The First Duty is to Remember

This is a repost of something I wrote 3 years ago, commemorting the events of 25 years ago today in Beirut, Lebannon. (I did change the "22 years ago" to 25 today)

Here is a line to the online Beirut Memorial, which was offline for a while but seems to be back up and running.

The title to this post is a link to a list that has great meaning to me. If you believe the War on Terror started on 9/11, you definitely need to follow the link, and remember, it started long before that. (I changed it on 10/24/05, after finding a wonderful entry in a guestbook about that day).

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25 years ago today was my very first morning waking up on a Navy ship. I was onboard the USS Iwo Jima, waiting for a flight to my ship, the USS New Jersey floating around off the coast of Lebanon.

I didn't get to wake up to a bugle, or reveille, or some droll thing like that. Instead I was shaken out of a sound sleep, and asked what type blood I had, because they needed donations.

My blood type wasn't necessary, so instead I was sent to the flight deck, and told to unload helo's. That was the first time I had a chance to ask "What the hell's going on", and was told the Marine barracks had been destroyed by some kind of bomb.

When the helo's started landing we were told where to go, two at a time, and grab a stretcher. Believe me, this was not what I'd expected when I joined the Navy.

I don't know how many stretchers I carried, I only specifically remember one, that's because it was a SEAL I'd had a few beers with a couple of days earlier in Sicily, while we waited for a flight. I do know that medical overflow on the Iwo Jima held about 100 people, and it was pretty full.

Later that evening I was asked if I wanted to go to "the beach" and help with the search. I couldn't do it. I'd seen more death, and maiming in the first 10 hours I was awake that day than I had in 18 previous years (or the 23 since), and the idea of going and looking for people in ruble just wasn't working. Instead, I spent the next two hours on the fantail of the ship, alternating between crying and puking.

For the next two nights I slept in a Marine berth, directly above the wounded jarheads, sailors, and soldiers, listening to their pain, wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into.

On 25 October I finally got a flight off of Iwo to my actual duty station, USS New Jersey. I will say I took great satisfaction in the fact that on December 14th we fired our 16" guns on some positions ashore. I was even happier in February 1984, when we fired 288 rounds on my watch. We completely depleted the stores for turret one that night, and had to give the duties to #2.

241 were killed 10/23/1983, hundreds others injured, many families destroyed, I will never forget them, you shouldn't either.

For those of you who believe George Bush or any other American is to blame for the "War on Terror", get a clue, the war started much earlier. It started even before my first hand experience, in April of 1983 when the US Embassy was bombed in Beirut killing 63, including 17 Americans.

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10/23/08
I also wanted to note in here, that for many years I was kind of a PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) doubter. I thought that "hey, I'd been through some trauma, and I'm okay", so folks must be whining. Then one night last year, The Travel Channel replayed Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" episode filmed in Beirut on 12 July 2006. For those who've forgetten, a new war started there on that day.

Seeing the images of the same types of landing craft I watched there for months, the same type helicopters (we haven't upgraded many) and shells going off in the same skyline during the evactuation caused me to start shaking, crying, and finally to turn the TV off. I didn't sleep right for the next few nights, and still haven't watched the whole episode. Some day.

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Hating History

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush told the Israeli lawmakers. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." George Bush to the Isreali Parliment (from the Washington Post)

Some folks are very upset by the above remark made yesterday during Israel's 60th Anniversary celebration. Evidently, pointing out historically correct analogies to today's world bothers the current group of appeasers, known mostly as Democrats here in the US.

If you read it, you'll see no names, no political parties, no groups are named, other than the Nazi's, yet the Democratic party, from the top down, called it a shot at them collectively, and Barack Obama, specifically.

Hillary Clinton denounced the remark, but is probably thankful that he didn't use more recent examples to make his point. The sell out to North Korea in the 1990's, providing tons of food, heating oil, and reactor technology for power generation didn't stop them from developing a nuclear weapon. Instead, it gave the North Korean army tons of food and fuel, while millions starved and froze to death in their country.

