On the morning of 14 September, the United States Congress authorizes President Bush to
use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
[Senate Joint Resolution 23, see http://allen.senate.gov/PressOffice/SJRES23.pdf]
This joint resolution, carried out by both houses of the legislature, is adopted unanimously, almost without debate, with one voice in opposition, that of California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee [she accounted for her vote to her consituents, publishing Why I Opposed the Resolution to Authorize Force in the San Francisco Chronicle on 23 September 2001]. The way it's written leaves President Bush plenty of latitude to act against non-governmental terrorist groups, but "emergency powers" are not exactly "war powers." Bush still has to inform Congress before engaging in hostile actions against a foreign state [National Emergency Powers, Harold C. Relyea, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 18 September 2001, http://www.fpc.gov/CRS_REPS/powers.pdf].
To carry out the initial actions, Bush asks Congress to authorize a special $20 billion fund. With real patriotic spirit, the two legislative assemblies double the amount and, after five hours of debate, vote to release a fund of... $40 billion. [Congress Clears Use of Force, $40 Billion in Emergency Aid, John Lancaster and Helen Dewar, Washington Post, 15 September 2001; also Congress Passes $40 Billion in Homeland Defense Funds by Steven Kingsley, Homeland Defense Journal, 7 January 2002, http://www.homelanddefensejournal.com]
In addition, Bush authorizes the mobilization of up to 50,000 reservists [Executive Order, 14 September 2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010914-5.html]. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld immediately calls up 35,500 of them (10,000 for the Army; 13,000 for the Air Force; 3,000 for the Navy; 7500 for the Marines; and 2,000 for the Coast Guard). The preceding mobilization dates back to the Persian Gulf War. That mobilization had involved 5,000 more soldiers, as that was a matter of reuniting a powerful armada.
Bush gives an important address [Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, 20 September 2001 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html] before Congress, meeting in a plenary session, on 20 September. He is accompanied by several public personalities including British Prime Minister Tony Blair. On this occasion, he officially names Osama bin Laden and his organization as the parties responsible for the attacks, and he delivers an ultimatum to the Taliban regime:
Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land. (Applause.) Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities. (Applause.) Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.
These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. (Applause.) The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.
He also announces the creation of an Office of Homeland Security, which has Cabinetary powers and will report directly to him. This new organization "will direct, supervise, and coordinate an overall national strategy to protect our nation against terrorism and to react to any future attack." In the same breath, the President announces that he has named ex-Marine and former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as the head of this Office.
In extending these measures, President Bush makes various decisions to reinforce the secret defense mechanism. The day after the attacks, 12 September, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld had declared during his press conference at the Pentagon: [DOD News Briefing, Secretary Rumsfeld, 12 September 2001, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2001/t09122001_t0912sd.html]
Questioned by reporters on 25 September about whether he intended to tell lies in order to protect military secrets, Rumsfeld replies that he personally was clever enough to act otherwise, but that his colleagues would get by as they could:
[DOD News Briefing, Secretary Rumsfeld, 25 September 2001, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2001/t09252001_t0925sd.html]
On 2 October, Under-Secretary of Defense Pete Aldridge Jr sends a memo to all the defense-industry suppliers [see http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2001/10/aldridge.html]. He informs them that the secret defense measures depend upon their commercial activities, it being understood that seemingly anodyne information could reveal a lot about the DoD's activities and intentions. From now on, civilians are enjoined to be discreet.
On 4 October, USAF principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition, management and logistics [[whew]] Darlene Druyun sends an email [see http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2001/10/druyun.html] to Air Force suppliers to make Aldridge's letter explicit. The email forbids all the suppliers to discuss any contracts with the media, contracts under negotiation as well as those already signed. [[I don't see where Meyssan got this.]] This blackout is in effect in the United States as well as in any foreign country where the suppliers might participate in weapons symposiums or forums. [[Reading a bit into it?]]
On 5 October, President Bush, in violation of the Constitution, orders several members of his Cabinet not to give information to the legislature (see Appendix).
