_______________________________________________________________ | | http://uscrisis.lege.net/othershoe/ | | | Other Shoe | | Waiting for the U.S. to become an open fascist dictatorship | is like waiting for the other shoe to drop. | | | Here's some of the latest clues: (as of November 21, 2003) | | | Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack [ | http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/20/185048.shtml | ] | | Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with | a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, | the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a | military form of government. Already, critics of the U.S. | Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in the wake of the | Sept. 11 attacks, have argued that the law aims to curtail | civil liberties and sets a dangerous precedent. But Franks' | scenario goes much further. He is the first high-ranking | official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be | scrapped in favor of a military form of government. | | | | http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/20/185048.shtml | http://newsmax.com/cgi-bin/printer_friendly.pl?page=http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/20/185048.shtml | | | Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack | John O. Edwards, NewsMax.com | Friday, Nov. 21, 2003 | | Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with | a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, | the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a | military form of government. | | Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to | liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive | interview he gave to the men's lifestyle magazine Cigar | Aficionado. | | In the magazine's December edition, the former commander of | the military's Central Command warned that if terrorists | succeeded in using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) | against the U.S. or one of our allies, it would likely have | catastrophic consequences for our cherished republican form | of government. | | Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the | wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that ``the worst thing that | could happen'' is if terrorists acquire and then use a | biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy | casualties. | | If that happens, Franks said, ``... the Western world, the | free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is | freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years | in this grand experiment that we call democracy.'' | | Franks then offered ``in a practical sense'' what he thinks | would happen in the aftermath of such an attack. | | ``It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and | a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in | the Western world - it may be in the United States of | America - that causes our population to question our own | Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order | to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. | Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our | Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.'' | | Franks didn't speculate about how soon such an event might | take place. | | Already, critics of the U.S. Patriot Act, rushed through | Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, have argued | that the law aims to curtail civil liberties and sets a | dangerous precedent. | | But Franks' scenario goes much further. He is the first | high-ranking official to openly speculate that the | Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form | of government. | | The usually camera-shy Franks retired from U.S. Central | Command, known in Pentagon lingo as CentCom, in August 2003, | after serving nearly four decades in the Army. | | Franks earned three Purple Hearts for combat wounds and | three Bronze Stars for valor. Known as a ``soldier's | general,'' Franks made his mark as a top commander during | the U.S.'s successful Operation Desert Storm, which | liberated Kuwait in 1991. He was in charge of CentCom when | Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda attacked the United States on | Sept. 11. | | Franks said that within hours of the attacks, he was given | orders to prepare to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan and | to capture bin Laden. | | Franks offered his assessment on a number of topics to Cigar | Aficionado, including: | | President Bush: ``As I look at President Bush, I think he | will ultimately be judged as a man of extremely high | character. A very thoughtful man, not having been appraised | properly by those who would say he's not very smart. I find | the contrary. I think he's very, very bright. And I suspect | that he'll be judged as a man who led this country through a | crease in history effectively. Probably we'll think of him | in years to come as an American hero.'' | | On the motivation for the Iraq war: Contrary to claims that | top Pentagon brass opposed the invasion of Iraq, Franks said | he wholeheartedly agreed with the president's decision to | invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein. | | ``I, for one, begin with intent. ... There is no question | that Saddam Hussein had intent to do harm to the Western | alliance and to the United States of America. That intent is | confirmed in a great many of his speeches, his commentary, | the words that have come out of the Iraqi regime over the | last dozen or so years. So we have intent. | | ``If we know for sure ... that a regime has intent to do | harm to this country, and if we have something beyond a | reasonable doubt that this particular regime may have the | wherewithal with which to execute the intent, what are our | actions and orders as leaders in this country?'' | | The Pentagon's deck of cards: Asked how the Pentagon decided | to put its most-wanted Iraqis on a set of playing cards, | Franks explained its genesis. He recalled that when his | staff identified the most notorious Iraqis the U.S. wanted | to capture, ``it just turned out that the number happened to | be about the same as a deck of cards. And so somebody said, | `Aha, this will be the ace of spades.''' | | Capturing Saddam: Franks said he was not surprised that | Saddam has not been captured or killed. But he says he will | eventually be found, perhaps sooner than Osama bin Laden. | | ``The capture or killing of Saddam Hussein will be a near | term thing. And I won't say that'll be within 19 or 43 days. | ... I believe it is inevitable.'' | | Franks ended his interview with a less-than-optimistic note. | ``It's not in the history of civilization for peace ever to | reign. Never has in the history of man. ... I doubt that | we'll ever have a time when the world will actually be at | peace.'' | | | (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this | material is distributed without profit to those who have | expressed a prior interest in receiving the included | information for research and educational purposes.) | | | | War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was | illegal [ | http://guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html ] | | The Guardian International lawyers and anti-war campaigners | reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential | Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of | Iraq had been illegal. In a startling break with the | official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told | an audience in London: "I think in this case international | law stood in the way of doing the right thing." | | | | http://guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html | http://guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4801223-103550,00.html | | | War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was | illegal | Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger in Washington | Thursday November 20, 2003 | The Guardian | | International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with | astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk | Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been | illegal. | | In a startling break with the official White House and | Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: | "I think in this case international law stood in the way of | doing the right thing." | | President George Bush has consistently argued that the war | was legal either because of existing UN security council | resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly | stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by | international law. | | But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, | which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, | said that "international law ... would have required us to | leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been | morally unacceptable. | | French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no | practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for | dealing with Saddam Hussein". | | Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organized by the | Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly | for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the | 1991 Gulf war. | | "They're just not interested in international law, are | they?" said Linda Hugl, a spokeswoman for the Campaign for | Nuclear Disarmament, which launched a high court challenge | to the war's legality last year. "It's only when the law | suits them that they want to use it." | | Mr Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official | justifications for war, according to Rabinder Singh QC, who | represented CND and also participated in Tuesday's event. | | Certainly the British government, he said, "has never | advanced the suggestion that it is entitled to act, or right | to act, contrary to international law in relation to Iraq". | | The Pentagon adviser's views, he added, underlined "a | divergence of view between the British government and some | senior voices in American public life [who] have expressed | the view that, well, if it's the case that international law | doesn't permit unilateral pre-emptive action without the | authority of the UN, then the defect is in international | law". | | Mr Perle's view is not the official one put forward by the | White House. Its main argument has been that the invasion | was justified under the UN charter, which guarantees the | right of each state to self-defence, including pre-emptive | self-defence. On the night bombing began, in March, Mr Bush | reiterated America's "sovereign authority to use force" to | defeat the threat from Baghdad. | | The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has questioned that | justification, arguing that the security council would have | to rule on whether the US and its allies were under imminent | threat. | | Coalition officials countered that the security council had | already approved the use of force in resolution 1441, passed | a year ago, warning of "serious consequences" if Iraq failed | to give a complete accounting of its weapons programmes. | | Other council members disagreed, but American and British | lawyers argued that the threat of force had been implicit | since the first Gulf war, which was ended only by a | ceasefire. | | "I think Perle's statement has the virtue of honesty," said | Michael Dorf, a law professor at Columbia University who | opposed the war, arguing that it was illegal. | | "And, interestingly, I suspect a majority of the American | public would have supported the invasion almost exactly to | the same degree that they in fact did, had the | administration said that all along." | | The controversy-prone Mr Perle resigned his chairmanship of | the defence policy board earlier this year but remained a | member of the advisory board. | | Meanwhile, there was a hint that the US was trying to find a | way to release the Britons held at Guantanamo Bay. | | The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said Mr Bush was | "very sensitive" to British sentiment. "We also expect to be | resolving this in the near future," he told the BBC. | | | (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this | material is distributed without profit to those who have | expressed a prior interest in receiving the included | information for research and educational purposes.) | | | | This may be the key question: Does the purpose justify the | means? Or, to rephrase, are the means justified by the | higher purpose? (To rid the world of "Evildoers".) And | it's clear that the evil, the bad guys, include the | Democrats. ( Beautiful young shock troops for Bush at | http://salon.com/news/feature/2003/07/28/bush/?ref=null or | at http://salon.com/news/feature/2003/07/28/bush/print.html | .) It seems that the Republican Party of the future will be | one firmly indoctrinated in the belief that the opposition | is illegitimate. ``As conservatives, we share a zeitgeist | that is not shared by liberals, . . . As conservatives, we | don't hate America, . . . The life of a liberal is hell. | It is not possible to have a debate, a discussion, with | someone who at their root, at their core, hates everything | this country stands for but doesn't hate it enough to | leave.'' (Ibid.) And what is this new zeitgeist, not shared | by liberals? A clue: ``hundreds of clean-cut collegians | were on their feet, shouting "KARL! KARL! KARL!" Then the | chant changed, and they were screaming "USA! USA! USA! USA! | USA!" their faces hard and triumphant atop blue suits and | evening gowns as they belted out the letters. They screamed | and screamed and then erupted in wild cheers. It was the | first night of the 55th biennial college Republican | convention at the Capitol Hilton in Washington, and around | 1,000 young people had gathered for three days to hear | speakers like Rove, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, | R-Texas, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, former U.S. | Sen. Bob Barr and right-wing polemicist David Horowitz. On | the Hilton's second floor they organized, plotted strategy | for the 2004 election, and generally paid homage to | President George W. Bush, whose grinning visage appeared on | everything from T-shirts to handbags. Even more, they | gloried in Americanness, a state that many seem to regard as | both quasi-religious and the exclusive provenance of their | party.'' (Ibid.) You couldn't find more devout followers in | Hitlerjugend. Back to the key question: Are the means | justified by the higher purpose? Hitler certainly thought | so. There is certainly no valid logical argument against | that view. Only ethical and moral ones -- and those depend | on your own convictions. | | So, are you a fascist or are you not a fascist, at heart? | That is the question! | | All who are not, raise up in defense of America and the | great and God-inspired American Constitution! | | And you who find yourself to be fascist, consider this: You | are responsible for breaking America up, for ultimately | causing a second Civil War and the break-up of America and | all that America stands for. | | | The last comments was by Leif Erlingsson, November 21, 2003. | | | Additional reading: | | Resources | http://propaganda.lege.net/resources/ |______________________________________________________________