When 'Science' Plays Politics

By Michael Fumento, Hudson Institute senior fellow
New York Post

Cheney's World

Inside Dick Cheney's dark, secretive mind-set — and the forces that made it that way.

Newsweek


Dick Cheney has never been your normal politician. He has never seemed as eager to please, as needy for votes and approval and headlines as, say, Bill Clinton. Cheney can seem taciturn, self-contained, a little gloomy; in recent years, his manner has been not just unwelcoming but stand-offish. … Indeed, since 9/11, Cheney has struck a pose more familiar to readers of Greek tragedies than the daily Hotline. At times, he appears to be the lonely leader, brooding in his tent, knowing that doom may be inevitable, but that the battle must be fought, and that glory can be eternal.

If, as he ponders the Threat Matrix at his daily intelligence briefing, Cheney really sees himself as a modern Achilles or Hector on the plains at Troy, he is not just being grandiose. A few weeks after 9/11, NEWSWEEK has learned, Cheney worried that he and his family and his staff might have been exposed in an anthrax attack. According to knowledgeable former officials, a mysterious letter turned up at the vice president's mansion. (A former senior law-enforcement official recalled that sensors went off.) The alarm turned out to be false. Still, to be safe, Cheney and his entourage began taking Cipro, the powerful antibiotic. … Cheney prefers to be a quiet warrior, severe perhaps, but not bleak — just resolute.

Stoicism can be a great attribute in a leader. "I have no feelings," the statesman Gen. George C. Marshall once said, "except for those I reserve for Mrs. Marshall." …

…

Cheney is often lauded as that rare No. 2 who, having no political ambition for himself, can give his all to the president. …

…

[T]he shooting incident once again drew attention to the unusual nature of Cheney's power. He remains by far the most powerful vice president in history, and one of the most secretive and mysterious public officials to ever hold such high office in America. He is caricatured as a Darth Vader, spooky, above the law; nefarious.

…

Cheney has long had a chilly relationship with the press. Some of his advisers say he is merely indifferent to reporters, while his wife and daughters are more aggressively hostile. But in any case, journalists are usually left guessing at his whereabouts and activities, and the vice president seems to take a certain pleasure in keeping it that way. NEWSWEEK once accompanied Cheney on a trip to upstate New York, where he met with several Marines just returning from Iraq. After about 30 seconds, Cheney asked his handlers to "kick the press out." Eying the departing reporters, he offered his slightly lopsided grin and announced, "It always makes my day."

Cheney's chief press adviser through a series of press secretaries and communications directors has been Mary Matalin, longtime GOP politico, wife of fellow media celebrity James Carville, and now a private consultant. If anything, Matalin reinforces the Cheney family's disdain for the Fourth Estate (Matalin did not return several phone calls from NEWSWEEK).

Matalin is about the only one who could even try to persuade Cheney to talk. His official staff is a little afraid of him. NEWSWEEK once asked his press secretary (there have been seven of them since he became vice president) if Cheney went to church on Sundays. The spokesperson confessed she really couldn't ask the veep; the question was just "too personal."

…

Cheney may simply accept that his lot is to be vilified — and that history can be his only redeemer. In the late fall of 2002, as the Bush administration was readying for the invasion of Iraq, Victor Davis Hanson, an agrarian classicist whose writings about the 9/11 attacks, primarily in the National Review online, had attracted Cheney's attention, was invited to dine at the vice president's mansion. Hanson found Cheney to be intellectually curious, well read, and not at all zealous. "He had no illusions about going to war with Iraq," Hanson said. "It was to him a least bad choice." Over dinner, Hanson recalled, "we talked about Lincoln, about leaders who had gone through hell. I had a vague feeling of tragedy," Hanson said, then corrected himself: "Tragedy is the wrong word. There was a sort of resignation. I think he understands that the vilification of the moment is not the final word."

