Conservative Donnybrook

…for waiters, waitresses, bartenders and bar wenches.

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As I was writing my latest post, I kept thinking about the American Civil War (War Between the States, if you insist) and the practice of parole. During the Civil War, prisoners of war were regularly paroled on the condition that they would not then take up arms in the war again. Of course, not every person who accepted parole acquitted himself with honor, but many did.

Today, American servicemen are prohibited from entering into parole agreements. The Code of Conduct for the Armed Services states, “I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.” In some ways this makes sense, and the refusal of special consideration from the enemy is the source of honor for American war heroes like John McCain.

The idea of parole is built on honor. Essentially, it is a gentleman’s agreement that “if I let you go, you’ll just go home and stop fighting.” Of course, the flipside is, “if you don’t agree, I can keep you in captivity until the cessation of hostilities or until this position is overrun and I can no longer keep you.”  Each side benefits as long as each side upholds his end of the bargain. It seems to me that when the United States is engaged in a war against a foe that possesses honor, American soldiers should be able to accept parole agreements and the United States military should be free to extend parole to enemy combatants.

Maybe I am simply fantasizing about a set of conditions that can never occur. Certainly, the idea of parole has been demonstrably repudiated by the likes of Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi. And, clearly, our war with Islamic extremists (or probably any other religiously motivated enemy) would not qualify for this sort of treatment as we have already seen that they will not treat our soldiers with honor when they are captured. But it seems that parole might be an option with some enemies. On the other hand, there could be the feeling that those who are captured are showing a lack of brotherhood with their fellow countrymen by making deals with the enemy. I guess I’m just thinking out loud. Should soldiers be allowed to accept parole?

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Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, a former detainee of the United States military who was once housed at our facility at Guantanamo Bay, was released to the custody of Kuwaiti authorities on November 3, 2005. He, along with four other codefendants, was tried in Kuwait:

The defendants pleaded innocent when the trial opened in March. Their lawyers argued there was no evidence to convict them and that Kuwaiti courts had no jurisdiction to try them because they had not done anything illegal in Kuwait.

Defence attorneys also said testimonies provided by the US could not be used in a Kuwaiti court because they did not have the signatures of the detainees or interrogators.

The Kuwaiti court found all five of the men innocent as charged and they were released.

On April 26, 2008, three suicide bombers detonated themselves in Mosul, Iraq killing nine innocents and injuring 31 others. Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi was one of the terrorists in the attack.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International is calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay and the repatriation of the detainees there. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 enemy combatants are currently held at Gitmo. I don’t relish the idea of 500 radical terrorists making their ways to Mosul and Baghdad and Kirkuk. The potential death toll in killed bystanders is just too high.

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. . . to many, like Cindy Sheehan, it’s been Five Years:

(from the San Francisco anti-war protest yesterday)

Get it?

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The modern reality of telecommunications is that a phone call which originates in Poland and terminates in Indonesia may very well pass through switches in the United States. The special intelligence court which is in charge of authorizing domestic wiretaps ruled last year that communications which were routed through these U.S. switches were domestic communications and subject to the warrant requirements set out in FISA regardless of where they originated or terminated. In response, Congress quickly authorized the attorney general to initiate wiretaps where the government reasonably believed that at least one of the parties was outside of the United States and that the target of the wiretap was not the domestic party. This was called the Protect America Act and it expired on February 17, 2008. Congress has failed to renew this act.

George W. Bush has been stamping his feet, blustering and pleading for Congress to renew the act and threatening to veto anything less than a permanent reauthorization of the act. The question though is whether the act is truly necessary. Victor Comras frames the question pretty well in his post on the counterterrorism blog:

Few pieces of legislation before Congress carry such gravity and importance when it comes to the twin goals of protecting our national security and preserving our civil liberties. Such matters should be considered with gravity and thorough deliberation. And there is much in this act which deserves further deliberation. Many of its current provisions were adopted previously under an atmosphere of high tension and great pressure from the White House. The only pressure now is that President Bush threatens to veto any further temporary extension of the current act. A temporary extension would certainly have kept in place sufficient authority to keep tabs on the potential terrorists within our midst as Congress worked through the act thoroughly.

