We are turning into our enemies

I think Pogo was right. As far as I can tell, we are actually turning into our enemies - even those enemies we had thought vanquished long ago. Really.

I first noticed this during the Bush administration. Attacked by religious fanatics, we should have emphasized our proud heritage as a secular nation with a strict separation between church and state. It was impossible for us to be at war with Islam because our Constitution guarantees complete freedom of religion and mandates that America remain neutral in religious issues. As the Treaty of Tripoli confirmed, America was not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion. On the contrary, we are a secular nation of people with all manner of religious beliefs - and non-belief, too. We should have fought religious fanaticism with traditional American principles.

But it turned out that our own government was actually controlled by religious fanatics (or by cynical politicians willing to use the religion card). It might have been ignorance when they used the word "crusade" (incompetence is always a very believable excuse for the GOP), but the deliberate pairing of Christianity and patriotism was no accident. After 9/11, George W. Bush seemed to think that he was president of the Christian States of America, not the United States of America. Before my eyes, we were turning into our enemies.

Then we started torturing prisoners of war. Hey, I grew up on World War II movies, so I was outraged. The Gestapo tortured prisoners, not us. The Kempeitai tortured prisoners; we did not. We had our American standards. Torture was beneath us. It was a coward's game, not ours. How could this happen? Why didn't all of America erupt in protest? After all, for at least a hundred years, we'd considered water-boarding to be a war crime.

Not anymore. We'd become our enemies. After all the sacrifices of World War II, the hundreds of thousands of our soldiers bravely dying to defend our way of life, we ended up surrendering after all - surrendering to the Nazis and to Imperial Japan in the first decade of the 21st Century. We abandoned our way of life and became just like them. We became timid little cowards, willing to give up everything America stands for, just because some demagogue told us it would help keep us safe (and not even from a terrible foe, but only from a ragtag band of petty terrorists, too weak to pose any real threat to our country).

That's not all. We were even willing to abandon the rule of law. No habeas corpus, no trials, no charges even, just the whim of our government was enough now. All because we'd become such timid little cowards. And although we'd always been proud of civilian rule in America - no caudillos for us - now we had a chickenhawk of a president prancing around in a flight suit. Everywhere, we kept hearing that he was the "Commander-in-Chief" - as if that was more important than being President.

Again, we'd become our enemies. How many authoritarian leaders - all dressed up in military garb - have we faced with our civilian presidents? America was founded with the military specifically subordinate to civilian powers. Commander-in-chief is only one of the president's duties, and besides, he is not the commander-in-chief of civilians. This militaristic posturing (by a president who used family connections to stay well away from danger when he actually could have served his country in wartime) is just not American.

And again, this change wasn't even during a period of real danger. It was nothing like World War II, which we met bravely and honestly. No, this was a handful of petty criminals who scared us enough that we were willing to invade an innocent country and kill tens of thousands of people for no real reason at all. We were that easily scared by loony right-wing ideologues. It was shameful!

But if John McCain has his way, it will get even worse. Take a look at S.3081, the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010:

Requires an individual who is suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism and who may be an unprivileged enemy belligerent to be placed in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status. ... Authorizes the President to establish an interagency team composed of executive branch personnel with expertise in national security, terrorism, intelligence, interrogation, or law enforcement to interrogate an individual placed in military custody and to determine if such individual is an unprivileged enemy belligerent. ... Directs the high-value detainee interrogation group to conduct interrogations of such individuals... Prohibits the use of Department of Justice (DOJ) appropriated funds to prosecute an unprivileged enemy belligerent in an Article III court. Allows the detention of an unprivileged enemy belligerent without criminal charges or trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged or which the individual has purposely and materially supported. [My emphasis, throughout.]

That's just the summary. This bill would let the military arrest anyone - U.S. citizen or not - who is even suspected of terrorist associations and keep them indefinitely, without a trial. No habeas corpus. No Miranda rights (which are specifically waived in this bill). And who decides if you are one of these "unprivileged enemy belligerents"? The president's appointees (if they disagree, then just the president himself). Yup, McCain is trying to give away all of your rights as an American citizen.

Welcome to the Soviet Union! If this bill passes, don't upset the government, whatever you do, because then you could just disappear into some gulag... forever. After all, you can be held "for the duration of hostilities," and this is the so-called "War on Terror." There is no enemy government to surrender to us, so there's no way for the war to ever end, as long as our own government says that hostilities are still ongoing. And really,... terrorism? I doubt if there's ever been a time in the history of our species where we haven't had some terrorism. Think of it: a never-ending war authorizing never-ending emergency powers. Authoritarians must be peeing themselves in delight.

The Republicans have already turned us into the Taliban, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Libya, and assorted South American dictatorships. Now John McCain wants to turn us into the Soviet Union. Or perhaps North Korea. Yes, we seem to be turning into our enemies. But are we really cowardly enough to let him? Have we actually become the kind of timid little people who will give up the rule of law in the face of... what, some guy who tries to light his underwear on fire? Some incompetent who can't get a car bomb to explode?

Maybe there's something in our water turning us not just dumb, but cowardly, too. Jebus, I'd hate to think of how we'd react if we had a real threat to face! Oh, yeah, come to think of it, there's global warming, isn't there? That's about as serious a threat as they get. And apparently, we want to deal with that by... sticking our heads in the sand. I guess we just don't have the guts to face anything at all. How pathetic. As an American, I'm horribly embarrassed. Aren't you?

***

OK, I did discover one right we can't take away from anyone, even terrorists: the right to buy guns. According to the Government Accountability Office, "Membership in a terrorist organization does not prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives under current federal law."

Why not? Well, you can thank the gun nuts for that. These right-wing lunatics are apparently fine with "disappearing" people into military prisons on mere suspicion, denying them a fair trial, keeping them indefinitely on the government's whim. But even for a terrorist, taking away their guns is just going too far!

What a country, huh? I think they're trying to turn us into Freedonia with this one.