Insouciant Americans
The Underwear Bomber case indicates that whoever is behind these bomb scares is laughing at our gullibility.
How realistic is it that al-Qaida, an organization that allegedly pulled off the most fantastic terror attack in world history, would in these days of heightened security choose for an attack on an airliner a person who is the most conspicuous of all? Umar Farouk Mutallab had a one-way ticket, no luggage, no passport, and his father, reportedly a CIA and Mossad asset, had reported him to the CIA and Mossad. Does anyone really believe that al-Qaida would choose as an airliner bomber a person waving every red flag imaginable?
This obvious question has escaped the U.S. media, a collection of salespersons marketing full body scanning machines for airports.
Would al-Qaida, with its extensive knowledge of explosives, have armed Umar with a "bomb" that experts say couldnít have blown up his own seat?
It is difficult to imagine a more gullible population than America's, but do even Americans believe this story?
Since 9/11 the F.B.I. has been busy enticing people, who lack organizational skills, into "terrorist plots" that consist of F.B.I. initiated hot air talk. These ridiculous stings are then taken to trial, and the media fans the flames of fear of "home-grown terrorist plots against Americans."
There is little doubt that those interested in leading the U.S. deeper into a police state and deeper into a "war on terror" are active in adding orchestrated events to whatever real ones real terrorists manage to accomplish. The paucity of real terrorists has caused the U.S. government and its Ministry of Truth to promote the Taliban to terrorist rank. The problem is that these "terrorist acts" are taking place thousands of miles away in lands that the average American cannot find on a map and, thus, lack scare value. To keep the peril alive for Americans, we have the Underwear Bomb Plot.
What will be next? An elaborate head of hair laced with nano-thermite?
The "war on terror" is a far greater threat to Americans than all the terrorists in the world combined. This is so because the "war on terror" has destroyed the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. American citizens are now helpless in the event someone in government decides that some constitutionally protected behavior, such as free speech, or a contribution to a children's hospital in Gaza, where Hamas, a U.S.-declared "terrorist organization," happens to be the elected government, constitutes aiding and abetting terrorism.
On Jan. 5 a ruling by the Federal Appeals Court in the District of Columbia gave away the most essential protection of liberty by declaring that the U.S. government is not bound by law during war. The ruling absolves Washington from complying with America's own laws and from complying with international laws, such as the Geneva Conventions. It makes a mockery of all war crime trials everywhere. By elevating the executive branch above the law, the court gave the government carte blanche.
The rationale offered by the court for refusing to uphold the law came from Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who said that America had been pushed by war past "the leading edge of a new and frightening paradigm, one that demands new rules be written. War is a challenge to law, and the law must adjust." By "adjust" she means "be set aside" or "be thrown out."
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to defend both the Constitution and the principle that government is not above the law. Last Dec.14 the Supreme Court refused to review a ruling by the Federal Appeals Court in the District of Columbia, which dismissed a torture case with the argument that "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military's detention of suspected enemy combatants." In other words, neither U.S. nor international laws against torture can be enforced in U.S. courts. The opinion was written by Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson.
The "war on terror," which is enriching Halliburton, Blackwater (now operating under an alias), and the military/security complex, while denying Americans health care, is running up debt that is a threat to Americans' purchasing power and living standards. The contrast between America's sanctimonious rhetoric and the murder of civilians and torture of prisoners has destroyed America's reputation and caused Europeans as well as Muslims to despise the United States.
The sacrifice of the Constitution and rule of law to a hyped "theorist threat" has destroyed the heart and soul of America herself.
As a poet wrote, "our world in stupor lies."
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It was not a "one-way ticket":
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/pageoneplus/corrections.html?_r=1
A suggestive typo in the last paragraph, "theorist threat." PCR is absolutely right that the "war on terrorism" is the incomparably greater threat than terrorism itself.
"The “war on terror” is a far greater threat to Americans than all the terrorists in the world combined."
The Supreme Court's appointment in 2000 of GWB to be POTUS will mark the start of America's descent into being a police state.
A few years ago, Janice Rogers Brown was a solid conservative on the California Supreme Court. Back when she was nominated to the federal court, I wrote some editorials for The Orange County Register defending her against liberal attacks. I should have known better. Are there _any_ conservative/Republican judges left who defend the Constitution?
Mr. Seiler,
Professor Clyde Wilson once answered your question by saying, "of course there are no conservative republican judges left, because such a creature has never really existed." Or words to that effect.
There's the so-called conservative GOP judicial nominees for you, unmasked for what they are: puppets of the party, and furthermore, of the American imperial establishment. Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, John Roberts, Janice Rogers Brown, Charles Pickering, Miguel Estrada . . . all frauds. All their promises of refusing to legislate from the bench will be thrown out the door when the subject of the empire's war powers comes before the courts.
@5, robert. Dr. Wilson was right. But we all have our illusions, as I did c. 2003; although that's one I don't have anymore.
The alternative nowadays is between leftist judges who sometimes support the rights of the accused but not the unborn, and "conservative" judges who sometimes support the rights of the states to protect the unborn but also back the fuehrerprinzip.
MR. Seiler,
Yes, that is the way I see it. There are some justices, like Justice Scalia for instance, who admit it while others simply see their role as forming "a more perfect Union." Justice Scalia once spoke at my old Law School and said," once power is given to any governement entity it will be kept and expanded. It is naive for any thinking person to believe that once a Court has derogated a power to itself that it will ever give it up." Every young law student reads Marbury vs Madison, but hardly any ever undertsand it. It is like the natives of old who would hang confiscated farm equipment in the trees and worship it, since they had no idea of its purpose,history or how to use it. There should be altars at every Law School dedicated to the God of Judicial Review and then vespers sung each evening by chanting aloud the sacred text of Marbury vs Madison.
". . .the 'war on terror' has destroyed the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights."
The destruction of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights started long before the war on terror. I think Lincoln and his illegitimate (unconstitutional) war against the CSA drove a stake through the heart of the Constitution. Ways to subvert the Constitution were being planned even before it was ratified.
That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
"The contrast between America’s sanctimonious rhetoric and the murder of civilians and torture of prisoners has destroyed America’s reputation and caused Europeans as well as Muslims to despise the United States"
Muslims, huh.
Take your Masonic head out of the sand, Roberts. They have been our enemy right from the start, expansionism or not.