Imagine this doomsday scenario:

[ cue dream sequence music and fade ]

Karl Rove’s October surprise turns out to validate all of Seymour Hersh’s reporting as we begin pre-emptive strategic bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Part of the goal here, as part of the goal with our invasion of Iraq was to test Rumsfeld’s new agile military, will be to test our bunker buster nuclear munitions. That’s right, we’ll wage small-scale, pre-emptive nuclear war with Iran so that the Republicans can hold on to their majorities in Congress, and we’ll set the stage for another opportunity to be dissuaded from changing partisan horses midstream in 2008.

As a result of the new war, massive protests, like those preceding Iraq, will erupt worldwide. The protests in America will again be smaller, but this time a few protesters who engage in civil disobedience or destruction of property and whom the FBI has been monitoring for some time and who are known not to have been born in America, will be detained. They will be held indefinitely while their status is “determined”?

Further protests ensue as our bombing campaign in Iran continues in order to keep us “on the offense“. Now, ordinary American citizens demonstrating peacefully at these protests are detained. Are they enemy combatants? Boy, I don’t know. We might be able to determine this at some distant point in the future. Clearly, by having improper permits, they are committing acts of treason.

The Republican party continues to insist that every liberal or Democratic voice is one of treason. Maybe not Russ Feingold, but perhaps a lesser, even state-level, politician is detained. The Republicans insist that it is important to “stay the course” and be “on the offensive” in the war on terror.

Now we begin an air assault on North Korea. Their response is to begin a missile assault on South Korea. Treatment of American prisoners worsens. Amnesty International cries foul and is once again accused of exaggerating. Did they cry wolf during Guantanamo? Now they’re crying den of werewolves.

The European Union, which has underinvested in a common defense force in the early 21st century, faces a difficult choice. Do they intervene in the Korean conflict? Do they intervene in the increasing imprisonments and human rights abuses occurring in the United States?

In the U.S., meanwhile, a draft is instituted, and a greater demand for natural resources, we are told, causes us to cross both our northern and southern borders simultaneously, catching both Canada and Mexico by surprise. We are now, unequivocally, an occupying force.

Britain leads the charge in rallying Europe to Canada’s defense. World War III is underway. All combatants realize that the nuclear option is largely futile. Until the United States obliterates London, removing the only possible modern military threat to the global hegemony of the now-dominant Republican States of America.

Having outstripped multiple dozens of countries combined in defense spending for the last several decades pays off, as no standing army or navy is equipped to repel the mighty Republican States. There is a global insurgency, a resistance movement, but there is no military counterweight to the R.S. armed forces.

[ end dream sequence ]

It can’t happen here? Well, neither could al-Qaeda become so advanced in its abilities to terrorize that it could catch the sleeping giant of America asleep on September 11th. Neither could the internment camps on American soil during WWII. Neither could the entire institution of slavery. Neither could segregation. In fact, each of these things, which prick our modern moral conscience, did happen here. Humanity is capable of awesome works or awesome destruction when working in concert. And now Bush has set in motion a process which enables a new breed of atrocities, unfortunately at our own hands.

The Military Commissions Act is one of the grossest legislative errors committed by Congress in the history of our country. It will doubtless be challenged in the courts and likely will reach the Supreme Court (if a case is even able to be brought in an effort to challenge it). Will Bush have opportunities to select more justices before it is challenged? If nothing remotely similar to the scenario described above occurs, there is a chance that opposition sanity will prevail and the most pernicious of the act’s details, including the sacrifices of both due process and habeas corpus, will be overturned in legislature. Otherwise, we must hope that justice, somehow, prevails. Sadly, in the meantime, we Americans are all W.

Why am I outraged? I’m outraged because the 4th estate, the modern media, shirked its responsibilities last week when it was difficult for the citizens to whom it reports — granted, for a profit — to discern easily the mechanics of a law that removed essential constitutional protections. I am outraged because the opposition party, the Democrats, stood by while “maverick” Republicans challenged the Republican leadership. And I am outraged because the Republicans, the party in charge, in an effort to bolster their strength going into midterms have ventured to extremities in the name of national security. And I am outraged because the country in which I grew up, for all the minor injustices it allows, always protected my individual liberties… until last week.

This post was written by Freddie