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CounterPunch
January
6, 2003
Desperately
Seeking Emmanuel Goldstein
by KURT NIMMO
Fear swells across the land. Five Middle Eastern
men, Pakistanis to be more precise, have crossed the US-Canada
border and are on the loose and possibly predisposed to mayhem.
From the pig farm in Crawford, Texas, our unelected president
has promised to hunt 'em down and smoke 'em out. "We don't
have any idea of what their intentions might be, but we are mindful
that there are still some out there who would try to harm America
and harm Americans," said Dubya between brush clearing bouts,
"we take every threat seriously, every piece of evidence
seriously."
Meanwhile, in New York, Senator Hillary
Clinton, not one to miss a politically expedient opportunity
or advantageous sound bite, has called for the creation of an
office dedicated to improving security on the border with Canada.
We can expect more such quasi-presidential proclamations from
Ms. Clinton in the months to come. Not only has Gallup found
her the most admired woman in America -- a title she must share
with <J.Lo> nee Jennifer Lopez -- but she has thrown her
boater in the ring for the 2004 election.
As if to demonstrate they sincerely hate
our way of life, these terrorists of a darker melanin entered
our hallowed land on Christmas. Well, the word "terrorist"
may be a bit premature since they have yet to do anything cloven-footed
or hateful against our marvellous way of life, as our appointed
president seems to think they intend. Even so, our frisky intelligence
services have told Steve Emerson over at MSNBC the men are reportedly
wanted in a wider smuggling ring thought to include degenerate
terrorists (smugglers, along with mischievous teenage computer
hackers, are now thought to be terrorists under the Bush and
Ashcroft rubric). Since Pakistan is considered a virtual haven
for mean-spirited evil-doers -- and New Year's Day is a holiday
of symbolic significance to Islamic malcontents -- the guardians
of the Best Damn Country in the World are not taking any chances.
Bush has personally ordered the FBI to hunt 'em down and smoke
'em out. Let's hope he is more successful with this bunch than
he was with Osama, Omar, and other medieval scoundrels.
Just to be sure, police in New York --
where it is guesstimated these assumed terrorists have fled --
have welded shut manholes and removed mailboxes in Times Square.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told Fox News approximately 2,000
officers were on duty and sharpshooters stationed on roofs during
the New Year festivities. The rubber-stamped Ministry of Homeland
Security issued a low-level alert for New York's ports on New
Year's Eve day (holidays, it would seem, always merit low-level
terrorist alerts). Intelligence sources warned of eight "diversionary"
attacks throughout the state before a possible harbor attack.
"There was an uncorroborated report about New York Harbor,"
Kelly explained, and then went on indicate pleasure craft had
been barred from the harbor. Interestingly, since the appointment
of Dubya, the word "uncorroborated" has taken on new
significance.
So, this is our future? Color-coded terror
warnings and self-seeking politicians clamoring to hire yet more
low-paid and ill-trained ticket punchers at the gates of the
Best Damn Country in the World. Bush, as the sheriff of pax Americana,
has become the boy who cried wolf recast. No longer do many of
us put credence into these now routine terror warnings. It is
simply unrealistic to expect the nation to recoil in fear and
trepidation at the prospect of gangbangers searching "dirty
bomb" on Google or Muslim citizens from Lackawanna trekking
to Afghanistan. A life of interminable fear is a life unlivable.
Even so, more than a few of us have caught on: our overseers
will dutifully yank the alarm cord, especially on Christmas and
the Fourth of July, in order to keep us dizzy and distracted
with fear, a required condition if numerous wars are to be fought
and sacrifices to be made in the name of Lockheed Martin, General
Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon, et al, and their stockholders and
directors (Lynne Cheney, main squeeze of VP Dick, is a former
Lockheed Martin director with 2,512 shares).
Saddam Hussein is no Emmanuel Goldstein,
Orwell's perennial enemy of the state in his classic novel 1984.
