Cannon here: Just a brief observation. Republicans defending Dubya's violations of the wiretapping laws are trotting out one of their favorite defenses:
"Democrats want to treat terrorism as a violation of law. Republicans want to treat it as a matter of war."
This formulation forces us to ask a few questions:
1. Have you ever heard any Democrat -- anywhere -- argue that we should relegate terrorism to the law-enforcement file?
2. If not, then how did this frequently-heard smear originate, and why does it stick?
3. Can we quash the smear, or are the red-state faithful so wedded to fantasy that they will believe whatever they are told to believe, however unfactual?
6 comments:
actually joe, i think there may be a kernel of truth in the juxtoposition being posed, although i would never disagree that it is the ultimate in spinslime.
here is the core of the problem: the neocons purposely and intentionally set up a perpectual state of war in order to strip us of our freedoms (along with our resources, etc.), which gives them more power to exploit at will toward their own gain. so in that respect, they are definitely going to spin this in those terms; no big surprise.
furthering the problem is the fact that so many dems bought into the 9/11 war on terror, and now apparently feel compelled to stick to that schtick. actually, intimidated to do so. which is why we can't get them to do squat about iraq (despite conyers' shaming all of them), and which is why the USAPATRIOT act will now go through with all the unconstitutional pieces still in place.
quite frankly, i'm not too sure i'd pin all this on the reddest of redness in the red states. by the poll numbers, the voters are waking up to these issues. given that fact, it more than infuriates me that we cannot seem to get the attention of enough dems to take up the banner for peace and freedom and shove all the propaganda and crimes in the repugs' faces. and other, less visible places.
they love so much to cite our founding fathers, but they knew full well how dangerous war is to freedoms and democracy.
we need to rally the troops, folks. our reps in congress need fires built under 'em.
actually, rumsfeld himself mentioned something a few years ago about terrorism being a law enforcement issue.
goggling might help.
BINGO!
March 25, 2004
JIM LEHRER: And now to our newsmaker interview with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Mr. Secretary, welcome.
DONALD RUMSFELD: Thank you.
JIM LEHRER: At these 9/11 hearings yesterday, as I reported in the News Summary, and everybody knows now the counter terror, former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, said to the families of the 9/11 victims, "Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. I failed you." As secretary of defense, do you have any sense of failure concerning what happened on 9/11?
DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, I hate to separate myself as secretary of defense. The Department of Defense, of course, is oriented to external threats. This was a domestic airplane that was operated by people who were in the United States against a United States target, which makes it a law enforcement, historically a law enforcement issue. The Department of Defense's task is one that deals with external threats coming into the United States, and that's what the department is organized, trained and equipped to do. ...
"Democrats want to treat terrorism as a violation of law." What the hell? Of course we don't! As we've said from the beginning we want to treat terrorism as a personal foul, which I believe entitles our team to fire a heat seeking missle at Osama Bin Laden from the three point line. Get it straight Republicans! UNBELIEVABLE!!
As has been pointed out many times, you can't wage "war" on a noun like "terrorism", and Bush & Co., in their rare moments of candor, have admitted as much.
We'd be far better off if this conflict were regarded as a violation of law, than a clash of civilizations.
Instead of constantly submitting to Republican talking points, the Democrats needs to say the unsayable -- i.e., that the U.S. invaded Iraq for oil, for a show of shock and awe in the region (underwhelming, as it turns out), to shore up Bush's reelection prospects, and out of a delusional sense of divine purpose. Then start talking seriously about war crimes and impeachment.
I can't say that kind of straight talk will win elections, but the discouse of "responsible" Democrats certainly isn't doing that job, and has the added advantage of excluding any sensible discussion fron the public debate
As you point out, Joseph, the charge that Dems want to treat terrorism under law enforcement is a straw-man smear. The "endless war" on terrorism has proved useful for Bush and the GOP.
Red-staters are waking up to their willful blindness. Note the recent presentations by physicist Dr. Steven Jones in Utah, informing standing-room-only crowds about contradictions between the official story on the WTC collapses and the laws of physics.
The Bushcists used the war/law enforcement distinction to prevent proper investigation of 9/11: instead of treating Ground Zero as a crime scene the authorities destroyed the WTC steel as quickly as possible, the NTSB was excluded from investigation of the plane crashes, though witnesses saw the black boxes recovered from the WTC site their data have never been made public, and the conflict between the official crash time (10:03) and the seismic evidence (10:06) for the flight 93 crash in PA has never been satisfactorily explained.
9/11 truth will bring the red-staters back to reality. And boy will they be pissed!
Post a Comment