Politics of Dissent

Friday, October 13, 2006

The Sorrows of Regime Change

It is virtually beyond dispute that the Bush administration’s misadventures in Iraq, and increasingly in Afghanistan, are worsening by the day. I say virtually because it appears that the Bush administration, and some of its more fanatical apologists, have yet to recognize the severity of the chaos, death, and destruction unleashed by U.S. “regime change” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Regardless of whether Bush, Cheney, or Fox News wish to acknowledge the miserable state of affairs on both fronts of the infinite war on terror, the facts are hard to ignore. Iraq is on the brink of complete immolation as the violence between Sunni and Shia feeds on itself without any sign of being satiated. Meanwhile, long ignored by the “news” media as well as the White House, Afghanistan finds itself torn asunder by opium-funded warlords on the one hand and a reborn Taliban on the other. In both countries, casualties among civilians continue mount while attacks against the U.S. and its occupying partners grows in frequency and effectiveness. In Iraq alone, regime change is responsible for as many as 650,000 civilian deaths.

With each passing poll or survey, Americans’ confidence in their dear leader wanes a bit more. Conversely, Americans’ disillusionment with the crusade to make the world safe for Christianity and multinational corporations continues to grow. Intriguingly, the fact that so many Americans profess to being disillusioned with the unfolding events in Iraq and Afghanistan implies that they once thought all would go well. That they ever entertained such a thought speaks to how little most Americans know about history, particularly when it comes to regime change.

Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq are the United States’ first forays into regime change. In fact, U.S. history (the actual as opposed to the official history, that is) is replete with examples of regime change either instigated or backed by the U.S. As with the current cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, past efforts at regime change did not result in flourishing democracies or better lives for those living under the replaced regimes. Instead, as with Iraq and Afghanistan, regime change has always led to the death and suffering of civilians at the hands of U.S.-backed tyrants.
Take, for example, the CIA-led coup of democratically elected Iranian Premier, Mohammed Mossadeq in 1953. Outraged at Mossadeq’s plans to nationalize Iran’s oil industry (much to the chagrin of U.S. and U.K. corporate interests), the CIA orchestrated Mossadeq’s ouster and replaced him with the Shah – himself ousted by the British following World War II. Of course, in the U.S., oil was not the publicly stated justification for ousting Mossadeq. The U.S. was “saving” the people of Iran from the scourge of communism. Instead of communism, the Iranians got the Shah, an autocratic despot who, through the SAVAK secret police, squelched dissent through intimidation, torture, and murder. In 1976, Amnesty International declared, “No county in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran.” Popular resistance to the Shah, largely organized in Iran's mosques, culminated in the 1979 revolution, which included the taking of dozens of American hostages. The rest, as they say, is history.

Then there’s the case of U.S.-instituted regime change in Guatemala. In 1950, democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz sought to nationalize Guatemalan lands owned by United Fruit Company, a U.S. corporation. (Sense a pattern?) Beginning in 1952 with operation “PBFORTUNE,” the CIA tried, and failed, to orchestrate a coup to remove Arbenz from power and “save” Guatemala from communism. Undeterred by its initial failure, in 1954 the CIA launched operation “PBSUCCESS” and successfully deposed Arbenz. After the CIA installed Castillo Armas in power, hundreds of Guatemalans were promptly rounded up and killed. Thousands more were promptly detained. For the next 40 years, Guatemalans, under successive U.S.-backed dictatorships, suffered death squads, disappearances, and torture. By 1990, more than 100,000 Guatemalan civilians had been murdered. Tens of thousands more had been “disappeared.”

Brazil was another victim of U.S.-sponsored regime change. Irritated that President Joao Goulart had been reelected in 1963, despite having spent $20 million on anti-Goulart propaganda, the U.S. decided to take a more direct approach. Again under the pretense of “saving” Brazil from communism and making it a haven for democracy, in 1964, the U.S. took significant steps, including the secret mobilization of a naval task force, to help the Brazilian military forcibly remove Goulart. On April 1, 1964, Goulart was overthrown in a U.S.-backed military coup. Brazil suffered under U.S.-backed military rule until 1985. Death squads, torture, and disappearances were the norm.

Chile. Nicaragua. Haiti. The Dominican Republic. Indonesia. British Guyana. Italy. Venezuela. All were targeted by the U.S. for regime change to one extent or another. Whether rigging elections, producing propaganda, or simply through violence, the U.S. has a decades-long history of replacing regimes it dislikes with more favorable ones. In every “successful” case of regime change, however, nothing resembling democracy resulted. Instead, the U.S. installed or condoned brutal and tyrannical regimes which tortured, terrorized, and murdered civilians. In places like El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, the U.S. trained and funded “counterinsurgency” operations designed to eliminate, in every sense of the word, anyone who took exception to the U.S. arrogantly selecting a sovereign nation’s government.

