The Quiet Conservative February 22, 2008
The Frog and the Scorpion
There is an ancient fable that goes like this: A scorpion came down to the river banks and wanted to
cross. He spotted a frog on a lily pad and asked the frog to carry him across the river.
“Are you serious? No way! You will sting me and I will die,” said the frog.
“No I won’t,” said the scorpion. “If I sting you, I will die too.” This made sense to the frog, so he
agreed to help the scorpion cross. He allowed the scorpion to climb on his back and then he began to
carry the scorpion across the water.
About halfway across the wide river the scorpion stung the frog and the frog became paralyzed and
began to drown. “Why would you do this?” he asked. “Now you will die too!”
“I know,” shrugged the scorpion. “I can’t help myself. It’s just my nature.”
The fable comes to mind when reading the latest news. Since 9/11 there have been at least 19 foiled
terrorist attacks because of our intelligence activities. It is a well known axiom of war that the side
with the best intelligence usually wins. History bears this out. Everyone has heard of Paul Revere’s
midnight ride. He made his famous ride to alert the minutemen of British troop movements. When
Sherman undertook his march through Georgia he had county tax rolls and census data to show him
where the food was grown so he could supply his men. Spies try an find out where the enemy is
located and where they are moving. They try and intercept enemy communications. Codes and
code breaking have been vital to modern military efforts. Finding where the enemy’s forces and
capabilities are is a requirement for victory. Throughout history the first edge in warfare has been in
finding out your enemy’s plans.
In World War Two the Allies cracked both the German and Japanese codes. By being able to read
the enemy communications we were able to use our resources to defeat the Axis powers. The battle
of Midway was a result of reading Japanese codes, as well as the shooting down of Admiral
Yamamoto’s plane. During the Cold War we developed electronic spying to listen in to our enemies
who were doing the same to us. The country with the most accurate and up to date intelligence is
the country that gains the advantage in case of conflict. This is the reality of the world and always
has been. China is now very active in espionage against us. They constantly seek intelligence
through cyber attacks which probe for weakness, through infiltration of the NSA, and the by theft of
classified secrets.
Now, however, we can ignore all of recorded history for unproven theory and operate as if the
world is what we decide it to be, as opposed to how it really is. This past weekend the Democratic
leaders in Congress allowed the foreign intelligence surveillance legislation to lapse. Then they went
on vacation. The reason they allowed it to die is the legislation called for immunity for the major
communications companies against lawsuits from radical leftist organizations looking to cripple our
intelligence gathering, and the trial lawyers that were looking to loot the companies for personal
profit. Since the trial lawyers contribute most heavily to the Democratic Party (The number one
reason the Democratic leaders fight tort reform) and the radical left matches ideologically with the
Democratic Party, allowing the bill to die was in their nature.
On Capital Hill U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence
Michael McConnell sent a letter to the House Intelligence Committee “We have lost intelligence
information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress’ failure to act.”
With the authorization dead the telecommunications companies are leery of cooperating with the
knowledge the Democratic Congress is holding open the door for the leftists and trial lawyers to go
after them. They are right to be afraid. There are forty pending lawsuits against them for
cooperating with the administration in their efforts to keep America safe. With both Democratic
front runners pledging to cut and run from Iraq and the Middle East, they would be foolish to expect
any backing from a hard left government.
A staunch supporter of the failure of the surge and the efforts in Iraq, Senate Majority leader Harry
Reid said, “No amount of fear mongering will change the fact that our intelligence collection
capabilities have not been weakened since last week.” Senator Reid must not have gotten a letter
from the intelligence heads directly contradicting him.
This was coupled with the Nancy Pelosi’s effort in the house to pass only a temporary extension.
This extension was voted down by thirty four members of her own party who wanted to make the
law permanent. She ignored them. The Democratic leadership is unconcerned with intelligence
operations. “The president and congressional Republicans have only themselves to blame.” So if
America is attacked because we can't listen in to the terrorists the Democratic leadership thinks they
can shift the blame to the Republican side of the aisle. The goal being of course to fix blame, not stop
the attack. There is no defensible reason to not make the law permanent as opposed to temporary.
There will always be people in the world who want to hurt the U.S.
It is important to note we are vulnerable because we are unable to monitor new intelligence. This is
in part because of a little publicized ruling from one of the FISA courts the Democratic leadership
loves so much. It stated that U.S. Intelligence couldn't listen in on two terrorists in a foreign country
talking on the phone if there was a potential the call was routed through the Internet or phone system
with any component located in the U.S. So when one terrorist in Pakistan calls another in Pakistan,
our Democratic leadership doesn't want our intelligence listening in unless they get a warrant from a
FISA court first, in case a router was located on U.S. soil. If we do listen and our Democratic
operatives find out, they want the terrorists’ lawyers to be able to sue the telecom companies.
In the 1990’s we saw the rise of restrictions on foreign intelligence agencies cooperating with federal
agencies on the domestic front. This was to shield connections between China, the Democratic
national operations, and the Clintons. The infamous ‘wall’ between the intelligence services sharing
information was put in place to prevent inspection of the connections between Chinese intelligence
agents and the campaign contributions to the Clintons and the DNC. When ‘China gate’ broke in the
press foreign agents fled back to China to avoid testimony.
The ‘wall’ wasn't put in place to hurt Americans or weaken our ability to act. It was put in place to
shield corrupt politicians. The only problem is the intelligence restrictions ran afoul of the law of
unintended consequences. Because agencies were prohibited from talking together and sharing
intelligence, no one put together the pieces that could have stopped 9/11. Three thousand American
deaths were the result.
Now we have a similar wall. This one put in place to aid in the assault on the telecom bank
accounts. Seven years after 9/11, and after 19 foiled plots to attack us, we once again are rolling the
dice with fate against the law of unintended consequences. While it defies logic and deliberately
weakens our defense, it’s not the liberal’s fault, it’s just their nature.