National Journal Blog 7 December

What's Next for the Senate's Detainee Provisions? - National Security Experts.

Comments

[J]

Colonel,

Your question "it strikes me as odd that the general public accepts the notion that those who are detained are necessarily guilty", is easily answered. Our nation's public has been indoctrinated by both D.C. and their compliant partners within our Mainstream Media, with feedings of propaganda after propaganda innuendos that if somebody is detained, then they must be guilty. A primer mover of such propaganda feeding is the popular TV show NCIS. Notwithstanding others shows which have indoctrinated the public to think that because one has been detained that they're automatically guilty, the show Law & Order and its variants is one more example.

Here's an interesting article, that deals with the Cold War Propaganda:
Cold War PR – spinning the ideological battlefront
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/cold-war-pr-spinning-the-ideological-battlefront/

For our nation's public to awaken will require them being indoctrinated to what it is supposed to be like living in a Constitutional Republic, its right and its responsibilities.

[William R. Cumming]

The NY Times came out on the side you of you PL and MBrenner whose eloquence continues to amaze me.

IF THIS DOES PASS CONGRESS AND WH DOES NOT VETO THE LAST VESTIGES OF OUR CONSTITUTION WILL BE IN TATTERS!

[John Minnerath]

I wondered when this subject would reach these pages.

Mr. Brenner's article gets right to the meat of this disgusting and dangerous legislation.

The trampling and suspension of civil rights for the good of the State has been used before. Now we see just about every agency in our own country wanting to somehow be involved in reducing the rights of some segment of the population.

Even the WH threat of veto in contradictory and confusing. It's becoming difficult to even locate real information on what all this thing can do and who can do it.

[Charles I]

Ron Marks:

"Limiting our options is not wise"

No, but self-restraint in face of our ignorant natures and common interests oft-times is. Look at the war on drugs and the ATF weapons smuggling fiasco. Why have rule of law if you can't break it to rule?

Didja hear about the billions in APCs and other surplus heavy weapons distributed to your local constabularies to help subdue the, er, terrorists?

Oh to be Britain without a written Constitution!

[graywolf]

Aren't you guys running out of sky to fall?

[The Twisted Genius]

We have elevated the status of terrorists, and even potential terrorists to the level of world devouring, all powerful demigods too dangerous to treat as mere human beings. Bush was right when he said "they" hate our freedoms. Except his "they" appears to be our politicians and their unthinking, frightened supporters. Muggers, child molesters and drunk drivers pose a greater threat to our safety than terrorists. The policies pursued by the financial industry is a greater threat to our national security than terrorists. I share Dr. Brenner's outrage at this spectacle.

[Norbert M Salamon]

Sorry, off-topic:
Farsi release of picture of the downed spyplane:

http://www.farsnews.com/media.php?nn=13900917000696

[Brad Ruble]

"It strikes me as odd that the general public accepts the notion that those who are detained are necessarily guilty".
The drug war has gotten us used to that. Just ask some kid out here in flyover America. Be a little different and be accused and see how many people rally around to protect your "Liberty".
You guy's need to understand. Out here, for a lot of people, not all and maybe not most, but for a lot, "Kill 'um all and let God sort it out" has become more than just the front of a tee shirt. It isn't just they accept it. They like it.
Tyranny comes with flags waving, bands playing and crowds cheering. For more than a few people out here, locking them all up to preserve our "Liberty" sounds like a damn good idea.
Did I mention the part about the preacher telling us to defer to a higher authority and they hate us because we're so good and they'd never give us the rights we give them and I could go on but ...
It seems to take about 20% of a population to make enough noise to screw things up and we have at least that out here.

[walrus]

Given that virtually anything can be construed as aiding and abetting terrorism, the possession by any Administration is not safe.

For example; given that the Mexican Zetas were in fact recruited by an Iranian agent to assassinate a Saudi Diplomat, the Zetas could be declared a terrorist organisation.

The outcome of that? Buy cocaine, go to Gitmo for supporting terrorism.

[Fred]

To paraphrase Ron Marks: We hold these truths to be self evident - the idea that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, is 'quaint'. Any time an a person is accused by anonymous criteria by unreviewable accusers such persons may be held without trial or legal recourse by the US Government for as long as the government decides to hold such persons.

Just what the men and women in Arlington National Cemetery fought for. As it now says on our money "In God We Trust" because in our Constitutionally elected officials we can't. Somewhere on Earth 'they' are out to do us harm. Men and women like Mr. Marks just doesn't realize which 'they' it is that is winning the war to destroy America.

[steve g]

I thought is was shot down?
Shades of Capricorn One?

[securecare]

"...we have become a fearful people. We allow the free floating insecurities of post-modern life to be focused on bogeymen and phantoms...."

Absolutely nails it.

"We are all at the mercy of our wild monkey minds. Incessantly swinging from branch to branch." - unknown

[Indy Ike]

graywolf:

Precisely.

[graywolf]

Where is "out here"?

[steve]

Thank you for the link.

Ron Marks lost me when he equated Al Qaeda with Anonymous.

[Jake]

Nuts!

[The Moar You Know]

"it strikes me as odd that the general public accepts the notion that those who are detained are necessarily guilty."

Even where America has been at her very best, the notion that someone is innocent until proven guilty has been treated with polite contempt. And we are nowhere near our best these days.

First post nailed one of the causes. There are others but this is a major one - how many cop shows have you watched where it ends with the cops saying "sorry, we got the wrong guy, guess we're going to have to start over and do some hard work."

Zero. Such an ending doesn't fit the narrative we've constructed about the infallibility of law enforcement.

Brenner gets it. The other guys...whoa. Ron Marks would be happiest living in Stalin's Soviet Union, it seems. Or perhaps shivering in a puddle of urine under his bed. Really sad to read cowardly language like that coming from an American citizen.

[turcopolier]

TMYK

Moar, old thing, you may take it that I am trying to argue for courage and rationality with the sniveling wretches who are most of American society. pl

[Bob Bernard]

Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes?

(Who guards the guards?)

-Juvenal

[john in the boro]

As the United States winds down the wars abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan it winds up the war at home against civil liberties. One lesson that our leaders learned, albeit slowly, is that conquering states does not end the threat posed by stateless enemies. Dealing with that brute fact appears to lie behind the ever increasing assault on our civil liberties among those predisposed to tyranny. And significant numbers of Americans are OK with trading present rights for promised security.

But it seems to me that the erosion of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is really an admission that the past decade of military occupations has not made us secure. Indeed, the past decade may have harmed our security seriously. Another time, another place, George Orwell wrote: "If you want to make an enemy of a man, tell him that his ills are incurable” ("The Road to Wigan Pier", 1958, 168). Well, the demonization of Muslims by our political and media mavens is a case in point. Pat is right, some detainees cannot be tried or released because of the circumstances of their detentions. They are in effect disappeared.

So the congress, after screwing the due-process pooch these many years, decides to institutionalize and expand the violation. Surge!

[Brad Ruble]

Wyoming