Hard to tell about this man who sits at the desk of Secretary of State. Once upon a time he was a soldier who saw through the ugliness implicit in warfare. Now, as the nominal head of the State Department, he sees war itself as a form of diplomacy, enough of one that he can use it as a threat and bully-stick to get other nations to jump through his hoops. Once, he took umbrage at the United States working against principles it had signed on to in the Geneva convention- now, he flaunts the Geneva Convention while insisting that those who would rather the US uphold it are 'lending support to terrorists"- those whom he feels he has the right to abduct and hold at bay on the high seas, rather than, subject them to justice in a true court of law.
This man, whose somnolent eyes and sophomoric expression (akin perhaps to that of a sad, pathetic old beagle, say) and squinting glance attempt to assert authority and senatorial wisdom, has helped to take the United States from a nation at odds with a few, to that at arms with many.
Just consider, if you would, their secret drone campaign. This has killed average of about ten foreign civilians per week in the past three years, often along with a claim of "suspected militancy" on the part of those so doomed. As if every single use of a drone-launched missile had the accuracy of knowing exactly whom it had targeted, and that the operators (hidden deep within the United States, or one of its proxy foreign outposts) had complete knowledge of whom and what they had targeted... Although, we have learned, often as not, innocent civilians are the victims of these attacks. These attacks are fully sanctioned by his State Department and CIA. The targets never know they are targeted, although they are, in a general sense, aware that there are always drones flying about in their vicinity. The knowledge that death might rain down upon you from the sky, is itself "terror." So when the Secretary of the United States gets up on his pedestal and claims that these things are done in order to "fight terror" not only is he being disingenuous, but he is lying.
Lying, of course, is nothing new in American politics, but this administration has been raising it to a high art. Not only does the President lie, on many occasions (the most egregious, of course, in this writer's mind, was the one that he would in no wise sign the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which legalized summary executions as well as indefinite detentions for US citizens) but so do his highest ranking national security advisers, with regularity, and most commonly, when confronted with allegations by their Congressional overseers.
One must wonder, of course, who is actually overseeing these people. Who, for instance, authorized the building of a giant Mega-Brain for Big Brother's Metadata Mining Operations in Utah? This came out of the NSA's "black box budget"- someone, somewhere. If not the heads of the congressional national security oversight committees, then who? What is it that led a supposed "Constitutional Scholar" to become the very symbol of constitutional transgression of the contemporary age? The one who said he would hold his predecessors responsible for their violations of constitutional duty and international law? The one who decided, once he had obtained that coveted office, the best course in that regard would be "Forward, March!" over the lemming cliff?
Disagreement with tyrants is not necessarily unpatriotic, although the new world we live in is in actuality post-nationalistic. Internet access across the globe is threatened by those who would insist they have the right to interfere in the sovereignty not only of other nations, but of every computer-literate individual on the planet. And that these people are tyrants is only a matter of time to be proven, but they have "of necessity" built up the framework for the most totalitarian society ever conceived by the human mind. And this, they would say, exists to protect the freedom of its citizens. It would seem that the freedom our ancestors fought for to acquire and defend for over 200 years has been itself consigned to the dustbin of history, since in no wise could it have meant that the Bill Of Rights was a negotiable issue, subject to some "tradeoff between liberty and security." Such conceptualizations are oxymoronic and sophist, and cannot bear the scrutiny of the enlightened and liberty-loving mind. When liberty itself is outlawed, only outlaws will be at liberty.
This man, whose somnolent eyes and sophomoric expression (akin perhaps to that of a sad, pathetic old beagle, say) and squinting glance attempt to assert authority and senatorial wisdom, has helped to take the United States from a nation at odds with a few, to that at arms with many.
Just consider, if you would, their secret drone campaign. This has killed average of about ten foreign civilians per week in the past three years, often along with a claim of "suspected militancy" on the part of those so doomed. As if every single use of a drone-launched missile had the accuracy of knowing exactly whom it had targeted, and that the operators (hidden deep within the United States, or one of its proxy foreign outposts) had complete knowledge of whom and what they had targeted... Although, we have learned, often as not, innocent civilians are the victims of these attacks. These attacks are fully sanctioned by his State Department and CIA. The targets never know they are targeted, although they are, in a general sense, aware that there are always drones flying about in their vicinity. The knowledge that death might rain down upon you from the sky, is itself "terror." So when the Secretary of the United States gets up on his pedestal and claims that these things are done in order to "fight terror" not only is he being disingenuous, but he is lying.
Lying, of course, is nothing new in American politics, but this administration has been raising it to a high art. Not only does the President lie, on many occasions (the most egregious, of course, in this writer's mind, was the one that he would in no wise sign the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which legalized summary executions as well as indefinite detentions for US citizens) but so do his highest ranking national security advisers, with regularity, and most commonly, when confronted with allegations by their Congressional overseers.
One must wonder, of course, who is actually overseeing these people. Who, for instance, authorized the building of a giant Mega-Brain for Big Brother's Metadata Mining Operations in Utah? This came out of the NSA's "black box budget"- someone, somewhere. If not the heads of the congressional national security oversight committees, then who? What is it that led a supposed "Constitutional Scholar" to become the very symbol of constitutional transgression of the contemporary age? The one who said he would hold his predecessors responsible for their violations of constitutional duty and international law? The one who decided, once he had obtained that coveted office, the best course in that regard would be "Forward, March!" over the lemming cliff?
Disagreement with tyrants is not necessarily unpatriotic, although the new world we live in is in actuality post-nationalistic. Internet access across the globe is threatened by those who would insist they have the right to interfere in the sovereignty not only of other nations, but of every computer-literate individual on the planet. And that these people are tyrants is only a matter of time to be proven, but they have "of necessity" built up the framework for the most totalitarian society ever conceived by the human mind. And this, they would say, exists to protect the freedom of its citizens. It would seem that the freedom our ancestors fought for to acquire and defend for over 200 years has been itself consigned to the dustbin of history, since in no wise could it have meant that the Bill Of Rights was a negotiable issue, subject to some "tradeoff between liberty and security." Such conceptualizations are oxymoronic and sophist, and cannot bear the scrutiny of the enlightened and liberty-loving mind. When liberty itself is outlawed, only outlaws will be at liberty.
Being President of the United States of America means never having to say you're sorry:
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