Modern day witch hunts sanctioned by law

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The rise of anti-Muslim legislation is a symptom of the attack home are used to fuel U.S. wars in the Middle East. T Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) managed to he indefinite detention provisions of the National avoid mass public outcry as most Americans divert­ ed their attention to end-of-year festivities. On Dec. 31, President Obama made a name for himself as the president who codified into law measures that permit indefinite detention without due process and trial for U.S. citizens.

Much confusion has been garnered by the vagueness and ambiguity of the language of these provisions. But, Obama made one thing clear to soothe oppositional cries; he attached a signing statement to the bill assur­ ing us all that indefinite detention would not apply to U.S. citizens—as long as he remains in office.

Many Democratic Party supporters refer to Obama’s signing statement to exculpate the president and avoid real political analysis of the consequences of these provisions. A clarification of what’s contained in the bill, as well as its historical context, is necessary to fully grasp the impending threat to basic civil rights.

The NDAA not only allocates $662 billion to national security and the endless War on Terror, and ramps up economic sanctions against Iran, but contains two pro­ visions that grant the president and U.S. military the power to detain anyone they deem a security threat indefinitely and without a trial.

Section 1021 of the NDAA allows the president to de­ tain “covered persons” indefinitely “without trial until the end of the hostilities.” The broad language of these provisions includes a description of “covered persons” as including anyone who “substantially supported” groups that the U.S. is in conflict with, “or associated forces … against the United States or its coalition part­ ners.” These terms are so vague that the ACLU and oth­ er civil rights organizations agree they pose a threat to constitutional rights.

What’s to prevent future administrations from freely utilizing these powers against those who oppose U.S. foreign policy, support the struggle of the Palestinian people, or simply disagree publicly with the govern­ ment? Further complicating the debate, Section 1021, while excluding indefinite detention for American citi­ zens, applies it widely to citizens detained abroad or undocumented workers living on U.S. soil.

But what augments confusion regarding the appli­ cation of indefinite detention to American citizens is yet another confusing and ambiguous section of the law, Section 1022. U.S. citizens are excluded from the “requirement” of being detained but not from the pos­ sibility of indefinite detention! The language in these provisions is purposefully confusing in order to divide public opinion on the issue and prevent massive op­ position to it.

However confusing the language may be to some, the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA are real, and they fit neatly into the American history of attack­ ing civil liberties at home while whipping up senti­ Tony Savino / Socialist Action ment for war abroad. The Palmer Raids were designed to arrest and deport radicalizing immigrant workers and leftists, occurring in the context of World War I and the Red Scare. The internment of thousands of Japanese-American citizens in designated “War Relo­ cation Camps,” on the sole basis of their ethnic back­ ground, took place during World War II.

The McCarthy-era witch-hunts were designed to whip up anti-communist hysteria in preparation for the Cold War. COINTELPRO, an FBI counterintelli­ gence program, was purportedly created in 1956 to fight communism in the context of the Cold War, but would reach into the Vietnam War era and be used not only against the Communist Party and Socialist Work­ ers Party but also against many civil rights, antiwar, Black nationalist, and other individuals and groups as­ sociated with the left—including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Bunchy Carter, to name only a few. It is within this historical context that we have to view the current assault on civil liberties and the implications it carries.

The indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA are particularly frightening in light of recent Associated Press revelations of the NYPD’s unlawful surveillance and data gathering of the Muslim community in col­ laboration with the CIA. Since 9/11, the Muslim com­ munity has bore the brunt of government attacks un­ der the pretext of the “War on Terror.” The government has wreaked havoc on entire communities through preemptive prosecution and contrived crimes by pro­ filing Muslims as “predisposed to be terrorists” on the basis of their religious beliefs!

In what have become the “largest domestic intelli­ gence agencies” in the country, the NYPD has infiltrat­ ed mosques, bookstores, cafes, and institutions fre­ quented by Muslims without any evidence of wrong­ doing.

AP reports sent a chill to civil rights supporters when they revealed the NYPD has been spying on Muslim Student Associations (MSAs) across the Northeast, including as far as Yale University in Connecticut, the University of Pennsylvania, and Rutgers University in New Jersey. Undercover agents reported on how often Muslim students prayed, monitored website activity, and even accompanied students on a white rafting trip, submitting names of students to reports com­ piled for Police Commissioner Kelly.

