I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

An editorial by Tommy Franks this morning in the NY Times is a bit rattling to the Kerry gang. He generally backs up Bush and says we've never taken our eye off the ball on Bin Laden, and that you can't separate Bin Laden, Iraq, and the War on Terror. He also says the job is nearly done, asserting that to back out and withdraw now would be a grave mistake, given that Iraqi security forces aren't up to the job yet.

I just want to talk to some soldiers. From what I understand, they feel drafted, under-equipped, and over-burdened to do the job. Bush is calling for British and UN troops to relieve our forces.

I doubt he gets what he's looking for,

On a completely different front - I watched Unconstitutional last night, with my friend Jim at our local library, and it was really rattling. The documentary (is it documentary season? perhaps...)  elucidated several outcomes from the Patriot Act, including a few of which I was unaware. I knew we were skirting Geneva convention guidelines by holding people at Guantanamo Bay. I should have probably then insinuated that since we are skirting that much of Geneva, we are most likely  doing a number of unsavories to flout it even more, and thus the need for Guantanamo.

This is pretty bad, since it is more than reasonable to infer that at least a few of those imprisoned, if not a great number, are there wrongly, and are having things done to them that war crime tribunals generally take interest in prosecuting.

This is bad. Very bad.

But I didn't know some of the other atrocities being committed under the Patriot Act.

Do you?

Read on:

I didn't know libaries were being asked to provide the FBI with lists of books you've checked out.

I didn't know dive shops were being asked to provide the FBI with customer names and purchase records, regardless of purchase - everything from full dive gear to a snorkel set for kids.

I also didn't know we were arresting immigrants and refugees seeking asylum, some of whom have been here for years, without cause, holding them without access to legal counsel, and deporting them in the middle of the night on Portuguese Airlines, sending them back to the hellholes they fled from in the first place, without contacting their families here.

My parents are immigrants, having become naturalized in the 70's, and my father is constantly asking me not to do anything crazy that would end their citizenship. Seems he knows more than I did about these things.

I didn't know police were surrounding people in public libraries and arresting them because they asserted that "Bush is out of control."

Who among us hasn't done that?

At one point, in the middle of the film, I wanted to get up and smash something. I was enraged, but it's that kind of rage that comes from knowing something you love is going completely insane outside of your control. It's that rage born of absolute personal ineffectiveness in the face of something incredibly important. I couldn't believe the country I love could do this to its citizens, and to the people it purportedly welcomes in.

This isn't freedom. This isn't democracy. It's frightening.

Lest you think this film is some liberal rant, it wasn't. It was a first rate documentary, loaded with interviews with congressmen who had the Patriot Act rammed past them, immigrants jailed under the Act, former FBI directors, and currentl ACLU and legal representatives.

Please go see it. Buy it. Watch it.

There are some really bright pots in the film, where we see how people can band together to take back their rights under this Act.

One wonders what would happen if the feds decide to up the ante and force the issue, but you need to see the film for yourself.

Has anyone else seen it?