Charm Like Ice Cream Can Melt In Light of Voter Angst

Has Pelosi-Reid and their powerful ideology caused politicians to jump off cliffs without parachutes? Has their strong armed tactics caused politicians to turn a totally deaf ear to their constituents? If it has, is the self-inflicted damage calculable? Some Democrats must think so as more have begun to state they will not run again.

It would appear Democrats have embraced the adage: 'when going in the wrong direction you should speed up in order to reach your destinatination.'(See 1, 1a and 1b below.)

Charm, like ice cream, can melt in the sun of voter discontent and angst. (See 2 below.)

When someone as partisan as Howard Dean, speaks up and says he would not vote for the Reid-Pelosi-Obama Health Care Bill, Democrats should take notice. Howard Dean has had his quirky moments but it really is news when he speaks out as he recently did. (See 3 below.)

I read The Naval War College publications with keen interest. Our fleet has been downsized in number of ships while naval responsibilities have expanded. The diversification and power of our fleet capability is something to behold but we also recently learned how a cheap device can track our pilot less drones. Will Iran , should it come to it, be able to thwart our Navy's capability with their own toy like navy and small fast attack craft? (See 4 below.)

Is the CIA conflicted by so many rules or does not the CIA understand what its real mission is. (See 5 below.)

To All My Liberal friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great or not great according to your personal viewpoint. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes of the person or persons receiving same.


To All My Conservative and Independent Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year and Go Santa! (See 6 below.)



Dick


1)Victory by Democrats on health care could turn sour
By Gloria Borger,

Democrats in Congress, already worried about their dim prospects in the 2010 midterm elections, have been thrown in a tizzy about something else that could reduce their majority: retirements.

They are four departures down and worried about more members leaving districts that have grown more competitive. And they're right to be concerned: Districts without any incumbent running often wind up switching to the other party.

But there's much more to worry about. Consider the results of a recent "open seat" special election for the state senate in a Democratic district in rural eastern Kentucky: Republican Jimmy Higdon beat the Democrat Jodie Haydon by tying him to, of all things, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.

"Congress is out of control," one effective ad intoned, "and [Haydon] will bring Nancy Pelosi's one-party control of government to Frankfurt."

Republican Higdon won by 12 points.

Sure, the Democrats say, there are local reasons their guy lost: The district itself is trending Republican. There were only about 20,000 voters. Obama himself only carried 38 percent of the vote there.

And while both candidates oppose abortion rights, the Republican Higdon was endorsed by the local right-to-life groups -- a big plus in this socially conservative region -- which he trumpeted in TV spots. So, they claim, all politics is local, right?

But wait. How do you explain the good GOP turnout? Or the fact that the Democrats won a prior special election in Kentucky earlier this year -- when no national issues were interjected -- but lost this time when the themes centered on Washington? "The country likes and wants balanced government," says Brad Todd, a GOP political consultant who worked on the Kentucky race. "And they feel the country is out of balance right now."

In other words, it's easy to nationalize even a state senate race when the locals don't like the way things are going in the country.

And it's not only the economy, although that is a big part of it -- with unemployment at more than 11 percent in Kentucky. The health care debate, which was supposed to be a huge plus for Democrats, has instead become a huge political albatross. "It's a polarizing issue," says Todd. "The Democrats have been pushing on this issue for an extended period of time now -- in the face of public opinion against it. The length and content of the health care fight has hurt the Democratic brand."

O, the irony: The Democrats -- who run the Congress and the White House -- have to pass health care to prove they can govern. If it falls apart, after all this time, they will look weak and ineffectual. Yet while they toil long days and nights trying to put together the votes, the bill itself has morphed into something the public fears. So passage could well become a short-lived political victory.

Some numbers: According to CNN polls, almost 8 in 10 believe it will add to the deficit. When asked whether the Senate bill would help your family a resounding 75 percent said no. And will it increase your taxes? Eighty-five percent said you bet it will.

So why not have a GOP candidate in Kentucky inject health care into a state senate race? "Keep the big hand of government out of our personal health care decisions," one Higdon ad warned ominously. One Democratic strategist familiar with the race says the ad didn't matter much since not enough people saw it to have a real impact.

Beyond Kentucky, the Democrats also protest on health care: The issue is misunderstood, they say. We are just losing the spin war and that will change, they say. Even if all of that is true, there's something else to understand: Once health care passes, it's still going to be unpopular. At least until the Democrats can prove why it works, and that could take a very long time.

