Excerpt
TERRORISM AND TYRANNY:
Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace
to Rid the World of Evil
by James Bovard
INTRODUCTION
"The
war on terrorism is the first political growth industry of the new Millennium." So
begins Jim Bovard's newest and, in some ways, most provocative book as
he casts yet another jaundiced eye on Washington and the motives behind
protecting "the homeland" and prosecuting a wildly unpopular war with
Iraq. For James Bovard, as always, it all comes down to a trampling of
personal liberty and an end to privacy as we know it.
From airport security follies that protect no one to in-creased surveillance
of individuals and skyrocketing numbers of detainees, the war on terrorism
is taking a toll on individual liberty and no one tells the whole grisly
story better than Bovard.
James Bovard has written for The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, the
American Spectator, The New York Times, Reader's Digest, The New Republic,
The Washington Post and Newsweek. He is one of Washington's
most controversial journalists.
Terrorism
and Tyranny won the 2004 Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing
the Literature of Liberty. The book is available for purchase at
Laissez Faire Books -- http://LFB.com --
delivering the highest value in books since 1972.
Terrorism and Tyranny
by James Bovard
The war on terrorism is the first
political growth industry of the new millennium. After the September
11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George
W. Bush promised to lead a "crusade" to "rid
the world of evil-doers." Unfortunately, the political fallout from the
9/11 attacks could fatally blight both individual liberty and public
safety.
After the terrorists killed thousands of Americans, the United States
had the right and the duty to retaliate against the perpetrators -- the
Al Qaeda network -- and destroy their ability to ever strike the United
States again. Bush's initial response to the attacks received almost
universal support among the American public and pervasive support from
foreign governments.
But as time passed, the Bush administration continually broadened the
war. The response to attacks by a handful of killers is morphing into
a campaign to vanquish all potential enemies of U.S. hegemony and to
impose American political values on much of the world.
Like a phoenix rising from the
ashes, Americans' trust in government soared after the terrorist
attacks. In the days after the attack, flag waving and patriotic
appeals swept the land: polls showed a doubling in the number of
people who trusted government to "do the right thing." The
national media rallied to the cause with headlines such as "The Government,
Once Scorned, Becomes Savior" (Los Angeles Times), "Government to the
Rescue" (Wall Street Journal), and "Government's Comeback" (Washington
Post). The government failed -- so the government became infallible.
The surge in trust was spurred by a profusion of false government statements
in the aftermath of the attacks. The Bush administration did everything
possible to portray the United States as a blindsided innocent victim.
Yet, from the 1995 warnings from the Philippines that Muslim terrorists
were plotting to use hijacked airplanes as guided missiles to attack
America, to the warnings to the Federal Bureau of Investigation that
Arab students at flight schools were acting suspiciously, to the warning
that Al Qaeda operatives had infiltrated the United States, to the failure
by the National Security Agency to translate key emails on the pending
attack, the feds were asleep at the switch.
After 9/11, the Bush administration rushed to increase the power of
federal agencies across the board. Within hours after the attacks, Attorney
General John Ashcroft began strong-arming Congress to enact sweeping
antiterrorism legislation. Ashcroft's constant shrill warnings of new
terrorist attacks resulted in maximum intimidation and minimum deliberation
by Congress.
Because of the actions of a handful of terrorists on September 11, federal
agents could have more power over all Americans in perpetuity. The Uniting
and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required To
Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA-PATRIOT) Act treats every citizen
like a suspected terrorist and every federal agent like a proven angel.
The Bush administration carried off the biggest bait-and-switch in U.S.
constitutional history. Rather than targeting terrorists, Bush and Congress
awarded new powers to federal agents to use against anyone suspected
of committing any one of the three thousand federal crimes on the books.
The Bush administration converted
the terrorist assault into a trump card against American privacy. The
Patriot Act entitled the FBI to cannibalize the nation's email with
its Carnivore wiretapping system. The FBI is crafting a computer virus
that can be inserted via email into targeted computers, allowing government
access to everything a person types. FBI agents can now easily get
warrants to compel public libraries and bookstores to surrender records
of what books people borrow or buy. Federal agents have issued over
18,000 counterterrorism subpoenas and search warrants since 9/11; in
many other cases, FBI agents have snared personal or proprietary information
via arm-twisting and intimidation, no warrant required. The number
of "emergency" searches conducted solely on the Attorney General's
command (and approved ex po facto by federal judges) is skyrocketing.
