Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
Washington, DC fear mongering.
 Mon Feb 24, 2003 9:56 pm
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/terr-f14.shtml
Washington employs fear and panic as instruments of war
By Bill Vann
14 February 2003
The Bush administration, together with the government of Tony Blair in
Britain, has over the past week launched a concerted campaign to sow fear
and terror among the American and British people in an effort to overcome
widespread opposition to the impending invasion of Iraq.
Following the Homeland Security Department’s declaration of a “code
orange” terror alert in the US, humvees mounted with anti-aircraft
batteries have been deployed in the shadows of the Washington Monument and
the US Capitol, while machine-gun toting SWAT teams have been sent into
the streets of New York City. In London, tanks and combat troops are
patrolling Heathrow Airport.
Why has “code orange,” signifying a “high” threat of terrorist attacks,
been declared? No US official has offered a specific or credible reason.
Vague references are made to “increased chatter” overheard by intelligence
agencies, the end of the Haj in Mecca, etc. There is not a single
verifiable fact.
The US media makes no attempt to critically examine the government’s
claims. On the contrary, it accepts every claim made by the government as
fact, while working to hype the warnings and promote popular panic and
anxiety. NBC Nightly News, for example, on Thursday included a segment on
the operations—alleged without any substantiation—of Al Qaeda cells
supposedly active within the US.
In announcing “code orange,” Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge
insisted that the alert was based on “the accumulation of credible
corroborated sources, none of which are connected to the possibility of
military involvement with Iraq.” Ridge’s words were obviously aimed at
countering the well-founded suspicion among broad layers of the public
that the terror warning has everything to do with the coming “military
involvement with Iraq.”
What purpose does the terror alert serve? It has nothing to do with
protecting the American people. For all of the pronouncements, there is no
indication whatsoever that the US government has developed any serious
public health plan to deal with a mass disaster caused by chemical,
biological or nuclear attacks. Rather, the Bush administration is
proposing to slash $2 billion in funding for firefighters and other
emergency workers who would respond to a disaster, while urging members of
the public to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting, materials that most
experts believe would be useless in such an emergency.
As with the terror alerts announced after the September 11 hijack
bombings, the people are given no serious instructions as to how they
should respond. Government officials advise them to proceed with their
lives as normal, but be more “alert.” The only substance of such
instructions is for the American people to accept as a fact of life the
presence of troops, tanks and missile batteries on the streets and at
public venues, and accede to the erosion of their civil liberties.
The real objectives behind the administration’s color-coded terror
warnings are political. First, they serve to put the entire political and
media establishment on notice that there is to be no more questioning of
the administration’s war policy, on pain of being charged with aiding and
abetting terrorism. Both the Democratic politicians and the major print
and broadcast outlets have obediently complied.
Second, they provide a pretext for a crackdown on popular dissent. It can
hardly be an accident that the warnings specifically referred to the
heightened possibility of a terrorist attack through this weekend,
coinciding with mass demonstrations on every continent that are expected
to bring 10 to 15 million people into the streets. Already, the attempts
to organize such protests in the US have met with unprecedented attacks on
fundamental democratic rights, with the New York City Police Department,
backed by a posse of federal judges, denying demonstrators the right to
march.
The latest alert was issued in the wake of revelations that the Justice
Department had drafted legislation that would dramatically strengthen the
police-state powers assumed by the government with the passage of the 2001
USA PATRIOT Act. Provisions included in this document would allow the
federal government to declare any US citizen an official enemy at war with
the nation. People could be imprisoned or stripped of their citizenship
for supporting a group or even an individual deemed by the US to be
terrorist. The publication of information on the fate of these individuals
would likewise be a crime. The leaking of the document prompted outrage
from civil liberties groups, but the controversy has been superseded by
the new “terrorist threat.”
Finally, the warning of imminent attack works to increase public anxiety,
politically disorient the populace, and thereby facilitate the execution
of the Bush administration’s war plans.
There is every reason to treat the claims of an imminent terrorist threat
with the greatest skepticism. This is a government whose modus operandi is
lying, provocation and intimidation. Such were the means utilized by the
Bush campaign to gain control of the White House in the 2000 election,
employing physical threats to halt ballot counts and relying on the
intervention of the right-wing Supreme Court majority to secure power.
Such methods reflect the essential social and political character of the
Bush administration. It is a government that, in its policies, outlook and
personnel, embodies the most reactionary and predatory sections of the
ruling elite—precisely those which employed criminal methods to plunder
the economy and enrich themselves over the past two decades.
It operates with utter contempt for both democratic rights and the
sentiments of the majority of the American people. The administration is
well aware of the yawning gap between the criminal war it is preparing to
launch and the lack of any broad base of popular support for such a
venture.
