I think it's a pity that, given the nature of the controversy, there appears to be no way to test the constitutionality of what Bush, Clinton, and Carter did; that is, whether or not FISA is overriden by the president's powers as CinC. It seems to me that, combined with the apparently effortless way a president (any president) can take us to war, or even define a state of war, we have a huge loophole in the Fourth Amendment here, and that's a primary bulwark against tyranny.

As many have commented, the "war" on terror isn't likely to be over any time soon. I frankly don't consider it a war in any constitutional sense, and consider Bush's actions a terrible overreach. I would feel the same if it were Gore or Kerry doing it. I much fear that we are getting closer and closer to 1984's perpetual war (if, indeed, we're not already there). In such a state, we're not safe no matter who is in the White House.

Referring to a very different controversy, Jesus said "Fear not the one who can kill the body, but the one who can cast body and soul into hell." Analogously, I don't fear the terrorists, who cannot destroy this country no matter how hard they strike; I fear my government, which is destroying the country's soul by shredding the Constitution--and, again, this is a process that will proceed no matter what party is in control.

Oh, and I should add that I think exposing this sort of thing is a patriotic act. Such acts by our government need to be dragged into the light of day and argued over fiercely if we're to survive as a nation--at least as the nation that I think both you and I want it to be.

Dave,

You don’t fear the terrorists because they can only kill your body. Well…good for you.

I live in a major city that is an obvious target for nuclear or biological terror. So do my kids.

Anyone who has read my comments on this blog knows I lean libertarian, not conservative, but unless one is some kind of anarchist/libertarian there comes a point when you have to trust your government. I see no reason not to trust them in this case.

The program has an explicit target – overseas calls made by individuals of interest to the intelligence services. There is a review process set up to make sure that the program focuses on just such cases and nothing else. Furthermore, all we are talking about here is eavesdropping to gather intelligence – not to make arrests. There have been no reports of a US citizen being arrested because they talked about a drug deal or some other ancillary crime. This is all good enough for me.

Anyone who has read my comments also knows that I go out of my way to be polite, but I’m sorry, you’re “worries” about the US approaching Orwell’s 1984 are childish. They sound like something a college freshman would say. We are in a war regardless of whether you acknowledge it or not. The curtailments of civil liberties in this war don’t begin to compare to those from earlier wars. My great-grandfather was thrown in prison for his involvement with the Labor movement during WWI. Innocent Japanese were held in concentration camps during WWII, and entire books have been written about the steps Lincoln felt were necessary during the Civil War.

Our commitment to fighting wars without curtailing civil rights at home has improved dramatically. This is evidence that we are headed in exactly the opposite direction than what you suggest.

The constitution gives the President broad and lightly-defined powers in the area of war because war is, beyond almost everything else, impossible to define or confine or plan ahead for. Any enemy worth worrying about will try to surprise us with horrible things that we never dreamed of at times we never expected. Wars have forced Presidents into legal and constitutional terra incognita since at least the X-Y-Z Affair. If the Constitution did define tightly how we go to war it would have to be amended or bypassed, because situations are always arising that are murky and unusual. We still haven't agreed whether the Cold War was a actually a war.

And people have been talking from the time of General Washington about how a strong President, or standing armies are going to lead to tyranny. But it's total rubbish. Americans have never shown the slightest interest in the Man on Horseback, and we have never been in the slightest danger of a President becoming a tyrant. Probably even Washington could not have pulled it off.

And all our big wars have entailed massive infringements of civil liberties (far far worse than anything happening now) and none of these has resulted in tyranny. (For the simple reason that we were doing it to ourselves, voluntarily, through our elected government.)

The WoT that goes on and on is your WoT Dave, Clinton's WoT...refusing to face the problem and fight relentlessly, putting on band-aids, letting the enemy "negotiate" whenever they need a breather. Bush's war will have an end, because we are willing to fight. The Bush policies are designed to fix the problem: 1. In the short term, forcing terrorists to stand and fight by moving into the Arab heartland and Afghanistan and chasing them to the far parts of the globe. 2. In the near term, raising up many new allies who are being exposed to the crazed brutality of the terrorists. Iraq, lebanon, Jordan, India, Pakistan, Indonesia are just a few of the places where previous tolerance of Islamic terrorist is being re-thought. 3. In the long term attacking the culture of despotism and corruption and hopelessness that breeds terrorists, attacking them with the weapons of democracy and free-enterprise and globalization.

