"Rule by fear or rule by law?" Is this for real?

[elbales]

Rule by fear or rule by law?
Lewis Seiler, Dan Hamburg
Monday, February 4, 2008

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."

Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.

According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."

Is this for real? The authors do mention National Security Presidential Directive 51, which people on the liberal side of the spectrum point to as further evidence that Bush Is a Bad, Bad Man, but they usually neglect to mention that Clinton signed something similar. So their inclusion of NSPD51 hurts their credibility a bit for me.

That doesn't even address the accuracy of these other allegations. I mean, the railcars bit. (It's been covered to death that BushCo has been spewing government money at KBR and its ilk since Day One.)

Just, WTF.
 

Comments

[emidala.livejournal.com]

all removable aliens?!?! what the fuck does that mean? any alien is removable - just cancel the visa and that's it.

I'm terrified.

[elbales]

Oh, no... I did not mean to upset you. I'm sorry. :( Emmas should never have to be afraid of people who should be not scaring them but protecting them for reals.

Really, to be honest? I have doubts about the Evil Urgency of some of the stuff they mentioned, simply because they mentioned NSPD51 and that's kind of bunk. It's popular among people who hate BushCo to take anything, even something that's no worse than any other president has done, and blow it up into Further Proof of the Perfidy of our Government, which, come on, like we needed it. This is not to attempt to diminish the really bad stuff they've done in the past seven years, because there is a huge laundry list and lots of it truly is scary. I CAN HAS HABEAS NOW, PLZ? YOU CAN HAS LAWSOOT BY ACLU THXBAI.

I'm also sorry my government is run by total assholes who should never have been given authority over anything because they obviously can't handle it with anything remotely resembling (a distant cousin of the assistant to the part-time vacation relief guy in charge of) responsibility. But that's not a "personal" sorry because I did not vote for the man and would never even vote to elect him as the guy who follows the circus and has to clean up the elephant poop.

[drave117.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would vote for him as the guy who follows the circus and has to clean up the elephant poop, with the condition that he is not allowed to use any kind of tool to do it...

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

Not me. I'd be concerned about where he might put the elephant poop.

[elbales]

LOLOL. MOAR.

[drave117.livejournal.com]

Then we will appoint a supervisor to make sure he doesn't try anything funny. The supervisor will be a trained monkey.

[elbales]

Who will still be smarter than him.

[elbales]

LOLOLOL

♥

DRAVES ROCK.

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

And if it really goes back to 1999, then that also supports all of the conspiracy theorists who say that 9/11 was just an excuse, or even a plot, by the US Govt to radically change the landscape of US civil rights.

[elbales]

You know, given adequate proof, I could actually buy the idea that BushCo allowed 9/11 to happen. But you would have to assemble an Everest-scale mountain of credible evidence before I would believe that they made it happen.

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not backing the conspiracy theorists, I'm just saying -- the fact that this conveniently started 2 years before 9/11 is certainly something they'll add to their justifications.

[elbales]

Oh--yeah, I'm sorry; I know you weren't backing them, I just meant that anyone who wanted to convince me would have an uphill job of it. :)

And conspiracy theorists will add anything to their justifications.