Another MUST READ from ...

Glenn Greenwald: Times Square bomber: Cause and effect in the War on Terror

Instead of 'Do to others what you would have them do to you' the US has turned The Golden Rule inside out. The US does onto them then is surprised when they do back at us.

If we had a few more thinkers in policy making positions, instead of the creeping and creepy militarists that we seem to be overrun with, they would have figured out that the US's behavior is not only the reverse of The Golden Rule it is also begging for a violent response.

Not that we are alone in history in taking this path. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor it was warning us to stay out of the their way. It did the opposite.

So the US is proceeding down one road while claiming to be going down another. Who benefits from this? Not most of the worlds' or even the US's population ...

Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol ...

Most likely Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol are proud of their McCarthy-hood.

Along with Darth Cheney, these are very dark, deranged and puke-ugly people bent on ensuring as much destruction and pain in the world as possible.

The foul ad produced by the Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol group is here.

Per the usual Republican naming conventions when the Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol group use the term 'keep America safe' they mean quite the opposite (as with Bush's Healthy Forests).

Glenn Greenwald says it best: "As always, those who most flamboyantly and shrilly anoint themselves Arbiters of American Patriotism wage the most vicious wars on its core principles."

Today's quote ...

... It's so striking how most of the policies we undertake in the name of combating Terrorism -- including our various invasions, bombings and occupations, and our always-escalating Surveillance State -- have exactly the opposite effect.

-- The backfiring of the surveillance state by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

Home of the brave? Not even on TV ...

... We have Chris Matthews running around shrieking that he's scared of kung-fu-wielding Terrorists. Michael Chertoff is demanding that we stop listening to "privacy ideologues" -- i.e., that there should be no limits on Government's power to invade and monitor and scrutinize. Republican leaders have spent the decade preaching that only Government-provided Safety, not the Constitution, matters. All in response to this week's single failed terrorist attack, there are -- as always -- hysterical calls that we start more wars, initiate racial profiling, imprison innocent people indefinitely, and torture even more indiscriminately. These are the by-products of the weakness and panic and paralyzing fear that Americans have been fed in the name of Terrorism, continuously for a full decade now.

...

... What matters most about this blinding fear of Terrorism is not the specific policies that are implemented as a result. Policies can always be changed. What matters most is the radical transformation of the national character of the United States. Reducing the citizenry to a frightened puddle of passivity, hysteria and a child-like expectation of Absolute Safety is irrevocable and far more consequential than any specific new laws. Fear is always the enabling force of authoritarianism: the desire to vest unlimited power in political authority in exchange for promises of protection. This is what I wrote about that back in early 2006 in How Would a Patriot Act?:

The president's embrace of radical theories of presidential power threatens to change the system of government we have. But worse still, his administration's relentless, never-ending attempts to keep the nation in a state of fear can also change the kind of nation we are.

This isn't exactly new: many of America's most serious historical transgressions -- the internment of Japanese-Americans, McCarthyite witch hunts, World War I censorship laws, the Alien and Sedition Act -- have been the result of fear-driven, over-reaction to extrenal threats, not under-reaction. Fear is a degrading toxin, and there's no doubt that it has been the primary fuel over the last decade. As the events of the last week demonstrate, it continues to spread rapidly, and it produces exactly the kind of citizenry about which John Adams long ago warned.

-- The degrading effects of Terrorism fears by Glenn Greenwald

Terrorism: The panic is the point ...

Digby is so right:

The panic is the point. That's why they do terrorist attacks in the first place. And the damned bozo certainly succeeded, at least among the elites who, as far as I can tell, have worked themselves up into some kind of fugue state and are now practically speaking in tongues. It's embarrassing.

If they had the means to invade us outright they would. But they don't so their best bet is to make us react in such a way that benefits their goals using what few resources they have. And boy have they succeeded thanks to Bush the Lesser and now to Obama [the One Who Refuses to Use His Own Reasoning Powers].

Today's quote (and a second one for good measure, oh and a third one too) ...

... some beyond galatically confused Nigerian failed to blow up a plane with his freaking underwear, for chrissakes, and that was it, the god damn Republicans and Dick Cheney came instantly hissing out of the woodwork ...

-- Please Get A Life, Republicans by paradox, The Left Coaster
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... As always, the most Serious and Toughest among us are the most easily frightened, particularly in the American media.