Of course if we had started doing this 3 decades ago, the cost in deaths and treasure of fighting terror groups would have been several orders of magnitude less. But oh no no!! That would be wiiiiicked. Cruel. Un-Christian! Why that would be, shudder gasp choke WAR! But we didn't have a war, say in 1975. Because of people like you. And so now we have a FAR bigger and BLOODIER war. Because of people like you. YOU are the warmongers. People like you created this war with policies of weakness and appeasement and delay. And now you are trying to stop it midway, so we can fight it all over again in ten years. (And if this sounds untactful of me, well, you said it should be "argued over fiercely.")

Dave,

The courts, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, have been consistent: FISA does not override the president's Constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief. The courts, including FISC, have upheld warrantless searches in foreign intelligence investigations.

So when you say 'it's a pity that... there appears to be no way to test the constitutionality of what Bush, Clinton, and Carter did' - you're really saying that it's a pity the courts haven't ruled the way you would prefer. It's not the same thing.

Further, the question of whether we are at war or at 'war' - as you so coyly phrase it - has been decided by a democratic election. That's where the president derives his authority. Again, the fact that you dislike the outcome doesn't render it meaningless.

Third, as to a government 'which is destroying the country's soul by shredding the Constitution' - get a grip, change your pants, wipe your nose, take a Midol, and cut the freakin' hysteria.

I'll respond in more depth tonight after work, but for now I'll just note that I've run across this link demonstrating that Drudge's claims are false. Apparently President Bush is breaking new ground here.

Aldritch Ames's house was searched without a warrant.

It's pretty funny to see lefties scrambling desperately to find differences between what Sts Clinton and Carter did and what Bush has done. Gotta preserve that ludicrous Party Line, about the country turning fascist as soon as a Republican gets into the WH.

Gorelick testified to Congress that the President has the inherent (that means Constitutional) power to conduct warrant-less searches in national security cases. Now she's claiming she only meant 'before FISA." Yeah, right.

Fact remains, Bush has been far more careful about our liberties than Clinton, whose administration monitored millions of calls world-wide, and openly boasted that they had used the info for economic advantage for the US.

Dave Trowbridge:

You might want to put those strike-outs back in.

It would seem that, in 1994, AG Janet Reno authorized warrantless physical searches of the residence of Aldrich Ames, pursuant to investigations regarding whether he was a foreign spy or not.

http://www.fas.org/irp/gao/gao-01-780.html

Interestingly, the GAO report also suggests that there was already the beginnings of "the wall" between intel and law enforcement, as FBI was concerned about whether use of intel information might jeopardize the conviction.

The point, however, is that, unless you're going to claim that Bill Clinton wasn't aware of what was going on w/ Janet Reno and Aldrich Ames, at least one President has, indeed, authorized the use of warrantless physicalsearches, and that would appear to be someone other than Dubya.

Ooops.

Sorry, John, didn't see that you'd already responded to Dave Trowbridge's earlier remarks (I had seen 'em earlier in the day and hadn't seen your responses).

Mike: you appear to have trouble parsing my analogy, as you say "You don’t fear the terrorists because they can only kill your body. Well…good for you."

I was not referring to my fear of personal harm, but of harm to our fundamental institutions: my definition of patriotism does not stop with personal survival as its highest good. So let me put it more simply: I do not think the terrorists can harm our fundamental institutions, but the government certainly can, and it is those institutions that are the life of the country. Clear?

As for the statement that begins "Anyone who has read my comments also knows that I go out of my way to be polite, but I’m sorry...", I have two things to say.

1) Saying that one is usually polite while preparing not to be merely exposes one as a hypocrite. Be rude or not as you please, it's of no importance to me, but don't try to have it both ways.

2) Your "rudeness" is merely ad hominem bloviation--it's not I who is being sophomoric here. John argues your case better, so I will respond to him. For your part, you might do well to grab a copy of Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument.

John: You say that "Bush's war will have an end..." Surely you cannot be that naive. Tell me what conditions must obtain for the government (it doesn't matter who's in the White House) to say "Well, we won the War on Terror--there are no more terrorists--and we really don't need the Patriot Act or warrantless searches or...(the list goes on and on) anymore, so let's repeal them. Come on! Government power is a ratchet--it's hard enough to get our liberties back after the conclusion of a real war, let alone something as amorphous as the WoT.

