perfidy

This is indeed a serious problem. Unfortunately, there isn't much anyone can do other than writing to people in Congress and voting against those who support it. The civil liberties of Americans and those residing in the U.S., as I stated in a previous post, have been consistently whittled away during my lifetime. Like all humans before us, however, we are all subject to injustices due to circumstances beyond our control. Once the reps have gotten their letters and the votes cast, it's just a matter of finger crossing and hopes for the best. Once again, I lack optimism on this, as well as most other issues. I, as Johno indicated, am the kind of person who contributed money to perhaps the sort of organization that would fall on the wrong side of things under Patriot II. 

Iraq and political goals 

A recent report on PBS Frontline outlined the causal factors and what political goals do exist for the Iraq war. According to the report, members of George Bush the elder's government, who referred to themselves as neo-Reaganites, wanted to seize Baghdad and eliminate Saddam Hussein in 1991. They were checked by Bush the elder, who pursued the limited goal of expulsion from Kuwait. Now, some people who sought the removal of Hussein, such as the current Vice President Richard Cheney and current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, are back in power and employing the attacks of 11 September 2001 as an excuse to remove Hussein from power. I reiterate though, there are no real links between al Qaeda and Hussein. The Ansar camp recently taken is in Kurdish, nominally U.S. controlled territory, spitting distance from the Iranian border. It seems more likely that if any governments supported the Ansar camp, it was probably Iran and not Iraq. 

Maybe After the passage of Patriot II Johnny will have to put his two cents in from a cell. We can carry on discussions by tapping through the wall to each other in Morse code, as in Darkness at Noon. 

SARS, the Iraq war, Patriot II, it all makes things look pretty bleak these days.