sorry--I was rushed and didn't look closely. You are right, two separate bills to FISA, and furthermore the house version never got into the fight (look at current fdl post) due to democratic blunder on house side. If they had played it right, the senate bill would have had to be conferenced with the house bill, and something might have been salvaged. But apparently Hoyer blew it, so no conference.

The senate bill should be linked somewhere at Balkinization--if you find it, post it up as I'd like to see it was well. DClaw may also have it somewhere--if he is looking in.

I am greatly endebted to correspondent bebop-o for his report on the Cato proceedings. I am glad that GG decided to forego alcohol for this event. A wise decision. But I'm gathering from the report that GG is dipping tobacco. This was a surprise. I am unsure whether we're talking skoal, redman, or beechnut, however.

Regardless, dipping is a very valuable rhetorical device, and I'm glad Greenwald is using it. For one thing, sawing off the top of an aluminum can with your jackknife(for purposes of expectoration) while an opponent is trying to make a point can be useful. It is also very effective, and must be deeply satisfying, to let an opponent make a point and then pause, look him dead in the eye, and spit.

Iran-Supplied Bomb Is Killing More Troops in Iraq, U.S. Says

By MICHAEL R. GORDON

Published: August 8, 2007

"according to the American military."

"according to American military officials."

“July was an all-time high,” Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno"

"are used almost exclusively by Shiite militants" [no ref]

"American intelligence officials have presented evidence"

"Tehran has repeatedly denied"

"According to General Odierno"

"according to data supplied by General Odierno’s command"

"American intelligence says "

"Some critics of Bush administration policy, saying "

"According to American military data,"

"according to American military officials. "

"General Odierno said Iran was increasing its support"

“I think it is because the Iranians are surging support to the special groups,” he said, referring to the American name for Iranian-backed cells here. “Over the last three to four months, it has picked up in terms of equipment, training and dollars.”

“I think they want to influence the decision potentially coming up in September,” he added. "

"General Odierno said Iranians had also provided "

"Serial numbers taken from the rocket launchers, he said, indicated that they were made in Iran. "

"Ryan C. Crocker, the American envoy in Iraq who led the discussions for the United States, said"

"The Iranians, Mr. Crocker added, maintained their position that they had “absolutely nothing to do with” the attacks. "

The article is accompanied by a picture of General Odierno, saluting. General Odierno is the only specific source cited, for actual evidence.

Given that Odierno serves as the primary--and in some cases the only--source of information on alleged Iranian conspiring in Iraq, it may be useful to know more about him:

Lt. Col. David Poirier, who commanded a military police battalion attached to the 4th Infantry Division and was based in Tikrit from June 2003 to March 2004, said the division's approach was indiscriminate. "With the brigade and battalion commanders, it became a philosophy: 'Round up all the military-age males, because we don't know who's good or bad.' " Col. Alan King, a civil affairs officer working at the Coalition Provisional Authority, had a similar impression of the 4th Infantry's approach. "Every male from 16 to 60" that the 4th Infantry could catch was detained, he said. "And when they got out, they were supporters of the insurgency."

The unit's tactics were no accident, given its commanding general, according to his critics. "Odierno, he hammered everyone," said Joseph K. Kellogg Jr., a retired Army general who was at Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led occupation agency.

But that criticism hasn't hurt Odierno's subsequent career. When he returned to the United States in mid-2004, Odierno was promoted to be the military assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He recently took command over III Corps at Fort Hood, Tex., and is scheduled at the end of this year to return to Iraq to become the No. 2 U.S. commander there, overseeing the day-to-day operations of U.S. forces.

From:

Fighting the Insurgency One Unit's Aggressive Approach

'It Looked Weird and Felt Wrong'

By Thomas E. Ricks

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, July 24, 2006; Page A01

Full piece linked at name below.

repeating from the wapo story:

...it became a philosophy: 'Round up all the military-age males, because we don't know who's good or bad.' ... "Every male from 16 to 60" that the 4th Infantry could catch was detained, he said. "And when they got out, they were supporters of the insurgency."

The harmonics between Odierno's strategy described here, and the new FISA "vacuum it all up--and datamine it" strategy are remarkable. I would add that the strategy is followed when the actor (let's call it government) knows little about the subject population, and does not trust that population.

A friend of mine who knows of such things reports the following:

I did a bit of searching, and it seems that Mao's earliest use of this quote dates to a speech he made in 1927, at which he said that:

"We [the Chinese Communist Party] used to criticize Sun Yatsen's military campaigns, and that we were just the opposite: we [the Communist movement] were not a military campaign, but a popular movement. Chiang Kai-shek and Tang Shengzhi all rose to power through the barrel of a gun, and no matter that we are independent, we must recognize that political power comes from the barrel of a gun."

Just as with our own electoral candidates, we butcher historical figures with their own sound bites.