first off, you've entirely side-stepped my point, which i'll reiterate: they don't need to shoot you -- as a messenger, you're suicidal. if you want other countries to give unbiased and constructive consideration, you need to present unbiased and constructive arguments. instead, you've declared how obstinate americans are ("we don't care what you think!"), and emphasized american willingess to destroy others. seriously, do you really think you're convincing anyone who disagreed with you? step out of defensive mode for a second and mull that over, please.

the United States isn't going to make its case by vaguely threatening other countries with our massive power. our obstinacy won't endear us to anyone. how is trumpeting those two aspects going to solve any of that "blind hatred" that we both agree is often directed at the US? instead of diffusing anti-American hostility, you've basically pulled out the pistol and shot yourself in the head before you even delivered the message.

secondly, i think you insult yourself and your reader when you present the situation so simply. so america has no responsibility and islam has all the blame, huh? all we have to do is make islam pacifistic, right? and once the world gets over its stupid grudge against the US, we'll all join in a circle and sing kumbaya.

sorry, i don't buy it. i agree absolutely that america did not deserve 9/11. i agree absolutely that Islam needs to change its "violence is the solution" mentality. but the US giving everyone else the bird and pointing fingers will solve nothing. that kind of attitude is exactly what causes us to be hated; it's counter-productive.

the Islamic mentality and international mentality toward the US are not the only ones that need to change. Americans need to change to. Demonstrating some tact and humility in the international arena will contribute far more to that constructive atmosphere than insisting that everybody is wrong except us.

my apologies, i wasn't very clear. my last comment was directed to brad wardell, and i was in error to say "the islamic mentality." islam, as a religion, is not to blame. i should have said islam's extremist followers.

After the 9/11, the world was very sympathetic to USA. I remember the main french paper heading "we are all american". I think america could have use this amount of sympathy much better than it did. Building briges instead of diging gaps...

Hi and Merry Christmas!
mao: YES!!! Yes!
JEPEL, why wasn't the President on the Bat Phone with all his wordly buddies after 9/11? His behaviour at the elementary school in FL. post attack has always puzzeled me. Maybe the story about the goats was more interesting to him, goat=satan. lol.


Mr. Wardell this article just makes me dislike, even more_ the 'american attitude' or blatant arrogance that you have encapsulised by making untrue statements such as:

"student of history of World War II will tell you that it was a team effort by many different people across many different European countries."

Then it was a "team"( The tombsstones say they were: American, New Zealand, Australian, Polish, Russia_these men died in allied bombing, here.) Europe owes it's gratitude to_not just one member of " the team" and certainly not a member of the team that uses pre-emptive measures of defense.
There are still people around that survived Nazi occupation and allied bombing. Big business industrial giants made big money rebuilding Europe. While the architects of The Third Way were given immunity and furthered their careers in...America!
What America is experiencing is simple. It's Fascism and the plans to 'run' America in this antiquated, right-less have been executed le grande. You are oppressed.
It is my experience,born and bred Yankee me, that Uncle Sam taught us a one-sided history lesson_early-on. To look at America objectively_you have to leave it, go far away and see it for the tapeworm she has become and understand that you have no rights, you are not free there and you do not enjoy inalienable rights. You are the drones_occasionally one rises to the top and " get's rich" but for the majority, you have to bust your asses to make your car payments, house payments or rent_and when your kids get sick_get ready to shell out hundereds of dollars because your health insurance won't cover it. If you have health insurance...if not state hospitals are loads of fun: rat infested germ quakers for the lowest common denominator ( the race they'd like to practice eugenics on, but don't want to say outloud how they loathe the poor, the scum)
You have 2 weeks of vacation and no security in you jobs. You are forced to work overtime if you are 'salary'. Unions are frowned upon.
It's a hard life. You have a right to be angry.
But what we don't get is why you'd vote for this corporate elite cowboy Bush again? No one understands this in Europe.


One can not begin to seek 'the truth' about history, while you are standing inside the history writers media deemed fit for you and people like you to see or hear. So my words will only serve to piss you off further. Sorry_but (most) of the 280 million, really do not have a clue what is truth and what is created by your fascist government_He who controls the airwaves_controls the world?
I admire Bush the way I admire Hitler, not for the oratory abilities, but for actually getting away with murder, what the neo-con hawks have wanted all along.
Sins of the father?