The Republicans haven't exactly covered themselves in legislative glory, either. They might have had a real shot at success -- if that's what they really wanted -- if they had called the president's bluff. They might have looked for some areas of agreement on health care that could be passed with bipartisan votes. Instead, they opted for the "just say no" strategy.

It's a bad idea, but it's working. Why? Because "no" works when you're opposing something that is unpopular.

So maybe, as the Democrats say, this GOP Kentucky state senate victory was an outlier. "Since inauguration, there have been five races where national issues have been on the ballot and in each and every one of them ... Democrats won," says Democratic National Committee Press Secretary Hari Sevugan. "The real harbinger of things to come ... is the deep split in the Republican Party that is allowing a right wing fringe to take over, purge moderates and present a fundamentalist agenda to voters."

Gee, sounds like the Democrats are also happy to nationalize the upcoming midterm elections -- against the Republicans. As for the voters, they're just looking for results.

1a)Not What They Signed Up For
By Jennifer Rubin

Karl Rove observes that Obama’s self-grading of a B+ constitutes a serious case of grade inflation. He writes:

Mr. Obama has not governed as the centrist, deficit-fighting, bipartisan consensus builder he promised to be. And his promise to embody a new kind of politics—free of finger-pointing, pettiness and spin—was a mirage. He has cheapened his office with needless attacks on his predecessor.

Because so many conservatives never bought into candidate Obama’s image as a ”centrist, deficit-fighting, bipartisan consensus builder,” it’s hard for many to appreciate fully just how fervently many voters did embrace that portrait of Obama. He was the candidate who didn’t raise his voice and promised an alternative to the Bush-Clinton-Bush partisan wars. Calm and cool, above the fray. He was going to go line by line through the budget. No taxes on anyone not “rich.” He believed in ”markets,” he told CNBC. Voters grabbed on to these messages and averted their eyes from data that didn’t fit the campaign-approved image of a reasoned centrist. And his embrace of the “good war” — Afghanistan — without reservation and of sanctions against Iran conveyed to many that he would be more Clinton than McGovern. That has not been the case.

When, as Rove points out, Obama disparages in his 60 Minutes interview a “a triumphant sense about war” and turns up his nose at the notion that our war to preserve Western civilization is a ”glorious” endeavor, he is repudiating a long tradition, really an unbroken one, of American presidents. We’ve never had a president parrot the antiwar Left’s rhetoric, at least not after getting elected. And his domestic agenda is far more radical than those who touted his “moderation” were led to believe — or chose to believe. As for that “superior temperament,” well, we haven’t seen that in some time. We get threats, dire warnings, narcissism, and huffiness.

So it may be that the collapse in Obama’s ratings has much to do with the chasm between expectations and reality. Most voters pretty much had George W. Bush and Bill Clinton pegged. Few were surprised by Ronald Reagan. But many voters took a year to figure out that they weren’t getting what they thought they would get when they elected Obama. Recent polling reflects Obama’s rather shoddy domestic record, the paltry results of his “engagement” foreign-policy ventures, the still bleak jobs situation, and most of all, a large helping of buyer’s remorse. Voters may have been naive, but now they are disappointed.

1b)Amid Rumbling Discontent, Dems Head for the Exits
By Michael Barone

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrambles to assemble 60 Democratic votes for health care legislation that, according to the Realclearpolitics.com average of recent polls, is opposed by a 53 percent to 38 percent margin, several Democratic members of the House are scrambling for the exits on what is starting to look like a sinking ship.

You may have noticed that I avoided using the cliche "rats leaving the sinking ship," because the four Democratic House members who over the last three weeks announced their decisions to retire rather than run for re-election cannot fairly be characterized as rats.

To the contrary, Dennis Moore (Kansas 3), John Tanner (Tennessee 8), Brian Baird (Washington 3) and Bart Gordon (Tennessee 6) are competent House members who between them have won election to Congress 36 times. Gordon is chairman of the House Science Committee; Tanner was offered an appointment to succeed Al Gore in the Senate in 1992; Baird was lead sponsor of measures to ensure the continuity of Congress in time of national disaster. All have claims to significant legislative accomplishments.

And to political success in marginal Democratic territory. Gordon and Tanner represent districts that voted heavily for John McCain in 2008; Moore's usually Republican district gave Barack Obama a small majority; Baird's suburban district has voted at just about the national average in the last three presidential elections.

