There has been quite a bit of noise surrounding the U.S. Marines urinating-on-Taliban-corpses story. Most of the noise has been of the polite disapproval type. You know, 'I support our soldiers killing the terrorists over there, but those brave boys shouldn't be making videos of themselves desecrating dead bodies….that's just not right.'

The typical "condemnations" were issued by all the proper government folks. Kings of Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton both condemned the urinary actions by our fighting-for-freedom Marines and did what these proper government folks always do….announced that there would be an investigation.

Defense Secretary, Kings of Leon Panetta didn't just condemn the urination patrol….

“I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.” Panetta has ordered an investigation into the matter.

"in the strongest possible terms." Well, that makes all the difference in the world then.

Nothing much will come of any "investigation" into this incident…..and that is the exact reason there will be an investigation….so that nothing much will be done about this embarrassing situation.

Or is it an embarrassing situation? At least one CNN contributor thought it was a situation to be very proud of….

Dana Loesch: OK, stop this right here. Stop this right here.

Can someone explain to me if there's supposed to be a scandal that someone pees on the corpse of a Taliban fighter? Someone who was — as part of an organization murdered over 3,000 Americans? I'd drop trou and do it, too. That's me, though. I want a million cool points for these guys. Is that harsh to say?

Come on, people. This is a war.

The one thing which has changed about the American people since 9-11 is our willingness to embrace the inhumane treatment of those we call our enemies. Our first offshore gulag, Guantanamo, is still proudly open for business, indefinite detention of whomever the president claims is an enemy combatant is now the law in the free country of the U.S., government's warrantless eavesdropping on all U.S. citizens electronic communications continues every single day, the numerous incidents of U.S. military personnel conducting criminal acts of savagery, and the bipartisan enthusiasm for launching hellfire missiles from robotic drones down onto Muslim "militants", including infant, child and mother "militants" in 7 different countries.

Anyone embarrassed by any or all of those realities? Any celebrity Leaders rushing to microphones to declare any or all of those realities "inconsistent with our values?" Of course not. Why not? Because those realities accurately reflect our post 9-11 values. And that explains why Leaders like the conservative darling, Allen West (R-FL) can say to those who might question the urination circle jerk on Taliban corpses…."unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell"……he is only patriotically giving voice to the new American reality.

That new reality claims that America, alone, is entitled to do anything we want, to anyone we want, in any country we want to do it in. Anyone who complains about this new reality, whether it's complaining about U.S. soldiers executing, at pointblank range, an entire family including an infant, mother and grandmother, and then calling in an airstrike to cover their savagery….or it's complaining about U.S. soldiers stalking, and then raping an underage Muslim girl and then killing her and her family…or it's moaning and bitching over funtime videos of fellow U.S. freedom fighters urinating on the corpses of Taliban members…..anyone who complains about any of it is automatically acting unpatriotic just by complaining.

Other Leaders, say, like Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, do what they do best in a post 9-11 American values period…..feign outrage at U.S. Marines circle-urinating on Taliban corpses….by reminding us that such circle-urination, or at least taking videos of said fun, is very much "inconsistent with our values". Which "values" is Hillary referring to, ya' think?. Would urinating on Taliban corpses be inconsistent with our Guantanamo "values?" How about the hundreds and hundreds of Muslim women and children we have blown or burnt up since 9-11? How is urinating on dead Taliban bodies inconsistent with the "values" represented in slaughtering Muslim women and children in multiple countries?

You might think that Endless War in Muslim countries, where Muslim women and children are routinely killed by U.S. actions….you might think that offshore gulags where detainees have been rotting without due process for almost a decade….would prevent people like Hillary Clinton from bringing up anything about American "values"….if only for the sake of self-embarrassment at the obvious dissonance. But you would be mistaken. In post 9-11 America we are also post-hypocrisy, post-shame.

America is a lesser nation post 9-11. We have accepted new values. In this, Bin Laden, though dead, has won out. An insignificant Muslim man has been responsible for changing America for the worse, perhaps permanently. That's how weak America really is. It's a weakness of character, leadership and integrity. We've become a narcissistic nation in love with our own perceived-values reflection. We have become so un-self aware that we refuse to even consider the fact that the rest of the world sees post 9-11 America as an imperialistic, aggressor nation which has lost it's sense of decency and justice, yet continues to sermonize them on the so-called superiority of "American values".

Our nation's new values are the values of savages and tyrants. They are the values of the cowardly and the weak. They are the values of a nation which has fully endorsed the doctrine of "might means right."

What's worse, even though I'm typing this on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a day that celebrates hope, I don't see anything changing for the better anytime soon.

According to the U.S. Senate in a vote of 93-7….the U.S. president has the power to declare any U.S. citizen an "enemy of the state", order the indefinite detention of that U.S. citizen, order the assassination of that U.S. citizen, or place that U.S. citizen in Guantanamo to never be heard from again.
All of these new found presidential powers violate the 5th and 6th amendments…..

