Matt - Fighting Terrorism, Saving Tyrants
Jim Bovard
jbovard at his.com
Thu Jan 10 23:21:08 PST 2002
Matt:
Thought you might enjoy this bouquet for the war on terrorism.
take it easy,
Jim
USA Today January 10, 2002
Don't bed down with tyrants to fight terrorism
By James Bovard
President Bush recently declared: "So long as anybody's
terrorizing established governments, there needs to
be a war."
Bush rightfully sought international support for the campaign
to put the al_Qaeda terrorist network out of
business. But the
war on terrorism threatens to become a license for tyranny.
The United Nations is concerned that an expansive call for
governments to crack down on terrorism - a crime that is not
clearly defined - is spurring a surge of oppression
around the
world. Los Angeles Times writer William Orme detailed some of
the ways governments are exploiting the new war to repress
their citizens:
The Cuban government, as part of its war on
terrorism, added a
new law allowing the death penalty for anyone who uses the
Internet to incite political violence.
Zimbabwe's war on terrorism includes a proposal to
criminalize
any critical comment about President_dictator Robert Mugabe.
Syria bragged to the U.N. that financial support for
terrorists was effectively curtailed by the absence of any
private banking system or independent charities, Orme
reported. In other words, a government that totally destroys
freedom expects to be applauded as an
anti_terrorist superstar.
Bacre Waly Ndiaye, a chief U.N. human_rights
officer, recently
complained: "In some countries, non_violent activities have
been considered as terrorism, and excessive
measures have been
taken to suppress or restrict individual rights,
including the
presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, freedom
from torture, privacy rights, freedom of expression and
assembly, and the right to seek asylum."
Many of these complaints, in fact, apply to the
actions of the
Bush administration. A new law decimates individual
privacy by
giving the FBI the de facto right to vacuum up practically
anyone's e_mail. Permanent resident aliens who publicly
criticize the U.S. government's war on terrorism
can be banned
from re_entering the United States. Some have floated the
suggestion that permitting the torture of suspects could help
avert future terrorist attacks. And Bush's
executive order for
military tribunals threatens to bring unsavory aspects of
Third World "justice" to American shores.
A myopic focus on private_sector criminals risks giving a
green light to more dangerous government abuses. A core
fallacy of the war on terrorism - as opposed to attacking and
destroying al_Qaeda - is that terrorism is worse
than anything
else imaginable. Unfortunately, governments have
committed far
worse abuses than al_Qaeda or any other terrorist cabal.
Official murderers
Mass murder was the most memorable achievement of some
20th_century governments. The Black Book of Communism, a 1997
scholarly French compendium, detailed how 85 million to 100
million people came to die at the hands of communist regimes
in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and elsewhere. In Death
by Government, R.J. Rummel declared that some 170 million
people were killed in one of "the myriad ways
governments have
inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and
foreigners."
By raising terrorist attacks to the pinnacle of political
evil, the war on terrorism implicitly sanctifies whatever
tactic governments use in the name of repressing terrorism.
But, in the long run, people have far more to fear from
governments than from terrorists.
Bush's labeling of attacks on any "established
government" as
a justification of counterterrorism ignores the
fact that some
governments are little more than criminal
conspiracies against
their victims. The United States was created as a result of
popular uprisings and attacks on an established government
that was far less oppressive than many current regimes in
Africa and Asia.
The Bush administration must find a way to fight terrorism
without sanctifying tyranny. The word "terrorism" must not
become an incantation that miraculously razes all existing
limits on government power. The fact that governments such as
Syria and Zimbabwe can justify their oppression by invoking
the war against terrorism is an embarrassment to anyone who
both opposes terrorism and favors human rights.
James Bovard is the author of Lost Rights (St. Martin's
Press, 1994) and Freedom in
Chains (St. Martin's, 1999).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2002/01/10/ncguest2.htm
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