New York Times today leading with:

"A Liberal Case for Gun Rights Helps Sway Judiciary

"By ADAM LIPTAK

"In March, for the first time in the nation’s history, a federal appeals court struck down a gun control law on Second Amendment grounds. Only a few decades ago, the decision would have been unimaginable.

"There used to be an almost complete scholarly and judicial consensus that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right of the states to maintain militias. That consensus no longer exists — thanks largely to the work over the last 20 years of several leading liberal law professors, who have come to embrace the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns."

The story goes on but aren't liberals the bad guys? Elucidate, please.

You'll have to ask Liptak. He seems confused...

You believe what you read in the NY Times? I think the rational and scholarly study of the Consitutional intent along with what was written has helped move this issue. Additionally, a GREAT deal of credit should go to the NRA, SCI, and others who have waged a campaign for many years to protect our rights. No way is the NYT going give those guys credit!

Jim

Note the statement in the article quoted that there was a judicial and scholarly concensus the right was collective and not an individual right. That has only been true in the liberal mind, no one else bought it. Even in defeat they tried to defend that erroneous position.

"thanks largely to the work over the last 20 years of several leading liberal law professors, who have come to embrace the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns."

The story goes on but aren't liberals the bad guys? Elucidate, please.

Did he, or can you, name one?
Not bloody likely!
It's a safe bet the NRA was the real force behind this surprising turn of events.

Of course true intellectual liberals embrace the right to own guns. By definition, when a government gets out of control and enforces rules on the minority it is always conservative.
The US Constitutional RKBA was forged by revolutionaries who did not want a government which could control individual freedom. That was a radically liberal concept then and if you look at it honestly, is still so. RCC

To determine realistically if this group of professors are "liberal" would take more information than how they view the 2nd Amendment. We would need to know where they stand on many other issues, both Constitutional and otherwise. Not to mention that the NY Times labelling somebody as having a certain character trait or viewpoint does not make it so. In fact, based on their track record, the opposite would be just as likely.

The problem as I see it is that the Constitution is a very starightforward document in a complicated time. I try to look at thing throught the lense of common sense. The Bill of Rights is about preserving the rights of the individual, or at the very least the rights of the people in general. When they were talking about state's rights or powers they use the word "states". When they talk about the federal governement they use the term "United States", and "Congress". When they talk about the rights of the people they use the word "people". It's really a no-brainer, but because there are a whole pile of people out there who want to make their mark on the world by "interpreting" the Constitution we have a good deal of confusion on the issue. The only right mentioned in the 2nd Amendment is the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Period. If it had been intended to be a protection of states' rights it would have been written that way as it is in the 10th Amendment.

I don't think that liberals are "the bad guys" neccessarily. I do think that most of the things that liberals seem to want for our society have been proven not to work historically, or fly in the face of human nature. i.e. that if you make guns illegal all the criminals will turn them in. Or that if you provide a person with income for not working that they'll run right out and try to find a job. I would dispute that there was ever a "complete scholarly and judicial concensus" on this issue. If there were our rights under the 2nd Amnedment would have been stripped away by now. I do find it a little sad that so much credit is given to a group of "liberal law professors" for coming to a conclusion that anyone with a high school level of reading comprehension should be able to reach in 30 seconds of uninterrupted thought.

The United States was formed by revolutionaries. It just was. RCC

The Supreme Court has NEVER viewed the 2nd Amendment as a collective right. The socialist King Brown from socialist Canada may like to think so, but he is deluded. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms was investigated in the Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary US Senate, 97th Congress second session 2/82.There were even some severe low lifes on the committee like Teddy Kennedy, Howard Metzenbaum, Joe Biden, and Dennis DeConcini. The obvious conclusion was that it was an individual right originating as a natural right from God and guaranteed in the Constitution. Moreover, after it passed, later in the day someone tried to rephrase it as a collective right, and that was defeated.

They lost now they're trying to take credit for it. Intersting that all other 'Rights' are individual rights except the Second Amendment, To many 'sheep' have entered the legal system in this country not enough rams!!!
All the best

Kingsley:

I swear sometimes I think you just like to stir up a commotion - like pitching a hand grenade into a chicken coop. Perhaps thats what journalists do.

I digress.

The prime example of an explanation of the Constitution is the federalist papers. While they pre-date the Bill of Rights by some 10 years, every time the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is discussed, there is no doubt that the right is considered an " individual right". Justice Joseph Story's Constitutional Commentaries, 1833, ( Ill get better cites if you wish ) left no doubt abpout the situation in that era.

The jurisprudence springing from interpretation of the 13 and 14th Amendments, when laws to disarm and prevent the voting of ex-slaves were overturned, the right of these new citizens to " keep and bear arms" " was right up there with the right to vote. And, as Pete rightly points out, the Congress even came to that conclusion in 1982.

This "collective" rights idea is a pernicious falsehood.

The states are sovereign, and always had the right to keep militia. The right to have a militia is imbedded in the main text of the Constitution.

Article 1, Section 8 - Powers of Congress, gives Congress the power to " To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;


Article 1, Section 10- Powers Prohibited of the States, prohibits them from keeping " Troops", ie, regular armed forces. The states are not prohibited "militia".

Note that the existence of the militia is in no doubt, and the States maintain the authority to train them, in accord with the regulations from Congress ( in modern times, US Army and US Air Force regulations, as the case may be).

Any proposition that Amendment II was anything other than what it, in plain English, appears to be, is silly at best. In a litany of individual rights, which are referred to as rights of " The People", is it logical that the term " The people"... means in every instance an individual, except in Amendment II, where it is p[ropsed to actually mean " the States".

That is silly on the face. If the word " People" and the Word" State" are synonyms, we should be able to perform a word for word substitution, and arrive at a reasonable phrase. Lets take that one out for a spin, shall we?

" ... The right of The State of Texas to Keep and Bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

" ... The right of The State of Oklahoma to Keep and Bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

Ok lets think about this. The above phrases are basically nonsense.

1) A state, being a political unit, cannot "bear" arms. Only men, individuals, can BEAR arms.

2) Article 8 does not give the Congress the power to limit the militia of the states, other than making sure that their discupline and training regimen meets a particular standard, but even this acknoledges the states right to have a militia, and to appoint the officers and control the militia.

3) Article 10 says the States cannot have a regular Army. A Militia is not a regular Army.

4) Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People

" The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

A lovely restatement of the restrictions on the Congress. Hmmm... I think that puts the kibosh on the proposition. No where does the Constitution prevent the States from having a militia. If that is so, then the purpose of the Second Amendment, Amendment II, "The Palladium of our Liberties", as Mr. Justice Story put it, must be what it in plain English says.

It sure does upset a bunch of folks, and confuses a lot of our friends, but by golly, thats one of those things that makes us Americans, and me a Texan.

Unlike so many British and Canadians, I do not think like a subject, I don't need Bobby Peel or the friendly Mountie to protect me, and I will not be placed in the position that I cannot do it myself. Being "free" is much more than being a well-tended and watered sheep.

Regards

Gregory K. Taggart

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/us/06f...amp;oref=slogin

OK, here's the article. Names Lawrence Tribe and Sanford Levinson. Could also include Dershowitz, I suppose. All have begrudgingly admitted the 2nd means what it says. I think Tribe and Dershowitz have been calling for a constitutional amendment to repeal.

The part that bugs me is the spin that there was once this great consensus (presumably, after the oft misunderstood 'Miller') that the 2nd somehow conferred a collective right. For the first 150 plus years of US history there was not one printed opinion or document to support the idea that the 2nd was anything but an individual right.

In the end, the right - like a genie that has escaped from the bottle - will protect itself, if push comes to shove. We all hope this does not happen, of course. Thus, we continue to vote and to write our senators and congressmen.

Sam

They are calling for its repeal. They have come to realize two things. One, they could not get rid of private gun ownership by pretending that it was not an individual right. Two, that by doing number one, their sacred cows like abortion and the 1st amendment could be destroyed via the same means (Dershowitz has openly made this point before).

The mask that they pretend to wear, "We don't want to ban guns", has finally come off now that they are calling for a repeal. That they have admitted that it is an individual right does not mean they are no longer an enemy when they call for the 2nd amendment to be repealed.

I used to work with a lady who was real PITA. She would go through a job file until she found some 'problem'. She would run around for a week 'fixing' the problem until she finally had 'taken care of it'. Then she spent the next week patting herself on the back for having saved our asses once again.

The thing is, when she finally wound down, everyone couldn't help but notice the job file was exactly the same as when she first started her wild goose chase.

I am sure she was a liberal.

Recommended reading: The Second Amendment Primer, A citizen’s guidebook to the history, sources and authorities for the constitutional guarantees of the right to keep and bear arms. The book was written by Les Adams and published by Palladium Press Birmingham, Alabama in 1996. The author walks you through the chronology of the second amendment.

Many thanks your views. I posted more from a mischievous sense that no one can be neatly categorized or labelled these days. We're liberal on some issues and what I think of as foolish moss-back Tory on others. At least I and all my friends are, and that's why I posted here to the world. Regards, King

King, where you been huh?
We are more deeply divided than ever!
The left-leaners don't have guncabinets.
They count their toilet paper sheets by the fire.

It's silly, and counterproductive, to use labels such as conservative and liberal when talking about gun rights.

MANY people who call themselves "liberal" support gun rights. Many people (especially politicians) who consider themselves as "conservatives" have/do/will trade away gun rights.

The sooner we realize that yammering about those "danged liberals" only costs us the support of liberal gun lovers, the better off we will be.

I don't care what a politician's views are on any other issue if he/she supports gun rights.

That is the only way we win on our issues.

Now there's some disinformation for you!
The nightly news leaders of the Dems are about 100% anti-gun - you know, the ones you've voted in.
Think welfare, over gun rights, and you'd be spot on.

Ah friends:

The Second Amendment does not create a right. It merely RECOGNIZES a pre-exisitng right.

Examine, once again, the text.

"...the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".

It does not say " Congress has created a right". Nor can one infer that the right has been created by the Amendment, which is indeed the case with Amendments III, V, VI, VII, and VIII.

Should Tribe, et al, get such a repeal passed, which strikes me as so unlikely as to not even be worthy of comment ( other than that the Tribe cabal [ no pun intended] have finally agreed it IS an Individual right), that would work no change.

A right which pre-exists the Constitution, cannot be removed by a legislative act, and the act would be void on its face ab initio. In addition, Congress can no more repeal the " Right to bear Arms" than it can repeal the " Right to Life" or "Right to Liberty" or the " Right to Pursue Happiness". These are Natural Rights and stem from the Creator.

Any government which attempted to "repeal" a natural right, would be giving evidence of its own illegitamacy.

Regards

GKT

Greg, I'm among the Canadians who are kind of slow to pick up on things, among the timid and tethered you referred to earlier.

I'm pleased that I don't have to consider "natural rights" preceding Constitition and Bill , as you do.

There was a natural right to enslave and disenfranchise and chain and shackle to ensure a particular pursuit of happiness stemming ostensibly from the Creator.

No more, in your country and mine. The Age of Reason prevailed.

King, from where does this right to enslave others pretain and/or proceed from? What is its metaphysical basis? Understand I'm not trying to be smart or sarcastic, but I'm very interested to understand why you believe this.

The knee-jerk liberal bashers are missing the entire point of the NYT article. Influential legal scholars who formerly opposed the Second Amendment have rethought their position, in light of their own political philosophy, and come around to our side. That is extremely significant. Yes, gun-owners and their representatives have been making this argument for a long time, but this reversal of opinion by intelligent people suggests that we are finally winning. Why grouse about that?

Some are simply recognizing it's an individual right and now calling for its repeal. Recognizing the right is a step in the right direction, but it's far from a reversal of thinking. It's only a more honest attempt to do what they've been trying to do all along: ban guns.

JM, the Protestant ethic, the Bible's injunctions, St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians etc supported notions of slavery that bothered masters of entire economic systems and societies not at all. It was the way of the world. Where people were cast as sub-humans with beasts of burden, what difference blacks or mules?

We had our liberty, our pursuit of happiness, our natural rights. The president of a white college in Georgia told me 50 years ago he taught from St. Paul that slaves were to obey their masters. I asked his students if they could accept federal injunctions to obey the law. No, they said, but they could accept their children doing so.

If these "natural" rights Greg refers to came from the Creator, it's a safe bet that they were rooted in an earlier Christianity. I heard it from the pulpits of the American South. Queen Elizabeth referred last week in America to how the Empire changed in this respect and lauded Virginia as the first state to apologize to blacks.

In Atlanta, in MLK's home, I asked where he got his physique. He looked soft but he wasn't soft, believe me. He could manhandle six-foot-one former-boxer me. "In the pool, the YMCA," he said. "The black YMCA." Jackie Robinson, who got his first break in Montreal, couldn't eat with his Dodger teammates. Few demurred.

Branch Rickey is one of my heroes.

Just because something was tolerated or practiced does not make it an inherent right. When Moses was given the law from the Lord, the Lord never said that Israel had a right to enslave others. If He did, please tell me what book and verse it appears.

Slavery created racism, racism did not create slavery.

