Israel has apparently decided to suspend air operations over Southern Lebanon.  They have agreed to allow "humanitarian aid" into Southern Lebanon.  Israel should allow only evacuation and no "humanitarian aid" beyond what is needed to feed/water evacuees on their way out of the area.  Bringing more supplies into the area only allows civilians to remain in harm's way and continue to be used by Hezbollah.  Also, evacuations should be only for women, children and the aged.  It should not be a convoy to be used for Hezbollah to evacuate their tired fighters so they can be replaced with fresh ones.

This makes no strategic sense whatsoever and the Israeli military command must be apoplectic at this point.

Mr. Olmert, I am completely amazed at how you are apparently managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Once Hezbollah resupplies and rearms during this period, no international force will be able to eject them from the region without sustaining severe casualties.  Not only has this blown it for Israel, it has blown it for any international force that might be brought in later.

My own personal opinion is that this suspension of operations is a blunder of historic proportion which really isn't surprising as we seem to have nothing but blunders on both sides at this point.

Okay, I am now stumped by Israel's sudden stop in mid-stride in the offensive against Hezbollah.  It makes no sense and might allow whatever opportunity they had to slip through their fingers.  While they are calling reserves, operations on the Eastern end of the border seem to have been cancelled.  One thing that is really curious ... when Israel first went into Lebanon in the early 1980's, they lost 100 IDF taking Bent Jbeil.  This time they lost 1/10 of that and stopped.

Top military in Israel must be very frustrated with a political leadership that can't seem to make up their minds.   Now there is a call for a 72-hour ceasefire.  What will that bring?  A chance for Hezbollah to resupply?  This is looking like it is bogging down into the usual diplomatic stalemate.  To be sure Hezbollah has taken some serious damage, but they could have taken a lot more.

Color me confused.

UPDATES at the end.

All indications tonight point to the imminent start to the next phase in the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah.  Vague reports tonite speak of troops massing and Israeli military sources expecting to have the entire border area under control within a week.  Unlike the start of the last phase, details of this phase are sparse.  Troops are building up but no indication where.  The news presenter telegraphs that they know where but aren't prepared to release the information.

But what about Bekaa?  Israel's military leadership is certainly not unaware of the Hezbollah assets that reside in the Bekaa valley.  Indications so far are that Israel is expecting a diplomatic solution to end the hostilities before that area could be dealt with.  So the goal at this point seems to be take out Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and when a diplomatic solution arrives, Hezbollah is in a much weaker position in the South.

The overall solution must be to disarm Hezbollah.  Having armed political militias is a recipe for disaster and only the national army must have combat capabilities.  Armed militias are the main source of problems in the Palestinian areas as they are even in Iraq.  Until these political militias are eliminated we are wasting our time in any negotiations for peace.

UPDATE: Indications now are that the new offensive will be in the Eastern end of the border area.  The question is: Do they strike West to the sea or North to Bekaa?

UPDATE: 2211PST July 26 - Israel has called a meeting of its cabinet.  Military censorship has been clamped down.  No new news on troop movements.  Heard that last night's mission was cancelled due to heavy activity in already engaged areas resulting in heavy IDF casualties. Still talk about expanding the operation is being heard but without specifics of locations or numbers of troops.  Checkpoints are today preventing journalists from reaching troop staging areas near the border where they had been free to travel before.  Looks like Israel is starting to get serious.

The following is my speculation on events in Lebanon (UPDATES at the end):

To understand what seems to be happening in Lebanon, and particularly in Southern Lebanon, one must understand that Hezbollah has been there for years building fortifications, fighting positions, bunkers and storage caches.  Israel's first priority at the moment must be to stop the incoming rockets but doing this isn't a simple task.  A rocket can be taken from storage, moved to the other side of the village and fired from a launcher hidden under a tree or in a garage.  The launcher can then be moved to a different location.  Israel can calculate the origin of the rocket by observing the flight path and bomb that location but they have no way to determine from the launch location where additional launchers or missiles might be stored.  They must go in on the ground and search in order to locate and destroy the stockpiles and launchers.