The real problem with calling this struggle a war is that, being against stateless actors, there is no end-point that the institutions of a nation state can recognize, as there was for the World Wars and even the Cold War. And under our Constitution, calling it a war gives the President extraordinary powers that are extremely corrosive of our liberties. I don't trust anyone with such powers in the long term.

Lurking Observer: I'm not surprised that Clinton did that--his record on civil liberties wasn't especially good. But surely you can see the difference between getting a warrantless search against one person and going on a multi-year fishing expedition, at least in degree. And for that matter, the whole question of whether Clinton, Carter, FDR, or James Buchanan did such things is a red herring. I say it's wrong no matter who does it, especially since the courts and Congress tend to be quite deferential to the President in conditions such as obtained immediately after 9-11--he really had only to ask to get any reasonable legislation. Let's argue about that and leave out all the rhetorical smokescreens, OK? I don't know about your childhood, but it never worked with my parents to say "But he did it first!"

Lyle: For a better example of hysteria, I refer you to John's last paragraph. And you might want to consider that juvenile asseverations such as those in your last paragraph do not do anything to recommend your otherwise reasonable arguments to the person you're addressing. Do you want to convince me, or just throw shit? I'll go to the monkey house at the zoo if that's what I'm interested in.

Tell me what conditions must obtain for the government... to say "Well, we won the War on Terror. There have been other terror campaigns and guerilla wars in history that have ended.* In fact they all end sooner or later. They don't end as neatly as a conventional war, but still it becomes obvious to all. And if the wartime infringements on civil liberty are onerous to the people, then opposition politicians will surely seize on the ending of the war to win elections or demand changes or budget cutbacks (unless they have, ahem, blown their credibility), even if the administration isn't ready to declare victory. There will always be some terrorism the world, but the war will end when the people decide it's no longer a war. (That's one of those problems, like Achilles and the tortoise, that frustrates fussy theorists but that ordinary people handle quite easily.) Let's suppose the Patriot Act really had led to government agents routinely scrutinizing your library records.** Americans would hate that, and it would become an ever-bigger political issue as terror attacks became less and less common.

In fact the current infringements are trivial, and are being blown out of proportion by partisan rancor. More importantly, the trend and momentum of our entire history is towards increasing civil liberties. The idea that we are losing them is silly.

And calling the current conflict a war has not, in fact, greatly increased the president's powers. In the case of the NSA intercepts, the courts have repeatedly and clearly ruled, over many decades, that the President has, in the case of foreign intelligence, the right to conduct warrantless wiretaps and searches within the US in peacetime--this is not a war-related power. (Here are the cases. This is established Constitutional law. The President doesn't need new laws, you need to amend the Constitution if you don't like it.) My point is that the President has NOT assumed new powers, not that he's right because "they did it first!."***

And you can call my last paragraph 'hysterical," but that just makes me think you don't have an answer.

footnotes:
*An interesting case of a guerilla war ending is our destruction of the Viet Cong, which after the Tet Offensive ceased to be an effective force. A "flag" clearly marking that defeat was the day a GI hitch-hiked from the DMZ to Saigon! (Unfortunately the North Vietnamese Army was on the way.)
**In fact the library issue is an invidious red herring, since the Act merely added the possible scrutiny of records (with warrant and cause) that already exists in criminal law to terror cases. The government could already look at your library records (with warrant and cause) if they thought you were a bank robber...and who ever claimed that that was an "infringement of liberties?" The leftist harping on the library issue is simply a form of lie.
***In fact, though I'm not sure on this point, I don't think historically that Americans have ever had much "civil liberties" protection if the issue is communication with a hostile foreign power. That just isn't one of our liberties. And probably shouldn't be.

Actually, I got distracted by the general question and gave no specific answers to your question of how we might decide this war has ended. There's obviously no exact answer with an enemy given to migrating, hiding, bluffing and deception.

However, I think this war resembles, roughly, a Bell Curve, with 9/11 somewhere near the top. (A more conventional pattern is for wars to grow in ferocity until the end, when there is a sudden collapse) I estimate we are on the far side of the curve, maybe 1/2 of the way down. When we enter the place where the curve goes mostly horizontal, the "long tail," we have won and we will be able to see it. We are 1/2 of the way down in blocking terror attacks and in intensity of action, but in terms of time it's more like 1/3 or 1/4, because the war will go more slowly towards the end, as targets grow fewer and more elusive.

