People's Democracy

Arrogance Of The Terrorist State

N M Sundaram

THE first anniversary of the September 11 catastrophe was  observed with sombre grief and dignity by the people throughout the world. It was also observed by the American establishment with a crass belligerence characteristic of the imperialist power that it is, throwing challenges and threats to the rest of the world. The manner of its projecting the war against terrorism is like declaring war on the whole of the world community, including its own – in reality on humanity itself. 

THE WAR MONGERING

In the days following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, USA experienced mass paranoia to an unprecedented extent. Not even the attack on Pearl Harbour by the Japanese Kamikazes on December 7, 1941, which president Franklin Roosevelt described as ‘a day of infamy’, elicited such reaction. The fear psychosis and the hate campaign were assiduously built by every arm of the administration, from the president downwards. The media too orchestrated this and helped to build the situation to hysterical proportions. There was no space given for rationality and introspection on the part of the people why all this should have happened at all and how such a catastrophe could have been averted. There was no thought given even momentarily as to how their own government could have been responsible in many respects.

Under the American Constitution, any declaration of war must be ratified by the Senate. But the US has fought many dirty wars over the years violating this provision of the Constitution. It was so during the Vietnam War and the war against Iraq in 1991; it is so now when Bush Jr. declared immediately after he came out of his borough on that disastrous September 11: “it is war”, without even identifying who the enemy was. He further arrogantly cautioned nations of the world: “either you are with us or with the enemy.”

More recently, president Bush speaking in the Pentagon on the first anniversary of the disaster roused the sentiments of the American people by declaring that “they hate us....they hate our freedoms” going beyond the al-Qaeda and pin-pointing Iraq and an assortment of perceived enemies, which had earlier been included in his litany of ‘rogue states.’  Most Americans were sceptical, yet their fear had been touched and their base sentiments had been roused. That is why there is now a further belligerent shift in the American public opinion. He followed it up by warning in the UN General Assembly that Iraq was a “grave and gathering danger” and cautioned the UN to “act now or become irrelevant.” It was the worst ever threat extended to the world body; such was the display of arrogance and bellicosity. However, any sane and objective person ought to know that there is no truth in this vicious accusation.

THE SECURITY LAPSE AND THE MEDIA’S CULPABILITY

The tragedy of September 11 could have been averted had the much flaunted intelligence agencies, the CIA and the FBI had acted on the tips they were supposed to have received. There was admittedly a terrible intelligence and security lapse on the part of the country that claims to be able to ensure security for the rest of the world! The greater tragedy is that the American people do not realise this or realising are unconcerned about its seriousness. The American establishment with its powerful media blast has contributed to this appalling indifference or even ignorance.

The media’s culpability in such state of affairs is succinctly described in the book ‘Manufacturing Consent’ co-authored by Noam Chomsky and Edward S Herman. ‘Manufacturing Consent’ takes the issue of media influence on the psyche of the people to new and dangerous dimensions hitherto not realised. Noam Chomsky’s ‘Deterring Democracy’ is a further damning exposure of the media and American establishment acting in concert to keep public opinion ignorant or misinformed. By all accounts, the USA is the worst and the most powerful terrorist state in history; worse still is the reality that the American people are the least conscious of this; either they do not know or they are not bothered. There are of course exceptions to this; that is why they are the most valuable.

DID THE USA CONTRIVE THE TRAGEDY?  

The horror of September 11 is being utilised to bully other nations and people into submission and embark upon unethical and dangerous escapades as the threat to unilaterally attack Iraq under whatever pretext and even go to the extent of bullying the UN to act in consonance with its aggressive agenda or ‘become irrelevant’. It was as if the US administration was waiting for such an opportunity. In such circumstances, would it be far fetched  to suspect that the US perhaps wanted and contrived the tragedy to happen in order to find an excuse to perpetrate its aggressive designs against other countries, particularly the oil rich Iraq and achieve complete domination over the world? Afghanistan itself, though not having oil, lies tragically on the possible and convenient land route from the oil rich Central Asian countries to the Arabian Sea through the readily compliant Pakistan. The failure of intelligence and what is more the failure to act on whatever prior information had been received taxes one’s credibility. Only the extent of the tragedy indicates that its plan, if there had been one, grossly misfired. Who can forget that the Taliban and al-Qaeda were America’s own creations with the help of its ally Pakistan’s ISI? That was another day and another occasion. Now the barrel of the guns, weapons and terrorist expertise so generously given have turned against the ‘benefactor’.

