The Decision ’08 Review: How Would A Patriot Act?
First things first; this is a book review, and not a place to air dirty laundry. This is not a post about Kosola or related sidebars, recent arguments notwithstanding.
Instead, I hope it is a fair look at a book, How Would A Patriot Act?, by one of the left’s new celebrity bloggers, Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald burst onto the scene in a big way in the wake of the revelation by the NY Times in late 2005 that the NSA was eavesdropping on Americans in a secret program authorized by the Bush Administration. Glenn blogged often, at length, and intelligently on the topic, and was approached by Working Assets to develop his ideas into the book I am reviewing now.
Those ideas are roughly as follows: that George W. Bush and his team have a radical vision of executive power that runs roughshod over the Constitution, and that Bush exploits fear of terrorism to quell opposition. On the first matter, Greenwald is at times very convincing; on the second, far less so.
Greenwald spends the early part of the book recounting the actions that he says forced him out of his previous political apathy and into direct opposition to this administration: the allegations of torture, the indefinite detentions at Guantanamo, the cases of Hamdi and Padilla, and of course the NSA story. I’ve neither the time nor inclination to go over these occurences in detail; virtually every thinking American is now aware of the controversy over this administration’s approach to the War on Terror. I’ll merely note in passing that the idea that an American can be held indefinitely, without resource to attorneys, and without facing the charges against him, or even knowing what they are, is indeed a radical departure from American ideas of due process – and I think Greenwald convincingly makes the case that this is antithetical to our country’s ideals and unacceptable, even in a time of war.
Indeed, this is the strength of the book – when Greenwald sticks to straightforward comparisons of the words of the founders and the deeds of the Bush administration, he is often devestatingly persuasive. The best chapter is the fourth (I am, surprisingly, briefly mentioned in this chapter, in a section dealing with the rare bipartisan agreement that the conviction of David Irving was, though understandable, quite wrong), where Greenwald demonstrates, by way of quiet example and quotation, the foresight the founders had in anticipating many of the arguments Bush’s team makes in defense of their controversial push for a stronger executive, and the rejection of many of these same arguments by the Supreme Court.
The weakest link (though not a fatal flaw) is the overreach on display in the fifth chapter, where Greenwald accuses Bush of effectively ginning up fear to consolidate power. Though I agree that many of Bush’s actions push the limits, if not cross the line, and that the administration should be more forthcoming and more willing to allow litigation to move forward, I completely disagree with the assertion that the terror threat is exaggerated; if anything, it is probably minimized. Cheney has taken much heat lately for the idea of the ‘One Percent Doctrine’, but isn’t he essentially right? When the stakes are nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists – and they are – shouldn’t we fight this threat as an existential one?
Thus, my distaste for passages such as this:
Under the Bush administration, we have traveled as a nation from the towering heights defined by the courage and impassioned stance of Patrick Henry and other American founders to a fearful and craven basement where we are ready to give up our liberties and grant the government power without limits because we are afraid.
That simply won’t do. It is not fear that motivates us, but vigilance; we have been awakened from the slumber of a false peace by 4 airplanes that shattered the illusion in the most gruesome and definitive way. It is surely not fearmongering to suggest that we cannot allow attacks such as this to take place again without using every reasonable precaution to thwart them.
We can argue about what IS a reasonable precaution without accusing the other side of bad faith. Nor does it aid Greenwald’s argument to mischaracterize the stance of the Bush administration regarding the purported ‘Clash of Civilizations’:
For four years, this is what Americans have heard over and over and over from our government – that we face a mortal and incomparably powerful enemy, and only the most extreme measures taken by our government can save us. We are a nation engaged in a War of Civilizations, a nation whose very existence is in peril. All of our plans for our future, dreams for our children, career aspirations, life goals – these are all subordinate, all for naught, unless, first and foremost, we stand loyally behind George Bush as he takes the extreme and unprecedented measures deemed necessary to protect us from these extreme and unprecedented threats.
Perhaps it is not fair to quote at such length the single worst paragraph in the book. I use it to illustrate the most annoying trait of Greenwald’s work both in this book and on his blog; the seemingly innate need to add that extra spice to score the knockout blow, and its subsequent toll on the credibility of his arguments. Glenn is far more effective where he uses methodical persuasion than when he is employing the bludgeon.
