The Rise of the Democratic Police State
By [b]John Pilger[/b]
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 23 August 2005
Thomas Friedman is a famous columnist on the New York Times. He has been described as "a guard dog of US foreign policy". Whatever America's warlords have in mind for the rest of humanity, Friedman will bark it. He boasts that "the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist". He promotes bombing countries and says world war three has begun.
Friedman's latest bark is about free speech, which his country's constitution is said to safeguard. He wants the State Department to draw up a blacklist of those who make "wrong" political statements. He is referring not only to those who advocate violence, but those who believe American actions are the root cause of the current terrorism. The latter group, which he describes as "just one notch less despicable than the terrorists", includes most Americans and Britons, according to the latest polls.
Friedman wants a "War of Ideas report" that names those who try to understand and explain, for example, why London was bombed. These are "excuse makers" who "deserve to be exposed". He borrows the term "excuse makers" from James Rubin, who was Madeleine Albright's chief apologist at the State Department. Albright, who rose to secretary of state under President Clinton, said that the death of half a million Iraqi infants as a result of an American-driven blockade was a "price" that was "worth it". Of all the interviews I have filmed in official Washington, Rubin's defence of this mass killing is unforgettable.
Farce is never far away in these matters. The "excuse makers" would also include the CIA, which has warned that "Iraq [since the invasion] has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of 'professionalised' terrorists'." Onto the Friedman/Rubin blacklist go the spooks!
Like so much else during the Blair era, this McCarthyite rubbish has floated across the Atlantic and is now being recycled by the prime minister as proposed police-state legislation, little different from the fascist yearnings of Friedman and other extremists. For Friedman's blacklist, read Tony Blair's proposed database of proscribed opinions, bookshops, websites.
The British human rights lawyer Linda Christian asks: "Are those who feel a huge sense of injustice about the same causes as the terrorists - Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib - to be stopped from speaking forthrightly about their anger? Because terrorism is now defined in our law as actions abroad, will those who support liberation movements in, for example, Kashmir or Chechnya be denied freedom of expression?" Any definition of terrorism, she points out, should "encompass the actions of terrorist states engaged in unlawful wars."
Of course, Blair is silent on western state terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere; and for him to moralise about "our values" insults the fact of his blood-crime in Iraq. His budding police state will, he hopes, have the totalitarian powers he has longed for since 2001 when he suspended habeas corpus and introduced unlimited house arrest without trial. The Law Lords, Britain's highest judiciary, have tried to stop this. Last December, Lord Hoffmann said that Blair's attacks on human rights were a greater threat to freedom than terrorism. On 26 July, Blair emoted that the entire British nation was under threat and abused the judiciary in terms, as Simon Jenkins noted, "that would do credit to his friend Vladimir Putin".
Should you be tempted to dismiss all this as esoteric or merely mad, travel to any Muslim community in Britain, especially in the northwest, and sense the state of siege and fear. On 15 July, Blair's Britain of the future was glimpsed when the police raided the Iqra Learning Centre and book store near Leeds. The Iqra Trust is a well-known charity that promotes Islam worldwide as "a peaceful religion which covers every walk of life." The police smashed down the door, wrecked the shop and took away anti-war literature which they described as "anti-western".
Among this was, reportedly, a DVD of the Respect Party MP George Galloway addressing the US Senate and a New Statesman article of mine illustrated by a much-published photograph of a Palestinian man in Gaza attempting to shield his son from Israeli bullets before the boy was shot to death. The photograph was said to be "working people up", meaning Muslim people. Clearly, David Gibbons, this journal's esteemed art director, who chose this illustration, will be called before the Blair Incitement Tribunal. One of my books, The New Rulers of the World, was also apparently confiscated. It is not known whether the police have yet read the chapter that documents how the Americans, with help from MI6 and the SAS, created, armed and bankrolled the terrorists of the Islamic Mujahideen, not least Osama bin Laden.
The raid was deliberately theatrical, with the media tipped off. Two of the alleged 7 July bombers had been volunteers in the shop almost four years ago. "When they became hardliners", said a community youth worker. "They left and have never been back and they've had nothing to do with the shop." The raid was watched by horrified local people, who are now scared, angry and bitter. I spoke to Muserat Sujawal, who has lived in the area for 31 years and is respected widely for her management of the nearby Hamara Community Centre. She told me, "There was no justification for the raid. The whole point of the shop is to teach how Islam is a community-based religion. My family has used the shop for years, buying, for example, the Arabic equivalent of Sesame Street. They did it to put fear in our hearts." James Dean, a Bradford secondary school teacher, said, "I am teaching myself Urdu because I have multi-ethnic classes, and the shop has been very helpful with tapes."