Others close to Cheney had suggested that he was profoundly affected by 9/11. It is hard for anyone who was not in Cheney's shoes that day, and in the weeks and months that followed, to appreciate the stress and uncertainty of that time. Around 9:35 on the morning of 9/11, Cheney was lifted off his feet by the Secret Service and hustled into the White House bunker. Cheney testified to the 9/11 Commission that he spoke with President Bush before giving an order to shoot down a hijacked civilian airliner that appeared headed toward Washington. (The plane was United Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field after a brave revolt by the passengers.) …

…

Cheney spent much of his time after 9/11 in his "undisclosed location." The threat seemed terribly real. Cheney spent a great deal of time working on a "decapitation plan" — i.e., shaping a fill-in government in a horrific event in which he and the president and other top leaders were taken out by a terrorist chem-bio or nuclear attack. After the suspected anthrax attack, a gallows humor permeated the veep's office. Watching Cheney load his hunting guns into his car as he prepared to leave the mansion on a trip that fall, an aide cracked, "I hope it's not that bad." …

…

Perhaps We Could Harness Teddy's Hot Air Instead

By Captain Ed
Captain's Quarters

We should fear Holland's silence

Islamists are stifling debate in what was Europe's freest country

By Douglas Murray
Sunday Times

Saddam Had WMD

Editorial
Investor's Business Daily

AB Ports unconcerned at Dubai takeover of P&O

By Terry Macalister
Guardian

Good for America

By James K Glassman
TCS Daily

A port security reality check

Most port terminals already leased or owned by foreign companies

By Ron Allen
NBC News

Dubai ports deal

MSNBC


“This was a transaction that was closely scrutinized by the experts — by the counterterrorism experts, by the intelligence community, and those who are responsible for protecting the American people,” McClellan said.

“No one in those departments objected to this transaction going forward. … we believe it should be clear to people that all the national security issues were addressed during this review process that was mandated by Congress. That is our top concern, the safety and security of the American people.”

Commerce Secretary Carlos Guiterrez, told The Associated Press in an interview: “They are not in charge of security. We are not turning over the security of our ports. When people make statements like that you get an instant emotional reaction.”

…

To assuage concerns, the administration disclosed some assurances it negotiated with Dubai Ports. It required mandatory participation in U.S. security programs to stop smuggling and detect illegal shipments of nuclear materials; roughly 33 other port companies participate in these voluntarily. The Coast Guard also said it was nearly finished inspecting Dubai Ports’ facilities in the United States.

A senior Homeland Security official, Stewart Baker, said U.S. intelligence agencies were consulted “very early on to actually look at vulnerabilities and threats.”

So the UAE doesn't have any say in port security? What's the big deal then?

By Jim Geraghty
National Review online


I’m generally a big fan of the New York Post, but the way this story arranges the facts appears to be some pretty blatant scaremongering.

Declaring that the UAE “has financial links to the 9/11 hijackers” makes it sound like the country’s government itself backed the attacks instead of some of its citizens; if that were the case, we would have invaded them.

Just what does it take for a country to have, as a New York Post editorial put it, “ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers?” The editorial observes that the country’s “banking system — considered the commercial center of the Arab world — provided most of the cash for the 9/11 hijackers.” Terrorists look to financing in Dubai for the same reason Billy the Kid robbed banks; that’s where the money is. I’m sure terror financing runs through Dubai; financing for just about every economic activity in the region runs through Dubai.

“Much of the operational planning for the World Trade Center attacks took place inside the UAE.” Well, the Hamburg cell planned a lot in Germany. Are we to distrust German companies? Does this fact outweigh the fact that our military leaders credit the UAE for cooperation and help in the war on terror, and call them “very, very solid partners”? Do we suspect that Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace are lying, and putting American lives at risk because they really want to see this deal go through?

The Post editorial continues, “The new leader of Dubai, one of the seven small countries that make up the UAE, has said all the right things about fighting radical Islam since 9/11. But this remains very much an Islamist nation, where preaching any religion other than Islam is prohibited.” (UPDATE: This Post statement is inaccurate.) This is the case in quite a few Muslim countries. Do we wish to cut off business ties with all of those countries?

If you look carefully, you can see the goalposts shifting here. First it was that we couldn’t trust this state-owned company, then it was that we couldn’t trust the company’s home country to be an ally in the war on terror, and now it’s that the country doesn’t tolerate freedom of religion. The idea that religious plurality is now a prerequisite for working with U.S. businesses will come as surprising news to the Saudis.

Playing The Muslim Card: U.S. Port Terminal Facts

By Kenton E Kelly
Dennis the Peasant

Portgate

By Kevin Drum
Washington Monthly

Hot Air And Bigotry Causes Storm Over Ports

By Cernig
Newshog


I've been watching with increasing bemusement the bipartisan category 5 politicane raging over the sale of P&O to Dubai Ports World, which would involve a handful of ports currently run by P&O in the U.S. being run by the Dubia state-owned DPW. Frist and other Republicans are threatening a bill to stop or delay the takeover; Bush has threatened to veto any such bill; the Dem leadership suddenly sound like the kind of superhawks who would nuke an Arabic nation without pause for thought….

