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By New Dawn Research Team
Those in authority should take appropriate
precautions to protect our citizens. But we will not allow this
enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting
our freedoms.
– US President George W. Bush
The first war of
the 21st century,
the War on Terror, is now being waged. It is to be a lengthy and
protracted war, fought by the US and its allies on home soil and
in far-flung corners of the globe. The goal is to route out
terrorists, in all their guises and wipe them from the face of the
Earth. President Bush’s declaration, “if you’re not with us,
you’re against us,” provides a generalisation enabling governments
to deal harshly with a broad range of terrorists, insurgents and
riff raff.
The
terrorist threat has been dramatically oversimplified. By keeping
it simple and stupid – as the saying goes – governments have been
able to strike a chord with the masses who are amenable to slogans
and propaganda. It’s easy to grasp the ‘us-against-them’
mentality, the ‘smoke ‘em out of their lairs kind of stuff. Just
keep repeating it. Things haven’t really changed since Hitler’s
day.
As
in any war effort, governments get everyone involved in order to
reap the maximum benefits. First, the ‘war on terror’ will revive
the deteriorating world economy and help the corporations,
particularly the arms manufacturers and the IT sector. Second, it
will provide jobs and encourage spending – this ensures people
don’t have too much time on their hands to think about the
emerging totalitarian state. The logic is simple: it’s better to
have a passive consumer than an active intellectual. Third, the
‘war on terror’ will provide so-called democratic governments with
the necessary laws to deal with the rising throng of outspoken
activists and civil rights campaigners who are making trouble for
governments and their corporate partners.
The
media – the fourth estate – has an important role in the new war.
The televised images from the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon
looked like a Hollywood production. The much-hyped anthrax scares
have continued to provoke fear and alarm among the public. Graphic
imagery of the military conquest in Afghanistan ignites patriotism
and reinforces the authority of the US at home and abroad.
Millions have been intellectually and morally paralysed by the
‘war on terror’. Sales of the
US
flag are up. People believe more of what the establishment says.
Millions are sitting slack jawed watching the tube relay graphic
images of terrorism, unable to distinguish fiction from reality.
The
terrorist attacks provide a remarkable opportunity to advance the
New World Order. 11 September marked the end of an era, the end of
freedom. Most citizens never took their freedom seriously anyway.
They just assumed that it would always be there, like the sun
always shines. They never realised that the price of freedom is
eternal vigilance. They were too busy keeping up with the Joneses,
paying off their debts and attending sporting events. One hundred
thousand people will pack like sardines into a sports stadium, but
it’s tough to get even one hundred people to a political meeting.
That’s how effective the tactics are. The need to keep checks and
balances on the government and the military industrial complex has
been left to a few fringe groups, radical academics and
under-resourced organisations that couldn’t possibly win the
battle for freedom in the end.
To
quell any real concerns about diminishing civil rights,
governments just keep repeating the mantra about Operation
Enduring Freedom, a stable, therapeutic and permanent sort of
freedom which can be defined, controlled and manipulated. As part
of this Operation, democratic countries are legislating so that
the dragnets of police and intelligence agencies are cast as
widely as possible, capturing the ‘evil doers’ now and in the
future. While passions about terrorism are running high, laws can
be changed in the blink of an eye. Governments everywhere are
implementing excessive reforms as an overreaction to 11 September.
Legislators are so swept away with the ‘war on terror’ that they
think anything to do with counter-terrorism will provide greater
security for their country. Domestic security has become a primary
concern. It’s open slather for the zealous advocates of internal
security. The recent federal election in Australia is a case in
point. The Liberal party had everyone so wound up with illegal
boat people and terrorism that voters forgot all about the GST,
job losses and globalisation.
The
‘war on terror’, like the war on drugs, will continue
indefinitely. Even if the threat of terrorism passes, the reforms
mean that civil liberties will continue to erode. It goes without
saying that few people want to be perceived as being terrorist
sympathisers. It’s a catch 22. It’s a zero tolerance policy on
disagreement, dissent and disloyalty. The legislative changes
being made are permanent. They establish ominous legal precedents,
and arm the law enforcement agencies with vast arbitrary powers to
label various acts as “terrorism.”
So
far, significant advances towards police state measures have been
made in the USA, Australia, the UK and Canada. It’s been a strike
against civil liberties.