Why is it troublesome to obtain a warrant if the government wants to listen to somebody’s phone calls? If they are foreigners, such a warrant will be only a matter of asking. If the person is within the United States, there must be probable cause to believe they are involved in terrorist activity. But, this standard is appropriate. Persons in the United States are by right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effect to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

To allow the government to tap a person’s phone simply because he is making an international call would be to amend the Constitution by legislation or by executive fiat. If he is calling a person who is suspected of terrorist activities, it is no hardship for the government to have obtained a warrant allowing calls to this person (including the call originating in the U.S.) to be monitored. Likewise, if the person in the United States is a suspected terrorist, a warrant is obtainable. If neither are suspected of any wrongdoing, then the government has no business eavesdropping on their conversation.

My short answer is: If the special intelligence court is relatively lenient in its standard for suspicion, there is no need to renew the Protect America Act.

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At 10:29 pm last night, the United States declared its unrivaled supremacy over every other nation on earth when it successfully destroyed a defunct satellite in a decaying orbit. Navy personnel took aim on the satellite’s fuel tank (and as any young boy would know, that would be the most fun place to shoot anything), fired and scored a direct hit. One thousand pounds of toxic hydrazine fuel went - well, it would have been sky-high if the satellite had been in the atmosphere. I’m not really sure what you call it in space.

At the moment of impact the satellite was traveling at more than 17,000 mph. Which is probably about the speed that Putin’s stomach slammed into his Adam’s apple. Ronald Reagan’s dream of protecting the West from the menace of nuclear annihilation is within grasp. The project that Ted Kennedy ridiculed as “Star Wars” and a waste of taxpayer money justified itself over the Pacific Ocean yesterday evening. The American people are safer tonight than they were at 10:28 pm last night.

What’s even more remarkable is that the shot almost was called off because conditions were not “ideal.” Even better, it appears that some of the debris may rain down on Chinese heads for the next day or so. Hopefully, this system can be deployed to protect our allies in Europe and the Middle East soon.

The United States Navy should be proud of their work last night.

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I’m sure this Muslim nation will be the greatest of friends with the United States. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and all the other UN-believers should give themselves a little pat on the back. I’m sure this won’t come back to haunt us.

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Pat Buchanan was interviewed by Diana West about his latest book on C-SPAN’s After Words.

The MP3 is here, the video here.

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Regarding that US intelligence assessment (mentioned by Mike in the post below), which concludes that Iran has no active nuclear weapons program, Taki writes:

But I’ve got a suggestion for [Norman] Podhoretz. Label the National Intelligence Estimate (or perhaps the very concepts of “National” or “Intelligence”) anti-Semitic and then go out and buy four pizzas for your son, John.

Ha ha!

But the White House hawks are undeterred, of course. From the AP article:

The White House says it will continue to try to build pressure on Iran to prevent it from ever acquiring nuclear bombs.

And of course, the Administration presumably sees the culmination of this escalation as involving military force if necessary. Is our policy meant to prevent Iran from starting a weapons program, or to encourage them to build a nuclear deterrent? It’s hard to tell.

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It would appear that former Sen. Rick Santorum picked the wrong windmills at which to go a-tilting. Chavez was smacked back to reality and prevented from standing for another election in three years. Our latest National Intelligence estimate even has people like former Bush national security team member Rand Beers saying “cool it, dudes.” (Could anyone help Pastor Hagee spin the quote from Ehud Barak, please? They had a weapons program, they stopped it, but they continued it. Must be a translation thing.)

Jon Alterman has a point, of sorts: why believe the intelligence community in this assessment of Iran, now, when they’ve been wrong before? Well, sir, as Barak said, only time will tell who was right, but I’d say that the intelligence community who contributed to this estimate have been stung by previous cherry-picking, have a sense that their contribution to this debate will very likely prevent future death and destruction of American personnel and assets (not to mention Iranian civilians), and finally feel like they don’t need to fear repercussions from the Bush administration. I dunno.

What will Rick do now? I guess the book and film will continue unabated. I’m getting the popcorn ready.

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I note with interest recent criticism of paleoconservatives’ apparent penchant for babble and subsequent ineffectual bench-riding and booing. I, like one of my colleagues here at the Donnybrook, was reminded of a pop-culture quotation of no consequence: Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell opined in the second track from their second album (the band’s first major label release, 1988’s “Nothing’s Shocking”), a tune called “Ocean Size,”

Some people tell me Home is up in the sky,

In the sky live a spy.