All four cited plausible personal reasons for calling it quits, and none can be unaware that there is a robust job market in Washington for former Democratic congressmen with good political skills. Members of Congress make $174,000 a year; heads of trade associations make upward of $741,000 and don't have to return to home districts on weekends.

All four of these retiring members faced the prospect of tougher opposition in 2010 than they have encountered in years. Tanner and Gordon are from what I call the Jacksonian belt, the area settled by Scots-Irish southwest from West Virginia to Texas, where Barack Obama ran poorly in both primaries and the general election last year. Polls in nearby Jacksonian Arkansas have shown Democratic incumbents running even with or behind unknown Republican challengers.

Moore and Baird are from suburban districts where their views on cultural issues have been a political asset. But in the gubernatorial elections last month in Virginia and New Jersey, suburban voters brushed aside cultural issues and voted for Republicans who ran against higher taxes and big government. That suggests that Democrats in suburban House districts can't expect to match Obama's 2008 showings next year.

These four Democrats are not the only House members who aren't running for re-election, but all of the 12 Republican retirees and all but one of the seven other Democratic retirees are leaving the House to run for statewide office.

The question now is whether more Democrats of this ilk will choose to retire -- something House Democratic leaders have been working to prevent. They're very much aware that Republicans in 1994 won some 21 open seats in which Democratic incumbents did not seek re-election, nearly half the 52 seats the Republicans gained when they won control of the House that year.

Public opinion expresses itself in the legislative process in various ways. Democrats' current large majority in the House, which has enabled them to pass unpopular cap-and-trade and health care legislation, is largely the product of public discontent with George W. Bush's perceived nonfeasance on Katrina in 2005 and perceived malfeasance in Iraq in 2005 and later.

These four decisions to retire, and similar decisions by other Democrats that may come, seem (for all disclaimers of personal reasons) to be the product of public discontent with the policies of the Obama administration and congressional Democratic leaders in 2009. Such discontent, perceptible only in the Jacksonian belt last year, has now clearly spread to the suburbs of major metropolitan areas.

The odds are still against Republicans picking up the 41 seats they need for a House majority. But it's interesting that when Massachusetts Democrat Michael Capuano, fresh from a second-place finish in the primary for Edward Kennedy's Senate seat, was asked to tell the Democratic caucus what he had learned on the campaign trail, he replied in two words: "You're screwed." How many of those listening decided that it would be a good idea to spend more time with the family after 2010?



2)When the Charm Rubs Off
By George Will

Rushing to lock the nation into expensive health care and climate change commitments, Democrats are in an understandable frenzy because public enthusiasm for both crusades has been inversely proportional to the time the public has had to think about them. And the president pushing this agenda has, with his incontinent hunger for attention, seen his job approval vary inversely with his ubiquity. Consider his busy December -- so far.

His Dec. 1 Afghanistan speech to the nation was followed on Dec. 3 by his televised "jobs summit." His Dec. 8 televised economics speech at the Brookings Institution was followed on Dec. 10 by his televised Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, which was remarkable for 38 uses of the pronoun "I."

And for disavowing a competence no one suspected him of. ("I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war." Note the superfluous adjective.) And for an unnecessary notification. ("Evil does exist in the world.") And for delayed utopianism. ("We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes." But in someone's.) And for solemnly announcing something undisputed. (There can be a just war.) And for intellectual applesauce that should get speechwriters fired and editors hired. ("We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected." If the human "condition" can attain perfection anyway, human nature cannot be significantly imperfect.)

Then on Dec. 13, he was on "60 Minutes" praising himself with another denigration of his predecessor, aka "the last eight years." (Blighted by "a triumphant sense about war.") When Attorney General Eric Holder announced that five accused terrorists would be tried in federal courts, he said: "After eight years of delay. ..." When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force made the controversial recommendation that women should get fewer mammograms, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said: "This panel was appointed by the prior administration, by former President George Bush." In congressional testimony, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner almost deviated from the script. He said the Obama administration began after "almost a decade" -- slight pause -- "certainly eight years of basic neglect."

