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CounterPunch
October
17, 2002
Predators, Snipers and the Posse
Comitatus Act
by KURT NIMMO
If you live in Falls Church, Virginia, and you
see a funny looking aircraft circling over your neighborhood
don't be alarmed. It's just the Pentagon looking for the sniper.
CNN says Rummy wants to help out, so he has approved "military
reconnaissance" of undetermined origin to snoop around the
Washington area. CNN says the Pentagon has not disclosed what
kind of equipment will be used. Yet earlier in the day I saw
a report indicating the military will use General Atomics Aeronautical
Systems Predator UAV drones. They even showed video footage of
the damn things.
Rummy just shot another big hole in the
Posse Comitatus Act. It's looked like Swiss cheese for years,
ever since the military was "enlisted" to combat evil
drug dealers. You know, drug dealers who sell CIA certified heroin
and cocaine on the streets of American cities. According to CNN,
the Pentagon is not really trashing the Posse Comitatus Act because
there is no "direct involvement" between the cops and
the military.
 Maybe the copywriters
over at CNN need to read up on the Posse Comitatus Act. "Whoever,
except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized
by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part
of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise
to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than two years, or both." Of course, Rummy does
not need Congress to tell him what to do. His "guidelines,"
recently published in the New York Times, demonstrate what he
thinks about Congress and the American people.
Predator drones are "part of the
Army or the Air Force," even if guys in cammies and helmets
toting M16s are not accompanying the cops as they look for the
sniper. Well, a lot of cops are wearing cammies and helmets and
toting M16s these days, so maybe the point is moot. I'm sure
David Koresh didn't see a lot of difference between ATF agents
and Nazi storm troopers. Or did the father of Elian Gonzalez.
Or do a lot of dark skinned people in America's inner cities.
But never mind. I'm digressing.
It's October. That means the Pentagon
may have to fly its drones in bad weather -- and the Predator
does not do well in rain, wind, snow, or cold temperatures. Predators
crash, too, although the Pentagon does not release such embarrassing
statistics. A French journalist reported a while back that a
UAV drone was inadvertently thrown off course over Kosovo. It
seems a French officer used the same radio frequency on which
the UAV was operating. He interrupted the connection between
the aircraft and its ground control station. The drone ended
up in the hands of the Serbs, who were likely ecstatic. In 1998,
the Pakistanis were thankful as well when two of Clinton's cruise
missiles went off target and landed in their front yard unscathed.
It was a benefit bestowed to Pakistan's missile program which,
at the time, was under US embargo.
Think of all the air traffic over Washington.
Think about all the telephone wires, high power lines, microwave
towers and cell phone repeaters. Rummy's idea of catching the
sniper with the help of a drone is an accident waiting to happen.
Maybe Rummy didn't think this one through. Then again, maybe
he did. Maybe this is yet another hole shot through the Swiss
cheese that is the Posse Comitatus Act. Maybe if Dubya and Rummy
keep blurring the lines a lot of us will no longer be able to
tell the difference between cops and soldiers. Maybe we will
finally believe this is what needs to be done to protect us from
vicious terrorists. Maybe we will give up the fourth, fifth,
and sixth amendments to the Constitution in order to fight terrorism.
Maybe we will give up the third amendment for good measure--you
know, the one prohibiting "peacetime quartering of troops
in private dwellings without owners' consent" (well, the
Pentagon will have to base those UAV stations somewhere). Then
again, if Dubya has his way, peace will soon become a curious
anachronism.
The absurdity of the whole sniper affair
is stunning. For instance, last week Ari Fleischer remarked to
reporters in the White House briefing room that "the cost
of one bullet" was much preferable to war against Iraq.
He was talking about taking out Saddam by way of assassination,
something the CIA and military intel have done for decades --
from Pegasus to Phoenix and beyond. In 1997, responding to Freedom
of Information Act requests, the CIA released its notorious "Operation
PBSUCCESS" assassination manual, used in the 1954 coup to
oust -- and kill -- the elected president of Guatemala. So-called
conservatives have talked about assassination and mass murder
for years -- killing people they disagree with by single bullet
or multiple bunker-buster munitions. They now say the CIA must
be allowed to get back into the murder and torture business.
Some of us think they never got out of the business.
Dubya and clan have created a moral climate
where murder is simply a political option -- and, lately, the
preferred political option. Instead of negotiation and containment,
they insist on "pre-emption," which is simply another
word for killing the other guy before he even thinks about killing
you -- or maybe before he can extend the dreaded olive branch.
Perhaps most insane and irresponsible, Team Dubya has managed
to demolish the taboo surrounding the unthinkable use of nuclear
weapons in the name of geopolitical expediency. It seems Dubya
and Crew want the entire world to believe America is a nation
filled with Washington Beltway snipers. America has a rep known
around the world - everywhere, that is, except in America. Corporate
media generated distraction and deception is an artform in the
good old U.S. of A. History, as Henry Ford opined, is bunk.
Fact is, US politicians like mass murderers.
In the recent past, the US befriended and supported -- both overtly
and covertly -- sundry murderers and demented thugs. Here's the
short list -- Mohamed Suharto (2 million killed in Indonesia,
250,000 in East Timor), Ferdinand Marcos (not only killed thousands
in the Philippines, but also looted more than $35 billion), Augusto
Pinochet Ugarte (had the democratically elected president of
Chile murdered; thousands of political opponents killed and disappeared;
250,000 people gaoled, tortured, or exiled), Anastasio Somoza
Debayle (50,000 killed in Nicaragua; 120,000 exiled and 600,000
made homeless), and Pol Pot (3 million killed, or between a quarter
and a third of Cambodia's population). Oh, and let's not forget
Saddam Hussein, acquaintance and yes-man of various US presidents
until 1990 when he misunderstood his marching orders. He has
gassed and killed his own people with US assistance.
The Washington sniper is small potatoes.
More people are killed each week from unsafe working conditions,
uninspected food, medical malpractice, and entirely legal (and
profitable) drugs such as tobacco and alcohol. But then, of course,
those are mundane and wholly non-sensational crimes when compared
to a sniper who it now appears received his training -- or, at
least, his inspiration -- from the US military. All told, the
Washington sniper may turn out to be yet another unexpected instance
of blowback, if not politically at least culturally.
But never mind. I think I hear a Predator
buzzing outside my window.
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
Cartoon by Ben Tripp.
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