I want to be more like the ocean,

No talkin’ man, all action.

Continue Reading »

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From the Washington Post:

Overall, “there doesn’t seem to be a lot of progress being made. . . . I would think that from [the Taliban] standpoint, things are looking decent,” the intelligence official said. …

While U.S. and other NATO forces have maintained a firm hold on major cities, they have been unable to retain territory in the vast rural areas where 75 percent of Afghanistan’s population lives, several sources said. Ground hard-won in combat has been abandoned and reoccupied by Taliban forces, which establish dominance over local governmental bodies.

Emphasis mine. Sounds similar to what’s gone on in Iraq. Do we need a surge in Afghanistan, too? All this seems to put to lie the argument, put forth by Iraq War boosters, that the Iraq War has in no way diverted resources from our occupation of Afghanistan, thus harming our efforts there.

The strategy is “clear, hold and build,” said Seth Jones, an Afghanistan expert at the Rand Corp. “You clear the Taliban out, then you hold it for a period of time. You keep forces there, including Afghan forces, then you begin to build, then expand and go into neighboring districts. The problem has been that when you move troops into neighboring districts, you don’t have enough to hold what you just cleared.”

Of course, this is old news. Evidence of the Iraq War diverting resources and focus from Afghanistan was clear from this NYT article back in August:

At critical moments in the fight for Afghanistan, the Bush administration diverted scarce intelligence and reconstruction resources to Iraq, including elite C.I.A. teams and Special Forces units involved in the search for terrorists. As sophisticated Predator spy planes rolled off assembly lines in the United States, they were shipped to Iraq, undercutting the search for Taliban and terrorist leaders, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

Guess it’s just that traitorous MSM trying to undermine the war effort!

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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the D.C. handgun case!  Conservative Donnybrook will be listening as well.

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Thanks to The Corner. 

It’s official.  The International Atomic Energy Agnecy has confirmed that Iran has 3,000 operating nuclear centrifuges, the number considered necessary to foster nuclear weapon production. Iran would obviously have to work out any techincal problems before they can get these centrifuges working at nuclear fuel-grade capacity, but it’s estimated that a nuclear weapon could be manufactured in 12-18 months.

The IAEA is further reporting that Iran is preventing inspecters from gathering other critical information regarding their nuclear ambitions.

Iran insists that they are only exploring nuclear power as a means to meet the energy demands of the nation’s rapidly-growing population, as can be seen by this graph. 

Oddly though, Iran hasn’t cultivated its hydro-electric sources, nor has it erected gas-fired power plants that would come at much lesser cost, instead focusing its energies on a decades long nuclear program that has been defined by sercecy and evasiveness.

Thank goodness for international treaties, however.  As signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, we can rest assured that Iran has absolutely no intentions of using their nuclear power for other than domestic purposes.  The fact that they support Hezbollah, sponsor Iraqi insurgency, and would like to see Israel wiped off the map should be of no concern to us.  After all, obtaining a nuclear weapon doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to drop Fat Man or Little Boy within a week’s time.  They’ll save it for a rainy day.

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Kudos to Sen. Brownback for acknowledging that the surge in Iraq is “successfully working,” after his initial reservations.

Rich Lowry of NRO writes,

U.S. military deaths have decreased by more than 50% since June, and Iraqi civilian deaths have decreased by 50% since August.  Sectarian violence also has decreased.  Mortar rocket attacks are at their lowest level since February 2006.

Brownback and Joe Biden introduced an Iraq Federalism Bipartisan Amendment earlier this year, a Senate resolution that “calls upon the Bush administration to pursue federalist, semi-autonomous regions in Iraq — presumably Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish entities — with a modest federal government located in Baghdad.”  This, of course, angered the Bush administration, which advocates a strong, centralized Iraqi government and fears that the federalist principles of the Brownback-Biden Amendment would increase sectarian violence.

The resolution, despite White House admonishment, proved strong on the Senate floor, garnering the support of democrats and republicans alike and passing  by a wote of 75-23.

