William Rivers Pitt writes in his last column of 2009 or his first of 2010:
It is not at all difficult to argue that if the broken election of 2000 had not taken place; if the right-leaning majority on the Supreme Court did not take rank partisanship to the highest and lowest levels by giving that election to their party's man instead of letting the votes be counted in the proper fashion; if Al Gore had been allowed to assume the office he rightly won, his administration would have continued to pursue the rigorous Clinton-era anti-terror policies that had successfully defeated those would-be millennium murderers. In other words, but for the sad and sorry electoral debacle at the outset of this decade, two tall towers would still stand in New York City, the Pentagon would be whole and there would be no hero's graveyard in that field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Three events - half a dozen terror attacks thwarted in the final year of Clinton's stewardship, followed by the ersatz ascendance of a brigand and his band of fools who came to power by way of a broad-daylight fraud that would make even Tammany Hall blush, followed by a day of horror that should have never been allowed to happen at all - came to define these last ten years. All that came to pass is aftermath, a deadly chain of events loosed by those three truths. For all his myriad flaws, President Clinton was the most significant anti-terror leader in American history, but the hard work of his administration was ignored by a bunch of Bible-beating absolutists who thought they knew better. Their failures - "failures" being used loosely, because a few special people got rich at our expense, and it's awfully hard to call that an accident - are our inheritance.
You know the rest all too well. Nearly 5,000 of the best soldiers America has to offer are dead. Almost 50,000 more are wounded, most of them permanently. Bush's wars have cut down a full third of America's combat strength, leaving us with fingers crossed that no other would-be foes decide to see if this punch-drunk champion can be taken down. Less important than the lives lost is the very present truth that hundreds of billions of dollars got spent to no good end, except to make a few people you'll never meet rich. The economic calamity still enveloping this nation should be called "The Iraq Depression," as it is a simple, bloody and absolute fact that we would all be better off in every measurable way had Bush not ignored Clinton's good work, had Bush not assumed an office he did not win and had this nation not been taken into the nightmare that defined these last ten years.
Amen. And may some good come of it; the possibility of a dawning awareness that there is good government and bad government, and when the people in government feel that the entire point to the job is not actually doing the job, that is a problem that makes any supposed economic or political philosophy beside the point.
The problem with the Bush years is that they were infested with people incapable of leading, unwilling to follow and absolutely incapable of getting out of the way.
But at least the majority of the American people now know what having sunshine blown up your ass feels like. Sadly, 26% of you prefer that sensation to any other.
It's a CNN transcript of a speech from 2003 - which, oddly enough, is some time after torture - those would be war crimes - had been authorized and butt-coverage issued by Yoo, et al. (TPM)
Nonetheless, it is a statement that is founded solidly in both international and domestic law. Uttered as it was and by whom it was, it may be and should be taken as the official position of the United States. Indeed, it always has been. We were not supposed to learn of the conditional exceptions; the Pentagon and White House went to rather great lengths to keep these things out of the news. No doubt this was in some part motivated by the very clear understanding that these are criminal acts, war crimes, and, in the quaint language used during other such tribunals - "Crimes Against Humanity."
It is no defense to say "I was just following orders" - despite the Obama administration's offering of that precise defense so justly rejected at Nuremberg - and there can be absolutely no defense at all for issuing them in the first place. Nor has there been any reasonable doubt as to the fact that they did issue those orders.
Now many offer many reasons why those guilty should not be held accountable; offered rather conspicuously by those rather closely connected to people not yet solidly demonstrated to have been complicit, but who could hardly have been entirely innocent of any knowledge.
It is the concern of these people that following the breadcrumbs wherever it may lead would "tear the country apart." That it could, or would, lead to civil unrest, or even civil war. That people might seize upon this as an issue and rend the US apart. Well, more to the point of actual concern, it might rend the citizens might rend from themselves the blessings of their current leadership, and the Military Industrial Complex that pays them for their most devoted services.
What would you, dear citizen, do without such leaders? How would you survive without them?
One can only wonder to what backrooms and boardrooms that might be suddenly illuminated by an honest investigation into these matters. What firms provide child-sized testicle electrodes might come to light. And in thinking of the implications of being led by those who would think that a good idea, some might argue that the sort of foreign policy that depends on crushing testicles and stiff diplomatic cruise missiles might not be the best investment in a future you would wish for your progeny.
Frankly, there are worse rocks upon which for a bankrupt nation to founder. And the cause of the Rule of Law - well, there far worse things to fight for. It's so nice when people line up and charge the guns in the name of Torture. It makes shooting them a much less ambiguous act, ethically speaking.
But, fortunately, I think; the entire issue of war crimes may allow most American to quite literally "dodge the bullet." There is a process to be followed, and there are legitimate and deserving scapegoats for the guilt of the people to be released upon, it may be that the quite inevitable and necessary breakup and reformulation of the American Experience.
Frankly, this is symptomatic of the end of empire and nation. Which is not exactly a bad thing; Empires and nations come and go, but civilizations and people remain, their values, if not their innocence intact.
The ACLU is trying to pressure US AG Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor.
Last night, George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley delivered some refreshing straight-talk on the Rachel Maddow Show. Noting that conducting a criminal investigation into the authorization of torture and abuse of detainees by Bush administration officials is not only about values but is about enforcing the law, the good professor called for the appointment of a special prosecutor — just like we did
I wonder aloud what Canada might do, in light of Spanish and British investigations into the matter. Apparently, little enough.
I cannot begin to stress, though, the problems caused for all members of the global community - and particularly for the United States - caused by such willful and flagrant refusal to adhere to the most basic standards of the rule of law. Should this stand, it will inevitably lead to a far more general perception that laws are merely for the "little people."
When such viewpoints become particularly flagrant, the "little people" have been known to renegotiate the social contract. Not always for the better - but certainly for the worse in regard to the elites of the previous era.
"A group calling itself 'Arrest Bush 2009' has announced its intention to hold a 'Yes We Can Arrest Bush' event in front of the FBI Building in Washington, DC during the Inaugural Parade.
However, coordinator Jose Rodriguez insists, 'It's not a protest; it's a celebratory event.'
Arrest Bush 2009, which is sponsored by the Washington Peace Center, After Downing Street, and Shoes For Bush, is demanding that Bush be arrested for war crimes and for lying to the American people."
It's also interesting to observe that the Bush Administration has managed to extend international law - in a morbid and disturbing way - by establishing the idea of "extraordinary rendition," and asserting the right to arrest fugitive individuals regardless of whether the sovereign government would permit it.
I wryly observe that even a small power can contemplate such an operation. And I would imagine that the Secret Service is contemplating that contemplation. One does wonder, however, what position they will take should they become aware of it as an operational possibility.
There are many reasons to celebrate this coming US Inaugural, many of them truly transcendent; the first Black President - and the first male president to come within a whisker and a prayer of losing to a female candidate. Glass ceilings shattering in all directions!
On the other side, there was the Ron Paul Revolution - and it's a whole new political movement. Indeed "paultards" are probably going to form the core of the next legitimate Right of Center party in the US. As far as the Republicans - well, they are the party of foolish candidates, false promises and faulty premises. I think the Whigs were in better shape when they circled the drain.
So part of Bush's Legacy may well be the end of the Republican party and all that it became in the name of St. Regan of Trickle-down. That is a good thing, because conservatism is about economics, and economics is based on numbers and those numbers have to add up at the bottom of the balance sheet. If they do not, you are not a conservative, you are a fraud, a fool or a Social Conservative."
The problem with Social Conservatives is that they aren't interested in conserving anything worth having, and are willing to impose endless costs and pain upon third parties in order to benefit their own conservative religious dogmas.
Well, I think I speak for a lot of folks when I say - get your grubby paws off my junk, stop leering at my daughter's tits and get the HELL of my property.
Indeed, that might just be the explanation for Obama's "Mystifying" victory that still has the professional right-wing bloviators talking in circles.
Then there was the amazing sea change in the election process itself; after two elections in a row being slimed and stolen, the american people rose up on their hind legs and took the process back to themselves, with a combination of grassroots activism and Internet-driven fund-raising. One of the major tools used by activists of all stripes is the one I'm linking to here. Cafepress emerged in this election as the political print on demand community, and the go-to place for the hottest political trends expressed on shirts, nearly instantaneously.
I think I speak for all Cafepress shopkeepers when I say - what the hell do I do now?
My Cafepressing started in 2001 and it's been all anti-bush, all the time. Who do I pick on now? Must I start drawing puppies and kittens? My wife suggests fairies and landscapes. I will try, but it feels so... cynical. Even a little depraved.
I was thinking on this as I was cleaning and rearranging my shop, looking at old designs, some that sold well, some that never sold at all. I was about to toss my "no bush" out along with them when I realized that until bush is officially out of office it still has meaning.
Indeed, if I had tickets to the inaugural and any intention of crossing the border any time in the near future - I'd wear one of these designs.
All hope and change aside, that's the most important thing to celebrate.
The final, formal end to eight years of the worst misrule ever suffered by the people of the United States. And let's remember, he may be laying low, but he still ain't gone and he still has that red button. Let's not get all complacent here.
Still, I think it's worth hanging on your tree if you can afford one this year. Indeed, I think it's an important heirloom of the future; a tangible reminder of an "interesting time" we cannot afford to leave unmarked. I speak for millions when I say I have paid far too high a price for the promises and the failures of George W. Bush, due to the actions of the Bush administration, it's economic, health and education policies; all of the things things that led to our personal financial meltdown and run for the border.
So I'm gonna celebrate. I'm gonna celebrate the fact that I escaped with my wife and my life; I'm going to celebrate what is a huge victory in a war that is not yet complete, but no longer one I'm so personally invested in. Those are my personal joys, but there are many more globally good things just around the corner that could not and would not happen if we had allowed four more years of "Like Bush, but older."
Let us celebrate the humilition of the corporate greed mongers coming to us with caps in hand (well, at least to congress) begging for help and forgiveness.
Personally, my answer is no; why throw good money after bad?
Let us celebrate the confluence of technology and need to fix our energy deficit once and for all, while making the world a greener and better place to live. Let's start on that new vision by getting rid of those who can't see the point to a new approach to our core economic ventures even when they are forced to sit on it and squirm.
And if there are a lot of auto workers out of work and parts makers looking for cars to make parts for - well, that's an opportunity, not a problem. We need money and capacity to fix these problems and they must be made available to those who have a better plan than "well, help us stay afloat while we think of something."
Instead of congress funding a bailout of the bad old companies, let us invest heavily in something worth having - a line of cars built well, in north america that are as safe, as green and as efficient as possible, that run on electricity, natural gas and other alternate fuels and which are every bit as fun to own and drive as anything ever made by Detroit. There ARE such companies. I wonder what we might see if they were to take over the capacity and workforce so badly misused by the fatass idiots who brought us the Hummer.
The big three are not the solution. They are the problem. They don't deserve forgiveness, much less a handout. And if you are an economic conservative - such as myself - you don't believe that those who invested blindly in such an obviously short-sighted corporate plan (if one may use the word very loosely indeed) deserve any more consideration. We need to preserve the workforce and the skills, so if anyone needs a bailout it's the auto workers themselves. So, unemployment, so they stay in detroit. Investment in retraining programs - so they can learn new skills important to new, green products. Laying up cabon fiber. Working on Cad/Cam lines that are essentially "assemble on demand" propositions.
And let's not forget the idea that we need lots more mass transit. Ideally mass transit that will take you AND your personal vehicle from here to there.
Detroit set itself up in competition with mass transit, it went to WAR with mass transit. Well, we can't afford that attitude any more. And besides, we deserve the best of both instead of what we ended up with, the worst expression of each.
These businesses made choices that contributed a great deal to the energy crisis we are living with now. WE have to take a great deal of responsibility too, but part of that is to give up our preference for the big Detroit penis and to stop flinching at the idea of "appropriate technology." Appropriate technology doesn't mean "settling for less," it means "using the right tool for the job." Big, petrolium fueled cars and livable cities are uncomforable bedfellows at best.
That's not to say that we should have to give up powerful vehicles. It means not wasting their operational life on going to the corner for a carton of milk. We need to demand cars that work for the things we actually do most often, and do those things as well and economically as possible.
That doesn't mean settling for less - it means having more options and more money. The best and cheapest way to save money, fuel, anything at all is to not waste it in the first place.
All these changes will come because they have to. It's time. It's like when the railroads came, all at once, all around the world. It's not a question of whether, all we have to say about it is how.
But the symbol of all this change is a man; a man who did all he could to delay, deny, defeat and discredit truth and common sense, and who came to symbolize all that that was wrong about American values; the greed, the pettiness, the lies, the spite, the xenophobia, the willful stupidity, the abysmal ignorance, the distrust of the intellectual heavy lifters that are going to have to fix things.
He came to symbolize a great many things and ideas that need change if the United States, and indeed, rather large chunks of the rest of the world are to survive to the middle of the century without a major war or seven. Fortunately, he's SUCH a good example of all that is stupid and so consitant in picking the single worst expression possible of his economic, social and political philosophies that he can be credited (if this can be called a credit) for making the Great Failure obvious.
So let's celebrate the excremental abyss we have begun to climb out of and seize upon the first best thing of a shiny new era. All politics aside... we can join in celebrating the most important change of all: NO BUSH!!!
It's a special gift from Santa; a plasma HD for the soul. And if it's all that some of us can look toward getting under the tree we will not erect - it's still a damn fine thing.
27 year career diplomat agrees with Senator Obama on need for diplomacy, including talking with our enemies.
I was moved to digg and comment (digg link below, please use that one) and then realized that I really should follow my own lead on this. I frequently blog the better comments on news stories made by others. Well, this time, I think I nailed it.
Here's what I said.
"This whole "we don't talk to people we don't like" foreign policy has struck me as being on a level with seventh graders deciding who gets to sit at what table at lunch. And - clearly - our leaders do not choose to be seen in public with the auto-shop boys, the "smoker's corner" crowd or anyone from "the wrong side of the tracks."
This is a criticism that transcends any need to speak to politics, ideology or philosophy. I've seen absolutely nothing to indicate that those concepts have had any bearing on any approach to anything. Conservatism has been reduced to the level of a purple heart band-aid.
Remember that, when it was a sign of a Good Conservative to mock the service of a decorated war hero because his experience led him to disapprove of the war in Iraq?
Whatever one might feel about a political opponent, or whatever one might feel about the conclusions they drew from their time in service of country, it's utterly wrong and an utter betrayal of a decent appreciation of fundamental Conservative values to mock the wartime service of another. Nonetheless, the tactic was embraced by leaders and followers alike, because it looked like it would work toward a short-term political goal. Principles be damned. And that's our foreign policy in a nutshell.
It's first, last and only goal has been domestic political advantage within the current news cycle, a calculation that is common to ALL important decisions over the last, utterly disastrous eight years.Wise and mature leaders understand that you cannot, must not, pander to people informed in sound bites by political partisans, or even be terribly concerned about what those partisans might say. There are always such people and it's always easiest to convince them that they are somehow being "mistreated" or "betrayed" by someone in power dealing with a complex situation.
