“Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11”

By Ann Fagan Ginger, Editor

What Is The Real Score In The "War On Terrorism"?

An Introduction and adjunct to the MCLI book "Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11," to be published by Prometheus Books in April 2005. The book will contain 184 reports, which are listed in the Table of Contents, with the sources, for readers to think about, and perhaps use, in their work on the November 2004 election.

As a result of the actions by the U.S. Government after 9/11, what is the reality in the "war against terrorism" three years later? On July 13, 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a report: "The information-sharing and coordination made possible by section 218 [of the PATRIOT Act] assisted the prosecution in San Diego of several persons involved in an al Qaeda drugs-for-weapons plot, which culminated in several guilty pleas. They admitted that they conspired to receive, as partial payment for heroin and hashish, four "Stinger" anti-aircraft missiles that they then intended to sell to the Taliban, an organization they knew at the time to be affiliated with al Qaeda." (Attorney General John Ashcroft, "Report from the Field: The USA PATRIOT Act at Work," U.S. Department of Justice, July 13, 2004)

Ashcroft did not mention that the conspiracy was actually with U.S. undercover agents who offered them the weapons.

This report from a Government official charged with finding the terrorists leaves a series of questions:

• How many alleged perpetrators of the acts of 9/11 have been charged and convicted of that crime?
• Have the reasons behind these terrorist actions been clearly spelled out?
• How many millions of people in the U.S. innocent of crimes were detained, lost their jobs, or had their lives disrupted?
• Did the loss of one hundred eighty thousand union jobs through the Homeland Security Department Act actually "ensure airport security"? Was security heightened as a result of repeated efforts to break militant labor unions and destroy the right to organize?
• When the Department of Defense demanded, and got, massive increases in the military budget, including funding for new types of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, did this increase homeland security?
• Did it increase homeland security when the DOD denied discharges to Service members who discovered they were conscientious objectors to war after joining the Service in order to get an education and "to be all you can be"?
• Is the country more secure because the Government has made major cuts in the budget for education, health and human services, medical care, battered women's shelters, federal courts, and for rehabilitation of parolees and first offenders?
• Is the United States more secure because 83,000 people were required to register with the Immigration Office once and 13,000 of these people were deported or face deportation?
• When thousands of foreign scholars and students had their academic work interrupted, or put to an end, although they were not even charged with any wrongdoing, did that help the war against terrorism?
• Did it help that the U.S. did not honor many of its treaty commitments to other nations?
• Did people in the U.S. feel more secure when, in December, 2003, the DOD announced that contracts for reconstructing Iraq after the massive damage by U.S. and UK bombing would be made only with corporations in nations that supported the U.S. war in Iraq? Did everyone agree to thus eliminating all contracts to corporations in China, France and Germany, among others?