Bourne reborn
An
appraisal of the damage of Ashcroft and his "freedom
initiatives:"
...governments
everywhere have been restricting rights or enforcing existing
laws more harshly, and thus reducing the freedoms that
people used to enjoy.
Since
when were freedoms "enjoyed?" I could
have sworn there were founded on certain inalienable rights.
It is this very notion - that freedoms are a luxury -
that has brought justification and legitimacy to laws
such as the Patriot Act post-9/11. War
is the health....
Rhetoric
is front of action
Richard
Reeves questions
the intelligence of those in the Bush Administration:
These people don't know what they are doing and are looking
for light at the end of the tunnel.
If they look at the end of the tunnel, the requirements
for war will be missing:
1. Clear and present danger. First, what does this
mean and second, Saddam is very far away, has a third
rate army, a starving population and nuclear Israel next
door.
2. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Need we go over
this again? There
is no evidence.
3. 9/11 connections. That is like trying to find
the Constitution in Ashcroft's library.
Hell-bent
for Saddam
Gen.
Anthony Zinni demands a public debate concerning the war
in Iraq. His
most important point is the most
implicitly offensive to Bush and his policy-hawks:
It might be interesting to wonder why all the generals
see it the same way, and all those that never fired a
shot in anger and really hell-bent to go to war see it
a different way. That's usually the way it is in history.
The dichotomy exists probably because generals understand
that war kills while think-tank
policy hawks see it as a constant power struggle between
Israel and the world; one soaking in oil.
A
lesson from Europe....what?
Yes, and Eric Margolis is demanding
the US pay attention to the actions of Europe:
Unlike post-9/11 America, Europe did not
indulge in self-pity and nationalist frenzy. Europeans
became hardened to random, bloody attacks. There were
few calls in Europe, such as we now hear in the U.S.,
for vengeance attacks and extensive military operations
against foreign nations.
The US government has responded to terrorism in the worst
way possible: through reciprocal violence. Unfortunately,
America has forgotten the past,
...what the British Imperialists used to call "the
price of empire."
Ahh, that word again. Perhaps the war on terrorism is
a means towards empire rather the protection of one.
Empire-builder says "Not this time"
Joining the long list of opponents to military action
in Iraq, former
president Bill Clinton is having his say:
If
he [Saddam] knew for sure we were coming, he might have
maximum incentive to use them [WMD] and to give them to
other people....
Wow,
wise words for the man who utilized the military to distract
the public from things "going on under his desk."
Also from a man that bombed
the civilian population of Serbia to aid a quasi-terrorist
group in a semiautonomous region.
