Missouri Mule
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2005
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- Hot Springs, Arkansas
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- Conservative
Re: Another take on the Bali bombings by Christopher Hitchens
You need to read more.
" A particularly fulsome example is the article by Michael Ignatieff
which appeared on May 2, 2004 New York Times Magazine. Here are some excerpts:
Consider the consequences of a second major attack on the mainland United States -- the detonation of a radiological or dirty bomb, perhaps, or a low-yield nuclear device or a chemical strike in a subway. Any of these events could cause death, devastation and panic on a scale that would make 9/11 seem like a pale prelude. After such an attack, a pall of mourning, melancholy, anger and fear would hang over our public life for a generation.
An attack of this sort is already in the realm of possibility. The
recipes for making ultimate weapons are on the Internet, and the
materiel required is available for the right price. Democracies live by free markets, but a free market in everything -- enriched uranium, ricin, anthrax -- will mean the death of democracy. Armageddon is being privatized, and unless we shut down these markets, doomsday will be for sale. Sept. 11, for all its horror, was a conventional attack. We have the best of reasons to fear the fire next time.
A democracy can allow its leaders one fatal mistake -- and that's what 9/11 looks like to many observers -- but Americans will not forgive a second one. A succession of large-scale attacks would pull at the already-fragile tissue of trust that binds us to our leadership and destroy the trust we have in one another. Once the zones of devastation were cordoned off and the bodies buried, we might find ourselves, in short order, living in a national-security state on continuous alert, with sealed borders, constant identity checks and permanent detention camps for dissidents and aliens.
Our constitutional rights might disappear from our courts, while torture might reappear in our interrogation cells. The worst of it is that government would not have to impose tyranny on a cowed populace. We would demand it for our own protection. And if the institutions of our democracy were unable to protect us from our enemies, we might go even further, taking the law into our own hands. We have a history of lynching in this country, and by the time fear and paranoia settled deep in our bones, we might repeat the worst episodes from our past, killing our former neighbors, our onetime friends. (emphasis added)
The coming of martial law to the US in the wake of a new large-scale terror attack was also the theme of Ted Koppel's Nightline broadcast of April 7, 2004. Here Koppel was joined by former terror czar Richard Clarke and the Reagan White House chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein. The broadcast was titled "The Armageddon Plan", and featured questions
of continuity in government (COG) after an attack that had decimated the US Congress.
Koppel asked Duberstein: "Aren't we left for at least the foreseeable future with some sort of martial law anyway?"
Duberstein replied: "You have to suspend rights."
Koppel elaborated: "And during that period, then, and given the sense of panic that is inevitable under circumstances like this, the executive branch of government takes on extraordinary power doesn't it?"
Clarke chimed in: "I think in any war where Washington were destroyed, inevitably, there would be a period of, for lack of a better term, something like martial law." Also taking part in this broadcast was James Mann of the Brookings Institution, author of the new book Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, published this year by Viking.
(Snip)
The White House now possesses its own "Continuity of Government" Commission, a kind of Committee of Public Safety which appears to be developing plans for the imposition of authoritarian rule. This is a board made up of Establishment worthies, starting with former presidents Carter and Ford, and including such figures as Newt Gingrich, Lloyd Cutler, Alan Simpson, Kenneth Duberstein, Jamie Gorelick (also of the Kean-Hamilton Commission), Tom Foley, Leon Panetta, and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach. This is a bi-partisan body that would seem to be engaged in forming a consensus in the oligarchical elite circles in favor of the need for police state measures to preserve the system...."
(Snip)
http://la.indymedia.org/mail.php?id=112145
==========================26 X World Champs said:This post ranks right up there with some of the all time stupidest posts ever contributed to this site. Stunning in it's complete detachment from the real world.
I love the unsubstantiated "some have suggested" bullshit. That is straight out of the Fox News Channel handbook on spreading lies and propaganda.
