Deja Vu on Terror

In the movie A Few Good Men (a really trite, corny movie that I have watched several times) Tom Cruise asks Demi Moore why she is so intent on defending the Marines. “Because they stand on the wall,” she replies, “and they say no harm will come. Not on my watch.” I love that line.

Glenn Greenwald “stands on the wall” in defense of the constitution. To him that thing is not just a piece of paper, it is a set of principles; it is the foundation of this nation. He takes every word of it as seriously as a Fundamentalist Christian regards the Bible.

He can be a little bit of an alarmist at times, and some of his conclusions may be debatable. So be it, alarmism is by no means inappropriate in these times and no two people think precisely alike. No one has ever successfully challenged him on fact, though; this guy knows his stuff and he researches more thoroughly than anyone else I read. His factual accuracy and the depth of his training lends his writing an almost unique credibility.

He supported Obama, as I recall, during the election campaign but he also decries the kind of slavish loyalty to anyone that maintains that the person is right in all things no matter what he does. He casts such blind loyalty in an almost unpatriotic light, and by implication seems to regard it as stupid.

I could not agree with him more. I like Obama; I like his personality, I like his style, and I agree with much of what he is doing as he leads this nation. But I am at serious odds with Mr. Obama in his methodology as to “national security” issues and Glenn Greenwald sheds light on the issue in yesterday’s Unclaimed Territory, describing the current administration releasing the interception of no fewer than three hyped-up terrorists plots just coincidentally as the Patriot Act and its infringements on civil liberties are up for renewal.

Keith Olbermann had many segments on what he called the “Nexus of Terror,” illustrating how the Bush Administration would dramatically intercept some heinous plot to commit terrorism in the US and it would turn out that the drama would be distracting the public from some administration debacle, or would be furthering some legislative goal. Olbermann, increasingly becoming the Rush Limbaugh of the left, has not noticed the “nexus” between the Zazi plot, hailed by the administration as "the most significant since 9/11," and the plots to blow up buildings in Dallas and Springfield, with Obama’s thrust to get the infringements of civil liberties contained in the Patriot Act renewed by Congress

Déjà vu all over again. Go read Glenn Greenwald.