"No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

These claims of extra-constitutional powers of the presidency have all been justified since 9-11 on the basis of: "the Constitution is not a suicide compact"…or something similar. Which is supposed to mean that the Constitution, with all its prohibitions on presidential power and guarantees of rights for citizens, is a nice, quaint document and all….but we really can't afford those rights and prohibitions right now. If those rights and prohibitions are continued as outlined by the Framers, it has been claimed repeatedly by our Leaders since 9-11, then those leaders will not be able to guarantee our safety.

Other more cynical and jaded Leaders, like Don Rumsfeld for example, have instructed us that freedoms and constitutional rights are basically meaningless, you know, if you're dead. Translation: constitutional rights and presidential prohibitions are optional during "the long war", "the endless war."

How long will "the long war" continue? How long will Americans be deprived of their rights? How long will the executive branch claim extra-constitutional powers to assassinate U.S. citizens? How long will the U.S. president claim that it's necessary to indefinitely detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, in offshore gulags without rights to due process?

No one knows. That's the benefit of "a long war."

Our permanent military state has arrived….and it's never going away. 10 years and counting and there are no signs that "the long war" is anywhere near over…..Iran, obviously, is our next target. There's much more to destroy in the middle east. There are many more regimes which need changing.

Along similar lines, I was not shocked…but a little surprised….to learn from this Max Blumenthal article that Israeli Border Police and "a unit from the military of Bahrain" assisted the training of U.S. SWAT teams during Urban Shield 2011 held in October in California.

Why were trainers from Israel and Bahrain assisting our civil law enforcers?

At the time, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department was preparing for an imminent confrontation with the nascent “Occupy” movement that had set up camp in downtown Oakland,…

Although this "training" went on just a few weeks ago….it was not reported anywhere in U.S. media….

Training alongside the American police departments at Urban Shield was the Yamam, an Israeli Border Police unit that claims to specialize in “counter-terror” operations but is better known for its extra-judicial assassinations of Palestinian militant leaders and long record of repression and abuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Urban Shield also featured a unit from the military of Bahrain, which had just crushed a largely non-violent democratic uprising by opening fire on protest camps and arresting wounded demonstrators when they attempted to enter hospitals. While the involvement of Bahraini soldiers in the drills was a novel phenomenon, the presence of quasi-military Israeli police – whose participation in Urban Shield was not reported anywhere in US media – reflected a disturbing but all-too-common feature of the post-9/11 American security landscape.

I'm not quite sure why the U.S. would want civil law enforcement agencies to imitate the storm trooper tactics of intolerant states, but apparently, we are. Blumentahl calls this "the Israelification of America's security apparatus."

Interestingly enough, even the new torture tactics used by U.S. intelligence officials at the direction of George W. Bush after 9-11 came from Israeli influences…

Karen Greenberg, the director of Fordham School of Law’s Center on National Security and a leading expert on terror and civil liberties, said the Israeli influence on American law enforcement is so extensive it has bled into street-level police conduct. “After 9/11 we reached out to the Israelis on many fronts and one of those fronts was torture,” Greenberg told me. “The training in Iraq and Afghanistan on torture was Israeli training. There’s been a huge downside to taking our cue from the Israelis and now we’re going to spread that into the fabric of everyday American life? It’s counter-terrorism creep. And it’s exactly what you could have predicted would have happened.”

Yes, and The Reverend did predict just such counter-terrorism creep. If constitutional prohibitions on our Leaders can be discarded so easily, if constitutional guarantees to U.S. citizens can be denied so quickly and so easily after 9-11……how can this blatant sense of lawlessness NOT creep into civilian law enforcement.

And so it has.

Not sure about others, but I, for one, do not have any desire to see the U.S. turned into Israel. While Israelis have every right to live in peace in the middle east, as well as elsewhere in the world…..America has no need of Israel's guidance in acting intolerably. And America sure as hell does not need a closed society like Israel's with secretive assassination squads roaming the land in search of enemies. America has no need for occupations of our neighboring countries, America has no need for apartheid.

But it looks like our civilian law enforcers think we do.

It should be transparent to anyone who has been paying attention….but I'll say it anyway…. the United States is descending further into an authoritarian militarized country which features separate and distinct forms of justice for the haves…and the have-nots.

The haves….have unfettered and unquestioned rights. Their money is, in actuality, free speech. Their corporations pay cost-of-doing-business fines but are never held accountable and never admit to doing anything wrong….ever. Even though what the haves pay elected officials to do for them does not reflect the will of the American people, compromised elected officials do their utmost, anyway, to fulfill the wishes of the haves. The haves coax the politicians that work for them to pass more legislation which will further enrich them.

