Those of us who pay attention to national politics and the war on terror had to be appalled over the last couple of weeks about what has taken place recently in the U.S. Senate and the United Nations General Assembly

My first issue concerns the ridiculous debate regarding our interrogation methods pertaining to the “high value” terrorists – who were recently moved from the CIA’s secret locations to the Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) detainee prison facility.

These so-called high value detainees are 14 of the most dangerous terrorists in the world and, hopefully will stand trial under a military tribunal, if Bush has his way.

Included among this group is Khalid Mohammed, the super-evil mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. In recent speeches, our president presented in detail the once-top-secret information that was extracted from Mohammed and his fellow terrorists – “information about terrorist plans we could not get from anywhere else.”

Among the pieces of critical intelligence picked up by our interrogators were details about training to blow up skyscrapers, a foiled anthrax plot, a planned attack on a Marine camp and the recently thwarted plans to blow up passenger jets en route between London and the United States.

The third in a series of three national security presidential speeches was made at the White House before many of the 9/11 victims’ families, making even more dramatic the disclosure of the recently-obtained terrorist plans. These speeches were appropriately characterized by some as a rhetorical counterattack vs. his political and media critics.

The main point Bush was making was that we are in a war – correctly labeled by Newt Gingrich as World War III – against a global terrorist enemy who wants to kill all of us, by any means he can. Yet many U.S. Senators, including Republicans John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham, want us to “be nice” to these murderers, according them Geneva Convention niceties and honoring their “civil liberties.”

It doesn’t matter to the anti-Bush crowd that the barbarians we are fighting routinely torture and murder American captives. Foolishly, they think that it is more important to adhere to our traditionally chivalrous and high ideals rather than exercise ultimate measures to ensure the national security of our nation.

These are the people who choose to forget 9/11, and they don’t consider national security to be Bush’s top priority. An apt analogy would be our choosing to take a penknife to a gun fight.

The other issue concerns the recent debacle at the U.N General Assembly, featuring the tyrannical leaders of Iran and Venezuela – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez.

Both of these dictators have really been feeling their oats, given all of the unanswered diatribes they have been spouting, insulting our president and country – on American soil.

Undoubtedly both Mahmoud and Hugo felt totally emboldened taking the lead from the congressional liberals – Kennedy, Durbin, Reid, Schumer, Hillary, Pilosi, et al., from the vitriol they spew at Bush almost weekly.

Chavez was the most vitriolic, calling Bush “the Devil” and saying, he still “smelled the sulfur” from the president’s speech at the same podium the day before. What Chavez really smelled–was the whiff of air he had just produced – after eating his beans. What an obnoxious, repugnant, despicable thug!!

The U.N.’s secretary general, Kofi Annan, has been silent about the outrageous, insulting performances – another good reason we should get the hell out of that pathetic, worthless organization – cut off our funding and expel them from our shores.

Frankly, I’m sick and tired of taking all of this crap from those countries and leaders that both hate us and brazenly demonize our great nation What would I do? You don’t really want to know!!

Byrd Looper is a regular columnist for The Times-Journal.