Specific metrics:

1. Deny the enemy places to train and organize openly. This is complete.
2. Deny the enemy places to train in friendly semi-secrecy. At least 1/2 done. Still happens in places like NW Pakistan, or Indonesia, or European ghettos. But we are closing in.
3. Deny the enemy the aid of terror-supporting states. Maybe 1/2 done.
4. End the sympathy felt by Islamic populations for "brave fighters against X, Y & Z." At least 1/3 done. Forcing terrorists to fight for Iraq also forced them to slaughter fellow-Moslems in numbers that can't be ignored. Their killing Iraqi children or Jordanian wedding parties has revolted almost all those around them (except Western liberals).
5. Interdict shipments of arms and WMD's. It is pretty clear that progress has been made, but hard to quantify. But one metric is that armed conflict has dramatically declined globally, due at least in part to our stopping arms movement. (A little "collateral damage" from this wicked wicked war.) PSI is a multilateral success.

There's more I should add, but it's midnight--time for bed....

It occured to me (during my shower) that this is a perfect example of why your arguments are not respect-worthy.

If you are really the "concerned citizen" you pretend to be, YOU should be proposing some metrics for deciding when the war is won. Or defining the conflict and its scope if you don't think it is a war.

No, Dave. The best example of hysteria by far is your claim that the government is 'destroying the country's soul by shredding the Constitution.'

Do you think that kind of prom queen excess deserves a considered response? How about this: try backing it up with a fact-based argument. Now that you've lashed back at everyone who has expressed contempt for your sophomoric blowhardry, please demonstrate that you have some familiarity with the issue at hand.

I'd like to hear what you mean by 'the country's soul' and how it's being 'destroyed'. Maybe you can supply some metrics. And if the president is acting in accord with his Constitutional obligation as required in Article II - and in accord with long-established precedent - how is that 'shredding the Constitution'?

Dave,

Sorry, but still not simple and clear enough. Are you saying that a WMD attack on New York and Washington DC would not “harm our fundamental institutions”, and can you explain why the dead (possibly millions of dead) would care if it did or didn’t?

I can only assume that what you mean is that the terrorists do not pose an existential threat to the United States in its entirety. I suppose I’ll concede that, but it seems like an odd reason not to fear them.

Mike:That's exactly what I mean. And I think that we can protect against WMD attacks without ignoring the Constitution.

I frankly consider the administration's so-called efforts to protect us to be to a large degree mere grabs at political power and partisan advantage: a perfect example of this being the White House squashing Tom Ridge's attempts to protect large chemical plants, especially the more than one hundred where a toxic release would endanger at least one million people. No, they'd rather play fast and loose with the Constitition. I'd call them a bunch of clowns, except they're not funny.

John: I called your last paragraph hysteria, as it deserved, but perhaps I should have called it stone-throwing in a glass house. It's not peacemakers but people who think (I use the term loosely) like you who built up Saddam in the 80s and winked at his use of chemical weapons because he was killing Iranians for us--pretty ironic when you consider it's exactly the same people who make noble noises about "freeing the Iraqi people." You certainly didn't care about them when you could use them against Iran, did you? Warmonger!

And speaking of Iran, who but people who think like you overthrew Mohammed Mossadeq back in 1953, setting up the increasingly oppressive regime of the Shah (a bastard but our bastard) that with awful inevitability led to the sectarian regime that we're trying to deal with today? Warmonger!

Go back even farther. Who but people who think like you supported the reimposition of French colonial rule on Vietnam after WWII, and supported French attempts to suppress the nationalist uprising that resulted, leading with awful inevitability to the death of 58,000 American troops and millions of Vietnamese. Warmonger!

Go back even farther. Who but people who think like you imposed the vicious peace of Versailles on Germany, leading with awful inevitability to WWII? Warmonger!

John, you and people like you are the warmongers. It's your kind of thinking that is responsible for the mess we're in now, and the kind of idiots you put in power are just making it worse, trying the same old stale recipes over and over again: the very definition of insanity. You're in the position of a person who insists that radical surgery is the only course of action possible, but refuses to acknowledge the fact that if you'd called the doctor earlier--in other words, tried dealing honorably and peaceably with the people you disagree with rather than making even stronger enemies of them--it's likely surgery wouldn't have been necessary, or, at least, it would have been far less extensive. Doing that once could be an honest mistake; doing it repeatedly, as your kind have for centuries, is wicked foolishness.

