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December 14, 2005
Who Writes This Stuff ?
Unsurprisingly, our mistreatment of human beings is reflected more and more in our domestic policies. Of course, foreigners get killed and tortured while, as of yet, the sanctions at home generally much lighter. Still, you can see the same "mindset creep" displayed in the euphemisms.
Here's this gem from the recent revelations about spying on the anti-war activists (especially those targeting military recruiting):
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has a secret database that indicates the U.S. military may be collecting information on Americans who oppose the Iraq war and may be also monitoring peace demonstrations, NBC reported on Tuesday. ... T he Pentagon has already acknowledged the existence of a counterintelligence program known as the "Threat and Local Observation Notice" (TALON) reporting system.This system, the Pentagon said, is designed to gather "non-validated threat information and security anomalies indicative of possible terrorist pre-attack activity."
Security anomolies indicative of a possible terrorist pre-attack activity? Can we assume those will not be averted with pre-dawn vertical insertions? Not too much collateral damage, one hopes. And what on earth is "non-validated threat information"? Stuff that hasn't happened yet? Stuff we don't like?
Posted by zeynep at December 14, 2005 07:07 PM
Comments
Of course this has happened before, multiple times, and every time when it comes out they scrape their toe in the dirt and promise never, ever to do it again--in fact, look, we already stopped, give us money!--and then back it comes like the swallows at Capistrano.
It's occurred to me in this connection that liberalism, US-style, is the political equivalent of those hymen replacement operations unscrupulous surgeons used to perform on women whose prospective husbands wanted a Certified Virgin. Liberals Lose Their Innocence about capitalism and the government every few years, but their hymens grow back miraculously so they can be deflowered all over again the next time.
Posted by: rootlesscosmo at December 15, 2005 12:52 AM