George W. Bush has taken pains to play down the ‘Clash of Civilizations’, not fan it; his early comments in the wake of 9/11 warned Americans not to view Islam as a whole through the fanaticism of its most extreme adherents, and he has repeatedly referred to Islam as ‘a religion of peace’. Nor has the president (or anyone, for that matter) suggested that the terrorists are ‘incomparably powerful’ – such an assertion is laughable.
Instead, what has been argued is that terrorists are not bound by the moral and political calculations that make it so difficult for nations to nuke each other, or use chemical or biological agents. Indeed, the reason to take out Saddam with respect to WMDs was never, at least to this Iraq War supporter, the threat that Saddam would somehow launch a nuke at the U.S. so much as it was the very real danger that he would share the technology with the terrorists.
Nevertheless, I can recommend Greenwald’s book to you despite my qualms about his conclusions; there does indeed need to be continued conversation at a national level about the line between privacy and security, and the Bush administration has left itself upon to criticism with its secrecy and its unwillingness to allow challenges to proceed through the courts. Greenwald’s book serves as a timely reminder that the beauty of our system of government is in the checks and balances, and that we toy with the formula at our extreme peril.
[[t is not fear that motivates us, but vigilance]]
A truly vigilant administration would have better secured our ports by now (a failure I take seriously given the number of relatives I have living in close proximity to ports), as well as chemical plants and other vulnerable targets. Moreover, an administration truly vigilant about terrorism would never have invaded Iraq on the flimsiest of evidence when we still had a job to do in Afghanistan.
Moreover, an honorable administration would have honestly laid out the choices before us and told us clearly and honestly what its priorities were.
So, nope, I’m going with fear. I certainly understand the reluctance to acknowledge this point, inasmuch as admitting that you allowed yourself to be misled by the administration is tantamount to admitting that you allowed your fears to get the better of you. (I supported the Iraq invasion because I thought surely no American administration would lie about a nuclear threat. Live and learn.) But fear it is; ‘fess up. The longer you wait, the worse it’s gonna get.
I am in agreement with Lex above. I would buy the “one percent” premise and claims of vigilance more were it not for the reality of Hurricane Katrina, the results of which were not only predictable but predicted for years. And yet, those vigilant heroes of the administration fiddled as an American city was wiped off the map. They have also reduced preparedness spending for the most likely targets of terrorism.
[t is not fear that motivates us, but vigilance]
And what motivates the “vigilance?” Fear, I’d guess. Lex has it right… this administration fought the creation of DHS, then staffed it with cronies, and let Osama go in Tora Bora, and…
As for “Cheney has taken much heat lately for the idea of the ‘One Percent Doctrine’, but isn’t he essentially right?” Well, no, he’s not. One percent does not ever equal certainty, and any halfway competent decision analyst will tell you so. And furthermore, he’s hypocritical. Could we really say in 2003 there was a less than one percent chance that the invasion of Iraq would backfire and create a whole mess of anti-American sentiment + terrorists in the Middle East? And that the chance of global warming being induced by man is less than one percent? Funny how “one percent” only counts when he wants to do it anyway.
“When the stakes are nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists – and they are – shouldn’t we fight this threat as an existential one?” Well, if so, then why aren’t we invading Pakistan and North Korea, who are by far the most likely sources of nuclear weapons for terrorists? OBL in a cave somewhere in the Northwest Frontier Province isn’t going to design and build an atomic bomb out of rocks and weeds, that’s for sure.
Nope, it’s fear, plain and simple.
Although I have not finished reading The One Percent Doctrine, I have to say that Vice President Cheney’s logic behind that doctrine is first faulty and subsequently impractical.
First, you cannot quantify the chance that nuclear scientists are collaborating with terrorists- either scientists are collaborating, or they’re not. It’s a 100% chance, or a 0% chance. There is no in between.
What you can quantify is our certainty that nuclear scientists are collaborating with terrorists, e.g. are we 50% sure, 90% sure, etc.? But in that light, requiring a mere 1% certainty is horribly low. As Ron Suskind himself put it, mere suspicion is the threshold line for action. If we adhere to a mere 1% certainty, then we’ve taken a huge step back to the days of Salem Witch Trials.
And that’s why this strategy is impractical. We will never catch terrorists and prevent attacks if we are too busy chasing down innocent 1 percenters.