And let us remember that despite being genuinely likable and good with people, George Bush's leadership style has never led him to deal with difficult issues in any substantive way. I honestly cannot think of a single situation that has been improved by George Bush's involvement, or indeed, improved on the basis of the Bush leadership philosophy. It's been a government of, by and for the "popular kids" - and we are reminded why student governments have grownup advisers."
If you digg what I said, please digg it there. But of course, you are also encouraged to share this article directly with all the other bookmarking services. :P
One more reason to wake up and smell the bullshit, people. This "appeasement" meme regarding Obama was not just odious, it's factually wrong, and had anyone taken it seriously might have done even more damage to our international credibility. I'd say "If that were possible..." but I look up and there are no black helicopters yet, and no troops wearing blue berets and driving white jeeps.
But that eventuality hasn't been completely inconceivable since 2004, and it IS the sort of outcome that we as citizens should be concerned about. Especially since as humiliating as such an outcome would be, the alternative would have us all waving little blue flags.
The first two persons speaking, mind you, are ORDAINED, Evangelical ministers.
I usta remember when a paster was kind of expected to have some of that book larnin' that's jus' too dangerous for people like the Huckabees and the Jukes back up in the holler.
Well, 'cept for those things about not screwin' livestock. Lessn' the only other choice was your sister, 'cause, well, cain't hunt squirrels if'n you go blind.
Lots of people are saying it's unfair to pick on folks from Tennissee for such obvious stupidity. Indeed, I grew up with the same sorts in Washington State. They talk just the same (slightly different accent, same casual disregard for grammar and fact) and the wronger they were, the more sure they were right, because, the Good Book Said So.
You'd probably be unsurprised to find out that if you actually looked it up in the good book, and you could even find something vaguely like what they were referring to, it said something completely different. Funny to realize that the Catholics didn't want to give up Latin because then the People would know what the Good Book said. I imagine this sort of counter example is the sort of thing Jesuits use to torment Dominicans with.
But really and for true - these are the exact thirty percent that put Bush into cheating distance of the Presidency. These are the same thirty percent that try and shut down anyone trying to commit any act of decency or common sense in our nation. And they are just as fanatically stupid as they sound.
We have to start taking them seriously - as a serious threat. NOT as people who's faith and opinions deserve respect, (for they are, as they are more than happy to point out to you, one and the same) but as potential terrorists and of course, fomenters and cheerleaders for being terrified and using terror and torture in order to inflict "God's wrath" on unbelievers.
It is, I suppose, an ironic but fortunate truth that a disproportionate share of their offspring will be paying for the sins of their fathers. But then, seven generations ago, they were as well.
The appointment has many in California's medical-marijuana community wondering if Russoniello would intensify the crackdown on the state's cannabis clinics. As federal prosecutor for the Northern District from 1982 to 1990, he was a cofounder of the CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) program, an annual series of paramilitary federal-state raids on pot farmers and their neighbors. He also accompanied Nancy Reagan to the Oakland elementary school where she first intoned her anti-drug mantra, "Just say no," in 1984.
Russoniello fitted in well with the Reagan administration's crime policies, which switched enforcement priorities from white-collar crime to drug offenses. (In fact, Rudolph Giuliani, then the third-ranking Justice Department official, interviewed him for the job.) The Reagan "war on drugs" whacked marijuana farmers and small-time black crack dealers with five-year mandatory minimums and intensified forfeiture laws so that someone caught copping $50 worth of dope could have their car confiscated. In a 1994 interview with Smoke and Mirrors author Dan Baum, Russoniello recalled that he was happy that the department was going to get tough on drug users as well as on dealers; that he believed drug treatment was a government-sponsored crutch, that methadone maintenance merely prolonged addicts' dependence; and that the widespread pot farming in Northern California was like "an open wound on our prayer hand."
Oh, well that sure as hell flushes California's electoral votes down the toilet for any Republican OTHER than Ron Paul. And probably Oregon, Washington and maybe more than half of Nevada.
All these years and I am still being amazed by Bush's amazing political tone-deafness.
Or doesn't he realize just how much small grower "pot money" is going to go to Democrats, statewide, at all levels?
This resurrects the process of official cruelty under the Stuart monarchs in seventeenth century England. Persons accused of state crimes very frequently were interrogated with the use of specific techniques, including the rack, the thumbscrew, and waterboarding. King James I personally described the process in The Kings Booke (1606). He would, on the advice of his officers, “approve no new torture,” but he would certainly avail himself of the existing practices. In ascending order of severity they were: thumbscrews, the rack and waterboarding. That’s right. Waterboarding was considered the most severe of the official forms of torture. Worse than the rack and thumbscrews.
King James I of England, portrait by Daniel Mytens (1621). He believed in waterboarding… and the Divine Right of Kings… funny how that runs together.
In the depraved humor of Dick Cheney, of course, it’s just bobbing for apples at a Halloween Fair.
The Harper's article lays down background Clipmarks didn't have room for:
..this week, a CIA agent, John Kiriakou, appeared, first on ABC News and then in an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, and explained just how the system works. When we want to torture someone (and it is torture he said, no one involved with these techniques would ever think anything different), we have to write it up. The team leader of the torture team proposes what torture techniques will be used and when. He sends it to the Deputy Chief of Operations at the CIA. And there it is reviewed by the hierarchy of the Company. Then the proposal is passed to the Justice Department to be reviewed, blessed, and it is passed to the National Security Council in the White House, to be reviewed and approved. The NSC is chaired, of course, by George W. Bush, whose personal authority is invoked for each and every instance of torture authorized. And, according to Kiriakou as well as others, Bush’s answer is never “no.” He has never found a case where he didn’t find torture was appropriate. Here’s a key piece of the Kiriakou statement:
LAUER: Was the White House involved in that decision?
KIRIAKOU: Absolutely, this isn’t something done willy nilly. It’s not something that an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he’s going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner. This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department.
He then goes into the process in considerable detail. Watch the video here.
So let us just recap what we know:
We know that Waterboarding is not only torture, it's really, really severe torture.
We know that Torture is a crime under various international laws as well as and under our own, seeing that treaties we are signatory to have the force of law.
We know that George Bush knowingly and personally approved every single instance of torture, according to this testimony.
So only one question of interest remains:
Was he actually masturbating during NSC sessions regarding torture, or did he wait until he got back to the Oval Office?
I just sent this off to the publicity people for a new film, opening in theaters now, as they say.
I don't usually do film reviews on graphictruth.com, and I am not wanting to be on your list of "usual suspects," though I'm interested in UNusual films.
The hook for me was that my state senator and majority leader, Harry Reid, handed off a copy to John Kerry - who watched it and sent out a notice to his entire mailing list.
Graphictruth.com is pretty much about what it sounds like, and it sounds like this is a very graphic truth indeed.
For me, the fact that the ball started rolling on this in 2003 is to me the most interesting part of this story. It takes that long for the consequences of some acts to materialize, sometimes even longer.
This seems to be all about unintended, unimagined and unimaginable consequences.
I really, really do not want to see this film. I expect it will give me nightmares.
I can count the number of times I've done something like this on my thumbs. And I'm doing it knowing that it is going to have a certain message, it is going to portray a certain reality that will be unpalatable to those who think that the War in Iraq and the War on Terror are inseparable.But in fact, when you go to war - every time, and for whatever reason, you must pay the Butcher's Bill - and the horrifying truth is that each and every soldier who faces combat is affected forever. This paragraph comes from John Kerry's letter.
