Ralph Peters

The recent WikiLeaks debacle, which will result in American, allied and Afghan deaths, drives home how inadequate our antique laws on war are in the new millennium.

We live in a lawless age, when it comes to our security. A hypernarcissist such as WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange puts thousands of lives at risk by e-publishing classified documents, and we have no legal answer.

Every day, foreign powers and rogue players attack our nation’s computer networks, attempting to steal secrets, plant sleeper programs or just create havoc. We have no practical legal framework for counterattacks. We haven’t even decided when cyberattacks amount to acts of war.

Even regarding physical acts of terrorism, our laws lag grotesquely — hence the repeated delays in bringing the world’s most vicious butchers to trial.

It’s as if, in the age of the automobile, we relied on traffic laws from horse-and-buggy days. Absent appropriate legal codes, our government turns to lawyers without laws.

The lawyers, in turn, fish through laws governing yesteryear’s concerns — and apply them restrictively to keep their departments out of the headlines.

And the cyberassaults go on, 24/7. Security leaks haunt the Internet (and our amoral media). Terrorists kill, then sue us. In the first case, we take our beatings and slap on bandages. In the second, we huff, puff and do nothing. In the third case, an apprehended terrorist gets better medical care than an out-of-work American.

Even the civil laws and military codes we do have on the books are not enforced. If found guilty, that Army private who allegedly passed over 90,000 classified documents to WikiLeaks should get the “full Rosenberg,” a shortened life and a hot exit. Instead, he’ll do a few years at most — at most — then get a book contract. (Can’t wait for the movie!)

As for Julian Assange, who released a deluge of sensitive operational data to America’s enemies, he’ll probably pay no price at all for any deaths his actions cause. Instead, he’ll rake in speaking fees.

Our own cyberwarriors in the Pentagon and the intelligence community face no end of frustration as they try to defend us. We have superb, conscientious, capable officers working the problem. But the absence of laws to deter enemies or facilitate retaliation not only ties our hands behind our backs, but chains our ankles, too.

That’s a key reason why Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III just went public about a massive cyberinvasion of military computers in 2008, when a foreign agent used a flash drive to slip malware into a military laptop. The goal was to steal and corrupt military plans and secrets.

The attacker suffered no meaningful consequences. We knew who did it, but couldn’t do a thing. No laws.

And that attack was small change, compared to what an all-out cyberassault on our nation might do, from shutting down power supplies and transportation networks, to blacking out communications — e-bombing us back to the 19th century, if not the Stone Age. As for our military itself, it simply could not function today without its computers: Aircraft wouldn’t fly, gunnery systems wouldn’t work and we’d lose global comms. It no longer takes lead or high explosives to kill. If attacked, should we strike back with cyber means? Counterattack asymmetrically? Hit the aggressor physically? In the absence of updated laws of war for a new millennium, our military and our intelligence agencies are condemned to playing defense. It’s a prescription for an eventual catastrophe.

And what about the likes of Assange? Nothing will happen to an activist who helps terrorists identify, track and slaughter those who stand up against Islamist fanatics.

Who’s AWOL in these undeclared wars against us? Congress. That’s who makes our laws, folks. But Congress has ignored these life-and-death issues, leaving our defenders out on the end of a creaking limb.

Instead, legislators in both parties play for short-term political advantage, while our enemies act with impunity. If a cyber-Pearl Harbor — on a far-greater scale than that savage attack — hits our country, don’t blame our military or call it an intelligence failure.

It’ll be a congressional failure.

Our military and our spooks know who the bad guys are. They could strike back. But, contrary to the myths of the left, they aren’t rogues. They operate within our existing laws. Congress has to empower them.

When should a cyberattack trigger devastating retaliation? When can an Internet accomplice to terror be placed on a kill-or-capture list? What is the proper judicial forum for putting terrorists on trial? It’s the duty of Congress to decide.

To update an old line describing Pearl Harbor, “At cyberdawn, we slept.”

Judicial Watch

In an ongoing effort to end racial discrimination, President Obama has proudly signed a new law that for the first time in decades relaxes drug-crime sentences he claims discriminate against minority offenders.

The measure severely weakens a decades-old law enacted during the infamous crack cocaine epidemic that ravaged urban communities nationwide in the 1980s. It set a mandatory five-year sentence for trafficking offenses involving more than five grams of the drug. The new measure (Fair Sentencing Act) increases the amount of crack from five grams to 28 grams for a five-year sentence and eliminates mandatory prison for first-time offenders.

Congress’s rationale for reducing crack sentences is a simple one that is shared by the commander-in-chief; a disproportionate number of blacks are being punished. The legislative and executive branches claim that the sentencing discrepancy between crimes involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine created a huge racial disparity because most crack defendants are black and most powder cocaine defendants are Hispanic and white.