So, we cannot answer your question- “when the stakes are nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists…shouldn’t we fight this threat as an existential one?”- until we know (at a certain level) that terrorists indeed have nuclear weapons. It’s called risk management. Any insurance company executive will tell you that the probability of an event, no matter how catastrophic, greatly determines the preparation for that event.
For me, 1% is way too low a price to give up on civil liberties, and fundamentally change American society.
And yet, those vigilant heroes of the administration fiddled as an American city was wiped off the map.
I guess 120 MPH winds and 9 feet of water had nothing to do with that. The floods, as has been vigorously investigated but curiously not covered in the mainstream press, the result of 40 years of bad planning, bad designs, shoddy workmanship, and neglect.
And the winds? I guess if ole George can cause tsunamis and earthquakes, a little hurricane is nothin’.
I believe that there is an atmosphere of fear that does cause people to make unreasonable decisions. Here is an examples of why I say this. On a return flight from Mexico, my nine year old daughter was not allowed to use the bathroom in the front of the plane. Instead, she was had to stand in the long line to wait for the back bathroom. We told the flight attendents that my daughter had spent the previous day in an emergency hospital in Mexico on an IV but she was still forbidden to use the forward bathroom. We tried to argue with the flight attendent that she had nothing on her and that the flight attendent could stand outside the door if there truly concern that my daughter was a threat. We offered proof of her visit to the hospital but we were told that there were no exceptions to the policy. I believe that we are hyper-vigilent about air flights but not about other transportation methods. I ride BART (train in the San Francisco Bay Area) to work everyday and it is not secured.
In general, I believe that if we are truly concerned about protecting the lives of American citizens we need policies and politicians that are not just reacting to previous situations (as devastating as they have been) but look broadly to determine our greatest risk and exposure. The past needs to inform us but not determine us. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I am please that Governor Schwartzennegger and Senators Feinstein and Boxer have aligned to work on securing our California levees. I am equally dismayed to know that they have had to fight so hard to achieve this. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla), for example, attempted an amendment to strike this funding. I applaud politicians who proactively work to enact practical changes that truly protect American citizens without using the language of fear.
David, where do your Katrina comments leave all the OTHER administrations who left us unprepared for the New Orleans debacle, which, as you yourself admit, was known about for years (decades, really)?
john, in comment #3:
As for “Cheney has taken much heat lately for the idea of the ‘One Percent Doctrine’, but isn’t he essentially right?” Well, no, he’s not. One percent does not ever equal certainty, and any halfway competent decision analyst will tell you so.
Ahem…sir, I do believe you have entirely missed the point. Try again…
Mark/Rick,
Previous administrations are also in the same boat for not preparing us better.
However, THIS administration was on point when 9/11 occurred. In addition, THIS administration has made a cornerstone of their policy the need to have disaster preparedness / prevention (whether it be for terrorism, hurricanes, etc.) due to such. Finally, THIS administration has approximately said statements such as ‘everything changed after 9/11′ so many times that such a concept and this administration have become analogeous.
An administration cannot simultaneously tell us that they need vast powers and funding for such preparedness and then do a horrible job when such an event occurs WITHOUT getting blame.
Even if you assume the hurricane was unpredictable in its intensity, the aftermath and fixing it shouldn’t have been. Otherwise, what is the point in preparing for anything?
So apparently, according to you two, we need to give Bush a lot of leeway to do his job, but then when he does his job wrong, we need to blame others.
Matthew, you make some good points…I do agree that the aftermath was bungled, and we’re probably closer than you think on this issue – you addressed my concern, which is that every president of the 20th century has known about the problem and did basically nothing…
as usual when i peruse a more right-oriented website, i’m utterly perplexed.
how is it possible for a person as clearly well read and intelligent as the host of this site to note cheney’s “one percent solution” without referring to the real world choices this administration has made? it’s pretty binary–either one thinks nuclear proliferation amongst non-state actors is the most dangerous thing happening today or one doesn’t. it seems that many on the right feel, in my view correctly, that this is indeed the most dangerous aspect of modern terrorism.
so. has anyone proposed anything regarding such proliferation? have there been committees with recommendations? have there been budgets mooted, and lowered or raised? and just what has the current administration done vis-a-vis such issues?
would you believe that democrats, led by sam nunn (though gore was involved as well) have thought this question through and written white papers suggesting that we need to expend more money and energy bringing nukes under control? would you believe, further, that the republican majority in the house and senate has continually lowered the amounts of money and energy to be spent on non-proliferation? and would you further believe that even those paltry sums have been cut by President bush?
i mean, you’d think, with all of this being true that someone like this RINO would excoriate bush, would think cheney was all rhetoric and no action. in a funny way, in fact, he’d see that greenwald’s thesis holds up even more–fear rather than facts guides us via these jokers.
nope. none of it. because even a RINO has to live fact-free these days in order to keep from doing what must be the most dangerous choice of all: voting for democrats.
