1. “”Conspiracy or cock up?” White House reaction to ersatz bomber
Is this the justification to for a media manufactured scare-a-thon about the danger Farouk poses to our “freedoms?”
Or is this guy some sort of ringer in yet another moronic master plan ?
Pardon my cynicism about the perpetual power structure but there is a spectacular history of lying by those in power to further their own endeavors: Operation Northwoods; the Gulf of Tonkin incident; the perjured testimony about babies thrown out of incubators used to justify Gulf War I; the lies about WMD before Gulf War II; and so forth.
Few are willing to discuss deep conspiracies either as a real phenomena or as an influence on our nation’s history. The inquiring mind that wanders into that minefield is labeled a “conspiracy theorist” and shoved to the sidelines of public discourse.
But Judith Miller changed all that. She was the ultimate bogus conspiracy theorist who was endorsed and headlined by the New York Times. Who could tell bigger lies better than Miller.”
http://www.911blogger.com/node/22351
This phenomenon of opposition to American foreign policy translating into terrorist activity is so well-established, the CIA created the term “blowback” to describe it. Cheney and Obama not only refuse to address blowback, but instead squabble over who’s more willing to use torture or increase airport harassment, a conversation which does nothing to address the root problem of why terrorists want to attack us in the first place or why there are more terrorists now than before 9/11.
Could you imagine police detectives trying to stop a serial killer while completely ignoring his motives? Or how about if police simply dismissed the murderer as “crazy,” which is probably true, as many so-called “Islamofascists” are certainly not of the same mind as you or I. Yet in order to stop such a murderer, crazy or not, law enforcement still tries to get inside his mind, paying particular attention to certain patterns.
Our leaders in Washington refuse to look at motive or patterns when it comes to trying to prevent terrorism. Instead, we are told terrorists simply “hate our freedom,” as Bush put it. Obama might not employ the same language as Bush-something some Republicans laughably find “weak,”–but to date has still not offered a more substantive explanation. Canada is far more libertine culturally than the US, and this is precisely the sort of “freedom” that supposedly gets the Islamists’ goat. Yet strangely enough, Canada does not find itself constantly having to worry about Islamic terrorism–because terrorists don’t find Canadians en masse on Islamic land.
It is past time to ask the big questions. How can invading and occupying a nation stop an individual or a collection of individuals from carrying out terrorist acts? How can invading and occupying a nation, or a handful of nations, stop a terrorist network that exists in over 80 countries? What could our presence in Iraq, stepping up the war in Afghanistan, drone strikes in Pakistan, or a new war in Yemen possibly have done to deter the so-called “underwear bomber” on Christmas day? Would the Nigerian, would-be suicide bomber have been radicalized, or would a terrorist network be as available to accommodate and encourage his radicalization, if the U.S. did not have such a massive presence in the Middle East? Do terrorists simply hate our “freedom” or is there indeed a correlation between US intervention and terrorist recruitment and activity? Hell, let’s get extreme: would completely annihilating the Middle East through nuclear war finally eliminate the terrorist threat-or create the greatest terrorist threat in our history? Might such genocide make the Islamic world mad? Or just “freedom?”
Trying to fight terrorism by opening up more battlefronts is like trying to fight alcoholism by opening up more bars. It doesn’t make any sense. No doubt, the five-deferment, Vietnam-draft-dodging Cheney still thinks his belligerent rhetoric makes him some sort of a tough guy, but it doesn’t. It makes him stupid. And sadly–and at the expense of our safety–if the definition of “stupid” is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results, both Cheney and Obama’s foreign policies certainly fit that bill.”
http://www.amconmag.com/tactv/2010/01/08/our-stupid-foreign-policy/
3. “The Lie of Law: Courts Bow to State’s Raw Power
Be assured: the “rule of law” means nothing, protects nothing, sustains nothing. It can always be twisted and stretched by cowards, courtiers and power-seekers. Arthur Silber, as he does so often, cuts to heart of the matter in this powerful essay from 2009, “Concerning the State, the Law, and Show Trials“:
The law is not some Platonic Form plucked from the skies by the Pure in Heart. Laws are written by men, men who have particular interests, particular constituencies, particular donors, and particular friends. … Laws are the particular means by which the state implements and executes its vast powers. When an increasingly authoritarian state passes a certain critical point in its development, the law is no longer the protector of individual rights and individual liberty. The law becomes the weapon of the state itself — to protect, not you, but the state from threats to its own powers. We passed that critical point some decades ago. The law is the means by which the state corrals its subjects, keeps them under control, and forbids them from acting in ways that the overlords might perceive as threatening. In brief, today, in these glorious United States, the law is not your friend.
Indeed it is not. In our “low dishonest” century, the “rule of law” has become the “lie of Authority” that Auden speaks of. It will not save us. What matters — as always — is moral courage in the face of power’s encroachments.”
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1896-the-lie-of-law-courts-bow-to-states-raw-power.html
4. “Helen Thomas deviates from the terrorism script
Brennan’s answer — they do this because they’re Evil and murderous — is on the same condescending cartoon level as the “They-Hate-us-For-Our-Freedom” tripe we endured for the last eight years. Apparently, if Brennan is to be believed, Islamic radicals, in their motive-free quest to slaughter, write down the names of all the countries in the world and put them in a hat and then stick their hand in and select the one they will attack, and the U.S. just keeps getting unlucky and having its name randomly chosen. Countries like China, Brazil, Japan, Chile, Greece, South Africa, France and a whole slew of others must have really good luck. That Al Qaeda is evil and murderous and perverts Islam is a judgment about what they do, not an answer as to what motivates them.
The evidence of what motivates Terrorism when directed at the U.S. is so overwhelming and undeniable that it takes an extreme propagandist to pretend it doesn’t exist. What is Brennan so afraid of? It’s true that religious fanaticism is a part of their collective motivation, but why can’t he just say what’s so obviously true: “they claim that the U.S. is interfering in, occupying and bringing violence to their part of the world, they cite things like civilian deaths and our support for Israel and Guantanamo and torture, and claim that their terrorism is in retaliation”?
…
At least theoretically, “The American Right wing” is not in charge of any parts of the government, so to the extent these policies continue, they’re not a legitimate scapegoat. Whatever else is true, having discussions about how our policies motivate and fuel Terrorism is crucial to having any sort of minimally rational public debate about what we should be doing. But as long as the patronizing, propaganda cartoons that we heard from John Brennan prevail, it’s simply impossible for any of these considerations to be examined. That, to me, seems to be the whole point of why those comic book narratives predominate and why the taboo persists: to preclude any awareness of the true costs of our actions and therefore to preclude any meaningful public questioning of them.”
