|
CounterPunch
December
23, 2002
Battlefield Earth
by CHRIS FLOYD
"Our greatest fear is that terrorists
will find a short-cut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime
supplies them with the technologies to kill on a mass scale."
George W. Bush
A legitimate fear indeed from the fearmonger-in-chief.
But what about the far more likely scenario--that these short-cuts
to mass destruction will be supplied not by outlaw regimes, but
by "lawful" states instead?
What if, say, some hardline element in
the Chinese military slips a bit of chemical fireworks to a ragtag
group looking to wreak freelance hell on the West? Or the Taliban's
patrons in Pakistan's secret service provide their jihadic soulmates
with nuclear ready-mades from that country's bristling atomic
arsenal? Or a zealot in India's Hindu extremist government decides
to usher in the world-ending age of Kalki with his nation's nukes?
What then?
All these scenarios represent a much
more imminent possibility than the doom-crying threat now attributed
to the brokenbacked regime of Saddam Hussein. Yet we don't hear
calls to bomb Beijing or incinerate Islamabad from the sternly
pursed lips of President Can't-Chew-a-Pretzel. Nor does the vast,
porous storehouse of technodeath that is the former Soviet Union
inspire chest-thumping demands for "pre-emptive" strikes
on Moscow or Kiev.
Of course, beyond the ever-increasing
likelihood of bad juju leaking out of one of America's many business
partners, there lies the most realistic possibility of all: that
the "short-cut" technology of mass murder will come
from the United States itself. Because God knows, America's gilded
"guardians" won't be able to stop it.
This month, with Washington's attention
diverted by a series of Bush Regime botches and embarassments--the
maladroit economic shuffle, the Kissinger fiasco, the Trent Lott
scandal, etc.--Congress released a heavily redacted report on
its highly anemic, tightly-constricted probe into the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks. Yet even this kid-gloves treatment underscored
the horrendous record of lies, laxity and criminal negligence
that constituted the response of America's $30 billion security
apparatus to the howling threat of impending attacks on U.S.
soil
If the security apparatchiks couldn't
stop 19 marked men--most of them under suspicion by international
intelligence services, and two of whom were even roommates of
an FBI informant--from hijacking four airplanes in broad daylight,
flying freely through U.S. airspace for almost an hour, then
slamming into some of the nation's most famous buildings, then
how can we expect them to prevent some far more obscure but equally
deadly threat? How will they keep, say, some disaffected player
deep in the bowels of America's gargantuan military-security
complex from shuffling a bit of atrocious whizbangery to a well-heeled
foreign terrorist? Or to a shifty middleman willing to buy--and
sell--with no questions asked? Or to his second cousin in the
Ku Klux Klan?
No, the genie is long gone from the bottle
in regard to "short-cut technologies." They are out
there, in endlessly mutable forms, with an almost infinite range
of possibilities for their sale, transfer and deadly application
in the "war against civilization." Of course, it was
"civilization" that developed these technologies and
loosed them on the world in the first place. They were expressly
designed--by the "civilized" world--to kill large numbers
of people as quickly and indiscriminately as possible: the precise
strategy followed by the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Even now, avatars of civilization like
Don Rumsfeld are working with billions of secret dollars in secret
labs to develop ever-more deadly weapons for secret armies: fearsome
new weapons of mass destruction, "precision" ordnance
to incinerate and obliterate human matter without mercy--and
sci-fi torture implements to control "unruly" crowds
with blistering rays that induce illness, boil skin, scramble
brains and destroy nerves.
And all of these weapons can be directed
against anyone on earth--including American citizens, on American
soil--at the unchecked, unchallengeable order of civilization's
supreme leader, George W. Bush, who has now openly claimed this
power for himself, AP reports. This chilling announcement was
merely the public unveiling of a secret presidential directive
issued a few weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, and first noted
here in November 2001.
As we said then, Bush's license to kill
is deliberately vague. The definition of those worthy of death
is left entirely up to the president: there is no legislative
oversight, no judicial review, no public scrutiny. If he wants
you dead, he can have you killed. It's as simple as that.
These assassinations are "legitimate,"
we're told, because "the Bush Administration and Al Qaeda
together have defined the entire world as a battlefield."
Hence any action anywhere--"targeted killing," kidnapping,
torture, imprisonment--can now be justified as a "military
necessity."
The measures taken by these "civilized"
men go far beyond those necessary for the adequate defense of
the country. They are obviously designed to facilitate a system
of military dominance abroad and repression at home, whenever
it's deemed necessary. If the Regime actually cared about security,
it could simply use the overwhelming powers and resources the
government has long possessed.
Instead, Bush blocked billions
in bipartisan Congressional funding that would have sent immediate
assistance to the real frontline against terrorism: the police,
fire and emergency services of America's communities. Instead,
he budgeted $30 billion for a "Homeland Security" department
that doesn't even include the failed security appartus
in its "reforms." At every turn, he undercuts international
efforts to curb nuclear proliferation, chemical weapons, landmines,
money laundering, and arms peddling, while his CIA operatives
grease the international drug trade for their hired hands, the
Afghan warlords.
These are not the actions of someone
whose primary concern is security for his people and peace in
the world. But they are no doubt an inspiration for terrorists
and "outlaw regimes". To be successful, Bush says,
to be a "great power," you must squander your nation's
treasury on technologies of death and dominance; you must scorn
law, embrace corruption, operate in secret; you must demonize
your adversaries, strike first, kill their civilians--and subjegate
your own people to the arbitrary will of the leader.
"Mad ambitions" indeed. Yes,
when it comes to devoting human ingenuity to mass slaughter for
political purposes, the "civilized" world has indeed
proved to be a beacon of enlightenment to barbarians everywhere.
Chris Floyd
is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor
to CounterPunch. He can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com
Yesterday's
Features
Sean Carter
The Bush
Rape Story
Why is the Media Ignoring Zippergate 2?
Francis Boyle
What Are
Bush's Intentions Toward Palestine?
David Vest
Meet the
New Southern Strategy
Same as the Old Southern Strategy
Sayed Moustafa Al-qazwini
Will Bush Betray Iraqis Once Again?
Mahbubul Karin (Sohel)
Is This
Really Happening?
Mass Arrests of Muslim and Jewish Immigrants
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
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
/
|
December 10,
2002
Carol Norris
Help Wanted:
US Government Looking for a Few Qualified Applicants
Tom Gorman
With Liberators
Like These, Who Needs Conquerors?
Linda Heard
Spies,
Snitches and Eyes in the Sky
Josh Ruebner
Striking
with Impunity
Joanne Mariner
You Have
No Right to Remain Silent
December 9,
2002
Adam Engel
Great Expectations:
an Immodest Proposal
Roldan Tomasz
Suárez
What Really
Happened in Altamira Plaza?
Robert Jensen
Bob Woodward's
Bush Hagiography
William Hughes
Berrigan's
Final Warning
Uri Avnery
Why Does
the Leopard Change His Spots?
Netanyahu and Likud
Gary Leupp
Religious
Intolerance Then and Now
Hammond Guthrie
In a
Moment's Time
(for Philip Berrigan)
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
|