You draw up many examples of other cultures killing/extermetaing people in their own lands...

It doesn't make it right at all... but generally they deal with stuff in their own territories/countries and dont but into other countries affairs - where they are both not needed or wanted.

USA can do seriously whatever it wants... i wish they would just have some degree of respect for the rest of the world - everyone knows they are a economical and millitary power house, but most americans have the attitutude that they are so self righteous, and on a mission from god fixing the world... get over that.

I pity the crazy fool Angel talkin jibba jabba

Who rises up for me against the wicked?
Who stands up for me against evildoers?
Psalms 94, verse 16

"We have lost our country. If you don't know that, or won't believe it, you either don't know what's going on, or you don't want to. We have lost it to a relatively small gang of immensely powerful totalitarians, whose goal is the total subjugation of the American people in a world government. We have lost it because of our own default. The only question worth asking now is: How can we get it back?

... As we shall see, the power-lusters who threaten our liberty now, daily break laws with impunity. Indeed, they have turned our God-ordained government into the greatest lawbreaker in history, a totalitarian juggernaut that makes the Mafia look sick. As we shall see, they take children hostage, drive businessmen to ruin, routinely commit perjury, pervert the courts, spit at the Bill of Rights - and even terrorize Congress."

--Alan Stang, 1988


Alan Stang's quotation is from the introduction to his book, Taxscam: How The IRS Swindles You And What You Can Do About It. At first thought you might think Stang exaggerates, but my analysis indicates that the conquest of America is even more pervasive than Stang indicates.

From history we may conclude that a nation or a people can be conquered by one or more of five methods - or any combination of these methods.

The most common has been conquest by war. In time, though, this method fails, because the captives hate the captors. Eventually the captives rise up and attempt to drive out the captors. Much force is needed to maintain control, making it expensive for the conquerors.

A second method of conquest is by religion, or manipulation of religious belief, where people are convinced they must give their captors part of their earnings as "obedience to God." Such a captivity is vulnerable to philosophical exposure or by overthrow through armed force, since modern religion by its nature lacks military force to regain control once its captives become disillusioned.

Political ideology is the third method of conquest. Compulsory state education is the foundation. Children are forced into schools where the moral and political values of the ruling class are subtly imparted. They are taught submission to authority. The law of the authority is absolute and must be obeyed. The discipline of the clock is stressed. The state controls what shall be taught and who shall teach it. Implement a federal school lunch program, so children will learn that big daddy government is the great provider.

The fourth method is "legal conquest" through the legislative, judiciary, police, and penal systems. Article I, section 8 of the U.S Constitution grants Congress "the power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." A political party, or a coalition of interests can get effective control of Congress. Meanwhile the Supreme Court, year by year, chips away at undermining the protections ostensibly provided by the Bill of Rights.

The fifth method can be called "economic conquest." It takes place when a nation or a people are placed under "duty" without the obvious use of force or coercion, so the victims never realize they have been conquered. "Duty" is collected from the victims in the form of "legal" taxes. The victims are led to believe that they pay for their own good, for the good of others, or to protect all from some enemy. The captors become the "benefactors" and "protectors" of the victims.

The first method - conquest by war - tends to be swift. The other methods can be applied gradually - almost unnoticeably - over long periods of time. Small, incremental changes are instituted. Generally, the captives show little opposition, because they seldom see any military force arrayed against them. Their religion may be left intact; they have freedom to speak and to travel, and they seemingly participate in the "election" of their rulers. Their government, it seems, implements "the will of the people." Without realizing it, the victims are conquered. The instruments of their own society are used to transfer the fruits of their productive labor and their wealth to their captors, until the conquest is complete. I call this transfer "economic rape."

In 1900 the average American worker paid few taxes and had little debt. Today, taxes and debt repayments take more than half the earnings of the average American worker. Twenty years ago, the average husband brought in enough money for the family to live comfortably. America is being destroyed. For most Americans the "American Dream" has become a nightmare. Today, with both husband and wife working, it is a battle to pay the bills. The quality of education has been deteriorating for a long time. Crime rates seem to increase year after year. Parts of many cities are considered by most as too dangerous to live in. They are beset by drug addiction, gang wars, drive-by shootings, and overflowing jails.

