The Shining City Goes Dark — Forever … J. D. Longstreet

The Shining City Goes Dark — Forever

America Can Never Be Rebuilt
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Move over North Korea. Move over China. Move over Soviet Socialist Russia. Move over Cuba. Move over Nazi Germany. Room must be made for a new entry on the list of police states on earth. Now we must add the name of — the United States of America.

Shocking? No. It has been in the works for a very long time and the terrorist attack that took out the World Trade Center on 9/11 simply created the right condition for the powerful to extend their powers over a scared, frightened, people who, like all humans since the beginning of time (except for a few strong individualists), traded their freedom for security.

Welcome to “post constitution America.”   The Bill of Rights is DEAD. Freedom for US citizens is a mirage. It no longer exists.

America is no longer a part of the so-called “free world.” Come to think of it — I’m not sure if there is, indeed, a free world any longer!

George Washington University law professor, Jonathan Turley, wrote a piece a while back that spelled it out for anyone not yet convinced that America has moved onto the police state list. You will find his article here: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/15/10-reasons-the-u-s-is-no-longer-the-land-of-the-free/

I’m going to highlight it a bit here.

Professor Turley says the list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company. (See the incomplete list of authoritarian states I mentioned above)

Professor Turley enumerates the “new” powers our government now holds over its citizens:

Assassination of U.S. citizens

President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists.

Indefinite detention

Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. The Administration continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion.

Arbitrary justice

The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice.

Warrantless searches

The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party.

Secret evidence

The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.

War crimes

The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries.

Secret court

The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance.

Immunity from judicial review

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy.

Continual monitoring of citizens

The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. It is not defending the power before the Supreme Court — a power described by Justice Anthony Kennedy as “Orwellian.”

Extraordinary renditions

The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.

THIS, dear reader, is the description of an authoritarian government, a police state — and THIS is America today.

America lurches along today, struggling with every breath. Much like a wounded animal instinctively knows something is wrong yet hasn’t the reasoning ability to understand that it is fatally wounded and will soon succumb to its wounds, collapse, and die.

America, the wounded giant, struggles against the infinity of self-inflicted wounds draining the life from its once vibrant body.

The lifeblood of the great constitutional republic, liberty and freedom, long since sacrificed on the alter of security, are no longer the life force of the once great titan that bestrode the earth. The lights are out in the once shining city on a hill and darkness shrouds the land.

The weight of the heavy hand of an authoritarian government smothers the citizenry and emasculates thoughts of revival.

Too late Americans remember the warning of one of America’s original Founding Fathers and our second President, John Adams. Freedom, once lost, can never be regained. Adams said: “A constitution of government, once changed from freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

America is done for. She cannot be rebuilt. redemption is impossible. The hollowed-out husk that remains has joined the league of mediocre nations destined to become the foundation of a global government on the planet.

At remarkable speed America “fundamentally transformed” itself from a constitutional representative republic to a socialist authoritarian (police) state to a “has been” nation. As John Adams warned — there is no going back.

© J. D. Longstreet

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The Middle East Minefield … Alan Caruba

The Middle East Minefield
By Alan Caruba

I often wonder whether Americans really care about the outcome of events as regards Israel. I know that a segment of American Jews are concerned and that evangelical Christians may care even more.

I can’t escape the feeling, though, that other than the horror of an Iranian nuclear missile blowing up Israel and killing its citizens (both Jewish and Muslim), that most Americans are not that committed to its survival. I suspect that most Europeans are even less committed.

I cite Israel because of the hostility of all others in the Middle East, but they may not be as hostile as things appear. Israel is a major deterrent to Iran’s ambitions.
Things are never what they seem in the Middle East.

A recent article in CanadaFreePress.com by Doug Hagmann suggests that the Benghazi affair that the Obama administration is trying to get passed actually masks a major arms movement from Libya to the Syrian rebels in order to overthrow its dictator, Bashar Assad. Hagmann asserts that it was a CIA operation, not a diplomatic one, and what was attacked was not a consulate, but rather a site for the storage and transmittal of weapons. The attack was an effort to disrupt it by those seeking to keep Assad in power, both Russia and Iran.

The major actors in this are the U.S., Turkey, and Egypt. The main benefactor would be Saudi Arabia whose oil fields are within the range of Iranian missiles. The Russians are part of the picture because they do not want to lose a key Syrian port for its naval ships, but Russia, too, is a major oil producer and anything that might harm its interests is seen as a bonus.

After 9/11 when the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked Americans supported an energetic response, but after George W. Bush committed troops to Afghanistan and Iraq it wasn’t long before Americans decided it was a bad idea. Too many memories of Vietnam along with too much cost in blood and treasure took the edge off of the reprisal in Afghanistan or the deposing of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Iraq is an oil producer as well, but is now allied with the Iranians where its president found sanctuary during Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror.

Leon Trotsky, an associate of Stalin, once said, “You might not be interested in war, but war may be interested in you.” Wars occur in various ways, deliberate and accidental, but it is the latter that would seem the case these days in a Middle East where Hamas engaged in a lengthy barrage of rockets and then acted surprised that Israel responded, killing a number of their top people and inflicting a lot of damage in Gaza.

Hamas was acting under the orders from Iran. The president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, brokered a cease fire deal, but also decided he wants to be the next dictator of Egypt. Who saw that coming? The Egyptians had risked life and limb in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to depose Hosni Mubarack and then turned around and voted Morsi into office.

What were they thinking? Why didn’t they embrace a more secular leader? The answer is that Islam is everything in the Middle East. Muslims cannot change and it is foolish to think they will. If you loved the seventh century, you will love the Middle East.

Egypt is important to the U.S. What happens there determines much of the direction the Middle East takes. That explains why the Obama administration wants to forgive a billion in debt and to throw another billion or more at Morsi by way of enlisting him to act as a counter weight to Hamas. On Nov 24 Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad was on the phone to Hamas’s Ismail Haniya and with Jihad Islami leaders to assure them they would be receiving munitions to refill their arsenals.

Reportedly, Obama has agreed to send U.S. troops to Egypt’s Sinai to interdict the arms smuggling routes through the desert to Gaza. Indeed, it was this offer that is said to have gotten Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu to back off a ground invasion, but in this three dimensional game of chess, Israel, Egypt, and Turkey are all working with the U.S.

The U.S. Navy has been busy throughout the brief conflict and earlier. For years it has taken up permanent residency off the coast of Iran and in the Persian Gulf. Other elements are presently positioned off the coast of Syria where their Russian counterparts can also be found.
Bashar Assad has made Turkey very nervous. Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus want to keep him alive. Turkey borders Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and is in proximity of Russia, bordering Georgia. It has its hands full just tending to the thousands of Syrians that have fled there. The U.S. is providing Turkey with Patriot missiles and AWACs, manned by U.S. military, and that could become yet another flashpoint.

None of the nations involved want a really big war to break out.

The wild card is Israel whose very existence is threatened by Iran. The U.S. is doing what it can to avoid that. So far the cooperation is working. If Iran announces it has nuclear weapons or Israeli intelligence determines that’s the case, all bets are off.

The major beneficiary of all of this is Saudi Arabia and, as the leader of the majority Sunni Muslims worldwide, it has no love for Shiite Iran. In effect the U.S. intelligence capabilities and its military have become its mercenary army, eliminating Saddam Hussein, standing aside when Mubarak and Gaddafi fell and now working to eliminate Bashar Assad.

The U.S. doesn’t mind working with dictators, so long as they are “our” dictators, friendly to our interests.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
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Alan Caruba’s commentaries are posted daily at “Warning Signs” and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 2 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.