Israel has no desire to be drawn into a full scale offensive in Lebanon that leaves it with the task of taking and holding large areas of hostile territory.  This sets Israel up to be an army of targets and casualties would be high over time.  Also, any occupation by Israel would tend to reinforce Hezbollah sympathies in Lebanon.  When Israel reacted to the Hezbollah kidnapping with a very strong series of air strikes, Hezbollah probably decided to attempt to draw Israel into a protracted ground campaign.  I will call this Hezbollah strategy Operation Quicksand.  Hezbollah seems to have adopted two tactics to support this strategy.  First, they stepped up missile attacks into Israel which they know would force the IDF to respond.  At the same time they took measures to intentionally cause considerable civilian casualties in order to influence world opinion against Israel.  What they hoped to achieve is a massive Israeli incursion associated with massive civilian and IDF casualties so the harder Israel struggles against the well positioned and well trained Hezbollah fighters, the deeper world and Israeli domestic opinion engulfs them and finally forces Israel to stop before they reach their first objective of stopping the missiles.  In this scenario a negotiated settlement is finally reached, Israel withdraws and Hezbollah comes out a clear winner as they can claim to have successfully defended against an Israeli attack while continuing her ability to strike Israel with missiles through the entire ordeal.

It is becoming apparent that Israel isn't going to be drawn into this game and has a strategy of their own.  I would call this strategy Operation Stolen Thunder.  There would be several tactics that make this strategy up but the primary goal would be to stop Hezbollah missiles without having to permanently hold large areas of ground or take unacceptable casualties or inflame world opinion more than it already is.  The first step is to clear as many civilians as possible from the areas where the missiles are coming from.  This is done by both direct contact via telephone and indirect contact through leaflets and radio messages while at the same time giving wide public exposure to the fact the Hezbollah is preventing people leaving the areas.  Hezbollah is very sensitive to PR and can not afford to lose world opinion or see that opinion sway to the Israeli side.  That opinion and the management of it is key to Hezbollah's plan.  Making Hezbollah's actions widely known causes the first Hezbollah defeat as they are finally forced to allow the civilians to exit the areas of interest.  The result is that the only people moving around in these areas are likely to be Hezbollah.

Once the civilians are cleared, two more tactics can come into play.  First, as soon as a missile is fired, its launcher can be targeted for attack with less chance of civilian casualties.  Over time the available number of launchers will be reduced but Israel doesn't have that much time.  The second tactic is to send in a ground force to "clear" the area.  The goal here is to locate weapons, ammunition, bunkers, and tunnels and then destroy them.  Once a town has been "cleared" the forces can pull back inside Israel or to one of a few small strategic staging locations that might be taken and held inside Lebanon.  This leaves no Israeli soldiers in the towns to be targets of Hezbollah, in effect leaving Hezbollah with nobody to shoot back at. At the same time it has eliminated a number of missiles.  Air assets can now monitor the "cleared" area and respond immediately to any attempted re-infiltration by Hezbollah.   While air assets might not be able to locate and destroy underground weapons storage, they can be very effective at preventing anyone into an area once it has been "cleared" by ground forces.

So the plan would initially look like some selected raids to establish some strategic basing locations from which further operations can fan out and "clear" various areas what have been sources of missiles and eliminate them.  Israeli forces then withdraw to be used to clear other areas or respond to new areas which might originate missile attacks.  At the same time, areas having been cleared are placed under close air surveillance and any attempts to re-infiltrate or resupply the area are intercepted and eliminated.  Over a fairly short period of time the result is fewer attacks and those that are launched are being launched from further away from the boarder and so have less "reach" into Israel.

This scenario would be very frustrating to Hezbollah's plan.  Once the civilian areas are cleared, the rate of civilian casualties would begin a rapid decline at the same time Hezbollah's missile attacks become fewer and less effective.  Hezbollah would find it extremely difficult to engage Israeli forces to inflict any significant casualties.  The great reduction in civilian casualties (Which we are already seeing. After rapidly reaching 300, the rate of growth has been significantly less.) will result in a little breathing room for Israel to continue operations.  The waning Hezbollah rocket stream will give the impression that Israel is being effective in reducing the threat.  The lower rate of IDF casualties gives Israel some breathing room with domestic opinion.  The general impression at this point would be that Hezbollah is losing and it is simply a matter of time before the threat is reduced completely.  Israel would have effectively achieved her objective of moving Hezbollah North of the Litani because Hezbollah would not be capable of operating to the South without being instantly hammered by Israeli air.