An insidious form of conquest has been imposed on "we the people." This report examines the conquest from many angles. How extensive is it? Who is behind it? What in human nature gives rise to it? And, finally, what can you as individual do about it?


ECONOMIC RAPE IN A NUTSHELL

The editorial below appeared in The Arizona Republic of August 29,1992, under the heading "Public Enemy No. 1":

"It appears, finally, the American people are beginning to awaken to the fundamental cause of the nation's economic woes - the federal budget deficit. In a recent CNN poll, more than 60 percent identified the deficit as the nation's leading economic problem.

The deleterious impact of the deficit on the economy is not an abstract matter for tweedy economists to debate. It has a real effect on the daily lives of Americans. According to Frank Zarb, chief executive officer of the brokerage and investment firm Smith Barney, 60 percent of the country's available credit - 60 percent! - is being soaked up by government borrowing to finance Washington's nearly $400 billion annual shortfall.

This represents a loss to the private sector of an enormous amount of credit capital that could be going to expand existing businesses, to start up new companies, both large and small, to finance research and development and to enhance America's competitiveness on world markets. The burgeoning deficit has held down job creation and produced the 1 percent growth rate the anemic economy has managed over the past four years...

As economic analyst Anthony Ogorek pointed out this week in The New York Times, between fiscal years 1990 and '91 total government revenue - the taxes Washington collects - grew by 2.23 percent, or $22.9 billion. The required interest payments on the cumulative national debt, however, grew by $21.1 billion, or 8 percent. Thus almost the total net increase in government revenue was sopped up by interest payments on the debt.

Neither presidential candidate is being entirely candid with voters about uncontrolled federal spending. Before Bill Clinton promises to provide health care for every American, perhaps he should figure out how we are going to pay for existing programs. And President Bush should account for the staggering growth in executive branch departments last year - Labor up 34 percent, Justice 26.7 percent and the Executive Office of the President himself 23 percent.

Mr. Ogorek notes that Social Security taxes collected from the paychecks of working Americans grew by $12.3 billion, or 4.31 percent, in 1990-91. Yet Social Security spending jumped by $21.4 billion, or 8.74 percent, in the same period. At this rate of increase, which shows no sign of slowing, Social Security will be spending more than it takes in by the end of the next presidential term.

Another big budget imbalance occurs in the area of health care. This represents the biggest black hole in the federal budget.

Excluding Social Security payments, in 1990 the Department of Health and Human Services paid out $193.6 billion in Medicare and Medicaid benefits. This increased in '91 by $24.3 billion, or 12.5 percent. Thus government health insurance spending alone gobbled up the growth in revenue (total spending for the period increased by $71 billion, against revenue growth of $22.9 billion).

Clearly, this mismanagement cannot continue indefinitely without bringing economic ruin. Yet neither President Bush nor Gov. Clinton appears eager to level with the voters as to the magnitude of the nation's government-caused economic plight." [Emphasis added]

All the above facts and figures - alarming as they are - are surface manifestations of more fundamental problems. The federal budget deficit is not "public enemy no. 1." It is a symptom of more basic, underlying problems. It is also the tip of the iceberg. In the coming pages we shall examine the more fundamental problems, who is behind them, and what you as an indivdual can do about them.

If the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your post, for calmness will undo great offenses. There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as great an error as if it proceeded from the ruler: folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place.
Ecclesiastes 9, verses 4-6

I'm about to layeth the smacketh down on angels monkey ass

It's true that Americans are humans AND also should remenber that Others are humans too.

Mao I completely agree with you, but then again by questioning Brads portrail of the Americans I was branded anti-American.
I guess my high regard for the general American public was unwelcome. Just for the record I am not anti-American I like many aspects of America, I can't claim to have any love for Bush though. I don't hate Bush but find him dangerously laughable. But thats a different topic .

What I don't like is the idea that American will turn as fanatical as the terrorists they face, and become a more terrifing force for the rest of us. I also don't like the idea that Americans clamp their hands over their ears and pretend the world doesn't exist at the same time as acting world leader. Basically America don't become a rogue state, you still have friends out here.

But especially reading the post here made me react, Brad I have read your post before and hold you in high regard until it comes to defending America your style of writing changes to emotional and I think it shows. But then again thats only my opinion, hopefully I haven't upset you as I must apologise if I have not the intent.

Homeland Defense:
The Pentagon Declares War on America
by Frank Morales

Global Outlook, Issue 3, Winter 2003
www.globalresearch.ca December 2003
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MOR312A.html

In 2003, Frank Morales was granted A Project Censored Award of Sonoma University, Cal.

The article published below was ranked Second in the Top 25 Most Censored Stories, which were granted the Project Censored Award.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "PATRIOT Act" is a repressive "coordination" of the entities of force and deception, the police, intelligence and the military. It broadens, centralizes and combines the surveillance, arrest and harassment capabilities of the police and intelligence apparatus. Homeland defense is, in essence, a form of state terrorism directed against the American people and democracy itself. It is the Pentagon Inc. declaring war on America.

The "domestic war on terrorism" hinges upon the Pentagon's doctrine of homeland defense. Mountains of repressive legislation are being enacted in the name of internal security. So called "homeland security", originally set within the Pentagon's "operations other than war", is actually a case in which the Pentagon has declared war on America. Shaping up as the new battleground, this proliferating military "doctrine" seeks to justify new roles and missions for the Pentagon within America. Vast "legal" authority and funds to spy on the dissenting public, reconfigured as terrorist threats, is being lavished upon the defense, intelligence and law enforcement "community."

All this is taking place amidst an increasingly perfected "fusion" of the police and military functions both within the US and abroad, where the phenomena is referred to as "peacekeeping", or the "policization of the military". Here in America, all distinction between the military and police functions is about to be forever expunged with the looming repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act. The latter, was passed after the Civil War to rein in the military. It bars federal troops from doing police work within United States borders, although strictly speaking, the Act refers only to the Army and the Air Force, not to the Marines or the National Guard in "state status." According to the New York Times:

"the Bush administration has directed lawyers in the Department of Justice and Defense to review the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and any other laws that sharply restrict the military's ability to participate in domestic law enforcement."

The Washington Post (7/21/02) put it a bit more starkly, stating that the Bush administration:

"has called on Congress to thoroughly review the law that bans the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines from participating in arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other police-type activity on US soil."

In other words, the "New World Law and Order" based on the repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act, requires a system of domestic and global counterinsurgency led by the Pentagon.

The first requirement of this counterinsurgency, which is directed at all forms of social dissent is the "collection", "retention" and "dissemination" of information, information on anyone who resists, whether through violent means or otherwise. Recall, that the protests in Seattle and numerous other cities in recent years were more often than not classified within official DoD and FEMA documents as "terrorist events". The objective is to centralize all intelligence gathering under one roof, the Department of Homeland Security and to widely cast the net over all of us, making certain that we all fall in line with the Pentagon Inc. agenda.

To this end the myriad modes of intelligence gathering or "collection" have been beefed up: From CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) to Carnivore (e-mail spying), from the NSA's Echelon (global listening device), to spy satellite imagery, from FBI "roving wiretaps", to CIA access to grand juries and secret FISA "foreign intelligence" courts, the means, legal sanctions and technology of social control proliferate, are sanctioned, are demanded by a paranoid public. Homeland security requires manufactured insecurity. A bit of anthrax to keep em on their toes and minding their p's and q'sÂ…

Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS)
Typical of the need for "tactical (on the ground) intelligence" is the creation of TIPS or the Terrorism Information and Prevention System. Set up in January 2002 by Ashcroft's Justice Department, TIPS is described as a "national system for concerned workers to report suspicious activity". In fact, TIPS is a hotline to the National White Collar Crime Center, a Justice Department organization that deals with "economic crime" and cyberattack. For a little under a million bucks they plan to register all "suspicious, publicly observable activity that could be related to terrorism" and forward it to law enforcement and other agencies "opting to receive TIPS information." These agencies "would be responsible for determining how to respond to the tips they receive."

