Monday, May 10, 2010

From Firecrackers in Times Square to Five Hundred Pounders in Waziristan

Link

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Sunday it would seek a law allowing investigators to interrogate terrorism suspects without informing them of their rights, as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. flatly asserted that the defendant in the Times Square bombing attempt was trained by the Taliban in Pakistan.


Sure as the sun rises in the morning firecrackers exploding in Times Square are leading to another attack on the Constitution and our basic rights. That’s correct, all it took were a few firecrackers exploding and now we do away with our Miranda rights which prohibit prosecutors from using statement evidence that was gathered prior to informing the suspect of their rights. There already exists a public safety exception to the Miranda so why this grandstanding? Well, what is grandstanding always used for? In this case one of the themes for the Democrats has been that they are better at fighting terrorists than the Republicans are and this Times Square bomb attempt says they aren’t. Ergo the tough cop approach “We’ll protect Americans if we have to kill them ourselves!” Right. A deeper truth might be that any old excuse to expand the police state is like any old port in the storm for our authoritarian leaders who obviously view the Constitution as an out of date and largely useless document, which it is, for presidents and congress have ignored it and gone around it for at least one hundred years. Recall President McKinley sending the Marines to the Boxer Rebellion in China without consulting Congress which the Constitution demands presidents do, but you know how it is and that was in 1900 well over one hundred years ago. McKinley set a precedent that is still with us today that has likely led to others equally bad.

There is another cause for worry aside from our rights which is another escalation this time in Waziristan the alleged home to all kinds of baddies from al Qaeda to the TTP and maybe even old bin Laden himself. Obama has been steadily escalating the drone attacks in Waziristan resulting in literally hundreds of civilian deaths over the past year. Recently Obama has changed the rules of engagement where now we need not bother with the identity of our victims, no time for that, now we just slaughter who we feel like when we feel like as if we hadn’t been doing that all along. They hate us for our freedoms! Right. Gotcha.

After following the Shahzad story with much trepidation I find my worst fears are realized. I believe the original story is most likely true that Shahzad was acting on his own and that the Obama administration is now using the incident to erode our civil rights even further and to start another war on the lie that Shahzad was working for the Taliban. What perhaps convinces me the most is that this is based on “intelligence” and intelligence should never, ever, be taken at its face value. It should be remembered that intelligence is used by the State to fortify their own lies in the pursuance of war. And I’m afraid this is exactly what is happening right now.

3 Comments:

At May 10, 2010 2:47 PM, Blogger Jack Crow said...

Would it matter if Shahzad was trained in Pakistan or if he was just a middle class guy who cobbled together a "bomb" without the benefit of (apparently) ever having watched Mythbusters?

Wouldn't the Obama Administration look to increase its authority, pretty much no matter what?

I think the Pakistan angle is important more for the epic narrative Obama as crafted about AfPak, than it is for selling a skeered populace further reduction in their encoded protections from power and its abuses.

I could also be wrong.

 
At May 10, 2010 3:31 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Jack, Yeah I think it does matter because Obama and crew have had their eye on Waziristan for at least a year which makes me think they find this incident extremely fortuitous. It’s a lot like 9/11 except this time it’s only firecrackers which I suppose is what you might call progress. You’ve got to admit firecrackers are less destructive than airliners. Perhaps this is the new humanitarian approach to manipulation, easier on the pocket book, those airliners cost a fortune.

Of course The Obama is looking to increase his power and expand the police state and this is just one example, right?

”I think the Pakistan angle is important more for the epic narrative Obama as crafted about AfPak, than it is for selling a skeered populace further reduction in their encoded protections from power and its abuses.”

That may well be but don’t you see, it’s all part of the same package? As the war expands the police state expands because wartime allows the expansion of the police state. War is always the excuse for expanding the police state, it’s like peanut butter and jelly.

 
At May 10, 2010 6:32 PM, Blogger Jack Crow said...

Rob,

I cannot dispute your argument one bit. A war state is a police state.

Well written.

 

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