Perhaps more importantly, this “political surge” has the backing of the Iraqi President Jalal Talibani, who applauded the amendment as “strong belief that the amendment promotes the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq and is not, as some have mischaracterized it, a call for partition.” He also emphasized that the amendment as being ”completely consistent with the decision Iraqis have made to adopt a federal form of government in their Constitution.”

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Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has finally come out and stated the obvious: Giuliani is not the moderate that pundits make him out to be.  Read his entire post, but here are two worthwhile snippets:

A warmonger with authoritarian impulses and liberal positions on social issues isn’t a “moderate” or a “centrist.” He’s just a warmonger with authoritarian impulses and liberal positions on social issues.

“Whatever else Giuliani might be, “centrist” and “moderate” is not it. He is one of the most radical major candidates in memory. But the more he is characterized as a “moderate” by our media stars, the more viable a candidate he becomes and the more his radicalism is obscured.”

On a different note (I’m sure your friends at CD will have much to say about this later on), can you imagine Giuliani’s cabinet?  Norman Podhorentz, Daniel Pipes, and Michael Rubin?  I might have to strap on my GI surplus helmet and hop into that A1 Abrams after all, James.  Kidding.  Kinda.

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“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Mark Tuesday on the calendar. That is the day the Supreme Court will announce whether it will take up a challenge to the District of Columbia’s ban on private ownership of handguns in the district. At issue will be whether the Second Amendment’s terse sentence securing the right to bear arms applies to individuals or only to militiamen. Surprisingly, the Supreme Court has never taken up this argument and Second Amendment jurisprudence is exceedingly sparse.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of individual ownership, throwing out the D.C. ban.

”The right to keep and bear arms was not created by the government, but rather preserved by it,” Judge Laurence Silberman wrote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. “The amendment does not protect the right of militiamen to keep and bear arms, but rather the right of the people.”

If the Court decides to hear the case, and all it will take is four Justices to vote in favor of granting certiorari, it will be risky to advocates on both sides as the outcome is questionable. I had to go to the Dead or Alive website to check Charleton Heston’s status, who once said that they will have to pry his gun from “his cold, dead hands.” Turns out the government may have a bit more of a fight than that. Heston is still kicking and presumably clutching tightly his Brooks flintlock rifle.

If the Court takes up the argument, you can be sure that the Donnybrook will be watching this case closely.

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Sorry, I went all Bono there. Anyway, Richard (from Whiskey Tango Foxtrot… over) describes Dr. Ron Paul as an “isolationist,” “wack job,” and essentially incompetent. (Blind Hog Finds Acorn, film at 11:00.) I am hoping that someone with as much respect for our Constitution as a self-described “retired military” man will back off the usage of “strict Constitutionalist” as an epithet or pejorative. Continue Reading »

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See here for some interesting refutation of Bill’s certitude. Say, Bill, while you’re looking, could you see what happened to the copious amounts of materiel that went “missing” on General Petraeus’ watch? And what about the weapons and explosive-grade material, money, and other supplies given to the Iraqi militias, police forces, and national guard units which is now completely unaccounted for? I suggest that we begin immediate preparations to attack ourselves as we are clearly supplying, arming, and recruiting for those who are attacking our boys (whom we didn’t ask to have sent into Iraq, right?). We must not be allowed to maintain or develop future capacities to harm ourselves. We are a grave and imminent threat. Clearly, we cannot stand idly by while we actively develop more of the same technologies we currently possess. And have demonstrated a willingness to use.

By the way, why is Egypt, homeland of the radical “Islamofascist” Muslim Brotherhood and the radical imams who emigrated to Saudi Arabia two generations ago to found Wahabbism, getting the green light for its nuclear ambitions?

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Re: We Must Bomb Iran.

The very suggestion that Iran is not a real and current threat to the United States and the world at large is absurd. While Karl appropriately extols the virtues of traditional Just War philosophy, the application and analysis are way off.

The real and continued threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb justify if not immediate military action then action in close proximity to today. Action is justified not because the bombing of Los Angeles or New York is imminent, but because the proliferation of technology, fuel, fascist bravado and, most importantly, weapons used against the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan are. In keeping with Karl’s post, let me examine the 4-prong test for justified military or even violent action.

Continue Reading »

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