The Globalization of State Terror
by Mike Whitney
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 28, 2005



 

“This is not an isolated criminal act we are dealing with; it is an extreme and evil ideology whose roots lie in a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of the religion of Islam.”

-- UK Prime Minister Tony Blair

The “evil ideology” that underscores the war on terror is predicated on two basic theories: preemption and enemy combatants. Both of these run counter to fundamental principles of human rights and democratic governance. Both must be met head on and defeated. There is no wiggle room for equivocating or appeasement; this ideology is the greatest manifestation of fanaticism in the world since the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and must be collectively challenged. As Tony Blair says, “This is not an isolated criminal act” but “an extreme and evil ideology” thrusting us towards global war and ever-increasing human rights abuse.

The preemptive doctrine overturns the conclusions of the Nuremburg Tribunals that “War is the Supreme Crime” from which all the lesser crimes naturally flow. It elevates war to a viable form of foreign policy; an acceptable means of establishing one state’s superiority over another. In the case of Iraq, where the theory was applied with the most appalling results, it has been exposed as a cruel facsimile of unprovoked aggression against a defenseless enemy. The horrific after effects have been the destruction of Iraqi society, the death of over 100,000 civilians and an enduring conflict with no end in sight. These are the predictable consequences of a pernicious theory that glorifies force above all else.

The principle at the heart of “enemy combatants” is no less sinister than that of preemption. The theory presupposes that there is a category of men that are intrinsically undeserving of any human rights whatsoever. “Enemy combatants” is not intended to selectively deprive people of particular rights, it is a blanket indictment of anyone the president arbitrarily chooses to name, stripping them of their civil liberties without any legal recourse. It overturns every meaningful precedent of international law and American jurisprudence.  Due process, habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence are all rescinded by executive edict. “Enemy combatants” is the language of tyrants; it represents the dénouement of the rule of law and the birth of the imperial presidency.

We have no choice but to categorically reject both these theories as a direct assault on the constitutional system, representative government and the inalienable rights of man.

It is clear now that the neocons, in their rise to power, developed a strategy to eliminate the obstacles in their path. They wisely narrowed their focus to three main areas where they anticipated the most resistance: civil liberties, congressional approval of war and the checks on presidential power. The monikers of “enemy combatant” and preemption, minted in neo-fascist think tanks, have concealed the real objectives of their creators behind modern sounding jargon. The goals, however, remain the same: declaration of a permanent state of war and the supremacy of the president.

That’s where we are now: the world tilting further and further to the right and the litany of horrors growing by the day. Torture and indefinite detention have become staples of the new foreign policy regime, compromising America’s prestige in the world and eroding the nation’s moral authority.

“Usable nukes” are now an integral part of the Pentagon’s forward-defense strategy making the Bush administration the first country to claim a “first strike” policy if US national interests are at stake. This makes the US the most dangerous nation in the world, brandishing its high-tech weaponry at third world countries and threatening to attack if they fail to comply with Washington’s directives.

The expression of Bush’s maligned vision is now evident everywhere: from the gun-towers over Guantanamo, to the concertina wire surrounding Falluja, to the cement abutments enclosing the White House. The rising wave of militarism has been accompanied by an equal and opposite retreat in civil liberties and personal freedom. The full force of the economic-political-military establishment is bearing down on the institutions that preserved the peace for the last 60 years. The old order is crumbling and being replaced by a system that accepts no rule except the absolute authority of the executive.

Ideas are the fuel that powers the engine of history. The radical ideology that animates the Bush regime is a force as real as the laser-guided munitions that pummeled Baghdad. They may be obscured by the vile fictions of the media, but their deadly meaning is not hard to grasp. They represent the greatest danger the world has ever seen: the globalization of state terror.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.

Other Articles by Mike Whitney

* “Withdrawal” from Iraq?: Forget About It  
* Tom Friedman: Fabricating the Roots of Terror
* Doomsday: The Final Months of the “Housing Bubble”
* John Roberts and the National Security State
* Guantanamo: the Calculus of Human Misery
* Did Greenspan Know About the London Bombings Two Days Before?
* Another Casualty in Rumsfeld’s Information War
* Genesis of an American Gestapo
* Bush's Orgy of Carnage
* Goodbye to Sandra Day O’ Connor . . . and Good Riddance
* The Rumsfeld Solution: “Liberating Iraq, One Journalist at a Time”
* Show Your Independence on the 4th -- Burn a Flag
* "Up in Smoke": Bush Flops in Prime Time
* More Rumsfeld Lies About Insurgent Meetings
* Incinerating Iraqis: The Napalm Cover-Up
* Guantanamo: The New-World Icon
* The Bush Radio Address: More Delusional Blather While Iraq Bleeds
* The Friedman Solution: Reinstate the Draft
* Body Slamming the 4th Amendment
* Operation Desperation: Rumsfeld’s Baghdad Fiasco
* The EU Constitution: Don’t Believe the BS
* Protecting the Plutocrats
* What Was Laura Bush Doing at the Al Aqsa Mosque?
* Free Jose Padilla!
* Alberto Gonzales’ Kristallnacht: Purges for a Safer America
* Tom Friedman: The Imperial Chronicler
* Gods, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw
* A Tentative Strategy for Ending the War
* The Specter of Violence in America
* Free Speech in the Crosshairs
* Why America Needs to be Defeated in Iraq
* More Madness at the Bush News Conference
* Ratzinger’s Plan to Hide the Pedophiles
* Let’s Let Atheists Back into Politics
* Pope Ratzinger: More “Pie-in-the-Sky” for the Struggling Masses
* The Purveyors of Violence: The NY Times in Falluja
* Screw You, Paul Volker!
* Pope TV and the New World Media
* The Economic Tsunami: Sooner Than You Think
* Destroy Abu Ghraib!
* Terri Schiavo and the Battered Judiciary
* Railroading Moussaoui
* The Wolfowitz Appointment: A Red Flag for the Coming Wars
* “Economic Meltdown” -- Sorry, but We’re Toast
* John Bolton and the Road to Tehran
* Clearing the Way for the American Police State
* Challenging the Language of Violence
* Jose Padilla and the 10 Commandments
* Crushing the UN for a Stronger America
* Europe to Bush: “Hands Off Iran”?
* The Incredible Shrinking Dollar
* Assassinating Al-Hariri Fits Washington’s Plan
* Washington’s Plan to Foment Civil War in Iraq
* Condi’s Euro-Tour
* Folksy Tom Friedman and New Age Imperialism
* Government Without Consent
* The Desperate State of the Union
* Iraq’s Election Fiasco
* Boarding Up the “Window of Opportunity”
* KGB Chieftain Finds Home at Homeland Security
* Bush’s Grand Plan: Incite Civil War
* Pink Slips at CBS

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