On 18 October, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz addresses a memo [[see http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2001/10/wolfowitz.html]] to all DoD office heads, to be distributed to all hands. He writes:
It is therefore vital that Defense Department employees, as well as persons in other organizations that support DOD, exercise great caution in discussing information related to DOD work, regardless of their duties. Do not conduct any work-related conversations in common areas, public places, while commuting, or over unsecured electronic circuits. Classified information may be discussed only in authorized spaces and with persons having a specific need to know and the proper security clearance. Unclassified information may likewise require protection because it can often be compiled to reveal sensitive conclusions. Much of the information we use to conduct DOD's operations must be withheld from public release because of its sensitivity. If in doubt, do not release or discuss official information except with other DoD personnel.
At the same time, federal authorities take measures to ensure the secrecy of their investigation of the attacks. On 11 September, the FBI asks the airlines not to talk to the press. Nonetheless, their account would allow us to mark that the airplanes were not full, and that the hijackers' names were not on the passenger manifests as well. The same evening, the FBI pays a visit to the home of the Naudet brothers, Jules and Gédéon, who were in Manhattan when the crashes happened. The FBI confiscates their five hours' worth of video, which the two journalists had taken inside the towers and outside on the streets. Only six minutes of footage, depicting the first airplane's crash, is returned to them. This document, which could well add to our understanding of the WTC's collapse, is sealed and put away. The FBI also asks the Odigo company not to communicate with the press. It would still be interesting to know about the exact wording of the warning message Odigo received, and what measures were taken to limit the number of people in the towers. In just the same fashion, the military forbids all contact between its implicated personnel and the press. Thus, journalists can interview neither the fighter pilots nor the ground crews at Barksdale and Offutt. As for the American Bar Association, knowing that {damage and liability suits} [[des procès en dommages et intérêts]] would be opportunities to uncover state secrets, it announces that it will disbar any attorney who files suit on behalf of the victims' families. This ban is set out for only six months, coroners' examinations [[of dead bodies]] not being possible beyond that timeframe.
President Bush personally contacts Congressional leaders to ask them not to put national security in jeopardy by opening an investigation into the events of 11 September. In order to save face as well as to move on, Congress decides to create a joint investigative board to look into… the measures taken since 11 September to prevent further terrorist attacks [Congressional Panels Join to Probe US Intelligence, Walter Pincus, Washington Post, 12 February 2001].
On 10 October, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, brings the heads of the major TV networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC) to the White House to appeal to their sense of responsibility. If freedom of expression is to remain in effect, the journalists are invited to exercise their own "editorial judgement" and to abstain from releasing any information that might put the safety of the American people at risk [The "Shadow War": American Media Between Info and Propaganda,Agence France Presse, 11 October 2001].
The print media gets the message loud and clear. Immediately, Ron Gutting (editor-in-chief of the Texas City Sun) and Dan Guthrie (editor-in-chief of the Daily Courier [[Oregon]]), who had dared to criticize Bush, were sacked.
"Pravda and Izvestia in the former USSR would have had a hard time surpassing the American press in hewing to the official line… they have abandoned the notion of objectivity or even the idea of a public space where issues are discussed and debated… It's a scandal which betrays the work of a propaganda system, not that of a free press, which is essential in a democratic society," comments Edward Herman, political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania [cited by Olivier Pascal-Moussellard in Télérama, 30 January 2002]. [[My translation of Meyssan's translation.]]
Finally, at the end of three weeks of debate, Congress adopts the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (its acronym is USA PATRIOT). This exceptional legislation suspends various fundamental civil liberties for a period of four years so as to give the administration the means to effectively combat terrorism. It does not escape anyone that the four-year period covers all the rest of the Bush administration's tenure, including the electoral period for his reelection. It suppresses "terrorists and those who support them" according to a very extensive definition. So, collecting money to support the families of IRA militants in UK prisons has become a federal crime. The time period that suspected terrorists can be held is extended to a week. If they need to be questioned (for any reason at all, not necessarily connected with suspected terrorism), suspects can be held in secret for a six-month period, infinitely renewable if the Attorney General deems them "a threat to national security, the safety of society, or that of any person." Immediately, 1200 immigrants are placed in detention for an indeterminate period on unnamed charges. Foreign consulates denounce the withdrawal of their citizens' basic rights, following the example of the Pakistani Consulate General in New York, which declares: "In the majority of the cases, we have been given neither the identity of our nationals, nor the location where they are being held. [The American government] at least deigns to tell us how many of them are being held… Authorities are also pressuring them not to stand up for their right to contact their consular representatives or lawyers. This is simply inadmissible."
