23Jan04-Kurt Nimmo-Enemies of the State
by Kurt Nimmo
Published by Another Day in the Empire
Now that the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has released its report calling "for the creation of an independent commission to fully investigate what the U.S. intelligence community knew, or believed it knew, about Iraq's WMD programme from 1991 to 2003, and whether its analyses were tainted by foreign intelligence agencies or political pressure," as Jim Lobe writes, it is time for a slow grill of the entire neocon philosophy.
Fat chance in hell.
In fact, if anything, members of Congress who have suddenly mustered up the spine to go after the Bush war criminals for their pathological lies about Iraq's non-existent WMD may be persecuted for treason. "The neocon cabal is beginning to make the case for imprisoning -- or possibly executing -- members of Congress who oppose the war in Iraq," writes Thomas J. DiLorenzo. "Naturally, the totalitarian/neocon case for imprisoning or executing the Bush administration's political opponents is based on precedents established by Abraham Lincoln." DiLorenzo cites an article by J. Michael Waller appearing in Insight magazine, "an appendage of the Washington Times, the voice of the Washington, D.C. neocon establishment" (and also owned by the convicted felon and self-proclaimed Messiah Sun Myung Moon).
The Democrats, according to Waller, are "playing with treason [in an effort] to destroy the nation's wartime Republican president." Never mind that this (undeclared) "wartime" president is a liar of such magnitude that the libidinous Clinton looks like a piker by way of comparison (after all, Clinton's stain and the lie he told about it didn't kill anybody, not that we know about anyway). Waller mentions Lincoln's suspension of the Bill of Rights and throwing politicians and newspaper editors in military brigs for disagreeing with him about the Civil War. "While none have suggested such extreme measures in the midst of the war on terrorism, Lincoln's approach illustrates the deadly seriousness of political responsibility in wartime and draws a fine line between legitimate political dissent and aiding the enemy," Waller explains.
None have suggested? Maybe Waller should follow the rantings of his fellow so-called conservatives (see below).
In other words, it does not matter that Bush's invasion was bogus, predicated on Straussian lies -- those who are asking for accountability are traitors because they are supposedly providing comfort to the enemy, who happen to be at this point Iraqis resisting a brutal occupation. In short, if you don't back Bush and his gaggle of war criminals you deserve to put in prison, maybe even hauled before a military tribunal.
So much for the First Amendment, which Waller apparently believes is now suspended (absent a formal declaration of war) and will be so long as Bush's war on terrorism continues, that is to say indefinitely.
"Our civil liberties are neither self-enforcing nor self-correcting," writes Eric Foner. "Historians today view past suppressions of free speech as shameful episodes. But we are now living through another moment when many commentators, both in and out of government, seem to view freedom of expression as at best an inconvenience and at worst unpatriotic. The incessant attacks on dissenters as traitors are intended to create an atmosphere of shock and awe within the United States, so that those tempted to speak their mind become too intimidated to do so."
It would seem Waller wants that intimidation to begin with those in Congress who want Bush to answer for his murderous lies.
For the right-wing nutters who back Bush's mass murder of Iraqis -- 10,000 innocent civilians and counting -- vocal disagreement indicates a vast communist conspiracy.
"Tolerance was never the goal, was it? It was merely a convenient stepping stone in the leftist agenda to Saddamize America -- to gain control of our institutions, our government, our workplaces, our families and our children," writes the paranoid Craige McMillian, a WorldNetDaily commentator. "From this position of power, the left can silence its critics. Silent critics are necessary to make America into the communist paradise that leftists have never given up on, despite Stalin and Mao's murdered millions, or Saddam's murdered and brutalized tens or hundreds of thousands."
Silence... maybe like Fox News?
"If Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge wants to do something useful with all his new powers, he ought to find out how these neo-Communists are being financed," barks Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation. "If Ridge won't act, then Congress should. Congress should hold hearings and compel the organizers to testify."
Last time I went to an antiwar demonstration, I met a Stalinist agent from ANSWER in the alley behind my apartment. Millions of us are dupes for America-hating Maoists.
"[Saddam Hussein's] gruesome qualities matter less to the Left than the fact of his confronting and defying the United States," the Islamophobe Daniel Pipes believes. "In its view, anyone who does that can't be too bad -- never mind that he brutalizes his subjects and invades his neighbors. The Left takes to the streets to assure his survival, indifferent both to the fate of Iraqis and even to their own safety, clutching instead at the hope that this monster will somehow bring socialism closer."
Pipes made his name by harassing college professors in much the same way followers of the Nazis did in the early 1930s. For all his effort, Bush appointed Pipes to the board of the United States Institute of Peace. For Pipes and his ilk, peace rides bare back on a cruise missile. The sound of freedom is a six year old Iraqi girl screaming as she bleeds to death after a cluster bomb hits a nursery school.
"Many dangerous, violent and profoundly anti-American organizations are using the current war as cover to try to bring America to its knees," writes WorldNetDaily CEO Joseph Farah. "They hate this country and openly advocate destroying it. Their cause has nothing to do with opposing war, but everything to do with opposing America. In some cases, both their tactics and their goals are not far from those of the very terrorists we are fighting."
For the record, Mr. Farah, I have never advocated destroying America -- that is unless you consider opposing an illegal and immoral war destroying America.
"When your country is attacked, when the enemy has targeted every American regardless of race, gender or age for death, there can be no 'peace' movement," explains David Horowitz, a former Stalinist. "There can only be a movement that divides Americans and gives aid and comfort to our enemies... The so-called 'peace movement' today is led by the same radicals who supported America’s totalitarian enemies during the Cold War. They marched in support of the Vietcong, the Sandinista Marxists and the Communist guerrillas in El Salvador. Before that they marched in behalf of Stalin and Mao."
David marched with them, too... but never mind, he feels better now. Horowitz should know better, but he has an agenda now -- making money off right-wing nutters -- so there's no time to remember the days when he opposed the Vietnam war as the editor of Ramparts Magazine. It makes you wonder if he's only in it for the money.
"Once the war against Saddam [Hussein] begins, we expect every American to support our military, and if they can't do that, to shut up," demands Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. "Americans and, indeed, our allies who actively work against our military once the war is under way will be considered enemies of the state by me."
It's actually an honor that Bill O'Reilly considers me an enemy of the state.
Enough said.
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