| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stoney" |
| Date: |
04 Oct 2006 09:08:11 PM |
| Object: |
Welcome to Fascist America! |
http://www.lewrockwell.com/callahan/callahan160.html
Welcome to Fascist America!
by Gene Callahan
My fellow Americans, it’s official now: We live in a fascist nation.
Now, the term "fascist" has been thrown around over the last fifty years
in a loose way that has drained it of much of its meaning. If someone
wanted to cut 5% off of a leftist professor's favourite welfare
programme, the professor would call his opponent a "fascist." I’m not
using the word like that. I mean honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned,
1930s style fascism, featuring such old favourites as:
* Secret prisons – they’re back!
* Torture – we’re doing it.
* Spying on all citizens.
* Arrests and indefinite imprisonment without trial.
* Rampant militarism.
* Secret detention.
* Enforced disappearance.
* Denial and restriction of habeas corpus.
* Prolonged incommunicado detention.
* Unfair trial procedures.
(This list was compiled partially based on the work of Amnesty
International, available here.)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006 {1}
An absolutely mind-numbing response to complaints that our traditional
legal system is being torn apart is the question, "So, you want to
protect the rights of terrorists?"
Um, no, I want to protect the rights of non-terrorists who might be
falsely accused of terrorism! That was sort of, you know, the whole idea
of our legal system. I’m sure there was some neo-con around in the 1700s
saying to Jefferson or Madison, "So, you want to protect the rights of
murderers and robbers?" but luckily they ignored him.
We’ve now gotten to the point where Nazi Germany was, say, in 1934.
Remember, at that time, if you had told a typical German what his
government would do over the next ten years, he would have looked at you
as a madman. After all, his land had been civilized for over a thousand
years. His was the nation of Albertus Magnus, Gutenberg, Goethe,
Schiller, Beethoven, Bach, Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, Heisenberg,
Reimann, Mann, Lessing, Herder, Handel, Dürer, Leibniz, Gauss, Helmholtz
– he could have gone on, but you get the point. His nation could not
possibly descend into barbarism! If you tried to tell him he was living
in a police state, he would have pointed out that his government had
used its vast new powers very judiciously, and only against a few
trouble-makers. So far.
It is interesting, in gauging the direction we are heading, to look at
the proclamations of "respectable" opinion writers who support this
administration. For instance, we have people at a "libertarian" think
tank proclaiming that Moslems are not entitled to full civil rights in
the US.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081006C {2}
(Perhaps we need to make them wear something special on their clothing
like, say, a yellow star, so we know just who they are, hey?) But
"conservatives" provide even more stunning examples of purely fascist
reasoning. For example, conservative demagogue Ann Coulter has called
for the editor of The NY Times to face the firing squad for his part in
publicizing this administration's abuses of power. Let’s look at a
recent column
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/DouglasMacKinnon/2006/09/28/traitors_among_us
by Douglas MacKinnon at TownHall.com. {3}
MacKinnon considers all of those involved in revealing the sordid
collection of secret programmes that have been launched by the Bush
administration as "traitors" who have publicized these schemes "purely
because they don’t like the policies of the new president." Well, he’s
right in that "they don’t like the policies" that they consider
unconstitutional violations of our rights. Far from "aiding the enemy,"
these revelations aided us, the American people, by letting us know what
our government has in store for us.
Consider what the point of classifying these programmes was in the first
place, and who they were being kept secret from. The jihadists no doubt
already knew about the secret prisons – their friends are in them! They
surely knew that the war in Iraq has been helping their recruiting –
it’s their recruiting! ("Praise be to Allah, Abdul, I read in The NY
Times that it is the Iraq War that is sending us these thousands of new
recruits – who knew?") They no doubt suspect they may be wiretapped –
what they didn’t know was that all the rest of us are, as well. No, not
one of these leaks helps terrorists, nor was one of them classified to
stop terrorists from finding them out. We were the ones who weren’t
supposed to find out about them.
MacKinnon continues: "And if even one American lost his or her life
because of a leak, then I would want that person to be executed for
treason."
So anyone who reveals our fascist government policies is a traitor who
can be executed! This is obviously an attempt to intimidate the
opposition so that our police state can be expanded without the annoying
work stoppages caused by public outcry when the latest bit of
construction is revealed. And just how does MacKinnon propose to show
that some American lost his life because a journalist revealed that the
US government tortures people across the globe, rather than, say,
because the policies he supports have inspired a million new jihadists?
Secret trial, perhaps? Or why even bother with trials for filthy
traitors?
Herr Goebbels – oops, I mean MacKinnon – writes, "Until we severely
punish those who leak classified information, then the traitors among us
will not only continue to flourish, but will grow more brazen with the
secrets they reveal."
Yes, what we ought to be able to do, you know, is simply seize anyone
who even mentions our government’s "secret" prisons, and, without a
trial, throw them in a secret prison! This is the logical conclusion of
this fascist’s article, after all, since those who talk about the
American Gulag are pretty much terrorists themselves.
Folks, this is coming real soon, and, once it does, domestic opposition
is pretty much over. One journalist – that will be about all it takes –
will be seized as a "terrorist" and thrown in the Gulag. The government
may release him, but then another will simply disappear in the night in
Iraq or Afghanistan, and rumors will circulate that he is being kept in
a cage somewhere and waterboarded. No journalist lacking heroic courage
will any longer be willing to seriously protest government policy.
America is full of decent people, who could never believe their own
government could become fascist. So were Germany and Italy in the 1920s.
But they became fascist anyway. They passed laws suspending civil
liberties, but the government promised the frightened populace that
those laws would only be used against targets like "Communist
terrorists." And, a little bit at a time, the target kept getting bigger
and bigger, slowly enough that the people who weren’t paying close
attention never detected it.
And, next thing you know, there were millions of people dead! So, it
turns out, it would have been worth paying attention after all.
October 4, 2006
{1}http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006
AI Index: AMR 51/154/2006 29 September 2006
AI Index: AMR 51/154/2006
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Military Commissions Act of 2006 – Turning bad policy into bad law
In recent days, human rights violations perpetrated by the USA
throughout the "war on terror" have in effect been given the
congressional stamp of approval. With the passing of the Military
Commissions Act of 2006 by the US House of Representatives on 27
September and the Senate on 28 September, Congress has turned bad
executive policy into bad law. This document looks back on the evolution
of the executive’s "war on terror" detention policies, in order to
illustrate the sort of violations in which Congress, through inaction
and now legislation, has become complicit. Amnesty International will
continue to campaign for the USA’s "war on terror" detention policies
and practices to be brought into full compliance with international law,
and for repeal of any law that fails to meet this test.
On 21 September 2001, Amnesty International faxed a letter to President
George W. Bush. The organization urged the President to put respect for
human rights and the rule of law at the heart of his country’s response
to the crime against humanity that was perpetrated on 11 September 2001.
"In the wake of a crime of such magnitude", the letter said, "principled
leadership becomes crucial… We urge you to lead your government to take
every necessary human rights precaution in the pursuit of justice."
Amnesty International deeply regrets that its appeal fell on deaf ears.
The past five years have seen the USA engage in systematic violations of
international law, with a distressing impact on thousands of detainees
and their families. Human rights violations have included:
o Secret detention
o Enforced disappearance
o Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
o Outrages upon personal dignity, including humiliating
treatment
o Denial and restriction of habeas corpus
o Indefinite detention without charge or trial
o Prolonged incommunicado detention
o Arbitrary detention
o Unfair trial procedures
Yet at the same time, US officials have continued to characterize the
USA as a "nation of laws" and one that in the "war on terror" is
committed to what it calls the "non-negotiable demands of human
dignity", including the "rule of law".
It is tempting to resort to accusations of hypocrisy, particularly when
the USA itself condemns the very same practices if carried out by other
countries. But in seeking to challenge US conduct, perhaps it is more
useful to consider how vulnerable the law is to elastic interpretation,
manipulation or selective application by the state. And that, for better
or worse, a government can use policy to drive the law rather than vice
versa. In the USA’s case, a long-held resistance to applying
international law to its own conduct compounds the problem.
Under the US administration’s selective application of the laws of war
and outright dismissal of international human rights law, for example,
the Guantánamo detention camp is the "most transparent facility in the
history of warfare" according to the Pentagon, rather than the icon of
lawlessness that many outside the USA perceive it to be.
