Islamic Art Images of Prophet Muhammad

Lets put this Prophet Muhammad image thing to bed. Some Muslims obviously do not believe in depicting Muhammad. Other Muslims obviously do believe in depicting Muhammad, as proven by the following links to depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in Muslim art. The question becomes: Do we give up some of our freedom in order to partially (minutely) appease the portion of the Muslim world which wants us dead anyway?

Prophet Muhammad Image Archive.
Prophet Muhammad depicted in Islamic Art.
Prophet Muhammad depicted on murals of modern Iranian buildings.

Hat tip: www.zombietime.com:

This Los Angeles Times article points out that several leading museums in the United States possess Islamic portraits of Mohammed in their permanent collections, though they are rarely displayed. (Hat tip: Killgore Trout.)
This February 14 article in the Washington Post also lists several museums and galleries in the U.S. which own paintings of Mohammed.

Cartoon Jihad and Winston Churchill

Men occasionally stumble over truth. But most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
-Winston Churchill

When we were attacked on Sept. 11 ...
[w]hat we never imagined was that the free press ...
would be among the first to surrender.
-Bill Bennett and Alan Dershowitz, writing in WaPo

When the cartoon jihad began, I was mildly interested. As it became obvious the cartoon jihad was an Islamic fundamentalist strategy to maintain control of their base, I became more interested. As people died, and property was destroyed, I became even more interested. As the West reacted with denial, self-doubt, and cowardice, I became keenly interested - to the point of crying out a warning: this is war!

Apparently, it hasn't occurred to the media poo-bahs that the prohibition against likenesses of Mohammed should apply only to Muslims, not to the rest of us. (As Dennis Prager noted, "It's like Jews rioting when someone else eats pork.")
[...]
And that's what makes the press's abject cravenness so consequential. It implies that, for all intents and purposes, we are living under sharia.
-Joel Engel in the Weekly Standard

The cartoon jihad IS the war between Islamic fundamentalism and Western Civilization - it just looks different from our preconceptions of what war is. Wake up, Western Civilization! Wake up! We are in a war for the very existence of our culture! It would be nice if we candidly acknowledged that. And terrible weapons are coming - in the very near future - to an Islamic nation within travelling distance of you. These weapons will roil the very nature of the conflict. It would be nice if we candidly acknowledged that also.

We must think strategically: Islam must reform itself - right now - or else. From Wretchard's brilliant The Three Conjectures, written in Sept. 2003:

However, suppose Pakistan or North Korea engineered a reliable plutonium weapon that could be built to one-point safety in any machine shop with a minimum of skill, giving Islamic terrorists the means to repeatedly attack America indefinitely. Under these circumstances, there would no incentive to retaliate proportionately. The WMD exchange would escalate uncontrollably until Islam was destroyed.
[...]
The so-called strengths of Islamic terrorism: fanatical intent; lack of a centralized leadership; absence of a final authority and cellular structure guarantee uncontrollable escalation once the nuclear threshold is crossed.
[...]
The most startling result of this analysis is that a catastrophic outcome for Islam is guaranteed whether America retaliates or not. Even if the President decided to let all Americans die to expiate their historical guilt, why would Islamic terrorists stop after that?
[...]
It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror, the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us. That effort really consists of two separate aspects: a campaign to destroy the locus of militant Islam and prevent their acquisition of WMDs; and an attempt to awaken the world to the urgency of the threat. While American arms have proven irresistible, much of Europe, as well as moderates in the Islamic world, remain blind to the danger and indeed increase it.

Think strategically! If interim Western options such as: economic obstruction, spying, profiling, torture, invasion, spreading democracy, and spreading Western cultural principles, are ineffective; or are unavailable for political reasons; the West will use the only option left to it: nuclear attack. It would be nice if we candidly acknowledged that. Islam, if it emerges from the ruins at all, will emerge in a form which is currently unrecognizable. It would be nice if we candidly acknowledged that.

Western Civilization must generate cultural self-confidence now. The West must stand solidly against the fundamentalists now - when the fundamentalists are weaker than they might become, and when their weaponry includes cartoon jihad, instead of actual WMD. Our culture, and our confidence in it, is the roof which protects us. We must patch the holes in our confidence while the sun yet shines. We must extend the roof eastward while the sun yet shines.


