[Peace-discuss] What sort of police state?

[C. G. Estabrook]

>From 
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BLU20110101&articleId=22592>:

December 16 ... I'm standing in the snow in front of the White House ... 
Standing with Veterans for Peace ... I'm only a veteran of standing in front of 
the White House; the first time was February 1965, handing out flyers against 
the war in Vietnam. I was working for the State Department at the time and my 
biggest fear was that someone from that noble institution would pass by and 
recognize me.

Five years later I was still protesting Vietnam, although long gone from the 
State Department. Then came Cambodia. And Laos. Soon, Nicaragua and El Salvador. 
Then Panama was the new great threat to America, to freedom and democracy and 
all things holy and decent, so it had to be bombed without mercy. Followed by 
the first war against the people of Iraq, and the 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia. 
Then the land of Afghanistan had rained down upon it depleted uranium, napalm, 
phosphorous bombs, and other witches' brews and weapons of the chemical dust; 
then Iraq again. And I've skipped a few. I think I hold the record for most 
times picketing the White House by a right-handed batter.

And through it all, the good, hard-working, righteous people of America have 
believed mightily that their country always means well; some even believe to 
this day that we never started a war, certainly nothing deserving of the 
appellation "war of aggression".

On that same snowy day last month Julian Assange of Wikileaks was freed from 
prison in London and told reporters that he was more concerned that the United 
States might try to extradite him than he was about being extradited to Sweden, 
where he presumably faces "sexual" charges. 1

That's a fear many political and drug prisoners in various countries have 
expressed in recent years. The United States is the new Devil's Island of the 
Western world. From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th, political prisoners 
were shipped to that god-forsaken strip of French land off the eastern coast of 
South America. One of the current residents of the new Devil's Island is Bradley 
Manning, the former US intelligence analyst suspected of leaking diplomatic 
cables to Wikileaks. Manning has been imprisoned for seven months, first in 
Kuwait, then at a military base in Virginia, and faces virtual life in prison if 
found guilty, of something. Without being tried or convicted of anything, he is 
allowed only very minimal contact with the outside world; or with people, 
daylight, or news; among the things he is denied are a pillow, sheets, and 
exercise; his sleep is restricted and frequently interrupted. See Glenn 
Greenwald's discussion of how Manning's treatment constitutes torture. 2

A friend of the young soldier says that many people are reluctant to talk about 
Manning's deteriorating physical and mental condition because of government 
harassment, including surveillance, seizure of their computer without a warrant, 
and even attempted bribes. "This has had such an intimidating effect that many 
are afraid to speak out on his behalf." 3 A developer of the transparency 
software used by Wikileaks was detained for several hours last summer by federal 
agents at a Newark, New Jersey airport, where he was questioned about his 
connection to Wikileaks and Assange as well as his opinions about the wars in 
Afghanistan and Iraq. 4

This is but a tiny incident from the near-century buildup of the American police 
state, from the Red Scare of the 1920s to the McCarthyism of the 1950s to the 
crackdown against Central American protesters in the 1980s ... elevated by the 
War on Drugs ... now multiplied by the War on Terror. It's not the worst police 
state in history; not even the worst police state in the world today; but 
nonetheless a police state, and certainly the most pervasive police state ever — 
a Washington Post study has just revealed that there are 4,058 separate federal, 
state and local "counterterrorism" organizations spread across the United 
States, each with its own responsibilities and jurisdictions. 5 The police of 
America, of many types, generally get what and who they want. If the United 
States gets its hands on Julian Assange, under any legal pretext, fear for him; 
it might be the end of his life as a free person; the actual facts of what he's 
done or the actual wording of US laws will not matter; hell hath no fury like an 
empire scorned.

John Burns, chief foreign correspondent for The New York Times, after 
interviewing Assange, stated: "He is profoundly of the conviction that the 
United States is a force for evil in the world, that it's destructive of 
democracy." 6 Can anyone who believes that be entitled to a full measure of 
human rights on Devil's Island?

The Wikileaks documents may not produce any world-changing revelations, but 
every day they are adding to the steady, gradual erosion of people's belief in 
the US government's good intentions, which is necessary to overcome a lifetime 
of indoctrination. Many more individuals over the years would have been standing 
in front of the White House if they had had access to the plethora of 
information that floods people today; which is not to say that we would have 
succeeded in stopping any of the wars; that's a question of to what extent the 
United States is a democracy...