Hezbollah is then faced with a grave choice.  They can go to the negotiation table or they can escalate.  If they escalate by bringing longer range missiles into the battle, this scenario as at an end.  If they choose negotiations, foreign troops are placed South of the Litani, Israel withdraws, Hezbollah stops firing missiles and some agreement is reached concerning the two kidnapped soldiers and Israel would have achieved her objectives with minimal loss.  At the same time Hezbollah would come out in a much weaker position after this is done that it was before things started.  That is an acceptable outcome as no group should profit from kidnap and murder.

UPDATE 18:35PDT July 24:  Two important confirmations of what I believe Israel is doing.  First of all, Israel does appear to be directly targeting the towns.  In fact, as I write this there is a fierce battle for Bint Jbail.  This is significant because it is probably the keystone of Hezbollah support in Southern Lebanon.  Of all the towns in the South near the Israeli border, this one would be the toughest to take.  It seems as if the IDF has decided to crack the hardest nuts first.  An Israeli analyst said the IDF would clear the town and move on. If this operation stops early, Hezbollah will at the very least have lost their "capital" in the South.  The IDF is apparently on a campaign to extract maximum damage to Hezbollah. Bint Jbail is expected to be under IDF control by tonite US time.

The second confirmation is actually in two parts.  The first is a message from U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland condemning Hezbollah for intentionally causing undue civilian casualties.  He chastised Hezbollah for hiding among the civilians and this was carried by the AP wire.  The second interesting piece is a CNN blog exposing Hezbollah's propaganda operation.  This is significant because it exposes both Hezbollah's campaign to increase civilian casualties in order to effectively play the "victim" card and the mechanism being used by Hezbollah to create an image that might not be the reality.  Newsbusters has some additional background.

So we have Hezbollah losing their most important positions in Southern Lebanon at the same time that their propaganda operations are being exposed and therefore diminished.  Simply shining light on Hezbollah's practice of maximizing civilian casualties and manipulating journalists is enough to diminish further impact on public opinion with either of these programs.

As much as it pains me to say so, Dennis Hastert is a political moron.  I could say more but Captain's Quarters says it better.

I have been watching Shepard Smith's coverage from Israel and have been extremely impressed in the balance of his coverage and the clarity of his analysis.  Watching has led me to wonder if I am witnessing the seasoning of America's next historically significant newsman.  He is obviously bright and delivers complex material in a straightforward, no-nonsense manner.  I believe he has the potential to be a great in the industry.  The balance in his reporting is nothing short of amazing and one clearly gets the impression that he is providing the listener with information from all sides, from all points of view.  He comes across as not pushing a particular agenda but of exploring and probing those various viewpoints looking for truth or encouraging counterpoints from those he interviews.

Watching Smith report I do not get the impression that I am being fed a stream of information programmed to result in a predetermined conclusion.  I get no sense of his personal ego or agenda in what is being reported.  Watching Smith conduct an interview is educational and the questions he asks are ones I would ask or better than the ones I would ask.  There is a feeling that he is a mirror reflecting to me the situation in the region so I may draw my own conclusions rather than painting a picture of a reality he would wish the consumer to see.

Smith is young  and has much more field work to do but appears to be earning my respect as a true journalist.  As much ranting as I do about the media, it is a pleasure to watch what so far appears to be the genesis of what has the potential to be a great American journalist and not an entertainer who presents news.  The future could prove out the opposite and I am prepared for that reality and will always view with a skeptical eye but what he has shown so far is nothing short of refreshing in today's news media environment.

If this is true, it is an outrage beyond words.  Evidently the UN troops on the Israeli/Lebanese border stood by and watched while the Hezbollah terrorists ambushed the Israeli soldiers and, dressed in UN uniforms, drew other Israeli troops deeper into an ambush.  The UN soldiers could have prevented the getaway of the kidnappers.  It is reported that the UN troops had been bribed with cash and women.

Blue Crab Boulevard is on the story but it needs the widest possible exposure to determine the truth. 

No matter what happens over the course of the next several days, Syria and Iran have already suffered a massive political setback.  Hezbollah will never again be credible in any claim to be a defender of Lebanon against Israel and they have lost considerable domestic support.  Iran will never again be able to brandish Hezbollah as a weapon in threats to Israel, particularly in statements concerning Iran's nuclear program where in the past, Iran has threatened to use Hezbollah as a proxy force against Israel should there be any interference in that program.  Syria seems that it may be already starting to see the changed political landscape and appears to have begun to moderate their rhetoric a bit.  But regardless of what happens in the near future, Syria and Iran have taken a terrible political toll.