It is often said that the past is the best predictor of the future. Based upon past results of the U.S. practice of regime change, no one should be at all surprised that things are so violent, horrible, and grim in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only real difference between Iraq, Afghanistan and past efforts at regime change is that in Iraq and Afghanistan the U.S. is not some hidden player, lurking safely in the shadows while its proxies kill and die. This time, Americans are finally seeing and, to some small degree, paying the price for regime change.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

It’s Official: Americans Are Torturers

Not that you’d know it from the purveyors of infotainment which pass for news outlets these days, but the final days of September were the latest of the increasingly frequent, but decreasingly proverbial “dark days” that have befallen the United States and, as a consequence, the world. It was, after all, in those closing days of September, as summer began its slow concession to fall, that the United States decided that torture, long maligned by pro-terrorist liberals as immoral and inhumane, really isn’t such a horrible practice after all. Indeed, our champions in Washington “compromised” and legalized torture, as well as extrajudicial and indefinite detention. The compromise? Just don’t call it torture.

But wait, you say. Didn’t “dissident” Republican Senators, led by that “maverick” John McCain, shock us all by opposing the White House, preventing it from vesting itself with the draconian authority commonly reserved to despots, dictators, and churches? Doesn’t the so-called McCain compromise expressly forbid such torture – I mean interrogation – methods as water-boarding, electric shock, beatings, and mock executions. Doesn’t the compromise require that all interrogations of suspected terrorists conform with the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution? Doesn’t the McCain compromise specifically uphold the Geneva Conventions and make them applicable to all detainees in U.S. custody?

You would, of course, be right on all counts. It is true that, on its face, the McCain compromise, which passed into law with the passing of September, does prohibit what all reasonable people, as well as the U.S. State Department, consider to be torture. Its prohibitions, however, are rhetorical only, for several reasons.

First, many of the prohibitions apply only to those suspected terrorists held in military custody. The McCain compromise specifically adopts the Army Field Manual, which was recently updated to prohibit the torture methods that are known to have been widely used by the United States in its “war on terror.” The CIA, however, being a “civilian” organization, is in no way bound by the rules and regulations of the Army Field Manual. As such, all those enrolled in what Bush refers to as the CIA’s “vital program” of “aggressive interrogation techniques” would remain largely unprotected by the McCain compromise.

Moreover, there is nothing within the McCain compromise to prevent the military from subsequently amending the Field Manual to make torture techniques “legal.” Thus, the McCain compromise permits the military to quietly authorize torture at a later date, preferably when the notoriously vacuous American public is once again distracted by the newest developments regarding Brangelina or TomKat.

Even those detainees, whether in military or CIA custody, who are technically covered by the McCain compromise’s adoption of the Geneva Conventions are, in reality, denied any of the Conventions’ protections. Indeed, the McCain compromise specifically prohibits anyone detained by the U.S. from invoking the Geneva Conventions or any of its protocols in any proceeding “in any court of the United States or its States or territories.” Clearly, if there is no means of enforcing the Geneva Conventions, the Geneva Conventions themselves are reduced to hollow promises, devoid of meaning or value.

The McCain compromise further eviscerates the Geneva Conventions by leaving the Conventions open to the President’s exclusive interpretation. Under the McCain compromise, “the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions.” In other words, it is entirely within the President’s discretion to determine whether or not, say, water-boarding or electric shock constitutes “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.” Judging by Bush’s past interpretations and applications of the Geneva Conventions, one can easily guess how Bush will exercise his discretion. Furthermore, since the McCain compromise bars anyone from invoking the Geneva Conventions, there is no way to challenge Bush’s interpretation and fetter is discretion in any way.

Finally, while the McCain compromise does invoke the protections of the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, such protections are virtually meaningless in the context of the intergalactic war on terror. The Constitution does not apply to noncitizens not found within the borders and jurisdiction of the United States. Thus, all those suspected terrorists (emphasis on suspected) of foreign nationality who are detained in U.S. facilities hither and yon are simply not entitled to any protections under the Constitution. By invoking the Constitution, the McCain compromise makes a good show of protecting the basic rights of those in U.S. custody, but does virtually nothing to actually protect those rights.

In short, the McCain compromise is not a compromise at all. Rather, it is a masterful piece of deceit designed to make the public believe that Republicans, while unwaveringly “tough on terror,” are not willing to reduce either themselves or the vaunted United States to the level of condoning torture. Of course, the exact opposite is true. Nevertheless, the “compromise” never would have passed into law without cooperation from a compliant press more interested in reporting on a false split in the Republican party rather than on the substantive issue of whether the U.S. would legalize torture. Nor could the “compromise” have passed were it not for a Democratic party less concerned with taking a principled stand than with ensuring job security. Finally, and most importantly, had the American public cared as much about whether the U.S. (officially) joined the ranks of such despotic and torturous regimes as Uzbekistan and Syria than about how much it costs to fill up their Hummer, maybe, just maybe, the McCain compromise would have been exposed for what it is.

As it stands, however, the United States is now an official proponent and practitioner of torture. May the screams of our victims haunt us for the rest of our pathetic and selfish lives.