The article below was written by an old friend and colleague, Jack N. Behrman. Dr. Behrman served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Domestic and International Business during the Kennedy Administration. He is Luther Hodges Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina Business School, and the author of more than a score of books and articles.
By Jack N. Behrman
A sage once said: "Be careful who you choose for your enemy, for you will become like them." George W. Bush has almost completely copied the very aspects of the "Axis of Evil" that he has most forcefully criticized and asserted that he would eradicate. The list includes at a minimum the following orientations, actions, and policies:
Bush has sought to extend the influence and control of the U.S. into and over foreign countries -- just as he has criticized others for seeking to impose their will abroad.
For example, criticism of Putin in Chechnya.
As Emperors have in the past, he brooks no criticism, avers that he is following God's will, states that he makes decisions by "instinct", and demands complete and unfailing loyalty from all--"if you are not with me, you are against me"; "criticism is unpatriotic".
His Administration is the most secretive and undemocratic of any in the history of the country -- while he criticizes the lack of public information in other countries.
He has protected his "cronies" and "loyal followers" from oversight and prosecution and extended benefits and favors to them directly and indirectly --while criticizing other national leaders for doing the same.
His policies are the most divisive we have seen in the past century -- setting rich against the poor and middle class, the "have mores" against the "have less or none", and religious (fundamentalists) against the moderates and secularists.
He has injected religious "faith" into politics and government policy, while demanding that the religious leaders abroad accept "democracy".
He has, despite his criticism of others, sought to change the culture of peoples by force -- as did Stalin, Mao, and Saddam -- and worse, in foreign countries, where his leadership (authority) has no legitimacy.
He has followed the Dictators of the past (and present) in becoming arrogant, repressive, and protective of corruption. These qualities brought down the Shah of Iran; Iranians averred that they could accept two but not all three.
He has relaxed environmental and business regulation through little funding support while claiming to be in favor of environmental protection.
He has permitted those who countenanced torture of prisoners -- acts which he has criticized in the "Axis of Evil" -- to remain in office while urging Human Rights worldwide.
He has weakened the value of the dollar by extensive borrowing and permitting vast expansion of credit in the country -- similar to Russia, Mexico, and Argentina, which he has criticized.
He manipulated the past presidential election and is seeking to do the same by various means in the present election -- similar to the tactics criticized as undemocratic and fraudulent in other countries.
He has isolated himself and his Administration--as Castro, Mao, Kim Il-jung, Stalin (et al) have done--from traditional allies and become a pariah in intergovernmental organizations.
He has practiced deception by claiming to offer "compassionate conservatism" and to heal the divisions in the country while doing the opposite.
He has claimed to be supportive of the aged but has provided bonanzas to the pharmaceutical industry while letting the cost of health assistance rise and coverage fall.
He has sought to cow the media and the Congress -- as in Russia, China, and other authoritarian governments -- again insisting on unthinking loyalty to his positions, rejecting and silencing critical assessments by others.
He claims to be seeking freedom for others while damping it in the U.S., expecting citizens to be non-critical. Yet, as another sage said: "The only thing that freedom-loving people have to do to lose their freedom is to keep silent." The U.S. is losing its freedom rapidly as Bush seeks to run over and silence criticism at home and abroad.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Saturday, October 16, 2004
WMD
Jeff Merriam is a friend and a fellow international development professional. He sends a daily e-letter to a group of his friends. This is what he wrote on the subject of WMDs.
By Jeff Merriam
Did anyone watch the debate? Score another win for the challenger. It’s nice to know that the president is not worried about Osama; that would explain why he concentrated his efforts in fighting terrorism in a country that had no terrorist ties to Osama. Clarity on that topic proves less than reassuring.
So let’s ask the hypothetical question, just to expand our minds and sensibilities, what if Bush had continued to track Osama using the full power of our military? Let’s say we had 100,000 troops in Wazieristan and Afghanistan combing through every cave complex and cattle yard. Would the junior Senator from the great state of Minnesota being telling his staff to stay away from Capital Hill between now and the election? Would we have caught the slime ball? Maybe not, but I bet you that people would be feeling a hell of lot more faith in the whole homeland security apparatus. I’ll bet Al Quaeda would be considerably less organized. I bet Bush would look better in the polls.
And what if, just what if there had been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Let’s just say we found big juicy missiles full of bio-toxins and an active nuclear program. What if the idiots in the White House actually knew what they were talking about on that score? Would the still blow the occupation with their arrogance? Would they get and destroy all the WMD before the bad guys found a way to use it against our troops or Israel? Think about it, if the Iraqis had WMD wouldn’t they have used them? Wouldn’t more American kids be dead and dying than the horrible numbers we have now?
There were caches of conventional arms found all over Iraq by our troops, but they were so busy racing to Baghdad to get the bad guys that they failed to destroy those caches. Now the bad guys are using those left behind rocket launchers and AK-47s. Can you imagine what a mess the region might be if there really were WMD? Think about Israel getting hit by nerve gas and maybe a small nuclear device in central Tel Aviv? Would our attack tactics have been different? Would we have stopped and destroyed the WMD before we moved on?
What difference would finding WMD meant to the occupation and post war mess? Little or no difference at all. Bush would be vindicated for his attack, but the administration still totally blew the occupation, and, by the way continues to blow it. I think the major difference is that the insurgents would have some nasty weapons that they do not now have. Numbers of deaths from car and suicide bombing would be in the hundreds and not in the tens. In other words, even if Bush was right about WMD we would be up to our neck in dead bodies. I don’t even think Bush would have the time to smugly tell the world, “You see, I told you Iraq was a threat.” He would have to add, “Heck it still is.” Think about it: what if the insurgents had missiles that could travel 1000 miles. They would be falling on Haifa, Rijad, Adana, and who knows where else.
Now the super leap in logic: what would happen if the neo-conservatives actually listened to the people that new piddly-squat about the Middle East and a) put in enough troops, b) put together a sufficient international coalition, c) recognized the need for nation building and made plans to do it, d) did not make Sadr into a martyr, e) retained the good offices of civil servants and members of the military to help run the country and maintain the peace, and f) put Chalabi behind bars where he belongs? What are the chances that someone would have gotten all of these things right you ask? Actually very high, because a number of people suggested these elements be included in the strategy. But that doesn’t answer the question. Assume also that they actually understood what they were doing. Would there still be an insurgency? Yes, there would, but it would be considerably smaller and less effective. It would probably be contained in Baghdad and Fuluja and the acts would have a frequency of a couple a week instead of five to ten a day.
What if instead of an American force there had been a legitimate multi-national, UN sanctioned peacekeeping force on the ground headed by the US? Would we need as many troops? Would frustrated unemployed youth see the US as the big invader, or would they recognize the multinational force as a liberator? I suspect they would resent anyone that came in to “keep the peace.”
So what exactly does all this mean? It means the fundamental mistake in this whole situation was going to war in the first place. Had there been weapons of mass destruction, the casualty levels would be ten fold what they are now. Had there been an international coalition, there still would have been some form of insurgency. The resentment in the Muslim world towards the US and the West would be only marginally less pronounced. Bottom line: this was a stupid war from day one. Even if everything were done right we still would be in the midst of a quagmire. That the Bush Administration bollixed the situation so badly can only be judged the carnage that rains down on the country every day.
We should have stuck around Afghanistan and found the bad guys there. The world supported us in doing that. Instead we have a possible Code Orange, or even Code Red time up for us in the next week or so because of the elections correlating with the Bush Administrations poor record on both homeland security (look at the budget numbers) and fight against international terrorism. What if we caught Osama? I suspect that it wouldn’t bring Al Quaeda toppling down, and I would be willing to bet cash money that there would be reprisals during the first couple of weeks until the system either created a new leader or simply petered out. But we don’t know because we shifted resources to a pet project of a bunch of arrogant, poorly informed, misguided, partisan, true believers.
Why did we go into Iraq? What the hell motivated such a stupid departure from the actual war on terrorism? If the presence of WMD would have just made the situation worse, what the hell were we thinking?