So....If I'm a Christian who believes that most liberals are in favor of abridging my 2nd Amendment rights then I also am in favor of enslaving Black people which was still being practiced until 1957 by certain college professors in Georgia until Martin Luther King took time away from wrestling King Brown around the living room to put a stop to it.

Ok. Just so I have it straight in my head.

Nick

Why do folks insist on dividing the whole world into "liberals" and "conservatives"?

Sure, there are unthinking, unquestioning "liberals" who swallow that orthodoxy whole. And unthinking, unquestioning "conservatives" who do the same. But hopefully most people here use their God-given brains to think things out issue by issue, and don't define themselves with bumper-sticker slogans and slapdash labels.

Why, one of my best friends is a Democrat...

The Lord speaks to Moses in the Book of Leviticus:

Far as I'm concerned there is only one "natural" right: the right to eat or be eaten. Way of all flesh and some vegetables; sort of a universally-sanctioned competition. I don't think it makes much difference whether you're using your teeth, the jawbone of an ass, or waving your arms while the buffalo stampede over the cliff. However, I find that I get more sleep when the County and State fellers do the night shift around nearby Ferris School for Boys. A social compact is trusting provisionally those you can't trust absolutely; something which you get used to as you get older. I've lost all interest in Greg's Green Mtn. Boy rhetoric, King's bona fides as someone present at the creation of everything, and wrangling over biblical, and by extension, divine justification. I don't mind if people think I have guns and know how to use them but I don't really want to find out.

jack

Jack, what version are you quoting? The King James version I have is different.

The original King James version uses the archaic terms "bondmen" and "bondmaids" - the New King James, English Standard, New American Standard and other modernized versions of the bible all translate that as "slaves." Bondage is synonymous with slavery.

Interesting, mine only refers to them as servants, and that they may buy them.

Nancy just asked what I was laughing about. I said this board has put at least 20 years on my life. Many thanks all hands.

Yeah, when you can buy and sell human beings, and will them as property to your heirs, there are all sorts of ways to describe it. In my great great grandfather's will, he never used the term "slave." But he left "my negro man Billy" and "my negro woman Amy" to his wife, and "the first Child of my negro woman" to his daughter...along with his horses, cattle, sheep and hogs.

Tribe and Dershowitz . . . interestingly enough, I recall that one of this pair (maybe both) also supports torture under certain circumstances--like if the individual being tortured is in possession of information that can disrupt a terrorist plot.

FDR made the decision to "relocate" thousands of Japanese Americans, and he insisted on the death penalty for German "saboteurs"--who had never even attempted to commit sabotage. (And he got what he wanted in the latter case, via military tribunal.) Does that make him liberal, in comparison to the conservative President Bush???

Homosapiens have been around about 200,000 years. The Brits outlawed slavery in 1832 and Americans in 1865 (Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 only pertained to border states). Not much difference. Mauritania outlawed slavery in 1989 but it is still practiced there.

I seem to remember the same thing and I think it was about Dershowitz. I think he has very strong feelings about Israel and all that. We all tend to take care of our own issues. Funny, eh? Jake

King:

The definitions of Natural Law provide for few things.

My pursuit of happiness is a natural right until I collide with someone elses pursuit of happiness. As someone, I wish I knew who said :"My right to freely swing my fist ends at the tip of someone elses nose."

"Slavery" is not a natural right, at least not according to Hobbes and Beccaria and Locke.

I am not responsible for the ignorance you encountered in Georgia, no matter what banner it flew. In the Bible, reference to slavery and slaves necessarily mostly refers to Saxons and Angles and Ostrogoths and Visigoths and Medes and Greeks and Gauls and Jutes as these are the folks who lost wars with the Romans and were therefore enslaved. I call to mind Onesimus in the Epistle to Philemon - Onesimus is a Greek.

St. Pauls comments merely acknowledge the existence of slavery, and neither condemn it nor commend it. Please note he didnt have anything bad to say about the Roman Empire, either, even though his people were oppressed by it.

This is a digression, however.

The gents who wrote the US Constitution believed in Natural Rights, ( referred to as Inalienable Rights in the Declaration ) and the reason they wanted to give 'ol King George the heave ho, was because Georgius Rex and his parliamemnt was trampling on them. Like it or not, the whole of American Constituional jurisprudence is based on it - if there were no natural Rights, rebellion against the Crown was unlawful and immoral.

Regards

GKT

So, after "200,000 years of homo sapians" (according to Pete, I am no authority), we have had maybe 140 years (or maybe more like 40 to be more honest) of no slavery in a small part of the Western World. It still exists in a much larger part of our green earth. Our life since 1865 (or 1965) as an emancipated population is but a blip on the calendar of humanity. The separation of the classes by economics in our world today is to some a prediction of the return to slavery in even the most enlightened societies.

Actually, slavery in Mauritania was outlawed in 1905 (by the French), and again in 1960 (by the Islamic Republic)...but I was attended by slaves at the governor's residence in Boutilimit in 1975! Mauritania outlawed slavery again in 1981 (by the military junta), but by all accounts it continues today.

Interesting thing was, the slaves I saw were better dressed, better fed and better treated than most 'free' Mauritanians, because they were considered valuable property! Desert people were eager to sell their children, not just for the cash, but because slavery might give their kids a better life.

I'm not much of a scholar. I barely read anything.

That said, it seems to me that we're talking about different things. I'm not going to get into the slavery issue, with regard to "what the Bible says" because faith-based, yet scholarly, discussions always seem (or lean towards the) absurd.

We may have (animal) proclivities that lead us to commmit acts that would be perceived, by most, as evil. That is probably why people came up with tribal laws, religions, governments to begin with. There is power in consensus. That power works both for and against the "rights" of the individual, hence the need to recognize and protect the individual (animal/natural) right to self preservation.

"Liberals" are the FIRST people who should recognize this! They share something in common with the "founding fathers" of our "government"... They don't trust THEMSELVES!~) I'm not sure how that translates into trusting their respective governments.

That's not too far off what was crossing my mind in regards to the Bible about the "buying" of others regardless of the term being used such as servant, bondman, slave, etc. How many were similar to being indentured servants vs. captivity against one's will? No doubt there were those held in captivity by Israel against their will that were likely captured during wars with the Phillistines and other nations just as Israel was taken into captivity by the Babylonians.

...and the point is?

Effectively, almost all mericans are enslaved by our dependence on credit!~) In any case, being an armed slave is always a better deal.

Jacob, good point. Actually I had much more profound points to ponder on the second amendment and liberals than I did on slavery, but the slavery business is so misunderstood that I was almost forced to comment on that rather than the theme of the thread! A "liberal outlook on the second amendment" is not to be confused with "liberals versus conservatives" in modern U.S. politics. They are two very different uses of the L word.

"The separation of the classes by economics in our world today is to some a prediction of the return to slavery in even the most enlightened societies."

A profound observation, eightbore, and it seems there aren't enough of core beliefs and intellect to do anything about it.

Well, King, I sure can't do anything about it. I'm not going back to school for a more technical education and I'm nicely involved in a defined benefit retirement program and am looking for a few minutes of free time to apply for my first SS check, due in October. I am truly a dinosaur who will not be enslaved, but as for my grandchildren, I don't know. Is there a book I can have them read that explains adequately the way they may be denied partication in a free economic society as they mature?

How is "the separation of the classes by economics" any different today from other times? The classes have always been separated by economics, and always will be.

JJE: "Our dependence on credit" is voluntary servitude, not slavery. Only the addict believes he is not free to choose.

Jack, at least on this side of the pond that divides us from Europe, the gulf of separation between the haves and have nots (or, more properly, between the "have lots" and the "haves"--CEO's and workers) has widened significantly of late. In Europe, at least if you go back to the time of nobles, peasants and serfs, the gulf of separation has grown narrower--partly, at least, because of the tax structure in most European countries. And the fact that it's fairly hard to find peasants and serfs these days. So while the classes are still separated, they're separated in a far different fashion today than in the past. And there are also far more people in the middle, compared to those on either the high or low end.

Voluntary servitude... Yep... Too danged much of that going around!~)

Luckily(?) for me, "credit" is one of those few things to which I have never been addicted. I am currently debt free...and have the dearth of goods to prove it!~) This sloth addiction is killing me, though!

Jack M., your point is understood and digested but the CEO system is even more separated economically from the workers than the plantation owner system was separated economically from the slaves. There is now a system of "no economically solvent worker class" in our country save professional craftsmen and the last generation of sub professional government employees. And, if you'll notice, it happened pretty fast. We all know how this situation is being rapidly accelerated, but that is another subject that, thankfully, is not being discussed on this thread.

I'm throwing in with Jack. (Also agree 100% with Jack Maloney that trashing liberals universally is worse than not helpful.)

Who told the high-flying philosophers which rights to include on their lists of natural rights? Who's the authority? Trying to find someone who can tell me which rights are natural God-given and which aren't leads into foggy dark places where I can't see if it's God or the devil who's talking.

What matters is whether or not we have the power to exercise our rights. If voting power shifts against and the Constitution is amended to repeal RKBA, the cultural norm would be a view of RKBA as an anachronism that no longer promotes the general welfare. Natural rights are a lovely idea, but absent divine intervention we better win the pragmatic argument about the general welfare in the 21st century.

Jay

Gunflint, you and Jack are from a state that elected a pro rassler as Gov. Says something about political acumen up there in Minnesota.:) Back when Ventura was your guy, our gov's wife got off a good shot: "If you want an encyclopedia torn in half, see the governor of Minnesota. If you want it read, see the governor of Iowa."

Seriously, there used to be some decent liberals--but note the past tense. Take a good look at the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and see if you can come up with some worthy examples. Not that there aren't good Dems, like the "blue dog" types recently elected that support gun rights. But they're not in the liberal wing.

The word liberal has been traditionally defined as 'broad minded,' 'tolerant of the views of others' and 'not bound by orthodoxy.' I have the greatest respect for true liberals.

The 'liberal wing' of the Democratic party, as delineated by chairman Howard Dean and loudly demonstrated by Cindy Sheehan, is anything but liberal. They are supremely intolerant of the views of others, and attack anyone - including prominent and lifelong Democrats - who deviates from a rigid and narrowly defined orthodoxy. Bad people hiding behind a good name doesn't make them good. Nor should it make that name bad.

I think I addressed the problem of the various uses of the term "liberal" in an earlier post. Jack's reference to "true liberals" is not in use today. A "true liberal" would not be in line with the Democratic Party design.

So then its ok to be a "liberal" (broad minded - not bound by orthodoxy etc.) but not a "Democrat" because the "new liberals" in "control of the party" are too left wing.
And, I guess the "conservatives" are not defined by the folks in power who take away Constitutional rights (like habeas corpus [the right to petition the court when thrown in jail]or the right to privacy and to be free from the government intercepting and reading/listening to all your communication)who also happen to be "Republicans?" Would that be the "extreme right wing" which is now "in control" of the Republican party?
At least the "liberal Democrats" apparently think that to take away Constituitional rights, it is necessary to have some legslative action and possibly even court review. What a wacky left wing concept that is.
RCC

Here is a link to what used to be Liberal, but since the term has been hijacked the new old term is Classical Liberal.

http://www.mises.org/etexts/classical.asp

Jefferson was an "old" liberal.

jack

Larry -

Former Gov. Jesse was in some ways an embarrassment, but he was sound on RKBA. Anyway, I don't begrudge an Iowayan's bragging about one of the state's most impressive accomplishments -- you deserve congratulations for not electing a former pro wrestler to be governor. After all, not every state can make that claim!

Jay

Jakearoo, of course, is correct, Democrats are not neccesarily liberals and Republicans are not neccesarily conservatives, and the sarcasm is not offensive. What I find offensive is the Democrats implying that they are "saving the world" by trashing gun rights and eliminating our right to teach our children personal responsibility. I see these two party platforms to be repugnant. If they gave up just those two, they would never lose another election in this country.

Jake, not to get into a detailed discussion of just where your rights to privacy end, but were you under the impression that back during WWII, you could communicate with your cousin Fritz in Germany or Uncle Hiro in Japan without Uncle Sam reading your mail? That great liberal FDR had thousands of Americans placed in "relocation camps"--just because they happened to be Japanese-Americans. And while much has been made of "secret prisons" and harsh interrogation techniques in the current war on terror, you might want to review what FDR did to a group of German saboteurs--guys that never even attempted (let alone committed) sabotage. Just to save you the trouble, they were tried--before a military tribunal, in fact--and 6 of the 8 of them were executed. Meanwhile, our British allies--as part of an operation called Doublecross--gave captured German spies an interesting choice: cooperate with British intelligence or be executed. The result was a very successful counterintelligence and disinformation operation.

What terrible things today's conservatives are doing to our terrorist enemies . . .

Here is the complete report that Pete alluded to, saved by me and reprinted.

For Friar Tuck and oher interested parties, the 2nd Amendment history in court and the 97th Congress report on the Right
Forum: The gunshop.com Double Gun BBS
Date: Nov 29, 13:52
From: Pete

to Keep and Bear Arms. The committee print is available for a modest price from the Superintendent of Documents, US Govt Printing Office, Washington DC 20402. Ask for "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms" Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary-United States Senate-97th Congress-second session Feb 1982.
The committee included Disgusting Democrats like Kennedy, Biden, Byrd, Metzenbaum, and DeConcini. It also in included Republicans Mathias, Laxalt, Hatch, Dole, Specter, Thurmond, and others.

The research was comprehensive and even the Democrat ranking minority member Deconcini admitted that: "The Right to keep and bare arms is a tradition with deep roots in American society. Thomas Jefferson proposed that "no free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms", and Samuel Adams called for an Amendment BANNING any law "to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms". The Constituion of the state of Arizona (Deconcini's state), for example, recognizes the "Right of an individual citizen to bear arms in defence of himself and the state".

Chairman Hatch added: "We did not make suppositions as to colonial interpretations of that Declaration's Right to keep arms; we examined colonial newspapers which discussed it. We did not speculate as to the intent of the framers of the second amendment; we examined James Madison's drafts for it, his handwritten outlines of speaches upon the Bill of Rights, and discussions of the second amendment by early scholars who were personal friends of Madison, Jefferson, and Washington and wrote while these still lived. What the Subcommittee on the Constitution uncovered was clear-and long lost-proof that the second amendment to our Constitution was intended as an individual Right of the American citizen to keep and carry arms in a peaceful manner, for the protection of himself, his family, and his freedoms."

THe term militia was scutinized and was obviously private. An amendmend that would have added the term "for the common defense" was rejected at the time of the writing of the amendment showing further proof that this was a personal right. The framers used the term "militia" to relate to every citizen capable of bearing arms, and that the Congress has established the present National Guard under its power to raise armies, EXPRESSLY STATING that it was NOT doing so under its power to organize and arm the militia.

This is examined in great detail.

As for The US Supreme Court, only three times is the second amendment mentioned under case law. In Dread Scott, it indicated STRONGLY that the Right to keep and bear arms was an individual right; the Court noted that, were it to hold free blacks to be entitled to equality of citizenship, they would be entitled to keep and bear arms wherever they went. In Miller, indicated that a court cannot take judicial notice that a short-barreled shotgun is covered by that amendment-but the Court did not indicate that National Guard status is in any way required for protection by that amendment, and indeed DEFINED "militia" to include all citizens able to bear arms. The third, a footnote in Lewis v. United States indicated that only "these legislative restrictions on the use of firearms"-a ban on possession by FELONS-were permissable. But since felons may constitutionally be deprived of of many of the rights of citizens, including that of voting, this dicta reveals little. The case of Adams vs Williams has been cited as contrary to the principle that the second amendment is an individual right. But in fact, that reading of the opinion comes only in Justice Douglas's dissent from the majority ruling of the court.

In fact, that last sentence is the only fear we have. That a liberal President would appoint such liberal judges so far out of the proper view of the constitution, that they could destroy our one liberty that keeps our other liberties free. And THAT is why we can never vote for an individual like Gore.

I'll post other excepts from time to time. The committee report also included 21 case law studies from 1822 to 1981 showing how other courts had upheld the second amendment and overturned local laws or courts that had found otherwise.

Pete

Look, don't keep bashing the "liberals." I tell ya, the concept of the RKBA is a liberal concept put forth by liberal (revolutionary) men who would, and did, fight to the death for freedom.
A free man has the right to own a gun. And, it follows that he can use that gun for his freedom.
If only the government can say who owns a gun then the government can do whatever it damn well pleases. It can be as conservative or restrictive or theologic as it wants to be and impose its will on the citizens. They will have no choice.
The concept of RKBA is rooted in freedom from oppression from governments.
Tell all your liberal friends.
We need them.

Regards, RCC

RCC: Nice try, Craig. Unfortunately, you'll never see the end of liberal-bashing on any gun BB. For folks who can't think beyond bumper sticker slogans and one word labels, 'liberal' has only one meaning, and it is bad.

I find it interesting that the most partisan, hateful, disrespectful bumper stickers, filled with nothing but blind rage are all liberal leaning hate messages. I never see the car of a conservative or classical liberal plastered with bumper sticker slogans.

David, you read different bumper stickers than I do. And then there is the internet.
Brent

Pete, I've not commented on the Second Amendment right as individual or collective because I don't know and without a consensus, here for sure, we'll have to wait for the courts to make the final decision. Whatever it is, some members feel that "natural law" is supreme.

It's a stretch to declare Canada and me as socialist. Canada, which has never had a socialist federal government, is currently under minority Conservative rule. Preceding governments alternated between Liberals and Conservatives, both more Establishment than ideologically political.

Socialist no longer even means socialist. From today's announcement of Tony Blair's resignation: "During his tenure, Blair skillfully combined the Labour party's left-wing social policies with slightly right-wing economic principles.

"There is only one government since 1945 that can say all of the following: more jobs, fewer unemployed, better health and education results, lower crime and economic growth in every quarter," said Blair. "Only one government -- this one."

Mr. Blair was the master of "triangulation"---talking one way and doing another. It's a politics familiar to Canadians and Americans. I've said in many posts here that labelling people is old-fashioned in different times, in mixed economies.

King, think of how much better the economic policies would have looked at the bottom line if so many millions had not been wasted on the registration and tracking of sporting guns. This is not a criticism of Canadians alone since we Yankees waste even more millions on useless gun tracking. What is wrong with "Everything is legal until you get caught abusing them. At this point, nothing is legal and you go to jail if you get caught with them."? A very simple one line gun control agenda.

Spot on. I also find liberal bashing disingenuous at best, when those same people enjoy driving on public roads, using public schools, and many other institutions and benefits given by liberals in the past. I'm sure liberal bashers will be giving back their social security checks also, since they hate government so much, right? Paradoxically, conservatives have been gorging on government hand outs at a rate unprecedented in history.

The point is, we all have blinders on, we are all hypocrites in one way or another whether we realize it or not, but it behooves us as individuals and free-thinking people to have an open mind before judging everything and everyone. There are so many things to be learned from an inquisitive, inclusive world view, rather than a closed, exclusive one, which is how I used to view the world. Not that I think that makes me better than anyone else, but I am certainly more open-minded than I used to be. That is why I became an ex-republican.

Life is short. Enjoy it, and the people you meet along the way. Even the liberals.

Whether "liberals" gave us the 2nd Amendment originally is water long over the dam, down the river, and out to sea. The issue is that TODAY, the gun grabbers in Congress--people like Schumer--are LIBERALS. If you poll most people who self-identify as liberals and most people who self-identify as conservatives, you will find a significant difference in which group supports RKBA.
Journalists (in other words, the MSM) self-identify as liberals at a rate of something like 85%. Is the MSM mostly pro-gun or anti-gun?

I'm quite happy with people who identify with the liberals who gave us the 2nd amendment. Unfortunately, while today's liberals may claim to identify with our founding fathers, they have a very different idea--for the most part--on the issue of RKBA.

I prefer the term recovering Republican. One day at a time...

The word LIBERAL was a word applied to those thinkers who believed in indivdual rights. The left wing slowly changed the meaning of the word so that it refered to their agendas. TR was a liberal as was the Republican Party in his day. The word really has no meaning these days, and much of what one reads in the "Liberal Press" is equally devoid of clear thinking. Its time to take your Prozac boys so you can be one of the crowd. Remember the old 50's joke? "Fred, have you taken your Milltown today?" "Harry , I don't know and I don't care!" What can it all or does it all mean? David

I hit the post button twice because site is sooo slow today I thought it had not responded.. Its been taking too much prozac. David

"What is wrong with "Everything is legal until you get caught abusing them. At this point, nothing is legal and you go to jail if you get caught with them."? A very simple one line gun control agenda."

Eightbore, in a personal message to a distinguished member last week, I said it's hard to understand what's going on in Canada without living here. Your notion is the situation I described from my experience here.

I've been hunting with handguns, rifles and shotguns for 65 years---and never met a warden, Mountie or conservation officer. Live and let live; abuse the public interest and you get what you deserve.

What King does not seem to realize is that what people (ie Dimocraps and Liberal Canuks)) CALL themselves is not necessarily what they are. Today's Dimocraptic leaders in Congress are ALL Socialists as are our liberal Canadian friends. In my day, the term "liberal" had some positive meanings. The Dims kept the term, but by their actions, changed the meaning. Today, the Leebs are simply Anti-Capitalistic Socialists. Want some fun? Read the Socialist and Communist agenda of the 1950's. To make it easier for our lazy Leeb friends, I'll look it up for them and post it.

EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Thursday, January 10, 1963



Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:

[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

Today, Socialism is simply politically correct Communism. Today, the leaders of the Dimocraptic Party are all Socialists. Socialists are the enemy of Capitalistic America. Your dad's Democratic Party no longer exists.

I think this quote is appropriate to this duscussion. -- Ed

“The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved), or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; (emphasis added - Ed) that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.” -- Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824

From King's post, I get the idea that he agrees with me that all guns should be legal for use and ownership until one abuses the right and then the right may be suspended. He further seems to imply that such a situation exists in Canada because he has not been hassled by a warden in 65 years of hunting. I don't think that is the way it is in Canada, or in this country, for that matter, no matter how many years any of us has exercised the "right" without being hassled. Tomorrow, we may be challenged and spend years in prison for not being within the letter of the law.

Eightbore, I speak for myself. Yes, I think all guns should be legal for use and ownership until one abuses the right. Two, my friends don't buy pistols, shotguns and rifles to look at them; they're used, on the range and in the woods. The fraternity abides by and generally agrees with the no-concealed-carry law. I sold my fully-automatic Sten a couple months ago.

To recap, it is illegal to hunt with pistols but they are used with discretion. Show off where there may be people around and you're naturally in trouble. If you don't, there isn't. Until recently we could use fully-automatic Stens, Schmeissers etc under prescribed conditions but I often used it to acquaint South American missionaries with their use and our Mounties with their accuracy.

I left a pistol near a lake with my fishing kitbag. It was returned by the Mounties with a baleful glare. A buddy had more than 150 firearms---all unregistered, including Stens, Schmeissers, Lugers, Mauser pistols---discovered by a fire marshal who called in the Mounties. They were confiscated without charges and wound up in Joe Salter's business in the United States.

To my mind, the latter case was asking for it. I agree with you, eightbore, that the current political climate inflating national security fears is changing the situation rapidly. Incarceration, however, is not of the same psyche as in the United States---at least not yet. As far as wardens go, I've never seen one in the woods or on a lake or stream or marsh or blind let alone being hassled by one.

Nova Scotia is the oldest settled part of Canada. I believe the way politicians are preying on our fears about terrorism is a crock. There are dangers but nothing like those we've endured the past 50 years from international Communism and the rapidly escalating stakes of the Cold War. Current fearmongers might as well be on the antis and al-Qaeda payroll.

Let's see, pistols are illegal to hunt with, but if you are discrete, you probably won't be bothered if you violate this law, but maybe you will be bothered, depending on the attitude of the mountie. Automatic weapons are legal, but if you have too many, they may be confiscated because you were "asking for it". As far as wardens go, you've never seen one. King, I think we should back up to square one if we are going to discuss gun rights. Nothing you said, my friend, makes any sense or has anything to do with gun rights.

I don't think I was discussing gun rights, Bill, only how your notion mirrored my experience with guns and the law where I live, in practise if not legally.

So, purely socialistic concept like the public library system is bad?

The library system was Capitalistic with the seed money coming from a rich "robber baron". And it still does. It provides the building and locals provide the books.

"Purely socialistic" Soviet libraries only carried books approved by the State. IMHO, that is bad.

King, I may be a little cocky on some points, but if the law says I can't do something with my gun, I'm not going to do it, regardless of how much the law enforcement community may ignore such violations. In this country, if you have anything like a gun violation on your record, no matter how minor, you are likely to be on the "do not sell" list for our Instant Check system. Such violations as well as domestic violence violations can not only get you on the bad list for Instant Check, you may become inelegible to own guns. We are not going to take any chances south of the border. As I mention what I think is a good system, almost anything is legal until you do something wrong. I wouldn't like to live under a system where you are presumed to be a problem as a gun owner before you make a mistake. Let's see, that would be U.K., Canada, Australia, Washington, D.C.,and I don't know the rest.

I've never thought of you as cocky, Bill. We're creatures of our experience. I registered all my guns when the long-gun registry was introduced and the government sent out workers to do all the paper work and even lick the stamp on the envelope. I didn't want any hassle either.

As far as gun owners being seen as a problem here, I don't know whether it would be much different from the States where a whole generation has grown up with a different slant from ours on killing wild things and guns. I do know certainly that there's far less resources allocated to regulatory observance and game protection.

My guess from what I've read in sporting magazines and seen on U.S. television is that the duck and geese hunting experience generally in Canada and particularly in my region of Nova Scotia provides surpassingly greater freedom and opportunities i.e. fewer hunters, less competition, no blind allocations etc.

I've never felt put upon by anyone. I'm as free today to roam with a double as I was starting out in my fishing village on the Atlantic Coast 65 years ago. I plan to take up an invitation from an Alberta member to hunt his favourite marshes and lakes, and I'll bet that his freedom to hunt hasn't been infringed any more than mine.

We are a different people, of course. We see the world differently. Our institutions, heritage, traditions are different. What Americans consider acceptable or preferable for their societies are not the same here. What some Americans feel is abhorrent may be what we voted for, rightly or wrongly, and vice versa.

Of course, we both can state what you did in your last paragraph. You just make it sound a little more benign than some do when they try to make the same point. I'm not much of a diplomat and don't usually make it sound so innocent. Thanks, King.

I am a U.S. citizen and live primarily in the U.S. However, I also own a home in Canada (on Vancouver Island). I spend quite a bit of time there. I must say that I very much like the Canadian "system" and the attitudes and social mores of the people.
When in Canada, my family has had excellent health care when necessary at very reasonable prices and without any waits or problems.
There is a very strong sense of freedom in Canada. In some ways the Canadians seem more expectant of individual freedom than U.S. citizens. Yet, the people feel a sociatial obligation to each other. Not a bad thing in my opinion.
Never tell a Canadian they are not free. In my experience, they are as protective of their personal freedom as any group I have ever met. Some of the government intrusions into personal privacy and freedom which our people apparently accept I do not believe would be too popular in Canada.
I love America and will fight for my rights here. However, I certainly don't think Canadians are deficiant in any way as a culture.
The word tolerant is very important in that culture. Tolerance is often in short supply in the U.S. I don't find that cultural tolerance to be a bad thing.
Regards, RCC

I find much to admire in our 'neighbors to the north,' and have enjoyed traveling across Canada from BC to NS. But I'd have more respect for them if they didn't punch so far below their weight in NATO, NORAD, etc. Few major nations spend less per capita on defense.

For far too long, crouching under the US defense umbrella has been a cheap and comfortable way for Canadians to be "protective of their personal freedom" - while leaving their 'neighbors to the south' to pick up the tab.

Jack,
Far be it from me to speak for the Canadians. But, if they didn't pick a fight(s), and in fact are really not very interested in it (them), why should they "punch their weight?"
The Swiss men are all members of the military. Everyone is trained to use a gun and everyone has a gun. They are as free as free men anywhere in the world. Yet, they are a neutral country. Have been for many years. I'm sure you are aware they did not take sides in the World Wars.
I may be wrong, but my perception of the general pulse of the Canadians is that some of the fights the U.S. gets into are not perceived to be Canadian fights and they really do not want to be in those fights.
In fact, there may be some Canadian discomfort with having the most powerful and oil hungry nation in the world at their very long common border. You know, it is a little seceret that if you include the tar sands in the far north, Canada is the second largest holder of oil reserves in the world, right behind Saudi Arabia.
But again, I am just trying to make an objective observation. I am probably influenced by my own precepts as much as anyone.
Best Regards, Jake

My post had nothing to do with "fights," and everything to do with shared responsibilities for continental and North Atlantic defense.

Jack,
If someone plays and wants to join a band, shouldn't they like the style of music the bandmaster favors?
Is there only one right way to handle international political issues and affairs?
Who gets to decide which way is the right way? The guy with the biggest stick?
Do independant countries have a right of self determination as long as they don't interfere in other countries business?
We have a successful local politician in my city that always had the philosophy with folks that they were either with him or his enemy. Is that right?
I don't know.
Jake

When nations ally themselves in mutual defense organizations, one should expect them to share the burden fairly. Canada willingly joined NATO and NORAD, and has continued to enjoy whatever protections those alliances provide - but has never borne a proportionate share of the costs.

Jack, Canada is always there when the chips are down. In WW1 the Canadian Corps was acknowledged as the best formation, Allied or German. Canada ended WW2 with the fourth and fifth biggest navy and air force. NATO was a Canadian idea because of Soviet aggression with Britain and France weakened by war and US struggling with another round of isolationism. The US was torpedoed into WW1 and bombed into WW2.

Our NORAD participation has been spotty because of wariness of US Star War notions. We're one of the few NATO participants fighting in Afghanistan. Canada owes for its freedom the millions who died to defeat fascism. Americans who died with their Canadian brothers at arms would consider it a conceit to say any country owes its freedom to the United States. Don't worry about continental defence. Canada defeated its only invaders in 1812 and is currently going about the terrorist business with competence and quiet assurance.

Canada, as the majority of Americans, isn't buying the sky-is-falling coming out of the White House.

Nice history, King, but it neatly ducks the issue. No one has questioned the courage of Canadian warriors. The issue is Canada's political failure to bear a fair share of the military burden in alliances in which it is a willing partner.

Canada's military investment is about 1.1% of GDP - far below that of its major defense partners in NATO and NORAD. And even below most of the smaller nations, such as tiny Belgium (1.3%), Czech Republic (1.8%), Finland (2%), Netherlands (1.6%), Portugal (2.3%). To Canada's credit, its defense commitment exceeds that of Luxembourg (.9%).

Canada's "spotty" contribution to NORAD and NATO long predates the current resident of the White House, and even Mr. Reagan. For half a century - throughout the Cold War and ever since - Canadian politicians have been happy to save money by freeloading off the defense efforts of its partners. And the Canadian taxpayer has been happy to go along.

To their credit, some Canadian politicians have tried to stiffen their country's flaccid defenses in recent years. The issue has even risen to the surface of public discourse occasionally. But as an ally, you're still doing only half as well as Portugal.

What was said about Canada could just as easily apply to most of NATO. The entire alliance sheltered under our nuclear umbrella for nearly 50 years. And when a situation arises that the Europeans should have been well able to handle on their own--Bosnia/Kosovo--nothing happens until we show up. Interestingly enough, although France is the country we tend to bash the most, it is France more than any other country that has shown itself willing to take independent military action when necessary--on quite a few occasions, mostly in Africa.

Whether "the sky is falling" or not, Islamist terrorists have shown that the United States is not their only target, by attacks on many other NATO nations. Canada itself even disrupted one fairly significant plot recently. So there's certainly no reason the US should be expected to go it alone in Afghanistan, leaving aside the question of Iraq.

In past wars, other nations have carried a greater burden, in terms of per capita casualties, than has the United States. But this time around, again leaving Iraq aside, it's the United States that bears the major burden in terms of "boots on the ground" confronting the Islamist terrorists. Other members of the Western alliance may well have to rethink their commitment, although it may take incidents such as London and Madrid to prod them into action.

Thanks, Larry, for your cogent and accurate analysis. France operations, of course, derive from it independent DeGaulle force frappe, unwilling to believe the US umbrella would would cover it in the event of a Soviet attack.

There's no question that the US has been doing the heavy lifting, and the pity is that seeming aberrations in foreign policy has diminished its enormous contributions to the world. Canada-US disagreement on the Afghanistan poppy fields is not helping our or NATO operations there.

My own notion about all this is that conditions are right for the UN to get down to real business, separate the warring factions in Iraq, find a practical solution to governance of the country (or new countries) and say to a chastened US, "We owe you---but no more going it alone."

As you know, our troops aren't peacekeepers. They're as good as any professional fighting force in the world---small in numbers as is our country but well-trained and willing to fight. If the West gets its political interests aligned properly there should be little fear of Islam terrorists.

Thanks for your post.

I don't think you can measure Canada's participation in world military events based purely on the percentage of GDP that goes into their defense budget. I'd say boots on the ground is a far more relevant stick by which to gauge participation, and Canada is certainly right in there with the other NATO countries that are involved.

Kng, since you seem to like thinking that the world is the same as it was 65 years ago, or as far back as 1812, I'm not going to bother to try and change your mind. However:

To say that NATO was a Canadian idea implies that Canada as a nation came up with the idea. That's simply not true. The actual North Atlantic Treaty was put together by a Canadian citizen. That much is true. However, NATO was already an idea that was taking form well before Canada, USA, and others were brought in on it. The signatories of the Treaty of Brussels wanted the US involved in their alliance to offset the threat of the USSR, and Canada was part of the mix.

The Canadian Corps of WWI was one of the spearhead units for the Allies along with the Australians, and even the American Expeditionary Force. To say that they were "acknowledged as the best formation" is a bit much. I think you'll get different answers to that question based on who you ask.

Canada's population is about one tenth that of the U.S. It shouldn't be surprising that they don't have scads of people in uniform running around the worlds trouble spots. The Canadian military in its entirety is about half the size of the U.S. Marine Corps. They don't need a big army. They have us. I have no problem with our armed forces serving as a proxy in the protection of Canada or any other friendly country. That's what neighbors and allies do. Or should.

As far as this somewhat painfully long thread goes I think you have to chalk it up to cultural differences. In the US we hearken back to a nation that gained freedom by fighting for it. In Canada freedom was granted to them. The end result is the same, but the mentality remains very different. I wouldn't expect a Canadian to understand the importance of our right to bear arms anymore than I can fathom their willingness to go on a months-long waiting list for medical services.

In case anyone thinks this is just an American concern, the following comment from the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies, on that nation's response to the US Ballistic Missile Defense program, illustrates what I mean by 'flaccid':

On BMD, jack, the ground stations are going in. It's the triangulation or "fudging" of saying one thing while doing another; it keeps the country together. The conscription crises of balancing our English-French cultures and interests are examples of political skills and diplomacy which Canada used successfully on the world stage---and not incidental is our federation as a much-examined multicultural model. Turning thumbs-down to Iraq put strains on our friendship but talking straight is what friends do.

If that's meant as a joke, it's a sad one.


When has the UN gotten down to 'real business'? When eight thousand civilians were slaughtered in the 'UN Safe Haven' at Srebrenica while blue-helmeted soldiers stood by without firing a shot? Or when they withheld authorization for UNAMIR's Canadian troops to intervene in Rwanda to stop the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands? Or when Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at 16 toothless Security Council resolutions? Or when a Canadian UN observer was killed in Lebanon because Hezbollah was using his UN post as a shield from IDF attacks? Or when the UN pulled out of Baghdad at the first sign of trouble? I've seen your blue-helmeted Canadian boys in Haiti, King, sitting cool but helpless in their white air-conditioned SUVs while the nation crumbles around them. Now deaths in Darfur are mounting at wholesale rates while the UN dithers with "diplomatic efforts."

How many tens of thousands more will die under the frozen gaze of blue-helmeted troops before the UN "gets down to real business"? Canada has contributed many good soldiers to UN 'peace-keeping' missions around the world, and they are not to blame for the UN's limp and pathetic performances. But sadly, the UN has never come close to the promise the world once hoped for. World consensus is a laudable dream, but the UN track record so far suggests that "going it alone" may be the only alternative to going nowhere.

My memory might be faulty, but has the UN done ANYTHING significant in a situation where trigger pulling might be necessary, since the Korean War?

Jack, re UN it seems better than any of the alternatives bruited these days for Iraq. Agree with all you've said about the UN but does that mean it must remain that way? And if not the UN, who? There's no purely military solution. All these things end with jaw-jaw.

Given the UN's military record, I would be ashamed to be seen wearing their blue helmet. And they haven't done any better with diplomacy. With no real prospect for change at the UN, there is no hope for their future.

Iraq's fate will be decided between the US, the Arab states, Iran, and possibly Turkey. Thousands more will die in another bout or two of ethnic cleansing, while the UN stands by and wrings its collective hands. The Security Council will pass a resolution, and no one will notice.

Aside from a few good works by its humanitarian agencies, the UN is an abject failure. Too bad - it was a nice idea.

Larry, Jack, you guys got the UN all wrong. They are changing their ways. What better than to put the most evil, despotic nations in charge of instilling democracy everywhere. In addition, they have by General Assembly vote assigned Zimbabwe to head the Committee for Sustainable Development. I suppose they did this because Zim has 6000% inflation over the past few years.

Larry, Jack, you have to learn to TRUST the UN like our leading DIMOCRAPs have done.

Pete, I trust the UN to never deploy troops unless peace is already established--guess that's why they're called "peacekeepers". Then they'll either stand by and do nothing, or else pull out, if the real shooting starts again.

Larry - you left out one of their significant military functions. In Lebanon, the UN set up observation posts that made convenient shields for Hezbollah rocket launchers. That's how the blue helmets suffered one of their rare casualties - IDF fighters bombed a Hezbollah position and a nearby Canadian UN observer was killed.

Rumor has it that as Hezbollah plans their next attack on Israel, they're asking the UN for more observation posts.

Guys, another great UN example is voting Lybia to head the Human Rights Commission. I tell ya, you got them all wrong. You gotta believe in the UN and the Dimocraps.

Hey Pete,
Do you have lots of friends with politics a little different from yours?
Jake

Jake, I don't know about Pete, but I try to be pickier in my selection of friends than to choose those who would be so ignorant of history that they believe the UN is worth much when it comes to military action.

One of the things I've noticed is how quickly things change, not that I have any expectations of the West pulling its act together for UN interventions overnight. Who could have forecast, for instance, how quickly the US, with professed military power to fight major wars on two continents simultaenously, bogged down politically, militarily, economically, or how other countries are rising in influence.

The US has declared itself in the intervention business, to invade premptly and change the social, military and economic structures of any country it considers inimical to ITS national interests. The UN has been very selective and timid in exercising military interventions to the disgust of most of the civilized world. The US has discovered the limits of technology and going it alone.

I believe in intervention. Just as societies over time intervened into what happens behind factory and mine gates, and what happens in homes behind closed doors, the West has evolved to interventions across national borders, very selectively and often with tenuous results. Currently, the US can't go it alone---nor should it---as threats arise to mutual interests all over the world.

So what to do? I offered my "notion" because I think the West has reached a juncture where something has to change. Anyone not thinking that way is not thinking at all. The virtual standoff in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hamas and Hezbollah, Katrina as a terrorist propaganda gift of the US as a paper tiger, Bush and Blair repudiated, nuclear proliferation, NATO split, requires strong collective action.

So, no, I didn't offer it as a joke. The US can't be nor wants to be the world's policeman. Bush entered office promising to disentangle his country from overseas commitments. Canada and the US can't hide behind a Fortress North America. People generally try to manage their affairs better when they're bereft, where the West is now.

Terrorists and tinpots are jerking us around. What history do we draw on, Larry? Not the current UN's but those grand coalitions, those courageous meetings of great minds, where people joined together to get big jobs done. The UN has a framework. It lacks only a passion and a plan.

I believe we are becoming "slaves of freedom". By that, I mean that the many of the rights and freedoms that are being taken away from us on a daily basis are being taken away for our "safety", so we can remain a free country. Well, do you know anyone safer than a prisoner confined to solitary? Not too free though. See where we're going?

King, I try to be a student of history. And in one fashion or another, I was a "cold warrior" for about 30 years, and a post-cold warrior for a few after that. The UN, as far as I can recall--maybe you can correct me--hasn't engaged in a single significant military action since Korea. That's better than half a century, King. And the only reason they engaged there was because the Soviet Union walked out of the Security Council and was thus unable to exercise its veto. Too many competing interests in the UN for it ever to be effective in intervention.

NATO, on the other hand, can be and has been--although it continues to rely far too much on US leadership. (See my earlier Balkans example. Why did the Europeans have to wait for us to go to work solving a problem in their own backyard?)

As for preemptive war, the only one I'm aware of we've engaged in recently is Iraq. Afghanistan was obviously reactive, and I certainly hope you're not arguing the Americans--and the Canadians--should not be there. NATO is well represented, although there are plenty of members that could certainly do more--and should. Afghanistan, if one knows anything of its history, presents some particular difficulties. But as long as we don't throw up our collective hands, that's not one we're going to lose. No one is being bled badly there, that's for sure. And considering what happened the last time we declared victory and left Afghanistan--when the mujaheddin defeated the Russians--the United States certainly isn't about to pull up stakes. I don't think that would happen, even should the Democrats control both the White House and Congress as a result of next year's elections.

One way or the other, NATO or something else, it's long past time to get moving on a collective effort, heart and mind. I'm no UN lover or, for that matter, blue-helmet advocate, never was. You know as a cold warrior that intervention is big-boy business with the best infantry around.

Without a stronger public will than currently shown in Canada and the US, I think we will throw up our collective hands in Afghanistan because so few NATO partners are carrying the load, and prospects of greater participation range from maybe to nil. I give it two years and Canada is out.

Canada's famed Van Doos, Royal 22nd Regiment, go to Afghanistan in August. Quebec, a political powerhouse courted mightily by the new minority Conservative government, wants no part of Afghanistan. The Conservatives are gung-ho but if Van Doos casualties are as the RCRs we'll be out before that.

Ottawa's lies and obfuscation about conduct of the war does nothing to strengthen public support.

King, since you're in that foreign land to our North, you may not be listening to the politicians from your neighbor to the South. (And can't say as I blame you, given how many there are in the presidential sweepstakes at present.) However, the Dems--who are big on pulling out of Iraq--seem to be (pretty unanimously) equally big on prosecuting what they define as the REAL war on terror, and shifting some of those withdrawn troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Too bad they managed to kill Ahmed Shah Mahsood right before 9/11. We could've simply turned Afghanistan over to him, with a few CIA/specops teams and air support on call.

And from Afghanistan to Kuwait, and from Kuwait to Germany, and from Germany to anywhere they can get a headline without paying a price.

Note Hillary's shift from "no deadline for an Iraq pullout" a few months ago, to supporting Russ Feingold's Iraq deadline proposal today, because "circumstances have changed." I wouldn't rely on our current pols (in either party) for courage or consistency under pressure.

Larry and Jack, it's the peculiar Dem manoeuvering and US political change that put the UN notion in my head. It's not possible for the US to pull out regardless of what the Dems say; they may "redeploy" to Iraq's open spaces or Afghanistan but those troops are not coming home. It's too hot.

I don't buy Colin Powell's early warning "You break it. you fix it."

If US occupation is exacerbating the violence, as claimed, surely there's NATO and UN backchanelling to find a way to replace US troops and find some sort of governance to stop the killing until the Great Powers carve up the region into autonomous units more representaive than before.

King, given the rate at which US troops are coming home in body bags, who's going to raise their hand to replace them? Any ideas?

It was King's Brits who carved out Iraq in the first place.

Don't forget the cripples, ...... outrageous!

No more my Brits than your Brits. Pete. Who do you think fought your Revolution, insurgents against the Crown?

Larry, my post encapsulates the idea: the West has reached a juncture where all the king's horses and all the king's men have little or no influence over alien and arbitrary forces capriciously controlling our lives.

The West owes the US. Iraq being a mess of its own making isn't the point. In January Ms Rice was saying the US was imposing a "new reality" on the Middle East. In February she and Mr. Bush were all smiley looking for friends.

We're making it up as we go, Canada no different from Britain and the US.

There must be an attitudinal change, and I said it couldn't happen overnight. Get US troops out of there and send in a multinational force---you name it, from a rejigged NATO or UN---to end sectarian violence.

The West must see the need to buy into it. France, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand can't be seen as poodles genuflecting to Americans i.e. we’re taking arbitrary action out of US hands and placing it where it belongs.

Peoples respond to things as intangible as an ideal. No one likes the notion of behemoths or cadres of terrorists throwing their weight around. World policeman isn't America's job. Sacrifices in the name of humanity should be shared.

There's nothing new about peoples recognizing a need and changing their countries virtually overnight: FDR with the New Deal and getting behind Britain, the Europeans with the EU, NATO itself, South Africa, the rise of Russia since 1989.

I said earlier, things these days seem to change on a dime. My notion requires leadership, a passion and a plan. Unfortunately change usually doesn't come until we see rock bottom. We're slipping and sliding, close to that now.

Europe taking action when necessary . . . like against Hitler, before he invaded Poland? And that was well BEFORE they were used to sheltering under the American umbrella.

King, I'd like to see your idea implemented, but as a realist, I can't see it happening. Sarkozy elected in France, but even he doesn't see Iraq as France's battle. Brown to replace Blair in Great Britain, the likely result of which will be more British troops coming home rather than the reverse.

"Sacrifices in the name of humanity should be shared" ought to be the UN's motto--but it isn't. Not even NATO's.

Well, for two Browns (clan Lamont, "Neither Destroy nor Despise") anticipating something better than we've got now, how about this: World opinion just scuttled the President and Paul Wolfowitz. That's something new. Don't look back. Kind regards, King

If a bunch of intelegent guys like us can't agree on a good foriegn policy for the radical islamics how do you suppose a much larger and diverse body of souls can do it? I'm a hard liner just because it has not been demonstrated to me that defeat or appeasement accomplish anything. Its "pull up your socks boys because the world is a dangerous place and you've few friends out there."

King, if you're counting on the folks who "scuttled" Wolfowitz and the President to take action in Iraq, I'd say you have a long wait. Wolfowitz was in trouble from the get-go with his WB colleagues BECAUSE of Iraq. As far as they're concerned, it's his problem (and W's), and it's certainly not up to them to fix it. They're just waiting for a Democrat to be elected next year and pull us out of Iraq, which they see as the solution.

No, not as narrow as that, Larry. Hatchet men won't change anything. Neither will Democrats or Republicans, Greens, socialists, communists or Islam until there's a meeting of minds that we're all in this together. The US, British, Canadian military commanders have told us the way forward is more political than firepower. We can't shoot our way out of it.

"Send in"?!! Who's going to "send" whom into a guaranteed disaster? Get real, King. Your vaunted UN was unwilling to go into Iraq before it imploded - they skedaddled at the first sign of danger, and they sure as he[[ won't go back now. Bush's mythical "coalition" - a.k.a. "America and the Seven Dwarfs" - is dissolving as we speak. Your imaginary "multinational force" won't materialize. The UN can't even get its act together in Darfur, much less in Iraq.

We've stuck ourselves to this Iraq tar baby, our friends aren't dumb enough to take hold, and our critics are enjoying the spectacle - including no little schadenfreude from our neighbors to the north.

It is easy to identify King as a socialist. He has the same mindless ideal as Kerry suggesting our allies all get together to solve Iraq. What mindless,idealistic drivel. Let us step back so we don't get run over by the Euros running to help us in Iraq.

You can't blame the socialists for this mess, Pete, and believe me, Jack, I take no satisfaction from the hundreds of thousands of sacrifices made and more to come.

Why guaranteed disaster? Iraq wants the US out. It could accept help to establish security and essential services left out of the US occupation plan.

Your critics, comprising a majority of your country and Congress, aren't enjoying the spectacle any more than anyone else.

Disaster is leaving Iraq too early. King is too much a Leeb socialist to understand or accept this.

No. The disaster was getting in too soon. A tar baby indeed. Jake

Indeed! Pete is too much a knee-jerk neocon to understand or get over this.

Brent

Who wants America out of Iraq depends on who you ask. Recently heard a long interview with the deputy PM. He most certainly does NOT want us out. Kurds certainly don't either. Sunnis are stupid if they want us out.

Regardless of how we got in, or whether we should have, that's all water over the dam. The issue now is what to do about it.

You are only half right, L. Brown. You cannot separate the two halves of your equation. Water over the dam washed away a great deal of confidence, trust, good will. It's a major reason so many are now against any further committment. I can only echo the second part of your post -- what do we do now? -- and observe that Pandora's box, once opened ... well, you know the story.

Whatever the Iraq peoples are saying now, there MAY be a window of opportunity in that they MAY want to change what appears as failing counter-insurgency operations organized by a foreign power resulting from a foreign occupation.

Imagine North America invaded and occupied by the mujahadeen, with their counter-insurgency going badly against conservatives, liberals, atheists---yes, Pete, socialists---and Christians fighting among themselves.

I think we'd get it together over time. We'd also ask for help from friends.

We shouldn't forget that some things have gone right, and are going right. Problems in Kurdistan (other than a recent car bomb or two) are infrequent. And the Anbar sheikhs appear to be turning against AQ and the hard-core insurgents.

By the time we're well into a hot Iraqi summer, we should know whether the surge is making any inroads.

That part of the world was trouble for the Greeks, trouble for the Romans, in recent times, trouble for the Brits. We did not want to go there but one can not ignore an enemy forever and we got snookered by AQ and can not allow that to happen again. We can fight them here or there but we are going to HAVE to fight them! David

David, Who didn't want to go there?
All the information coming out now shows that the current administration deeply wanted to "go there," to the point of ignoring all intelligence that did not support an invasion and misleading the American and world public.
And, exactly who are we "fight[ing] here or there?" We are trying to keep peace in a civil war that we kicked off. We are breeding terriorists, not stopping them.
Jake

Jake, have you read the declassified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, dated Oct 02? The Intelligence Community stated with high confidence--that's their highest level of certainty--that Iraq possessed chem and bio weapons. No one had to "doctor" that intelligence; it was the same information Clinton had when he was in office. (In fact, in a moment of candor that embarrassed other leading Dems, after the invasion he admitted to being surprised that we did not find WMD's.)

Post-9/11, if I'd been the guy in charge, I would've needed pretty strong intelligence that those WMD's--which Saddam used in the past--were no longer in his hands, in view of the fact that he had a history of supporting terrorists.

About a year after the invasion, in a speech at Georgetown, CIA Director George Tenet said, in reference to the WMD issue: "Based on an assessment of the data we collected over the past 10 years, it would have been difficult for analysts to come to any different conclusions than the ones reached in October of 2002."

Without the WMD intelligence, IMO it would have been highly unlikely that Congress would have supported the invasion of Iraq. But with that degree of certainty from the intel community--and an NIE represents the IC's "most authoritative judgments" on such issues--it was unnecessary to "mislead" anyone in the runup to the war. And remember, Congress had the classified version of the NIE in their hot little hands when they voted on giving W war powers.

The "misleading" crap comes from people who are hard-core Bush-haters. Every major intel service in the world agreed with us that Saddam had WMD's. There was no stream of reporting that showed Saddam had destroyed his WMD stockpile. Thus, there was no significant intelligence to ignore, concerning the major reason for launching the invasion.

Sadam had several months notice while the French stalled us at the UN. There was plenty of time to get it out to other nearby countries. Maybe by camel.

Of course, there is always the joke to fall back on. "We knew he had it because we had the receipts."

Ok,ok. You guys have convinced me.
Bush et.al. didn't mislead in any way. The invasion of Iraq was a good and necessary thing. It had nothing to do with oil or permanent bases in Iraq. Al Queda was in cahoots with Sadam. There were WMDs. (They were just hidden/deported right before the war.) Most of the world supported the invasion. More dead American boys and girls in the war is necessary for a safe America and a free Iraq. Let's "stay the course" and not "cut and run."
Now could someone please inform me the following:
What side we are fighting for and against in Iraq and why? If we are going to "win" this war, does someone know what that winning goal is or what it means? How will we know when we have "won?" Jake

Tenet, then director of the world's most powerful spy agency, believed the CIA case on Iraq, one of the sorriest dossiers in the history of intelligence assessment. Little wonder the intellgence community was unable to pinpoint al-Qaeda's intentions beforte 9/11. Tenet's book, which spreads the blame around, is worth reading.

Mr. Brown, I couldn't disagree with your interpretation more; and facts simply don't support your analysis. You are letting ideology and a stubborn mind set dictate your attempt to rationalize a failed and fradulent foreign policy. The Bush administration is quite possibly the most unscrupulous group to ever hold the White House.
Regards, Will

Will, Tenet, the "slam dunk" man, said he believed the CIA's assessment. I don't believe everything but there's a ring of truth in what he wrote. Colin Powell, with what many considered very circumstantial evidence presented to the UN, apparently believed the intelligence assessment, too. I thought it flimsy. Sometimes people believe what they want to believe, and this applies equally to institutions and countries under strain. (I don't know if I'd use unscrupulous for the White House; certainly proven incompetent. More than the towers have fallen.)

I worked in the intelligence business for about 30 years; 5 years with CIA (as a case officer in the Arab world); 25 years in Army Reserve Military Intelligence, involved with strategic analysis. So I do have a reasonably good idea of how the system works, how National Intelligence Estimates get written, etc.

The facts on Iraq are these: Saddam had (and used) chem weapons, both against the Kurds in his own country, and against Iran in the Iran-Iraq War. There is no dispute as to those facts. And no, we did NOT provide him with those chemical weapons. The "assistance" we gave Iraq during their war with Iran consisted largely of information based on satellite imagery, which was undoubtedly of great value to the outnumbered Iraqi military. But if you look at the equipment with which Saddam fought that war (and the Gulf War, and the 03 invasion), it is nearly all Russian. Not stuff we gave him.

In the intelligence business, when you know something for sure--as we knew that Saddam had chem weapons--you tend to cling to that knowledge with great tenacity, because there is a whole lot you don't know. And in the case of Iraq, after the Gulf War we simply did not have reliable assets in place, in country, to tell us what was going on. Therefore, when the UN inspectors left Iraq in 1997 and said there were hundreds of tons of chem weapons unaccounted for, there was absolutely no reason not to believe them. We did not have anyone telling us that Saddam had destroyed those stockpiles, given them away, or that the starship Enterprise had dropped by and beamed them up. And we did have a number of refugees--anti-Saddam types of course, who were not tested, reliable sources (but you go with what you've got)--telling us that yes indeed, those weapons were still there.

In my case, as a former intelligence officer--I retired with the rank of colonel, and was the first commander of the prototype Joint Reserve Intelligence Center, which was providing strategic analysis support to the US European Command--I often find it necessary to explain to the uninitiated how the whole process works. Many have criticized Tenet, saying he should have advised the president against invading Iraq. Wrong! The role of the Director of Central Intelligence (now taken over by the DNI) is that of chief intelligence ADVISER to the president. You cannot be both an intelligence adviser and a policy advocate. If you start advocating for a particular policy, then your objectivity as an intelligence adviser rapidly becomes suspect.

I'm not necessarily a Tenet supporter, and I thought his "slam dunk" explanation was particularly weak. However, he summed up the role of intelligence in relation to policy very accurately in his Feb 04 speech at Georgetown:

"The risks are always high. Success and perfect outcomes are never guaranteed. But there's one unassailable fact: We will always call it as we see it. Our professional ethic demands no less." Amen to that.

Interestingly enough, if you listen to any of the several former intelligence officers who have come out of the woodwork to criticize the Bush Administration and its decision to invade Iraq, you will not find a single one that makes a good case for the books having been cooked on WMD's. They'll talk about Cheney and Wolfowitz looking for links between Saddam and AQ, Saddam and 9/11--but the record also shows, quite clearly, that the CIA never caved to that pressure. They never stated that there was any substantial relationship between Saddam and AQ, and no connection at all between Saddam and 9/11. The fact that Colin Powell--no stranger to intelligence, given his military career--believed the WMD intelligence and made that now-infamous UN presentation is quite telling. As is the fact that the WMD assessment never really changed, from what the CIA told the Clinton Administration (and remember, Tenet was a Clinton appointee) and what they told the Bush Administration. It proved to be wrong, but I don't see any evidence that it was anything other than an honest (and quite understandable) mistake.

As for missing 9/11 . . . much of that had to do with internal problems within the intelligence community, caused to a great extent by legal interpretations which severely hindered information sharing between CIA and FBI, and even within FBI between counterintelligence/counterterrorism officers and law enforcement officers. We missed Pearl Harbor too, and if anyone were to examine the history behind both events, I think they would conclude--as I have--that we had a lot more to go on prior to Pearl Harbor than we did prior to 9/11.

I have been followed this thread off and on and trying to resist the temptation to jump in. Now I am at my own peril.

I think Larry is essentially correct. I have a great deal of respect for his experience and training.

As far as 9/11 goes, I think the Bush administration was basically drifting that first summer, sort of finding their "sea-legs" so to speak. I do remember reading right after 9/11 that the CIA had provided some sort of warning in the President's Dailey Briefings. Of course, they had no way to know specifics at the time, but they did have some idea that something was coming down. These warnings, whether they were too vague or not, have not been talked about too much since. We may not have been able to have prevented 9/11, but maybe, we could have tried.

I think this administration used the event of 9/11 to push an agenda and policy that probably would not have had much of a chance otherwise. I believe they used 9/11 as a vehicle to ride into a second term, that, without 9/11, would have been very "iffy." Even very recently, the Vice President is still trying to force the linkage of 9/11 and justification for doing Iraq.

Where I believe this administration has failed themselves miserably is in leading us as a nation into war. Congress voted to give the President authorization to use force, if necessary, to enforce the UN resolutions with regard to Iraq. From that point on, this administration was determined to have a war with Iraq. From what I have read, they were probably determined to do this before Congress' authorization, but now they had the green light. I think, a case could be made that we have enforced the UN resolutions so maybe, we should leave Iraq.

I would have thought after Viet Nam, we would have learned about getting the American people involved in the support of a war. This has never happened. Tax policy was structured so we would not feel the effects of the cost of the war. The media was controlled so we would not see the caskets and body bags being flown home. This administration is using war as a tool for policy and never convinced us that it was necessary.

Congress is given the power to declare war according to our Constitution. This has not happened since WWII. Military engagements that we have experienced since WWII have generally lost the support of the American people if they were of any duration. Presidents can do Grenadas and Panamas because they were able to have quick success, but without our support, uses of the military for geo-political purposes that ran into long durations have lost the support of the American people. What amazes me is that this administration seemed to believe that they were exempt from the lessons of history. So many people with beautiful educations, but just too full of themselves to have any common sense.

Time and history will judge the Iraq War, but it is fair to judge the leadership we have received right now. I think it has been terribly lacking, more a function of egos and stubbornness than good sense.

Ok, I am now fair game. Have a go at me fellas.

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

Ed, the now-famous pre-9/11 warning to which you refer came in a Presidential Daily Brief, dated August 6, 2001. Title: "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US". However, that item did not contain anything specific in terms of timing, location, or the nature of the threat. The only mention of aircraft hijacking was in reference to the use of that tactic in an attempt to gain release of the "blind sheikh" who plotted the 1993 WTC attack.

What people who point to that vague warning and ignore is that, in fact, a more specific warning had been received by the Clinton Administration almost 3 years earlier, following the attacks on our embassies in Africa. PDB dated December 4, 1998, contained an item entitled "Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks". I never heard anyone complain that Clinton & Co did nothing to beef up airport security or harden cockpits as a result of that warning. If he had started the ball rolling then, might we have avoided 9/11? Maybe . . . but it's certain that no matter what Bush did in the 5 weeks he had between a warning about AQ attacking the US and 9/11, there would not have been time to implement significant changes in airport or aircraft security.

Highly recommended reading, from former Senator Bob Kerrey, in today's Wall Street Journal: "The Left's Iraq Muddle". And remember, Kerrey was a member of the 9/11 Commission (who kept asking "What were we waiting for?"), and thus has a good bit more expertise in the area than your average politician. And he's also a Democrat.

But I still think he should've married Debra Winger.

Hi Larry:

I did not know about the earlier PDB that Clinton received. I wonder why this was not talked about more seriously. I am not sure of my dates, but was this before or after the embassy bombings in Africa? It would seem to me that if the embassy bombings preceded this PDB, it would be hard to justify not being more proactive on this warning.

Something else I have wondered about is the number of top military people that seemed to have been ushered into retirement with the beginning days of Secretary Rumsfeld. Many of these people now show up as analysts on the network news. It looks like Rumsfeld cashiered everyone that subscribed to Powell's theory of "overwhelming force." I think there is a story here that is worth telling. Our Iraq experience could have been very different without this happening.

I think the "left," or whatever you want to call them are confused about Iraq. They were sucked in from the beginning as many of us were. It was just too close to 9/11. As a nation, we did not stop and really look at what we were getting in to. I wish people like Skowcroft, Baker, and Powell had said more at the time. We needed to have this debate that we have never had. It has only been very recently that we could talk like this without accusations flying around about a lack of patriotism.
Anything less than the "company line" painted you as un-American.

I think most Americans would not quibble if we put all our energies into finishing the search for Bin Laden. Why it is ok to leave that job as it is makes no sense to me. I understand the risk that this would pose with Pakistan's stabilty, but I think we owe it to everyone to bring those people to justice.
I believe the world would support us with doing this. Because of this, I do think we took our eye off the job that should have been our priority.

I am not an "east coast liberal," although I see nothing wrong with being one. I am an American. I have voted Republican more times than not, but I have a hard time agreeing with this current administration. I think it was the perceived arrogance that first turned me off, and then the substance followed.

I come from a family that served in the military. My uncle spent over thirty years in the 82nd Airborne. He went in just before WWII started, became an Army Ranger, served in Korea, at least two tours in Viet Nam, and finally retired to a home just outside Fort Bragg. He died shortly after and his ashes were taken up in a plane and dumped out over the fort.

My father served in the Army Air Corps during WWII. He turned 18 on Dec. 7, 1941. He was a freshman at Dartmouth at the time and the Emperor of Japan's son was a student there as well. The State Department hustled him out quickly before the students would have killed him. Most of my father's class enlisted right away. Those that survived the war, came back and finished after.

I started college in 1969 and my birthday was drawn #11 in the first draft lottery. I had student deferments until I graduated. At that time, Nixon had started to bring people home from Viet Nam so I received a letter from the draft board saying that I no longer needed to report for induction after graduation.

What I am trying to say is that I have tried hard to support our country and our country's leaders. I come from a family that would expect nothing less, but I have sure had a hard time with this bunch. Clinton was clearly morally challenged in many ways, but damn it, these guys are not much better. It may not be about sex, but it sure is about power.

America cannot hide behind our oceans. I think Tony Blair recently said that the world desparately needs an America that is involved. This, I agree with, but I do think we can be smart about our involvements.

best regards,

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

This is going to beat the alkanet root thread if you're not careful.

Ask yourself what Al Gore would have done about 9/11.

I didn't like the fact that William Jefferson lied, but this current bunch.... :
Let us stay the couse so Halliburton can make even more money.

Ed, the African embassy attacks occurred in August 98, several months before Clinton received the PDB item about OBL planning to hijack aircraft. Also, during his administration--and after the embassy attacks--CIA had assets on the ground in Afghanistan, ready to take a shot at OBL. Clinton wanted "consensus" from his advisers, and because Reno (and others) suggested that OBL should be arrested, Clinton--in his own handwriting--edited the document authorizing the CIA to go after OBL, stating that he could not be killed unless it was in the course of an attempt to capture him. This made little sense to the CIA people planning the operation, nor to their Afghan tribal assets who would have carried it out.

Rumsfeld wanted to revamp the military into a more agile force. He did indeed shunt aside people who disagreed with him.

Once again, here is the exact wording of the National Intelligence Estimate's key judgment (of "high confidence") on Iraq and WMD's: "Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles." That's pretty clear and concise. And the last group of UN inspectors--the ones that pulled out in early 03--did indeed find (and destroy) the missiles that were in violation of the cease-fire agreement from the Gulf War. So other than the hard core antiwar left--and there aren't many of those types in Congress--in the wake of 9/11, who would NOT give the President war powers, based on that assessment?

Concerning Congress, the 9/11 Commission reserved its harshest criticism not for the Intelligence Community itself, but rather for Congressional oversight of intelligence--which they judged to be "dysfunctional". Darned harsh, considering several members of the 9/11 Commission were themselves former members of Congress. But it's quite instructive, IMO, that the Senate Intelligence Committee found much to criticize in the assessment of Iraq's WMD programs AFTER the invasion--but didn't raise any questions when they received and reviewed the National Intelligence Estimate BEFORE the invasion. Out here in Iowa, I think we'd compare that to closing the barn door after the cows have all gotten out.

Thanks Larry. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not a defender of the Clinton administration. Ithink that we started short changing our Intellingence community with the ending of the Soviet Union. At the time, it was billed as some sort of dividend for the ending of the Cold War. If I remember correctly,
Vice President Cheney (then Sec. of Defense) had a lot to do with cutting many military programs which were billed as dividends for the ending of the Cold War. I also think he had a lot to do with pushing for much more privatization of military functions at this time. This later paid off substantially when he moved to Halliburton.

I am sure that Iraq had WMD at one time. Maybe not when we went in, but maybe not too long before. I do think we did not allow the Weapons Inspection program to continue lone enough. I know that there are just as good arguments for otherwise. What I am getting at is I believe we could have gone further before we went in with force.

I do not have any criticism of the Intelligence Community. They did the best they could with what they had. I have found some of Mr.Tenent's defenses a little strong on the cover my butt aspect.

I remember during the first Gulf War, Sec. Baker was asked, "Why Kuwait?" He responded that this is not about Kuwait, that this is about "jobs back home" and our economy. This is the kind of straight talk we need. I can understand this and respect it. I think most Americans can as well. I wish we could get some straight talk from this administration, not from Mr. Cheney, and not from President Bush speaking at some fort to a military audience. How about he speaks to us for a change and without Mr. Rove in the background pulling strings.

Thanks again Larry for you information. At least you know what you are talking about. I am just an amateur trying to understand and sort out some truth.

best regards,

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

On Congressional oversight, Tenet wrote in his memoir At The Centre Of The Storm (HarperCollins) that even if CIA intelligence was bad, it was up to the politicians to somehow know it was rotten.

Col. Brown, I'm interested in how you view Scott Ritter's assessment of WMDs, and just what one should make of the Downing Street memo? Thanks, Will.

I think a lot of people have forgotten that during that summer, there was a crew of Naval aviators, along with a top secret equipped aircraft, that were being held by the Chinese. Although an administration should be able to handle more than one crisis at a time, that was a major distraction that is never brought up anymore.

The 9/11 Commission had some excellent suggestions on revamping Congressional oversight of intelligence. They suggested a joint subcommittee whose members would be responsible for oversight of the actual intelligence product and operations, rather than focusing on the budget--which is what Congress does almost exclusively.

Ed, unless I'm mistaken, Cheney was not SecDef under GHW Bush. Indeed, both the military and the intelligence community took severe cuts as a result of the end of the Cold War. In the mid-90's, the CIA was running its smallest training classes ever. (That's the program from which I graduated in the late 60's, and if the numbers I've seen are correct, they would have fallen far short of just normal attrition within the Clandestine Service.)

Will, my recollection is that Ritter was one of the people who signed off on Iraq still having tons of chem weapons when the inspectors pulled out in 97. He changed his stance prior to the invasion, although I'm not sure why. The Downing St memo is evidence, I think, of discussions within the Blair govt in London. However, to my knowledge, British intelligence never produced any official assessment that said Iraq did not have WMD's.

Based on my own experience as an analyst and supervisor of analysts, here's the way I look at it: I'm always ready to challenge the conventional wisdom, and I'm looking for people who "think outside the box" and do the same thing. But the "outside the box" thinking has to be supported by intelligence. If one of my analysts had come to me and said "Sir, I don't believe Iraq has WMD's any more," my response would have been: "OK, so make your case to me. Show me the reporting that indicates Saddam had a program to destroy, export, or otherwise get rid of those weapons."

I can give a clear example of how challenging conventional wisdom works in the intel business. At the end of his administration, President Carter had announced fairly large scale troop withdrawals from South Korea. This was based on the assessment of the threat posed by North Korea. An imagery analyst at ITAC--the Army's Intel and Threat Analysis Center--put together a presentation showing that, in his view, the threat was far more serious than the rest of the intel community believed it to be. In order to make his case, he had to convince his branch chief that his theory held water, then his division chief, then the commander of ITAC, and then the brass at the Pentagon--and ultimately, the president. His case was compelling enough that Carter cancelled the troop withdrawal. But that's because the individual in question backed up his theory with hard intelligence.

In the case of Iraq's WMD's, I've never seen anyone make a case, based on hard intelligence, that we should have known they were no longer there. That's why Tenet pointed out that his analysts reached the only conclusion they could have reached, based on the information available. You can certainly fault the lack of good intelligence to support their conclusion--I do; our collection was very weak--but I can't fault their conclusion based on what they had to work with.

Hi Larry:

I may be reading and remembering incorrectly, but everything I have seen places Dick Cheney as Sec. of Defense during the 1st Gulf War. This would be under the GHWB.

best regards,

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

Cheney was SecDef 1989-93 under GHWB and directed the invasion of Panama and Desert Storm.

Jack's dates are correct. I was thinking Rumsfeld, who was previously SecDef under Ford. Cheney was White House chief of staff then.

Some cuts did begin under GHWB--and some changes in priority within the intel community, which we later came to regret. For example, 600 FBI counterintelligence agents were shifted from those duties to organized crime when the Soviet Union collapsed. The more serious cuts in both the IC and the military, however, came under Clinton. Cashing in the "peace dividend."

The so-called "peace dividend" was simply a gutting of the defense budget to finance an orgy of pork and social spending. While Dems took the lead, Reps were quick to follow. The "peace dividend" evaporated without a trace, leaving an under-equipped military to pay the price. And they're still paying today.

I understood that the Sec. of Defense,i.e., Dick Cheney, was the architect of those Defense cuts, the rationale being that a smaller military was justifed with the ending of the Cold War and that it fit in with his pet program to privatize much of the military. It may have even moved along further under Clinton, but the initiative for this came from Defense and the then Secretary, Dick Cheney. Interestingly, this is not at all what he was saying on the campaign trail during the last two elections. I have also wondered about his supposed student deferments he was collecting during the View Nam era. He was still collecting these in graduate school and I was under the impression that they did not extend to graduate students.

Best regards,

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

Ed: Cheney was calling for a numerically smaller, more flexible, highly trained professional military, armed with the very best weaponry and communication technology possible. Clinton and company only picked up on the "smaller" part of it, axed weapon development, and gutted the military.

Cheney's draft deferments were all entirely legitimate, and available to any full time student in his circumstances. Unlike Mr. Clinton, he did not misrepresent his intentions vis-a-vis military service, nor did he leave the country.

The fact that Cheney and his wife had a baby exactly nine months after fathers became deferred has titillated the Left for years, as if women could become instantly pregnant on demand! This is the only "proof" of "draft dodging" they have come up with!

I don't think much of Mr. Cheney. But there are plenty of valid reasons to criticize him without parroting rumors, gossip and absurd urban legends.

I could do without the adjective "absurd," but I gotta say, Amen.
Jake

If Cheney deserves credit as any sort of "architect" of defense cuts, his "plan" was certainly long in execution, and well into the Clinton Administration years. Cuts were still occurring, even as Clinton was sending troops to Bosnia--and that did not start until late 95-early 96.

Much earlier, post-Vietnam, the Pentagon had concluded that we would never fight another war without significant participation from the Reserve Components (most of which sat out Nam). That theory worked extremely well, in practice, during the Gulf War. Although no National Guard combat arms units made it to the Gulf, participation by Reserve Component combat support and combat service support units was significant. The same was/is also true of the mission in the Balkans, where Reserve Components units continue to deploy.

However, while Reserve units (and individual servicemembers) were being deployed to the Balkans, units were also being eliminated. I know of a military intelligence battalion that went to Bosnia, served their 9 month tour, and came home to learn they'd been deactivated. That would have been in about 97. And it makes a heck of a lot of sense: we needed them this time, but we won't need them next time??? Likewise, we were looking high and low for military intelligence warrant officers to serve in Bosnia, while at the same time, MI warrant positions were being eliminated. My own unit, and several like it, was deactivated in early 98. Of course we weren't doing anything significant . . . just counterintelligence/counterterrorism analysis. AQ attacked our embassies in Africa 6 months later. Total cuts in the Reserve Components--all of which occurred under Clinton, as best I can remember--reduced the National Guard from around 400,000 to 300,000, and the Army Reserve from 300,000 to 200,000.

The 9/11 Commission Report puts cuts in the Intelligence Community into perspective: "The Clandestine Service (the CIA's operations arm) felt the impact of the post-Cold War peace dividend, with cuts beginning in 1992 . . . The nadir for the Clandestine Service was in 1995, when only 25 trainees became new officers." Tenet, to his credit, was able to reduce this trend in 1998--but because it takes a minimum of 5 years to run a security clearance and then recruit and train an incoming operations officer, we were still playing catchup on 9/11.

As far as draft deferments go, until the lottery system was instituted, student deferments were virtually automatic, for the asking.

Jake: Partisan websites make a big deal of the fact that the Cheneys had their first child exactly 9 months and 2 days after deferments were granted to fathers. "Quick, Lynn! Let's make a baby!"

If Cheney were that effective, we'd be through with Iraq by now. I'll stand by "absurd."

However, Jack . . . if that baby was the lesbian daughter, that's what comes from overly hasty execution.

This is not a political forum and we have strayed far off course with this thread, but I feel compelled to make some observations -- and then I will sign off with no further comments.
__Jakeroo -- Leave off Jake. you will not convince or change any minds here. Facts are facts. It's the interpretation of facts that sometimes leads to the parallel universe of the Bush administration. As one of his aides was quoted some time ago: "we make our own reality." You were right to capitulate in your last lengthy post, but you should have mentioned the cost (just money, not lives) of Bush's war has now reached 450 billion dollars. The projected cost with all the ancillary expenses: 2 trillion low end, 4 trillion high end. But hell, so far it's mostly off the books anyway, so why worry?
__ L.Brown -- Your credentials are adequate enough, but your defense of our intelligence community, especially the CIA and its analyses are difficult to give credence to. The CIA, despite a budget that could float several third world countries, couldn't find its own ass in the dark using both hands. But Larry, your abbreviated response to my last post is a little disingenuous. It's hard to believe you wouldn't know all about Ritter, a fellow intelligence officer and a key player and voice in the debate about Saddam's WMDs. And it's equally disingenuous to skirt one of the most damning pieces of evidence for the fraudulence of the case for war - The Downing Street memo - with the caveat that British intel had no "official" confirmation, etc. I believe you are sincere in your beliefs about this war and this administration and I can respect that. I believe equally that you are monumentally wrong -- with no disrespect intended. History will judge this war as a galactically stupid and frighteningly costly mistake. The President and the men around him, as well as the enablers in the Congress and national media deserve one of Dante's circles of hell. It would be interesting, as one writer opined recently, to know what GWB's answer would be if someone in the press corps had the balls to ask this: "How many people do you think would still be alive if you hadn't "decided" to go to war?" We have an accurate count of American soldiers, a less accurate count of Iraqis in case anyone is remotely interested (depending on which survey you accept, probably half a million). I'm still waiting to hear those numbers mentioned as often as Saddam's mass murder numbers. Please don't take this as a brief for Hussein. He didn't die slowly enough or in enough pain, but we have destroyed a country, its infrastructure, xcreated a civil war, de-stabilized the entire Middle East, and most regrettably, established a stronghold for Al Quaida where none existed previously. Enough of this. There isn't time or paper enough to list all the horror.
__ King -- I used the term unscrupulous to be politic. I agree only with your assessment that this President and administration is completely incompetent. I should have been more blunt and less fastidious. They have lied repeatedly and often, broken laws they were sworn to uphold, trashed and vilified any and all critics. I am not a Bush hater. It is hard to hate that which one holds in utter contempt.
__Jack M. -- Cheney's deferments hardly qualify as urban legend, as does GWB's service -- or dis-service --, but it is an interesting footnote that none of the principals in this administration or the neocons who provided the architecture for this war ever served. Remarkable coincidence? Fortuitous planning? Or maybe God just has a perverse sense of humor. Makes little difference until the Commander-in-Chief, with the appropriate John Wayne bravado (Wayne never served either but remains icon for every Conservative warrior mentality) utters the most ill-advised and grotesquely stupid comment a President ever made: "Bring 'em on"! Hubris, arrogance and stupidity all bound up in one package. Do I think George Bush is stupid? No, but it would be a kindness not to think him a very ignorant man.
Finally, I find it both odd and disturbing that so many on this board and elsewhere who consider themselves sportsmen and caretakers of the wild, find it so easy to support an administration - and, indeed, a political party - that consistently degrades environmental laws and regulations which can only serve to make hunting and fishing more untenable for the future. Ironic might be the correct word if you vote for those who - supposedly - allow you guns, but effectively reduce or eliminate the ability to hunt wild game with them because of the consequences of their policies.
I've had my say. If I've ruffled feathers or provoked outrage it has not been done out of malice. Opinions are ubiquitous, like navels and noses. Everyone has them. These are mine. Cheers and regards.
Will

How about this one?

