What was noteworthy about last Thursday?  An anniversary.  January 29, 1964 - Stanley Kubrick's film Doctor Strangelove premieres.  I think the film had something to do with wacky, power-mad people in power doing zany things that bring on the end of the world in a light-hearted nuclear holocaust.  The comedy is in their mindless, unbridled zeal to keep America safe and strong.  They don't understand they're wacky at all.  They have no clue.  They all believe they're brave, clear-thinking patriots.  Amusing.

Forty years ago?   Wow.   

These days? 

A legal note:

Court Keeps Guantánamo Prisoners Isolated
Gina Holland, Associated Press, Wed Jan 28, 8:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court stepped in Wednesday to temporarily continue the isolation of terrorism suspects at the Navy base in Cuba. 

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor granted a request from the Bush administration to stop a lower court from communicating with a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. 

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals had planned to notify the detainee of that court's ruling in December that Guantánamo prisoners should be allowed to see lawyers and have access to courts. 

O'Connor granted the government's request to put that ruling on hold, but she said the high court could reconsider after it hears from lawyers for the detainee, Falen Gherebi. 

... Solicitor General Theodore Olson had asked the high court earlier Wednesday to block any developments in a class-action case over treatment of the Guantánamo detainees until the Supreme Court decides this year, in a separate case, whether Guantánamo detainees may contest their captivity in American courts. 

National security is at stake, Olson argued in an emergency filing, because communication with the prisoner would "interfere with the military's efforts to obtain intelligence from Gherebi and other Guantánamo detainees related to the ongoing war against terrorism."

Just a thought, but what these evils guys know might possibly be, shall we say, "stale information" after more than two years. 

But one never knows. 

Let me see if I have this right. 

The president now has the unrestricted power to declare war against a country that has not attacked the United States.  We voted to give him that power.  We did.  You elected your senators and congressmen.  Fine. 

The president has the unrestricted power to round up unlimited numbers of American citizens within the United States and incarcerate them in military brigs or concentration camps for the rest of their lives and keep them from ever again communicating with friends, families, and attorneys, simply on the president's certification that the incarcerated Americans are "terrorists," as he has done with Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi.  We voted to give him that power.  We did.  You elected your senators and congressmen.  Fine. 

The president now has the unrestricted power to execute American citizens abroad solely on the basis of his certification that the killed Americans are "terrorists," as he did to Ahmed Hijazi, the American who was killed with a one of our missiles last year in Yemen.  We voted to give him that power.  We did.  You elected your senators and congressmen.  Fine.

So. 

A friend of mine worries Bush will declare a "red level" emergency late in October and cancel the presidential elections, and maybe declare marshal law if he thinks of it. 

No.  He'll be reelected easily.  As will those who grant him these powers he needs to keep us safe.  That seem to be what most folks want. 

We be real scared, and he'll continue to protect us. 

On the other hand, we did give in on three people we held for over two years.

See 3 Afghan youths go home
Three boys held as terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are reunited with families in Afghanistan.

Carol Rosenberg, The Miami Herald, January 30, 2004

The details?

The United States on Thursday sent back to their families in Afghanistan three teenagers whose detention at the terror prison in Guantánamo Bay had stirred international protests.

The boys were in generally good health and had seen doctors, dentists and mental health experts during their prison stay....  One was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the chorus of human rights complaints about the terror prison in Guantánamo, America's holding of juveniles had drawn special criticism.  International human rights groups say the 650 or so prisoners on the US Navy base in southeastern Cuba should be freed unless they are given lawyers and trials or prisoner-of-war status.

Escorts at Guantánamo had made the boys' lockup - a fenced-in, squat concrete-block building called Iguana House - a showcase stop on a tour designed to illustrate that the prison is humane.

Guards hid the boys - aged 13 to 15 - from view in one portion of the four-bed building while showing reporters nature videos, math books and a soccer ball and describing a robust schedule of education, exercise, health care and periodic interrogation by US intelligence agents.

The Pentagon said unnamed ''senior leadership'' consulted with unnamed US government officials'' to decide that ''the juvenile detainees no longer posed a threat to our nation.'' ...  The Pentagon said two boys were captured in US and allied raids at a Taliban training camp and a third was captured "trying to obtain weapons to fight American forces."

Well, they really were trying to obtain weapons.  Bad boys!  Not that they ever succeeded, but if they had succeeded they would have had weapons, and if they had weapons they might have used them.  Better safe than sorry.

Think preemption. 

This is what we do now.  This is done in your name and mine. 

We elected this crew in Washington.  Well, sort of.

Well, we can be nice guys too.  We really did let them go in spite of their crimes.  They can go, now that they've been reprogrammed, or trained, or reconditioned, or housebroken or whatever. 

And we did give one of these kids absolutely free treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.  Well, I don't think well send his parents a bill, as much as that makes some sort of free-market capitalist sense.

We are a good people.  No wonder everyone likes us so much.