In all the hullabaloo over the primaries, this story might have got missed by some:
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – The U.S. military has video and audio recordings of Iranian boats that threatened to blow up U.S. Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and plans to release them, the top Navy commander in the Mideast said Tuesday. President Bush described the confrontation as a “provocative act.”
Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff disputed Iranian claims that the incident early Sunday was a routine encounter, saying Iran’s “provocative” actions were “deadly serious” to the U.S. military.
“It was a dangerous situation,” Bush told reporters at the White House. “They should not have done it, pure and simple. I don’t know what their thinking was, but I’m telling you what my thinking was. I think it was a provocative act.”
The confrontation was an unusual flare-up of U.S.-Iranian tensions in the Persian Gulf as Bush begins his first visit to the Mideast. In the tour, Bush is to visit Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab allies, in part to coordinate in confronting Iran.
Many Arab countries fear the Iranian-American rivalry could erupt into a military confrontation that would put them in the crossfire and hurt vital Gulf oil traffic.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that its high-speed boats never threatened the U.S. vessels during the encounter, insisting it only asked them to identify themselves, then let them continue into the Gulf. A Guards commander defended his force’s right to identify ships in the sensitive waterway.
Cosgriff, the commander of U.S. 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf and is based in nearby Bahrain, said the American vessels had already been identified by Iranian authorities earlier in the day before the confrontation occurred.
With the Cole incident at the back of all naval minds, such an event is highly disturbing. What seems like a mere harassing exercise could swiftly lead to one or more of these motorboats making a suicide run towards a US ship. One thing to keep in mind – US naval warships are designed to fight other naval warships, not motorboats. Our ships have limited capability of thwarting a close-in attack from a small, fast moving target. Some people have expressed dismay over the lack of violent reaction on the part of the Navy during the incident, but my bet is that our ships are ready for a missile attack, an aerial attack, a submarine attack…for all manner of attack, but for some reason no one has considered what to do when a motor boat comes at you in open, though restricted (the Straight is narrow, and has a lot of navigation hazards), waters.
Prudence would seem to dictate that we adopt a policy of firing on any identified Iranian surface craft which approaches within a set distance of a US ship – in other words, we figure out how far out we need a small, fast target to be in order to ensure its destruction, and then don’t let any such craft to come closer than that. On the other hand, the Iranian government might not be unified in its determination to challenge the United States – could be that part of the Iranian leadership realises that full scale war with the US is national suicide, and so they work to keep the aggressive elements of the Iranian government in check…but a shooting incident which the hard-core anti-Americans could exploit? That might tip the balance and convince even semi-moderate Iranians that they must fight. So, we have to tread with care here – and I’m glad that this is precisely what President Bush is doing. War there might be with Iran, but it should only start at a time and place of our choosing.
The larger picture must be kept in mind – and central to that larger picture is the huge strides of success being made in Iraq at the moment. Iraq is the central front in the War on Terrorism, and we must allow nothing to divert us from completing that mission – any threat to that mission must be dealt with severely, but before we go tangling with the Iranians, lets be sure we have all our forces ready for all contingencies. Don’t let the Iranians provoke us into a hasty strike.
Blogs For Victory 
Its pretty simple Kahn.
“The president’s inherent authority to conduct warrantless surveillance for the purposes of foreign intelligence-gathering remains even after FISA’s enactment because constutitional authority trumps statutory restrictions. (The only way to abridge a power granted to a branch of government by the Constitution is through a constitutional amendment.) ”
People dont understand a really simple thing here. FISA is a statute made by Congress in an attempt to regulate the powers of the Executive Office. Congress really doesnt have the power to over rule or diminish the Constitutional Authority of the Executive Office without an Amendment to the Constitution. Hence, Constitutional Power trumphs Statutory regulation every time.
Here ya go Face.
From the same place.
In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d 717, 742 (Foreign Intel. Surv. Ct. of Rev. 2002) the special court stated “[A]ll the other courts to have decided the issue [have] held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information . . . . We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”
So, basic collection of information on foreign intelligence would include thier communications with anyone inside the US. Its a given, and cant be changed without an Amendment to the Constitution.
js and Kahn,
The Lefties, throughout the debate last night, kept missing the basic fact that surveillance for criminal purposes and surveillance for intelligence purposes are not the same thing, and are governed by different rules. Had all of the assertions made by faceplant and Diana been true, articles of impeachment against Bush and Cheney would have been drawn up a long time ago.
The simple fact that members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees (from both parties) were regularly and routinely briefed on the details of the TSP is evidence to me that the intentions of the program were honorable and aimed at protecting the American people, a task, I might add, that is first and foremost among the President’s responsibilities.
js, so logic, the Constitution, and case law all debunk Diana and faceplant. Both gone strangely silent.
Meanwhile Magnum trusts the Revolutionary Guard more than the US Navy and Sammy in Canada tore himself away from his love affair with his goats long enough to tell us he hopes they kick our asses.
