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July 22, 2002
Wayne Madsen
Forbidden
Truth
The Press, Bush, Oil
and the Taliban
July 21. 2002
Francis A. Boyle
The Rogue Elephant
Jennifer Harbury
Why are
the FBI & CIA Targeting Me?
Joan Claybrook
Time
for a Special Prosceutor
for Thomas White
Gloria Bergen
The Struggle
of Workers
in Palestine
Dave Marsh
Mr. Big Stuff:
Alan Lomax, Great White Fraud
James T. Phillips
"I'll
Tell You No Lies"
The Human Rubble of War
July 20, 2002
Gavin Keeney
The Grave
New Urbanism
World Trade Center Burlesque
Jacob Levich
"I
Was Schooled in Hate"
Confessions of a
Summer Camp Terror Tot
Thomas Croft
Augusta,
GA
Growing Up in the Deep South
Alexander Cockburn
The
Market Hogwallow:
Popgun Populism Isn't Enough
July 19, 2002
Abe Bonowitz / SueZann
Bosler
A Discussion
with Jeb Bush on the Death Penalty
Jonathan Power
No Need
for War Against Iraq
Rick Giombetti
Qwest
Death Watch
Kurt Nimmo
Of Mice,
Bullets & Bombs
M. Shahid Alam
Through
Racist Eyes:
Is Eurocentrism Unique?
July 18, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
Business
As Usual
Jerre Skog
I Spy: Now
Let's be Fair,
the USA Ain't East Germany
Ralph Nader
The CEO
Crimewave:
Corporate Socialism
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
The Rising Tensions
Between Spain and Morocco
Alexander Cockburn
Drivel
and Squawk:
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save the White House?
July 17, 2002
Philip Farruggio
The
New Role Model:
Remember Jesus, George?
Zara Gelsey
Who's
Reading Over
Your Shoulder?
Behzad Yaghmaian
9/11 and
Fotress Europe:
the Drama of the New
Moslem Diaspora
Mike Ferner
War, Incorporated
Gary Leupp
Bush, Burqas
and the Oppression of Afghan Women
July 16, 2002
Pierre Tristam
Faith--based
Capitalism in
the Ruins of the Market
Kurt Nimmo
How My
35mm Camera Almost Became a Tool of Treason
Robert Fisk
The Kashmir
Distraction
Salam al--Marayati
When
is Terrorism
Not Defined as Terrorism?
Kathleen Christison
The
Image Problem:
Anti--Palestinian Bias
from Wilson to Bush
July 15, 2002
Gavin Keeney
In One
of Safire's Ears,
Out the Other
CounterPunch Wire
Nader in
Cuba
Ralph Nader
The Secret
World of Banking
Dave Marsh
Vincible:
Michael Jackson, Racism and the Music Cartel
Rahul Mahajan
Justice
for Bhopal
Jeffrey St. Clair
Seduced
by a Legend
The Return of Jimmy T99 Nelson
July 14, 2002
Bill Christison
The
DOA (Poem)
David Vest
I'll Never
Get Out of This Band Alive
July 13, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
A Process
of Dehumanization
Gavin Keeney
Go Tell
Karl Rove!
Matt Vidal
Corporate
"Ethics" Red Herrings
Ed Whitfield
Lessons
from Independence Day
Resources:
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The Memphis Blues Again:
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July
23, 2002
The Disastrous
Foreign Policies
of the United States: Part Four
How Oppression Abroad Means
Repression at Home
by Bill Christison
former
CIA political analyst
Two questions that people too often divorce from
each other have dominated the Bush administration's actions since
September 11. One involves foreign policy--how should the U.S.
government respond abroad to the events of that date? The other
involves domestic policy--to what degree should civil liberties
inside the U.S. be cut back to meet the threat to internal security
that became obvious on that date? The divorce between the two
is understandable. Over the years, different bureaucracies and
different groups of experts in this country have always dealt
with these questions. One of the dangers we face today, however,
is that those of us who oppose both the foreign and domestic
policies of the present U.S. government will accept this divorce
and will split, rather than coordinate, our efforts to bring
about policy changes in both areas.
Specifically, I think those who are making
major efforts to preserve civil liberties in the United States
will be more successful if at the same time they strive, with
equal fervor, to bring about changes in U.S. foreign policies.
My concern is that quite a few people, who are extraordinarily
knowledgeable on civil rights issues, argue that they cannot
broaden the subjects they deal with, that they have more on their
plate than they can easily handle even if they limit themselves
to the domestic problems of civil liberties. This argument is
not only foolish and wrong; it is based at least in part on ulterior
motives.