In similar vein, with elastic interpretation of the law, secret
detention becomes "legal". In his speech on 6 September 2006 confirming
and defending the Central Intelligence Agency’s program of secret
detentions, President Bush emphasised that "this program has been
subject to multiple legal reviews by the Department of Justice and CIA
lawyers; they’ve determined it complied with our laws".
Again, there is a stark "disconnect" between the USA and the
international community. After all, President Bush’s speech came only
weeks after two expert United Nations bodies – the Committee against
Torture and the Human Rights Committee – told the US government that
secret detentions violated the USA’s international treaty obligations.
In effect, the President was rejecting the conclusions of these UN
bodies, as well as admitting that the USA had resorted to enforced
disappearance, a crime under international law.
The US administration’s interpretation of the law has been driven by its
policy choices rather than a credible postulation of its legal
obligations. One core policy choice was to frame its response to the 11
September attacks in terms of a global "war" rather than as a criminal
law enforcement effort. The law would have to be made to fit this "new
paradigm", as President Bush characterized the situation in a 7 February
2002 memorandum on detentions.
At a press conference in June 2004, with the administration seeking to
quell the criticism of its policies following the Abu Ghraib torture
revelations, then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales recalled the
administration’s post-9/11 discussions thus:
"[S]ome questions we faced were, for example: What is the legal
status of individuals caught in this battle? How will they be treated?
To what extent can those detained be questioned to attain information
concerning possible future terrorist attacks? What are the rules? What
will our policies be?...Just as military theorists thought about new
strategies and tactics to fight terrorists, so, too, did lawyers in
looking at how this war fits into the current legal landscape."
From these questions flowed a number of memorandums written in late 2001
and early 2002 by administration lawyers concocting legal positions on a
variety of issues. These issues included the limits of the prohibition
on torture or other ill-treatment, whether the choice of Guantánamo as a
location for detentions would keep detainees out of the reach of the US
courts, and the use of military commissions, to quote a November 2001
Justice Department memorandum, as "entirely creatures of the President’s
authority as Commander-in-Chief". The White House Counsel himself
drafted advice to the President suggesting that a benefit of not
applying the Geneva Conventions to detainees picked up in the
Afghanistan conflict would be that prosecutions of US personnel under
the US War Crimes Act would become more difficult.
Sure enough, almost five years and numerous alleged war crimes later,
there have been no prosecutions under the Act. Similarly there have been
no prosecutions under the USA’s extraterritorial anti-torture statute
despite the widespread allegations of torture. With the USA’s rejection
in 2002 of the International Criminal Court, and its subsequent campaign
to have other countries agree never to surrender US nationals to the
ICC, a pattern of US impunity had been established even before the
Military Commissions Act exacerbated the situation.
The legal advice in these early administration memorandums thus seemed
tailored to fit desired policy outcomes. Precedents that suited the
policy were emphasised, laws that did not were ignored or downplayed.
The indefinite detention regime in Guantánamo and the denial of habeas
corpus was one result. A less than absolute ban on torture or other
ill-treatment was another. Secret detention was a third. And unfair
trial by military commissions still threatens to be a fourth.
The government’s policy of indefinite detention without charge, as
practiced in Guantánamo and elsewhere, is thus a direct consequence of
the war paradigm. Instead of treating these detainees as criminal
suspects, the US authorities have branded them as loosely-defined "enemy
combatants" in a global conflict. That the USA sees the world as the
"battlefield" is illustrated by the fact that those currently held in
Guantánamo include individuals picked up in Gambia, Bosnia, Mauritania,
Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand, and United Arab Emirates, as well
as Afghanistan.
Under the administration’s conceptualization, such detainees are both a
potential source of intelligence and a potential threat to national
security. Access to lawyers is perceived as detrimental to the
interrogation process. Access to the courts is seen as disruptive of
military operations. In the version of the Military Commissions Act
which President Bush sent to Congress on 6 September 2006, the
administration argued that trials with lower standards of justice than
apply in existing US courts were necessary because "the terrorists with
whom the United States is engaged in armed conflict have demonstrated a
commitment…to the abuse of American legal processes". In this argument,
the administration seemed to be putting the US lawyers who have
litigated on behalf of the Guantánamo detainees on the wrong side of
President Bush’s "with us or with the terrorists" divide. In this nation
of laws, it seemed, you were either with the administration’s lawyers or
you were with the terrorists.
Although branded as "terrorists" and "killers" by the
Commander-in-Chief, and as "evil" by Vice President Cheney, the
Guantánamo detainees are not necessarily considered as individuals
bearing responsibility for specific criminal conduct. Indeed, the
question of trials of "alien unlawful enemy combatants" is viewed by the
administration as an entirely separate issue, one that does not affect
the detention regime itself. According to the administration, detentions
may last until the end of the conflict, the definition and timing of
which – like the detentions themselves – is a matter of executive
discretion, and potentially indefinite. Even if acquitted by a military
commission, a detainee could still be returned to indefinite detention
as an "enemy combatant".
The vast majority of those held by the USA in the "war on terror" are
unlikely ever to face US judicial proceedings. As noted above, that is
not why they are detained. Even the small number of detainees who have
been charged have not come to trial. Part of the reason is that the
administration’s policy-driven interpretation of the law has inevitably
collided with that of much of the legal community, including judicial
authorities such as the US Supreme Court in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
ruling of 29 June 2006. But relatively narrowly-framed judicial
decisions interpreted narrowly and in self-serving fashion by the
executive make for slow progress towards full respect for human rights.
Thus, more than two years after the Supreme Court ruled in Rasul v. Bush
that the US courts had jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus appeals
from the Guantánamo detainees, not a single one of them currently held
there has had the lawfulness of his detention judicially reviewed.
The response of the US administration to the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling
has perhaps been even more shocking, although apparently not shocking
enough to nudge Congress finally into calling the executive to account
for "war on terror" abuses. Indeed, President Bush’s defence of the
CIA’s program of secret detention and "alternative" interrogation
techniques policy, which he said had been called into question by the
Hamdan ruling and therefore needed congressional approval, showed an
administration in assertively unapologetic mood.
Again, one can begin to trace the administration’s manipulation of the
law to fit its policy. According to a document recently issued by the
Director of National Intelligence, after "high-value" detainee Abu
Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and handed over to the
USA, he stopped "cooperation" with his US interrogators. In order to
overcome this lack of cooperation, "over the ensuing months, the CIA
designed a new interrogation program" and "sought and obtained legal
guidance from the Department of Justice that none of the new procedures
violated the US statutes prohibiting torture."
Any such claim of legality rings hollow. For until the Detainee
Treatment Act was passed in December 2005 (in the face of executive
opposition), Department of Justice lawyers took the position that
because of the reservation attached to the USA’s ratification of the
Convention against Torture in 1994, the USA had no treaty obligation on
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to foreign nationals
held in US custody overseas. In addition, in August 2002, the Justice
Department provided legal advice in a memorandum which only came to
light in mid-2004 after the Abu Ghraib torture revelations. It was
reportedly written in response to a CIA request for legal protections
for its interrogators. The memorandum stated among other things that
interrogators could cause a great deal of pain before crossing the
threshold to torture, that there were a "significant range of acts" that
might constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment but would not
rise to the level of torture and be prosecutable under the US torture
statute, and that the President could override international or national
prohibitions on torture.(1)
The administration has not elaborated upon what the CIA "alternative"
interrogation techniques have entailed, simply relaying the politically
expedient claim that the resistance of Abu Zubaydah and the other
detainees had been broken. Sued in court, the CIA has so far been
successful in its ploy of refusing to confirm or deny the existence of
an alleged presidential directive and an alleged Justice Department
memorandum authorizing and outlining the secret detention program and
its interrogation methods. However, the methods are widely reported to
have included techniques that would clearly violate international
law.(2)
Even now, more than two years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, the
USA’s protections against torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment are less than adequate. Among other things, the USA’s treaty
reservations mean that the USA considers itself, including under the
Detainee Treatment Act, bound by the prohibition on cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment only to the extent that it matches
existing US law. Under US Supreme Court jurisprudence, conduct is banned
that "shocks the conscience". Justice Department lawyers reportedly view
this as allowing consideration of the context in which abuse of
detainees occurs. Under such consideration, if a detainee is believed to
have information considered by the government to be important to
national security, the "shocks the conscience" test could be interpreted
by the government as permitting conduct that would be otherwise be
unlawful. As Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee,
Representative Peter King, said: "If we capture bin Laden tomorrow and
we have to hold his head under water to find out when the next attack is
going to happen, we ought to be able to do that".(3) Or as Senator John
Thune from South Dakota said in an earlier hearing of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, "when you talk about humiliating or degrading or
those types of terms and applying them to terrorists… I think that’s not
something that people in my state would be real concerned [about]".