USA PATRIOT ACT
The
USA Patriot Act was signed into law on 26 October, 2001. This Act
gives the long arm of the state a terrific kick along. The
terrorist threat and the urgency of the situation meant that
Congress didn’t even test and weigh the Act. The legislation was
passed without indepth deliberation and debate. Most didn’t even
read the legislation; a few staffers took a peek. A handful
opposed the legislation, like Representative Ron Paul of Texas,
one of three Republicans to vote against it. Paul even confirmed
that the final version of the bill was not printed before the
vote.
If
Congress had had the chance to properly analyse USA Patriot,
representatives would have woken up to the fact that it didn’t
strike the right balance between empowering law enforcement and
protecting constitutional freedoms. But at 300 pages, more than
half a ream of A4 paper, the legislation was daunting. With the
World Trade Centre still smouldering, it was easy to convince
Congress that the home front was a warfront and police needed new
powers. A lot of representatives just voted for the name – the
Uniting and Strengthening America By Providing Appropriate Tools
Required To Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (H.R. 3162, the “USA
Patriot Act”). How many members of Congress want to be seen as
un-American by voting against something called USA Patriot?
Some
of the main provisions of USA Patriot are:
•
Police can sneak into someone’s house or office, search the
contents, and leave without ever telling the owner. This would be
supervised by a court, and the notification of the surreptitious
search “may be delayed” indefinitely (Section 213).
•
Any US attorney or state attorney general can order the
installation of the FBI’s Carnivore surveillance system and record
addresses of Web pages visited and e-mail correspondents – without
going to a judge. Previously, there were stiffer legal
restrictions on Carnivore and other Internet surveillance
techniques (Section 216).
•
Any American “with intent to defraud” that scans in an image of a
foreign currency note or e-mails or transmits such an image will
go to jail for up to 20 years (Section 375).
• An
accused terrorist who is a foreign citizen and who cannot be
deported can be held for an unspecified series of “periods of up
to six months” with the attorney general’s approval (Section 412).
•
Biometric technology, such as fingerprint readers or iris
scanners, will become part of an “integrated entry and exit data
system” with the identities of visa holders who hope to enter the
US (Section 414).
•
Any Internet provider or telephone company must turn over customer
information, including phone numbers called – no court order
required – if the FBI claims the “records sought are relevant to
an authorised investigation to protect against international
terrorism.” The company contacted may not “disclose to any person”
that the FBI is doing an investigation (Section 505).
•
Credit reporting firms like Equifax must disclose to the FBI any
information that agents request in connection with a terrorist
investigation – without police needing to seek a court order
first. Previously, law permitted this only in espionage cases
(Section 505).
•
The definition of terrorism has been radically expanded to include
biochemical attacks and computer hacking (Section 808).
• A
new crime of “cyberterrorism” is added, which covers hacking
attempts causing damage “aggregating at least $5,000 in value” in
one year, any damage to medical equipment or “physical injury to
any person.” Prison terms range between five and 20 years (Section
814).
•
New computer forensics labs are being created to inspect “seized
or intercepted computer evidence relating to criminal activity
(including cyberterrorism)” and to train federal agents (Section
816).
USA
Patriot may well be freedom’s dying hour. Even ordinary
businesses, like chemists and bookstores, are being pressed into
war service on the home front. The Act requires shop owners to
monitor their customers and report “suspicious transactions” to
the Treasury Department. Most businesses aren’t aware of their new
obligations yet, but if they don’t comply they may well be
investigated for being ‘terrorist collaborators.’ Any person
engaged in a trade or business has to file a government report if
a customer spends $10,000 or more in cash. The threshold is
cumulative and applies to multiple purchases if they’re somehow
related – three $4,000 pieces of furniture, for example, might
trigger a filing. The government is turning an untrained populace
into the monitors of money laundering activity.
The
new legislation also expands investigative and prosecutorial
power, including wider use of undercover agents to infiltrate
organisations, longer jail sentences and lifetime supervision for
some who have served their sentences, more crimes that can receive
the death penalty and longer statutes of limitations for
prosecuting crimes. Another provision of the bill makes it a crime
for a person to fail to notify the FBI if he has “reasonable
grounds to believe” that someone is about to commit a terrorist
offence. The language of this provision is so vague that anyone,
however innocent, with any connection to anyone suspected of being
a terrorist can be prosecuted.
The
legislation will revive domestic spying in ways not seen since the
days of the civil rights movement. Minister Louis Farrakhan of the
US-based Nation of Islam organisation has slammed the proposed
powers which he likens to the FBI’s Cointelpro program. The
mandate of Cointelpro, spelled out in one of the piles of secret
documents released by US Senate investigators in 1976, was to
“disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralise” groups and
individuals the FBI considered politically objectionable. In
particular, the FBI exploited differences between black
organisations and leaders through anonymous-FBI sent letters and
telephone calls. Under Cointelpro, information gleaned from
wiretaps was leaked to undermine trust, crime was encouraged by
government operatives, and personal and moral weaknesses were
taken advantage of and lied about. The FBI listed individuals
targeted under categories variously called “Rabble Rouser Index,”
“Agitator Index,” and the “Security Index.” The results were
immediate and devastating. More than half of its spy targets were
political groups.
THE STAR CHAMBER1
A
contentious measure, proposed by the US without a whimper from the
UN, is the use of secret military tribunals, a modern day Star
Chamber. President Bush’s Military Order of 13 November, 2001
permits the use of such tribunals against any non-citizen accused
of terrorism. Defending Bush’s Order, Vice President Dick Cheney
said terrorism suspects “don’t deserve the same guarantees and
safeguards that would be used for an American citizen going
through the normal judicial process,” and that a military tribunal
“guarantees that we’ll have the kind of treatment of these
individuals that we believe they deserve.”
While the order specifically refers to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda
network, the controversial move prompted the American Council for
Civil Liberties to write to members of Congress, urging
representatives to “consider carefully the breadth of the Military
Order, and to reclaim its constitutional power by deciding for
itself under what circumstances, if any, military tribunals should
be authorised in terrorism cases and to ensure that basic due
process protections are preserved.”
The
order applies to some 20 million non-citizens in the United
States, most of whom are legal residents and any other non-citizen
anywhere else in the world, permitting indefinite detention
without trial. It could, at the stroke of a pen, be expanded to
include United States citizens.
At a
hearing before a Senate Judiciary Committee on 6 December, US
Attorney General John Ashcroft swept aside concerns over the
tribunals, charging that his critics “aid terrorists” and “give
ammunition to America’s enemies.”
The
issue of military tribunals has even alarmed the US establishment
media. In a column in the 15 November New York Times,
entitled “Seizing Dictatorial Power,” longtime Republican
operative William Safire wrote that “a president of the United
States has just assumed what amounts to dictatorial power... with
the replacement of the American rule of law with military kangaroo
courts… On what legal meat does this our Caesar feed?” he asked.
And a 16 November editorial in the Times, headlined “A
Travesty of Justice,” commented, “With the flick of a pen, in this
case, Mr. Bush has essentially discarded the rulebook of American
justice painstakingly assembled over the course of more than two
centuries.”
In
addition to these measures, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has rushed out proposed legislation, urging the US
states to adopt a law allowing public health authorities to take
over hospitals, seize drug supplies, quarantine people exposed to
infectious pathogens, draft doctors to treat them, force patients
to be vaccinated, and order police to restrain residents from
leaving contaminated areas. Critics of the proposal say it
threatens to create a public health “police state” that could spur
people to panic and flee, helping to spread deadly germs farther
afield. Under the proposed law, one case of smallpox in a public
school could trigger authorities to urge a governor to declare a
state of emergency.2
A
scenario straight out of George Orwell’s 1984 is the most
likely outcome if things are let go at the present rate and no
attention is paid to the civil liberties implications of 11
September and the slippery slope of surveillance and monitoring of
citizens.
Already, relatively innocuous organisations have become the target
of surveillance and harassment. In a recent email to its
subscribers, the Culture Jammers network revealed that its
Corporate America Flag billboard in Times Square, New York, had
attracted the attention of the Federal Department of Defense and a
visit by an agent who asked a lot of pointed questions about the
Jammer’s motivation and intent.
As
part of the ‘war on terror’, other countries including Australia,
UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and France have also introduced
repressive legislation.
Ignacio Ramonet put it succinctly in a recent article for Le
Monde Diplomatique: “Defenders of civil rights have good
reason for alarm. What had seemed to be a general movement in our
societies towards a greater respect for individuals and their
liberties has been abruptly put on hold. Everything suggests a
police-state future.”3
AUSTRALIA’S NEW KGB
The
Australian federal government rushed to support the US in the wake
of 11 September. As deputy sheriff in the Pacific and the virtual
51st state
of the USA, Australia immediately activated the ANZUS treaty,
which detractors were quick to point out should only have been
invoked if attacks occurred on Australian soil.