The "workers" that TIPS is willing to offer its hotline service are those in the transportation, trucking, shipping, maritime, and mass transit industries. The truckers, for their part, are jumping in with both feet. The trucker magazine FleetOwner recently noted (6/1/02) that:

"attempting to stay ahead of Federal regulators charged with securing US transportation networks from terrorist attacks, the American Trucking Assns. has readied a 'Neighborhood Watch' program for the nation's highways."

The ATA's "Anti-Terrorism Action Plan", geared to keeping the "wheels of commerce" rolling, envision a plan in which "a potential 3 million professional truck drivers will be trained to spot and report any suspicious activities that might have terrorism or national security implications." As if truckers don't have enough on their minds, although it might be wise for them to keep their eyes wide open.

It seems that the Bush administration concern for workers knows no bounds. According to the New York Times (8/!4/02) President Bush wants to exempt all homeland security coordinated agencies "from collective bargaining requirements if (he) were to determine that our national security demands it." Little known to the public, the president is seeking not only to "exempt agency employees from federal labor relations rules and prohibit them from joining unions", but he's also prepared to force them to work, under the conditions he chooses, if "national security demands it". The "flexibility" that Bush is calling for, a "fast moving homeland security department unfettered by work rules and red tape" is sure to result in a lot less "flexibility" on the part of workers who may soon be confronted with a form of involuntary employment during "times of war", all set out in Department of Defense directives.

Financing Homeland Defense
TIPS, which is an integral part of the CitizenCorps/FreedomCorps/AmeriCorps axis of patriotic, police loving do-gooders, is buttressed with funds from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). In the wake of 9/11, CNCS was fully integrated into "homeland defense efforts". In March 2002, the Corporation issued a "notice of availability of funds to strengthen communities and organizations in using service and volunteers to support homeland security." With an emphasis on "public safety" and "freeing up police time", the grants offered under the announcement "are to assist communities in getting involved in the war against terrorism on the home front." In the area of "public safety" the grants "will help provide members to support police departmentsÂ…in tasks and other functions that can be performed by non-sworn officers." Now mind you, the volunteers "are not armed, nor can they make arrests, but they carry out vital tasks including organizing neighborhood watch groupsÂ…" They also "organize communities to identify and respond to crime and disorder problemsÂ…"

In July 2002, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge announced, while sitting in a Washington DC police station, the first round of CNCS homeland security grants totaling $10.3 million, an "initiative" that is to involve some 37,000 volunteers nationwide. One recipient of a $484,000 Corporation grant, based in NYC, is the Center for Court Innovation. Linked to the NYC Public Safety Corps, the grant "will enhance homeland security by assisting criminal justice officials (police, probation officers, judges) as they perform their dutiesÂ…(while) 40 full time AmeriCorps members willÂ…free up policeÂ…to address conditions of disorder that if left unchecked create a climate where crime would flourish."

In NYC, ground zero for the attack, homeland defense equates to the same old thing, cracking down on "disorder" (protest) and "quality of life crimes", which is a racist police code for arresting and jailing more poor people.

The euphemism of "homeland defense", codified within the halls of the Pentagon as early as the mid-1990's, long before 9/11, buttressed with various Presidential Decision Directives and Executive Orders, includes, within the doctrinal rubric of "operations other than war", continual training to suppress dissent, or as it is conveniently phrased, to put down "civil disturbance." The decades old "Garden Plot" operation, which is the Pentagon's stand alone "civil disturbance" plan, has become generalized in the "homeland defense" concept and it's focus on the "asymmetric threat". With the creation of the Department of Homeland Defense, Homeland Security Council etc. the Bush administration is seeking to institutionalize it's "permanent war" against "terrorism", dovetailed with it's ongoing war against dissent.

So while Garden Plot directives, geared for domestic use, are exported to "peacekeeping" troops abroad, "homeland defense" tightens the grip at home. The recent appointment of General Ralph E. Eberhart and the creation of a Northern Command within the Pentagon reflect the depth of commitment the elite have to maintaining "full spectrum dominance" at home.

