Madness and Shame

[QFIT]

By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 22, 2008

You want a scary thought? Imagine a fanatic in the mold of Dick Cheney but without the vice president’s sense of humor.

In her important new book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” Jane Mayer of The New Yorker devotes a great deal of space to David Addington, Dick Cheney’s main man and the lead architect of the Bush administration’s legal strategy for the so-called war on terror.

She quotes a colleague as saying of Mr. Addington: “No one stood to his right.” Colin Powell, a veteran of many bruising battles with Mr. Cheney, was reported to have summed up Mr. Addington as follows: “He doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”

Very few voters are aware of Mr. Addington’s existence, much less what he stands for. But he was the legal linchpin of the administration’s Marquis de Sade approach to battling terrorism. In the view of Mr. Addington and his acolytes, anything and everything that the president authorized in the fight against terror — regardless of what the Constitution or Congress or the Geneva Conventions might say — was all right. That included torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, you name it.

This is the mind-set that gave us Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the C.I.A.’s secret prisons, known as “black sites.”

Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/op...se&oref=slogin

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by QFIT

By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 22, 2008

You want a scary thought? Imagine a fanatic in the mold of Dick Cheney but without the vice president’s sense of humor.

In her important new book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” Jane Mayer of The New Yorker devotes a great deal of space to David Addington, Dick Cheney’s main man and the lead architect of the Bush administration’s legal strategy for the so-called war on terror.

She quotes a colleague as saying of Mr. Addington: “No one stood to his right.” Colin Powell, a veteran of many bruising battles with Mr. Cheney, was reported to have summed up Mr. Addington as follows: “He doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”

Very few voters are aware of Mr. Addington’s existence, much less what he stands for. But he was the legal linchpin of the administration’s Marquis de Sade approach to battling terrorism. In the view of Mr. Addington and his acolytes, anything and everything that the president authorized in the fight against terror — regardless of what the Constitution or Congress or the Geneva Conventions might say — was all right. That included torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, you name it.

This is the mind-set that gave us Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the C.I.A.’s secret prisons, known as “black sites.”

Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/op...se&oref=slogin

sadly i'm not fully versed in the Constitution. does it give prerequisites for the putting into place martial law within our own borders? is martial law even a viable legal option for our government to take within our own borders?

[moo321]

Originally Posted by sagefr0g

sadly i'm not fully versed in the Constitution. does it give prerequisites for the putting into place martial law within our own borders? is martial law even a viable legal option for our government to take within our own borders?

No, you can never declare martial law. The second ammendment is there in case anyone ever tries to declare martial law.

[aslan]

Damning if true. Sounds like the mind of a right wing abortion clinic bomber who leaps from reasoning that (a) abortion is murder to (b) bombing innocent people is justified in defense of the unborn.

If it is true, it makes the terrorist hunter more terrifying than the terrorist himself.

Begs the question, is all really fair in love and war?

Is there some fatal flaw in the average man that makes him suddenly willing to drop all pretenses to human decency, or are the monsters of society somehow able to rise undetected to the highest positions of authority? What would explain the complicity of the average U,S, soldier in the types of activities described in the article? How thin is the veneer of civilization anyway, and what hope does this portend for the human race?

Is this why we immerse ourselves in a constant search for entertainment, from legitimate forms to dangerous drugs and thrill seeking? Is the truth of our existence simply too horrifying to bear except with a few brief sidelong glances now and then?

The matrix then is not the computer generated virtual world of fiction, but our own collective generation of an illusion about the world we live in that allows us to go about our business as if everything is all right. It explains how we can so easily ignore the billions of starving people around the world in our day to day lives. If it is a conspiracy, then we are its willing victims; in fact, we are its very perpetrators.

Beam me up, Scotty.

[aslan]

Originally Posted by sagefr0g

sadly i'm not fully versed in the Constitution. does it give prerequisites for the putting into place martial law within our own borders? is martial law even a viable legal option for our government to take within our own borders?

I've read there is already a plan in place. Remember the avian flu scare? Isn't that when the government devised a plan to divide the country into regions, confining each person to stay within the boundaries of his or her own region to contain the viral threat? That could also be used as a tactic against terrorists. By restricting people movements, terrorists could be isolated and destroyed. It is martial law using 21st century technology that has been planned. One can only imagine what the other consequences of such actions might be. Talk about loss of rights and government control! Am I hyperventilating?

[aslan]

Originally Posted by moo321

No, you can never declare martial law. The second ammendment is there in case anyone ever tries to declare martial law.

Fat chance!

[zengrifter]

Originally Posted by moo321

No, you can never declare martial law. The second ammendment is there in case anyone ever tries to declare martial law.

Yeah right - I guess you never heard of FEMA, Homeland Protection, and Patriot Act? zg

[zengrifter]

A bit off topic, but a while back Oscar Goodman threatened to kill Bob Herbert. zg

---------------
See ZenZONE Thread #7535

Monday, September 03, 2007

City as Predator

By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
September 4, 2007

Las Vegas

There is probably no city in America where women are treated worse than in Las Vegas.

The tone of systematic, institutionalized degradation is set by the mayor, Oscar Goodman, who told me in an interview that the city would reap “tremendous” benefits if a series of “magnificent brothels” could be established to cater to johns from across the country and around the world.

HERE - http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=7534

--------------------------------------------

Vegas Mayor Threatens to Kill N.Y. Times

Columnist After Anti-Sex-Trade Column

By Wolfrum

September 7, 2007


Remember the scene in the movie "The Untouchables" where Al Capone, as played by Robert DeNiro, brutally murders a lackey with a baseball bat in order to prove a point?

For Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, the scene was obviously how he views the real world.

"I have no use for him. I'll take a baseball bat and break his head if he ever comes here," Goodman said of New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, after Herbert's column "City as Predator."

The point the mayor wanted to prove? That if some N.Y. columnist wanted to shine a light on the sex trade and prostitution business of Las Vegas, he'd murder them with a baseball bat.

...more - http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/wolfrum/61859/

[zengrifter]

David Addington: I can’t talk about torture
because al-Qaeda may be watching CSPAN

By: SilentPatriot on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 5:47 PM -



David Addington today offered a preposterous reason for refusing to answer a question about whether or not he was party to talks about torture with his superiors — al-Qaeda may be watching CSPAN and he can’t give away any information that may benefit them. Really.

MORE- http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/0...atching-cspan/

[zengrifter]