Operation TIPS, the Terrorist Information and Prevention System, raised
the specter of millions of informants -- from truck drivers to letter
carriers to cable television installers -- reporting any "out of the
ordinary" behavior to the feds. The Pentagon's Total Information Awareness
surveillance system aims to create a vast database dragnet, potentially
creating hundreds of millions of dossiers on Americans containing all
their phone bills, all their medical records, and everything they purchase
(from books to magazines to plane tickets to guns) -- all in the name
of preemptively detecting terrorists. The Pentagon is also financing
research to track people by their gait and by their odors.
The Patriot Act gave the feds the
right to financially strip-search every American. It created new financial "crimes without criminal intent" --
empowering the Customs Service to confiscate the bulk cash of American
travelers who fail to fill out a government form. The president and federal
regulators can now ban any foreign bank or institution from the U.S.
market unless it bares its books to U.S. investigators. The Justice Department
is exploiting Patriot Act powers to confiscate bank accounts for alleged
crimes with no relation to terrorism. Federal officials continually bragged
of the total amount of alleged terrorists assets frozen. But there were
no press releases confessing that much of the money was later returned
after no evidence of wrongdoing could be found.
The Patriot Act created the new
crime of "domestic terrorism," defined
as violent or threatening private actions intended "to influence the
policy of a government by intimidation or coercion." This definition
reaches far beyond the box-cutter crowd. It could take only a few scuffles
at a rally to transform a protest group into a terrorist entity. This
could allow the government to drop the hammer on environmental extremists
(even those not spiking trees), anti-trade fanatics (even those not trashing
Starbucks), and anti-abortion protesters (even those not attacking doctors).
If the violence at a rally is done by a government agent provocateur
-- as happened at some 1960s antiwar protests -- the government could
still treat all the group's members as terrorists. Likewise, anyone who
donates to an organization that becomes classified as a terrorist entity
-- be it Greenpeace, the Gun Owners of America, or Operation Rescue --
could face long prison terms.
Six days after the terrorist attack,
Ashcroft effectively canceled the "Great
Writ" of habeas corpus with a decree announcing that the government would
henceforth lock up suspected aliens for a "reasonable period." Over one
thousand "special interest" detainees were jailed in the months after
9/11; however, no evidence surfaced linking any of those people to the
terrorist attacks. Many suspects were locked up and not charged for weeks
or months afterwards and effectively held incommunicado. More than six
hundred people were deported after secret trials. When a New Jersey judge
denounced the government's refusal to release the names of detainees
as "odious to a democracy," Ashcroft responded by issuing an emergency
regulation trumping the state court decision. Georgetown University law
professor David Cole observed: "Never in our history has the government
engaged in such a blanket practice of secret incarceration." Even after
the Justice Department released or deported most of the "special interest" detainees,
President Bush continued to describe all of them as "terrorists" and "murderers."
Airports have far more potholes after 9/11. Despite the success of all
the hijacking attempts on 9/11, Bush raced to lavishly praise Transportation
Secretary Norman Mineta and Federal Aviation Administration Chief Jane
Garvey. The feds promised to greatly improve airport safety. The result
is institutionalized panic-mongering and an unending comedy of errors:
hundreds of evacuations and scores of thousands of travelers delayed
because of unplugged metal detectors, sleeping security guards, pairs
of scissors discovered in trash cans, or other dire breaches of regulations.
New search policies have become a Molesters Full Employment Act, with
airport screeners obsessing on the underwiring of bras or poking and
prodding beyond the bounds of decorum. Federal airport security agents
have confiscated more than five million nail clippers, cigar cutters,
screwdrivers, and other prohibited items since early 2002. But covert
government tests showed that firearms, knives, and dummy explosives have
continued to gush through the new improved checkpoints. Congress mandated
that more than $5 billion be spent purchasing and installing bomb detection
machines that are notoriously unreliable and generate endless false alarms
every day. Travelers can now be arrested if they commit the new crime
of raising their voice at the federal agent pawing the socks and underwear
in their carry-on luggage.
At the same time that Bush is making
government more powerful, he is making it much less accountable. The
Bush administration seized on the national security emergency atmosphere
to erect stonewalls around all federal agencies. On October 12, 2001
Ashcroft announced that the Justice Department was reinterpreting the
Freedom of Information Act to make it far more difficult for Americans
to discover what the federal government actually does. Bush issued
an executive order gutting the Presidential Records Act, which required
the routine release of most of a president's papers 12 years after
their term ended. (Bush's action will keep secret the actions of his
father and many of his own top advisors during the Reagan administration.)