The USA PATRIOT Act finally allows the FBI to intercept communications without a warrant [This very controversial arrangement was agreed to by the Democratic Party. See the op-ed column penned by John Podesta, former White House secretary-general under Clinton, Tools for Counterterrorism, in the Washington Post, 18 September 2001.]. This measure applies to communications between foreign nationals, between foreign countries, which pass through American territory via the Internet.
On 31 October, the Justice Department suspends the right of those being held in detention [[garde-à-vue]] to consult alone with their lawyers [Atty General Ashcroft Outlines Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, DOJ, 31 October 2001, http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks10_31.htm]. Henceforth, these meetings can be listened in on and transcribed, and their content can be used against the suspects, which eradicates any possibility of the suspect and the lawyer working out a defense strategy together.
On 13 November, President Bush decrees that foreigners "suspected of terrorism," including "members and former members of Al-Qaeda," and those who have aided them (even unwittingly) in conspiring to carry out attacks (even if they weren't carried out), will not be tried in federal court, not even in military court, but by military commissions [Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in War Against Terrorism, 13 November 2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-27.html]. These commissions will be arbitrarily staffed by the Secretary of Defense and will establish their own Code of Procedure. Their sessions may take place in secret, behind closed doors. The "military prosecutors" are not required to divulge to the defense the nature of the "evidence" at their disposal. Decisions are made by a two-thirds majority (not a unanimous vote, as is the international norm in criminal matters).
The same day, the DOJ snatches up 5000 suspects of Mideastern origin, nearly all of whom are legal aliens and have commited no infraction whatsoever, for "questioning."
Relying on the anti-terrorist committee [see http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/othr/2001/5108.htm] created by UN Resolution 1373 of 28 September, the State Department orders its UN allies to pass similar legislation. On that day, 55 nations (including France, under the "everyday security law" [[See http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/rubriques/c/c2_le_ministere/c21_actualite/La_loi_relative_a_la_securite_quotidienne for more information on this French legislation]]) adopted certain measures from [[ont ainsi transcrit en droit interne certaines dispositions de]] the USA PATRIOT Act. The objective is not to protect local populaces from terrorism, but to allow American police services to extend their range of activity into the rest of the world. Basically, it's a matter of prolonging the delays in [[garde-à-vue]] in terrorist affairs, limiting the freedom of the press, and allowing security forces to intercept communications without judiciary control. In the UK, the anti-terrorist law authorizes the detention of foreign suspects without a hearing, in violation of the European Human Rights Convention. In Canada, the anti-terrorist law forces journalists to reveal their sources to a magistrate, under pain of immediate incarceration. In Germany, intelligence services are granted judiciary police powers to turn themselves into a political police force. In Italy, the secret service is authorized to commit all sorts of offenses on national territory, in the interest of national defense, and without being held at all legally responsible. Etc. [See The Top 15 Liberty-Killing Nations, by the Enduring Freedoms collective, at http://www.enduring-freedoms.org/pdf/RAPPORTL.pdf]. Finally, Secretary of State Colin Powell heads for Europe to make certain that European police forces are able, in future, to send any information in their possession straight to the FBI, with no formalities, and to install an FBI antenna in Europol offices.
"Since September 11, the government has enacted legislation, adopted policies, and threatened procedures that are not consistent with our established laws and values and would have been unthinkable before," writes the prestigious New York Review of Books [see The Threat to Patriotism by Ronald Dworkin, 28 February 2002, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15145]. Exulting in its patriotic mystique, the land of free expression and political transparence has withdrawn into an extensive idea of the rightness of the State and secret defense measures [[du sécret-Défense]] applicable to all sectors of society.
The official version of the events of 11 September does not justify such a reversal. If the enemy are a bunch of wretches cowering in Afghani caves, then why fear conversation between colleagues in the heart of the Pentagon? How can we imagine that a handful of terrorists could obtain and exchange sparse information about arms deals and deduce from them the plans of the US Army? Why suspend the normal operations of institutions and keep legislators from hearing, even in closed session, indispensable information for democracy?
