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Posts tagged with Terrorism

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3:31 PM

April 2, 2010

Extremists Posing as “Concerned Citizens”

I suppose there is something to be said about accountability in this country. Deserved or not though, demanding accountability by threat of force evokes images of an ousted Honduran president, a Burmese junta, a deposed Chilean leftist. It does not evoke images however, of a modern, democratized America.

Alas, this is the context in which we find ourselves today. Extremists, paranoid and delusional, attempt to leverage a constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms in order to oust democratically elected governors. When a Department of Homeland Security assessment, commissioned by the Bush administration, warned of the increasing threat of domestic, home-grown, violence and terrorism, the (conservative) media spun it as a lead-up to partisan policing of dissenting groups and ultimately tried to use it to discredit the incoming administration.

Do those media figures feel remorse about their indignant responses to a sober analysis of our country?

Probably not.

Does the appearance and publicizing of recent extremism in our nation suggest a new illness in our society’s politics?

Probably not.

Is there a connection between politicians’ publicly aired diatribes likening the Obama administration to past despotic regimes and the presence of these extremist threats towards government officials?

Absolutely.

But lets not jump to any conclusions just because of that acknowledgment. The DHS and the FBI have been responding to these sorts of threats for some time, as I’m sure they were just as pertinent during Bush’s administration. And if our country’s panic laden responses to airport security measures is any indication, the role of concerned citizens in this issue should be one of urging restraint and calm from our elected leaders. We need to be, as a nation, confident on certain things.

For one, no crackpot militia (or any militia for that matter) is going to overthrow our government.

Same goes for foreign terrorists – they simply have no chance of overthrowing our government and no chance of disrupting our ability to choose the way we live our lives. Whatever tangential threats exist, they are not existential threats, and to treat them otherwise is to give far too much credence to the power of these groups.

Criminals are criminals are criminals are criminals. Regardless of whether they attempt to hide behind a veil of patriotism or are honest in their intentions, we already have the means to deal with their effects. Any further discussion of issues regarding homegrown terrorism, militia violence or threats of violence should be isolated within an intellectual forum – it should not enter the legislative forum.

If ever these sorts of threats should teach us something, it is that the boundaries of legislative efficacy are true. The concerns about militias and domestic terrorism are concerns primarily for the communities in which they occur, and no amount of legislating can hope to change that fact.

I don’t take these instances of/the threat of violence lightly. They are indeed serious issues, issues that exist within almost every society. They are issues that will outlive the governments of today and issues that cannot be categorized into a notion of historical pertinence. They are basic issues of human nature.

As such, I cannot stomach the idea of our government trying to legislate away human nature any more than it already has through existing penal codes. If ever a slippery slope existed, it is the slippery slope that brings us from protecting our security toward confining our liberties. In the context of foreign terrorism, racial profiling has become an actual policy goal for conservatives who wish to seem tough on security. That slippery slope has already brought our country back towards institutionalizing the racial prejudices and discrimination that directly contradict the values enshrined in our founding documents.

So while it can be startling to hear/read news of threats of violence becoming more widespread within the political discourse, we may all need a collective moment to breathe.

The proper authorities are on the case, will continue to be vigilant, and can accomplish more than a bunch of up-tight, insulated politicians could ever hope to accomplish.

As our leading institutionalized voice of calm and rationality recently stated:

So as Americans, we reject the false choice between our security and our ideals. We can and we must and we will protect both. (Obama, 5/22/09)

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11:56 PM

March 9, 2010

McCain ’08 Nightmares

‘‘Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010’’.

Brr…I think a cold chill just swept through the room. Can you hear the war drums beating towards Iran?

Back to reality in year 2 of the Obama administration though.

McCain unveiled this radical piece of legislation while providing the wisdom that only a Senator as old and as wise as he can provide:

“Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation that sets forth a clear, comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of enemy belligerents who are suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States.  This legislation seeks to ensure that the mistakes made during the apprehension of the Christmas Day bomber, such as reading him a Miranda warning, will never happen again and put Americans’ security at risk…

..A key provision of this bill is that it would prohibit a suspected enemy belligerent from being provided with a Miranda warning and being told he has a right to a lawyer and a right to refuse to cooperate.  I believe that an overwhelming majority of Americans agree that when we capture a terrorist who is suspected of carrying out or planning an attack intended to kill hundreds if not thousands of innocent civilians, our focus must be on gaining all the information possible to prevent that attack or any that may follow from occurring.  Under these circumstances, actionable intelligence must be our highest priority and criminal prosecution must be secondary…

…Mr. President, deliberate mass attacks that intentionally target hundreds of innocent civilians are an act of war and should not be dealt with in the same manner as a robbery.  We must recognize the difference.  If we don’t, our response will be hopelessly inadequate.  We should not be providing suspected terrorists with Miranda warnings and defense lawyers.  Instead, the priority and focus must be on isolating and neutralizing the immediate threat and collecting intelligence to prevent another attack…I believe the handling of the Christmas Day bomber – including the law enforcement focus and the decision to read a Miranda warning after only 50 minutes of interrogation– demand that Congress and the Administration first address the issue which is most crucial to our national security. ” (Mar. 4th, 2010)