Rumsfeld served in the Navy. His predecessor under Clinton did not serve.

Bush served in the National Guard. The previous president's service was purely of the lip variety.

Just for the record, William Cohen, Sec. Rumsfeld's predecessor and appointed by President Clinton is a moderate Republican. He was not a Democrat.

As far as serving in the National Guard goes, if you were a draft-age male alive in the sixties, and not real keen on slogging through rice paddies, then you were looking for a National Guard Unit that wasn't full. And, those units were full all around the country, not with a bunch of guys looking to get some pre-training in before they were activated. I know of people that traveled far and wide looking for a unit that wasn't full. Spending the Viet Nam era in a Guard Unit did not say much about your patriotism. No offense to our National Guard, but that was the reality of the mid and late 60's. I was always surprised that this did not get much talk during all the "Swift Boat" stuff. I also had many friends in the Guard during this time that missed a lot of drills and this was overlooked with a "wink and a nod." Remember how our military was viewed at that time and I think you will, maybe reluctantly, have to agree. It is no surprise that a President's Guard duty records seemed to be non-existent for some of that period.

Sorry if this offends any of you, but the 60's were not that long ago to remember just what was going on here and especially with respect to finding your way in to the National Guard.

best regards,

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

Ed: Republican, Democrat (and I am neither), it doesn't matter. My point is that most SecDefs in recent years haven't served in uniform in any capacity. For that matter, neither FDR nor Wilson served, yet both led the nation into war. So Will's finding "interest" in the Bushies' lack of service is disingenuous at best.

As for the Guard, members have always been on call for service, whether in natural disasters, civil upheaval or national defense. Whether or not they are called up depends on the state and the nation. During the Vietnam war, almost 23,000 Army and Air Guardsmen were called up for a year of active duty; some 8,700 were deployed to Vietnam. I was in the Guard from 1953 to 1961, and make no apologies for being willing to serve - rather than getting deferments - while going to school and while raising a family.

Like it or not, GWB and Rummy earned the right to wear US military uniforms. Their predecessors, most of their vociferous critics - and most Americans today - have not.

Does "patriotism" depend on whether or not your outfit was activated?

Will, did YOU ever serve? I get a kick out of the folks who question W's service, which happened to be in the Air Guard. I was in the Guard also--joined pre-Nam, Nov 62, when they'd take most anyone who could walk and chew bubblegum simultaneously. No problem at all getting in. All you had to do was be willing to sign on the dotted line and wear the uniform. Others waited to be drafted; others ended up in Nam. Their choice. But I served in 1/133d Infantry. If you watch "60 Minutes" this weekend, you'll see that they're now in Iraq. And our sister battalion--2/133d Infantry--did indeed serve in Nam. But flying an F-101, as W chose to do . . . even if "influence" was exercised to get him into a Guard unit, there are far safer and more comfortable ways to stay out of combat than to train as a fighter jock. And remember, when we went to war in Iraq, the administration was scarcely shy on military experience. General Powell was still around, in addition to Rumsfeld. That's a bunch more military experience than there was in the upper echelons of the Clinton Administration.

Missing drills during Nam . . . it did indeed happen. My own service record has some similarities to the president's. When I left Iowa to work for the CIA, I still had several months left before my Ready Reserve obligation was completed. The full time personnel in my unit told me that by law, I was required to find another unit in the DC area and complete my 6 year obligation. But they also told me I probably would not be able to do so, and that I should not worry about it. They were right. This was 1968, all the Guard units were full, and no one wanted to mess with a soldier who had only a few months left to serve. So I ended up with what's called a "bad year" in Reserve terminology. I did not attend Annual Training, and I missed several drills. Much was made of W's similar circumstances. But here's just how big a deal that was, in the Reserve Components of that era: Several years later, with my records available for one and all to review, I was able to reenlist. I got--and kept, for the next 23 years or so--a Top Secret security clearance, including several periodic reinvestigations. Again, records with my missing training available for consideration. I received a direct commission--again, records right there for all to see. I was promoted several times, eventually to the rank of colonel, and was selected for command twice--again, records right out in the open. So I either get frustrated, or else get a big chuckle, as a result of those who tried to make much out of W's service record, from the same time period. It would've been a big deal, if a soldier in one of the units I commanded had missed drills and annual training. But it was most definitely NOT a big deal in the Reserve Components during Nam, if there were any sort of extenuating circumstances--like moving and being unable to find a unit, or being a pilot attached to a unit that had no aircraft you were qualified to fly.

And Will, I certainly do appreciate your evaluating my intelligence background as "adequate". How does it compare to, say, your own? Ritter . . . I did not "dismiss" him at all. I indicated--I believe correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong)--that he signed on with the other inspectors, when they left in 97, that Saddam still had hundreds of tons of unaccounted for chem weapons. And he also knew that Saddam was into playing hide and seek when weapons inspectors were on the ground.

Whether I support the war or not is irrelevant. All I'm doing is evaluating the DECISION to go to war, based on the intelligence available at the time that decision was made. And I have yet to see any stream of reporting (if you can point me in the right direction, please do so) that would have led the intelligence community--and please note, an NIE is the product of the ENTIRE intel community, not just CIA--that Saddam no longer had WMD's. I have no idea about his credibility, but there's a former Iraqi general, now in this country, who says Saddam did indeed have them, but got them out to Syria before the invasion. Anyhow, as a former analyst and commander of analysts, I can assure one and all that in the intelligence business, you do not discard what you know to be true--which is that Saddam had WMD's--without solid evidence that it is no longer true. Yes, the intelligence community got it wrong--mainly because, IMO, they did not have reliable sources on the ground, in Iraq, providing them with information on Saddam's WMD programs. They relied very heavily on what the UN inspectors told them, up until 97--which was that the WMD's were still there, even though they could not locate them. That's why President Clinton, and just about every other prominent Democrat, believed that Saddam still had them in 02-03, when we were considering taking military action in Iraq.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Unfortunately, intelligence analysts aren't in the hindsight game. Once more, I would recommend the opinion piece from the May 22 Wall Street Journal, written by a very prominent Democrat with very credible military experience (former senator Bob Kerrey), and far better credentials on the terrorist threat (courtesy of his service on the 9/11 Commission) than most politicians from either party. That article clearly demonstrates that you don't need to be a "neocon", or even a Republican of any stripe, to support the decision to invade Iraq. And sadly, I have to wonder how much of the current opposition to the war in Congress, on the part of the Dems, is based on either the polls or the desire to recapture the White House next year. Doing what's popular is the easy way. Doing what's unpopular, when you believe it's the right thing, is the true test of leadership.

Don't forget, Larry - you also had to be willing to go when and where they sent you. When I joined the 121 Tank Bn. ING in 1953, there were still Guardsmen dying in Korea, and Guard units being activated. Like the draft, joining the Guard was a crapshoot - the main difference being that you could choose your unit in the Guard, and serve with your friends.

I had three uncles who were career Guardsmen - they all fought in North Africa, Sicily and Italy during WWII. One of them also went on to Korea.

For Ed Pirie, who seems to know who is "patriotic" and who is not, a few questions:

- Were my uncles not "patriotic" when they joined the Guard?
- Did they become "patriots" after they were activated?
- Were the Guardsmen who died in Korea and Vietnam not "patriotic" until they were called up?
- If my outfit had been sent to Korea, would I have been as "patriotic" as a draftee quaffing his beer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen?

I hope that was 53 if Guardsmen were still dying in Korea, Jack.

34th Infantry Division (Red Bull), a National Guard outfit, had more days in combat in WWII than any other division.

Jack, if you haven't read it, I'm sure you'd enjoy "Bataan Uncensored" by a guy named Miller. Commanded the tank battalion, out of northern Minnesota, that covered the retreat onto the Bataan Peninsula. There were a significant number of Guard units activated a year or more before WWII started.

Thanks for the correction, Larry. 1953 it was.

Jack:

I am not questioning you or your uncles' or, for that matter, any one in your family's patriotism. My point is, to bring up this question at all, is just what we have gotten from this administration for the last six years. If you did not agree, then you were something less than a full fledged American.

What this is all about is we are stuck in another undeclared war that sure looks awful open ended. We are stuck in this war because of poor leadership. Go back to the First Gulf War, going into Iraq was not just idly considered, but it was dismissed, and by far more knowelegeable people than me.

Many supporters of the current Iraq policy seem to feel that only the Republican party can provide for our defense and fight wars. If I remember my history correctly, outside of Grenada and Panama, all our other wars were fought under Democratic administrations. I am pretty sure that the Republicans haven't successfully proscuted a war since the Civil War under Lincoln.

I have a real hard time underestanding the wisdom of fighting a major war with a divided country behind you. You may want to debate the issue of "dividedness," but I think most of the recent polls and elections support my view.

I voted for GHWB,Reagan,and Ford. I would have voted for Nixon, but I wasn't old enough in '68, but I did in '72. I have a picture on my office wall with my father and GHWB which I treasure. Where I departed with this current administration was the arrogance, stubborness, and failure to admit mistakes. They might keep their extreme right wing base, but they are doing their very best to drive away and moderate Republicans and independents.

You can defend them all you want. I thought "W" made a promise when he visited NYC a day or two after 9/11 to go after the people that brought these buildins down. Well, that sure seems pretty secondary to anything we are doing now. Unless I am mistaken, the people that brought the World Trade Center down are hiding in Pakistan.

best regards,

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

Ed: I do not defend the Bush administration, nor have I ever supported it. But I object to the mean-spirited political partisanship on both sides that is polarizing this country, and to the parroting of inuendo, lies and urban legends to demean the opposition.

And I very specifically object to your blanket slur on the patriotism of National Guardsmen - of any era - including GWB. On what basis do you consider yourself qualified to judge anyone else's patriotism?

Ed, the war may be "undeclared", but it was certainly voted on by Congress--AFTER Congress had a chance to read the Oct 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and WMD's.

One reason going into Iraq to topple Saddam was "not considered" during the Gulf War had to do with the very remarkable coalition (which included several Arab nations) that GHWB put together. The goal was to liberate Kuwait--period. And many of the coalition members would not have supported the war had the goal been to overthrow Saddam.

Your comment about Republicans not having successfully prosecuted a war since the Civil War is more than a bit inaccurate. Spanish American War, quite successfully prosecuted. And while Democrats were in charge at the beginning of both the Korean War and Vietnam, Republicans were in charge at the end--so I'd say that the success or failure of both of those were somewhat shared.

Ed, if you believe that what the president (or the nation) does should be guided by a poll of the people, then I hope you voted for Ross Perot, because that was his idea. Leadership, as I noted above, is often characterized not by doing what's popular, but by doing what's right. (See JFK's book, "Profiles in Courage".)

We have not ceased the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Those who criticize the CIA ought to read "First In", by Gary Schroen, concerning who first had "boots on the ground" in Afghanistan, and played a pivotal role in ousting the Taliban and shattering Al Qaeda. Yes, OBL escaped--but while the surge in Iraq has occupied most of our attention, there was a recent surge of CIA activity in Afghanistan, stepping up the hunt for OBL and Zawahiri. Unsuccessful to this point, but if he's hiding in the border region of Pakistan, which is quite likely . . . you have to remember that that region was never under the control of even the British, when their empire was at its most powerful, and Pakistan was part of it.

Wherever Ground Zero of the war on terror was on 9/12, I agree with former senator Bob Kerrey that it is now in Iraq. To ignore that fact is to walk around with very serious blinders in place. If we leave in a precipitous fashion, as a majority of Americans would perhaps like us to do (according to the polls), that would give Al Qaeda a free hand to establish terrorist bases in Iraq. And Iraq is a much more critical location for terrorist activity, given the proximity to the majority of the world's oil supply, than Afghanistan ever could be.

I suggest we keep everything out of this BBS except our sport.
Too bad politics intrudes on it, but its not OUR fault, and of all political topics only those related to guns and hunting should be addressed here. Certainly not Iraq, and not whether or not GW Bush or Hillary Clinton has horns and cloven hooves.

That being said, here's MY take on the pertinent subject - gun rights.

The saddest thing about the modern Democratic Party and Liberalism in general is its abandonment of the right to keep and bear arms.

A few Liberals have realized the problems with restricting our 2nd Amendment rights, but so far it seems to be a small courtesy given to us oddballs out here in fly-over country (everything between the Northeast and California).

The Democrats have run, and got elected, a modest number of pro 2nd Amendment candidates while the great majority of the party is still strongly anti-gun. Only fear of the gun owners and the NRA keeps party leadership from renewing a push for much more stringent domestic gun control laws and international agreements to ban small arms imports and exports of all kinds. If the Democrats ever get the presidency and enough of a congressional majority that will change and new restrictions will go on the lawbooks

Until the Democrats have a real change of heart and treat gun owners as something more than just another minority to be bought off with platitudes, smiles, and a few favors until they can do without us I will vote straight Republican.