Obama's Af-Pak War is Illegal

President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize nine days after he announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. His escalation of that war is not what the Nobel committee envisioned when it sought to encourage him to make peace, not war.

In 1945, in the wake of two wars that claimed millions of lives, the nations of the world created the United Nations system to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The UN Charter is based on the principles of international peace and security as well as the protection of human rights. But the United States, one of the founding members of the UN, has often flouted the commands of the charter, which is part of US law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

Although the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was as illegal as the invasion of Iraq, many Americans saw it as a justifiable response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The cover of Time magazine called it "The Right War." Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war but escalating the war in Afghanistan. But a majority of Americans now oppose that war as well.

The UN Charter provides that all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the council passed two resolutions, neither of which authorized the use of military force in Afghanistan.

“Operation Enduring Freedom” was not legitimate self-defense under the charter because the 9/11 attacks were crimes against humanity, not “armed attacks” by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers hailed from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after 9/11, or President Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the UN General Assembly.

Bush's justification for attacking Afghanistan was that it was harboring Osama bin Laden and training terrorists, even though bin Laden did not claim responsibility for the 9/11 attacks until 2004. After Bush demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden to the United States, the Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan said his government wanted proof that bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks before deciding whether to extradite him, according to the Washington Post. That proof was not forthcoming, the Taliban did not deliver bin Laden, and Bush began bombing Afghanistan.

Bush’s rationale for attacking Afghanistan was spurious. Iranians could have made the same argument to attack the United States after they overthrew the vicious Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and the U.S. gave him safe haven. If the new Iranian government had demanded that the U.S. turn over the Shah and we refused, would it have been lawful for Iran to invade the United States? Of course not.

When he announced his troop “surge” in Afghanistan, Obama invoked the 9/11 attacks. By continuing and escalating Bush’s war in Afghanistan, Obama, too, is violating the UN Charter. In his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama declared that he has the "right" to wage wars "unilaterally.” The unilateral use of military force, however, is illegal unless undertaken in self-defense.

Those who conspired to hijack airplanes and kill thousands of people on 9/11 are guilty of crimes against humanity. They must be identified and brought to justice in accordance with the law. But retaliation by invading Afghanistan was not the answer. It has lead to growing U.S. and Afghan casualties, and has incurred even more hatred against the United States.

Conspicuously absent from the national discourse is a political analysis of why the tragedy of 9/11 occurred. We need to have that debate and construct a comprehensive strategy to overhaul U.S. foreign policy to inoculate us from the wrath of those who despise American imperialism. The "global war on terror" has been uncritically accepted by most in this country. But terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. One cannot declare war on a tactic. The way to combat terrorism is by identifying and targeting its root causes, including poverty, lack of education, and foreign occupation.

In his declaration that he would send 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Obama made scant reference to Pakistan. But his CIA has used more unmanned Predator drones against Pakistan than Bush. There are estimates that these robots have killed several hundred civilians. Most Pakistanis oppose them. A Gallup poll conducted in Pakistan last summer found 67% opposed and only 9% in favor. Notably, a majority of Pakistanis ranked the United States as a greater threat to Pakistan than the Taliban or Pakistan’s arch-rival India.

Many countries use drones for surveillance, but only the United States and Israel have used them for strikes. Scott Shane wrote in the New York Times, “For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for targeted killings in a country where the United States is not officially at war.”

The use of these drones in Pakistan violates both the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit willful killing. Targeted or political assassinations—sometimes called extrajudicial executions—are carried out by order of, or with the acquiescence of, a government, outside any judicial framework. As a 1998 report from the UN Special Rapporteur noted, “extrajudicial executions can never be justified under any circumstances, not even in time of war.” Willful killing is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, punishable as a war crime under the U.S. War Crimes Act. Extrajudicial executions also violate a longstanding U.S. policy. In the 1970s, after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence disclosed that the CIA had been involved in several murders or attempted murders of foreign leaders, President Gerald Ford issued an executive order banning assassinations. Although there have been exceptions to this policy, every succeeding president until George W. Bush reaffirmed that order.

Obama is trying to make up for his withdrawal from Iraq by escalating the war on Afghanistan. He is acting like Lyndon Johnson, who rejected Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s admonition about Vietnam because LBJ was “more afraid of the right than the left,” McNamara said in a 2007 interview with Bob Woodward published in the Washington Post.

Approximately 30% of all U.S. deaths in Afghanistan have occurred during Obama’s presidency. The cost of the war, including the 30,000 new troops he just ordered, will be about $100 billion a year. That money could better be used for building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and creating jobs and funding health care in the United States.

Many congressional Democrats are uncomfortable with Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. We must encourage them to hold firm and refuse to fund this war. And the left needs to organize and demonstrate to Obama that we are a force with which he must contend.

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Fighting Terror Selectively: Washington and Posada

Since the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration has made the "war on terror" the centerpiece of its domestic and foreign policy. Bush cries terror where there is none - as he did in Iraq and in the communications of ordinary Americans. Meanwhile, he protects the real terrorists in our midst.

Luis Posada Carriles is a Cuban-born terrorist who has accurately been called the Osama bin Laden of the Western hemisphere. He boasted of helping to detonate deadly bombs in Havana hotels 10 years ago. Declassified FBI and CIA documents at the National Security Archive reveal that Posada was the mastermind of a 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban airplane that killed 73 people. He escaped from a Venezuelan prison where he was being tried for his role in the first in-air bombing of a commercial airliner. Posada then played a central role in the illegal Iran-Contra scandal.

Posada entered the United States in March 2005 using false papers and was charged in El Paso with lying to Immigration and Customs officials. FBI agent Thomas Rice swore in a June 2005 affidavit that "the FBI is unable to rule out the possibility that Posada Carriles poses a threat to the national security of the United States." Yet on April 19, 2007 Posada was released on bail despite being a flight risk.

This stranger-than-fiction story has a logical explanation. Posada has a long history of ties to the U.S. government. He became a CIA agent in 1961. The U.S. government claims his CIA service ended in 1976. But on April 30, Posada filed a motion in federal court declaring that he continued to work for the CIA for more than 25 years. That puts him on the CIA's payroll when he engineered the terrorist airline bombing. In his motion, Posada asserted the right to present evidence of his CIA work as a defense to the perjury charges. The specter of Posada revealing the dirty deeds committed by the CIA when George H.W. Bush was CIA director was intolerable to Washington.

The government was caught between a rock and a hard place. There had been pressure to try Posada for his terrorist crimes, as required by Security Council resolution 1373 and three international treaties. Resolution 1373, passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, mandates that all countries deny safe haven to those who commit terrorist acts, and ensure that they are brought to justice. These provisions of resolution 1373 are mandatory, as they were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The treaties require the United States to extradite Posada to Venezuela for trial or try him in U.S. courts for offenses committed abroad. The Department of Justice elected instead to charge him with perjury for lying about how he entered the United States in 2005.

But the government could not take the risk that Posada might sing like a canary. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone dismissed all charges against Posada. In her ruling, Cardone wrote that "the Government engaged in fraud, deceit, and trickery" by using a "routine" immigration interview to investigate possible criminal charges against Posada. But questions about Posada's prior criminal conduct were relevant to the moral character determination at the immigration interview. Posada is not a "routine" guy and his lawyer was present throughout the interview to protect him against self-incrimination. Cardone found the government's tactics "grossly shocking and so outrageous as to violate the universal sense of justice." She then disingenuously claimed, "This Court's concern is not politics; it is the preservation of justice."

It is shocking and outrageous that Luis Posada Carriles, whose crimes rival those of al Qaeda, is now walking free in Miami. And Cardone's decision is deeply political.

Rep. William Delahunt has called for a congressional hearing to examine the U.S. government's role in promoting impunity in the Posada case. Delahunt sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales requesting an explanation as to why the Justice Department did not invoke the USA Patriot Act to declare Posada a terrorist and detain him, stating, "The release of Mr. Posada puts into question our commitment to fight terrorism."

That commitment is also belied by the way Washington has dealt with the Cuban Five. These men peacefully infiltrated criminal exile groups in Miami to prevent terrorism against Cuba. The Five turned over the results of their investigation to the FBI. But instead of working with Cuba to fight terrorism, the U.S. government arrested the five Cubans and tried and convicted them of conspiracy-related offenses. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta reversed their convictions, finding they could not receive a fair trial in Miami. In August 2006, a majority of the full circuit rejected the earlier ruling and sent the matter back to the panel where further appeals are pending. The U.S. media has been irresponsibly silent on the case of the Cuban Five and the irregularities of the trial.

The Los Angeles Times, however, showed singular insight on April 20 when it said the release of Posada "exposed Washington to legitimate charges of hypocrisy in the war on terror." The editorial criticized the U.S. for holding men at Guantánamo without due process while releasing Posada. "The U.S. government has done many odd things in 46 years of a largely failed Cuba policy," the Times said, "but letting a notorious terrorist walk stands among the most perverse yet."

