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09/16/2005:

"POLICE STATE IN AMERICA: Now Bush can lock up anyone forever without charge"

As if the official ineptitude of the Bush administration in the aftermath of Katrina and the callousness of the Bush family were not enough to digest, a U.S. Federal appeals court has just delivered this bombshell in the Jose Padilla case:


"The Congress of the United States, in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution, provided the President all powers necessary and appropriate to protect American citizens from terrorist acts by those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001... [T]hose powers include the power to detain identified and committed enemies such as Padilla, who associated with al Qaeda and the Taliban regime, who took up arms against this Nation in its war against these enemies, and who entered the United States for the avowed purpose of further prosecuting that war by attacking American citizens and targets on our own soil..."

What this means is that unless the Supreme Court overturns this verdict, the U.S. government can keep Mr Padilla, a U.S. citizen, in jail indefinitely, without charge. Worse, the government will be tempted to invoke this power against pretty much anyone it likes since the Appeals Court made no attempt to verify the authenticity of the allegations made against the prisoner. While the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says the judgment "does not authorize the government to designate and detain as an 'enemy combatant' anyone who it claims is associated with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups", the bitter truth is that U.S. citizenship will not protect individuals from being deprived of their liberty if the Administration decides they are a threat to U.S. national security. Its Guantanamo time for everyone. And since the war on terror has been described by U.S. officials as "an endless war", the period of incarceration will also be endless. This is precisely what the Italian scholar, Giorgio Agamben, means when he says the State of Exception -- which in 'democratic' countries is meant to be a 'provisional measure' -- has become a normal , routine, paradigmatic form of rule.
globalresearch.ca

Jesse Ventura Compares Bush to Hitler, Says US Becoming a 'fascist state'
by Jeff Wells
... since we've come to this almost inconceivable moment, when dogs pick at uncollected corpses in the streets of a murdered American city, preemptive nuclear war against the threat of non-nuclear weapons is official policy, the potential repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act is floated, and a former US Governor - even if it is Jesse Ventura - speaks of fleeing the fascism and ruin that the Bush White House is visiting upon the country, I'm thinking maybe what's really needed is a proper allegory. Something like Bob Dylan's Masked and Anonymous.