In Newark, N.J., NYPD’s unlawful activities included building databases on the local Muslim population, photographing places of worship, and indicating the ethnic background of individuals involved. NYPD’s surveillance occurred even without the mayor of New­ ark having been told, causing some reporters to justly question whether the NYPD feels empowered to act as a “national police force.”

Even before these revelations, the NYPD had a record of profiling entire communities, especially the Black community, through stop-and-frisk policies. The AP reports add to the list of grievances against the NYPD, Tony Savino / Socialist Action (Left) Following the lead of the U.S. gov’t in fomenting anti-Islamic hysteria, New York cops spied on Muslims in a number of cities.

including against their use of an anti-Muslim film, “The Third Jihad,” in training police officers.

The widespread attacks on the Muslim community have triggered resounding public opposition through­ out the country. In New York City, Muslim leaders from the Arab American Association of NYC and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) have requested the resignation of Police Commissioner Kelly. The As­ sociation of Muslim American Lawyers, with the sup­ port of over 40 Muslim and non-Muslim organizations, issued a statement requesting the investigation of the NY Police Department by the Attorney General. Mus­ lim Student Associations issued public statements opposing NYPD’s spying on their organizations and requesting apologies. Local CAIR chapters in collabo­ ration with peace and justice activists organized press conferences denouncing the NYPD’s illegal activity.

Even the Yale University president publicly con­ demned the NYPD surveillance, and the Rutgers Uni­ versity AAUP-AFT not only demanded that surveil­ lance of their campus cease but also an investigation of the NYPD’s demographics unit.

However, despite efforts by Muslim organizations and their allies to call for investigations of unconsti­ tutional New York police activities, Mayor Bloomberg continues to defend the department’s intelligence gathering activities. Under the pretext of securing the nation and protecting New Yorkers, Bloomberg legiti­ mizes racial, ethnic, and religious profiling of entire communities.

The rise of anti-Muslim legislation is a symptom of the attack on all of our civil liberties. Unlawful surveil­ lance, entrapping, and preemptive prosecution of the Muslim community have reinforced stereotypical and false notions of Muslim people as a “threat” to the U.S. Such measures that isolate and demonize the Muslim community at home are used to fuel U.S. wars in the Middle East. By creating an image of Muslims as a “po­ tential terrorist” threat, the U.S. government gathers support for its War on Terror at home and abroad.

We are facing a huge battle to restore our civil liber­ ties on many fronts, from police brutality on commu­ nities of color and Occupiers to fights over the right to protest. Therefore, we must respond to the attacks on the Muslim American community as if it were a direct attack on each one of us. Indeed, if this surveillance goes unchallenged, we all become more vulnerable to new encroachments on our political and civil free­ doms.

Recent efforts by national civil rights organizations such as the ACLU and CAIR in asking for investigations and accountability of the NYPD are important steps (continued on page 5, in “ICE expands immigrant deportation program despite growing outcry”)