Americans generally do not fear the Iraqi dictator (although
large numbers believe Saddam and the Iraqi people should be bombed
for good measure). More fearsome enemies will need to be devised
if Bush and his rapacious neocon chicken hawks are going to accomplish
their invidious mission. Not even the little Stalinist of North
Korea, Kim Jung-il, fits the bill of all-around bad guy and plenary
threat to the global order of things. Osama was the closest Bush
and the corporate media came to finding the embodiment of Complete
Evil and Chaos, but the furtive Saudi expatriate has been far
less than obliging as of late. Bush really blew it when he failed
to work Osama up into sincerely Goldstein proportions (the fake
Osama video and audio tapes attempted this but, due to overwhelming
incompetence and ineptitude of those who produce such things,
failed miserably and, besides, the attention of the average American
is decidedly fickle, especially when the competition is a survival
show).
Americans are more worried about their
bank accounts and jobs than evil-doers slipping over the Canadian
border or sleeper cells established in "seedy neighborhoods"
(as the API put it) where, according to CIA and Defense Intelligence
Agency officials, people "don't care about you, they don't
want to look at you and don't look at you." Instead of worrying
about terrorists living in such places, far too many Americans
are worried that, the way the economy is spinning downward, they
may themselves end up in a dilapidated tenement. The "conjectural
probabilities" of terrorists in our midst bother most folks
far less than a host of other problems -- skyrocketing health
care costs, unemployment, the raiding of pension funds by greedy
and lawless corporations, and unchecked environmental degradation,
none of which Bush cares about a whit.
Obviously, if Bush is going to sell his
plan for endless war against a shifting array of enemies (who
happen to be in countries where there is a lot of oil and other
coveted natural resources) he will need to work overtime to create
a Goldstein-like bogeyman. Saddam Hussein, Kim Jung-il, and the
unaccounted for Osama bin Laden are no longer going to cut it.
Or there will need be another September 11, this time of truly
hideous magnitude -- widespread small pox attacks, dirty nukes
in the heartland, suicide bombings surpassing anything Israel
has experienced -- if the people of America are to fall in line
and support the boundless wars of conquest and suppression that
Bush and his demented mob of warmongers have in mind. Simply
cranking up the color-coded warnings and hauling out the same
shopworn "intelligence" officials with their unpersuasive
speculations and "conjectural probabilities" will no
longer work. Sooner or later Dubya's going to have to play hardball
for keeps.
On the other hand, Bush may limp along
with his half-ass terror threats until November, 2004, when he
can be safely deposed and consigned to the dustbin of history.
In the meantime, there will be war in Iraq and possibly elsewhere
-- we can only hope these vicious and transparent adventures
will sputter and flounder and not too many people will die in
the process (I wouldn't bet the farm on it, though). As well,
considering how the Bushites and their co-conspirators in the
so-called highest court hijacked the last election, we can't
be absolutely certain something duplicitous won't happen again
(imagine one of the aforementioned terrorist attacks going down
a few weeks before the election -- martial law is declared, the
election "postponed" until "order is restored,"
say in a generation or so).
Considering how 911 will never be truly
and sincerely investigated -- especially now that Bush has nominated
as Chairman of the National (whitewash) Commission Thomas H.
Kean, who has documented business ties with Osama's brother-in-law
(Khalid bin Mahfouz, who is named as a major financial backer
of bin Laden in a lawsuit brought by families and survivors of
911) -- it is not a stretch to conclude Bush believes he can
get away with anything.
Consider as well the neocon document
("Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and
Resources for a New Century") drawn up by the rabid right
wing Washington-based organization known as the Project for the
New American Century (PNAC) for the likes of Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dubya's younger brother Jeb, and Lewis
"Scooter" Libby back in 2000 while Dubya was busy executing
retarded defendants in Texas. The PNAC plan for world domination
calls for a "catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor"
to motivate usually war restrained Americans into empire-lurching
action. Finally, if you believe war hawks are moral and disinclined
to kill their fellow citizens in the name of empire, consider
Operation Northwoods, as detailed by investigative author James
Bamford (Body of Secrets, Doubleday, 2001): "Operation Northwoods,
the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and
every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent
people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees
fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent
terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere.
People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes
would be hijacked." Operation Northwoods was designed to
create a "catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor"
in order to justify a war against the Saddam Hussein of the day,
Castro. JFK rejected the plan -- and Bush, as Arianna Huffington
has noted, is no JFK.
Conspiracy theories are not strictly
for the paranoid anymore.
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Visit his excellent online
gallery. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
We highly recommend regular visits to
Nimmo's website, Another
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