Terrorism and the Expansion of Federal Power
by RON PAUL
Member of the U.S. Congress
The events of September 11th understandably made Americans far more concerned about their safety here at home. All of us want action taken to diminish the threat of future terrorist attacks, and President Bush is doing a very good job of pursuing bin Laden and his cohorts overseas. The proper focus should be on identifying those responsible and using limited military force to bring them to justice. We should arrest or kill the perpetrators abroad, use our armed forces more wisely to defend our borders, and reform immigration laws to keep terrorists out. Unfortunately, the focus in Congress seems to be on a domestic agenda that will adversely affect millions of ordinary Americans without making us any safer. An example can be found in a Customs Service bill slated for a vote in the House this week. This bill gives customs and postal agents new authority to open and inspect outgoing U.S. mail without probable cause or a warrant. I don't think many Americans are comfortable with having federal agents open and search the mail they send! Of course it's easier to pass such a measure when the public is in a fearful mood and demanding action. Ten or twenty years from now, when the recent attacks are a distant memory, federal agents will still be opening mail- mail sent by American citizens, not terrorists. Americans face an internal threat every bit as dangerous as foreign terrorists: the loss of domestic freedoms. Every 20th century crisis- two great wars and a decade-long economic depression- led to rapid expansions of the federal government. The cycle is always the same, with temporary crises used to justify permanent new laws, agencies, and programs. The cycle is repeating itself. Congress has been scrambling to pass new legislation (and spend billions of your tax dollars) since September. Most of the news laws passed and dollars spent have nothing to do with defending our borders and cities against terrorist attacks. I have already written and spoken at length concerning the dangers to our civil liberties posed by the rush to pass new laws. I do not believe that our Constitution permits federal agents to monitor phones, mail, or computers without a warrant. I do not believe that government should eavesdrop on confidential conversations between attorneys and clients. I certainly do not believe "terrorism" should be defined so broadly that American citizens expressing dissent against their own government could be investigated and prosecuted as terrorists. Remember, President Bush will not be in office forever. History demonstrates that the powers we give the federal government today will remain in place indefinitely. How comfortable are you that future Presidents won't abuse those powers? Politically-motivated IRS audits and FBI investigations have been used by past administrations to destroy political enemies. It's certainly possible that future executives could use their new surveillance powers in similarly unethical ways. The bottom line is that every American should be very concerned about the unintended consequences of policies promoted to fight an unending, amorphous battle against terrorism. (Top)Confounding Carnivore: How to Protect Your Online Privacy
Today, those fears are
more likely to come true than ever
before. The passage of anti-terrorism
laws in the wake of Sept. 11, and the
extended powers of the FBI, CIA and
police agencies everywhere, make it
likely that Carnivore will see more use
in the near future. Congress has been
quite willing to trade some privacy for
security, and the Bush Administration --
especially Attorney General John
Ashcroft -- has been no defender of
online privacy. With Constitutional
protections being chipped away, what can
civil liberties-minded citizens do to
maintain their privacy online?... More (Top)War cost estimated at $500 million to $1 billion a monthBy Calvin WoodwardThe Associated Press November 12, 2001, 8:18 AM EST WASHINGTON -- A U.S. helicopter lost in Afghanistan a week ago cost up to twice as much as the government spends yearly on scenic byways. Each cruise missile is worth several American homes. The total expense of the Afghan war may be nearly as hard to find as people hiding in Afghan caves. By one estimate, the military assault is costing $500 million to $1 billion a month -- and above the $1 billion in promised U.S. economic assistance to Pakistan, and debt relief for the country. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a private research group that closely examines the cost of war, offered that monthly figure. Precision is impossible without knowing more about how many bombs are being dropped and what is happening with U.S. forces on the ground, among other variables. Still, parts of the war are adding up: the estimated $5,000 an hour to fly a Navy FA-18 fighter-bomber, the $25,600 cost of one of the frequently used Joint Direct Attack Munition bombs, the top-of-the-line Tomahawk cruise missiles. As for a running total, "It's very much ballpark," said Steven M. Kosiak, the center's director of budget studies. Some other analysts have projected higher costs. Stretched over a year, the price of the war could be $12 billion, half of what the federal government spends on medical research. By comparison, the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 cost the United States about $3 billion. The 1991 Persian Gulf War cost America an estimated $61 billion, but all but about $7 billion was reimbursed by allies. By some accounting methods, the United States may have even made a profit. Munitions at the disposal of U.S. forces in the Afghan war vary wildly in price. From the bargain basement: the 500-pound M-117, dropped from a heavy bomber, for a mere $300 apiece. At the high end: Tomahawk cruise missiles costing $600,000 to $1 million each, many times more than the $147,100 median price of an American home. U.S. officials said 50 Tomahawks alone were launched in the opening assault, some from British forces, making an expensive debut. Dependence on cruise missiles has lessened since then. Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Hansen said it takes time to calculate costs above those normally associated with having forces abroad in peacetime. "The Department of Defense will be collecting those figures but at this point, a month into the conflict, we don't have them," she said. On the home front, a study has taken a stab at the costs of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and all their fallout -- an expense likely to dwarf the costs of the Afghan war. Peter Navarro, an economist at the University of California in Irvine, calculated $100 billion in costs so far, nearly half from lost productivity, sales, advertising dollars and airline revenue in the immediate aftermath. That is apart from stock market losses. Long-term costs are so speculative and dependent on government policy that Navarro did not add them up. But his calculations do include "terrorist tax" items costing billions to make flying safer. They include $20 to $40 an hour for the time each person wastes by going to the airport 90 minutes earlier. "The stakes here are simply breathtaking," Navarro wrote in the report for the Milken Institute. To assess the cost of the fighting overseas, budget analysts at least have the experience of past wars to draw from. Kosiak came to his projection in two ways: one using costs of strike missions over Kosovo and Iraq and applying them to the current conflict, the other by adding up everything known about the Afghan campaign. Altogether, he calculated that the first 25 days cost $400 million to $800 million. Munitions used on the Taliban include 15,000-pound BLU-82 "daisy-cutter" bombs, costing $27,000 each. The bunker-busting GBU-37 costs $231,000 apiece, according to the Federation of American Scientists. America lost a Pave Low helicopter -- valued at $40 million, about double last year's budget for National Scenic Byways projects -- in bad weather in Afghanistan, and an $11 million Black Hawk chopper in Pakistan. Copyright 2001 Associated Press from Orlando Sentinel (Top)Ashcroft to Face Tough Senate Grilling on TribunalsBy Joanne Kenen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General
John Ashcroft will face a tough grilling
from lawmakers in coming weeks over
President Bush's proposal to create
secret military tribunals and employ
other ``ad hoc, outside the justice
system methods'' to fighting terrorism,
the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman
said on Sunday.
Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont
Democrat, said lawmakers in both parties
were upset with Ashcroft, who won
sweeping new powers to fight terrorism
in post-Sept. 11 legislation and has
since announced other controversial
measures such as monitoring
conversations between suspects and
defense attorneys and interviewing
thousands of young men from the Middle
East.
Leahy, who negotiated the anti-terror
legislation with Ashcroft last month,
noted on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' that
the attorney general had held out the
likelihood of immediate arrests of
terror suspects once those new
prosecutorial powers were granted.
The wave of arrests did not materialize,
and Ashcroft has instead announced new
measures including a proposal for secret
military tribunals that would not follow
the usual rules and standards of the
U.S. criminal justice system, Leahy
said.
``We pick up the paper every morning and
here's, 'We're going to wiretap defense
counsel, we're going to do these ad-hoc,
outside-the-justice-system methods,'''
Leahy said, referring to the
administration's tactics.
Asked if he was upset with Ashcroft,
Leahy emphatically answered, ``Yes, very
much so.'' Leahy plans a preliminary
hearing this week and expects Ashcroft
to testify the following week, an
appearance that he said would not be
``perfunctory.''
President Bush has said he wants the
option of instituting military tribunals
for accused terrorists, in which
military officers would act as judge and
jury.
Trials could be secret, with procedures
and composition of the courts to be
determined by the U.S. defense secretary
and military commanders. The usual rules
of evidence and right to defense counsel
would not necessarily apply, Leahy
noted.
Bush said he wanted to have that option
if any al Qaeda members linked to the
Sept. 11 suicide aircraft attacks on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon are
apprehended.
However, critics on both the left and
right have said these tribunals would
abrogate civil liberties and undercut
the fundamentals of the U.S. criminal
justice system.
Leahy noted he was not disposed to be
soft on terrorism, particularly since he
personally was the target of an anthrax
letter that investigators believe may
have contained enough of the potent
bacteria to kill up to 100,000 people.
But he said he was not convinced that
military tribunals were the only or the
best way to achieve justice.
``We all agree that there should be
justice here,'' Leahy said. ``But let's
be a little bit careful how we do it.''
Also appearing on the show, Alabama
Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, said he
was not as critical as Leahy of Ashcroft,
but that he too had concerns,
particularly about any wiretapping of
attorney-client conversations.
