CounterPunch
Special Report:
9/11 One Year After
September
7, 2002
A Year Later:
It's Happening Here
Milestones
on the Road to a Military Government in the United States
by Bill Christison
former CIA political
analyst
"We have
a war going on."
How many hundreds of times in the past
year have you heard this tired excuse, mouthed as often by Democrats
as Republicans to avoid serious debate? The speaker, generally
self-righteous, always believes or at least pretends that he
is supporting some policy vital to the fight against evil, either
abroad or in the fatherland. The Bush administration itself chose
to initiate open-ended, lengthy, and large-scale wars rather
than treat the events of September 11 as a crime, and that opened
the door. Since most U.S. citizens liked calling it war, our
leaders then began using the "fact" of war to justify
any other actions they wanted to take. At the same time they
refused even to consider changing any of Washington's own provocative
and hate-inducing foreign policies.
What happened first was that the U.S.
military, taking few casualties itself, used its high-tech aerial
firepower to kill many innocents in Afghanistan. Most of the
bloodshed never appeared on U.S. boob-tubes. Because, one supposes,
this first war continues and someone at a high level has decided
that much of the information about it cannot yet be declassified,
U.S. officials have publicly avoided even estimating the amount
of this collateral bloodshed (although they do claim it is small).
But no one in the U.S. considers the number killed in the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon to be small, and the number of
innocents who died in Afghanistan from U.S. actions may well
be higher.
Recently, the president and his handlers
have been expanding their efforts to begin a second war, without
bothering much to tie the expansion to terrorism. If they have
their way, other wars will follow, and for years to come the
U.S. will unless somehow the lunacy can be stopped
spend untold billions beefing up the already bloated armed forces,
the dozen or so redundant U.S. intelligence agencies, and the
nation's flawed internal security organs. Deep deficits and an
expanding national debt will surely result, but the Bush administration
will accept them because "a war is going on". Washington
will almost certainly pay no more than lip service to the poverty,
health, water, food, and environmental problems facing both the
global and the U.S. domestic economies, and in any case will
allot only tiny resources to deal with them. As for future collateral
bloodshed, the administration is unlikely to demonstrate any
more concern than it has to date. And to date that concern has
been almost wholly propagandistic.
Now a new development is emerging that
threatens to change the structure and society of the United States
itself. The Bush administration, consciously or unconsciously,
is taking the first steps to create an out-and-out military government.
Look at the current discussion in Washington. The question of
U.S. policy toward Iraq should be a political issue, not a military
one. Yet it is quite clear that the leadership in the Department
of Defense (DOD) has more influence today over U.S. policy on
Iraq than anyone in the State Department. We all know that the
top officials at Defense are highly committed hawks on Iraq,
and that these same ideologically committed hawks are also the
strongest supporters in Washington of the right-wing Sharon government
in Israel, which is about the only other country in the world
committed to overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
This has not been the only warning of
an effort to concentrate power over U.S. foreign policies in
the Defense Department rather than the State Department. Donald
Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, recently made a public statement
supporting both Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
and the Jewish settlements in these areas. These are the settlements,
of course, that the Sharon government regards as permanent and
perpetually expandable. Rumsfeld's statement was definitely out
of line with other recent U.S. policy statements on the Israel-Palestine
problem, but scarce a corrective cheep came from the State Department
.
Why did this happen? Perhaps it was just
that Colin Powell mentally at least was on vacation.
It was August, after all, and the president was on vacation,
too. Maybe the lesson here is simply that if you're a good Washington
in-fighter and bureaucratic risk-taker, as Rumsfeld certainly
is, August is not a bad month to stick around the office and
create a few little faits accomplis that might later pay
you back handsomely. More likely, though, Rumsfeld already knew
that both the president and the vice-president in their hearts,
and particularly in this congressional-election year, would support
his statement. Nevertheless, the result is still that the U.S.
military establishment is playing a more dominant role than usual
on a foreign policy issue that is distinctly political. The Israel-Palestine
issue is one in which U.S. military forces are not even directly
involved.
In the intelligence area as well, two
moves are underway that Rumsfeld hopes will give Defense a larger
role in foreign policy. One is a proposal that would give the
military the power to carry out more covert operations independently
of the CIA, and the other is a request that the Congress authorize
a new, very senior slot for the DOD, a new undersecretary of
defense to be responsible for all intelligence matters in the
department. Both of these steps, if implemented, would further
reduce the already limited influence that the Director of Central
Intelligence has over the intelligence elements of the DOD, but
that is not important.
