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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
Bush�s new Department of Homeland Defense: the scaffolding of a police state
By the Editorial Board
8 June 2002
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The sudden announcement by President George W. Bush that he will seek the
creation of a huge new federal Department of Homeland Defense, to control most
federal domestic policing and security programs, must be understood on two levels.
In its timing, it is a transparent attempt to distract public attention from the
revelations
of advance warnings to the government about the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon
and the World Trade Center. In its substance, the proposal represents an
acceleration of the moves towards presidential dictatorship that have characterized
every step taken by the Bush administration since September 11.
The consolidation of agencies such as the Coast Guard, the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, the Transportation Security Agency and others�22 in all,
from five separate government departments�represents an unprecedented
concentration of police powers at the federal level. The new cabinet level department
would become overnight the third largest in the federal government, in terms of
manpower, with 170,000 workers, behind only the Department of Defense and the
Department of Veterans Affairs.
As outlined by Bush, it would carry out four main functions: border and transportation
security, emergency and disaster preparedness, the development of
countermeasures for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, and the centralized
storage and analysis of information on potential threats, to be supplied by the FBI,
CIA, NSA and other government spy services.
The Bush administration presented the plan as a measure to protect the American
people. But it would be more correct to say that the new department will concentrate
the police forces of the government for the purpose of surveillance and repression
against the American people.
As the Washington Post noted, the agencies to be combined in the new department
�go well beyond policing the borders.� The newspaper continued: �They reach deep
into American life, doing everything from coordinating disaster relief to tracking down
foreigners working illegally in restaurants. Some experts said this could prove
controversial, because it blurs the boundaries between gathering intelligence on
foreigners and doing the same with American citizens.�
Perhaps the most ominous measure is the inclusion in the Department of Homeland
Defense of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), now headed by
Bush�s former campaign manager, Joseph Albaugh. FEMA was designated as the
lead agency in plans developed 20 years ago under the Reagan administration to
impose martial law in the event of a new and unpopular Vietnam-style war in Central
America. FEMA�s brief included the establishment of prison camps at mothballed
military bases for the detention of hundreds of thousands of US citizens and foreign
immigrants.
Similar moves are now being considered against the Arab-American and Asian-
American population, and all other potential opponents of a new US war against Iraq
or elsewhere in the Middle East�or in Colombia, the Philippines, Georgia, or some
other target of US aggression. This has already been foreshadowed in the roundup
of thousands of immigrants after September 11 and their ongoing mistreatment in
jails and detention facilities.
Only three months ago the American media was filled with reports about the Bush
administration�s decision to establish a �shadow government� in the wake of
September 11, with the dispatch of designated executive branch officials to secret
bunkers, without the knowledge or approval of Congress. But today there is not one
comment from the media or the Congress connecting those preparations of a
behind-the-scenes dictatorship to this week�s unveiling of the scaffolding for a police
state.
Not a single voice in Congress opposes what amounts to a gross violation of
fundamental US constitutional principles: separation of powers, checks and
balances, congressional oversight of the executive branch, and the right to privacy
and freedom from government prying. Congressional oversight of the new behemoth
agency will be far more limited than the current supervision of 22 separate smaller
agencies. Bush cited the lessened congressional scrutiny as one of the main
advantages of his reorganization plan.
The White House plan was greeted enthusiastically by former Democratic vice
presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman, Congresswoman Jane Harman, and other
influential congressional Democrats, as well as by Senate Majority Leader Tom
Daschle and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt. All pledged speedy action on
the plan, and endorsed Bush�s appeal for passage before the end of 2002�a
flagrant attempt to steamroll the changes through Congress without any serious
public discussion or debate.
The centralization of all federal domestic security forces into a single agency
parallels another major action by the Pentagon, which in April won White House
approval to set up a new four- star command, dubbed the Northern Command,
covering the North American continent. For the first time in US history, all troops,
planes and ships on the territory of the United States and Canada will be under the
command of a single officer�an action always rejected in the past, even during
World War II, for fear of its dangerous implications for civilian control of the
military
and democratic governance.
These measures are combined with constant alerts, warnings and sensationalized
publicity of alleged terrorist threats, aimed at keeping the American population off
balance and creating the conditions where some new catastrophe�perhaps on an
even more terrible scale than September 11�can become the occasion for an
outright suspension of democratic rights and the imposition of martial law.
