In case you missed it over the weekend, the final piece of the puzzle picture revealing Darth Cheney’s “vision for America” fell into place. It turns out Cheney wanted to send U.S. troops into the streets of America to arrest suspected “terrorists,” no matter that the Constitution and subsequent laws forbid the military from being used in domestic raids or to seize property. Because, you know, we’re the United States, and not some friggin’ banana republic for cryin’ out loud!
Remember the Lackawanna Six? No? No wonder. They were one of the slew of “dangerous terrorists” who’ve been “identified” by government officials but then turned out to be mere low-grade idiots without a clue. These particular dopes were a group of Arab American 20-somethings living in Buffalo, N.Y., who attended an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan a few months before 9/11, but then decided they’d rather go home and play video games then do all that dangerous terror stuff. At the time of their arrest by regular law enforcement officers, the press jumped up and down and hollered that, as Bush officials suggested, the six doofuses were an al-Qaeda sleeper cell — “the enemy within!” Well, no they weren’t. It turned out that the group didn’t have even the mere beginnings of a plan of action, and, what’s more, didn’t plan to have one, as they thought their trip to Afghanistan had been a “stupid mistake.”
Cheney’s wish to send U.S. troops into an American city to make the arrests is a chilling reminder of how dangerous panicky “leaders” can be — in this case way more dangerous than the people who were mistakenly arrested. The kicker of the story is that even George W. Bush thought Cheney’s troops-as-cops idea was, if not batshit crazy, at least a really bad PR move, and so he refused to go along. If only he’d been as careful about sending troops overseas.
This article appears in Jul 21-28, 2009.