-- Craving terrorist melodrama by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com
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[this one was just too good to pass up]

Barack Obama, doing his best to make Dick Cheney’s questions about leadership look rational, has assigned John Brennan to conduct the Administration’s ballyhooed investigation into the claimed failure of the terrorist watchlist program in the Christmas Fruit Of The Loom Bomber incident.

-- Obama Appoints Fox To Evaluate Terror Watchlist Henhouse by bmaz, firedoglake.com

Anyone know what happened to the Obama of the campaign trail? Not that I'm a very good judge since I wasn't very taken with him, but he certainly did seem to have his ducks in a row and I was hoping to see a little of that behavior in his endeavor to implement some promised --now what was that he promised?-- oh, yeah, change.

Following in Bush the Lesser's footsteps ... till pretending we can fight unjust and unfunded wars without consequence to ourselves ...

The stories of Spec. Hutchinson and Major Hasan are joined by the thread of multiple deployments of sometimes unfit personnel with insufficient recovery time between deployments. Personnel are deployed without regard to the family situation. They are re-deployed when they are not mentally fit. This increases the mental toll at a time when there is not sufficient mental health support.

Lest we think that the crisis is confined only to the military, I would argue that the toll of unsustainable wars is now beginning to show on American culture as a whole. ...

Shouting into the void that is US political thinking ...

... At some point, a rational person has to wonder whether people like Jacob Weisberg -- who endlessly advocate policies that fuel Islamic extremism and intensify tension between the West and the Muslim world -- aren't desirous of exactly that outcome. After decades of pursuing this blatantly counter-productive approach, what else could explain such moral and intellectual blindness?

How could these people (like Weisberg) possible fail to imagine how they would respond to the injustices we have heaped on Iraq and Afghanistan? They couldn't! Which leaves us with Greenwald's conclusion that this is all deliberate policy to seek perpetually increasing death and destruction.

These are the same kind of people who also have such extreme and devastating effect on internal US law enforcement policies: wars on drugs, the three-strikes mentality, inhumane treatment, arbitrary penalties, prosecutions and incarcerations based on race and economic class.

All the money they want for war. A fight for any penny spent for jobs or health or education or the general well being of the citizens. After all why would the Weisbergs of this world spend money on the fodder for their wars.

The US government as war-machine, like Hitler's Germany, instead of government as the people's representatives. This has nothing to do with Obama or even Bush the Lesser. Eisenhower even warned us that the machine was already in place and building up steam. Bush apparently relished how powerful this war machine made him feel. Cheney spent his time servicing the machine. Obama, it appears, will do nothing against the machine.

Do you think you have rights protected by the US Constitution? ...

Think again.

Yesterday, the Second Circuit -- by a vote of 7-4 -- agreed with the government and dismissed Arar's case in its entirety. It held that even if the government violated Arar's Constitutional rights as well as statutes banning participation in torture, he still has no right to sue for what was done to him.

If the person elected as President under the US Constitution says he doesn't want your 'rights' protected because he's got a secret, seven judges agree that though you may have rights they will not deign to inquire into them because the President claims he has a secret. The President does not want you bothering him any further with all that US Constitution crap. The only part of the US Constitution that matters is any part that favors him.

After all it's only a piece of paper, why not cut and paste as his little secret heart desires ...

The article, by Glenn Greenwald, continues:

I want to add one principal point to all of this. This is precisely how the character of a country becomes fundamentally degraded when it becomes a state in permanent war. So continuous are the inhumane and brutal acts of government leaders that the citizens completely lose the capacity for moral outrage and horror. The permanent claims of existential threats from an endless array of enemies means that secrecy is paramount, accountability is deemed a luxury, and National Security trumps every other consideration -- even including basic liberties and the rule of law. Worst of all, the President takes on the attributes of a protector-deity who can and must never be questioned lest we prevent him from keeping us safe.

This is exactly why I find so objectionable and dangerous the ongoing embrace by the Obama administration of these same secrecy and immunity weapons. Obama had nothing to do with the Arar case -- all the conduct, and even the legal briefing, occurred before he was President -- but he has taken numerous steps to further institutionalize the core injustice ...

Obama has taken up the cause of that Monster, Bush the Inferior (not to mention that other Monster, Cheney the Deranged). Sorry, Dems, but that makes Obama a monster. He can parade his cute family all he wants. They do not prevent his monsterhood. Obama is accountable for his own actions and he has chosen to follow Bush's path. In Heaven's Name, WHY?

