| Author | Message | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2002 12:15 am Post subject: How Oppression Abroad Means Repression at Home |
| Subj: How Oppression Abroad Means Repression at Home
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 1:26:16 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: "Robert E. Nordlander" <nord@famvid.com>
To: PalestineDiary@yahoogroups.com
How Oppression Abroad Means Repression at Home
by Bill Christison, former CIA political analyst
Two questions that people too often divorce from each other have dominated
the Bush administration's actions since September 11. One involves foreign
policy--how should the U.S. government respond abroad to the events of that
date? The other involves domestic policy--to what degree should civil
liberties inside the U.S. be cut back to meet the threat to internal
security that became obvious on that date? The divorce between the two is
understandable. Over the years, different bureaucracies and different
groups of experts in this country have always dealt with these questions.
One of the dangers we face today, however, is that those of us who oppose
both the foreign and domestic policies of the present U.S. government will
accept this divorce and will split, rather than coordinate, our efforts to
bring about policy changes in both areas.
Specifically, I think those who are making major efforts to preserve civil
liberties in the United States will be more successful if at the same time
they strive, with equal fervor, to bring about changes in U.S. foreign
policies. My concern is that quite a few people, who are extraordinarily
knowledgeable on civil rights issues, argue that they cannot broaden the
subjects they deal with, that they have more on their plate than they can
easily handle even if they limit themselves to the domestic problems of
civil liberties. This argument is not only foolish and wrong; it is based
at least in part on ulterior motives.
The most important reason behind the Bush administration's introduction of
the recent restrictions on civil liberties--and why it is pressing for the
formation of a new Department of Homeland Security--is the hatred of United
States foreign policies in much of the world. This hatred is rising almost
daily as the U.S. not only continues but intensifies its arrogant and
unilateral international policies There are direct cause-and-effect
relationships between this hatred, which started over 50 years ago, and the
terrorism against the U.S. of last September 11; and there are other direct
cause-and-effect relationships between the terrorism and the cutbacks of
civil liberties in this country since that time.
The Bush administration refuses even to examine the possibility that
changing certain U.S. foreign policies might allay this hatred at least to
some degree and reduce the likelihood of future terrorism. The argument
against this administration attitude is not that changes in 50-year-old
foreign policies can immediately eliminate the possibility of more
terrorism against the U.S. It won't happen that way. But changes in foreign
policies almost certainly would reduce the likelihood of future terrorism.
With such changes, I think real evidence would soon appear that hatred of
the U.S. was diminishing, and such evidence would strengthen the case that
the extreme internal security measures now being introduced are both wrong
and unnecessary. Furthermore, all the internal security measures in the
world, and all the cutbacks in civil liberties that Bush and Ashcroft are
now pressing for, are unlikely to prevent future terrorism unless at the
same time the U.S. changes many of its major foreign policies.
President Bush justifies his war on terrorism on the basis that those who
attacked this country did so simply because they are "evil," and the
existence of this evil is why, he says, we must accept all these new
restrictions on civil liberties. In my opinion, however, we automatically
lose half the battle if we do not insist on the close connection between
what is happening domestically in this country, and our foreign policies.
Some of the foreign policies I'm talking about are (1), the U.S. drive to
dominate the world--militarily, politically, and economically--for the
indefinite future; (2), the U.S. drive to militarize our own nation to such
a degree that we can wage successful preemptive wars against any nations or
groups that refuse to accept U.S. dominance; (3), the U.S. support for
"regime change," that is, the ouster, through military or covert means, of
several unfriendly governments starting with Iraq; and (4), the extremely
controversial issue--in U.S. domestic politics at least--of the almost
total U.S. support for Israel's policies on Palestine.
As already mentioned, some argue that it would be better, at least
tactically, to avoid controversy by dodging some or all of these issues,
and to concentrate exclusively on the domestic, civil-liberties issue. This
is exactly what the Sharon government in Israel, the most vocal American
supporters of Israel, and the Bush administration itself want to see
happen. They have all worked intensely since September 11 to make people
fearful of criticizing the U.S. role in supporting Israel. (If you do
criticize, you're often charged with anti-Semitism.) In a more general
sense, if we ignore foreign policies, we'll be seen as accepting the
administration's view that there really are no legitimate grounds for
hatred of these U.S. policies--and that there simply exists aberrational
evil, against which we must wage war abroad, while introducing extreme
police powers here at home and profiling all potentially "evil" groups.
Taking that road truly does, in my view, increase the likelihood of
perpetual preemptive wars in future decades. It also reduces the likelihood
that we will win the civil-liberties battle. But if we accept the need to
change U.S. foreign policies at the same time that we oppose the new
domestic internal security policies, I think the odds change. We would have
a better chance of both reducing hatreds in the world and giving people in
the U.S. more hope than they can possibly have now for a reasonably
peaceful and stable next few decades, and for retaining most of the civil
liberties they now enjoy.
Bill Christison joined the CIA in 1950, and served on the analysis side of
the Agency for 28 years. From the early 1970s he served as National
Intelligence Officer (principal adviser to the Director of Central
Intelligence on certain areas) for, at various times, Southeast Asia, South
Asia and Africa. Before he retired in 1979 he was Director of the CIA's
Office of Regional and Political Analysis, a 250-person unit. His wife
Kathy also worked in the CIA, retiring in 1979. Since then she has been
mainly preoccupied by the issue of Palestine.
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