The argument is that never before have we fought an enemy of this nature, which thus calls for such "dark" tactics. Of course, the British rightly thought the same of us when we fought the "Revolutionary" War, despicably hiding behind trees, etc. Long gone are the days of lining up in columns, marching to the beat of drums and announcing the charge with bugles.

We must remember that every side has always provided its own moral reasoning, and attributed immorality to the enemy, to justify assorted tactics and "revolutionary" or suppressive causes. Thus is the nature of the beast, and of all claims to good and evil. It is divide and conquer at its most basic, and as long as there are profits and power to be gained, it will continue.

Living in peace and harmony is too egalitarian for would-be man kings, whose only greatness can be achieved through the exploitation, repression, suppression, oppression or outright elimination of other human beings... the conquest of some good over some evil. Period.

Let us stop pussyfooting around. Whatever pretentions the United States has had in the past to being, in principle, a nation of law has been shredded into waste paper by the Bush Administration.

The mildest form of descriptor for our present government is that it is a tyranny. A militarized national security state seems a clearer description. Dark side, my ass.

It's funny how the Soviets were lambasted for going to the Dark Side by the likes of Cheney, when the threats and challenges the Soviets faced in their history and at that time, including some 20 million citizens and 12 million soldiers killed in WWII, and being surrounded by US thermonuclear missiles targeting them, and being opposed by a coalition of virtually all the rich, advanced Western nations, dwarfed threats from the "terrorists" like a mountain dwarfs an anthill.

The executive order authorizing the CIA to detain and question any non-US citizen who the director believes to be "to be a member or part of or supporting Al Qaeda, the Taliban or associated organizations; and likely to be in possession of information that could assist in detecting, mitigating or preventing terrorist attacks [or] in locating the senior leadership of Al Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces" puts all of us, as Americans, in danger. When our government refuses to acknowledge international law, we lose the moral authority to demand that our own citizens be treated with respect and according to international law.

Few Americans seem to realize that 'exceptions' like this can apply to them, too. Most people believe that the CIA will only detain and question Others -- brown people, Muslims, terrorists, bad people. But orders like these can be used to detain and question ANYONE -- EVEN YOU! All it takes is one misstep, one action against the government that the Bush Administration doesn't like, and you, too, will be renditioned. You will be labeled an enemy combatant, and because of the Military Commissions Act, you will have no legal recourse that cannot be controlled by the government.

Still not as scary at what's happening here in our happy "homeland." Between the continuing illegal NSA spy program, the "other secret intelligence activities" soon-to-perp-walk Gonzo revealed the other day, the more than 10,000 "wrongfully issued" FBI National Security Letters (which include an elimination of the First Amendment,) the inhumane "war on drugs" that's filling our for-profit prisons with joint smokers doing 5 years min, "eco-terrorists" still listed as Terrorist Threat Number One by the FBI, two secret No Fly Lists, the ever expanding anti "Patriot Act" and Military Commissions Act, the recent executive order that allows for the freezing of assets of anyone who "undermines" the Loonitary Executive Asylum, and on and on and on... and that's just the sh*t we (sort of) know about.

Meanwhile, as usual, what happens at the CIA stays at the CIA...

I hate to beat a dead horse, but soon that's all that will be left of this society. How much more evidence do we need to see that we have become mere subjects? Long gone are the days of rule of law, and government of the people for em or by em. This is tyranny plain and simple. It will get much worse soon.

Unless you like the thought of being slaves to an oppressive regime of murdering thieves, stop giving them your money. See the period?

American foreign policy people have always fancied themselves as the Marshall Dillon of the world -- good guys who use violence better than bad guys and only against bad guys. In one of the early Micky Spillane Mike Hammer novels (I wish I had the exact quote) the hysterical private eye goes on a rant about being "the evil that goes against other evil so the good can live in peace" or something like that.

Americans, particularly their leadership, believe that they (or is that "we"; I guess I am one) are by definition the Good Guys, so that anything we do to anybody is justified because if we're doing it, They must be Bad Guys.

Remember the cowboy hero rhetoric President Junior used right after the 9-11 attach about how we were going to "smoke 'em out" and "head 'em off at the pass" and all that gunslinger good guy braggodoccio? They and a large percentage of the American people truly believe that.

Cheney doesn't have the balls to go into the dark side so how is he going to have credibility talking about it. This guy is playing war just like I used to do when I was a child. But after I went to war I learned not to play war. If you want Cheney to stop playing soldier then make him go to war.
Hoa binh

cosmobilly,

Actually, it was the British who behaved most atrociously, in particular towards the Americans they captured, keeping them under the most terrible conditions. More Americans died in British captivity than in battle.

But it was Britain who was the empire then and empire is a synonym for arrogance.