But you'll never see that. You and people like you worship the god of this world and despite all your noble bloviation about the spread of freedom you are merely vicious chess players with human lives. 'm not at all convinced the Iraqi people or even any one Iraqi, are completely real to you--they're just screens on which you project your particular version of the ancient myth of redemptive violence. You and warmongers like you will never learn that, as William Penn said, "The children of Mars are not angels of peace. A good end cannot sanctify evil means, nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it."

Lyle: Ooh, poor child, did I sting you? Is it too hard to admit you should have left out that last paragraph that I called you on? But you couldn't resist, could you? Not surprising in one who seems to have learned his manners at Little Green Footballs

Since you apparently overlooked my example of just what we're discussing in my last post, I will repeat and expand it here: "I say it's wrong no matter who does it, especially since the courts and Congress tend to be quite deferential to the President in conditions such as obtained immediately after 9-11--he really had only to ask to get any reasonable legislation." In other words, the Constitution and its processes gave the president a way to get the powers he though he needed, but he didn't do it that way. He has the soul of an autocrat, not of an American; that is, he does not understand that a devotion to the means prescribed by the Constitution is essential to keeping us American.

But I don't suppose that explanation will do any good, since you apparently have no ability to comprehend anything but the most concrete prose. Asking for the metrics of the soul! Have you ever read a poem above the level of a limerick? Really, if it's too difficult for you to understand how the Constitution and a devotion to its processes in our country are analogous to the soul of a person, in that they make us the kind of country we are just as one's soul makes one the kind of person one is, then why should I waste time on you? Go back to school and learn how to think.

One last thing: do note that I did not instigate any rudeness here, and others here who did have recognized its inutility in their further responses. If you wish to have a substantive discussion with me, check your Billingsgate at the door, at least until you know me personally, as does John. His rudeness (or rather, lack of politesse), and mine in return, are the passion of people maintaining a friendship despite deep differences of opinion.

One more thing. John, I think your metrics for the end of this "war" are well-stated. I just don't think they're the sort that power seekers will pay any attention to. But, if you are to be correct in your belief that the political process will bring an end to the onerous restrictions on our liberties occasioned by this struggle, then the exact processes and actions you now decry as disloyal are exactly the means by which it will happen. Resistance to government infringement on liberty is not something you turn on at a moment determined by some objective standard: everyone has different perceptions of the balance of liberty and safety--the difference is where one see the examen move too far. Obviously, it has already swung too far for me.

Dave,

Another point to consider is one brought up by Steven den Beste in a rather famous (in Internet circles, anyway) series of posts on the War on Terror. I don't have the link in front of me, but they're often referred to as "the Three Conjectures". They're a bit dated, having been written two or three years ago.

Den Beste argues that we have to prosecute the War on Terror forcefully NOW to forestall worse outcomes later-- not for our own sake, we can take care of ourselves-- but rather, for the sake of Islam and the Muslim world.

One nightmare scenario den Beste posits is one in which, the United States NOT having forcefully prosecuted the War on Terror (basically a continuation of the Clinton Administration's policies), the Islamofascists (Islamonazis/Islamic radicals/whatever) become emboldened, continue to attack us here at home with ever-greater violence, culminating in a Hiroshima-sized bomb detonated in, say, downtown Manhattan resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

What follows is not pretty. Like I said, we can take care of ourselves-- a quarter-million dead in lower Manhattan will not cause the Republic to fall. The problem will be that the Islamofascists, having bombed lower Manhattan in the name of Islam Triumphant, will have signed the Muslim world's death-warrant. It will be very hard for a President (of whatever party) to resist the popular will to make *someone* pay for those quarter-million dead New Yorkers, and it won't help the Muslim cause if people from Morocco to Indonesia dance in the streets (like they did after 9/11) at the news of a destroyed American city.

Basically, Dave, the choice boils down to: 1) do a lot of dirty work now, and MAYBE put the Muslim world on a path to peace and prosperity, thereby putting the Islamonazis out of business; or 2) do nothing, let the Muslim world's problems fester, and still put the Islamonazis out of business by killing them AND a billion innocent Muslims through the reduction of the entire Muslim world to one vast glass-paved glow-in-the-dark parking lot, starting with Mecca and Medina.

