by Paul Roasberry

Created on: February 11, 2008

Within hours of his capture in Afghanistan, the American-born John Walker Lindh* was dubbed the "American Taliban."

This honorific ought to be bestowed on someone more deserving. Defining the Taliban style is a maniacal religious conservatism, coupled with an intolerance of criticism and the utter abandonment of restraint in the enforcement of "laws," which become ever more expediently makeshift and impromptu as the reigning mullahs lapse ever drunker into the moral stupor of absolute power. Who, then, is this American Taliban?

The "free and open society" that once supposedly characterized the United States is no more. For all intents and purposes, martial law exists in America. Fundamentalist Christians set legislative agendas and control the White House. Biblical "morality," rather than the Bill of Rights, is now regarded as the Law of the Land. Military leaders openly refer to their campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq as "holy wars" and not withstanding the obligatory lip-service to the "rights" of Islamic Americans to believe as they please, Arabic-speaking citizens are priority-targeted for Homeland Security surveillance. The so-called "Patriot Act" effectively abolishes Constitutional guarantees that have survived over two hundred years of authoritarian attacks. Extreme nationalism, as represented by the omnipresent display of American flags and "patriotic" messages in commodity advertising, is rampant. The President arrogantly sidesteps any compromises with his political opponents to enact his will by executive fiat, and his opponents, cowed by the rising tide of pro-
Christian jingoism, publicly endorse the most extreme attacks on liberty, fearful of being voted out of office. The United States remains the only industrialized nation that routinely executes prisoners, and mounting evidence suggests that higher and higher numbers of these are falsely convicted innocents. The impersonal and flawed machinery of "justice" grinds on in its mission to replace the power of juries with the power of politically-appointed and openly prejudiced judges. Churches continue to be constructed in vast numbers, drawing throngs to their weekly "services." Governmental misconduct is so prevalent that it is no longer even newsworthy. The Executive branch of government continuously tests the limits of its powers, and discovering that they are unopposed, amasses greater and greater confidence in its flagrantly totalitarian program.

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* Readers will recall that

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