In a note drafted by Leonard Wong for the US Army Institute of Strategic Studies entitled "Maintaining Public Support for Military Operations" [http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/public.pdf], one can read the following: "Public support for military action is at levels that parallel public reaction after Pearl Harbor. Americans believe military action is appropriate, support a protracted war, and are willing to endure negative consequences from that war. Despite favorable polls, public support is bound to be fickle… As they return to [their normal] lives, their support of military action will diminish unless the military continually shows progress in the war against terrorism, keeps the nation connected to its armed forces, and provides domestic security that is effective, but for the most part unseen." In other words, public opinion is massively tied up with American politics in the war on terrorism, as long as the suspense holds up.
Operation "Enduring Freedom" began on 7 October 2001. The sound of arms goes away in Central Asia. Taking into account the force ratios, the Coalition's victory is assured before even giving battle. American public attention begins to fade out. Indeed, while Osama bin Laden's hideout is attacked and while Osama is threatening America on TV, no terrorist action from the "sleeper cells" hidden out on American territory is signaled. One began to doubt the danger. What do you reckon happened?
On 12 October, press agencies broadcast some alarming information. Journalists and congressmen had received letters tainted with anthrax spores. All in all, five boobytrapped letters were sent to the National Enquirer, NBC, the New York Post, and to the offices of Sens. Daschle and Leahy. The letters claimed five victims. Americans' daily lives came to a halt. They can no longer open their mail without rubber gloves and surgical masks. Survival-kit and gas-mask vendors are burgled. The postal system shuts down. A psychosis contaminates allied countries. All over Europe, one discovers letters containing the deadly white powder: Al-Qaeda had decided to go on the attack and to use the chemical and biological weapons which it had amassed with the help of Saddam Hussein. The US and its allies decide to build a stockpile of anti-anthrax vaccine. They revive the pharmaceutical industry, ordering millions of doses. And then: nothing. Except for five letters, the whole thing was a schoolboy joke, a collective hallucination.
It turns out that the five letters contained a strain of anthrax which was produced in US Army laboratories. The menace was internal. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, of the Federation of American Scientists, notes that only about fifty researchers, all of them immediately identifiable, were in a position to get their hands on the stocks and mess with them [Is the FBI Dragging Its Feet? by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, FAS, 5 February 2002, http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm]. An anonymous letter, addressed to the military base at Quantico at the end of September (that is to say, before the press had been informed of the anthrax attacks), denounces the intrigues of a former director of the US AMRIID [[Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases]], one Dr Assad. The FBI gesticulates yet again and explains nothing.
Once the panic has passed and the lightning-flash Operation "Enduring Freedom" is finished, the public now thinks it's time to turn the page. The DOD's job is to remind the public of the danger. With a great deal of shocking images, "particularly dangerous terrorists" are imprisoned at the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They're shipped by airplane from Afghanistan after being drugged and strapped to their seats. Once there, they undergo a program of sensory deprivation: masks over their eyes, plugs in their ears, cork stoppers in their noses. DOD lawyers [On this polemic: Trying Terrorists As War Criminals by Jennifer Elsea, Congressional Research Service (Library of Congress, 29 October 2001), http://www.fpc.gov/CRS_REPS/trying%20terrorists.pdf] explain without batting an eye that only federal law prohibits torture, and these laws don't apply in Guantanamo Bay, which is not on US soil. As for the Constitution, it hasn't got a word to say on this subject. The "international community" riots. Mary Robinson, high commissioner of the UN Human Rights Commission (and former president of the Republic of Ireland) expresses public indignation and calls the US government to order [UNHCR Document HR/02/4 [[Can't find this one online]]]: the detained persons should enjoy POW status as defined in the Geneva Convention. They should be treated in a humane manner and should receive fair and equitable trials.
While public opinion bubbles and simmers with passion, the shadow "war on terrorism" begins. Now, terrorism is neither a state, nor an organization, nor a doctrine, but a mode of action. It can be used by governments (the Robespierre dictatorship of 1793 is known as the terror), just as it can be used by oppressed minority groups. Sometimes, terrorism is plainly justified [[sic!!]]. Thus, during WWII, the French resistance engaged in terrorist actions against the occupation and collaboration forces, both civilians and military personnel. The expression "war on terrorism" in itself doesn't mean any more than "war on war."