Well, Robert, thanks for dropping by and for the compliments (what was compimentary, anyway).
I’m not really a RINO, though I play one on TV; I’m an admitted partisan who chooses to try to avoid support of the knee-jerk kind.
I totally agree that we could do more on non-proliferation; it is also true that, under the Clinton administration’s ‘agreed framework’, North Korea went nuclear under our very nose. The point? International agreements and frameworks aren’t worth a hell of a lot when one side acts in bad faith.
So, yes, now that you mention it, nuclear proliferation is a huge concern; nevertheless, I don’t claim the administration is perfect. I can criticize their efforts in one area without engaging in a cartoonish view that Cheney and Bush are ‘all rhetoric and no action’, and I certainly see no reason to believe that the current crop of Democrats would do any better.
There are two issues here; proliferation among nation-states and proliferation among stateless terrorists. While the first is bad enough, and can lead to the second under some circumstances, the second is immeasurably more horrifying…
Mark, I’d like clarification on this point. Is the latter immeasureably more horrifying because the weapons we aren’t sure terrorists even possess are more likely to be actually deployed than the weapons that we’re certain rogue states have? I know that has a snarky tone, but I am more concerned about a North Korean missile strike at the west coast than OBL targetting Miami with a phantom bomb.
Oh, North Korea is a special case, to be sure; of all the current members of the nuclear club, we have the most to fear from Kim Jung Il, who is an old-style dictator in the Stalin mode…but I still say Kim is less likely to strike than a terrorist…
Also, I don’t want to be unrealistic, with the terrorists, it would be extremely hard (to say the least) to actually launch anything substantial…thus, our concern with such things as poison gas and ‘dirty’ bombs, which, though less lethal, would actually be deliverable.
That’s kind of a tangent, though; in answer to your question, I would put the odds of a terrorist ‘nuclear strike’ (if allowed to include dirty bombs and the like) at a higher probability than a North Korean strike, even though we know North Korea has the bomb.
Now, you throw Iran in the mix, and you have a whole ‘nother set of circumstances…
why would you “throw Iran in the mix”?
a) they don’t have nukes.
b) they won’t, according to many informed sources (the CIA, the UN etc., aka the people who were right about iraq), for 10 years (some say 5-10, but the 5 number is “if everything goes exactly right, which it never does).
meanwhile, funny story about N. Korean nukes–we have no proof that they have any. despite the bleating of my right wing friends, (and indeed my neo-liberal liberal ones, if you know what i mean cough beinart cough) i don’t see any reason to believe that they do. and, wouldn’t ya know, the right en masse has absolutely no credibility on this issue, nor does anything that emanates from the office of our VP and his cronies. None. no credibility. not with me, a well read and erudite (if i may. may i?) moderate lefty, not with the rest of the world, not with any sentient being who was awake these past five years.
on the other hand, the actual danger: loose nukes from ukraine, belarus etc. getting into the hands of terrorists–that gets ignored by our government, our media and so on. and it is this threat, AND THIS THREAT ONLY, that might kill us all one day soon.
but hey, if defending your current administration is more important than the safety of your own family, do please bang on about this specious bullsh**.
Robert, don’t you dare say anything about my concern about my family, jerk…this conversation is over – we’re adults around here…please go away and be a fool elsewhere…
Also, we keep it clean around here, as adults do…and if you come back flaming, you’re banned. I’ll put up with almost anything, but you leave my family out of it. You don’t know me, and you never will, and only a true idiot would say something like that…
oh, sure, off i go, your ad hominem attack will take care of that quite nicely. i would love to see you deal with my first post with any substantive counterarguments. even one would do. or the second post, for that matter. and to be clear, i both live and work in an area that is considered a high-profile target. i take the threat of a nuclear suitcase bomb quite seriously. i fear what it could do to my friends and family. this administration, whose support from many seems to come from a perceived notion of “strength”, has sapped such efforts to protect me and my family. instead, we get rhetoric rhetoric rhetoric, predicated, i suspect, on the fact that for 30 percent or so of this country, their picayune and selfish concerns about social issues or their religious “values” are more important than our collective safety.