I also come away from the insanity of this post with the feeling that for anyone to write such nonsense and for anyone to actually believe it shows a total lack of belief in America, our Constitution and each and every one of us.
Ever see the movie "Seven Days in May"? Mule's plot is right out of that film from 1963 or thereabouts.
You know just when you thought the stupidity of the posts stopped at old fashioned hate and prejudice we discover the novel insanity of a post that "some have suggested" would topple our form of government.
Amazing! Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
You need to read more.
" A particularly fulsome example is the article by Michael Ignatieff
which appeared on May 2, 2004 New York Times Magazine. Here are some excerpts:
Consider the consequences of a second major attack on the mainland United States -- the detonation of a radiological or dirty bomb, perhaps, or a low-yield nuclear device or a chemical strike in a subway. Any of these events could cause death, devastation and panic on a scale that would make 9/11 seem like a pale prelude. After such an attack, a pall of mourning, melancholy, anger and fear would hang over our public life for a generation.
An attack of this sort is already in the realm of possibility. The
recipes for making ultimate weapons are on the Internet, and the
materiel required is available for the right price. Democracies live by free markets, but a free market in everything -- enriched uranium, ricin, anthrax -- will mean the death of democracy. Armageddon is being privatized, and unless we shut down these markets, doomsday will be for sale. Sept. 11, for all its horror, was a conventional attack. We have the best of reasons to fear the fire next time.
A democracy can allow its leaders one fatal mistake -- and that's what 9/11 looks like to many observers -- but Americans will not forgive a second one. A succession of large-scale attacks would pull at the already-fragile tissue of trust that binds us to our leadership and destroy the trust we have in one another. Once the zones of devastation were cordoned off and the bodies buried, we might find ourselves, in short order, living in a national-security state on continuous alert, with sealed borders, constant identity checks and permanent detention camps for dissidents and aliens.
Our constitutional rights might disappear from our courts, while torture might reappear in our interrogation cells. The worst of it is that government would not have to impose tyranny on a cowed populace. We would demand it for our own protection. And if the institutions of our democracy were unable to protect us from our enemies, we might go even further, taking the law into our own hands. We have a history of lynching in this country, and by the time fear and paranoia settled deep in our bones, we might repeat the worst episodes from our past, killing our former neighbors, our onetime friends. (emphasis added)
The coming of martial law to the US in the wake of a new large-scale terror attack was also the theme of Ted Koppel's Nightline broadcast of April 7, 2004. Here Koppel was joined by former terror czar Richard Clarke and the Reagan White House chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein. The broadcast was titled "The Armageddon Plan", and featured questions
of continuity in government (COG) after an attack that had decimated the US Congress.
Koppel asked Duberstein: "Aren't we left for at least the foreseeable future with some sort of martial law anyway?"
Duberstein replied: "You have to suspend rights."
Koppel elaborated: "And during that period, then, and given the sense of panic that is inevitable under circumstances like this, the executive branch of government takes on extraordinary power doesn't it?"
Clarke chimed in: "I think in any war where Washington were destroyed, inevitably, there would be a period of, for lack of a better term, something like martial law." Also taking part in this broadcast was James Mann of the Brookings Institution, author of the new book Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, published this year by Viking.
(Snip)
The White House now possesses its own "Continuity of Government" Commission, a kind of Committee of Public Safety which appears to be developing plans for the imposition of authoritarian rule. This is a board made up of Establishment worthies, starting with former presidents Carter and Ford, and including such figures as Newt Gingrich, Lloyd Cutler, Alan Simpson, Kenneth Duberstein, Jamie Gorelick (also of the Kean-Hamilton Commission), Tom Foley, Leon Panetta, and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach. This is a bi-partisan body that would seem to be engaged in forming a consensus in the oligarchical elite circles in favor of the need for police state measures to preserve the system...."
(Snip)
http://la.indymedia.org/mail.php?id=112145