That’s right Dude, I got to thinking. Why should we settle for a measly 20,000 when we can have the whole million?
It comes back to Bush’s fervent belief that God, of all entities, put him on earth for a purpose and that purpose was to make the Middle East democratic. God did put Bush on this earth for a purpose, in fact there were two purposes; first, to take the mantle of the worst US President from the shoulders of Millard Fillmore, and second, to get John Kerry elected.
.
By Jeff Merriam
Did anyone watch the debate? Score another win for the challenger. It’s nice to know that the president is not worried about Osama; that would explain why he concentrated his efforts in fighting terrorism in a country that had no terrorist ties to Osama. Clarity on that topic proves less than reassuring.
So let’s ask the hypothetical question, just to expand our minds and sensibilities, what if Bush had continued to track Osama using the full power of our military? Let’s say we had 100,000 troops in Wazieristan and Afghanistan combing through every cave complex and cattle yard. Would the junior Senator from the great state of Minnesota being telling his staff to stay away from Capital Hill between now and the election? Would we have caught the slime ball? Maybe not, but I bet you that people would be feeling a hell of lot more faith in the whole homeland security apparatus. I’ll bet Al Quaeda would be considerably less organized. I bet Bush would look better in the polls.
And what if, just what if there had been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Let’s just say we found big juicy missiles full of bio-toxins and an active nuclear program. What if the idiots in the White House actually knew what they were talking about on that score? Would the still blow the occupation with their arrogance? Would they get and destroy all the WMD before the bad guys found a way to use it against our troops or Israel? Think about it, if the Iraqis had WMD wouldn’t they have used them? Wouldn’t more American kids be dead and dying than the horrible numbers we have now?
There were caches of conventional arms found all over Iraq by our troops, but they were so busy racing to Baghdad to get the bad guys that they failed to destroy those caches. Now the bad guys are using those left behind rocket launchers and AK-47s. Can you imagine what a mess the region might be if there really were WMD? Think about Israel getting hit by nerve gas and maybe a small nuclear device in central Tel Aviv? Would our attack tactics have been different? Would we have stopped and destroyed the WMD before we moved on?
What difference would finding WMD meant to the occupation and post war mess? Little or no difference at all. Bush would be vindicated for his attack, but the administration still totally blew the occupation, and, by the way continues to blow it. I think the major difference is that the insurgents would have some nasty weapons that they do not now have. Numbers of deaths from car and suicide bombing would be in the hundreds and not in the tens. In other words, even if Bush was right about WMD we would be up to our neck in dead bodies. I don’t even think Bush would have the time to smugly tell the world, “You see, I told you Iraq was a threat.” He would have to add, “Heck it still is.” Think about it: what if the insurgents had missiles that could travel 1000 miles. They would be falling on Haifa, Rijad, Adana, and who knows where else.
Now the super leap in logic: what would happen if the neo-conservatives actually listened to the people that new piddly-squat about the Middle East and a) put in enough troops, b) put together a sufficient international coalition, c) recognized the need for nation building and made plans to do it, d) did not make Sadr into a martyr, e) retained the good offices of civil servants and members of the military to help run the country and maintain the peace, and f) put Chalabi behind bars where he belongs? What are the chances that someone would have gotten all of these things right you ask? Actually very high, because a number of people suggested these elements be included in the strategy. But that doesn’t answer the question. Assume also that they actually understood what they were doing. Would there still be an insurgency? Yes, there would, but it would be considerably smaller and less effective. It would probably be contained in Baghdad and Fuluja and the acts would have a frequency of a couple a week instead of five to ten a day.
What if instead of an American force there had been a legitimate multi-national, UN sanctioned peacekeeping force on the ground headed by the US? Would we need as many troops? Would frustrated unemployed youth see the US as the big invader, or would they recognize the multinational force as a liberator? I suspect they would resent anyone that came in to “keep the peace.”
So what exactly does all this mean? It means the fundamental mistake in this whole situation was going to war in the first place. Had there been weapons of mass destruction, the casualty levels would be ten fold what they are now. Had there been an international coalition, there still would have been some form of insurgency. The resentment in the Muslim world towards the US and the West would be only marginally less pronounced. Bottom line: this was a stupid war from day one. Even if everything were done right we still would be in the midst of a quagmire. That the Bush Administration bollixed the situation so badly can only be judged the carnage that rains down on the country every day.
We should have stuck around Afghanistan and found the bad guys there. The world supported us in doing that. Instead we have a possible Code Orange, or even Code Red time up for us in the next week or so because of the elections correlating with the Bush Administrations poor record on both homeland security (look at the budget numbers) and fight against international terrorism. What if we caught Osama? I suspect that it wouldn’t bring Al Quaeda toppling down, and I would be willing to bet cash money that there would be reprisals during the first couple of weeks until the system either created a new leader or simply petered out. But we don’t know because we shifted resources to a pet project of a bunch of arrogant, poorly informed, misguided, partisan, true believers.
Why did we go into Iraq? What the hell motivated such a stupid departure from the actual war on terrorism? If the presence of WMD would have just made the situation worse, what the hell were we thinking?
That’s right Dude, I got to thinking. Why should we settle for a measly 20,000 when we can have the whole million?
It comes back to Bush’s fervent belief that God, of all entities, put him on earth for a purpose and that purpose was to make the Middle East democratic. God did put Bush on this earth for a purpose, in fact there were two purposes; first, to take the mantle of the worst US President from the shoulders of Millard Fillmore, and second, to get John Kerry elected.
.
Bush's Re-Election Would Doom Moderate Republicans
The article below was written by Michael Cudahy (strtfocus@earthlink.net). Mr. Cudahy is a political writer and analyst from Massachusetts. He was a former national campaign staff member for President George H.W. Bush, Executive Director for Elliot Richardson's Committee for Responsible Government, and National Communications Director for the Republican Coalition for Choice. His article is reproduced with his permission.
By Michael Cudahy
If President George W. Bush is reelected, the direction of the Republican Party is likely to undergo a massive and fundamental shift. Long-held principles of liberty, integrity and respect for human rights -- established by Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower -- could be relegated to the pages of history books.
Should the president win reelection we could see national identity cards, a continuation of irresponsible fiscal policies, and a foreign policy that rejects a decades long respect for multilateralism. These are positions that have defined the party for the better part of the 20th century and are deserving of this president’s consideration.
Ironically, the decision rests in the hands of the centrist or “moderate” wing of the Republican Party -- the very people whose values will be devalued if this administration is permitted another four years in office. Representing only 18-20% of registered Republicans nationwide, they are in a position to supply Democrat John Kerry with the 3-5% points he needs to win an extremely close presidential election.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush mesmerized many of his party’s centrist members with talk of “compassionate conservatism,” and a desire for bipartisanship cooperation.
“President Bush’s rhetoric during the 2000 campaign held the promise for a significant change of direction,” said Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI). “There was a strong bipartisan desire for mutual respect and cooperation -- for the good of the country. We were exhausted by the bitter partisan infighting, but this administration’s behavior has only made the problem worse.”
“We are seeing policy initiatives that are diametrically opposed to the promises we heard four years ago,” Chafee says. “The president is advancing an extreme agenda that rejects everything from worldwide environmental cooperation to the banning of access to abortions for service members overseas."
“Moderates were in a position to provide significant assistance to this president,” says Chafee. "Sadly, he chose a different direction."
The question that needs to be addressed is the commitment and courage of rank and file Republican centrists. Are they prepared to overthrow the neo-conservative Republicans that betrayed President George H.W. Bush in 1992, or has their will been broken by the strong-arm tactics of the last 12 years?
“The problem with moderates,” says Ann Stone Chairman of Republicans for Choice, “is that they are so moderate, so civil, and generally so silent. Nonetheless,” Stone says, “only 38% of her membership will be supporting President Bush.”
In talking with Republican activists who have consistently supported moderate positions for decades, I discovered that none were willing to speak on the record. To a person they are intimidated by the extremely personal and well organized attacks by members of the Bush administration’s political operation.
