(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Columnist Glenn Greenwald explains what the Boston bombings and U.S. drone attacks have in common, and how secrecy leads to abuse of government power.
“Should we change or radically alter or dismantle our standard protocols of justice in the name of terrorism? That’s been the debate we’ve been having since the September 11th attack,” Greenwald tells Bill. “We can do what we’ve been doing, which is become a more closed society, authorize the government to read our emails, listen in our telephone calls, put people in prison without charges, enact laws that make it easier for the government to do those sorts of things. Or we can try and understand why it is that people want to come here and do that.” [..]
“There certainly are cases where the United States has very recklessly killed civilians,” he tells Bill. “So at some point, when a government engages in behavior year after year after year after year, that continues to kill innocent people in a very foreseeable way, and continues to do that, in my mind that reaches a level of recklessness that is very similar to intentional killing.”
Transcript can be read here
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Greenwald makes total sense, in my view! I was going to include it in my “book” to Banger (LOL!), yet to be finished.
I think I’ve said virtually the same thing over time on dd.
One thing that I do believe is that if our government can perpetrate the kinds of illegal acts that we blithely carry out on others around the world, selecting and killing, and so much more, I think it should stand to reason that they could and would use those same tactics against us Americans, push come to shove. And, as you see, the laws are pretty much slanting toward exactly that. American citizens are NOT exempt . . . . . . ! That’s one very disturbing aspect.
The other, of course, has to do with our willful and wanton means of so long now, well, since, 2003, I suppose, but actually earlier, as in May, 2002, because of over 21,000 plus sorties over Iraq, destroying their crops, their infrastructure and all kinds of destruction, on top of our sanctions, so long in existence. You could say even earlier than these events, if you were to include the 1991 adventure of Bush, Sr.
At any rate, at least for over 12 years now, we have illegally invaded this country and that, destroying their infrastructures, killing and maiming their people and to the extent possible, grabbing or attempting to, grab their natural resources. This is all redundant information, of course. But, of course, the point is, this is what we have been doing and now we have the added efforts of drones!
And people wonder that we’re hated? Can you imagine Americans enduring the same kinds of horrors perpetrated upon them without provocation? Seeing their children killed, their families wiped out, their friends wiped out?
The “war on terror’ is actually terrorism.
And the purpose of that is to create a constant level of fear and destabilization on many fronts / countries in order to replace the USSR as a constant bogie man in the minds of the US public.
All of this is mostly just a way to transfer government funds to the hands of military industry power players, although of course there’s inherent sadism in these power players as well that needs satiating, as they could in theory just as well use some other crisis (yes, even a real one like global warming) for profit if they wished. There is also a racial and religious angle.
The beauty of all this is that the more people they kill, the more real enemies they make, and the more ‘need’ there is to pump money at it.
Rinse. Repeat.
So it’s self sustaining.