>From Reuters; 11/26
(Top)Minefield of Symbols - The Upside-Down World Eduardo Galeano"This will be a long war," the President of the planet announced. Bad news for the civilians who are dying or will be killed, but excellent news for the arms manufacturers. With war, it doesn't matter if it's efficient. What matters is that it is profitable. Since September 11, the stocks of General Dynamics, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and other engines of the war machine skyrocketed on Wall Street. As was the case during the bombardment of Iraq and Yugoslavia, television rarely shows the victims. It is too busy showing the runway of new models of weapons. In the age of the market, war is not a tragedy but a vast international trade show. Arms manufacturers need wars like umbrella makers need rain. Here's
a guide for the new war. .... More
(Top)JOHN ASHCROFT'S AFFRONT TO DEMOCRACYAn Affront to Democracy IT IS HARD to fathom why Attorney General John Ashcroft would think his recent order authorizing the monitoring of conversations between detainees and their lawyers would be acceptable in a society that values the rule of law. The new rules authorize the attorney general to listen in on attorney-client communications in cases in which the government -- with no input from a judge -- deems a detainee to be involved in terrorist activity and considers his lawyer to be facilitating the detainee's dirty work. The Justice Department stresses the safeguards it has built into this system: that information will not, except in urgent circumstances, be disseminated without the consent of a judge. The department notes that the new rules currently can affect only 13 people in federal custody, none of whom was arrested after Sept. 11. But this policy cannot be safeguarded against illegality. The right to be represented by a lawyer is fundamental to life in a democratic culture. That right has no meaning if the confidentiality of lawyer-client communications is not respected. No sane detainee -- guilty or innocent -- is likely to talk candidly to a lawyer knowing that the very government that detained him is listening in. And it's hard to imagine how ethical lawyers -- bound to respect client confidentiality -- could represent clients knowing that their conversations were not secure. If the government reasonably believes a lawyer is facilitating terrorist activity, it has numerous legal options. It can investigate the attorney. It can move to disqualify him or her from representing the client. The privilege has a crime-fraud exception that, with judicial input, has been used to allow monitoring. But the government cannot create a situation in which a detainee is blocked from the assistance of counsel. When Mr. Ashcroft sought broad new powers to combat terrorism, the Justice Department responded to fears of abuse by insisting that it could be trusted. Since then, it has responded to calls for the release of the names of the nearly 1,200 people it has detained by announcing that it would, henceforth, no longer release even the tally of people it has locked up. Now it has -- without any congressional involvement -- created a rule that attacks a basic foundation of the judicial system. The trust is wearing thin. A WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL - 11/12/01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12868- (Top)Bush To Send In The Pros! The FAA Will Hire TEMP WORKERS to Oversee Airport Security!The Bush Administration certainly tries to provide the very best protection for Americans...NOT! "The Federal Aviation Administration plans to hire temporary security workers to be stationed at Lambert Field and other U.S. airports…FAA Administrator Jane Garvey said the agency will hire temporary workers for stints lasting up to six months. The new employees will help oversee operations at screening checkpoints across the country. The FAA will hold job fairs next week in Chicago, New York, Atlanta and Dallas. The new workers could begin their assignments as soon as Nov. 18." Oh well, at least the totalitarian USA PATRIOT Act and the Office of Homeland Security will protect Americans...from Freedom. After all, Bush did say, "There oughta be limits to freedom" and "Things would be a heck of a lot easier if this was a Dictatorship...so long as I'm the Dictator." http://home.post-dispatch.com/channel/pdweb.nsf/TodayWednesday .... libertyman, 11/8 Is Bush Jr. Bombing Afghanistan to Enrich Bush Sr. and James Baker?After a month, it appears
clear that the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan has
backfired. It has not driven the Taliban from
power; instead, it has rallied the people of
Afghanistan behind them. So why are we
dropping so many backfiring bombs? Could this
be a payoff from Bush Jr. to his father, Bush
Sr., and his other cronies - including the
mastermind of the Stolen Election, James Baker
- who are the super-wealthy influence peddlers
in the Carlyle Group? According to the
Guardian, "Among the defence firms which
benefit from Carlyle's success is United
Defense, a Virginia-based contractor which
makes vertical missile launch systems
currently on board US Navy ships in the
Arabian sea." Disturbing questions like
these are EXACTLY the reason why former
Presidents and other top government officials
should be prohibited from selling their
influence in the private sector. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4288516,00.html House votes to keep airline security private, but why stop there?It's time to privatize our military, the FBI, the Secret Service and the Capitol Police force, among other federal law enforcement agencies. Tom DeLay's made a believer of BuzzFlash. Because DeLay (AKA "The Exterminator" and "The Bug Man") did everything but shoot off the knee caps of a few sane Republicans who were balking at keeping an inept sub-contracted airport screening system, the House passed a misnamed "airlines security bill" that leaves the current sub-contracted system in place, more or less. The titular Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, allegedly took a back seat as DeLay (the man who pulls the strings) used a sledgehammer to keep us from getting the consistent, uniform, national airport security personnel we deserve as fliers and Americans. Bush also vigorously lobbied for the dangerous status quo on this issue. Of course, it meant nothing to the extremist DeLay, a man so lacking in credibility that he doesn't even speak to his own mother, that the nation's largest current sub-contractor for airport security is currently being sanctioned by the FAA for repeatedly hiring felons to screen luggage and passengers. If Tom, Dick and George are intent on dismantling the agencies of the federal government that protect us, there's no better place to begin than at home, so the Capitol and the White House are good places to start. Clearly DeLay, Armey and Bush must believe, given their arguments about how good sub-contracted airport screeners are for us, that it would be better to have rent-a-cops in place of the Secret Service, FBI agents, the Capitol Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms and so forth. Heck, we can sub-contract the work of the CIA to foreign intelligence agencies! All we need is a bare bones federal supervisory staff. As a result, we hope that Tom DeLay and Dick Armey will bring up the modest proposal that BuzzFlash.com posted the other day. As we begin privatizing all the Federal agencies that protect Americans, we should also privatize the maintenance and piloting of Air Force One. While we're at, the White House police force should be sub-contracted. We are sure that the Acme Security Agency can provide a cost-effective protection force for the White House, all the while saving enough on costs to be able to provide a larger tax cut to the top 1% of America's wealthiest citizens. That's the kind of logic the White House likes! In the meantime, BuzzFlash is taking the DeLay, Armey, Bush action personally. Mr. Bush has been talking up how important it is to fly to keep our economy going. But, BuzzFlash bets many Americans aren't going to buy the snake oil on airlines security that these three are peddling. If airlines continue to see their passenger loads in the dumps, the consumers lack of trust in what the GOP has foisted on them might, very well, play a big role. When we get on an airplane, we all want to land. It's a basic human instinct. Tom, Dick and George don't seem to understand that. The only instinct they know is a political one. (Top)Let them eat cake...In this time of national crisis, amid calls for sacrifice, we're deeply troubled by the choices of the Republican party's right-wing leadership. Here's their idea of an economic stimulus package*: $1.4 billion for
IBM This is war profiteering, and it's just plain wrong. Yet the House has just approved it, on a virtual party line vote, ending the recent spirit of cooperation in Congress. Speak up with us before the Senate acts: Last week, while our nation was reeling from the Anthrax threat, the House voted to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax on corporations. This law normally requires hugely profitable companies to pay at least some tax, no matter how many loopholes they can find. Its repeal would allow many companies to pay zero U.S. income tax in perpetuity - a loss of more than $12 billion in revenue next year alone. The repeal is retroactive, so companies would get rebates of all the Alternative Minimum Tax they've paid for the last 15 years. The numbers above are a sampling of these rebates. The House also voted to allow corporations to store their profits overseas as a tax shelter. That's right - this "stimulus" would actually take money _out_ of the U.S. economy. It's backwards. The right approach to stimulus is to put more money in the hands of everyday people who need it most - by expanding unemployment insurance, for example. People living marginally will spend it quickly on consumer goods, so it circulates through the economy, benefiting everyone. Helping people would make economic sense. Giving billions in tax breaks to America's biggest corporations doesn't. The Senate could vote on stimulus as early as this week. Speak up at: http://www.moveon.org/warprofiteering/ .... enough of this shit - this is outrageous - Mike K,11/1 Taking Care of BusinessOctober 28, 2001 By PAUL KRUGMAN -- NEW YORK TIMES Cynics tell us that money has completely corrupted our politics, that in the last election big corporations basically bought themselves a government that will serve their interests. Several related events last week suggest that the cynics have a point. Consider, for starters, the airport security issue. On Thursday morning this newspaper reported that London- based Securicor — the biggest of the three companies that provide almost all airport security in the United States — was threatening to sue for damages if baggage screening is taken over by federal employees. This just two weeks after we learned that Securicor's U.S. subsidiary — which had already been fined for employing convicted felons — continued to hire employees without checking their background after Sept. 11, and then lied about it to regulators. Under the circumstances, to claim that federalizing the business would represent a "taking" showed remarkable chutzpah. (Chutzpah, according to the classic definition, is when you kill your parents, then plead for mercy because you're an orphan.) But the company evidently has friends in high places. Later that day the Bush administration endorsed the proposals of House Republican leaders, who have refused to allow an airline security bill to come to a vote unless it leaves baggage screening in private hands. The rhetoric behind this position emphasizes the supposed advantages of the private sector — competition, accountability, etc. But there is little real competition in this industry, and — as we've just seen — not much accountability for companies with the right connections. Then there was the House "stimulus" bill. The remarkable thing we learned from that bill was that conservative politicians — who used to claim that they were improving incentives by reducing marginal tax rates, and that it was just an incidental side effect that big corporations and wealthy individuals were so richly rewarded — no longer feel the need to disguise their payoffs. The core of the bill was a repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax retroactive to 1986, which means that selected companies would immediately receive huge lump sum payments from the government, totaling around $25 billion, with no incentive effect at all. The bill's sponsors claim that the money would be invested and used to create jobs, but it's hard to see why: a potential investment that Texas Utilities or ChevronTexaco wouldn't have made a week ago, because the project won't yield a sufficiently high return, will seem no more profitable after each company gets its $600 million thank-you gift. And there are no strings attached to those gifts: if the companies want to, say, pay huge bonuses to top executives, they can. Republicans have always depended on the kindness of corporations, but this bill takes that faith to extremes. True, defenders of the House bill remind us that "business" doesn't just mean giant corporations — it also means the mom-and-pop shop around the corner. Indeed — but the tax refund wouldn't be going to mom-and- pop shops. Where it would go, disproportionately, is to energy and mining companies. Why? Because they already receive so many special tax breaks that in the absence of the alternative minimum tax many would pay little or no taxes. Now the House proposes not only to remove that little inconvenience, but to refund the taxes they've paid for the past 15 years. Just to cap off a great week for the mining interests, the Bush administration also announced on Thursday that the Interior Department would no longer be able to veto mining projects on public land. You might think that extracting minerals from public land, without even paying a royalty, was a privilege rather than an entitlement; but in today's Washington, financial might apparently makes right. I'm sure I'll be accused of being unpatriotic for suggesting that the administration and its Congressional allies are pandering to special interests at a time like this. That, of course, is what they are counting on — that and the difficulty of getting people's attention when the news is all anthrax, all the time. But the truth must be spoken. Lately our government has not exactly inspired confidence; its response to terrorism is starting to look a bit scatterbrained. But on some subjects our leaders are quite clearheaded: whatever else may be going on, they make sure that they are taking care of business. Copyright of the New York Times (Top)Longshore Unions and the "War Against Terrorism"Report by Jack Heyman 22 Sep 2001 Published: 23/09/01 At the ILWU Local 10 membership meeting on Sept.20th in San Francisco, we had an extensive discussion on Bush's declared "war on terrorism", Congress' rubber stamp approval and how it will affect longshore unions. At the end of the discussion, Local 10 voted overwhelmingly to send a letter to Congresswoman Barbara Lee commending her for her courageous sole vote against the war. In a sense, it was a workers' referendum on the undefined, unlimited "war against terrorism". It began with a report on port security and those measures being considered on Capitol Hill in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. PMA, other employer associations and anti-union politicians in Washington have been trying for years to impose restrictive rules on longshore workers, beginning with requiring sweeping background checks and review of arrest records before being allowed to work on the docks. The union hiring hall be damned! In the past they've billed it as part of "drug war". It's been a difficult political fight for unions but to date we've been able to beat back these anti-labor bills. Now, in the bipartisan fever pitch of the "war against terrorism" there is a renewed effort to impose these totalitarian measures, like a ghoul rising from the tomb. It couldn't happen at a worse time with the most critical contract negotiations in years just around the bend. PMA has been making noise about going after our hiring hall, the backbone of our union's strength, and eliminating jobs and jurisdiction through electronic technology. Waterfront employers have been trying for years to shackle us with the Rail Labor Act, which would effectively deny our right to strike. Without that basic trade union right, labor has NO negotiating leverage, NO real collective bargaining. The employers know that. Have no doubt that they will opportunistically given the present hysterical atmosphere of "national security and the fight against terrorism" try to take away our fundamental trade union rights. Instead of defending the Charleston 5, we'll be waging a struggle to defend the rights of all American longshoremen. Cooler heads must prevail. Who is a "national security risk"? That is a question that was used unsuccessfully by employers and the government to divide the ILWU. They tried to deport ILWU President Harry Bridges four times, but to no avail because the ILWU rank and file stood solidly against that redbaiting witchhunt. Former ILWU President Jimmy Herman, when he was a ship clerk, was banned from working on the Army dock because he was considered a "security risk". He had headed up the Committee Against Waterfront Screening during the repressive, anti-communist McCarthy period in order to defend longshoremen's and seamen's right to employment in the maritime industry. If you opposed the war in Vietnam or criticized the "war for oil" in Iraq are you a "security risk" and banned from the docks? We must not allow our union members to be victimized under the guise of fighting terrorism. Another question raised during the discussion was what could so motivate these suicidal attacks. The answer: The U. S. government's blind support of bloody Israeli policies which have humiliatingly forced Palestinians into squalid refugee camps, while denying their right to sovereignty and resulting in the deaths of thousands. And the point was made that while the deaths of 5,000 innocent civilians in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center is totally unjustifiable, 5,000 children die every month in Iraq because of the U. S. blockade. So, who will be the targets of a U. S. war against terrorism besides Osama bin Laden, the terrorist monster whose Al Qaeda network