This article has been chosen as a Making Sense of These Times
FIVE STAR PIECE
What's written about here is fast becoming THE story, only to be eclipsed if
we get another attack. It is what will destroy us by our own hand if no
one else does the job. "Let's proclaim him King George. It's a fitting
appellation for a sovereign who rules by capricious whim and exercises power
without judicial scrutiny or statutory authorization...."
-Suzanne-
November 27, 2001
Dispatch from Anthrakistan
Martin A. Lee
IT'S A HELLUVA war our government has gotten us into. It could go on for
years, we're told. There's no end in sight.
I'm not talking about the war against terrorist networks in Afghanistan and
beyond. I'm referring to another troubling conflict: the crusade against
civil liberties on the domestic front, the jihad against dissent that's
taking shape in Anthrakistan, our anxious homeland.
This nervous nation used to be called the United States of America (a.k.a.
America the Beautiful). That was before the World Trade Center towers came
crashing down and "everything changed" on Sept. 11. We actually had a
Constitution with 10 original amendments, which were meant to protect our
freedom in times of war, as well as in times of peace.
Anthrax isn't contagious, but the spores of fear are everywhere. Inflamed
by calamity and dread, our patriotic paranoia is running rampant. We're all
on edge about what al-Qaeda might do next. A commercial jet crashes in
Queens, and we immediately get the willies: was it a terrorist attack too?
We don't know where or when, but another Sept. 11 seems inevitable.
Desperate to stop terrorists from striking again, the Central Intelligence
Agency has pulled out all the stops even hiring psychics to join the
manhunt for Osama bin Laden. Now that Kabul has fallen, CIA strategists are
eager to dust off the 87-year-old Afghan king, Zahir Shah, who has lived in
exile for the past three decades, and install him as the figurehead chief
of a post-Taliban government.
Ah, the wish for kings ... I feel it stirring among us, a deep-rooted
authoritarian impulse that throbs during times of crisis, the age-old
hankering for an almighty power to issue decrees and set matters straight.
Personally, I think George W. Bush would make a good monarch. After all, he
has always been a titular kind of guy, a front man for oil and ordnance. So
let's proclaim him King George. It's a fitting appellation for a sovereign
who rules by capricious whim and exercises power without judicial scrutiny
or statutory authorization. That's how things work these days in
Anthrakistan.
Lord John Ashcroft, leading emissary of the royal court, tightened his
Richelieu-like grip on the homeland last month when King George affixed his
seal of approval to the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, which gives the government
sweeping new powers to conduct secret searches without a warrant, tap
telephones and computers, and detain suspects indefinitely in the name of
fighting terrorism.
The USA Police State Act of 2001 would have been a more appropriate title
for the bill that zoomed through Congress "without deliberation or debate,"
as Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) noted. Feingold, the only senator who opposed the
draconian legislation, accused the Justice Department of exploiting "the
emergency situation to get some things they've wanted for a long time."
"It's overkill," says David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic
Privacy Information Center. "The new legislation gives federal authorities
too much power. The potential for abuse is enormous."
Another new rule imposed by Lord Ashcroft allows the government to
eavesdrop on conversations and intercept correspondence between prison
inmates and their lawyers in effect nullifying the Sixth Amendment right
to effective counsel. And last week King George signed a decree that the
government can try people accused of terrorism behind closed doors in a
special military tribunal, rather than in a civilian court.
Meanwhile, the government still holds more than a thousand "aliens" who
were rounded up and taken into custody after Sept. 11. Under the new
regime, a foreigner visiting Disneyland can be arrested, jailed without a
hearing, and incarcerated in perpetuity without ever being charged for a
crime. Some detainees later cleared of any link to terrorism have been held
in harsh conditions for prolonged periods and denied a chance to notify
relatives of their whereabouts.
There's even talk of using torture to make people divulge information about
terrorism an idea supported by 45 percent of Americans, according to a
recent CNN poll. "U.S. investigators are considering resorting to harsher
interrogation techniques, including torture," the London Times reports.
"The public pressure for results in the war on terrorism might also
persuade the FBI to encourage the countries of suspects to seek their
extradition, in the knowledge that they could be given a much rougher
reception in jails back home."
Subcontracting foreign police organizations that torture prisoners might
afford novel opportunities for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but
it's an old routine for the CIA, which has been given more leeway to engage
in domestic spying in the wake of Sept. 11. CIA operatives continue to run
amok, while court jesters on Capitol Hill fulminate about unshackling our
spies, blithely ignoring the fact that they were never shackled to begin
with. There was never any law that prohibited the CIA from enlisting
narco-traffickers, death squad dons, neofascists, and other malefactors as
sources and espionage assets, only a proviso that such unwholesome
machinations be cleared with a superior officer. According to CIA
spokesperson Bill Harlow, the agency "never turned down a field request to
recruit an asset in a terrorist organization."
