Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“Voice or no voice, the folks can all the time be delivered to the bidding of the leaders. All it’s a must to do is inform them they’re being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the nation to hazard. It works the same in any country.”
– Hermann Goering, German navy commander and Hitler’s designated successor
For individuals who keep in mind the times and months that adopted 9/11, there may be an unnerving feeling of déjà vu in regards to the Hamas assaults on Israel.
The identical surprising photos of carnage and grief dominating the information. The identical disbelief that anybody could possibly be so hateful, so monstrous, so evil as to do that to a different human being. The identical outpourings of help and unity from all over the world. The identical shared concern that this might simply have occurred to us or our family members.
Now as soon as once more the drums of struggle are sounding on the world stage, not that they ever actually stopped. Israel is making ready to invade Gaza, the Palestinians are nearing a humanitarian disaster, and the remainder of the world is bracing for no matter blowback comes subsequent.
Right here in america, as we method the twenty second anniversary of the USA Patriot Act on October 26, we’re nonetheless grappling with the blowback that arises from permitting one’s freedoms to be eviscerated in alternate for the phantom promise of safety.
Listed here are a couple of classes that we by no means discovered or discovered too late.
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Mammoth laws that expands the federal government’s powers on the citizenry’s expense is not going to make anybody safer. Rushed by means of Congress a mere 45 days after the 9/11 assaults, the USA Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, undermined civil liberties, expanded the federal government’s powers and opened the door to far-reaching surveillance by the federal government on Americans.
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Pre-emptive strikes will solely result in additional blowback. Not content material to wage struggle in opposition to Afghanistan, which served as the bottom for Osama bin Laden, the U.S. launched into a pre-emptive war against Iraq to be able to “cease any adversary difficult America’s navy superiority and undertake a strike-first coverage in opposition to terrorist threats ‘earlier than they’re totally fashioned.’” We’re nonetheless struggling the consequences of this failed policy, which resulted in lives misplaced, taxpayer {dollars} wasted, the fomenting of hatred in opposition to the U.S. and the additional radicalization of terrorist cells.
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Battle is dear. There are a lot of causes to go to struggle, however those that have advocated that the U.S. stay at struggle, yr after yr, are the very entities which have profited most from these infinite navy occupations and workouts. To date, the U.S. taxpayer has been made to shell out greater than $8 trillion to wage wars abroad, together with the lifetime price of health care for disabled veterans and interest on the national debt. That additionally doesn’t embrace the greater than a whole lot of 1000’s of civilians killed, or the thousands and thousands displaced from their properties because of infinite drone strikes and violence.
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The techniques and weapons of struggle, as soon as deployed overseas, will ultimately be used in opposition to the citizenry at dwelling. The horrors that befell at Abu Ghraib, the American-run jail in Iraq, concerned “US navy personnel humiliating, hurting and abusing Iraqi prisoners in a myriad of perverse methods. While American servicemen and women smiled and gave thumbs up, naked men were threatened by dogs, or were hooded, forced into sexual positions, placed standing with wires attached to their bodies, or left bleeding on prison floors.” Including to the descent into ethical depravity, america authorities legalized the usage of torture, together with waterboarding, in violation of worldwide legislation and within the so-called pursuit of nationwide safety. The ramifications have been far-reaching, with home police mirroring a battlefield mindset of their encounters with Americans, together with the usage of torture techniques at secret places similar to Homan Square in Chicago.
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Permitting the federal government to spy on the citizenry is not going to scale back acts of terrorism, however it should lead to a watched, submissive, surveillance society. Not solely did the USA Patriot Act normalize the federal government’s mass surveillance powers, however it additionally dramatically expanded the federal government’s authority to spy by itself residents with out a lot of any oversight. Thus, a byproduct of this submit 9/11-age by which we reside, whether or not you’re strolling by means of a retailer, driving your automobile, checking e-mail, or speaking to family and friends on the cellphone, you possibly can make certain that some authorities company is listening in and monitoring your conduct. This doesn’t even start to the touch on the company trackers that monitor your purchases, net shopping, Fb posts and different actions going down within the cyber sphere. We’ve all turn out to be information collected in authorities information.
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Information cycle distractions are calibrated to make sure that you lose sight of what the federal government is doing. The typical American has a tough time maintaining with and remembering the entire “occasions,” manufactured or in any other case, which happen like clockwork and preserve us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from the truth of the American police state. Whether or not these occasions are vital or unimportant, after we’re being bombarded with wall-to-wall information protection and information cycles that change each few days, it’s troublesome to remain centered on one factor—specifically, holding the federal government accountable to abiding by the rule of legislation—and the powers-that-be perceive this. On this approach, often scheduled trivia and/or distractions that preserve the citizenry tuned into the assorted breaking information headlines and leisure spectacles additionally preserve them tuned out to the federal government’s regular encroachments on their freedoms.
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For those who cease holding the federal government accountable to the rule of legislation, the one legal guidelines it abides by would be the ones used to clamp down on the citizenry. Having failed to carry authorities officers accountable to abiding by the rule of legislation, the American folks have discovered themselves saddled with a government that skirts, flouts and violates the Constitution with little consequence. Overcriminalization, asset forfeiture schemes, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, warrantless surveillance, SWAT staff raids, indefinite detentions, covert businesses, and secret courts are just some of the egregious practices carried out by a authorities that operates past the attain of the legislation.
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Don’t flip your nation right into a battlefield, your residents into enemy combatants, and your legislation enforcement officers into extensions of the navy. A standing military—one thing that propelled the early colonists into revolution—strips the citizenry of any vestige of freedom. How can there be any semblance of freedom when there are tanks within the streets, navy encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones patrolling overhead? It was for that reason that those that established America vested management of the navy in a civilian authorities, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They didn’t need a navy authorities, dominated by power. Reasonably, they opted for a republic sure by the rule of legislation: the U.S. Structure. Sadly, we in America now discover ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom within the face of police and legislation enforcement businesses that look and act just like the navy and have simply as little regard for the Fourth Modification, legal guidelines such because the NDAA that enable the navy to arrest and indefinitely detain Americans, and navy drills that acclimate the American folks to the sight of armored tanks within the streets, navy encampments in cities, and fight plane patrolling overhead.
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So long as you stay fearful and distrustful of one another, you may be incapable of standing united in opposition to any threats posed by a power-hungry authorities. Early on, U.S. officers solved the issue of find out how to implement their authoritarian insurance policies with out incurring a citizen rebellion: concern. The powers-that-be need us to really feel threatened by forces past our management (terrorists, shooters, bombers). They need us afraid and depending on the federal government and its militarized armies for our security and well-being. Most of all, they need us distrustful of one another, divided by our prejudices, and at one another’s throats.
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When you commerce your freedom for safety, the terrorists win. We’ve walked a wierd and harrowing highway since September 11, 2001, suffering from the particles of our once-vaunted liberties. We’ve gone from a nation that took nice satisfaction in being a mannequin of a consultant democracy to being a mannequin of find out how to persuade a freedom-loving folks to march in lockstep with a police state. And in so doing, we have now confirmed Osama Bin Laden proper. He warned that “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. authorities will lead the American folks in — and the West basically — into an insufferable hell and a choking life.”
It took a very long time to clear away the rubble from the 9/11 assaults.
But as I clarify in my e book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, 22 years after the USA Patriot Act was unleashed on a weak nation, we’re nonetheless reeling from the destruction it has wrought on our freedoms.
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