Is Foley's Folly Diverting Us From The Fall Of A Great Nation?

Surfing around the blogosphere today, I came across a few posts and the comments attached to them that kind of smacked me across the back of my head and brought me back to a reality that sent cold chills down my spine. We all have a tendency to grab on to the juciest story (read the Foley scandal), especially when it centers around Republicans and we watch their hypocritical family values BS crash down around them in flames. However, at a blog I just came across for the first time today Once Upon A Time, there was this eye opener those in the administration who drive our foreign policy have always wanted and intended to attack Iran. That was the big target from the very beginning. The question of timing is a separate one. From their perspective, and if they think such an attack would ensure continuing Republican control of Congress, why not do it in the next month? Two for the price of one, and all that...and never mind the possibly tens or hundreds of thousands dead, and possibly even more if the mayhem rapidly spirals out of control. Never mind that the United States would forever brand itself as one of most destructive, contemptible, damnable nations in history, engaging in murderous, aggressive war whenever the whim strikes it. Pretty intense isn't it. Like I said it brings back a cold reality. But it also made me think of what has taken place in the last few weeks. Think of the legislation that eliminated the right of habeus corpus, gave a President and administration out of control and drunk with power even more power. That power also gives them the right to decide what the meaning of "torture" is. Who would have thought that the country most respected for civil rights around the world is even debating about the use of torture. Think of the war in Iraq, and the fact that at least 17 soldiers and Marines have been killed since Saturday, most in Baghdad or Anbar province, where fierce fighting continues between Marines and Sunni insurgents. The U.S. has done such a great job of training the Iraqi police force that Iraqi authorities pulled a brigade of about 700 policemen out of service Wednesday for investigation of suspected ties to death squads. And finally there was this from Common Dreams.org Requiem For My Country The Military Commissions Act is totalitarian police-state legislation that has just been enacted by the U.S. Congress. It provides, among other things, that the President can decide U.S. citizens are enemy combatants. It strips foreign born enemy combatants of habeas corpus. Charges and evidence are secret and the person so termed can be held in secret and can even be executed in secret (through a “presidential finding” signed on 9/17/01). There is no recourse. I don’t think these laws are aimed at terrorists. I think they are aimed at political dissenters (peace activists?) and will be used accordingly. It must be noted that the media has omitted the crucial details related to U.S. citizens in their scanty coverage of this Act. ..... Our responses as a nation of free people has been lacking the past few years. We failed to protest for all votes being counted in 2000 when there was a problem, we accepted a cynical manipulation into an illegal war based on lies, and again in 2004 we failed to ensure that all votes were counted properly. We are trapped in a web made up of our fantasy life of who and what we are as a nation and the new reality, which is starkly rendered by this new Act. This is the face of chilling reality.