It is true that George W. Bush has a very limited conception of terrorism. Thus, he doesn't consider the actions of death squads in Nicaragua to be "terrorism," even naming their former protector, John Negroponte, US ambassador to the UN [Negroponte Enters UN On Unanimous Senate Vote by Jean-Guy Allard, Granma International, October 2001]. For him, in a world which, after the collapse of the USSR, has become unipolar, "terrorism" seems to be defined as "any violent form of protest against American leadership."
Relying on the confidences of several participants and after consulting the meeting minutes, Bob Woodward (one of the two journalists who broke the Watergate story) described in detail in the Washington Post a Bush cabinet meeting, in the course of which the CIA was granted unlimited powers to wage "war on terrorism" [Saturday, September15, At Camp David, Advice and Dissent by Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, Washington Post, 31 January 2002]. This was on 15 September 2001, at a governmental summit at Camp David.
The meeting began, of course, with a moment of prayer, led by George W. Bush, which everyone present was invited to join in. Then, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of State described their respective actions. CIA director George Tenet then presented two plans in draft, supported with documents presented with particular care. The first was entitled "Initial Move: Destroy al-Qaeda, Shut Down the [Afghan] Sanctuary." Tenet described the need for secret actions against Al-Qaeda, not only in Afghanistan, but all over the world, necessarily in cooperation with non-democratic countries. Having gotten everyone's agreement, he asked for unlimited powers to realize this objective. "Tenet wanted a decree of allocation sufficiently general to enable the CIA to conduct any and all secret operations necessary without having to get formal approval for every particular operation. Tenet insisted that he needed a new competence to permit the agency to operate without restrictions, and that he was waiting for the President's encouragement to take some risks. He had brought with him a draft of a presidential decree giving the CIA the power to use all the instruments of secret operations, including murder… A second proposition was that the CIA strengthen its ties with important foreign secret-service organizations. Tenet hoped to obtain the assistance of these agencies with the hundreds of millions of dollars he was hoping to receive in his budget. Using services like these as subcontractors could triple or quadruple the CIA's efficacity. Like so many things in the world of secret operations, these kinds of arrangements aren't without risks: that would connect the USA with doubtful agencies, some of which have dismal human-rights records. Some of these services have reputations for brutality and have recourse to torture to get information." [[My translation of Meyssan's translation of Woodward's article]]
The meeting continued in a less-strained manner, Tenet announcing his strategy in Afghanistan. Then, drawing a deep breath, he presented the second document, entitled "Matrix of Worldwide Attack." "It described secret operations in eighty nations which were already in progress or which he was now recommending be carried out. The actions ranged from routine propaganda to murder in preparation for military strikes." Rumsfeld, laying aside the traditional CIA/Pentagon rivalries, warmly approved. "When the CIA director finished his presentation, Bush left no doubt about what he was thinking, shouting enthusiastically: Good work!"
This secret war got underway. In the shadows, the CIA took a few strikes all over the world at Bush's political opponents. Journalist Wayne Madsen has identified four famous victims [J'accuse – Bush's Death Squads by Wayne Madsen, MakingNews.Com, 31 January 2002]:
Did you say "war on terrorism?"
On 13 February, the Washington Post prints a long essay by Dr Henry Kissinger [Phase II and Iraq]. The founding father of American foreign policy relates the debates going on in the capital. Three options are possible after victory in Afghanistan.
First, to consider that the work is done and that anyone who'd be tempted to imitate the Taliban will have learned their lesson; second, to put pressure on certain terrorist-supporting states such as Somalia and Yemen; or, third, to concentrate on overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq as a manifestation of America's continued resolve and to change the regional equilibrium in the Middle East.
And Kissinger argues for a decisive attack on Iraq which would combine deployment of forces and assistance to the [[anti-Saddam]] opposition.
The essay having been called "in-bounds" [[Le ballon d'essai s'étant averé positif]], the Bush administration gets going.
On 29 January, the President of the United States gives his traditional "State of the Union" address before Congress, this time with the Prime Minister of the transitional Afghan government, Hamid Karzai, in attendance. He announces the new objectives of the "war on terrorism:"
Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world. (Applause.)
Our military has put the terror training camps of Afghanistan out of business, yet camps still exist in at least a dozen countries. A terrorist underworld -- including groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jaish-i-Mohammed -- operates in remote jungles and deserts, and hides in the centers of large cities.
Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.
Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.
[[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html]]
To the allies of the US, the pressure is too strong. It's been five months that they've had to stand by and silently swallow garter snakes. No decent criticism of the US drift has been possible during the period of mourning following the 11 September attacks. And the USA took care to extend the mourning to their allies and to prolong them by means of all kinds of commemorative ceremonies and TV shows.
Nevertheless, on 6 February, the French minister of foreign affairs, Hubert Védrine, takes a step. He acts with the endorsement of the prime minister and the president. On the France-Inter channel, he declares:
"We are allies of the United States, we are friends of the American people. We were sincerely and profoundly brought together in the 11 September tragedy, in the face of that terrorist attack. Not simply in solidarity with the American people, but there is a logic [[to the response]] and we must eradicate this evil. We must also deal with [[the problem]] at its roots. And today we are endangered by a new simplistic way of looking at things which is to reduce all the problems of the world into one single "war on terrorism." This is irresponsible… One cannot solve all the problems of the world together in one single "war on terrorism," even if it is necessary to fight terrorism, uniquely by military force. The problem has to be dealt with at its roots. We have to deal with the issues of poverty, injustice, humiliation, and so forth… Europe must stand up for itself. If we do not agree with American policy, we have to say so. We can say so, and we must say so… Being friends of the American people, being American allies in NATO, doesn't mean we're strung together. It doesn't mean we have to renounce all thoughts on anything that happens… We shall have a dialogue with the United States, and we shall do so in friendship. We will not ask that the US stay at home; to the contrary. We wish for the US to be engaged on the world scene, because there are no serious problems that can be solved without the United States. We will ask them to be engaged, but to be engaged on a multilateral basis, in partnership, such that others can discuss matters with them. If we have to raise our voices a bit in order to be heard, so be it."
In Washington, Colin Powell receives the French minister's proposal with disdain and sniffs about "those Parisian intellectuals who get the vapors."
Two days later, the Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, takes the opportunity at an EU parliamentary summit to break the blister in front of an international audience:
"The day after the 11 September attacks, we manifested an unwavering solidarity with the US and contributed by their side to the response which this aggression called for. This common action against terrorism will be pursued with determination. But that does not at all mean that we must not reflect in a lucid manner on the lessons which it is advisable to pay heed to after the 11 September events. Indeed, one cannot reduce the world's problems to the single dimension of a war on terrorism, whatever its pressing necessity might be, nor can one count on resolving those problems by predominantly military means. Our conception of the world is aimed at putting together a more balanced international community, a more certain and a more just world. This conception is founded on the principle of multilateral action. It makes use of all forms of cooperation which permit the members of the international community to attack together the deep-seated problems, for no one among them can claim to be able to resolve them all by themselves… We wish that the US, not giving in to the strong temptation of unilateralism, would rejoin us in this view, for without them, the new balances we're looking for will be more difficult to attain. As far as we're concerned, we will continue to work to advance these conceptions."
The skepticism spreads throughout Europe. The next day, it's Chris Patten's (the EU Commissar for Foreign Relation) turn to "break the silence." In an interview with The Guardian, on 9 February, he develops the French criticisms of "absolutism and simplism," seasoning them with bittersweet remarks on the US's need to listen to its allies: "Gulliver cannot go it alone, and it's not a good thing that we're thought of as Lilliputians who dare not raise their voices." On 10 February, the contagion takes hold at the conference of European ministers of foreign affairs, who are meeting in Cuencas, Spain. They all unite behind the unexpected combo of Védrine and Patten.
On the occasion of the Berlin NATO summit, rebelliousness grips the Alliance. The Canadian PM, Jean Chrétien, recalls that the UN and NATO resolutions are only binding in Afghanistan and that they did not include unilateral US engagement in other conflicts [Chrétien Resists American Pressure on Iraq by Sandra Cordon, The Halifax Herald, 18 February 2002, and US Worries About PM's Position on Fighting Iraq, by Daniel Leblanc, The Globe and Mail, 18 February 2002].
Could we be heading for the moment of truth?
[[END OF CHAPTER 10]]
[[This document is part of the English translation of
"L'effroyable imposture."
[[ (c) 2002, Christopher Schroen.
[[ See http://www.boss-tweed.com/gpdl.txt for copying
conditions.