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- racial profiling and persecution for political advantage;
- militarizing local police;
- indefinitely detaining US citizens in military prisons on spurious terrorist connection allegations; and
- turning America into a full-blown police state.
Political discourse is now "driven in part by a wholly contrived 'debate' over whether" fabricated terror threats require "military" or "law enforcement" responses.
Advocates for the former call it muscular and the latter anemic and irresponsible. In fact, post-9/11 policy hyped bogus terrorist threats and degraded rule of law protections for everyone.
Unjustifiably claiming war powers, Bush II usurped unchecked authority, ignored constitutional prohibitions, and subverted rule of law standards and justice.
Near the end of the Cold War, former Supreme Court Justice William Brennan commented on "the shabby treatment civil liberties have received in the United States during time of war and perceived threats to its national security."
When each crisis passed, hindsight "remorsefully realized that the abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary." Ten years post-9/11, political Washington hasn't yet crossed that threshold.
In today's climate of fear, conflict resolution "is a distinct abstraction, not an actual event." Bipartisan leaders claim today's conflicts "take place everywhere and last forever." As a result, what chance have freedom and justice?
ACLU's report examines America's permanent war policy, the ramifications of militarizing counterterrorism, degrading equity and justice, embracing torture as official policy, racially profiling Americans, expanding a vast surveillance state, and entirely eroding democracy. As a result, freedom hangs by a thread.
Permanent War
On September 18, 2001, a joint House-Senate Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) approved "the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks against the United States."
A decade of war followed. On May 26, 2011, the House gave Obama and all future presidents more war authority than Bush by permitting conflicts anywhere for any reason or none at all.
In fact, Obama doesn't need it. He already wages war on humanity abroad and at home in violation of international law and constitutional provisions and protections.
As a result, permanent war is policy. Nations are ravaged one at a time for wealth, power, and unchallengeable dominance.
