DICK MORRIS’ ’08 PLAY-BY-PLAY Volume 1, #40
DICK MORRIS’ PLAY-BY-PLAY
Volume 1, #40
January 9, 2009
A PREDICTION: TERRORISM IN 2009
Three weeks ago, I sent out my predictions to paid subscribers of my Play-By-Play for what the politics and economics of 2009 would be like. Now I want to turn the crystal ball to the war on terror and foreign affairs and make my predictions for the New Year.
Obama has given power to men and women who really don’t believe terrorism is much of a problem. They implicitly share the European view that an attack here or there is not worth turning what they regard as constitutional guarantees on their heads. The result is that we will be vastly more vulnerable and have a good chance of being hit again soon.
Here’s why:
1. Obama will dissolve the Homeland Security Council, a White House group of cabinet officers and staff, set up after 9-11 to focus on domestic anti-terror precautions and protections. He will fold the Council’s operation back into the National Security Council (NSC), the umbrella group charged with conducting foreign policy. The NSC is focused abroad, on foreign affairs. As Ohio’s director of its Emergency Management Agency, Nancy Dragani, observed "The NSC is focused outside [the US]. They’re not going to be consumed with worrying about what’s happening in Ohio." We can expect homeland security to be put on a back burner as foreign crises and diplomacy keeps center stage at NSC deliberations.
2. The attacks in Mumbai, India suggest that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are moving away from the big target approach they have followed before and since 9-11. Because of aggressive U.S. homeland security protections, these attacks have become less feasible over the past eight years. But the terrorists seem to be getting the message that they can wreck havoc by sending commando squads armed with machine guns and grenade launchers into heavily populated cities to kill as many civilians as possible. This style of terror attack seemed to lack the glamour and potential for publicity of a 9-11 style hit. But the global reaction to Mumbai indicates that al Qaeda can put the world on edge with such tactics. In 2007, terrorists planned an assault on Ft. Dix, New Jersey a plot that called only for the use of small arms. While the attack was discovered – and the attackers found guilty recently – we cannot always hope for such good luck. The likelihood is that 2009 will bring such attacks to the West and possibly to the United States.
3. As President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Office of Legal Counsel director Dawn Johnsen curtail wiretaps operated without FISA warrants, the National Security Agency (NSA) will increasingly be unable to trawl through billions of phone calls to look for anomalous patterns. No longer will words like "Brooklyn Bridge" jump out at them and be highlighted by their computers for closer attention. As a result, we will be less able to anticipate terrorist attacks and will be increasingly constrained to spot them early on.
4. The likely closing of the Guantanamo prison will lead to the release of 250 hardened terrorists who will be repatriated, at our expense, back to Afghanistan or their country of origin. There, most of them will join the more than fifty of their colleagues who went right from the Guantanamo holding cells to the mountains of Afghanistan to resume their armed struggle against us.
5. Obama, Holder, and Johnsen all are on record as opposing "rough" interrogation techniques and favor using the Army Field manual to govern the questioning of terror suspects. The manual not only prohibits torture but also bans making the target feel "uncomfortable" or bringing psychological pressure on him to answer questions. As a result, our interrogation of terrorists will be defanged and will likely be increasingly ineffective.
6. As a Senator, Obama sponsored legislation to require notification of a group suspected of terrorist activities within seven days of opening an investigation. Since he will presumably hold to the same view as president, terrorist groups under investigation will have plenty of warning to cover their tracks, erase evidence, and warn co-conspirators.
7. As Senator, Obama voted to toughen the standard investigators had to use to seize business records of suspected terror-sponsoring organizations. Currently, the standard is whether the search would be "relevant" to a terror investigation. Obama wanted to require the government to "provide specific evidence to support the suspicion that an individual has links to terrorism" before records could be seized. How the government is to obtain this information without access to the records is a tough question to answer. The inevitable result will be fewer investigations.
8. Obama also advocated stricter criteria for granting FISA warrants for tapping telephones. Currently, the feds have to tell the FISA court why they think a given telephone may be used to promote terrorism. Obama proposed that federal investigators be required to "identify with particularity the person under scrutiny." Again, the feds may only have a phone number and not be able to name the suspected terrorist. In such cases, under Obama: no warrant.
9. During the campaign, Obama advocated lifting the "gag order" on groups under investigation for terrorism. Under current law, these groups may only discuss the investigation with their attorney in the process of challenging the subpoena. The attorney is bound to keep it in confidence. But Obama advocated lifting the ban and letting the terrorist suspects speak to anyone in public or private about the investigation. Will this change let them warn other terrorists with whom they may have been in touch? Yes, it certainly will.
Yikes!
Afghanistan and Pakistan
While the problems we faced in Iraq could be and were solved by changing our approach, the difficulties in policing the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan are far more difficult. (Suggested reading: a brand new book The Strongest Tribe by Bing West explaining how we prevailed in Iraq).
Pakistan, nominally an ally in the war on terror, has been ineffective, and at times unwilling, to deny al Qaeda safe have within its borders. Just as in Vietnam where the enemy could use Cambodia as a sanctuary, so in South Asia, American ground troops have had to observe the border and stay on the Afghan side even when in hot pursuit. While Pakistan has turned a blind eye to unmanned Predator air strikes within its borders, it aggressively resists the introduction of American ground forces. Without a U.S. presence on the ground on the Paki side of the border, it is unlikely that we can crimp al Qaeda’s operations or find bin Ladin.