The police have the right to pursue every lead in their hunt for bombers, but scaremongering is not their right. Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner who understands how the media can be used and spends a lot of time in television studios, has yet to explain why he announced that the killing in the London Underground of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was "directly linked" to terrorism, when he must have known the truth. Muslim people all over Britain report the presence of police "video vans" cruising their streets, filming everyone. "We have become like ghettoes under siege," said one man too frightened to be named. "Do they know what this is doing to our young people?"
The other day Blair said, "We are not having any of this nonsense about [the bombings having anything] to do with what the British are doing in Iraq or Afghanistan, or support for Israel, or support for America, or any of the rest of it. It is nonsense and we have to confront it as that." This "raving", as the American writer Mike Whitney observed, "is part of a broader strategy to dismiss the obvious facts about terror and blame the victims of American-British aggression. It's a tactic that was minted in Tel Aviv and perfected over 37 years of occupation. It is predicated on the assumption that terrorism emerges from an amorphous, religious-based ideology that transforms its adherents into ruthless butchers."
Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has examined every act of suicide terrorism over the past 25 years. He refutes the assumption that suicide bombers are mainly driven by "an evil ideology independent of other circumstances." He said, "The facts are that since 1980, half the attacks have been secular. Few of the terrorists fit the standard stereotype ... Half of them are not religious fanatics at all. In fact, over 95 per cent of suicide attacks around the world [are not about] religion, but a specific strategic purpose - to compel the United States and other western countries to abandon military commitments on the Arabian Peninsula and in countries they view as their homeland or prize greatly ... The link between anger over American, British and western military [action] and al-Qaeda's ability to recruit suicide terrorists to kill us could not be tighter."
So we have been warned, yet again. Terrorism is the logical consquence of American and British "foreign policy" whose infinitely greater terrorism we need to recognise, and debate, as a matter of urgency.
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Originally published by The New Statesman UK.
The western use of terrorism as an excuse for state-sponsored abuse remind’s me of the Vietnam era where any questioning of government policy was thrown under the blanket of ‘a threat to national security’. The term was so transparent that no thinking government official will use it now because it is forever linked to government wrong doing.
Hopefully, our populations will get over the fear of the buzz words and begin reining in the controllers. If not, 1984 is reality.
So Angel, where would you suggest we go to escape this malovence?
I hear Mars is nice this time of year…
JT
Unfortunately, sounds like our government right now. As soon as the Patriot Act got passed, I was thinking that this was a lot like the Red Scare from the McCarthy era. I was fortunately not alive to see those times, but my grandfather was around during WWII and him being clearly of Japanese descent, I heard from him about all the nasty things that America does in the name of national security.
And now they’re trying to revise the Patriot Act to allow the FBI even more freedom to uor personal lives. The ACLU is fighting it, but still. I fear that the House will pass this bill anyway. It’s amazing how so many people can be against it, but our “representatives” don’t seem to reflect that.
Mars is sounding better and better. Maybe we can just invade Greenland or something. If it’s like Alaska, I could live there.
OMG, does anyone actually read both sides of the issue or issues? It does not appear so. The following are very biased sites, similar to the biased sites liquid visits. Remember, I also peruse Arab News, Al Jazeera, Ah-Ahrem, AMIN, etc., along with the New York Times, Washington Post, etc., to try and sift through the bullshit and figure out what is really occuring.
In any case for the other side of the issue instead of the pure liberal crap here are a few sites:
homelandsecurityus.com/
israelnationalnews.com/
washtimes.com/
anti-cair-net.org/
debka.com/
READ ALL SIDES OF THE ISSUES, LIBERAL, MODERATE AND RIGHT-WING.
YES, I FIND BUCHANAN AS FRIGHTENING AS THE RADICAL MUSLIM CLERICS, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS HE IS A RICH, WHITE CHRISTIAN.
I tend to your read stuff that is the opposite of my opinion. I believe that little comes from read stuff that you agree with.
However, I’m not talking about learning new skills, but just about opinion.
I am not sure I understand. Do you mean to say your read media regardless if it opposes your opinion.
Continuing to develop critical thinking skills is a lifelong learning experience.
Yes, I tend to read the opposite view that I hold.
The thing about reading what you agree with is this, at least in part: if the other seems to agree with you with slight differences, then you may be likely to agree with those differences. Then, you read another article and its slight differences and so forth. Soon, you have lost your own opinion and believe in a bunch of mishmash.
