The delusions of the Democratic party can be neatly summarized with a trio of news articles today.

According to the NY Sun, Western and American intelligence services believe that terrorist cells connected to the British "doctors plot" may already be in the United States and planning terrorist attacks here based on "E-mail addresses for American individuals [which] were found on the same password-protected e-mail chains used by the United Kingdom plotters to communicate with Qaeda handlers in Europe."

But what are the Democrats and liberal community worried about (well, besides the red herring of climate change)?

They're worried about eavesdropping on communications of suspected terrorists, and they're worried about how the CIA has been treating the captured 9-11 mastermind and murderer of 3,000 Americans, Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

Let's start with the news regarding the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP, aka warrantless wiretapping):

The Democratic-controlled House last night approved and sent to President Bush for his signature legislation written by his intelligence advisers to enhance their ability to intercept the electronic communications of foreigners without a court order.

The 227 to 183 House vote capped a high-pressure campaign by the White House to change the nation's wiretap law, in which the administration capitalized on Democrats' fears of being branded weak on terrorism and on a general congressional desire to act on the measure before an August recess.
Oh, gee, no biased reporting there! The TSP enhancement was needed to help our intelligence agencies catch terrorists. Period. Not to assist "Bush advisers" or "play on fears."

Clearly enough Democrats knew this to be true.

Maybe the votes were instigated by the warning to Congress from National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden: "Had this program [TSP] been in effect prior to 9/11, it is my professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al Qaeda operatives in the United States, and we would have identified them as such."

Maybe they were instigated by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, who told the media last week that intelligence operatives are unable to protect Americans because Democrats previously abridged the TSP program. "'[The intelligence community is] missing a significant portion of what we should be getting' from electronic eavesdropping on possible terror plots," according to Newsweek.

Maybe it was because even some of the less liberal democrats recognized that it shouldn't take a warrant to spy on a jihadist in Peshawar who is telephoning instructions to a suicide bomber in London, all because the call happens to go through a switch located in the US.

One suspects that if a President Clinton or Obama takes the reigns most of this leftist concern will wither away. But for now, regardless of their loss in Congress, it won't stop the anti-war left from being far more concerned about intangible and theoretical dangers (see: post below) than of the actual terrorists trying to kill them.

"There are a lot of people who felt we had to pass something," said one angry Democratic lawmaker who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of caucus discussions. "It was tantamount to being railroaded."
Railroaded? Yes, railroaded said the Democrat so proud and sure of themselves they refused to be identified.

Civil liberties and privacy advocates and a majority of Democrats said the bill could allow the monitoring of virtually any calls, e-mails or other communications going overseas that originate in the United States, without a court order, if the government deems the recipient to be the target of a U.S. probe.
"Board your wife and children! Virtually any calls!" (some restrictions apply, such as target "BEING RECIPIENT OF A US TERRORISM PROBE.")

Last night, several Democrats said the bill would undermine the Fourth Amendment. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said lawmakers were being "stampeded by fearmongering and deception" into voting for the bill. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) warned that the bill would lead to "potential unprecedented abuse of innocent Americans' privacy."
So the Fourth Amendment now applies to foreign nationals suspected of terrorism and electronically communicating overseas...? I don't think James Madison had that in mind.

Needless to say that Mr. Nadler and Ms. Harman represent two states most likely to be terrorist targets.

"I'm not comfortable suspending the constitution even temporarily," said Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), a member of the House intelligence committee. "The countries we detest around the world are the ones that spy on their own people. Usually they say they do it for the sake of public safety and security."
Does Mr. Holt "detest" the United Kingdom? Because their MI-5 conducts domestic spying everyday, and yet their democracy seems intact. Likewise even wacky-liberal France conducts domestic spying.

The bottom line is that this bill was created because the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Service Act) courts were created decades ago and no longer cover our modern technologies, at least not without some upkeeping, which is what this bill did.

And, of course, if Democrats allowed more surveillance maybe we wouldn't need to have women interrogate a naked Khalid Mohammed.

Which brings us to our last article:

[Washington Post] Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was subjected to the CIA's harshest interrogation methods while he was held in secret prisons around the world for more than three years, part of an interrogation regimen that the International Committee of the Red Cross has called "tantamount to torture," according to a New Yorker article to be published on the magazine's Web site today.

In a 12-page article released yesterday, reporter Jane Mayer analyzes the development of the CIA's secret interrogation techniques and writes that a confidential ICRC report to the U.S. government details Mohammed's assertions that he was tortured by the CIA. Unnamed Washington sources told Mayer that Mohammed said he was held naked in his cell, questioned by female interrogators to humiliate him, attached to a dog leash and made to run into walls, and put in painful positions while chained to the floor. Mohammed also said he was "waterboarded" -- a simulated drowning -- in addition to being held in suffocating heat and painfully cold conditions. Mohammed's captors also told him shortly after his arrest in March 2003: "We're not going to kill you. But we're going to take you to the very brink of your death and back," the article said.

Me thinks torture is made of sterner stuff. Torture doesn't "simulate drowning," it actually drowns you. Or your family in front of you, etc.

Certainly one would wager our treatment of al Qaeda operatives is purposely designed to skirt techical law - which is why they don't cause "prolonged mental harm" or threaten death. One can be sure it's not pleasant. But neither is anal rape in our state prison systems, yet we hear no peep from the liberal community to reform that. So, beyond discomfort and humiliation, Mohammed gets to keep all of his limbs - unlike, say, Saddam's victims - and has been flat out told we'll never kill him.

And this assumes Mohammed is speaking the truth even though the ICRC admits that the only person who can verify these claims is the very terrorist, Khalid Mohammed.

If Khalid Mohammed can organize the murder of 3,000 Americans he can certainly lie about or exaggerate his treatment to the Red Cross and play to their bleeding-heart sympathies.

But, even if he isn't lying, his fate is far, far better than those of his victims.

Labels: Delusional Democrats, Doctors plot, intelligence, interrogation, surveillance, TSP