The problem Obama and Hillary Clinton will face is that the terrorists have decided to do all they can to destroy the nation of Pakistan. By assassinating leaders like Mrs. Bhutto, they have sought to disrupt democracy. And their attacks on Mumbai in India were obviously designed to provoke a war between Pakistan and India which the Pakis would likely lose. By trying to tie up Pakistan with a war in the east against India and in the west against al Qaeda, they hope to drag the nation down and permit a Taliban-like takeover.
Any U.S. effort to impinge on Paki sovereignty to hunt down al Qaeda makes it harder for the government to remain credible with its own people. But by letting al Qaeda grow stronger on its western borders, the government also undermines its own position.
Whether Obama and Clinton can change Paki attitudes and permit U.S. ground penetration remains to be seen. The rumored appointment of America’s best foreign policy hand, Richard Holbrooke, as a special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan would be a big step in the right direction. It was Holbrooke who negotiated our way out of the impasse between the Bosnian Serbs and Muslims in 1995.
But one thing is certain: Pakistan will be the central theater in the war on terror and 2009 will usher in graver and more frequent efforts by al Qaeda to take over the country and topple its newly elected democratic government.
COMING NEXT:
In our next play by play, we’ll examine other foreign theaters including North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, Russia and Latin America and what changes they may hold in 2009.
THANK YOU!
***COPYRIGHT EILEEN MCGANN AND DICK MORRIS 2009. REPRINTS WITH PERMISSION ONLY***
FRANKEN’S FUNNY BUSINESS
As John F. Kennedy once said, “sometimes partisanship demands too much.” Watching Al Franken and the Democrats steal this election, vote by vote, is a horrific sight that makes a mockery of the electoral process, the fundamental element in our democracy. If this travesty is allowed to stand, it essentially means that any close election constitutes an open invitation to try to steal the victory.
We must not permit the Minnesota Democrats to get away with this election heist. The Republican National Lawyers Association is leading the fight for a fair vote in Minnesota. The RNLA has not brought suit, they are lending legal support. Help them in their important cause.
GUTTING SECURITY: O’S DANGEROUS ANTI-TERROR PICKS
Published in the New York Post on January 8, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama’s appointments to Homeland Security, the Justice Department and now the CIA indicate a virtual abandonment of the War on Terror.
As Homeland Security chief, he’s named a governor whose only experience has been with the US-Mexican border. His attorney general pick, meanwhile, took the lead in pardoning FALN terrorists. Now he has rounded out his national-security and Justice Department teams by naming ultraliberals.
BURRIS ALREADY MADE DOWN PAYMENT ON HIS SENATE SEAT
Don’t think that Governor Blagojevich has waived the pay to play requirement for appointment to the Senate seat. NewsMax.com reports that Burris has already donated more than $15,000 to Blago’s campaigns. He’s made his down payment already! And Burris got a big fat state contract in return! His consulting firm was awarded a $300,000 contract from the Illinois State Department of Transportation to locate minority contractors to participate in the state’s affirmative action program to work on road projects. Burris doesn’t have to do a quid pro quo with Blagojovich. He’s got a charge account going!
GAZA: THE DOVE’S WAR
Published on TheHill.com on January 7, 2009
The ostensible purpose of the war in Gaza is for Israel to wipe out Hamas and eliminate its capacity to rain rockets down on its citizens. Both the dovish leaders in the current Israeli government — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak — and the international diplomatic community want to get rid of Hamas and leave the more moderate Palestinian Authority as the sole negotiating agent for the Palestinians. So the Israeli attacks have not received the kind of international condemnation and vitriol that they usually attract.
TYRANNY OF THE TAX-EXEMPT
Published in the New York Post on January 6, 2009
It now looks like half of President-elect Barack Obama’s stimulus package will take the form of “tax cuts” for 95 percent of all Americans. Yet this wouldn’t so much boost the economy as trigger a massive, unhealthy shift in American politics.
Under Obama’s plan, the majority of American voters would pay no federal income taxes, but would get money from the government instead. That is, these “refundable tax credits” are basically welfare checks – and Obama’s plan would leave the most of us collecting, not paying.
THE FRANKEN FACTS
Al Franken is about to be elevated to the U.S. Senate as a result of funny business. Twenty-five precincts in Minnesota have recorded more votes cast than voters on Election Day. Ramsey County alone has 177 more ballots than people who voted. The vast majority of these over-votes have gone to Franken. In parts of the state, military ballots were not counted. Any ballot that was challenged was copied for review. But, in many cases, the election canvassers forgot to label the copy as a duplicate, so it was counted twice. So not only were the disputed ballots counted, they were counted twice!
PANETA IS TERRIBLE CHOICE FOR CIA
Let’s get this straight. The president-elect has no foreign policy experience. The Secretary of State-designate has none, except for photo ops as First Lady. The Director of Homeland Security-designate only knows about immigration enforcement. The Attorney General not only has no special knowledge about terrorism, he orchestrated the pardon of the FALN terrorists under President Clinton. And now the head of the CIA-designate has only had experience in domestic policy, notably as head of the Budget committee, OMB director, and Chief of Staff to the President!
Paneta is too inexperienced, too weak, and too liberal to make an effective CIA head. And, surrounded by people who know even less than he does about national security issues, it is a truly terrifying appointment.