Abroad, the fruits of the president's policy of "engagement" have been meager: Witness Iran continuing its nuclear program and China being difficult about carbon emissions. Here is a history lesson for an administration which, considering itself the culmination of history, is interested only in the last eight years of it:

At the Vienna summit in June 1961, President John Kennedy, fresh from his Bay of Pigs fiasco, was unnerved by the brutal disdain of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who considered Kennedy callow. Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan astutely noted Kennedy had "met a man who was impervious to his charm."

A person can only be a novelty once, and only briefly, and charm, like any commodity, when used uneconomically becomes a wasting asset. All this is pertinent to the Senate health care debate, now coming to a curious climax amid another glut of careless grandiosity.

Supporters of the Senate bill say it will insure the uninsured. The Congressional Budget Office says 24 million of the 46.3 million uninsured will remain so. Supporters say it will lower aggregate and individual health care spending. The government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says the nation's health care spending and insurance premium costs will increase.

Today there are more independents than Democrats, more independents than Republicans, and according to a recent Gallup poll, independents' approval of the Democratic-controlled Congress (14 percent) is lower than Republicans' approval (17 percent). This is partly a function of the majority party's health care monomania. Consider what happened recently in Kentucky.

There a Republican candidate succeeded in nationalizing a state Senate race. Hugely outspent in a district in which Democrats have a lopsided registration advantage, the Republican won by 12 points a seat in Frankfort by running against Washington -- against Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their health care legislation.

A CNN poll shows 36 percent of the public in favor of what the Democratic Senate is trying to do to health care, 61 percent opposed. It is clear what the public wants Congress to do: Take a mulligan and start over.

So Republicans can win in 2009 by stopping the bill, or in 2010 by saying: Unpopular health legislation passed because of a 60-40 party-line decision to bring it to a Senate vote. Therefore each incumbent Democrat is responsible for everything in the law.

3)Health-care bill wouldn't bring real reform
By Howard Dean

If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.

Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries -- in the range of $20 million a year -- and on return on equity for the company's shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.


From the very beginning of this debate, progressives have argued that a public option or a Medicare buy-in would restore competition and hold the private health insurance industry accountable. Progressives understood that a public plan would give Americans real choices about what kind of system they wanted to be in and how they wanted to spend their money. Yet Washington has decided, once again, that the American people cannot be trusted to choose for themselves. Your money goes to insurers, whether or not you want it to.

To be clear, I'm not giving up on health-care reform. The legislation does have some good points, such as expanding Medicaid and permanently increasing the federal government's contribution to it. It invests critical dollars in public health, wellness and prevention programs; extends the life of the Medicare trust fund; and allows young Americans to stay on their parents' health-care plans until they turn 27. Small businesses struggling with rising health-care costs will receive a tax credit, and primary-care physicians will see increases in their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates.

Improvements can still be made in the Senate, and I hope that Senate Democrats will work on this bill as it moves to conference. If lawmakers are interested in ensuring that government affordability credits are spent on health-care benefits rather than insurers' salaries, they need to require state-based exchanges, which act as prudent purchasers and select only the most efficient insurers. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) offered this amendment during the Finance Committee markup, and Democrats should include it in the final legislation. A stripped-down version of the current bill that included these provisions would be worth passing.

In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care.

I have worked for health-care reform all my political life. In my home state of Vermont, we have accomplished universal health care for children younger than 18 and real insurance reform -- which not only bans discrimination against preexisting conditions but also prevents insurers from charging outrageous sums for policies as a way of keeping out high-risk people. I know health reform when I see it, and there isn't much left in the Senate bill. I reluctantly conclude that, as it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America.

The writer is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and was governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2002.

4)U.S. Navy v. Iran The return of sea control?
By Michael Auslin



A small splash is being made by accounts of a recent Office of Naval Intelligence report claiming that Iran has achieved the capability of "easily" closing off the Straits of Hormuz in wartime. Supposedly, the Iranian navy has sufficient surface and subsurface vessels, along with advanced missile torpedoes, that can hold enemy naval ships at risk. This matters now because of concerns that an Israeli (or U.S.) attack on Iran's nuclear program could result in Tehran's retaliation, including choking off 40 percent of the world's oil supply.

