Tuesday, August 03, 2004
"We do not do politics at the Department of Homeland Security" posted by Richard Seymour
Once upon a time, Slavoj Zizek thrilled an audience by announcing that "the War on Terror means they [the ruling class] are in a panic". Never mind the typically ludic quality of Zizek's writing and performance; what he meant, of course, was that by eroding basic human rights in some very obvious and egregious ways, the ruling class were giving up their hegemony on 'human rights' discourse - leaving the field open for a genuinely radical Left.*It isn't a strictly analogous situation, but I am tempted to say that when the Department of Homeland Security ratchets up the security alert to Orange, it is a measure of their panic about the declining fortunes of the Bush regime. We now know that the reports on which these terror warnings were based originated from 2000-2001 :
Taken together with a separate, more general stream of intelligence, which indicates that Al Qaeda intends to strike in the United States this year, possibly in New York or Washington, the officials said even the dated but highly detailed evidence of surveillance was sufficient to prompt the authorities to undertake a global effort to track down the unidentified suspects involved in the surveillance operations.
"You could say that the bulk of this information is old, but we know that Al Qaeda collects, collects, collects until they're comfortable,'' said one senior government official. "Only then do they carry out an operation. And there are signs that some of this may have been updated or may be more recent.''
Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said on Monday in an interview on PBS that surveillance reports, apparently collected by Qaeda operatives had been "gathered in 2000 and 2001.'' But she added that information may have been updated as recently as January.
Now, you wouldn't believe the cynicism about these alerts. Pure, naked scepticism! Take a look, for example, at the comments from readers of the BBC's website :
Kerry has a good convention on Friday...Terrorist alert on the Weekend. Bet you wouldn't have got good odds against that at the bookies! Now we find out the data is 4 years old. Bush is running scared of losing his job - most of us are scared he won't.
Jim Kirk, Basildon England
No I'm not scared. Great idea though, change a colour on a warning scale, raise oil prices because of instability, make more money while you can and at the same time scare everyone to oblivion. This scare tactic will only work for so long, one day there will be peace and the governments will be forced to keep the oil prices down for good.
Domenico, Hitchin, UK
...
Car bombs are not preventable, no matter how much security you have. These 'Terror Alerts' are not much more than a method to control people through fear. It's a very effective mechanism used to the maximum potential by the Bush Administration.
Clay, San Diego, USA
Well, I wouldn't accept the stuff about Kerry's "good" conference, because all indications are that the expected "bounce" has not materialised. I guess when you say stupid shit like "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty!" you have to expect a great, national yawn. Better would have been "I'm John Kerry, and I'm not George W. Bush!" Far more likely that the President realised that if the rising tide of cynicism and disaffection continues, it will not be good either for him or his loyal opposition.
But the gentleman's comment about car bombs seems highly apposite. I recall a similar feeling when tanks rolled into Heathrow. I thought "just what are you going to do?" Tanks are no good against hidden caches of semtex. They're only good in conventional, land warfare. Now, I admit I don't know a lot about the military, but I kind of feel that would be key. Similarly, why should a few rifle-bearing robocops standing around outside JP Morgan's building on overtime be sufficient to deter the impact of a car laden with explosives?
At any rate, if there is an increased terror threat to the United States, the President bears a lot of the blame .
*In this regard, I am tempted to conduct a simple historical experiment with advocates of 'human rights' discourse who privilege either the US or the UN as the agents protecting such elementary standards. What have been the greatest leaps forward in global human rights over the last quarter of a century? The 'velvet revolution' was carried out by the people of East Europe, with Bush Snr looking on with discernable worry. The fall of apartheid was due to the actions of black South Africans, often organised in trade unions. The old South Korean regime fell on the back of a wave of workers' struggle. Poland was liberated by Solidarnosc. Serbia by a combination of striking miners, truckers and student activists. A close look at all the peoples apparently 'liberated' by the US or the UN (or, usually, both) will reveal either mass murder (Latin America, Indochina) or undemocratic corruption (Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan) or desperate, raging instability fuelled by the unpopularity of the 'liberators' (Iraq, and to some extent Kosovo). Given the contrasting situations in Venezuela and Colombia, and given the stance of Iraqi trade unionists against the invasion and occupation of their country, now is the time above all others to emphasise that the only real guarantor of human rights is the organisation and resistance of ordinary working people.