Spying on Bad Guys is a Bad Thing?

Since when?

We're all very aware of the recent story published in the New York Times about the National Security Agency, (NSA) listening in on phone conversations between al Queada suspects within the U.S. and someone overseas. And we've all heard the "outrage" from the left about this "Domestic Spying." The supposed problem is that the President authorized these wiretaps without a warrant from a judge. And the "without a warrant" aspect would normally present a problem for me if we were talking about criminal activity. That's important, criminal activities. Keep that in your mind as you read on.

I want you to think back to a time before 9/11/01, when we as a nation and a government viewed terrorism as a crime, not an act of war. We were all perfectly content trying to arrest terrorists and charge them under our legal system. Yeah, sure, they had done some bad things, but those things were all done overseas. Not really within our jurisdiction. But we never considered these acts of terror as an act of war even though they had hit military targets on numerous occasions. We as a people decided to follow the nation's leadership on this and just go along. I mean, why wouldn't we? They must be smart right? They got elected by people probably smarter than me right? They have all the information, we don't... Right?

This is were we screwed up. We as a general rule didn't look at preventing terrorist attacks, we looked at retaliating against those we felt had some play in the attack. Or we treated it as a criminal matter, not an act of war. Sure, we'd launch some missiles into the Sudan and blow up a factory, or blow up some training camp in Afghanistan. But the truth is we were consumed with having an "appropriate response" to somebody blowing up one of our military barracks in the middle east, or floating a bomb into the side of one of our Naval ships. Blow a hole in our boat? We're going to blow up a training camp, case closed, problem solved. That was the message we sent. The message of, "we're not going to get too dirty on this because Americans don't have the stomach for it."

That message was sent loud and clear from the time of the Vietnam War up to and including when we sent troops into Somalia. The message of, we'll do something until we have to fill an American body bag, then we're done.

The end result of that message to the bin Laden's of the world: It just made us look weak. It made us appear to the rest of the world that the politicians of this country won't risk political failure. If Vietnam and Somalia taught them anything is that with enough dissent, politicians will fold and pull out. Our leaders won't do what needs to be done because politically, they will have problems.

So why not keep hitting us? We were never really going to do anything about it. So like a bully, the bad guys kept hitting us and we didn't really do much to prevent getting hit. I think partially because we were the loan super power in the world and we could not allow ourselves to be viewed as a big tyrant using the full force of our military against some two-bit terrorist organization. We need to be diplomatic and lead by example, right? I mean, how would that look to the international community if the big bad super power, the only remaining super power, were to go picking on some little group of terrorists that couldn't even sink a ship? If we were to seriously go after them and kill each and every one of them with the force of the God All Mighty, that wouldn't be a fair would it? People might view us as the bully. We couldn't have that. So we didn't make an example of some captured terrorists that have killed Americans. No, we let the Europeans put them in jail. So, why shouldn't the terrorists continue to hit us. What's the worse that could happen? Some time in a European prison?

And look what that got us. Nearly 3,000 of our people died because we were afraid to look too powerful.

President Bush has decided to take a different approach. He has decided that by every means possible, he's going to prevent another attack on American soil. And for purely political reasons, the left in this country is now fighting him every step of the way. For purely political reasons, they are doing everything they can to undermine and distract this President from his primary task, defeating terrorism. After 9/11, we all agreed these terrorists must be stopped. We all agreed the American people must be protected from another attack. And isn't that what this President has done?

OK, now let me ask you this; Did you have a problem with the U.S. spying on the Nazis during WW II? Did you have a problem with the U.S. spying on Japan during WW II? Did you have a problem with the U.S. spying on the Soviet Union during the Cold War? I'm guessing your answer is no. I'm willing to bet you are very grateful for those efforts. So please tell me the difference between spying on the Nazis in Germany and spying on suspected terrorists inside the U.S.? Both are enemies of this country. Both wanted to see Americans die. Both were taking aggressive action to kill Americans. And we shouldn't spy on terrorists why? Because they may be inside the U.S. and not in Germany, or Japan, or the Soviet Union? So it's ok to spy on people outside the U.S., but not inside the U.S.? I'm sorry folks, but when you have an enemy inside your borders, you have every obligation and I say every right to spy on them and get every piece of information about them that you can. As the leader of country, you not only have the legal authority, but the moral responsibility to do whatever it takes to save American lives.

It's very simple. The President took an oath. "To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic." I know a little bit about that as I took a similar oath when I joined the Corps. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a Constitutional scholar. But I am an intelligent man and I like to think that common sense should still apply to our laws and our government and by all means, to our national security. I'm going to tell you this, and feel free to quote me. If we are too concerned with the civil liberties of terrorists, many of us will most definitely lose our most prized civil liberty. The liberty of life.

I know, I know, Benjamin Franklin... For those of you that don't know, Ben Franklin once said "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." I'm so sick of that quote. Know this: Ben Franklin was not around to see the devastation of a nuclear bomb. The worse thing he faced from a security threat was a few hundred Red Coats marching slowly towards his position with their guns not even loaded. An Army of Red Coats that had rules of war and honor to abide by. He had no concept of a surprise attack from a dirty bomb going off in a city of 8 million people. So who gives a shit what Ben Franklin said 220 years ago. I'm willing to bet that if he were around today, he'd see it my way.

We as a nation had better stop fighting amongst ourselves and recognize the fact that we are at war with an enemy that wants every one of us dead. They don't just want to kill conservatives. They want the liberals too. And you liberals out there, had better put aside your desire for political power and accept the fact that we are at war. We need to work together and we need to fight the real enemy. President Bush is not your enemy. The terrorists are the ones that want you dead.