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CounterPunch
December
3, 2002
The Latest New "War on
Terrorism"
by MICHAEL SHEHADEH
The declaration of the Bush administration to
wage open-ended "war" against international terrorism
will have definite implications for dissent at home. They estimate
the campaign will last five to ten years.
In wartime, the US government has always
used fear to expand its powers and suppress opposition to its
policies. This suggests that the Arab and Muslim American communities
will find themselves at the forefront of the struggle to prevent
the stifling of dissent. Already accused of being a "Fifth
Column," they may confront a situation similar to that
of the Japanese American community after Pearl Harbor. Internment
camps are not a far-fetched scenario in the event of another
attack like the twin towers.
Legislative measures and coercive actions
taken after September 11, touted, as "necessary tools"
to fight terrorism and achieve domestic security, are in fact
tools to silence and intimidate dissent at home. This repression
is expected to intensify in the coming years, especially if
public support for the "war on terrorism" wanes.
This process is becoming an integral
part of the established modus operandi of powerful, entrenched
organizations on every level of the government. Aided with a
corporate-owned media, the government is able to maintain social
control without detracting from their public image and the perceived
legitimacy of its methods of government. These policies are
evolving into an institutionalized social domination compatible
with imperial policies perpetuated abroad.
We must derive from history the necessary
lessons to preserve freedom and peace, and protect the civil
and human rights won by intense popular struggles for many decades.
To that end, let us examine four periods of US history that
share a similar political climate with what we are experiencing
today:
The Fifties:
McCarthyism
The anti-communist hysteria known as
McCarthyism in the 1950s actually started during the 1940s,
WWII era. The Alien Registration Act passed by Congress on 29
June 1940 made it illegal for anyone in the United States to
advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the
government. It required all alien residents in the United States
over 14 years of age to file a comprehensive record of their
personal and occupational status and a statement of their political
beliefs. Within four months, 4,741,971 aliens had been registered.
The main objective of the Alien Registration
Act was to undermine left-wing political groups in the United
States. The House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC),
which the Congress established in 1938, became the vehicle to
investigate people suspected of "unpatriotic behavior"
The investigation into the Hollywood
Motion Picture Industry is a stark example of the curtailment
of freedom of speech and silencing of dissent. HUAC interviewed
41 "friendly witnesses" working in Hollywood. During
their interviews, they named nineteen people in the filmmaking
industry accusing them of holding left-wing views. Ten refused
to answer any questions on constitutional grounds. They became
known as the Hollywood Ten. All were found guilty of contempt
of congress and sentenced to between six and twelve months in
prison.
The Sixties
and Seventies: COINTELPRO
In the 1960s a secret FBI program known
as counterintelligence programs (COINTELPRO) to silence dissent
was initiated. COINTELPRO was later exposed and officially ended.
But there is evidence that it actually persisted and that clandestine
operations to discredit and disrupt opposition movements have
become an institutional feature of national and local government
in the US.
The government used infiltrators and
informers not only to spy on political activists, but also to
discredit and disrupt legitimate constitutional protected activities.
The FBI and police also waged psychological warfare from the
outside--through bogus publications, forged correspondence,
anonymous letters, telephone calls etc. They used harassment,
intimidation, including eviction, job loss, break-ins, vandalism,
grand jury subpoenas, false arrests, frame- ups, and physical
violence. Government agents either concealed their involvement
or fabricated a legal pretext. In the case of Black and Native
American movements, they used outright political assassination.
These covert tactics, as shown by the U.S. Senate's investigation
of COINTELPRO included but were not limited to the following:
Bogus leaflets, pamphlets,
etc.: The FBI routinely put out phony
leaflets, posters, pamphlets, etc. to discredit dissenters.
In one instance, agents revised a children's coloring book
that the Black Panther Party had rejected as anti-white and
gratuitously violent and then distributed a cruder version to
backers of the Party's program of free breakfasts for children,
telling them the book was being used in the program.
False media stories:
The FBI's own documents reveal collusion
by reporters and news media that knowingly published false and
distorted material prepared by Bureau agents. One such story
accused Jean Seberg, a pregnant white film star active in anti-racist
causes, of carrying the child of a prominent Black leader. Seberg's
white husband, the actual father, sued the FBI for causing the
stillbirth of their child, his wife's breakdown and eventual
suicide.