Do not be people without minds of your own,
saying that if others treat you well you will treat them well,
and that if they do wrong you will do wrong.
Rather, accustom yourselves to do good if people do good,
and to not do wrong if they do evil.

-The Prophet Muhammad
(reported by Tirmidhi)

except that this conflict will not be decided by Muslims, but rather by the degree of cultural confidence and moral courage exhibited by the West. Accordingly, there is nothing like Winston Churchill to stiffen spines:

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Winston Churchill

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
Winston Churchill

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Winston Churchill

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Winston Churchill

Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves.
Winston Churchill

These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.
Winston Churchill

Sarah and Emily Hughes

Look at these pictures, and study Sarah Hughes' and Emily Hughes' faces. Do you see hesitation? Fear? You do not. You see joy in the moment, concentration, self-confidence. You see everything good about sport and humanity. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes must be parenting geniuses. I was moved to tears watching Sarah Hughes' courageous skate in 2002. Sarah rose to the occasion as well as any athlete ever. She hit a jump about one-third of the way into her performance, and she came out of it with the most natural and joyous smile possible. At that moment, Sarah knew, and anyone watching knew, she was about to ace the remainder of her performance. There was no doubt. It would've been the biggest fluke in the world if she had made a mistake after that. The rest of her performance was joyous and breathtaking. It was art. Now comes Emily, with little chance of receiving a medal, yet skating with joy, concentration, and self-confidence. If Mr. and Mrs. Hughes ever write a book, I will be first in line to read it.

This is what I wrote last night:
It's not that either of the Hughes girls are the best ice-skaters ever, at all.
It is, rather, that they skate into the most intense situations, and deliver performances which are dang near as good as they can possibly do. It is impressive. It is inspiring.

Rock Chunkin' Muslim Protesters Throw Like Girls

`
Apparently, Allah never transmitted throwing instructions through the Prophet and to the faithful. Also, no one ever issued a fatwa saying: Keep your elbow up! Gotta be embarrassing for those guys, and maybe it's partly why they're so pissed all the time. I'm just saying. Muslim societies are called "shame societies", and this is obviously something they are ashamed of.

`

Visiting the U.S.S. Lexington

While in Corpus Christi, visited the U.S.S. Lexington! First time I've ever been on a ship longer than about 35'. The Lexington's Flight Deck is 910' long, and 196' at its widest point. (1, 2.

I couldn't help thinking the flight deck - 303 yards x 65 yards at its widest point - would make a nice par 4 of about 290 yards. One would tee an iron from the stern, land in the fattish 50+ yard width beside the conning tower, then bore a knocked down wedge through the wind, and into a green surrounded by water on three sides. I would place the pin about 25' from the back edge. If you put the pin near a corner, only rookies would go for it with a wedge approach. If you elevated the green, and built a St. Andrews' 18th type "Valley of Sin" in front, you'd have a darned challenging hole. Especially if the ocean breeze was blowing into the face of your approach. I believe, seriously, most pros would intentionally land short of the pin, so as not to take any risk of going long. Because the flight deck narrows radically near the bow, I doubt anyone would go for the green from the tee - unless they were trailing by one, and this was the last hole, and the wind was absolutely still. Also, as was the case during my visit, I would place some fighter planes around the flight deck as additional obstacles/decorations. This would be especially good during a tournament, as you could move the planes around from day to day, in conjunction with the pin placement for that day, and also in conjunction with the tee box placement - which could be moved from port to starboard along the stern. I would definitely have the tee shot come out through a tunnel of fighter planes on some days. That would be quite majestic. Imagine a clubhouse and bleachers facing out from an ocean cliff. The golfers could walk down a bridge to play the 18 hole on the aircraft carrier, with fans watching from above. After, golfers could repair to the casinos below decks, and then to their staterooms.

This is the fifth Lexington - so named in 1943 - after the fourth Lexington was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea. This fifth Lexington was repeatedly hit by the Japanese during WWII - including a major wounding from a kamikaze plane - yet fought on. Japanese radio reported this Lexington as sunk on four separate occasions, and finally nicknamed her "The Blue Ghost", in honor of her distinctive metallic blue paint, and her seeming resurrection again and again. The metallic blue coloring is very similar to the Dallas Cowboys' football pants' color from the 1970's.

