War Against Liberties

Although Osama Bin Laden is clearly a U.S.–made product, the attack on 9/11 served to direct weapons against Iraq … but, at the same time, against the rights of U.S. citizens.

Thanks to the “war on terror,” the U.S. government managed to pass from ineptitude to arrogance, from questioning to exceptional powers. The entire Congress yielded to the military priorities established in the declaration of war by George W. Bush, who emerged from the fraud in Florida, along with Rudolph Giuliani, to become the symbol of patriotism and the defender of patriotism and Western values. Bush moved from defensive to offensive speech, to the war of good against evil, and if you were not with them, you were against them.

Because of this, the media were censored and self-censored; criticism was controlled and defined as complicity with the enemy; mediocrity took over the world. The arts, cinema, culture — everything was affected. There were warnings, threats of viruses, anthrax attacks, walls on the southern border and a resurgence of racism; extraordinary police powers were legitimized to spy, to enter homes and to torture. From the infusion of fear surged a patriotism that mobilized the war industry and permitted the poorest, the most ignorant and the undocumented to become a new version of the mercenary soldier, in exchange for the ability to obtain citizenship and pensions. Although access to Social Security was denied or limited, the military offered everything to these soldiers of fortune.

George W. Bush told the world that his objective was to stop Saddam Hussein and rid Iraq of its dictator. In reality, the outcome was destruction of the country; the atomic and biological weapons that justified the invasion were never found, but villages and cities were bombed; the economy was destroyed; and, in one of the few secular states where the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds were coexisting in the parliament, separatist and religious hatred was once again encouraged. By means of a police mission to detain one individual, war resources were used against all Iraqis.

The Iraq invasion failed to concern the rest of the world, because inhumane images were prohibited in order to avoid another Vietnam, given the effects of the napalm used there and the behavior of American soldiers.

The “war on terror” took as its hostage a country with oil, because the objectives did not consist so much of security, but of the defense of the great economic interests of the countries participating in the robbery.

The issue hasn’t ended. Iraq is still being bombarded, and torture continues in Guantanamo (read more recent testimonies about “Anita”); the only difference is that they’ve turned their sights toward the south, where conditions are ripe to take the war to Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba.

Mexico is also a market for war, and the flow of weapons does not cease. The “war on crime,” with its gradual, planned violence of enduring intensity, expands its economy and contracts ours. The spiraling violence, without explanations, destroys our federal union and puts our once prosperous north up for sale. Who is buying? What better wall than violence on the southern border? What better justification for criminalizing undocumented immigrants?

Once the rural population is destabilized because of people leaving, the options for thousands of peasants will be limited to immigration or to becoming hired assassins. During the past three years, thousands of Mexicans have killed thousands, leaving a chasm between government and society — in each village, neighborhood and entire regions — that will take years to repair. Who will declare an end to the war? When will drug trafficking end?

On the other hand, the Bush model excels in containing and disarticulating the rise of the masses through democratic freedoms and rights. The “war against terrorism” has its grips on legislative and judicial powers, the army, telephone companies, the media, minorities and majorities, the active forces, entrepreneurship and trade unions.

The government’s war has already become a crackdown on civil liberties, and there is no active, coherent opposition to this process. There are no good guys or bad guys, but only crossfire and a civil society that seeks refuge in neutrality. As the sailors walk ashore, the country drowns, canceling its demands for liberty, rights, social reform and economic justice.

The media no longer report social struggles; instead, they turn every Mexican into a police agent who seeks to find the assassin. There are massive educational and media classes, while community-based radio and television and the use of the Internet and mobile phones are controlled.

The government’s war is primarily against the aspirations of the Mexican people for change.