Thus the USA adheres to a less than absolute ban on torture and other
ill-treatment. It is clearly a long way from leading the world in
fighting torture, as President Bush claimed in 2003.(4)
Indeed it would appear that the President himself remains at square one,
namely the position articulated in his 7 February 2002 memorandum on
detention policy. This memorandum indicated that for some detainees at
least, the administration viewed humane treatment as a policy choice
rather than a legal obligation, and one that did not apply to the
CIA.(5) Four and a half years later, on 6 September 2006, President Bush
justified the past use and continued existence of the secret CIA
detention and interrogation program for use against certain "high-value"
detainees on the grounds of necessity. He said that "it has been
"necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be
held secretly [and] questioned by experts" using unspecified
"alternative" techniques to extract information from detainees allegedly
resistant to interrogation. "Military necessity" has also been used to
justify torture or ill-treatment at Guantánamo under at least one of two
"special interrogation plans" authorized by Secretary of Defence
Rumsfeld.(6)
In the lead-up to the 2002 congressional elections, President Bush
requested authorization for use of force against Iraq. On 10 October
2002 Congress passed a broadly-framed and controversial resolution to
this end.(7) The full ramifications of this resolution and the ensuing
invasion of Iraq remain to be seen, but four years later, with
congressional elections again looming, President Bush presented Congress
with the Military Commissions Act. He stated in his 6 September speech
that as soon as Congress authorized military commissions acceptable to
the administration, Abu Zubaydah and the 13 other men newly transferred
to Guantánamo from years in secret CIA custody could "face justice",
including the possibility of execution. It seems clear that the
administration set out to use these high-profile detainees to apply
pressure on legislators – in the context of mid-term elections and in
the charged atmosphere of the fifth anniversary of the 11 September
attacks – to adopt legislation authorizing a revised version of the
military commissions struck down by the Hamdan ruling, and to endorse
other aspects of the administration’s detention policy. The resulting
Military Commissions Act of 2006 is bad for the USA and bad for human
rights.
The US system of government enshrines three separate branches of
government – the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. In an
opinion written eight decades ago, US Supreme Court Justice Louis
Brandeis explained that: "The doctrine of the separation of powers was
adopted by the convention of 1787 not to promote efficiency but to
preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was not to avoid
friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the
distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save
the people from autocracy."(8)
Friction or no friction, viewed from an international perspective, the
executive, legislative and judicial branches of government all have
roles to play in ensuring the USA’s adherence to its international legal
obligations. The executive has singularly failed to meet its obligations
in this regard. The judiciary, headed by the Supreme Court, has moved to
rein in executive excess but as already noted, its rulings on the
relatively narrow questions brought before it are vulnerable to narrow
and self-serving interpretations by the executive.
Three days after the 11 September 2001 attacks, Congress had the
opportunity to put down a marker against executive excess in the "war on
terror". It failed to do so when it passed the broadly framed
Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which has since been
used by the administration to justify violations of international law.
Amnesty International believes that Congress should repeal or
substantially amend the AUMF. Congress has failed to establish a
commission of inquiry into the USA’s "war on terror" detention policies
and practices, despite a compelling need for such an inquiry. In
December 2005, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, but included
in it an impunity clause (§1004) and a severe curtailment of habeas
corpus (§1005). Amnesty International has called for these sections of
the Act to be repealed or substantially amended.
Now Congress has passed the Military Commissions Act. Amnesty
International will work for the repeal of this legislation which
violates human rights principles. Among other things, the Military
Commissions Act will:
o Strip the US courts of jurisdiction to hear or consider
habeas corpus appeals challenging the lawfulness or conditions of
detention of anyone held in US custody as an "enemy combatant". Judicial
review of cases would be severely limited. The law would apply
retroactively, and thus could result in more than 200 pending appeals
filed on behalf of Guantánamo detainees being thrown out of court.
o Prohibit any person from invoking the Geneva Conventions or
their protocols as a source of rights in any action in any US court.
o Permit the executive to convene military commissions to try
"alien unlawful enemy combatants", as determined by the executive under
a dangerously broad definition, in trials that would provide foreign
nationals so labeled with a lower standard of justice than US citizens
accused of the same crimes. This would violate the prohibition on the
discriminatory application of fair trial rights.
o Permit civilians captured far from any battlefield to be
tried by military commission rather than civilian courts, contradicting
international standards and case law.
o Establish military commissions whose impartiality,
independence and competence would be in doubt, due to the overarching
role that the executive, primarily the Secretary of Defense, would play
in their procedures and in the appointments of military judges and
military officers to sit on the commissions.
o Permit, in violation of international law, the use of
evidence extracted under cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, or as a result of "outrages upon personal dignity,
particularly humiliating or degrading treatment", as defined under
international law.
o Permit the use of classified evidence against a defendant,
without the defendant necessarily being able effectively to challenge
the "sources, methods or activities" by which the government acquired
the evidence. This is of particular concern in light of the high level
of secrecy and resort to national security arguments employed by the
administration in the "war on terror", which have been widely
criticized, including by the UN Committee against Torture and the Human
Rights Committee. Amnesty International is concerned that the
administration appears on occasion to have resorted to classification to
prevent independent scrutiny of human rights violations.
o Give the military commissions the power to hand down death
sentences, in contravention of international standards which only permit
capital punishment after trials affording "all possible safeguards to
ensure a fair trial". The clemency authority would be the President.
President Bush has led a pattern of official public commentary on the
presumed guilt of the detainees, and has overseen a system that has
systematically denied the rights of detainees.
o Limit the right of charged detainees to be represented by
counsel of their choosing.
o Fail to provide any guarantee that trials will be conducted
within a reasonable time.
o Permit the executive to determine who is an "enemy
combatant" under any "competent tribunal" established by the executive,
and endorse the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT), the wholly
inadequate administrative procedure that has been employed in Guantánamo
to review individual detentions.
o Narrow the scope of the War Crimes Act by not expressly
criminalizing acts that constitute "outrages upon personal dignity,
particularly humiliating and degrading treatment" banned under Article 3
common to the four Geneva Conventions. Amnesty International believes
that the USA has routinely failed to respect the human dignity of
detainees in the "war on terror".
o Prohibit the US courts from using "foreign or international
law" to inform their decisions in relation to the War Crimes Act. The
President has the authority to "interpret the meaning and application of
the Geneva Conventions". Under President Bush, the USA has shown a
selective disregard for the Geneva Conventions and the absolute
prohibition of torture or other ill-treatment.
o Endorse the administration’s "war paradigm" – under which
the USA has selectively applied the laws of war and rejected
international human rights law. The legislation would backdate the "war
on terror" to before the 11 September 2001 in order to be able to try
individuals in front of military commissions for "war crimes" committed
before that date.
Meanwhile the human rights violations continue. The CIA’s secret
detention and interrogation program retains the full support of
President Bush. During the debates on the Military Commissions Act,
members of Congress expressed their support for the program, despite the
fact that it violates international law. Thousands of detainees remain
in indefinite detention without charge or trial in US custody in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Guantánamo. In passing the Military Commissions Act,
Congress has failed these detainees and their families.
Those defending human rights should be prepared for a long struggle.
********
(1) "That memo represented the position of the executive branch at the
time it was issued"; and: "It
represented the administrative branch position". "I accepted the August
1, 2002, memo". Alberto
Gonzales, White House Counsel, in response to oral questions from
Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator
Edward Kennedy and written questions from Senator Richard Durbin during
the US Attorney General
nomination hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, January 2005.
