Bush’s Dirty War

Britain Walks the Walk While Bush Talks the Talk

Nearly all noteworthy pieces of the search to bring the London terrorists to justice is contradictory to President George W. Bush’s so-called war on terrorism. From the leading role of Scotland Yard to its close cooperation with police, the British effort is at odds with the U.S. operation directed by the Pentagon. 

Just months before the London bombings, British counter-terrorism officials were anxious upon visiting the Guantanamo prison that they did not meet with legal authorities but only with military personnel; they were also disturbed to learn that the information they had gathered from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was unknown to the FBI counter-terrorism team and that the British were the only conduit between the two U.S. agencies. The British discovered that the New York City Police Department’s counter-terrorism unit is more synchronized with their methodology and goals than is the U.S. government.

The Italian counter-terrorism operation essential to the capture of one of the alleged terrorists fleeing from London is itself in open conflict with President Bush’s invented war: just last month, an Italian prosecutor filed indictments against 13 CIA operatives who allegedly betrayed their Italian intelligence colleagues in surveillance of an Egyptian Muslim cleric, by using their information but not telling them about the “rendering” (counter-terrorism code for kidnapping) of the suspect to Egypt rather than permit his arrest in Italy; as it now stands, those CIA agents are fugitives from Italian justice. 

International counter-terrorism is also running afoul of Bush’s imperatives for what has become a dirty war. Although Bush’s “war on terrorism” is a phrase his administration just two weeks ago declared was obsolete — only to have Bush reinstate the slogan a few days later — the dirty war remains very much in place.

Since the national tragedy of 9/11, President Bush has proposed a sharp dichotomy between war and law enforcement. In last year’s State of the Union address, Bush mocked those who see counter-terrorism as other than his conception of war: “I know that some people question if America is really in a war at all. They view terrorism more as a crime, a problem to be solved mainly with law enforcement and indictments...the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States, and war is what they got.” 

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Vice President Dick Cheney contemptuously criticized the application of law enforcement as effeminate sensitivity; two months ago, Bush’s deputy chief of staff, the ever-duplicitous Karl Rove, attacked the very notion of indictments as “a symptom of liberal weakness.”

Against the strongest possible internal opposition from senior U.S. military officials, the military’s corps of lawyers, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), President Bush derided the Geneva Conventions and avoided legalities, especially trials, to pursue a policy of torture, creating a prison system run by an unaccountable military chain of command apart from traditional counterintelligence. It has been operated clandestinely, removed from the oversight of Congress — and President Bush has battled it out in court against the imposition of due process to retain absolute power.

But Bush is more and more under attack in defense of his dirty war: the Pentagon has quashed the suggestion of military investigators looking into FBI reports of torture at Guantanamo that its former commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller, be reprimanded for dereliction of duty. 

In July, three top military attorneys from the Judge Advocate General Corps for the Army, Air Force and Marines testified before the Senate that they had objected from the start to the new abusive techniques of interrogation of prisoners. In response, three Republican senators — Lindsey Graham, John McCain and John Warner — have all proposed legislation that would in effect put an end to Bush’s dirty war. The bill would prohibit “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of detainees, hiding prisoners from the Red Cross and using methods not authorized by the Army field manual.

One of these senators, McCain, himself a prisoner of war in Vietnam, released a letter signed by more than a dozen retired senior military generals and admirals as well as prisoners of war: “The abuse of prisoners hurts America’s cause in the war on terror, endangers U.S. service members who might be captured by the enemy, and is [an abomination] to the values Americans have held dear for generations.”

Cheney interceded to attempt to force the senators to withdraw their bill, claiming they are “hurting the war on terrorism,” but it would seem that they shall not be moved, with McCain stating that the debate isn’t about the terrorists: “It’s not about who they are,” said McCain, “it’s about who we are.” 

But the dirty war that damages the difficult work of counter-terrorism continues unabated, raging on for reasons beyond domestic political consumption; at its heart is the drive for concentrated executive power above the rule of law. Bush’s dirty war is having a counterproductive effect, however, just as dirty wars did in Vietnam, Algeria and Argentina. For every militant abused or killed, a community of like-minded militants is inspired. Hatred, resentment and vengeance are the natural outcomes.

There has never been a victory through a dirty war over these forces. To the extent Britain responds with the declaration of the rule of law, it serves as a noteworthy counterexample to Bush’s dirty war…

send your comments to
editor@thebulletin.com