The secretive manner in which the plan was drawn up, and the sudden and
improvised manner in which it was released, have their own significance. The
process bespeaks an administration in enormous crisis, concerned that its political
support is eroding, that the US and global financial situation is balanced on a knife
edge, and that emergency powers may be required to deal with domestic social
unrest.
Less than two months ago, top White House officials dismissed Democratic Party
proposals for a new cabinet department for homeland security, calling it, at best, a
possibility for the distant future. Budget Director Mitch Daniels told the Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee April 11, �The president has said from the outset
that the structure for organizing and overseeing homeland security may evolve over
time as we all learn more and as circumstances change.� The only circumstance that
has changed significantly since then is the credibility of the administration, shaken
by
the wave of revelations of advance warnings of September 11 that were ignored or
suppressed.
The Washington Post, in what purports to be an inside account of the decision,
described what it called �a seven-week deliberative process secretive even by the
standards of [the] Bush administration.� To call this process �deliberative� is surely
misleading. Who was deliberating? Only four top Bush aides reportedly discussed
and drafted the proposal: Bush�s present homeland security adviser Thomas Ridge,
Budget Director Daniels, White House chief of staff Andrew Card and White House
counsel Alberto Gonzalez. The plan then went to Bush and Cheney for ratification.
The reorganization plan was unveiled with virtually no advance notification to
Congress, or even to the cabinet officers whose departments and responsibilities
would be radically altered. The House and Senate Republican leaders were
reportedly informed on Wednesday evening, 24 hours before Bush gave his
nationally televised speech. Democratic congressional leaders learned of the plan
the same day it was presented to the country.
Bush�s nationally televised speech Thursday evening was true to form: a string of
platitudes, non sequiturs and lies delivered in a barely literate fashion. He spoke for
only 11 minutes, with less than half of this time devoted to the subject of what he
called �the most extensive reorganization of the federal government since the
1940s.�
Bush declared his support for �the important work of the Intelligence Committees of
Congress,� which are now engaged in a closed-door investigation into the
performance of US intelligence agencies before September 11. The administration,
however, stalled the investigation for nearly nine months, finally agreeing to
cooperate only after it became convinced that the joint House- Senate panel was
committed to a whitewash.
There must be no �finger pointing,� Bush insisted. In other words, no leading figures
in the government or state apparatus are to be held accountable for actions that
contributed to the deaths of more than 3,000 people�the worst single loss of civilian
life in US history. But how can there be a serious investigation if its premise is a
free
pass for high officials? The outcome of such a procedure�general amnesty�has
been determined before any facts have been examined. This fits the textbook
definition of cover-up, and it makes a mockery of the pretense that the establishment
of a new super-police agency is motivated by the need to protect the American
people.
Bush stated: �I do not believe anyone could have prevented the horror of September
the 11th. Yet we now know that thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us,
and this terrible knowledge requires us to act differently.�
The first assertion is an absurdity, the second is pure sophistry. Bush says that
nothing could have prevented September 11: actually, routine enforcement of air
travel security precautions would have sufficed, since the 19 alleged hijackers
boarded planes armed with box-cutters, in many cases after buying one-way first-
class tickets�something that in and of itself is supposed to arouse the suspicions of
airport security. At least some of the alleged hijackers paid cash� another
occurrence that is supposed to prompt special attention from security personnel.
This is to say nothing of the mounting revelations about FBI and CIA knowledge of
the identities and Al Qaeda affiliations of many of the hijackers in the eighteen
months leading up to September 11.
As for the claim that we �now� know �thousands of trained killers are plotting to
attack
us,� this would suggest that the government was unaware of such terrorist threats
prior to September 11. This canard is in line with the basic pretense that everything
the Bush administration has done since that day�both abroad and at home�was
entirely unpremeditated.
But on September 10, as the White House recently admitted, a National Security
Decision Directive calling for all-out war on Al Qaeda, including an invasion of
Afghanistan, was sitting on Bush�s desk awaiting his signature.
All the evidence suggests that, far from September11 being unpreventable, it was
foreseen by the US intelligence apparatus and permitted to happen. The most
innocent explanation� although not the most plausible�is government negligence
on a colossal scale, rising to the level of criminal negligence. The more plausible
explanation is deliberate complicity. A significant faction within the American state
viewed a major terrorist atrocity as a reasonable price to pay to obtain the necessary
pretext for a war in the oil-rich regions of Central Asia and the Middle East.
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