January 22, 2003

opinion
by dennis bernstein

Bush's double standard

FINALLY, OUR homeland security net has snared a big fish. We've caught someone who has access to our nation's most secret secrets, has plotted to sell dozens of advanced U.S. missiles to Iran, has been convicted of lying to Congress, has obstructed federal investigations, and has destroyed thousands of official documents to cover his tracks. This kind of prize, the Bush administration might tell you, is what makes worthwhile all of the reductions in rights, invasions of privacy and losses of liberty they've thrust on us.

But they're not telling you that. Instead of detaining this enemy combatant without access to lawyers in an undisclosed location, or hauling him before a secret military tribunal, the Bush administration has hired him to run one of its most sensitive programs.

He, of course, is Admiral John Poindexter, who was recently appointed to head the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office, a part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In essence, Poindexter was given an office in the Pentagon, supersecret clearance, and a $200 million-plus budget to track his neighbors and anyone else he deems to be a terrorist threat.

"Here is a man who was involved in the negotiations with terrorists for shipments of arms to their backers in Iran who is now being employed by the current administration in a program which many consider to be an extraordinarily dangerous violation of the Constitutional rights of the American people," said Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based National Security Archives.

To truly grasp the depth of the double standard employed by the Bush administration regarding its war on terror, consider the case of Islamic cleric Mohammad Asi. Like Poindexter, Asi is a Maryland resident, a U.S. citizen, and an armed services veteran. Unlike Poindexter, Asi is a respected local religious leader who has been bugged, tapped, and monitored from about six different directions without a shred of evidence pointing to criminal- or terrorist-related activities. To date, according to U.S. officials, his only crime is that he has close ties with Iranian mullahs (whoops, again like Poindexter) and he is a vociferous critic of U.S. Middle East policy.

Under his controversial new Total Information Awareness program, Poindexter will be able to, allowed to, even required to track every move his law-abiding Maryland neighbor Asi makes: where he banks, what he buys, where he travels, whom he calls or e-mails, and what books he takes out of the library.

Then, based on Poindexter's electronic vacuum, Asi could be further tracked, interrogated, and sucked into a criminal justice system that considers all Muslims to be enemy combatants and not granted the civil rights enjoyed by Poindexter, who managed to get his five felony convictions and six-month sentence overturned on a technicality.

Many people, including one former law enforcement official who asked not to be named, believe the current policy is not only racist but also makes us less safe and secure. "I am very concerned that by putting all our eggs in the Middle Eastern basket, we give free reign to the Tim McVeigh types in this world to blow up anything they want," the official said. "I think there are more than a few white guys out there that are not fans of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution."