Pre-emptive military actions are illegal under international law. The
new strategy immediately threatens Iraq; a 250,000 troop invasion plan
was recently revealed. It likewise threatens Iran, North Korea, Syria,
Libya and Cuba labeled by Washington as an “Axis of Evil.”
Bush has stated that the U.S. might intervene in as many as 60 countries
that supposedly “harbor terrorists.”
Richard Haass, Director of Policy Planning for the State Department,
justified these new interventions, asserting that targeted states “forfeit
the normal advantages of sovereignty, including the right to be left alone
inside your own territory. Other governments, including the United States,
gain the right to intervene.”
Washington is, of course, no stranger to military intervention. A short
list of victims includes Vietnam, Grenada, Chile, Haiti and the Congo
among others. More recently, the U.S. played an active role in the failed
coup against democratically elected President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
NO RESPECT FOR FREE ELECTIONS
And on June 24, Bush demanded the removal of Yasir Arafat as head of the
Palestinian Interim Government as a condition for supporting peace talks
with Israel. Arafat was elected by 88.1 percent of Palestinian voters
in a 1996 election that was certified as “open and fair” by
international observers, including former President Jimmy Carter.
It seems Bush will only respect free elections and the will of the people
in other countries if he personally approves of their choices—despite
the cloud hanging over his own election.
The administration has also intensified the “war at home.”
To divert attention from its pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures, Washington
has sounded almost daily warnings of supposed new terrorist threats against
the U.S. since late May.
The White House’s main concern is the prospect of congressional
investigations—and even more threatening, a possible independent
investigation—into what TIME magazine called “the biggest
intelligence failure in the history of the Republic.”
One leading Republican, Sen. Arlen Spector (Penn.), declared: “I
think they had a virtual blueprint [of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks]
and we want to know why they didn’t act on it.”
To divert attention from these developments, but also in keeping with
Bush’s broader agenda, the administration struck back. The first
move was the June 5 announcement of a Cabinet level Department of Homeland
Security. This department would significantly weaken the Constitution’s
carefully structured balance of powers, shifting much of it to the executive
branch.
The executive would acquire unprecedented authority to override existing
prohibitions on government abuses of power. Yet the FBI and CIA, those
most directly responsible for the intelligence failures, would hardly
be affected.
Then, on June 10, the first day of congressional hearings into Washington’s
intelligence failures, the administration once again tried to steal the
headlines. The Justice Department announced that it had broken up a terrorist
plot to explode a radioactive “dirty” bomb in the U.S. The
supposed perpetrator was a Brooklyn-born U.S. citizen, Jose Padilla, who
had changed his name to Abdullah al-Muhajir when he converted to Islam.
But with no evidence that a bombing was imminent and with al-Muhajir in
custody since May 8, the timing of the announcement seemed to be one more
diversionary scare tactic by the Bush administration. Worse, the government
has designated al-Muhajir an “enemy combatant.” Under this
category he is being held in custody indefinitely without being charged
and without access to a lawyer. This dangerous precedent can now be invoked
against any U.S. citizen. (See “Will a Dirty Bomb Kill Civil Rights”)
NEW WORLD ORDER
Clearly Bush is trying to make good on his promise of permanent war. Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asserted that the “Global War on Terrorism,
will not end until terrorist networks have been rooted out from wherever
they exist; and it will not end until state sponsors of terror are made
to understand that abetting terrorism is unacceptable and will have deadly
consequences for the regimes that do so.”
What is the real objective of this perpetual war?
“The goal,” says Haass, “should be to persuade the other
major powers to sign on to certain key ideas as to how the world should
operate.” The increasingly clear perspective of the Bush administration
is a program enabling and justifying U.S. military and economic intervention
anywhere in the world where U.S. interests are deemed “threatened.”
Bush has set out to do what his father couldn’t—establish
a New World Order led by the U.S.
Irwin Silber is a veteran journalist-activist.
