National Security

A Jewish Call to Conscience
Amy Carr

I am an American and a Jew. I have lost relatives in the holocaust and I have numerous friends and acquaintances whose entire families have been decimated as a result.

I understand not just what Israel is but what its existence means. It means that “never again” is not just words. It is a phrase that is personified by the Israeli people, and it means that millions, the world over, stand behind those words, and are willing to do what it takes to see that they are made manifest.

Click here for the full text of Amy's letter as a PDF file.

Security specialists say US is more vulnerable to catastrophic terror attack; Task force is warned of lax preparedness
Bryan Bender, The Boston Globe, September 11, 2008

Bush Administration has neglected key measures to thwart nuclear and biological terror attacks on U.S. cities, a government task force warned. Bush-McCain policies have sparked growing anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, fueling the efforts of violent extremists.

Click here to read the full article.

The Battle for the Country's Soul
Jane Mayer, The New York Review of Books, August 14, 2008

At almost every turn along the way, the Bush administration was warned that whatever the short-term benefits of its extralegal approach to fighting terrorism, it would have tragically destructive long-term consequences both for the rule of law and America's interests in the world. These warnings came not just from political opponents, but also from experienced allies, including the British Intelligence Service, the experts in the traditionally conservative military and the FBI, and, perhaps most surprisingly, from a series of loyal Republican lawyers inside the administration itself.... President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and a small handful of trusted advisers sought and obtained dubious legal opinions enabling them to circumvent American laws and traditions. In the name of protecting national security, the executive branch sanctioned coerced confessions, extrajudicial detention, and other violations of individuals' liberties that had been prohibited since the country's founding.

Click here for a PDF file with extracts or here to read the full article.

Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters
by Richard Clarke, Former National Coordinator for Security and Counter-Terrorism under Presidents Bush and Clinton

Richard A. Clarke - Your Government Failed You “[T]he record seems clear that generals, perhaps including the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Rick Sanchez, knew about, condoned, and authorized the kind of despicable treatment that the world saw in the pictures from Abu Ghraib. There may even have been daily reports to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the progress of abusive interrogations and torture. Beyond the effect on what others might do to future U.S. prisoners, the Abu Ghraib phenomenon had an immediate effect on Arabs’ and Muslims’ perceptions of the United States of America. It was like rocket fuel for the al Qaeda movement worldwide....”

“If the United States were to engage in overt military activity, such as bombing targets in Iran, we would launch a cycle of retaliation, which would severely damage our interests. There is no reason to believe that the "endgame" of that cycle would be good for the United States and many reasons to think it would be a disaster for us. We would also unite the Iranian nation behind its current President and indefinitely defer the day a more rational regime comes to power. An American bombing campaign against Iran would please two people most: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and American Vice President Dick Cheney. That fact alone should give us pause.”

Click here for a PDF file with excerpts from the book.

Republicans and Military Men on John McCain

Watch the video: