Quoting Myself:

I happen to be old enough to remember when the stakes in the nuclear stalemate was the survival of the entire planet. It almost seemed like we were given a puzzle. "Can the human race figure out a way to get along without anhilating the entire planet." Facing such choices we nevertheless (except for a few zits -J Edgar Hoover, Nixon - Kissinger) chose to keep the Constitution of the United States intact and if we did engage in horribly unethical behavior (blind LSD trials, sensory deprivation research) we at least had the decency to PRETEND we weren't doing it. Besides we had a monolithic scary enemy to point to to justify the actions.

Fast forward to 2006:

We are now so afraid of 15 guys armed with box-cutters, that we're completely trashing the Constitutional protections that have served us so well these last 200 years and were openly declaring our willingness to use the same techniques which justified our outrage in years past. In other words we are becomming our enemy.

Just for the record....

While I'm enjoying watching the Congressional meltdown over the Foley thing, I still think that the willful destruction of our Constitutional guarantees of freedom is a more important issue...jes sayin'

from the NYT

They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts

From me:

The problem is that once this law is on the books, it's not going to go away and "who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" is sufficiently vague that a few years down the line it can be used to mean just about anything. Like perhaps giving money to PETA or Greenpeace.

This has to go down as the worst legislation ever passed in my lifetime and certainly an indicator that morality and human decency has fallen victim to political expediency.

It is a sad day in America.

The tragic case of Maher Arar.

Read about it .here

My comment follows......

Where were the media..??

What gets me is simply this....The rendition took place in September 2002. He was released in October 2003. I distinctly remember reading about his case at the time (probably at antiwar.com) Why is it taking until September 2006 for this to be getting prominent coverage. He's now been exonerated by the Canadian government. But he's been an innocent man unlawfully detained all along. Shouldn't more Americans have been informed of this back in 2003 when it could have made a difference

Six Questions for Dr. Emile A. Nakhleh on the CIA and the Iraq War

There are 1.4 billion people in the Islamic world and only a tiny minority, maybe 2 or 3 percent, are politically active. Just like Jews and Christians, most have kids to raise and bills to pay. Most view Islam as a personal and societal force, not a political one, and only a tiny minority becomes terrorists.Link

From Kevin Drum

It's not because liberals don't understand the threat, it's because liberals seem to be the only ones who do understand the threat these days — namely that public opinion in the Muslim world is our biggest problem, and conventional military action only makes this problem worse

Link

Standin’ at the Crossroads by Tom Chartier

Five years ago America suddenly and brutally found itself at a major intersection of its history. September 11, 2001 was America’s crossroads. At that emotionally charged moment, Americans chose the path of revenge. They chose hastily, ignoring warnings from those still possessed of rational thought. Since that moment, America has been charging unchecked and blind toward self-destruction

Link Here

I can't believe I used that phrase in a sentence!

Lefties and righties should be in agreement about the evils of our current administration. Because after all, using the military to provide perquisites for particular industries at the expense of the economy as a whole certainly runs counter to any free-market idealism one could care to entertain.

The degree that so-called conservatives come to the defense of the current administration is the degree to which they have abandoned any principles and are now engaged in masturbatory xenophobia (it feels good to hate people!)

Quagmire means never having to say you're sorry

He ought to be too ashamed to continue pontifficating and to shunned to be able to do so -- at the very least without admitting his error, recanting and apologizing.

Its called cognitive dissonance and it can be quite crippling. When faced with a choice between perceiving reality and feeling good about ones self, the feeling good wins hands down.

Everybody does it, its not a phenomenon limited to warmongering wingnuts. But in the hands of said wingnuts, its exceedingly dangerous!


Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: So wrong that it re-defines "wrongness"

From AmericaBlog

Yes, well, we've been at war in Iraq in order to stop home-grown British terrorists from blowing up US airplanes.



Link here

Digby:

When your country is engaged in dangerous wars based on lies and obscure reasoning, it is immoral to say nothing simply because you are afraid it will make you look bad.

Link

Just quoting myself......

It was a few weeks ago that I pointed out that the only real commodity that matters in the world is consensus. After all the value of money only exists because we all agree to value it. The chain of command in a military heirarchy only exists because everyone agrees to obey it. Our Constitution has only survived because we all agree to honor it. These instiitutions have tons more power than we give them credit for.

This is why the battle for "hearts and minds" is so important and it's also why the "moral high ground" and "rule of law" that we've so blatantly abandoned when the going got rough needs to be reclaimed.

Digby's turn again.

Yes, it has had widespread political implications, political implications predicted by many, many of us who could see that sending a bunch of Americans into the heart of the middle east with no knowledge of the culture, a lie for a mission, an officer corps convinced that Arabs were primitive creatures who had to be subdued by brute force and sexual humiliation and a political leadership that lived on starry-eyed dreams of American omnipotence and high-tech fairy dust --- was a colossal mistake of epic proportions.

It was all there for people to see. Seymour Hersh saw it and he was called a terrorist by Richard Perle. That was par for the course.
link

Here's an extremely pertinent quote from Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift when he was on Hardball last week.

SWIFT: It‘s not whether they deserve it or not. It‘s how we conduct ourselves. It has to do where if we say that our opponent can cause us not to follow the rules anymore, then we‘ve lost who we are. We‘re the good guys. We‘re the guys who follow the rule and the people we fight are the bad guys and we show that every day when we follow the rules, regardless of what they do. It‘s what sets us apart. It‘s what makes us great and in my mind, it‘s what makes us undefeatable, ultimately.

I find the fact that we're even having a discussion about torture, let alone that some people are coming out in favor, profoundly troubling. When we have become our enemy, then we no longer have the standing to attack the enemy. What next? A debate on the efficacy of beheadings in discouraging crime in cities?

here's the link

I liked my comment on Glenn's site so much, I posted it here too.

PS. Does this mean killing has now been sanctioned by the left?

Shooter's epiphany reveals a lot about how the right wing mind works in general.

He just can't get it through his head that there's a difference between legitimate self defense and wanton aggression.
He can't understand that there's a difference between taking prisoners in a field of battle and interrogating them vs sticking light wands up their asses just for yucks.
He doesn't realize that there's a difference between a joke based on the premise that the president is an idiot vs one based on the premise that 50% of the nation are traitors against the other 50%.
And lastly, he doesn't understand that there's a difference between using wiretap technology to detect and thwart those who would do us harm following the procedures set in place for the purpose vs. giving one agency carte blanche over the entire US communication infrastrusture and telling them to "have at it!"

Digby wins the "irresistable quote of the day"

Whether Rove cut a deal or Fitz just couldn't make a case for those two crimes is unknown. What is not unknown is whether Rove is a lying, scumbag piece of shit. He is.


Link here

Digby

The right specializes in schoolyard taunts and sleazy gossip because they must attract the stupid vote in order to get elected and that's the only humor stupid voters understand. Link

From Alan Bock

The U.S. has made mistakes in dealing with jihadism in part because it has had little firsthand intelligence of the kind that only human beings operating in delicate and sometimes dangerous environments can gather.

Link

From Matthew Yglesias guest-blogging at TPM

The issue is that there are actual limits to what our troops can accomplish. They're soldiers, not magicians.

Link

via Paul Craig Roberts

The question presents itself: Are Americans guilty of treason when they turn their backs on the Constitution? Treason is betrayal of country. And what defines country? In the United States, the Constitution defines country. The Bush regime's assault on the Constitution is an assault on America.

Link Here