Because Iran is not Arab, they attempt to play the Islamic card in order to purchase sympathy in the Arab region.  That nobody except Syria has responded to Iran's rhetoric in attempting to portray Hezbollah as some kind of proxy for the entire Islamic world must have many Persian strategists losing sleep these days.  This solidarity of Muslims and portrayal of Hezbollah as the bulwark of Islam against Israel and Iran's backing of it and therefore casting itself as the protector of the protector of Islam was key in building Iran's position in that part of the world.  Without that underpinning, their entire sphere of influence outside of Iran proper is in danger of falling apart.  With both Hamas and Hezbollah taking severe punishment with little more than token protests from other countries in the region, the rug of legitimacy for extremist terrorism is being pulled out from under them.

One now wonders about the third leg of the triad of terror.  Where is Palestinian Islamic Jihad these days?  Things also seem very quiet on the West Bank of the Jordan.  Are they watching what is unfolding knowing they will get a dose of the same medicine should they engage in similar activities or are they biding their time and waiting to open a third front against Israel?  If the answer is the former, then Israel can take their time and systematically execute a plan to bring about long range peace.  If the answer is the latter, then I would say "faster please" to Israel lest they find themselves in a trap. 

Imagine Israel fighting Hamas for a period of time.  The world cries for restraint and Israel takes a measured response that is calculated to increase the pressure over time.  Then Hezbollah opens a Northern front at some period later and Israel's response is similar.  Aggressive first reaction but not as powerful as it could be as they gradually ramp up the pressure to meet their goals.  Then imagine a few weeks later a third front is opened in the West Bank.  Now Israel is fighting three battles.  Her supplies are stretched thin, her troops and pilots are tired, the public is growing weary.  Then sometime in August or so, Iran announces it has a nuclear weapon or does something else equally stupid.  Iran might believe that Israel is optimized in their military configuration for powerful, fast, and devastating action but have been forced into lower intensity conflicts on three sides that have by that time drawn out for weeks or months.  Are these actions designed to bleed Israel ahead of some combined Iranian/Syrian actions later when Israel might be somewhat degraded from her normal posture?

I don't pretend to know the answer but I know if I were Israel, I would be keeping a very keen eye indeed on what is going on in the West Bank and the activities of the PIJ.  If Islamic Jihad has gone to ground and is fearful of a dose of the "Hamas solution", then Syria is already irrelevant in the Arab region and Iran has been dealt a severe setback that will probably have severe domestic consequences as their mullocracy can no longer claim to be the protectors of the Islamic world and it will be exposed for the criminals bent on hirabah that they are.  But if PIJ is waiting to open a third front and if they in fact do, then the course Israel must take is obvious.  Should PIJ strike to open a third front, Israel must then either absorb it and do nothing for the moment (thereby thwarting the Syrian/Iranian plan in the short term) or shift from a gradual ratcheting up of response on the other two fronts to the all-out doctrine Israel is best configured for.  If I were Israel at that point, there would no longer be a Gaza Strip.  I would simply annex it now and forever with the idea that the Palestinians had their chance and they wasted it.  The Lebanon operation would be turned full on and as soon as one or the other of those two operations were completed, turn attention to the West Bank after a brief period of rest and resupply.

Which is it?  We will just have to wait and see.

Additional reading:

The Australian: Israel Smells Victory
Captain's Quarters: "Did Assad become the victim of an aborted coup?"
BlueCrabBoulevard: Overplaying?

This posting is actually a rather long comment I left at BlueCrabBoulevard.  I thought I would make it it's own posting on my blog.  The premise was that there was a miscalculation in the Hezbollah attack on Israel.  While I agree there might be a miscalculation, the severity of the Israeli response probably isn't it.  Here is my original (slightly expanded) comment on this thread:

If I were sitting in Lebanon and I had just witnessed Israels reaction to the taking of the soldier in Gaza, I would be fairly certain I would get a similar reaction for performing a similar deed. I see this as something wider. Notice the coordination. Three tapes from Bin Laden? When was the last time we saw that? Attack on Israel from Gaza, attack in India, attack from Lebanon. Al Qaida’s trademark is multiples. They never do one of anything. While I am not saying this is the work of Al Qaida itself, there sure seems to be a role of coordinator being played here.