Kahn,
The logic you think you’re trying to “test” is irrelevant. What’s under discussion is existing federal law (50 U.S.C. §§1801-1811, 1821-29, 1841-46, and 1861-62) and its application to today, not some hypotheticals based on events in different periods of history. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes it a felony to commit various acts which the President of the United States has admitted that he ordered. He asserts he has Constitutional authority to violate FISA. That assertion has not been tested in a court of competent jurisdiction, however, the fact that FISA is Constitutional (js’ claims notwithstanding) was affirmed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in the case of In re: Sealed Case No. 02-001. Questions about mail during the Civil War have nothing to do with FISA.
js,
As I just reiterated (after putting it in bolded text in an earlier comment), the Court of Review held in 2002 that FISA is Constitutional. That means that the Court held that Congress may, in fact, limit the Executive Branch in its activities regarding electronic surveillance. The Court acknowledged (but made no judgment on) the President’s inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to gather foreign intelligence information, but plainly affirmed that the limits on that authority as enacted by Congress in FISA meet the standards of the Constitution. So, once again, the President has violated the law, claims he has inherent authority to do so, but that claim has not been adjudicated except in Judge Anna Diggs Taylor’s ruling that said that he did not have such authority.
Retired Spook,
I have never entertained the idea that you would be so naive as to believe something like this:
Need I remind you that a White House lap dog Congress was controlled by Republicans until November 2006. You expected them to try to remove a President of their own party? Please.
Having narrowly gained control, Democrats now have a situation where House Resolution 799 (with 24 co-sponsors), which moves to impeach the Vice-President, is sitting in committee with Congressman Robert Wexler leading a successful effort to garner public support for hearings. However, the Democratic leadership has expressed little interest. My guess is that they believe the problem will go away in about a year’s time without having to chance the possibility that impeachment proceedings would actually bolster public support for the President in the way that President Clinton’s approval ratings improved dramatically after Republicans failed in their attempt to remove him from office. So, the absence of articles of impeachment for President Bush have no bearing on the matter.
Diana,
Did you check out A.J. Strata’s archives on FISA-NSA? It would go a long way towards educating you on what you think you know that is wrong, or at the very least, misguided.
BTW, can anyone read my first comment from 9:30 AM yesterday containing 3 embedded links? On my screen it still says “awaiting moderation”, but I can read the post. I’m just curious.
Diana, I wasn’t aware that a Congressman needed to be in the majority party in order to draw up articles of impeachment. My guess is that another reason (in addition to the one you note) that the Dem leadership is reluctant to support impeachment proceedings (or even a censure resolution) is that subsequent debate and/or hearings might reveal the identities of some Democrat intelligence leakers. That would be a lot more damaging than a bump in Bush’s poll numbers.
js,
As I just reiterated (after putting it in bolded text in an earlier comment), the Court of Review held in 2002 that FISA is Constitutional
————-
It also stated, in 2002, that the FISA “could not encroach on the Presidential power”, meaning, in no indirect sense of the intent, that FISA is effectively Statutory Authority granted (solely) to Congress, and does not suprecede/over-ride or remove the Constitutional power vested in the President.
Simple. Do you normally have such a hard time understanding simple issues like that?
98. Kahn | January 10th, 2008 at 9:00 am
js, so logic, the Constitution, and case law all debunk Diana and faceplant. Both gone strangely silent
Whadda ya mean, they are liberals and dont have the sense to quit, even after they get thier butts handed to them in a basket.
As to the retread assertion that “members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees (from both parties) were regularly and routinely briefed on the details of the TSP”, that means nothing as well. The committee members were eight in number, could not keep notes of what they were told and could not consult with anyone outside the briefings about any questions raised by the briefings. They only knew what the Executive Branch chose to tell them. This led Rep. Heather Wilson, a Republican and then-chair of the House Technical and Tactical Intelligence Subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to say this, among other things, about a letter she wrote in February 2006 to then-Attorney General Gonzales (emphasis added):
I don’t doubt that the basic intentions of conducting the surveillance are honorable. However, the President has acted in bad faith in failing to comply with FISA, gratuitously lying to the American public in stating the he was complying with the law and now, having been exposed, is only moving years after the onset of the program to ask for changes to the statute that he now claims were the reason he had to violate the law. President George W. Bush has twice laid his right hand on the Bible he believes to be the Word of God and taken an oath ending with the phrase “so help me God” to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”. That Constitution tells him that he has an absolute duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”. The Constitution does not say that he has a duty to “protect the American people”. So, tell me, how has President Bush fulfilled his Bible oath to “take care” that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “be faithfully executed”?
A Republican-controlled Congress could have impeached and tried President Bush. I didn’t say they could not. What I marveled at was the farcical notion that such a Congress would have taken such a step.
I went to the site that you pointed to which is an advocacy site supporting the President’s position. I’m much more interested in source documents for informing myself. If your comments are showing to be “awaiting moderation” on your screen then we can’t see them.
task, I might add, that is first and foremost among the President’s responsibilities (retired spook)
I dont think they get this far RS, somehow they get lost in the myriad between constitution and statute and liberal gossip and rumors.