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Bush's Enemy du Jour

On television broadcasts, the word "Hezbollah" is seldom mentioned in a sentence unaccompanied by the word "terrorist." Commentators speculate about whether al Qaida or Hezbollah is a worse threat to the United States. Richard L. Armitage, deputy secretary of state during Bush's first term, has said Hezbollah might be "the A-team of terrorists," and that "Al Qaida is actually the B-team." Former CIA agent Robert Baer admits there is no evidence Hezbollah is operating in the United States, but in response to questioning by a Fox News anchor, speculates that Hezbollah "could" attack on U.S. soil.

Hezbollah is George W. Bush's enemy du jour. Although suspected of complicity in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet, Hezbollah denies ever attacking anyone outside of Lebanon and Israel. The group, which comprises the Shiite brand of Islam, doesn't even attack other sects inside Lebanon. Its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah claims Hezbollah is "like Jesus," citing the group's 2000 action in Lebanon, where Hezbollah did not take vengeance within Lebanon.

There is overwhelming support for Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to a poll by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hezbollah's fight with Israel. The level of support for Hezbollah is high among non-Shiite communities; 80 percent of Christians, 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis polled support Hezbollah.

These numbers are likely to rise in the wake of Israel's bombing of Qana yesterday, which killed over 60 civilians, mostly children. Thousands in the Middle East have taken to the streets, outraged at the carnage.

Unlike Osama bin Laden, who targets pro-Western Arab countries, Nasrallah tells Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to just stay neutral in this conflict. In a televised speech on Saturday, Nasrallah said, "The Israelis are ready to halt aggression because they are afraid of the unknown. The one pushing for the continuation of the aggression is the U.S. administration. Israel has been exposed as a slave of the U.S."

Noam Chomsky says we should always call it the "American-Israeli destruction of Lebanon." Although he thinks Israel started with proportional force as in the past, the United States began pushing its one-sided view of the conflict at the G-8 summit. Bush reportedly told Israel: "You can't stop now; you're acting for all of us."

That was a green light for Israel, acting on orders from the United States. If not, why is so much attention focused on Condoleezza Rice's every move? Because her boss is in charge of this war.

While the rest of the world calls for an immediate ceasefire, Bush-Rice's excuses just don't wash. They blame Iran and Syria. They say they want a "sustainable" ceasefire to build "a New Middle East."

Bush started his dangerous folly in another Middle Eastern country; the former "central war on terror:" Iraq. Bush has created such a disaster there that many Iraqis who hated Saddam Hussein wish he were still in power.

According to a United Nations report, 14,338 civilians died violently in Iraq in the first six months of this year. That tally is based on figures from the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Baghdad's central morgue. An average of more than 100 Iraqi civilians were killed per day last month, the U.N. reported. The overwhelming majority of the casualties in recent months took place in Baghdad. The report said, "Civilians are reported to be severely affected by heavy MNF (Multi-National Force) bombing."

Samuel W. Bodman, the U.S. energy secretary, must've had his rosy-colored glasses on when he recently met with Iraq's oil and electricity ministers in Baghdad. "The situation seems far more stable than when I was here two or three years ago. The security seems better, people are more relaxed. There is an optimism, at least among the people I talked to," he said cheerfully. Of course, Bodman gave his interview from the heavily fortified Green Zone, the only place in Iraq other than the Kurdish north that has any security at all.

"Killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread" in Iraq, according to the U.N. report. "In some Baghdad neighborhoods, women are now prevented from going to the markets alone," the report says. Attorney Nadia Keilani told an audience at a recent San Diego teach-in that if a woman leaves her house with her head uncovered, she is often stopped and her head shaved as a warning. The next time, she is beheaded.

Keilani's 26-year-old cousin leaves her home in Iraq only three times a month. She spends her days looking through a peephole. "She is a prisoner in her own home," Keilani said. Homosexuals are "increasingly threatened and extra-judicially executed by militias and 'death squads' because of their sexual orientation," the U.N. reported.

"Attacks against teachers, university professors and students, as well as extremists inside universities, resulted in numerous deaths and an increasing number of academics and intellectuals leaving the country," the U.N. found. Eighty-four percent of the colleges have been destroyed, Keilani noted. Kidnappings proliferate, according to the U.N. Many hostages are killed even after the ransom is paid.

The "extent of the violence in areas" other than the Kurdish region "is such that likely every child, to some degree, has been exposed to it," the U.N. report says. Yesterday's New York Times reported: "Iraq's anemic investigative agencies have been ill-equipped to keep up with soaring crime, so for families seeking information, the morgues have often provided the only certainty."

Yet people who go to the morgue to retrieve their loves ones are often kidnapped and killed if their identity card says Sunni instead of Shiite. Things are going so badly in Iraq that the tours of 4,000 U.S. soldiers who had been slated to leave have been extended for up to four months.

Iraq's leaders elected under occupation with Bush's blessing are refusing to toe the line. Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, called the U.S. invasion of Iraq "the work of butchers." He said the U.S. government wanted Iraq "to stay under the American boot."

"Leave us to solve our problems," al-Mashhadani declared. "We don't need an agenda from outside."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is caught between Iraq and the Bush place. At a Washington news conference last week, al-Maliki criticized Israel's air strikes in Lebanon and urged an immediate ceasefire "to stop the killing and the destruction."

A resolution of the Iraqi Parliament had called Israel's attacks "criminal aggression." In an attempt to appear more pro-Israel than the Republicans, 20 congressional Democrats called for the cancellation of al-Maliki's address to a joint session of Congress because he wouldn't condemn Hezbollah.

Al-Maliki addressed Congress as planned, but forgot to mention the war on Lebanon for some reason. An influential Iraqi Shiite cleric, Sheik Aws Khafaji, called al-Maliki's visit to Washington a betrayal of Islam and a humiliation to the Iraqi people. "What forced you to eat with the occupiers?" Khafaji asked. "Is that your reward? You know more than anybody else that the car bombings, terrorism, explosions and bloodletting in Iraq are under the protection of the Zionist-American plans."

This morning, Bush said "the status quo in the Middle East" led to the 9/11 deaths. He's right, but for the wrong reasons. It was not Iraq, Hezbollah, Iran or Syria that perpetrated the September 11 attacks. It was al Qaida. What was Osama bin Laden so upset about? U.S.-U.N. sanctions against the people of Iraq, U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia, and U.S.-Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

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The Hayden Charade

In his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, General Michael Hayden promised to promote autonomy and objectivity in the CIA if confirmed as its new director. Hayden assured the senators he would provide "hard-edged assessments" and be tolerant of dissenting views on intelligence matters. "When it comes to speaking truth to power," Hayden declared, "I will lead CIA analysts by example. I will … always give our nation's leaders the best analytic judgment."

The evidence, however, suggests precisely the opposite. As head of the National Security Agency, this 4-star general walked in lockstep with his commander in chief, George W. Bush. Hayden helped designed the illegal program of spying on our telephone calls and emails and then repeatedly defended it when interrogated by the senators at his hearing, citing "legal" opinions of Bush's hired guns in the Justice Department.

Rather than providing the White House with a neutral assessment of Iran's nuclear capabilities, we can expect Hayden to give Bush the "intelligence" the president seeks to justify his war on Iran. Things did not run as smoothly as Bush would have wished under the last two CIA directors. He had to dispatch Dick Cheney to the CIA several times to furnish the "intelligence" he needed to rationalize his war on Iraq.

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) asked Hayden if he was "comfortable" with under secretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith's personal
intelligence-analysis cell, which hyped a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Hayden said he wasn't comfortable with it and protested that he wasn't aware of a lot of the activity going on leading up to the Iraq war.

But when questioned about Colin Powell's use of false WMD information to support his infamous appearance before the United Nations in the run-up the war, Hayden made a telling admission.

In response to Levin's question about the legal standard for declassifying information in the public interest, Hayden said, "We used that in Powell's speech. George [Tenet] had to call me for three tapes." Hayden was right in the middle of the preparation for Powell's disingenuous presentation.

Hayden, who will be the third director of the CIA in two years, will salute and march to Bush's agenda. The nation's chief spook will shape the "intelligence" to fit Bush's policy of regime change in Iran.

Hayden vowed to "reaffirm CIA's proud culture of risk-taking and excellence." Not one of the senators, from either party, interrogated Hayden about the CIA's checkered past.

There was no mention of the CIA's 1953 coup that ousted Iran's democratically-elected president Mohammed Mosadeq and replaced him with the US-friendly tyrant, the Shah Reza Pahlavi. The 1979 Iranian revolution lead to the overthrow of the Shah's regime and the rise of Islamic fascism under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini, providing a model of theocracy for much of the Muslim world.

Absent was any reference in the hearing to the CIA's support for Osama bin Laden in his fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The defeat of the USSR there, and the rise of the Mujahedin, enabled the Taliban to come to power. Then, Bin Laden used his CIA training to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks.

Today we are reaping what the CIA sowed in Iran and Afghanistan.