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specific use of related tactics, weapons, and strategies, Heading the list of international presenters at the is another thread that is spurring the participation of a March 23-25 Stamford, Conn., conference of the United number of other recent victims of repression. Veteran National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) is Xiomara Castro and Oakland occupier Scott Olsen will join leaders of de Zelaya, wife of the former president of Honduras, the fight against NYPD wartime spying and harassment José Manuel Zelaya, who was sent into exile by a U.S. of the Muslim American community, such as Imam Talib Abdurrashid of the Islamic Leadership Council of Met­ ropolitan New York, Cyrus McGoldrick of the New York tion and Re-foundation Party (Libre), a new political City Council on American Islamic Relations, and Mona­ party established by the National Front for Popular Re­ sistance of Honduras, chose Castro as its presidential All of these international and domestic leaders are candidate. She speaks at a moment when the U.S. is pro­ coming together to share analysis and solidarity with posing to double military aid to the current Honduran U.S.-based activists determined to teach the connec­ regime, a regime that they hope will continue to cooper­ tions between the U.S./NATO war drives, the attacks on ate in the use of this Central American nation as an im­ civil liberties, and the 1%’s austerity drives. Even more portant U.S. basing and military command center that is importantly, they are gathering under the umbrella of deemed important to the facilitation of trade with the the United National Antiwar Coalition, a formation that remains committed to mass movement building, to Castro is one of many international activists who are mounting visible opposition in the streets to U.S. impe­ gathering at the UNAC conference to build solidarity in rialism, and retains confidence that this can and will be the fight against U.S. and NATO aggression. Others in­ clude Kazem Azin of Solidarity Iran; Manijeh Nasrabadi of the Raha Iranian Feminist Collective; Adaner Usmani tional Coordinating Committee is open to full discus­ of the Labor Party of Pakistan; Sergio Fernández, a sion, debate, amendment, and vote at the March 23-25 member of Mesa Amplia Nacional Estudiantil (MANE) conference. This is an open, democratic, one-personand the recent national student strike in Colombia; one-vote assembly of the broad antiwar and social jus­ Gamelyn Oduardo, who helped to organize a 10-month the West Coast Occupy movement wrested a contract tice movements. See unacpeace.org to read the draft Puerto Rico student strike; and Andrew Murray, a Brit­ from the union-busting grain shipper EGT at the port of Action Program and how to submit amendments, al­ ish Trades Union Congress leader of the massive Nov. Longview, Wash. Because the U.S. government planned ternate plans, and resolutions for consideration by the to use the Coast Guard to militarily ensure the safe conference. n Murray will be sharing a panel with Mike Fuqua, a docking of a scab ship in the port of Longview, the Ac­ member of the International Longshore and Ware­ tion Program that will be the subject of deliberation at house Workers Union Local 21, who with the help of the conference calls for the condemnation of the use of 4 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2012 backed military coup.

On Feb. 11-12, the founding conference of the Libera­ Far East. 30 UK public-sector general strike.

... Antiwar (continued from page 1: “War on Iran?”) tion camps. FDR, considered by many of those bound by the framework of lesser-evil politics as the most saintly Democrat of all time, presided over one of the most brutal eras of U.S. conquest in the modern era.

The backdrop for internment—part of the U.S. war for economic dominance over the Japanese Far East colonies dur­ ing World War II—is once again in the news. President Obama’s strategic and military “return to Asia” demonstrates that in times of economic crisis, impe­ rialist powers will leave no stone un­ turned in efforts to maintain a competi­ tive edge. Indeed, the U.S. ships belliger­ ently patrolling the Persian Gulf and the scab-herding Coast Guard vessels called into service offshore from Longview, Wash., are part of a many-pronged ef­ fort by U.S. elites to maintain their eco­ nomic hegemony through a combina­ tion of driving down costs and using the threat of military force to shape trading patterns and capital flows worldwide.

The war by embargo on Iran’s oil sales, the threats to sanction Pakistan for a gas pipeline involving Iran, the growing military presence in Central and South America are all related to the efforts of U.S. elites to compete successfully with weaker but still threatening capitalist powers such as China, Brazil, and India.

As Vijay Prashad explained recently in the Asia Times, “Iran” has become a code word for the efforts of the U.S. to demand the acquiescence of India and China to their own economic subordi­ nation. And the deeper the global eco­ nomic crisis faced by the corporate and financial world, the more desperate will be the use of military adventure as a tool of economic dominance.

It is difficult to believe that working people and students in the U.S. will be able to stand up to the bosses’ drive against their standard of living, and to forge the political tools for a victory on this front, without coming to grips with the deeply intertwined efforts of the U.S. government to drive down their com­ petitors abroad. Therefore, those who seek to build a movement for economic equality must also use obvious opportu­ nities to strengthen visible opposition to the wars abroad and in the process contribute to the overall understanding of the working people about the nature of the opposition to their demands.

The NATO/G8 summit to be held in Chicago in May is the most important date on the calendar for these kinds of actions. By its very nature, this meeting, which brings together the military and financial arms of the global 1% to dis­ cuss Afghanistan, Pakistan, the so-called War on Terror in Africa, and approaches to making working people pay for their economic crisis worldwide, must be at the top of the antiwar agenda.

The seven-month campaign to make the right to protest war and austerity in Chicago a national and international issue has been quite successful. Permits have been granted, and the momentum is growing to win more victories against Chicago’s Rahm Emmanuel administra­ tion and the Dept. of Homeland Security. The fight for civil liberties These endeavors are a critical com­ ponent of assembling the forces to roll back the current attacks on civil liber­ ties—a new COINTELPRO and the codi­ fication of indefinite detention without due process or court trial—emanating from the Obama White House. Unfortu­ nately, in the midst of these efforts, new voices are coming forward to confuse the issues.