"When I talk anecdotally to moderate Republicans, it's very hard to find one who is going to vote for Bush,” said John Zogby, president and CEO of the polling firm Zogby International, in an interview with Salon.com. "On the other hand, it's not showing up in our polling." In fact, Zogby's latest polls show 87 percent of Republicans backing Bush. "I'm just watching and waiting and saying to myself maybe there's something going on here, because I'm hearing it."
Consequently, it is hard to understand why respected and visible moderate Republican leaders like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator John McCain, and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani went to such lengths at the Republican Convention in New York to provide President Bush with important political cover. It is particularly difficult to understand when this administration has done virtually nothing to support their concerns.
While some political analysts suggest it is a strategy to reestablish influence for the centrist Republican agenda, other observers question whether the benefits will be worth the price.
“A second Bush term would be a disaster for American women,” said, Evelyn Becker Deputy Communications Director at NARAL. “We would see an effort to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with ultraconservative justices in an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as continued and aggressive legislative moves to limit women’s access to birth control, proper family planning and health care services,” she said.
The November election will also decide other major legislative battles critical to party moderates. We are certain to see the Bush administration set new standards in partisan politics. This extreme behavior could precipitate a serious economic crisis, as a result of irresponsible tax policies and out of control government spending, while threatening the American tradition of free speech with measures such as the USA Patriot Act.
We will find out in a few short weeks whether Republican moderates can be bought off by the occasional bone and a seat at the children’s table, or whether they will regain their voice and become major players in setting the party’s political agenda for future generations.
By Michael Cudahy
If President George W. Bush is reelected, the direction of the Republican Party is likely to undergo a massive and fundamental shift. Long-held principles of liberty, integrity and respect for human rights -- established by Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower -- could be relegated to the pages of history books.
Should the president win reelection we could see national identity cards, a continuation of irresponsible fiscal policies, and a foreign policy that rejects a decades long respect for multilateralism. These are positions that have defined the party for the better part of the 20th century and are deserving of this president’s consideration.
Ironically, the decision rests in the hands of the centrist or “moderate” wing of the Republican Party -- the very people whose values will be devalued if this administration is permitted another four years in office. Representing only 18-20% of registered Republicans nationwide, they are in a position to supply Democrat John Kerry with the 3-5% points he needs to win an extremely close presidential election.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush mesmerized many of his party’s centrist members with talk of “compassionate conservatism,” and a desire for bipartisanship cooperation.
“President Bush’s rhetoric during the 2000 campaign held the promise for a significant change of direction,” said Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI). “There was a strong bipartisan desire for mutual respect and cooperation -- for the good of the country. We were exhausted by the bitter partisan infighting, but this administration’s behavior has only made the problem worse.”
“We are seeing policy initiatives that are diametrically opposed to the promises we heard four years ago,” Chafee says. “The president is advancing an extreme agenda that rejects everything from worldwide environmental cooperation to the banning of access to abortions for service members overseas."
“Moderates were in a position to provide significant assistance to this president,” says Chafee. "Sadly, he chose a different direction."
The question that needs to be addressed is the commitment and courage of rank and file Republican centrists. Are they prepared to overthrow the neo-conservative Republicans that betrayed President George H.W. Bush in 1992, or has their will been broken by the strong-arm tactics of the last 12 years?
“The problem with moderates,” says Ann Stone Chairman of Republicans for Choice, “is that they are so moderate, so civil, and generally so silent. Nonetheless,” Stone says, “only 38% of her membership will be supporting President Bush.”
In talking with Republican activists who have consistently supported moderate positions for decades, I discovered that none were willing to speak on the record. To a person they are intimidated by the extremely personal and well organized attacks by members of the Bush administration’s political operation.
"When I talk anecdotally to moderate Republicans, it's very hard to find one who is going to vote for Bush,” said John Zogby, president and CEO of the polling firm Zogby International, in an interview with Salon.com. "On the other hand, it's not showing up in our polling." In fact, Zogby's latest polls show 87 percent of Republicans backing Bush. "I'm just watching and waiting and saying to myself maybe there's something going on here, because I'm hearing it."
Consequently, it is hard to understand why respected and visible moderate Republican leaders like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator John McCain, and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani went to such lengths at the Republican Convention in New York to provide President Bush with important political cover. It is particularly difficult to understand when this administration has done virtually nothing to support their concerns.
While some political analysts suggest it is a strategy to reestablish influence for the centrist Republican agenda, other observers question whether the benefits will be worth the price.
“A second Bush term would be a disaster for American women,” said, Evelyn Becker Deputy Communications Director at NARAL. “We would see an effort to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with ultraconservative justices in an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as continued and aggressive legislative moves to limit women’s access to birth control, proper family planning and health care services,” she said.
The November election will also decide other major legislative battles critical to party moderates. We are certain to see the Bush administration set new standards in partisan politics. This extreme behavior could precipitate a serious economic crisis, as a result of irresponsible tax policies and out of control government spending, while threatening the American tradition of free speech with measures such as the USA Patriot Act.
We will find out in a few short weeks whether Republican moderates can be bought off by the occasional bone and a seat at the children’s table, or whether they will regain their voice and become major players in setting the party’s political agenda for future generations.
THE DEBATES: WHAT WE DIDN’T HEAR
By William Fisher
Margaret Carlson of TIME magazine, who describes herself as “a product of the (Catholic) School of the Good Shepherd outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania”, writes in the Los Angeles Times that she finds it “jarring” that “the word ‘lesbian’ still leaps out in the middle of a presidential debate.”
It may be “jarring” to Ms. Carlson, but the more important point is that it is totally irrelevant to one’s choice for president.
Meanwhile, an editorial in the Raleigh (North Carolina) News and Observer congratulates Messrs. Bush and Kerry for giving the American people “a series of informative and energetic dialogues”. The paper concludes that “if all Americans were to case their votes for president based on what they had an opportunity to learn in the three presidential debates, that final choice would represent the consensus of an educated, enlightened electorate – something that would be healthy, indeed.”
Allow me to demur. The exquisitely negotiated minuet as to format and ground rules for these debates virtually guaranteed the triumph of sound bites over substance. These ensured that voters would never hear enough about any single issue to be even minimally informed.
Worse, in two of the three debates, the questions put to the candidates were written by the debate moderators. In the middle debate, the so-called Town Hall format, voters submitted the questions and the moderators selected which ones to ask.
So, while we now know what the moderators think is important, the debates and the debaters remained silent on some of the most important issues facing the US. One such issue is the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, only briefly mentioned in passing; a second is Abu Ghraib and related prisoner abuses issues – not mentioned at all; a third is reform of our intelligence community, counter-terrorism policy, homeland security and the impact of these issues on American civil liberties.
John Kerry well knows – and has said so on other occasions – that the road to peace in the Middle East runs not through Baghdad but through Jerusalem. It can only be viewed as a lesson in Pandering 101 that he never mentioned – and the president never had to defend -- his outrageous and unproductive positions on this issue. The President needed to be held accountable for abdicating responsibility for addressing this issue with energy, consistency and imagination, and personal involvement. And candidate Kerry failed to do so.
Mr. Kerry also failed to mention the prisoner abuse scandal and the role it has played in the collapse of American credibility around the world. He knows that, contrary to the President’s unconscionable spin on this issue, these bestial acts were far from the work of ‘a few bad apples’. He knows that the CIA is being investigated for, as a Washington Post editorial put it, “introducing abusive interrogation techniques into Iraq and illegally hiding prisoners from the International Red Cross.” He knows that a major Pentagon investigation of how US interrogation policies spread through Afghanistan and Iraq was to be released by the end of September, but has yet to appear. And he knows that a panel appointed by the Pentagon found responsibility for prisoner abuse at senior levels of the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House, and that no one in the Bush Administration has yet been held accountable.
