Power, Secrecy and Control: Is That A Coup?

Something is going on here, but you don't know what it is, do you Mister Jones?

Nixon, Johnson, Carter, Kennedy, Clinton—all of these presidents swung back and forth between waving their power around and actually showing concern for people’s problems. They looked for remedies of domestic problems between bouts of penis-display.

Can’t say that about the Bush administration, though. I can’t remember a presidency so consistently hostile to people’s needs and national problems. The people running this country want to punish rather than help—even giving aid seems to be opposed to their belief systems.

Their drive is to consolidate their own political power, punish people who get in their way, and maintain secrecy. They know that knowledge is power; the way they see it, concealment means more and more power. The government is made up of mean and rigid people. Power-hungry people.

That’s why Bush is proposing the use of troops to quarantine areas where there are outbreaks of contagious diseases; why detainees have been disappeared into the catacombs of god-knows-where, why FEMA has eagerly employed private security outfits like Blackwell, why the plans are to turn New Orleans into a white-majority city, environmental protections are shoved aside, and so on until you feel like throwing up over the vindictiveness of it all. It’s all about control. By truly nasty people.

Some left of center groups have accused the Republicans of pulling off a coup. It’s certainly not like the one the neo-cons promoted in Chile, with overt displays of domestic military and police force, no. But there has been a steady gathering of power unto a small group of like-minded politicians and businessmen. The government reduces taxes for the rich and takes money from the poor in order to promote the military-industrial-security machine. There’s no doubt that the money sent to promote the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast will come from Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs. It certainly is not going to come from Military spending. The Military would overthrow the government if their precious budget was slashed.

Bush continues to push the neo-con agenda. Here’s some commentary about his latest attempt to ensure the dominance of Republican power for years to come:

Ted Rall:

'Night and fog revisited: Is Harriet Miers a closet sadist?'
Date: Wednesday, October 05 @ 10:05:37 EDT
Topic: Laws, the Courts and the Legal System

By Ted Rall, Yahoo

Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, supreme chief of the German armed forces, explained the thinking behind the Nazis' "Night and Fog" (the term comes from Goethe) decree: "Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved...by measures by which the relatives of the criminals do not know the fate of the criminals...These measures will have a deterrent effect because the prisoners will vanish without a trace and no information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate."

Anyone who doubts the extravagant pain of not knowing what happened to a loved one should talk to Natalee Holloway's parents.

Night and Fog came to the United States when federal agencies built and filled a global, ad hoc network of prisons and concentration camps during the months following 9/11, and began filling it with Muslims of varying status. Officials promising to update lapsed visas lured foreign-born residents to immigration offices and arrested them when they showed up. Captured Taliban soldiers, stripped of their rights under the Geneva Conventions, were thrown together with civilian shopkeepers sold by local warlords for bounties to the CIA in Afghanistan, to whom were added anti-communist rebels from China and democracy activists from Pakistan. Some were shipped to Cuba, where many were tortured, some to death. Others were delivered for "extraordinary rendition" via covert CIA jets to countries reputed for their pain-inflicting expertise, including Syria, Yemen and Uzbekistan. No one knows what happened to them.



Four years after 9/11, the U.S. government still refuses to release information about the disappeared. We do not know how many there are, where they are being held, how many are dead and alive, or even their names. The vanished have access to neither their families nor legal representation. They cannot send or receive mail or packages. Because there was no evidence against them, none have been charged with a crime. But catching terrorists was never the purpose of America's new Night and Fog policy. The goal was to instill fear, particularly among Muslims. It has also worked with other "enemies of the state": since 9/11, "See you in Gitmo" has become a standard joke among activists on the left.

The legal cover for the Bush Administration's updating of Night and Fog comes courtesy of then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, since promoted to attorney general. In his January 22, 2002 memo, for example, Gonzales repeatedly twisted the facts in order to obtain the result Bush desired.

Gonzales' contradictory linguistic contortions, here to argue that the Taliban were not covered by Geneva and could thus be vanished into thin air because they were not a viable government, would be comical if not for the man's chilling willingness to suspend intellectual honesty along with fundamental human rights: "It is unclear whether the Taliban militia ever fully controlled most of the territory of Afghanistan. At the time the United States air strikes began, at least ten percent of the country, and the population within those areas, was governed by the Northern Alliance."

Since when does 90 percent, or nearly 90 percent, fail to qualify as "most"?

Harriet Miers, Bush's nominee to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, replaced Gonzales in November 2004. Has she ever questioned Gonzales' extreme and bizarre legal opinions justifying the torture, indefinite detention and disappearing of countless innocent people? We don't know. Her legal opinions have yet to be released and Senate Republicans, in keeping with the Bush Administration's obsession with keeping the people's business secret from the people, say they'll fight to keep them shrouded by the night and fog.

We know that Miers has chosen not to issue a full-fledged rebuttal of Gonzales' disappear-'em-and-torture-'em philosophy, which remains in full force at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantánamo, Camp Mercury and other giant memory holes. Reports continue to emerge, most recently from a former Muslim chaplain at Gitmo, that top officials encourage soldiers to abuse inmates.

This comes as little surprise, given that Miers' reluctance to rock the boat appears to be more highly developed than the average striver. "In [a] White House that hero-worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met," right-winger David Frum writes in the National Review.

Senate Democrats and patriotic Republicans should insist on a full review of Miers' advice to Bush on torture and disappearances before voting on confirmation to the Supreme Court. No one who agrees with Alberto Gonzales' monstrous contempt for human rights ought to be elevated to such a powerful post--even if her consent is expressed through tacit silence.

Reprinted from Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20051005/cm_ucru/nightandfogrevisited


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