My statement as a citizen of the United States is as follows:
The United States is in a state of distress. Our way of life is under attack and the very fundamentals of our republican democracy are threatened. If We, The People, do not act quickly and decisively, we risk losing the core values that truly make this nation great.
Our nation is in peril, not because of the actions of hijackers or jihadists, but because of the US government's unilateral move toward ceaseless revenge and the stripping away of protections guaranteed to citizens by the US Constitution.
The US government response to the events of September 11, 2001 was flawed and disproportionate. Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war and divisive foreign policy has created an aura of hostility and distrust, both at home and internationally-- and has put our soldiers in unnecessary harm by engaging in conflicts which were illogical, immoral, and illegal.
The US government has established an undeclared and never-ending war of aggression, with neither a clear battleground, nor a clear enemy- an illegal engagement with any person, nation or organization (anywhere!) that chooses to engage our nation with violence or the [perceived] threat of violence. This conflict continues to be waged under the current President.
The US government's heavy-handed military reaction to the events on September 11, 2001 has created far more terrorists and dissidents than ever had existed before, and continues to create more every day.
The War on Terror must end.
A Rapid Transformation
Things happened very quickly in the days and weeks following September 11th. First, Congress passed The Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40), which continues to authorize any current US President to use military force against any person, nation or organizations that he determines planned, carried out, or harbors/supports terrorists, or otherwise participated in the attacks of September 11, 2001. This law is still in effect today, has no expiration date, and has been applied more and more broadly as time has progressed. It has led to an undeclared war with neither clear boundaries, nor specific enemies. It can be fought anytime, anywhere, and against anyone.
Second, George W. Bush penned an Executive Order for the purposes of freezing and seizing assets of persons or organizations suspected of ties to terrorist organizations. The selection is an apt (and official) description of terrorist activity:Executive Order 13224 (September 23, 2001):
“Sec. 3. For purposes of this order:
...
(d) the term "terrorism" means an activity that --
(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and
(ii) appears to be intended --
(A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.”.
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| George W. Bush at the ruins of the World Trade Center. "...and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon..." |
Bush was convinced that the Afghan government (the Taliban regime) was harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. He decided to influence the policy of the government of Afghanistan through intimidation and coercion, and gave them a next-to-impossible deadline. When that failed to produce the specific results desired, Bush used violent acts dangerous to human life, property and infrastructure intended to intimidate and coerce a civilian population and influence the policy and conduct of the Afghan government- tactics he had personally described as "acts of terrorism" only a few weeks before- and informed the entire world that these were the types of tactics that he would also be using on other nations if they didn't cooperate.
After the bombing began, the Taliban claimed they could deliver bin Laden to Saudi Arabia for detention, given evidence of his involvement in the terrorist acts of 9/11. Bush refused. We all know what happened after that. It's been over 10 years.
Fourth, the USA PATRIOT Act (Public Law 107-56) was passed by Congress giving government, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and the military broad sweeping powers (which were originally designed to expire) to investigate and apprehend anyone it suspected of being a terrorist or otherwise tied to designated terrorist groups. Civil rights advocate groups insist that the USA PATRIOT Act infringes on and erodes the protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. This law has been re-authorized several times by both the Bush and Obama administrations and now has several new parts and additional legislation based upon it.While all of this was happening, most Americans were still in a state of disbelief and shock. Some were outraged by the events on 9/11, and rightly so. However, it primed the population to accept the terms presented by the government. Citizens permitted them to pass unconstitutional laws and to take away their liberties. Those Americans who objected were branded "cowards," "terrorist sympathizers," "anti-American," or- my personal favorite- "Communists."
When confronted with the fact that these laws were dangerous, unconstitutional and anti-American themselves, the most common response was, "Why should I care-- I'm not a terrorist!" I personally had this conversation many times and was called any number of foul epithets for questioning my government's actions and motives.
