How do you protect America and the American way of life and American Freedom and values?
Today President George W. Bush told us.
As George ( I've Decided I'm above the Law) Bush announced today, the way our nation can be kept safe from the incredibly dangerous, sleek, efficient, highly organized killing machine is a larger threat to us than the Soviet Union and its thousands of nuclear weapons that threatened us for decades, there is one strategy, one path, that we simply MUST follow. One thing we must do to keep Americans from being murdered in their beds. I shall outline it below.
Snatch people from their homes or off the street,
Drug them and hood them and shackle them.
Deny them a lawyer
Deny them a trial.
Put them on a secret CIA Airline created expressly for this purpose.
Transport them across the globe, in the process violating the law of every sovereign nation you pass through against this sort of illegal detention and transportation .
Fly them to Secret Prisons, once operated by the Secret Police of brutal dictators of formerly communist nations.
Torture them.
Hold them indefinitely with no trial, in violation of every definition of the very Rule of Law, in violation of every advance in the history of Human Rights and Dignity. In violation of Human Decency itself.
Only produce them when you are about to face elections where you will be defeated and investigated and face War Crimes Trials.
THIS is how you protect America. THIS is how you protect American values. THIS is how you protect American Freedom. THIS is how you spread Democracy and Freedom around the world.
Six years into the reign of The Man Who Would Be King, this confession by The President Of The United States that he established Secret Torture Prisons and an entire Secret Torture Network......is NOT shocking. It has NOT rocked the world...as it should...as it would have 7 or 10 or 20 years ago. After all, we all KNOW now, that the Bush Administration holds itself above any law, any moral code, any ...for god's sake...any logic.
If you had walked up to an American in say, 1998 and said to her, "The President has told the CIA to establish a Secret Torture Network and Secret Torture Prisons" you would have been laughed at and dismissed as a tin foil nut job. But The President of the United States has just admitted that this exact program exists and has been operating for years. On National Television. Just as he previously admitted illegally spying on American citizens.
Why?
Why did he admit this War Crime? This blatant violation of International standards of Human Rights? (Anybody remember when America was the World Leader in Human Rights?) Why did he do it?
Because he wants Congress to find a way to indemnify representatives of the American Government against being tried, in his own words....for War Crimes. Just as he is asking Congress to retroactively approve domestic spying. He is asking Congress for impunity from his illegal actions of detainment and torture with no due process, indeed no process at all besides his unilateral decision. Congress represents the American people, The President is in effect asking the American people to become accessories after the fact to his War Crimes, to allow laws to be passed that will absolve him of culpability for his actions, actions that were previously ascribed only to the enemies of America. To brutal dictators.
The President is asking YOU to approve his War Crimes. Tell YOUR representatives in this Representative Democracy that this will not stand. Do whatever you can to make sure it does NOT stand.
Here is a question we all need to ask at this juncture. Why is it important to prevent people from being snatched of the street, imprisoned and tortured and held indefinitely...WITHOUT TRIAL? Because scary tales can come true...it can happen to you. Once the Rule of law is allowed to be violated, the Rule of Law ceases to be important. Once the Rule of Law is not held in the highest esteem...it's a short trip to rationalizing no real Law at all. It allows a rationalization for the selective enforcement of the Law. It allows rulers to become above the Law, and in fact to use and pervert the Law to their own despotic ends. It allows the tyranny of the strong, it allows the tyranny of the state.
It allows Tyranny.
We can not allow this to go unopposed. We can not allow Congress to retroactively legislate War Crimes immunity for the President and his enablers. We can not allow even the man who holds the most powerful office in the world to escape the consequences of the War Crimes he has committed.
We MUST elect a Democratic Congress so America can investigate and prosecute and Impeach this admitted Torturer.
Remember, this was done in the name of the United States of America. This was done with money you paid in taxes. This was done in your name. It is incumbent upon every American citizen to stand up and take our country, our country's good name, our country's honor, our country's government, back from the admitted War Criminals that are currently defaming and destroying it.