Other than that, though, I remember being puzzled by the statements that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ahcroft, Bush and others came with so soon upon the heels of Terrible Tuesday -- that and how quickly the meme for "homeland security" appeared so suddenly, fully developed flapping dark, leathery wings.

Today's artice on Sami al Haji's imprisonment reinforces our dark side. If only the worst of the worst have been held at Gitmo how come so many prisoners have been released after many years and are now free in their home country. Some, such as in Afghanistan, have even been compensated by the government for the illegal imprisonment, including kids and a 97 year old men picked off the street. Apparently their capturers were paid by us for arresting "terrorists" and picked up anybody just for the money. It is a system we created and it cannot win in the long run.
Thousands of Taliban soldiers were murdered by suffocating them in shipping containers - in the presence of American soldiers. Yes, we also have a very dark side.
Perhaps when the American press shows pictures of women and children torn to shreds by our missiles - pictures one can readily find in the European press, prehaps then we will wake up to what we are doing. It is a fact that we have killed many more civilians (just think of the many wedding parties we have blown to bitsin Afghaniustan and Iraq) then one comes to realize that what we are doing is not much different from suicide bombers killing innocent civilians - except in our case the killer gets away without a scratch.
Yet everything is done in the name of "fredom". I assume the millions of Vietnamse we killed (mostly civilians) by carpet bombing, gassing with agent orange, bombarding from offshore vessels etc. all got their freedom - from life.
There is a reason why we have so many enemies and are considered evil by so many, but few of us seem to search for the reasons why this is so. Unfortunately, in our society the money is in war, not peace and we can spend billions on more deadly ordnace. Perhaps Canada or the EU can teach us proper manners and how to be at peace with the world. One way or another, we must change our ways!

"Now this is the basis for judgement, that the light has come into the world but men have loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were wicked. For he who practices file things hates the light and does not come to the light, in order that his works may not be reproved. But he who does what is true comes to the light, in order that his works may be made manifest as having been worked in harmony with God," Jesus the Nazarene.

Cheney lives in darkness and darkness lives in him.

The thing about this bush Empire is that it is only held together with smoke, mirrors, and a congress full of enablers. It's obvious that Pelosi and the DNC, plan on translating the pent-up frustration into a landslide for the 2008 election, but I think this is going to back fire on them big time.

Two years ago British playright Harold Pinter in his Nobel prize for literture lecture said the following:

"I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents (or the Pelosi) on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant."

Words as regrettably true today as they were two years ago when first spoken.

The thing about this bush Empire is that it is only held together with smoke, mirrors, and a congress full of enablers. It's obvious that Pelosi and the DNC, plan on translating the pent-up frustration into a landslide for the 2008 election...

American soldiers are still getting maimed and are dying. Thousands of Iraqis are being killed, millions are without even the basic services like electricity or sanitation. This great nation sinks to even newer lows as a matter of executive orders.

How in the hell can anybody wait until the 2008 election? What is important here....stopping this madness or perhaps having an edge in the next election? (Assuming there will be an election).

I just want my country back!

"Red alert: Our national security is being outsourced. The most intriguing secrets of the 'war on terror' have nothing to do with al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. They're about the mammoth private spying industry that all but runs U.S. intelligence operations today... the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show." Those are the opening lines to a recent article in the Washington Post by R.J Hillhouse

However rare it may be, I am glad to see another published reference to our CIA's kidnapping and extortive detention of Khalid Sheik Mohammed's two little 7 and 9 year old boys. (Please GOOGLE "CIA holds two Pakistani boys" for instant access to the 2003 London newspaper account.) The US media have failed and refused to investigate or even comment on this outrageous action by current federal officials which is -- if true as reported more than three years ago -- a capital crime under the federal Lindberg Kidnapping Act. Are we really a nation willing to hold little children hostage for the sins of their parents?

What was it that our Decoration of Independance said about tyrants?
What is the latest executive order from the Dark Side? Something about an ecconomic death sentence for anyone having reactionary thoughts about the 'rebuilding' (looting) of Iraq - and the same for anyone that might think of helping their fellow man. So be it. Since it's a death sentence to call the doctor, police or firemen to help your neighbor lest they be on the secret list perhaps it's permited to send a post card to the Great Decider - something like "the orphanage is afire, come at once." If at first we don't secede...

Are we really a nation willing to hold little children hostage for the sins of their parents?

There is no WE, it is all THEY. bushco (lack of capitalization intended) in no way represents me, nor the majority of the USA citizenry, including the majority of the idiots that continue to support THEM.

Hmmmmmm, I wonder how "they" would feel if something similar or worse were to start happening to "their" children and family members...

Chuck Cliff, re the British, exactly my point.

marctileston, "we" on earth have always been the subjects/victims of man-king systems, and the (their) rule of law has always been ultimately designed and used to promote and sustain that.