(2) CIA’s harsh interrogation techniques described, ABC News, 18
November 2005, available at
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866. (listing
techniques grabbing, slapping, and: "Long Time Standing: …Prisoners are
forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt
in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation
are effective in yielding confessions… The Cold Cell: The prisoner is
left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time
in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water… Water Boarding: The
prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly
below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water
is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a
terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the
treatment to a halt."
(3) An unexpected collision over detainees, New York Times, 15 September
2006.
(4) "The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of
torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all
governments to join with the United States and the community of
law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all
acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual
punishment." Statement by the President, 26 June 2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030626-3.html.
(5) "Our values…call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those
that are not legally entitled to such treatment… As a matter of policy,
the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees
humanely".
(6) See USA: Rendition – torture – trial? The case of Guantánamo
detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi,
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR511492006. In the case of
Mohamed al-Qahtani (see end of above report), the interrogation plan
"outlines the military necessity for doing this [harsh interrogation]".
Department of Defense Deputy General Counsel. Press briefing, White
House, 22 June 2004.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040622-14.html.
(7) See, for example, chapter 5 of Neal Devins and Louis Fisher, The
Democratic Constitution. Oxford University Press, 2004 ("…Congress chose
to vote under partisan pressure with inadequate information, to pass an
authorizing resolution. As with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (in 1970,
expanding intervention in Vietnam), Congress acted hurriedly in the
middle of an election without the information it needed. The Iraq
Resolution did not decide either for or against military action; it left
that decision solely with the President…").
(8) Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926), Justice Brandeis
dissenting.
AI Index: AMR 51/154/2006 29 September 2006
{2}http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081006C
The Age of Post-National Warfare
By Arnold Kling 10 Aug 2006
"Look," he says, "I'm sorry for reminding you of this, but if we still
had laws, the Mafia would be a criminal organization."
"But we don't have laws," she says, "so it's just another chain."
-- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
In Neal Stephenson's 1992 science-fiction classic, the two main
characters have been hired by the Mafia and other ethnic corporate
franchises to deal with a fanatic religious cult whose chief warrior
possesses a hydrogen bomb. In the novel, governments are too powerless
to deal with this threat. It is a brutal, post-national world.
Today in reality, Islam contains a fanatical religious cult whose chief
warrior seeks nuclear weapons. Iran may be leading the world toward a
post-national era.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah uses a combination of military might,
ruthlessness, ethnic solidarity, and religious fanaticism to form an
entity more powerful than the state of Lebanon, and arguably more
powerful than the state of Israel. What we are seeing unfold in the
Middle East may be a step toward the sort of post-national environment
envisioned by Neal Stephenson.
Disarm Muslims
I believe that what we need going forward is a policy of disarming
Muslims. I believe that we must keep devout Muslims away from weapons,
and keep weapons away from devout Muslims. I can work with Muslims, send
my children to school with Muslims, and be friends with Muslims. I do
not have an issue with their religion, as long as they do not have
weapons. However, the combination of weapons and Islam poses
unacceptable danger to the rest of us.
To see what I mean, take a pencil and paper, and list all of the violent
international disputes in the last five years that have involved
Muslims. Next, come up with a list of all of the international disputes
in the last five years involving Muslims that have been settled
peacefully. For me, the first list is rather long, and the second list
is rather, well, empty.
Winning Hearts and Minds?
Recently the Washington Monthly pundit Kevin Drum wrote,
"I believe that our fight against Islamic jihadism is analogous on a
global scale to a counterinsurgency. To use the hoary phrase, we'll
succeed by "winning hearts and minds," and conventional warfare just
can't do that. In fact, it's mostly counterproductive: it won't succeed
in killing the guerrillas and it will lose us the support of the local
citizenry, which in turn will make the insurgency even more formidable.
...So what's the alternative? I believe it's fundamentally
nonmilitary and revolves around engagement: trade agreements, security
pacts, genuine support for grassroots democracy, a willingness to
practice the same international rules we preach, etc. The idea is to
slowly but steadily promote democratic rule, liberal institutions,
education of women, and international commerce."
Kevin Drum is tragically mistaken. The other side does not want "trade
agreements, security pacts, genuine support for grassroots democracy, a
willingness to practice the same international rules we preach, etc."
The other side wants to kill.
The problem is that you cannot win hearts and minds in what Lee Harris
insightfully called a blood feud.
"In the blood feud, the orientation is not to the future, as in war,
but to the past. In the feud you are avenging yourself on your enemy for
something that he did in the past. Al Qaeda justified the attack on New
York and Washington as revenge against the USA for having defiled the
sacred soil of Saudi Arabia by its military presence during the First
Gulf War. In the attack on London, the English were being punished for
their involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the blood feud, unlike war, you have no interest in bringing your
enemy to his knees. You are not looking for your enemy to surrender to
you; you are simply interested in killing some of his people in revenge
for past injuries, real or imaginary -- nor does it matter in the least
whether the people you kill today were the ones guilty of the past
injuries that you claim to be avenging. In a blood feud, every member of
the enemy tribe is a perfectly valid target for revenge. What is
important is that some of their guys must be killed -- not necessarily
anyone of any standing in their community. Just kill someone on the
other side, and you have done what the logic of the blood feud commands
you to do."
The idea of winning hearts and minds assumes that people are focused on
the future, so that they pay attention to the carrots you are holding
out to them. It assumes that people have a vocabulary that includes
"satisfactory compromise," "peaceful solution," "splitting the
difference," "settling the dispute," or "putting it behind us." That
vocabulary does not seem to exist among Muslims, where every
disagreement is treated primarily as a justification for violence.
The Failure of Government
A policy of disarming Muslims is not going to be undertaken by
international bodies. To the extent that international institutions and
laws ever were effective, this is not the case today. From the collapse
of international trade negotiations to the failures of international
development assistance to the rejection of the EU Constitution to the
nearly-perfect record of futility of the United Nations, government
institutions at a world level have reached a Snow Crash ebb.
Regardless of what resolutions may be passed in the UN, I am skeptical
that any international force will ever set foot in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah is motivated to continue to fire rockets into Israel. Israel
is motivated to fire back. What nation is motivated to get in the
middle?
As far as the United States is concerned, my sense is that our national
will to fight terrorism has been slipping steadily. Nearly five years
after the war was brought home to us, we are not executing any strategy
or creating any momentum in the direction for victory. There is a large
segment of our society that wants to move forward against militant
Islam, but there are powerful elements who want to do otherwise.
On September 13, 2001, two days after the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon were attacked, I wrote an essay called A Framework for Victory
that still, today, offers a more long-range, strategic vision than I can
find reading most pundits. I wrote,
"A victory in the war against terrorism would do two things:
o Minimize the operational capability of terrorists.
o Guarantee our right to pursue our way of life. Today, there
are religious and political organizations that refuse to accept our
right to pursue our way of life. Their leaders advocate violence and
terror against us. Such groups either must be induced to change their
behavior or face eradication."
I wrote that it was very important for this country to remain united,
and I worried specifically about anti-immigrant hysteria. Our leaders,
both Democratic and Republican, have failed to pursue unity. The
divisions between mainstream media and alternative media have widened.
The gap between college professors and military personnel has become a
chasm. These internal divisions are using up most of the energy that
ought to be expended on dealing with external threats.
In my essay, I raised, as I have many times since, the issue of
surveillance policy. I wrote,
"The first objective is to minimize the operational capability of
terrorists. It seems to me that this requires infiltration and
surveillance.
Currently, when we think about surveillance and privacy, the focus
is on various methods of gathering information. Is it legitimate to tap
a phone line? To use a video camera? etc.
In this sense, our debate tends to be techno-centric rather than
people-centric. If it were people-centric, I think that we would focus
on:
o What are the legitimate purposes of surveillance?
o What are the legitimate uses of surveillance?"
We still have not had the open-minded policy discussion of surveillance
policy that I saw was necessary nearly five years ago. Instead, we have
an unproductive fight between knee-jerk opponents of any surveillance
and an Administration that insists it should be able to do whatever it
pleases, without oversight.
Arsenals of Hatred
In 2001, I also wrote:
"We tend to overlook the many religious and secular leaders who call
for violence against America. I believe that it is a mistake to let this
pass.