With "the PATRIOT Act" and other legal monstrosities foisted upon the people, what emerges is a repressive "coordination" (as the Nazis used to call it) of the entities of force and deception, the police, intelligence and the military, in the interests of a "permanent" counterinsurgency, by way of the centralization and broadening of surveillance capabilities, arrest capabilities, and harassment capabilities, which target anyone corporate America doesn't like. Homeland defense is, in essence, a form of state terrorism directed against the American people and democracy itself. It is the Pentagon Inc. declaring war on America.

Global Counterinsurgency
The "war on terrorism" is a global counterinsurgency whose aim is to wipe out any and all resistance to US global hegemony and corporate domination. Utilizing "operations other than war" (OOTW), corporate America and it's military are taking a more direct, hands on approach to the needs and requirements of corporate globalization. OOTW, with its host of new missions (e.g. peacekeeping and civil disturbance operations), is based on a pre-emptive doctrine. In this new war, which relies on both standard means of killing along with so-called non-lethal weapons, so-called " non-combatants" (i.e. civilians) become the primary target. And in so doing, the military, via its OOTW doctrine, is violating one of the sacred tenets of the so-called "laws of war", namely, that militaries not target civilian populations. But after all, as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld noted in a (12/12/01) statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the "enemy" "hides in caves abroad", and more importantly, "among us here at home."

Now, despite the fact that both the Presidential and military directives target "non-United States citizens" (as if that's not bad enough), in June 2002, the Bush administration jailed a New York City man of Puerto Rican descent, Jose Padilla - or as he now calls himself - Abdullah al Muhajir, and is holding him in a military brig in South Carolina. He has yet to be charged with any crime. Like the hundreds of Muslim immigrants still being held in detention since September 11, he is considered a "material witness" to the investigation of the attack. And yet, rather than have him subject to the discretion of Federal courts, he was handed over to the military as an "enemy combatant" after Ashcroft and the Pentagon talked it over. At that moment, Padilla was taken out of his New York prison cell and transferred to a US Navy brig in South Carolina. His attorney, Donna Newman of NYC was not informed of his transfer and has been denied access to her client. Even the Washington Post, which has backed virtually all of the repressive measures of the Bush administration since September 11, wrote at the time of Padilla's jailing that:

"the governments actions in this latest case cut against basic elements of life under the rule of law" and that "if its positions are correct, nothing would prevent the president - even in the absence of a formal declaration of war - from designating any American as an enemy combatantÂ…If that's the case, nobody's constitutional rights are safe."

This "chilling legal precedent" is but the tip of the iceberg of the complete subsuming of normal judicial processes to the growing militarization of law enforcement and jurisprudence.

"Homeland defense", as we experience it today, has been percolating in the bowels of the Pentagon and corporate think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Council on Foreign Relations, along with their Congressional counterparts, for nearly a decade. What it required was an emergency situation. The "homeland security" apparatus presently being constructed is modeled roughly after the military's "combatant command structure" and is --in the wake of 9/11– set within the context of the "laws and customs of war", hence the introduction of military courts and the shifting of jurisdictions for so-called "crimes associated with terrorism". The Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, whose job as of October 1st is to patrol America, will head up this homeland defense "command structure".

Concurrent with the round-up of over a thousand people following the September 11 attack, many of whom have been held in solitary confinement, with no charges being filed, President Bush signed in November 2991 order, establishing military "tribunals" for those non-citizens accused, anywhere, of "terrorist related crimes". According to the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, the order violates the constitutional separation of powers:

"[It] has not been authorized by the Congress and is outside the President's constitutional powers"... the order strips away a variety of checks and balances on governmental power and the reliability and integrity of criminal judgments... [T]he order undermines the rule of law worldwide, and invites reciprocal treatment of US nationals by hostile nations utilizing secret trials, a single entity as prosecutor, judge and jury, no judicial review and summary executions."