The problem with the appeaser position, that we can negotiate an end to terrrorism, be it in general, or against Israel is that you need both sides to be willing to concede on a major point. In the case of Israel and a Palestinian state, that both have a right to exist.

The US, and world in general, through the Oslo Accords, the "Road Map" strategy, and countless other negotiations have agreed that a Palestinian State should be an end goal. Iran, Hamas, Syria and general Palestinian population however, still hold that Israel should be wiped out. So what is the beginning position for negotiating with them? Do the Democrats believe if only they were listened to, this could all be over? If that's the case, then why, from 1993-2001 didn't all these problems go away when they were in power?

The Camp David Accords don't provide any help in this, situation. Egypt went into those negotiations with a grudging willingness to accept that Israel was there to stay. There is no such willingness on the part of Iran or Syria (Hama's bankers) to accept that point, so there is little room for negotiation with them.

Barack Obama wonders why he has such a low standing in the Jewish community, not seeing that appeasing leaders like Ahmadinejad of Iran fuels their anger towards him.

John McCain, to his credit, stood by Bush's comments, and even fired a few shots at Obama and the appeasement crowd. He gets that fact that until the Iran's of the world submit to a few major points; like the existence of Israel, and the ending of state sponsoring of terrorism; there is no place for negotiation with them.

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Do You Feel as Safe?

Nancy Pelosi say's that as of 12:00 this morning you were just as safe as you were at 11:59pm last night (Eastern Standard Time). However, that one minute was a big one. In that minute most of the intelligence collections folks in the US lost a lot of leeway in how they collect intelligence.

As I wrote last Monday, some Democrats, namingly Speaker Pelosi are more interested in protecting lawyers and terrorists than they are you. Evidently those Democrats are in the House, since the Senate passed a terrorist surveillence bill by a veto proof majority (68-29) earlier in the week, and sent it to the House. The Speaker refused to allow it to come to the floor, for a vote though. Maybe she's worried about being embarrassed by the outcome, which according to a number of Congressmen would have been along the same lines as the Senate vote.
The big sticking point for Pelosi, as I stated Monday, is the idea of retroactive immunity for the telcom companies, who in good faith provided information to the government before the current law was enacted. Pelosi wants the Senate bill stripped of both retroactive immunity, and future immunity. In other words, if your phone number showed up in a possible terrorist phone list, or as someone they might have contacted, you could sue to ask for proof there was no malice. The normal standard is the other way around, you sue to prove there was.

For those who think that the whole wire tap program was illegal to begin with, I'd say go back to my June 2006 post on the same subject, and look up the American Law Review article I referenced, and 2nd Circuit's 1984 decision in United States v. Duggan (which the FISA Court weighed in on). Both the decision and the Law Review article were written long before the Bush program went into effect.

The current law, which has expired, allowed for existing operations to continue for 1 year from it's being signed. However, no new surveillence can begin without warrants, (again, in direct contridiction to Dugan) and because of some 40 current lawsuits, it's not clear that the telecom industry would cooperate even if there was a warrant but not a court order to do so.

So, how does this cause a problem in practical terms? Supposed that Terrorist A is caught in the US, and his piece of crap disposable cell phone is taken away. In his notes are a list of half a dozen other numbers, all from outside the US. During interrogation he lets slip that a call from number 4 on that list is the "activation number", and his cell is supposed to go to work.

Currently, because that number is outside the US, intel agencies would begin monitoring it, and through cooperation with the telecoms, be told when it sends a call to the US and where it's going. Now, though, before you did that you'd go to FISA, with the attendant 100 or so pages of documents that have to be put together, brief a judge, and hope he or she says yes immediately. If they don't, you wait until Monday, or the next available date for a hearing before the panel, and outline the case, again.