The problem is so big that our natural instinct is to try to escape…as far away as we can - we know the situation is explosive. On the day of the first bombing I called my ex in SA. He said I should get ready to come home. I told him I was already home and that I wasn’t willing to discuss it any further. (SA is home and probably one of the ‘safest’ places on earth in the current world climate). For me, home is not a physical place in the outside world.
Aspacia, I read what I read because it resonates with me. It has nothing to do with who is right and who is wrong. I have a feeling, an instinct and I follow that. I listen to my own conscience, the voice of my own heart. Who is right and who is wrong? We are all part of the same world, we are all One entity in the bigger scheme of things. If you commit a sin, surely that sin is mine also? So I don’t make excuses for anyone. I listen to my heart, the part of me that is tuned into the great Oneness. Regardless of what nationality you are, what your religious background/tendancies are, we are all brothers and sisters and we are all here together. At some point we have to say NO! This is not about right and wrong, left and right, this is about humanity, about unity of hearts and minds with a common goal. PEACE IS NOT A DECISION IT’S A REALISATION!
So my question is this, what can be done about humanity becoming whole again?
A
Depends on the person. Read the opinions, then check with valid academic sites regarding what is valid or invalid regarding the events. Sift throught the mess, then make conclusion. THINK CRITICALLY.
For example, all you will read regarding refugees in Arab media are their brethren who they refuse to assimiliate into their lands. They never mention the thousands, nealy a million Jewish refugees driven from Arab land in the early 50’s. Actually, there were more Jewish refugees than Arab, and tiny Israel provided citizenship and a new lease on life.
They also never mention the illegal Arab settlements, only Jewish settlements. Why the bullshit bias? Why target Israel. Anti-Semitism is alive and well.
Japanese history books glance over their part in WWII and the atrocities committed against the Chinese, Koreans, Aussies and U.S. troops on Midway (they beheaded them and there is a graveyard on Midway with their remains).
U.S. schools discuss our embargo of Japan because of the atrocities being committed by Japan. Now, Japanese apologists, similiar to Saddam apologists, claim the attack on Pearl was the U.S.A’s fault, similar to the many Iraqis who suffered from the embargo was also the U.S.A’s fault. Was it really! Both countries behaved badly, and we embargoed them. Does Japan have oil? No. We went after them on the morality issue. We embargoed Saddam because he invaded Kuwait. We did not participate in the Oil For Food Program, the Europeans did, and were lining their pockets with kick-backs. Generally, Europeans are whores and are much more Machievellian than the USA, at lease IMO.
aspacia,
I’ll grant you your opinion, but don’t you think your generalization is a bit broad? I know you’re talking about governments, but governments are people.
JT
This reading of Thomas Friedman is truly moronic. Anyone who cares to know what Friedman really wrote about hate speech can read it here:
http://lettrist.blogspot.com/2005/07/giving-hatemongers-no-place-to-hide.html
Blatant stupidity, bordering on illiteracy, from liberals like John Pilger are crippling the progressive movement…and I say this as a liberal. So stop it. Stop writing simplistic drivel like this, and stop taking seriously those who do. You only contribute to the problem.
As I understand you, you do not believe that the radical clerics and those promoting terror should be spotlighted? 
Do you read MEMRI, Palistianian Watch, and the other sources that sway the Muslim youth to commit murder? These sources do sway the youth. There is an article in the New York Times today:
nytimes.com/2005/08/28/inter … 8gaza.html
that reveals to depths of the hate these people have. A woman marching for Hamas wishes she could have more children to become soldiers to erradicate Israel. Hamas and Hizbollah calls for the total elimination of Israel.
There will be no peace, one side or the other will eventually erradicate the other.
Similar to all politicians, European leaders are whores.
France basically owns its news media, and it ignores the real economic problems France has. It ignores the numerous bomb caches found throughout the country, one was below the Eiffel Tower. They do publish rants against the UK and US, but ignore the very real problems they are having with 20% of their population being Muslim who will not assimilate or abide by French secular laws. Read some the polls taken in the Muslim communities in France, and throughout Europe. Much of the Europeon Muslim community support the killing of Van Gogh as he criticized Islam.
European politicians were the ones who lined their pockets with kick-backs in the Oil for Food programs. They were the ones who wanted the sanctions lifted on Iraq in spite of the toture and mass murders Saddam committed. Saddam was the one living in palaces, while his people suffered.
Why the hell don’t invididuals blame the perpetrators of the crimes committed instead of claiming the fault belongs to someone else.
To all,
I’ll let Angel try to put this back on track, but I would ask that we stop looking for people to point our fingers at, (although ALL politicians probably deserve finger pointing) and focus on our own willingness to accept the violence, the fear, and the repression so willingly foisted upon us both those who would control our lives. As Pogo from the old comic strip observed, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
JT
In times of war, and we have been attacked, the government has always had the ability to legally suspend certain rights. This is nothing new.