In the final debate, Mr. Kerry excoriated the president for failing to inspect 95% of the millions of freight containers that enter US ports each year, and for inspecting airline luggage but not airfreight. But he left unaddressed the issues of a gigantic, under-funded mega-bureaucracy known as the Department of Homeland Security; an intelligence community whose long-overdue reform was initially opposed by the president; a Justice Department that took 5,000 people into custody and convicted no one; and a truly sinister piece of legislation passed by the House of Representatives that would facilitate even more secretive detentions and deportations – including deportations of asylum-seekers to countries where they would likely face torture. If less draconian and more effective legislation is to emerge, the thanks will go not to Senator Kerry, or to the president, but to the 9/11 Commission and to the boundless energy and determination of the 9/11 survivors’ families.
That the candidates shared the same stage was good. That what we saw and heard could be called ‘debates’ is arguable. That the result was likely to produce anything like “an educated, enlightened electorate” is delusional.
Margaret Carlson of TIME magazine, who describes herself as “a product of the (Catholic) School of the Good Shepherd outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania”, writes in the Los Angeles Times that she finds it “jarring” that “the word ‘lesbian’ still leaps out in the middle of a presidential debate.”
It may be “jarring” to Ms. Carlson, but the more important point is that it is totally irrelevant to one’s choice for president.
Meanwhile, an editorial in the Raleigh (North Carolina) News and Observer congratulates Messrs. Bush and Kerry for giving the American people “a series of informative and energetic dialogues”. The paper concludes that “if all Americans were to case their votes for president based on what they had an opportunity to learn in the three presidential debates, that final choice would represent the consensus of an educated, enlightened electorate – something that would be healthy, indeed.”
Allow me to demur. The exquisitely negotiated minuet as to format and ground rules for these debates virtually guaranteed the triumph of sound bites over substance. These ensured that voters would never hear enough about any single issue to be even minimally informed.
Worse, in two of the three debates, the questions put to the candidates were written by the debate moderators. In the middle debate, the so-called Town Hall format, voters submitted the questions and the moderators selected which ones to ask.
So, while we now know what the moderators think is important, the debates and the debaters remained silent on some of the most important issues facing the US. One such issue is the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, only briefly mentioned in passing; a second is Abu Ghraib and related prisoner abuses issues – not mentioned at all; a third is reform of our intelligence community, counter-terrorism policy, homeland security and the impact of these issues on American civil liberties.
John Kerry well knows – and has said so on other occasions – that the road to peace in the Middle East runs not through Baghdad but through Jerusalem. It can only be viewed as a lesson in Pandering 101 that he never mentioned – and the president never had to defend -- his outrageous and unproductive positions on this issue. The President needed to be held accountable for abdicating responsibility for addressing this issue with energy, consistency and imagination, and personal involvement. And candidate Kerry failed to do so.
Mr. Kerry also failed to mention the prisoner abuse scandal and the role it has played in the collapse of American credibility around the world. He knows that, contrary to the President’s unconscionable spin on this issue, these bestial acts were far from the work of ‘a few bad apples’. He knows that the CIA is being investigated for, as a Washington Post editorial put it, “introducing abusive interrogation techniques into Iraq and illegally hiding prisoners from the International Red Cross.” He knows that a major Pentagon investigation of how US interrogation policies spread through Afghanistan and Iraq was to be released by the end of September, but has yet to appear. And he knows that a panel appointed by the Pentagon found responsibility for prisoner abuse at senior levels of the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House, and that no one in the Bush Administration has yet been held accountable.
In the final debate, Mr. Kerry excoriated the president for failing to inspect 95% of the millions of freight containers that enter US ports each year, and for inspecting airline luggage but not airfreight. But he left unaddressed the issues of a gigantic, under-funded mega-bureaucracy known as the Department of Homeland Security; an intelligence community whose long-overdue reform was initially opposed by the president; a Justice Department that took 5,000 people into custody and convicted no one; and a truly sinister piece of legislation passed by the House of Representatives that would facilitate even more secretive detentions and deportations – including deportations of asylum-seekers to countries where they would likely face torture. If less draconian and more effective legislation is to emerge, the thanks will go not to Senator Kerry, or to the president, but to the 9/11 Commission and to the boundless energy and determination of the 9/11 survivors’ families.
That the candidates shared the same stage was good. That what we saw and heard could be called ‘debates’ is arguable. That the result was likely to produce anything like “an educated, enlightened electorate” is delusional.
Monday, October 11, 2004
FROM PROF. JUAN COLE: Bombs in Taba, Multan, Baghdad Signal Failure of War on Terror
The article below appeared on Prof. Juan Cole's website (www.juancole.com)on Friday, October 8, 2004. It is reproduced here with Prof. Cole's permission.
Three major bombs went off between the Nile and the Indus rivers on Thursday. Do they have anything in common, and what do they tell us about the world that Bush has made?
In Baghdad, guerrillas fired Katyusha rockets into the Sheraton Hotel, frequented by foreign contractors. They don't appear to have killed anyone, but we may be assured that they succeeded in their aim of scaring at least some of the contractors away from investing in the new Iraq.
In Multan, a Pakistani city in southern Punjab with a rich Shiite heritage, an unknown group attacked a gathering of radical Sunni Muslims early on Thursday with a car bomb, killing 40 and wounding dozens. The group, Millat-i Islamiyyah, had been known as the Sipah-i Sahabah or The Army of the Prophet's Companions of the Prophet. It was commemorating the death of its leader, Maulana Azam Tariq. The Army of the Prophet's Companions originated as an anti-Shiite organization in Jhang Siyal, an area of northern Punjab long dominated by wealthy Shiite landowners, often from Sufi lineages, but which Azam took over. It developed a death squad arm and assassinated Shiites. It allied with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and received training in al-Qaeda terror camps. Yet Maulana Tariq Azam, although briefly arrested, had been allowed by military dictator Pervez Musharraf to sit in the Pakistani parliament until Azam's assassination last year.
The bombing in Multan almost certainly comes in revenge for the explosion at a Shiite mosque in Sialkot only a few days earlier, and signals that the long-running conflict between radical Sunni Muslim groups with al-Qaeda ties and radical Shiite groups aligned with Tehran is heating up.
At the Egyptian resort town of Taba, car bombs collapsed ten floors of the Hilton Hotel, as well as hitting less upscale backpacker resorts. They killed at least 35 and wounded at least 160. (Unfortunately, the toll is likely to rise as bodies are pulled from rubble). A spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization said that the bombings were not the work of Palestinian organizations, which where committed to waging their struggle in Palestine rather than abroad. Israeli officials speculated that the attacks were the work of al-Qaeda. The organization's number two man had called recently in a videotape for those countries to be punished, that supported Israel, and Egypt has long been blamed in this regard.
The bombings at Taba almost certainly came in response to Israeli military actions in Gaza, which targeted militants who had fired many rockets into Israel but killed many civilians. The UN Security Council was unanimous in condemning the indiscriminate Israeli attacks, except for the US, which vetoed a resolution supported by virtually all the other countries in the world.
If we analyze these violent, destabilizing attacks, one thing becomes abundantly clear: The Bush administration is losing the war on terror. If, 3 years after September 11, Ayman al-Zawahiri can arrange for al-Qaeda to blow up yet another building, this time in Egypt, killing scores, that is a sign of failure. If an al-Qaeda-aligned group like the Army of the Prophet's Companions is permitted by the Pakistani state to gather freely in Multan, to blow up Shiite mosques, and to incur a violent Shiite counter-strike, that is a sign of failure. If radical Sunni groups, or ex-Baathists aligned with them, are able at will to fire Katyusha rockets into the Baghdad Sheraton at a time when the US has militarily occupied Iraq, that is a sign of failure.
By taking his eye off the ball and failing to finish the fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bush perpetuated dangerous instability in South Asia. By giving in to the Likud Party's aggressive settlement of the West Bank and encroachment on Palestinians there, which end any chance of a Palestinian state ever being established--and by failing to pursue a just peace that would bestow security on both Israelis and Palestinians-- Bush perpetuated dangerous instability and virulent anti-Americanism in the Mideast. By creating a failed state in Iraq, and mismanaging the aftermath of the war so as to allow the rise of an audacious guerrilla war there, Bush perpetuated dangerous instability in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. All three bombings on Thursday spoke eloquently of the Bush administration's failure to create a safer world with less terrorism.