After the aforementioned kamikaze attack, the Lexington lost steering, and circled around the Pacific Ocean both out of control and burning. The Captain broadcast for the crew to go about its duties calmly, and to not worry. The Captain said worrying was his job, and he would do the worrying for all of them. The Lexington eventually guided herself back to Pearl Harbor by steering with her engines: firing on the port side, then the starboard side, to control her direction.

I didn't realize an aircraft carrier rarely, if ever, travelled alone. Aircraft carriers were so valuable that they often went out in the center of armadas, and would be surrounded by circular layers of progressively smaller ships, which formed defensive perimeters to protect aircraft carriers against submarine attack. A sub wanting to get a shot would first have to play like Frogger in the video game, and try to work through the lanes of smaller ships, in order to get to the larger target.

I really dug kicking around below decks, and seeing what an aircraft carrier is all about. I saw this pilot briefing room, complete with comfy chairs for the pilots, who must've been quite pampered, considering it was wartime. Flight was still so romantic during WWII. The military must've wanted the pilots as sharp and as rested as possible for their flights. No tired butts for those boys - only cushy leather chairs would do.

I saw one sign saying the ship carried 1550 crew, and another sign saying the ship carried 3,748 crew, so I don't know the correct figure. The Lexington had barber shop chairs, dental chairs(performed 6,000 dental procedures per year), infirmary, operating rooms(specially designed for quick clean-up during high volume periods), chapel, and a small theater. It had an airplane repair area in midship. And guns everywhere: 12 five-inch guns + 68 40mm guns. It's hard to see how any plane could've gotten through the guns - except in a massive simultaneous attack of numerous planes - which did happen a few times.

As fun, and as interesting, and as big as the Lexington is, I have to admit: I would've felt a bit constricted if I were confined to her on a voyage. I'm a wide open spaces on land guy. On a voyage, once you get the lay of the ship, well, that's all there is. It's a lot: 290 yards x 60 yards x 16 decks high(5 deck Conning Tower + 11 decks below the Flight Deck) - but that is all there is. Once on the ocean, a sailor was stuck. He couldn't go anywhere, except to stroll around the ship. And around, and around, and up and down, and up and down. Sounds odd, but I would've gotten a bit claustrophobic. I think I would've hung around the flight deck in my spare time, just to see some horizon.

All in all, though, an aircraft carrier is mega-cool. U.S.S. Lexington history: 1, 2

Addendum:
Several U.S. cities have turned down memorials to war related heroes or ships, for politically correct reasons of not wanting to promote war. That is a shame - for those cities, and for our nation. Wretchard comments.

Favorite Quotes + Patton

Alex Rodriguez, hit by a pitch, and accosted by Jason Varitek for yelling at Red Sox pitcher, turns on Varitek:
Alex Rodriguez- "F*** YOU! F*** YOU! F*** YOU!"
Jason Varitek- "F*** YOU! We don't throw at F***ing .275 hitters!"

Allah in the House
Osama and the mujahideen saw a website that claimed Jews are controlling the world with robots. The mujahideen were frightened, and declared jihad on robots: The intifada against Jew robots continues apace this morning, kufr. Three more Zionist vending machines and 11 ATMs have been liquidated by shahids in glorious martyrdom operations.

Charles Krauthammer:
"To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil."

(Greg's note: except for the liberals who don't believe in the existence of evil...)

Jamie Lee Curtis' exasperated speech to Kevin Kline's Otto, in A Fish Called Wanda:
"Aristotle was not Belgian. The central teaching of Buddhism is not 'Every man for himself.' The London Underground is not a political movement. These are mistakes, Otto. I looked them up."

-Howard Kurtz via Virginia Postrel
"Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he 'didn't want to see any stories' quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used."

via Jay Nordlinger Pine Bluff. Black History Month. Come to school as famous African-American. My co-worker's kid was told to come as Tina Turner. My co-worker informed the teacher that her child would come as Condoleezza Rice instead. The teacher refused to allow it, on grounds that Rice 'is for white people.'