Federal Cabinet, meeting on 17 December last year, proposed a
string of new counter terrorism laws, urged on by American allies.
At the time of writing, the government had implemented a
high-level review of Australia’s counter-terrorism arrangements,
promising to vastly expand the powers of its domestic spy agency,
the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). The
review, headed by Attorney-General’s Department Secretary Robert
Cornall, found that “the profound shift in the international
security environment meant that Australia’s profile as a terrorist
target had risen and there was a higher level of terrorist
threat.”
Cabinet subsequently endorsed a raft of measures to enhance
Australia’s “ability to meet the challenges of the new terrorist
environment.” The proposals include:
•
Permitting State or Federal Police, acting in conjunction with
ASIO, to arrest a person and bring that person before a prescribed
authority, to “protect the public from politically motivated
violence”. In other words, ASIO will get the power of arrest –
which it has never had before. It will be able to detain people
for questioning for up to 48 hours. And although it will have to
go through the formality of obtaining a warrant from a federal
magistrate, it is an enormous shift in its operations. Brought
before a prescribed authority, detainees will not have the right
to silence. By refusing to answer questions, they can be jailed
for up to five years.
• A
special new offence of terrorism – based on the UK Terrorism Act
2000 – to include violent attacks or threats of violent attacks
“intended to advance a political, religious or ideological cause
which are directed against or endanger Commonwealth interests”,
with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
•
Amendments to the Crimes Act allowing terrorist assets to be
seized.
•
ASIO, in the presence of a prescribed authority, will be able to
question people who are not themselves suspected of terrorist
activity, but who “may have information that may be relevant to
ASIO’s investigations into politically motivated violence.”
•
Inserting terrorism offences into the Criminal Code, carrying a
maximum penalty of 25 years jail.
•
Criminalising the funding of terrorism, which will carry the
maximum penalty.
•
Amending the Financial Transaction Reports Act to ensure the
reporting of possible terrorist-related transactions.
•
Changing the law to allow ASIO access to unread emails.
Civil libertarians have warned that the new powers proposed for
domestic spy agency ASIO would turn it into Australia’s own KGB.
Civil Liberties Council spokesman Cameron Murphy said the
government’s plan was unwarranted, and likened the resulting
organisation to the Russian secret police of the Cold War.
“They (the Government) haven’t demonstrated that there’s public
need for the powers and they really are going to turn ASIO into a
secret police,” he told Channel Seven television. “The last time
we saw these sort of powers being given to an ASIO or intelligence
service was like the KGB – it’s that severe.”
There will be no sunset clause and ASIO’s new powers will last
indefinitely. According to Murphy, once the imminent crisis of
terrorism is over, “what we’ll find is that ASIO’s attention will
focus on innocent members of the Australian public… A response is
necessary, but this is too much of a response... the Government is
going the whole hog and giving them too much power.”
Noted civil libertarian and former Victorian MLC, Joan Coxsedge,
addressing a Human Rights forum in
Melbourne,
slammed the legislation: “If these proposals become law, then
anyone criticising their boss, the government or our lousy social
system, could be targeted. Our most basic freedoms, the freedom to
speak out, the freedom of association and freedom of movement –
are being threatened as never before.”
“These are fascist laws for fascist times. We must oppose them
with every ounce of our energy in every way we can. Make your
views known to the Prime Minister and Attorney-General –
especially to your local member of parliament – and write to all
opposition members in the Senate, where they could combine forces
to defeat the legislation.”
She
concluded her talk by mentioning a disturbing report in the
Australian Financial Review on a speech given by Australia's
Major-General Cosgrove to the Army’s annual Land Warfare
conference in Sydney on 12 November, 2001.
The
message of his speech was about the necessity to “politicise our
[Australian] army so it would be prepared to take part in
operations against civilian dissidents or militant trade unionists
in an industrial situation. Among other things, the General warned
that the attacks against the US had 'blurred the hitherto quite
distinct boundaries of the functions and responsibilities of the
security, law and order and administrative arms of government – we
must have the ability to make each constable or soldier a sort of
Karnak the all-knowing.'”
