Summary: Why is the White House so obsessed with spying on Americans, when the real reason the 9/11 attackers succeeded in slipping through our borders were:
1. Poor communication between different government agencies?
2. The administration consistently ignored warnings by top security advisors of the threat Osama posed
3. The administration wanted to go to war in Iraq, part neo-con fantasy and part oil grab.
Spying is the least of our worries. The present illegal and unconstitutional spying game has yet to produce any tangible results. The US has failed to foil any real terrorist attacks, while the administration relentlessly tells bald-faced lies about their efficacy.
"In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law [Patriot Act] for a single moment," Mr. Bush said forcefully. Yet with the current spy imbroglio, the Administration has once again shown its patent disregard for the law in its search to fulfill its paranoid fantasies. Alberto Gonzales, the infamous torture apologist and current attorney General, claims that the spying and prying provisions of the USA Patriot Act include safeguards -- but what good are they if the Administration feels it is their perogative to ignore the legal process -- which is already a rubber stamp secret court that does nothing but provide a paper trail.
In the meantime, what have we done to secure our ports? Secure our public transit systems? Secure freight train lines (like the 2nd Ave. elevated track that routinely transports chemicals less than a mile from the US Capital building), protect us from chemical attacks, provide adequate support for rapid responders (anyone remember the Katrina fiasco)?
Why is it SO important to be able to spy if there is no concrete action taken to protect us from threats? Of course, the biggest step to protect our country would be to sever ties with repressive terrorist regimes like Saudi Arabia, and to dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil from unfriendly nations -- whatever we can't get from Canada or Mexico, we should do without.
Says Bush about the illegal domestic spying program: "our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies and endangers our country." Right. Because they didn't know we were trying to listen in before.
In the meantime, our borders are run by incompetents. My fiancee was held at the border for 2 hours because they thought she was illegally living in America. She produced her lease, a bank statement with her name on it, her address in Vancouver, her Canadian passport. The border guards called me to confirm that she didn't live with me. In the meantime, these people are totally untrained when it comes to anything important. And they are not provided with effective watch lists -- the single most powerful tool that can prevent terrorists from illegally entering the US. The 9/11 commission has been hammering this point home. But Bush wants to spy rather then implement an effective policy to stop terrorism. Spying is more fun, because you might catch Marion Barry smoking crack again, or crackpot left wingers like me will be easier to harass at the next WTO rally.
To summarize again even more succinctly, our country is being run into the ground by the useless pet projects of elected officials, while the barn doors are wide open.
We are living in an America where there's a debate about torture, we operate secret prisons, we abuse and occasionally murder inmates, we hold people in jail without trial, we murder innocents in our above-board legal system, an administration that is "pro life" unless you're on death row (and who cares if you're guilty or not), we have prisoners who don't know what they are accused of, where rampant corruption means doling out government contracts to friends of Bush while the Republicans gut Medicaid and Medicare, while they strangle those programs they offer a prescription drug benefit plan where the price can't be negotiated. This isn't laissez-faire capitalism, it's donnez-moi.
We are living in a dysfunctional America where the Executive branch is incompetent for the task of governing and where the legislative branch is completely in the thrall of lobbyist handouts, soaking in the fat of junkets and pork. Our democracy is in a state of utter shambles. And we have the CHTUZPAH to try to export democracy. It's pathetic. It's absurd. We are the laughing stock of the world. A bunch of fat, ignorant fools who don't believe in evolution, who shoot first and ask questions last... We are ungovernable --
Despite spending more per capita than any other nation on health care, we have a life expectancy that is shorter than Costa Rica's. Our government is unable to solve any problem except how to cram more pork into the budget for bridges to nowhere and future combat weapons -- when our military, were it the case that there were any more conventional wars to be fought (which there are not) -- can squash any country like a grape.
The administration buries its head whenever it is confronted by truth, they don't believe in evolution, they don't believe in global warming, all they believe in is greed and profit, stealing from tax-payers for their personal enrichment. And yet no one has seriously tried to impeach the biggest crooks ever to sit in the White House. These guys make Nixon seem like Mr. fucking Rogers. We are fucked and I am angry about it.
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