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	December 6, 2003

WHO ARE THE TERRORISTS? I was struck by the irony in these two reports from a single recent broadcast of Pacifica Radio (extracts only below): FTAA Protest: The Free Trade Area of the Americas, (FTAA) meetings in Miami were marked by unprecedented police mobilization and violence, when as many as 125 peaceful protesters were injured, while around 200 were arrested. The police security arrangements, which used 2,500 members of 40 departments, cost as much as $50,000 in new equipment alone and took six months to arrange, according to newspaper reports. Meanwhile, American civil liberties groups yesterday denounced the FBI for using new counter-terrorist powers to spy on anti-war demonstrations. The FBI claims that this use of surveillance of the anti-war movement was necessary to prevent protests being used as a cover by ‘extremist elements’ of by terrorist organizations to mount an attack. The civil liberties groups were quick to point to an FBI memorandum on anti-war demonstrations distributed last month to local police forces which suggests that federal agents have also been monitoring mobilization techniques used by opponents of the war in Iraq. SOA/WHINSEC Protest: This weekend close to 10,000 people gathered outside the gates to Fort. Benning, Georgia to call for the closing of the Army School of the Americas. Recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the school trains Latin American military personnel in Counter-insurgency tactics - which demonstrators say are responsible for human rights abuses across Latin America. Many of the demonstrators present at the annual march on the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation had also participated in the protests held against the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Miami, FL and drew connections between the violence of the United States military and that of US economic policies. So let me see if I have this straight: The US government, fearing that there are 'terrorists' in every public demonstration, is using sophisticated anti-terrorist measures to deal with public demonstrations, including new weapons and what were (until Patriot Act) illegal surveillance of civilians. But when people protest the US government military 'school' that has a long history of training terrorists, it's the demonstrators, not the people in the high-security military establishment inside, who are presumed to represent a danger to America, and who are arrested and added to the government's blacklist. In other words, peaceful protest = treason & terrorism, and training Noriega-types how to torture and overthrow governments = making the world safe for democracy. Any chance the local police departments will catch on to this madness and refuse to act as patsies for these government goons? 1:13:10 PM  trackback []  comment []

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