Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.

 

16 September 2014

Memo to Amanda: stop deferring to John Walsh’s judgment

amanda_150_no_background

America was a much safer place on 12 September 2001 than on the day before. All the hijackers were dead, passengers on airliners now resisted hijackers instead of meekly waiting to crash into a skyscraper, and our police and military services were on high alert at home and abroad.

But few Americans felt safer. They were shaken, frightened that as they walked by the post office, a member of an Islamic sleeper cell would leap out of the shrubs and slit their throats. They didn’t ask hard questions about foreign policy. Instead, they begged their elected officials: “do anything; just make me feel safe.” Congress whooped the Patriot Act into law, making us less free, and Bush 43 exploited our fears to justify a war of aggression in Iraq that killed more Americans than the 9/11 attacks.

Now, following the beheadings of two American journalists, the same unreasoning fears are gripping Americans again. Some, like Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), claim ISIS agents are gathering at our border with Mexico, preparing to sneak into the U.S. to commit horrific murders at shopping malls near elementary schools. There’s no evidence this is so, but fears are trumping facts.

A second, slightly more plausible, allegation is that some Americans who are fighting with the ISIS in Syria and Iraq might re-enter the U.S. using their passports, then commit acts of terrorism:

But counterterrorism officials say they are far more concerned that an ISIS militant will enter the United States the same way millions of people do each year: legally, on a commercial flight. Their efforts have focused on the more than 2,000 Europeans and 100 Americans who have traveled to Syria to fight alongside extremist groups, nearly all of them crossing over its unprotected borders. Without markings in their passports to show that they traveled to Syria, American border authorities have few ways of determining where they were and stopping them from entering the country. New York Times, 16 September 2014.

Is this a possibility? Of course. Is it probable? Not very probable, in my opinion. Some Americans who join the ISIS will be killed. Others will stay in the Middle East. Some may come home, but not all of those who do will come home to kill Americans in their homeland. Finally, not all terrorist acts succeed. Some are discovered and stopped. Others are bungled; a lot of things must go right before a bomb explodes, let alone blow up people. We are much more likely to be injured or killed in an automobile accident than in a terrorist attack.

Which brings us to Amanda Curtis, the Butte state representative who replaced the disgraced Sen. John Walsh as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. Yesterday, Montana Public Radio reporter Edward O’Brian asked her to respond to President Obama’s plan to employ military force to obliterate the jihadis of the ISIS. Below, O’Brian’s story is in blue, my comments in light yellow.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, Amanda Curtis, says there’s no doubt the radical jihadi movement in Iraq and Syria is terrible and needs to be dealt with; but Curtis says she wants a well-defined mission in place prior to any military action:

Agreed. Nothing controversial here..

“We make sure we provide our men and women with the tools and equipment to get the job done properly and that we have an exist strategy to get them home as soon as possible. And by that, I mean like, yesterday.”

Agreed. Nothing controversial here.

Curtis says she doesn’t think Obama needs congressional authorization to implement his plan. Some critics wonder why the President is planning military strikes when ISIS hasn’t directly attacked the United States. Curtis says Senator John Walsh — a veteran who led over 700 troops in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 — has convinced her that these radicals present a clear threat:

Obama doesn’t need Congressional authorization? The last time I read the Constitution, Congress still had the power — and the responsibility — to declare war. If Curtis is elected to the Senate, she’ll take an oath to uphold the Constitution. With her deference to Obama’s self-serving assertions of Presidential authority, she’s not complying with the spirit of that oath.

“...and that some of the folks who are working with ISIS have the ability to enter into the United States and have made repeated threats that they will continue to kill Americans. I really trust Senator Walsh’s judgment on this and I think he knows what he’s talking about.”

Whoa, Amanda. You’re running for the Senate because plagiarist Walsh can’t be trusted. So why are you deferring to him on what constitutes a threat to the U.S.? Furthermore, you’re giving far too much heed to the threats issued by the jihadis, who are trying to scare the bejesus out of every man, woman, and child, under the stars and stripes. Those who blow up churches let the bomb’s blast speak for them. Those who cannot, wave their Kalashnikovs, hurl imprecations, and shout promises of dire consequences to those who defy Islam and the jihad du jour.

Walsh can best help Curtis by making a fact finding mission to Île Saint-Paul, and staying there, and being neither seen nor heard, until after the election.

Curtis can best help herself on this issue by asserting that President Obama needs Congressional approval for extended hostilities against the ISIS; by calling for an extended Congressional debate on the subject; and by reminding everyone that going to war again means more of Montana’s sons and daughters returning home in body bags or maimed for life and wishing they were dead.