was trained and financed by the CIA in the war against Soviet troops who were supporting a secular government in Afghanistan. Will the PLO be included in the Bush's "terrorist hit list", as is demanded by Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, the slaughterer of the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla? That will surely unite the entire Arab and Muslim world against the U.S. Will the IRA nationalists be on the terrorist list? That would be opposed by Irish-Americans. How about the Basque separatists in Spain? The FARC guerrillas in Colombia fighting an entrenched oligarchy? And let's not forget who defines a "terrorist"? In the 1776 War of Independence the British considered the American guerrilla fighters terrorists. Don't let the "war against terrorism" being fanned by maritime employers and the bogus Bush administration be used to deny our civil liberties, civil rights and trade union rights. (Top)First Congressman Questions Military ResponseSeattle Congressman Jim McDermott on
Tuesday questioned both the strategy and timing of
Bush's bombing of Afghanistan. On strategy, he said,
"The destruction of the infrastructure did not
work in Iraq a decade ago. It's déjà vu. This
sounds an awful lot like Iraq. Saddam Hussein is
still in power! It is Iraq's citizenry, not Saddam,
which continues to suffer the consequences of those
air and missile strikes during the Gulf War and the
sanctions we subsequently imposed against that
nation." On timing, he said, "I am not so
sure that we have fully developed a comprehensive
strategic plan... A scant four weeks to plan and
implement an operation like this doesn't seem like a
very long time to me." McDermott replied to
Republican denunciations by saying, "To simply
say that whatever the president wants to do is right
is not to use your own critical
faculties." (Top)Shelby Insists 911 Was a CIA FailureAccording to Roll Call, "Senate Select Intelligence Vice Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) reiterated Friday his opinion that the recent terrorist attacks represented a massive failure on the part of the U.S. intelligence community." Shelby criticized his House counterpart, Porter Goss (R-FL), for saying the CIA was blameless, and accused him of looking the other way. "You know, he is a former CIA employee, and I know he's close to a lot of people over there," Shelby said. "This idea that you don't critically evaluate people in high positions during a crisis is nonsense," Shelby added. But Shelby wants to control the investigation within his Senate committee, rather than appoint an independent oversight board as advocated by Senator Bob Torricelli (D-NJ). http://www.rollcall.com/pages/news/00/2001/10/news1008c.html (Top)Free speech: the next casualty?
By Arianna Huffington
And, in a way, it's true - few us of are
going to be fighting the battle on the ground in
Afghanistan, but there are ways in which we can all do
our part. Ways that include resolutely defending values
that define our country.
But just as this new military
battleground is going to be complicated and risky, so,
too, is the one at home. And in the last few days, there
is one front where it appears that our enemies might be
winning: the First Amendment. To the extent that we give
up our fundamental freedoms of expression and dissent,
then, yes, "they" have clearly won.
One of those battles is going on right
now. It involves Bill Maher, who has been excoriated for
what he said on "Politically Incorrect" last
week. But excoriation - a valuable form of free speech -
is not a problem. Censorship is.
Aren't "they" winning when
three ABC affiliates, including the Washington, D.C.,
station, cancel the show?
Aren't "they" winning when
major sponsors like Federal Express and Sears put a
higher price on their corporate image than on the
essential democratic ingredient of free speech by
pulling their ads? These companies have no problems
defending capitalism, but they shrink from defending the
values that make it possible.
In response to guest Dinesh D'Souza's
assertion that people who are willing to die in service
to their cause, whatever else they may be, are not
"cowards," Maher said: "We have been the
cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away.
That's cowardly."
I was sitting next to Bill when he said
this. And not only did I not object, I wholeheartedly
agreed. In fact, in the past, I've made much the same
criticism of a foreign policy that obliges our military
to fight at great remove from the theater of battle. It
was a mistake when we bombed a pharmaceutical factory in
the Sudan, and it was a mistake when we killed the very
Albanian refugees we were trying to protect with our
indiscriminate carpet-bombing of Kosovo.
President Bush, himself, has been making
much the same point that Bill Maher did: "It will
not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago,
where no ground troops were used and not a single
American was lost in combat."
Presumably, if Maher had made those same
comments on Sept. 10, nobody would have batted an
eyelid. But by uttering the same opinion seven days
later, he put the very existence of his show at risk.
Have we all gone mad?
What becomes of a country when opinions
considered perfectly legitimate - and indeed uttered by
hundreds of academics, journalists and members of
Congress - suddenly become a crime worthy of the media
death penalty?
If the attacks on innocent American
lives end up making us more like our attackers, don't
they most spectacularly win? And don't the corporate
sponsors, the affiliates and ABC itself see the
inconsistency in the fact that, as a way of showing
solidarity against the Taliban, they are using the
Taliban's trademark weapon - the stifling of dissent?
"Cowardly" was the injurious
word uttered by Maher. Well, let me use it now where it
really belongs - to describe ABC if it decides to cancel
a show that is, after all, called "Politically
Incorrect."
The show in question was the first since
the attack. At curtain time, the studio was electric
with anxiety. "Politically Incorrect," though
it deals with serious subjects, is, after all, a
satirical program. So we all held our breath as Bill
stepped onto the tightrope.