Forged correspondence: The U.S. Senate's investigation of COINTELPRO
uncovered a series of letters forged in the name of an intermediary
between the Black Panther Party's national office and Panther
leader Eldridge Cleaver, in exile in Algeria. The letters proved
instrumental in inflaming intra-party rivalries that erupted
into the bitter public split that shattered the Party in the
winter of 1971.
Anonymous
letters and telephone calls: During
the 60s, activists received a steady flow of anonymous letters
and phone calls, which turned out to have been from government
agents. Some threatened violence. Others promoted racial divisions
and fears. Still others charged various leaders with collaboration,
corruption, sexual affairs with other activists' mates, etc.
As in the Seberg incident, inter-racial sex was a persistent
theme. The husband of one white woman involved in a bi-racial
civil rights group received the following anonymous letter authored
by the FBI: "Look, man, I guess your old lady doesn't get
enough at home or she wouldn't be shucking and jiving with our
Black Men in ACTION, you dig? Like all she wants to integrate
is the bedroom and us Black Sisters ain't gonna take no second
best from our men. So lay it on her man--or get her the hell
off [name]. A Soul Sister"
False rumors: Using infiltrators, journalists and other contacts,
the Bureau circulated slanderous, disruptive rumors through
political movements and the communities in which they worked.
Other misinformation: A favorite FBI tactic uncovered by Senate investigators
was to misinform people that a political meeting or event had
been cancelled. Another was to provide phony addresses for events,
stranding out-of-town conference attendees who naturally blamed
those who had organized the event. FBI agents also arranged
to transport demonstrators in the name of a bogus bus company,
which pulled out at the last minute.
Pressure through employers, property
owners, etc.: COINTELPRO documents revealed frequent overt contacts
and covert manipulation to generate pressure on activists.
For example, pressures from parents, proprietors, employers,
college administrators, church superiors, welfare agencies,
credit bureaus, and licensing authorities to force activist
to give up.
The Eighties:
Reagan's "war on terrorism"
During the US military interventionist
policies in Central America, especially against the Nicaraguan
and El Salvadorian revolutions, the Central American solidarity
movement was severely targeted. The case of the Committee in
Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), an organization
critical of U.S. policy in Central America, is an illustration
of the repression suffered by this movement. From 1983 to 1985,
the FBI conducted a nation-wide investigation of CISPES and
other domestic groups whose only common denominator was their
opposition to US policy in Central America. FBI agents infiltrated
campus meetings, eavesdropped on private telephone conversations,
photographed peaceful political events, illegally broke into
offices to steal documents, and visited activists at home and
at work to question and intimidate them and their employers.
This was not limited to CISPES, the FBI
collected information on the political activities of 1,330 groups
opposed to US policy in Central America. Throughout, the FBI
did not uncover any criminal conduct, and found no evidence
of any terrorism or support of terrorism.
The nineties:
The new "war on terrorism"
The Los Angeles Eight deportation case,
brought against supporters of Palestine in 1987, changed the
legal climate for all immigrants. In the 1990s, the ideological
grounds of exclusion and deportation that had been incorporated
into immigration laws in the early 1950s at the height of the
McCarthy hysteria began to change to reflect new global realties.
The Soviet Union collapsed, and Communism no longer presented
an immediate challenge. So it was replaced by Terrorism as the
great enemy, and the government began to move accordingly. New
legislation and laws were sought to deal with this new reality
at home and abroad. During litigation in the Los Angeles Eight
case, Congress acted to repeal the infamous McCarthy era McCarran-Walter
Act and enacted in its place the Immigration and Nationality
Act of 1990. The anti-Communist provisions in the McCarran-Walter
Act were merely replaced with new anti-terrorism provisions.
Immigrants could no longer be deported for advocating "world
Communism," but could still be deported for membership
or affiliation with an alleged terrorist organization. After
the first World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombing,
during Clinton presidency, Congress swiftly passed the Antiterrorism
and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), This Act tremendously
curtailed civil liberties by authorizing the use of secret evidence
in courts in violation of the basic right to due process.. Since
then, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has initiated
secret evidence cases around the country, resulting in the
incarceration of immigrants of Muslim and Arab descent. The
government's evidence has always collapsed when legal due process
was applied. The rights to rebut evidence, confront one's accusers,
and meaningfully cross-examine witnesses are all principles
that lie at the heart of the liberties the Constitution seeks
to protect. Yet the government sacrificed all of these principles
without any proven benefits to security. This resulted in a
chilling effect on constitutionally protected activities of
Arab American groups. After September 11, repressive measures
similar to (COINTELPRO) and the other periods mentioned above
have been used against Arab and Muslim Americans. Arab and Muslim
individuals and organizations across the country reported increasing
government harassment and disruption of their work. Racial and
ethnic profiling became a law enforcement tool. More than 1200
Arabs and Muslims were detained without charges. Two Muslim
charitable organizations were shut down and their assets frozen
on unproven charges of aiding terrorist organizations. Employees
reported FBI visits at workplaces and meetings with their employers.
Flying while Arab is like driving while black became a say to
illustrate Arab-looking people's treatment at airports. There
were also incidents of suspected political purging from Arab
American organizations under governmental pressures. In the
current political climate of legalized COINTELPRO tactics through
the PATRIOT Act, and the HOMELAND SECURITY Act, a new face
has been given to a new reality. The empowerment of the FBI
and police, and the expanded role of the CIA and the military,
leaves us only one safe assumption-- that extensive government
covert operations are already underway to neutralize today's
opposition movement before it can reach the massive level of
the 60s. The government is using the tragedy of New York to
reinforce fear of Arabs and Muslims. Racists are attacking and
accusing them and their culture of terrorism. The Christian
Right is waging a campaign of bigotry and hate against Islam
and its Prophet and adherents. A new industry exploiting the
fear and insecurity of the American people is flourishing, while
promoting ultra-hawkish, ultra right-objectives.
The authoritarianism, which has long
been creeping around in advanced capitalism, has begun to surface.
Those who question American power are stigmatized as enemies
of democracy. Add to them those who "blame America first",
or those who "condone and support terrorism", and
those who are "helping the enemy", and all must be
silenced. Media pundits and so-called terrorism experts crowed
the glass screen with opinions and expertise that are merely
a mask for racism and bigotry.
On the foreign policy front, now that
Afghanistan's pipeline routs are secured, the next step will
obviously be to place Iraq's vast oil resources under direct
US control. This renders any resistance to US domination of
the region virtually impossible. This makes Palestinian resistance
the last hurdle to this US grand imperial design. To crush this
resistance, the US has found the perfect bulldozer, the brutal
Israeli Prime minister, Ariel Sharon. The Palestinian struggle
is the last colonial war, and the last battle against foreign
military occupation in the world. This is the threshold between
a colonial past and a vision of a peaceful future for all. We
cannot, as some on the main stream left would like, ignore the
Palestinian issue or, using the deceit of "objective symmetry",
equalizing the victim with the victimizer. In many ways, the
Palestinian cause is the compass of the international movement
for peace and justice; it gives it moral direction and political
clarity.
In conclusion, the similarities of today's
repressive measures with past wartime tactics to repress dissent
and stifle debate of foreign and domestic policies are striking.
The qualitative difference is in the much more advanced and
capable technological resources that are available in the hands
of the government. The coming together of the civil coercive
agencies responsible for implementing such measures, and the
legislative branch, with a cooperative main stream media, and
a weakened judicial branch, and a politicized army, is constructing
a comprehensive, powerful and effective social control system
on an international scale that surpasses anything we have seen
in the past. Coupled with the lessons of history, the sophistication
of these matrixes of control and domination have evolved to
such an extent that the 1984 big brother analogy shrivels in
contrast. Under these circumstances, there is no reason to
think we can eliminate the neo- COINTELPRO simply by electing
better public officials. This is not to dismiss the importance
of elections, but it comes second to mobilization and grassroots
empowerment. The battle must be waged in the streets, and not
merely in the voting booth. Only through sustained public education
and mobilization, by a broad coalition of political, religious,
civil and human rights groups, and national liberation solidarity
movements, can we expect to stop repression and protect the
Bill of Rights. We must not be cowed by the scope of this challenge.
Dissent is most indispensable when it is hardest to voice. This
is a time to speak intelligently and act creatively, boldly
and courageously, but above all with a collaborative spirit
and a unity of purpose among all progressive forces for change.
Michel Shehadeh
is a respondent of the Los Angeles Eight Case. Seven Palestinian
and a Kenyan national, wife of one of the Palestinians, had
been arrested in 1987 and incarcerated in maximum-security cells
for 23 days under charges of "Aiding Terrorism". The
government is still pursuing its attempt to deport the respondents,
despite the government's failure to provide a shred of evidence
of wrong doing on their part for the past 16 years.
He is the former West Coast regional
director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
(ADC), and on the National steering Committee of the Free Palestine
Alliance (FPA-USA). He can be reached at: shehadeh@pacbell.net
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