The end of the rule of law

"I'll be judge, I'll be jury" said cunning old Fury.
"I'll try the whole cause and condemn you to death."

You've probably read many condemnations of the new bill which grants the president extraordinary powers to detain and torture American citizens without trail and without any show of evidence. Here is the reaction of Mimikatz at The Next Hurrah:

This is a terrible, terrible, and unnecesssary precedent. We didn't need to do this in the Cold War even though the Soviets had the power to annihilate us. We didn't need to do this in WWII, even though we faced massed armies in the millions on the battlefield, plus navies and bombers. We need to do this now, when we face a small but determined group of extreme fanatics, only because we are led by power-hungry, delusional people who see this as a way to maintain their hold on power. But so-called "leaders" who would stampede Congress into passing such an abomination in order to gain an advantage in the mid-term elections surely would not stop at using these measures against their enemies if they faced even greater threats to their powers.

I would like to offer these five thoughts:

1. Obviously, the promoters of this law intend to see it used against domestic political enemies. Propagandists like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter have convinced the easily-gulled that liberals favor Osama Bin Laden. After Big Wedding II, many millions will accept that lie, especially if planted evidence targets a progressive -- or someone posing as a progressive -- as a participant in the plot.

It has been said of Pol Pot's torture chambers that they existed to produce not information but confessions. The dolts applauding the passage of this new law will believe those confessions.

2. When the Americans first entered Afghanistan, they offered a substantial reward to any local who would point out any "Al Qaeda" members. Since the reward was enough to set someone up for life in that part of the world, fingers pointed toward anyone who was unpopular for any reason. Thus, many innocent people -- including the very elderly -- now reside in Gitmo.

You know this. I know this. But at least a hundred million people in this country do not know this and will hold their hands over their ears if you try to tell them. What form of verbal surgery can insert the facts into these hardened craniums?

3. Torture created Islamic Jihadism. Osama Bin Laden derived his beliefs from Ayman al-Zawahiri, who derived his beliefs from Sayid Qutb. Both Qutb and Zawahiri were tortured during imprisonment, and the experience intensified their radicalism. As this 2003 Guardian expose explains:

"Torturing radical Islamists makes them more violent," Dr Fayad maintains. "Islamists don't believe too much in psychiatry and rehabilitation. They believe God will help them.

"In the early 1990s, the government began to torture Islamists. People said, 'Don't torture them; you will make them seek revenge, especially in upper Egypt where there is a culture of revenge killings.'

"It's torture that makes them angry and take up terrorism."

Hafiz Abu Sa'eda, the head of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, supports Dr Fayad's claim. He believes the main reason that another Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, became more extreme was the torture inflicted on its members.

Which leads us to our next point:

4. Why is the Cheney administration doing this? Granted, they have established the legal groundwork for the crushing of dissent in the United States; the long-range goal is clear. But that day has not yet dawned. Heretofore, they have detained and tortured Muslims, even though not one actionable piece of intelligence has resulted. Why? Why is torture in Iraq now worse than it was in the days of Saddam Hussein?

I posit that the administration knows what it is doing. They understand full well that torture breeds radicals. I believe that the Cheney administration wants these radicalized Muslims released back into the civilian population.

An increased number of Islamic extremists means increased power for the neoconservatives. Cheney and Bush need terrorism the way Dracula needs blood.

The administration hopes to provoke a world war which will leave America in charge of the oil fields.

5. In saner times, even the dimmer members of the Republican rank and file understood that expanding executive authority meant giving that authority to all presidents. Even the most zealous Reagan voters did not want a Republican president to have unbridled control because they did not want a Democratic president to have unbridled control.

That "what if" scenario no longer has any braking power. Obviously, the neo-conspirators intend to inhabit the White House now and forevermore, through fair means and foul -- mostly foul. The Murdochized red hordes have intuited this fact, and they give it sanction.