Maher's tone-setting opening comments,
which took the place of his usual monologue, were
nothing short of brilliant and - in light of the media
firestorm that followed - remarkably prescient.
As well as being the host of the show,
Bill is my friend. And I was proud of how perfect a note
he had struck between rallying around the flag, showing
grief and expressing dissent. Everything that has
happened since has only made me prouder of him - and
more disgusted at the politically correct cowards who
are trying to stifle him.
We cannot let them succeed, for, as
Benjamin Franklin put it, "Whoever would overthrow
the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the
freeness of speech."
(Top)Wall Street journal: Bush sr. In business with bin laden family conglomerate through Carlyle groupFamily had renounced ties to terrorist son but family still under fbi investigation Noam Chomsky Q & A 9/271. How do you see the media coverage of this event? Is there a parallel to the Gulf War in "manufacturing consent?" Media coverage is not quite as uniform as Europeans seem to believe, perhaps because they are keeping to the NYT, NPR, TV, and so on. Even the NYT conceded, this morning, that attitudes in New York are quite unlike those they have been conveying. It's a good story, also hinting at the fact that the mainstream media have not been reporting this, which is not entirely true, though it has been true, pretty much, of the NYT. But it is entirely typical for the major media, and the intellectual classes generally, to line up in support of power at a time of crisis and to try to mobilize the population for the same cause. That was true, with almost hysterical intensity, at the time of the bombing of Serbia. The Gulf war was not at all unusual. To take an example that is remote enough so that we should be able to look at it dispassionately, how did the intellectuals of Europe and North America react to World War I -- across the political spectrum? Exceptions are so few that we can virtually list them, and most of the most prominent ended up in jail: Rosa Luxemburg, Bertrand Russell, Eugene Debs,... This is an extremely convenient belief for Western intellectuals. It absolves them of responsibility for the actions that actually do lie behind the choice of the WTC. Was it bombed in 1993 because of concern over globalization and cultural hegemony? A few days ago the Wall Street Journal reported attitudes of rich and privileged Egyptians at a McDonald's restaurant wearing stylish American clothes, etc., and bitterly critical of the US for objective reasons of policy, which are well-known to those who wish to know: they had a report a few days earlier on attitudes of bankers, professionals, businessmen in the region, all pro-American, and harshly critical of US policies. Is that concern over "globalization", McDonald's, and jeans? Attitudes in the street are similar, but far more intense, and have nothing at all to do with these fashionable excuses. As for the bin Laden network, they have as little concern for globalization and cultural hegemony as they do for the poor and oppressed people of the Middle East who they have been severely harming for years. They tell us what their concerns are loud and clear: they are fighting a Holy War against the corrupt, repressive, and "un-Islamist" regimes of the region, and their supporters, just as they fought a Holy War against the Russians in the 1980s (and are now doing in Chechnya, Western China, Egypt (in this case since 1981, when they assassinated Sadat), and elsewhere. Bin Laden himself probably never even heard of "globalization." Those who have interviewed him in depth, like Robert Fisk, report that he knows virtually nothing of the world, and doesn't care to. We can choose to ignore all the facts and indulge in self-indulgent fantasies if we like, but at considerable risk to ourselves, among others. Among other things, we can also ignore, if we choose, the roots of the "Afghanis" such as bin Laden and his associates, also not a secret. Unfortunately not, just as the European people are not. What is crucially important for privileged elements in the Middle East region (and even more so, on the streets) is scarcely understood here, particularly the most striking example: the contrasting US policies towards Iraq and Israel's military occupation. About the latter, the most important facts are scarcely even reported, and are almost universally unknown, to elite intellectuals in particular. Very easy to give examples. Can easily refer you to material in print for many years, if you like, including right now.
