13 Questions

Mainstream journalists in the United States often function more like a fourthbranch of government than a feisty fourth estate. If anything, the patterns ofmedia bias that characterize sycophantic reporting in "peacetime" areamplified during a war or a national security crisis.

Since the tragic events of September 11, the separation between press andstate has dwindled nearly to the vanishing point. If we had an aggressive,independent press corps, our national conversation about the terrorist attacksthat demolished the World Trade Center towers in New York and damaged thePentagon would be far more probing and informative. Here are some examples ofquestions that reporters ought to be asking President Bush:

1. Before the attacks in New York and Washington, your administration quietlytolerated Saudi Arabian and Pakistani military and financial aid for the Talibanregime, even though it harbored terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. But nowyou say fighting terrorism will be the main focus of your administration.

By making counter-terrorism the top priority in bilateral relations, aren'tyou signaling to abusive governments in Sudan, Indonesia, Turkey, and elsewherethat they need not worry much about their human rights performance as long asthey join America's anti-terrorist crusade? Will you barter human rightsviolations like corporations trade pollution credits? Will you condone, forexample, the brutalization of Chechnya in exchange for Russian participation inthe "war against terrorism"? Or will you send a message loud and clearto America's allies that they must not use the fight against terrorism as acover for waging repressive campaigns that smother democratic aspirations intheir own countries?

2. Terrorists finance their operations by laundering money through offshorebanks and other hot money outlets. Yet your administration has underminedinternational efforts to crack down on tax havens. Last May, you withdrewsupport for a comprehensive initiative launched by the Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development (OECD), which sought greater transparency in tax andbanking practices.

In the wake of the September 11 massacre, will you reassess this decision andsupport the OECD proposal, even if it means displeasing wealthy Americans andcampaign contributors who avoid paying taxes by hiding money in offshoreaccounts?

3. Four months ago, U.S. officials announced that Washington was giving $43million to the Taliban for its role in reducing the cultivation of opiumpoppies, despite the Taliban's heinous human rights record and its sheltering ofIslamic terrorists of many nationalities. Doesn't this make the U.S. governmentguilty of supporting a country that harbors terrorists? Do you think yourobsession with the "war on drugs" has distorted U.S. foreign policy inSouthwest Asia and other regions?

4. According to U.S., German, and Russian intelligence sources, Osama binLaden's operatives have been trying to acquire enriched uranium and otherweapons-grade radioactive materials for a nuclear bomb. There are reports thatin 1993 bin Laden's well-financed organization tried to buy enriched uraniumfrom poorly maintained Russian facilities that lacked sufficient controls. Whyhas your administration proposed cutting funds for a program to help safeguardnuclear materials in the former Soviet Union?

5. On September 23rd , you announced plans to make public a detailed analysisof the evidence gathered by U.S intelligence and police agencies, which provesthat Osama bin Laden and his cohorts are guilty of the terrorist attacks in NewYork and the Pentagon. But the next day your administration backpedaled."As we look through [the evidence]," explained Secretary of StateColin Powell, "we can find areas that are unclassified and it will allow usto share this information with the public... But most of it is classified."

Please explain this sudden flip-flop. How can we believe what you say aboutfighting terrorism if your administration can't make its case publicly withsufficient evidence? How do you expect to win the support of governments andpeople who otherwise might suspect Washington's motives, particularly someMuslim and Arab nations?

6. Exactly who is a terrorist, and who is not?

When the CIA was busy doling out an estimated $2 billion to support theAfghan mujahadeen in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden and his colleagues were hailedas anti-communist freedom fighters. During the cold war, U.S. national securitystrategists, many of whom are riding top saddle once again in youradministration, didn't view bin Laden's fanatical religious beliefs asdiametrically opposed to western civilization. But now bin Laden and his ilk areunabashed terrorists.

Definitions of what constitutes terror and terrorism seem to change with thetimes. Before he became vice president, Dick Cheney and the U.S. StateDepartment denounced Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress, asa terrorist. Today Mandela, South Africa's president emeritus, is considered agreat and dignified statesman. And what about Israeli prime minister ArielSharon, who bears significant responsibility for the 1982 massacre of 1,800innocents at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. What role willSharon play in your crusade against international terrorism?