The Bush administration announced a "war on terror" in fall of 2001, but it has never been clear what exactly a war on terror was. Terror is not itself a concrete enemy. It is a tactic. As horrible as the tactic of inflicting deliberate harm on noncombatants is, it has been widely used in world history in all sorts of struggles. Warring on a tactic is a meaningless phrase.
The actual wars fought by the Bush administration have only been two. The first was against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, with mixed results. The Taliban regime was overthrown, but Afghanistan was not substantially rebuilt and remains unstable. The top leadership of al-Qaeda escaped capture and has continued to encourage terrorist actions. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two man in the organization, is said to have suggested the bombings in Istanbul last winter, and is probably behind Taba.
The second was against the Baath regime in Iraq. It was not a purveyor of anti-American international terrorism and was so weak and ramshackle as to pose no conceivable threat to the United States. That war was won handily, but the subsequent guerrilla war and political struggle continues and appears to be growing in scope and influence. Bush opened the floodgates to terrorism in Iraq.
This is a poor record for Bush to run on. Half of Afghanistan's gross national product derives from opium sales, creating the threat of major narco-terrorism. The Taliban are resurgent in some Pushtun areas of the south. The Afghan vice president was nearly assassinated earlier this week. National parliamentary elections were postponed nearly a year and only a presidential election is being held on Saturday.
Usamah Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are at large, along with several other important leaders. Worse, al-Qaeda has morphed into a headless set of asymmetrical terrorist organizations, such as the Fizazi group based at al-Quds mosque in Tangiers, which hit both Casablanca and Madrid.
The Bush administration thinks the problem is rogue states. But the real problem is radical terrorist groups. Bush has done all too little about the latter. Most of the al-Qaeda officials captured have been taken by the Pakistani military, so that this vital task has actually been outsourced. But where the Pakistani military wants to coddle an al-Qaeda-linked group, like the Army of the Prophet's Companions, it does, and Bush seems too weak to stop it. Bush and Cheney want now to overthrow Syria and Iran, pushing them into the sort of instability we have seen in Iraq.
If you were a company that brought in terror consultants to work on this problem, and after 3 years you saw the sort of results we saw on Thursday, would you really rehire them?
Three major bombs went off between the Nile and the Indus rivers on Thursday. Do they have anything in common, and what do they tell us about the world that Bush has made?
In Baghdad, guerrillas fired Katyusha rockets into the Sheraton Hotel, frequented by foreign contractors. They don't appear to have killed anyone, but we may be assured that they succeeded in their aim of scaring at least some of the contractors away from investing in the new Iraq.
In Multan, a Pakistani city in southern Punjab with a rich Shiite heritage, an unknown group attacked a gathering of radical Sunni Muslims early on Thursday with a car bomb, killing 40 and wounding dozens. The group, Millat-i Islamiyyah, had been known as the Sipah-i Sahabah or The Army of the Prophet's Companions of the Prophet. It was commemorating the death of its leader, Maulana Azam Tariq. The Army of the Prophet's Companions originated as an anti-Shiite organization in Jhang Siyal, an area of northern Punjab long dominated by wealthy Shiite landowners, often from Sufi lineages, but which Azam took over. It developed a death squad arm and assassinated Shiites. It allied with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and received training in al-Qaeda terror camps. Yet Maulana Tariq Azam, although briefly arrested, had been allowed by military dictator Pervez Musharraf to sit in the Pakistani parliament until Azam's assassination last year.
The bombing in Multan almost certainly comes in revenge for the explosion at a Shiite mosque in Sialkot only a few days earlier, and signals that the long-running conflict between radical Sunni Muslim groups with al-Qaeda ties and radical Shiite groups aligned with Tehran is heating up.
At the Egyptian resort town of Taba, car bombs collapsed ten floors of the Hilton Hotel, as well as hitting less upscale backpacker resorts. They killed at least 35 and wounded at least 160. (Unfortunately, the toll is likely to rise as bodies are pulled from rubble). A spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization said that the bombings were not the work of Palestinian organizations, which where committed to waging their struggle in Palestine rather than abroad. Israeli officials speculated that the attacks were the work of al-Qaeda. The organization's number two man had called recently in a videotape for those countries to be punished, that supported Israel, and Egypt has long been blamed in this regard.
The bombings at Taba almost certainly came in response to Israeli military actions in Gaza, which targeted militants who had fired many rockets into Israel but killed many civilians. The UN Security Council was unanimous in condemning the indiscriminate Israeli attacks, except for the US, which vetoed a resolution supported by virtually all the other countries in the world.
If we analyze these violent, destabilizing attacks, one thing becomes abundantly clear: The Bush administration is losing the war on terror. If, 3 years after September 11, Ayman al-Zawahiri can arrange for al-Qaeda to blow up yet another building, this time in Egypt, killing scores, that is a sign of failure. If an al-Qaeda-aligned group like the Army of the Prophet's Companions is permitted by the Pakistani state to gather freely in Multan, to blow up Shiite mosques, and to incur a violent Shiite counter-strike, that is a sign of failure. If radical Sunni groups, or ex-Baathists aligned with them, are able at will to fire Katyusha rockets into the Baghdad Sheraton at a time when the US has militarily occupied Iraq, that is a sign of failure.
By taking his eye off the ball and failing to finish the fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bush perpetuated dangerous instability in South Asia. By giving in to the Likud Party's aggressive settlement of the West Bank and encroachment on Palestinians there, which end any chance of a Palestinian state ever being established--and by failing to pursue a just peace that would bestow security on both Israelis and Palestinians-- Bush perpetuated dangerous instability and virulent anti-Americanism in the Mideast. By creating a failed state in Iraq, and mismanaging the aftermath of the war so as to allow the rise of an audacious guerrilla war there, Bush perpetuated dangerous instability in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. All three bombings on Thursday spoke eloquently of the Bush administration's failure to create a safer world with less terrorism.
The Bush administration announced a "war on terror" in fall of 2001, but it has never been clear what exactly a war on terror was. Terror is not itself a concrete enemy. It is a tactic. As horrible as the tactic of inflicting deliberate harm on noncombatants is, it has been widely used in world history in all sorts of struggles. Warring on a tactic is a meaningless phrase.
The actual wars fought by the Bush administration have only been two. The first was against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, with mixed results. The Taliban regime was overthrown, but Afghanistan was not substantially rebuilt and remains unstable. The top leadership of al-Qaeda escaped capture and has continued to encourage terrorist actions. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two man in the organization, is said to have suggested the bombings in Istanbul last winter, and is probably behind Taba.
The second was against the Baath regime in Iraq. It was not a purveyor of anti-American international terrorism and was so weak and ramshackle as to pose no conceivable threat to the United States. That war was won handily, but the subsequent guerrilla war and political struggle continues and appears to be growing in scope and influence. Bush opened the floodgates to terrorism in Iraq.
This is a poor record for Bush to run on. Half of Afghanistan's gross national product derives from opium sales, creating the threat of major narco-terrorism. The Taliban are resurgent in some Pushtun areas of the south. The Afghan vice president was nearly assassinated earlier this week. National parliamentary elections were postponed nearly a year and only a presidential election is being held on Saturday.
Usamah Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are at large, along with several other important leaders. Worse, al-Qaeda has morphed into a headless set of asymmetrical terrorist organizations, such as the Fizazi group based at al-Quds mosque in Tangiers, which hit both Casablanca and Madrid.
The Bush administration thinks the problem is rogue states. But the real problem is radical terrorist groups. Bush has done all too little about the latter. Most of the al-Qaeda officials captured have been taken by the Pakistani military, so that this vital task has actually been outsourced. But where the Pakistani military wants to coddle an al-Qaeda-linked group, like the Army of the Prophet's Companions, it does, and Bush seems too weak to stop it. Bush and Cheney want now to overthrow Syria and Iran, pushing them into the sort of instability we have seen in Iraq.
