A quote from a Time article, via Pandagon:
Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration’s efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month.
The Center for American Progress has a report on the things we are NOT doing to make us safer.
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After 9/11, we attended demonstrations to say that we wanted justice for the awful attacks of that day, but we did not want innocent people killed as the USA lashed out in anger. There is a difference between combating terrorism and killing innocent people to make (some of) us feel better. I remember “patriotic” New Yorkers screaming awful things at us during these demonstrations.
Those who argue that dealing with terrorism as a crime is somehow appeasement are arguing that American lives are worth more than the civilians we kill when we drop bombs from 30,000 feet in revenge. We still haven’t caught the people responsible for 9/11, but we have killed tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan. It is as if Italy chose to deal with the mafia by carpet-bombing Palermo with cluster bombs.
We diverted resources to attacking Iraq rather than chase after Al Qaeda, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We have now killed at least 10,000 civilians in Iraq.
I’m saying all of these things because I was just looking at photos of the anti-terrorism demonstrations in Spain. Our country is ready to descend into barbarism over the War on Terrorism. Spain is saying they want justice for the attacks, but they do not want innocents killed in the vain hope of making them safer from attack. At least 11 million people demonstrated around the country on Friday.
Spanish people holding posters saying ‘Peace’ protest over lack of information on Thursday’s bombings on trains outside the ruling Popular Party’s headquarters in the center of Madrid, Saturday March 13, 2004. Some 3,000 people chanted accusations that Spain’s government is hiding the truth about bombings that killed 200 people. (AP Photo/Denis Doyle)
Barcelona’s Brazilian player Ronaldinho, second right, and Luis Garcia, second left, wear shirts with, No to Terrorism, Yes to Peace, on them before a first division soccer match against Murica in Murcia, Spain, Sunday March 14, 2004. The shirts are a protest against the Madrid bomb attacks on trains last Thursday that killed 200 and injured another 1,500. The other two Murcia players are unidentified. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Barcelona’s Dutch player Edgar Davids, second right, protects a fan from a security policeman after the fan ran on to the pitch with the words No to Terrorism, and Peace written on his chest during a first division soccer match between Murcia and Barcelona in Murcia, Spain, Sunday March 14, 2004. The fan was refering to the bomb attacks on Madrid trains last Thursday that killed 200 people and injured another 1, 500. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A girl gets out of her car to applaude as she sits in a traffic jam waiting for several thousand demonstrators to pass by as they march through the center of Madrid, Spain, early Sunday morning March 14, 2004. Later Sunday the Spanish population will vote for general elections, but demonstrators took to the streets protesting the government’s failure to link the Thursday March 12th bombings which claimed the lives of 200 people in coordinated attacks on commuter trains, to al-Qaida. Sign at rightreads ‘Peace’. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
A hand written sign in Spanish saying ‘peace’ is seen on one of the windows at Madrid’s railway station Atocha, Saturday, March 13, 2004. Powerful explosions rocked three Madrid train stations, including Atocha on Thursday, March 11, 2004, killing 200 rush-hour commuters and wounding more than 1, 240 in Spain’s worst terrorist attack ever. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
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We put up a cross at the WTC after 9/11 (and it’s still there). Can you imagine someone painting a peace sign there?
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This column from Mark Weisbrot provides some interesting background on the situation in Haiti. A sample:
The latest coup is in many ways a repeat of the military coup that overthrew Aristide in 1991. Although many Americans know that President Clinton sent 20,000 troops to restore Aristide to the presidency in 1994, they do not about Washington’s role prior to that.
The United States, which occupied Haiti militarily from 1915-1934 and had plenty of support for the murderous Duvaliers who ruled the country from 1956-1986, had a problem when Haiti held the first democratic election in its history.
Aristide, a populist priest who preached liberation theology, was elected by a landslide in 1990. After serving seven months in office, he was overthrown by the military. The officers who led the military coup were, as later reported by the New York Times, on the payroll of the CIA. But the Washington connection did not end there.