I will take my chances with the CIA and FBI rather than a possible terrorist setting off a dirty bomb, poisoning our food and water supplies, using biological weapons, etc.
I do believe that similar to what occured in Russia, they will attack our children next.
I would rather the government step in and thwart such attempts before they happen than take the risk.
Civil liberties have always been reestablished after hostilities. Look, many feared that the men drafted in WWII would not be allowed to return to civilian life and all the emergency laws would stay in place. They laws were recinded and the men were allowed to return to civilian life.
My answer is humanity has never been whole, and I do mean Never, at least for any period of time.
Look at Darfur, Cambodia, etc. Even without total war, we still see genocide and continual massacre all over the world on a daily basis.
Yes I do.
Of course, but this is not about sides dear. Who is right and who is wrong?
Of course you are not directly responsible for another person’s wrongs, but I was of course talking about the bigger picture where we are all together in this and of course pointing fingers is not a solution - that just breeds war. I am looking for a solution - thereby recognising that we are all human and we all are responsible in the bigger scheme of things.
Quite true. We don’t even have to do it, it is inevitable. I was thinking more along the lines, again, of healing our planet, ourselves and our people. I’m an idealist aspacia, what good would that do if I didn’t at least try to find solutions, not solutions that were good for one side or another side, but rather a solution that worked for humanity.
Very sad indeed.
I see that you believe that we can never be whole. I can’t argue with what you believe, you are of course entitled to that.
A
I agree that this can be necessary in certain times, but how far do we go? How many liberties must we give up?
I use the internment camps here as an example just because that is what I’m most familiar with. My family was Japanese during WWII. My grandfather was born and raised in rural Colorado, his father having escaped that which he disliked in Japan. My grandfather had been serving in the US military previous to the attack on PH. And I will not stand by and condone what the Japanese did during WWII. They were not kind during the war, in fact I would argue that the Japanese may have never been kind during any conflict they were involved in. However, when people who are Americans through and through are taken and placed in conditions that prisoners would pity them for, where do we draw the line? When do we become just as bad as the oppressor and terrorist to our own people, in the name of security? Is it truly security when it causes as much fear as the original threat? This I believe is part of the problem.
I’m more with LA here. We have spent far too long fighting fear and hatred with fear and hatred. It will not be an easy road, but one we must travel. Just because history proclaims us to be savage, brutal and confrontational monsters who let monsters lead us, is no reason for us to continue this way. We have the power to change ourselves and thus the world with us. This is what we should be aiming for. But, we cannot see past our blinders and division lines we have drawn. You fight fear with love and caring. You fight insecurity with rational thinking and support. What you do for one person suffering from these problems is the same with a country. You just have to do it in such a way that it affects everyone.
We have a long way to go, but together anything is possible.
So am I, but disagree with appeasement, it never works as most aggressors will see this as weakness, and be encouraged to demand more as they see the appeasers as weak and unwilling to protect themselves.
Slippery Slope, it is probably not enevitable. Again, human history has always been full of bloodshed, and this seems more inevitable than an extended peace. I am a cynic.
When young I was too, not any more. I attended all the liberal classes and the more I read, the more cynical I became regarding humanity. I doubt if the bloodshed will ever end. Currently, it is extremists, and I include Buchanan in the list, God knows what the next spat of violence will revolve around.
Yes, very sad indeed, but we have to defend ourselves or live in suppression. I will fight to the death to prevent any form of religious law in my land, and CAIR and other organizations are trying to inflict Sharia law into my secualr land.
As you are entitled to your opinion, but take a good look at what is being said. Can you really believe there will be peace when the bloodlust is so strong. Hell, how can you reason with a person who loves death and hates Jews and US citizens to much as to justify killing babes?
A
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Take care angel, just try to read what is being said on both sides.
As good as this utopia sounds where you fight hate with love and reason it will never work. I’ll use the appeasment policy that Chamberlin used prior to WWII as an example. Chamberlin, as well as most of the world, thought that by giving in to Germany’s demands would bring peace to world but unfourtunatley it shows weakness that Hitler exploited Multiple times untill Britain and France declared war on Germany after the Wehrmacht blitzkrieged across Poland. So the question is where do you draw the line between support and totally giving in. because if you completly give in once the liklyhood of you giving in again is fairly good and eventualy you will be exploited by any one for any reason. So my question to you is where do you draw the line between support and giving in. because no matter how hard you try you will eventually fail through excessive peace. So some force is neccicary to keep peace.