If you were a company that brought in terror consultants to work on this problem, and after 3 years you saw the sort of results we saw on Thursday, would you really rehire them?
Saturday, October 09, 2004
A CONGRESSIONAL SHELL GAME
By William Fisher
As one key provision of the USA Patriot Act -- a central plank of the Bush Administration's war on terror -- was being ruled unconstitutional, the US House of Representatives was using the reform of the country’s intelligence community as a vehicle for enacting parts of Patriot Act II “by stealth”.
Intelligence reform was a principal recommendation of the so-called 9/11 Commission, and the Senate last week passed bipartisan legislation that closely followed the Commission’s recommendations. But the House version added a number of new provisions that critics say are actually elements of a ‘Patriot II’ proposal. Many observers feel the House and Senate versions of the intelligence reform legislation are too far apart to be reconciled by a House-Senate conference committee.
For example, the House bill includes an amendment to allow the government to detain foreign terror suspects and deport them to countries known to practice detainee torture once the State Department had received assurances that they would not be harmed by those countries.
Representative John Hostettler, Republican of Indiana, author of the amendment, said his measure would “protect the American people from dangerous aliens while continuing our nation's proud history of providing refuge for the innocent." But a fellow Republican, Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, said the bill would "erect a number of brand-new barriers to asylum claims" and would result in "bona fide refugees being returned to their persecutors."
Human Rights Watch, a Washington-based advocacy group, said it believes that many aspects of the House legislation “raise serious human rights concerns.” The measure “undercuts US commitments to vulnerable populations, and it does so disingenuously by dressing up its proposals in the language of terrorism, when in fact many of its provisions have nothing to do with terrorism. Instead, the bill will put populations of immigrants, such as refugees and persons without any links to terrorism, at risk of serious abuse.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also expressed alarm regarding the amendments that “create 23 new federal death penalties and to amend the deportation provisions of the Patriot Act…” These amendments “additionally detract from the findings of the 9/11 Commission and expand Patriot Act powers and further scapegoat immigrants.”
Other human rights advocates such as Human Rights First said the deportation provision “contradicts pledges President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal erupted this spring that the United States would stand behind the U.N. Convention Against Torture.” They say it could result in the torture of hundreds of people now held in the United States who could be sent to such countries as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan and Pakistan, all of which have dubious human rights records.
The House deportation provision would in effect provide statutory authority to a practice already widely used by such agencies as the CIA. Known as ‘extreme rendition’, it involves turning people in CIA custody over to countries whose prisons are known to engage in torture. At present, such acts of ‘extreme rendition’ are carried out under the authority of a Presidential order, known as a ‘finding’. The last such order was signed by President Bill Clinton. The CIA claims it receives assurances from the receiving countries that prisoners will not be abused.
Since the September 11th 2001 attacks, the CIA’s use of this and related practices has become far more widespread, according to CIA testimony before Congress. As reported by ‘The Washington Post’, former CIA Director George J. Tenet, testifying earlier this year before the commission investigating the September 11th attacks, said the agency participated in more than 70 renditions in the years before the attacks. In 1999 and 2000 alone, the ‘Post’ said, “the CIA and FBI participated in two dozen renditions.”
A number of those deported allege they were tortured while in detention in other countries and are now suing the US government.
For example, a Canadian computer engineer, Maher Arar, was taken into custody at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport after arriving on a flight from Tunisia. He was deported to Syria, the country of his birth, and charges he was tortured for the ten months he was imprisoned there. He is suing the US Government, and the Canadian Government has also launched an inquiry. The US Department of Justice claims his deportation was legal and justified. However, he was never charged with any crime, either in the US or in Syria.
In another similar CIA action, the CIA and Swedish security forces allegedly kidnapped two Egyptian nationals who were seeking asylum in Sweden, flew them in a CIA-chartered aircraft back to Egypt, where they were imprisoned and say they were tortured. One man was released without charge after almost a year in detention; the second was tried by an Egyptian military court and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The ‘rendition’ charge, made by a program on Swedish television, is being investigated by the Swedish Government.
The House debate took place soon after a Federal judge struck down one of the key provisions of the USA Patriot Act – the legal centerpiece of the Bush Administration’s war on terror. US District Judge Victor Marreo ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which challenged the power the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to use the Act to demand confidential financial records from companies without court approval as part of terrorism investigations. The ACLU brought the suit against the Government in cooperation with its New York City affiliate.
The ruling, the first to reject any of the new surveillance powers authorized by the Patriot Act, struck down Section 505 of the law on grounds that it violates free speech rights under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, as well as the right to be free from unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment. The Patriot Act also bars companies and other recipients of subpoenas from revealing that they received the FBI demand for records. Judge Marreo held that this permanent ban was a violation of free speech rights.
"Today’s ruling is a wholesale refutation of excessive government secrecy and unchecked executive power," said ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. "As this decision suggests, certain provisions of the Patriot Act should never have been enacted in the first place."
The ruling was the second blow to the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies. In June, the US Supreme Court ruled that terror suspects being held in U.S. facilities like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to use the American judicial system to challenge their confinement. That ruling was a defeat for the president's assertion of sweeping powers to hold ‘enemy combatants’ indefinitely after the September 11th 2001 attacks.
However, it is well known the Justice Department wants to expand the powers it gained under the original Patriot Act, which was passed with little debate in the chaotic days following the 9/11 attacks.
The 2001 Patriot Act gave the government authority to monitor phones or computers used by a suspect or target of a special Justice Department warrant; increased information sharing between domestic law enforcement and intelligence; allowed evidence gathered during espionage wiretaps to be used in criminal prosecutions; allowed the detention of non-citizens for seven days without formal charges; and broadened domestic terrorism to include attempting to change the "policy of the government by intimidation or coercion."
Patriot Act II, known as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, has never been introduced in the Congress. However, a leaked Justice Department draft seeks further expansion of surveillance and prosecutorial powers, including secret arrests and detentions, and increased power to issue top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to include US citizens suspected of terrorist activities.
After September 11th, the Justice Department adapted the government's power to detain before trial material witnesses to a crime in order to hold hundreds of Muslims for extended periods without charges, although few ultimately faced prosecution over anything more serious than immigration violations.
One of these was a Portland, Oregon, lawyer, Brian Mayfield, 38, a Muslim-American, who was jailed for several weeks as a material witness because the FBI erroneously said his fingerprint was found on a backpack used by terrorists in the Madrid train bombing. The Justice Department apologized to Mayfield, but he is now suing them.
As one key provision of the USA Patriot Act -- a central plank of the Bush Administration's war on terror -- was being ruled unconstitutional, the US House of Representatives was using the reform of the country’s intelligence community as a vehicle for enacting parts of Patriot Act II “by stealth”.
Intelligence reform was a principal recommendation of the so-called 9/11 Commission, and the Senate last week passed bipartisan legislation that closely followed the Commission’s recommendations. But the House version added a number of new provisions that critics say are actually elements of a ‘Patriot II’ proposal. Many observers feel the House and Senate versions of the intelligence reform legislation are too far apart to be reconciled by a House-Senate conference committee.
For example, the House bill includes an amendment to allow the government to detain foreign terror suspects and deport them to countries known to practice detainee torture once the State Department had received assurances that they would not be harmed by those countries.
Representative John Hostettler, Republican of Indiana, author of the amendment, said his measure would “protect the American people from dangerous aliens while continuing our nation's proud history of providing refuge for the innocent." But a fellow Republican, Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, said the bill would "erect a number of brand-new barriers to asylum claims" and would result in "bona fide refugees being returned to their persecutors."
Human Rights Watch, a Washington-based advocacy group, said it believes that many aspects of the House legislation “raise serious human rights concerns.” The measure “undercuts US commitments to vulnerable populations, and it does so disingenuously by dressing up its proposals in the language of terrorism, when in fact many of its provisions have nothing to do with terrorism. Instead, the bill will put populations of immigrants, such as refugees and persons without any links to terrorism, at risk of serious abuse.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also expressed alarm regarding the amendments that “create 23 new federal death penalties and to amend the deportation provisions of the Patriot Act…” These amendments “additionally detract from the findings of the 9/11 Commission and expand Patriot Act powers and further scapegoat immigrants.”