…

• P&O was a British company so the ports in question were already run by a foreign company. Given the UK's multicultural basis, several employees were no doubt Moslems. If it's a problem of national security to have foreign companies own sensitive national assets then how come no-one worried about the Brits owning the ports? Or for that matter about the Brit companies, 100% state owned by a socialist government, that have been handling US nuclear waste and nuke plant fuelling, maintenance and construction this last decade and more?


• DPW already runs major port facillities worldwide, including in Australia and Europe, and has done since before 9/11. Notice none of it's people have blown anything up? In fact, Lloyd's of London regards it's abilities very highly. DP World recently won their DP World won the prestigious (within the industry) ‘Container Terminal Operator’ award. Oh, and they intend keeping the current P&O management in place, with the headquarters of the division still in London.

…


• Then there's the way that money being channelled through Dubai banks to al Qaida or some of the 9/11 team passing through the UAE are being brought up by all and sundry. For that matter, money passed through US and UK banks too — it doesn't mean their governments or state-owned companies will give al Qaida material aid. And let's remember that ALL the 9/11 hijackers passed through the US. Does that mean that America should be labelled as an abettor of terror and disalowed from running its own or anyone elses port facillities? Of course not.

Rampant bigotry disguised as argument by way of fearmongering. I am frankly ashamed of my colleagues on the Left who have joined this witchhunt so rabidly.

Who Runs the Ports — the Dubai Ports World Kerfuffle

By a New Orleans Coast Guard serviceman
Castle Argghhh!

Ports of Politics

How to sound like a hawk without being one.

Editorial
Wall Street Journal

Port Security Humbug

Editorial
Washington Post

Danger in American Ports…

By Bill O'Reilly
Fox News

NSA wiretapping program

Stanford Daily


“Even by Beltway standards, it is a very bizarre debate,” [Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Or.)] continued. “Congress is talking about reforming a program that it knows nothing about.”

Wyden, Class of ’71, took a more moderate approach in his 20 minute speech than some of his Democratic congressional colleagues have in recent weeks. Avoiding acerbic rhetoric, he said that national security and civil liberties are not mutually exclusive.

“It’s possible to fight terrorism ferociously without sacrificing our civil liberties,” he said, drawing the analogy of a teeter-totter that adjusts depending on the threat level. “The President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief needs flexibility to deal with serious threats at a time we are at war.”

…

The Wyden comments were made in a speech that followed a panel discussion about the program. On a panel moderated by Stanford Law Prof. Pam Karlan, University of Missouri Law Prof. Kris Kobach — a former Justice Department attorney — defended the program when it was assailed by law student Laura Donohue and Law Prof. Alan Morrison.

Kobach, who led government efforts to tighten border security in the aftermath of Sept. 11, said that it was “prudent” to rely on broad, inherent executive war fighting powers under Article Two of the Constitution, instead of “broadcasting what we are going to do on a billboard to al Qaeda.”

“The case law is very strong,” he said. “The administration’s position is very unlikely to be knocked down in the court.”

Kobach complained that the burdens to get court approval for surveillance could prevent the government from using important discoveries made on the battlefield. One example he gave to justify the program was the capture of senior al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s laptop. Hundreds of non-labeled phone numbers were found in files. To receive permission for surveillance from the court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he said that the government must provide the name or a description of who is being monitored. In this case, the government only knew that the numbers were connected to a mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks but nothing else.

“FISA was written in 1978 before anyone conceived of laptops or e-mails,” he said. “The constitutional infirmity of FISA was suspected even as members of Congress were writing it.”

This is no clash of civilizations

Excerpts from an interview with Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan

MEMRI TV Monitor Project, clip 1050
Al-Jazeera (Transcript)

Paranoia about Dubai ports deal is needless

Editorial
Financial Times

The cartoon wars continue

By Glenn Reynolds
GlennReynolds.com

Real Progress

MidwestHeroes.com, 2/06

Iraq — The front line on the war on terror

MidwestHeroes.com

Cheney Shooting Victim: Accidents Happen

Fox News

Port Administration runs region's port

By Helen Delich Bentley
Baltimore Sun

The Imperial Press

Sanctimony and frenzy.