Make no mistake, Dave-- we CAN do option #2, because we have (or can readily make) the nuclear fire-power to do it; and we killed millions of Germans and Japanese, and leveled their major cities, all in response to a only a few thousand dead at Pearl Harbor.

We're a blood-thirsty bunch if we're pushed into it, and I *really* REALLY don't want us pushed into it with the Islamonazis. And I *really* REALLY don't want the word "MONSTER" carved in flaming red letters on the forehead of the Statue of Liberty.

And if we have to put up with some eavesdropping on our phone conversations and e-mails by the FBI and the NSA for a few years, or even a decade or so, it's a small price to pay to save tens or hundreds of millions of human lives.

Dave,

Thanks for the poetry lesson. I'm still not sure what you meant by 'destroying the Country's soul by shredding the Constitution.' It sounds like hysteria; but suit yourself, it's poetry.

I did read what you consider to be a fact-based argument: "I say it's wrong no matter who does it, especially since the courts and Congress tend to be quite deferential to the President in conditions such as obtained immediately after 9-11--he really had only to ask to get any reasonable legislation."

Saying that you consider something to be wrong is not the same as arguing that it's unconstitutional. Oops, poetry again. And you're assuming that the law was broken, something that is not self-evident. Um, more poetry?

I meant something along the lines of: "Given your understanding of the NSA procedures for intercepting electronic communications, please explain why FISA courts have jurisdiction, and why that jurisdiction trumps the Executive's Constitutional authority, and all existing precedents."

This is going nowhere.

Dave, if you truly fear your government more than you fear terrorists seeking nuclear weapons, there is no counter-argument to that. All I can do is shake my head in disbelief.

All we are talking about here is eavesdropping for intelligence gathering purposes- this isn’t 1984. If you can’t trust your government to do that, considering the stakes involved, then there is no way we are ever going to agree on anything regarding this matter.

And you may want to consider doing your part to tone things down a bit (as I have). You are the one who is behaving as if they have been stung.

A few points for Dave...

1. Protecting Chem plants: Sounds on the face like you are in the right, though in general I favor putting our energy into offense, not defense.

2. History: We did NOT "build up" Saddam. His weapons came from France and Russia, and our involvement with him was minor, at a time when he was fighting with an avowed enemy of the US. That's what you do in real-world situations, when you you can't or won't go to war. For instance, right now we are "building-up" China, a horribly repressive regime, partly to gain diplomatic pressure to influence N Korea, a much more horrible regime. That's called "peaceful diplomacy." (Of course millions of Koreans will die as we "dialog" but hey, the evils of war will be avoided!) We had no leverage over Saddam, because we were not 'building him up," so our feelings about chem weapons were moot. We probably did care about the Iraqi people, but there was no option available for helping them.

Our support for the Shah turned out badly, but you discuss it without it's context, a little matter called the Cold War. In a similar case we did not interfere with some local Mossadeq's, in a place called Afghanistan. How "peaceful" was the result? How happy were the little locals, without...

...but soft. This does little good; we could continue arguing the details of history 'till Santa arrives. I disagree with your underlying premise, which is that all things in the world are happy until the US arrives and brings all evil, and it is always America that "acts dishonorably." Your premise is pure leftism, one we see over and over. Noam Chomsky argues from exactly the same base position.

"I'm not at all convinced the Iraqi people or even any one Iraqi, are completely real to you." The evidence says this is baloney, and that the opposite is true. I'm the person who follows Iraqi bloggers, and writes often of my delight in their stories and the stories of our troops dealing with them. I post pictures of them. I like their flavor. (In fact Charlene and I dream of visiting Iraq in a few years.)

The evidence says that YOU are the person using them as screens for your leftish myths of the evil US. You have never once blogged any warm-hearted delight in the many good and hopeful things that are happening to them and other Middle East peoples. In fact, apart from personal matters, your blog only comes alive when you can criticize the US. If I didn't know you personally I would conclude from the evidence that you are a cold-hearted leftist, and also a poseur.

As for your second post, WHAT " onerous restrictions on our liberties occasioned by this struggle??" By any historical standard there aren't any. In the NSA story, for instance, the NYT said openly that they were publishing classified material that the Administration had asked them to conceal! What other major war could that have happened in? In WWI hundreds of newspapers were shut down. In WWII abu Ghraib would not have received one line of type.