Probably the biggest error in the Oslo "peace process" was the fact
that Israel and the United States chose to overlook the steady drumbeat
of incitement and demonization that took place in the Palestinian media.
Rather than preparing its people for eventual peace, the Palestinian
Authority was building an arsenal of hatred.
A key strategic element in the war against terrorism will be to
confront the arsenals of hatred and get rid of them. We cannot ignore
them. We cannot appease them. We should not bother to psycho-analyze
them. We need to eliminate them."
To this day, we continue to be squeamish about firing at mosques or
assassinating "clerics" who espouse violence. Many people say that we
need to "engage" Iran, even though the leaders of Iran want to kill Jews
and other westerners. Just as we ignored Bin Laden's declaration of war,
we ignore the declarations of war of the Iranian leaders and the leaders
of the various militant Islamic groups around the world.
The Rat Thing Solution
In the post-national world of Snow Crash, the most effective force for
order is the Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit, more commonly known as a Rat
Thing. The Rat Thing is a sort of bionic dog, with an instinct for
distinguishing nice people from bad people. Its barking mechanism is
used for summoning other Rat Things, so they may act as a pack if
needed. The Rat Thing is very fast and very powerful.
On two occasions in Snow Crash, the main characters are saved from
villains by Rat Things. As the first incident ends, the heroine has just
learned that their adversaries have been disarmed.
"They had guns just a second ago," Y.T. says, bulging her eyes and
shaking her head.
"The Rat Thing has them now," Hiro says.
Individual governments cannot seem to get their act together to address
the problem of militant Islam. Perhaps a network of people in various
countries can put their heads together and come up with a way to disarm
Muslims that works as well as Neal Stephenson's Rat Things.
The author is a TCS Daily Contributing Editor.
{3}
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/DouglasMacKinnon/2006/09/28/traitors_among_us
Traitors among us
By Douglas MacKinnon
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Can we really win the war on terror? I am honestly starting to doubt we
can.
My main rationale for that doubt being; how can we defeat the unimagined
evil of these barbaric terrorist organizations as long as some of our
fellow Americans feel they have the right to break the law and
continually leak classified information that aids and abets the very
vermin that seeks to exterminate us?
While not a complicated question, the only logical answer is
unambiguous, frightening, and disheartening: We can’t defeat the
terrorists if traitors among us eagerly supply them with intelligence
that puts our nation and our troops in harms way. Period.
The latest in a long line of leaks that embolden Al Qaeda and other
terrorist organizations, is the very selective and politically motivated
disclosure of information from the highly classified “National
Intelligence Estimate.” The NIE being the coordinated judgments of up to
sixteen US intelligence agencies that is used to brief the President and
other high ranking officials.
This particular, out of context leak, seeks to prove that the war with
Iraq has created more terrorists and is putting the United States at
greater risk of attack than before we entered the country. In response
to the flawed logic of this partisan leak, President George W. Bush
said, “We weren’t in Iraq when we got attacked on September 11. We
weren’t in Iraq when thousands of fighters were trained in terror camps.
We weren’t in Iraq when they first attacked the World Trade Center in
1993. We weren’t in Iraq when they bombed the Cole. We weren’t in Iraq
when the blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.”
While the President’s rebuttal makes great sense, I am not here to
defend him nor his policies in Iraq. Rather, as one who once worked in a
joint command at the Pentagon and dealt with classified information on a
daily basis, I am here to beg those in our own government and our own
media, to stop this suicidal disclosure of top secret information. If
not for reasons of obeying the law and patriotism, then at the very
least, for the safety of you and your family. For when the terrorists do
visit our shores again – basically at your invitation -- your betrayal
of state secrets will not shield you, nor your family, from their
fanatical wrath. Deaths of the innocent being an obscene price to be
paid for scoring cheap and fleeting, partisan points.
What is most disgusting and troubling about these continual criminal
leaks -- be they about the NIE, the terrorist surveillance program,
heretofore “secret” CIA prisons in Europe for proven killers, or coerced
interrogations – is the fact that the leakers are almost assuredly US
intelligence operatives who have an ax to grind with George W. Bush or
his administration.
In order to be an effective betrayer of national secrets, these
government snitches need accomplices in the media to aid in the
dissemination of the classified material. For that role, they turn to
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other left of center news
organizations that think nothing of revealing top secret information in
an effort to harm the policies of an administration they hold in
contempt.
Fine. We know the rules of the liberal elite. But what if, come January
20, 2009, Democrat Hillary Clinton or Democrat Mark Warner, is sworn in
as the next President of the United States? And what if, two years into
his or her term, some intelligence operatives with a right of center
bias, decide, purely because they don’t like the policies of the new
president, to leak highly classified information to the handful of
conservatives outlets, in an attempt to discredit the President and his
or her policies. What then, the reaction of Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid,
Nancy Pelosi, The New York Times, and The Washington Post? All liberals
or news organizations who are thrilled with this current batch of leaks.
What would they say about “conservatives” leaking information to hurt
their President?
Their answer is obvious. Mine, maybe less so. Like the partisans who
are now leaking to hurt President Bush, if in the future, a
“conservative” leaks top secret information that he or she has sworn to
protect, I would wish them to face the full brunt of the law. And if
even one American lost his or her life because of a leak, then I would
want that person to be executed for treason.
Until we severely punish those who leak classified information, then the
traitors among us will not only continue to flourish, but will grow more
brazen with the secrets they reveal.
Since I don’t believe our nation to prepared to execute or imprison
those who leak such information, then it will be clearly impossible to
stop them.
Should we not be able to stop these politically motivated leaks, then we
cannot stop the terrorists who dream of our destruction. A future of
untold loss of life because a handful of our fellow Americans decided
they were above the law of the land.
When that day comes, I pity those who have been cheerleading the
betrayal of these national secrets.
Douglas MacKinnon was press secretary to former Senator Bob Dole. He is
also a former White House and Pentagon official and author of the
forthcoming novel, “America’s Last Days.”
/end
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
|
|
| User: "*nemo*" |
|
| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
05 Oct 2006 04:16:29 AM |
|
|
In article <kip8i2hs9jfuldtnom4vjmaije1blg91tc@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
An absolutely mind-numbing response to complaints that our traditional
legal system is being torn apart is the question, "So, you want to
protect the rights of terrorists?"
Seems to me that we must protect the rights even of terrorists until
they are proven to be terrorists. Once that happens, they should bee
treated as criminals in our normal system of justice, though probably as
a separate class, placed for life in super-max detention, having no
contact with anyone outside the system other than maybe the Red Cross
(or Crescent, I suppose).
--
Nemo - EAC Commissioner for Bible Belt Underwater Operations.
Atheist #1331 (the Palindrome of doom!)
BAAWA Knight! - One of those warm Southern Knights, y'all!
Charter member, SMASH!!
http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/Relpg.html
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus
Quotemeister since March 2002
.
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| User: "Andres64" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
05 Oct 2006 04:40:07 PM |
|
|
*nemo* wrote:
In article <kip8i2hs9jfuldtnom4vjmaije1blg91tc@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
An absolutely mind-numbing response to complaints that our traditional
legal system is being torn apart is the question, "So, you want to
protect the rights of terrorists?"
Seems to me that we must protect the rights even of terrorists until
they are proven to be terrorists. Once that happens, they should bee
treated as criminals in our normal system of justice, though probably as
a separate class, placed for life in super-max detention, having no
contact with anyone outside the system other than maybe the Red Cross
(or Crescent, I suppose).
Isn't it funny how the laws/system used in WWII to try war criminals
and ever since isn't good enough now?
.
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| User: "Emma Pease" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
05 Oct 2006 02:31:27 PM |
|
|
In article <nemo0037-BA42AF.05162805102006@news.west.earthlink.net>, *nemo* wrote:
In article <kip8i2hs9jfuldtnom4vjmaije1blg91tc@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
An absolutely mind-numbing response to complaints that our traditional
legal system is being torn apart is the question, "So, you want to
protect the rights of terrorists?"
Seems to me that we must protect the rights even of terrorists until
they are proven to be terrorists. Once that happens, they should bee
treated as criminals in our normal system of justice, though probably as
a separate class, placed for life in super-max detention, having no
contact with anyone outside the system other than maybe the Red Cross
(or Crescent, I suppose).
