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09-22-01: Bush, the CIA and America's future
By Carla Binion
September 22, 2001-Who are the people leading us into war? Can we trust them, and
should we ask questions of them? In the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks, Fox
Network's Bill O'Reilly and other TV talking heads say it's un-American to question
George W. Bush's policies. However, corrupt politicians, CIA dirty tricks and
wrongheaded foreign policy do not equate to "America."
When people question misguided policy, it's not the same as criticizing America. The
working people of this country are America. The people who helped in the rescue
efforts following the nation's recent tragedy are America. Our government leaders and
their policies are not America, if and when they undermine our health and safety.
In a September 19, 2001 letter to the Washington Post, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI)
says, "Historically, it has been at times of inflamed passion and national anger that
our civil liberties proved to be at greatest risk . . . Unfortunately, our response in
1996 to the Oklahoma City bombing and now to the bombing of the World Trade Center and
Pentagon does not portend well for today's discussions. Legislation that began in good
faith as an effort to fine-tune our anti-terrorism laws turned into a legislative race
to the bottom."
Conyers adds, "[The legislation] contained sweeping new limitations on habeas corpus
for death-row and other inmates. The legislation also severely narrowed the ability of
persons fleeing for their lives from dangerous regimes to seek asylum. I sat through
the hearings on this legislation and did not hear a single shred of evidence that
proved that a single terrorist act could be prevented by limiting the ability of
persons convicted in state court to obtain relief from unconstitutional convictions or
by denying immigrants their due process rights."
We're lucky to have Representative Conyers scrutinize anti-terrorism laws. This
country was created in part because the people questioned authority and dissented from
corrupt government policies. Nothing could be more un-American than suppressing
dissent against government corruption, and nothing could be more American than
expressing it. Government is "us" (or America) only when it serves us well, and
politicians are on "our" side only when they are not corrupt enough to try to profit
from our losses.
Government is meant to serve the people, not the other way around. This is fundamental
to what America means. John Conyers is one political leader who seems to understand
that. I might not agree with him on every issue, but I think he's an example of good
leadership. If all our politicians were more like Conyers, we might have consistently
good government.
It's pro-America to work toward good government and criticize bad government. Here's
an example of the very bad: If the American people knew all relevant facts, most of us
would probably criticize our government's support of the U. S. Army School of Americas
(SOA), located in Fort Benning, Georgia. The school has long trained terrorists.
David McGowan, (Derailing Democracy, Common Courage Press, 2000) says Amnesty
International reported in 1998 that SOA is "only one of more than 150 centers in the
U.S.A. and abroad where foreign officers are trained. A number of SOA 'alumni' have
been implicated in gross human rights violations."
According to McGowan, a May 22, 1998 Associated Press article, "School of the Americas
= School of the Assassins," says, "Nineteen of the 26 military officers that critics
cited in the murder of six Jesuit priests and two women in El Salvador eight years ago
were graduates of the School of the Americas." The same article reports, " . . . it
was revealed recently that the school [SOA] used manuals that included references to
executions, torture and other human rights abuses."
The School of the Americas Watch web site reports the U. S. Army SOA "trains Latin
American soldiers in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. Graduates of
the SOA are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America."
According to the SOA Watch site, "Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are
notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtiere and
Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru" and many others. In
addition, the site reports that "lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human
rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El
Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians."
David McGowan says Amnesty International reported on May 2, 1998 that "former
Panamanian strongman and convicted drug trafficker Gen. Manuel Noriega graduated from
[SOA]. So did Roberto D'Aubuisson, architect of El Salvador's right-wing death squad
network."
On January 17, 2001 the SOA was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation (WHISC). However, though the name has changed, the organization remains
basically the same, according to SOA Watch.
Even a brief look at the CIA's history demonstrates the agency consistently behaves in
ways many of us might consider un-American and anti-democratic. For example, the
agency routinely lies to the public, supports injustice, disregards fairness, and
suppresses equality and civil liberties. And we're not talking about minor
transgressions. The CIA supports terrorism around the world while claiming to denounce
it.