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer pressured the news media not to
broadcast or even print a transcript of videotapes from Osama Bin Laden,
warning that "if you report [the information] in
its entirety that could raise concerns." At the same time that the Bush
administration rations the truth, it is generous with fabrications. Bush's
solicitor general, Theodore Olson, informed the Supreme Court: "It's
easy to imagine an infinite number of situations where the government
might legitimately give out false information."
While Bush perennially invokes freedom
to sanctify his antiterrorism policies, freedom to dissent may be on
the endangered list. Ashcroft informed a congressional committee in
December 2001: "To those who scare
peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty... your tactics only
aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and . . . give ammunition
to America's enemies." The federal Homeland Security Department is urging
local police departments to view critics of the war on terrorism as potential
terrorists. In a May 2003 terrorist advisory, the Homeland Security Department
warned local law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who "expressed
dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government." Such an expansive
definition of terrorist suspects is especially pernicious because the
Justice Department is advocating the nullification of almost all federal,
state, and local court consent decrees restricting the power of local
and state police to spy on Americans. Homeland Security officials also
urged local lawmen to be on alert for potential suicide bombers who could
be detected by such traits as a "pale face from recent shaving of beard." They "may
appear to be in a 'trance,'" or their "eyes appear to be focused and
vigilant"; either their "clothing is out of sync with the weather" or
their "clothing is loose." Perhaps to ensure that there will never be
a shortage of suspects, federal experts advised local agencies of another
tell-tale terrorist warning sign: someone for whom "waiting in a grocery
store line becomes intolerable."
Perpetual Wars, Endless Enemies
Shortly after 9/11, President Bush
announced: "So long as anybody's
terrorizing established governments, there needs to be a war." The Bush
administration quickly organized what Bush labeled a "freedom-loving
coalition" -- which included many of the most oppressive governments
in the world. But as long as a foreign leader recited Bush's catechism
on terrorism, his government was automatically certified as a partner
in Bush's crusade against evil.
A week after the 9/11 attacks, Bush
proclaimed he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead
or alive" and made bin Laden the poster boy for the war on terrorism.
Six months later, when asked about Osama at a press conference, Bush
groused that bin Laden is "just a person who's now been marginalized" and
insisted: "I just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with
you." From the initial targeting of al Qaeda, the enemies list expanded
to include Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Somalia, and Libya, as well
as an array of private groups.
The more foreign nations the United
States bombs, the more domestic tranquility Americans will presumably
enjoy. Bush declared on February 27, 2002: "We owe it to our children and our children's children to rid
the world of terror now, so they can grow up in a free society, a society
without fear." Bush assumes that there is a fixed sum of terror in the
world and all that is necessary is to use enough force to "bring justice" to
the culprits. Bush's policies may spawn new terrorists faster than the
U.S. military can kill existing terrorists.
Bush proclaimed that "either you're with us, or you're against us in
the fight for freedom; either you stand beside this great Nation as part
of a coalition that will defend freedom and defend civilization itself,
or you're against us." Bush often speaks as if all he need do is pronounce
the word "freedom" and all humanity is obliged to obey his commands --
as if he were the World Pope of Freedom and his infallible proclamations
are sufficient to justify scourging all slackers.
Bush rarely misses a chance to proclaim
that the war on terrorism is being fought to save freedom -- either
U.S. freedom, or world freedom, or the freedom of future generations.
On January 31, 2002, Bush proclaimed: "We
are resolved to rout out terror wherever it exists to save the world
for freedom." Bush contrasts freedom and terror as if they are two ends
of a seesaw. Because terror is the enemy of government, government necessarily
becomes the champion of freedom. This simple dichotomy makes sense only
if terrorists are the sole threat to freedom.
The Evolution of Terrorism
Terror was first explicitly used
as a political tactic during the French Revolution. Terror had been
used for thousands of years by despots to crush resistance but the
French revolutionaries were likely the first to claim to be idealists
for maximizing oppression. Maximilien Robespierre gushed that terror
is "justice prompt, severe and inflexible," "an emanation
of virtue," and "a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy." For
Robespierre, terror tactics exemplified "the despotism of liberty against
tyranny." The revolution featured not only the guillotining of thousands
of aristocrats, but also the ritualized mass drownings of people in Nantes
and the extermination of the populace of entire towns who failed to enthusiastically
support the "despotism of liberty." Britain's Edmund Burke, the most
eloquent enemy of the French Revolution, denounced "thousands of those
hellhounds called terrorists."