A death squad organization known by the French acronym F.R.A.P.H was formed, and murdered at least 3000 of Aristide’s supporters over the next three years. The founder of the organization, Emanuel Constant, stated in an interview on CBS’ 60 minutes that he was paid by the CIA to create and maintain the organization during the dictatorship. He now lives in New York.
Constant’s second in command, convicted murderer Louis-Jodel Chamblain, was one of the leaders of last week’s insurrection. The New York Times report on Tuesday summed up the situation after the coup: “These men, whom Mr. Powell characterized last week as “thugs,” and a few hundred of their followers are for now the domestic face of national security in Haiti.
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Via Talk Left, I learn that the government seems to be backing down a bit on the whole peace activism = terrorism thing. I’m sure it’s because of the post James did.
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If this isn’t police state behavior, I don’t know what is. Lifted from Kos, go there for more info. The FBI-Joint Terrorism Task Force is asserting a right to compel peace activists (including the Catholic Peace Ministry in Des Moines) to appear before a secret grand jury without a lawyer.
Yesterday, February 3, Detective Jeff Warford of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office-FBI-Joint Terrorism Task Force came to Catholic Peace Ministry’s office here in Des Moines with a subpoena for me to testify before a Federal Grand Jury next Tuesday, February 10. Mr. Warford also served papers on Elton Davis at the Catholic Worker House and Patti McKee, who was coordinator of Iowa Peace Network until last month. The Grand Jury process is shrouded in secrecy. We do not know who or what the object of this investigation may be, beyond “possible violations of federal criminal law in the Southern District of Iowa.”
The proceeding will be behind closed doors. We may not have an attorney present. We have the right to plead the Fifth Amendment, refusing the answer questions that might incriminate us. The government, then, can offer us immunity from prosecution, in which case we will obliged to answer under threat of contempt of court and could be imprisoned for the length of the Grand Jury session, 18 months, should we continue to refuse to answer. This immunity would be limited to our own testimony and anything any of us say could be used against the others.
Whatever is going on, this is definitely an escalation on the part of the government’s war on dissent and clamp down on civil liberties. The fact that anything that we three and the peacemaking communities we represent could possibly attract the notice of a “Terrorism Task Force” is reprehensible. Please spread the word, express concerns you have with Federal and Polk County authorities. Keep us in mind and prayer.
Brian Terrell
Executive Director
Catholic Peace Ministry
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Salon has a goood article by Eric Boehlert on where the evidence stands on Bush’s “disappearance” from the Texas National Guard. Click on the day pass, and watch an ad, to see the whole thing, It’s worth it.
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As an antidote to the “liberal media” like the New York Times that just refer to the panel’s co-chair, David Niewert has compiled some useful information.
Some highlights:
— Overturning the Iran-Contra conviction of Oliver North on specious grounds.
— Blocking the Clinton legal team’s attempts to track down the leaks emanating from Starr’s office and blocking any attempts at discovery in the matter.
— Accusing Clinton of “declaring war on the United States” by trying to shield Secret Service agents from being forced to testify against Clinton.
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Via the BBC:
General Peter Schoomaker said in an interview with AP news agency that the wars had allowed the army to instil its soldiers with a “warrior ethos”.
But the general, who became chief of staff in August, denied warmongering saying the army must be ready to fight.
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General Schoomaker said the attacks on America in September 2001 and subsequent events had given the US army a rare opportunity to change.
“There is a huge silver lining in this cloud,” he said.
“War is a tremendous focus… Now we have this focusing opportunity, and we have the fact that [terrorists] have actually attacked our homeland, which gives it some oomph.”
He said it was no use having an army that did nothing but train.
“There’s got to be a certain appetite for what the hell we exist for,” he said.
“I’m not warmongering, the fact is we’re going to be called and really asked to do this stuff.”
If we’re going to spend $400+ billion on the military, the thinking seems to be we better use it. Lovely.
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