This is one that all bloggers, be they peace, war, anti-war, green, blue, techno, porno, whatever, should get angry about.
First up: Camps for Citizens. Ashcroft wants to create camps for US citizens that are determined to be “enemy combatants”. There, people will be held indefinitely, as ‘guests’ of the US government without any recourse to their constitutional rights. As the LA Times writes:
We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft’s America. Some of his predecessors dreamed of creating a great society or a nation unfettered by racism. Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from itself, neatly contained and controlled by his judgment of loyalty.
Who would be detained? People like Jose Padilla, who has now been determined not to be associated with al Qaeda. Lately, information is leaking out that Padilla wasn’t associated with any plot to create a dirty bomb, either. However, he’s still being held as an enemy combatant, without access to the rights supposedly guaranteed to all Americans.
(Can’t let him go–that would be admitting we made a mistake, wouldn’t it?)
Why all of this? It’s the War, you know. What war? Why, the war on terror.
News for you folks — no war has ever been declared. There is no war. The president did not go to Congress and inform Congress that we’re now in a state of war. What we have here is two stupid, paranoid, out of control men in office: one President, the other Attorney General. Hey warbloggers: these are the men you trust to lead an invasion of Iraq?
Time to return to discussions about the Dishmatique and soap–I suddenly feel dirty.
(Thanks to b!x for pointing out both of these pieces of Americana crap.)