Whether or not Iran truly maintains this capability--and it is hard to believe that even if Iran succeeded in closing off the Straits the U.S. Navy and Air Force would not be able to re-open them easily--any conflict in the Straits would prove to be the first test of the joint "Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower." Issued in October 2007, the Cooperative Strategy sought to provide an overall rationale for the use of U.S. naval assets, superseding the 1986 Maritime Strategy. The new strategy states that the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard will (among other goals) "secure strategic access and retain global freedom of action." This will be achieved through "regionally concentrated, forward-deployed task forces...continually postured in...the Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean...." Among the rungs of operationalizing the maritime strategy is to maintain forward presence, to deter, and to achieve sea control. Each of these would come into play in a conflict in the Straits of Hormuz.

Given the emphasis the U.S. Navy puts on partnerships, goodwill missions, and the like--all of which are important--the ONI report on Iran's navy is notable for bringing back to the fore the traditional rationale for naval power: sea control. The Cooperative Strategy does not spend much time defining sea control, reducing it to "the ability to operate freely at sea," but it does explicitly state that "we will [not] permit an adversary to disrupt the global supply chain by attempting to block vital sea-lines of communication and commerce." Sea control would, in this rationale, be the prerequisite of "command of the sea," for that is what would ultimately keep the Straits open, while "sea control" would be the operational condition allowing U.S. naval forces to defeat the Iranians.

This task would largely fall to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, within Central Command's area of responsibility. The Fifth Fleet has already been heavily involved in both Iraqi and Afghan operations, as well as anti-piracy missions off Somalia. In addition, any action against Iran in the Staits would also likely involve the Ninth Air Force as the headquarters for Air Forces Central (AFCENT). Indeed, some Air Force thinkers, looking at contingencies in the Pacific, might claim that the job could be done largely with land-based air attack forces alone, but dealing with mines, submarines, and escort for tankers will require sea-based activity within the Straits and Gulf of Hormuz.

Thus, the test for the Navy, which has not conducted such operations since the "Tanker War" in 1987-88, in which U.S. Navy ships escorted U.S.-flagged vessels in the Gulf of Hormuz, targeted Iranian oil platforms used as bases for attacks, and cleared mines from the contested waters. Indeed, senior Navy leadership routinely point out that over 30,000 sailors have served ashore in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past eight years, doing everything from fighting to provincial reconstruction. On the other hand, retired admirals at maritime conferences in Washington have lamented what they consider to be the loss of sea fighting capabilities of the U.S. Navy since the end of the Cold War, and the concurrent lack of strategic thinking over the past generation. Any Iranian attempts to close the Straits, then, would highlight the Navy's core competencies in maritime battle.

Such an operation would certainly clarify the Navy's ability to achieve key elements of its maritime strategy. Yet there are numerous pertinent questions about its warfighting plans since the Sea Services have failed to follow up their strategy with a current doctrinal document. The long awaited doctrine, the Naval Operating Concept, was drafted but shelved last year, leaving observers with no idea of how the Sea Services would actually go about fighting. Would warplanners take the fight to the enemy, surging forces into the Straits and Gulf, or would they wait to defeat attacks as they materialized, slowly reducing threats? Right now, there is no way to know what doctrine will guide naval strategy.

The Sea Services repeatedly refers to deterrence, but how would it seek to deter Iran? Would the mere positioning of Fifth Fleet naval assets near the Straits in the aftermath of an Israeli attack be enough to deter any attempt to close the waterways? Would senior U.S. leadership make clear to the Iranians that such an aggressive action would open the door to further U.S. sea- and land-based air attacks on Iranian military installations? In other words, is our deterrent force credibly expressed?

Secondly, how skillfully would the U.S. Navy achieve sea control? Iran obviously could not prevail by going toe-to-toe with the Navy; it has only seven destroyers and frigates. However, anti-access strategies, based on submarine attack, mines, and its twenty-four fast attack torpedo boats would be the likely tactics. How good will U.S. maritime domain awareness be to track the Iranian forces? Chief of Naval Operations Gary Roughead lately has pushed the concept of "decision superiority" based on intelligence and tactical planning. How well will warplanning, intelligence gathering, and tactical execution respond to unseen challenges and setbacks?

Once the fight was evident, would the Navy be able to track Iran's three Kilo-class and dozen domestically produced light subs and preposition U.S. attack submarines to take them out? How quickly could our destroyers reduce Iranian threats to the U.S. mine sweepers that would re-open sea lanes? Even a small disruption in the flow of oil supplies would shake global markets and quickly raise questions about U.S. capabilities to maintain global order. Naval warplanners would certainly want to get the new Littoral Combat Ship into the fight to buttress their arguments that that class of warship is perfectly suited for achieving sea control in such relatively shallow battlespaces. On the other hand, would the Navy feel confident that its carrier strike group screens would protect aircraft carriers in waters covered by mines, new torpedoes, and anti-ship missiles? U.S. Navy training, readiness, planning, and operational execution would be tested for all to see.