really. i think those on the right who support a proven failure such as our current administration are craven fearful fools. and that goes double for people who are smart and articulate. i’m depressed that people of intelligence can blind themselves to what is important in this life.
as for language, i don’t know a single adult who “keeps it clean”. not one. so please, take this as me rolling my eyes at your strawman you’ve constructed.
where i come from, adults make substantive rebuttals to substantive points, without whining about bad words.
Thanks for your thoughful review. I too find Greenwald’s writing often persuasive.
The most important point he makes is that the threat from terrorists does not even approach the point where our government should start jettisoning important provisions of the Constitution, yet the Bush Administration has continually attempted to evade Congressional and judicial oversight. Whether the NSA wiretapping or the SWIFT financial snooping is necessary to the war on terror is less important than the fact that both required a level of involvement by the other branches of government that George Bush did not allow. This is unacceptable, and I believe that it makes for a much better case for impeachment than lying about extramarital sex. I know other conservatives disagree, but our founding fathers worked very hard to create a system just for a circumstance such as the one the Bush Administration presents: a president that tries to do too much in secret, and circumvents the other branches.
Nothing can convince me that by following the requirements of the Constitution we would be less safe today. It is that Constitution and the results of our Founding Fathers’ dire warnings about future leaders that would try to grab too much power that made the United States a beacon of freedom to the world for 200-plus years. Even the horrendous events of September 11, 2001 do not exuse what the Bush Administration has tried to do to our principles of government. He needs to go, and he needs to be made an example of. Apparently the example of Richard Nixon just wasn’t enough for the Dick Cheneys and Alberto Gonzales of our Land. I think believers in the value of Soviet-style authoritarianism like those two need another dose of the meaning of our Constitution, and by that I mean the impeachment of President Bush.
“i work in the movie business and THAT makes ME angry. and stuff.”:
Note the heavy use of capital letters here on his site – a clear indication of the writer’s projections.
“where i come from, adults make substantive rebuttals to substantive points, without whining about bad words.”
Except that he’s not making them here, hence the child – like lapses into facsimiles of swear words.
His site also contains enough grammatical errors to fill up a grade school textbook – wonder which “movie” he actually has worked on – maybe he was the fluffer on the last Adam Sandler flick – similar themes and intelligence levels are indicated here.
Gosh, that Robert is so hilarious – and get the witticisms that pore out of every entrail on his site. It’s so – special.
Robert, you’re welcome to keep posting; as I said, just keep my family out of it. When a person writes for public consumption, keeping it clean is quite common – ask the editor of any newspaper. I keep this site clean because (a) I don’t particularly care for profanity, and it’s my site, and (b) my family that you so cruelly suggested I care for less than I do this administration (for cryin’ out loud) sometimes reads this blog.
If you want substance, stick to substance, and avoid the childish taunts…
Now, on to substance: it’s ironic that you (and others) accuse Bush of being blind to the threats of proliferation and loose nukes a scant two days after this news release from the White House:
Today, members of the international community are gathered in Warsaw, Poland, to share their experiences and develop new approaches to countering the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction through the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Since the initiative was launched in Krakow, Poland, on May 31, 2003, the PSI has grown from a handful of nations to a global partnership of more than 70 countries from all around the world.
The PSI is dedicated to stopping all aspects of the proliferation trade and to denying terrorists, rogue states, and their supplier networks access to WMD-related materials and delivery systems. Together, we are working to disrupt the financial activities of networks that support proliferation, as called for in United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1540 and 1673. Together, we are shutting down front companies and proliferation networks and interdicting cargo carrying these dangerous materials, whether transported by land, air, or sea. With renewed determination, PSI supporters have come to Warsaw to further enhance our ability to counter WMD proliferation.
I join President Lech Kaczynski in welcoming PSI supporters to Warsaw, including our newest partners from the Persian Gulf and Central Asia. I commend all member nations for their readiness in taking on this vital task, and I urge all responsible states to join this global effort to end the WMD proliferation trade.