The most important reason behind the
Bush administration's introduction of the recent restrictions
on civil liberties--and why it is pressing for the formation
of a new Department of Homeland Security--is the hatred of United
States foreign policies in much of the world. This hatred is
rising almost daily as the U.S. not only continues but intensifies
its arrogant and unilateral international policies There are
direct cause-and-effect relationships between this hatred, which
started over 50 years ago, and the terrorism against the U.S.
of last September 11; and there are other direct cause-and-effect
relationships between the terrorism and the cutbacks of civil
liberties in this country since that time.
The Bush administration refuses even
to examine the possibility that changing certain U.S. foreign
policies might allay this hatred at least to some degree and
reduce the likelihood of future terrorism. The argument against
this administration attitude is not that changes in 50-year-old
foreign policies can immediately eliminate the possibility of
more terrorism against the U.S. It won't happen that way. But
changes in foreign policies almost certainly would reduce the
likelihood of future terrorism. With such changes, I think
real evidence would soon appear that hatred of the U.S. was diminishing,
and such evidence would strengthen the case that the extreme
internal security measures now being introduced are both wrong
and unnecessary. Furthermore, all the internal security measures
in the world, and all the cutbacks in civil liberties that Bush
and Ashcroft are now pressing for, are unlikely to prevent future
terrorism unless at the same time the U.S. changes many of its
major foreign policies.
President Bush justifies his war on terrorism
on the basis that those who attacked this country did so simply
because they are "evil," and the existence of this
evil is why, he says, we must accept all these new restrictions
on civil liberties. In my opinion, however, we automatically
lose half the battle if we do not insist on the close connection
between what is happening domestically in this country, and our
foreign policies.
Some of the foreign policies I'm talking
about are (1), the U.S. drive to dominate the world--militarily,
politically, and economically--for the indefinite future; (2),
the U.S. drive to militarize our own nation to such a degree
that we can wage successful preemptive wars against any nations
or groups that refuse to accept U.S. dominance; (3), the U.S.
support for "regime change," that is, the ouster, through
military or covert means, of several unfriendly governments starting
with Iraq; and (4), the extremely controversial issue--in U.S.
domestic politics at least--of the almost total U.S. support
for Israel's policies on Palestine.
As already mentioned, some argue that
it would be better, at least tactically, to avoid controversy
by dodging some or all of these issues, and to concentrate exclusively
on the domestic, civil-liberties issue. This is exactly what
the Sharon government in Israel, the most vocal American supporters
of Israel, and the Bush administration itself want to see happen.
They have all worked intensely since September 11 to make people
fearful of criticizing the U.S. role in supporting Israel. (If
you do criticize, you're often charged with anti-Semitism.) In
a more general sense, if we ignore foreign policies, we'll be
seen as accepting the administration's view that there really
are no legitimate grounds for hatred of these U.S. policies--and
that there simply exists aberrational evil, against which we
must wage war abroad, while introducing extreme police powers
here at home and profiling all potentially "evil" groups.
Taking that road truly does, in my view,
increase the likelihood of perpetual preemptive wars in future
decades. It also reduces the likelihood that we will win the
civil-liberties battle. But if we accept the need to change U.S.
foreign policies at the same time that we oppose the new domestic
internal security policies, I think the odds change. We would
have a better chance of both reducing hatreds in the world and
giving people in the U.S. more hope than they can possibly have
now for a reasonably peaceful and stable next few decades, and
for retaining most of the civil liberties they now enjoy.
Bill Christison
joined the CIA in 1950, and served on the analysis side of the
Agency for 28 years. From the early 1970s he served as National
Intelligence Officer (principal adviser to the Director of Central
Intelligence on certain areas) for, at various times, Southeast
Asia, South Asia and Africa. Before he retired in 1979 he was
Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis,
a 250-person unit. His wife Kathy also worked in the CIA, retiring
in 1979. Since then she has been mainly preoccupied by the issue
of Palestine.
Other CounterPunch articles by Bill
and Kathleen Christison:
Kathleen Christison: The Image Problem:
Anti--Palestinian Bias from Wilson to Bush, July 16, 2002
Bill Christison: Disastrous Foreign
Policies of the US, Part 3: What is to be Done?, July 8, 2002
Kathleen Christison:
The
Story of Resolution 242 or How the US Sold Out the Palestinians, June
28, 2002
Bill Christison: The
Disastrous Foreign
Policies of the United States, Part Two: The Drive for Globalizaion May
28, 2002
Kathleen Christison:
Israel
and Ethics, May 11, 2002
Bill Christison: The Disastrous Foreign
Policies of the United States,
May 10, 2002
Kathleen Christison: Before There
Was Terrorism, May 2, 2002
Bill
Christison: Oil and the Middle East, April
6, 2002
Bill
Christison:
Why
the War on Terror Won't Work,
March 5, 2002
Today's Features
Wayne Madsen
Forbidden
Truth
The Press, Bush, Oil and the Taliban
Francis A. Boyle
The Rogue Elephant
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