I believe you have fanatics that have made the same mistake the fanatics have always made. They believe that if they take these spectacular actions, it will rally the masses to follow them into the fires of hell. I think they honestly believe that these actions will result in some more general rising up resulting in widespread mayhem. Problem is that the masses so far don’t seem to be buying it. They didn’t buy it after 9/11 or when Al Qaida appeared in Iraq either. Sure, there were a few thousand who trotted off to their deaths but that is nothing compared to the estimated billion Muslims on this planet. The vast majority just aren’t buying it at all.

I believe we are witnessing a desperate attempt to create that rallying point by attacking the one target the masses can’t refuse to go along with, Israel. It is a desperate attempt to revive their movement. But one major problem is that their best leaders are dead and most of those who would be likely to rise up and join their bloody campaign of hirabah have already been killed, captured or imprisoned. The areas surrounding Israel and the Horn of Africa are probably the last remaining places with any reserves of potential “martyrs”.

If you listen to the rhetoric coming out of Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, the talk is of a war by the Islamic Nation. They are attempting to portray this as being on the scope of a war by all Muslims and in so doing, implying that it is somehow the duty of all Muslims to come to the aid of Hezbollah and Hamas. Besides the masses not buying into the whole notion that hirabah is somehow a noble cause, there is another problem.

Israel has been quite effective in blocking any way for a wouldbe terrorist to get to the area of fighting. Air routes are closed, sea routes are closed, fuel is scarce and what roads are open are flooding with refugees and foreigners trying to get out. There is practically no way for any significant number of volunteers to get to the area of the fighting even if they have the means. It looks like Israel is following the Powell doctrine of “First we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it” that was so effective in the first Gulf War.

I believe there is been a miscalculation but the Israeli response isn’t it. What they miscalculated was the level of support this would have and what the global response to this coordinated series of spectacular actions would be. This could well be a clear sign of the beginning of the end for these terrorists. If this turns out to be a spectacular failure, look for Iran to crumble from within and for Osama to fade away. If this push becomes an embarrassment, the concept of Islamic Revolution is probably dead.

It has been several days and I have posted nothing on the subject.  It still isn't clear what Israel's strategy is and today Hezbollah made thinly veiled threats to begin attacking chemical plants in Israel.  Israel has been strking for five days and the Lebanese army has still taken no action to eject Hezbollah from the border region.  The government of Lebanon appears to have not done much at all except ask for outsiders to please do something.   I would make a joke about the head of the Lebanese government being from New Orleans if this wasn't so serious.

Reading Lebanese blogs, most of them seem to be written by rich kids upset about how all this bombing is messing up their yoga classes or has wrecked the nightlife of Beiruit.  Most of the comments seem to be coming from Americans or Israelis, not many from other Lebanese.  I suspect that is because I am only reading the english blogs as it is my only language and most Lebanese wouldn't post there.

Israel's attempts to prod the government of Lebanon into action apparently having failed, one must wonder what the next step will be.  Israel has implied that they will eject Hezbollah from the border area if Lebanon doesn't but I can't imagine they are looking forward to the task.  Would Syria use that as a pretext to re-occupy the Bekaa valley?  What would Israel's response be in that case?

Again, what I find so amazing is the complete lack of any action aside from emotional speeches. At some point one would think they would realize that Israel is serious and that a Lebanese solution would be better than a foreign situation.

It is also upsetting that people are attempting to somehow say this is all the fault of the US. I read a blog where an American in Lebanon was blaming the Bush administration for Israeli airstrikes.  I suppose people still don't understand that times are different now than they were in the past.  This isn't going to play out as incidents of this kind have before.  We aren't going to see a retaliation and then a ceasefire followed by a period of calm to be repeated all over again at some future date.  It is clear Israel wants a fundamental and permanent change in the situation on the ground along the border with Lebanon and is prepared to create this change itself if Lebanon doesn't act.  By their inaction, the Lebanese government is appearing to work with Hezbollah in this matter.  Lebanon must act.

I have a question for those who would say that Israel's response is "disproprtionate" (the current liberal buzzphrase).  What exactly would you consider a proportionate response?

God help the people of Israel and Lebanon.

By this time last year we had experienced five named storms in the Atlantic.  This year so far we have only had one.  Various news reports would have you believe that since we have record heat in the US midwest, we should be having more tropical storms and that the storms are directly related to temperature.  Well, that isn't exactly so because weather is a complex system that science hasn't completely sorted out yet.

