Evil, Or Just Daft In The Head?

It's difficult to be sure - are the Republican powerful just suffering from paranoia and meglomaniac delusions or are they camly and coldly working towards a police state? Is it insanity or is it evil intent?

Capitol Hill Blue reports:

Spurred by paranoia and aided by the USA Patriot Act, the Bush Administration has compiled dossiers on more than 10,000 Americans it considers political enemies and uses those files to wage war on those who disagree with its policies.

Yet another Intelligence Agency - the Open Source Center will take over from the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service and will be under the control of the new spy czar, John "death squad" Negroponte. The new U.S. intelligence agency will gather and analyze information from the Internet, broadcasts, newspapers and other unclassified sources around the world.

And now a Republican mouthpiece, Senator Lindsey Graham, has proposed and the Senate voted 49 to 42 in favor of, a measure which means that "enemy combatants" have no rights to challenge their incarceration - without trial or time limit if wished by the administration. Let us remember how easy it is to become an "enemy combatant". There are no hard and fast definitions in law, simply the wish of the administration to designate you as such. All that need happen is some powerful person denounce you and, American citizen or not, you disappear - perhaps to a secret location abroad to be tortured - and now cannot appeal that imprisonment whatsoever.

Many feel an upcoming Democrat amendment, with support from Republican rebels such as Specter, will strip this provision from the relevant legislation. If so, however, it will still be significant that the Republican majority wanted this legislation.

Is all this, Darth Cheney's insistence that the CIA should be exempt from anti-torture legislation and the administration's finding of loopholes in existing anti-torture rules for the military due to a calculated drive for a police state or to confused and paranoid mental instability?

I incline towards the latter opinion. History teaches us that, while power corrupts, giving the already corrupt great power has always led to insanity.



Muhammad Ali may be suffering from Parkinson's Disease, but he can still spot a loony when he sees one.


Update The Heretik has a compilation of required reading, all set in his own inimitable style.