The have-nots, increasingly, are marginalized and denied their rights. Right before our eyes, the haves have convinced elected officials that a terrible economic crisis period is the right time for politicians on both sides to take stuff from the have-nots in order for the haves to benefit from even lower tax rates.

In all of this….corporate media have advanced the cause of the haves over the have-nots. This is understandable because corporate media is run by the haves, paid by other haves, for the sake of all of America's haves. In the soon-to-come, waste-of-time argument coming up over unemployment and payroll tax cut extensions….pay attention to how our 4th estate frames the "debate." No doubt, the haves will be pleased.

What media workers don't quite grasp in their urgency to please their haves-masters….is that the haves will turn on them just as they have turned on the 99% have-nots.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently helped to illustrates my premise when he ordered storm troopers to roll up the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zucotti Park.

During the more than six hours we spent at the raid last night, The Observer was unable to get closer than two blocks away from the protest. We assumed this was due to our lack of an official NYPD press badge, however, we also saw credentialed reporters from CNBC, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, NBC, The New York Times, Reuters and a Japanese TV station get blocked at the barricades.

It really would not be surprising in the future to see Have-Mayors, like Bloomberg, establish a new "embed" policy for the press….similar to the "embed" charade during the Iraq invasion and occupation. One of the ways that the haves control our democratic process, or what's left of it, is to control the information to which the have-nots have access.

And so it was that Bloomberg ordered the press away from any eyewitnessing of the Zucotti camp roll up by the Mayor's storm troopers.

Bloomberg went on to give his justification for denying the press access to his para-military invasion of the protester camp….

“The Police Department routinely keeps members of the press off to the side when they are in the middle of a police action. It’s to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect the members of the press,” Mayor Bloomberg said, adding, “We have to provide protection and we’ve done exactly that.”

Just "routine." Denying access to the press, the Authoritarian Have Mayor of New York explains, is simply standard operating procedure. Sure, the press has rights…..but the Have Mayor gets to decide when and how those rights can be exercised…and for how long.

The kicker to me is Bloomberg's explanation that in refusing press access to the storm trooper roll up, he was only acting for the purpose of "protect(ing) the members of the press." Bloomberg, apparently, acting as the Have-Daddy of New York City, must unilaterally deny the press access rights to keep the press safe.

Whatever rights you thought you enjoyed in America are now subject to our Have-Leaders determination of whether we are "safe" or not. You see, rights are fine and all….but when a situation is just "unsafe", then, Billionaire Leaders must insist on limiting or denying those rights for the greater good of "safety."

Allow me to expand. Americans electronic communications have always been guaranteed 4th amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure by the government. But no longer. Why? Because it is no longer "safe".

The right to due process? Another right granted by the Constitution which our Leaders have determined we can no longer safely respect. Sure, the Constitution says that every American citizen has the right to a trial by jury when charged with a crime…..but the President can no longer guarantee "safety" if he doesn't have the right to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without….umm….due process.

Treaties against the use of torture? Virtuous, perhaps, but no longer meaningful to Authoritarian Leaders who must deny rights to keep us all "safe."

As the great "shining city on the hill" sinks into the authoritarian sunset, it will be because safety (fear) wins out over bedrock constitutional rights. After all, if it is the job of our Authoritarian Leaders to keep us "safe"…..what pesky constitutional guarantees can be allowed to get in the way?

President Obama's biggest disappointment, at least to progressives, has been his, I guess, "rebirth", as a neo-conservative.

During Obama's campaign for the presidency, he made political hay out of George and Dick's offshore gulags, torture of detainees, unprovoked military attacks and occupations of countries posing no threat to America, eavesdropping on Americans without warrants, secrecy, and much more. Rightfully so. The Bush years were marked by an expansion of presidential powers in violation of the Constitution….and the worst part is, the Bushies got away with all of it…thus setting a precedent.

But now Obama has made the Bushie doctrine, his doctrine. Now, the lawlessness of the neo-con Bush regime has been made into a bipartisan, and probably permanent, national doctrine.

Obama has continued the neo-conservative and lawless foreign policies of his predecessors. What's more, Obama has expanded those lawless powers….with his shiny new lawlessness theory that the President has the power to order the assassination of U.S. citizens on only his say so.

Indeed, all the ususal-suspect neo-cons,….Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Dick Cheney, many others….have heaped high praise on Obama the Neo-con….especially because Obama ordered the assassination of the U.S. citizen, Awlaki. It's worthy of remark that the only policy with which neo-con renegades from the Bush administration agree with Obama is on Obama's embrace of neo-con lawlessness.

That said….and with the understanding that American neo-cons have long ago targeted Iran for takeover…..it's interesting to see the Obama administration, including Obama and Hillary Clinton, hellbent to make something huge out of the recent allegations of an assassination plot by two Iranians against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

(AG Eric) Holder called the bomb plot a flagrant violation of U.S. and international law. And Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, "We will not let other countries use our soil as their battleground."

Behold the double standard. Or is it simply a total lack of self-awareness?

Since 9-11-2001, the United States government has declared that the entire globe is a "battlefield" where U.S. military forces have the perfect right to wage war just about any way they see fit. In other words, at the same time that DOJ officials are claiming that "other countries" cannot be permitted to "use our soil as a battleground"….U.S. officials have claimed the unique right among all nations…to "use the soil" of any country as our "battlefield."

Chalk it up to "American exceptionalism"….or blindness….or whatever. The point becomes: do as we say, not as we do.

Two weeks ago, the United States assassinated one of its enemies in Yemen, on Yemeni soil. If the U.S. believes it has the right to assassinate enemies like Anwar Awlaki anywhere in the world in the name of a "war on terror" that has no geographical limitation, how can it then argue that other nations don't have a similar right to track down their enemies and kill them wherever they're found?

Other than simply chanting very loudly…U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A…..in order to drown out those objecting to such an obvious double standard….the U.S. really cannot argue convincingly that we, of all nations, are the only ones who are allowed to use the soil of foreign countries to conduct military adventures against our "enemies."

Why is it that the U.S., alone, should have the power to wage war against alleged enemies anywhere we choose to wage that war…..yet other nations shouldn't also have that power?

The L.A. Times editor finishes with a huge understatement…

The world is unlikely to accept that the United States has a right to behave as it wishes without accountability all around the globe and that other nations do not.

Ya' think?

If you really want to find out what this alleged Iranian plot to off a Saudi ambassador is about….read Glenn Greenwald's excellent take. Here's a description by folks who knew the alleged plotter which describes him as hapless….just like many of the others whom U.S. officials have coaxed into staging a plot against the U.S., and then later, announced how safe those officials had kept us by breaking up a domestic plot they, themselves, nurtured into existence.

But the ass-kicker of the day on this story goes to President Obama,…

“There’s a great similarity between how Iran operates and how North Korea operates, a willingness on their part to break international rules, to flout international norms, to not live up to their own commitments. And each time they do that, the United States will join with its partners and allies in making sure that they pay a price,” Obama said.

If the similarity between how N. Korea and Iran operate is….."a willingness…to break international rules, to flout international norms…"….then, the United States of America operates in a similar fashion to N. Korea and Iran.

What else could violating the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment(s) be called? I mean other than operating similarly to Iran or N. Korea?

How about Guantonomo? Our offshore, secret, prisons? Isn't there a "great similarity" between the U.S. and N.Korea and Iran concerning gulags?

How about the American violation of international norms prohibiting attacking a sovereign nation (Iraq) which poses no threat to the U.S? Hell, Iran doesn't even do stuff like that….only the U.S.

Obama may think he is standing strong by talking all Cheney-like over this most recent ginned-up emergency. But the rest of the world's occupants who heard Obama's words yesterday recognize the gargantuan double standard and lack of self-awareness contained in his words.

One of the ugliest features of Ameria's ridiculously named "war on terror" launched during the Bush administration was our nation's acceptance of torture. Torturing humans whom you have under your control is immoral and can never be justified by a country who claims they are an example of freedom, the rule of law and a model shining human rights-city on a hill.

But torture is not only immoral and illegal…..it doesn't produce reliable results. In fact, the primary reason to torture someone is to coerce a false confession….to force your captive to say something you WANT him to say.

I bring this up in light of the killing of Osama Bin Laden because there already are those in the neo-conservative pro-torture camp who are claiming that torture tactics, carried out 8 years ago against a couple of detainees, led to the key information American leaders needed to find Bin Laden this past Sunday night.

Bin Laden communicated with al-Qaeda operatives by using couriers. Couriers whom he trusted with his life. All other means of messaging could be, and had been, compromised. U.S. military and CIA officials were finally able to find Bin Laden's location by tracking one of these couriers.

The AP reported yesterday that….

Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden’s most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi.

Two points here. First, KLM and al-Libi offered up a nickname. That's all. We do not know whether either man actually knew the name of Bin Laden's courier. What we know is that all interrogators got from these two detainees was a nickname.

Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden. But for years, we were unable to identify his true name or his location.

Four years ago, we uncovered his identity, and for operational reasons, I can’t go into details about his name or how we identified him, but about two years ago, after months of persistent effort, we identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated.

Here we find the utter ridiculousness of the "ticking timebomb scenario", the bankruptcy of the "24" teevee show silliness. It took our intelligence community four years to find the real identity of this courier whose nickname was dropped by two detainees in 2003.

Secondly, there is NO evidence that this nickname was ever given up as a result of torture. All claims to the contrary are unsubstantiated assertions made by, apparently, advocates for a continuation of U.S torture programs.

On the contrary, the evidence we have now explains that the nickname of the courier was obtained from Khalid Sheik Mohammed under "normal interrogation approaches."