Few can doubt that the U.S. would prevail, and probably quickly, in any naval clash with the Iranians. Nonetheless, it would be the first real maritime challenge to the U.S. Navy in a generation. It might also be a test of how well the military can adapt to new assymetric tactics. Equally importantly, it would highlight how successfully the new joint Cooperative Strategy has positioned the Navy to respond to global threats in an increasingly unstable world.



Michael Auslin is a resident scholar in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

5)Indian-US ties soured by suspicion Chicago terror operative was US double agent

Courts documents in the criminal case against the David Headley, who was arrested in Chicago in October for suspected involvement in the Mumbai terrorist siege, suggest the Chicagoan US citizen may have been a double agent for the al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Lashkar e-Taibe and US intelligence. This suspicion, also the subject of leaked media reports from US, Indian and Pakistani intelligence sources, is severely straining relations between New Delhi and Washington.

Counter-terror sources report that New Delhi suspects the CIA knew in advance about the Mumbai attack, in which 177 people died and 500 were injured, and were aware of Headley's links with its LeT perpetrators, al Qaeda's operational arm in Pakistan, but omitted to forewarn Indian authorities for fear of touching off a military showdown between India and Pakistan.

Israel was not tipped off either although the Chabad Center of Mumbai, where six people were killed, was a special target

Rancor against Washington was registered in New Delhi where an official at the Indian Ministry of the Interior confirmed Wednesday, Dec. 16, said that his government "is looking into whether Headley worked as a double agent." A former counter-terrorism officer in the Indian foreign intelligence service said: "The feeling in India is that the US has not been transparent."

The atmosphere between the two countries is not helped by the FBI's refusal to let Indian anti-terror officers question Headley, who is believed to have led a Chicago-based cell which set up Islamist terrorist operations world-wide.

Sources add: The court records show that the Chicago-based Headley was pressed into service by the US Drug Enforcement Agency in 1977 after he was caught smuggling heroin from Pakistan to America. They also show that he became an FBI informant after al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington. After that outrage, the FBI and CIA were directed to coordinate their counter-terror work. The Indians assume that the CIA must have been aware of the Chicagoan's existence, and certainly picked up on his frequent trips to India with side trips to Pakistan to meet his Lashkar e-Taibe associates.

Whether he worked directly for the CIA will probably never be proven.

Indian security authorities are also asking who paid for Headley's frequent trips to Europe and India on missions to locate targets for terrorist attack, gather intelligence and chart Lashkar e-Taibe routes to target. He would then carry the information and guidelines to the Pakistani LeT operations headquarters.

The Chicagoan was clearly a staff member of the group and participated in its planning conferences. Some Western intelligence sources believe he may have been pulling the strings from Pakistan during the three-day terrorist siege of Mumbai in November 2008.

Indian counter-terror sources believe that data which Headley may have leaked from his Pakistan conferences to his American controllers may have prompted a US warning to New Delhi in July 2008 that a large-scale terrorist operation was in store for Mumbai. When two months went by and nothing happened, the Indians relaxed and lowered their security alert level.

Headley stands accused of making five reconnaissance trips to India to set up the Mumbai attack in September 2006, February and September 2007, and April and July 2008.

On one or more of those trips he traveled disguised as a religious Jew, scouting the Chabad Center and other Jewish locations. Israel was never informed that Lashkar e-Taibe had set its sights on Jewish and Israel centers in India.




6)The Battleground Poll and the Battle for America
By Bruce Walker

Good news for conservatives in the latest Battleground Poll. The political implications are profound, if the already-energized conservative base takes even more initiative.

In August 2008, I wrote an article on "The Biggest Missing Story in Politics." The article explains that conservatives are an overwhelming majority of America. One year later, I wrote an update on that theme, this time based on the Gallup Poll, which showed that conservatives outnumber liberals in virtually every state of the union. I have been writing about the remarkable Battleground Poll results in many articles for many years.