The former top operating officer at the Pentagon, a Marine Lieutenant General, once said of Iraq that "the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions--or bury the results."
I've never seriously considered myself to be anti-war. It strikes me rather like being anti-hurricane.
It really doesn't matter to the hurricane whether you are philosophically opposed to it's existence or not. One can prepare for it, one can avoid being in it or choose to endure it, one must respond to it intelligently and clean up the mess so that life can return to normal. These are common sense observations, and wars come upon us for many reasons, many of which are no more under our control than the weather.
I am pro-peace - and to me, the best way to ensure peace and the best way to return to a state of peace subsequent to war is to have a very efficient and powerful response to aggression, and as realistic an appreciation as possible as to the costs of war upon the people asked to fight it and those who must stay at home. Above all, don't stupidly create conditions that may provoke a war.
There is a huge, indefinable, but real price that must be paid over the generations for every act of war, for ever war that starts due to foolishness, misadventure, miscalculation, aggression, need, greed, the hunger for power or the desire for "living room."
Thousands of years ago, Sun Tsu considered all these things in his "Art of War," a book George W. Bush has clearly never read, or at least comprehended. Source: Shonshi.com; Links indicated with question marks lead to related discussion threads:
If one gains victory in battle and is successful in attacks, but does not exploit those achievements, it is disastrous.
Those angry will be happy again, and those wrathful will be cheerful again, but a destroyed nation cannot exist again, the dead cannot be brought back to life. ?
Therefore, the enlightened ruler is prudent, the good general is cautious.
This is the Way of securing the nation, and preserving the army. ?
And I could not resist adding this further citation from the very first page:
Before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will win, because many calculations were made;
before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will not win, because few calculations were made; ?
Many calculations, victory, few calculations, no victory, then how much less so when no calculations?
By means of these, I can observe them, beholding victory or defeat! ?
Call this an exercise in free-enterprise intelligence analysis and a strong advisory that in tapping our phones, you might just be distracted from far more significant indicators of what's going on domestically.
I am concerned - as everyone else should be - as to what displays like this do for public respect for the rule of law. It's certainly eroding mine, and making me consider applying for a concealed carry permit so that I may ensure my own safety without involving such people. When a person as risk-averse as myself starts seeing a pistol and a lime pit as being potentially a safer response to aggression than a call to 911, it represents a serious erosion of everything that the word "civilization" represents.
While the possibly racist and certainly political nature of this incident is well worth screaming about, such incidents transcend the importance of those two considerations, because there is one factor that is more important than race or politics.
The day "authorities" assume the right to pick and choose which citizens (even David Duke) may attend on any basis other than fire regulations - it's time to set a match to the place and build anew. If you think that's an Unamerican and unpatriotic thing to say, or even think, I refer you to the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence.
Our Revolutionary war and our Civil War both started with what, in my opinion, were far fewer sins of less significance than we have endured under George Bush's misrule. Our self-appointed Masters, our self-styled earls and would-be Counts should thank God and Al Gore that the Internet has for this time proven a more attractive battleground than the fields and valleys that still reek of the blood of Patriot dead. And the forces of reason are winning, the voices supporting the president have steadily diminished until there remain only those that any rational and reasonable administration would be embarrassed to associate with; the Dead-Enders like Coulter, Malkin and O'Rielly - those incapable of uttering a single paragraph without saying something that is either racist, illiterate, breathtakingly stupid or an obvious lie. Often it's all of the above.
Bush is the dog. These are the fleas. Any questions?
But should they be of the cynical opinion that the Internet provides an outlet with no real impact, one they can shut down any time they like - I should advise them that given current technology, the best they could expect to do is choke down the bandwidth - and essentially create a huge, Pearl-Harbor level event to motivate people to switch to more active demonstrations of non-compliance. Amazing how it's progressed from geeky obsession to critical infrastructure in ten years; all, apparently with the implications eluding those who are too self-important to sully themselves by exploring it themselves. Considering it's incredible importance of these here "tubes," it's kind of insulting to have a leadership so technically impaired and intellectually challenged that they cannot grasp the implications.
You can't shut it down. There would be an instantaneous financial panic.
But the fact that SAC was unable to maintain operational security on an attempted clandestine transfer of six nuclear cruise missiles should have been a clue as to the danger it presents to the ambitions of the powerful. The fact that hundreds, if not thousands of former military persons with appropriate knowledge have unhesitatingly shredded every single lame and implausible "explanation" for this incident should be another clue.
And one reason for our seething discontent with our leadership is that they have not bothered to demonstrate any great competence for or even great interest in the the posts of power they hold. Why should we even consider permitting your ambition? Those who lust after the power of kings should be at least capable of wiping their own assess without needing instructions printed on each sheet of toilet paper. And I most especially include politicians of all stripes and sexes noted more for their ambition than their principles. Yes, Ms. Clinton, that does include you.
Right on top of the pile.
It concerns me that your outrage at the transgressions against the American People, our rights and our liberties are so very muted, it seems to me that such powers tempt you unduly. And I give you the credit of being smart enough to be really dangerous.
Yes, we need to talk about health care. But it seems to me that when there's a sitting lame-duck president who is clearly seeking a pretext to nuke a sovereign nation in order to create a "national emergency" that will facilitate whatever increasingly delusional plans exist in his addled brain, it's not the first priority.
I'm going to vote for whoever understands this. And if I don't get the chance to vote, a conspiracy theorist paranoia which seems to have evolved into a very credible suspicion, I will stand up and march alongside anyone with the courage to say "enough!"
I've never taken any precautions regarding having my communications monitored by the government, so I'm sure there is a file somewhere. The only thing I ask is that someone read it, and consider that I - and likely everyone else in same bin I'm in - are saying the same things, have been saying it for some time, and have been expressing increasing frustration and impatience. And as a whole, we have been willing to give endless benefit of the doubt, we have been enormously patient with you, oh, our arrogant masters, and have been rewarded with responses that would make a mildly retarded five-year old feel patronized.
The latest form letter from my Republican Senator, John Ensign, in response to my expressed concerns about illegal detentions, secret trials and erosions of the constitution has convinced me that self-importance and ideology can produce all the same symptoms of congenital retardation. Clearly, he's a 15 watt bulb in a 200 watt socket, barely capable of breathing and holding up his own hair.
As far as I'm concerned, he is the best single argument against the neocon ideology and it's culture of intellectual, social and moral corruption - he appears to genuinely believe and support it's every jot and tittle. Even now. He's THAT stupid.
And apparently, - at least according to his correspondence with me, that is how intelligent he thinks I am.
We all know the intelligence infrastructure is monitoring the Internet, our telephones and indeed all forms of private communications between citizens in defiance of custom, law and constitution. We know this in part because our Dear Leader, he who is propped up by the Assets of Evil, has bragged about it. Publicly. To reassure us that we are safe in his hands from the forces of Terror.
I, for one, am convinced that he would not recognize a real terrorist plot if arrived on his desk wrapped in flayed human skin powdered in anthrax with a video recording of Osama Bin Ladin chanting "this is a terrorist plot."
Dear goddess in heaven, can't you revoke his security clearance or something? But we know you are at least trying to monitor our private communications and our public blog postings. Just in case we are harboring terrorists in Hoboken or Eureka. So, presumably, at least one poor underpaid G4 knows what the rumblings in these here "internets" reveal and has dutifully forwarded it to those who need to know.
How can it be that such critical intelligence can so clearly be dismissed as unimportant; irrelevant to the clear and clearly stupid goals this administration and it's supporters cling to like some unwashed, urine soaked blankie?
