Putting A Blindfold On Our Intelligence Agencies And Then Demanding That They Connect The Dots

19 Dec, 2005 by John Hawkins

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“I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to go home and explain why these cities are safer without the renewal of the Patriot Act. It is inexcusable to say . . . ‘connect the dots’ and not give us a chance to do so. I happen to know there’s an enemy there. And the enemy wants to attack us. That is why I hope you can feel my passion about the Patriot Act. It is inexcusable to say to the American people . . . ‘We’re going to be tough on terror,’ but take away the very tools necessary to help fight these people.” — George Bush

The war on terrorism hasn’t worked out very well for Al-Qaeda since the 9/11 attacks. While they have been able to pull off a few big attacks in Europe, their protectors in Afghanistan, the Taliban, were run out of power, their training camps were destroyed, they’ve been unable to defeat America or stop Democracy from relentlessly progressing in Iraq, and they’ve also been unable to pull off another big attack on the US mainland.

However, despite all of those failures, Al-Qaeda has been able to reel off some smashing successes in the US Congress and the press over the last week or so.

First of all, George Bush, in the face of overwhelming pressure from the Congress, gave-in on John McCain’s anti-“torture” bill AKA as the, “Al-Qaeda Bill of Rights,” AKA as, “The End of Useful Interrogations of Al-Qaeda Act of 2005.” This bill will prevent the “torture” of prisoners, like making rooms hot or cold, sleep deprivation, making captured terrorists stand in “stress positions” and giving terrorists “pink bellies.” As a thank-you for that courtesy, Al-Qaeda had to give up — nothing. They will continue trying to murder our civilians and will happily keep making snuff videos featuring ululating fanatics sawing the heads off of American captives. If that sounds like a good deal for Al-Qaeda, it’s because it is.

Next, the overwhelming majority of the Democrats, along with a handful of wayward Republicans, voted to help make it much more difficult for our intelligence agencies to fight terrorism by voting against the Patriot Act. Great job, guys! Now, in many ways, we’re back to our pre-9/11 domestic intelligence capabilities and you know how well that worked out for us.

Last but not least, someone who deserves to spend the next 20 years in a Federal penitentiary breaking big rocks into smaller rocks leaked to the New York Times that the NSA is recording calls between Americans and terrorist phone numbers overseas. Because Bush signed off on the phone calls instead of getting warrants for each of them, which is fine by me by the way, the NYT gave the whole world, including the terrorists, a big heads up about the program. Again, great job, guys! It’s always nice to see the media turning a useful source of information for our intelligence agencies into a dry hole so they can try to stick it to Bush.

If you put all three of these big victories for Al-Qaeda together, you’ll see that our intelligence gathering capabilities have been severely diminished which makes it significantly more likely that Al-Qaeda will be able to launch another successful attack on our country. So when that happens, will we see John McCain, Harry Reid, the New York Times, etc., etc., step up and take responsibility for helping to make it happen — or — will they point the finger at President Bush and deny the huge role they played in Al-Qaeda’s success? We all know the answer to that question, don’t we?