We’re All Israelis Now

Remember when Israeli PM Netanyahu said the September 11, 2001 terror attacks were good for Israel? Well, here you go.

The culture of endless war, curtailed civil liberties, anti-Muslim bigotry, scapegoating and fear-mongering is now so firmly entrenched in our American consciousness that we no longer question anything so long as someone shouts “terrorist” or “security!” as a justification. We constantly need an enemy on the horizon (think Soviet Union) and if we don’t have one, we’ll make one up (Islamic Caliphate) or at the very least engage in so much needless provocation (endless wars and raping of natural resources) that we will indeed have many enemies to engage for decades to come.

The United States can no longer point to other repressive, secretive countries that use “security” as an excuse to detain, harass and silence its own citizens.

The new defense authorization bill is a disgrace, plain and simple. The Obama administration threatened to veto the bill over provisions regarding indefinite detention of Americans by the U.S. military, but naturally backed off the veto threat once the useless, neoconservative, ethically-challenged Democrats in Congress made some cosmetic changes to the bill which do nothing more than create the illusion of due process or adherence to Constitutional dictates. The only hope is that the portions of the bill dealing with detention of US citizens will be challenged in courts. Of course, these days, the courts are largely useless too.

We have now come full circle after 9/11 and seen the complete Israelification of our domestic security apparatus, not to mention our foreign policy. All the better for Israel, because how can we sit in judgment of their heavy-handed tactics when we adopt very similar ones, largely targeting the very same groups (ie. Muslims). Where are all the anti-Big Government folks? Taxes are wrong but a federal government with limitless power to detain, indefinitely, American citizens without due process or any checks and balances, is ok? Extrajudicial, targeted assassinations of American citizens abroad is ok? There is only one reason why Americans are tolerating this- because we know the people who will be targeted, whether guilty or innocent, will in most cases be Muslim and or Arabs.

Glenn Greenwald has some good commentary about the mentality of endless war here and here.