Other human rights advocates such as Human Rights First said the deportation provision “contradicts pledges President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal erupted this spring that the United States would stand behind the U.N. Convention Against Torture.” They say it could result in the torture of hundreds of people now held in the United States who could be sent to such countries as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan and Pakistan, all of which have dubious human rights records.
The House deportation provision would in effect provide statutory authority to a practice already widely used by such agencies as the CIA. Known as ‘extreme rendition’, it involves turning people in CIA custody over to countries whose prisons are known to engage in torture. At present, such acts of ‘extreme rendition’ are carried out under the authority of a Presidential order, known as a ‘finding’. The last such order was signed by President Bill Clinton. The CIA claims it receives assurances from the receiving countries that prisoners will not be abused.
Since the September 11th 2001 attacks, the CIA’s use of this and related practices has become far more widespread, according to CIA testimony before Congress. As reported by ‘The Washington Post’, former CIA Director George J. Tenet, testifying earlier this year before the commission investigating the September 11th attacks, said the agency participated in more than 70 renditions in the years before the attacks. In 1999 and 2000 alone, the ‘Post’ said, “the CIA and FBI participated in two dozen renditions.”
A number of those deported allege they were tortured while in detention in other countries and are now suing the US government.
For example, a Canadian computer engineer, Maher Arar, was taken into custody at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport after arriving on a flight from Tunisia. He was deported to Syria, the country of his birth, and charges he was tortured for the ten months he was imprisoned there. He is suing the US Government, and the Canadian Government has also launched an inquiry. The US Department of Justice claims his deportation was legal and justified. However, he was never charged with any crime, either in the US or in Syria.
In another similar CIA action, the CIA and Swedish security forces allegedly kidnapped two Egyptian nationals who were seeking asylum in Sweden, flew them in a CIA-chartered aircraft back to Egypt, where they were imprisoned and say they were tortured. One man was released without charge after almost a year in detention; the second was tried by an Egyptian military court and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The ‘rendition’ charge, made by a program on Swedish television, is being investigated by the Swedish Government.
The House debate took place soon after a Federal judge struck down one of the key provisions of the USA Patriot Act – the legal centerpiece of the Bush Administration’s war on terror. US District Judge Victor Marreo ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which challenged the power the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to use the Act to demand confidential financial records from companies without court approval as part of terrorism investigations. The ACLU brought the suit against the Government in cooperation with its New York City affiliate.
The ruling, the first to reject any of the new surveillance powers authorized by the Patriot Act, struck down Section 505 of the law on grounds that it violates free speech rights under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, as well as the right to be free from unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment. The Patriot Act also bars companies and other recipients of subpoenas from revealing that they received the FBI demand for records. Judge Marreo held that this permanent ban was a violation of free speech rights.
"Today’s ruling is a wholesale refutation of excessive government secrecy and unchecked executive power," said ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. "As this decision suggests, certain provisions of the Patriot Act should never have been enacted in the first place."
The ruling was the second blow to the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies. In June, the US Supreme Court ruled that terror suspects being held in U.S. facilities like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to use the American judicial system to challenge their confinement. That ruling was a defeat for the president's assertion of sweeping powers to hold ‘enemy combatants’ indefinitely after the September 11th 2001 attacks.
However, it is well known the Justice Department wants to expand the powers it gained under the original Patriot Act, which was passed with little debate in the chaotic days following the 9/11 attacks.
The 2001 Patriot Act gave the government authority to monitor phones or computers used by a suspect or target of a special Justice Department warrant; increased information sharing between domestic law enforcement and intelligence; allowed evidence gathered during espionage wiretaps to be used in criminal prosecutions; allowed the detention of non-citizens for seven days without formal charges; and broadened domestic terrorism to include attempting to change the "policy of the government by intimidation or coercion."
Patriot Act II, known as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, has never been introduced in the Congress. However, a leaked Justice Department draft seeks further expansion of surveillance and prosecutorial powers, including secret arrests and detentions, and increased power to issue top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to include US citizens suspected of terrorist activities.
After September 11th, the Justice Department adapted the government's power to detain before trial material witnesses to a crime in order to hold hundreds of Muslims for extended periods without charges, although few ultimately faced prosecution over anything more serious than immigration violations.
One of these was a Portland, Oregon, lawyer, Brian Mayfield, 38, a Muslim-American, who was jailed for several weeks as a material witness because the FBI erroneously said his fingerprint was found on a backpack used by terrorists in the Madrid train bombing. The Justice Department apologized to Mayfield, but he is now suing them.
AMERICAN GULAG
By William Fisher
American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons is published by University of California Press, Berkeley 94704, California, USA, 2004. (www.ucpress.edu).
"Long before Abu Ghraib, and even before September 11, detainees in America's immigration prisons were being stripped, beaten, and sexually abused.”
This is the view of author Mark Dow, whose book ‘American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons’ paints a chilling picture of the highly secretive prison system run by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). CIS was formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and is now part of the Department of Homeland Security.
Dow, a journalist and former teacher at the INS detention center in Miami, has spent years interviewing inmates, guards, and officials at that and the many other INS/CIS detention centers. He charges that detainees “are being routinely deprived of the most basic civil rights.”
He writes, “In its new home at the DHS, “The secretive immigration prison world is likely to be pulled even further from public scrutiny.” He adds: “That high levels of government are aware of the situation is clear. FBI whistle-blower agent Colleen Rowley expressed concern over the pressure from FBI offices to round up Arabs in order to fill the detention centers.”
Dow cites a newsletter from the Justice Department: “An alien's constitutional status in this country might be something that the government can use when an alien detainee challenges his or her treatment in detention.“ He says he finds this “astonishing, and disturbing, because it tells me that high-ranking Justice Department officials know about the treatment of these detainees, but instead of trying to do something about the conditions, they're looking for a way to justify those conditions.”
Since September 11, US immigration policy has become far more stringent, targeting Arab, Muslim, and South Asian foreign nationals. “Attorney General John Ashcroft has repeatedly used the term ‘terrorist’ to describe detainees, “when he was certainly in a position to know that they were not terrorists.”
In fact, Dow writes, most had overstayed their visas, which could get them deported, but which is not a crime. Immigration law is not part of the US criminal justice system – which gives the INS virtually unlimited scope to hold people indefinitely, without charge, without access to attorneys, and without public disclosure.
Dow’s book describes a chamber of horrors that followed the 9/11 tragedy and the sweeping round-up of Arabs and Muslims.
Egyptian detainees held in Alabama go on a hunger strike. A Palestinian is transferred from jail to jail to keep him from contacting the media. He is told by INS officials that a condition of his release is that he cannot speak to the media about his case. If he does, they will lock him up again. An Egyptian man is confined for two months before being allowed to call a lawyer. He is given no soap or towels for a week and meanwhile interrogated. He says correctional officers stomped on his bare feet.
A Pakistani in the import export business overstays his five-year renewable visa. Three weeks after 9/11, 25 FBI agents come to his home. With minimal investigation, Dow writes, the ‘case’ evaporated”. His most serious breach of the law was altering the no-work line of his Social Security card.
When the FBI finishes interviewing him, he is told, “We have no problem with you. Now it’s up to the INS if they want to take you or not.” The INS arrests him. They tell his wife she could expect a call from him in four to six hours, and that he would probably be freed on bail and might even get a ‘Green Card’. Bail was never set. Instead, Dow writes: “For the first two months, (he) was moved each week to a new cell, handcuffed and shackled to be moved those few feet. After three weeks, he was allowed to make his first legal phone call. He was kept inside his cell for 24 hours day.” Then he was transferred first to Manhattan and then to Brooklyn. When he arrived in Brooklyn, Dow alleges, ‘seven or eight correctional officers threw him out of the van, dragged him across the floor, and then threw him against a wall…with their full power.” He was injured.
