West Point/Thought Crimes 101: "Don't criticize the War on Terrah, or you'll be "targeted"

[99th_Monkey]

West Point professor calls on US military to target legal critics of war on terror
US military academy official William Bradford argues that attacks on scholars’ home offices and media outlets – along with Islamic holy sites – are legitimate
by Spencer Ackerman in New York * The Guardian * August 29, 2015

An assistant professor in the law department of the US Military Academy at West Point has argued that legal scholars critical of the war on terrorism represent a “treasonous” fifth column that should be attacked as enemy combatants.

In a lengthy academic paper, the professor, William C Bradford, proposes to threaten “Islamic holy sites” as part of a war against undifferentiated Islamic radicalism. That war ought to be prosecuted vigorously, he wrote, “even if it means great destruction, innumerable enemy casualties, and civilian collateral damage”.

Other “lawful targets” for the US military in its war on terrorism, Bradford argues, include “law school facilities, scholars’ home offices and media outlets where they give interviews” – all civilian areas, but places where a “causal connection between the content disseminated and Islamist crimes incited” exist.

“Shocking and extreme as this option might seem, [dissenting] scholars, and the law schools that employ them, are – at least in theory – targetable so long as attacks are proportional, distinguish noncombatants from combatants, employ nonprohibited weapons, and contribute to the defeat of Islamism,” Bradford wrote.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/29/west-point-professor-target-legal-critics-war-on-terror

[gratuitous]

1. Oh Mr. Bradford, your option doesn't seem shocking and extreme

It truly is shocking, extreme, unconstitutional (you remember that quaint old document all those people swear to preserve, protect and defend) and a deep betrayal of the United States. And it is exactly what I have come to expect from you and your ilk.

[HereSince1628]

2. Somedays I feel the worst thing that ever befell America was the Soviet Collapse

Without an external evil enemy to illuminate and constrast the depravity of power with our own character there has been nothing in place to keep "us" from becoming "them".

[malthaussen]

4. No, you don't quite understand.

IMO, the deeply-felt fear of the Commie menace forced the ruling class to throw the odd bone to the workers in order to keep them from revolution. And that fear was very deep-seated indeed, regardless of how reasonable it might have been. Once the Menace was "defeated," then our rulers had nothing to restrain them in their desire to create the counter-revolution. And a continual war on "terror," which has no locus and no determinate end-point, allows them to be as bloody-minded and fascist as they have always longed to be.

Nietzsche warned us to "beware, when fighting monsters, that you do not become one yourself." A fine sentiment, but he missed the crucial point that many of our rulers were and are monsters to begin with.

-- Mal

[Octafish]

3. FUCK YOU, WILLIAM C. BRADFORD!

You have zero concept of what this nation is about.

[MisterP]

5. now where have I heard that before

[Octafish]

6. BFEE Judge Silberman compared Bush war lie critics to NAZIs

Federal Appeals Judge Compares People Who Say Bush Lied To Rise Of Nazis

A federal appeals judge wrote in a column published on Sunday that people who accuse former President George W. Bush of lying about the Iraq War are peddling myths like those that led to the rise of Hitler.

Laurence H. Silberman, a federal appellate judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the idea the Bush administration "lied us into Iraq" has gone from "antiwar slogan to journalistic fact."

"It is one thing to assert, then or now, that the Iraq war was ill-advised," he wrote. "It is quite another to make the horrendous charge that President Bush lied to or deceived the American people about the threat from Saddam."

After re-litigating the case for invading Iraq, Silberman wrote that the charge could have "potentially dire consequences."

"I am reminded of a similarly baseless accusation that helped the Nazis come to power in Germany: that the German army had not really lost World War I, that the soldiers instead had been 'stabbed in the back' by politicians," he wrote.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/laurence-silberman-bush-lied-nazis

Seems to be an echo, SILBERMAN also knows no shame.

[hifiguy]

7. So...

Roland Freisler has been reincarnated. How special.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Freisler

[Brother Buzz]

8. Has this nimrod, Bradford, been comparing notes with John Yoo?

This bombastic talk is straight out of John Yoo's playbook