September 14, 2006

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Don’t get caught flat-footed in front of the press!  Below is a quick rundown of today’s “must reads.” – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary

The Morning Murmur –  Thursday, September 14, 2006

1. Senators to challenge Bush plan for terror trials - USA Today
Today, a trio of influential Republican senators today plans to challenge President Bush's proposal to put terror suspects on trial, a day after a House panel approved the administrative initiative.

2. A Self-Inflicted Defeat - Wall Street Journal Op-ed
Our ability to get vital information from terrorist leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be further damaged if the Administration's interrogation flexibility is again limited during current negotiations over the treatment of detainees. We hope the next "9/11" commission doesn't have to explain why the U.S. stopped employing interrogation methods that were both lawful and successful.

3. Democrats Vs. Wal-Mart - Washington Post Op-ed
Liberals' campaign against Wal-Mart is a philosophic repugnance toward markets. Democrats see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce -- yes, announce -- that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by . . . liberals.

4. Honoring the 'Iron Lady' - Washington Times Op-ed
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen reflects on how the United States, Britain, and its allies led the free world to vanquish the tyranny of our Cold War enemies. By reflecting on that struggle, we gain a better understanding of the threat we face today and the commitment that is necessary to defeat Islamic fascism.

5. Military will meet '06 recruiting goals - Washington Times
The U.S. Armed Forces will meet wartime recruiting goals for the fiscal year that ends in two weeks, military officials said yesterday.

For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov

FULL ARTICLES BELOW:

1. Senators to challenge Bush plan for terror trials - USA Today

Updated 9/13/2006 10:35 PM ET

By Kathy Kiely and David Jackson, USA TODAY



WASHINGTON - A trio of influential Republican senators today plans to challenge President Bush's proposal to put terror suspects on trial, a day after a House panel approved the administrative initiative.



Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said Wednesday his panel will consider legislation to provide more legal rights for detainees than the White House proposal. He and his allies contend that denying those rights will put U.S. troops at risk if they are captured overseas and diminish the nation's moral authority.



"I have lost friends in this war. I do want to bring these people to justice," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told USA TODAY and Gannett News Service reporters. "But I can't say it enough. If we start acting like our enemy, we're going to lose."



Warner's announcement that his panel would begin drafting a rival bill came after marathon talks between the GOP senators and the White House produced no deal. Warner said he still hopes to avoid a confrontation on the Senate floor. "I still think we can work it through," he said. "I do not think negotiations have broken down."



The senator's decision to go forward puts the president at odds with key members of his party. They are Warner, a former Navy secretary; Graham, a military lawyer and Air Force reservist; and Sen. John McCain, an ex-naval aviator who spent nearly six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.



The House Armed Services Committee approved Bush's plan Wednesday and rejected a proposal similar to Warner's on a party-line vote. House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has scheduled a House vote for next week.



White House spokeswoman Dana Perino expressed hope that "we'll be able to reach resolution" with Bush's Senate critics.



At issue is the timing and procedure for trials of terror suspects, including 14 "high-value" detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. Mohammed and other 9/11 suspects are being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Bush confirmed last week that they had been interrogated by the CIA at secret prisons.



The Supreme Court ruled in June that an earlier administration plan did not give defendants the legal protections required by the U.S. military code and international law.



The three "problem areas," Graham said, are proposals to deny defendants' access to classified information, a proposal that would permit the use of evidence obtained through coercion or other methods, and setting rules for CIA interrogations consistent with international law.



Graham and other critics said the Bush plan would weaken international treaties protecting the rights of military prisoners. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte said the senators' plan would prevent the CIA from interrogating terror suspects.



The debate is dividing Republicans. "The American people are not going to provide terrorists with the same kinds of access to justice that American citizens are provided," Boehner said.



Graham argued Bush's plan would send a defendant to death row with the declaration, "we can't tell you what you did, but trust us, it was bad."



http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-13-interrogations_x.htm
 

2. A Self-Inflicted Defeat - Wall Street Journal Op-ed

Why we might not break the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT



President Bush did a public service last week by finally explaining the importance of interrogation as an intelligence tool against terrorists. But we also wish he would have been more candid with Americans about the restrictions that have been put on interrogating even the very worst terrorists.



A major reason is an amendment pushed through Congress last year by John McCain. The Senator's amendment, which Mr. Bush agreed to over Vice President Dick Cheney's objections, established the Army Field Manual as the first and last word on Defense Department interrogations; it also banned "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment." We appreciate Mr. McCain's moral authority on the subject, and this policy may sound innocuous.



