THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 3, January 4, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
POLITICALLY CORRECT SUICIDE
By Alan Caruba
PARTISAN POLITICS, LEFTIST POLITICAL IDEOLOGY, & THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S INTELLIGENCE GATHERING & SURVEILLANCE
FUNCTION DURING TIME OF WAR: POLITICAL CONTROVERSY OVER THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY'S
MONITORING TELEPHONE & OTHER ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS OF KNOWN OR SUSPECTED ISLAMIST TERRORISTS --
THE ROAD TO PERDITION & NATIONAL SUICIDE: CRTICIZING & OBSTRUCTING EVERY EFFORT THE GOVERNMENT
TAKES TO PROTECT US FROM OUR ISLAMIST ENEMIES, INSISTING THAT FOREIGN TERRORISTS HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS
AMERICAN CITIZENS, DEFAMING THE U.S. ARMED FORCES, & DEPICTING THOSE IN OUR LAW ENFORCEMENT &
INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES AS ENEMIES TO BE FEARED
FULL STORY:
We live in a society in which virtually anything can be known about your buying preferences, your credit rating, where you
live, where you went to school, your employment history, et cetera. As often as not, you provide this information whenever
you apply for a credit card, open a bank account, secure a loan, or fill out a job application. In short, you give up some of
your private information in exchange for something you deem beneficial.
Why, then, do some — maybe a lot — of Americans get upset when their government undertakes the intelligence gathering
and surveillance needed to insure the nation remains safe from its enemies?
Why did The New York Times break the story of this essential counter-intelligence activity and why did the rest of the
nation’s mainstream news media deliberately stir fears that the government is tapping their phone? The Times’ own
public editor called the newspaper’s explanation of its decision to break the NSA story “woefully inadequate.”
The government, rightly, has initiated an investigation regarding the disclosure of classified information and, so far as I am
concerned, someone should be going to jail!
The National Security Agency was monitoring telephone and other electronic traffic from known or suspected Islamic
terrorists outside the nation who might have been communicating with those inside.
Given the uproar over the NSA’s legitimate, authorized activities, one would think that Americans have forgotten that identity
theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the nation, so you can be sure that criminals have learned how to secure “private”
information about you; many of them “phish” for it via the Internet quite successfully.
Anyone with the tiniest amount of intelligence flitting back and forth, making synaptic connections in your brain, has got to
know that the government simply does not have enough people in either its espionage or law enforcement agencies to spy on
everybody.
There is simply no reason to spy on everybody!
Surveillance exists to protect Americans. It is not merely useful to know what our socalled allies, trading partners, and our
well-known enemies are planning to do, it is essential to our national survival.
Being at war requires that we accept some limitations on our lives and our rights for the greater, common good. When it was
first enacted, I had some reservations about the USA Patriot Act and, frankly, I was wrong. Those in Congress who fought
against its reenactment were wrong, but, at least, our legislators have not left us shorn of the protection it affords, extending
it for a single month at the end of last year.
Today the finest military force our nation has ever put into the field of battle is engaged, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but
also in nations all over the world that have invited us to train their armies in the defense of freedom. We must match their
courage with our own.
The hectoring of every effort the government takes to protect us, demanding that foreign terrorists be given the same
constitutional rights as the rest of us, defaming our Armed Forces, and depicting those in our justice and national security
agencies as enemies to be feared is the road to perdition.
We must avoid a politically correct suicide.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. Intelligence & America's National Security
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Terrorism & American Homeland Security
The USA Patriot Act
Disloyalty, Subversion, Sedition, & Treason
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
© Alan Caruba 2006
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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