Today's quote(s) ...

The general calling for more troops cannot be trusted. The Afghan government has no credibility. The Taliban are resurgent, and they are based in Pakistan, anyway. The only thing going well in Afghanistan is the opium trade. Which is going very well, indeed.

-- Afghanistan: With Democracy Dead, It's Time To Leave by Turkana, The Left Coaster

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... we now have a killing un-declared at-war policy with Pakistan that very few Americans truly comprehend in a nose-wrinkling geopolitical coupling that produces horrifying gory deaths of innocents which Americans would not tolerate once, not for one second, on their own soil and people. Throw on a scary robotic era of death by machines on top of this nuclear enchilada and the result is not good. Not good at all.

-- A Pakistani Meander by paradox, The Left Coaster

The truth that can't be heard ... in the US ...

We can't combat Terrorism by sending our military into Muslim countries. Doing that only exacerbates the problem, since it inevitably intensifies the anti-American sentiment that enables and fuels the terrorist threat in the first place. All of that is so basic. It's been empirically proven over and over during the last decade. It's not Noam Chomsky or Al Jazeera pointing out these basic truths, but instead, a 2004 Task Force handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon to review and assess the Bush administration's anti-terrorism efforts, principally the wars they were waging in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Undoubtedly, there is some small faction of "Islamic radicals" principally motivated by religious fervor which will likely hate the West regardless of what it does, but -- as the 2004 Pentagon-commissioned Report found -- their most potent weapons are American policies that inflame anti-American hatred in the Muslim world, beginning with ongoing wars waged by the U.S. military in Muslim countries. That's so self-evident it shouldn't require a report to document it, but since it seems to, here's a very credible report that does exactly that [pdf].

A Rumsfeld-era reminder about what causes Terrorism by Glenn Greenwald

Today's quote, oh well, let's make that two ...

... When corporate gains are privatized and losses are socialized, you think maybe the working people have finally had enough of picking up the slack? ...

-- The Wealthy Are Very Upset That People Are Angry. Oh, Stop Your Sobbing. by Susie Madrak

---------------------------------

... many Americans don't ever think much about the huge gap between what we claim about ourselves and what we do. But much of the rest of the world -- certainly including the Muslim world -- sees that discrepancy quite clearly, often up-close. ...

-- David Rohde's insights into what motivates the Taliban by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

Gotcha! With more troops we win? Or loose less badly? Or what? ...

Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan: I Need More Troops

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told the administration he needs more troops there, without which the war "will likely result in failure." ...

Wonder what not-failure is?

I can tell you why BushCo's installing the military inside the US ...

The latest twist is that not only are the banks not lending the money given to them, they’re paying our money out to stockholders as dividends.

If the Republicans set out to 'fix' something one can only hope they don't burn it to the ground. But even worse is that we already know this and the 'democratic' Congress just keeps handing them the matches.

At some point US citizens are going to stop being sheeple. What happens then? If Bush is still in office or if McCain is in office they will do in the US what they've being doing in Iraq. That is they will identify anyone they want to as a terrorist and start invading homes and killing people.

I have no idea what Obama's going to do. Absolutely none.

ADDED: And have you noticed that our banking system is already being run in a similar manner to how the US ran Iraq? With truck loads of cash (the US taxpayers' money) handed out from the back of trucks? Except they've eliminated the trucks.

Such a compliment for the FBI ...

Scientists say they need many more details to decide the merits of the case against Ivins. But despite the bureau's widely ridiculed mistakes--including an early focus on Ivins's former colleague Steven Hatfill--"the scientific evidence is probably really strong," says Steven Salzberg, a former TIGR researcher now at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park. "They've got some very good people," Salzberg says. "The impression that they're not good may just come from their style. They never tell you anything."

They never tell you anything? Right. Except when they set out to destroy someone. Then they tell you all kinds of things. Like the person of interest has a messy desk. The person of interest looks at pornography. The person of interest had a thing about sororities. A similar technique is used in Republican campaigns for President.

Circumstantial evidence questions as well as science questions:

Armed with the four tests, the FBI examined more than 1000 anthrax isolates, collected from 16 labs that had the Ames strain in the United States and several more in Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In only eight of those samples, they found all four mutations seen in the envelope samples; and each of these eight, the affidavit says, was "directly related" to a "large flask" of spores, identified as RMR-1029, which Ivins had created in 1997 and of which he was the "sole custodian."