Department of Defense Military Commission Order No.1, issued March 21, 2002, is concerned with "procedures for trials by military commissions of certain non-United States citizens in the War Against Terrorism." The "commissions", according to the order, "shall have jurisdiction over violations of the laws of war and all other offenses triable by military commission." Overseen by a "military officer" who will "admit or exclude evidence at trial", the "prosecutor" would be a "special trial counsel of the Department of Justice." On the defense side, well, one could opt to go with the DoD's version of the public defender, namely another "military officer", or one could secure an attorney. Although "the Accused may also retain the services of a civilian attorney of the Accused's own choosingÂ…at no expense to the United States Government", this would only be possible once it "has been determined" that the civilian attorney is "eligible for access to information classified at the level of SECRET or higherÂ…" In other words, to get any kind of impartial and efficient legal representation in Mr.Rumsfeld's court, your attorney has to be cleared by the Pentagon.

Angel: Get a life okay? Comments are for comments by people. Not regurgitating other posts. It is very difficult to carry on a convesation with pages of dribble being posted. If you have something to say, type it yourself. Don't make me IP ban you please.

I hear a lot of talk here about world war two and fascism, though what about Vietnam? Remember, the war America LOST.

America has shown restraint post 9/11?!?!? What do you call blowing up Afghanistan?

The fact of the matter is you can't dominate people by killing them. Dead people can't work at McDonalds, or make sneakers or whatever. All you do is shift who gets dominated. You blow up the third world and you'll have to make your own damn sneakers.

The reason people don't like America is simple. Its not religion, its not culturally difference, its not modernity, its the fact that you control/consume most of the world resources. People who would rather die than give America their stuff [namely oil] or work for you for virtually nothing are absolutely a threat to the American 'way of life.'

I hear a lot of talk here about world war two and fascism, though what about Vietnam? Remember, the war America LOST.

What about it? I don't recall the US invading North Vietnam. I don't recall the US nuking North Vietnam. How much more restraint could the US have shown there? Its restraint is why it "lost".

America has shown restraint post 9/11?!?!? What do you call blowing up Afghanistan?

Blowing up Afghanistan? Woha. How do you define blowing up a country?

The fact of the matter is you can't dominate people by killing them. Dead people can't work at McDonalds, or make sneakers or whatever. All you do is shift who gets dominated. You blow up the third world and you'll have to make your own damn sneakers.

The middle east supplies very few sneakers.

The reason people don't like America is simple. Its not religion, its not culturally difference, its not modernity, its the fact that you control/consume most of the world resources. People who would rather die than give America their stuff [namely oil] or work for you for virtually nothing are absolutely a threat to the American 'way of life.'

There are plenty of reasons not to like "America". I don't like France myself. But there's a big difference between not liking someone and working actively towards killing every man, woman, and child in a country.  The Twin Towers, in case you weren't aware, was not some military base. It was a civilian office building that had in it typically between 50,000 and 150,000 people depending on the time of day. If their timing had been just slightly better, instead of 3,000 deaths there could have been 30,000 deaths. Their intent was certainly to murder as many Americans as they could do.

Fortunately for them, Americans are a peaceful people who have shown great restraint. The US could have "blown" up Afghanistan. Literally wiped it off the face fo the earth so that no living being lived. That is what blowing up is. Supporting the Northern Alliance and sending in aircraft to attack specific targets is quite a different thing.

The argument isn't whether the United States is right or not. The point is that it's ultimately irrelevant. Shoulda, woulda, coulda is pointless when you get to basic survival. If Americans ever feel their actual physical survival is at stake, they will do what anyone else would do - try to eliminate those who they believe are the source of that threat.

It's the same thing with Militant Islam - right or wrong, they believe that the United States is a threat to their existence (as a culture anyway). And they are doing whatever they can do to eliminate the United States. So far that has been with conventional weapons and suicide bombers because that's all they have available. This has given the United States the luxury of trying to contain that threat through relatively precise means. But if the terrorists ever got ahold of nukes, that situation would likely change.

Terrorism can't be eliminated. But it can be reduced to a great degree. It's not just any old people doing these atrocities, it's a particular group of people of a particular religion from a particular part of the world. And if it became a choice between us and them, Americans would choose us and "them" would disappear regardless of the collateral damage.

So the best thing for people in that part of the world of that particular religon to di is to clean house themselves. Eliminate the terrorists themselves while they are still in a position to do so.  Either they'll eliminate or reduce the terrorists or we'll try it ourselves.

 

 

Absolutely there is a boiling point to even the patient--Damn! I'm not going to take it anymore!