Newsweek Compares Bush With Botha and Apartheid Oppression
A Newsweek commentary by Arlene Getz today parallels and compares President Bush's "warrantless wiretapping" with the civil rights and human rights violations of South Africa's President Botha in the final years of apartheid.
"Why," she asks, "have (Americans) reacted so insipidly to yet another post-9/11 erosion of U.S. civil liberties? . . .the nasty echoes of apartheid South Africa should at least give them pause. While Bush uses the rhetoric of 'evildoers' and the 'global war on terror,' Pretoria talked of "total onslaught."
She also parallels South Africa's systematic torturing and murdering of detainees with Bush's emergency eavesdropping policies:
"Botha liked to tell South Africans that the country was under 'total onslaught' from forces both within and without, and that this global assault was his rationale for allowing opponents to be jailed, beaten or killed. Likewise, the Bush administration has adopted the argument that anything is justified in the name of national security."
What a nice word, "likewise." Such an easy way to create moral equivilency between the policies of George W. Bush and the morally bankrupt human rights abuses of one of the most repressive and constitutionally racist nations of 20th century Western Civilization.
What Arlene Getz is talking about bears little or no resemblance to either the legal or actual issues and reality of the President's NSA survellience policies. It is as though she completely omitted the facts of the case in order to create an illusion of something she has conjured up out of her own imagination.
The Getz article is entitled, "Where’s the Outrage?" and carries a subheading that reads, "Bush’s defense of his phone-spying program has disturbing echoes of arguments once used by South Africa’s apartheid regime. Why Americans should examine the parallels."
Ms. Getz has, of course found the same "parallels" that any half-wit could see: Both South Africa and the United States are governed by governments with presidents and, as a matter of national security, operate survellience and intelligence gathering operations both within and outside their national borders.
That's it. That's the parallel we are asked to examine.
Memo to Ms. Getz: There is not a single nation or government in the entire world that does not do this. Just because South Africa abused their security operations does not mean that every other nation is guilty of doing the same nor does it follow that what President Bush is doing is the moral equivilent of "jailing, beating and killing" his political opponants.
Ms. Getz asks, "Where's the outrage?"
The outrage, Ms. Getz, is that you have dared to present your twisted, biased and hateful blather as informed commentary and that the editors of a leading national "news" publication have seen fit to publish it.
That, my dear Ms. Getz, is outrageous.
"Why," she asks, "have (Americans) reacted so insipidly to yet another post-9/11 erosion of U.S. civil liberties? . . .the nasty echoes of apartheid South Africa should at least give them pause. While Bush uses the rhetoric of 'evildoers' and the 'global war on terror,' Pretoria talked of "total onslaught."
She also parallels South Africa's systematic torturing and murdering of detainees with Bush's emergency eavesdropping policies:
"Botha liked to tell South Africans that the country was under 'total onslaught' from forces both within and without, and that this global assault was his rationale for allowing opponents to be jailed, beaten or killed. Likewise, the Bush administration has adopted the argument that anything is justified in the name of national security."
What a nice word, "likewise." Such an easy way to create moral equivilency between the policies of George W. Bush and the morally bankrupt human rights abuses of one of the most repressive and constitutionally racist nations of 20th century Western Civilization.
What Arlene Getz is talking about bears little or no resemblance to either the legal or actual issues and reality of the President's NSA survellience policies. It is as though she completely omitted the facts of the case in order to create an illusion of something she has conjured up out of her own imagination.
The Getz article is entitled, "Where’s the Outrage?" and carries a subheading that reads, "Bush’s defense of his phone-spying program has disturbing echoes of arguments once used by South Africa’s apartheid regime. Why Americans should examine the parallels."
Ms. Getz has, of course found the same "parallels" that any half-wit could see: Both South Africa and the United States are governed by governments with presidents and, as a matter of national security, operate survellience and intelligence gathering operations both within and outside their national borders.
That's it. That's the parallel we are asked to examine.
Memo to Ms. Getz: There is not a single nation or government in the entire world that does not do this. Just because South Africa abused their security operations does not mean that every other nation is guilty of doing the same nor does it follow that what President Bush is doing is the moral equivilent of "jailing, beating and killing" his political opponants.
Ms. Getz asks, "Where's the outrage?"
The outrage, Ms. Getz, is that you have dared to present your twisted, biased and hateful blather as informed commentary and that the editors of a leading national "news" publication have seen fit to publish it.
That, my dear Ms. Getz, is outrageous.
posted by Bird of Paradise at 10:18 PM
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