← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Zoroaster
Thread ID: 5142 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-02-21
2003-02-21 16:02 | User Profile
[url=http://reese-king.online.com/Reese_20030221.index.php]http://reese-king.online.com/Reese_20030221.index.php[/url]
For Friday, February 21, 2003
Is Being Anti-War Being Unpatriotic?
Some advocates of war with Iraq have questioned the patriotism of some Americans who oppose the war. This is a valid issue that people ought to think about. What is "patriotism"? What is "unpatriotic"?
My definition of patriotism is someone who loves the land and the people who live there. It does not include loving the government. Government, at least in the eyes of the Founding Fathers of this country, is merely a tool for achieving a higher end ââ¬â to wit, the protection of the rights of the people. It was not just Thomas Jefferson who warned against the dangers of government. George Washington, in the opposite political party, the Federalists, warned that government was like fire ââ¬â a useful servant but a fearful master.
So, obviously, one might love the country but disagree with the government, since the country and the government are not the same. Under what circumstances is it unpatriotic to disagree with the government? The Constitution defines treason, the ultimate unpatriotic act, this way: "Treason against the United States shall consist only of 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."
(Note, by the way, that the Constitution always speaks of the United States in the plural, just as my Confederate ancestors believed them to be, but that is a subject for another column.)
No one opposing a war against Iraq is levying war against the United States. "To adhere" means to give support and allegiance. No one that I know of is supporting or pledging allegiance to the government of Iraq. Furthermore, since there is no declaration of war by Congress, there is legally no enemy. That, by the way, was how people who gave aid and comfort to the North Vietnamese escaped prosecution during the Vietnam War, which, in the legal sense, was not a war.
During the past 100 years, the United States was attacked only twice: once by Japan and, on Sept. 11, 2001, by al-Qaida. After the attack by Japan and the subsequent declaration of war against us by Germany, it would have been unpatriotic to argue against the United States defending itself. It is, in my opinion, unpatriotic to argue against pursuing and destroying al-Qaida, since we have been attacked by it and the leader of that organization has declared war on us.
President Bush erred, however, by focusing his ire far beyond al-Qaida. There is no link between al-Qaida and Iraq. The terrorist who Mr. Bush claims is connected to al-Qaida has his camp in Northern Iraq, which is controlled by Kurds and the United States, not by the Iraqi government. When Mr. Bush declared his intention to war against any country "harboring" terrorists, he opened a can of worms. He opened another can when he expanded his war against terrorism to groups that have not attacked the United States.
Al-Qaida is a clandestine organization of separate cells, each containing a few individuals. Are we harboring terrorists? There certainly were and probably still are al-Qaida people living in our country, as well as in Western Europe. Unless a government openly supports al-Qaida, as the Taliban did in Afghanistan, I don't think you can say it is harboring terrorists just because some members live there or pass through. Al-Qaida is not openly operating in any country in the world today.
It is no more unpatriotic to disagree with the government's foreign policy than it is to disagree with its domestic policy. Policy disagreements are an essential feature of a free country. We don't say someone is unpatriotic if he or she doesn't like the way the government operates Medicare; we should not say that about people who disagree with the government's foreign policy.
2003-02-21 16:20 | User Profile
According to talk-show pig Gallager, who appeared on Donohue last night, Americans that oppose the Iraq war are traitors. The charge is being heard more and more from the one-eyed Jew.
The Bush creature and his Zionist masters have already set the table for a dictatorship with Homeland Security and the Patriot Act. Patroit Act II is on the way, and if the Iraqi war goes bady and demonstators clog the streets, look for mass arrests, together with a string of government camps opening across the country, similar to Solzhenitsyn's gulags.
-Z-
2003-02-21 17:40 | User Profile
This tactic is such an incredibly perverted twist on things!
The round-up seems to started with the arrest of Ernst Zundel on non-existent charges as well as that of the Palestinian professor yesterday in Florida as well as several others.
[url=http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/022003_ns_terrorarrest.html]Chicago-area man arrested in Florida-based terrorism case[/url]
[url=http://www.sunspot.net/news/custom/attack/bal-arrests0220,0,1359154.story?coll=bal-home-headlines] 8 charged with aiding terrorist group [/url]
MUSLIMS QUESTION TIMING, INTENT BEHIND ARREST OF MUSLIM PROFESSOR
(Washington, DC - 2/20/2003) In a statement released today, the Muslim American Society (MAS) said that this morning's arrest of a Florida Muslim professor spoke more to the government's targeting of Muslim leaders and civil liberties than the fight against terrorism.
The professor, Dr. Sami Al-Arian of Tampa, Florida, a prominent community leader and outspoken defender of civil liberties, has long been a target of pro-Israel advocates because of his views in support of Palestinian rights. As a founding member of the Washington, DC-based National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, Dr. Al-Arian campaigned against the use of "secret evidence," the government practice of keeping evidence secret from the accused and their attorneys.
The MAS statement read:
"The arrest of Prof. Sami Al-Arian today conforms to a pattern of political intimidation by an Attorney General who seems to be targeting the American Muslim community's leaders and institutions in a drive to erode Americans' civil liberties.
The Department of Justice has the discretion of whom it prosecutes and when. After ten years of investigating Dr. Al-Arian because of his political views and failing to come up with any evidence of a crime, we must ask why the department chose today to accuse him of wrongdoing.
Both the timing of the arrest and government officials' statements at today's press conference seem to indicate that today's action was based not on legitimate law enforcement considerations, but was rather an attempt to stimulate public fear of 'terrorists among us' and support for the Justice Department's ominous proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003.
As an outspoken defender of American constitutional freedoms and civil liberties, Dr. Al-Arian would seem to be the perfect target of arrest for an administration bent on dismantling those liberties....
[url=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-News/message/8903]Muslim American Society[/url]