http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/09/11/repealing_the_bush_doctrine.php
Repealing The Bush Doctrine
Robert L. Borosage
September 11, 2006
Robert L. Borosage is co-director of the Campaign For America’s Future.
September 11, 2001, remains etched in memory—the crystalline beauty of that day, the gothic horror of the violation, the heroism of those who came to rescue. Americans rallied as one. The world, appalled at the crime, stood at our side. “We are all Americans,†read the headline of Le Monde.
The squandering of that moment of national unity and international solidarity by the Bush administration in the past five years rivals the enormity of the original attack. Yet the administration proceeds even to this day as if its ruinous policies are the only real choice if we are to protect ourselves from future acts of terror. They are not. It is time for a new vision that accomplishes what the administration has manifestly failed to do: neutralize terrorist networks, starve extremists of the money and motivation that fuel their activities, and build international alliances that actually leave the world safer and more secure.
The administration’s failures are apparent. Americans are divided as the White House continues to wield the war on terror as a partisan club. Allies are alienated. Fury in the Muslim world is on the rise. Osama bin Laden is free and has set up camp in Pakistan. Terrorist acts are up dramatically across the world. Our nation’s credibility is shredded by the lies leading up to the invasion of Iraq; our nation’s honor besmirched by the horrors of Abu Ghraib, the gulag of secret prisons and use of torture still coming to light. American forces are mired in a bloody and endless civil war in Iraq. The Taliban is back on the rise in Afghanistan, with the NATO commander pleading for more forces. The nonpartisan 9/11 Commission gives the administration a failing grade on homeland security. The conservative Supreme Court rebukes the president for his imperial disdain for America’s laws and constitution. Career military officials censure the administration for misleading and weakening the military. Five years later, America is more isolated, more hated and less safe.
It is worth understanding the roots of these failures. The neoconservatives who dominated administration policymaking got the threat wrong, the strategy wrong, the priorities wrong and the facts wrong. They scorned the threat posed by bin Laden and stateless terrorists both before 9/11 and after. They disdained international alliances and the United Nations, believing that the United States could act alone and others would follow. They believed that the “shock and awe†of U.S. military power would suffice to cow the terrorists. They claimed—falsely—that there were weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was an ally of bin Laden and other Islamist terrorists. While pursuing the Iraq fiasco, which had nothing to do with 9/11 or Islamist terror, the administration turned from the attack on bin Laden in Afghanistan and shut down the unit tasked with tracking him down.
Bin Laden, as he has said repeatedly, wars on us because of our policies, not because of our freedoms. He gains adherents because Muslims see us as waging war on Islam, supporting repressive dictatorships to gain access to oil, stationing troops throughout the region, supporting brutal repression of Muslims in Chechnya and elsewhere, and arming and emboldening Israel against the Palestinians. The problem is not that the United States has intervened too little in the Middle East. Bin Laden’s appeal comes from the reality that the United States is permanently engaged in the region, supporting unpopular regimes against their own people.
The occupation of Iraq bares a grotesque similarity to the catastrophic failures in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Conservatives disdained the mission—nation building in Iraq, emergency relief in Katrina. As in Katrina, they utterly failed to plan sensibly, occupying Iraq without giving thought to what would happen after Hussein fell, stranding American troops without the numbers, the equipment, the training or the directions to provide order. They turned the vital reconstruction effort over to cronies and political operatives, while squandering billions in sole-source, no-bid contracts to connected companies like Halliburton and others. When their failures became evident, they focused on spinning the message, not fixing the mess.
Now the White House policy is utterly bankrupt. The president says he will stay until democracy thrives in Iraq, even as he quietly plans to reduce U..S. forces and cut off funds for reconstruction. In fact, he hopes only to stave off defeat until he is out of office, squandering thousands more lives and billions more in resources—not to defeat the enemy, but to save his own face.
It is time to change course. This requires not simply getting the troops out of the middle of a civil war in Iraq, but a renewed strategy to take on the threat posed by al-Qaida and its imitators. The elements of a new strategy are clear:
Launch a crash Apollo Plan for energy independence. We must end our reliance on Middle Eastern oil, freeing us to end our support for vicious dictatorships like that in Saudi Arabia which is the leading source of funding and doctrine for Islamic extremism across the world.