Donald Rumsfeld, yesterday….

"…It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”

In the coming days, as corporate media wears us entirely out with the story of how Bin Laden was killed, keep an ear open for the propaganda that suggests that torture worked and President Bush has been vindicated….because it has already begun.

Torture, however it is lipsticked up to hide all the hideousness, cannot be an acceptable practice in a free and just society. Torture is inhumane and immoral. Torture does not produce reliable information, only false confessions. Any attempt to argue otherwise in the past has only been an attempt to justify the crimes ordered under the Bush administration. There's a reason those CIA torture tapes were destroyed.

All attempts to justify torture tactics in the wake of Bin Laden's killing will only be attempts at retroactive ass covering by political operatives intent on salvaging the unsalvageable legacies of former American leaders.

This…is fitting…

Finally….

From Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo.

The announcement late last night…

In a rare, late-night statement from the White House Sunday at 11:35 p.m., President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in a firefight Sunday, in "a compound deep inside Pakistan."

How, When and Where….

According to Obama, the U.S. acquired the initial intelligence it needed to locate, and ultimately kill, Bin Laden last August. After working in conjunction with Pakistani intelligence forces, Obama gave the green light Friday to the operation that resulted in the deadly Sunday raid. Bin Laden was located by the CIA in a massive, fortified compound north of Islamabad, Pakistan, and killed by U.S. military forces.

Details….

No Americans were killed or injured in the raid. A woman at the site being used as a human shield died, according to a senior administration official on a conference call with reporters. Bin Laden is said to have resisted the assault force and been killed in an ensuing firefight. Intelligence officials in other countries, including Pakistan, were only informed of the raid after it had been conducted.

The United States lost a helicopter to mechanical failure and intentionally destroyed the disabled aircraft during the mission.

If this is all true, it is good news. Even though Bin Laden's death will not stop Islamic extremism, the head of the snake, as it were, has now been cut off. But I must also say…..it's been a long time coming.

Bin Laden and two U.S. presidents….

Before he was elected President, Obama vowed to capture and kill Bin Laden. Early in his Presidency, George W. Bush claimed at a press conference that he'd largely lost interest in Bin Laden's whereabouts. His administration's inability to locate Bin Laden became a major political liability until he left office.

This is as good a time as any to review what has happened since 9-11.

The events of 9-11, 2001 led the U.S. to invade Afghanistan, allegedly to pursue those people responsible for contracting, masterminding and leading the criminal acts which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3000 Americans. Taliban leadership was quickly driven out of power in the poor nation….and a new government quickly propped up under Harmid Karzai.

Before the end of December, 2001….General Tommy Franks was ordered by President George W. Bush to begin moving U.S. military assets away from Afghanistan. That marked the beginning of the Iraq war.

It is during this time that U.S.-held detainees first began to be tortured and Guantanamo first opened for business. The justification for the torture, we were told later, was to obtain new information of pending strikes by al-Qaeda against the U.S. and the West. Torture is meant to coerce false confessions. Colin Powell used information from just such a false confession as he made his phony case to invade Iraq before the U.N.

The Bush administration, after "selling" Tony Blair, the American people and Congress on attacking Iraq during the entire year of 2002, finally announced the beginnings of the U.S. invasion in March, 2003. This after openly lying to Americans in a January State of the Union address. This, after having ordered the international weapons inspectors to get out of Iraq.

Bush lost interest in Bin Laden, right or wrong, at least partly because his administration's top foreign policy goal before coming into office was Iraq. A map of Iraq's oil fields was sprawled over a desk at Bush's very first principals meeting in February, 2001. Removing Saddam was very important to the Project for the New American Century, an extreme group of neo-conservatives of which Cheney and Rumsfeld were members.

While the Bush administration dithered in Afghanistan and took their eye off of Bin Laden…..the Taliban in Afghanistan regrouped and our U.S. military is still fighting them today, 10 years later. Our longest war….ever.

I'm sure that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld had their own reasons for what they did……but whatever those might be, what I've briefly described here is what happened…now leading up to the apparent killing of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. forces Sunday night.

We should be glad that Bin Laden has finally been eliminated. He has finally been brought to justice for the many acts of violence he has planned and carried out.

But we should also recognize how it was that the greatest superpower history has ever known took 10 years to finish the job.

Updates:

More details on how Bin Laden was hunted down and finally killed here.

Let the conspiracy theories begin.

Lest we forget the words of The Decider….March, 2002….

"We haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is," Bush said during the 2002 news conference. "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run.

"I was concerned about him when he had taken over a country," Bush continued. "I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. But once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became — we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his Al Qaeda killers anymore."

More info here.

After almost 10 years of battling a stubborn grassroots insurgency financed by shadowy anonymous donors here at home, a somber U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced yesterday that the United States of America would surrender it's rule of law, effective immediately, and await further orders from the insurgency's leadership.

