There have been times in my life when I believed whatever my Government told me, and in retrospect how naïve and foolish I have always been.
As a child, it was difficult for me not to "remember Pearl Harbor" yet today, it is difficult for me to accept the inaccuracies of convenience promulgated by my government. It has been difficult to believe anything that this administration has said. I trust that this will change with Barack Obama, but we will see.
As a media person, I have witnessed "up close and personal" the lies and misleads of a variety of FCC's, both Democratic ones and Republican ones, so it should come as no surprise that my government lies and misleads us as it pertains to whatever they choose to lie and mislead us about in other areas as well.
While I will not dwell again on the basic failures of the main stream media in this regard, it is certainly worth a mention. Where have they gone?
For the record, I have a problem with so many things about our "War On Terrorism" in that it is so horribly vague, that an Administration determined to violate a bunch of "things" can and do hide behind the mantra of "but it is a part of our war on terrorism" and it becomes sort of a "get out of jail free" card which allows our own "administration terrorists" to "have their way" with us.
An underlying difficulty I have with all of this is that we (The United States) is now and has been an invading Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. This I am sure will be followed by comments starting with "but Norman," and I have difficulty accepting the majority of these "buts."
We "capture" these people, put them in chains, ship them off to some horrid place, torture them and like so many "American Products" like beer and toothpaste we have coined an expression to sell this process when speaking of these people as "unlawful enemy combatants." This is defined by some like me as: A civilian who we think might have done something yet we have not a clue as to proving what we think, who directly might engage in armed conflict and may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action as we choose to take, whatever all of that means.
Translated from the ancient Greek, that means that we can detain anyone of any nationality other then an American as long as we wish, essentially wherever we wish, and torture them if we wish. Ain't that just great?
It has appeared that the military will want to act as interrogators, prosecutors and defense counsel, judges, and when and if death sentences are imposed, as executioners too. The trials will be held in private. None of the guarantees or niceties of a fair trial need be observed.
How quaint and how un-American.
I gather that there is a story in Newsweek that indicates that 62 of the released Guantanamo prisoners have returned to "terrorist activities. For the moment, let us accept that this is true, (which is difficult for me to do) in that I hardly ever accept anything about this stuff that is either released or leaked. Apparently all 62 did not resume their "bad stuff" at the same time so why this was this not released or leaked vat least a little at a time until now?
As a silly aside I would ask how many felons have committed additional felonies after their release from prison in the United States following their first felony. We should institute a "one felony and you are to never be released from prison" policy, and this would eliminate the possibility of these people committing additional felonies.
And for as bonus thought I would wonder how many of the "Newsweek 62" released were ever convicted of anything?
I now propose another one of my far out examples:
Canada Invades the United States and defeats our Army, and occupies our nation. There I am minding my owns business and coming out of a store in the Bronx after having an egg cream, and I am arrested, sent to a prison camp in Mexico, tortured, and released after four years. Is it at all conceivable that I would become a terrorist following my release?
Perhaps I am missing something.
It would be interesting for the President to announce what his policy will be as it pertains to "unlawful enemy combatants." In my opinion we need to charge these people with a crime in a courtroom with the usual rules of evidence and set them free if you cannot prove that they have done anything.
This seems to the naïve American to be the American thing to do.