UK’S LAST SALUTE TO FREEDOM
In
the UK, sweeping new powers have been bestowed upon intelligence
agencies under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act.
Ministers refused to accept a sunset clause which would have meant
the legislation fell after one year. Radical dissenters in Britain
have already been identified as terrorists by the Terrorism Act
2000 which came into force in mid 2001. Now they are likely to be
treated as such and may be subject to much harsher penalties for
any anti-State activities.
Under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, the British Home
Secretary gets the power to detain suspected international
terrorists without trial where their deportation is not possible.
Police can require financial institutions to provide information
on accounts for up to 90 days. Law enforcement agencies are able
to freeze assets at the start of an investigation, rather than
when the person is about to be charged.
The
government is also proposing to make it a criminal offence to
disobey a police officer who has told you to leave a demonstration
outside any residential property. On top of that, it will be an
offence to attend a demonstration wearing a mask or painted face.
MARTIAL LAW
FOR THE EU?
The
strike against civil liberties in
Europe
mirrors developments in the US. In some respects, the EU is going
further than the US with data retention proposals, and other
measures such as keeping data on those suspected of public
disturbance.
The
proposed laws establish a definition of terrorism so broad that it
could include workers’ strikes, anti-globalisation protests, and
GM crop actions. The new definition of a terrorist will encompass
people “who hoped to seriously alter the political, economic or
social structure” of the EU.
The
measures have alarmed European Union lawyers with some 200 signing
an appeal urging European Parliament and EU governments to reject
such a broad definition of terrorism.
“This antiterrorist legislation once imposed will become a real
war machine against fundamental democratic rights,” the appeal
warned, “and against those who come up against a political and
social system with its basis in economics, a system increasingly
global and unjust.”
Jan
Fermon, a lawyer from
Brussels
who helped draft the appeal, is concerned that the EU is using the
11 September attack as an excuse to pass proposals designed to
quash political dissent under the guise of counter-terrorism.
“Most of these proposals have no relation to terrorism,” Fermon
said, “but the EU is now using 9-11 to get them passed without
criticism.”
CANADA’S JACKBOOT
JUGGERNAUT
Canada’s Liberal government is rushing to enact an
“anti-terrorism” bill that breaks with key tenets of
British-Canadian jurisprudence. Bill C-36 establishes a new order
of “terrorist” crimes for which the state will have special
investigative and prosecutorial powers.
The
Bill lists 35 offences, taken from ten international agreements
and protocols, liable to be defined as terrorist acts. Then, in a
second section it further defines as a terrorist act “an act or
omission, in or outside Canada, that is committed... for a
political, religious or ideological purpose” and that is aimed at
causing any of the following: death or injury; “substantial
property damage” or “serious interference with or serious
disruption of an essential service, facility or system, whether
public or private...”
The
last clause is particularly ominous, since it and another
sub-clause that mentions threats to Canadians’ “economic security”
could be used to smear work stoppages, blockades and other acts of
civil disobedience as “terrorism,” and thus threaten participants
with massive legal sanctions. The Quebec Bar Association has
cautioned: “It would be a mistake… to believe that this law will
not eventually be used against Canadians who are not terrorists.”
In
an open letter to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, a
coalition of community groups and religious and ethnic advocacy
groups asked him to oppose the legislation. “The Anti-terrorism
Act is itself a threat to the legal and civil rights that
Canadians now enjoy,” the letter said.
Anti-globalisation protesters fear they could be tried under
language that says “anyone who commits a violent attack on the
official premises, private accommodation or means of transport of
an internationally protected person that is likely to endanger
life or liberty” commits a terrorist act.
ID CARDS AND BIOMETRICS
The
goal of terrorism is to paralyse the population and government by
encouraging totalitarianism. Many have compared the 11 September
attack to the burning of the Reichstag that lead to the Nazi
takeover of the German government in 1933. 11 September serves
well those who believe that safety and state security are more
important than freedom. So far, there has been little time for
rational, logical thinking. Instead, all we hear are calls for a
bigger hammer and a readier willingness to use it.
Just
days after 11 September, Chairman and CEO of Oracle Corp., Larry
Ellison, called for the creation of a national ID system in the US
and offered to provide the software for it without charge.
“We
need a national ID card with our photograph and thumbprint
digitised and embedded in the card. We need a database behind that
so when you’re walking into an airport and you say that you are
Larry Ellison, you take that card and put it in a reader and you
put your thumb down and that system confirms that this is Larry
Ellison,” he urged.