This is by no means a wild allegation that the Bush administration was aware of the impending danger and still did nothing about it. On September 20, 2002 an unnamed FBI agent testified before a Congressional Committee that the FBI was aware of a conspiracy twenty months before the terrorist attacks and that they were pursuing two leads for investigation. But strangely, permission to pursue the investigation was denied! Both the suspects - one is Almeida – participated in the hijacking of the planes and the terrorist attack! There was an earlier case of Zacarias Moussaoui who was arrested on August 16, 2001, but the higher authorities blocked further investigation. This must be very embarrassing to the government which requires coming out with a credible explanation.

EXPANDING MILITARY SPENDING 

In the midst of economic contraction, the US is expanding its military spending enormously. The war-mongering is also with a view to bail out its armaments and military oriented industries. There has been a continuing nexus between the American administration and the military-industrial complex.

The US spends 37 per cent of what the entire world spends on armaments production, as against just 6 per cent by the Russian Federation and 5 per cent each by the UK, France and Germany. The financial crunch resulted in welfare measures being broken up; the American state that talked of protecting the whole of the globe did not protect the jobs and pensions of its own workers. But it could find enormous resources to bail out corporate entities from bankruptcy; it could find a gargantuan $350 billion in three years for armaments production and another similar sum for subsidising rich farmers. Furthermore, in the name of security, it is beefing up in a big way the funding of such agencies as FBI and CIA and for creating huge army of vigilantes from among the credulous people.

CREATING EMPLOYMENT – THE US WAY

The whipping up of mass hysteria provided the perfect excuse to turn the country into a veritable police state. The CIA and the FBI have been spruced up and expanded. An emergency cash allocation of $1 billion was made to CIA alone. Its ‘Counter-terrorism Centre’ has seen its personnel increased from 500 to 5000. Hundreds of retired agents have been reinducted in service on the basis of their experience. President Bush has already announced creation of a new department distinct from the Department of National Security, called the Department of Homeland Security. The distinction between the two is unclear and is obviously intended to bamboozle the people into thinking that something serious and worthwhile is being done. The new department would combine the elements of the secret service, immigration, coast guard and a host of other unrelated agencies in a huge integrated security agency, involving a 1,70,000-strong workforce with an annual budget of a whopping $37.5 billion. This indeed is a huge apparatus of state repression. Who said they are not creating employment?

We mentioned of vigilantes being recruited in the US. They are not private ones as normally they are. They are state organised and funded. We also mentioned of the creation of the new Department of Homeland Security. This apart, ‘the Terrorism Information and Prevention System (Operation TIPS) will start functioning in October this year. This is a nationwide reporting programme and will operate in the first instance in 10 cities. To start with, it will have one million volunteer informants– nearly 4 per cent of the citizens. This obviously would be expanded in due course until most Americans would be involved, spying on one another – brother against brother, son against father, spouse against spouse! The whole country would turn into a web of spies and counter spies. And this is part of what Bush calls Volunteer Citizen Corps aimed at ‘keeping neighbourhoods safe.’

The volunteers initially are those who are well positioned like janitors, delivery boys, telephone or electricity technicians and the like, to identify ‘suspect’ activities and report them to the Justice Department. The department in turn will turn them into a computer database, which can be accessed besides the department, by a variety of state agencies including the police. At local and state levels it will be coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

A government website www.citizencorps.gov describes the programme as: “this broad network of volunteer efforts will harness the power of the American people by relying on their individual skills and interests to prepare local communities to effectively prevent and respond to the threats of terrorism, crime, or any kind of disaster.”

ASSAULT ON DEMOCRATIC VALUES

 This is nothing but covert circumvention of constitutional and legal rights. Overt attempts are also under way. For example the law relating to detention, questioning and evidence admissible are being reviewed. At present a person could be arrested on clear and cognizable charges only after a court warrant is obtained. There is also the provision of pre-indictment hearing. Confession to police is not valid evidence. Hearing must be in public unless the court waives it in extraordinary circumstances. The defendant must be provided legal assistance if he/she cannot afford one. There are many other features that protect the rights of the suspect. All these are coming under review and the Bush administration is busy planning new and diabolical circumvention of constitutional and legal positions if they cannot be amended or annulled altogether.  The newly enacted Patriot Act is an anachronism and its provisions not only violate commonly understood democratic tenets but also enable the Department of Justice to doctor crime statistics and other facts relating to ‘criminal investigations’. This is nothing but setting the clock back. This is nothing but preparing for a blatant assault on all the values that give a country the claim to be democratic.  In this there is no distinction. The citizens as well as legal aliens (persons with a legal visa) are potential suspects.

In such circumstances, is not democracy in the USA suspect? Already some call it a ‘plutocracy’ – the rule by a privileged minority; in the present instance by the corporate entities and their patrons in government. This is what Ralph Nader succinctly describes as “corporate patriotism”.

(The author is general secretary, All India Insurance Employees’ Association)