"Ours is not to reason why, but to do and die," or "they are the few, we are the many."

And "we" are all too willing to accept such man-king thinking. To them, we are like fleas to a dog, and until those fleas create insufferable infections they could scarcely be bothered with us.

It isn't our money "they" need or want, it is our complacency and compliance that serves them. Our clamor and arm-waving means nothing, and unless it can be used to serve their own purposes, is futile. This is the truth of human history.

Collectively, we may have the power, but it is easy enough, as these pages prove time and again, to keep us bickering amongst ourselves. When it becomes insufferable, and critical mass is achieved, and we revolt, and then there will be a new order, but for a spell.

Doesn't anyone think it amazingly ironical how our government has become very much the same as the one we thought we revolted against 200+ years ago? How did that ever happen?

It was through the rule of law and finance, and military rationale. Think about it people.

Dark and light - phooey. That is purely in the eye of the beholder.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

I always have to shake my head really hard when I hear or read of Americans saying, "we are losing (or must regain) our moral leadership in the world." Try googling American foreign intervention. Maybe just since the end of WW 2. Then check with citizens of these mostly resource rich but 3rd. world status countries about this mainly fictional (except in the eyes of Americans) moral leadership

JOHN F. BUTTERFIELD quotes, ""Now this is the basis for judgement, that the light has come into the world but men have loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were wicked. For he who practices file things hates the light and does not come to the light, in order that his works may not be reproved. But he who does what is true comes to the light, in order that his works may be made manifest as having been worked in harmony with God," Jesus the Nazarene."
Given the truth of this profound statement, and the fact Bush is doing Cheney's bidding, it's obvious that the CHURCHES have been usurped by the equivalent of an anti-Christ (literal) force in that this constituency represents the backers of the Bush-Cheney murderous regime.
POET: Thank you for sharing the Pinter quote and analysis.
COSMOBILLY: The historical tension between human liberty and those powers that would oppress is not mutually exclusive from the FACT that evil intent does exist in many. And yes, it IS the dark side.

mr. d., yes sir, yes sir!!!

Siouxrose, yes, my point. "I myself am heaven and hell." We each have to examine our own role in the creation of tension between the light and dark sides. Cheney, Bushco, et al did not emerge out of a void - "we" are the makers, the permitters and purveyors of these "dark" man-kings. This is OUR social-political-economic-military system of commerce and government. This is OUR soil from which this "dark" leadership emerged. This dark man IS US, like it or not, and until we understand how we created, enabled and nurtured him (in the name of lightness) then it will be OUR human destiny to repeat the great battles of good vs. evil ad nauseum. We mere commoners have to look to ourselves and realize the darkness WE engage in as soon as we buy into in any self-glorifying ego-centric expressions of being an enlightened people and ordained force for all good. The concepts of human liberty do not in any way suggest the right or responsibility of one people to conquer, exploit, govern or morally lead another people. I suspect, by your name, you know of that I speak.

Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows.

How will demons fighting each other on an earthly hell going to produce heaven on earth?

COSMOBILLY: It's not JUST an inside job, i.e. how we approach our own inner truth (heaven or hell, etc). When ALL my spiritually inclined friends worked on themselves, the right wing took over this country! Let's get off the either/or track. Society is made of individuals and reflects to an extent the collective, but there are manipulative forces that can influence those who have not had sufficient soul maturity to gather enough strength in themselves to truly make sovereign decisions. I am talking about "the sheep factor." I believe there is tangible evil or dark forces that seek to undermine the plan for human evolution. I realize that when I harbor hate I add to that collective endowment, ditto when I forgive, I add LIGHT to this human equation. BUT what I do is not in any way a replacement for what persons in power do... there is individual karma as well as mass karma. Some of the glib definitions that have come into vogue as psychology met pop new age thought is disingenuous in my book. I study masters' teachings that go WAY back in time, before fashionable presumptions came into modern parlance.

chuck cliff wrote:

"Other than that, though, I remember being puzzled by the statements that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ahcroft, Bush and others came with so soon upon the heels of Terrible Tuesday — that and how quickly the meme for "homeland security" appeared so suddenly, fully developed flapping dark, leathery wings."

no puzzle if you remember that the project for a new american century was hatched in the 90's by the neocons that took control of the white house when their dummy bush was elected.

the project of empire that was to benefit the US and israel and everybody else could be destroyed

of course when i say US that means those portions of the US that will profit from this madness on the backs of those in the US who will lose, but are brainwashed nicely, and have a certain amount of selfishness that makes the brainwashing so easy. they will be the willing executioners this time around

JOHN F. BUTTERFIELD quotes:
"Now this is the basis for judgement, that the light has come into the world but men have loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were wicked.
For he who practices *VILE* things hates the light and does not come to the light..."
(Jesus the Nazarene)

~ Somehow or other people in Christ's day mostly managed to get along without FILES, -but they, (like us now) did still have a lot of *vile* stuff to deal with back then.

