1. Laura said:

Patrick carries water for Bush. As far as he's concerned bush can do no wrong.

2. Laura said:

First of all the critics of Bush did not object to wiretapping per se, they only objected that it was done without a warrant. Furthermore agents involved in the program say that it did not uncover any plots, nor did it catch any terrorists.

3. Laura said:

Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/politics/17spy.html?ei=5070&en=9f88cac9e42087fa&ex=1138165200&pagewanted=print

4. Omri Ceren said:

Laura - there's kind of a double-bind here. Bush's opponents coupled that "done without a warrant" line with the observation that the FISA courts routinely rubber-stamp warrants. But if that's true, then why the objection at all - it wouldn't have increased or decreased the amount of surveillance conducted. And if it's not true (and it turns out that indeed it's not true - the FISA court had elevated their adjustments and rejections to unprecedented levels) then we're back to the substantive discussion that Patrick started - viz. was the President right or wrong to sign off on that surveillance?

5. Bill Narvey said:

I agree that Bush fully understands the nature of Islamic radicalism as well as its objectives and willingness to accomplish those ends by whatever means works.

I agree that to the extent Muslim radicalism threatens America directly from within, that Bush recognizes the need to monitor, spy on, investigate, apprehend and deal with those who threaten America by whatever means can be fit into the phrase "lawful means" and where no such means exist, to enact appropriate legislation such as the Patriot Act or other enabling policies.

Bush however fails in fully applying what he knows of Islamic radicalism when he limits his personification of Islamic radicalism to the likes of the Bin Ladens of the world.

For the time of the Ottoman Empire, Islam was fairly well contained and whatever Muslim radicalism there was, found expression between Muslims. With the breakup of the Ottoman Empire Muslims lost what they had.

For the many reasons that have been cavassed in previous posts on various subjects, Muslims wanted back all that they had.

The allied powers in part fearing that a united Ottoman Empire could pose a threat, chose to carve up that empire into new Arab states.

The fly in the ointment as it were was that committments had before been made to the Jews for their own homeland. From that point forward, the worst or the radical nature of Islam rose to the fore as Arabs increasingly expressed their rejection of the notion of establishing a Jewish homeland out of land that had been for a great many centuries part of the land of Islam.

Muslim Jew hatred percolated up out of radical Islam. In the Arab world, the two things seem to bring all Arabs together is Jew hatred and money or in a word oil.

We have seen Jew hatred manifest in the failed Arab genocidal wars to destroy Israel and take the land for themselves. That Jew hatred has expanded to include hatred of supporters of Israel, the primary supporter being America.

With those hatreds growing, radical Islam has more clearly defined for itself that its objectives are those found in Islam, which is that Islam requires Muslims to expand Islam by conquest - Jihad and to ultimately dominate the world and subjugate non-Muslims not eradicated in the process.

In finding greater clairty in its purpose, radical Islam also recognizes that Western civilization is the enemy to be dominated and subjugated and so their hatred has expanded generally to the West as well.

The Arabs of course limited their focus on regaining the land of Israel for themselves. So too do the Palestinians. That the Arabs and Palestinians have the conquest of Israel in their sights however does not in any way distinguish their purpose and goals from the global objectives of radical Islam.

Iran supports muslim radical terrorism against Israel, America, and other Western nations. Iran even supports terrorism in Iraq as some say it is part of their master plan to ultimately dominate and control Iraq.

The Saudis globally support and spread radical Islam as do other Arab nations to perhaps lesser extents, reveals that the Arabs really are dual tracking both their global Islamic radical objectives and their specific most immediately pressing objective to eradicate Israel.

Bush and the rest of the West needs to take his blinders off and allow himself the full extent of his peripheral vision to see that Islamic radicalism is what has driven Arab policy vis a vis Israel from the start and that radical Islam is bred to the bone in the Palestinians and Arabs.