None of the senators asked Hayden about the CIA's torture manuals, which have been utilized by myriad Latin American dictators to repress their people.

Much of the CIA's risk-taking is nothing to be proud of. There is no indication that Hayden will bring new integrity to the CIA.

Hayden's defense of the NSA's warrantless surveillance program was incredible. When questioned about the Fourth Amendment's standard for searches and seizures, Hayden assured the senators that he had consulted with his relatives who are in law school for legal advice.

The Fourth Amendment says the people shall be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause. For more than a century, the Supreme Court has held that in order to be reasonable, a search or seizure must be supported by a search warrant based on probable cause and issued by a judge. Only when certain narrowly-defined exceptions apply can the government dispense with a warrant.

Hayden and his law student relatives have reversed that presumption. He told the senators that only reasonableness, not a warrant, is necessary to intercept our private communications. Hayden said the NSA uses a probable cause standard. But the Supreme Court has consistently declared that a judge must determine whether probable cause exists.

When confronted with USA Today's report that the NSA is collecting data on tens of millions of Americans, monitoring the calls we make and receive, Hayden refused to confirm or deny it.

Two of the long-distance companies named in that article, Verizon Communications and BellSouth, both facing lawsuits for invasion of privacy, have denied giving the government these records. AT&T has refused comment.

Interestingly, Bush issued an executive order on May 5 that allows Director of Intelligence John Negroponte - Michael Hayden's boss - to authorize a company to conceal activities related to "national security." Thus, we cannot trust the denials by Verizon and BellSouth.

Like Bush's warrantless eavesdropping on calls where one party is abroad, the NSA's massive data collection is illegal.

Both of these programs violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which clearly requires a warrant issued by a FISA court judge.

It is illegal for the NSA to collect phone numbers from phone companies unless the FISA court authorizes it.

Telephone records that show what numbers have called a specific telephone are captured by a "trap and trace" device. A "pen register" shows what number a specific telephone has called.

The law on pen registers and trap and trace devices requires that a court order be obtained either under FISA or Title III, the criminal wiretap law.

In order to intercept communications, the NSA would have to demonstrate to the court that the person whose calls are being targeted is an agent of a foreign power or that the information is relevant to an ongoing terrorism investigation.

The Patriot Act allows the FBI to use a national security letter - a kind of administrative subpoena - to obtain these records. But Congress specifically withheld this subpoena power from the NSA, which must convince the FISA court that the information is relevant.

There is no evidence that NSA has obtained court orders before obtaining the phone records of millions of Americans.

There is evidence, however, that the FBI is using national security letters to go after journalists critical of the administration. Brian Ross from ABC News told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! that the government's methods are changing the way he operates. It makes his work "very, very difficult," he said. "And, you know, you sort of have to start thinking, I guess, like some sort of Mafia capo," Ross noted. "You make your phone calls with bags of quarters at pay phones, if you can find them anymore. It's chilling to say the least." So much for a free press.

Last year, the FBI issued a total of 9,254 national security letters, targeting 3,500 citizens and legal residents.

In October 2002, while serving as NSA director, Hayden misled Congress about the extent of the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told Hayden at the hearing, "I now have a difficult time with your credibility."

Earlier this year, Hayden made more misleading statements in an appearance before the National Press Club. He said, "The intrusion into privacy is also limited: only international calls." In fact, the NSA is collecting data on millions of purely domestic calls.

Hayden ducked several questions, deferring his answers to the closed session that followed the public hearing on Thursday. Senators who hear his secret testimony are forbidden to publicize it. Hayden refused to publicly answer seven questions posed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) about whether the NSA has sought FISA warrants for pen register and trap and trace devices; whether terror suspects in secret CIA prisons are likely to remain incommunicado until the war on terror ends; whether there is periodic review of what useful intelligence can be gathered by interrogations of terrorists held for years with no contact with Al Qaeda; whether "water boarding," recently classified as torture by the UN, is acceptable; whether the CIA will obey laws and treaties in light of the Detainee Treatment Act; whether Hayden agreed with the CIA inspector general's conclusion that certain interrogation techniques constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment prohibited by the Convention Against Torture; whether Hayden agreed with estimates that Iran is some years away from nuclear weapons capability; and whether the CIA has received new guidance from the Justice Department about acceptable interrogation techniques since the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act.

Although Hayden pledged objectivity in his opening statement, he let slip his real intention under questioning by Levin. Hayden said the war on terror "is fundamentally a war of ideas. And we have to skew our intelligence to support the other elements of national power as well." Hayden admitted he will skew the intelligence to fit Bush's agenda.

During the hearing, Wyden nailed it. He asked Hayden, "Where is the independent check, General, the independent check that can be verified on these programs that the newspapers are reporting on?"

James Madison wrote in 1822: "A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. And a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

General Michael Hayden as CIA director will see to it that we continue to be kept in the dark about how our liberties are swiftly vanishing. The future of our democracy is at stake.

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Spinning Fear

The terror’s in the room.
- CBS Journalist Edward R. Murrow, 1954 (Good Night and Good Luck)

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
- Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1933


During the 1950’s, our government succumbed to the fear of Communism hyped by Senator Joseph McCarthy. People lost their jobs, lives were ruined, and many committed suicide in response to the “red scare.” Fear pervaded every facet of life, leading neighbors to inform on one another. CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow was one of the few journalists who had the courage to stand up to the fear-mongering and bring the truth to the American people. Describing the omnipresent fear that the government was fostering, Murrow told his colleagues, “The terror’s in the room.”

It’s dejá vu with the Bush administration ensuring that terror is always in the room. Since Sept. 11, 2001, George W. Bush has successfully manipulated the memory of the terrorist attacks to maintain power and mute effective criticism of his dangerous and illegal policies.

Bush continues to exploit 9/11, and the media is complicit in the hype. Cable news stations keep us informed of an “elevated” terror alert level.

The month after the 9/11 attacks, former Attorney General John Ashcroft rammed The USA Patriot Act through a Congress terrified of looking soft on terror. That same Congress had rejected many of the act’s provisions months earlier because they threatened civil liberties.

Ashcroft warned that criticism of the government’s policies “only aids terrorists.” His successor, Alberto Gonzales, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, “We remain a nation at war.”

The war is in Iraq, created from whole cloth by George W. Bush. There were no terrorists in Iraq before Bush invaded that country, changed its regime and occupied its land. Now it is a breeding ground for terrorism.

Hundreds of men are being held like animals, tortured and abused in the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay. Only a handful of them have been charged with crimes. The despicable conditions there have caused many to participate in a hunger strike. Rather than suffer the embarrassment of dying prisoners, jailers have been force-feeding them. They tie the prisoners down and insert large, unsterilized tubes down their noses with no anesthesia. Some call it a form of torture.

Reports from Guantánamo and pictures of the torture of Iraqi prisoners by US forces at Abu Ghraib prison have also fanned the flames of anti-American sentiment.

Bush calls his illegal domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency the “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” Dick Cheney told PBS’ Jim Lehrer that “this program has saved thousands of American lives.” Yet there’s no way to prove – or disprove – Cheney’s claim.

The Washington Post reported that, of the thousands of calls Bush’s NSA program has intercepted, almost none relate to anything approximating terrorism.

The hallmark of the Bush administration is secrecy. CIA Director Porter Goss wrote in a recent op-ed in the New York Times, “Disclosure of classified intelligence inhibits our ability to carry out our mission and protect the nation.”

Yet, as whistleblower Sibel Edmonds pointed out recently, the 9/11 Commission concluded that only “publicity” could have prevented the attacks. Had Osama Bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed known the so-called 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui had been arrested, they would have called off the attacks. The 9/11 Commission sharply criticized the government for classifying too much information.

In 2003, the Bush administration rescinded Clinton’s rule that information should not be classified “if there is significant doubt” that releasing it would harm national security.

The deputy undersecretary of defense for counterintelligence and security testified at a March 2005 congressional hearing that 50 percent of the Pentagon’s information was over-classified; the head of the Information Security Oversight Office said it was “even beyond 50 percent.”

When whistleblowers and leakers reveal information critical of Bush policies, the administration mounts an attack on the messenger. In response to the New York Times report on the NSA spying program, the government launched an investigation to determine who leaked the information to the Times. When Gonzales tried to turn criticism of the program into an assault on the leakers, Senator Patrick Leahy declared, “Thank god we have press that tell us what you’re doing because you’re not telling us.”

After the Times carried its report of the NSA program, some senators refused to vote to renew provisions of the Patriot Act that were due to expire on December 31, 2005. A last-minute compromise was cobbled together to extend those provisions for five weeks.

Just as the five week period was about to run out, Bush announced with great fanfare that an October 2001 al Qaeda plan to attack the tallest building on the West Coast had been thwarted by an unnamed Southeast Asian country. Once again, we have no corroboration of the accuracy of Bush’s claim. His past lies lead many to question the truthfulness of his report.