The Battleground Poll reveals the internals of its poll. It also asks respondents the same demographic questions in each poll: What is your education level? What is your age? What is your religious affiliation? What is your marital status? Question D3 asks respondents to describe their ideology. The choices are "very conservative," "somewhat conservative," "moderate," "somewhat liberal," "very liberal," and "unsure/refused." Those asked by the Battleground Poll -- if they dislike the liberal label -- can call themselves moderates, they can refuse to answer, and they can express an uncertainty about their ideology. Only those certain of their ideology and willing to label themselves are considered conservative in the poll.


The Battleground Poll is not a Republican polling organization. It is, rather, one of the few bipartisan polling organizations. Republican and Democrat pollsters agree on the language of the questions for respondents, so that the questions asked are not only fairly worded, but unusually fairly worded. Republican and Democrat pollsters agree on the population sample, so that polls results are not skewed because too many Democrats, too many Republicans, or too many independents are included. The Battleground Poll also has proven very accurate over many elections.


The responses to Question D3 have been remarkably consistent. Respondents have changed dramatically about what they thought of President Bush or of the state of the economy or the most important issues facing our nation. Respondent may swing quite a bit about which party they support or trust the most. But in one single area of this long list of polling data, the American people have not wavered at all from Battleground Poll to Battleground Poll: About sixty percent of the American people, in poll after poll, year after year, describe themselves as "conservative."


On December 16, 2009, Battleground released its latest poll. In this poll, 63% of the American people described themselves as "very conservative" or "somewhat conservative." The rest of America - not just liberals, but moderates and people who were unsure about their ideology or chose not to respond to that question, totaled, collectively, only 37% of America. A measly one percent of Americans called themselves moderates; 25% of Americans called themselves "somewhat liberal," and 8% of Americans called themselves "very liberal."


This is no aberration. Consider in Battleground Poll results since June 2002 the percentage of Americans who have described themselves as conservative: June 2002 (59%), September 2003 (59%), April 2004 (60%), June 2004 (59%), September 2004 (60%), October 2005 (61%), March 2006 (59%), December 2007 (58%), July 2007 (63%), May 2008 (62%), August 2008 (60%), September 2008 (59%), and October 2008 (56%).


In the November 2008 Battleground Poll, for the first and only time, the straight question of "conservative" or "liberal" was not posed to respondents. Instead, the poll asked respondents two separate questions: fiscal ideology was asked on Question D6 and social ideology was asked on Question D7. The Battleground Poll was clearly intending to refine Question D3. What were the results? Fiscal conservatives in Question D6 were 69% of respondents and fiscal liberals were 37% of respondents. Social conservatives were 53% of respondents and social liberals were 39% of respondents. While that sounds like social conservatism is a weak link, that is misleading: a whopping 34% of all Americans described themselves as "very conservative" on social issues, by far the largest very intense group in any Battleground Poll.


What does this mean for American politics today? It ought to boldly empower conservatives. The "right," which every Democrat leader reflexively attacks whenever political opposition to their plans grows strong, is the overwhelming majority of Americans. This explains why the left's ballot initiatives in California last year failed, in some cases, in every single county of the state and why, in liberal Maine, the gay marriage ballot measure failed. This also explains why Obama runs away from "labels" (all leftists do, and have for many years.)


What it means in politics is that any true conservative against a true leftist should carry every state and win by a landslide. But it means more than that. Conservatives in the areas of culture, media, entertainment, and education are treated like unwanted stepchildren, or worse. (This, despite the fact that conservatives on average are better educated than liberals.)

The worst victims of invidious bigotry in America today are conservatives. Only a tiny percentage of professors are conservative. The same is true for government supported media like NPR, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and National Endowment for the Arts. Libraries are dominated by the minority left. How different would America be if fifty or sixty percent of teachers, librarians, professors, public media producers, and staff in government supported organizations were conservative!


That ought to be a goal for conservatives. Winning elections is fine, but how much more vital is it for us to recover at least an equal voice in colleges, media, schools, libraries, and entertainment? What is wrong with us, the overwhelming majority of Americans, demanding not to be consigned to a ghetto or treated by Jim Crow standards? We begin by pointing out the obvious: conservatives are the majority of Americans but almost invisible in our public and private institutions of education, information, entertainment, and study.

Then demand that those want our tax dollars, our commercial business, our donations -- anything, really, from us -- treat us fairly, portray us honestly, and invite us into the halls of influence. It is a modest demand, really. But it is very important. It is a cultural "game changer," and that, more than anything, is what we need.

Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie and The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.