Fifth, the US government began "arresting" persons they suspected of terrorist activities and hiding them in secret prisons. The US military installation at Guantanamo Bay was begun to be used as a major holding location for "enemy combatants," which was the term used by the Bush administration (and later by Obama) to avoid having to adhere to procedures and preconditions set forth both by United States criminal law and by the Geneva Convention's International Law regarding the treatment of Prisoners of War.Sixth, a number of scandals erupted regarding the US government's operations in apprehending and detaining these enemy combatants, including widespread incidents of warrantless secret searches/wiretapping, entrapment and torture. Several US law enforcement agencies including the FBI and the DHS have been accused of using the "tools" provided to them under the USA PATRIOT Act to obtain information for investigations that are not related to terrorism. Many of these have not officially come to light since there is a "Patriot Act gag order" that makes it a federal offense and a breach of national security to discuss them in detail.
Roots of the Conflict
As is nearly always the case in history, the conflict did not begin with a single episode. September 11, 2001 was not the beginning of this particular string of events, any more than it was the end of it. The roots of the conflict emerged during and following the Cold War.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."After the collapse of the Soviet Union, US policymakers felt that a hard-won victory had been achieved. The US had engaged in conflicts with the Soviets indirectly (by proxy), most notably during the US-Vietnam Conflict and during the USSR-Afghanistan Conflict.
-Albert Einstein
Both sides of the Cold War had engaged in relentless covert operations: psy-ops, influencing elections, funding and training armies, assassinations, hostage-taking, selective missile strikes, sanctions and economic embargoes.
While it seemed prudent to engage each other indirectly throughout the Cold War, these tactics sculpted an increasingly dangerous world. Nations (mostly in the "Third World") were used as pawns, abandoned- often in a state of ruin- at the end of their usefulness, leaving power vacuums presiding over undereducated and tormented populations. They often became breeding grounds for fundamentalism of all kinds.
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| The CIA has done a lot of things you don't know about. If you are motivated enough to spend the rest of your life reading declassified CIA documents filed by date of creation, go to http://www.foia.cia.gov/ for more details. |
While many assumed an era of peace and prosperity would be ushered in by globalization, what many nations experienced was a new wave of imperialism and domination at the hand of western nations- economic imperialism.
Having installed and/or supported dictatorships and warlords all over the world based merely on the fact that they were not Communists, the US began experiencing what the intelligence community calls "blowback," which is a kind of secularized euphamism for "karma."
The people (and sometimes the governments) of the nations who had been used as proxies in the fight against Communism all over the world were left with a rather bad taste in their mouths. They had been manipulated and discarded. In some cases, people had no recollection of how it happened or why, but remembered that the US had a hand in causing their trauma.
As the US came to see itself as a beacon of hope and a liberator of the world, others came to see it as a great evil that had tormented them during the Cold War and now was attempting to "own them" in the aftermath.
The US government was careless, and in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, the US virtually abandoned or ignored everyone it had used or abused- claiming victory. In a sense, it was the arrogance of US policy-makers and their faith in neo-liberal economics that created the world we lived in on September 11, 2001.
Pax Americana
When George W. Bush announced his cabinet members, it was clear that the administration would follow a fairly predictable agenda. Most of his senior staff were members of a group of neoconservatives engaged in a foreign policy think tank called The Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
***PLEASE NOTE***
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has been disbanded, and all of these links are now dead.
There is currently a movement of denialists who attempt to denounce & discredit anyone who even mentions PNAC as some kind of "conspiracy theorist" and attempts to shut-down any argument that follows on that basis.
If you are interested in reading primary sources, you can search for them-- many have been reposted on separate websites.
PNAC was a legitimate neo-conservative think tank, and many prominent Republicans drafted letters & missives-- or at least signed them.
What follows is a non-"tinfoil hat" account of what that organization's objectives & concerns were, and a quick look at the members who "happened to be" also members of the Bush administration:
This group seemed fixated on punishing Iraq- most notably Saddam Hussein- and harshly criticized President Bill Clinton for not doing more to dispose of this madman and to control Iraq. They also put forth their theory that Iraq had been coordinating with terrorists in an article by Gary Schmitt in The Weekly Standard (a conservative political magazine edited by PNAC member William Kristol) in November 2000. Among other concerns were the objective of building a missile defense shield that was a direct violation of the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty, and establishing a period of peace relying on unquestioned American military superiority- Pax Americana.
