!

Fortunately, the dangers inherent in such wooly-headed plans for using international taxation without representation to float the UN’s boat, has precipitated strong opposition in the US Congress. In July, at the initiative of the now-Acting Majority Leader, Roy Blunt (Republican of Missouri), the House of Representatives adopted an amendment that would bar the US from supporting or being subjected to globotaxes. Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe has taken the lead on a similar piece of legislation in the Senate.

The need for such a statutory prohibition is becoming more obvious by the day. Despite expressions of concern (including a letter Sen. Inhofe and sixteen of his colleagues sent to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in September), we have already taken several steps on the proverbial slippery slope.

Specifically, President Bush was induced to agree to a recent “Outcome Document” issued at the UN’s “World Summit 2005” last month. It acknowledged a France-led effort to begin having “voluntary” “solidarity contributions” imposed on international airline tickets to raise money for development assistance. A globotax by any other name still stinks.

Carpe Internet

As it happens, visions of vast new revenue streams have helped spawn an even more preposterous, and ominous, UN initiative. The so-called “international community” – notably, minus for the moment at least the United States of America – has decided it needs to “control” (and presumably, tax) the Internet. This information infrastructure, it will be recalled, was invented, developed and made available gratis to the world at the expense of the American taxpayer. For years, a U.S. government-created private corporation has been responsible for managing the Internet (not to be confused with “controlling” it) on behalf of the entire planet.

Now, the UN wants to have not one but two international committees control this information superhighway – the first in charge of “public policy” and the other responsible for “coordination.” Turning the very essence of an entrepreneurial, highly adaptive endeavor like the Internet over to stultified bureaucracies would be bad enough. Putting it in the hands of those like Communist China, Cuba and Iran who insist henceforth on having a say in its management is a formula for destroying this engine for freedom and economic growth.

To its credit, the Bush Administration has thus far adamantly opposed any change in how and by whom the Internet is run. Quite sensibly, it has taken the view that if ever there were a case where “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applied, it’s here. Still, in this post-Iraq era when the U.S. is supposed to be demonstrating at every turn its commitment to “multilateralism,” the UN might just get what it wants. Here is the way Britain’s reflexively anti-American Guardian newspaper put it in an October 6th article headlined “Breaking America’s Grip on the Net”:

…the [American] refusal to budge only strengthened opposition, and now the world’s governments are expected to agree [to] a deal to award themselves ultimate control [over the Internet]. It will be officially raised at a UN summit of world leaders next month and, faced with international consensus, there is little the U.S. government can do but acquiesce. (Emphasis added.)

Just Say ‘No’

Actually, there would appear to be one other thing we could do: Tell the UN to fuggedaboutit. The United States has no intention of surrendering a tool that has done vastly more to enrich and empower the world’s people and to encourage the spread of freedom than the United Nations has ever done.

The alternative is not simply to entrust to the tender mercies of the international bureaucrats and malevolent dictators the opportunity to start taxing internet transactions. That would be objectionable enough, as it would (like all globotaxation schemes) help make the United Nations less dependent on member states’ dues. The withholding of such dues amounts, as a practical matter, to the only instrument available to compel even a measure of UN accountability.

Putting the United Nations in charge of the Internet would have an even worse effect, though: It would surely result in the eventual, if not the quite precipitous, demise of freedom’s greatest force-multiplier.

The Bottom Line

This is as good a line to draw with the UN as any. We will not submit to the world-governing ambitions of globocrats and the generally despotic regimes whose ideas, absurd or simply malevolent, have one thing in common: strengthening the United Nations at the expense of American sovereignty and power. Thanks, but no thanks.

Out of control

October 11, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

(Washington, D.C.): Sen. Jesse Helms once famously complained that the problem with the State Department is simple. With all its “country desks” (whose job usually seems to be to represent the interests of their respective nations during U.S. policy-making deliberations), the Department is missing one: the American desk. As a result, the view from Foggy Bottom is all too often not what is best for the United States but what will maintain our cordial relations with other countries, generally on their terms.