To get a five-year prison sentence, a defendant convicted of a cocaine powder offense must possess 500 grams. Because the drug is more expensive, mostly whites and Hispanics commit powder-related crimes and they get off much easier than their black counterparts, according to the president and federal lawmakers who slashed the crack penalties.

The tough crack law was passed 25 years ago because serious violence typically accompanied the drug’s rampant use during an epidemic that slammed the country and destroyed large chunks of mostly poor, urban neighborhoods. Decades later, it hasn’t changed. In fact, U.S. Sentencing Commission statistics show that nearly 30% of all crack cases in the last year involved a weapon compared to 16% for powder coke.

This indicates that a better course of action would have been to instead close the disparity by raising the penalties for powder cocaine rather than lower them for crack, according to a nation’s largest law enforcement labor group. The enhanced punishments for crack have proven useful, says the group’s director, who assures they have been a “valuable tool in protecting innocent people from violence in crack-ridden areas.”

One of the few legislators who voted against relaxing crack penalties, Republican Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas, insists that it actually hurts minority communities and threatens a return to the days when the drug corroded the minds and bodies of children and destroyed communities. It also sends the message that Congress doesn’t take drug crimes seriously, according to the veteran lawmaker.

Connie Hair

The House voted today to pass the $26 billion state bailout bill nearly that brought them back to town from August recess, nearly 18 months to the day after Democrats passed the first trillion-dollar “stimulus” bill. 

The 247-161 http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll518.xml

The vote came down along near party lines with three Democrats (Bright, Cooper, Taylor) and two Republicans (Castle, Cao) crossing party lines and 25 not voting.

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) noted from the House floor that the bill includes tax increases on business that will further stifle job growth.

“According to the methodology of Dr. Christina Romer, the President’s chief economic advisor, the tax increases in this bill will destroy over 140,000 American jobs,” Camp said. “In an open letter to Congress this week, the National Association of Manufacturers warned that ‘imposing $9.6 billion in tax increases on these companies will jeopardize the jobs of American manufacturing employees and stifle our fragile economy.’”

Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) warned the focus is wrong.

“When these billions of dollars taken from American taxpayers run out once more, Democrats will be right back here clamoring for even more failed stimulus spending,” Price said after the vote.  “The only real solution must focus on encouraging private sector job growth and responsible budgeting at every level of government.”

Price also noted that Democrats couldn’t last two weeks without feeding their spending addiction.

“Less than two weeks into the August recess, Democrats have scrambled back to Washington to satisfy their thirst for spending taxpayer dollars,” Price said.  “The permanent tax increases in this bill will continue to weigh on American job creators long after this latest well of so-called stimulus spending goes dry.  Everyone knows this bailout will not solve states’ long-term budget imbalances or help create the private sector jobs needed to fuel a real recovery.  It just kicks the can down the road one more time.

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi said the legislation will force his state to re-write its FY11 state budget.

“Preliminary estimates of the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration show that we will now have to spend between $50-100 million of state funds — funds that must be taken away from public safety, human services, mental health and other state priorities and given to education — in order for an additional $98 million of federal funds to be granted to education,” Barbour said.  “There is no justification for the federal government hijacking state budgets, but that is exactly what Congress has done.”

House Republican Caucus Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) spoke from the House floor giving voice to the millions of Americans nationwide who are searching for jobs as Democrats continue their special interest bailouts.

“Americans are fed up with more taxes, more bailouts, more wasteful stimulus, yet here we go again,” Pence said in his remarks.  “More spending, more bailouts and more taxes won’t mean more jobs.  Millions of Americans are asking, ‘Where will it all end?’”

Read more about the contents of this latest bailout on House Republican Leader John Boehner’s blog here.

Enlarge

By  Oliver North

Washington, DC – While Mr. Obama golfs his way through the Gulf Coast’s oil-drenched environmental calamity, another crisis is looming across the Potomac. America’s military, in harm’s way in a two-front war, is about to get staggered by a double whammy below the belt. Unfortunately for those who wear our nation’s uniform, the Commander in Chief and his cronies in Congress are throwing the punches.

The first blow will land in the next two weeks unless Senator Harry Reid’s Senate and Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives can get their act together to pass a supplemental appropriations bill to fund combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In May, while proselytizing for homosexuals in our military, Defense Secretary Robert Gates gently reminded the Congressional Armed Services Committees that he needed the appropriation by Memorial Day. They ignored him.

Last month he went again and told them the funds had to be approved before the Independence Day recess or the Pentagon would have to start doing “stupid things” – like shifting funds within the overall Defense Department budget just to keep the troops in the field re-supplied with beans, bullets and bandages. Once again Congress, taking their cue from Mr. Obama’s virtual silence on the matter, did nothing.

On July 13, Mr. Gates went up to Capitol Hill again, urging the solons to break the deadlock before the House recesses for “campaign season” at the end of the month. The Sec Def warned without action by then, he will have to start cancelling contracts on everything from weapons and equipment repairs to ammunition and fuel purchases in order to pay the troops. Not exactly what a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Guardsmen or Marine needs to hear in the middle of Afghanistan’s “fighting season.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) describes the situation as “a true emergency.” Yet despite dire predictions of higher unemployment as defense suppliers shed employees when contracts for munitions and equipment are delayed – there doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency at the Obama White House. Perhaps that’s because this is just the first low blow.

A second salvo is now making its way through Washington’s “think tanks” and elite soirees. For more than a month, while Secretary Gates has been begging Congress to act on this year’s $33 billion war supplemental, the “Sustainable Defense Task Force” has been quietly circulating a report titled, “Debt, Deficits and Defense – A Way Forward,” to the same congressional offices. The 56-page document lays the groundwork for drastic cuts in U.S. military spending – starting next year.

The 14-member, allegedly “non-partisan” Task Force was convened last year at the direction of Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA), Walter B. Jones (R-NC), Ron Paul (R-TX) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). Their mandate was to “explore possible defense budget contributions to deficit reduction efforts that would not compromise the essential security of the United States.”

No one from the so-called “mainstream media” has yet inquired at the Obama White House which, if any, members of the O-Team have read the report. They should. The document not only proffers an entirely new definition of the word “contribution,” it also provides a blueprint for unilateral disarmament in the midst of a war and a global spike in the development and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.

Though few would argue with Task Force conclusions that better acquisition, contracting and auditing at the Pentagon are essential to saving billions, the authors baseline budget urges the U.S. to reduce military spending by nearly a trillion dollars over the course of the next decade by making drastic cuts in ships, aircraft, weapons systems and military personnel. The premise for making such major strategic and conventional force structure cuts is naïve and dangerous.

For example, in Section III of the report, labeled “Realistic Goals, Sustainable Strategy,” the authors preface their proposed cuts by baldly claiming “In the conventional realm, the United States today faces no global threat remotely comparable to that once posed by the Soviet Union and its allies.” Somehow they seemed to have missed a salient fact: more Americans have been killed by radical Islamists than by the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal.

Section VII – “A Strategy of Restraint Would Allow Even Greater Savings” posits that billions more can be saved by adopting a “strategy of restraint – one that reacts to danger rather than going in search of it.” For those of us who once learned what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 or who vividly recall planes flying into buildings on September 11, 2001, those words are highly offensive. But at the Obama White House where it’s blame America first and apologize globally, they will undoubtedly get a high five.

By Patrice Hill–Washington Times

In a rare departure from this year’s intense political posturing over the soaring budget deficit, House leaders of both parties recently signaled that they are prepared to tackle a leading long-term liability — Social Security — by raising the retirement age.

Politicians often talk in generalities about cutting the deficit, but discussing specifics about how Congress may curb the growth of the biggest and most popular programs such as Social Security and defense is controversial and usually taboo in an election year.

But lessons learned from the debt crisis in Europe and worries that the U.S. could soon confront its own debt crisis, with annual deficits projected at about $1 trillion for years to come, may have prompted the unusually frank comments by House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.

Speaking in unrelated forums, both leaders stressed that with people living longer and enjoying better health in their senior years, the nation simply can’t afford any longer to be paying out benefits for as long as 30 years after retirement.

“We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we’re broke,” Mr. Boehner said in an interview last week with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Besides raising the retirement age for full Social Security benefits to 70 for people now 50 or younger, Mr. Boehner suggested curbing benefit growth by tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than growth in wages, and providing benefits only to those who need them.

“If you have substantial non-Social Security income while you’re retired, why are we paying you at a time when we’re broke?” he said. “We just need to be honest with people.”

Mr. Hoyer also said it was time to be honest with the public that the sheer size of the deficits and public debt means any serious effort to cut them back to manageable levels will require cuts and reforms in all major programs — including defense and Social Security — as well as tax increases.

“We could and should consider a higher retirement age, or one pegged to life span,” he said in a speech last month before the Third Way think tank. Like Mr. Boehner, he suggested making Social Security and Medicare more “progressive,” that is, providing benefits primarily to low-income people who need them the most.

Mr. Hoyer also endorsed specific cuts in defense weapons systems sought by the White House, and said the House Armed Services Committee is considering whether to adopt them.

“I fear that if we cant decide what we can afford to do without today, well be forced to make much more draconian cuts in the years to come,” he said.

The comments reveal that, beneath the heated rhetoric as each party seeks to gain a political advantage by blaming the other for surging deficits, congressional leaders appear to be laying the groundwork for negotiations on a solution — possibly as early as this fall.

A deficit commission appointed by President Obama is due to present its findings on how to reform major programs like Social Security and defense in November, and it is widely expected to endorse measures like raising the retirement age and others mentioned by the leaders.