They argued that the Cold War world was a bipolar world, where there were two superpowers keeping the world in line, but that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US government had the opportunity- nay, the duty- to create a unipolar power structure, with the US as the unchecked guardian of peace and the sole military superpower. They even went so far as to suggest that the only viable strategy was to also prevent any other government or coalition of governments to rise to a status that would threaten this position. In short, they were talking about an implicit American Empire that would more or less rule the world. You know, since Americans are the "good guys.""...the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor," (Thomas Donnelly, Rebuilding America's Defenses, Sept. 2000, pg. 51).
It added,
"A sensible plan would add $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually through the Future Years Defense Program; this would result in a defense “topline” increase of $75 billion to $100 billion over that period, a small percentage of the $700 billion onbudget surplus now projected for that same period. We believe that the new president should commit his administration to a plan to achieve that level of spending within four years." (Donnelly, pg. 75)
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| President Clinton had drawn down US Defense spending to around $250 billion. Members of The Project for the New American Century thought it was reckless to spend any less on defense than the entire rest of the world combined. |
For perspective, here is the United States' defense expenditure compared to the rest of the world:
The questions nobody seemed to ask, as the foreign policy of the nation was hijacked by neoconservative extremists, were:
1. Does the US have the right or the authority to preside over its own specific brand of "peace" or "freedom," anywhere in the world outside its own borders?
2. Does the US have the right or authority to dictate the terms of government or economic conditions in sovereign nations?
3. Does spending more money on the military actually translate to a state of peace? Or does it cause more opportunity for war?
4. Isn't it both Ethical and Rational to solve the problems that cause violence, rather than answering violence with more violence?
5. Does it advantage anyone to remain locked in a cycle of violence?
I believe that the members of the Bush administration manipulated Congress and the American public into this War on Terror and used 9/11 as a springboard to achieve their agenda.
Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq
When the Bush administration turned their sights on Iraq, they claimed that Saddam Hussein was collaborating with the terrorist group al-Qaeda, that he had weapons of mass destruction including chemical and biological weapons, that he was "very close" to building a nuclear weapon and that he was "an imminent threat to national security." None of the evidence turned out to be true. So why did the administration use these specific reasons to justify an invasion? Because Congress would only authorize (and fund) such an operation if all of these things were a concern.
Further, such funding & authorization was subject to review every 60-90 days under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which is why the Iraq invasion and occupation was never included in the Defense budget, and why Bush had to go before Congress and ask for money piecemeal- $60 billion here, $80 billion there.
The administration sought international approval and Secretary of State Colin Powell was sent to deliver a very misleading testimony to the United Nations. The UN was wholly unconvinced of Iraq's threat to the US and Kofi Annan (the UN Secretary General at the time), said in 2004 that the invasion, "...was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." The Bush administration ignored these allegations and proceeded with the operation even though the international community was against it.
Once again, Bush used threats of military force to influence and coerce the civilian population and the government of Iraq. Following the threats, the invasion began. It was an unprovoked act of aggression, employing violent acts dangerous to human life, property or infrastructure and appeared to be intended --
"(A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.” [ http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/terror.pdf ].
Reading between the lines, the message put forth by the US government appears to be, "It's not terrorism when we do it."
The entire way through, from conception to execution, Operation Iraqi Freedom was so poorly managed it's hard to believe it was merely due to incompetence:
1. All of the "reasons" for invading were false-- some were cherry picked, some delivered out-of-context, and some were intentionally fabricated.
2. The invasion began with "Shock and Awe," in which thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed- "collateral damage"- by US missiles aimed at about 1,000 military and infrastructure targets. Electricity and water systems were damaged. Seven years later, Iraqi civilians were still subject to complete power outages/rolling blackouts, lack of drinking water and waste management, a broken roadway & transit network, and limited access to medical care.
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| Bush delivered his "Mission Accomplished" speech on May 1, 2003, after landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier in his own fighter jet. |
3. There was no plan for occupation or for reconstruction, as administration officials believed the US would be welcomed as liberators and that Iraqi oil would fund the reconstruction. When US officials were sent to implement reconstruction, they were under-funded, under staffed, had a paucity of resources- including limited access to desks, chairs, phones, telephone directories, translators, and had revolving staff members that were frequently pulled out of Baghdad after six month stints, never to return. Some staff members were described as "fresh out of college" and had little to no experience. Most staff members spoke none of the local dialects. Their superiors- those making policy (most notably L. Paul Bremer "Governor of Iraq" under Bush, and a PNAC member)- did not speak the language, had little grasp of the culture and spent very little time in the country overall. Persons involved in the reconstruction effort said these factors crippled their potency and caused them to waste time and effort continually searching for new leadership contacts within the community.
4. There was no exit strategy.
6. The administration had little to no knowledge of or concern over the sectarian tensions that existed in Iraq, and thus, no plan for dealing with them.
7. Operations by US officials and private contractors (mercenaries AKA "private military contractors" and corporations) were notoriously under-managed and ran amok, typically running wildly over budget while delivering shoddy, substandard services. The activities of several such companies have been described as "fraudulent" and "criminal."
8. The Defense Department mismanaged funds and "lost" billions of dollars on several occasions.
9. US troop levels were insufficient to adequately secure Iraqi Army weapons and ammunition dumps, markets, museums and cultural centers, but not the oil fields.
10. The administration decided to "fire" the Iraqi Army in May 2003 and the Iraqi National Guard late in 2004, leaving over 250,000 angry men unemployed, but well armed.
11. Terrorists and insurgents from elsewhere began migrating to Iraq to engage the US military, as Bush had suggested. Iraq became an on-the-job training program for anti-American terrorists and militants.
12. Many of these factors contributed to an unconscionable amount of civilian casualties. There are no official accounts of how many, to date, as the Army claimed they "don't do body counts." Media outlets disagree on the specific amount of civilian casualties, but civilian deaths due to the conflict are known to be somewhere between 100,000 to 120,000. It depends on who you ask. Some surveys estimate as many as 500,000 civilian deaths. Most of those numbers are based on reports from Iraqi morgues and reports by international journalists. These figures do not include persons who died non-violent deaths that may be related to the invasion, such as lack of access to food, medical care or clean water. |
| Suicides outnumbered combat fatalities in 2010. US military suicides were at 30-year highs in '09 and'10. |
14. There is a high incidence of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) among American troops coming home from Iraq, and GI suicides have been at unprecedented rates for several years.
President Obama promised to bring the troops home and in December of 2011, after almost nine years of occupation he made good on that promise, beginning the withdrawal. However, he did intend to leave a small number of troops in place, but the Iraqi government "refused to grant American troops immunity from prosecution under local laws," so he withdrew all troops who were not assigned to the US Embassy security team.
Indefinite Detention
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| A deceased prisoner at Abu Ghraib, Iraq. |
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| Map of some secret prison facilities used by the CIA and other US government agencies |
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| Terrorism suspects at a military detention center. (No official explanation as to why their pants are pulled down) |
The law, inserted into a routine defense spending bill, has been cited by civil rights groups as being an unconstitutional attack on civil liberties. It would be an effective tool of oppression in the wrong hands, and like the Authorization for Use of Military Force, it has no specific expiration date. As careful read-through implies there is no requirement of military detention for US citizens or legal resident aliens, but it does not specifically prohibit military detention without trial for US citizens/legal resident aliens accused of terrorism. President Obama signed this into law on December 31, 2011, despite having serious reservations about Sec. 1021. Since a major campaign promise of Obama's was to close "Gitmo," the actual reasons for drafting this bill and the political maneuvering surrounding it may have had less to do specifically with the War on Terror than to inconvenience and discredit a president who was disliked by certain members of Congress.
