Richard Clarke, former terrorism czar during the run up to 9-11 that saw us lose Able Danger leads on terrorists Atta, Midhar, Shehhi and Hadmi to some reactionary bureaucratic house cleaning and also lose the leads to Atta in Hamburg, has come out with another of his schizophrenic moments. Clark is always saying how Bush did not do all he could to stop 9-11. Now Clarke adds that allowing NSA leads on terrorist contacts in the US to be provided to the FBI to follow up on is illegal.

And Clarke, who left the White House in 2003 voicing complaints that the administration had not taken the threat of terrorism seriously before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, maintains the administration still is mishandling the war on terror.
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Clarke says he didn’t know about the National Security Agency’s surveillance of telephone calls and emails of people in the U.S. communicating with suspected terrorists, which the president secretly authorized following 9/11 and has re-authorized many times since then. That surveillance program only recently was made public.

“I think what they are doing is illegal,’’ Clarke said today at a forum of the Center for National Policy, a nonpartisan research center in Washington.

Clarke seems to be of two minds (or more) on the subject. Instead of monitoring terrorists and checking out leads on their communications with people in the US, Clarke is suggesting the touchy-feely approach:

With its focus on a “tactical’’ battle with terrorists, he said today, the White House is losing a “strategic’’ battle for the hearts and minds of people in Islamic nations and Europe.

Personally, there is no better way to change a terrorist’s heart than to find him and lock him up or kill him. Tends to really be a life-changing experience.

Clarke is naive to the point of dangerous if he thinks someone ready to die for their cause can be talked or bribed out of their cause.