You start with the premise of a big war-time power grab, but there isn't one. Except one huge "power grab," which I think is what you are really complaining about. One called "winning elections."

[re-reading this comment, I see that the following sentence is not quite a valid complaint--since I've used "people like you" formulations referring to Dave, I shouldn't complain if he does the same to me.]
And what's this, "you and people like you" stuff? So what, exactly, are you? This week, at least? It's real easy to sneer when you never stand behind any practical policies or groups, but just criticize from offstage.

As for me, the little item you leave out, when speaking of something like "building up" Saddam, is that the Administrations involved, Reagan and Bush, were complex mixtures, and simultaneous with the "realist" policies, often necessary, that involved co-existance with the likes of Saddam, came a strong wave of new policies that promoted democracy as a better way of fighting Communism and advancing our interests. Better than supporting strongmen. That's the big reason why Latin America became a place of democracies rather than dictatorships in those years.

Those people were (an imprecise term) the NeoCons. And in the constant process of experimentation and groping in the dark that real-world policy-making is, their ideas gained influence because they worked. And now they are being applied to Iraq. I feel pretty confident in saying that those are "people like me," since I've long been thrilled by their policy mix.

Criticism like yours, that assumes there is some ideal realm of perfect policy that can lead to perfect results, is just stupid and useless. (And is usually just a cover for appeasement). The world needs both our brutal realpolitic, especially in stopping Communist aggression, and our idealism which can slowly build a world where war is less and less common. And that is exactly what is happening, with large swathes of the globe now free of the fear of war, with nations becoming democratic at a rate of about 1 1/2 per year, with global conflict and great-power conflict now extinct, and with war between nation-states almost extinct.

And none of that comes from pacifists.

Another point just occurs to me, Dave.

(I hope you're not smarting too much from all the blasts you're getting....)

You find fault (and rightly so) with the policies of Administrations from the '40s up until just recently, policies which justified the propping up of corrupt, incompetent, and brutal dictators under the dictum: "He may be a sonuvabitch, but he's *our* sonuvabitch."

That policy has ultimately caused us no end of trouble, both in terms of statecraft as those sons-of-bitches turned out to be unreliable, and in terms of lost goodwill on the part of people who could have been our natural allies.

What bothers me, Dave, is that too many on the Left fail to give the Bush Administration (and to some extent the Clinton Administration, as well) any credit whatsoever for realizing that the problem with the sons-of-bitches favored by our fathers' generation (that is to say, Presidents, presidential advisors, and Congressmen born before WWII) is that they are in fact sons-of-bitches, and worse, they're *our* sons-of-bitches. It's only in the last decade or so that we've started to undo the mistakes of our fathers, with George Bush carrying on the work quite well, and yet the Left won't give President Bush one iota of credit.

And you wonder why I don't think highly of the Left? It's because too many Leftists plainly either can't think, or CAN think but choose to be dishonest.

You know, I tend to think of writing comments as fun for me, but not a very profitable use of my time. But I just gained something valuable to me. For decades I've endured having Leftists throw Mossadeq at me, as an example of Evil America screwing up the world. (God, how they hate America.) And I've had to hang my head and vaguely admit we did wrong. But there's a good answer--I just thought of it a few comments back.

In Afghanistan we were also faced with a pro-Soviet government on the borders of the Soviet Union, and we didn't do anything.

And the result was millions dead, millions of refugees, brutal oppression, WAR.

Iran is in bad shape now, but if it had become a communist state, or a soviet state, it would have been much worse off. And in general, the places where we supported authoritarian dictators to prevent communist totalitarian dictators are much better off today because of it. Most of them now have democratic governments, a lot of freedom, and are far more prosperous than places such as Cuba or Vietnam.

We did RIGHT! We did GOOD!. We should be PROUD of America, even when discussing a Mossadeq, or Pinochet or Marcos or Chiang Kai-shek or Franco or Salazar, etc.

Our policies have improved since then, but in the context of those times we did right, we did the best we could at the time, and the overall results have been far better than when America-hating spineless leftists like Jimmy Carter did things their way.

[Update: More, much more occurs to me, but it also occurs to me that this should be saved to make a good blog post. I'll probably tactfully wait to post my thoughts 'till after Christmas, since I will be pointing out the slaughter and horror that result from pacifism.]