This year's lack of storms is due to higher than normal pressure associated with the "Bermuda high" that controls summer weather in the Atlantic.  This higher pressure causes increased trade winds and the increase in the trade winds does two things.  First, it results in a greater cooling of the ocean surface due to evaporation from the higher winds blowing across it.  As a result, we see surface water temperatures in the Atlantic that are lower than they were last year even though the actual air temperature above the water might be warmer.  So here we have one counterintuitive reality where warmer air temperatures don't mean warmer water temperatures if the air is moving faster and causing more evaporative cooling of the ocean.   The second thing these higher winds do is cause an increase in "wind shear".  This means that it is more difficult for large thunderstorms to build to high altitudes and for good circulation to get started around a local low pressure system.  This wind shear wants to blow the clouds away from the source of their convected moisture.  To oversimplify, it blows the storms apart before they get a chance to form.

Last year we had a Bermuda high that was weaker than normal.  This meant we had weaker trade winds, calmer air, less evaporative cooling of the ocean surface making for higher surface temperature, and a storm vortex could form fairly easily because there was less wind shear to blow it apart.  Predictions for this year had been for a repeat of last year's active season but the strong high pressure in the Atlantic has prevented major storm development thus far.  That can change tomorrow and for reasons that are not clearly understood, storm production could crank up without notice.  This is only July and we have a lot of storm season left so don't get lulled into any false sense of security.  The point being that even the best minds are at the mercy of subtle weather patterns that are still impossible to predict in advance.  Nobody knows how the weather pattern will set up over the ocean until it actually manifests itself and weather being fickle, it can change at any time for no apparent reason.

Townhall is flagging my latest post as having inappropriate content and I will be darned if I can figure out where.  Anyway, I have posted it over at my old blogspot blog.

UPDATE:  I finally got the post below to publish.  It seems that Townhall is a little super paranoid with their filtering.  In the posting there is a sentance about people who would want to "bomb us to tiny bits." The sentance originaly said "bl0w us to tiny bits" and the Townhall sofware apparently objected to the b word as being inappropriate.  Apparently it doesn't check context.

UPDATE:  YAY!  Townhall fixed the blogroll problem and adjusted some colors in the template!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

EUREKA!  I have finally been able to put my finger on exactly what has me so upset about the leaks of intelligence information in many of our major daily newspapers.  I was aware that the reporting upset me and I could think of a lot of reasons why I should be upset such as the fact that it could put me and my family at risk, but none of those reasons exactly hit the root of why I was so angry.  It wasn't until I logged into my online banking today that it dawned on me what it was.  I feel personally violated by these exposures in the paper.

I live in a republic and as such we have people elected and appointed to act as our agents in the conduct of the business required to run a nation.  As a mature and hopefully well-adjusted person, I am aware that I am placing my trust in these people to act in my stead and that some of those matters must remain secret just as I keep secret the passwords to my banking and the bank keeps secret certain measures they take on my behalf in order to keep my account safe from unauthorized use.  In the case of the government, I am placing my trust in them to find people who would harm my family or members of my community and disrupt their plans or bring them to justice.  These measures must remain a secret if they are to succeed.  I do not have any desire or need to know exactly what they are doing at any given moment.  In fact, if I am aware of what they are doing, then I consider something to be severely broken.

The people performing these operations on my behalf operate within a set of rules and have people who oversee them to make sure they stay within those limits.  If they are operating within the limits, have not abused the trust placed in them, and have been successful, then all is well and there is nothing to report.  These people are by proxy an extension of me.  They are protecting my security.  When the New York Times or some other major newspaper exposes one of these programs simply because it was secret, it is akin to exposing my bank's security measures just because they are secret.  I then feel that my security has been violated, I feel more vulnerable, and those two things cause me to become angry.

What these papers have done in these exposures is to, in effect, violate the security of all Americans.  How would Mr. Lichtblau or Mr. Keller feel if I wrote a piece telling everyone about the security measures that their banks use?  What if I published the procedures used to access accounts, which computers were used for what purpose, where they were located, what operating systems they used and how they were interconnected to each other?  What if they had installed protective measures because of past cases of fraud, theft, or other misuse and  I had information about the safeguards that the bank used. What if they asked me not to publish this information because it could cause them to lose the ability to spot fraud or misuse of the system if I exposed it?  What if I then exposed it anyway because I thought Mr. Lichtblau or Mr. Keller should know because banking is very important and they should know everything that goes on.