The announcement was not unexpected.

In November of 2009, I announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other individuals would stand trial in federal court for their roles in the terrorist attacks on our country on September the 11th of 2001.

….

Had this case proceeded in Manhattan or in an alternative venue in the United States, as I seriously explored in the past year, I am confident that our justice system would have performed with the same distinction that has been its hallmark for over two hundred years.

Unfortunately, since I made that decision, Members of Congress have intervened and imposed restrictions blocking the administration from bringing any Guantanamo detainees to trial in the United States, regardless of the venue.

…..

Members of Congress simply do not have access to the evidence and other information necessary to make prosecution judgments. Yet they have taken one of the nation’s most tested counterterrorism tools off the table and tied our hands in a way that could have serious ramifications.

Congress and American voters have been waffling on whether there is any further need for a rule of law after the 9-11 event. Critics of the centuries-old U.S. legal framework have relentlessly argued that our federal courts are no longer safe venues for trials…..with reliable guilty verdicts no longer guaranteed. These same critics have said that trials by juries post 9-11 are too high profile, too expensive and unsafe from jihadist attacks.

Furthermore, Congressional insurgents maintain that our stateside maximum security prisons…..the so-called SuperMax prisons, from which no one has ever escaped…..would be easy lock-picking, escape-hatches for our new superhuman enemy.

Even though the U.S. defeated the mighty Axis powers of WW2 without sacrificing it's rule of law…..even though our most dangerous and powerful enemy, the Soviet Empire, was successfully worn down without offshore secret torture prisons or newfangled systems of jurisprudence…..today's shoe and underwear bombing enemy, today's box-cutter-equipped jihadists, pose too much of a threat today for us to rely on some dusty, outdated rule of law.

Holder's announcement yesterday is the natural progression for a nation which has been successfully propagandized by shadowy donors and Congressional insurgents over nearly 10 years. It is most definitely a truth that if something is repeated enough times, that something is eventually believed by a majority. A majority in the U.S. now fully embrace the lie that since 9-11, "everything has changed."

I am embarassed for my country. It is neither "free" any longer, nor "brave."

And so, with Holder's capitulation to homegrown, insurgent political forces…..we proudly acknowledge that we now try international criminals in undisclosed torture centers outside the U.S., in secrecy, by military tribunals akin to those of banana republic dictatorships. Guantanamo stays open…..and America's proud fearmongers celebrate our new symbol of exceptionalism.

With yesterday's announcement to America and to the world…..the often-cited American "winning hearts and minds" slogan enters permanent retirement. Osama has won the battle of the slogans…..a win which will have repercussions for a very, very long time.

First they came for our private electronic communications. It was, indeed, illegal for them to eavesdrop without warrants…..but we allowed it. Then they came for our freedom to travel. Passports required, shoes and belts removed, crotches groped, scanners scanning. And then they gave new powers to the Commander Guy. Powers to order the assassination of U.S. citizens, powers to declare anything and everything a state secret, powers to wage war anywhere, anytime and without the approval of anyone.

Then medieval torture techniques, techniques ruled illegal and unacceptable for over 200 years, were declared useful tools to be used, with doctors standing at the ready naturally, in our new Long War.

And finally, with Attorney General Holder's announcement yesterday, our overlords have declared that the rule of law in the United States has become fully optional. As a citizen of this United States it is no longer true that you have a guarantee to not be cruelly and unusually punished. You no longer have a guaranteed right to a trial by a jury of your peers. You no longer have a right to privacy in your possessions, your papers, or your most intimate of communications.

Regardless of whether Osama Bin Laden is ever brought to justice, America has already lost the ridiculously named "war on terror." The very virtues and values once-cherished by a patriotic people have been freely given up over the last ten years in exchange for some fantastical "24" perception of security.

The insurgents of fear have won.

In December of last year I wrote about the torturing of U.S. Army private Bradley Manning. Held at that point for 7 months without a trial for allegedly stealing and leaking classified information, Manning had fallen victim to the "everything has changed since 9-11" American paradigm.

Today, Manning is still being tortured just as he has been for almost one full year……yet still no trial, no due process.

Who's responsible for this barbaric, unAmerican behavior?

Barack Obama.

Just recently, State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley responded to a question regarding Manning's treatment.

…one young man said he wanted to address "the elephant in the room". What did Crowley think, he asked, about Wikileaks? About the United States, in his words, "torturing a prisoner in a military brig"? Crowley didn’t stop to think. What’s being done to Bradley Manning by my colleagues at the Department of Defense "is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid" .

During the Q&A, Mr. Crowley stated that he felt Bradley Manning, who has been in military custody since May 2010 for his connection to WikiLeaks, is being "mistreated" while in custody.

When Mr. Crowley said that, people in the room applauded. He was later asked by a BBC reporter in the room if everything he said today was "on the record," to which he said yes

And for his candor and honesty, P.J Crowley was promptly fired forced to resign by President Obama.

