Don’t get me wrong, I don’t do conspiracy theories, but if you were a government with authoritarian or imperial impulses, mostly held in check by public and world opinion, international norms of behavior and political alliances, you could not help but notice, all on your own, that by declaring your actions to be predicated on combating terrorism, you would have plenty of cover for a wide variety of actions, from extra-constitutional incarceration and interrogation to manipulating nationalist and ethnic separatist movements to toppling unfriendly regimes to actual invasion and occupation of sovereign nations.

When examined dispassionately, the primary effect of al Quaeda and related non-state threats and attacks has been to unleash a broad swath of government violence, repression and hatred. I don’t think the al Quaeda leadership actually was brilliant enough to expect this level of broad-spectrum reaction, but they have certainly learned the impact they can have on global order and prosperity, and therein lies the real threat…

mikey

I know you went back and forth about switching over from using rap lyrics as the titles but I think you have opened yourself up now to even more creativity.

And the post itself was excellent as usual.