I read with some
bemused interest today John McCain’s latest umbrage with the policies of Hif
Majeftie, Barack Obama. This concerns the well-hoped-for release of the
Congressional Report on Torture, which Mr. McCain (and many concerned
Americans) would like to see, for themselves. How far the USA is willing to go
to forego its own regulations (or international obligations) and Constitutional guarantees to citizen and
non-citizen alike has become a bellwether for indications of how close or how
far America comes to upholding the principles upon which it was founded, and
attests to still adhere to (with ever-less visual confirmations).
Senator McCain “does
not mourn the death of any terrorist” he says, last of all, Bin Laden. Neither
do I necessarily, however I add my own caveats to all that. The killing of
Osama Bin Laden, while welcomed by most all Americans, took place outside of
the theater of due process. Granted this- that Bin Laden at least received the
notice of any official indictment (something which neither Anwar Awlaki, Al
Qaeda propagandist, nor his son Abdulrahman, a youth with no connection whatsoever to AQ except his own “attainted”
blood-relationship to his father) happened to get- but yet, Bin Laden was not
arrested, by the forces sent to apprehend him. Nor was he brought to the scene of his crime, to answer for it. Although he had admitted it. Instead, lynch mob justice prevailed,
shoot-to-kill orders were invoked, and he was granted his most fervent wish- to
become a martyr at the hands of the US Government. Here again, another
indication of how little those charged with directing our military have had to
do with the common sense compiled in Sun Tzu’s Art
of War. But I digress.
Terrorists are criminals. Do not legitimize them by
arguing “we are at war”... We are NOT at war unless we receive a CONGRESSIONAL
DECLARATION OF WAR. All other use of representative force is nothing but a
run-around of the Constitution. Apparently, for the past seventy years, Congress
has been too lazy to invoke this, or (more likely) the “threats” the nation
faces have been truly unworthy of such a measure. Which is my own suspicion. Do
not lend the cause of terrorists legitimacy by invoking them as a state enemy,
even if their propaganda itself declares “jihad” against a certain society. Defining them as military opponents lends them a legitimacy they do not deserve. For
in just such ways we have noted how little of the freedoms we claim they reject
actually still hold sway in our own Republic.
Nor by our
surrendering the protections guaranteed by our Fourth and Fifth Amendments do
we protect “our cherished values,” but we actually achieve the stated goals, OF those terrorists that oppose us, by
our becoming a super-totalitarian police state under which all citizens become terror suspects as the targets of brain-dead “collect
it all” surveillance.
Something else
which flies under the same flag, is the notion of the “Warrior Policeman-Hero.”
This idea gains momentum through popular culture easily, spread by prolefeed programs
such as “Homeland” (the very word of which echoes the Nazi concept of “Heimat”).
Higher standards of bravery are needed for a culture of policemen so threatened
by a family’s PETS that deadly force is often applied. The number of
dead-by-cop dogs (and even birds!) is adding up. Obviously more bullies and chickenshit-enforcers
are being recruited by law enforcement nationwide, to an extent that one begins
to think perhaps such a profile has become a matter of hiring policy for too
many police departments. The police state’s fear-mongering propaganda (which
again, plays out in programs like “Homeland”) is a sure means of reinforcing
the idea that it is necessary for the members of a free society to hunker down
like sheep, while the wolves hired to protect them go about winnowing their own
flock of truth-tellers and “malcontent elements” and “radicalizers.” As persons
who defend the Constitution are increasingly derided as “radicals” or “potential
terrorists” rather than the “true believers” in American justice which they
are, yet opposed to what they rightly see as ever-increasing totalitarian
encroachment, one wonders what will be left of “Freedom” —when the wolves have
finished feeding.
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