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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (5787)	10/17/2001 12:12:43 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I think the point of Reagan's executive order is that the CIA is supposed to gather intelligence, not kill people. Point of clarification - Omar was in the sights of a Predator spy plane, which is equipped with anti-tank weapons but is under the control of the CIA. Fair enough. Limits are good things. But I remain a bit confused about this. The NRO - National Reconnaissance Office - is responsible for the orbiting intelligence gathering satellites. Surely these are used in determining targets, verifying results of attacks etc. How is this different than an arial drone, if the information is used in similar ways for similar decisions? NRO - nro.gov A DoD agency, the NRO is staffed by DoD and CIA personnel. It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program. The really confusing thing is this -- they can use NRO assets to target things, even though CIA staffers work there? Seems like quibbling over semantics to me. And if you are in a war, why place limits on the use of information? As long as the right agency is carrying out, authorized, policy? I guess that's why Sec Defense might have been upset...

To: Ilaine who wrote (5787)	10/17/2001 4:46:14 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hey, I don't really have a problem with the CIA being prohibited from killing people, even in wartime. Maybe someone can persuade me otherwise, but it seems to me that killing people is a job for the military. Otherwise we start sliding down the slippery slope to potential abuses of power. Dividing responsibilities is a check against abuse of power. I suppose that if we don't allow the CIA to surreptitiously eliminate terrorists and other confirmed enemies, we can sleep well, secure in the comfort that we are being politically correct. Perhaps we can send guys in uniform, who advertise their presence with drums and bugles, into the terrorists' lairs. The rules have changed. No, actually the rules have not changed. We have been playing by the Marquis of Queensberry's rules while the rest of the world has no compunctions about doing things much, much differently. I have no problem with political assassinations, nor do I have a problem with using terror as an adjunct of foreign policy. This is extreme, I know, but we are in a completely different world now in which failure to effectively deter terrorism will absolutely, positively result in more mass catastrophes in the United States. In other words, my life and the lives of my family are at stake. The level of violence against innocent civilians clearly indicates that The Hague Convention does not apply to the filth who are responsible for the 9/11 attacks or the spread of anthrax. Deterrence to be effective has to be brutal. Even more brutal and cruel than the acts of the terrorists. And it has to be consistently applied in a way that leaves no doubt that further acts of terror will result in responses which are utterly out of proportion to the original act. For example, the WTC and Pentagon incidents in my estimation justify the use of tactical nuclear weapons. There was, after all, an aborted attempt to destroy the White House, where Laura Bush was present. There was also a credible threat on 9/11 to assassinate W. Now, anthrax is being used against our top legislative leaders. These acts are no jokes. Our response thus far has been far too measured. Families of terrorists, cultural symbols, religious sites, etc., should be fair game as should be weapons of mass destruction if deterrence is going to work. It's a high price to pay in terms of sacrificing our ideals and our beautiful sense of fair play. But I'd rather be alive than dead because someone asked a JAG officer for permission to kill a known terrorist and the moment passed. These people are cowards and bullies. Like bullies, they stop only when seriously confronted or when the price they pay is too high. No courts, no trials, the rules that we normally play by should not apply to them. A point that seems to be lost in this discussion is the fact that though there would be a great number of innocents destroyed if our responses are brutal, there is a salutary self-policing effect. A few brutal responses and the ones who know who the terrorist are will make sure that they do not succeed because the price for supporting them is simply too high to pay. We will unfortunately hear and take this message seriously only after the next episode of mass death and destruction takes place. I know that there are a lot of inequities in the Middle East, and that they are the ultimate causes of the terror. We should make it clear as a matter of policy that, though we have the will and the resources to address these inequities, nothing can be done so long as terror is being inflicted upon us. They must know that the likelihood of resolving these inequities diminishes with each American who dies. Such a policy will also have a salutary effect, in my opinion. Most of us do not like to think like this. We are by nature peaceful and well-intentioned. Our single greatest defenses have been the two giant moats around our land. These moats are no longer effective. We no longer have the luxury of acting with idealism in one hand and a cap gun in the other. Time to use the big stick. Why muzzle the CIA or the military under these circumstances? Why pull punches? C2@feelingbloodytoday.com