CNN reports, Crowley has "abruptly resigned" under "pressure from White House officials because of controversial comments he made last week about the Bradley Manning case."

Telling the truth equals "controversial comments."

In his resignation letter, and to his credit, Crowley was blunt and reasonable….

"My recent comments regarding the conditions of the pre-trial detention of Private First Class Bradley Manning were intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discreet actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership.

"The exercise of power in today's challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values,"

Straight talk…..and yet in today's post 9-11 America….forbidden talk. America is now a place, similar to the old Soviet Union, where truth spoken openly never goes unpunished.

What did our Grand Inquisitor President have to say about all this? On Friday, President George W. Obama was asked about Manning's treatment and Crowley's evaluation of that treatment….

Obama revealed that he had asked Pentagon officials "whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of (Manning's) confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards."

In a comment that drew howls of protest from liberals, Obama added that Pentagon officials "assure me that they are. I can't go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well."

As a side note here….it's interesting to see CNN's characterization…"a comment that drew howls of protest from liberals." Were there no protests, or howling from conservative Americans? Why is that?

Obama, like Bush before him, simply regurgitated what Army leaders told him about Manning. Even though military psychologists had determined that Manning was not a suicide threat….Obama repeated the lie that Manning's mistreatment was for his own "safety."

It's a sad state of affairs, especially so after Rumsfeld, Cheney and Tenet had "assured" President Bush there were WMD in Iraq.

The objective of our Emperor here is not the torturing of Bradley Manning….that is simply a means to an end. That end is getting Julian Assange of WikiLeaks…..getting him by hook or by crook. Assange has embarassed U.S. leaders through his release of state department cables and military video. Military authorities believe…but cannot prove….that Manning conspired with Assange to blow the whistle on egregious behavior by branches of Obama's Empire.

Obama's purpose in having Bradley Manning tortured is to coerce a confession…..truthful or not….which implicates Assange with Manning's theft and distribution of previously secret information. Once that confession was extracted….it was Obama's goal to extradite Assange to the U.S. where he most likely would never be seen or heard from again.

All of this is symptomatic of presidential lawlessness. Lawlessness which was rampant following 9-11 has now settled in as our new status quo. The American president can now order torture, eavesdropping, assassination, or the indefinite detention without trial of any one…..U.S. citizen or not….without fear of any legal consequences.

As Commander in Chief, Barack Obama is a miserable failure. A man who campaigned often and loudly about the unConstitutional actions of his predecessors has, by his continuation and expansion of them, institutionalized those same unConstitutional actions.

No change…..and no hope.

Is it possible that the United States population is moving ever-so-closer to actually rejecting America?

I realize that sounds like an odd question. I mean, how could America be anti-America? Right?

Let's consider two situations/events which I believe illustrate how America could be rejecting America.

The first is the ongoing saga of Guantanomo.

The illegal, offshore gulag which became home to organized American torturing of Muslim "detainees" was the product of a few very bad people inside the Bush administration….and, of course, Bush, himself, for approving such savagery. America…the population….was kept in the dark for a good long time about Guantanomo. We don't know very much about what went on there during Bush (national security and all), or what's going on there now.

Yes, torture is anti-American…….and a crime worthy of incarceration……but it's really not the torture that went on down in Guantanomo which gives me pause about America, the population, turning against America. It's what has happened since the torturing was exposed….which worries me.

America claims it is a nation of laws, not men. Our governing Constitution clearly outlines the basic principle of due process….if one is accused of wrongdoing, one has the right to face his acccusers, present all pertinent evidence, and have a judge and jury decide guilt or innocence. This up until now understood, American principle is as American as the Corvette.

And yet….a majority of Americans have rejected due process for remaining detainees in Guantanomo. Americans, including President Obama, aren't willing to risk the outcome of a trial by judge and jury. If trying Gitmo detainees means there is the possibility that a detainee would be acquitted…..that's too big of a risk.

Apparently, many Americans no longer trust their own American system. It's just too risky.

The same can be seen in Egypt's recent turmoil. While it is absolutely true that the majority of Americans….80%….are currently on the side of the Egytian protesters in the gripping standoff we've been watching on teevee…..there is an ever-louder, and different sounding drumbeat being heard coming from the same folks who no longer trust in due process.

The entertainers working on talk radio and on Fox have been trying to scare their audiences over the new-and-improved bogeyman….The Muslim Brotherhood.

Fox contributor, Sarah Palin….

Who’s going to fill the void… in the government [of Egypt after Mubarek]. Is it going to be the Muslim Brotherhood? We should not stand for that, or with that or by that.

Neo-con, John Bolton…

"We are not on the verge of the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius in Egypt if only the demonstrators get their way".