The CIA was spawned from the National Security Act of 1947. Since its inception, the
agency, has:
* Smuggled narcotics from the U. S. to Cuba (via members of Operation Mongoose).
*Directed the overthrow of democratically elected Chilean socialist President
Salvadore Allende and the military overthrow of that democratically elected government
in 1973.
* Through the Phoenix Project, directed the assassination of various bureaucrats in
Vietnam and supported the random arrest and torture of "suspected" leftists.
*Supported dictator Augusto Pinochet and his mass bloodbaths in Chile.
*Supported and trained Shah of Iran's secret police, notorious for torture and murder.
*Supported human rights atrocities in East Timor.
*Violated U. S. law and its own charter by spying on and harassing Americans.
*Slipped drugs to unsuspecting American citizens.
*Bolstered and funded human rights violating dictator Anatasio Somoza in Nicaragua and
supported and trained the torturing and murderous Contras; and much more.
The U. S. government has tried to curb the CIA's excesses in the past. During the
mid-1970s the Church and Pike committees investigated CIA and FBI misdeeds.
Today the country seems to have forgotten what the CIA does when off leash. Since the
recent terrorist attacks, TV talk shows have been stacked with guests who claim the
Church and Pike committees weakened the intelligence community. These same guests
vouch for the agencies' need to be completely free of congressional oversight. The TV
networks offer almost no opposing commentary.
Under present circumstances, the public is too frightened to question the CIA's push
for carte blanche, and Congress is afraid of both terrorism and backlash if they
publicly question the conventional wisdom of the moment.
However, somebody needs to step up to the plate and ask whether it's a good idea to
give already-rogue organizations even wider latitude. History has proved that while
claiming to be the good guy who strives to do the right thing, the CIA repeatedly
behaves as the bad guy and shows no intention of improving.
We ignore history when we relinquish all governmental oversight of the CIA. We also
ignore history when we close our eyes to the legacy of deceit shared by some members
of the George W. Bush team.
If the public wants a taste of how the CIA and members of Bush's advisory team might
conduct themselves in the new war, we should revisit Iran-Contra. The purpose isn't to
compare Iran-Contra with what we face today, but to remember how the people involved
conducted themselves.
Several of George W. Bush's current official and unofficial advisers participated in
the Iran-Contra scandal and/or its cover-up: George H. W. Bush, Colin Powell, Dick
Cheney, Caspar Weinberger, George Schultz, and a number of others, including former
President Bush's many CIA friends. George W. Bush can be understood only as a member
of the team that advises him.
Ronald Reagan and his CIA director William Casey created the Contras, and they
portrayed them as "freedom fighters." However, the Contras didn't promote democracy as
Reagan and Casey claimed. Instead, they "showed gratuitous brutality" and not only
murdered but "also tortured and mutilated" their victims, according to a March 1986
report by the human rights monitoring group America's Watch. (William D. Hartung, And
Weapons for All, Harper Collins, 1994.)
On the Iranian end, General Richard Secord, took the opportunity to cash in on the
Reagan-Bush covert war. He purchased 1,000 missiles from the CIA for $3.7 million and
then sold them to an Iranian middle man for $10 million. Secord's organization, the
Enterprise, was described by Senator Daniel K. Inouye, chairman of the Senate Select
Committee, as a "shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own
fund-raising mechanism and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national
interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself." (From
"Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair," New
York Times Books, 1988.)
During the Iran-contra hearings, Senator Paul Sarbanes asked Secord, "If the purpose
of the Enterprise was to help the Contras, why did you charge [Contra leader] Calero a
mark-up that included a profit?" Secord answered, "We were in business to make a
living, Senator. We had to make a living. I didn't see anything wrong with it at the
time." (same source as previous paragraph.)
"While profits were being made, lives were being lost," says journalist Bill Moyers in
a 1987 PBS Frontline Iran-Contra related broadcast. He adds, "In Nicaragua, the
Contras use weapons from the Enterprise against civilians. It is a terrorist war they
are fighting. Old men, women, children are caught in the middle."