The US government, like others, primarily responds to centers of concentrated domestic power. That should be a truism. Of course, there are other influences, including popular currents -- that is true of all societies, even brutal totalitarian systems, surely more democratic ones. Insofar as we have information, the US government is now trying to exploit the opportunity to ram through its own agenda: militarization, including "missile defense," a code word for militarization of space; undermining social democratic programs and concerns over the harsh effects of corporate "globalization," or environmental issues, or health insurance, and so on; instituting measures that will intensify the transfer of wealth to very narrow sectors (e.g., eliminating the capital gains tax); regimenting the society so as to eliminate discussion and protest. All normal, and entirely natural. As for a response, they are, I presume, listening to the foreign leaders, specialists on the Middle East, and I suppose their own intelligence agencies, who are warning them that a massive military response will answer bin Laden's prayers. But there are hawkish elements who want to use the occasion to strike out at their enemies, with extreme violence, no matter how many innocent people suffer, including people here and in Europe who will be victims of the escalating cycle of violence. All again in a very familiar dynamic. There are plenty of bin Ladens on both sides, as usual. This thesis is commonly in advanced. I don't agree. One reason is that the western model -- notably, the US model -- is based on vast state intervention into the economy. The "neoliberal rules" are like those of earlier eras. They are double-edged: market discipline is good for you, but not for me, except for temporary advantage, when I am in a good position to win the competition. Secondly, what happened on Sept. 11 has virtually nothing to do with economic globalization, in my opinion. The reasons lie elsewhere. Nothing can justify crimes such as those of Sept. 11, but we can think of the US as an "innocent victim" only if we adopt the convenient path of ignoring the actions of the US and its allies, which are, after all, hardly a secret. The horrendous terrorist attacks on Tuesday are something quite new in world affairs, not in their scale and character, but in the target. For the US, this is the first time since the War of 1812 that its national territory has been under attack, even threat. Its colonies have been attacked, but not the national territory itself. During these years the US virtually exterminated the indigenous population, conquered half of Mexico, intervened violently in the surrounding region, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines (killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos), and in the past half century particularly, extended its resort to force throughout much of the world. The number of victims is colossal. For the first time, the guns have been directed the other way. The same is true, even more dramatically, of Europe. Europe has suffered murderous destruction, but from internal wars, meanwhile conquering much of the world with extreme brutality. But India did not attack England, or the Congo Belgium, or the East Indies the Netherlands. One can think of marginal exceptions, but this is truly novel in several centuries of history -- not in scale, regrettably, but in the choice of target. I do not think it will lead to a long-term restriction of rights internally in any serious sense. The cultural and institutional barriers to that are too firmly rooted, I believe. If the US chooses to respond by escalating the cycle of violence, answering the prayers of bin Laden and his associates, then the consequences could be awesome. There are, of course, other ways, lawful and constructive ones. And there are ample precedents for them. An aroused public within the more free and democratic societies can direct policies towards a much more humane and honorable course. I frankly have never been overly impressed with concerns widely voiced in Europe over Echelon as a system of control. As for world-wide intelligence systems, their failures over the years have been colossal, a matter I and others have written about, and that I cannot pursue here. That is true even when the targets of concern are far easier to deal with than the bin Laden network, presumed to be responsible for the Sept. 11 crimes. Surely one would expect the network to be reasonably well understood by the CIA, French intelligence, and others who participated in establishing it and nurtured it as long as it was useful to them for a Holy War against the Russian enemy, but even then they did not understand it well enough to prevent such events as the assassination of President Sadat in 1981, the suicide bombing that effectively drove the US military out of Lebanon in 1983, and many other examples of what is called "blowback" in the literature on these topics. By now the network is no doubt so decentralized, so lacking in hierarchical structure, and so dispersed throughout much of the world as to have become largely impenetrable. The intelligence services will no doubt be given resources to try harder. But a serious effort to reduce the threat of this kind of terrorism, as in innumerable other cases, requires an effort to understand and to address the causes. When a Federal Building was blown up in Oklahoma City, there were immediate cries to bomb the Middle East. These terminated when it was discovered that the perpetrator was from the US ultra-right militia movement. The reaction was not to destroy Montana and Idaho, where the movements are based, but to seek and capture the perpetrator, bring him to trial, and -- crucially -- explore the grievances that lie behind such crimes and to address the problems. Just about every crime -- whether a robbery in the streets or colossal atrocities -- has reasons, and commonly we find that some of them are serious and should be addressed. Matters are no different in this case -- at least, for those who are concerned to reduce the threat of terrorist violence rather than to escalate it. Bin Laden may or may not be directly implicated in these acts, but it is likely that the network in which he was a prime figure is -- that is, the network established by the US and its allies for their own purposes and supported as long as it served those purposes. It is much easier to personalize the enemy, identified as the symbol of ultimate evil, than to seek to understand what lies behind major atrocities. And there are, naturally, very strong temptations to ignore one's own role -- which in this case, is not difficult to unearth, and indeed is familiar to everyone who has any familiarity with the region and its recent history. That is an analogy that is often raised. It reveals, in my opinion, the profound impact of several hundred years of imperial violence on the intellectual and moral culture of the West. The war in Vietnam began as a US attack against South Vietnam, which was always the main target of the US wars, which ended by devastating much of Indochina. Unless we are willing to face that elementary fact, we cannot talk seriously about the Vietnam wars. It is true that the war proved costly to the US, though the impact on Indochina was incomparably more awful. The invasion of Afghanistan also proved costly to the USSR, but that is not the problem that comes to the fore when we consider that crime. .... from ZNet Sustainer posts 9/27 (Top)
Most of the World Favors Extradition and Trial of Terrorists over Military AttackGallup International polled citizens of 37 countries about the appropriate US response to the terrorist attack on Sept 11. Most of the world strongly prefers the extradition of terrorists to stand trial over a military attack. And even in the US, majorities favor military attacks that are limited to military targets only, rather than military and civilian targets. |