Please try again. Use smaller words. Perhaps a big red felt marker would help. Jump up and down if you have to. Supply diagrams.
I'm not hooked into the intelligence community - but with an Internet connection and a three digit IQ, I'm prepared to draw some of my own conclusions, based on access to information and correlative resources Allan Dullies would have cheerfully sacrificed his left testicle to have. I wonder if it's dawned on anyone at CIA, DIA or NSA that millions of people analyzing and sharing publicly available information is a resource that likely trumps anything Carnivore or the NSA eavesdropping can reveal?
There simply are not enough warm bodies with the right security clearances and qualifications for it to shake out any other way. It hasn't helped that gays, liberals, and apparently anyone who speaks Farsi or Arabic is considered a security risk.
You may well be concerned at the resources broadband Internet puts in the hands of rogue and third world states, as well you should be. And I'd be surprised if you were not concerned about the reliability (and motivations) of sources in the EU, Israel and the Middle East.
But you should be even more concerned about what this means in the hands of an increasingly impatient citizenry who are easily able to act on the maxim "Trust, but Verify." I'm sorry, "trust us, we know what we are doing" is no longer a credible response. It's a punchline, as hilarious as President whastisbeard saying "we have no homosexuals in Iran."
So far, and I state this regretfully, that the last seven years have demonstrated either a complete failure on the part of various intelligence agencies to gather useful, actionable and relevant information, the inability to analyze it, or the complete failure to communicate it's implications to people making decisions. What we see expressed in every decision, policy and appointment is a complete ignorance of or a stunningly foolish indifference to consequence.
And I state this without any need to assume "realpoltik" motivations, hidden agendas, or the need to placate the American people with reasons for actions they find palatable.
Even in the most cynical light, taking the word of the "Project for a New American Century" and accepting the idea that it's proper to act with frank and deliberate intent to dominate the world and impose a Pax Americana, this administration's actions have made that vision laughably absurd. We are LESS of a world power now than we were when George Bush took office, with LESS military might, LESS ability to apply economic pressure, LESS influence by any measure - and we are trembling on the brink of irrelevance - of becoming not merely a second-rank power, but a scattered assortment of balkanized, competing states.
Such a consummation is devoutly wished by many - many of them being our supposed allies. Should there be any degree of civil unrest, much less outright civil war, those leading it will find no lack of financial and military support.
And if you can't meaningfully interdict the drug trade - I don't think you are gonna do any better stopping the flow of supplies to any determined insurgency. Our borders make those of Iraq look like the Berlin wall. And we are all painfully aware of how successful we have been in our efforts against determined insurgencies. I think it rather likely that insurgent citizens can do rather better than Iraqis, or even the North Vietnamese Army. After all, while they did have General Giap - an admitted military genius - Bush has fired every military leader that has shown any evidence of understanding the military realities well enough to object to his ambitions - so there will be no "leadership gap."
So the only way for this administration to "win" a civil war is to not declare one. I mention that aloud as it's one obvious possibility, considering all the many and various preparations George has made, against that day.
Why George's manifest and compounded stupidities seem to lead toward some fulfillment of Armageddon matters little. The final battle for world domination is an inherently BAD thing - EVEN IF Jesus comes in glory to save the shell-shocked remnant of the Just. However, I doubt that would occur. The bible is pretty clear that if you think you know the hour and the day, you are wrong. I'm pretty sure He would consider it presumptuous for some world leader to force His hand.
And I think it would be amazing, frankly, if there are many, if any world leaders willing to permit it. If anything, they are tacitly, if not actively conspiring to allow us to destroy ourselves, rather than take more active countermeasures. However, if there are not British, French, Russian and Chinese missiles allocated for every single aircraft carrier and strategic asset - including the Dark Cube With No Address - I would be absolutely flabbergasted.
But have great faith in Bush's ability to fail, even without help. What I do care about is that presumably smarter and saner people continue to permit him to live in the White House, instead of a secure basement suite in Bethesda - along with Dick Cheney, a man with equally obvious and severe mental disqualifications for office.
At some point, you have to decide whether or not you signed on for such a thorough professional cornholing, and consider what price you are paying to continue excusing behaviors you would not tolerate from your toddlers.
I came very close in my youth to being scooped up by Navy Intelligence - as a recruit, not a suspect.
I have the sort of mind thatlends itself to the detachment and educated paranoia required to be a good intelligence analyst and I was heavily courted based, I suspect, on test results that really should have been confidential. Ah, but it was the Cold war, don't you know. Even the dismal results of my physical during my ASVAB panel didn't discourage them. After all, it was highly unlikely I'd get any exercise at all, much less risk combat after boot camp, and they were very willing to promise that my physical limitations would be taken into account. However, the coin flip came down against them - otherwise, I'd probably have had quite a different life.
I have never had any difficulty raising my right hand with my left on my own integrity and swearing to "protect and defend the constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic," but even then, I had some hints that it might not be possible to honor that oath AND honorably serve in a military capacity.
Remember, this was just before the final whimper of the Vietnam war and at the height of the Cold War, back when actual professionally qualified paranoids were taking National Security very damn seriously indeed, on both sides. And if a civil liberty or the odd civilian got caught in the gears, very well and oh, too bad.
At the time, I didn't have the intellectual basis to tell you why that was all wrong and an entirely futile and pointless exercise - but somehow, I knew that The Greatest Game was not for me.
But I never stopped thinking in the way that made me potentially valuable, and indeed, what I do now is not dissimilar to what a CIA analyst does, or a Wall Street analyst, for that matter. It's all about putting together disparate shreds, hints, trends and fragments of apparently unrelated information from obscure sources to develop a crude picture that, while imperfect, is ideally better than nothing.
And that is what this paper is; a deeply incomplete and inherently unreliable picture which I hope will yet be better than nothing, erring on the side of prudent paranoia.
There's more...
The Internet is an outright stampede of information, giving me access to information no government - much less a would-be totalitarian government - is comfortable having widely known. Indeed, there's been no need to access any information that's particularly obscure or even from fringe sources. It's all out there, you simply have to integrate it through the lens of a nasty, suspicious, cynical and un-trusting mind.
I have no government or even media contacts worth the name. Indeed, I have very few contacts. Come to think of it, outside of family... damn few.
All of this comes from the stream across my screen - which means that my conclusions are potentially verifiable by anyone with Internet access.
So consider the following to be the product of an untrained but suitably paranoid intelligence para-professional, who has been tracking the domestic and foreign affairs situation since 2001 - when 9/11 concentrated my attention.
I have two immediate concerns: First, distinct hints and rumors that the Bush Administration is considering the idea of generating a pretext to declare martial law and suspend elections. The pretext is concern one, for it's certain to involve mass casualties exceeding 9/11, but the second, martial law, is my most serious worry. Not because I think that the Bush Administration can successfully impose martial law and a subsequent totalitarian state. It's because I fear they believe they can succeed. Whatever the outcome, that presumption promises mass casualties equaling or exceeding the First Civil War.
Chertoff has spread broad hints about his "gut feelings," about the likelihood of a bi coastal terrorist attack, presumably to test the depths of our remaining credulity, and that is only one such hint.
I don't know what his sources have told him, but mine suggest that to be a very bad plan. Skepticism about 9/11 itself has grown deeper and broader with every release of information and piece of evidence that indicates a complete lack of official interest in who was responsible and how it was accomplished.
The lack of any sensible, much less humane or responsible action in response to the information the general public KNOWS the administration must be aware of makes me grimly unwilling to presume anything that remains unknown to reflect well upon George Bush.
