The US Becomes Just Another Military Dictatorship
By Scott Lazarowitz
December 14, 2011 "Lew Rockwell" -- Within days after my article on due process and presumption of innocence, the U.S. Senate voted to empower the U.S. military to apprehend and detain indefinitely anyone in America, based on the whim of the soldier or military commander, and it will probably eventually include any armed agent of government including local police. As Jacob Hornberger noted, this new provision will codify the U.S. as just another one of many dictatorships throughout world history.
But, even though al Qaeda is virtually non-existent, the Washington imbeciles want to expand and extend the "War on Terror" anyway and include the entire U.S. territory as a "battlefield." How can we explain this? As Justin Raimondo speculated, the real reason for this new dictatorial power may be because these senators know that America is headed for economic collapse and civil unrest. But as I pointed out in my article on martial law, whether there are terrorists or not, or whether there is a prosperous or collapsing economy, all human beings have inalienable rights, among them the right to presumption of innocence and due process. Any government violations of those rights are crimes against the people, pure and simple.
Sen. Lindsey Graham commented that, "If you’re an American citizen and you betray your country, you’re not going to be given a lawyer," in his un-American opposition to due process and his approval of apprehending and detaining innocent civilians indefinitely. But, as I asked in my earlier article: Who will determine whether or not one has "betrayed one’s country"? Graham and the other pro-dictatorship government bureaucrats do not seem able to distinguish between someone who actually has acted (or been found guilty of acting) against one’s fellow Americans and someone who is accused of doing so. Graham wants to empower all military personnel (and probably any armed government official) to detain indefinitely those who are merely accused of doing something, without evidence brought forward, without having a lawyer, without access to their families, no due process whatsoever. This is a banana republic dictatorship, and it is thoroughly un-American, thoroughly anti-liberty.
Additionally, Graham hinted at curtailing political expression as protected by the First Amendment, and thus, given past examples of government censorship since 9/11, Americans who criticize the U.S. government’s "war on terror" could be declared as "enemy combatants," and apprehended and detained without charges or trial. If these senators have their way, merely questioning the government’s actions and questioning the legitimacy of these wars would be considered "terrorism."
Treason
While the senators are hinting at calling those who don’t support the government’s immoral wars as "treasonous," it really is they, the senators, who are acting treasonously. The senators are now turning the military against the American people. That is treasonous, according to the U.S. Constitution, as turning the military against the people would be the federal government’s "levying war" against the "United States," that is, the various states of the union, and thus against the people of the states. I have noted before that such treasonous acts have already occurred in America.
Questioning the Legitimacy of the "War on Terror"
Graham and other senators have said that, because "we’re at war," free speech shouldn’t include the right to criticize such wars or criticize the government’s actions. We shouldn’t be allowed to scrutinize the government’s actions or question the legitimacy of the "War on Terror."
But what if these wars have been entirely illegitimate? What if actual crimes have been committed by the military soldiers, generals, or bureaucrats? Should we just be obedient little sheep and sweep all that under the rug? What if the aggressions started by the U.S. government, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., and based on lies and propaganda, have been counter-productive, and resulted in making Americans less safe and less secure? What then? Free speech shouldn’t include the right to expose these things? We should declare as an "enemy combatant" someone who criticizes imbecilic and incompetent bureaucrats, arrest the critic and throw him into prison indefinitely, because the government bureaucrats don’t like their crimes and their idiocy exposed?
In regards to the irrational claim that the entire territory of the United States of America is a "battlefield," some people are worried about "homegrown" terrorists, those who are here in the U.S. who want to commit "jihad" against innocent Americans. But who motivates them? Our own FBI has been approaching young impressionable Muslim males who had no previous indications of terrorism and usually no prior criminal record, and intentionally motivating them with anti-American rhetoric, getting them emotionally worked up in the name of Islam, providing them with plans, materials, and helping them to set up their "homemade bombs," etc. to hurt others. In other words, these young Muslims would not have been involving themselves in all this had these FBI provocateurs not approached them in the first place.
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