Responding to concerns over the privacy implications of his
give-a-way system, Ellison said: “Well, this privacy you’re
concerned about is largely an illusion. All you have to give up is
your illusions, not any of your privacy.” Oracle has a
longstanding relationship with the US federal government. The CIA
was Ellison’s first customer and the company’s name stems from a
CIA funded project launched in the mid 1970’s that sought better
ways of storing and retrieving digital data.
A
national ID card system was one of the first calls to deal with
the terrorist threat. An ID card itself, offers no protection from
terrorism, instead it creates a system of internal passports that
would significantly diminish the freedom and privacy of
law-abiding citizens. Once put in place, it is exceedingly
unlikely that such a system would be restricted to its original
purpose. Americans, Australians, British, French, German and
Canadian citizens have long had an instinctive aversion to
building a society in which the authorities could act like
totalitarian sentries and demand “your papers please!”
For
the moment, officials from all 50 US states have agreed to
cooperate on upgrading driver’s license security features, giving
momentum to efforts to turn the licenses into de facto national
identity cards. The state officials are expected to request $70
million or more in federal funds to study issues like how they
might include data such as fingerprints or digital photographs on
the driver’s licenses, which are carried by more than 200 million
Americans.
Meanwhile, the biometrics industry is rubbing its hands with glee
as governments and corporations search for new and unnecessary
counter terrorist measures. Biometric identification is set to
become the norm at US airports. Since 1993, the
US
has been trialling an Immigration and Naturalisation Service
Passenger Accelerated Service System card (INSPASS), digitally
recording the hand geometry of more than 45,000 travellers. How
the biometrics industry can play a role in what is arguably the
emerging police state was thrashed out at the Aviation Security
Summit, held in Washington from 4 to 5 February. A keynote speaker
was John D. Rockefeller IV, Chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee.
CRY OF THE CRITICS
Since 11 September, there has been an attempt to say that anti-globalisation
equals anti-Americanism. Activists have been stunned into a phase
of relative quiet by the terrorist attacks. Many groups are
beginning to see themselves as a Peace Movement II. Others believe
that the movement has been undermined. Globalisation watchdogs
report not knowing how to position themselves in what is
acknowledged to be a new political context. It is suggested that
they have been weakened by the general tone of global cooperation
and the rhetoric employed by Western leaders.
There are a few lone wolves who continue to point out the
hypocrisy of the ‘war on terror’. To them, the United States and
the globalisation it has imposed are an intricate part of the
problem. Some critics point to an ominous future for democracy and
freedom in the West.
Outspoken US writer Gore Vidal denounced Washington for waging
what he called “a perpetual war for perpetual peace,” and said
American aggression was only nurturing fresh hatreds. In a
scathing attack on US foreign policy, Vidal told Reuters that the
United States
would have been better served trying to buy peace with Osama bin
Laden rather than send in the bombers to try and kill him.
Writing in The Guardian on 30 October, 2001, George Monbiot,
Honorary Professor at the Department of Politics in Keele and
Visiting Professor at the Department of Environmental Science at
the University of East London, reminded readers that for the past
55 years, the US has been running its own terrorist training camp,
whose victims massively outnumber the people killed by the attack
on New York, the embassy bombings and the other atrocities laid,
rightly or wrongly, at al-Qaeda’s door.
“The
camp is called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation, or Whisc. It is based in
Fort Benning, Georgia,
and it is funded by Mr. Bush’s Government,” Monibot said in his
column. “Until January this year, Whisc was called the ‘School of
the Americas’ or SOA. Since 1946, SOA has trained more than 60,000
Latin American soldiers and policemen. Among its graduates are
many of the continent’s most notorious torturers, mass murderers,
dictators and state terrorists,” he said.
OPERATION NORTHWOODS
As
well as training terrorists on the home front, the US
administration at one time during the 1960’s considered launching
terrorist attacks on American soil. Code-named Operation
Northwoods,4 the
plans included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés,
sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking
planes, blowing up a US ship and even orchestrating violent
terrorism in US cities.
The
plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the
international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba’s then
new communist leader, Fidel Castro. America’s top military brass
even contemplated causing US military casualties, writing: “We
could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba,” and,
“casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of
national indignation.”
Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets, a
new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history
of America’s largest spy agency, the National Security Agency.
