NP? Wounded prisoners shot and left to die

[Doug Millison]

Otto,  I think the jury's still out, we just don't have enough information
to know what's really going on.  Re the massacre of the prisoners by US air
strikes and Northern Alliance troops on the ground (most of the reports
today say that the NA troops killed relatively few and that it was the US
air strikes that did most of the dirty work; the NA have been happy to loot
and mutilate the corpses, however, according to eyewitnesses;  accounts
about how the fight started are conflicting), I think I'll wait for a more
reliable and less self-interested source than the NA commander.  Re the
"evidence" that Bush and Blair said justified the attacks, I'm not aware
that they have released any actual evidence into the public record, only
summary descriptions of what have almost universally been described as
circumstantial links between bin Laden and the September 11 attacks.  Given
the US government's extensive track record of lying and covering-up, it's
prudent to say that we don't know enough there, either.  If the Bush
Administration gets its way and rams through these secret military
tribunals -- subverting the U.S. judicial system -- we may never know what
"evidence" exists to link any of these people to the September 11 attacks.

I note a vast silence from the Bush Administration regarding whether or not
the military action in Afghanistan has actually "neutralized" anybody who
can be directly linked to the September 11 attacks. Unfortunately,
reporters seem to have stopped asking any embarrassing questions about
whether or not nearly 6 weeks of war has had any impact on the people
actually responsible for the September 11 atttacks.

One good thing, there seems to be a groundswell of opposition to Bush's
attacks on civil liberties in the U.S.
http://www.counterpunch.org/browne4.html is worth reading, summing up the
points that have been made in literally dozens of articles, in both the
mainstream and alternative media.  Given Pynchon's comments in his Stone
Junction, and some close readings of Vineland, I think it's fair to say
that this attack on civil liberties is something that goes against the
worldview he has expressed.  Of course this attack on civil liberties is
nothing new in U.S. history, there has been an authoritarian tendency in
U.S. governments ever since the beginning.  As Martin Lee says in a recent
article ((http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11976)):

"Ah, the wish for kings ... I feel it stirring among us, a deep-rooted
authoritarian impulse that throbs during times of crisis, the age-old
hankering for an almighty power to issue decrees and set matters straight.
Personally, I think George W. Bush would make a good monarch. After all, he
has always been a titular kind of guy, a front man for oil and ordnance. So
let's proclaim him King George. It's a fitting appellation for a sovereign
who rules by capricious whim and exercises power without judicial scrutiny
or statutory authorization. Lord John Ashcroft, leading emissary of the
royal court, tightened his Richelieu-like grip on the homeland last month
when King George affixed his seal of approval to the USA PATRIOT Act of
2001, which gives the government sweeping new powers to conduct secret
searches without a warrant, tap telephones and computers, and detain
suspects indefinitely in the name of fighting terrorism.


The USA Police State Act of 2001 would have been a more appropriate title
for the bill that zoomed through Congress "without deliberation or debate,"
as Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) noted. Feingold, the only senator who opposed the
draconian legislation, accused the Justice Department of exploiting "the
emergency situation to get some things they've wanted for a long time."
[...] Another new rule imposed by Lord Ashcroft allows the government to
eavesdrop on conversations and intercept correspondence between prison
inmates and their lawyers -- in effect nullifying the Sixth Amendment right
to effective counsel. And last week King George signed a decree that the
government can try people accused of terrorism behind closed doors in a
special military tribunal, rather than in a civilian court.


[...]

A "federal terrorist offense" is distinguished by "the intent to influence
or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to
retaliate against government conduct," explains Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii).
"This broad, unclear definition may include groups such as Greenpeace,
along with the terrorists." Ditto for People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals, which "could be investigated as a terrorist group because one of
its members hits the secretary of agriculture with a pie," says Laura W.
Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office.

[...]


A few months prior to Sept. 11, FBI director Robert Mueller named a couple
of harmless guerrilla theater-type groups -- Reclaim the Streets and
Carnival Against Capitalism -- during Senate testimony on the terrorist
threat. The FBI continues to probe other organizations it claims are linked
to terrorism, including the U.S. chapter of Women in Black, a pacifist
cadre that holds peace vigils to protest violence in Israel and the
Palestinian territories. "If the FBI cannot or will not distinguish between
groups who collude in hatred and terrorism and peace activists who struggle
in the full light of day against all forms of terrorism, then we are in
serious trouble," one Women in Black member remarked.


Unfortunately, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies often seem
oblivious to such nuances. Throughout American history, federal
investigators have targeted and harassed political dissidents. During the
1960s the FBI mounted a full-fledged vendetta against Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., while spying on numerous civil rights and anti-Vietnam War
activists. By the mid 1970s the FBI had accumulated dossiers on more than
one million Americans, though only a few individuals were actually charged
with committing crimes. In the 1980s government sleuths kept tabs on the
sanctuary movement, which provided asylum in the United States for families
fleeing Central American deaths squads.


Today a big chill is upon us, and many are peevish toward anything that
smacks of dissent. If you question official policies, you run the risk of
being labeled an apologist for terrorism. Lampoon our leaders and you'll be
banished from the airwaves, while the major media grovel for Pentagon
handouts and military analysts strut their stuff on television.
Film-industry executives admit that they have been under pressure to take
an "American stance" on issues, giving rise to concerns that the upsurge of
jingoism could result in an anti-dissident blacklist much like the one that
muzzled Hollywood during the McCarthy era.


[...]


A group of prominent intellectuals -- including Edward Said of Columbia
University and philosopher Anatole Anton of San Francisco State University
-- signed a letter asserting that they had been threatened and attacked for
speaking out against U.S. foreign policy. Shortly thereafter, the American
Council of Trustees and Alumni, a right-wing academic group founded by
Lynne Cheney (the veep's wife), released a report accusing 40 college
professors of not showing enough patriotism since Sept. 11.


In what may be a harbinger of things to come, Nancy Oden, a Green Party USA
coordinating committee member, was grabbed by armed guards and detained at
Bangor International Airport in Maine on Nov. 1 as she attempted to board
an American Airlines flight to Chicago. Prevented from flying, Oden was
unable to attend a Green Party meeting in the Midwest the next day. "An
official told me that my name had been flagged in the computer," Oden said.
"I was told that the airport was closed to me until further notice and that
my ticket would not be refunded."


An organic farmer with no prior arrest record, Oden believes she was
targeted because of her outspoken political views. An airport spokesperson
claims that Oden caused the confrontation by refusing to cooperate with
airport security -- a charge Oden adamantly denies. Whatever the case, it's
doubtful that this incident would have occurred before Sept. 11.


Perhaps if they spent less time spying on law-abiding citizens and
nonviolent social activists, our law enforcement agencies would be more
successful in thwarting terrorist networks that are plotting mass murder.