Might this just set up the pretext for something many of us suspect has been coming since Sept. 11? Nothing like sending up the meme as a trial balloon first.
Franks says -- in, of all places, the magazine Cigar Aficionado -- that if terrorists obtain and use weapons of mass destruction, "... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy."
He goes on:
- It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.
The problem is, Franks may well be right. Anyone who has studied the history of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II know well just how easily the public can be frightened into surrending constitutional rights in times of great national duress, especially if it is perceived that those rights mostly benefit "someone else," and if doing so will make the rest of us "safe" -- regardless of whether such claims are bogus. In reality, such an action will mean only one thing: The terrorists will have won.
Also worth observing is this concluding note:
- "I doubt that we’ll ever have a time when the world will actually be at peace.”
Ah yes, that classic fascist theme: "Life is eternal warfare."
[Thanks to Patrick Purcell for the heads-up.]
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