Professor Edwin Firmage, Universty of Utah, tells Moyers, "The substance of
[Iran-Contra] is far above Watergate. You have the sale of armaments to terrorist
groups, which can only foment more kidnapping and more terror and finance it. You have
the doing of this by members of the armed forces, a very scary thing. You have the
government, in part at least, put in motion doing things that Congress has
forbidden-direct illegality. You have constitutional abuses that are enormous."
A national poll taken in 1984 showed 70 percent of the public didn't approve of the
Reagan/Bush Central American policy. Since 1984 was an election year, the Reagan team
kept the war a secret. Reagan adviser Michael Deaver told Bill Moyers, "If we had
fought the campaign on Central America we might have lost."
When Reagan and George H. W. Bush took office, Iranian fanatics had seized the U. S.
embassy in Tehran. A year before Reagan took office, Washington declared Iran a
terrorist nation. American law then prohibited Iran from receiving U. S. arms. The
Iranian regime publicly declared the U. S. an enemy and referred to America as "the
great Satan." The regime also called for "death to the great Satan, America." On June
30, 1985, Reagan himself said Iran was part of "a confederation of terrorist states."
However, on January 17, 1986, Reagan wrote in his diary, "I agreed to sell TOWs
(tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided antitank missiles) to Iran." (Both
quotes from Tim Weiner's Blank Check, Warner Books, 1990.)
Reagan and G. H. W. Bush told Americans they were being tough on terrorism, but behind
our backs the administration kept selling weapons to terrorists. The Reagan team also
lied when they claimed the reason they sold arms to terrorists and funneled the
profits to the Contras was in order to help stop the arms flow to Central America.
Congressman David Bonior was right when he said from the floor of the House, "This is
a war against the people of Nicaragua. This is a war against the government of
Nicaragua. This is not a war about stopping the arms flow."
George H. W. Bush headed the President's Task Force on Terrorism. A 1990 Bill Moyers
PBS Frontline video shows Bush at a press conference saying, "Today I am proud to
deliver to the American people the result of the six months effort to review our
policies and our capabilities to deal with terrorism. Our policy is clear, concise and
unequivocal. We will offer no concession to terrorists, because that only leads to
more terrorism. States that practice terrorism, or actively support it, will not be
allowed to do so without consequence."
Even as Bush spoke, the administration was selling arms to terrorists. Bush knew this,
because he had attended meetings on the arms shipments. According to Moyers, one arms
shipment around the time of Bush's speech netted $800,000 in profit.
Moyers adds, "The arms sales have become big business, off the shelf and off the
books, accountable only to the inside trader. The profits will wind up not in the U.
S. Treasury, but in a private slush fund-what North, Casey and company now call the
Enterprise."
The deception practiced by George H. W. Bush and other Iran-Contra figures raises
questions about how those same people will advise George W. Bush today. Given today's
serious, immediate terrorist threat, we all understand the need for some government
secrecy. But many Americans think we also need a reasonable amount of open debate and
congressional oversight.
"The people who wrote the Constitution lived in a world more dangerous than ours,"
says Moyers. "They were surrounded by territory controlled by hostile powers on the
edge of a vast wilderness. Yet they understood that even in perilous times, the
strength of self-government was public debate and public consensus."
"To put aside these basic [American] values out of fear, to imitate the foe in order
to defeat him, is to shred the distinction that makes us different," says Moyers. He
adds, "In the end, not only our values but also our methods separate us from the
enemies of freedom in the world. The decisions that we make are inherent in the method
that produce them. An open society cannot survive a secret government."
Scott Armstrong, Director of the National Security Archive, a public interest group,
talks with Moyers about Iran-Contra: "This isn't the way the Constitution was set up.
This isn't what the founding fathers intended. The founding fathers never intended for
George Washington to be able to go to King George III and say, "I don't like what
Congress has done here. Give me some money. I'll hire some mercenaries and we'll call
it American foreign policy. That would have been treason."