Real facts;
1. If a law were broken, the AG would be obligated to pursue prosecution.
2. If the AG didnt, members of Congress would demand that it be done.
3. There are no impeachment bills against Bush/Cheney that can be passed on the Senate floor because there is not sufficient evidence that either ever violated the law to justify it. The hatred in Congress and the Senate by Democratic leaders is irrefutable, and they would absolutely move forward if they had a legal option to do so, which they have not done, because they can not do it.
and
4. The beating drums bring gossip and rumors to our ears of a war the liberals think they can win, even after they lost it.
Even met someone whose been soundly defeated but jist cant figger its so?
However, the President has acted in bad faith in failing to comply with FISA….DP
Really?
So why havent charges been drawn up?
Why are you spouting off on this, yet no court, nor Congressman, nor prosecuting attorney, are bringing action against Bush or Cheney for impeachment?
Wake up. Bush didnt violate the FISA, just like Washington didnt violate the 4th Amendment by opening mail captured from Brittish Generals in time of war. Do you refute the Executive Authority vested by the Constitution? Based on what, Statute? Doesnt work that way.
Need I remind you that a White House lap dog Congress was controlled by Republicans until November 2006. You expected them to try to remove a President of their own party? Please……DP
Hogwash. Democrats have controlled Congress and the Senate for 14 months, and STILL no impeachment charges were filed.
Is that your best shot?
js,
I’m glad that you’re so happy over your imagined triumphs, however, you might curb your enthusiasm long enough to take a civics or government class.
Tell me. Which of the three coequal branches of the Federal government carries out foreign intelligence surveillance. Is it the Judicial Branch? No. Is it the Legislative? No. Ding-ding-ding! It’s the Executive Branch headed by the President! So, in ruling that FISA, which was enacted by the Legislative Branch, is Constitutional, the Judicial Branch (courtesy of Marbury v. Madison) stated that Congress can set rules over the activities of the Executive Branch in conducting foreign intelligence surveillance.
As to the Attorney General’s “obligation”, as you put it, to have prosecuted someone for violating FISA, have Republicans already dumped Alberto Gonzales down the Memory Hole that quickly? This is the man who depended on every aspect of his career on George W. Bush and who is one of the lawyers working for George W. Bush who told him that violating FISA was within his inherent authority. Also, there is a House Resolution in committee right now to impeach the Vice-President (as previously stated in this thread). However, politics is a big part of this process. I know that may shock you, but it’s true.
(Ed. Note: Deleted – off topic; we note with great care that Diana will never address an issue she can’t reasonably argue against but will, instead, insert an issue she prefers to argue about. This won’t be allowed any more. Thanks for playing).
Mark,
Earlier you mentioned that Iran’s not a legitimate Democracy and such.
No thanks to us meddling in their affairs 50 years ago when they were a democracy and we screwed it up by overthrowing their government.
http://www.democracynow.org/2003/8/25/50_years_after_the_cias_first
Diana, no – you are wrong. I’m proving that your interpretation of the law is incorrect. The current terror war is the only place so far to apply it. And it has NOT been interpreted the way youthink it has. Thats because the cases I give are the way you need to think about it. Think, huh, there it is – I identified the problem.
To disagree with me on this point is to be fundamentally un-American.,/i>
Now there’s some good defensiveness. “Sure, I’m engaging in wishful thinking and am unable to separate things I want to be true from things that are true–if I believe it, then it, then it simply must be true–and if you disagree, then you are un-American.” You may not know much, Mark, but you clearly know how sad your argument is here if you’re resorting to such pathetic, desperate measures to head off being challenged on a typically boneheaded statement you made.
Back to the original topic of this thread; one of the links in my original comment which has been in moderation purgatory for 27 hours was an oped by my favorite retired Army Spook Ralph Peters.
RS – he makes a good case. I wonder what the exact wording was in the commanders Rules-of-engagement? They may not have had very much flexibility.
Isn’t this just so special…
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0803/index.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Mark-
You, Neocon, Kahn and Spook can’t out debate the master debater Diana, she wipes the floor with you guys with ease, so you edit her. Nice. How is the FEC complaint against Senator Clinton coming along? Nowhere I assume. Are you running for Harry Reid’s seat this year? We all need to know this information.
109. Diana Powe (had enough of your double talk too)
Sorry DP, with all the BS you posted, you missed the part that said “[A]ll the other courts to have decided the issue [have] held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information . . . . We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”
Now, assuming that you can read, its pretty simple to show us exactly where “constitutional authority” is vested that over-rides this statement by the court.
Why havent you posted it? Why havent you mentioned it? Why do you keep going to the “SAME” place, even though later in the COURTS statement that your rely on turns the table and stresses with no uncertainty that FISA COULD NOT ENCROACH ON THE PRESIDENTS CONSTITUTIONAL POWER.
How many ways can it be spelled out, or are you just copying trash talk to confuse the lay people?