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Spy vs Spy
Putsch counts on stupidity, fear and ignorance to get his
way
The good news is that the American people can’t possibly be as stupid as George
W. Putsch thinks they are.
The bad news is that still leaves room for an awful lot of stupid.
In the continuing saga over domestic spying (corporate media-speak for “illegal
wiretapping”), Putsch has come out with a new gambit. “I can do it” didn’t seem
to convince the public that yes, he can do it. “I checked with Congress” didn’t
work when Congress chorused, “No you didn’t.” “The Constitution says I can do
it” didn’t work, because anyone with half a brain could tell you that the fourth
amendment expressly says he can’t do it. “I’m only spying on terrorists” didn’t
work, since it was unlikely that there were millions of terrorists inside the
United States. If there are, all the wiretaps in the world can’t save the
government now. For better or for worse, though, it’s pretty unlikely that
there’s as many as 1,000 terrorists in America, and most of those wouldn’t talk
to a member of al-Qaida for any reason in the world. What’s more, they are
all-American terrorists who usually vote Republican. When they aren’t preparing
for the coming Race War or figuring out new ways to make abortionists pay for
their sins.
So the latest gambit is to ask permission while not admitting that he acted
improperly. Although he’s already warned Congress that he won’t explain why he
needs permission, for security reasons. (Oddly enough, the same reason was
proffered for withholding documents relating to federal response on Katrina: Jon
Stewart wryly suggested that if they released documents on how to deal with
hurricanes, future hurricanes would know our weaknesses.)
Politicians do this all the time, the act of securing ex post facto legal
justification for misdeeds, and it often gets them off the hook.
But in this case, the permission is not Congress’s to give. They can’t pass a
law directing the President to disregard the bill of rights. Even a finely tuned
legal mind like Scam Scalito would have to admit to that.
But Putsch is going to try that one anyway, and hope that if he can get the
lickspittles in the House GOP to rubberstamp his actions, the American public
will just shrug, mumble, “Oh, well, in that case...” and turn back to munching
chips and watching American Idol.
One of the more whorish television networks ran a poll on the issue, asking if
people minded the government listening in on phone calls with suspected
terrorists. Not surprisingly, most people said they wouldn’t mind.
But the poll didn’t mention that said eavesdropping would be without warrants,
and would be snooping, not just on terrorists, but on peace activists,
environmentalists, anyone who was acquainted with anyone who might know someone
who knew a possible terrorist, and Democrats.
AP-Ipsos ran a slightly more honest poll, asking people if the government should
be required to get a warrant before conducting a wiretap on a conversation with
a suspected terrorist. Only a disheartening 56% agreed. Forty-two percent of
respondents were perfectly happy to throw away the bill of rights for “the war
on terror.”
Worse was a poll that asked if people minded the president foregoing warrants
for wiretaps if it meant going after terrorists. Fifty four percent agreed with
that.
I hope these clowns just didn’t think before answering. If it’s their considered
stance, I hope they’ll stop calling themselves “Americans” and thus not insult
the ten generations of Americans who fought and sometimes died for the right to
not have the government snoop at will in their personal affairs.
America’s always had custardheads. “Only the English can protect us from the
French and the Indians.” “Yes, slavery is nasty, but it’s the only way to avoid
a civil war.” “Maybe we can work some sort of deal with Hitler.” “George needs
to spy on our phone calls so he can catch bin Laden.”
They are a useless nuisance, normally. But if they are in the majority, America
really is finished.
Lots of room for stupid. Another poll says that 57% support military action
against Iran. Granted, the poll is dishonest, and stipulates that Iran is going
to have a nuclear weapon in the near future (most analysts don’t see that
happening for ten years, at least), and of course “military action” is carefully
left vague. You have to be pretty stupid just to believe this administration’s
assertion that Iran is on the verge of developing the bomb.
I’m guessing that most people have only the vaguest notion that there is a sort
of a stand off going with Iran, and they probably think it’s just some third
world backwards desert place that’s full of Arabs.
It’s none of those things. It’s a country of sixty million with a
fully-developed infrastructure. That’s nearly four times the size of Iraq. The
people generally like their government and their leader, and will fight for
both. And much of the country is mountainous, and heavily forested. Lots of
places to hide lots of things, and one intelligence report says that the Iranian
nuclear program is widely scattered, in between 40 and 120 locales, with lots of
redundancy so if Israel and America were to attack, get lucky, and actually hit
part of their program, it wouldn’t be an irreplaceable loss.
So a “military strike” in the form of a bombing raid or two would not only be
useless, but quite probably counterproductive. The president of Iran is a
religious fundamentalist who gets people to follow him by trash-talking a
potential enemy. That would be pretty much like the President of America. Which
means he’s no crazier than Putsch
The bad news is that still leaves room for awful lot of crazy.
An attack from Israel and/or America would play right into his hands, and give
him justification for scaremongering. It would be for him what 9/11 was for
Putsch. In fact, he might just arrange to have an attack that is very gaudy and
blame Israel and America for it. It’s not like that’s never happened before.
So 57% favor an attack on a country for reasons that are pretty much bogus, that
will accomplish nothing, and will only hurt American interests.
Say, isn’t that about where we were three years ago, when Putsch was trying to
persuade us that Saddam had or was about to get the bomb? Any reason why anyone
who isn’t capital-S Stupid should believe him this time around?
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