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The New York Times and Bush�s military tribunals
By David Walsh
26 November 2001
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In a November 16 editorial, the New York Times acknowledged the anti-
democratic and authoritarian character of the Bush administration�s
decision to establish�by executive order�secret military tribunals to
try alleged terrorists. The newspaper�s editors described the
tribunals as �the latest in a troubling series of attempts to do an
end run around the Constitution.� The Times referred as well to the
government�s monitoring of conversations between prisoners and their
lawyers and its detention of hundreds of people �without revealing
their identities, the charges being brought against them or even the
reasons for such secrecy.�
The editorial declared, �With the flick of a pen ... Mr. Bush has
essentially discarded the rulebook of American justice painstakingly
assembled over the course of more than two centuries. In the place of
fair trials and due process he has substituted a crude and
unaccountable system that any dictator would admire.�
The Times editorial undoubtedly reflects growing unease within
sections of the political and media establishment over the scope and
speed of the Bush administration�s shredding of constitutional
safeguards. Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, who only days before was
advocating the torture of political prisoners, headlined a recent
piece, �Secret Military Tribunals? When Did the United States Become
Peru?�
The Times is fairly blunt about the reactionary essence of Bush�s
measures, but in a thoroughly dishonest manner, it seeks to separate
his assault on democratic rights at home from the open-ended and
brutal assertion of American militarism in the so-called �war on
terrorism.� The newspaper does not even raise, let alone answer, the
question: how a �just� war can be accompanied by the adoption of
measures �any dictator would admire.�
In the defense of secret tribunals and other unconstitutional
measures, Bush administration spokesmen and its supporters in the
media have cited as precedent Abraham Lincoln�s suspension of habeas
corpus during the Civil War. Far from bolstering the case for Bush�s
tribunals, this comparison underscores the reactionary essence of
both the war in Afghanistan and the administration�s offensive
against democratic rights.
Lincoln took the emergency measures at a time when the republic
proclaimed in 1776 was locked in a bloody conflict with armies massed
only a short distance from Washington, D.C. The outcome of the war
was by no means certain. More fundamentally, the suspension of
certain rights was taken in pursuit of a struggle against the
institution of slavery. As Lincoln put it in the Gettysburg Address,
the Civil War was being waged to bring �a new birth of freedom.�
The war of 1861-65 was followed in short order by the passage of
Constitutional amendments enormously expanding the scope of
democratic rights: abolishing slavery, granting citizenship to the
former slaves, proclaiming the principle of equal protection under
the law and due process, and guaranteeing the freed slaves the right
to vote.
The present war in Afghanistan, far from involving the defense of
freedom, is a colonial-type war of conquest. Its unstated aims center
on the US drive to control the oil- and natural gas-rich region
surrounding the Caspian Sea. The conflict is being conducted by a
government dominated by big business, in general, and big oil, in
particular. It began with a government campaign of hysteria to
confuse and benumb the population, and has been accompanied by the
rapid-fire introduction of authoritarian measures that were obviously
prepared in advance, but which were politically unthinkable before
September 11.
That Lincoln�s wartime measures and Bush�s have diametrically opposed
aims can be established with a certain degree of precision. The
present attorney general of the United States is John Ashcroft, the
former senator from Missouri. Ashcroft is a Christian fundamentalist,
right-winger and racist. In 1998 he granted an interview to Southern
Partisan magazine, in the course of which he observed, �Your magazine
also helps set the record straight.�
Southern Partisan is a neo-Confederate publication, which defends
slavery, white separatism and apartheid. It regularly celebrates
Lincoln�s assassination. In a recent feature on the pro-Confederate
Clement Laird Vallandigham, an Ohio Congressman and one of those
tried by a military court during the Civil War, the magazine
denounced Lincoln for his �unconstitutional and extralegal
pronouncements� and asserted that a �police state� was his �true
legacy.� These are the sort of political forces backing Bush and
Ashcroft and their present �anti-terrorist� campaign.
The Times editorial raises the issue of the Nuremberg trial of Nazi
leaders, citing the words of the chief American prosecutor, Robert
Jackson, who warned of tainted justice: �To pass those defendants a
poisoned chalice is to put it to our lips as well.� But the editorial
does not take up the implications of this reference.
The right-wing defenders of military tribunals declare that Osama bin
Laden and the Al Qaeda network are so monstrously evil that they do
not deserve due process. Leaving aside the fact that the Bush
administration has failed to provide serious evidence proving bin
Laden�s guilt in the September 11 atrocities, it is a historical fact
that the victorious Allies in World War II found it possible to place
on public trial mass murderers who�with the arsenal of an advanced
imperialist state at their disposal�carried out the greatest crimes
in history, including the systematic extermination of millions.
In the present case, the US government is at war ostensibly with a
few thousand terrorists living in caves in Afghanistan, whose alleged
crimes pale in comparison, and yet it insists on the necessity of
secret military tribunals and an entire range of anti-constitutional
measures never required before in history. How is this to be
explained?
The Bush administration, which proceeds by methods of stealth and
conspiracy as if by reflex action, has made clear that it has no
interest in an investigation of the events surrounding the terrorist
attacks. An open trial of bin Laden or his associates might reveal
the flimsiness of the evidence against them; it might, even more to
the point, shed light on connections between the Islamic
fundamentalists and US intelligence forces, puncturing the
government�s fantastic claim that the September 11 attacks were
planned and carried out without ever being detected by American
intelligence.
In short, military tribunals have the virtue of secrecy and
concealment, above all, from the American people.
The moves toward police-state rule along a wide front are
overwhelmingly dictated by domestic concerns, not the requirements of
war. The US is afflicted by a deep social crisis. The chasm between
the wealthy elite and broad layers of the population will only
continue to widen under conditions of slump. No section of the ruling
elite or either of its parties can propose any solutions to the
crisis. Their only answer is repression and more repression. The
measures ostensibly proposed for use against terrorist suspects are,
in fact, directed against all internal opposition.
The New York Times and entire liberal establishment are complicit in
this assault on democracy. Their task is to cover up the fact that
the Afghan conflict is an imperialist war. The Times has a specific
culpability. The newspaper played a criminal role in legitimizing the
anti-Clinton Whitewater scandal, in endorsing the ultra-right�s
impeachment drive, and in refusing to expose the hijacking of the
2000 election by the Bush camp.
The Times lies even in the course of denouncing Bush�s dictatorial
measures. The November 16 editorial states: �In his effort to defend
America from terrorists, Mr. Bush is eroding the very values and
principles he seeks to protect, including the rule of law.�
Bush is not seeking to protect democratic �values and principles,� as
the Times editors are well aware. The sinister and anti-democratic
measures at home are entirely in line with the character and aim of
the war: to reorganize Central Asia to the benefit of US geopolitical
interests. The Bush agenda of militarism and war goes hand in hand
with authoritarian forms of rule.
The Times editors know that Bush gained the White House by trashing
�the rule of law,� and that his cabinet of right-wing millionaires
and allies of the fascist wing of the Republican Party is thoroughly
hostile to the most elementary democratic principles.
The newspaper wishes to register its complaint and influence the Bush
administration to pursue a somewhat less brazen and reckless course.
It fears the consequences. The editorial suggests that Bush is making
a mistake, that his police-state measures are an aberration that need
correcting. This is also a lie.
The transformation of the US political system in the direction of
dictatorship, and external policies of militarism and neo-
colonialism, are two sides of the same phenomenon�the crisis of
American capitalism, which simultaneously produces the breakup of US
democracy and the volcanic eruption of American imperialism
internationally.
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World Socialist Web Site
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