eots
no fly list
Published on Thursday, May 11, 2006 by Ted Rall
America, You Lost! The Railroading of Zacarias Moussaoui
by Ted Rall
It's official. 9/11 has driven America utterly bat-guano mad. Don't believe it? Consider the following:
American citizens, liberal and conservative alike, have become self-deluded, fervently certain of "facts" that are indisputably false. "By a margin of better than two to one," according to the May 9th New York Times poll, Democrats--who have become so ideologically invisible that they're meeting to decide what, if any, ideas they ought to develop for this fall's elections--"were seen as having more new ideas than Republicans." At the same time, most voters believe that Republicans--who are losing two catastrophic wars because they failed to send enough troops or supply them with adequate equipment--"would do a better job at maintaining a stronger military than Democrats."
Meanwhile, the CIA--whose mission is to sabotage popularly elected democracies and replace them with right-wing torture-dictatorships--has become the liberal branch of government. According to insiders, Porter Goss was fired as the agency's director because he failed to purge its "soft leakers and liberal Democrats." A former senior CIA official with continuing links to the Bush Administration and the agency told the Baltimore Sun upon Goss' appointment in 2004: "The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda." CIA liberals. Right.
Finally and most terrifyingly, George Orwell's "thoughtcrime"--the equating of mental disloyalty with actual sedition--has gone mainstream. Media discussion about the recent trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of possibly maybe thinking about becoming the "20th hijacker" on 9/11--or was it the second 20th hijacker?--spanned a vast spectrum of acceptable political discourse. The "conservatives" demanded that Moussaoui be executed, the "liberals" that he be sentenced to life in prison. Nowhere in the press or on the air could anyone be found who was willing to ask the most obvious question:
Why was the guy on trial at all?
Lest we forget, Moussaoui didn't do anything. He couldn't have. He was in jail on immigration charges; he had already been behind bars for nearly a month on 9/11. The government charged him with six counts--not of committing a crime, but of conspiring to participate in 9/11. Count Four, Conspiracy to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction, relied solely on Moussaoui's alleged membership in Al Qaeda. If Al Qaeda ever tried to acquire WMDs--evidence of this is sketchy to non-existent--it's absurd to imagine that Osama bin Laden might have involved a demented third-stringer like Moussaoui.
America, You Lost! The Railroading of Zacarias Moussaoui
America, You Lost! The Railroading of Zacarias Moussaoui
by Ted Rall
It's official. 9/11 has driven America utterly bat-guano mad. Don't believe it? Consider the following:
American citizens, liberal and conservative alike, have become self-deluded, fervently certain of "facts" that are indisputably false. "By a margin of better than two to one," according to the May 9th New York Times poll, Democrats--who have become so ideologically invisible that they're meeting to decide what, if any, ideas they ought to develop for this fall's elections--"were seen as having more new ideas than Republicans." At the same time, most voters believe that Republicans--who are losing two catastrophic wars because they failed to send enough troops or supply them with adequate equipment--"would do a better job at maintaining a stronger military than Democrats."
Meanwhile, the CIA--whose mission is to sabotage popularly elected democracies and replace them with right-wing torture-dictatorships--has become the liberal branch of government. According to insiders, Porter Goss was fired as the agency's director because he failed to purge its "soft leakers and liberal Democrats." A former senior CIA official with continuing links to the Bush Administration and the agency told the Baltimore Sun upon Goss' appointment in 2004: "The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda." CIA liberals. Right.
Finally and most terrifyingly, George Orwell's "thoughtcrime"--the equating of mental disloyalty with actual sedition--has gone mainstream. Media discussion about the recent trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of possibly maybe thinking about becoming the "20th hijacker" on 9/11--or was it the second 20th hijacker?--spanned a vast spectrum of acceptable political discourse. The "conservatives" demanded that Moussaoui be executed, the "liberals" that he be sentenced to life in prison. Nowhere in the press or on the air could anyone be found who was willing to ask the most obvious question:
Why was the guy on trial at all?
Lest we forget, Moussaoui didn't do anything. He couldn't have. He was in jail on immigration charges; he had already been behind bars for nearly a month on 9/11. The government charged him with six counts--not of committing a crime, but of conspiring to participate in 9/11. Count Four, Conspiracy to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction, relied solely on Moussaoui's alleged membership in Al Qaeda. If Al Qaeda ever tried to acquire WMDs--evidence of this is sketchy to non-existent--it's absurd to imagine that Osama bin Laden might have involved a demented third-stringer like Moussaoui.
America, You Lost! The Railroading of Zacarias Moussaoui