The most destructive has been that of columnist Chris Hedges. In a Feb. 6 article, Hedges, with extremely broad strokes, equated the “Black Bloc” to a deadly cancer out to destroy the social justice movement. His promotion of a tiny group to the stature of a deadly danger to peace activists was an unnec­ essary political gift to government and police spokespeople who have mounted Tony Savino / Socialist Action Tony Savino / Socialist Action (Above) Occupy Chicago is one of numerous organizations that have endorsed the May 19 mass protest against the NATO / G8 summit.

an aggressive campaign to paint those who protest war and austerity as vio­ lent threats to the social order.

In order to defeat the government’s attempts to use the NATO/G8 summit as the launch pad for an even more Or­ wellian security state, we must take the opposite approach. We must turn the tables on the city of Chicago and Home­ land Security, explaining that the pro­ tests that are being organized for Chi­ cago are around the issues of the 99% and must be not be suppressed. These demonstrations include one developed by the California Nurses Association/ National Nurses United to demand a tax on Wall Street, as well as the May 19 permitted march initiated by the United National Antiwar Coalition and being organized by the Coalition Against the NATO/G8 Wars and Poverty Agenda.

Several other important political fig­ ures have misrepresented by omission the range of protests currently planned for Chicago in May. Tom Hayden, whose Feb. 15 column “Occupy Chicago? 1968 Again?” usefully urges the involvement of the AFL-CIO and the Sierra Club, un­ fortunately suggests that without them and their messaging, the “Chicago spec­ tacle is likely to be one of street battles, tear gas, police brutality, and mass ar­ rests.”

Similarly, Staughton Lynd on Feb. 28 wrote an “Open Letter to Other Occupi­ the U.S. military at home against unionists.

The new militarization of law enforcement in the U.S., and the mi Maulik of Desis Rising Up and Moving. done in Chicago and beyond.

The draft Action Program submitted by UNAC’s Na­ For more information on the March 23-25 UNAC confer­ ence, and to register, go to unacpeace.org.

ers,” in which he noted concerns “about the impending confrontation in Chicago in May between the forces of Occupy and those of capitalist globalization.”

Hayden’s and Lynd’s missives both seemed to be predicated on a call by Adbusters for Occupiers to come to Chi­ cago in May. And inexplicably, since the original call by Adbusters for the Occu­ pation of Wall Street resulted in a his­ toric, peaceful, and inspiring mobiliza­ tion of youth willing to endure all kinds of hardship to non-violently represent the simple aspirations of the 99% for equality, they focus on presuppositions that the Chicago protests will be incho­ ate, without leadership, and immature. Instead of focusing his fire on the pow­ ers that be, Hayden warns that protest in Chicago might lead to “political plat­ forms imposing law and order,” just as Chicago 1968 allegedly led to Repub­ lican conservatives winning elections and to J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO program to spy on political activists. This turns both history and current re­ ality on their heads.

Obama has already re-launched an even more virulent form of COINTEL­ PRO. Targeted executive assassination of U.S. citizens is already occurring. The indefinite detention without trial of U.S. citizens has been recently codified. The only possible response to these sweep­ ing attacks is building mass movements in the streets. The fight to build such a movement cannot be on hold until after the election.

Those strategic debates, networking, and coalition building are underway in­ ternationally, nationally, and in Chicago. This work will deepen at the United National Antiwar Coalition conference in Stamford at the end of March. In the run-up to Chicago, all the forces of the peace, justice, and civil liberties com­ munities must be united in one effort to place the blame for violence where it belongs—on the city of Chicago, the White House, and Homeland Security.

With or without the Sierra Club, re­ sponsible and serious forces are orga­ nizing the political discussions, the civil liberties campaigns, the local and na­ tional activist community to deal with every challenge thrown at them by the Emmanuel administration in Chicago and the Secret Service. The path toward the new social justice movement about to be fully born must go through the struggle for the right to protest without serious repression in Chicago. That fight is not over. It has just begun. n

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By LISA LUINENBURG