Bush gave no credit to the NSA spying program. He most certainly would have if it had foiled the plot. The day after Bush’s “revelation,” Congress announced it had reached an agreement to make the Patriot Act permanent. Once again, the manipulation of fear succeeded in neutering the Congress.

Another example of the Bush administration’s selective revelations of its own secret information is the leaking of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name to journalists. The leak was strategically designed to punish Plame’s husband Joseph Wilson for blowing the whistle on Bush’s lies used to bolster support for his impending invasion of Iraq.

The most famous leaker in United States history is Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971. Those documents revealed the lies and hypocrisy of US policy in Southeast Asia. In 2003, Ellsberg told Salon.com writer Michelle Goldberg, “We’re now in an aggressive, costly war. The While House had to lie about those policies to make them viable, and when you lie you have to keep the lies secret, you have to intimidate people who might be inclined to tell the truth, all that goes together. Why do they do it?,” he asked rhetorically. “Wilson and I have no trouble knowing why they did it. They don’t want people to act the way we do.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt assumed the mantle of President at the height of the Great Depression. People were broke, out of work, and afraid there might not be a next meal. Roosevelt told them, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” The people jumped on board with his New Deal, and pulled themselves out of the depression. FDR didn’t exploit people’s real fears. He courageously challenged them to face their fears and overcome them.

The Bush administration continues to perfect the art of terrifying. Many in Congress live in fear of losing their seats if they appear soft on terrorism.

But most Americans oppose Bush’s illegal Iraq war and his secret spying program. The power to stop this war and the assault on our civil liberties rests in the hands of the people. Congress is reactive. It reacts to Bush’s tactics of manipulation. But it will not be able to avoid reacting to an overwhelming call by the people to check the imperial executive.

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First They Came for Lynne Stewart

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Pastor Martin Niemöller, 1945

Now they're coming for the lawyers, and we must all speak out.

Last Thursday, after 13 days of deliberations, prominent New York civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart was convicted of conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists, and defrauding the United States government. Her 7-month trial was held in the same federal courthouse where the Rosenbergs were tried for conspiracy to commit espionage more than 50 years ago. Stewart faces between 35 and 45 years in prison.

Stewart was indicted in March 2002. The indictment was based on governmental monitoring of conversations between Stewart and her client, Shiek Omar Abdel Rahman, which occurred two and a half years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Rahman is serving a life plus 65-year sentence for conspiring to bomb several New York City landmarks and soliciting crimes of violence against the U.S. military and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Beginning in 1997, the Bureau of Prisons, at the direction of the Attorney General, imposed special administrative measures (SAMs) on Rahman, limiting his access to the mail, the media, the telephone and visitors.

Stewart was obliged to sign an affirmation agreeing to be bound by the SAMs, before being allowed to see her client. She agreed "only to be accompanied by translators for the purpose of communicating with inmate Abdel Rahman concerning legal matters" and not to "use my meetings, correspondence, or phone calls with Abdel Rahman to pass messages between third parties (including, but not limited to, the media) and Abdel Rahman."

The government charged that Stewart allowed the Arabic translator to read letters to Rahman regarding Islamic Group matters, and to conduct a discussion with Rahman regarding whether Islamic Group should continue to comply with a cease-fire in Egypt. It also alleged that Stewart concealed those discussions from prison guards, and announced to the media that Rahman had withdrawn his support for the cease-fire, in violation of the SAMs.

Stewart denied these allegations, and testified that she believed in good faith that relaying Rahman's statement calling for more consultation about the Egyptian cease-fire did not violate the SAMs. She said she was trying to have Rahman transferred to Egypt to serve his sentence by keeping him visible. Rahman is old, blind, does not speak English, and has been kept virtually incommunicado in a federal prison in Minnesota.

Her good-faith belief, Stewart tesfitied, was based on actions of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, another of Rahman's attorneys. Clark also signed these SAMs, held press conferences, and conveyed Rahman's statements about Egyptian politics to the press. Yet, Clark was never prosecuted.

Clark, who testified for Stewart at her trial, told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, "I don't know of anything that Lynne did that I didn't do." He said, "This case would never have been brought except for the fear generated, and the advantage that the Bush administration was taking of it, by the events of September 11, 2001. In ordinary times and circumstances, it would be recognized that everything that Lynne did was exactly what an effective attorney representing a client zealously would be obligated to do."

At a 2002 conference, Stewart noted, "Usually if one breaks a Bureau of Prisons edict, one is told one can't visit the prison again, or one gets some sort of administrative slap on the wrist of some kind. One does not usually get indicted for aiding a terrorist organization."

Why did the government wait so long before indicting Lynne Stewart? According to Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, Stewart was a "prime target for the Attorney General, who needed desperately to show that the Justice Department was actively fighting terrorism."

When Stewart was indicted, John Ashcroft had arrested only one person since September 11 - John Walker Lindh. "By indicting Stewart," noted Boghosian, "Ashcroft effectively sent the dual message that he could indict other lawyers who represented clients with unpopular beliefs and that such clients do not deserve defense."

The same day Bush signed the USA Patriot Act into law, General Ashcroft announced an interim amendment to the Bureau of Prisons regulation, which took effect five days later, without the usual public comment period. It permits the Department of Justice (DOJ) unlimited and unreviewable discretion to eavesdrop on confidential attorney-client conversations of persons in custody, with no judicial oversight and no meaningful standards. It applies not only to convicted inmates, but to all persons in the custody of the DOJ, including pretrial detainees, material witnesses, and immigration detainees who have not been accused of any crime.

At a 2002 convention of the National Lawyers Guild, Stewart expressed alarm at what her indictment portends for the future of the attorney-client privilege and criminal defense. She said, "This is about protecting the right to defend. Once the attorney-client privilege is lost, there is no right to defend as we know it." Speaking about the government's monitoring of her conversations with her client, Stewart stated, "The question you should be asking is not what I was doing in that room, but what was the government doing in that room?"

During the McCarthy period of the 1950s, in an effort to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, the government engaged in widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone who had an unorthodox political viewpoint. Many people were jailed, blacklisted and lost their jobs. Thousands of lives were shattered as the FBI engaged in "red-baiting."

Since September 11, those who question government policy have been, and will continue to be, branded "terrorist." Even though "terrorism" was not an element of any of the offenses with which Lynne Stewart was charged, and Osama bin Laden was not part of any of the charges, the prosecution was permitted to bring bin Laden's name into the trial.

A written threat from the Jewish Defense Organization was posted on the door to Stewart's home after 10 ½ days of jury deliberations in the trial. It referred to a message purporting "to reach out so the jurors understand what she is. And that's been done." The message gave Stewart's home address and said she "needs to be put out of business legally and effectively." It threatened to "drive her out of her home and out of the state." If this message did reach any jurors who were sitting on the fence, it may have pushed them over to the guilty side.

Stewart told Amy Goodman, "These SAMs said you know, 'If you break these regulations, you may be cut off from your client.' That was our greatest concern, that we would be cut off from the client. The idea of prosecution never entered our minds." Stewart continued, "I believe with my mind and heart that it was the right thing to do."

Lynne Stewart's indictment, and conviction, will also chill attorneys from taking on cases of unpopular clients. "The purpose of this prosecution," said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, "was to send a message to lawyers who represent alleged terrorists that it's dangerous to do so."

Stewart's attorney, Michael Tigar, does not blame the jury for this injustice. "We have all in our lifetimes seen well-meaning juries get caught up in the media-dominated government rhetoric of their time, based mostly on fear," Tigar said after the verdicts were announced. "I do not criticize these jurors. I have every confidence this verdict will be set aside."

Lawyers representing Guantánamo detainees are being asked to sign agreements that their consultations with their clients will not be confidential. Tigar told Amy Goodman, "The only way that we will ever get to the bottom of the American concentration camp abuses at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib is if the lawyers for these prisoners are permitted to tell their stories to the world. If the government can shut off that communication, which they have attempted to do over and over and over again, these activities will continue in secret."

It is essential that people feel safe in these perilous times. But, as Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in a 1995 opinion, "It cannot be too often stated that the greatest threats to our constitutional freedoms come in times of crisis." The confidential relationship between attorney and client sits at the heart of our criminal justice system. We must zealously guard it or we will all be at risk.

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Bush and Bin Laden

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
- Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

George W. Bush was shocked, shocked, that John Kerry raised political questions in response to Osama bin Laden's cameo election appearance on Al Jazeera television. Yet Bush surrounded himself at a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H. with victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and repeated his mantra that the nation was forever changed by September 11th. Is Bush correct when he makes those statements? Will historians some day look back on September 11, 2001, as a pivot point in U.S., or even world history? Or is Bush the politician using that dark day to maneuver himself into a second term in the White House?

