PUZZLED TO DEATH

Puzzled to Death

By Peter Fredson

January 16, 2006

I’m puzzled. Perhaps I’m confused and do not see things clearly. I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one anywhere. But the legality of the Bush administration actions really puzzles me.

For instance, if the President sends people out to destroy a village because he suspects one person in that village has bad intentions toward him, is that okay? I

f he does not succeed in killing any terrorist, but instead “accidentally” kills several dozen innocent people, peasants who all their lives earned their living by grubbing the earth and never did harm to anyone outside of their village, is that in any way “murder?”

When a president kills anyone, alleging they had “bad intentions” is he to be held responsible if his assessment was totally wrong?

If the President to kill one person alleged to be a “terrorist” actually kills several dozen other people who have nothing to do with terror, destroys their homes, lives, families, and resources, is he to be held to account by anyone, any court, or can he simply shrug his shoulders, smirk, and perhaps say , “OOPS” in full recompense?

Can a president legally send thugs into another country to kidnap anyone he designates, hold him indefinitely in a secret jail without warrants or records, and perhaps engage in some sadistic pleasure like shunting electricity through his genitals, then declare he is acting legally, morally, ethically and according to traditional American Values? Is anything wrong with that picture?

Can a president declare “bad intelligence” absolves him of all personal accounting, blame, or responsibility for inflicting death and destruction on whomever his whim designates as a living target?

Will waving a cross, referring to Jesus as his favorite philosopher, or standing in front of 20 fluttering flags, and uttering the phrase “9/11” then excuse him from all scrutiny, from all provisions of the Constitution he swore to uphold?

Can his officials scare the bejuzus out of the public by constant referrals to Weapons of Mass Destruction, Aluminum tubes, bacteriological laboratories, poison gas, anthrax, and mushroom clouds and not be accused of fomenting domestic terror?

Is it sufficient for a president to declare someone as “evil” and then proceed to act as though it were a legitimate claim for national action, warfare, and the consequent deaths of everyone living near the “evil’ person, and still be a competent ethical lawful person?

Is it sufficient for a president, after years of denial and obfuscation to declare he is “responsible” for thousands of deaths of innocent civilians, and thus by this “spiritual confession” strut or swagger his way scot-free to the next deception, without any legal action, any consequences, any reprimand, any protest from his supporters?

Is there no price to be paid for inflicting death and destruction on thousands of people who had nothing to do with fomenting terror or hatred?

Can a president by pretending to receive orders from the Supreme Creator of the Entire Universe declare war on any country he pleases? Is that sufficient for even Republican Senators to excuse all violence, all destruction, and all demonic action? Do they really believe that (and please excuse the expletive) crap?

Are Republicans really willing to choose party politics over all of the traditions of our country? Are legalities just to please suckers?

Can a president through deception and outright lies get an entire country to declare war against another, based on either faulty intelligence or malevolent twisting of the intelligence, and is not be held to any account?

If though lies and deception a country is invaded, its sovereignty destroyed, its people terrorized by invading and occupying forces.. if all this is illicit, illegal, immoral, unethical ..can a president simply swagger and say “I’m the War President and can do anything I want to do to anybody, anywhere in the world, and screw anyone who objects?”

Does such an invasion and occupation, even though based on deception, still stand? If Bush became a War President through lies, is the now a Lying War President?

If there was no terrorism in the occupied country to start with, and the president is directly responsible through violent aggression, death and destruction, of fomenting an endless chain of vengeance for the atrocities he committed, to be commended or praised?

Does a pretty color scheme provide sufficient protection against any actual terrorism, or is it an emotional, symbolic, spiritual and useless defense more suited to superstitious barbarians than to a supposedly civilized country?

Does the constant reiteration that prayer solves all the problems of the world by the president actually provide more than a placebo or binky for gullible fundamentalists? Is abstinence the cure for aids? And if abstinence is so powerful, why doesn’t the president abstain from committing felonies, death, destruction, lies and misinformation daily?

Does the president not know that his actions, appointments, and statements are leading us straight into fascist corporate theocracy? Or, and this is a horrible thought, was this part of the New World Order conspiracy to dominate the world by aggressive pitiless action?

Lastly, can a president say that the Constitution is just a gdddmm piece of paper and should not be waved at him without even one Republican Senator commenting on this interpretation of what should be our most sacred document? Are they that “pussy-whipped?” Will no action of Bush prove to be too atrocious to overlook? Is Bush The Law? Does it even apply to him as War President, even though he started the War with lies?

Has Bush now consolidated all three branches of government into his Oval Office? Has the Oval Office now become an adjunct of his church organization? Is our Constitution now hopelessly outdated and to be discarded by a petulant, irritable, irresponsible, pitiless, and Machiavellian person who was born into privilege? Is this why he smirks?