Mr. Obama refused to rule out charging the commission with finding deficit solutions, including a value-added tax that would be the first-ever broad national tax on consumption.

One clue that both parties are getting serious about addressing the deficit problem is neither the White House nor congressional leaders of either party chose to single out for attack the others’ unusually frank discussion on Social Security.

In fact, the interview in which Mr. Boehner detailed his views on Social Security was the same one in which he suggested that the Democrats’ Wall Street regulatory reforms were like killing “ants” with a nuclear weapon — comments that the White House and liberal groups immediately denounced.

Mr. Boehner and Mr. Hoyer repeated the same political talking points that analysts say would make it harder to control the deficit in the future.

Mr. Boehner advocated continued free spending on defense and said that should Republicans take control of the House in the fall elections, one of his first acts as speaker would be to repeal the $534 billion in Medicare cuts used to finance the Democrats’ expansion of health care this year.

Many of those cuts are the same ones seen in a Republican budget plan, the only one to date that carries out the GOP pledge to get the deficit under control without tax increases, authored by Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.

Mr. Hoyer repeated a frequent Democratic defense of the gaping exemptions in congressional budget rules, which generally require new spending programs to be offset by spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere in the budget.

Excluded from those “pay-as-you-go” rules are such major trillion-dollar expenses as Medicare doctor reimbursements and President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the middle class. Mr. Hoyer said that was because Congress would routinely override the rules to keep those programs in place, and render the law “toothless.”

Still, good government groups were impressed at how far the leaders went toward signaling a consensus on ensuring the solvency of Social Security — one of the government’s biggest long-term budget challenges.

“It seems political leaders are finally getting the message” that the public wants action, said the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in a blog on Social Security. “Just getting congressional lawmakers to propose solutions in public has been difficult to come by. Not anymore.”

Congressional leaders have come to realize that Social Security — once considered the untouchable “third rail” of politics — is now the “low-hanging fruit” among the many seemingly intractable budget problems facing Congress, the committee said.

“Compared to fixing Medicare or making significant changes to our tax system, reforming Social Security is a walk in the park,” it said. “The funding gap is much smaller than it is for Medicare, and the options to solve Social Security’s problems are clear and easy to quantify.”

It helps that European countries from France and Britain to Greece are moving toward raising the retirement age for their pension systems to address their serious overspending problems and reassure investors in European debt markets.

The International Monetary Fund recently noted that solving such long-term budget problems carries the advantage of calming financial markets today while posing no immediate threat to economic growth like raising taxes or cutting stimulus spending.

The Washington Times Editorial

Funding for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq could be held up by the war brewing on Capitol Hill among congressional Democrats and the White House. When the Senate returns to take up the $45.5 billion supplemental appropriations bill that passed the House on July 1, the central issue to resolve will be how best to appease Big Labor.

Like most supplementals, this bill began with a singular purpose: paying war expenses. It since has been larded with billions in wasteful projects and programs designed to attract the vote of the left-of-center members with no fondness for the military. Among the House-approved giveaways are a $10 billion bailout for big-spending local governments, loan guarantees worth $9 billion for purported renewable energy, $3 billion for black farmers and American Indians who sued the government and $1 billion for summertime “youth activities.”

Education unions that detest any hint of innovation in their industry convinced House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, Wisconsin Democrat, to redirect $800 million in funding mostly taken from “Race to the Top,” President Obama’s modest replacement for No Child Left Behind. That was enough to instigate a veto threat from the White House last week.

Even if appropriators cave on this sticking point, unions can expect a big win if House-inserted language survives to force states to accept collective bargaining for police, firefighters and paramedics. As written, the bill would cancel laws in Virginia and North Carolina that prohibit public-safety employees from unionizing. Instead, unelected bureaucrats at the Federal Labor Relations Authority will take charge and decide what policies meet administration standards. In case of a dispute between management and a new police union, for example, the Labor Relations Czar would create an arbitration process to decide what “hours, wages, and terms and conditions of employment” are appropriate.

The benefit to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees of enriching the ranks of its dues-paying members is obvious, but the support of some Republicans for this power grab is troubling. The legislation gives firefighter unions the power they have long sought to extinguish the unpaid competition of volunteer firefighters. The Fraternal Order of Police has thrown its weight behind the labor provision as a “top priority,” as it obviously would generate new members and revenue.

Police and firefighter unions traditionally are friendly to the Grand Old Party, but Republicans should not succumb to their fair-weather appreciation. Allowing federal officials to extend the reach of labor bosses will inflict lasting damage on our already troubled economy. It’s time for Congress to kick the habit of short-term funding through stimulus, omnibus and supplemental funding legislation. Our troops deserve a clean funding bill. Our nation deserves a real budget.