Whether we like to admit it or not, the havoc that Bin Laden wrought on 9/11 has been squarely at the center of the national discourse for the past three years, and indeed, of this election campaign. Americans remain frightened of another attack, even though Bin Laden lives in a cave half way around the world. The level of fear in this country seems disproportional to the threat. Bin Laden has no air force and no navy. He controls a relatively small, ragtag army. Yet, he and his handful of suicide bombers have so terrified the country with the most powerful military in the history of the world, that fear of him seems to dominate our political landscape.

So, is George W. Bush truly focused on protecting the U.S. from Bin Laden? A few days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush assured us he would hunt down Bin Laden and get him "dead or alive." But a short five months later, Bush had become preoccupied with invading Iraq, a country that had never attacked the United States, and posed no threat to us.

Bush no longer had Bin Laden in his sights. In March 2002, Bush said: "So I don't know where he is ... Nor - you know, I just don't spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. I... I truly am not that concerned about him." Lacking any hard evidence that Saddam Hussein played a role in the 9/11 attacks, Bush nevertheless insisted the war on terrorism was centered in Iraq. Out of sight, out of mind.

Much to Bush's chagrin, Bin Laden re-took the world stage four days before the U.S. election. The Bush administration spent half a day trying to convince Al Jazeera and the Qatar government to keep the videotape of Bin Laden off the air.

Sitting there demurely, the white-robed terrorist calmly discussed our election on television sets from Maine to California. His very presence emphasized Bush's failure to keep his pledge to take Bin Laden dead or alive. Bin Laden seemed intent on humiliating Bush. He said that, by continuing to sit in a classroom as a girl read about a goat when the twin towers were hit, Bush left 50,000 of his people in the towers "to face those events by themselves when they were in the most urgent need of their leader."

Bin Laden also seemed intent on discrediting Bush. He said Bush is distorting and misleading the American people, obscuring the reasons underlying the 9/11 attacks. Bin Laden cited "Bush's claims that we hate freedom." If that's true, Bin Laden asked, why didn't we hit Sweden?

Bin Laden stated the motives for his evil deeds: U.S. support for Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, and Israel's 1982 attack on Lebanon. He bemoaned the killing of Iraqi children, and accused Bush of removing Saddam Hussein from power for the purpose of stealing Iraq's oil. Bin Laden drew an analogy between Bush's regime and the corrupt Arab regimes, recalling the first President Bush's cozy relationship with the Saudi royal family. Bin Laden argued that the Patriot Act has brought tyranny and suppression of freedom to the United States.

Finally, Bin Laden said our security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. "Your security is in your own hands," he said. "Any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked." Bin Laden told us how to avoid another attack: Lay off my people. Not mindful of the wise old adage, "know thy enemy," however, Bush responded by saying we "will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country."

Appealing to the American people instead of the U.S. government, Bin Laden challenged Americans to challenge the policies that oppress people in the Muslim world. The Spaniards accepted a similar challenge, when, days after suspected Al Qaeda followers blew up commuter trains in Madrid, the people in Spain went to the polls and unseated the leaders who had both taken their troops into Iraq, and lied about who was responsible for the railroad attacks. The newly elected government pulled the Spanish soldiers out of Iraq shortly thereafter.

Why does Bin Laden seem intent on humiliating Bush? At the heart of Bin Laden's grievances is revulsion at the humiliation of Arabs and Muslims. Bin Laden has undoubtedly seen the photograph of the elderly Iraqi woman, leashed and made to crawl on the floor like a dog. He has likely seen, as well, the picture of a mound of naked Iraqis being mocked by U.S. soldiers. And he probably is aware of Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick's response when asked last week why he abused an Iraqi man: "just to humiliate him."

Bush and Bin Laden have mutually empowered each other since 9/11. By attacking the United States on Bush's watch, Bin Laden handed Bush the perpetual weapon of fear-mongering to hold over the heads of the American people. And by invading Iraq, Bush all but invited Al Qaeda to enter Iraq and wage jihad against the U.S. invaders. For this, George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden will be inextricably linked in the history books.

Whoever wins the election on November 2, we have our work cut out for us.

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Bush Jumps on the 9/11 Band-Aid Wagon

The families of the people killed in the September 11 attacks had to fight tooth and nail for a commission to investigate why their loved ones died. George W. Bush opposed an investigation, but finally relented in the face of public pressure. He then dragged his feet when asked to provide information to the commission.

Four days before the start of the Democratic National Convention, the 9/11 Commission released its 567-page report, replete with recommendations for reform of a government that allowed the deaths of 3000 people. The chairman and vice chairman of the commission then appeared on myriad media outlets warning of the possibility of an imminent terrorist attack.

As his opponents took center stage this week, Bush secluded himself at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. But in a classic example of "when you're being run out of town, get in the front of the crowd and make it look like a parade," he's taking a break from chopping wood to sign executive orders implementing some of the recommended reforms. "The president said he wants this on a fast track," a Bush aide told reporters down at the Crawford ranch.

Bush "cannot be serious - and rest assured he is not," Richard Cohen wrote in the Washington Post on Tuesday. "The many months of inactivity in this area offer eloquent testimony to Bush's firm belief that little needs to be fixed. In the same way he could not answer earlier this year what mistakes he had made as president, he cannot even say what mistakes his government made that might have led to Sept. 11 and the debacle in Iraq."

In my editorial, The 9/11 Report Misses the Point, I asked why the report omits any analysis of how the Iraq war has made us less safe since September 11. Lee Hamilton, vice chair of the commission, gave a revealing answer to that question in an interview by CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Hamilton first explained that dealing with the Iraq issue "would have been highly divisive" for the bipartisan commission, but then caught himself and said it would've exceeded the commission's mandate.

I also criticized the commission for failing to analyze the political reasons behind the 9/11 attacks. In an interview with The American Conservative, a former CIA agent charged with analyzing Osama bin Laden, identified by the Boston Phoenix as Michael Scheuer, said, "al-Qaeda itself has said that it could not wish for a better government than the one that is now governing the U.S. because, on the policies of issue to Muslims, al-Qaeda believes this government is wrong on every one and thus allows their insurgency to grow larger to incite other groups to attack Americans."

Scheuer listed 6 U.S. policies Osama bin Laden has identified that appeal to the anger of Muslims: our unqualified support for Israel; our ability to keep oil prices down; our support for people who oppress Muslims; our presence in the Arabian peninsula; our military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan; and our support for Muslim tyrannies.

Yet Team Bush is in denial. Dick Cheney, touring the country while his boss chops wood, persists in defending the decision to attack Iraq, even though no weapons of mass destruction were ever found: "Sixteen months ago," he told marines and sailors at Camp Pendleton, California Tuesday, "Iraq was a gathering threat to the United States and the civilized world. Now it is a rising democracy, an ally in the war on terror, and the American people are safer for it."

Has Cheney adopted Bush's habit of not reading the newspapers? The vice president didn't mention the daily attacks on our troops in Iraq, nearly 1000 of whom have been killed. He doesn't explain that the war on Iraq has brought terrorists out of the woodwork both there and around the world, where resentment against America is growing.

How would John Kerry deal with the quagmire in Iraq? In my opinion, much more effectively than Team Bush. While we don't know the details of Kerry's plans for Iraq, we do know there are major differences between Bush and Kerry as men.

When asked by Larry King how her husband would've reacted if he were president on September 11, 2001, Teresa Heinz Kerry would not fault Bush for his failure to react decisively. But John Kerry, she said, would've gone to the scene immediately. He would've wanted to be with his men.

Mindful that Bush is running on his claim that he'll keep America safer, the Democrats have made national security the centerpiece of their convention. They are understandably taking advantage of John Kerry's heroism in Vietnam. In the words of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Kerry truly "left no one behind" when he turned his swift boat around and sped back into enemy fire to rescue a fallen comrade.

Contrast Kerry's resolute and courageous actions during the Vietnam War with Bush's reaction on September 11, 2001, when told the nation was under attack. Bush sat frozen in a kindergarten classroom for 7 minutes before rising from his chair. There can be no question which of these men is better suited to be commander-in-chief.

Rest assured the Republicans will mount vicious attacks on Kerry at their convention in late August. The Democrats should not hesitate to challenge head-on the current commander-in-chief whose leadership has proved disastrous.

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The 9/11 Report Misses the Point

After vigorously resisting the establishment of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, known as the 9/11 Commission, George W. Bush is now celebrating its findings. “Constructive,” said the commander-in-chief, who plans to study the report. Bottom line: Bush is mightily relieved that the collective finger of the Commission doesn't point too much in his direction.

No person or agency is singled out to take serious responsibility for the attacks that killed 3000 people on September 11, 2001. A list of missed opportunities is carefully divided 60-40, six occurring during the Bush II administration and four on Clinton's watch. The report recommends the creation of a new intelligence czar, increased congressional oversight, and transparency in funding for intelligence. But the Commissioners were unanimous in refusing to conclude that 9/11 could have been prevented.

The events of September 11 are recited in chilling detail in the much-anticipated 500-page tome. Although the Commission concludes that the attacks “were a shock,” it says, “they should not have come as a surprise.” The report provides an itemized list of structural shortcomings, and improvements that could better prepare us for the next terrorist attack.

“Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defense actions to improve homeland security,” the Commissioners wrote, “we believe we are safer today.” They go on to say: “But we are not safe.” The centerpiece of Bush's election campaign is his mantra that the world has become a safer place on his watch. Earlier this week, however, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, “I cannot say the world is safer today than it was two, three years ago.”

Indeed, many feel Bush's misguided war on Iraq has actually made us less safe. But the 9/11 report does not address Operation “Iraqi Freedom” critically. A 23-year veteran of the CIA, identified in the Boston Phoenix as Michael Scheuer, maintains in his soon-to-be-released book, “Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror,” that “Iraq was a gift of epic proportions to Osama bin Laden and those who think like him.”

The former CIA agent advocates a genuine debate within the United States about its policies in the Middle East, including its relationship with Saudi Arabia and its unqualified support for Israel. “I think before you draft a policy to defeat bin Laden,” says Sheuer, “you have to understand that our policies are what drives him and those who follow him.”

Scheuer is not alone in his admonition. Earlier this month, Senator Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) penned in the Charleston Post and Courier: “Osama bin Laden hit us because of our presence in Saudi Arabia and policy in Israel/Palestine.” Hollings wrote: “Imagine 37 years' occupation of Palestine ... Palestine is left with the hopeless and embittered ... But embittered refugees from without lead with terrorism.” The senator urges the building of a Palestinian state. “It can't be built,” however, “while homes are bulldozed, settlements extended and walls are constructed.”

Both Hollings and Brandeis Professor Robert B. Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, dismiss the notion that we are fighting a “War on Terrorism.” Hollings says, “Terrorism is not a war, but a weapon.” Reich agrees: “Terrorism is a tactic. It is not itself our enemy.”

Challenging Bush's claim that the terrorists hate us because of our values, Hollings retorts: “It's not our values or people, but our Mideast policy they oppose.” Reich argues for restarting the Middle East peace process, which Bush has “run away from.”

Many in the Arab and Muslim world see U.S. policies as terrorist. They witnessed the deaths of one million innocent Iraqis as a result of Western sanctions during the 1990s. The tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed by Bush's "coalition" in Iraq have not escaped their notice. And they see the photographs and hear the accounts of torture and humiliation of their brothers emerging from the prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

Yet the 9/11 report glosses over the atrocities, calling them “allegations that the United States abused prisoners in its custody.” The photographs belie this characterization as mere “allegations.” And the Commissioners have bought into Donald Rumsfeld's moniker of “abuse,” when it is clear that rape, murder and sodomy with foreign objects constitute torture.

Conspicuously absent from the report is a political analysis of why the tragedy occurred. Missing from the report is a comprehensive strategy to overhaul U.S. foreign policy to inoculate us from the wrath of those who resent American imperialism.

The report does not undertake a serious criticism of Bush's misadventure in Iraq, the lies under girding it, and the tragedy it has wrought in that country. It fails to analyze why this war that Bush created has opened a Pandora's Box of terrorism where none existed before. Notably, there is a categorical statement that no evidence linked Iraq with the September 11 attacks.

However, the report focuses on Iran, noting that some of the hijackers easily passed through Iran in the months before 9/11. Yet it finds no evidence that Iran knew of the impending attacks.

Bush's response to the report's Iran reference is reminiscent of his reaction after the September 11 attacks. When Richard Clarke caught Bush alone in the Situation Room the next day, Bush “testily” ordered Clarke to investigate whether Iraq was involved in the attacks. Even though Bush admitted this week that the CIA had found “no direct connection between Iran and the attacks of Sept. 11,” he promised that “we will continue to look and see if the Iranians were involved.”

The Likud lobby in Washington, which drives much of our foreign policy, seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government partly because it stands in the way of the Israeli annexation of southern Lebanon and its prized Litani River. Bush's base - the fundamentalist Christians - walks in lockstep with Ariel Sharon, driven by their determination that Jerusalem be in Jewish hands when Christ returns.

Whether Bush will make Iran the next test of his new illegal “preemptive” war doctrine if elected in November remains to be seen. His blustering about Iran may be designed to pander to his hawkish supporters as the election approaches. At the least, we can expect Bush, if given a second term, to covertly undermine Iran's government, much as we did in 1953. The CIA led a coup to overthrow the democratically elected Mohammad Mossaddeq, and replaced him with the tyrannical but U.S.-friendly Shah, ushering in 25 years of torture and murder against the people of Iran.

Iran's membership in Bush's “axis of evil” was in the works two years before its formal inauguration in his state of the union address. In its September 2000 document, “Rebuilding America's Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century,” the neocon's Project for the New American Century identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as strategic targets.

We should not be surprised that countries like Iran and North Korea seek to develop nuclear weapons. While the United States rattles its sabers at these “rogue states,” it continues to develop new and more efficient nukes and pledges to use them “preemptively,” in violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The Bush administration has also exempted itself from a treaty prohibiting biological weapons to avoid being subject to international inspections.

Short shrift is given in the 9/11 report to the reverberations from U.S. policy in Iraq and Israel: “Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.” Period. No analysis of the content or consequences of that commentary.

The Commissioners conclude: “Across the government, there were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities and management.” The consequences of U.S. foreign policy, which the CIA dubbed “blowback,” need not be left to the imagination of our leaders. The anger of millions of people in the Middle East does not stem from resentment at our democratic way of life. It is the understandable result of our policies that torture and kill their brethren.

The title of one chapter in the report quotes George Tenet: “The system was blinking red.” Indeed, we must heed the blinking red light of bitterness against U.S. imperialism throughout the Middle East.

Finally, the Commission writes, “we should offer an example of moral leadership in the world.” Unprovoked attacks on other countries, uncritical support for repression against an occupied people, and the killing and torture of prisoners are not examples of moral leadership.

We can reorganize, restructure and revamp our institutions. But until the American government undertakes a radical rethinking and remaking of our role in the world, we will never be safe from terrorist attacks.

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The Deadly Pipeline War: U.S. Afghan Policy Driven by Oil Interests

George W. Bush justifies his bombing of Afghanistan as a war against terror. A twin motive, however, is to make Afghanistan safe for United States oil interests.

A few days before September 11, the U.S. Energy Information Administration documented Afghanistan's strategic "geographical position as a potential transit route for oil and natural and gas exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea," including the construction of pipelines through Afghanistan.

Prior to September 11, United States policy toward the Taliban was largely influenced by oil. In a new book published in Paris, "Bin Laden, la verite interdite" ("Bin Laden, the forbidden truth"), former French intelligence officer Jean-Charles Brisard and journalist Guillaume Dasquie document a cozy relationship between George W. Bush and the Taliban. The book quotes John O'Neill, former director of anti-terrorism for the FBI, who thought the U.S. State Department, acting on behalf of United States and Saudi oil interests, interfered with FBI efforts to track down Osama bin Laden.

Before he was tapped as Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, the biggest oil services company in the world. In a 1998 speech to the "Collateral Damage Conference" of the Cato Institute, Cheney said, "the good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is."

Because of the instability in the Persian Gulf, Cheney zeroed in on the world's other major source of oil, the Caspian Sea, whose resources were estimated at $4 trillion by U.S. News and World Report. Cheney told oil industry executives in 1998, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."

But Caspian oil, landlocked between Russia, Iran and former Soviet republics, presents formidable transport challenges. Afghanistan is strategically located near the Caspian Sea. In 1994, the U.S. State Department and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency sought to install a stable regime in Afghanistan to enhance the prospects for Western oil pipelines. They financed, armed and trained the Taliban in its civil war against the Northern Alliance.

In 1995, California-based UNOCAL proposed the construction of an oil pipeline from Turkmenistan, south through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea. Yasushi Akashi, U.N. Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, was critical of "outside interference in Afghanistan" in 1997, which, he said, "is now all related to the battle for oil and gas pipelines. The fear is that these companies and regional powers are just renting the Taliban for their own purposes."

Meanwhile, feminists and Greens in the United States mobilized opposition to UNOCAL's pipeline deal and Washington's covert support of the Taliban, because of the latter's oppression of women. In 1998, after the U.S. bombed Al-Qaeda training camps in retaliation for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa, UNOCAL pulled out of the pipeline negotiations.

Once the Taliban are overthrown and the U.S. installs a pro-Western government, lucrative investment opportunities will arise. Rob Sobhani, president of Washington-based Caspian Energy Consulting, said, "Other major energy companies could see big opportunities in a deal crucial to restarting Afghanistan's economy." A new pipeline could produce revenues totaling $100 million.

United States dependence on Middle East -- and soon Caspian -- oil -- has led our government to engage itself in heavy-handed, and deadly, interventions. The development of a sensible U.S. energy policy would obviate the perceived need to dominate other countries.

