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OpEd
Plenty to be thankful for
am
that I still have enough
patience in traffic around
Cumming to not be like some
drivers who blow their horn
the instant the light changes.
I’m glad that my patience
extends to those thoughtful
people who will allow other
drivers to get into the lane in
front of them. I’m even thank¬
ful that my patience is suffi¬
cient to watch rude drivers cut
in front of me and I don’t try
to run them over.
My mind often skips
around a bit and remembering
is not one of my long suits.
However, it does allow me to
remember the kindness and
thoughtfulness of many people
who ijave been and are still
part of my daily blessings. My
mind lets me remember to tell
them on occasions that they
mean a great deal to me and I
am thankful they are my
friends and my family.
Listening to small children
sing “God Bless America” is a
real reason to be thankful. I’m
not only thankful for those
sweet voices and smiling
faces, but I am grateful for the
fact that they know the words
and are still allowed to sing it.
A select few citizens would
have us banish our religious
heritage for their limited views
of the world.
I am grateful that I have
been a resident of this county
for a great number of years. I
have watched young children
grow up and become responsi¬
ble adults who are training
their own children to be
responsible people. I enjoy
watching as they show by
example what it means to be a
good person and a good par
ent.
With all the horrors of
wars, the severe weather and
the aftermaths of hurricanes
and flooding, I am grateful for
Entrusting our liberties to FBI
rewards ineptness with power
By Timothy Lynch
The Cato Institute
Congress is now poised to renew the
PATRIOT Act, which will dramatically expand
the powers of the FBI. Have our lawmakers
found the right “balance” between liberty and
security? Had the FBI’s record of performance
been outstanding, reasonable people could
debate whether it is necessary to confer more
power on this already powerful police agency.
Alas, the FBI’s record cannot even be regarded
as satisfactory.
This year began with the computer software
imbroglio. In the 1990s, FBI agents rightly
complained about their backward computer
systems. Access to the Internet was slow and e
mail was virtually nonexistent.
Then, after ignoring that problem for years,
the bureau lurched in the other direction,
spending $170 million on a computer upgrade.
The bureau’s private contractor suffered in
silence as FBI officials changed their contract
36 times, with repeated design changes.
Finally, after telling Congress about the steady
progress it was making, the bureau abruptly
announced last February that the final product
was so outdated that it was unusable. The prob¬
lem of outdated software festers still.
In May, after the American Civil Liberties
Union filed a lawsuit, FBI documents came to
light that showed that the bureau dispatched its
“terrorism” units to investigate anti-war pro¬
testers who were gearing up for the 2004
Democratic National Convention.
The protesters claimed those subsequent
“interviews” were an attempt to intimidate
them. The FBI rejoined that every interview
stemmed from specific “threat” information.
To be sure, sometimes protesters commit
acts of vandalism, but those crimes require the
intervention of local cops, not the FBI’s terror¬
ism unit.
If Cindy Sheehan jumps the White House
fence, the Secret Service can arrest her, but the
FBI has never shown any connection between
the anti-war protesters and al-Qaeda sleeper
cells or Iraqi insurgents. Is the bureau confus¬
ing dissent with disloyalty, as it did in the
1960s?
In June, the inspector general was finally
permitted to release his findings regarding the
FBI’s inability to detect and disrupt the Sept.
11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The inspector’s ulti¬
mate conclusion that the attacks represented
a “significant failure” by the FBI surprised
no one.
But this report contained some awful details
that had gone previously unreported. For one,
the bureau missed at least five chances to detect
the presence of two of the suicidal hijackers.
Julianne
Boling
tfr
m. COLUMNIST
the generosity of the American
people. I treasure those indi¬
viduals who give unselfishly
of their time to help flood vic¬
tims and who take vacation
time to go to those areas that
need help. It blesses me to
know those individuals and I
appreciate their understanding
of the words “giving from the
heart.”
I am grateful to people
whose names I do not know.
The ones who greet people as
they enter stores and ask if
they can help. I am grateful for
those young people who yield
the right away to a door and
allow an older lady to precede
them. I am grateful for young
mothers who will insist on
their children respecting their
elders and who likewise shows
respect.
Gratitude is often underrat¬
ed. The holiday of thankful¬
ness is slowly being pushed
into the Christmas season
leaving little time to recognize
our blessings.
We hurry through the big
meals and the elaborate
deserts, gaining another few
pounds and plunge headlong
into the hustle and bustle of
shopping and the hubbub of
the holidays.
Before you put yourself
down by the weight gain, and
before you stumble head long
into Christmas, be thankful
that someone in their wiser
moments chose the size for
dinner plates to be 8 inches
across. Just one more reason
to be thankful!
Cumming resident Julianne
Boling’s column appears each
Sunday.
When the bureau learned that the terrorist oper¬
atives had entered the United States, the case
was assigned to “a single, inexperienced agent
and without any particular priority.” Can any
legal expert find a better example of “criminal
negligence”?