Frederick the Great--
"To defend everything is to defend nothing."

The keynote is delivered by Ann Coulter, in an instant classic published today:

In order to express their displeasure with the idea that Muslims are violent, thousands of Muslims around the world engaged in rioting, arson, mob savagery, flag-burning, murder and mayhem, among other peaceful acts of nonviolence. Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back.

The little darlings brandish placards with typical Religion of Peace slogans, such as:
"Behead Those Who Insult Islam,"
"Europe, you will pay, extermination is on the way" and
"Butcher those who mock Islam."

They warn Europe of their own impending 9/11 with signs that say:
"Europe: Your 9/11 will come"
— which is ironic, because they almost had me convinced the Jews were behind the 9/11 attack.

Patton Info:
The known copies of Patton's actual speech to the Third Army on June 5, 1944 were destroyed in a fire. Charles M. Province discovered an extra copy which one of Patton's aides had stored away in an attic. Click to read Patton's actual speech, which was delivered without notes. Mr. Province relates that one of Patton's compatriots said the real-life General was much more profane than the Hollywood version. Mr. Province continues:

He could, when necessary, open up with both barrels and let forth such blue-flamed phrases that they seemed almost eloquent in their delivery. When asked by his nephew about his profanity, Patton remarked,

"When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight it's way out of a piss-soaked paper bag."

"As for the types of comments I make", he continued with a wry smile, "Sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence."

NSA Kerfuffle Explained

Note: Addendum added to bottom.

-- Fact: before 9/11, NSA listened in on suspected terrorist phone calls from overseas to the U.S., then refused to contact the FBI regarding the U.S. parties to the conversations. They feared they would be charged with domestic spying if they breached the "Gorelick Wall" between international and domestic intelligence.

-- Fact: after 9/11, NSA listened in on these same conversations, but passed on relevant leads about American citizens to the FBI. This was new. FBI investigations were then conducted, and sometimes the FBI went to FISA for wiretap warrants.

--Speculation: When the FBI went to FISA, they had to justify why an American citizen should be considered a suspect worthy of being wiretapped. The FBI would include either of both of these:
1) the suspect spoke either to a suspected terrorist, or to a terrorist-frequented phone location; and/or
2) the contents of that phone conversation.

-- Fact: FISA judges reportedly have concerns that illegally obtained information is being used to justify suspect status for American citizens, thus justifying a FISA warrant. The FISA judges want more information about how certain international phone calls are identified to be listened to.

--Speculation: when FISA judges understand NSA procedure, their concerns will be mollified. NSA is using data mining and signals intelligence procedures to identify telephone calls which originate from suspicious sources. NSA procedures are all about mathematics, statistical regressions, and gigantically powerful computers doing comparisons and computations. Data mining is a powerful tool, and FISA judges will agree that it justifies listening in on certain international conversations.

A.J. Strata:
Over and over again the administration has been clear the focus was international calls, focused on targets overseas, which could legally include contacts here in the US. Monitoring a call doesn't require legal authority specific to both sides of a call. Only one side needs to be legally authorized, and international calls are authorized outside FISA as long as the target it overseas.

If, in monitoring Party A's phone call from Europe to the U.S., Party B in the U.S. begins to look suspicious - are we supposed to ignore that? Do Democrats and the NYT want us to ignore that? In the days of the Gorelick Wall, we did ignore that, to protect American citizens against overstepping of bounds by agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA.

-- Fact: FBI agents complained to the NYT that they had to investigate so many unfruitful leads given to them by NSA.

-- Speculation: These complaints amount to a bunch of nothing. Maybe we need more agents or investigators. However, the fact that FBI agents may have to run one hundred investigations to hit on one terrorist means nothing. The one terrorist needs to be caught. The complaining FBI agents are spoiled, and have tunnel vision.

-- Fact: Many times, the White House briefed the leaders of relevant Senate Committees about the Signals Intelligence Program. Democrats are now complaining that the White House should have briefed entire Senate Committees, instead of the leaders of Senate Committees. There is language, somewhere, which says the White House shall brief the relevant committees.