There is a high probability that a number of radicalized activists would assume it to be a false-flag operation and a much larger population would consider it to be a distinct possibility. Should there be a national response of the imposition of martial law in response to widely separate terrorist attacks, many would feel justified in operating under just that assumption. Some might take immediate action - but the true threat to the Administration are those who quietly fall off the grid, or worse yet, remain in place.
Bluntly, this administration has squandered it's credibility to the extent that if they say the sky is NOT falling, there will be a run on umbrellas.
If the immediate response to an apparent terrorist attack was to declare martial law, disarm the population along with local law enforcement while rounding up Muslims, liberals and intellectuals for indefinite detention, I think there would be the great likelihood of an immediate outbreak of fairly well-organized resistance, seemingly from nowhere.
The Department of Homeland Security places great store in analyzing Internet chatter. So do I. To give one example, I was rather surprised to learn that there are more than 35000 results for Ghillie suits. That's "sniper camouflage" for the uninitiated. Of course, most recommend them for paintball games, even when selling military surplus or providing instructions on how to make your own.
But how else would you train an effective small infantry unit these days in a cost effective and secure manner?
Paintball, Lazer Tag and war gaming of all kinds, online and off.
So that one piece of data is an indication of an already organized and trained potential resistance, one that has very possibly evaded the serious attention of intelligence agencies.
But as tempting as it is to dismiss and disparage the current occupants of the White House as blind, ideological fools, I do not believe they are so foolish as to have not foreseen resistance as a certain outcome. Indeed, with all the talk in the MSM about Al-Queda setting up cells in the US, I would guess that any such resistance would be welcome and immediately attributed to Al-Queda.
Further, I think they may well be anticipating that response and planning on using initially isolated acts of resistance to clamp down with an iron fist, to confiscate all weapons from civilians - in order to keep them out of the hands of terrorists, of course - and generally impose a rule of fear enforced with systemic brutality, trusting that civilian inertia, compounded with outright terror will allow the minority of reliable Bushistas in and out of traditional military to keep a lid on civilian unrest.
I would argue that such a gamble might have worked two or three years ago, but with the administration so obviously on the run and so very dependent on their ability to delay legal sanctions against them, I doubt the majority of Americans will suspend disbelief in their favor. As a result, they cannot rely on civilian co-operation with martial law. It will quickly become clear that there will be a need to literally occupy many, if not most cities in the West, Northwest and Northeast, simply to secure strategic assets. It will be critical to maintain transport across the Midwest, so even certain cities that might be reluctant to resist martial law will find themselves under highly repressive federal control.
That is to say, under ideal circumstances, if you wished to preclude any organized uprising, that is what you would have to do. But, as with Iraq, the forces needed to do the job, and the forces available to do the job differ significantly in terms of numbers, equipment, preparedness, training and, indeed, in almost every other regard, with the most significant distinction being "reliability."
I've run the math, and even by withdrawing all armed forces from everywhere - including all National Guard troops and reserves- it would be by my calculations difficult to impossible to control either California or Texas in the face of a determined insurgency. I do not think that the employment of mercenaries would help for long - mercs like to be paid and dislike casualties. Furthermore, they would be paid in debt funded money under circumstances where the economic basis for the currency is in abatement - or out of scant gold reserves. Either way, it's not a long-term proposition.
I consider Iraq to be a much better template for something resembling "success" in controlling a large, unruly region, and frankly, I expect that "region" to include the United States as a whole. There might be more initial support within the highly religious Red States, at least outside of the urban areas - but it may be that Katrina has undermined that expectation to a significant degree, and the rural population is likely to be less controllable. In any case, the areas that will arguable present the greatest difficulty in terms of government control also represent the greatest concentrations of manufacturing capability and expertise. This geographic fact places absolute limits on how long such an effort can be sustained.
Now, let's consider the implications of the Secret Service's new Uniformed Division. I'm not sure whether to compare them to the SS, the Gestapo or the Praetorian Guard.
Let's say they have 2000 effectives. No, let's add a Fermi. 20000. Is that enough? I'm not sure it's enough to actually hold the Legislative district against determined opposition. It's certainly NOT enough to hold Washington DC as a whole, much less enough to act as a national police force.
But it's existence is pretty clear evidence that Bush doesn't trust the Capital Police, FBI or CIA, or the intelligence assets of the State Department to keep him safe and properly informed.
Blowback. It's a bitch.
I'm assuming that the capital would be abandoned as unsecurable, possibly even sacrificed, in a move that would dispense with any number of inconvenient legislators and civil servants. This leaves a number of alternate command and control facilities - but also communicates to the American people just how very terrified the Junta (for that is what it will be, at that point) is of them.
Now, remember what sorts of people did the vetting for the critical civilian personnel sent to Iraq? I bet they have done an equally good job vetting applicants for the SS Uniformed Division. I believe that because their political reliability will be of necessity an overriding concern, essential to any of the three likely intended missions. So they are not likely to be drawn from the best or the brightest - they will be drawn from the unimaginative and the reflexive authoritarians, people who automatically follow orders and go by the book with a touching belief in the effectiveness of overwhelming firepower.
Such were the men of the SS Panzer division that "took" the Warsaw Ghetto. Theirs was not to reason why, theirs was but to do or die. I believe more than ten percent did, with enough total casualties as to render the entire formation useless.
It's not difficult to imagine their performance being just about as good as FEMA's before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. But even if it were perfectly competent, with absolutely secure communication and years of tactical experience as a unit, it probably still would not matter.
At this stage of the game, building such a force with any expectation of it performing as well as existing units is a forlorn hope, and it's only the choice of those who have no other other choices. That should tell you something of the actual strength of the President's hand.
I'm fairly sure that the SSUD will not be greatly more effective than, say, a highway patrol division or a sheriff's department in a counter-insurgency role, although they should perform decently in terms of providing base security wherever the President and Vice President have gone to ground.
But I don't think that even those refuges will be as secure as, well, as secure as I would wish, were I in that position.
For example, I doubt that state and local law enforcement will be on the "side" of a federal military government, for one very good reason; local law enforcement officers will be "suspect number one," the very first to be disarmed and sent to detention camps or drafted into service in locations far distant from any unofficial contacts they might have.
I think it's safe to assume that from how the military handled Iraq's security forces, and I'm afraid it makes a great deal of operational sense in terms of who is in a position to organize and equip an effective resistance. Seeing as the various state Highway Patrols and Investigation agencies are as likely to be loyal to their governors as to the President, the same distrust and dispersal is likely to be expressed toward them. Likely such persons will either be imprisoned or drafted into service in some other state, and with the families of some held hostage in FEMA camps when that seems prudent.
In fact, if I were an LAPD officer, I'd be considering some personal fall back options right now, which might include clandestine arrangements with the Crips and or the Bloods. They, after all, will be high on the "round up and remove" lists too.
The Pirate Lafitte turned the tide for us in New Orleans, way back when. There is plenty of precedent for the support of freedom by Organized Crime - even when it's not actually in their long term interest. "Lucky" Luciano's support for the war effort was critical in WWII for instance.
Consider the sheer number of trained military leaders that have resigned their commissions or retired over the last several years. I don't consider it wise to presume that trained tactical and strategic minds have remained idle or stopped talking to one another.
Now, consider how excruciatingly vulnerable the military infrastructure is to sabotage, and how few military secrets will exist when people realize that their secrecy oaths no longer bind them.
So, the advantage federal forces have against the American people are not so great as might first appear, and indeed, they only really hold the upper hand so long as people are as yet unsure as to what lengths the Administration might go to remain in power and un-prosecuted.