As today, this included what some might call 'demonic possession'.
Back then they often recognised it for what it was, but today we do not, but instead call it a variety interesting new names, -courtesy of our infant science, Psychiatry.

One service JC carried out was ridding some locals of the dark entities overpowering them, by ordering the 'evil spirits' to depart those folk and instead take up residence in some nearby hogs, - then commanding said piggies to go leap off a cliff, thus disallowing the dark entities a 'dwelling' from which to operate and cause harm.

If that teacher were around today, maybe he wouldn't bother expelling the dark entities from Cheney and Co?
He might instead just get all the Gadarene swine in the Loony House to go leap off a cliff, -or out of a Air Force 1, without first affecting / infecting the local porcine population?

~ I sure wish *someone* would rid us of the pestilence before they do anymore damage to this long-suffering planet.

Huxley wrote of the "éminence grise" (the Grey Eminence) - a powerful advisor or decision-maker who operates secretly and darkly behind the scenes.
Gray Cheney is a thousand times worse than the shadow who accompanied Cardinal Richelieu...
For Cheney Gray , I'd like to strongly recommend a new sport: Freefall parachuting.

-But without a parachute.

Okay, -not much of a miracle, but certainly a blessing!

Siouxrose, I completely agree. I am not talking about the inner track. I am making reference to the need to understand the nature of the beast, and how we collectively play a role in manifesting our world. When we go within we cannot do so at the expense of yielding our world to those who would undermine us. Yes - it is also the sheep factor, and I am encouraged by Revelations prophecy for how the Lamb defeats the Beast. How do you suppose that could come to be?

I suggest it is through learning to expose those deceptions and pretenses that favor the few over the many, and initiate new structures that genuinely do favor the many. Instead of recognizing, understanding and building upon the ideas that enabled The Great Compression, for example, "we" have allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked into the undoing of it. We, collectively, have sold out the dreams of the revolutionists and undone our forefathers wisdom. WE have allowed this, through our blissful ignorance and failure to see through the deceptions. We were deceived into the Iraq War because of our collective ignorance. And it certainly did not begin there.

There are alternative solutions to much of our social-political-economic-military constructs, but those cannot be realized as long as we stay in our place, and think within the box. Corporate controlled media, privately owned banking and paper money markets, legal persons (corporations) with legally stipulated anti-social objectives, health care, amendment X, autonomous and secret military infrastructure, excessive private gain from use of public resources, inequitable distribution of wealth and public monies, two-party controlled primaries, electronic voting and electoral college, etc, etc. are some examples of concepts that should be examined for how they should better serve the greater public good. We cannot afford to continue to allow these concepts to be contrived by and for self-serving interests. And we must learn to understand how they weave together to form the fabric of OUR society.

On this site I see many good souls groveling, many with real concerns and valid ideas regarding one or more of these concepts. Some sincere yet constrained efforts have been undertaken too. But it has amounted to mere clamor and arm-waving and only a few are paying attention. If we the people are going to take back our government, and our future, then we must learn how to master the integration of these greater social concepts, rather than be mastered by them.

COSMOBILLY: Very refreshing, indepth commentary and I am glad that ultimately we do agree. I have always been attracted to cosmic, out of the box thinking as so many of mankind's problems seem to me a direct result of the same thought processes, sponsored by the religious and/or authoritarian institutions that use threats of hell, fear and damnation to induce followers NOT to question the previously existing paradigms. This is why I am so drawn to the creative initiatives on the part of those that have inspired the World Social Forum. Synergy happens when "two or more" get together and dare to dream, conceive of that which is yet to be put into practice. Many of our celebrated inventors were inspired by a dream, and from there, built the reality that we now all take mostly for granted.
Flat earthlings must have teased the piss out of the Wright Brothers. Imagine the conversation at the local pub. "They think that THING is gonna fly." Laughter follows. Those born ahead of their times who see what is not yet put into practice must be strong souls indeed to stand up to the ridicule of the ones who lack their imagination and vision. I do a lot of children's book writing (always with mystical teachings implanted) because I think it's so important to plant the seed of WONDER and remind them that they did not come into this world to be clones or consumers. In any case, many thanks for elaborating so profoundly on the points you indeed clearly made.

SIOUXROSE: eloquently stated - let's do dare to dream together. That's how and why this website, Common Dreams can potentially change the world!

YANKEE DOODLES: I tend to shy away from too strong of Jesus talk, but you nailed it! The hypocrisy should be blatantly self-evident, though not to many right-wingers.