Rhetoric and no action? Do your homework…
dmac–i think you mean “pour”. but then your spelling is poor, and your writing poor-ile.
get it?
also, my site is sadly short on entrails, though long on offal. your post was offal.
really.
also, while i’m up: “child-like” is not a word. childlike–that’s a word. how childlike of you.
also, i typed out the swear word in question, it was deleted by the site host. and i don’t think facsimile means what you think it means.
there was no fluffer on the last adam sandler movie–it’s not a porn movie. i’m thinking you may well not know what a “fluffer” is.
the quotes around “movie” are redundant–you are questioning whether or not i’ve worked on a real movie, so by adding the ironic quotes you invert the meaning of your sentence.
“it’s so – special” is a misuse of a hyphen. what you were looking for there was an ellipsis. it looks like this …
you misused “here” when what you meant was “there” about 3 times.
frighteningly, there is more in your review of my site that seems ill-considered, ungrammatical, poorly spelled or just plain specious. come on by when you’ve received a clue.
as for you mark, sorry about the family thing, i get it. nothing personal was meant. but i’m still wondering if you have something substantive to say about my posts.
Robert, no harm done – I think we’re all a bit touchy about those we love. I did respond, but I think our posts got crossed.
Look, I’m quite concerned about the loose nukes, too – every once in a while a story comes along from the former Soviet republics that makes your hair stand on end…but I don’t share your sentiments on North Korea – I think it’s pretty clear that they are, unfortunately, a card-carrying member of the nuclear club…
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/05/16/loose_nukes/print.html
that would be an article about bush slashing the anti-proliferation budget in 2001, and what a dangerous idea that was.
of course, your story is a press release sent out 6 years into the man’s term. i going to go ahead and say when it mattered he didn’t do it. he ran from it. like he’s run from every important decision. facts matter, mark.
hmmph. i think you need to clap harder. a lot harder. out of every pore. or pour. i can’t remember.
…”i’m thinking you may well not know what a “fluffer” is.”
Not only am I aware of what the job entails, you seem like an ideal candidate for it.
“get it?”
Once again, a witty reposte. Note the lack of correct punctuation, as with the entire post at large.
…”and i don’t think facsimile means what you think it means.”
This may or may not be a riff from the film “The Princess Bride,” but the author’s seeming lack of coherency in his previous response indicates the latter.
“get it”
He uses this phrase often, tellingly. Indicates a person of adolescent age, hence the repeated use of the truncated phrase here.
on n. korea, i think we are into a point of real import here. the idea that n. korea has nukes is just an idea. you and i could do a google battle and come up with experts, the real kind, on both sides of the debate. however, that’s what it is right now, a debate. no one knows for sure. i would say from my facile reading of the various think-tank people out there (i do have a day job, you know!) that the consensus seems to lean away from n. korea having a working nuke, though khan (KKKKKKKKHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!) did sell them the blueprints. that guy has to rank as the most evil man of the late 20th/early 21st, BTW. blueprints, we have learned, are not enough. you need centrifuges. tons of them. a couple of thousand, working over a period of year, to make enough stable yet fissile material. and to do so you need relatively hard-to-hide factories. now if anyone has a crazy enough bunker of a country it is n. korea (not iran, not even close, and i’m dissapointed that you lumped them in with n. korea, a sure sign of kool-aid drinking IMHO) in which to hide the centrifuges.
but i would say as a counter to that it is funny how n. korea always blusters about having nukes when they are being ignored or threatened. if i was a bad state actor (as opposed to being a bad stage actor, which in fact i am) and watched what happened to sadaam you’re damn tootin’ i’d pretend to have nukes.
and as for somehow blaming n. korean intransigence on clinton, that is a pathetric trope and one that should be beneath contempt. clinton tried diplomacy–for all we know it may have worked. we just don’t know. what we do know is that the past 6 years have seen things get far worse with n. korea. who was our president again?
not “coherency”, but “coherence”.
your grammar is not good.
too pithy?
Robert, just to be to be clear, I’m not lumping Iran in with North Korea in asserting that they have the bomb; I’m saying they’re another concern in this proliferation thing…even the administration that you despise so is not claiming Iran is in the nuclear club at this time…
Again, with respect to North Korea – have you forgotten the very pubic admission by the North Koreans themselves that they were in violation of the Agreed Framework? It was front page news worldwide – it seems odd to claim Clinton’s diplomacy ‘worked’ when our supposed partners basically called us dupes to our faces…