It was precisely this type of covert activity whereby unsavory
characters were recruited to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives that
set the stage for the tragic events of Sept. 11. Islamic extremists, who
had been trained and financed by the CIA to battle the Red Army in
Afghanistan during the 1980s, subsequently turned their psychotic wrath
against their erstwhile patron. But instead of reprimanding the reckless
U.S. spymasters who ran the Afghan operation, our officials have rewarded
the CIA with billions of additional dollars to combat "terrorism," a term
that is vaguely defined by the PATRIOT Act.
A "federal terrorist offense" is distinguished by "the intent to influence
or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to
retaliate against government conduct," explains Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii).
"This broad, unclear definition may include groups such as Greenpeace,
along with the terrorists." Ditto for People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals, which "could be investigated as a terrorist group because one of
its members hits the secretary of agriculture with a pie," says Laura W.
Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office.
In recent weeks, student demonstrators, civil libertarians, global justice
workers, and peace and animal rights activists have all been pegged as
terrorist sympathizers. No less an expert than Federal Reserve chair Alan
Greenspan has dubbed globalization "the antithesis of terrorism," implying
that those who condemn disparities in the global economic order are
supporters of terrorism. The assault on the World Trade Center, according
to King George himself, was above all an attack on free markets.
A few months prior to Sept. 11, FBI director Robert Mueller named a couple
of harmless guerrilla theater-type groups Reclaim the Streets and
Carnival Against Capitalism during Senate testimony on the terrorist
threat. The FBI continues to probe other organizations it claims are linked
to terrorism, including the U.S. chapter of Women in Black, a pacifist
cadre that holds peace vigils to protest violence in Israel and the
Palestinian territories. "If the FBI cannot or will not distinguish between
groups who collude in hatred and terrorism and peace activists who struggle
in the full light of day against all forms of terrorism, then we are in
serious trouble," one Women in Black member remarked.
Unfortunately, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies often seem
oblivious to such nuances. Throughout American history, federal
investigators have targeted and harassed political dissidents. During the
1960s the FBI mounted a full-fledged vendetta against Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., while spying on numerous civil rights and anti-Vietnam War
activists. By the mid 1970s the FBI had accumulated dossiers on more than
one million Americans, though only a few individuals were actually charged
with committing crimes. In the 1980s government sleuths kept tabs on the
sanctuary movement, which provided asylum in the United States for families
fleeing Central American deaths squads.
Today a big chill is upon us, and many are peevish toward anything that
smacks of dissent. If you question official policies, you run the risk of
being labeled an apologist for terrorism. Lampoon our leaders and you'll be
banished from the airwaves, while the major media grovel for Pentagon
handouts and military analysts strut their stuff on television.
Film-industry executives admit that they have been under pressure to take
an "American stance" on issues, giving rise to concerns that the upsurge of
jingoism could result in an anti-dissident blacklist much like the one that
muzzled Hollywood during the McCarthy era.
Even two ostensibly liberal organizations, the Sierra Club and the National
Resources Defense Council, censored themselves and withdrew ads that chided
Bush for his woeful environmental record. Such is the mood in Anthrakistan,
where criticism of the king is frowned on and newspaper columnists are
fired for expressing patriotically incorrect views. "People have to watch
what they say and what they do," White House press secretary Ari Fleisher
admonished.
Fifteen-year-old West Virginia sophomore Katie Sierra was recently
suspended from her high school for wearing a T-shirt that read, "When I saw
the dead and dying Afghani children on TV, I felt a newly recovered sense
of national security. God Bless America." Several college professors who
opposed the carpet bombing of Afghan cities were censured by university
officials.
A group of prominent intellectuals including Edward Said of Columbia
University and philosopher Anatole Anton of San Francisco State University
signed a letter asserting that they had been threatened and attacked for
speaking out against U.S. foreign policy. Shortly thereafter, the American
Council of Trustees and Alumni, a right-wing academic group founded by
Lynne Cheney (the veep's wife), released a report accusing 40 college
professors of not showing enough patriotism since Sept. 11.
In what may be a harbinger of things to come, Nancy Oden, a Green Party USA
coordinating committee member, was grabbed by armed guards and detained at
Bangor International Airport in Maine on Nov. 1 as she attempted to board
an American Airlines flight to Chicago. Prevented from flying, Oden was
unable to attend a Green Party meeting in the Midwest the next day. "An
official told me that my name had been flagged in the computer," Oden said.
"I was told that the airport was closed to me until further notice and that
my ticket would not be refunded."
An organic farmer with no prior arrest record, Oden believes she was
targeted because of her outspoken political views. An airport spokesperson
claims that Oden caused the confrontation by refusing to cooperate with
airport security a charge Oden adamantly denies. Whatever the case, it's
doubtful that this incident would have occurred before Sept. 11.
Perhaps if they spent less time spying on law-abiding citizens and
nonviolent social activists, our law enforcement agencies would be more
successful in thwarting terrorist networks that are plotting mass murder.
Martin A. Lee (martinalee117@yahoo.com) is the author of Acid Dreams and
The Beast Reawakens.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11976
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