‘Vision Thing’

Well, we could sure use an American desk at the State Department right now. In its absence, unless President Bush gets personally involved, the Department’s lawyers representing the strongly held views of some foreign governments are going to get some U.S. GIs killed, and probably compel them unnecessarily to kill Iraqis and perhaps others, in this War for the Free World.

Here’s the background. In the early 1990s, Mr. Bush’s father decided he was going to rid the world of all chemical weapons. The result was the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) that purported to do just that. At the time, even its supporters acknowledged that the CWC was unverifiable and unlikely to be faithfully implemented by all its parties (notably, the Russians and Chinese) – to say nothing of nations like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq who declined to sign up.

Still, President George H.W. Bush wanted such a treaty. So the rest of the government went along, including the U.S. military. The Pentagon was only too happy to get rid of a vast stockpile of obsolete, largely unusable and increasingly dangerous chemical munitions on the pretext that our potential adversaries would not have such weapons, either.

Riot Control Agents

While the armed services were willing to go that far, there was a show-stopper as far as they were concerned. They balked at the insistence of some of our negotiating partners (including some of our European allies) to the effect that the Chemical Weapons Convention had to ban the use of riot control agents (RCAs), as well. That is a fancy term for non-lethal substances like tear gas.

Now, police forces all across America wouldn’t dream of being without tear gas, pepper spray and the like. They understand that the use of such agents can enable the authorities to control an ugly situation with a minimum of violence. In their absence, lethal force might have to be used in circumstances where that would not only be undesirable, but possibly highly counterproductive.

Such products have also long been marketed to consumers in this country for personal protection. Communities that do not allow their residents to carry guns recognize that little canisters of these non-lethal agents are legitimate means of self-defense. They are sufficiently domesticated that you can buy ones that can be clipped onto a key chain or put in a purse.

Just don’t try putting their military counterpart in the kit bags of our troops in dangerous places like Iraq or Afghanistan. Why? Because the U.S. State Department has decided that the use of RCAs by our forces in the field would violate the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention.

An ‘Unacceptable Price to Pay for a CWC’

Never mind that the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell – who subsequently would, himself, push cookies at the State Department for the incumbent President Bush – laid down the law to his father: In 1992, as the CWC was being negotiated, Gen. Powell declared: “Non-lethal riot control agents provide a morally correct option to achieve defensive military objectives without having to resort to the unnecessary loss of innocent lives. Sacrificing such an option would be an unacceptable price to pay for a CW treaty.”

This position was formally endorsed by Bush ’41. Even though the Convention prohibits “the use of riot control agents as a method of warfare,” George Herbert Walker Bush made clear that he interpreted that obligation to be consistent with then-existing U.S. policy dating back to the Ford Administration, which permitted the defensive use of RCAs in four different contexts “to save lives.”

It is instructive to see what the State Department lawyers are now arguing our troops can’t do, despite the following applications approved in Mr. Ford’s Executive Order 11850:

“(a) Use of riot control agents in riot control situations in areas under direct and distinct U.S. military control, to include controlling rioting prisoners of war.
“(b) Use of riot control agents in situations in which civilians are used to mask or screen attacks and civilian casualties can be reduced or avoided.
“(c) Use of riot control agents in rescue missions in remotely isolated areas, of downed aircrews and passengers, and escaping prisoners.
“(d) Use of riot control agents in rear echelon areas outside the zone of immediate combat to protect convoys from civil disturbances, terrorists and paramilitary organizations.”

In due course, Bill Clinton accepted this formulation, as well, when it became a non-negotiable Senate precondition for approval of the CWC. And it was enshrined in the resolution of ratification that body ultimately adopted.

Never mind. The American-desk-free State Department insists the U.S. military would be violating the Chemical Weapons Convention if it uses RCAs. As a result, it is not doing so. And State’s lawyers are adamantly resisting executive or legislative branch efforts (the latter being well led by Sen. John Ensign, Republican of Nevada) that would show them to be dead wrong.

The Bottom Line

The question is: How many GIs and/or innocent civilians are going to have to wind up unnecessarily dead because the riot-control agents that might have saved their lives couldn’t be used, thanks to some out-of-control State Department lawyers?