Once there is an outright breach of the peace and United States armed forces are engaged in open warfare against the American people, any such advantage disappears. We - the civilian population - have overwhelming numerical superiority, superior local knowledge and a very startling amount of individual firepower. We will enjoy internal lines of communications by definition, will probably be able to enjoy at least rough parity in terms of intelligence and will have much better morale.
Meanwhile, individuals all over the US know how to brew fuel from - well, damn near anything that will ferment, or be pressed for oil, and they will generally prefer to operate on foot in any case.
So, bye-bye refineries and oil storage depots, and therefore goodbye to government mobility. You can presume that freeways and rail transport will be disrupted - they are obvious deathtraps for the armed forces.
BTW, ever wonder what a Barrett .50 semi-automatic rifle would do to an unarmed surveillance helicopter? Pretty much the same as it would do to an armored copter, if it had armor piercing ammo. There are a LOT of them in civilian hands, even at ten grand a pop, and even more less costly bolt-action .50 cal boy-toys. Any of them, in the hands of a competent marksman, can reach out and touch someone at ranges in excess of a mile.
Among other inconvenient facts, this means that local civilian forces can deny the use of a huge number of airports to the Government. One or two rounds though an engine on takeoff or landing, repeat as necessary. Our military relies very heavily on air superiority for success, and unlike in Iraq, I doubt very much their planners should take that luxury for granted.
Oh, would it cost ten grand to fabricate a knock-off of a Barrett in a basement machine shop? Not hardly. I can get precise plans for the equally useful Ma Deuce and BAR off the Internet. Despite the slick sales brochures from the manufacturers of fancy air defense missile systems, a quad .50 is a damn respectable deterrent to anything with wings.
Remember, an insurgency doesn't have to contest air superiority - they just need to make maintaining it expensive. That task is relatively cheap.
"But it's ILLEGAL for civilians to own armor piercing ammo and fully automatic weapons" you gasp incredulously!
Yeah. Illegal - and damned easy to fabricate, in quite a few calibers. As well as explosive ammunition and Teflon coated ring perpetrators for handguns. Mortars? Home depot has lots of pipe. A ten gauge shotgun shell works just fine as the propellant for a 30mm mortar round. Another one will impact-detonate it. The whole thing could be made from PVC pipe. Military grade weapons are not actually more expensive than civilian grade weapons, in general, they are far LESS expensive, designed to be mass-produced from cheap materials.
All that is required is a state of martial law - and widespread contempt for those attempting to enforce it.
Of course, "silvertips" for taking out elk are perfectly legal. Your average weapon for antelope or elk with such a round up the spout will put a hole the size of your head in a human being - and body armor without ballistic plates won't stop them. A head shot at a hundred meters or more is pretty trivial for a good hunting piece with upscale optics. A WWII surplus Garand rifle (30.06 caliber) can put a solid brass bullet through an engine block at 500 yards.There are hundreds of thousands of such weapons and surplus rounds in civilian hands.
Remember that given the force and equipment depletion caused by the Iraq War, any government forces will be lucky to have armored vehicles capable of stopping 9mm hardball.
Fully automatic weapons, handguns and long-arms of all varieties, hand grenades, silenced weapons that evade metal detectors, disposable rocket launchers and of course explosives such as C4 can be easily created in small machine shops and basements. If you are crazy enough to run a meth lab, well, creating explosives isn't a great deal more dangerous - and no easier to detect.
How's that War on Drugs going? Any widespread shortage of methamphetamine? Didn't think so.
Anyone with a two year college physics degree could use C4 to create a crude but effective "Plate Charge," such as has been used in Iraq. Hell, we have amateur rocketeers that for legal reasons have to take their contraptions to White Sands or Woomera to shoot them off. For FUN.
Would you be willing to assume them all to be good, loyal Republicans willing to tolerate a dictatorship - or would at least a few be casting around for suitable warheads?
But I'd fully expect there to be plenty of current military munitions available, up to and including stinger missiles, antipersonnel and anti-tank mines, even artillery... along with the national guard veterans who "liberated" them. Quite possibly along with the entire force complement of the local armory.
Now, an insurgency might start out as a tiny, doomed minority, and my worst case fear assumes Bush adminsitration planning on such a doomed and fringe resistance as the actual pretext for the imposition of Martial law.
But the probable overreaction to either a genuine or false-flag insurgency would surely work just as it has in Iraq, for exactly the same reasons, because it would be the same people in charge, operating with the same equipment and operational doctrine - and drawing from the same troop supply. In other words people who believe against all evidence that it's militarily possible to occupy, pacify and control a large modern urban area with a hundred years of hidden, forgotten and unrecorded infrastructure.
You may as well attempt to eradicate the roach population.
All an effective insurgency needs to do is avoid direct conflict while inflicting cheap casualties, The Iraqis haven't shown any great depth of imagination in that regard and are still doing fairly well.
Even if you throw in as many as 50 thousand Christianist fanatics as shock troops, people who gobble up "Left Behind" and "The Turner Diaries" as gospel, that simply makes the conflict a "target-rich environment." This is aside from the difficulties of training and equipping such a horde, or the wisdom of creating our very own domestic Taliban.
I leave aside the imponderable question as to what the rest of the world would do if the United States descended into a protracted civil war of any degree of intensity, but I doubt very much a Bush Junta could rely on the absolute neutrality of either immediate neighbor.
Now, this is a possible future I do not wish to experience. I encourage passive resistance, protest and proactive first-amendment activities at this point, especially when those activities approach that which the administration would prefer to refer to as "espionage," and reasonably sensible people would refer to as "whistleblowing."
People should be particularly alert for suspicious governmental activity. If you see somebody who reeks of G-Man in a place he shouldn't ougtta be - report it to your local emergency co-ordination facility. And by local, I mean "town, city or state." Meanwhile, take pictures with your cel phone, just in case something should happen later.
If you don't have a cel phone that takes pictures, get one. Ideally, a pay as you go cel phone.
Oh, yeah, that's another thing. How successful do you think that the government could be in shutting down or filtering internet access, when the opposition doesn't care about such trivia as bandwith theft, IP spoofing, illegal use of encryption, hiding pirate server farms in sewers, while the infrastructure, software and the majority of all computer talent is resistant to the whole idea?
I'd be stunned if, under conditions of a general civil war, that government communications would be secure or their servers immune from attack, if for no other reason than the widespread disaffection of federal employees who have access to such networks - either with passwords, or with keys to junction rooms.
Obviously, the latest executive order enabling the seizure of assets from anyone the Administration THINKS might be a threat to their war effort in Iraq, underlines the depth of concern the administration has regarding this possiblity, seeing as it's written so broadly it may as well be one of Richileu's Letters d'Cachet.
While liberals and leftists and activists understandably feel a great deal of concern, seeing as the immediate effect is to criminalize the peace movement, this seems to me to be much more directly aimed at those who have been loyal up to now, or up to a point. Cindy Sheehan is not so wealthy that such "asset forfeiture" could preclude her activism. No, it's aimed at the Coors family, the DuPonts, the Mellons and the Scaifes - anyone with enough personal resources to be able to seriously threaten the government, and the cussedness to do so. I'm sure there's a few millionaires and billionaires of various political persuasions who are even now shuffling portfolios and real property with that end in mind.
People who have enough money for this to be a serious threat are also quite capable of seeing the threat for what it is, no matter what attempts there are to camouflage it as being aimed at "them Liberal hippy peaceniks."
