What the hell is that Human Events website? Stealing your daughter out of class to be raped by Uday Hussein?
… I’m sorry, but is that guy on hillbilly heroin, or what?
The FFF site makes assertations without references, by the way.
That said, yes, Echelon is evil. We have covered this many times. It appears to spy on foreigners, only. Though there were theories about outsourcing spying on Americans to Australia, and trading for it, they were never substantiated. Any questions?
Here’s what seems to be a good article on the development and history of Echelon.
Furthermore, ECHELON does not appear to have been created during the Clinton Administration; according to the Wikipedia article, it “reportedly” dates from the Cold War (I infer the qualifier is necessary because the program’s origins are shrouded in secrecy).
Might it not be resolved at least to the point that the debate on Lincoln has been resolved? (I.e., we have reached a consensus where most people, including historians, think of Lincoln as a great president who was on the right side of the Civil War, and anyone who differs has to start out on the defensive.)
Which does not prove that the Clinton Administration, or any federal agency under it, ever used the program to spy on American citizens, or within the U.S., without a warrant.
The program appears to have been created originally to monitor Soviet and Eastern Bloc communications. It was (and is) run by the the UKUSA Community intelligence alliance – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA – IOW, a joint American-British-Commonwealth project.
No. Your Techworld cite does not support that position. The “Human Events” cite simply calls ECHELON a “Clinton-approved program” – which it was, I suppose, but only in the sense that he did not order it dismantled when he was president. The “Clinton’s War on Privacy” article from 1996 does not even touch on the question.
Or were you referring to E-Sabbath’s cites instead of your own? The Telepolis article describes ECHELON as “more than 50 years old” but does not say when it was “computerized” (although it does mention that NSA’s “Intelink” system for sharing information between intelligence agencies was completed in 1996).
Don’t forget, Bill Gates did not invent computers. The use of computers by intelligence agencies dates back to WWII.
And, I repeat: If a certain level of technology was available during the Clinton years that was not available previously (which is entirely plausible), how does that prove anything about how ECHELON actually was used during that period?
But he is!
Kreml will give him a nice medal for destroying the trans-Atlantic relationships and pushing Europe to The Big Bears lap.
Putin could not have a better collaborator, and I am sure that Russia will show his gratitude. Not a statue in the Red Square, but a painted piece of metal.
“The Brotherhood Hero”-medal perhaps? Or maybe “The Oiled Flash” would be more in the Charlie Brown-line? For a rich Charlie Brown, that is.
A trinklet for a complete failure, a failure that still do not seem to understand that he is in the hands of the puppeteers.
A Hero indeed. (No pun meant against any cartoons, as the horse of the Phantom).
A lot of the more controversial “great leaders” in history were bitterly opposed during their time. I’m not saying Bush is a great leader, I am just saying that the kind of things you could possibly ascribe to him as being “great actions” are the kinds of things that can only be judged years later.
The entire South of course hated Lincoln, on top of that, people shouldn’t underestimate just how opposed to the war some of the North was. Many people obstinately felt the North should not be going to war with the south. These people couldn’t see the bigger picture, they didn’t think it would matter if the nation was divided. To them, Lincoln was as bad, or worse, than an outright tyrant. In fact Lincoln ruled much like a tyrant.
Many people see Julius Caesar as a great and heroic leader, although obviously he was very unpopular at the time.
Popular opinion of Napoleon seems to shift every few decades.
I think Bush will be called hero right after LBJ is for his successful escalation of the war in Vietnam.
No one has answered why ignoring the established means for getting warrants in days is heroic or necessary. Maybe I should amend my answer to right after Nixon is called a hero.
Is Bush a hero TO YOU if he violates the Constitutional protection against wiretappings because, HE BELIEVES, the U.S. security needs require that wiretapping, even if this policy causes him to be impeached.
People will forgive a lot if a President is effective and if his actions are beneficial. If the ends work out, people are generally willing to ignore the means. But Bush isn’t doing very well in this race - so far he’s used very questionable means and hasn’t achieved his ends.
Can’t agree. I think that the Iraq situation will have a strong influence on Bush’s reputation, but I don’t think it’ll be the only thing that decides whether he’s a hero or a goat.
For one thing, I think that environmental and deficit issues are going to be of increasing concern, and I think Bush’s impact in both case will be perceived as strongly negative. I don’t see him achieving true “hero” status in posterity’s viewpoint in any realistic scenario. Except perhaps among the small band of wingnuts that still considers Joe McCarthy a hero, for instance.
I am not sure that a “pro-American” democracy would necessarily be a success and an “anti-American” democracy would necessarily be a failure. Being aligned with the US may not be high on the agenda for the average Iraqi.
To me, being a hero means doing the right things for the right reasons to achieve the right results. I am by no means convinced that the war was the right thing, it fails my definition of a “just” war since it was agression against a soverign nation with no compelling justification. The case for his reasons being right is quite weak- it is clear that well before 9/11 gave him the political capital, Bush had regime change in Iraq high on his priority list. Going to war for the right reasons would not include cherry picking intelligence to overstate the imagined threat, it would not include lying to the world about fictitious weapons, it would not rely on capitalizing on a misperception of a connection between a criminal act and the actions of a soverign state. The result that would supposedly make this worthwhile is quite unlikely to occur- these groups that have centuries of hatred with each other are not going to suddenly start singing Kumbaya just because an overseas power toppled their common oppressor.
I think Iraq will in the end account for about 95% of Bush’s legacy. When the other 5% includes budget busting tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, utter incompetence in response to a natural disaster, and attempts to shred American civil liberties, I just don’t see any danger of Bush being regarded as a hero.
I just can’t wrap my head around this argument. Your hypothesis seems to be that the lives of people are more important than the constitution, but traditionally we’ve elevated to heroic status those that give up their lives to protect the constitutional values we hold dear, not elevate to heroic status those that piss on the constituion because they are afraid.
His actions seems more cowardly than heroic, although they’re in reality probably more ignorant than cowardly.
Who is “Kreml”?