Bamford notes that while the plans were not connected to the
agency, they had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy’s defense
secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. Thankfully, the plans
were rejected by the civilian leadership and subsequently remained
undisclosed for nearly 40 years.
URBAN WARFARE
So
long as the ‘war on terror’ continues, breaches of constitutional
law and the ongoing extension of totalitarian measures can be
justified. Eventually, the ‘war on terror’ will become
internalised. By 2025 the world’s population will have reached
eight billion. By then, 70 per cent of humanity will live in towns
and cities and, for most of them, life will be survival in an
urban jungle.
The
Western democracies themselves will face further attacks upon
their interests, investments and infrastructure. The US Marine
Corps amended its training seven years ago to take in urban
warfare and regularly invites officers from Australia, the UK and
other countries to share experiments at their Warfighting
“laboratory” at Quantico in Virginia. Soldiers fight mythical
enemies with real-time, instantly updated information systems.
Surveillance systems, ranging from highly sophisticated electronic
sensors to unmanned aircraft carrying digital cameras transmit
pictures directly to fighting units. This is just a snapshot of
the future. Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are now more
than 60 years old. As the ‘war on terror’ heats up, we can expect
a new generation of weapons to be unleashed. On the horizon are
weapons to modify the weather, weapons to knock out communications
systems, genetically engineered bioweapons and a plethora of non
lethal weapons to ‘stick em and lick em’.
THE END OF FREEDOM?
The
US government thinks of the war against terrorism as a permanent
war, a war without boundaries. The danger is that it may also
become a permanent war against freedoms.
History shows that times of national crisis are often accompanied
by enormous pressure to expand the state apparatus in ways that
threaten privacy and civil liberties without enhancing security.
In Nazi Germany, for example, emergency decrees (the
Notverordnungen) were established in early 1933, on the
pretext of the Reichstag (German Parliament) fire. If we smother
our liberties in order to protect democracy and freedom, then
terrorism wins.
Governments around the world are now instituting measures that
would have been politically unthinkable prior to the terror
attacks. They are components of a reactionary agenda long sought
by the most militant, extreme and conspiratorial sections of the
political establishment. We must not forget that intelligence
agencies had a role in creating the terrorist threat that we now
face. It’s no secret that the CIA funded and trained the networks
connected with Osama bin Laden as a response to the Russian
invasion of Afghanistan. Now the same intelligence agencies seek
dramatic and sweeping increases in powers to capture a menace of
their own making.
While the current rash of anti-democratic measures largely target
potential ‘terrorists’, they constitute a fundamental attack on
the basic rights of the entire population. Sooner rather than
later, these attacks could be extended to every citizen,
especially those who oppose the government’s policies.
In
the coming months the Australian government will attempt to wield
the big stick against terrorism with intelligence agencies making
another grab for power. A handful of representatives with a
conscience will vote against the proposed measures, but in the end
of the day, the usual bipartisan reign of consensus (or terror?)
will win out with civil liberties suddenly becoming negotiable.
Support should be given to all politicians who are opposed to
anti-democratic measures. Whether they are from the left or right,
we must support anyone with the courage to oppose the police
state. Divide and conquer tactics must not threaten resistance to
totalitarian ideals.
Letters to the Editor, letters to MP’s, distribution of
literature, radio talk back shows, public meetings and peaceful
demonstrations may seem frail weapons against the arsenal of
counter terrorist measures but mass public opinion will eventually
weigh heavier than the bullets and missiles of the military
industrial complex. It is our generation and those after us who
will perish as slaves if we do not defend the light of freedom
which is now being rapidly extinguished. As George Monbiot says:
“Dissent is most necessary just when it is hardest to voice.”
Footnotes:
1. Star Chamber: An English court of law active in the Tudor and early
Stuart periods, abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641. An
outgrowth of the royal council, it was made up of privy
councillors as well as judges and supplemented the activities of
the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal
matters. Star Chamber became unpopular as the Stuart kings used it
with increasing arbitrariness to enforce the royal prerogative.
Its name thus became synonymous with secret, irresponsible court
proceedings.
2.
The controversial legislation can be downloaded from
www.publichealthlaw.net/MSEHPA/MSEHPA.pdf
3. Ignacio Ramonet, “Farewell liberty”, Le Monde Diplomatique,
January 2002.
4. Reported on ABC News, 1 May 2001, by David Ruppe,
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html
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