- If you live in Falls Church, Virginia, and you see a
funny looking aircraft circling over your neighborhood don't be alarmed.
It's just the Pentagon looking for the sniper. CNN says Rummy wants to
help out, so he has approved "military reconnaissance" of undetermined
origin to snoop around the Washington area. CNN says the Pentagon has not
disclosed what kind of equipment will be used. Yet earlier in the day I
saw a report indicating the military will use General Atomics Aeronautical
Systems Predator UAV drones. They even showed video footage of the damn
things.
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- Rummy just shot another big hole in the Posse Comitatus
Act. It's looked like Swiss cheese for years, ever since the military was
"enlisted" to combat evil drug dealers. You know, drug dealers
who sell CIA certified heroin and cocaine on the streets of American cities.
According to CNN, the Pentagon is not really trashing the Posse Comitatus
Act because there is no "direct involvement" between the cops
and the military.
-
- Maybe the copywriters over at CNN need to read up on
the Posse Comitatus Act. "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances
expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully
uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise
to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more
than two years, or both." Of course, Rummy does not need Congress
to tell him what to do. His "guidelines," recently published
in the New York Times, demonstrate what he thinks about Congress and the
American people.
-
- Predator drones are "part of the Army or the Air
Force," even if guys in cammies and helmets toting M16s are not accompanying
the cops as they look for the sniper. Well, a lot of cops are wearing cammies
and helmets and toting M16s these days, so maybe the point is moot. I'm
sure David Koresh didn't see a lot of difference between ATF agents and
Nazi storm troopers. Or did the father of Elian Gonzalez. Or do a lot of
dark skinned people in America's inner cities. But never mind. I'm digressing.
-
- It's October. That means the Pentagon may have to fly
its drones in bad weather -- and the Predator does not do well in rain,
wind, snow, or cold temperatures. Predators crash, too, although the Pentagon
does not release such embarrassing statistics. A French journalist reported
a while back that a UAV drone was inadvertently thrown off course over
Kosovo. It seems a French officer used the same radio frequency on which
the UAV was operating. He interrupted the connection between the aircraft
and its ground control station. The drone ended up in the hands of the
Serbs, who were likely ecstatic. In 1998, the Pakistanis were thankful
as well when two of Clinton's cruise missiles went off target and landed
in their front yard unscathed. It was a benefit bestowed to Pakistan's
missile program which, at the time, was under US embargo.
-
- Think of all the air traffic over Washington. Think about
all the telephone wires, high power lines, microwave towers and cell phone
repeaters. Rummy's idea of catching the sniper with the help of a drone
is an accident waiting to happen. Maybe Rummy didn't think this one through.
Then again, maybe he did. Maybe this is yet another hole shot through the
Swiss cheese that is the Posse Comitatus Act. Maybe if Dubya and Rummy
keep blurring the lines a lot of us will no longer be able to tell the
difference between cops and soldiers. Maybe we will finally believe this
is what needs to be done to protect us from vicious terrorists. Maybe we
will give up the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments to the Constitution
in order to fight terrorism. Maybe we will give up the third amendment
for good measure--you know, the one prohibiting "peacetime quartering
of troops in private dwellings without owners' consent" (well, the
Pentagon will have to base those UAV stations somewhere). Then again, if
Dubya has his way, peace will soon become a curious anachronism.
-
- The absurdity of the whole sniper affair is stunning.
For instance, last week Ari Fleischer remarked to reporters in the White
House briefing room that "the cost of one bullet" was much preferable
to war against Iraq. He was talking about taking out Saddam by way of assassination,
something the CIA and military intel have done for decades -- from Pegasus
to Phoenix and beyond. In 1997, responding to Freedom of Information Act
requests, the CIA released its notorious "Operation PBSUCCESS"
assassination manual, used in the 1954 coup to oust -- and kill -- the
elected president of Guatemala. So-called conservatives have talked about
assassination and mass murder for years -- killing people they disagree
with by single bullet or multiple bunker-buster munitions. They now say
the CIA must be allowed to get back into the murder and torture business.
Some of us think they never got out of the business.
-
- Dubya and clan have created a moral climate where murder
is simply a political option -- and, lately, the preferred political option.
Instead of negotiation and containment, they insist on "pre-emption,"
which is simply another word for killing the other guy before he even thinks
about killing you -- or maybe before he can extend the dreaded olive branch.
Perhaps most insane and irresponsible, Team Dubya has managed to demolish
the taboo surrounding the unthinkable use of nuclear weapons in the name
of geopolitical expediency. It seems Dubya and Crew want the entire world
to believe America is a nation filled with Washington Beltway snipers.
America has a rep known around the world - everywhere, that is, except
in America. Corporate media generated distraction and deception is an artform
in the good old U.S. of A. History, as Henry Ford opined, is bunk.
-
- Fact is, US politicians like mass murderers. In the recent
past, the US befriended and supported -- both overtly and covertly -- sundry
murderers and demented thugs. Here's the short list -- Mohamed Suharto
(2 million killed in Indonesia, 250,000 in East Timor), Ferdinand Marcos
(not only killed thousands in the Philippines, but also looted more than
$35 billion), Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (had the democratically elected president
of Chile murdered; thousands of political opponents killed and disappeared;
250,000 people gaoled, tortured, or exiled), Anastasio Somoza Debayle (50,000
killed in Nicaragua; 120,000 exiled and 600,000 made homeless), and Pol
Pot (3 million killed, or between a quarter and a third of Cambodia's population).
Oh, and let's not forget Saddam Hussein, acquaintance and yes-man of various
US presidents until 1990 when he misunderstood his marching orders. He
has gassed and killed his own people with US assistance.
-
- The Washington sniper is small potatoes. More people
are killed each week from unsafe working conditions, uninspected food,
medical malpractice, and entirely legal (and profitable) drugs such as
tobacco and alcohol. But then, of course, those are mundane and wholly
non-sensational crimes when compared to a sniper who it now appears received
his training -- or, at least, his inspiration -- from the US military.
All told, the Washington sniper may turn out to be yet another unexpected
instance of blowback, if not politically at least culturally.
-
- But never mind. I think I hear a Predator buzzing outside
my window.
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- Kurt Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer
in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
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- http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo1017.html
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