He was charged with altering his social security card, pled guilty and was sentenced to time served. He was deported back to Pakistan in mid-April, 2002, after four months and two days in custody, during which he was denied access to legal help and to his family for weeks.
Dow concludes: The Bush Administration has “exploited our national trauma to extend law enforcement authority, as the long-standing biases within the Justice Department against Muslims and Arabs became politically correct.” None of this, he adds, “has anything to do with immigration…It's simply the result of excessive authority and an obsession with secrecy.”
“Today, the immigration agency holds some 23,000 people in detention on a given day and detains about 200,000 annually. The prisoners are held in the INS’s service processing centers; in local jails; in facilities owned and operated by private companies…and in Bureau of Prisons facilities, including federal penitentiaries. Wherever they are held, INS prisoners are ‘administrative detainees’; they are not serving a sentence…Immigration detainees can be held for days, months, or years…Detainees who came (to the US) from Cuba during the 1980 ‘Mariel boatlift’ are still in detention, despite a US Supreme Court against indefinite detention.” The reason given by INS is that Cuba has refused to take them back.
“Local politicians and business entrepreneurs have taken full advantage of the revenue possibilities in immigration detention”, Dow writes. ”The Federal Government paid New York County $45.00 per detainees per day, although it only cost the prison $24.37 to maintain each prisoner.”
“When detentions increased following the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, private prison profiteers saw another opportunity. The Chairman of the Houston-based Cornell Companies spoke candidly in a conference call with other investors: ‘It can only be good…with the focus on people that are illegal and also from Middle Eastern descent…In the US there are over 900,000 undocumented individuals from Middle Eastern descent…That’s half of our entire prison population…The Federal business is the best business for us…and the events of September 11 (are) increasing that level of business…”
Almost as disturbing is the veil of secrecy surrounding the detention centers, Dow writes. In his investigations, he says he was often prevented from interviewing prisoners, accessing medical records, and looking at immigration guidelines. Dow also found that “INS answers to no one. It eschews formal regulations. There are no monitors or independent watchdogs. Most of what we know about these prisons comes from a handful of journalists, working tirelessly to make public what the INS tries to hide."
Dow adds: “This effort to operate outside the bounds of enforceable law is no accident…“ Attorney General Ashcroft has “likened his new policy of preventative detention to Robert Kennedy’s crackdown on the Mafia, when arrests were made for ‘spitting on the sidewalk’ in order to prevent more serious crimes.”
`
American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons is published by University of California Press, Berkeley 94704, California, USA, 2004. (www.ucpress.edu).
"Long before Abu Ghraib, and even before September 11, detainees in America's immigration prisons were being stripped, beaten, and sexually abused.”
This is the view of author Mark Dow, whose book ‘American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons’ paints a chilling picture of the highly secretive prison system run by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). CIS was formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and is now part of the Department of Homeland Security.
Dow, a journalist and former teacher at the INS detention center in Miami, has spent years interviewing inmates, guards, and officials at that and the many other INS/CIS detention centers. He charges that detainees “are being routinely deprived of the most basic civil rights.”
He writes, “In its new home at the DHS, “The secretive immigration prison world is likely to be pulled even further from public scrutiny.” He adds: “That high levels of government are aware of the situation is clear. FBI whistle-blower agent Colleen Rowley expressed concern over the pressure from FBI offices to round up Arabs in order to fill the detention centers.”
Dow cites a newsletter from the Justice Department: “An alien's constitutional status in this country might be something that the government can use when an alien detainee challenges his or her treatment in detention.“ He says he finds this “astonishing, and disturbing, because it tells me that high-ranking Justice Department officials know about the treatment of these detainees, but instead of trying to do something about the conditions, they're looking for a way to justify those conditions.”
Since September 11, US immigration policy has become far more stringent, targeting Arab, Muslim, and South Asian foreign nationals. “Attorney General John Ashcroft has repeatedly used the term ‘terrorist’ to describe detainees, “when he was certainly in a position to know that they were not terrorists.”
In fact, Dow writes, most had overstayed their visas, which could get them deported, but which is not a crime. Immigration law is not part of the US criminal justice system – which gives the INS virtually unlimited scope to hold people indefinitely, without charge, without access to attorneys, and without public disclosure.
Dow’s book describes a chamber of horrors that followed the 9/11 tragedy and the sweeping round-up of Arabs and Muslims.
Egyptian detainees held in Alabama go on a hunger strike. A Palestinian is transferred from jail to jail to keep him from contacting the media. He is told by INS officials that a condition of his release is that he cannot speak to the media about his case. If he does, they will lock him up again. An Egyptian man is confined for two months before being allowed to call a lawyer. He is given no soap or towels for a week and meanwhile interrogated. He says correctional officers stomped on his bare feet.
A Pakistani in the import export business overstays his five-year renewable visa. Three weeks after 9/11, 25 FBI agents come to his home. With minimal investigation, Dow writes, the ‘case’ evaporated”. His most serious breach of the law was altering the no-work line of his Social Security card.
When the FBI finishes interviewing him, he is told, “We have no problem with you. Now it’s up to the INS if they want to take you or not.” The INS arrests him. They tell his wife she could expect a call from him in four to six hours, and that he would probably be freed on bail and might even get a ‘Green Card’. Bail was never set. Instead, Dow writes: “For the first two months, (he) was moved each week to a new cell, handcuffed and shackled to be moved those few feet. After three weeks, he was allowed to make his first legal phone call. He was kept inside his cell for 24 hours day.” Then he was transferred first to Manhattan and then to Brooklyn. When he arrived in Brooklyn, Dow alleges, ‘seven or eight correctional officers threw him out of the van, dragged him across the floor, and then threw him against a wall…with their full power.” He was injured.
He was charged with altering his social security card, pled guilty and was sentenced to time served. He was deported back to Pakistan in mid-April, 2002, after four months and two days in custody, during which he was denied access to legal help and to his family for weeks.
Dow concludes: The Bush Administration has “exploited our national trauma to extend law enforcement authority, as the long-standing biases within the Justice Department against Muslims and Arabs became politically correct.” None of this, he adds, “has anything to do with immigration…It's simply the result of excessive authority and an obsession with secrecy.”
“Today, the immigration agency holds some 23,000 people in detention on a given day and detains about 200,000 annually. The prisoners are held in the INS’s service processing centers; in local jails; in facilities owned and operated by private companies…and in Bureau of Prisons facilities, including federal penitentiaries. Wherever they are held, INS prisoners are ‘administrative detainees’; they are not serving a sentence…Immigration detainees can be held for days, months, or years…Detainees who came (to the US) from Cuba during the 1980 ‘Mariel boatlift’ are still in detention, despite a US Supreme Court against indefinite detention.” The reason given by INS is that Cuba has refused to take them back.
“Local politicians and business entrepreneurs have taken full advantage of the revenue possibilities in immigration detention”, Dow writes. ”The Federal Government paid New York County $45.00 per detainees per day, although it only cost the prison $24.37 to maintain each prisoner.”
“When detentions increased following the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, private prison profiteers saw another opportunity. The Chairman of the Houston-based Cornell Companies spoke candidly in a conference call with other investors: ‘It can only be good…with the focus on people that are illegal and also from Middle Eastern descent…In the US there are over 900,000 undocumented individuals from Middle Eastern descent…That’s half of our entire prison population…The Federal business is the best business for us…and the events of September 11 (are) increasing that level of business…”
Almost as disturbing is the veil of secrecy surrounding the detention centers, Dow writes. In his investigations, he says he was often prevented from interviewing prisoners, accessing medical records, and looking at immigration guidelines. Dow also found that “INS answers to no one. It eschews formal regulations. There are no monitors or independent watchdogs. Most of what we know about these prisons comes from a handful of journalists, working tirelessly to make public what the INS tries to hide."
Dow adds: “This effort to operate outside the bounds of enforceable law is no accident…“ Attorney General Ashcroft has “likened his new policy of preventative detention to Robert Kennedy’s crackdown on the Mafia, when arrests were made for ‘spitting on the sidewalk’ in order to prevent more serious crimes.”
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