LOTS OF POST-9/11 ATTACKS ON AMERICAN SOIL

A poster at the Hattiesburg American forum asked this question today:

“How many attacks have been [on] American soil since 9-11?”

Well, let’s see...

There was the anthrax attack.
There have been multiple attacks on our civil liberties, including but not limited to:
the Patriot Act, the illegal detention of Jose Padilla, warrantless wiretapping, the Military Commissions Act, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, NSPD 51, the Tasering of Andrew Meyer, the extremely questionable detention of Yuri Wainwright, the arrest of William McLean, the normalization of torture as an interrogation tool, etc.

There have been many, many attacks. And frankly, if one wants to count embassy compounds as “American soil”–which the government does under the doctrine of extraterritoriality–then we have the following attacks:

March 2002-US embassy in Yemen attacked by a “sound grenade”
January 29, 2005–US Baghdad embassy compound hit with a rocket; 2 killed, 4 wounded–all Americans
September 12, 2006-US embassy in Damascus, Syria attacked
December 2, 2007-US embassy in Manila attacked
February 21, 2008-US embassy in Belgrade burned

And that doesn’t count all the attacks on the Green Zone, which while not technically “American soil,” is controlled by the U.S. and home to many U.S. citizens.

So to answer the question, there have been a lot of attacks on American soil since 9/11. George Bush hasn’t kept us “safe” in any sense of the word.

IMPEACH THE LYING CORPORATE GREEDHEADS PART TWO

Went to an antiwar “candlelight vigil” today. Met up with my friend Scott Tyner, pictured below with the green “Support our troops” sign. Saw William McLean (the creator of the unforgettable “Impeach the Lying Corporate Greedheads” sign), about whom I wrote both a blog entry and letter to the editor over two years ago.









Scott told me that William was arrested for disturbing the peace during their most recent protest. Apparently a cop pulled up and cited some nonexistent ordinance and took William to jail. He had to pay a $100 fine to get out. At least they didn’t Tase him.

How can anyone say William is/was “disturbing the peace?” There’s no peace to disturb–after all, as Bush and Cheney and their neocon followers love to say, “This is a time of war.” And William and the rest of us would like to see that time pass, so that we can use “this is a time of peace” as an excuse to say no when they want to build more weapons and kill more people. In other words, use their strategy on them, but for positive purposes.

Not much to say but this–this is not a just war, this is just war. End it. Now.