(The following was a comment posted to the NY Times in an article about the award of the Congressional Medal of Honor to Sgt. Ty Carter, who survived not only combat but also PTSD.)
The NY Times should not promote the Big Lie that "Mr. Obama, ... pulled the last American troops out of Iraq...." There are plenty of US troops STILL in Iraq, for a very long time to come.
I also seriously doubt that the "war" (utterly undeclared by Congress) "is winding down ... in Afghanistan." Central Asia has been a bone of contention and a hotbed of conflict for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. US bases are in central Asia to stay, thanks to us taxpayers, most of whom (not I) vote to continue this nonsense.
A major problem with the blatantly militaristic foreign policy of the US is that the Supreme Court AND the Congress allow the Executive Branch to unilaterally and unconstitutionally conduct offensive offshore military operations at will, so that we Americans can pretend there is really no war so long as the Congress does not declare one, and we can all go about our business basically ignoring the thing UNLESS a President gets desperate and starts drafting people. We are still obliged to be witless "patriotic" supporters, however.
The alternative, of course, is to keep recycling the same "volunteers" (like Sgt. Carter) over and over through the killing fields and burning them out, if they dare survive. Contrast our Vietnam idiocy with our central Asia foolishness.
"Dulce et decorum est...." No one in the US should be obliged to die for one's country unless Congress has the guts to declare war.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
AL QAIDA?
(Sent as an e-mail 8/5/13.)
Does anybody besides me wonder about the rather strong "coincidence" between all the recent NSA data-gathering, CIA drone-bombing, e-mail reading, possible phone-tapping, etc., the reported activities of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, vs. the VERY suddenly reported increased activity supposedly by Al-Qaida, resulting in the closing of many embassies over the past weekend?
It may be wrong to be so skeptical and negative, but I am just not persuaded (yet) that the reported overseas emergency and heightened "terrorist chatter" is real or reasonable. After all, we have no independent means of testing the veracity or accuracy of the reports EVEN IF the "chatter" was, in fact, overheard by our various security forces. I could be wrong, of course.
Also recently reported is the quiet development of SWAT-like quasi-police forces within federal agencies not likely to have violence-prone security problems, like the Social Security Administration. What is with the recent development of all this swaggering, "manly" security in so many normally quiet agencies? For whose benefit were those tax dollars spent? "Uppity" citizens like me?
Now, I understand there are a lot of people quite willing to surrender most constitutional restraints on the federal govt. for perceived safety. Freedom is OK, but life is better, so it goes, and the prevailing argument also holds that we'd better let the govt. get somewhat intrusive to keep us all safe.
Would that it were so.
Unfortunately, the govt. (being nothing more than mere human beings with coercive power over others) is prone to mis-use that lack of constitutional restraint in ways utterly unrelated to true national security. We KNOW this to be so. Warrants issued by the FISA secret court in the past several years have been used almost exclusively for conventional criminal investigations and little or nothing for alleged "terrorist" activities. The massive data sweeps being conducted by various secret federal agencies involve a lot of ordinary US citizens suspected of NOTHING! The gathering of various news reporters' phone logs will show who is calling those news reporters. Is that a proper function of our government?
Whatever one may think of the admitted actions of Bradley Manning (I am not defending what he admitted doing), he DID disclose certain unprosecuted apparent war crimes committed by US forces in central Asia: wanton homicide and suppression of news gathering. Regardless of who declares what areas in other lands as "war zones," there is no congressional declaration of war pending, and the US Constitution does NOT authorize the conduct of offensive military operations by the President, acting alone, regardless of how good an idea it might seem to some, regardless of what is considered focused on "terrorism." The Constitution certainly does not authorize wanton homicides unilaterally declared to be acts of "war," nor does it authorize screening of news reporters' phone logs!
I am skeptical. I no longer give the US govt. the benefit of my doubts. I think the burden of proving propriety has now shifted to the govt. Otherwise, we must just passively accept the summary revocation of our fundamental rights, INCLUDING an overarching right to privacy, and we must permanently accept a self-actuated government with virtually unlimited powers, including the power to kill people who get in the way, every time there is a conveniently reported increase in "terrorist" activity. Many are willing to entrust the incumbent President with such powers, but what if John McCain had won in 2008 then died of a heart attack shortly afterward? Would you trust a "President Sarah Palin" to judiciously exercise such powers?
PS--In case you receive this e-mail late and/or redacted (blacked out), please look for me in Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, UNLESS somebody has already broken me out of there!
Does anybody besides me wonder about the rather strong "coincidence" between all the recent NSA data-gathering, CIA drone-bombing, e-mail reading, possible phone-tapping, etc., the reported activities of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, vs. the VERY suddenly reported increased activity supposedly by Al-Qaida, resulting in the closing of many embassies over the past weekend?
It may be wrong to be so skeptical and negative, but I am just not persuaded (yet) that the reported overseas emergency and heightened "terrorist chatter" is real or reasonable. After all, we have no independent means of testing the veracity or accuracy of the reports EVEN IF the "chatter" was, in fact, overheard by our various security forces. I could be wrong, of course.
Also recently reported is the quiet development of SWAT-like quasi-police forces within federal agencies not likely to have violence-prone security problems, like the Social Security Administration. What is with the recent development of all this swaggering, "manly" security in so many normally quiet agencies? For whose benefit were those tax dollars spent? "Uppity" citizens like me?
Now, I understand there are a lot of people quite willing to surrender most constitutional restraints on the federal govt. for perceived safety. Freedom is OK, but life is better, so it goes, and the prevailing argument also holds that we'd better let the govt. get somewhat intrusive to keep us all safe.
Would that it were so.
Unfortunately, the govt. (being nothing more than mere human beings with coercive power over others) is prone to mis-use that lack of constitutional restraint in ways utterly unrelated to true national security. We KNOW this to be so. Warrants issued by the FISA secret court in the past several years have been used almost exclusively for conventional criminal investigations and little or nothing for alleged "terrorist" activities. The massive data sweeps being conducted by various secret federal agencies involve a lot of ordinary US citizens suspected of NOTHING! The gathering of various news reporters' phone logs will show who is calling those news reporters. Is that a proper function of our government?
Whatever one may think of the admitted actions of Bradley Manning (I am not defending what he admitted doing), he DID disclose certain unprosecuted apparent war crimes committed by US forces in central Asia: wanton homicide and suppression of news gathering. Regardless of who declares what areas in other lands as "war zones," there is no congressional declaration of war pending, and the US Constitution does NOT authorize the conduct of offensive military operations by the President, acting alone, regardless of how good an idea it might seem to some, regardless of what is considered focused on "terrorism." The Constitution certainly does not authorize wanton homicides unilaterally declared to be acts of "war," nor does it authorize screening of news reporters' phone logs!
I am skeptical. I no longer give the US govt. the benefit of my doubts. I think the burden of proving propriety has now shifted to the govt. Otherwise, we must just passively accept the summary revocation of our fundamental rights, INCLUDING an overarching right to privacy, and we must permanently accept a self-actuated government with virtually unlimited powers, including the power to kill people who get in the way, every time there is a conveniently reported increase in "terrorist" activity. Many are willing to entrust the incumbent President with such powers, but what if John McCain had won in 2008 then died of a heart attack shortly afterward? Would you trust a "President Sarah Palin" to judiciously exercise such powers?
PS--In case you receive this e-mail late and/or redacted (blacked out), please look for me in Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, UNLESS somebody has already broken me out of there!
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