So, if FISA say's yes, then you go to each of the major telecoms and ask for them to route all traffic from said number to the intel folks, so they can monitor it. But the telecoms may balk. What if it's an innocent number? What if your terrorist told you number 4 on his list and it's actually 6? Wait, we could be sued for giving you the names of the people they are calling, so please bring a court order in for the information, not just a warrant saying you can listen.

Unlike Law and Order, these things don't happen in 44 minutes plus commercials, you're talking about DAYS for each warrant and court order. Possibly longer if the phone companies decided they want to argue against the idea, in hopes that the Justice Department, or someone, will offer them an immunity deal (on a case by case basis) if they do cooperate.

Sorry, that's not the system I want to deal with when phone number 4 on that list suddenly starts hitting every number in it's speed dial. 20 members of the Democatic Party in the US Senate (40% of the total) thought it was a bad idea too, maybe Speaker Pelosi should listen to them, instead of the lawyers and activists she's currently latched onto.

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Protecting the Terrorists and Lawyers

Congress is once again debating the FISA laws this week, and it's clear that two constituencies are in the forefront of the debate. Terrorists and Lawyers. Terrorists, under the pending amendments would have more rights than drug traffickers and child molesters. Lawyers would of course have tons of new clients.

In case you've been drinking the kool-aid served up by MSNBC and the rest of the media, let's set a few things straight. Under current FISA law if the CIA were to get a KGB laptop with a dozen agent phone numbers on it there would be NO requirement to get a FISA order to listen in on every conversation to or from that number, regardless of where it originated or ended. This is because the KGB is an agent of a foriegn government. Because Al-Qaeda doesn't represent a government, the Democrats in Congress believe that if you find a dozen terrorist phone numbers on Kalid Sheik Mohammed's laptop you should require a FISA order for any wire tap that might move through a US switching network.

If you are a known drug trafficker or racketeer, under the 1970's RICO statutes there is no requirement for certain wire taps that move exclusively in the US. Congress would like terrorists to have more judicial oversight than drug dealers.

If you are a convicted child molester and a kid disappears in your "area" (no definition given) under Megan's law the police require NO warrant to search your house to look for the kid. If you are a known terrorist though, well we should have to get a warrant, at least according to the folks in the Senate.

As for lawyer being happy, the other thing that's trying to worm it's way into this bill is the ability to sue phone companies that have cooperated with terror investigations by releasing records requested since 9/11, whether there was a FISA order or not!

Again, we'll go back to RICO, and any number of other statutes that all them to be "held harmless" for cooperating with law enforcement during investigations. Congress would like to throw that precedent out the window, but only in the case of terror investigations.

The worst part is that what's being pushed for is "fishing expedition" type of lawsuits. You don't have to be able to show that your records were gotten, you can first sue to see if they were, and then if they were sue to find out how they were gotten. And in each case, of course, you'd be able to get damages paid to you, just for having your phone number appear in someone elses record! Only lawyers could devise such a plan, since it would be a get them rich quick scheme.

How would that work, well it's easy. Say you work with a charity group that gets investigated for funnelling money to Hamas or Al Qaeda. You see on the news that the guy you worked with is arrested. You could file suit, without knowing that your actual phone records were looked at. Just the knowledge that your number appeared in HIS records would be enough to take your phone company to court and find out if there was a FISA order. If there wasn't (and there are legitmate reasons, upheld by courts for decades) you'd be able to sue to recover damages from the phone company for aiding in the investigation.

Think for a minute of the slowing of the investigative process on things that often move quicker than judges minds. Does the phone company give up the records without a warrant in an emergency, and risk being sued? What should be their overriding concern when dealing with law enforcement, possible repercussions or aiding an investigation?

When you think that FISA is the great protector of rights consider also that it was FISA that gave us the "stove pipe" rulings of the 1990's that prevented the FBI and CIA from sharing notes about terrorists in possibly in the US.

There are a lot of common sense changes that could be made to the FISA statutes, the one's being debated this week are not in that group.

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