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

To: JohnM who wrote (61289)	12/12/2002 11:11:12 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Here is an article on a subject near and dear to both of us. I think he has laid out the options correctly. "Roll Call" is reporting that the Dems may try to obstruct the Senate being formed until they get a compromise on their share of the committee money. The Repubs are planning a 2/3rds, 1/3 split. The Dems want 1/2. From your favorite Newspaper. :^) A road twice traveled Gary J. Andres Published December 12, 2002 On Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2003, a shiny black Chrysler sedan, driven by an Army sergeant, will emerge from the Old Executive Office Building, turn left on 17th Street and head toward the U.S. Capitol. An official from the White House Executive Clerk's Office will accompany the driver, carrying the official papers of about 30 of President Bush's federal judicial nominees. Arriving at the Capitol, the clerk will take an elevator up one level and walk on to the Senate floor. From the back of the ornate chamber, after the presiding officer recognizes him, the clerk will bellow: "I'm directed by the President of the United States to deliver a message to the Senate in writing." He will bow to the chair, hand the papers to the Senate Executive Clerk and head back to the White House. And so will begin the "advice and consent" process, a ritual repeated every year by the White House and the Senate since 1789. But these judicial appointments are different? they traversed this venerable road in the last Congress. These are the federal judicial selections President Bush previously nominated ? including Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owen ? on which the full Senate never voted. A new Republican majority means a second confirmation opportunity for these nominees and another chance for the Senate. This time the Senate should fulfill its "advice and consent" role and ensure the full body votes on each of these nominees. The Senate's track record on these nominees over the last year and a half was deplorable. Many nominated in May 2001 are still waiting for a hearing. Using a variety of parliamentary tools, the Democrats blocked the full Senate from voting on all these men and women. Republicans complained bitterly about the lack of progress on these nominees, but failed to dent the public's consciousness until right before the midterm elections. "The whole issue of confirming judges took on broader appeal after Democrats reneged on a commitment to Sen. Strom Thurmond," noted a GOP leadership aide. According to Mr. Thurmond and other GOP staff, Democrats committed to a vote in October, before Congress adjourned, on Dennis Shed, who was the retiring senator's candidate for a U.S. circuit judgeship. Democrats then reversed themselves and blocked a vote. The uproar, including Mr. Thurmond's blistering speech on the Senate floor, received national media attention, igniting an incendiary device among the Republican faithful. In many key states featuring competitive races, charges that Democrats "rigged" the system and denied the full Senate a vote resonated in the election and contributed to Republican victories. The Senate ultimately confirmed Mr. Shedd in the post-election lame duck session. But given the electoral potency of the "obstructionist" message, knowledgeable Senate insiders were stunned when reports circulated that the Democrats may continue dilatory tactics in the next Congress. "We heard disturbing reports they wanted to shift venues from stalling nominees in the Judiciary Committee to delaying action on the Senate floor," one GOP Judiciary Committee aide said. Stalling will not work anymore in the Judiciary Committee. Sen. Orrin Hatch, the incoming chairman, will move the president's nominees with alacrity. Political scientists Roger E. Hartley and Lisa M. Holmes, writing in the summer 2002 Political Science Quarterly, underscore this point with historical evidence. Analyzing the time required to confirm lower court judges between 1969-1998, they demonstrate that the relationship between the Senate Judiciary Chair and the White House is a significant variable contributing to the length of the process. Mr. Hatch's congenial relationship with the White House should help smooth the way for these nominees. But no longer controlling the gavel in committee, some Democrats now suggest shifting the battle to the Senate floor. Using parliamentary devices, like a filibuster ? seldom used in the confirmation process ? and forcing Republicans to garner a "supermajority" of 60 votes to win some of these nomination battles ? represents a new level of escalation in the confirmation wars. The Senate first passed a rule to limit debate and bring matters to a final vote in 1917. This process ? known as cloture ? was applied to legislation, not nominations, however, until 1968. Since that time, the Senate confirmed nearly 2,000 lower court judges, only facing filibusters on nine nominations. And even in these few cases the delay tactics did not kill the nomination, according to the Congressional Research Service. Using filibusters to deny floor votes on judges is both highly unusual and risky for the Democrats. The Constitution calls for the Senate to provide "advice and consent" on nominations, not for an individual or small groups to use delaying tactics to block votes. Frustrating the full Senate from exercising its constitutional role created a bumpy electoral road for the Democrats last November. Shifting stall tactics from the Judiciary Committee to the Senate floor is another political dead end. Gary J. Andres holds a Ph.D. in public policy and is a senior managing partner with the Dutko Group [-] a D.C. based government relations company. A former White House senior lobbyist, he writes every Thursday for The Washington Times on politics and policy.