--Speculation: These complaints, though technically true, will amount to a bunch of nothing. Its hard to make a common sense case that the White House was negligent about informing the Senate. This is another area of Executive Branch vs. Legislative Branch tension. Violations in this area are not so much violations of law, as they are elbowing amongst equals, for power and position. The language about informing relevant committees could be changed at any time. Something else: Senators cannot be trusted to keep a secret. I would love to see the White House throw some Executive Branch/Constitution elbows over this issue, then see where it all sorts out in a SCOTUS case. And, it won't happen b/c Repubs control Congress, but I'd love to see Congress try to justify withholding NSA funding to the public by whining that

"The White House only briefed the heads of committees, and not the entire committees."

Yep. I'd like to see what public opinion would be about that complaint. A boy can dream.

-- Fact: When the first NYT story broke, there was immediate speculation that the U.S. was using an Echelon style program to key in on words and phrases your grandmother might use, and then listen in on her conversations. General Michael V. Hayden is PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, AND FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY. In an address the The National Press Club in Washington on 1/23/06, General Hayden said the NSA program is specifically targeted, and is

"not a driftnet over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches....
[...]
(responding to a question): [W]e're not there sucking up coms and then using some of these magically alleged keyword searches -- "Did he say 'jihad'? Let's get --" I mean, that is not -- do you know how much time Americans spend on the phone in international calls alone, okay? In 2003, our citizenry was on the phone in international calls alone for 200 billion minutes, okay? I mean, beyond the ethical considerations involved here, there are some practical considerations about being a drift net. This is targeted, this is focused. This is about al Qaeda. "

Speculatively reading between the lines: an Echelon-type capability is being utilized - but in a targeted fashion . I will include General Hayden's best remarks - and they were very enlightening - in an addendum at the bottom of this post. The Bush Administration is loudly and repeatedly claiming:
1) The NSA program targets calls which originate from overseas
2) No domestic wiretapping is done without a FISA warrant.

I see no profit in the Bush Administration lying about this so publicly and so vociferously. I give them the benefit of the doubt. I speculate that Echelon-type capability is being used inside the U.S. - with a FISA warrant in hand. The NSA Kerfluffle looks like a case of wishful thinking, jumping to conclusions, and controversy fanning by the MSM and the Dems. Time Magazine, previewing A.G. Gonzales testimony to the Senate:

"Contrary to the speculation reflected in some media reporting," Gonzales writes, "the terrorist surveillance program is not a dragnet that sucks in all conversations and uses computer searches to pick out calls of interest. No communications are intercepted unless first it is determined that one end of the call is outside of the country and professional intelligence experts have probable cause (that is, ‘reasonable grounds to believe') that a party to the communication is a member or agent of al-Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization."

--Speculation: This story started with leaks from Senator Rockefeller(click here to read his disgusting memo on how to use his Intelligence Commitee Chairmanship to hurt Bush politically) and from FISA Judge Robertson(click here and here to peruse some of his questionable judicial acts) to the NYT. The main allegations concern

1. FISA judge concerns about how phone calls are targeted by NSA,
2. FBI agent complaints that they are tracking too many unfruitful leads, and
3. Senate Democrat political complaints about entire committees not being briefed.

That's why this is merely a kerfluffle, and not a full-fledged scandal. In future, maybe there will be a full-fledged scandal over a domestic, Echelon-type driftnet program. This is not it.



Update:
A.J. Strata expertly explains the kerfluffle, including this bit:

the (Washington) Post confirms the big change was not directing NSA to do something different, but it was to have NSA pass information to domestic law enforcement, which would take high interest targets to FISA. A formal process was apparently set up with FISA in 2002 to open the door to these ‘tainted’ leads:

Yet a special channel set up for just that purpose four years ago has gone largely unused, according to an authoritative account. Since early 2002, when the presiding judge of the federal intelligence court first learned of Bush’s program, he agreed to a system in which prosecutors may apply for a domestic warrant after warrantless eavesdropping on the same person’s overseas communications. The annual number of such applications, a source said, has been in the single digits.

Clear as a bell - the NSA was not passing leads to FBI-FISA before then.

We should all note that over the last 4.5 years since 9-11, the Post is saying up to 45 terrorists may have been detected in the US before they could execute their plans to kill Americans. And Bush is in trouble for this?


