Who would want another massive terrorist attack on US soil? The Bush administration, that’s who.
They can’t wait for another one, because that means they could scare us into giving them everything their little black hearts desire. Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of former Department of Justice staffer Jack Goldsmith, whose book about his time at the DoJ exposes the control freak behind the head control freak in the Bush administration, Vice President President Cheney. It’s Cheney’s current Chief of Staff (and former counsel) David Addington, the head of the spear in Cheney’s unitary executive takeover of the government (via TPMMuckraker):
Goldsmith delves even further in establishing Addington as a relentless legal force for unbridled executive authority. Take the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Since 9/11, the court has rejected only four requests for surveillance in the U.S., about as many as it’s rejected in its entire 30-year existence. Yet for Addington, the court’s requirements for niceties like probable cause represented an unacceptable hindrance, putting the country at risk of devastation.
“We’re one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court,” Goldsmith recalls Addington telling him in February 2004.
From Goldsmith’s description, Addington can be reasonably said to consider the machinery of republican government to be a strategic asset of al-Qaeda. If the FISA Court was a meddlesome institution that needed scaling back, an impertinent bureaucrat like Goldsmith was vastly more irksome, representing as he did a mere executive appendage like the Justice Department. Addington would rebuke Goldsmith with stunning phrases like this one:
“The president has already decided that terrorists do not receive Geneva Convention protections,” Addington replied angrily, according to Goldsmith. “You cannot question his decision.”
Addington comes across as a Himmler in waiting, does he not? And yes, I know I’m breaking Godwin’s law. Big whoop. Some people deserve being compared to the Nazis, considering they are responsible for illegal aggressive wars that have killed hundreds of thousands, made millions homeless, and have eliminated many of our cherished legal and constitutional protections by executive fiat. Just imagine a fanatic like Addington as Attorney General. He’d make Abu Gonzales look like a piker.
In retrospect, of course, we find none of this information Goldsmith supplies to be at all surprising.
What surprised me, and still boggles my mind to this day, was echoed today by Glenn Greenwald.
Given the actual and rhetorical record of those in the administration who have salivated for this for so long, we certainly cannot be surprised.
But for those on whom rely to be a “check and balance” for the prevention of rampant executive power grabbing, it is truly, truly disturbing that we had such complacent capitulation to the administration’s fear-mongering. And, unfortunately, this tactic is still found by this administration to be an effective tool against the Democratic majority. Capitulation continues to this day.
I guess Gen. Franks knew what he was talking about.
Barring a significant effort to undo the worldwide damage wrought over the last six years, along with getting serious about addressing terrorism beyond randomly invading countries with no significant involvement in terrorist activities, it would not surprise me to see this scenario played out in the next 20-25 years.
Maybe that’s being too cynical but when I see how far we have fallen in such a short time it brings out the most dreadful fears imaginable.
l disagree that these statements, made in 2003 [Addington] and 2004 [Franks], can be pointed to as indicative of the prevailing attitude today. l find it extremely difficult to fathom why or how they’d come to the conclusion that another nine one one style attack would be to their benefit at this juncture. lt may have been effective at achieving their goals in 2004, chimpy was, after all, re-elected, but things have changed considerably since those heady days at the beginning of the GWoT. A super-majority of the country has turned on the Iraq misadventure, and impeachment of both chimpy and darth are increasingly preferred by nearly a majority of those polled…in fact, more than 50% for darth.
Given their braggadocio about how they’ve prevented another similar attack, and their insistence that it is precisely the infringements upon the liberties and constitutional rights that have allowed that to take place. l would posit, that another major catastrophe at this stage would be the final nail in this administrations’, and by extension the gop’s, coffin. At least l’d like to hope that would be the case.
Even though l have doubts that the somnolent masses would revolt under the yoke of such an overt venture, it seems unlikely that it would be readily accepted, and it’s not easy to see how 330 million people could be forcefully subjugated without massive violence and upheaval.
Although l am reminded of H.L. Mencken’s quote: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
lTMF’sA
terrorism will always favor the power of the state. Always. It used to be that the right in this country was against the use of federal power, but those days are long past. Another 9/11 type of attack would favor the state first and those that advocate for more state power second. It would do nothing for those of us that have been saying the threat of terrorism is exaggerated.
That’s my thinking also. “We’re fighting them over there so we won’t have to fight them here” might then ring a tad hollow to even that simplistic 30% of the country that still buys into this bullshit prez.
I think anyone voicing of this viewpoint after another attack would be squashed like a bug.
You don’t have to subjugate 330 million people. You only need to focus on the ones who won’t submit to the supreme authority of the state. What I glimpsed in the run-up to and the early days of the Iraq invasion and occupation scared the shit out of me. I thought the whole misadventure was a colossal mistake from the beginning. Does everyone remember what it was like to be a vocal opponent of what the government was doing at that time? And this was just around friends, family and co-workers. You were looked at as a freaking nut case, traitor and a threat to democracy.
Imagine, if you will, that expressing that thought is now against the law. And a large percentage that 330 million people might just report you to the government. And don’t forget, Guantanamo is still in business.
It is not unreasonable to contemplate that scenario.
4 years ago, l would have been more inclined to agree with you; today, not so much. l’m as jaded and cynical as anyone, but l cannot, will not, buy into this scenario. lt would require too great a leap in logic, and a complete abandonment of my core beliefs to do so.
l remember those times, and l also remember the 60’s and 70’s… Vietnam. Believe me, it was a hell of a lot worse then in terms of being considered a traitorous hippy, and a threat to the homeland, as well as being hazardous to your health.
The point l would make is that the conditions we have today are not the same that were prevalent in 2002 -2004, and are in fact, nearly the polar opposite. Another attack would be viewed as a complete and utter failure on the part of the administration.
These clowns can’t subdue a country roughly the size of California with approx. 25 miliion people, using the most destructive and high tech military in the world…how the fuck are they going to pull off subduing this one? lt’s the old “we had to destroy it to save it” BS, and destroying it would be required. There’re aren’t enough cells in Gitmo or Halliburton’s camps to hold every one, and presumably the military would have to go along with the idea…which, again in my opinion, is highly unlikely.
l weary of contemplating worse scenarios than what already exist. How about we work a little harder to change things, instead of dragging up old quotes in an effort to do what?…instill some more fear? That’s BushCo’s™ job, not mine.
Nobody said it would be easy.
lTMF’sA
about the same time as habeas corpus. And before the Magna Carta.
You can talk about it now.
A false flag operation is on the way. Another Reichstag fire. Soon I fear. Next month? Within a year.