That still leaves many questions open, researchers say. ...

Of course, style and secrecy doesn't prove they aren't capable. I would think well documented investigations with cases based on evidence (rather than personalities) would help prove whether they are capable or not. But the impression that the FBI cannot be trusted is the result of a "style" of apparent single-minded fixation on a victim, using their power to wear down or destroy the person they have chosen to accuse, and apparently forcing the evidence to suit themselves while ignoring or obscuring evidence that doesn't fit their chosen story line.

A very sad state of affairs ...

The beginning of a very sad post at Gorgon Poisons.

MEN SHOULD NEVER, EVER, EVER BE LEFT ALONE WITH CHILDREN. I repeat MEN ARE DANGEROUS. REALLY FUCKING DANGEROUS. DO NOT LEAVE MEN WITH CHILDREN.

MEN

ARE

****DANGEROUS****

If you can't catch the one you want to torture, torture the one you got ...

From a McClatchly Newsletter:

• Bin Laden's driver cooperated with U.S. agents, witnesses say

  Salim Hamdan, who the U.S. now accuses of providing material support for terrorism, provided U.S. authorities with guided tours of Osama bin Laden's haunts in Afghanistan, before he was shipped off to Guantanamo. One FBI agent testified it didn't occur to him to read Hamdan his rights because he considered him an intelligence source, not a criminal suspect.

Just like the kings of old, the royal and petulant president of the United States of America is self authorized to proclaim that anyone who 'provides material support' for someone he has declared an enemy is a criminal, a terrorist, a cretin and a thief. No treatment is too low or vile that King Bushie the Second and his gang won't enjoy watching the king's 'enhanced treatments' performed on those they have declared 'beyond all hope and not entitled to grace, salvation or respite of any kind.' King Bushie has been overheard promising all his enemies, and a few of his friends, Hell right here on earth. Shock and Awe was just the beginning as far as he is concerned. Bushie has confirmed that nothing, and I mean nothing, is off the table.

So drivers, restaurant owners and their staff, mail and package delivery personnel, store owners and their staff, communications companies (except the ones in Bushie's gang) and their staff, airplane charter companies, in fact anyone who gives one of Bushie's special enemies the time of day could be, unknowingly, providing material support and thus be a special enemy of Bushie's State of Corporate America and subject to whatever Bushie desires. Bushie's desires lean toward the Medieval.

They got it wrong and they knew ...

America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men by Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspapers via digby

Often held the wrong men, as in VERY, VERY OFTEN.

Vote for John McCain and you are voting for more of the same.

Do you realize that George W. Bush and his cabal ...

... and the GOP in general, have made us the laughingstock of the world? They are incapable of anything other than murder, mayhem and theft.

The latest absurdity:

... several flights have gone out without the promised Federal Air Marshalls because these same FAMs have found their names (along with everyone who goes by Mohammed or Ali) on the list and have been refused entry onto the planes they’ve been charged to protect.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... We did not go after the Saudis, who sponsored the attacks on this nation, because it would be bad for the oil industry. That is treason, is it not? We did not go after Pakistan, because it would be bad for the weapons industry (and likely the war on drugs industry). That is treason, is it not? When corporate profits are more important than national security, then we can safely declare that fascism is on the march. Onwards lied-to soldiers, the corporate war of terror beckons.

... That should be out primary concern above all else in November. Electing McCain will definitely make this country less safe as the rest of the world comes to realize that they are going to have to band together to contain us. ...
I'm surprised the world hasn't already started to band together against us. More of Bush's evil 'luck' I suppose.

Will Free Ride McCain get a free ride into the White House?

The media and McCain ...

Foreign policy cred lets him get away with wild howlers on foreign policy. Fiscal integrity cred lets him get away with outlandishly irresponsible economic plans. Anti-lobbyist cred lets him get away with pandering to lobbyists. Campaign finance reform cred lets him get away with gaming the campaign finance system. Straight talking cred lets him get away with brutally slandering Mitt Romney in the closing days of the Republican primary. Maverick uprightness cred allows him to get away with begging for endorsements from extremist religious leaders like John Hagee. "Man of conviction" cred allows him to get away with transparent flip-flopping so egregious it would make any other politician a laughingstock. Anti-torture cred allows him to get away with supporting torture as long as only the CIA does it. ... the corporate media continues on its crusade of destruction.