[Peace-discuss] From the week's news

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The "Bush doctrine" of course is evil nonsense. Here's a good account (from a 
Canadian newspaper, four years ago) of what it means. BTW last Friday, 12 
September, marked the tenth year of imprisonment in United States high security 
jails of the "Cuban Five."  --CGE]


Every self-respecting president has a doctrine attached to his name. The core 
principle of the Bush II doctrine is that the United States must "rid the world 
of evil," as the president said right after 9/11.

A special responsibility is to wage war against terrorism, with the corollary 
that any state that harbours terrorists is a terrorist state and should be 
treated accordingly.

Let's ask a fair and simple question: What would the consequences be if we were 
to take the Bush doctrine seriously, and treat states that harbour terrorists as 
terrorist states, subject to bombardment and invasion?

The United States has long been a sanctuary to a rogues' gallery of people whose 
actions qualify them as terrorists, and whose presence compromises and 
complicates U.S. proclaimed principles.

Consider the Cuban Five, Cuban nationals convicted in Miami in 2001 as part of a 
spy ring.

To understand the case, which has prompted international protests, we have to 
look at the sordid history of U.S.-Cuba relations (leaving aside here the issue 
of the crushing, decades-long U.S. embargo).

The United States has engaged in large- and small-scale terrorist attacks 
against Cuba since 1959, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the bizarre 
plots to kill Castro. Direct U.S. participation in the attacks ended during the 
late '70s — at least officially.

In 1989, the first president Bush granted a pardon to Orlando Bosch, one of the 
most notorious anti-Castro terrorists, accused of masterminding the bombing of a 
Cuban airliner in 1976. Bush overruled the Justice Department, which had refused 
an asylum request from Bosch, concluding: "The security of this nation is 
affected by its ability to urge credible other nations to refuse aid and shelter 
to terrorists, whose target we too often become."

Recognizing that the United States was going to harbour anti-Castro terrorists, 
Cuban agents infiltrated those networks. In 1998, high-level FBI officials were 
sent to Havana, where they were given thousands of pages of documentation and 
hundreds of hours of videotape about terrorist actions organized by cells in 
Florida.

The FBI reacted by arresting the people who provided the information, including 
a group now known as the Cuban Five.

The arrests were followed by what amounted to a show trial in Miami. The Five 
were sentenced, three to life sentences (for espionage; and the leader, Gerardo 
Hernandez, also for conspiracy to murder), after convictions that are now being 
appealed.

Meanwhile, people regarded by the FBI and Justice Department as dangerous 
terrorists live happily in the United States and continue to plot and implement 
crimes.

The list of terrorists-in-residence in the United States also includes Emmanuel 
Constant from Haiti, known as Toto, a former paramilitary leader from the 
Duvalier era. Constant is the founder of the FRAPH (Front for Advancement of 
Progress in Haiti), the paramilitary group that carried out most of the state 
terror in the early 1990s under the military junta that overthrew president 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

At last report, Constant was living in Queens, N.Y.

The United States has refused Haiti's request for extradition. The reason, it is 
generally assumed, is that Constant might reveal ties between Washington and the 
military junta that killed 4,000 to 5,000 Haitians, with Constant's paramilitary 
forces playing the leading role.

The gangsters leading the current coup in Haiti [i.e., in 2004 --CGE] include 
FRAPH leaders.

For the United States, Cuba has long been the primary concern in the hemisphere. 
A declassified 1964 State Department document declares Fidel Castro to be an 
intolerable threat because he "represents a successful defiance of the United 
States, a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost a century and a 
half," since the Monroe Doctrine declared that no challenge to U.S. dominance 
would be tolerated in the hemisphere.

Venezuela now presents a similar problem. A recent lead article in the Wall 
Street Journal says, "Fidel Castro has found a key benefactor and heir apparent 
to the cause of derailing the U.S.'s agenda in Latin America: Venezuelan 
President Hugo Chavez."

As it happens, last month, Venezuela asked the United States to extradite two 
former military officers who are seeking asylum in the United States. The two 
had taken part in a military coup supported by the Bush administration, which 
backed down in the face of outrage throughout the hemisphere.

The Venezuelan government, remarkably, observed a ruling of the Venezuelan 
supreme court barring prosecution of the coup leaders. The two officers were 
later implicated in a terrorist bombing, and fled to Miami.

Outrage over defiance is deeply ingrained in U.S. history. Thomas Jefferson 
bitterly condemned France for its "attitude of defiance" in holding New Orleans, 
which he coveted. Jefferson warned that France's "character (is) placed in a 
point of eternal friction with our character, which though loving peace and the 
pursuit of wealth, is high-minded."

France's "defiance (requires us to) marry ourselves to the British fleet and 
nation," Jefferson advised, reversing his earlier attitudes, which reflected 
France's crucial contribution to the liberation of the colonies from British rule.

Thanks to Haiti's liberation struggle of 1804, unaided and almost universally 
opposed, France's defiance soon ended. But, then as now, the guiding principles 
of American outrage over defiance remain in place, determining friend and foe.

chomsky.info


E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
> Au contraire, It is generally well accepted that the "/Bush Doctrine/" is an
> extension of US Imperialism to include preventive measures as a pretext for
> military intervention in other sovereign countries.
> 
> John W. wrote:
>> I see that SOMEONE agrees with me about Charlie Gibson:
>> 
>> "Day after day McCain's escorts shielded Palin from any impromptu exchanges
>> with the press, until the eagerly awaited 3-part interviews with ABC's
>> Charles Gibson began last Thursday. *I'll root for anyone against an
>> uppity, patronizing network interviewer and so I was in Palin's corner when
>> ABC's Gibson went after her about the Bush Doctrine, which he made sound as
>> though it was something you learned in school along with the Gettysburg
>> address.  No one knows what the Bush doctrine is, least of all President
>> Bush. He's spent seven long years trying to define it.* Basically the
>> Doctrine says it's okay for employees or subcontracted agents of the US
>> Government to kidnap people, lock them up in wire or concrete hutches for
>> years at a time, regularly electrocuting them and beating their genitals
>> until they go mad. Small wonder Sarah Palin didn't want to get too
>> specific..."
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 10:07 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu 
>> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu>> wrote:
>> 
>> "Move over, Sarah Palin! You only want to shoot wolves from helicopters.
>> Real men like Obama want more helicopter gunships to mow down Afghan kids
>> from the air."
>> 
>> ...