"If the Muslim Brotherhood can bring down the government and install a radical Islam regime there, in control of the Suez Canal, one can only wonder what will happen in the oil rich kingdoms of the Arabian peninsula.

Charlatan, Newt Gingrich….

“For us to encourage in any way the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood is fundamentally wrong, and I think that what we want to do is walk a narrow line,” Gingrich continued. “We don’t want to betray somebody [Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak] who has been with us 30 years as an ally – we do recognize his time may well have gone – [but] we want to treat him with dignity, because he stood by us in very tough times.

“We want to help the Egyptian people achieve self government, but we want to isolate and minimize the risk of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said.

Just a sampling of what has been spoon fed to talk radio and Fox audiences for the last couple of weeks.

Here again, I believe the message from these conservative entertainers and charlatans, is one of American-style democracy being too risky. If the outcome of any democratic electoral process inside a new post-Mubarak Egypt includes representation from the Muslim Brotherhood….that's a risk that shouldn't be taken, we're being told by celebrity GOP entertainers.

So, the question is…..do these Americans (who have a big following) who say it's too risky to trust our American system of due process when it comes to trying Muslim detainees…and who are now questioning one-person, one-vote for Egytians if Muslim Brotherhood representation in a new Egytian parliament is the result…….. the question is….do these radio and Fox entertainers really believe or trust in the American system of governance…..at all?

Egyptian President Mubarak, under intense pressure by protesting citizens of the country he has ruled as a dictator for 30 years, appointed a new never-before Vice President of Egypt over the weekend….his name is Omar Suleiman.

The following narrative, which includes details of Suleiman's cooperation and active participation in carrying out torture at the Bush administration's request, provides a better understanding of recent American-Eqyptian relationships…..

In late November, 2001, Pakistani authorities captured Ibn Sheikh al-Libi and turned him over to U.S. officials at Bagram Air Base, in Afghanistan, for questioning. There he was questioned by two F.B.I. agents from New York who had worked on terrorism cases for years. They believed they were making great headway—getting valuable, actionable intelligence from Libi. But back in Washington, a custody battle broke out between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. over who should get to lead his interrogation. Suskind writes,

The debate went up to [F.B.I. director Robert] Mueller and [C.I.A. director George] Tenet, and Tenet—appealing directly to both Bush and Cheney—prevailed. Al-Libi was bound and blindfolded for a trip to Cairo, where he’d be handed over to Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s intelligence chief and a friend of Tenet’s.

What happened to Libi in Egypt, while in the custody of the Egyptian intelligence service, is documented in detail in a bipartisan report released in 2006 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. According to the report, Libi later told the C.I.A. that the Egyptian authorities grew dissatisfied with his level of cooperation, so they locked him in a tiny cage for eighty hours. Then they took him out, knocked him over, and punched him for fifteen minutes.

The Egyptian officials were pressing Libi, who knew Bin Laden personally, to confirm the Bush Administration’s contention that there were links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In particular, the Egyptians wanted Libi to confirm that the Iraqis were in the process of giving Al Qaeda biological and chemical weapons.

In pushing this line of inquiry, the Egyptians appear to have been acting in accordance with the wishes of the U.S., which wanted to document its case for going to war against Iraq. Under duress, Libi eventually gave in. Details from his confession went into the pivotal speech that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell gave to the United Nations in Feburary of 2003, making the case for war..

….

When the F.B.I. later asked him why he had lied, he blamed the brutality of the Egyptian intelligence service. As Michael Isikoff and David Corn first reported in their book, “Hubris,” Libi explained, “They were killing me,” and that, “I had to tell them something.”

For many years now, The Reverend has presented evidence explaining why the Bush administration began a never-before American torture campaign immediately after 9-11. The official Bush storyline was that torture was necessary to prevent another attack….despite the fact that the very purpose of torture is to extract phony confessions.

al-Libi's quote confirms that purpose.

al-Libi was delivered to the control of Egypt's now new Vice President, and George Tenet's friend, Omar Suleiman. Suleiman….

…..was the C.I.A.’s point man in Egypt for renditions—the covert program in which the C.I.A. snatched terror suspects from around the world and returned them to Egypt and elsewhere for interrogation, often under brutal circumstances.

Bush and Cheney needed a cover for their plan to remove Saddam's regime in Iraq. They were mindful that attacking and occupying Iraq would be a hardsell with Americans….barring some new "Pearl Harbor" event. With 9-11 as the new "Pearl Harbor" backdrop, the Bush administration ordered the extraordinary rendition of al-Libi to Egypt for the purpose of being tortured under the supervision of then-Egyptian intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman.

al-Libi was tortured in Egypt….and as the Bushies expected….he gave them a false confession connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda. The "respected" Colin Powell then used this false confession to put on a theatrical performance of imminent danger before the U.N.

The rest is bloody history.

Now, Suleiman is being touted as a possible successor to president Mubarak.