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WE ARE THE ENEMY
It has scarce escaped the notice of the wise, that this, our precious land of liberty, is sinking swiftly into tyranny. The executors of the American coup d’etat have been hacking at the Head of State – the Constitution – since the inauguration of the Republic: bruising it here and there, breaking the skin on occasion, or, if failing to cause lasting damage, then at least drizzling bits of venom and acid spittle. Yet since the new millennium these efforts have been redoubled and intensified, to the effect that large chunks of flesh are now flying everywhere; and lo! we find our glorious Head hanging – tenuously, tenaciously – by mere strands of tissue. It is only a moment now before the damned thing is torn clean off.
How elegantly simple and effectively deceptive the method of revolution really is! All it takes is to convince the people of a serious and imminent threat, and then, with panic and fear sown in their hearts, they will hand over their liberties without thought or hesitation. The ’serious and imminent threat’ of the hour, which is naught but hallucinated menace, has heretofore been of the strange and external variety: ’They’ are ’over there’, where we must meet them with courage and conviction, lest ’they’ come ’over here’ once again, and do us real harm. This myth has served its purpose well enough – we ARE occupying Iraq, after all – but it has nearly run its course. For the people are developing a tolerance for falsehood, and the only cure is a larger and more potent dose. Next time, as we shall see, the threat will not come from far off places. Rather, it will be from RIGHT WITHIN OUR MIDST, and the old myth will be supplanted by newer and far graver forms.
Do you doubt that I tell the truth? For verily I say to you: the next attack on this soil will come from ALLIES OF THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT. It will come from THOSE WHO USE THE INTERNET to communicate and mobilize. It will come, dare I say it, from THOSE WHO ENTERTAIN CONSPIRACY THEORIES to try to explain the world. The next terrorists, in short, WILL BE INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM YOU AND ME. And because of that sad and scary fact, it will be necessary for our saviors in the New Federal Government to come down, like angels in the time of Judgment, to weed out the unfaithful and throw them into the fire.
Now why ON EARTH do I spew such madness? Quite obviously it is because I am mad. For these eyes have seen it written (1), that the President has given himself authority to ’block the property’ of those American residents who hamper ’stabilization efforts in Iraq’. Can this possibly be the product of a sane mind? Certainly not! – for it is apparent to all that Iraq needs no help in instability.
These eyes have seen it written, again (2), that the terrorists ’exploit the Internet’ to disseminate ’conspiracy theories’ and bolster recruitment. But I must have hallucinated this in a dream state, because I searched all over for the popular Al-Qaeda websites – I meant to send them a nasty letter – and yet I couldn’t find a single one! (I was, however, assured and assuaged to remember that our sworn protectors are ever vigilant ’against the emergence of homegrown terrorists within our own Homeland as well’.)
Mine eyes have seen it written, further (3), that in the event of another national emergency – like Hurricane Katrina or September 11 – ’the President shall lead...the Federal Government’ and ’coordinate’ the judicial and legislative branches as he sees fit. I knew deep in my heart that this could not be so, for my civics teachers etched there long ago, that the three branches of government were created separate and co-equal. Still, my psychosis only continued to deepen, for I imagined that a Representative on the House Committee on Homeland Security asked the White House for details on these post-emergency plans – and he was denied! Clearly this could not happen in reality, for the President is a good Christian man, and everyone knows that only the guilty have something to hide. Besides, I thought I heard the Representative say, ’Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right’ (4) – and that is straight out of Bizarro World!
Now at this point my poor demented brain really took a turn for the worse. For I thought I saw a Top Secret document smuggled out of Iraq (5), which reported on the ’serious potential of dissident American groups rising up against constituted authority’, due to ’growing dissatisfaction with the course and conduct of the war in Iraq, the chronic inability of Congress to deal with various pressing issues and the perception of widespread corruption and indifference to public needs’. All that bit about popular dissatisfaction I admit MIGHT have some grounding in actual fact – but an honest-to-goodness uprising?! A scattered, disaffected, atomized, and demoralized populace. . . organizing spontaneously into a serious threat to the status quo? ’Pure nonsense!’ squeaked the last vestiges of my rational mind. And yet the vision went on.
The document I saw purported to outline the proper methods for a ’counter-insurgency’ in these United States, and first among the imperatives listed as necessary for a successful operation was the ’establishment or reestablishment of a "legitimate government"’. Upon seeing that very phrase, I realized that my illness must be one of those unique schizo-affective sorts, since my hallucinations were not random and irregular but marked by a coherent internal consistency: for the ’reestablishment’ of government was PRECISELY what I had earlier imagined the President to implement in the event of a national emergency!
But the parallels did not stop there. For I saw also in the document that it would be prudent to ’execute cordon and search operations’, to ’screen and document the population’, and to ’detain personnel’. That last item really caught my attention, since expected ’overcrowding in police jails’ would necessitate the occupation of ’key facilities’ such as ’prisons and other places of detention’. ’Detention’, a-ha! The word triggered my recollection of a nightmarish psychotic episode from long ago, in which a Halliburton subsidiary was awarded a Department of Homeland Security contract to build detention facilities in the event of (among other things) a national emergency (6). Thankfully such things belong squarely in the realm of fantasy, for doubtless it is true that American exceptionalism grants us immunity to the lessons of history.
Doubtless, too, it must be true that you have grown tired of my rambling crazy talk by now. So let us return to the real world for a moment. It is an established matter of fact that the terrorists will strike again, and quite possibly very soon. We know this because of the ’gut feelings’ of our Director of Homeland Security (7); we know this because a former Senator has stated that ’between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen’ (note the declarative mood) (8); we know this because GOP political operatives are openly saying that ’all we need is some attacks on American soil’ for the President and the war to be better appreciated (9); we know this because US airports have recently been warned of terror ’dry runs’ and ’dress rehearsals’ (10); and we know this, above all, because it is common sense and conventional opinion, plain and simple.
To all you sober-minded, clear-headed, and responsible observers, then – to all those, in short, who are not crazy like me – I would like to pose a simple question. When the moment of truth finally arrives – when catastrophic disaster finally strikes this once-fearless nation – to what incredible lengths will our President and his Administration go. . . to uphold the Constitution, and to protect us?
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1. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html
2. http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nsct/2006/sectionV.html
3. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html
4. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/118489654058910.xml&coll=7
5. http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2720.htm#004
7. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/7/15/230035.shtml?s=lh
8. http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=bd02aa0e-7953-414b-89ff-64db473685bc
9. http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Arkansas_GOP_head_We_need_more_0603.html
10. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070725/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/airport_terror_warning