Source: Council of the National InterestPhilip Giraldi
Defenders
of the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, which
declares the entire world to be a “battlefield” against terrorism and
authorizes the U.S. military to detain indefinitely anyone suspected of
being a terrorism supporter, have claimed that the White House will only
use its new power carefully and with due process. Opponents note that
the White House has never hesitated to use any new authority, no matter
how outrageous, and that the trend of law enforcement and security
agencies is to expand on powers granted, not to rein them in or limit
them.
The
track record of the Obama administration on civil liberties is
particularly bad, as it has broadened its definition of war powers,
reneged on its promise to close Guantanamo Prison, and supported
numerous dubious terrorism prosecutions. It has also become adept at
silencing critics through the repeated exploitation of the state-secrets
privilege, which effectively dismisses any case accusing the government
of abuse or malfeasance.
So
let us accept that the government now has the power to send a team of
military police to anyone’s home in any state in the Union and can
demand that that person surrender without any recourse to a lawyer or
judicial due process. The military can then detain the individual
incommunicado for any length of time and can presumably send him to
Guantanamo for special confinement, claiming that the reason for the
detention is support of terrorism, which can be almost anything,
including a letter to the editor of the local paper complaining about
the goonery of the Transportation Security Administration. Once in
detention, the suspect only has such options as are granted to him by
the military. He cannot see a lawyer, cannot invoke habeas corpus or
other constitutional privileges, cannot confront any witnesses against
him, and cannot challenge any information prejudicial to him even if it
is hearsay or fabricated. In other words, the accused can be arrested
for no reason and held indefinitely without any protections that enable
him to push back against being detained. Most people would consider a
criminal justice system that permits such detention ipso facto a police state.
Now
let us accept for a moment that the White House and Justice Department
are well-intentioned and will not use their newfound authority to detain
anyone in a questionable fashion. The expanded powers will only be used
to detain foreign terrorists who are caught in flagrante,
more or less. That would be fine, perhaps, but for one small problem.
Because the definition of a terrorism supporter has become enormously
elastic, it can be stretched to include anything. If the whole world has
become a battlefield, speaking out or acting against powerful vested
interests can be dangerous because those interests can turn around and
exploit the system to label one a terrorist. And once you are labeled a
terrorist, your constitutional rights vanish and you might as well sit
around and wait for that knock on the door — or, rather, for the door to
be kicked in.
That is what House Resolution 3131
is all about. It is titled, in part, “To direct the secretary of state
to submit a report on whether any support organization that participated
in the planning or execution of the recent Gaza flotilla attempt should
be designated as a foreign terrorist organization….” The bill then goes
on to assert that the two flotillas in 2010 and 2011 opposing Israel’s
blockade of Gaza were terrorist actions. But the only problem is that it
relies on information from the Israeli Intelligence and Information
Center to do so, meaning that Congress is deferring to a foreign
government organization to make a judgment that directly impacts that
selfsame government. And the Israelis are not shy about calling someone a
terrorist, if it suits the narrative they are trying to present. They
describe a Turkish organization involved in the first flotilla in 2010,
known by its acronym IHH, as linked to al-Qaeda and Hamas based on
evidence that no one else in the world accepts, apart from Congress,
that is. The Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara was clearly aiming to
take on the Israeli navy, armed to the teeth with “100 metal rods, 200
knives, 50 wooden clubs, and a telescopic sight for a gun.” In reality,
the rods were torn from the ships rails when the heavily armed Israeli
commandos boarded at night from helicopters. The knives were pocket
knives and utility knives from the vessel’s galley, and the clubs were
broken from deck chairs to repel the attackers. I will not speculate on
the telescopic sight, but there was not a real weapon anywhere on board.
The Israelis killed nine Turks, shooting several in the head at close
range, including an American citizen. Congress has yet to express its
outrage at the Israeli action — quite the contrary — and Hillary
Clinton’s State Department has been silent, apart from warning the
subsequent 2011 flotilla that the American embassy would do nothing to
protect U.S. citizens aboard.
Regarding
the second flotilla of July 2011, HR 3131 goes on to state that “Greek
authorities boarded ships and took into custody several individuals,
including Captain John Klusmire of the ship Audacity of Hope as
it violated Greek Coast Guard orders by setting sail without
permission.” Klusmire is a U.S. citizen who was not breaking any
American law, it should be noted. He was later released by the Greek
authorities.
The
bill concludes with its “Sense of Congress,” surely an oxymoron if
there ever was one: “the secretary of state shall submit … a report on
whether any support organization that participated in the planning or
execution of the recent Gaza flotilla attempt should be designated as a
foreign terrorist organization … [to] include information on … the
sources of any logistical, technical, or financial support for the Gaza
flotilla ships, including the Audacity of Hope, that were to set sail from Greece on July 1, 2011.”
I
personally know a number of organizations that provided material or
financial support to one or both of the Gaza flotillas. I also
personally know that none of those organizations support violence
against the state of Israel and that the people behind them believed
then and now that they were exercising their constitutional rights in
speaking out and acting nonviolently against what they and most of the
world regard as an illegal and immoral blockade of Gaza. But, if the
bill passes in Congress, a bureaucrat in the U.S. Department of State
will now be able to call those people and their associated groups
“terrorists,” and Hillary Clinton will be able to confirm that judgment
to Congress. Next step is the MPs at the door.
If
people cannot see what a slippery slope all of this is, they not
thinking very clearly. HR 3131 is admittedly still sitting in
congressional committee, but it has some very powerful sponsors,
including Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, who heads the Foreign Affairs
Committee and is a rabid supporter of Israel. The bill not only indicts
whole groups of people exercising their constitutional rights and labels
them “terrorists,” it even names one American who was, at the time,
breaking no U.S. law. Klusmire’s only crime was to “set sail without
permission” — in Greece. It was clearly a bogus charge manufactured to
suit by a vulnerable Greek government desperately needing international
loans and under pressure from the United States and Israel.
Klusmire’s
real crime was to oppose a powerful interest group, the Israel Lobby.
To do so these days is to invite a charge of terrorism support with the
option of being arrested by the Pentagon and locked up somewhere at the
pleasure of the president of the United States. How low have we sunk,
Mr. Obama? You portray yourself as a man of honor and a defender of
constitutionalism, but you have opened the gates to lawlessness and
authoritarian rule. And even if you are as benign as you depict
yourself, you have provided the legal tools for those who might follow
you — the Gingriches, the Perrys, the Bachmanns, and the Santorums — to
possibly do much, much worse.