And if the official version, according to which the attacks were carried out by foreign terrorists, is true, then why prevent any congressional inquiry and any investigation by the press?
Are we not watching a change of political process that was planned well in advance of 11 September? Many times over the past half-century, the CIA has tried to get a law passed that would forbid the press to mention state affairs and criminalizing the officials and journalists who would break that law. In November 2000, the extremely reactionary Sen. Richard Shelby, who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had the "Official Security Act" passed, which was vetoed by President Clinton. Shelby repeated this maneuver in August 2001, hoping for a better result from President Bush [Reviving a Misconceived Security Bill, NYT editorial of 21 August 2001; No More Secrecy Bills, Washington Post editorial, 24 August 2001, etc.]. The bill was in committee when the attacks intervened, and it was then partially incorporated into the Intelligence Act of 13 December 2001. Atty General Ashcroft immediately created a special unit charged with evaluating ways to prevent leaks of classified information. It will submit a report six months later. In the meantime, though, many official websites have already been cleaned up: public information has been taken away, with the explanation that their availability could allow "terrorists" to deduce official secrets.
The forces of justice, the congressional inquiry boards and the press, that is, all the counter-powers, having been neutralized, the executive branch is equipped with new structures that allow it to apply to domestic politics the methods already tested out by the CIA and the armed forces in other places.
The creation of the Office of Homeland Security (OHS), announced before Congress by President Bush on 20 September, doesn't actually take place until 8 October. It's not a question of circumstancial measures, but of a profound reformation of the American apparatus of state. From this point forward, the administration will make a distinction between internal and external security. The head of OHS, Tom Ridge, will be a peer of the National Security Adviser (Condoleezza Rice). Each of them will preside over a Council: the Council of Homeland Security and the National Security Council. Their distinct specialties will overlap each other in numerous areas. President Bush named, as well, an adjunct national security adviser in charge of anti-terrorist operations, who, although subordinate to Condoleezza Rice, will be at the disposal of Tom Ridge. This key pivotal position was awarded to Gen. Wayne A. Downing, who boasts a particularly muscular resume. [Bush Names Army General to NSC Post on Terrorism, Mike Allen and Thomas Ricks, Washington Post, 30 September 2001, and Two Key Advisers Are Filling New Posts to Fight New War, Mike Allen and Eric Pianin, Washington Post, 10 October 2001] Among other positions, Downing was the manager of Special Operations Command's stay-behind network. [The stay-behind is the most secret of all secret services. It was founded at the time of Liberation, "returning" Nazi agents to fight the expanding Communist influences. Infiltrating the highest level of Western governments, it was used to rig democratic elections. The Italian stay-behind branch is known to the public by the name Gladio.] He will also keep in place the contacts between the Councils and the Office for Strategic Influence, which is in charge of manipulating public opinion and foreign governments.
The Office of Homeland Security holds vast powers of coordination, which could grow and change to suit changing times. It's difficult to say whether it will play a role comparable to that of the Office of War Mobilization (OWM) during the Second World War, or comparable to that of the current Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), which oversees military operations in Latin America. [Homeland Security: the Presidential Coordination Office by Harold Relyea, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 10 October 2001, downloadable at http://www.fpc.gov/CRS_REPS/crs_hsec.pdf] Be that as it may, we're watching a takeover of civil life by the military and intelligence services. [Pentagon Debates Homeland Defense Role, Bradley Graham and Bill Miller, Washington Post, 11 February 2001]
Historians will record that between November 2000 and February 2002, democracy-as envisioned by the creators of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution-effectively came to an end. As democracy died, the Fascist American Theocratic State ["The State"] was born…
[cut & pasted from http://english.pravda.ru/columnists/2002/02/18/26452.html] [[That's right, I found the full text at Pravda!]] These were the words of two major journalists, John Stanton and Wayne Madsen. [The Emergence of the Fascist American Theocratic State, 10 February 2002]
[[END OF CHAPTER SEVEN]]
[[END OF PART TWO]]