From Pine View Farm

Legalizing Tyranny (Updated) 1

We are selling our soul. The Local Rag gets it.

New arrivals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp look up from their chained wrists and ankles as the official greeting crackles over the loudspeakers:

“Welcome to the American gulag.

“You have been declared ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ by President Bush. As such – and with the full consent of the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress – you can be imprisoned indefinitely. Until death.

“Your interrogations will begin almost immediately. Remain standing. You may be subject to harsh ‘alternative’ tactics by CIA personnel or U.S. military. Again, each of these tactics has been fully approved by Congress.

And it could be you. Or me.

“Buried in the complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.”

Addendum, 9./29/2006

What we’ve seen happen in the last five years is not something that should invoke pride or flag-waving jingoism in Americans. We’ve watched a president and vice president whose lies have become so commonplace that they seldom even make the news. We’ve watched as our military men and women are killed or maimed in a war that has nothing to do with terror and everything to do with Bush and his mindless supporters selling fear to suit their ideological and financial agenda.

We’ve seen a world go from loving us on September 12, 2001 – many governments declared “we are all Americans today” – to us becoming a global pariah, with nary a friend who believes in our word or the promise of our deeds. We saw astounding pictures come back from Abu Ghraib, in which prisoners under our watch were tortured and, in some cases, killed.

And just this week, we have watched the Republican-led Congress affirm that all of that — and more — is just fine with them. At the same time, we have become willing to let the president mortgage our present and our children’s financial future to spend money on a war that did not need to be fought, while ruining a reputation that previous generations worked so hard to build.

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1 comment

  1. phillybits

    September 29, 2006 at 1:30 pm

    That WaPo blog post is what I was looking for earlier today for a post I put up.

    Thanks Frank.