Actually it is the ICRC (Internation Committee of the Red Cross) which
is separate from all the national Red Cross/Red Cresent/Red Other
Societies. It is the group responsible for visiting prisoners of war
and civilian detainees and refugees and is based in Switzerland because
of that countries strict neutrality.[1]
Also they should be convicted for offenses recognized under law (e.g.,
murder) and given the punishment due for those offenses. To put them
in a separate class means creating a new law and then applying it ex
poste facto. Given that several thousand people died on 9/11 the
people who planned it should upon conviction get several life
sentences (run consecutively). Note that people being called
terrorists have included those who've done relatively little and may
not have been aware they were helping people planning murders. Some
have also done it under duress (the US is currently refusing refugee
status to anyone who gave aid to a 'terrorist group' even if done at
gunpoint or was as little as preparing a meal[2]).
Emma
[1] http://www.icrc.org/ The web site is a good source for the various
conventions that the US has signed (or has not).
[2] http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/06/refugees_screwe.html
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
08 Oct 2006 06:23:07 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 09:16:29 GMT, *nemo*
<nemo0037@earthlink.dieSPAM.net> wrote in alt.atheism
In article <kip8i2hs9jfuldtnom4vjmaije1blg91tc@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
An absolutely mind-numbing response to complaints that our traditional
legal system is being torn apart is the question, "So, you want to
protect the rights of terrorists?"
Seems to me that we must protect the rights even of terrorists until
they are proven to be terrorists.
Exactly.
Once that happens, they should bee
treated as criminals in our normal system of justice, though probably as
a separate class, placed for life in super-max detention, having no
contact with anyone outside the system other than maybe the Red Cross
(or Crescent, I suppose).
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
|
|
|
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
05 Oct 2006 01:04:33 AM |
|
|
In article <kip8i2hs9jfuldtnom4vjmaije1blg91tc@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/callahan/callahan160.html
Welcome to Fascist America!
by Gene Callahan
My fellow Americans, it’s official now: We live in a fascist nation.
Now, the term "fascist" has been thrown around over the last fifty years
in a loose way that has drained it of much of its meaning. If someone
wanted to cut 5% off of a leftist professor's favourite welfare
programme, the professor would call his opponent a "fascist." I’m not
using the word like that. I mean honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned,
1930s style fascism, featuring such old favourites as:
* Secret prisons – they’re back!
* Torture – we’re doing it.
* Spying on all citizens.
* Arrests and indefinite imprisonment without trial.
* Rampant militarism.
* Secret detention.
* Enforced disappearance.
* Denial and restriction of habeas corpus.
* Prolonged incommunicado detention.
* Unfair trial procedures.
(This list was compiled partially based on the work of Amnesty
International, available here.)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006 {1}
I would add:
€ Propaganda for truth
€ Demonization of 'scapegoats' (liberals, Democrats, gays,
secularists, anti-war protesters, and any others objecting to the
leaders policies.)
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
.
|
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
08 Oct 2006 06:22:13 PM |
|
|
On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 23:04:33 -0700, johac <jhachmann@sbcglobal.com>
wrote in alt.atheism
In article <kip8i2hs9jfuldtnom4vjmaije1blg91tc@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/callahan/callahan160.html
Welcome to Fascist America!
by Gene Callahan
My fellow Americans, it’s official now: We live in a fascist nation.
Now, the term "fascist" has been thrown around over the last fifty years
in a loose way that has drained it of much of its meaning. If someone
wanted to cut 5% off of a leftist professor's favourite welfare
programme, the professor would call his opponent a "fascist." I’m not
using the word like that. I mean honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned,
1930s style fascism, featuring such old favourites as:
* Secret prisons – they’re back!
* Torture – we’re doing it.
* Spying on all citizens.
* Arrests and indefinite imprisonment without trial.
* Rampant militarism.
* Secret detention.
* Enforced disappearance.
* Denial and restriction of habeas corpus.
* Prolonged incommunicado detention.
* Unfair trial procedures.
(This list was compiled partially based on the work of Amnesty
International, available here.)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006 {1}
I would add:
€ Propaganda for truth
€ Demonization of 'scapegoats' (liberals, Democrats, gays,
secularists, anti-war protesters, and any others objecting to the
leaders policies.)
And much much more.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
|
|
|
| User: "johac" |
|
| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
09 Oct 2006 12:25:01 AM |
|
|
In article <s02ji2p5g5k6sguua7bneu8i04al6ptjr2@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 23:04:33 -0700, johac <jhachmann@sbcglobal.com>
wrote in alt.atheism
In article <kip8i2hs9jfuldtnom4vjmaije1blg91tc@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/callahan/callahan160.html
Welcome to Fascist America!
by Gene Callahan
My fellow Americans, it’s official now: We live in a fascist nation.
Now, the term "fascist" has been thrown around over the last fifty years
in a loose way that has drained it of much of its meaning. If someone
wanted to cut 5% off of a leftist professor's favourite welfare
programme, the professor would call his opponent a "fascist." I’m not
using the word like that. I mean honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned,
1930s style fascism, featuring such old favourites as:
* Secret prisons – they’re back!
* Torture – we’re doing it.
* Spying on all citizens.
* Arrests and indefinite imprisonment without trial.
* Rampant militarism.
* Secret detention.
* Enforced disappearance.
* Denial and restriction of habeas corpus.
* Prolonged incommunicado detention.
* Unfair trial procedures.
(This list was compiled partially based on the work of Amnesty
International, available here.)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006 {1}
I would add:
€ Propaganda for truth
€ Demonization of 'scapegoats' (liberals, Democrats, gays,
secularists, anti-war protesters, and any others objecting to the
leaders policies.)
I should have added:
€ Disregard for international law.
And much much more.
Sad but true. All of the above barely scratch the surface.
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
.
|
|
|
| User: "stoney" |
|
| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
09 Oct 2006 04:53:51 PM |
|
|
On Sun, 08 Oct 2006 22:25:01 -0700, johac <jhachmann@sbcglobal.com>
wrote in alt.atheism
In article <s02ji2p5g5k6sguua7bneu8i04al6ptjr2@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 23:04:33 -0700, johac <jhachmann@sbcglobal.com>
wrote in alt.atheism
In article <kip8i2hs9jfuldtnom4vjmaije1blg91tc@4ax.com>,
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/callahan/callahan160.html
Welcome to Fascist America!
by Gene Callahan
My fellow Americans, it’s official now: We live in a fascist nation.
Now, the term "fascist" has been thrown around over the last fifty years
in a loose way that has drained it of much of its meaning. If someone
wanted to cut 5% off of a leftist professor's favourite welfare
programme, the professor would call his opponent a "fascist." I’m not
using the word like that. I mean honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned,
1930s style fascism, featuring such old favourites as:
* Secret prisons – they’re back!
* Torture – we’re doing it.
* Spying on all citizens.
* Arrests and indefinite imprisonment without trial.
* Rampant militarism.
* Secret detention.
* Enforced disappearance.
* Denial and restriction of habeas corpus.
* Prolonged incommunicado detention.
* Unfair trial procedures.
(This list was compiled partially based on the work of Amnesty
International, available here.)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006 {1}
I would add:
€ Propaganda for truth
€ Demonization of 'scapegoats' (liberals, Democrats, gays,
secularists, anti-war protesters, and any others objecting to the
leaders policies.)
I should have added:
€ Disregard for international law.
And much much more.
Sad but true. All of the above barely scratch the surface.
I know. And Shrub's calling N. Korea a 'threat to world peace' as if he
wasn't the world's biggest terrorist.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
09 Oct 2006 09:54:17 PM |
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On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:53:51 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
Hi, Stoney,
I know. And Shrub's calling N. Korea a 'threat to world peace' as if he
wasn't the world's biggest terrorist.
If we're scared enough of N. Korea we'll forget to be scared of DC. He
hopes. Well, there ARE all the Fred Stones of the world, so as long
as Shrub keeps calling abortion the single largest threat to America
(and homosexuality the second, or is it the other way around this
week?), he figures Congress will stay Rethug.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
If you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an
ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish
the useful ideas from the worthless ones
- Carl Sagan, 1987.
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
This signature was made by SigChanger.
You can find SigChanger at: http://www.phranc.nl/
.
