Dear future Presidents Clinton and Obama (which one will be Vice President?)
By
Saul Landau Read Spanish Version
I
request that as your first act in office you end the “War on
Terror.” Such action, I submit, would make most Americans feel more
secure. Millions of us are sick of the word “terror,” of feeling
terrified. Terror means fear; fear precludes hope and confidence. You
advocate hope. “Yes, we can.” To do things, we need to be freed
from White House panic harangue.
Last
December’s CNN poll reported 40% of the public still worried about
themselves or family members becoming terrorist victims. Almost half
the people in the poll believed the U.S. was not winning the war; 21%
think the terrorists are winning. How can anyone engage
fight in Bush’s “war” against that abstraction — except as
victims of government agencies and departments that the Bush/Cheney
White House has hijacked?
The
CIA, Pentagon, and Department of Justice
squashed habeas corpus, denied defendants’
right to
counsel and disregarded laws against torture. In the name of “war
on terror,” using the Patriot Act, the government wiretapped,
practiced kidnapping and outsourced torture (extraordinary
rendition), while simultaneously championing human rights. All for
“security
and democracy!”
In
1984,
George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth changed facts before people’s
eyes and dictated a new version to them until they repeated lies as
truth — the secret of thought control.
Commands
echo from airport loudspeakers. Robot voices warn everyone:
“Supervise your suitcase!” I tell my suitcase not to pee on the
airport floor.
“Security”
also means facing TSA — “thousands standing around,” says my
grandson. Off with shoes, empty pockets, laptop on tray, creams and
pastes in clear plastic bags! Beep! Oops, forgot the belt, try to
keep pants from falling down, damn, the floor is cold without shoes!
Last year I missed a plane because one uniformed zealot — having
successfully completed his parole? — claimed my toothpaste tube
contained more than the allotted amount and, before confiscating it
and throwing it in the trash, he chastised me for rule violation.
Air
travelers experience an imposed-by-the-White-House “culture of
fear,” a negative ethos derived from Bush’s fantasized war.
Technically, as you know, Congress has not declared war against
Afghanistan and Iraq.
Yet, U.S.
forces invaded and now occupy both countries. Bush claims with pride
that he’s a war time president, enabled, with congressional
approval. Congress did increase his powers and he’s used them to
infringe on
rights, felt most painfully by Muslims.
Mr.
O and Ms. C,
eliminate
Homeland Security. It’s Bush’s only policy — except for cutting
taxes for the least needy. Yes, we have enemies, fanatics, who blow
themselves and others to smithereens. But Bush hasn’t pursued the
terror organizers, some who
live in
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; not guys in caves, but those bankers and
intellectuals who control them. Instead of going after the brains and
money, Bush created chaos, more enemies more bureaucracy (Homeland
Security) and, his “War on Terror” helped Al-Qaeda expand their
numbers.
Future
Presidents,
you know wars against abstract evils — poverty, drugs, crime — have
become inane. After a century, the drug war expands. Yet, addiction
has cursed humanity for thousands of years. Poverty and crime thrive
in today’s world. Gore Vidal predicted a war on dandruff. Terrible!
“Terror,”
repeated endlessly, induces fright. Who remembers life before the
Patriot Act and Homeland Security? “The past was erased, the
erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth,” wrote Orwell.
President
Carter’s National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, analyzed
how “fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier
for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the
policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never
have gained the congressional support it got without the
psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated
existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.” In 2004, the
Bushies campaign stressed: “A nation at war shouldn’t change
commander in chief in midstream.” They emitted message implying
pervasive albeit imprecise danger and then channeled it in
politically expedient directions “by the mobilizing appeal of being
at war.’” (Washington
Post,
March 25, 2007)
Like
Zbig, you both must view skeptically how the “War on Terror”
became mass marketed. The sell job meant liars Bush and Cheney —
excuse my
frankness — played the lead missionaries in the cause of their own
prevarications.
(A twofer, the ad guys would say.) Bush says he equates his
anti-terrorist crusade — imagine him astride his horse lance in hand
in Syria defending a 12th
Century Castle — with World War II and Hitler. From his cribbed
history notes at Yale, he knew Hitler headed a state with a potent
military force.