But it was based on false premises amid the firestorm over Abu Ghraib, and it may well harm our ability to break the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The central falsehood was the assertion that detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib resulted from "confusion" about the rules of interrogation--never mind that nine courts-martial and multiple investigations found the abuses weren't related to interrogations at all.



Equally erroneous was the suggestion that internal Administration debates on handling high-level al Qaeda detainees like KSM contributed to the alleged confusion. The idea, apparently, was that U.S. officials and commanders were too dense to distinguish--as the Geneva Conventions do--between legitimate prisoners of war (who may not be aggressively interrogated) and unlawful combatants (who can be). So the only way to prevent "torture" was to establish uniform rules for all.



A year later we're sorry to report that the McCain Amendment is creating obstacles to getting actionable intelligence via interrogation. The Army has released a new version of its Field Manual, which is available on the Internet for all to see. And the Manual makes it plain that Iraqi and Afghan insurgents can expect gentler treatment than common criminals get from American police.



In only one respect does the Field Manual recognize any difference between lawful and unlawful combatants: The latter may be separated from their compatriots. Otherwise, terrorists who have violated the rules of war by targeting civilians and fighting out of uniform are to be treated exactly like POWs and considered honorable fighters who have a right to keep their secrets.



So Iraqi and Afghan insurgents won't even face the prospect of your average good cop/bad cop routine. The manual allows for a watered down version called "Mutt and Jeff" in which interrogators can affect different personalities. But the Manual admonishes strongly that the intelligence "collector must be extremely careful that he does not threaten or coerce a source. Conveying a threat may be a violation of the UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice]." We kid you not. "Mutt and Jeff" is the worst that Abu Musab al Zarqawi could have expected from the Pentagon had he been captured alive.



And what if he had been turned over to the CIA? The permissible methods for the spy agency remain classified, and on a visit to our offices last week Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would say only that the CIA would engage in no conduct that "shocks the conscience." He added that this concept was context-dependent, since the "shock" threshold may be higher with the likes of KSM--who planned 9/11--than for ordinary detainees. At least we hope it is.



In theory, this means there's still room to employ some of the aggressive techniques--such as stress positions, sleep deprivation, temperature extremes--that have been used successfully against al Qaeda bigwigs. But in practice we fear those approaches are a thing of the past. Reports that CIA interrogators have been buying legal insurance in the expectation of future prosecution are another way of saying that they will no longer use aggressive methods that could be second-guessed on Capitol Hill. (See John Kerry's revealing letter.)



Like any careful bureaucracy, the CIA will also now be asking for constant legal guidance from the Justice Department. Few Justice attorneys will be eager to offer robust advice after watching a fine lawyer like John Yoo run out of polite society for authoring the so-called torture memos that allowed us to break KSM.



All of this has to be counted a severe setback for the war effort if Mr. Bush is right that interrogations have played a key role in the antiterror fight and that "tough" methods are sometimes necessary. Last year ABC news reported that 11 top al Qaeda figures broke only after "waterboarding," which induces a feeling of suffocation and is the most controversial of the known techniques employed.



There's a legitimate debate to be had over waterboarding and other tactics. But part of our problem with the McCain Amendment was that Congressmen refused to engage in an honest debate lest they be accused of approving "torture," which no one sanctions but is a word used to slur anyone who wants aggressive interrogation.



The result was legislation that may have made everyone feel better after Abu Ghraib, but that also probably undermines our ability to get vital information from the next KSM we capture. That ability will be further damaged if the Administration's interrogation flexibility is again limited during current negotiations on Capitol Hill over the treatment of detainees. We hope the next "9/11" commission doesn't have to explain why the U.S. stopped employing interrogation methods that were both lawful and successful.




http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008938

3. Democrats Vs. Wal-Mart - Washington Post Op-ed

By George F. Will
Thursday, September 14, 2006; A21



EVERGREEN PARK, Ill. -- This suburb, contiguous with Chicago's western edge, is 88 percent white. A large majority of the customers of the Wal-Mart that sits here, less than a block outside Chicago, are from the city, and more than 90 percent of the store's customers are African American.



One of whom, a woman pushing a shopping cart with a stoical 3-year-old along for the ride, has a chip on her shoulder about the size of this 141,000-square-foot Wal-Mart. She applied for a job when the store opened in January and was turned down because, she said, the person doing the hiring "had an attitude." So why is the woman shopping here anyway? She looks at the questioner as though he is dimwitted and directs his attention to the low prices of the DVDs on the rack next to her.



