What National Security? What Freedom?

More and more often, I find myself asking what people mean when they say things like, “Our troops are fighting for our freedom.”

Exactly what freedom are they talking about? I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that nothing the U.S. is doing in Iraq is doing anything to protect anyone’s freedom. Iraq has become Al Qaeda’s training ground. We have given the Iraqi people the freedom to fight among themselves to decide who will ultimately get to have control over the lives of the others, but little freedom of any other kind.

Stateside meanwhile, the rights of the people are ground to dust under the boots of unconstitutional restrictions. It isn’t just BushCo. Although they are to my mind the most egregious offenders I have ever seen, they are just the culmination of long years of effort by powerful people to garner more and more power to themselves, and the only way you can amass power to yourself is to take some away from someone else.

The United States Supreme Court yesterday refused to hear the case of a man who, by every account from U.S. newspapers to the Chancellor of Germany, was illegally and falsely detained and tortured in the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. That program is BushCo’s approach to interrogating people they suspect of terrorism. In this case, the man was Khaled Al-Masri. BushCo said he was connected to 9-11 even though they had no proof. After being horribly tortured in a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan, he was dumped on a hill in Albania in the middle of the night when the CIA determined that he was innocent.

And now, because the Bush Administration says his testimony would damage national security, the last possible U.S. court won’t hear his case. He has no legal recourse – no further power to exercise - and the program of extraordinary rendition goes on.

What is the risk to national security here - That the location of the prison would be compromised? That the methods we use to torture people would be disclosed and Al Qaeda could train its people to resist them?

None of the above. The real risk to national security here is the risk that someone – anyone – could be whisked off in the middle of the night to undergo months of the kind of torture Mr. Al-Masri endured and then be able to do absolutely nothing about it.

That’s the kind of risk the Jews and homosexuals faced in Nazi Germany. That’s the kind of risk the Hutus of Rwanda faced at the hands of the Tootsies. That’s the kind of risk that powerless people all over the world have faced since the beginning of time, and it is the kind of risk that our founding fathers sought to eliminate by establishing a democratic government based on the constitution.

The risk to national security is autocratic government that stifles dissent. The risk to national security is a court system that only serves to rubber stamp an autocratic government. The risk to national security is a Congress that only serves to rubber stamp the Executive Branch.

And the GREATEST RISK to national security is an apathetic and complacent citizenry that will not force its representatives to act responsibly.

Is the freedom our troops are fighting for the freedom for our government to wrongfully imprison and torture people?

Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle