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A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp by Judith Mann
November 7, 2001
Cockburn/St. Clair
Greens, Airports
and
National ID Cards
Dr. Susan
Block
Ayatollah
Asscroft
Brian J. Foley
Bombing Campaign
Not "Self-Defense" Under International Law
November 6, 2001
Mark Scaramella
Where's
That Red Cross Money Going
C.G. Estabrook
Our Torturers
Sheperd
Bliss
Scott
Nearing on War
Rep. Ron Paul
Underwriting
the Taliban
Tariq
Ali
The
General Who
Came to Dinner
Evan Ravitz
Stop the War
Through
Direct Democracy
Steve
Perry
Hunger
in Afghanistan
November 5, 2001
Patrick Cockburn
Living
in the Minefields
David Price
Terror
and Indigenous People
November 3, 2001
Declan McCullagh
Nancy Oden Interview
Daniel
Wolff
The
Memphis Blues Again
Mark Weisbrot
War on Civilians
Dave Marsh
How
the RIAA (and the FBI) Cheat Musicians
Robert Jensen
Speaking
Out Against
War on Campus
November 2, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Green
Party Leader Detained at Maine Airport; Prevented from Boarding
Any Plane
Alexander Cockburn
FBI Eyes
Torture
November 1, 2001
Dean Baker
Dying
for Patents
Sami Amarah
US Attempts
to Recruit
Russian Vets of Afghan War
Molly Secours
Where
Are the Voices of Reason? Let the Women
Be Heard
William Blum
Unleashing the
CIA
October 31, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
Terrorize
the Poor,
Subsidize the Rich
Chris Clarke
Thank God
for Berkeley
Steve
Perry
The
Silent Genocide
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November 8,
2001
Homeland Insecurity:
Phoenix, Chaos, The
Enterprise,
and The Politics of Terror In America
Prior to the 11 September terror attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, two conditions defined American
politics. In regard to foreign affairs, the United States was
universally recognized as the world's only super power. And today
that condition remains unchanged: no other nation comes close
to matching America's military might.
But domestic politics was defined by
doubts about the legitimacy of the Bush Administration. Al Gore
had won the popular vote by an overwhelming majority, and Bush
had acquired his presidential powers through a combination of
nepotism and voter fraud in Florida, blatant media bias, and
a judicial coup d'etat by the right wing of the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Before the terror attacks, the stench
of venality clung to Bush like cigarette smoke and stale beer
after a night of bar hopping. Since the attacks, his standing
in the polls has nearly doubled, and there's been no more talk
of an oil crunch, or the ailing economy, or of the looting of
pensions plans down ten to twenty percent, or of looting of Social
Security and Medicare to pay for the war of revenge, or of Republicans
losing Congress in 2002.
This second, overarching condition--the
inherent illegitimacy of the Bush Administration--must be remembered
when considering how the apocalyptic events of 11 September changed
the domestic political landscape. Symbolically, they wiped the
slate clean. The U.S. remains the most powerful nation in the
world, but Bush's legitimacy is no longer an issue. As a result,
all the moral and psychological prohibitions on the reactionary
right have been lifted, and all the anger and frustrations it
cultivated during the Vietnam War, and the Carter and Clinton
Administrations, is poised to be unleashed under the aegis of
counter-terrorism, not only on the usual suspects--foreign enemies
sitting on vast oil reserves, suspected terrorists, and domestic
dissidents--but on the unwitting, flag-waving American public
as well.
Alas, righteous outrage over the crime
of 11 September has enabled the once wobbly "unpresident"
to stand tall, assert himself, and exploit the catastrophe in
a way that seems at once crass, eerily preordained, and suspiciously
opportune. Though its moral authority and intentions are as uncertain
as the perpetrators of the carnage, the Bush Administration has
effectively silenced its critics, and, amid rapturous bipartisan
Congressional and public support, launched a "low intensity"
war on Afghanistan and a nebulous, "covert" war on
world terrorism, while reorganizing the executive branch of government
into the most fearsome political and psychological warfare machine
the world has ever seen.
There is a grave, hidden danger in this
situation, for the reactionary right wing--by which I mean the
owners, managers, and supporters of America's totalitarian, military
industrial information complex--have united the nation behind
the Bush Administration in a spirit of belligerent nationalism.
With its actions and intentions shrouded in secrecy, the Bush
Administration, in this respect, fits the classic definition
of a fascist dictatorship.
Already some of our most cherished freedoms
have been sacrificed. Dissent has been stifled, censorship imposed,
and cherished legal protections, especially regarding the Fourth
Amendment, have been altered and suspended. No one knows exactly
how many "suspects" are being detained, or where, and
already there has been one suspicious death and widespread rumors
of abuse. And the situation will only get worse.
In a 21 October article for The Washington
Post, Walter Pincus reported that FBI and Justice Department
investigators are increasingly frustrated by the silence of some
jailed suspects. Offers of lighter sentences, money, jobs, and
a new identity and life in America haven't loosened their tongues,
and alternative strategies under discussion include "using
drugs or pressure tactics, such as those employed occasionally
by Israeli interrogators, to extract information."
Images come to mind of stoic Israeli
soldiers breaking the hands of adolescent Palestinian rock throwers.
But more serious measures are being contemplated. According to
Pincus, one law professor believes "the use of force to
extract information could happen" in cases where investigators
believe suspects have information on an upcoming attack. "If
there is a ticking bomb, it is not an easy issue," the professor
said.
Right wing Republican stalwart Kenneth
W. Starr, the former Clinton inquisitor, said the danger of terrorism
requires "deference to the judgments of the political
branches (italics added) with respect to matters of national
security." And right wing Republican Richard Thornburgh,
a former Pennsylvania governor and attorney general under Ronald
Reagan and George H. W. Bush, said that due process sometimes
"strangles us." When it comes to counter-terrorism,
Thornburgh said that legally admissible evidence "may not
be the be-all and end-all."
According to Pincus, "the country
may compare the current search for information to brutal tactics
in wartime used to gather intelligence overseas and even by U.S.
troops from prisoners during military actions."
Suddenly we've gone from breaking hands
to cutting off fingers, attaching electrodes to genitals, and
pouring soapy water down windpipes while suspects hang suspended
on meat hooks.
But is there a "crisis" as
government propagandist Pincus suggests? And even if there is,
why must we defer to the "political branches," as Starr
claims, to combat terrorism? And what does it mean for Bush's
domestic political opponents if, as Thornburgh suggests, the
"current search for information" should include the
"brutal tactics" used "in wartime"?1
How To
Organize A Fascist State
America was attacked and is at war; and in the rage and confusion
following the morning of 11 September Bush sought unprecedented
emergency powers to counter the threat of more terrorism. He
received those powers from Congress with near unanimous public
support. The logic was irrefutable at the moment: a murderous,
suicidal enemy had invaded our homeland, and the military had
to be mobilized. Fear gripped the nation, and while Bush was
ignominiously hidden away in a military bunker by security forces
(because, his aides falsely claimed, terrorists planned to attack
Air Force One) the White House was able to impose what amounts
to martial law. Armed National Guardsmen now stalk our airports,
concrete barriers surround our government buildings, and the
president's press secretary cautions our apologetic comedians
(when they're not sports casting or sharing emotional moments
with Dan Rather) to watch what they say.
And even though the attacks ended quickly,
a bizarre outbreak of anthrax keeps the body count climbing,
emotions simmering, and the emergency sustained. The military
is now integrally involved in domestic counter-terror operations,
and intelligence gained from CIA covert actions--evidence hitherto
inadmissible in courts of law, due to the CIA's refusal to reveal
its illegal "sources and methods"--has been folded
into law enforcement operations. Any number of secret presidential
edicts may have been issued--we know of one authorizing the CIA
to commit assassinations--and thus the scope of the assault on
our civil liberties has yet to be fully revealed.
But we do know how the Bush Dictatorship
will be organized. It will be based on a broad policy of anti-terrorism
covering the entire spectrum of possible actions, from conventional
military operations, to political intervention, and to economic
sanctions against nations like Afghanistan, Cuba, and Iraq. This
broad policy of anti-terrorism will include specific counter-terror
programs and operations, at home and abroad. White House political
and security advisors will coordinate this bifurcated effort
under the ostensibly direction of dimwitted George Bush and the
actual direction his Machiavellian Vice President, Dick Cheney.
Should Haliburton Oil Company executive Cheney depart the scene
for health reasons, an equally aggressive individual, most likely
Secretary of State Colin Powell, will take his place.
The job of managing overseas counter-terror
operations will fall to National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice. A board member of Chevron Corporation, which operates in
100 foreign countries, Rice, like Bush and Cheney, has an abiding
personal interest in the growth of the oil industry. She is a
"hard liner" and advocates a worldwide war on terrorism,
to be fought in more than 60 countries. As she said in an 18
October article posted on the CNN website, "you've got to
get to these (terrorist) cells and root them out and disrupt
them before they strike again."
The job of coordinating the domestic
counter-terror effort will fall to former Pennsylvania Governor
Tom Ridge, as director of the newly created Office of Homeland
Security (OHS). In less sophisticated times, the domestic counter-terror
effort would be referred to as "internal security,"
and Ridge would head the Office of Internal Security. But the
Bush Administrations public relations experts evidently think
"internal security" has a negative connotation, and
that the word "homeland" connotes "the land of
the free and the home of the brave," as opposed to the Fuhrer
and his adoring volkreich.
Although he is a personal friend of Bush
and a decorated Vietnam veteran, Ridge supports a woman's right
to an abortion, and thus is mistrusted by the reactionary right
wing of the Republican Party. Even the mainstream media is beginning
to portray him as a mere spokesman and figurehead without real
authority, and it's clear the White House's political cadre will
make the real decisions about internal security, and foreign
policy.
In existence since 1947, the National
Security Council implements the President's foreign policy wishes,
which are to organize the world based on the totalitarian corporate
paradigm, in a political way that will enrich himself and his
loyal supporters. The new OHS has the same purpose, and same
organizational structure, as the NSC.
The political pretext for creating the
OHS was simple enough: 6000 citizens were killed in a terrible
terror attack, and the Bush Administrations claims that the OHS
is the best mechanism to reduce the risk of such a calamity happening
again. To this end, the OHS will coordinate more than 40 federal
agencies involved in intelligence, security, and law enforcement
endeavors.
Although the lines of authority have
yet to be determined, the OHS will work with the murky Military
Homeland Defense Agency under Deputy National Security Advisor
General Wayne Downing. Though he is describe as Ridge's deputy,
Downing has far greater experience in counter-terror doctrine
and operations, including service as an intelligence and Civil
Affairs officer during the Vietnam War. Before his retirement
in 1997, Downing was Commanding General of the U.S. Army Special
Operations Command at Fort Bragg (1991-1993), and Commander in
Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force
Base (1993-1996).
The man to watch, Downing will advise
Ridge and Bush on how best to detect and disrupt domestic terrorist
organizations. Downing will be OHS's liaison to the Pentagon
and its highly evolved counter-terror units. These units will
likely serve as the OHS's "action" arm in hostage situations
or in cases when the "brutal tactics" used "in
wartime" are required to persuade a terrorist to reveal
the location of a "ticking bomb."
Downing also will likely oversee the
Stalinist military tribunals the Bush Administration has proposed
as a method of trying, dispensing with, and even executing terrorists.
In a 25 October article titled "How We Punish Saboteurs"
for Legal Times, Philip Lacovara, cited the case of eight German
saboteurs executed during World War II. President Roosevelt ordered
the men tried before a military tribunal composed entirely of
military officers. The saboteurs took their case to the Supreme
Court, but the Justices backed the President, ruling that the
Germans had no right to a public trial or a trial by jury. The
Court even implied that the President as commander in chief had
the power to order the men executed without any trial at all.
Ultimately the military tribunal did its job, and in early August
1942, six would-be saboteurs were hanged.
As Lacovara notes, without any sense
of irony that every member of the CIA falls within this definition,
"The laws of war grant no quarter to those who plot their
evil in the shadows."
It's unclear if the OHS, in conjunction
with Downing's organization, will have the power to torture and
summarily execute. But the OHS is being funded by hundreds of
millions of taxpayer dollars, and Bush Administration propagandists
are busy lowering expectations. Defending our homeland will not
be an easy task, according to Michael Ledeen, a former counter-terror
expert in the Reagan Administration's State Department and National
Security Council. In a 1 October article for the National Review
OnLine, Ledeen said the difficulty will be getting the law-enforcement
and intelligence agencies "to coordinate better with one
another." 2
Ledeen defines this organizational problem
as ideological, and he specifically blames the Clintons, "for
failing to properly organize our nation's security apparatus."
He even goes so far as to suggest that
the Clinton Administration is liable for the terror attacks of
September 11th, because, "People who took security seriously
were sneered at by the Clintons. Bubba's White House was a security
shambles," and his Secretary of State, Madeline Albright,
"presided over one security debacle after another. Rooms
were bugged, files and computers disappeared, perhaps into the
same black hole as the Rose Law Firm records having to do with
Ms. Hillary's billable hours."
Ledeen's vilification of "the Clintons"
is a textbook example of the unsubtle political and psychological
warfare being waged on the American public, to legitimize the
Bush Administration, and to justify the political repression
of those people whom Clinton is presumed to represent: obviously
not those who take security seriously.
Bombing a pharmaceutical factory in the
Sudan, endless economic sanctions against Iraq, more than a billion
dollars to fight narco-terrorism in Colombia, and the war in
Bosnia--none of this was serious enough to suit Ledeen and the
radical right. Nor was Clinton's total commitment to Israel.
Clinton's failure was here, at home, and the radical right is
about to set things straight.
The terror attacks of 11 September cry
out for violent retribution, and if, as Ledeen alleges, "the
Clintons" are to blame--through sins of omission, ignorance,
or arrogance--then violent retribution must surely be visited
upon them and their associates. This is exactly what Ledeen is
advocating, and this is the tricky part, because he does not
define whom these people were who sneered at security. But his
visceral hatred of them is indicative of the violence the reactionary
right wing wishes to inflict, through the OHS, on its political
opponents--however erroneously represented by Clinton they are--in
order to instill "respect" for the illegitimate Bush
Administration.
According to Ledeen, Clinton's sneering
lack of respect took "a terrible toll on the system, and
Ridge will not find it easy to instill a proper respect for proper
secrecy, even in his own offices. It takes quite a while to stamp
out corrupt habits of mind and action."
Ledeen's solution to the problem of domestic
terrorism is "to stamp out" the "corrupt habits
of mind (italics added)" that are still lingering
around, somewhere. In other words, the reactionary right wing
must impose its "proper" ideology through the institution
of an official Thought Police, the OHS, in order to create the
politically correct, security conscious, uniform American citizenry,
marching in lockstep, flags waving, that is necessary to win
the tough war ahead. It's a matter of will.
"This is time for the old motto,
"kill them all, let God sort 'em out." New times require
new people with new standards," Ledeen asserts. "The
entire political (italics added) world will understand
it and applaud it. And it will give Tom Ridge a chance to succeed,
and us to prevail."
The "new times" means a society
in which the organizing principle is terror. The "new people"
are those who take internal security seriously enough to impose
the "new standards," which allow military tribunals
to order summary executions and torture here in America, when
necessary, and mass murder anywhere in the world there are thought
to be terrorists, as is happening in Afghanistan right now.
It all depends on whether or the reactionary
right wing succeeds in terrorizing the American public into submission.
As the Bush regime is fond of saying, "You're either with
us, or you're against us."
Continued in Part Two: Phoenix and the Anatomy
of Terror
Douglas Valentine writes frequently for CounterPunch. He is the
author of The Phoenix
Program, the only comprehensive account of the CIA's torture
and assassination operation in Vietnam, as well as TDY
a chilling novel about the CIA and the drug trade.
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