Sensibly, she compartmentalizes her moods and her money. Besides, she should not brood. She had lots of company in not being hired: More than 25,000 people applied for the 325 openings.



Which vexes liberals such as John Kerry. (He and his helpmeet last shopped at Wal-Mart when?) In 2004 he tested what has become one of the Democrats' 2006 themes: Wal-Mart is, he said, "disgraceful" and symbolic of "what's wrong with America." By now Democrats have succeeded, to their embarrassment (if they are susceptible to that), in making the basic numbersfamiliar:



The median household income of Wal-Mart shoppers is under $40,000. Wal-Mart, the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy, has almost as many employees (1.3 million) as the U.S. military has uniformed personnel. A McKinsey company study concluded that Wal-Mart accounted for 13 percent of the nation's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s, which probably made Wal-Mart about as important as the Federal Reserve in holding down inflation. By lowering consumer prices, Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates . Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps ($28.6 billion) and the earned-income tax credit ($34.6 billion).



People who buy their groceries from Wal-Mart -- it has one-fifth of the nation's grocery business -- save at least 17 percent. But because unions are strong in many grocery stores trying to compete with Wal-Mart, unions are yanking on the Democratic Party's leash, demanding laws to force Wal-Mart to pay wages and benefits higher than those that already are high enough to attract 77 times as many applicants than there were jobs at this store.



The big-hearted progressives on Chicago's City Council, evidently unconcerned that the city gets zero sales tax revenue from a half-billion dollars that Chicago residents spend in the 42 suburban Wal-Marts, have passed a bill that, by dictating wages and benefits, would keep Wal-Marts from locating in the city. Richard Daley, a bread-and-butter Democrat, used his first veto in 17 years as mayor to swat it away.



Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce -- yes, announce -- that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by . . . liberals.



Before they went on their bender of indignation about Wal-Mart (customers per week: 127 million), liberals had drummed McDonald's (customers per week: 175 million) out of civilized society because it is making us fat, or something. So, what next? Which preferences of ordinary Americans will liberals, in their role as national scolds, next disapprove? Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet?



No. The current issue of the American Prospect, an impeccably progressive magazine, carries a full-page advertisement denouncing something responsible for "lies, deception, immorality, corruption, and widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses" and for having brought "great hardship and despair to people and communities throughout the world."



What is this focus of evil in the modern world? North Korea? The Bush administration? Fox News Channel? No, it is Coca-Cola (number of servings to Americans of the company's products each week: 2.5 billion).



When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled "What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?" No, the book they turned into a bestseller is titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Notice a pattern here?



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/13/AR2006091301573.html

4. Honoring the 'Iron Lady' - Washington Times Op-ed
 

By Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Published September 14, 2006



On Sept. 12 the "Iron Lady," Margaret Thatcher was honored in the U.S. as she announced the establishment of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, to be administered in the United States by the Heritage Foundation.


During her administration, then-Prime Minister Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan led the free world to vanquish the tyranny of our Cold War enemies. Establishment of the Thatcher Center in the U.S. is an outstanding occasion to reflect on how together the United States, Britain and our freedom-loving allies defeated a common enemy -- an evil empire that threatened our nation's safety and global security and sought to replace freedom and democracy with tyranny and oppression.


In doing so, we can gain a better understanding of the nature of the threat we face today and the commitment that is necessary in our current struggle against Islamic fascism.


It is difficult to derive anything positive from the destruction wreaked on New York and Washington five years ago by adherents of radical Islam. But past experiences often give wisdom for meeting future challenges.


The thwarting of another unspeakable plot last month by British antiterrorism officials in collaboration with our own U.S. intelligence is evidence that allied forces have the capacity to connect the dots to distill some of the important lessons of the September 11 tragedy.


Assimilating seemingly disparate chains of events, wherever they occur, is our best defense against the transnational enemy against whom we fight. This process, both in Britain and in the United States, was driven by the events of September 11, and the July 7 bombings in London. Just as both nations faced and defeated common enemies in the global conflicts of the last century, so too will we prevail together in the fight against extremism.


So, what are these lessons learned for the United States, for Britain, and for all of those who stand with us against Islamofascism? First, the victory over terrorism that resulted in the foiling of last month's plot to blow up commercial airliners between the United Kingdom and the United States is the supreme example of connecting the dots. Joint intelligence resulting from the synthesis of multi-sourced data and intelligence sharing on both sides of the Atlantic, along with the exemplary skill of British officials, impeded agents of extremism from carrying out a subsequent catastrophic mission.