Two points about these proposals, however,
are vital. The first is particularly relevant to those of us
who believe the U.S. should engage in less covert action, not
more. Rumsfeld's proposal that the DOD be given greater authority
to carry out covert actions would surely lead to more of them,
especially since the CIA would continue executing such actions
as well. Pressures would inevitably develop between the two agencies
to compete and to duplicate. Rumsfeld's proposal should be rejected,
but at the same time covert actions should also be removed from
the responsibilities of the present CIA. What should happen is
that the analytical half of the present CIA should be split from
the operational, or spooky, half. Even without real control
over the many other intelligence agencies, the CIA with its two
halves is still too powerful. The operational half should become
a smaller body with a new name and be run directly out of the
White House, with the president by law personally responsible,
along with others (see next paragraph), for every single covert
action. No covert intelligence actions abroad, except for strictly
tactical military intelligence collection during a declared war,
should be carried out by any other intelligence agencies.
The second vital point is that the approval
process for covert actions should by legislation be made intentionally
more difficult. Every covert action should be approved personally,
in writing and in detail, by the president and by the chairmen
of the Senate and House committees responsible for intelligence,
foreign affairs, and military affairs. An additional proposal,
important to me but as yet accepted by no one else, is that all
covert actions should be approved, also formally and in writing,
by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. All three branches
of the government should be involved, and each branch should
have a veto power. The chief justice does not have to be an expert
on foreign affairs. All he or no doubt in years to come, she
needs is a knowledge of constitutional law and an understanding
of behaviors that are or are not acceptable to decent people,
both in this country and around the world. These proposals would
almost certainly reduce drastically, in my opinion
the number of covert actions undertaken by the government and
give greater legitimacy to the few that survived the complete
approval process.
The intention here is less to argue that
the Bush administration is intentionally driving to create a
military government in this country, than to predict that its
actions, unless countered, will inevitably lead to this result.
We have a president with little experience, lots of machismo,
a correct belief that "war" has made him popular, and
a mindset strong on blacks and whites but weak on grays and pastels.
We have a secretary of state inordinately loyal to the president's
family and apparently unwilling to confront the president on
any substantive matter. And then we have a group of committed
ideologues headed by two close friends, Vice President Cheney
and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and supported by the number-two
and number-three men at the DOD, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith,
as well as others in and out of government. All are rabid supporters
of right-wing conservatism, vast military spending, U.S. unilateralism,
imperialism, and global domination; and most are equally fanatice
supporters of Israel.
Strengthened by the events of September
11, this group has come to dominate the views of the president
and therefore the foreign policies of the U.S. It is serendipitous
that both Cheney and Rumsfeld have had lengthy experience in
heading the DOD over several decades. They naturally put some
of their trusted advisers including Wolfowitz and Feith
in top positions under Rumsfeld. And that made the DOD
the natural bureaucratic base for the group now dominating U.S.
foreign policies.
President Bush probably has not given
the slightest thought to the question of whether he is helping
to set up a nucleus inside the DOD that might control the country's
foreign policy as long as he is president. It's very likely that
Rumsfeld has thought about this, however, and probably
regards the prospect with pleasure. If Bush becomes a two-term
president, Rumsfeld can look forward either to another six years,
or as long as he wants until retirement, of being an extraordinarily
powerful person. There will be Bush, good friend Cheney (or a
much less powerful VP if Cheney departs the scene), and below
them no one else matching Rumsfeld's own power. He could be excused
for anticipating that he would pretty much dominate all aspects
of the foreign policy and military scene. He is probably not
even very worried about competition from the only other power
center that might emerge the group that coalesces around
the head, whoever it will be, of the new Homeland Security Department.
Rumsfeld has already set up a new command
within the DOD that covers the continental U.S., and this alone
will give him major influence over the issue of homeland security.
In any domestic emergency, he will control more resources, equipment,
and personnel than even the ballyhooed new department. As mentioned
above, he is also already working hard to strengthen his influence
over the U.S. intelligence establishment, which is another arena
in which he might expect some competition from the head of the
new department. Since he's on the ground and already running,
he has a leg up in this competition.
In any event, if things go Rumsfeld's
way, by the time he ends his term in office, he may well have
so jiggered and reorganized the foreign affairs bureaucracy and
its procedures that he will have established a new status
quo in Washington. It won't really matter that George W.
Bush, Richard Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld perhaps didn't do it
all deliberately, and that maybe in part it just happened. We
will be far closer to a military government than we are now,
and reversing the trend won't be easy. Voters in this country
had better start reversing this process in the 2002 election
and finish the job in 2004.
Otherwise, pity the poor State Department.
And the next president, whoever he may be. And pity the rest
of us, too.
* * * * * * *
RIGHT NOW IS THE TIME TO GET OUT AND
DEMONSTRATE AGAINST THE WARS OUR GOVERNMENT IS LEADING US INTO.
Kathy and I can't think of another time when our own government
has made as critical a mess in the world as the one we now face.
Even demonstrating on busy street corners with a group of friends
for an hour once a week can be helpful. We have two signs that
have elicited more reactions than most others we've tried, and
maybe you'll enjoy them.