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| User: "Fred Stone" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
10 Oct 2006 09:36:43 AM |
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Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in
news:1m2mi21o60neu2h5rr3n25d5o1a6p3e0r3@4ax.com:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:53:51 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
Hi, Stoney,
I know. And Shrub's calling N. Korea a 'threat to world peace' as if
he wasn't the world's biggest terrorist.
If we're scared enough of N. Korea we'll forget to be scared of DC. He
hopes. Well, there ARE all the Fred Stones of the world, so as long
as Shrub keeps calling abortion the single largest threat to America
(and homosexuality the second, or is it the other way around this
week?), he figures Congress will stay Rethug.
And heeeeeere's Al, displacing his own fear onto me, as if Washington is
more scary than another terrorist state with nuclear weapons. As if the
"threat" to abortion is worse than the threat of North Korean nukes.
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
"Some days the impatience with Iraq just seems artificial — as though
the real argument is about something else entirely." - Dinocrat
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
09 Oct 2006 11:57:08 PM |
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In article <1m2mi21o60neu2h5rr3n25d5o1a6p3e0r3@4ax.com>,
Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:53:51 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
Hi, Stoney,
I know. And Shrub's calling N. Korea a 'threat to world peace' as if he
wasn't the world's biggest terrorist.
If we're scared enough of N. Korea we'll forget to be scared of DC. He
hopes. Well, there ARE all the Fred Stones of the world, so as long
as Shrub keeps calling abortion the single largest threat to America
(and homosexuality the second, or is it the other way around this
week?), he figures Congress will stay Rethug.
Right!
That's their motto. "When things get tough, threaten to bomb the crap
out of somebody." The next thing that they do is to wrap themselves in
the flag and hold up a cross. The Republisheep fall for it hook line and
sinker every time.
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
.
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| User: "Fred Stone" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
10 Oct 2006 09:37:44 AM |
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johac <jhachmann@sbcglobal.com> wrote in
news:jhachmann-248D4B.21570809102006@news.giganews.com:
In article <1m2mi21o60neu2h5rr3n25d5o1a6p3e0r3@4ax.com>,
Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:53:51 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
Hi, Stoney,
I know. And Shrub's calling N. Korea a 'threat to world peace' as
if he wasn't the world's biggest terrorist.
If we're scared enough of N. Korea we'll forget to be scared of DC.
He hopes. Well, there ARE all the Fred Stones of the world, so as
long as Shrub keeps calling abortion the single largest threat to
America (and homosexuality the second, or is it the other way around
this week?), he figures Congress will stay Rethug.
Right!
That's their motto. "When things get tough, threaten to bomb the crap
out of somebody." The next thing that they do is to wrap themselves
in the flag and hold up a cross. The Republisheep fall for it hook
line and sinker every time.
The only suckers I see here are the ones complaining about Republicans
as if they're a worse evil than Kim Jong-il with nuclear weapons.
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
"Some days the impatience with Iraq just seems artificial — as though
the real argument is about something else entirely." - Dinocrat
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
10 Oct 2006 06:40:45 PM |
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On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 22:54:17 -0400, Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote
in alt.atheism
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:53:51 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
Hi, Stoney,
I know. And Shrub's calling N. Korea a 'threat to world peace' as if he
wasn't the world's biggest terrorist.
If we're scared enough of N. Korea we'll forget to be scared of DC. He
hopes. Well, there ARE all the Fred Stones of the world, so as long
as Shrub keeps calling abortion the single largest threat to America
(and homosexuality the second, or is it the other way around this
week?), he figures Congress will stay Rethug.
With Diebold, ES&S and all the Rethug shennanigans and voter
disenfranciseation, it's a done deal.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
11 Oct 2006 12:12:05 AM |
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On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:40:45 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
With Diebold, ES&S and all the Rethug shennanigans and voter
disenfranciseation, it's a done deal.
Are you old enough to decode "come the r*v*l*t*n", Stoney?
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"...I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand
why I dismiss yours."
- Stephen F. Roberts
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
12 Oct 2006 01:42:09 AM |
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In article <f7voi2hi787kv2c8ttsdnee9lvl7cvu3mc@4ax.com>,
Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:40:45 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
With Diebold, ES&S and all the Rethug shennanigans and voter
disenfranciseation, it's a done deal.
Are you old enough to decode "come the r*v*l*t*n", Stoney?
R*ght *n! P*w*r t* th* p*pl*!
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
11 Oct 2006 09:13:05 PM |
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On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 01:12:05 -0400, Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote
in alt.atheism
On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:40:45 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
With Diebold, ES&S and all the Rethug shennanigans and voter
disenfranciseation, it's a done deal.
Are you old enough to decode "come the r*v*l*t*n", Stoney?
Certes.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
11 Oct 2006 10:42:03 PM |
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On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:13:05 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 01:12:05 -0400, Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote
in alt.atheism
On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:40:45 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
With Diebold, ES&S and all the Rethug shennanigans and voter
disenfranciseation, it's a done deal.
Are you old enough to decode "come the r*v*l*t*n", Stoney?
Certes.
I predict by 16 at the latest if things don't change.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"Given that you exist and that you are aware of your situation and
surroundings, you will find yourself in a place which has conditions
exactly suitable to your being there. If the environment was
hostile or incompatible in some important way then you would not be
there in the first place. Therefore the suitability and seeming
perfection of your universe cannot be taken as evidence of anything
more than your existence in it."
- Edward Warren, "The naturalistic fallacy"
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
This signature was made by SigChanger.
You can find SigChanger at: http://www.phranc.nl/
.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
13 Oct 2006 11:31:26 AM |
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On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:42:03 -0400, Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote
in alt.atheism
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:13:05 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 01:12:05 -0400, Al Klein <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote
in alt.atheism
On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:40:45 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
With Diebold, ES&S and all the Rethug shennanigans and voter
disenfranciseation, it's a done deal.
Are you old enough to decode "come the r*v*l*t*n", Stoney?
Certes.
I predict by 16 at the latest if things don't change.
Indubidubly.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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| User: "Andres64" |
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| Title: Re: Welcome to Fascist America! |
04 Oct 2006 09:27:28 PM |
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stoney wrote:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/callahan/callahan160.html
Welcome to Fascist America!
by Gene Callahan
My fellow Americans, it's official now: We live in a fascist nation.
Now, the term "fascist" has been thrown around over the last fifty years
in a loose way that has drained it of much of its meaning. If someone
wanted to cut 5% off of a leftist professor's favourite welfare
programme, the professor would call his opponent a "fascist." I'm not
using the word like that. I mean honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned,
1930s style fascism, featuring such old favourites as:
* Secret prisons - they're back!
* Torture - we're doing it.
* Spying on all citizens.
* Arrests and indefinite imprisonment without trial.
* Rampant militarism.
* Secret detention.
* Enforced disappearance.
* Denial and restriction of habeas corpus.
* Prolonged incommunicado detention.
* Unfair trial procedures.
(This list was compiled partially based on the work of Amnesty
International, available here.)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006 {1}
An absolutely mind-numbing response to complaints that our traditional
legal system is being torn apart is the question, "So, you want to
protect the rights of terrorists?"
Um, no, I want to protect the rights of non-terrorists who might be
falsely accused of terrorism! That was sort of, you know, the whole idea
of our legal system. I'm sure there was some neo-con around in the 1700s
saying to Jefferson or Madison, "So, you want to protect the rights of
murderers and robbers?" but luckily they ignored him.
We've now gotten to the point where Nazi Germany was, say, in 1934.
Remember, at that time, if you had told a typical German what his
government would do over the next ten years, he would have looked at you
as a madman. After all, his land had been civilized for over a thousand
years. His was the nation of Albertus Magnus, Gutenberg, Goethe,
Schiller, Beethoven, Bach, Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, Heisenberg,
Reimann, Mann, Lessing, Herder, Handel, D=FCrer, Leibniz, Gauss, Helmholtz
- he could have gone on, but you get the point. His nation could not
possibly descend into barbarism! If you tried to tell him he was living
in a police state, he would have pointed out that his government had
used its vast new powers very judiciously, and only against a few
trouble-makers. So far.
