The US has a long and disturbing history of intervening in Haiti's affairs, deposing its leaders, and replacing them with acceptable puppets. The Bush administration continued this practice on February 29, 2004 when US Marines abducted and forcibly removed democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and flew him against his will to the repressive Central African Republic. Today he remains in exile in South Africa vowing to return even though the Bush administration asserts the right to prevent him from doing it.
US administrations have deposed many foreign leaders, and the Bush administration violates international laws "left and right," so what's the significance of Haiti, asks Van Bergen? "There is no (other) 'third world' country (anywhere) closer (in proximity) to the US," it's also the "first (ever) black republic," the sole one in the Western Hemisphere, and it won its independence through armed rebellion against repressive French foreign rule. Haiti is much like what former Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz said about his own country: "Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the US." Proximity to America has been Haiti's curse for over 200 years, and it still is.
Withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC)
The ICC was created by the 1998 Rome Statute and established in 2002 to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war. As of mid-2007, 146 countries signed the Statute and 104 ratified it to become members except for a big absentee - America with Van Bergen saying withdrawing from the ICC (after the Clinton administration signed the Statute) "frees up the United States from international accountability for war crimes." The Bush administration made sure over 100 nations won't extradite Americans to the Hague by signing Bilateral Immunity Agreements (BIAs) with them, and in August, 2002, Congress passed the American Servicemembers Protection Act (called the Hague Invasion Act) authorizing the President "any means necessary" to secure release of any American detained by or on behalf of the Court.
Prosecutions and Proceedings
Activists are prime Bush administration targets in its effort to crush all dissent and opposition. It's using the Patriot Act to do it along with bending other current and obscure older laws to bring criminal indictments. Then on July 17, George Bush issued another Executive Order criminalizing dissent by targeting anyone opposing the administration's Iraq war effort with threats to seize their property. Another EO followed August 2 against anyone seen undermining Lebanon's corrupted pro-Western government claiming "Such actions constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
Van Bergen notes these type actions by individuals or groups signal the notion that "activists = terrorists" and linking them together is the administration's way to control, suppress and remove all opposition it finds threatening. Activists are being targeted by grand jury subpoenas. Before them they're required to testify about unspecified federal law violations and then later allow that testimony to be used against them to charge perjury for some slightly incorrect or inaccurate statements.
Data Mining under MATRIX
MATRIX is a data mining effort standing for the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Exchange Program that police and federal authorities are using in some states. It's a form of mass scrutiny over the lives and activities of innocent people to learn if targets exhibit signs of being a terrorist or other type criminal.
MATRIX creates a "terrorism quotient" or High Terrorist Factor (HTF) that measures the likelihood individuals in the database are terrorists. Van Bergen noted the ACLU believes the program is "an effort to recreate the discredited Total Information Awareness (TIA) data mining program at the state level." It shows the federal authorities are deep into efforts at all levels to spy on US citizens. MATRIX is an unprecedented effort to do it within or outside the law. It constitutes a massive invasion of privacy and violates our rights in a free society and is one of many repressive post-9/11 unconstitutional tools the nation's 16 spy agencies are using against us.
The Constitution doesn't specifically mention a right to privacy, but Supreme Court decisions affirmed it over the years as a fundamental human right. As such, it's protected under the Ninth Amendment as well as the Third prohibiting the quartering of troops in homes, the Fourth affording protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fifth protecting against self-incrimination. MATRIX and other intrusions enhance Patriot Act powers allowing them to persist outside of congressional oversight and judicial review. It's another part of the overall scheme to subvert the rule of law under George Bush police state justice.
Secrecy
The Bush administration built a culture of extreme secrecy from the start. Van Bergen call this trait the "watchword of the Bush adminstration" by quoting Judge Keith of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals saying "Democracy dies behind closed doors" where under this administration they're locked shut and bolted. Policy for the last six and a half years has been a "blatant power grab....an American coup, an American military dictatorship (and) an American fascist empire" that's highlighted by what's going on at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other torture-prisons free from oversight or public scrutiny.
Van Bergen sums up saying the Bush administration exhibits the "common threads found in all fascist states," and that should scare everyone. This government, she says, is run "by a ruling elite of (extremist Christian) religious fanatics" wielding "unrestrained oppressive power" violating constitutional law, including the most precious of our rights under the First Amendment. It's flouted the rule of law and smashed civil liberties after "sull(ying) the name and reputation of the United States Supreme Court" by using the Court's authority to seize power lawlessly and keep it. Ever since, it's been on the march for total world dominance and now threatens all humanity by its out-of-control actions.
The Patriot Act - Mainstay of Oppressive Power
Van Bergen calls this act "the most vivid component of the Bush Plan." Its danger lies in placing too much unchecked power in executive branch hands that creates an "enabling structure for fascism and oligarchy" that endangers democracy. Specifically, the act creates three main threats to civil liberties: the erosion of due process, freedom of association, and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and as a consequence, the loss of privacy.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
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