“Allowing government agents to simply search a U.S. citizen’s contacts, social media, videos and everything else in search of a crime doesn’t feel American because it isn’t.”
“The ugly irony is that when the Nazis rejected American law, it was often because they found it too harsh.”
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-whitman-hitler-american-race-laws-20170222-story.html
“For many of those attacking the ACLU here, it is a staple of their worldview that the U.S. is a racist and fascist country and that those who control the government are right-wing authoritarians. There is substantial validity to that view. Why, then, would people who believe that simultaneously want to vest in these same fascism-supporting authorities the power to ban and outlaw ideas they dislike?”
“While President Trump has praised Duterte’s approach to combating drug addiction — namely, encouraging vigilantes to extrajudicially murder drug users by the thousands — Tillerson suggested that this policy was not good, but also irrelevant to the question of whether the U.S. should intervene against ISIS on Duterte’s behalf.”
Read more: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/u-s-may-bomb-isis-in-the-philippines-report.html
“For visitors the lure is the culture and history of a sophisticated civilisation, with no fewer than 19 Unesco heritage sites, which had been inaccessible for decades when Iran was shunned as a pariah state. Now the country is also viewed as safe in comparison with other states offering similar attractions in the region – Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Libya – places which have become no-go areas due to the varying degrees of threats from terrorism or civil war. Mr Trump’s repeated threat to withdraw the US from the nuclear agreement, achieved through years of painstaking negotiations, is creating concern that Iran will be pushed back towards isolation.”
“The war in Afghanistan has long been an out-of-sight, out-of-mind affair for the American public. To relegate Afghan lives to the mercy of an even less visible force will be to write them off altogether.”
Read more: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/dont-privatize-afghan-war-just-end/
“Taliban fighters in Khogyani described how the deaths of family members had caused them to take up arms.”
“The military-industrial complex will look more like a military-billionaire complex, with the generals imposing a sense of order if the rich men squabble too publicly, and blocking any Banana Republicanism if they seek to make themselves and their friends ever richer.”
“The White House is becoming the war house and the president seems to see war as a first solution rather than a last resort. His threats of military action against a Venezuela that neither threatens nor could threaten the United States suggests a shocking lack of judgment.”
“Champions of the warfare state and multi-trillion dollar military-industrial-counterterrorism complex maintain that unimagined technological progress including nuclear tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles require presidential wars to protect the national security. If they have a persuasive case, they should seek a constitutional amendment under Article V that would transfer the war power from Congress to the Oval Office. The amendment would need approval by two-thirds of the House and Senate and three-quarters of state legislatures. I am convinced it would be DOA in Congress. Americans do not want a king.”
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/14/trump-north-korea-constitution/