Mr. Keller and Mr. Lichtblau might be a little worried that their bank was more vulnerable now to abuse.  And they might be angry with me if their accounts had been the victim of extremely serious misuse in the past. America's "security account" was seriously abused on 9/11 and the UK's on 7/7 and now India's on 7/11.  Keller and Lichtblau have not only violated the security of every American, they have violated the security of people across the globe.  They have put the people of Spain, and Bali, and Australia, and India, and the UK, and Germany and France at greater risk of attack by people who want to bomb us to tiny bits, have more than once and probably will again in the future.

For this, my anger is beyond political rhetoric.  It has nothing to do with a right/left political battle of ideals.  It is a matter of basic safety.  These newspapers are a very real threat to the security of civilized nations around the world and it simply must stop.  When they attack my government when it is engaged in a legal method of protecting me, they violate my personal security.  They are a direct personal threat to me and that causes an instinctive response.

Mr. Keller, Mr. Lichtblau, publishers, editors, and journalists across this country, I ask you in the name of basic common human decency to please stop exposing our security measures.  In fact, I would go as far as to ask you to report anyone attempting to leak this information to you because those people are trying to hurt you too.  They are a threat to you and your community.  From one human being to another human being, please don't kill my kids.

Thank you.

In many articles in my own blog and in others, I have noticed how many leaks to the press concerning intelligence and law enforcement operations seem to be politically motivated.  It seems that we have had quite a spate of these since 9/11.  It would be hard to believe that members of these agencies have suddenly become political animals and have begun leaking only since we were attacked.

Since 9/11 it would be logical to conclude that the number of intelligence operations has increased.  It would also be reasonable to assume that members of Congress have been briefed on many of these programs.  Politicians are political animals and it isn't much of a stretch to wonder if they might be leaking information to embarrass their political opposition.

Maybe the time has come to revamp oversight of intelligence to eliminate political figures from the process.  In order for oversight to work, one must inform the political opposition of various things that could be embarrassing.  The temptation would be great if one is the political sort to expose this information and embarrass the political opposition.

I believe we should have an independent panel that operates much like a court. The panel members would be respected individuals who could be cleared to the highest levels.  They would serve terms of at least 8-years, could be removed by 2/3 vote of the Senate and would be nominated by the executive and approved by a majority of the Senate. The panel should consist of at least 7 but not more than 11 members.  Their job would be to hear briefings on various intelligence programs, conduct classified hearings when more information is needed, prepare reports to Congress and respond to Congressional inquiries.  They would also be tasked with initiation of investigations when wrongdoing is suspected or alleged.  Finally, they would be the go-to group for any "whistleblowing".  It would be their responsibility to hear information from the field and determine if any allegations should be investigated or not.  This joint-branch oversight panel would not have any role in funding of intelligence operations.  The main focus should be placed simply on seeing that our operations are legal and within the proper scope of the constitutional powers of the executive branch.

Part of the problem with the current congressional oversight is the role of fiscal blackmail where funding can be impacted simply because one or more members of Congress "doesn't like" something for political reasons and to remove the temptation to exploit intelligence information for partisan political purposes.  What is proposed above is the product of only a couple of hours of thought.  Smarter people than I could come up with something even better.  The basic points are to depoliticize intelligence oversight and give a clear path for the reporting of wrongdoing without exposing operations.

In any case, something must be done.  My confidence in the ability of politicians to oversee intelligence operations in wartime has been  lost.

Listening to Hugh Hewitt play a taped interview with Bill Keller on my way home from work, I became angrier and angrier as the interview went along.  It became perfectly clear as Keller brought up parallels between the war on terror with the Pentagon Papers and the Bay of Pigs that he was missing a fundamental and crucial difference.

At no time during the war in Vietnam did the North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong attack America and cause the deaths of American civilians.  The terrorists have and they have killed us by the thousands.  They killed us right in Keller's city.  They have vowed to do it again and again if they get the chance and they have been caught more than once in various stages of planning and organizing additional attacks.

In slipping up and exposing a US operation in Vietnam, one might have caused us to pull out and avoid all future casualties as happened.  In this case, however, there is no place else to run.  The terrorists are attacking us here at home.  They are killing us in our office buildings in our own streets and Keller would assist them in killing more of us.

This man needs to be stopped before he gets someone killed, possibly his own employees, friends, or family.  If I worked for the NYT or the NY Daily News, I would be asking my boss some serious questions.  This is serious business and the consequences are grave.