But there has been an ongoing pipeline war between Russia and the U.S., which support competing pipeline routes. An energy expert at the National Security Council clarified the United States' anti-Russia policy in 1997: "US policy was to promote the rapid development of Caspian energy . . . We did so specifically to promote the independence of these oil-rich countries, to in essence break Russia's monopoly control over the transportation of oil from that region, and frankly, to promote Western energy security through diversification of supply."

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin recognized this in 1998: "We cannot help seeing the uproar stirred up in some Western countries over the energy resources of the Caspian. Some seek to exclude Russia from the game and undermine its interests. The so-called pipeline war in the region is part of this game."

This pipeline war has taken some curious turns since September 11. A New York Times article in October emphasized new oil cooperation between Russia and the United States. Laurent Ruseckas of Cambridge Energy Research Associates said: "This whole idea of the U.S. and Russia fighting over Caspian oil seems completely outdated. The West would like to see Russian and Caspian oil on stream as quickly as possible."

But after September 11, Russia, which has sustained the Northern Alliance for ten years, provided it with heavy artillery and encouraged it to move into Kabul, in direct contravention of Bush's orders. Eric R. Margolis, author of "War at the Top of the World - The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet," chides Bush's naivete in thinking "the Russians are now our friends." Margolis warns, "the president should understand that where geopolitics and oil are concerned, there are no friends, only competitors and enemies."

At this point, the outcome of U.S.-Russian relations, and the pipeline war, remains uncertain. The deaths and starvation of thousands of Afghanis, however, is a certainty. Regardless of how the black gold is ultimately piped out of the Caspian Sea, the United States should replace its pipeline of bombs with a pipeline of humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.

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Bombing of Afghanistan is Illegal and Must be Stopped

In a patently illegal use of armed force, United States and British bombs are falling on the people of Afghanistan. There are already reports of thousands of dead and wounded civilians from the same kind of American “smart bombs” used in Vietnam and Yugoslavia, with the promise of myriad casualties from unexploded cluster bombs. Yet while the media bombards us with details about the tragic but few deaths from Anthrax, we are shielded from photographs of the dead and injured in Afghanistan.

Jan Ziegler, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned on October 15, “The bombing has to stop right now. There is a humanitarian emergency.” Relief agencies left Afghanistan in the wake of the bombing. The arrival of winter is imminent, when up to 7.5 million Afghans internally displaced by the bombing will be beyond the reach of humanitarian aid. Routing chief suspect Osama bin Laden from his cave with bombs is like finding a needle in a haystack, while mass starvation is inevitable.

The media has created a tidal wave of support in the United States for attacking the country that harbors bin Laden. In a recent Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll, 45 percent of Americans said they were willing to “torture known terrorists if they knew details about future terrorist attacks in the United States,” notwithstanding the United States’ ratification and implementation of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the fact that the prohibition against torture is considered to be jus cogens, a preemptory or inviolable norm of international law.

Yet in spite of nearly universal global condemnation of the September 11 attacks, the bombardment of Afghanistan does not sit well in the Arab world, which is faced with pictures of wounded Afghan children and Israeli tanks rolling into Palestinian villages. Akhbar el Yom, one of the biggest newspapers in Egypt, featured a photograph of an Afghan child orphaned by the bombs. It sported the caption, “Is this baby a Taliban fighter?” And the recent killings of rebel Northern Alliance supporters by misguided American bombs, has backfired and helped build support for the Taliban. European countries are also beginning to question the wisdom of the sustained bombing campaign, which is killing civilians and failing to accomplish its goal.

Although the horror of the mass tragedy inflicted on September 11 is indisputable, the bombings of Afghanistan by the United States and the United Kingdom are illegal. This bombardment violates both international law and United States law, set forth in the United Nations Charter, a treaty ratified by the U.S. and therefore part of the supreme law of the land under the U.S. Constitution.

The U.N. Charter provides that all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can use military force except in self-defense.

The Security Council, made up of representatives from 15 countries from each region of the world, is the only body that can authorize the use of force. Only the Security Council can decide what action can be taken to maintain or restore international peace and security.

The Security Council has a series of options under the U.N. Charter: (1) it can suggest that the United States sue Afghanistan in the International Court of Justice (World Court), for harboring Osama bin Laden and others, if the evidence supports their involvement in these attacks, and seek their immediate arrests; (2) it can order interruption of economic relations, rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio communications and the severance of diplomatic relations; (3) it can establish an international tribunal to try those suspected of perpetrating the September 11th attack; (4) it can establish a U.N. force to make arrests, prevent attacks or counter aggression; and (5) as a last resort, it can authorize the application of armed force with the Military Staff Committee.

The United States has gone to the Security Council twice since the September 11 attack. The Security Council passed two resolutions, neither of which authorize the use of force. Resolutions 1368 and 1373 condemn the September 11 attacks, and order the freezing of assets; the criminalizing of terrorist activity; the prevention of the commission of and support for terrorist attacks; the taking of necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist activity, including the sharing of information; and urging the ratification and enforcement of the international conventions against terrorism (which the U.S. has not ratified).

Although the United States has reported its bombing to the Security Council as required by article 51 of the U.N. Charter, the Security Council has not authorized and could not authorize the use of unilateral military force by the United States and the United Kingdom, or NATO, which is not a U.N. body.

The bombing of Afghanistan is not legitimate self-defense under article 51 of the Charter because: 1) the attacks in New York and Washington D.C. were criminal attacks, not “armed attacks” by another state, and 2) there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the U.S. after September 11, or the U.S. would not have waited three weeks before initiating its bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” (Caroline Case, 29 BFSP 1137-8; 30 BFSP 19-6 (1837)). This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the U.N. General Assembly.

Even if the U.S. was authorized on September 11 to use military force under article 51, that license ended once the Security Council became “seized” of the matter, which indeed it did on September 12, by passing Resolution 1368, and reaffirming in Resolution 1373 on September 28 that it “remains seized” of the matter. By bombing Afghanistan, the United States and the United Kingdom are committing acts of aggression, which is prohibited by the U.N. Charter.

The universal desire is to feel safe and secure. The only path to safety and security is through international law, not vengeance and retaliation. George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress must take the following steps:

1. immediately stop the bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq, remove all ground forces, and refrain from illegally bombing or invading any other country;


2. contribute money and people power to the U.N. peacekeeping forces;


3. refuse to further eviscerate the U.S. Bill of Rights, in the name of national security. (The Uniting and Strengthening America By Providing Appropriate Tools Required To Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA Patriot Act), rushed through Congress in the wake of September 11, vastly expands the government’s ability to place wiretaps, invade e-mails, and hold immigrants in indefinite detention);


4. not repeat the actions of the U.S. government when it interned Japanese-Americans during World War II, and targeted suspected communists during the McCarthy era;


5. refuse to allow the racial profiling, and INS and FBI intimidation, of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians; and


6. submit this matter to appropriate international bodies, including the United Nations and the World Court.

Since no state has executed an armed attack against the United States, this is a criminal matter that can be prosecuted in a number of possible venues. First, the United States could bring criminal prosecutions in its domestic courts for crimes against humanity and for violations for international conventions under the principle of universal jurisdiction, as Israel did when it prosecuted Adolph Eichmann for his role in the Holocaust.

Second, the Security Council could establish a special criminal tribunal for the September 11 attacks, as it did in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Montreal Sabotage Convention, which criminalizes the destruction of civilian aircraft while in service, is directly on point and should be used here. It was invoked during the resolution of the dispute between the United States, the United Kingdom and Libya over the handling of the Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing cases. Both the United States and Afghanistan are parties to that convention.

The International Criminal Court would not be an available forum, because 1) it has not yet come into force, as it needs the ratification of 60 states and 43 have ratified thus far; 2) its jurisdiction is limited to crimes occurring after it comes into force; and 3) the United States refuses to ratify the ICC statute, because it is afraid its leaders may become defendants in war crimes prosecutions.

Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev wrote in a recent op-ed in The New York Times, “it is now the responsibility of the world community to transform the coalition against terrorism into a coalition for a peaceful world order.” He advocates leadership by the Security Council to take concrete steps such as accelerated nuclear and chemical disarmament, and urges United States ratification of the verification protocol of the convention banning biological weapons, as well as the treaty to prohibit all nuclear testing. Gorbachev also opposes the use of the battle against terrorism “to establish control over countries or regions,” which, he maintains, would not only discredit the coalition; it would prevent its potential for building a peaceful world.

On September 29, the day originally set for anti-globalization protests, thousands marched in the streets demanding peace. Students on campuses across the country are mobilizing to oppose the bombing. Our anti-terrorism coalition must be true to its name, and aim its energy not at the innocent people of Afghanistan, but at building global peace.

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Hoist on Our Own Petard

The tragedy of September 11 was unimaginable. Or was it? The hatred that fueled 19 people to blow themselves up and take thousands with them has its genesis in a history of the United States government's exploitation of people in oil-rich nations around the world.

President George W. Bush accuses the terrorists of targeting our freedom and democracy. But it was not the Statue of Liberty that was destroyed. It was the World Trade Center - symbol of the U.S.-led global economic system, and the Pentagon - heart of the United States military, that took the hits.