I have absolutely no idea how effective such threats will be, though, but my assumption is that that threatening very wealthy and powerful people with arbatrary forfeiture is unwise, to say the least. There are very wealthy people who are not part of the Bush crowd - but who are not unconnected or to be presumed to be toothless. And then there are those who are of the Bush crowd, who may well be of a mind to instruct Bush as to which is the tail and which is the dog that wags it. The threat is likely to be taken more personally and more urgently by people with a few mere millions in property and little liquidity - which represents a big foot on the neck of most small and medium entrepreneurs.
The only way I see they have a faint chance of pulling off a successful coup is by killing off as many "Liberals" as possible in some orchestrated or subcontracted terrorist attack that is so shocking, so horrifying that nobody could believe that it was not the work of some radical group of madmen. You know, like 9/11.
Look up "Project Monarch." You will find it within the tinfoil hat zone of the Internet, but nonetheless, it's existence and activities were confirmed in congressional hearings, where the CIA promised faithfully that all such programs have been shut down.
Riiight.
The government has long been fascinated with the potential uses of crazy people, and a great many changes in government and society seem to involve the convenient and inexplicable access of a crazy person to an inconvenient one. JFK, say. Or Bobby. Or Martin. So this would only be a difference of scale.
Evaluate for yourself the probable target zones and discuss the eventualities with those you trust and distrust alike. But for myself, I'd say get the hell out of the Bay Area, at least. After all, an earthquake would be a damned good pretext for a little "liberal cleansing." Consider how many people from New Orleans have disappeared into FEMA camps, where they languish still.
By the by - if you are working at NSA or any other intelligence agency - I am specifically speaking at you. Run this post of mine through your own brain with any additional information you might have. Come to your own expert conclusions and determine your best course, considering the worst-case implications of what you know and how many ways everything could go south for you and your loved ones.
Consider also where your true loyalties lie and what you may have said or done to indicate less than absolute willingness to personally suicide for the greater glory of Bushco. Consider who might well mention such reservations in their pursuit of career advancement. Then take such steps as seem reasonable and prudent, while remembering a famous quotation: "Two may keep a secret, if one of them is dead" - Benjamin Franklin.
Everyone else, buy yourself a copy of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein. With cash. Off line. From a used book store.
Russia withdraws from arms treaty - CNN.com: "President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty due to 'extraordinary circumstances ... which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures,' the Kremlin said in a statement.
Putin has in the past threatened to freeze his country's compliance with the treaty, accusing the United States and its NATO partners of undermining regional stability with U.S. plans for a missile defense system in former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe."
Yep, with all the potential fallout of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you won't impeach Bush because he has committed illegal acts, how about impeaching him for deliberately, stupidly and willfully endangering our national security?
A belated Fourth of July post from me, courtesy of Crooks and Liars, via digg. Keith Olbermann delivers arguably his most pointed and most powerful Special Comment yet on the ramifications of Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence. The video is also on YouTube and is embedded above, but C&L has a transcript.
We enveloped “our” President in 2001.
And those who did not believe he should have been elected — indeed, those who did not believe he had been elected — willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.
And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and sharpened it to a razor-sharp point, and stabbed this nation in the back with it.
Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.
Did so even before the appeals process was complete…
Did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice…
Did so despite what James Madison –at the Constitutional Convention — said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that president…
Did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder:
To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish — the President will keep you out of prison?
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens — the ones who did not cast votes for you.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States.
The Comments on Digg, C&L and YouTube are worth reading. Even the Usual Idiots seem to have lost heart for their mindless apologeas, with a few "dead ender" exceptions. There is a literal flood of video responses on YouTube, too. The following is from a Ron Paul fan - a truly devastating bit of Bush-Bashing. I took the time to include a response to one such dead ender, by the name of asknotaxe , who's comment was so astonishing that it demanded a reply beyond the limits imposed by YouTube.
Keith Olberman seemingly has forgotten the 211 presidential pardons Clinton granted in the last 9 weeks in office, and thew 121 on his final day of office? Olberman is a windbag. Listening to him wax philosophic about democracy and war makes me puke. I am a US soldier, and don't need some liberal toad eulogizing my service....we are volunteers. So just shut the fuck up and sleep quietly under the blanket of freedom and security provided by better men than yourselves, non serving liberals.
What makes you think "people here" approve of those pardons? I don't recall the details of all of them, but a few - even several - stuck in my craw.
But as I recall, none were pardons of people that had been convicted of crimes committed directly on Clinton's behalf.
Meanwhile, Sir, your unwillingness to consider the evidence; your mockery and contempt for those who do, your self-definition as being "better than" those who do not blindly follow the Leader does not ring freedom's bells in MY ear.
No, Sir, what I hear is the tramp of jackboots and knocks on the door at midnight.
You, Sir, have managed to capture the sheer arrogance of the Redcoat, the unthinking tone of superiority of - not then Nazis, but of an Italian fascist soldier.
Worse yet for you, you sound something like a cross between an Italian Fascist and a Vietnam-Era Helicopter General.
Where, sir, is my Habius Corpus? Where, Sir, is my guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure, or a fair and speedy trial by a jury of my peers? Where, Sir, does the Constitution define "Free Speech Zones?" What happened to the Posse Comatatus act - and for what reason?
And for what reason did Haliburton get a no-bid contract to build internment camps? Should I believe they are really intended just for uppity brown people, or as "relocation camps" in case of emergency?
The guard towers and razor wire argue against that "explanation," Sir.
So, you see, us "liberals" - that is to say, those of us with various political views who have not been seduced by the warming tickle of smoke being blown up our asses - do not find the "blanket" you refer to as being either warm, comfortable, or having anything whatsoever to do with "freedom."
When an armed and enthusiastic thug tells me to "shut the fuck up" and be quiet in the NAME of freedom, something is terribly wrong.
But I rather think that when you get your marching orders to try and impose martial law upon us "spineless liberals" who "never had the guts to serve," you may find yourself in for a bit of a surprise.
First, I think you may be astonished at how many of us are armed and who take defending the Constitution very seriously indeed, despite a very realistic view of the outcome for us in a personal sense. Second, I believe you will be stunned at how many of us ARE veterans, unlike myself and Third, the embarrassing holes in your own ranks as many take the higher path of honor blazed by Gen. Robert E. Lee.
An interesting further question - one of some professional concern for those such as yourself, I should imagine - is what cause will appeal to all the competent military leaders who's careers foundered upon the rocks of unwelcome candor? Come the day you are led into battle against the American People - as you may well be, given the history and nature of this viciously stupid administration - are you entirely sanguine about the competence of your chain of command and it's ability to anticipate emerging threats and respond effectively? Given it's track record in the "Cakewalk," I mean.
Nah, I suspect you to be just another Redcoat who doesn't believe that a bunch of rag-tag ruffians can achieve anything against the might of the Empire, a fetishist drone of the National Security State, and until the last moment, I suspect you will be unable to comprehend the fact that the individual Citizen - not the CINC - is the intended sovereign agency in this nation. Those of us who understand that - well, you've probably bunked with a lot of them.
So, if you do not respect MY potential ability to fuck you up at range - respect theirs.
The bottom line is this: George Bush will not be able to steal this nation from it's Citizens. He may be able to screw it up, fragment it, balkanize it, kill thousands upon thousands of us, but ultimately, you cannot enslave free citizens. Killing us is your only option - and we have you outnumbered.
I certainly do not advocate civil war. I'm horrified at the prospect. But the ultimate outcome, given the forces at the command of Bush,, even assuming only "scattered resistance" and complete willingness to bear arms against the citizens of this nation, the outcome will come down to the numbers. And that's a damn graphic truth.
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