In July, Inspector General Glenn Fine
reported that the FBI had failed to translate
more than 8,000 hours of audio wiretap record¬
ing related to counterterrorism investigations. If
there is evidence of an impending attack in
those recordings, no one can act on it. But it
gets worse. When one FBI translator, Sibol
Edmonds, stepped forward to report incompe¬
tence and possible corruption in the bureau’s
translation division, she was discharged.
Edmonds told 60 Minutes that her supervi¬
sor encouraged her to take lots of breaks so that
piles of work would remain undone. In that
way, this bureaucrat explained, the FBI could
persuade the Congress to allocate more funds
to their division. Edmonds tried to take thi’s
outrageous directive up the chain of command,
but was told to pack up and get out.
In September, the inspector general reported
that the FBI often violated its own rules for
handling confidential informants. These
informers are typically criminals who snitch on
other criminals in return for prosecutorial
immunity.
Giving a criminal a get-out-of-jail-free card
may be necessary at times, but it is a power that
carries an awesome responsibility. After all,
how many crime victims want to Joe told that
their attacker will not be punished because of
his “connections with the feds”? The FBI tells
everyone that it can be trusted to handle these
matters, but when the inspector general looked
over the shoulders of FBI agents, he found that
in nearly 9 out of every 10 cases, the bureau
had flouted the rules, such as by letting its
snitches run amok.
Last month, a Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit revealed that the bureau is presently
investigating hundreds of potential violations
relating to its use of secret surveillance opera¬
tions. Hundreds? Had this lawsuit not been
filed, it is highly unlikely that the FBI would
have ever brought these problems to the atten¬
tion of Congress or the press.
The inspector general and other watchdog
groups have exposed a disturbing pattern of
problems at the FBI, but our policymakers
remain aloof. The politicians will pretend to be
shocked by more bureaucratic shenanigans, but
they let it go on. Shame on them for their indif¬
ference to both our security and our liberty.
Timothy Lynch is director of the Cato
Institute (www.cato.org)’s Project on Criminal
Justice and a contributor and co-editor of the
Cato Supreme Court Review.
Hawks rapidly becoming doves
as war loses
WASHINGTON, D.C. —
While in 2004, America did
not have a single mainstream
peace party, by 2008, we
could have two.
That is how unpopular the
war in Iraq now is and how
isolated President Bush is
becoming even from his own
party.
The reason for the isolation
is simple: Bush does not have
to face re-election, and con¬
gressional Republicans do.
Which is why the
Republican-dominated Senate
delivered a clear rebuke to
Bush’s Iraq policy on Tuesday
by approving a measure that
calls for the Bush administra
tion to “explain to Congress
and the American people its
strategy for the successful
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Roger
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COLUMNIST
completion of the mission in
Iraq.”
In other words, the Senate
is saying to Bush that his
“stay-the-course” policy on
Iraq is not enough.
Senate Democratic Leader
Harry Reid of Nevada called
the Senate’s action a “vote of
no confidence” in the adminis -
tration not just by Democrats,
but by Republicans.
And while this is an exag
geration, any warning bells
that have not been clanging in
the White House already
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FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS — Sunday, November 20,2005
should be clanging now.
While a series of U.S.
presidents have snatched away
Congress’ ability to declare
war, it should be remembered
that U.S. involvement in
Vietnam came to an end only
when Congress refused to vote
any further funds for it.
In 2004, there was no
major candidate running for
president who advocated with¬
drawal from Iraq. I doubt this
will be true in 2008.
Some of those Democrats
who voted to authorize Bush
to use force in Iraq in the first
place were simply afraid they
would look weak and unpatri¬
otic if they did not.
And while Howard Dean
vocally denounced the war, in
the end all the leading
PAGE 17A
Democratic contenders for
president — Dean, John Kerry
and John Edwards support¬
ed staying the course in Iraq.
But that was then. Now,
there is something of a scram¬
ble within the Democratic
Party to bring the boys and
girls home.
Sens. Edward Kennedy,
Russ Feingold and Kerry all
support withdrawing troops
from Iraq, and Edwards says
flatly that he was wrong in
supporting the war in the first
place.
As Ron Brownstein point¬
ed out in the National Journal
last week, a number of 2006
Senate Democratic primaries
— in Ohio, Minnesota, Rhode
Island and Maryland may
feature the withdrawal of
troops as a major issue and are
tugging the candidates toward
“more confrontational posi¬
tions than most sitting
Democratic senators have
embraced” regarding Iraq.
Republicans, too, are
growing disenchanted with
what could become a war
without end. As Republican
Sen. John Warner of Virginia,
chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, put it last
week, the Senate “needs to
send the strongest possible
message to the Iraqi people
and the government formed
there” that “we mean business,
we have done our share, now
the challenge is up to you.”
The reason for setting
some kind of timetable for the
withdrawal of U.S. forces
from Iraq is that an open
ended, never-ending U.S.
commitment gives Iraqi citi¬
zens little reason to fight for
their own country.
Why should they fight and
die for Iraq, they wonder,
when Americans are willing to
fight and die for them?
Roger Simon is a national¬
ly syndicated columnist.