Revive the international alliance against bin Laden, and the Islamist terrorist networks. This requires alliance, cooperation and communication, aggressive intelligence and police work such as that demonstrated in Britain in the recent arrests. It requires focusing on stateless terror cells—that can be located in Spain, Britain or Germany as well as Asia and the Middle East. It demands reviving the intelligence unit devoted to hunting down bin Laden, and stabilizing and supporting the regime in Afghanistan.
Strengthen homeland security by implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, screen baggage in containers and airlines, secure our ports, and strengthen the ability of our police, fire and public health systems to respond to crisis, whether terrorist attack or natural disaster.
End the occupation of Iraq, which is weakening our military, isolating our country and generating recruits for al-Qaida across the world. The U.S. should make its best efforts to forge a national government with strong regional autonomy that might limit the civil strife, but U.S. soldiers should not be mired in the midst of sectarian violence. It is time to set a clear timeline to bring the troops home.
Make America a source of hope rather than hatred in the world. Our contribution to humanitarian aid in the wake of the Asian tsunami did more for our security than dropping more bombs on Falluja. Reviving U.S. leadership in vital areas of global security—addressing nuclear proliferation, “loose nukes,†catastrophic climate change, proliferating pandemics, the growing trade and investment imbalances that threaten the global economy—will rebuild respect for U.S. judgment and support for U.S. policies.
Champion democracy by the power of our example, not by the force of our arms. Use our military as a last resort, but be relentless in tracking down those who plan terrorist attacks on this country. But we should strengthen our own democracy, respect the rule of law that we proclaim, return our imperial presidency to the bounds of the Constitution, and revive the U.S. effort to champion human rights. The U.S. has unprecedented military prowess. But in the battle of ideas with Islamic extremists, our “soft powers†are far more potent than our bombs.
This is just common sense. But it is the polar opposite of the current policies and priorities of this administration. Americans sense already the scope of the failure. Now they need to understand there is another way that can make us more, rather than less, safe.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,,1868963,00.html
How US merchants of fear sparked a $130bn bonanza
The homeland security market has an army of lobbyists working for its interests in Washington
Paul Harris in New York
Sunday September 10, 2006
The Observer
Brian Lehman’s farm lies down a gravel road, between two fields of swaying corn as tall as a man. It is in the middle of Indiana’s rural heartland in a landscape populated mostly by bearded Amish farmers and their wives.
Horse-drawn buggies are more common than cars, roads are littered with horse manure and fields are worked by hand. It feels distant in time and place from big cities such as New York or Washington, or even Indianapolis, two hours’ drive south.
Yet Lehman’s farm, from which he runs a small popcorn business, was recently declared a target for terrorists. State security officials included it in a list of assets considered potential victims of attack, most likely by Islamic fanatics. That was a surprise to Lehman, who had previously never considered Amish Country Popcorn on the front line in the war on terror. But he reckons he knows why he was chosen: ‘It’s the money.’
Five years after the World Trade Centre fell, a highly lucrative industry has been born in America – homeland security. There has been a goldrush as companies scoop up government contracts and peddle products that they say are designed to make America safe.
The figures are stunning. Seven years ago there were nine companies with federal homeland security contracts. By 2003 it was 3,512. Now there are 33,890. The money is huge. Since 2000, $130bn (£70bn) of contracts have been dished out. By 2015 annual federal spending on the industry could be $170bn.
But state officials want in on the government handouts too. That is why Indiana ended up identifying 8,591 potential terrorism targets (including Lehman’s farm) inside its Midwestern borders. But they went too far.
Indiana’s total was the most of any state – twice as many as California and 30 per cent more than New York.
The reason is simple. With so much money on offer and such riches being made, there is a powerful economic incentive to exploit the threat to America. The homeland security industry has an army of lobbyists working for its interests in Washington. It grows bigger each year and they want to keep the money flowing. America is in the grip of a business based on fear..