To: JohnM who wrote (61289)	12/12/2002 11:24:12 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

Ledeen points out, again, the Iran/Al Qaeda connection. I guess we are staying away from it in hopes that the Students win. We cannot let this continue. December 12, 2002 8:45 a.m. The Heart of Darkness The mullahs make terror possible. A terrorist by the name of Abdullah S. (name withheld for some reason I can't quite fathom) was arrested in Germany, along with 13 other members of a Palestinian Islamic group called al Tawhid. Since last April, Abdullah has been very cooperative with German authorities, who have brought the entire group to trial on charges of planning suicide terrorist operations in Europe against Jewish and American targets, and also against the German Army. The case was reported in Die Zeit on the 5th of December, and its absence from the American press is yet another indication of the lackluster performance of our journalistic paladins. For the head of al Tawhid is a chap called Mohammed Sarkawi, and Sarkawi is simultaneously a top officer of al Qaeda, and he lives and works in Tehran. Abdullah S. has pointed out to German intelligence officers that al Tawhid could not function without the active support of the Iranian regime. And he has provided many chapters and many verses with pithy details that all go to support the picture of Iran I have presented in The War Against the Terror Masters and in this ongoing series in NRO. To wit: ? Sarkawi is a Palestinian with a Jordanian passport, and he supervises terrorist training camps near Herat and Kabul, thus confirming the ongoing role of Iran/al-Qaeda in organizing and running terrorist operations in Afghanistan; ? According to German intelligence, Sarkawi is a key figure in the "reorganized al-Qaeda" as well as one of the major coordinators of Iranian-sponsored terrorism in Europe. His group, al-Tawhid, has arranged false documentation for more than 100 al Qaeda fighters who escaped from Afghanistan during the war, provided them with funds, passports, and safe haven (near Tehran), and then organized their movement out of Iran to other areas, some in the Middle East, others ? as Abdullah S. demonstrates ? in the West; ? German prosecutors now realize that Iran is a major center for al Qaeda, and they have identified roughly a dozen camps around Tehran where al Qaeda terrorists are taken care of by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. These camps are part of an elaborate underground railroad: The terrorists and their families are moved out of Afghanistan and Pakistan into Iranian Baluchistan and then into Iran proper. From there they go by air or land either to Beirut or to Damascus (the State Department's "ally" in the war against terror), and then into the Bekka Valley of Lebanon to one of the legendary centers of Hezbollah terror, ein Hilweh. Once their training and phony identities are completed, they move on; ? The Germans have now confirmed that there have been meetings and that there is ongoing cooperation between al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden and Hezbollah's chief of operations, the equally legendary Imad Mughniyah. Not only are they cooperating on terrorist operations, but they are working closely to secure their wealth: Al Qaeda and Hezbollah work together to move gold and diamonds from Karachi to Sudan, via Iran. In short, there is now public information to confirm what I have long asserted ? and what the CIA and others have long denied ? namely that there is a working relationship between Hezbollah and al Qaeda, and that this is all made possible by the Iranian regime. Die Zeit tells us that the German government is very upset by these discoveries, because the Germans, like many Europeans, thought they'd bought off the mullahs, and it's distressing to them to find the Iranians planning suicide terrorism on the soil of the motherland. And there's more. A German news agency reported a week ago of the seizure, by German Customs agents, of a shipment of 44 electronic switching modules (worth roughly $75,000) "that could be programmed to detonate a nuclear bomb." These handy German products were headed from Stuttgart to Singapore, with an unknown final destination. What's the connection? "An article published today in Focus Magazine potentially implicates two Iranian men, one of whom carries a Swedish passport." Meanwhile, the estimable David Rose in the latest Vanity Fair calmly and carefully lays out a very convincing case of close working relations between Iraq and al Qaeda. He tells us that his sources in the United States intelligence community speak of "hundreds" of reports of contacts between al Qaeda terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks and Iraqi intelligence officials "in the United Arab Emirates." That would most likely be Dubai, the Iranian colony that, along with Iranians in town, has been laundering Saddam's money, handling Saddam's illegal oil exports and generally providing an all-service, one-stop help station for Iran and Iraq. All of which points to yet another point I have stressed: It is a mistake to think of Iran and Iraq as scorpions in a bottle. They, along with the Syrians and the Saudis, are working together against us (which is why we will find ourselves in a regional war once we start the campaign against Iraq). It's always nice to be vindicated by events, but I don't want further vindication in the weeks and months ahead, if, as I fear, it costs the lives of young Iranians fighting for freedom in their country and the lives of young Americans fighting the war against the terror masters. Iran is the heart of darkness. Enough already. Do it now.