Those who committed these heinous crimes were attacking American foreign policy, not the American people. The 5500+ civilians who died were likely considered "collateral damage" by the hijackers and their co-conspirators

During Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jews are exhorted to take steps to rectify the harm we have caused others. Last week, I told a World War II veteran of my worry that bombing Afghanistan would likely kill many innocent people. "American lives are more important than Afghan lives," he retorted. Aghast, I later realized that this typifies the way our government has acted for years toward people in Third World countries.

Exactly one year before the Shah of Iran was toppled by a coalition led by people acting in the name of the Ayatollah Khomeini, I visited that country as an international legal observer on behalf of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. I interviewed dozens of people, from the Ayatollah Shariat Madari (the leading ayatollah in Khomeini's exiled absence) to poets, communists, political prisoners and myriad others. Although downtown Tehran sported a U.S. corporation on every corner, the people were drowning in poverty and misery. I returned to the United States and was scoffed at when I predicted a revolution in Iran.

In 1953, the CIA had overthrown the democratically-elected nationalist, secular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq (whose government had nationalized the British oil company) and installed the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, ushering in 25 years of a brutal and repressive reign of terror. Iran became the largest customer for U.S. arms and U.S.-based oil companies replaced the British.

When Iranians began to rise up against the Shah, the U.S. told him it supported him "without reservation" and encouraged him to use force to maintain his power, even trying to engineer a military coup to save him. In 1979, a broad-based united front consisting of nationalists as well as militant Muslims, coalesced around Khomeini, overthrew the Shah and inaugurated a theocracy based on religious fascism. Because of Washington's long-standing support for the Shah, Khomeini's government became a model for fundamentalist anti-U.S. Islamic regimes.

The United States was eager to counter the now anti-American Iranian government and prevent it from controlling the Persian Gulf, the largest oil source in the world. But the U.S. heartily supported Saddam Hussein during his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds.

To keep both Iran and Iraq off balance, the United States quietly encouraged Iraq to invade Iran in 1980, with the promise of financing from Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. opposed any Security Council action to condemn the invasion. Removing Iraq from its list of terrorist nations, the U.S. allowed the transfer of arms to Iraq, while simultaneously permitting Israel to arm Iran.

The United States supplied Saddam Hussein with the technology to develop chemical and biological weapons, according to a 1996 Associated Press report. Even after Iraq used its chemical weapons in 1984, the U.S. restored diplomatic relations with Iraq, sent the U.S. navy into the Persian Gulf, and accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian airplane, killing 290 people. Then-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush's comment on the accident: "I will never apologize for the United States. I don't care what the facts are."

Still playing both ends against the middle, the U.S. itself directly supplied arms covertly to Iran in 1985. Thinking the United States was still his ally, Saddam informed the U.S. ambassador to Iraq that he was about to invade Kuwait in 1991. He received no protest from the U.S. ambassador. But the United States, not wanting Iraq to dominate the western shore of the Persian Gulf, reacted by re-invading Kuwait.

The U.S. didn't really wish to destroy Iraq; it still wanted Iraq as a counterweight to Iran. But the United States underestimated Saddam's ability to maintain his position of control over the Kurds and the Shiites - both politically and through the use of terror.

In the last decade, the United States has dropped tens of thousands of bombs on Iraq, killing many civilians, using napalm, cluster bombs and depleted uranium, in what the Los Angeles Times described as a "massacre" and a "massive slaughter." As a result of the bombing and devastating economic sanctions, between 4000 and 5000 Iraqi children still die every month. When asked on CBS television in 1996 for her reaction to these deaths, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, "we think the price is worth it."

Evidently, the perpetrators of the September 11 attack thought the price of 5500 innocent lives was worth it. Suspicion has focused on Osama bin Laden, who despises the United States for the Gulf War, its support for Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and the location of U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest Muslim shrines.

Bush is aiming the largest concentration of American firepower since World War II at Afghanistan, which harbors bin Laden. The President has made it clear that all countries that support terrorists are on our hit list. But even though none of the hijackers came from Afghanistan, and many hailed from Saudi Arabia, the U.S. maintains friendly relations with the Saudis, the largest suppliers of the world's oil.

Oil has been the principal motivation for much of United States foreign policy. Since 1996, the U.S. overlooked the Taliban's terror in hopes the U.S. could build an oil pipeline across Afghanistan to Pakistan, to transport up to two hundred billion barrels of oil and gas through Central Asia.

After the Taliban took over Kabul, a U.S. State Department spokesman saw "nothing objectionable" about the Taliban's brand of Islam. Osama bin Laden was trained by the CIA in terror tactics to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the United States funneled more than $2 billion in guns and money to the fundamentalist mujaheddin in Afghanistan, the largest covert action program since World War II.

Likewise, the United States gave considerable assistance to the Kosovo Liberation Army - a Muslim terrorist group financed by the Third World Relief Agency, through which bin Laden and others funneled $350 million - and its twin, the National Liberation Army in Macedonia.

Although U.S.-led NATO ostensibly bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999 to stop ethnic cleansing, the bombing was actually part of a strategy of containment, to keep the region safe for the Trans-Balkan oil pipeline through Albania and Macedonia. Cooperation of the Albanians with the pipeline project was likely contingent on the U.S. helping them wrest control of Kosovo from the Serbs.

Jerrold Post, a psychological profiler at the CIA for 21 years, said recently the "real dilemma" is the "roiling hatred within the Arab world directed at the United States. . . America doesn't have the vaguest idea how much hatred." He maintains that terrorists exploit "feelings of despair over economic conditions … and [over] totalitarian regimes."

The Book of Exodus speaks of God "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." Our innocent civilians have been hoist on the cruel petard of a long history of brutal and opportunistic U.S. foreign policy, where yesterday's freedom fighters are considered today's terrorists. "Collateral damage" is unacceptable regardless of whose lives are lost. The only way to truly eradicate terrorism is to understand the conditions that created it and obliterate them.

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Rise Above It: Fight Terror Legally

THE DRUMBEATS OF war resound all around our country. President Bush says, "We are at war," and has deployed heavy bombers to the Persian Gulf. The government vows to wage a protracted military campaign and Congress has appropriated $40 billion to aid the recovery and war efforts.

We have never seen more heinous acts of terrorism than the events of Sept. 11. Many point to instances of U.S.-supported terrorism in other countries such as Indonesia, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, and remind us that the CIA trained Osama bin Laden in terrorist tactics to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. But no just cause can excuse the murder of innocent civilians, wherever it may occur.

The people who conspired to hijack those airplanes and kill thousands of people are guilty of crimes against humanity. They must be identified and brought to justice in accordance with the law. But retaliation by bombing other countries is not the answer and can only lead to the deaths of more innocent people.

Whatever action we decide to take must conform to the rule of law, which underpins our democracy. After the horrors of World War II, nearly all the nations of the world determined never to have another world war by founding the United Nations. If the evidence supports the suspicion that bin Laden was responsible for these attacks, we must insist that the U.S. take the steps agreed to in the United Nations Charter to immediately sue Afghanistan in the World Court for harboring him.
The Unites States should ask the court to order Afghanistan to surrender bin Laden for trial immediately. This is what the United States did when it sued Iran in the World Court; when the court ordered the United States to stop mining the harbors of Nicaragua, the United States complied.

The U.N. Security Council met on Sept. 12 and adopted Resolution 1368, calling on "all States to work together urgently to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors" of the attack and stating that they "will be held accountable." The Security Council called "on the international community to redouble its efforts" against terrorism, and expressed its "readiness to take all necessary steps to respond to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001-- in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter--"

This means that the United States must not take its own military action in violation of the U.N. Charter, which mandates that members settle their international disputes by peaceful means and refrain from the threat or use of force, unless authorized by the Security Council. The United States must decide, with all other 14 members of the Security Council, what steps should be taken toward the goal of peace, not revenge and further war.

Further, the U.S. military must be forbidden from committing acts of war against any nation or individual. Only Congress has the power to declare war against another nation. Although it has authorized the use of force, Congress stopped short of declaring war under the War Powers Act. No nation has attacked the United States.

It is also imperative that we follow the rule of law at home and refrain from sacrificing our civil liberties in our zest to catch those responsible. Racial profiling against people of Middle Eastern descent and Muslims must be assiduously avoided, and judges should be as vigilant as ever in issuing wiretap orders and search warrants.

We must also guard against the xenophobia that led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 9066 in 1942, which authorized the internment of more than 70,000 American citizens and 50,000 resident aliens for being of Japanese ancestry.

Finally, as a sign that the United States has learned something from the bombing of a civilian city, the U.S. should immediately stop its almost daily bombardment of Iraq, which has not been authorized by the Security Council.

It is understandable that in the midst of our anguish and grief, calls for vengeance will abound. But our country was built on a firm foundation of the rule of law and we signed the U.N. Charter because we are peace-loving people. Never will our humanity be tested more than now.

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