Will
you teach the public that the shadowy Al Qaeda doesn’t operate from
a state? Supposedly Afghanistan served as Al Qaeda’s base when it
had less power, but the exploders now work in many countries through
networks which, by their nature, remain immune from the high tech
weaponry of the U.S. armed forces. How do you nuke guys in caves or
plotting in some apartment?
Will
you help revive citizenship as a way to challenge the culture of fear
and intimidation imposed by Homeland Security? Remember, after 9/11
Bush urged citizens to shop and take their families to Disney World,
to show flying was safe (help the crippled airline industry). Bush
called for unity in this struggle, but didn’t ask citizens to
discuss what to do in the face of attacks. Bush’s enterprise has
cost trillions of dollars.
Bush
claims the Iraq occupation is integral to his war on terror, yet
refuses to ask taxpayers to finance it. Unless we stay at war, he
warns, Al Qaeda will bring the fight here. But
Iraq has
served Al Qaeda as a recruiting instrument. Senators,
the April
2006 National Intelligence Estimate said the invasion of Iraq “has
become the cause célèbre for jihadists, breeding a deep
resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating
supporters for the global jihadist movement.”
So,
how do you coincide “hope,” “change” and
“yes we can,” with a divided and insecure nation? Did the 9/11
fiends have such an outcome in mind? War and occupation in Iraq have
also generated
wounds back home. How would both of you introduce healing?
Remember
war’s beneficiaries. While troops and civilians die, a mushrooming
terrorism industry produces both products (for war and “security”
at home) as well as people like Jessica Stern, a self-proclaimed
“leading expert on terror.” She once directed Russian, Ukrainian,
and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council under Clinton.
She didn’t make bombs or chat with bombers. But, she warned in a
2003 Council on Foreign Relations paper, “the United States cannot
let its guard down against terrorism because the chances for a second
9/11 attack remain ‘very high.’” Did bookies use her to set
odds? Pontificating experts on talk shows assure audiences that dirty
nuclear bombs lie ahead.
In
2005, Congress identified 77,769 possible targets. Think of the
expense, the jobs required to “secure” that ever-growing target
list!
“Security”
means “anxiety” to me, not Linus’ blanket. On Highway 10 in
East Los Angeles, a digital billboard warns drivers: “Report
Suspicious Activity” (hanky panky in cars?). “Suspicious” means
Muslims, Arabs, darker skinned foreigners: Islamophobia. You
understand that, Barack Hussein
Obama? Rush
Limbaugh and his ilk claimed you attended the same madrasa as
aspiring terrorists. You probably breathed the same air as well!
Fear
begets bigotry, and a removal of protections for some “enemy non
combatants” and some citizens: habeas corpus, right to an attorney
and speedy trial, freedom from torture. Stuff you
both know.
Government mouthpieces say these “unusual methods” have inhibited
terrorism. Sure! In 2006, seven semi-literate guys in Miami got set
up by a government informer who promised them money and instead got
busted for conspiring to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. None of
them had
heard of the building, been to Chicago or knew about explosives.
When
you become Presidents please
undo the damage Bush has caused. Engage other nations on catching
terrorists through police cooperation, infiltration of their cells
and by networking with judicial systems. They shouldn’t go to
Guantanamo or other dark holes, but tried by courts anywhere in the
world. Terrorism is a crime under international law. All courts have
jurisdiction. Would you try to involve the UN in this effort and help
restore its status? The U.S. and other military forces have proven
counterproductive. Count the massive number of declared anti-American
terrorists today compared to before Bush hit Afghanistan and Iraq!
Please
use this letter against the Republican — John Sidney McCain III
(does Sidney reflect Hebrew heritage?). After getting the nomination,
he repeated his priorities: make the U.S. secure from Islamic
extremism, victorious in Iraq, confident in trade, sound in its
economy. Imagine how much he’ll have to spend on the first two
items and you’ll see how they negate the last two. With him at the
helm, Bush’s madness might endure for another 1,000 years. Wow! I
hope as president either of you really gets the country out
of the
mess; not deeper into it.
Saul
Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies Fellow. His film, WE
DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE,
is available on DVD through roundworldproductions@gmail.com.