Senator John Kerry tells Moyers that the Reagan/Bush administration was "willing to
literally put the Constitution at risk, because they believed somehow there was a
higher order of things . . . If you can have a retired general and a colonel running
around making deals in other countries on their own, soliciting funds to wage wars to
overthrow governments and hide it from the American people, so you have no
accountability, you've done the very thing that James Madison and the others feared
most when they were struggling to put the Constitution together."
In part because some members of Congress didn't press harder to hold George H. W. Bush
and other members of the Reagan administration responsible in the Iran-Contra affair,
we left the door open for the same kind of thing to happen in the future.
Moyers concludes, "All this, the contempt for Congress, the defiance of law, the huge
mark-ups and profits, the secret bank accounts, the shady characters, the shakedown of
foreign governments, the complicity in death and destruction-they did all this in the
dark, because it would never have stood the light of day."
In today's new war, the public and Congress have given the CIA, Bush and his
Iran-Contra-participant advisers a blank check, free hands, little oversight and
plenty of darkness. We have no choice but to trust them, but we can still make the
choice to hold them accountable with adequate congressional oversight.
It will be interesting to see how the next few years play out. During those years, it
will be pro-America to question, challenge and scrutinize our leaders.
09-22-02: Operation Arrogant Hypocrisy
By Jerry Crawford
September 22, 2001-One glass of cheap red and a nip of sherry-also cheap-I had to do
it. Well, I didn't have to, but it was prudent. Before indulging, I walked by the
television, CNN, I think, and heard, I'm sure I heard it, the USA is grandly naming
the revenge forces going to the gulf, I love this, Operation Infinite Justice.
"Holy shit!" I said. That's even more arrogant and obnoxious than Operation Noble
Eagle. I mean, can't you see Charlton Heston gripping the bridge railing of a carrier,
telling his men, "Yes, my noble warriors, this is Operation Infinite Justice"? I wept,
I cried, I drank. Puking later.
If you were a diplomatic hack for the US, would you really want to go to, let's say,
France, and ask Chirac to join in Operation Infinite Justice? Only if paid beaucoup
francs. Who are these people? Where were they spawned?
Okay, I could buy it if the objective was fair elections in the U.S. You know, the
kind where everyone's vote counted? So, if the day comes when John Ashcroft isn't
attending a Ku Klux Klan meeting or NRA fun fest, and he tells the country, "We're
launching Operation Infinite Justice. Even the black folks will have their votes
actually counted. Yes, even in Florida," then the name wouldn't seem overwrought. Most
of the country would likely get behind such a hokey nom de guerre.
For people still groping for a rationale regarding the displeasure some foreign folks
harbor for the US, think Operation Infinite Justice. Who knows when, where, against
whom, and how this ad hoc fantasy is going to play out? It could be Sudan,
Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, all or some of the above. Anywhere there is
a hint of suspicion.
One skirmish where we know the details is a bloodless and resistance free foray in the
U.S., when the Bush forces squeeze more of the juice out of the Constitution and civil
liberties. Oh, the Black Caucus will speak out against the repression of American
rights, but resistance is futile. Well, it wouldn't be if the Democrats were anywhere
near the political center and had spines.
The fascists' arrogance readings exceed seismic proportions, close to, but not
matching Smirk's levels of ignorance and incompetence. What could be higher? Rush
Limbaugh's hypocrisy? Close call.
We've got an illegitimate president, who, for nine months, give or take, has told the
rest of the world to, well, f*ck off! Then, with Poppy's help and many of Poppy's
retreads, he wakes up and discovers the actions of mainly Republican presidents have
caused one big problem, and he realizes that other countries may not be so bad to have
as friends in a complex world-a world more complex than hanging out with Bubbas in
scratch grabble Texas. Hell, there he could just execute or buy the alleged
troublemakers outright. No thought. No problem. But now, poor Smirk has to think about
whom to kill and how. Won't be easy.
The arrogance. The hypocrisy. Somewhere, just this morning, a writer was citing the
fact that none of the bought and paid for media have raised the question about it
being just a bit odd to have a non-elected president encouraging the nation and the
world to join him in a "crusade" for democracy. Operations Noble Eagle and Infinite
Justice . . . my ass!
Copyright © 2001 Jerry Crawford. All rights reserved.
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