Second, certainly in the United States and Britain, and with hope that eventually continental Europe will follow suit, there is a realization that threats do not come exclusively from abroad, but that, in the implementation of the jihadist agenda, the threats can come from within and are home grown.


The tentacles of Islamic extremism have slithered unnoticed into our own communities where apprentice suicide bombers train domestically to fly planes and make explosives. At the same time, carnage was being spread by extremists in far-away places in East Asia and Africa, but we did not feel its impact directly. Horrific and regrettable, the September 11 attacks on our nation were a necessary wake-up call alerting us to the nature and reach of the enemy that seeks our destruction and world domination. The response required an intertwining of foreign and domestic policies here in the United States and a similar response in the U.K. that are proving effective in making us safer.


Third, we are now better informed about the true components of our borderless enemy: extremist Muslim fanaticism and its national and organizational components: These include, among others, Iran, Syria, the Taliban, Hezbollah and Hamas. Those who say this is a war between the Arab world and the West get it wrong, for they ignore the many Muslims and moderate Middle East nations who abhor Islamist extremism as much as the United States, Britain and our other Western allies.


As such, our approach has not focused on short-term goals of removing the immediate threat but fomenting freedom and promoting democracy over despotism.


Critics will say we are trying to impose our way of life where it is not welcome. These naysayers should reflect for a moment that no human being, no matter what system he has grown up under, prefers autocracy to liberty. Misguidedly, many in Britain, who are quick to blame Prime Minister Tony Blair, join their voices with the anti-U.S.-apologist crowd.


What will it take for the world to believe that one cannot appease or negotiate with these Islamist extremists or their state sponsors, those fanatics who scream "Death to America" and "Bomb the U.K.", who threaten to wipe entire countries off the map and who incite others to jihad against all those who refuse to bow to their ideology of hatred?


What will it take for all freedom-loving nations to undertake the necessary sacrifices, to join forces and to focus on defeating this enemy? Lady Thatcher recently said in a statement released during her visit accompanying President Bush and the first lady at the September 11 remembrance ceremony: "That heinous attack on America was an attack on us all." Indeed, we are bound together by the extremists' hate of our noble values.


We must be encouraged by and continue to learn from the successes with which we have collaboratively thwarted events like the foiled air plot, and must not waiver in our collective mission to overcome the fanatics. Our very survival depends on it.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican, serves as co-chair of the Congressional United Kingdom Caucus and as chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia.
 


http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060913-085945-8112r.htm

5. Military will meet '06 recruiting goals - Washington Times

By Rowan Scarborough
September 14, 2006



The U.S. Armed Forces will meet wartime recruiting goals for the fiscal year that ends in two weeks, military officials said yesterday.


Despite Washington's heated political debate on the worthiness of the Iraq war, frequent overseas war deployments and daily casualties, officials say a sufficient number of young men and women are signing up with the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps in fiscal 2006 to maintain an active-duty force of about 1.4 million.


The Army, which has suffered the largest death toll as the chief provider of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, reports that it has exceeded a goal of 70,200 recruits by signing up 72,997 as of August. Officials say they expect to meet a Sept. 30 goal of 80,000 for the fiscal year.


The Army missed its goal two years ago for the first time since 1999, sparking fears that the stress of the global war on terrorism and daily reports of soldier deaths were discouraging high school graduates from joining.


Hitting the mark in a time of war has cost the Army more money -- and style. In June, it raised the maximum age for recruits from 38 to 42, and says it has attracted scores of veterans. And it relaxed tattoo rules. Now, body art can extend above the neck.


"We learned more and more teenagers have tattoos, so we relaxed the tattoo policy," said Maj. Nathan Banks, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.


The Army also is offering increased college tuition reimbursement and sign-up bonuses up to $40,000.


Of exceeding the recruiting goal, Maj. Banks said, "It's always better to have more than less. We don't stop."


The Marine Corps, which has troops in the restive and deadly Anbar province in Iraq, also will meet its goal this fiscal year of 32,701 active-duty recruits and 5,930 reservists, said Maj. Wes Hayes, a spokesman for Marine Corps Recruiting Command. He said the Corps has not increased incentives.


"Our success is all attributed to those 2,650 Marine Corps recruiters, their tireless efforts, their professionalism at informing and educating young men and women about the Marine Corps," he said.


The Pentagon reports that the Navy and Air Force also are meeting recruitment goals.


The Army is still encountering shortfalls in Reserve recruiting. It stands at 94 percent of a targeted 33,124 by the end of August. The Army National Guard is a few tenths of a percent below its goal.



http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060913-112353-8168r.htm#