In the movie Witness, there is a scene where a little Amish boy, who has witnessed a murder, takes the gun of the detective who is there to protect him from a chest of drawers. He is caught by his grandfather who sits him down for a talk. The grandfather asks if the boy would use this gun to kill. The boy says that he would only kill a bad man. The grandfather asks “How will you know who is the bad man?” This is the central point of our system of justice, we don’t just assume that someone is a bad man before punishing them, we have an elaborate process designed to require proof of actions before we punish.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

Unfortunately our trauma with terrorism has eroded this system. Today, as you read this, there is a list of people around the world who are targeted for death. They are suspected of being involved with terror plots, and some of them are your fellow citizens. If they are found anywhere in the world by our forces they will be killed. Not captured and brought to trial, not attempted to be captured, but killed out right.

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Yesterday was a bad day for the First Amendment. The Roberts Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the material support law was, under the strict scrutiny test, constitutional. At issue was whether human rights groups can provide educational services to groups designated as terrorist without being in legal danger themselves. The High Court found that there was sufficient State interest in this area to limit free speech protections and limit them severely.

The Center For Constitutional Rights (CCR) were part of the legal team that brought the suit. They argued that the definitions of “material support” were overly broad and vague. Some of the words at issue were “expert advice”, “training”, “service” and personnel”. These words can cover a lot of situations that have nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with bringing terrorist groups into the political process and ending their terrorist activities.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

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It is a central pillar of my philosophy of life that if you live in fear the worst thing that can happen to you already has. While not wanting to get all fan-boy about things Frank Herbert did hit on a small “t” truth when he wrote that fear is the mind killer. This is why there are and have been acts of terror all through the history of our species. Using our ability to be afraid of the next horrible thing to influence the actions of people is something Sun Tzu and Machiavelli would both approve of. Fear makes your opponent do dumb things and ultimately makes them easier to defeat.

Which is why the current spasms of legislation in response to the attempted truck bombing in Time Square is so disappointing. We have a couple of proposals which under any other climate would be laughed out of Congress that are going to be taking up time over the next few weeks.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

The first one is the risible plan by Sen. Joe Lieberman (Putz- CT) to allow the State Department to determine if you are associated with a terrorist group. They could provisionally strip you of your citizenship. You could challenge it in court, but only after the fact, not before the decision was made.

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The Obama administration has lowered another legal barrier shielding Americans from extrajudicial punitive action by their own government, in this case authorizing the CIA to kill a US citizen suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda in Yemen and links to two attacks inside the United States last year.

Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric born in New Mexico but now living in Yemen, may be the first US citizen targeted for assassination by the CIA under a counter-terror policy established by President George W. Bush and since embraced by President Barack Obama.

Awlaki was previously viewed simply as an Islamic preacher espousing a radical religious viewpoint, but the reassessment of his status began last year when it was disclosed that Army Maj. Nidal Hassan had been communicating with Awlaki via e-mail before the Army psychiatrist allegedly shot and killed 12 soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood in Texas last November.

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Originally published at TomDispatch.com

Exporting American Democracy to the World

Recently, I wrote about a crew of pundits and warrior-journalists eager not to see the U.S. military leave Iraq.  That piece appeared on the op-ed page of the Los Angeles Times (and in a longer version at TomDispatch.com) and then began wandering the media world.  One of its stops was the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. 

From a military man came this emailed response: “Read your article in Stars and Stripes. When was the last time you visited Iraq?”

A critique in 15 well-chosen words.  So much more effective than a long, angry email, and his point was interesting.  At least, it interested me.  After all, as I wrote back, I’m a 65-year-old guy who has never been anywhere near Iraq and undoubtedly never will be.  I have to assume that my emailer had spent time there, possibly more than once, and disagreed with my assessments. 

First-hand experience is not to be taken lightly.  What, after all, do I know about Iraq?  Only reporting I’ve been able to read from thousands of miles away or analysis found on the blogs of experts like Juan Cole.  On the other hand, even from thousands of miles away, I was one of many who could see enough, by early 2003, to go into the streets and demonstrate against an onrushing disaster of an invasion that a lot of people, theoretically far more knowledgeable on Iraq than any of us, considered just the cat’s meow, the “cakewalk” of the new century. 

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This morning Minority Whip Eric Cantor (the Mini-Me to Minority Leader Boehner’s Dr. Evil) was on Faux News spouting off about how American airport security is too lax. He is of course ignoring the fact that he and his party where in power when the TSA was created and the current rules were implemented, but, hey, any time you can bash on the President and those DFH’s in the Democratic Party why let a little thing like facts get in the way?

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Rep. Cantor (Douche-Nozzle, VA) went on and on about how we should adopt the same type of security screening that the Israeli flag carrier El Al uses. As with most policy Republicans propose this looks moderately reasonable on the surface. El-Al has had only one hijacking in its history, which was before the current system went into effect. It has never had any successful bombings, though it has found bombs on several occasions.

Now that sounds like the kind of security we want right? Well, like most Republican ideas that sound good on the surface it falls apart on closer inspection. To start with El Al is miniscule compared to even the smallest of regional carriers in the United States. They fly 40 flights a day compared to the 87,000 daily flights in the U.S.

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Actual smart people actually talking about actual issues!

Well worth the investment of your time. The end of part two is just devastating to the War Machine.

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(Cross-posted from The Paragraph.) “[I]t’s quite extraordinary to grant government agents the statutory authority to secretly break into Americans homes,” said Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) last month at a Judiciary Committee hearing on the PATRIOT Act.⁸⁰ A month after 9-11, with half its members shut out of their offices due to anthrax-powdered letters, the Senate passed the PATRIOT Act by a vote of 98-1 — the lone “nay” vote cast by Feingold.⁸¹ The stated purpose of the PATRIOT Act was to help stop terror attacks, but there is little to show it has done that.⁸²⁸³ However, the PATRIOT Act has boosted federal snooping.⁸⁴ For instance, sneak-and-peak — the “authority to secretly break into Americans’ homes.” that Feingold mentioned — went from a seldom-used tactic to 760 warrants issued in 2008, but with only three warrants sought for terrorism cases.⁸⁵ Now, Feingold and nine other senators are sponsoring a bill — the JUSTICE Act — to rein in the PATRIOT Act’s broad and easy search and seizure powers.⁸⁶

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Crossposted from They Gave Us a Republic



Being a sane person, I do not tune in to the Glenn Beck weep-fest. When he or one of his guests does or says something outrageous, I get it the next day from the blogosphere, so yesterday when he hosted former CIA official Michael Scheuer, I missed it when the guest and the host were pining for another massive, 9/11-type attack in order to advance their political philosophy.

His exact words were "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama Bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States --- because it's gonna take a grassroots, bottom up pressure -- because these politicians prize their offices, prize the praise of the media, and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary."

What a sick, twisted individual Scheuer is - and Beck, too, because he didn’t even feign shock. He just nodded along in agreement, like the dope he so obviously is.

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(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Killing puts abortion foes on defense
In worship he found his cause
In prayer he found his score
In murder he found his god

Obama hopeful on Mid-East peace
How simple it must sound
This wistful wishful flight among the fragile beams
Of stone and foul hatred.

Search Is On for Wreckage of Missing Air France Jet
Among protea, cycads, and pincushions and the stunning breath of petals
They surely float. The jagged Drakensberg Peaks, like broken teeth
Shimmering edges, dark lines, not bones, but fractured meadows.

Judge: Release Gitmo Docs
We say we’d die for our beloved country,
We proudly wave her colors and cry
At the thought of promised freedom,
Say we’d descend into the grave of valor-
But what of our torture?

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