National Review Online

Left-wing nuthouse

By Scott Johnson
Power Line

Nine Die in Cartoon Protests in Libya

By Riaz Khan
Associated Press

Battleship Brouhaha

Hannity & Colmes
Fox News

Cheney: I'm Authorized to Declassify Government Information

Associated Press

Saddam: I Warned U.S. of Terrorist Attack

Associated Press

Saddam talked of WMD attack in U.S.

By Lisa Myers
NBC News

Look Who's Smiling

By John Hinderaker
Power Line

Ronald W Reagan

Encyclopædia Britannica


40th president of the United States (1981–89), noted for his conservative Republicanism, his fervent anticommunism, and his appealing personal style, characterized by a jaunty affability and folksy charm. The only movie actor ever to become president, he had a remarkable skill as an orator that earned him the title “the Great Communicator.” His policies have been credited with contributing to the demise of Soviet communism.

… [A former Democrat,] he delivered a 30-minute nationally televised address [in the last week of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign], “A Time for Choosing,” that The Washington Post described as “the most successful political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with his 'Cross of Gold' speech.”

…

… At his first press conference as president, Reagan audaciously questioned the legitimacy of the Soviet government; two years later, in a memorable speech in Florida, he denounced the Soviet Union as “an evil empire” and “the focus of evil in the modern world.” … [Observers argued that] Reagan's massive military spending program, the largest in American peacetime history, … — through the strain it imposed on the Soviet economy — was actually responsible for a host of positive developments in Reagan's second term, including a more accommodating Soviet position in arms negotiations, a weakening of the influence of hard-liners in the Soviet leadership, making possible the glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”) policies of moderate Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev after 1985, and even the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself in 1990–91.

A significant component of Reagan's military buildup was his 1983 proposal for a space-based missile defense system that would use lasers and other as-yet-undeveloped killing technologies to destroy incoming Soviet nuclear missiles well before they could reach their targets in the United States. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), dubbed “Star Wars” after the popular science-fiction movie of the late 1970s, was denounced by the Soviets, including Gorbachev, as a dangerous escalation of the arms race, a position also taken by many critics at home. Meanwhile, others argued that the project was technologically impossible and potentially a “black hole” in the country's defense budget. In later years, however, former Soviet officials cited SDI as a factor in the eventual collapse of their country, for it showed that the Soviet Union was politically unprepared for and economically incapable of competing in a new arms race with the United States, especially one led by someone as unrelenting as Reagan.

…

… National Airport in Washington, D.C., was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport by Congress and President Bill Clinton in February 1998. Reagan's conservative policies and heated rhetoric had always infuriated liberals…. But to his millions of fans and political admirers, this tribute was the least the government could do for the man who had helped to end the Cold War and restored … the country's confidence in itself and its faith in a better tomorrow.

Baroness Margaret Thatcher

Encyclopædia Britannica


The only British prime minister in the 20th century to win three consecutive terms and, at the time of her resignation, Britain's longest continuously serving prime minister since 1827, she accelerated the evolution of the British economy from statism to liberalism and became, by personality as much as achievement, the most renowned British political leader since Winston Churchill.

…

… Thatcher advocated greater independence of the individual from the state; an end to allegedly excessive government interference in the economy, including privatization of state-owned enterprises and the sale of public housing to tenants; reductions in expenditures on social services such as health care, education, and housing; limitations on the printing of money in accord with the economic doctrine of monetarism; and legal restrictions on trade unions. The term Thatcherism came to refer not just to these policies but also to certain aspects of her ethical outlook and personal style, including moral absolutism, fierce nationalism, a zealous regard for the interests of the individual, and a combative, uncompromising approach to achieving political goals.

…

Thatcher embarked on an ambitious program of privatization of state-owned industries and public services, including aerospace, television and radio, gas and electricity, water, the state airline, and British Steel. By the end of the 1980s, the number of individual stockholders had tripled, and the government had sold 1.5 million publicly owned housing units to their tenants.

… Thatcher won election to a second term in a landslide — the biggest victory since Labour's great success in 1945…. — gaining a parliamentary majority of 144….

Thatcher entered office promising to curb the power of the unions, which had shown their ability to bring the country to a standstill during six weeks of strikes in the winter of 1978–79. Her government enacted a series of measures designed to undermine the unions' ability to organize and stage strikes, including laws that banned the closed shop, required unions to poll their members before ordering a strike, forbade sympathy strikes, and rendered unions responsible for damages caused by their members. In 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers began a nationwide strike to prevent the closing of 20 coal mines that the government claimed were unproductive. The walkout, which lasted nearly a year, soon became emblematic of the struggle for power between the Conservative government and the trade union movement. Thatcher steadfastly refused to meet the union's demands, and in the end she won; the miners returned to work without winning a single concession.

