‘We are all they’ve got’

May 13, 2006

In light of [tag]Michael Hayden[/tag]’s role in domestic [tag]surveillance[/tag], the [tag]Senate[/tag] should have plenty of interesting questions to ask him during his confirmation [tag]hearings[/tag] to be the new head of the [tag]CIA[/tag].

But will Dems show the necessary follow through? Apparently so.

Senate [tag]Democrats[/tag] intend to use next week’s confirmation hearings for a new C.I.A. director to press the Bush administration on its broad surveillance programs, engaging Republicans on national security grounds that have proved politically treacherous for Democrats in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

Lawmakers and senior Democratic officials say they believe a combination of [tag]Democratic[/tag] gains on security issues and a loss of public confidence in President Bush gives them new strength to question the National Security Agency operations that the administration says are essential to preventing another domestic terror attack.

As a result, Democrats say they will not hesitate to aggressively question Mr. Bush’s choice to head the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who is the former director of the N.S.A., at a hearing set for next Thursday.

“We have to raise the issues,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, who met Friday with General Hayden. “The American people expect someone to do it. Certainly the administration is not doing it. We are all they’ve got.”

There are really two questions here: Hayden’s confirmation and the issues Hayden’s nomination raises. Republicans, even those with “questions” about NSA activities, have quietly said they’d vote to confirm Hayden, making it awfully difficult for Dems to stop Hayden from replacing Porter Goss.

But using the opportunity to highlight the administration’s problems is another matter entirely.

[L]eading Democrats said that his confirmation hearing could evolve into a proxy for questioning the legal foundation of the extensive surveillance programs established by the administration and that General Hayden’s handling of the issue would have a bearing on his fate in the Senate.

“My inclination had been to support him,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “From the internal reports you get, he is a man of integrity who has fought for the independence of intelligence agencies. But it will be a test of his independence whether he is able to answer some of these questions.”

Stay tuned.

In this “war on terror”, in terms of defending the fabric of our society, our security, our liberty, our values, this Bush administration itself has become the enemy. They are using the oldest trick in the despot’s bible: project the blame. They have invoked a rather amorphous fear of an externalised threat to justify the assumption of unlimited power. The more elusive and unconquerable the source of this fear, the more time they have to consolidate their usurption. The citizenry, meanwhile, become the victims, not of the projected threat, but of the measures applied to defeat it.

This is the archetypal scenario. It doesn’t imply conscious design from the outset, but it evolves in that direction. Once the momentum is established, the temptation to pluck its fruit is irresistable. And so the weed of tyranny establishes its tap root.

To clense the garden of this contamination it is the root one must extract. Trimming the petals and leaves will have no effect. The root, of course, is this insidious invention of a “war on terror”. Terror there was, and is, for sure, but the “war” is entirely a fabrication of a limited mindset.

I, like millions of others, watched the horrendous disaster in NeW York and elsewhere, and eventually – with equal horror – listened to the Bush response. For me it was entirely wrong: diametrically opposite to what it should have been. Almost like a premonition, I saw the unholy catastrophe that was instigated in and would unfold from that moment. I was not wrong.

I’m not a Christian, nor a Muslim. I’m not a Jew either. I respect the teachings of these faiths, but I bemoan the failings of their adherants. I cannot understand how someone who proclaims his Christianity with such insistance, can so easily abandon it in a moment of crisis. He became, in my eyes, no more than a common barbarian bent on revenge. He became, at that moment, another dressed up terrorist joning the fray.

Such is the tragedy of dualistic fixation. Such is the tragedy of schitzoid mentality – us and them, friend or enemy, for us or against us. It’s diabolical – literally: split in two. Pity we can’t see it at a time when it really matters.

Could now be the time to debunk this “war on terror” jamboree? We know it’s a load of eyewash. Strike at the root! There is no “war on terror”, other than terror itself. War itself is terror, whichever side you’re on. Call it “war of terror”. It’s a war of terror. It’s Bush’s war of terror. Terrorizing us into submission. Could that work?

  • “From the internal reports you get, he is a man of integrity who has fought for the independence of intelligence agencies.

    Schumer clearly does not understand that 9/11 changed everything including Hayden’s independence. This guy was the head of the NSA on 9/11. The NSA’s failure to translate intercepted phone calls from Arabic to English played a role in our failure to prevent the attack. This must have has a tremendous emotional impact on Hayden which has since clouded his judgement. If we had a competent president, who hadn’t himself ignored warnings about 0/11, Hayden would have been put out to pasture on 9/12.

  • I was deeply disturbed by a clip I saw on teh news last night of Harry Reid, hand on Hayden’s shoulder, saying how Hayden was a “good man,” and a dedicated public servant of integrity.

    Senate Democrats: Rubber Stamp for Bush Appointments.

    If we can’t be indignant about the promotion of the man who was behind the current domestic spying scandal, I don’t see how our candidates can run against the trampling of civil liberties this fall. This will be like the votes for the war that has hamstrung our candidates ever since.

    If there really were a heaven, an afterlife, and guardian angels, Paul Wellstone would have pulled Reid’s head out of his ass by now. Ergo, the athiests must be right.

    Can’t we have some Senate leaders from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party?

  • All these kiss-ass, cowardly Senators will cave just after their self-promoting individual TV appearances are finished. Should any happen to hold out, they’ll cave the second their Republican puppet master (chairman of the committee) rules them out of order. Forget Hayden; he’s already been canonized by the Regal Moron. It’s all over but the posturing.

  • Shorter Democrats:

    “We’ll ask reeeeeel hard kweschuns… right before we vote to approve him.”

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