Addendum:
Remarks of General Hayden, former Director of NSA, on 1/23/06, at The National Press Club:

...February of 2000. The great urban legend out there then was something called "Echelon" and the false accusation that NSA was using its capabilities to advance American corporate interests -- signals intelligence for General Motors, or something like that. You know, with these kinds of charges, the turf back then feels a bit familiar now. How could we prove a negative -- that we weren't doing certain things -- without revealing the appropriate things we were doing that kept America safe? You see, NSA had, NSA has an existential problem. In order to protect American lives and liberties, it has to be two things: powerful in its capabilities, and secretive in its methods. And we exist in a political culture that distrusts two things most of all: power and secrecy.
[...]
And by the way, "U.S. person" routinely includes anyone in the United States, citizen or not.
So, for example, because they were in the United States -- and we did not know anything more -- Mohamed Atta and his fellow 18 hijackers would have been presumed to have been protected persons, U.S. persons, by NSA prior to 9/11.
[...]
Inherent foreign intelligence value is one of the metrics we must use to ensure that we conform to the Fourth Amendment's reasonable standard when it comes to protecting the privacy of these kinds of people. If the U.S. person information isn't relevant, the data is suppressed. It's a technical term we use; we call it "minimized." The individual is not even mentioned. Or if he or she is, he or she is referred to as "U.S. Person Number One" or "U.S. Person Number Two." Now, inherent intelligence value. If the U.S. person is actually the named terrorist, well, that could be a different matter.
[...]
Now, as another part of our adjustment, we also turned on the spigot of NSA reporting to FBI in, frankly, an unprecedented way. We found that we were giving them too much data in too raw form. We recognized it almost immediately, a question of weeks, and we made all of the appropriate adjustments. Now, this flow of data to the FBI has also become part of the current background noise, and despite reports in the press of thousands of tips a month, our reporting has not even approached that kind of pace. You know, I actually find this a little odd. After all the findings of the 9/11 commission and other bodies about the failure to share intelligence, I'm up here feeling like I have to explain pushing data to those who might be able to use it. And of course, it's the nature of intelligence that many tips lead nowhere, but you have to go down some blind alleys to find the tips that pay off.
[...]
I testified in open session to the House Intel Committee in April of the year 2000. At the time, I created some looks of disbelief when I said that if Osama bin Laden crossed the bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario to Niagara Falls, New York, there were provisions of U.S. law that would kick in, offer him protections and affect how NSA could now cover him. At the time, I was just using this as some of sort of stark hypothetical; 17 months later, this is about life and death.
[...]
in the end, NSA would have to implement this, and every operational decision the agency makes is made with the full involvement of its legal office. NSA professional career lawyers -- and the agency has a bunch of them -- have a well-deserved reputation. They're good, they know the law, and they don't let the agency take many close pitches.

And so even though I knew the program had been reviewed by the White House and by DOJ, by the Department of Justice, I asked the three most senior and experienced lawyers in NSA: ...how did these activities square with these facts?

They reported back to me. They supported the lawfulness of this program. Supported, not acquiesced. This was very important to me. A veteran NSA lawyer, one of the three I asked, told me that a correspondent had suggested to him recently that all of the lawyers connected with this program have been very careful from the outset because they knew there would be a day of reckoning. The NSA lawyer replied to him that that had not been the case. NSA had been so careful, he said -- and I'm using his words now here -- NSA had been so careful because in this very focused, limited program, NSA had to ensure that it dealt with privacy interests in an appropriate manner.

In other words, our lawyers weren't careful out of fear; they were careful out of a heartfelt, principled view that NSA operations had to be consistent with bedrock legal protections.
[...]
The purpose of all this is not to collect reams of intelligence, but to detect and prevent attacks. The intelligence community has neither the time, the resources nor the legal authority to read communications that aren't likely to protect us, and NSA has no interest in doing so. These are communications that we have reason to believe are al Qaeda communications
[...]
Their work is actively overseen by the most intense oversight regime in the history of the National Security Agency.
[...]
Let me talk for a few minutes also about what this program is not. It is not a driftnet over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about.