By the mid-twentieth century, the
term "terrorism" was routinely used
to condemn those who attacked politicians, government forces, or established
regimes. The Nazis denounced French Resistance saboteurs as terrorists.
Terrorism has permeated Middle East conflicts since the 1940s, when Menachem
Begin and his Irgun gang helped drive the British out of Palestine by
blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people. In the
1950s, Algerians terrorized Paris and other French cities, eventually
driving the French out of northern Africa and ending colonial rule. The
United States revved up its military intervention in Vietnam to deal
with what the Kennedy administration perceived as a "small war of terrorism
and political subversion" by a few thousand Viet Cong. In the late 1960s,
Palestinians became the premier terrorists in the Western world; the
kidnapping of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich heralded
the era of televised political murders.
After President George W. Bush announced a war on terrorism in the wake
of the 9/11 attacks, one British wit declared that this was the first
time in history that war had been declared on an abstract noun. Actually,
many politicians had declared war on terrorism in the preceding decades
-- from Germany's Helmut Schmidt, to various Israeli leaders, to Ronald
Reagan. Reagan's war on terrorism eventually crippled his administration,
as revelations about the Iran-Contra scandal (trading weapons to gain
release of hostages held by terrorists) raised the specter of both his
impeachment and his senility. The first U.S. war on terrorism ended when
a bomb exploded on Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, demonstrating
the abysmal failure of the U.S. government to protect American citizens.
While Bush portrays his war on terrorism
as a simple question of "good
versus evil," the concept of terrorism is murkier than many government
officials would like to admit. Brian Jenkins, one of the most respected
U.S. experts on the subject, observed in 1981: "Terrorism is what the
bad guys do."
The U.S. State Department defined
terrorism in 1981 as "the use or threat
of the use of force for political purposes in violation of domestic or
international law." Since government use of force is almost automatically
lawful (based on government edicts and sovereign immunity), governments
by definition cannot commit terrorist acts. For decades, U.S. representatives
to the United Nations have been adamant that "state terrorism" is a near
impossibility. Private cars packed with dynamite are evil, while guided
missiles launched from government jet fighters that blow up cars driven
by terrorist suspects are good, regardless of how many children are in
the back seat at the time of the "surgical strike."
A core fallacy at the heart of the war on terrorism is that terrorism
is worse than almost anything else imaginable. Unfortunately, governments
around the world have committed far worse abuses than Al Qaeda or any
other terrorist cabal. By treating terrorism as the supreme evil, and
insisting that governments can never be guilty of terrorism, the Bush
administration makes the crimes of government morally negligible. From
1980 to 2000, international terrorists killed 7,745 people, according
to the U.S. State Department. Yet, in the same decades, governments killed
more than 10 million people in ethnic cleansing campaigns, mass executions,
politically caused famines, wars, and other slaughters. During the 1990s,
Americans were at far greater risk of being gunned down by local, state,
and federal law enforcement agents than of being killed by international
terrorists.
Despite continual victory proclamations
out of Washington, there is no end in sight for Bush's war on terrorism.
An August 2002 United Nations report announced that Al Qaeda "is, by all accounts, 'alive and well'
and poised to strike again how, when and where it chooses." Central Intelligence
Agency director George Tenet warned a congressional panel on October
17, 2002 that Al Qaeda has "reconstituted, they are coming after us,
they want to execute attacks" and that "the threat environment we find
ourselves in today is as bad as it was the summer before September 11." Though
the war on Iraq was justified to thwart terrorism, many experts believe
that the bombing and invasion of an Arab country actually fueled terrorist
fires. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think
tank, warned in May 2003 that Al Qaeda is "more insidious and just as
dangerous" as before 9/11.
Despite scores of billions of dollars of new government spending, despite
the hiring of legions of new federal agents, and despite the U.S. military
campaigns to overthrow the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, Americans continue
to be at grave risk.
The federal government must vigorously defend America against terrorists.
But is the United States suffering more from political exploitation of
terrorism than from terrorists? Is the Bush administration's aggression
creating more terrorists than it is vanquishing? And what are the prospects
for the survival of American liberty from an endless war against an elusive,
often ill-defined enemy?
Copyright ©2003 by James Bovard. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted
here with permission of the publisher, Palgrave Macmillan. Please feel
free to duplicate or distribute this file, as long as the content is not
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