The terrorists have aleady won
Soon after the attacks on Sept. 11th, 2001, president Bush extolled us to not let the terrorists win by changing our daily routine. Go shopping, he said. Go to a movie, he said. Show the terrorists they can't beat us by changing our daily lives.
Lets leave out the obvious implications of offering up consumerism as the definitive shape of our daily lives.
Instead, lets focus on what we have changed, just so we could keep on with our shopping and movie going.
With the changes in the bill that just went through Congress, there is no clear definition of torture. Torture in the United States of America is, for all intents and purposes, solely up to the desecration of the president. Not only does he and only he decide what constitutes torture, he doesn’t even have to tell anyone what he decides. The great decider apparently isn't the great letter of knowing what the hell he's up to.
Not only does the president and the president alone get to decide what torture now is, he also gets to decide solely, and based on nothing more than his opinion, who our enemies are. This new authority to see enemies where ever they may or may not exist also includes the authorization to include any American citizen into the decision of who's an enemy. And guess what? It doesn't matter if they're Americans or not.
But the best part of not having to change our shopping and movie going habits, is that we never even need to worry about any of this, because Bush doesn't have to tell anyone what he's doing, ever. Because he also gets to have secret prisons that no one but him and whomever he personally decides needs to know where they are or who is in them or what is being done to whom is in them.
This is not a stretch, people. From this day forth, the president of the United States of America can snatch an American citizen off the streets, detain them in a secret location, and torture them, and never have to tell anyone about it. If they die, well, no one knows where they were, right?
And now for my obligatory swearing, just one word though, nothing heavy, just to illustrate a point; If anyone here thinks that this extreme level of secret authority will not be abused, they're a fucking retard.
And I'm talking a retard of the highest order. The sheer magnitude of their retardedness is simply overwhelming. It's monstrous. I'm talking so retarded that if breathing wasn't a reflex they'd suffocate in the open air.
By Bush's own words, the 'war' on terror will never end. That means these powers will never be given back. Everything we do in this knee-jerk happy election cycle will not be easily undone. When was the last time the federal government, under ANY party, gave back expanded or even temporary authority? How do you think we got the federal income tax?
I'm amazed, outraged and saddened, in that order, that so many American, despite their political affiliation, are so willing to alter our core ideals of liberty, justice, and the law, so they can go continue shopping and seeing a movie. I never, in my darkest thoughts, that America would fall so far in fear and loathing.
This is the price of free war. No war is free. But Bush not only wants to wage free war, he wants to pay us off with tax cuts during full scale war for our support. At NO time in history, never in our history, have we not increased revenue to pay for war time operations. Until now. Hell, not only were we told Iraq would cost us nothing, we'd make money off it!
We bailed out of Afghanistan and shoved that onto NATO. We're failing in Iraq. We're crippling the ability of the military to respond to any subsequent threats, of which we currently face many that are growing in urgency. We now have, because of the Iraq War, a greatly limited capacity to protect our interests across the world.
Iraq by many measures was one of the weakest nations in the Middle East. Saddam’s vaunted army was a shadow of its former self, a ghost of an army. It was more threat to itself than to us. Iraq only has 27 million people in it, not much more than a third of Iran’s population. And we couldn't even pacify it. We couldn't even beat the weakest nation that we perceived as a threat to our national security. WE picked the weakest punk in the neighborhood and couldn't even kick his ass.
But it's not so bad, I went shopping at the mall earlier (no local stores around anymore selling what I was looking for). And later on tonight I'll probably watch a movie I reanted, so at least I haven't had to change my all important consumer habits.
But we have fundamentally changed our very understanding of rights and freedoms. We have now restricted who they apply to and given the power of that restriction to one man with no oversight what so ever. And in this way, in the only way that truly matters, the terrorist have already won.
Lets leave out the obvious implications of offering up consumerism as the definitive shape of our daily lives.
Instead, lets focus on what we have changed, just so we could keep on with our shopping and movie going.
With the changes in the bill that just went through Congress, there is no clear definition of torture. Torture in the United States of America is, for all intents and purposes, solely up to the desecration of the president. Not only does he and only he decide what constitutes torture, he doesn’t even have to tell anyone what he decides. The great decider apparently isn't the great letter of knowing what the hell he's up to.
Not only does the president and the president alone get to decide what torture now is, he also gets to decide solely, and based on nothing more than his opinion, who our enemies are. This new authority to see enemies where ever they may or may not exist also includes the authorization to include any American citizen into the decision of who's an enemy. And guess what? It doesn't matter if they're Americans or not.
But the best part of not having to change our shopping and movie going habits, is that we never even need to worry about any of this, because Bush doesn't have to tell anyone what he's doing, ever. Because he also gets to have secret prisons that no one but him and whomever he personally decides needs to know where they are or who is in them or what is being done to whom is in them.
This is not a stretch, people. From this day forth, the president of the United States of America can snatch an American citizen off the streets, detain them in a secret location, and torture them, and never have to tell anyone about it. If they die, well, no one knows where they were, right?
And now for my obligatory swearing, just one word though, nothing heavy, just to illustrate a point; If anyone here thinks that this extreme level of secret authority will not be abused, they're a fucking retard.
And I'm talking a retard of the highest order. The sheer magnitude of their retardedness is simply overwhelming. It's monstrous. I'm talking so retarded that if breathing wasn't a reflex they'd suffocate in the open air.
By Bush's own words, the 'war' on terror will never end. That means these powers will never be given back. Everything we do in this knee-jerk happy election cycle will not be easily undone. When was the last time the federal government, under ANY party, gave back expanded or even temporary authority? How do you think we got the federal income tax?
I'm amazed, outraged and saddened, in that order, that so many American, despite their political affiliation, are so willing to alter our core ideals of liberty, justice, and the law, so they can go continue shopping and seeing a movie. I never, in my darkest thoughts, that America would fall so far in fear and loathing.
This is the price of free war. No war is free. But Bush not only wants to wage free war, he wants to pay us off with tax cuts during full scale war for our support. At NO time in history, never in our history, have we not increased revenue to pay for war time operations. Until now. Hell, not only were we told Iraq would cost us nothing, we'd make money off it!
We bailed out of Afghanistan and shoved that onto NATO. We're failing in Iraq. We're crippling the ability of the military to respond to any subsequent threats, of which we currently face many that are growing in urgency. We now have, because of the Iraq War, a greatly limited capacity to protect our interests across the world.
Iraq by many measures was one of the weakest nations in the Middle East. Saddam’s vaunted army was a shadow of its former self, a ghost of an army. It was more threat to itself than to us. Iraq only has 27 million people in it, not much more than a third of Iran’s population. And we couldn't even pacify it. We couldn't even beat the weakest nation that we perceived as a threat to our national security. WE picked the weakest punk in the neighborhood and couldn't even kick his ass.
But it's not so bad, I went shopping at the mall earlier (no local stores around anymore selling what I was looking for). And later on tonight I'll probably watch a movie I reanted, so at least I haven't had to change my all important consumer habits.
But we have fundamentally changed our very understanding of rights and freedoms. We have now restricted who they apply to and given the power of that restriction to one man with no oversight what so ever. And in this way, in the only way that truly matters, the terrorist have already won.
posted by opus512 at 8:55 PM
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