7. There's been a lot of talk lately about unshackling the CIA and liftingthe alleged ban on CIA assassinations. Many U.S. officials attribute the CIA'sinability to thwart the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington to rulesthat supposedly have prohibited the CIA from utilizing gangsters, death squadleaders, and other "unsavory" characters as sources and assets. Whydon't you set the record straight, Mr. President, and acknowledge there werealways gaping loopholes in these rules, which allowed such activity to continueunabated?

It's precisely this sort of dubious activity -- enlisting unsavory charactersto advance U.S. foreign policy objectives -- that set the stage for tragicevents on September 11th. It's hardly a secret that the CIA trained and financedIslamic extremists to topple the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. Some ofthe same extremists supported by the CIA, most notably bin Laden, have sinceturned their psychotic wrath against the United States.

Instead of rewarding the CIA with billions of additional dollars to fightterrorism, shouldn't you hold accountable those shortsighted and perilously naïveU.S. intelligence officials who ran the covert operation in Afghanistan that gotus into this mess?

8. John Negroponte, the new U.S. ambassador the United Nations, says heintends to build an international anti-terrorist coalition. During themid-1980s, Negroponte was involved in covering up right-wing death squadactivity and other human rights abuses in Honduras when he served as ambassadorto that country. Doesn't Negroponte's role in aiding and abetting stateterrorism in Central America undermine the moral authority of the United Statesas it embarks upon a crusade against international terrorism?

9. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought home thefrightening extent to which U.S. citizens and installations are vulnerable toterrorist attacks. If terrorists hit a nuclear power plant, it could result inan enormous public health disaster. In the interest of protecting nationalsecurity, why haven't you ordered the immediate phase-out of the 103 nuclearpower plants that are currently operating in the United States? Why doesn't youradministration emphasize safe, renewable energy alternatives, such as solar andwind power, which would not invite terrorism?

10. After years of successful lobbying against rigorous safety procedures,the heads of the airline industry will receive a multibillion-dollar taxpayerbailout for their ailing companies. Given your support for the airline rescuepackage, do you now agree that letting the free market run its course won'tresolve all our economic and social problems? (That's what anti-globalizationactivists have been saying all along.) And if airlines deserve a bail-out, howabout a multibillion-dollar rescue package for human needs like health andeducation? Why aren't we bailing out our under-funded public schools, ourinsolvent hospitals, our national railroads, and other elements of ourdilapidated social infrastructure?

11. September 11th will be remembered as a day of infamy in the United Statesbecause of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. In Chile, September11th is also remembered as the day when a U.S.-back coup toppled thedemocratically elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973, initiating areign of terror by General Augusto Pinochet. Given your administration's avowedstance against terrorism, will you cooperate with the various internationallegal cases that are honing in on ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger forcolluding with Pinochet's murderous regime?

12. If the killing of innocent people in New York and Washington isindefensible, and surely it is, then why do U.S. officials defend American airstrikes that kill innocent civilians in Iraq, Sudan, Serbia, and Afghanistan?More than 500,000 Iraqi children under age 5 have died as a result of the 1990Gulf War, subsequent economic sanctions, and ongoing U.S. bombing raids againstIraq. Will your planned actions lead to a similar fate for the children ofAfghanistan?

13. What will you accomplish if you bomb Afghanistan? Wouldn't this galvanizeIslamic fundamentalist movements that are already powerful in Algeria, Egypt,Pakistan, Sudan, the oil-rich Arab monarchies, and the Balkans? Wouldn't aU.S.-led military onslaught against Afghanistan be the fastest way to create anew generation of terrorists?

Adept at manipulating real grievances, terrorist networks breed on poverty,despair, and social injustice. Do you think you can wipe out or even reduce thisscourge, Mr. President, without seriously and systematically addressing the rootcauses of terrorism?

(Martin A. Lee (martinalee17@yahoo.com)is the author of Acid Dreams and The Beast Reawakens. This piece appeared onAlternet, September 28, 2001)