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| Jose Padilla, a US citizen, was held in military custody as an "enemy combatant" for three and a half years. |
Drone Warfare
Given the problematic state of fighting global terrorism with ground troops or extradition treaties, the Obama administration has turned to using drone aircraft to assassinate individuals the President determines are involved in terrorist activity. Drone strikes have been used to eliminate targets in several countries. This is entirely of presidential discretion. No authorization from Congress is necessary.
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| A Predator drone fires a missile. |
Disturbingly, these drone aircraft are often piloted from within the US- bringing the battlefield home. Now, the bases from which these aircraft are piloted remotely are legitimate military targets. That means that the War on Terror is officially being waged from inside the United States.
While using drones may ensure the relative safety of our military personnel, these assassinations are still bombings that kill innocent bystanders and have been used to assassinate US citizens. Innocent bystanders and children are often killed along with suspected militants.
What do you think the response would be from the US government, if a nation sent drone aircraft into US airspace to perform a missile strike on their perceived enemies? What if that missile strike killed even one innocent civilian child? Why does the United States government believe the rules do not apply in their case?
Entrapment
The FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and several other government agencies have been using aggressive means to identify and apprehend terrorism suspects. Translation: entrapment. The FBI was involved in several counter-terrorism cases in which they approached persons who they identified as "radicals" or "extremists" undercover, and provided them with encouragement to commit acts of terrorism-- including supplying weapons and/or explosives, specific targets, and a plan for executing the attack. In the case of Amine El Khalifi, a 29 year-old Moroccan immigrant who was targeted by the entrapment program, the weapons and explosives provided had reportedly been "rendered harmless" by FBI agents.
"In the wake of 9/11, it no longer is enough for law enforcement officers to solve crimes after their commission. Investigative activity that preempts crimes, particularly terrorism in a post-9/11 world, has become commonplace. To help ensure a successful prosecution, law enforcement officers need to recognize the risks associated with proactive investigations and anticipate affirmative defenses, such as entrapment, as they initiate undercover operations. With proper planning and execution, law enforcement officers can use all available tools to prevent another terrorist attack and to help effectively overcome an entrapment defense."
- Avoiding the Entrapment Defense in a Post-9/11 World, By David J. Gottfried, J.D.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/january-2012/avoiding-the-entrapment-defense-in-a-post-9-11-world
Entrapment, aside from being an extremely unethical and illegal method in law enforcement, can also have other more terrible consequences. For example, the ATF implemented a program (created by the Obama administration's Justice Dept.) called "Fast and Furious" in which they supplied guns to weapons traffickers in Mexico using undercover agents posing as gun runners. Apparently the plan was to be able to keep track of the weapons and expose every step in the trafficking process to ATF agents who could then make arrests in connection to drug cartels. Unfortunately, the ATF lost the ability to track the guns-- many have been found to be related to miscellaneous cases-- and one turned up later as the murder weapon during the investigation of the death of a US Border Patrol agent.
What if the FBI, the JTTF or the Dept. of Homeland Security "loses" their terrorism suspect, whom they have incited, trained and armed? What if that person is able to pull off an attack?
A Never-Ending State of Emergency
The powers granted to the executive branch of the US government with which to engage the "emergency" of terrorism are broad and sweeping. These are powers that are marginally constitutional-- and are meant to be temporary. The very terms by which the US has conducted the War on Terror, paradoxically, imperils national security at every step. The result is that unless the United States chooses a more Ethical and Rational path, it cannot return to a state of peace.
There are several reasons why the War on Terror will never be over, much less ever be won:
1. Terrorism is a CRIME that is politically motivated. It is NOT an act of war. When terrorism occurs in a war zone (whether perpetrated by soldiers or other agents), it is a War Crime.
2. The US government picks and chooses which groups, agents and/or individuals are considered terrorists- depending on what government or agency is being attacked. More important than that, the United States itself has (and continues to be) engaged in activities which can be interpreted as acts of terrorism by an outside observer.
3. The US's attacks of aggression and disregard for the protection of innocents continues to manufacture terrorists and extremists all over the world, as well as within the United States.
This is a never-ending, un-winnable war, with no borders or boundaries; one that compromises both national security and the "inalienable rights" of US citizens. The War on Terror must be stopped at any cost.
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