…

In retirement, Margaret Thatcher remained a political force. She continued to influence internal Conservative Party politics (often to the dismay of Major), and Thatcherism shaped the priorities of the Labour Party, which she had kept out of office for more than a decade.

The Last Word: Flemming Rose

Igniting More Than Debate

Newsweek

UN: US tortures Guantanamo detainees

US takes issue with preliminary report

NBC News

Danish Islamic leaders misled Middle Eastern Muslims

Associated Press


Leaders of [a group of Danish Islamic leaders who went on a Middle East tour in December], claiming to represent 27 Muslim organizations, said they sought support in countries including Egypt, Syria and Lebanon because they felt their voices were not being heard in Denmark.

The group carried a dossier with purported examples of images offensive to Islam, including photocopies of the 12 Muhammad cartoons and three additional images — two offensive drawings of the prophet and a copy of an AP photograph that had nothing to do with the controversy.

That photograph, showing a bearded man wearing fake pig ears and a pig nose, was from a pig-squealing contest in France in August and had no connection with Islam or the Prophet Muhammad caricatures.

Group leaders … rejected that their group was responsible for fueling anti-Western anger in the Middle East.

What's Behind Muslim Cartoon Outrage

Muhammad's image: Revered prophet of Islam has been depicted in art for hundreds of years

By Ayesha Akram
The Chronicle

Carter allowed surveillance in 1977

By Charles Hurt
Washington Times

Dumbest News Story Ever?

By John Hinderaker
Power Line

The Price of Success

By John Hinderaker
Power Line

Inflamed awakening

Editorial
Washington Times

Examining the Continuing Iraq Pre-war Intelligence Myths

US Senate Republican Policy Committee

• Critics of the Iraq war continue to reissue their assertions/charges that the President “manufactured” or “misused” intelligence to justify the war.
• In the most egregious cases, they continue to promulgate misleading critiques involving:
  • Iraq’s procurement of high-strength aluminum tubes;
  • the source code-named “Curveball”;
  • claims that Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (“INC”) tricked the United States into war; and
  • the State Department “dissent” holding that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program.
• When the facts surrounding these issues are examined, it becomes clear that it is not the President who is misrepresenting information; rather, it is the critics.
• The Department of Energy’s intelligence agency was in the minority when it assessed that the aluminum tubes were not destined for a nuclear program, and DOE still concluded, overall, that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.
• Policymakers did not deliberately misuse Curveball’s information; they were never even made aware of hints that Curveball might be unreliable.
• Intelligence professionals concluded that the program by which they obtained access to information about Iraq through the INC was a valuable program. Moreover, the INC’s information was essentially irrelevant to the intelligence community’s pre-war assessments.
• The “alternative view” of the State Department’s intelligence agency, INR, was no alternative. It still concluded that Iraq was “pursuing at least a limited effort to maintain and acquire nuclear weapons-related capabilities.”

Terrorist weapons were seized in raid

By Neville Dean and Nick Allen
Independent

Saddam Hussein's Philanthropy of Terror

By Deroy Murdock, Stanford University Hoover Institution Media Fellow

The cartoon wars

By Glenn Reynolds
GlennReynolds.com


Avant-garde artists submerge crucifixes in urine and art critics cheer. Some cartoons depicting Mohammed in a negative light run in a Danish newspaper and the Muslim world goes wild. In Britain, Muslims protested with signs reading, "Behead Those Who Insult Islam," but aren't arrested under Britain's hate-speech laws, leading to charges of a double standard. As British newspaper The Telegraph editorializes:

When these Islamist protesters dress up as suicide bombers and revel in the "magnificent" attacks of 9/11, they are not engaging in a harmless daydream: they are encouraging murder. And, to be fair, the police did eventually arrest two people for breaching the peace — not Islamist protesters, you understand, but two counter-demonstrators who were apparently provoking trouble by carrying images of Mohammed.

Fabricated cartoons worsened Danish controversy

The Counterterrorism Blog

Officials: Outing domestic spying hampers intel

Al-Qaida, Iran, N. Korea are top threats to security, Negroponte says

Associated Press

Sheehan went too far with the T-word

By Susan Paynter
Seattle Post-Intelligencer