It is interesting, in gauging the direction we are heading, to look at
the proclamations of "respectable" opinion writers who support this
administration. For instance, we have people at a "libertarian" think
tank proclaiming that Moslems are not entitled to full civil rights in
the US.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=3D081006C {2}
(Perhaps we need to make them wear something special on their clothing
like, say, a yellow star, so we know just who they are, hey?) But
"conservatives" provide even more stunning examples of purely fascist
reasoning. For example, conservative demagogue Ann Coulter has called
for the editor of The NY Times to face the firing squad for his part in
publicizing this administration's abuses of power. Let's look at a
recent column
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/DouglasMacKinnon/2006/09/28/traitors_a=
mong_us
by Douglas MacKinnon at TownHall.com. {3}
MacKinnon considers all of those involved in revealing the sordid
collection of secret programmes that have been launched by the Bush
administration as "traitors" who have publicized these schemes "purely
because they don't like the policies of the new president." Well, he's
right in that "they don't like the policies" that they consider
unconstitutional violations of our rights. Far from "aiding the enemy,"
these revelations aided us, the American people, by letting us know what
our government has in store for us.
Consider what the point of classifying these programmes was in the first
place, and who they were being kept secret from. The jihadists no doubt
already knew about the secret prisons - their friends are in them! They
surely knew that the war in Iraq has been helping their recruiting -
it's their recruiting! ("Praise be to Allah, Abdul, I read in The NY
Times that it is the Iraq War that is sending us these thousands of new
recruits - who knew?") They no doubt suspect they may be wiretapped -
what they didn't know was that all the rest of us are, as well. No, not
one of these leaks helps terrorists, nor was one of them classified to
stop terrorists from finding them out. We were the ones who weren't
supposed to find out about them.
MacKinnon continues: "And if even one American lost his or her life
because of a leak, then I would want that person to be executed for
treason."
So anyone who reveals our fascist government policies is a traitor who
can be executed! This is obviously an attempt to intimidate the
opposition so that our police state can be expanded without the annoying
work stoppages caused by public outcry when the latest bit of
construction is revealed. And just how does MacKinnon propose to show
that some American lost his life because a journalist revealed that the
US government tortures people across the globe, rather than, say,
because the policies he supports have inspired a million new jihadists?
Secret trial, perhaps? Or why even bother with trials for filthy
traitors?
Herr Goebbels - oops, I mean MacKinnon - writes, "Until we severely
punish those who leak classified information, then the traitors among us
will not only continue to flourish, but will grow more brazen with the
secrets they reveal."
Yes, what we ought to be able to do, you know, is simply seize anyone
who even mentions our government's "secret" prisons, and, without a
trial, throw them in a secret prison! This is the logical conclusion of
this fascist's article, after all, since those who talk about the
American Gulag are pretty much terrorists themselves.
Folks, this is coming real soon, and, once it does, domestic opposition
is pretty much over. One journalist - that will be about all it takes -
will be seized as a "terrorist" and thrown in the Gulag. The government
may release him, but then another will simply disappear in the night in
Iraq or Afghanistan, and rumors will circulate that he is being kept in
a cage somewhere and waterboarded. No journalist lacking heroic courage
will any longer be willing to seriously protest government policy.
America is full of decent people, who could never believe their own
government could become fascist. So were Germany and Italy in the 1920s.
But they became fascist anyway. They passed laws suspending civil
liberties, but the government promised the frightened populace that
those laws would only be used against targets like "Communist
terrorists." And, a little bit at a time, the target kept getting bigger
and bigger, slowly enough that the people who weren't paying close
attention never detected it.
And, next thing you know, there were millions of people dead! So, it
turns out, it would have been worth paying attention after all.
October 4, 2006
{1}http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006
AI Index: AMR 51/154/2006 29 September 2006
AI Index: AMR 51/154/2006
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Military Commissions Act of 2006 - Turning bad policy into bad law
In recent days, human rights violations perpetrated by the USA
throughout the "war on terror" have in effect been given the
congressional stamp of approval. With the passing of the Military
Commissions Act of 2006 by the US House of Representatives on 27
September and the Senate on 28 September, Congress has turned bad
executive policy into bad law. This document looks back on the evolution
of the executive's "war on terror" detention policies, in order to
illustrate the sort of violations in which Congress, through inaction
and now legislation, has become complicit. Amnesty International will
continue to campaign for the USA's "war on terror" detention policies
and practices to be brought into full compliance with international law,
and for repeal of any law that fails to meet this test.
On 21 September 2001, Amnesty International faxed a letter to President
George W. Bush. The organization urged the President to put respect for
human rights and the rule of law at the heart of his country's response
to the crime against humanity that was perpetrated on 11 September 2001.
"In the wake of a crime of such magnitude", the letter said, "principled
leadership becomes crucial... We urge you to lead your government to take
every necessary human rights precaution in the pursuit of justice."
Amnesty International deeply regrets that its appeal fell on deaf ears.
The past five years have seen the USA engage in systematic violations of
international law, with a distressing impact on thousands of detainees
and their families. Human rights violations have included:
o Secret detention
o Enforced disappearance
o Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
o Outrages upon personal dignity, including humiliating
treatment
o Denial and restriction of habeas corpus
o Indefinite detention without charge or trial
o Prolonged incommunicado detention
o Arbitrary detention
o Unfair trial procedures
Yet at the same time, US officials have continued to characterize the
USA as a "nation of laws" and one that in the "war on terror" is
committed to what it calls the "non-negotiable demands of human
dignity", including the "rule of law".
It is tempting to resort to accusations of hypocrisy, particularly when
the USA itself condemns the very same practices if carried out by other
countries. But in seeking to challenge US conduct, perhaps it is more
useful to consider how vulnerable the law is to elastic interpretation,
manipulation or selective application by the state. And that, for better
or worse, a government can use policy to drive the law rather than vice
versa. In the USA's case, a long-held resistance to applying
international law to its own conduct compounds the problem.
Under the US administration's selective application of the laws of war
and outright dismissal of international human rights law, for example,
the Guant=E1namo detention camp is the "most transparent facility in the
history of warfare" according to the Pentagon, rather than the icon of
lawlessness that many outside the USA perceive it to be.
In similar vein, with elastic interpretation of the law, secret
detention becomes "legal". In his speech on 6 September 2006 confirming
and defending the Central Intelligence Agency's program of secret
detentions, President Bush emphasised that "this program has been
subject to multiple legal reviews by the Department of Justice and CIA
lawyers; they've determined it complied with our laws".
Again, there is a stark "disconnect" between the USA and the
international community. After all, President Bush's speech came only
weeks after two expert United Nations bodies - the Committee against
Torture and the Human Rights Committee - told the US government that
secret detentions violated the USA's international treaty obligations.
In effect, the President was rejecting the conclusions of these UN
bodies, as well as admitting that the USA had resorted to enforced
disappearance, a crime under international law.
The US administration's interpretation of the law has been driven by its
policy choices rather than a credible postulation of its legal
obligations. One core policy choice was to frame its response to the 11
September attacks in terms of a global "war" rather than as a criminal
law enforcement effort. The law would have to be made to fit this "new
paradigm", as President Bush characterized the situation in a 7 February
2002 memorandum on detentions.
At a press conference in June 2004, with the administration seeking to
quell the criticism of its policies following the Abu Ghraib torture
revelations, then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales recalled the
administration's post-9/11 discussions thus:
"[S]ome questions we faced were, for example: What is the legal
status of individuals caught in this battle? How will they be treated?
To what extent can those detained be questioned to attain information
concerning possible future terrorist attacks? What are the rules? What
will our policies be?...Just as military theorists thought about new
strategies and tactics to fight terrorists, so, too, did lawyers in
looking at how this war fits into the current legal landscape."
From these questions flowed a number of memorandums written in late 2001
and early 2002 by administration lawyers concocting legal positions on a
variety of issues. These issues included the limits of the prohibition
on torture or other ill-treatment, whether the choice of Guant=E1namo as a
location for detentions would keep detainees out of the reach of the US
courts, and the use of military commissions, to quote a November 2001
Justice Department memorandum, as "entirely creatures of the President's
authority as Commander-in-Chief". The White House Counsel himself
drafted advice to the President suggesting that a benefit of not
applying the Geneva Conventions to detainees picked up in the
Afghanistan conflict would be t | |