Speech after speech by Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and others
proclaiming Iraq a mortal threat to the United States have failed to shift
the majority of the population from either outright opposition or
skepticism toward the administration’s brief for war. Claims that the
invasion will “liberate” the Iraqi people from tyranny or end human rights
abuses have been equally ineffective.
What remains is an appeal to naked fear, with the claim that terrorist
attacks are imminent and that invading Iraq is the only way to halt them.
It is a pretext founded on distortions and lies. Powell’s speech to the UN
Security Council included a string of allegations aimed at demonstrating
collaboration between Al Qaeda, the movement blamed for the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks, and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. In
barely a week, all of these accusations have proven false.
The key figure linking Al Qaeda and the Baathist regime in Iraq was said
to be Abu Musab Zarqawi, portrayed as an Al Qaeda associate enjoying safe
haven in Baghdad. But in testimony before the Senate Armed Service
Committee this week, CIA Director George Tenet acknowledged that Zarqawi
and his organization are “independent” of Al Qaeda. Following Tenet’s
testimony, moreover, US intelligence sources told the Washington Post they
had no idea where Zarqawi was.
On Tuesday Powell breathlessly announced the existence of an audiotape
allegedly made by Osama bin Laden. It demonstrated “how he is in
partnership with Iraq,” said the secretary of state, adding, “This nexus
between terrorist states that are developing weapons of mass destruction
can no longer be looked away from and ignored.”
This word “nexus” can be loosely translated as “crude fabrication” meant
to provide a pretext for war. Powell was lying about the content of the
audiotape. It included denunciations of Saddam Hussein and his supporters
as “infidels.” It stated, “The socialists [Iraq’s ruling Arab Baath
Socialist Party] and the rulers have lost their legitimacy a long time
ago, and the socialists are infidels regardless of where they are, whether
in Baghdad or in Aden.”
If the tape is indeed genuine and demonstrates anything, it is bin Laden’s
contempt for Saddam Hussein and his intention to seize upon a war of
aggression against Iraq to promote his own reactionary movement as the
sole resistance to Washington’s attempt to dominate the Middle East. Bin
Laden’s claims of solidarity with the Iraqi people are no more proof of a
“nexus” with the Baghdad regime than Bush’s posturing as the “liberator”
of Iraq makes the US president Saddam Hussein’s ally.
Can the possibility of a terrorist attack be excluded? Certainly not. The
Bush administration’s war drive against Iraq, combined with its unwavering
support for the campaign of military repression waged by Israel against
the Palestinians in the occupied territories, has no doubt generated
immense popular anger in the Middle East, some of which may be diverted
into the retrograde politics of terror practiced by Osama bin Laden’s Al
Qaeda and similar movements.
That being said, it is worth recalling one of the stage effects included
in Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations Security Council last week.
Powell held up a small vial and said that it could contain the same amount
of anthrax used in attacks that killed two postal workers, sent hundreds
to the hospital and led to the evacuation of the US Capitol and other
government office buildings in Washington.
The gesture was revealing. It is now well established that the anthrax
used in these attacks, which were directed at two top Senate Democrats and
the media, came not from Iraq or Al Qaeda, but from US military
stockpiles. The prime suspects are linked to US biological weapons
programs. In carrying out the attacks, the perpetrator or perpetrators
sent messages designed to make them appear like the work of Islamist
terrorists. Powell’s use of this example underscored the fraudulent nature
of the entire US case for war.
All of the evidence indicates that the only deadly terrorist attacks since
September 11, 2001 and the only use of chemical weapons on US soil had
their origins within the national security apparatus of the US government
itself. No one has ever been arrested for these attacks and the
authorities have remained silent on any attempt to catch those
responsible. The government’s role in relation to this act of terrorism is
characterized by conspiracy and cover-up.
It should further be noted that the US government has never, 17 months
after the fact, undertaken a serious investigation into the terror attacks
of September 11, 2001. It has never offered the American people an
explanation of precisely what happened, and how the perpetrators were able
to carry out their crime despite massive US surveillance of bin Laden and
his cohorts. The lack of any such accounting not only reeks of cover-up
and possible complicity, it also makes a mockery of the government’s
current claims to be motivated purely by concerns for the safety and
security of the American people.
If an act of terrorism does occur under the current political conditions,
the Bush administration itself or elements within the state intelligence
or military apparatus would themselves be prime suspects. In their
desperation to launch a war, it cannot be excluded that they will either
provoke or allow terrorist violence against US citizens to provide what
they until now have lacked, a convincing casus belli for the long-planned
military conquest of Iraq. |
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