For a taste of what exactly Senator McCain prescribes to lessen the burden of those pesky civil liberties, continue past the jump or read it for yourself in its entirety here. Keep Reading »

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12:17 PM

February 8, 2010

Populism at its most Egomaniacal

The once closed-to-the-press Tea Party Convention was ultimately elevated to prime time, with America’s most-watched news network, FOX, providing live coverage of the speech by headliner Sarah Palin. That is right, the same Sarah Palin: former Governor of Alaska, former vice-presidential candidate and abuser of democratically-bestowed powers. While Palin has come to brand herself has the maverick, rogue, embodiment of all that is “real” about America, the fact remains that she has repeatedly made decisions while in power (and now while out of power) that would maximize her own personal gain. She latched onto the opportunity to be a heart-beat away from the presidency, without the slightest inkling of reserve based upon her own capabilities or limitations (i.e., not having a clue about a plethora of major issues). Shortly after her national political debut and subsequent national electoral defeat, she decided her time was better spent not doing the job she was elected to, but furthering her own political agenda (that she has conveniently projected onto “real America”). As she declared in her resignation speech: “My choice is to take a stand and effect change – not hit our heads against the wall and watch valuable state time and money, millions of your dollars, go down the drain in this new environment. Rather, we know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time, on another scale, and actually make a difference for our priorities – and so we will, for Alaskans and for Americans.” Now however, we’ve seen that this “positive change outside government” translates in the real world into employment as a talking head by FOXnews. Well, I guess I jumped the gun – it first translated to a multi-million dollar book deal (that she was not allowed to accept as a sitting Governor), and national press tour (including 2 stops on Oprah!).

But for the sake of continuing Palin’s narrative, let’s put all these events aside and just say that she was trying to correct the record that she thinks has been skewed by a liberal media conspiracy by ghost-writing a book, and affixing herself as a media notable. So this next move was perfect, being the headliner at the National Tea Party Convention! That maverick, rogue group of tea-baggers, yelling so passionately for the policies that Palin so emphatically advocates – that is, the policy of anti-Obamaism. Among the memes she adopted, we find:

On Scott Brown:

“You know, considering the recent conservative election sweep, it’s time that they stop blaming everyone else. When you’re 0-for-3, you’d better stop lecturing and start listening.”

On America’s problems:

“That’s where you got to look because that’s what got you into this mess — the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. It’s going to leave us less secure, more in debt, and more under the thumb of big government.”

Keep Reading »

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8:03 PM

February 4, 2010

Shame (or lack thereof)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I sincerely dislike people who lie when it matters. It matters when such lies are propagated by those with the power to effect other people’s lives. Some do it so shamelessly, without a flinching glare of remorse. Collins knew better. I’m not really sure what she had to gain from being the mouthpiece for the GOP’s new meme, but I do know what she has to lose.

We all kind of expect this sort of business though. While Collin’s claims were disreputable, unprofessional and plain deceitful, they didn’t come as much of a surprise. Leaves one to wonder what that implies about our society, our political culture; how the blatant propagandizing and demagoguery casts its shadow upon our collective notion of what to expect.

This whole segment reminded me greatly of Salman Rushdie’s novel “Shame”, the first novel I read after going through an extended phase of non-fiction reading. At one point, Rushdie chooses to advance his ruminations on exactly where all that extra, un-felt shame goes in this world:

“Where do you imagine they go? – I mean emotions that should have been felt, but were not – such as regret for a harsh word, guilt for a crime, embarrassment, propriety, shame? – Imagine shame as a liquid, let’s say a sweet fizzy tooth-rotting drink, stored in a vending machine. Push the right button and a cup plops down under a pissing stream of the fluid. How to push the button? Nothing to it. Tell a lie, sleep with a white boy, get born the wrong sex. Out flows the bubbling emotion and you drink your fill … but how many human beings refuse to follow these simple instructions! Shameful things are done: lies, loose living, disrespect for one’s elders, failure to love one’s national flag, incorrect voting at elections, over-eating, extramarital sex, autobiographical novels, cheating at cards, maltreatment of womenfolk, examination failures, smuggling, throwing one’s wicket away at the crucial point of a Test Match: and they are done shamelessly. Then what happens to all that unfelt shame? What of the unquaffed cups of pop? Think again of the vending machine. The button is pushed; but then in comes the shameless hand and jerks away the cup! The button-pusher does not drink what was ordered; and the fluid of shame spills, spreading in a frothy lake across the floor.

But we are discussing an abstract, an entirely ethereal vending machine; so into the ether goes the unfelt shame of the world. Whence, I submit, it is siphoned off by the misfortunate few, janitors of the unseen, their souls the buckets into which squeegees drip what-was-spilled. We keep such buckets in special cupboards. Nor do we think much of them, although they clean up our dirty waters.” (Rushdie, Shame 124)