One reads:
WAR AGAINST IRAQ
MAKES YOU THE
EVIL-DOER,
MR. BUSH
The other reads:
NO TO WAR
HONK FIVE TIMES
(LONG, SHORT, LONG, LONG, LONG)
-- _ -- -- --
("NO" IN MORSE CODE)
Many people slow down to read both of
these signs, and we receive many thumbs-up and honks of NO in
Morse. Of course, we also get a few yells of "Nuke 'em"
and "F--- you." But that's life in the slow lane of
Santa Fe, NM.
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.
CounterPunch Special Report:
9/11 One Year After
Bill Christison
A
Year Later: It's Happening Here
Alexander Cockburn
The
Tenth Crusade
Susan Davis
Mr. Ashcroft's
Neighborhood
Bruce Jackson
When
War Came Home
David Krieger
Looking
Back on September 11
Peter Linebaugh
Levellers and 9/11
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Trouble
with Normal
Tom Stephens
Rise Up...Dump Bush
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- War Talk As White Noise:
Anything to Get Harken and Halliburton
Out of the Headlines;
- First Hilliard, Then
McKinney: Jewish
Groups Target Blacks Brave Enough to Talk About Justice in the
Middle East; Intimidation
is the Name of the Game; Smearing
"Insane" McKinney As Muslims' Pawn;
- The Missing Terrorist?
Calling Scotland
Yard: "Where's Atif?"
- They Never Booed Dylan!:
Tape Transcript Shows
Famed Newport Folkfest Dissing of Electric Dylan Not True. The Catcalls were for Peter
Yarrow!
- New Shame from the Liffey
Shrike
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
September
6, 2002
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Stolen
Trust
Gale Norton, Indians and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion
September
5, 2002
Ben Tripp
Jesus vs.
George the Second
William Hughes
McKinney's
Defeat:
Undue Meddling
Gavin Keeney
Beaux
Reves, Citoyens!
Wayne Saunders
War
Begins; Nobody Notices
Irit Katriel
Drunk
with Power:
Israeli Chief of Staff Calls Palestinians a "Cancerous Demographic
Threat"
Gary Leupp
Who's Afraid
of Iraq?
September
3, 2002
Nabil Amro
Leadership
& Legitimacy:
An Open Letter to Arafat
Robert Fisk
A Forgotten
Holocaust:
The British in Palestine
Uri Avnery
The Return
of the Dinosaurs
September
2, 2002
Francis Boyle
Flashback:
US War Crimes During the Gulf War
Lou Cohan
Confessions
of a Downloader
Philip Farruggio
Labor
Day Antidote to Apathy
William Blum
Cuban Political
Prisoners
in the US
September
1, 2002
Dave Marsh
No Surrender:
Springsteen's The Rising
August 31,
2002
Gavin Keeney
Return to the
Charterhouse of Parma
David Vest
Porkland:
Confronting Republicans & Police in Portland
Ralph Nader
The Highway
Lobby
M. Shahid
Alam
CNN Reporting
(poem)
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Subjugation Strategy
Dr. Susan
Block
The Gangbang
Asthete
The Sexual Life
of Catherine M.
Kurt Nimmo
Clueless
at the State Dept.
August 30,
2002
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Hitchens, Kissinger, Springsteen, Haggard & Elvis
August 29,
2002
Chris Floyd
The Secret
Sharers:
The CIA and the Murder of Frank Olson
August 28,
2002
William Ring
War on Iraq:
The Brightest Scenario
August 27,
2002
Sam Bahour
The Violence
of Curfew
Wenonah Hauter
From Johannesburg:
Pacts with the Devil: Public-Private Partnerships and the Global
Environment
Jerre Skog
Wanted:
"Our Kind of Guy"
in Iraq!
Uri Avnery
Letter
to a Pilot
August 26,
2002
Sami Al-Arian
Fighting
for the Right of
Dissent and Due Process
Ruebner /
Turaani
What
is Israel Hiding?
Norman Madarasz
Brazil
and the IMF:
Democracy and Emerging Market Liberalism
Robert Fisk
War Crimes:
Reporters Aren't Prosecutors
Douglas Valentine
Phoenix,
CIA and Maj. Gen. Bruce Lawlor: From Vietnam
to Homeland Security
August 24
/ 25, 2002
Susan Davis
Proverbial
Wisdom:
Of Clogs and Enron
Falk / Krieger
No War
Against Iraq
Ceylon Mooney
Fasting
for Iraq
Jonathon
Wright
Police
Brutality in Atlanta
Ralph Nader
Congress's
Pay Raise Scam
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Chainsaw
George
Alexander
Cockburn
Alterman
Cheapens Holocaust
August 23,
2002
Dave Marsh
Selling
Out?
Anthony Gancarski
Super-Duper:
Oil, al-Qaeda and a West African Adventure
William Hughes
Lieberman's
Conflict
of Interest?
Kurt Nimmo
The Lapdog
Conversion of CNN:
They Didn't Want to "Criticize" a Popular War
Sean Donahue
Hardline
in Colombia
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|