More on the hatreds of the Left

From The American Thinker:

The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times today disclosed the existence of a secret, but entirely legal, program to monitor financial transactions between America and overseas nations. A priceless counter-terrorism tool may have been rendered ineffectual.

For certain kinds of funds transactions there is a nerve center, a Belgian cooperative that routes about 6 trillion dollars daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. This is where the program was focused.

The goal was to trace financial flows between people previously suspected of having Al Qaeda or other terror ties. The operation, up till now anyway, has proven a success:

[The program] has provided clues to money trails and ties between possible terrorists and groups financing them, the officials said. In some instances, they said, the program has pointed them to new suspects, while in others it has buttressed cases already under investigation.

Among the successes was the capture of a Qaeda operative, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, believed to be the mastermind of the 2002 bombing of a Bali resort, several officials said. The Swift data identified a previously unknown figure in Southeast Asia who had financial dealings with a person suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda; that link helped locate Hambali in Thailand in 2003, they said.

In the United States, the program has provided financial data in investigations into possible domestic terrorist cells as well as inquiries of Islamic charities with suspected of having links to extremists, the officials said.

The data also helped identify a Brooklyn man who was convicted on terrorism-related charges last year, the officials said. The man, Uzair Paracha, who worked at a New York import business, aided a Qaeda operative in Pakistan by agreeing to launder $200,000 through a Karachi bank, prosecutors said.

Before, civil libertarians rush to the defense of this disclosure, they should bear in mind that, as admitted by the New York Times, the program is entirely legal. The administration has briefed the members of Congress entitled to know of the program with nary a protest. (Of course, this will change if the issue becomes politically potent. Then there will be a chorus of feigned outrage that Tia Maria’s money orders are being spied upon.)

The question that I want us to think about is why these newspapers would print this information.

My guess is that it is fear which is motivating them. They are desperately, terribly afraid that American intelligence and law enforcement agencies and the military will put al-Qaeda out of business before the 2008 presidential election. They are also afraid that the US government under President Bush will score some major victory before the 2006 congressional election.

They can read the polls as well as anyone else can. They can also read the translations of the documents recently recovered in Iraq in which the disarray, pessimism and low morale of the al-Qaeda organization in Iraq are revealed.

The very real possibility that the Iraqi resistance might collapse before 2008 must be haunting the Left like their worst nightmare. Anything they can do to buck up the terrorists, to make it harder to shut down their networks is worth doing since it will help Democrats regain the power which they have had stolen from them. The power which they see as their birthright.

That this is treason honestly does not occur to them. Their hatred of Republicans in general and George W Bush in particular is so great that it literally blinds them to anything else. This phenomenon has been termed, only half jokingly, as Bush Derangement Syndrome. In their universe ANYTHING which damages the president and aids Democrat electoral prospects is by definition good.

The only thing that can possibly deter them from further actions like this is the realistic possibility of prosecution and harsh sentences upon conviction.