Glenn: You can’t just spend year after year piling up the corpses of children and credibly insist that it has no bearing on who you are

glenn comments on the "accidental" killing of an afghan family and the latest cia foiled al qaeda bomb "plot"...

No matter how many times the U.S. kills innocent people in the world, it never reflects on our national character or that of our leaders. Indeed, none of these incidents convey any meaning at all. They are mere accidents, quasi-acts of nature which contain no moral information... [...] We’ve all been trained, like good little soldiers, that the phrase “collateral damage” cleanses and justifies this and washes it all way: yes, it’s quite terrible, but innocent people die in wars; that’s just how it is. It’s all grounded in America’s central religious belief that the country has the right to commit violence anywhere in the world, at any time, for any cause.

At some point — and more than a decade would certainly qualify — the act of continuously killing innocent people, countless children, in the Muslim world most certainly does reflect upon, and even alters, the moral character of a country, especially its leaders. You can’t just spend year after year piling up the corpses of children and credibly insist that it has no bearing on who you are. That’s particularly true when, as is the case in Afghanistan, the cause of the war is so vague as to be virtually unknowable. It’s woefully inadequate to reflexively dismiss every one of these incidents as the regrettable but meaningless by-product of our national prerogative. But to maintain mainstream credibility, that is exactly how one must speak of our national actions even in these most egregious cases. To suggest any moral culpability, or to argue that continuously killing children in a country we’re occupying is morally indefensible, is a self-marginalizing act, whereby one reveals oneself to be a shrill and unSerious critic, probably even a pacifist. Serious commentators, by definition, recognize and accept that this is merely the inevitable outcome of America’s supreme imperial right, note (at most) some passing regret, and then move on.

and with the latest bomb "plot" comes the inevitable call for more restrictive travel measures...

The disruption of a plot by al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula to attack a US-based jet using what is being billed as an "improved" underwear bomb is likely to lead to increased security at American airports, the chief White House adviser on terrorism has indicated.

John Brennan, the deputy homeland security adviser to Barack Obama, gave a clear suggestion that additional security measures lay ahead across the country. Asked whether the interception of a bomb plot emanating from Yemen indicated holes in US security, Brennan told NBC that the examination of the IED device that is currently being carried out would lead to modifications.

"Whatever we learn from this IED, we're going to ensure that it's going to be incorporated into the measures that we take at airports, as well as any other avenues of approach that the would-be terrorists would take," he said.

it's yet another "engineered" carefully crafted to ratchet up the already smothering National Security State...

Al-Qaida ‘bomber’ was really double agent

The would-be suicide bomber, the man al-Qaida entrusted with its latest device, actually was a double agent working with the CIA and Saudi intelligence agencies, officials said Tuesday. Instead of sneaking it onto a plane in his underwear, he delivered it to the U.S. government and handed al-Qaida its latest setback.

The extraordinary intelligence operation was confirmed by U.S. and Yemeni officials who were briefed on the plot but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it.

 are we having fun yet...?

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