This is targeted and focused. This is not about intercepting conversations between people in the United States. This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al Qaeda. We bring to bear all the technology we can to ensure that this is so. And if there were ever an anomaly, and we discovered that there had been an inadvertent intercept of a domestic-to-domestic call, that intercept would be destroyed and not reported.
[...]
So let me make this clear. When you're talking to your daughter at state college, this program cannot intercept your conversations. And when she takes a semester abroad to complete her Arabic studies, this program will not intercept your communications.

Let me emphasize one more thing that this program is not -- and, look, I know how hard it is to write a headline that's accurate and short and grabbing. But we really should shoot for all three -- accurate, short and grabbing. I don't think domestic spying makes it. One end of any call targeted under this program is always outside the United States.
[...]
Had this program been in effect prior to 9/11, it is my professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al Qaeda operatives in the United States, and we would have identified them as such.

I've said earlier that this program's been successful. Clearly not every lead pans out from this or any other source, but this program has given us information that we would not otherwise had been able to get. It's impossible for me to talk about this any more in a public way without alerting our enemies to our tactics
[...]
American intelligence, and especially American SIGINT, signals intelligence, is the frontline of defense in dramatically changed circumstances, circumstances in which if we fail to do our job well and completely, more Americans will almost certainly die. The speed of operations, the ruthlessness of the enemy, the pace of modern communications have called on us to do things and to do them in ways never before required. We've worked hard to find innovative ways to protect the American people and the liberties we hold dear. And in doing so, we have not forgotten who we are either.

Thank you. I'll be happy to take your questions.
[...]
QUESTION: Yes, Wayne Madsen, syndicated columnist. General, how do you explain the fact that there were several rare spectacles of whistleblowers coming forward at NSA, especially after 9/11, something that hasn't really happened in the past, who have complained about violations of FISA and United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18, which implements the law at the agency?
GEN. HAYDEN: I talked to the NSA staff on Friday. The NSA inspector general reports to me, as of last Friday, from the inception of this program through last Friday night, not a single employee of the National Security Agency has addressed a concern about this program to the NSA IG. I should also add that no member of the NSA workforce who has been asked to be included in this program has responded to that request with anything except enthusiasm. I don't know what you're talking about.
[...]
GEN. HAYDEN: NSA cannot -- under the FISA statute, NSA cannot put someone on coverage and go ahead and play for 72 hours while it gets a note saying it was okay. All right? The attorney general is the one who approves emergency FISA coverage, and the attorney general's standard for approving FISA coverage is a body of evidence equal to that which he would present to the court. So it's not like you can throw it on for 72 hours.
[...]
In the instances where this program applies, FISA does not give us the operational effect that the authorities that the president has given us give us. Look. I can't -- and I understand it's going to be an incomplete answer, and I can't give you all the fine print as to why, but let me just kind of reverse the answer just a bit. If FISA worked just as well, why wouldn't I use FISA? To save typing? No. There is an operational impact here, and I have two paths in front of me, both of them lawful, one FISA, one the presidential -- the president's authorization. And we go down this path because our operational judgment is it is much more effective. So we do it for that reason.
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I'm saying that the characteristics we need to do what this program's designed to do -- to detect and prevent -- make FISA a less useful tool.
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we're not there sucking up coms and then using some of these magically alleged keyword searches -- "Did he say 'jihad'? Let's get --" I mean, that is not -- do you know how much time Americans spend on the phone in international calls alone, okay? In 2003, our citizenry was on the phone in international calls alone for 200 billion minutes, okay? I mean, beyond the ethical considerations involved here, there are some practical considerations about being a drift net. This is targeted, this is focused. This is about al Qaeda.
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QUESTION: Justine Redman with CNN. How was national security harmed by The New York Times reporting on this program? Don't the bad guys already assume that they're being monitored anyway, and shouldn't Americans, you know, bear in mind that they might be at any time?
GEN. HAYDEN: You know, we've had this question asked several times. Public discussion of how we determine al Qaeda intentions, I just -- I can't see how that can do anything but harm the security of the nation. And I know people say, "Oh, they know they're being monitored." Well, you know, they don't always act like they know they're being monitored. But if you want to shove it in their face constantly, it's bound to have an impact.