Inside a fancy office block in downtown Washington DC lie the offices of the Ashcroft Group. It is six blocks from the imposing buildings of the Department of Justice where the head of the firm, John Ashcroft, used to be President George W. Bush’s Attorney General. As Attorney General, Ashcroft controversially extended the surveillance powers of the state in order to fight terrorism. Now he lobbies and consults on behalf of technology companies seeking to capitalise on the new powers. His clients include firms such as ChoicePoint, which gathers data on individuals and sells it, and Innova, which makes software for surveillance drones and robots.
In turning from powerful official to powerful lobbyist, Ashcroft is a brazen example of what critics call Washington’s ‘revolving door’ – a process whereby officials leave public service for the private sector, exploiting their old contacts for commerce. ‘It’s become the norm that senior officials open up their own shops in their old sectors. It can be incredibly lucrative for them,’ said Alex Knott, project manager for Lobby Watch, part of the Centre for Public Integrity.
In the new anti-terrorism industry, centred on the sprawling Department of Homeland Security, the door is revolving faster and faster. Though the department was created only three years ago, 90 of its former officials have already left to make money in lobbying and consulting. They include Tom Ridge, the first head of the department, who – like Ashcroft – now runs his own company. It is a crowded field. In 2001 only two lobbying firms registered as homeland security consultants. By the end of 2005 there were 543. Rules limit the ability of officials to enter the private sector in their old field for at least a year, but they are easily circumvented. They do not apply to those earning less than $140,000 a year and top-ranking officials often get around that by working in the ‘background’ at their new firms.
In effect there has been a huge privatisation of the homeland security industry in the US. It extends from surveillance issues to developing technology to working in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where many jobs once carried out by the military are now done by private contractors. At government hearings last year ChoicePoint said it considers itself a private intelligence agency doing the government’s spying. ‘After 9/11 we have seen the rise of the security-industrial complex,’ said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and former Clinton adviser.
Some aspects of this new industry and its relationship with American citizens sound like science fiction. Dulles Research, another Ashcroft client, claims its software can detect terrorists by monitoring everyday behaviour such as travel schedules, credit card usage and bank transfers. It is bidding for a government contract to monitor millions of people for suspicious patterns.
That is the tip of an iceberg. The industry has the feel of a boom town where the outlandish and the mundane compete for attention. Four years ago there had not been a single business conference for homeland security firms. Now there have been 50. There is an industry newspaper, Government Security News, once a quarterly, now bi-weekly. Venture capital firms exist solely to invest in new and upcoming national security companies. Across America, universities offer courses in homeland security. ‘All this money in the industry is just up for grabs. It’s like a goldrush,’ said Knott.
Of course, there is a real terrorist threat to America. There are many areas of the country, especially its ports and airports, where money needs to be spent to improve security and prevent a tragedy on the scale of 11 September from happening again. Private firms have a vital role to play in this. But there are grave concerns as to whether the industry has properly addressed these issues.
Instead, critics argue, it has trampled citizens’ rights by invading their privacy, created an atmosphere of fear and done little to prevent a future attack. There have been many stories on the mis-spending of huge amounts of government money, from bullet-proof vests for dogs in Ohio to puppet shows in Iowa. At the same time US container ports still monitor little of what is imported through them, and a multi-million-dollar scheme for all transport workers to get a tamper-proof ID is two years late, has cost millions and still does not work. States have also fought over who should get the biggest security grants from the federal government. Midwestern states claim they are ignored and more obvious targets, such as New York, say not enough is being spent on them. All of which adds an economic incentive to play up an area’s vulnerability.
This explains why Brian Lehman and his popcorn suddenly appeared on a terrorism target list. Lehman reacted with good humour. ‘We’ve really had a lot of fun with it,’ he said. It spurred a wave of interest in the company and – far from hiding away from the ‘terror threat’ – Lehman put up a new sign to help people find the isolated place. In the annual parade last month in Berne, the local town, his truck was painted with a target on the side as a joke. In a bizarre way, Lehman is hoping that he too can reap a bit of extra money from the boom in homeland security.
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“Our German forbearers in the 1930s sat around, blamed their rulers, said ‘maybe everything’s going to be alright.’ That is something we cannot do. I do not want my grandchildren asking me years from now, ‘why didn’t you do something to stop all this?” –Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst of 27 years, referring to the actions and crimes of the Bush Administration
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