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Ralph Peters is a regular columnist with the New
York Post.
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 Intel,
Lies & Treason
Put up or shut up...
[Ralph
Peters] 1/10/06
According
to the Democratic Party's leaders, we all have been betrayed
by the Bush administration's Big Brother intelligence tactics
as evil government operatives invaded the privacy of innocent
Americans.
Stop lying.
Show us the victims.
Name one
honest citizen who has been targeted by our intelligence system.
Name one innocent man or woman whose life has been destroyed.
Come on, Nancy. Give it up, Howard. Name just one.
Contributors
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Ralph
Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of 19 books,
as well as of hundreds of essays and articles, written both
under his own name and as Owen Parry. He is a frequent columnist
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Can't do
it? OK. Let's dispense with the partisan rhetoric and reach
for the facts:
1) Has
a single reader of this column suffered personally from our
government's efforts to defend us against terrorists? Have
any of your relatives or even your remotest acquaintances
felt our intel system intrude into their lives?
That's
what I always ask the group-think lefties. Not one has ever
been able to answer "Yes."
2) The
same big-lie politicians attacking the president's efforts
to uncover plots against America by monitoring terrorist
communications will be the first to shriek that the War on
Terror has failed when we're attacked again.
They want
it both ways: Drop our defenses, then blame Bush when terrorists
strike.
3) The "eavesdropping" operations
revealed so sanctimoniously by The New York Times aimed exclusively
at foreign terrorists and their willing contacts on our soil.
When such operations are "exposed," the terrorists
find ways to work around them. Doesn't it just make sense
to keep secrets from enemies who announce they want to kill
Americans? Who already have killed Americans?
4) Would
the Pelosi-Dean gang prefer to give the terrorists the run
of the house? For all of their whining, the ultra-Dems have
never laid out a coherent, detailed strategy of their own
for fighting terror. Show us your plan!
5) Contrary
to the nonsense concocted by Hollywood ("King Kong" was
far more realistic than "Syriana"), the intelligence
community isn't populated by evil sneaks plotting to destroy
the constitution and assassinate bothersome citizens from
the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
I worked
in the intel field for 22 years and still give occasional
lectures at various agencies, and the truth is that analysts
and technicians work in cubicles that would make Dilbert
run screaming. Recent recruiting efforts mean that more-senior
officials work in cubicles, too.
Our intelligence
professionals could make more money in private industry.
But they serve because they believe in our country and their
mission. And not one of them goes to work in the morning
asking, "How can I do a bad job for my fellow citizens
today? How can I subvert the Constitution?"
6) Our
intelligence system has so many built-in safeguards to protect
the personal information of our citizens that it seemed like
overkill to me. Intelligence reports couldn't include even
a passing reference to any American citizen by name (given
the variety of American names, we did a lot of scrambling
to conform to the very strict rules).
My fellow
Americans, the real threats to your information security
are Google, eBay, chat rooms, credit applications, junk mail,
etc. And the Democratic National Committee holds vastly more
information about individual American citizens in its files
than do all of our intelligence agencies combined.
7) Self-interested
renegades posing as whistleblowers aren't patriots, they're
traitors. Not one of the recent "anonymous sources" has
been able to cite a single example of an innocent American
harmed by our intelligence campaign against Islamist terrorists.
The leaks
that so badly compromised our security were made to score
political points by those who place their personal and political
vendettas above our nation's safety.
8) We need
to get serious about treason and the destructive culture
of leaks — on both sides of the aisle. Let's face it:
Both political parties have served our country badly with
their use of leaks for partisan purposes.
Compromising
classified information, for any purpose and at any level, is
a serious crime. Those who betray their trust and harm our
national defense need to go to jail — for life. If we
were truly serious, we'd treat treason as a capital offense
again.
THE dishonesty
and cynicism on the American left is breathtaking. The only
reason the Dems are hand-wringing over the imaginary threat
to your personal secrets is that every other approach has failed
them.
They couldn't
get the traction they expected by betraying our troops and
declaring Iraq a failure (note how shamelessly the Dems have
deserted Cindy Sheehan as her nuttiness turned radioactive — they'll
bail on John Murtha, too, as he gets whackier). Now they're
trying to convince you that Big Brother Bush is peeping through
the blinds to make sure you and your spouse stick to the missionary
position.
The truth
is that you are being endangered. By politicians so desperate
to gain power that they willingly pave the way for terrorist
attacks.
The Dean-Pelosi
chapter of the Osama bin Laden Fan Club has provided aid and
comfort to our enemies. Reasoned dissent is patriotic, but
serving as propaganda agents for mass murderers is something
else. Now the Dem extremists are welcoming the compromise of
clandestine programs to prevent terrorist attacks.
They, not
Bush, are flouting our laws. By encouraging the compromise
of classified material. And you will pay.
When the
Islamist killers come to our soil again and left-wing politicians
attempt to exploit our dead by howling that the War on Terror
failed, just remember who it was that gave away our secrets
to the terrorists. -one-
Ralph Peters'
latest book is New
Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy
This
piece first appeared in the New York Post
copyright 2006 - NY Post
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