Afterword: Failed States — by Noam Chomsky

The following major essay is from ZNet author, Noam Chomsky. It is an expanded version of the afterword to his new book Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (Metropolitan Books, 2006).

Afterword: Failed States
Noam Chomsky

We began by considering four critical issues that should rank high on the agenda of those concerned with the prospects for a decent future. Two of them are literally matters of survival: nuclear war and environmental disaster. The first danger is ever-present, beyond imagination, and in principle avoidable; practical ways to proceed are understood. The second is longer-term, and there is much uncertainty about how a serious crisis can be averted, or at least mitigated, though it is clear enough that the longer the delay in confronting the tasks, they harder they will be. And again, sensible measures to proceed are well known. The third major crisis is that the government of the global superpower is acting in ways that enhance these threats, and others as well, such as the threat of terrorism by enemies. That conclusion, unfortunately all too credible, brings to prominence a fourth critical issue: the growing democratic deficit, the gap between public will and public policy, a sign of the increasing failure of formal democratic institutions to function as they would in a democratic culture with vitality and substance. This last issue is both threatening and hopeful. It is threatening because it increases the dangers posed by the first three imminent crises, apart from being intolerable in itself. It is hopeful because it can be overcome, and again, practical ways to proceed are well understood, and have often been implemented under far more difficult circumstances than those faced in the industrial societies today.

No one familiar with history should be surprised that the growing democratic deficit at home is accompanied by declaration of messianic missions to bring democracy to a suffering world. Declarations of noble intent by systems of power are rarely complete fabrication, and the same is true in this case. Under some conditions, forms of democracy are acceptable. Abroad, as the leading scholar-advocate of "democracy promotion" concludes from his inquiries, we find a "strong line of continuity," extending to the present moment: democracy is sometimes acceptable, but if and only if it is consistent with strategic and economic interests (Thomas Carothers). Much the same holds at home, where democracy is valued by power and privilege insofar as it "protects the opulent minority from the majority," as Madison held. [More]

Leading Executioners: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and US (Amnesty International)

Published on Thursday, April 20, 2006 by Reuters

LONDON - More than 2,000 people were known to have been executed around the world last year, the vast majority of them in China, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

In its annual report on executions, the rights group said about 1,770 executions were reported to have been carried out in China in 2005, but added the real figure was undoubtedly much higher, noting a Chinese legal expert had been quoted as saying the true figure was about 8,000.

More than 20,000 people were on death row around the world, said the report, which repeated a call for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty.

Amnesty said at least 2,148 people were executed in 2005 in 22 countries -- 94 percent of them in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. That's down from 3,797 executions in 2004, but up from 1,146 in 2003.

"The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights, because it contravenes the essence of human values, it is often applied in a discriminatory manner, follows unfair trials or is applied for political reasons," Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan said in a statement.

At least 94 people were executed in Iran, 86 in Saudi Arabia and 60 in the United States.

"As the world continues to turn away from the use of the death penalty, it is a glaring anomaly that China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the U.S. stand out for their extreme use of this form of punishment," Khan said.

Click here for the full article.

Senate Hearings on Bush, Now — by Carl Bernstein

In this VF.com exclusive, a Watergate veteran and Vanity Fair contributor calls for bipartisan hearings investigating the Bush presidency. Should Republicans on the Hill take the high road and save themselves come November?

by Carl Bernstein
Vanity Fair

Worse than Watergate? High crimes and misdemeanors justifying the impeachment of George W. Bush, as increasing numbers of Democrats in Washington hope, and, sotto voce, increasing numbers of Republicans—including some of the president's top lieutenants—now fear? Leaders of both parties are acutely aware of the vehemence of anti-Bush sentiment in the country, expressed especially in the increasing number of Americans—nearing fifty percent in some polls—who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq.

John Dean, the Watergate conspirator who ultimately shattered the Watergate conspiracy, rendered his precipitous (or perhaps prescient) impeachment verdict on Bush two years ago in the affirmative, without so much as a question mark in choosing the title of his book Worse than Watergate. On March 31, some three decades after he testified at the seminal hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee, Dean reiterated his dark view of Bush's presidency in a congressional hearing that shed more noise than light, and more partisan rancor than genuine inquiry. The ostensible subject: whether Bush should be censured for unconstitutional conduct in ordering electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant.

Raising the worse-than-Watergate question and demanding unequivocally that Congress seek to answer it is, in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans and, of increasing relevance, inside a special prosecutor's office in downtown Washington.

In terms of imminent, meaningful action by the Congress, however, the question of whether the president should be impeached (or, less severely, censured) remains premature. More important, it is essential that the Senate vote—hopefully before the November elections, and with overwhelming support from both parties—to undertake a full investigation of the conduct of the presidency of George W. Bush, along the lines of the Senate Watergate Committee's investigation during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.

How much evidence is there to justify such action?

Certainly enough to form a consensus around a national imperative: to learn what this president and his vice president knew and when they knew it; to determine what the Bush administration has done under the guise of national security; and to find out who did what, whether legal or illegal, unconstitutional or merely under the wire, in ignorance or incompetence or with good reason, while the administration barricaded itself behind the most Draconian secrecy and disingenuous information policies of the modern presidential era.

[...]

Click here for the full Vanity Fair article.

"Good intentions will always be pleaded ... "

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

~ Daniel Webster, US statesman, lawyer, and orator (1782 - 1852)

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded ... "

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. "In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. "The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

~ James Madison (1795)

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill: Open Letter to MP

Dear Mr Hendry:

Specifically, we write today out of tremendous concern about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (LRRB), which seems to have passed through a second parliamentary reading with very little public awareness of the bill's existence, let alone the crippling effect which this legislation would have on democracy were the bill to become law.

Although several excellent articles have been written -- across the political spectrum -- in British newspapers, magazines and journals, the general public seems not to have noticed that a bill which would fundamentally rewrite the rules by which legislation can be amended, replaced or repealed, and which would undermine the checks and balances inherent in the parliamentary system, is dangerously close to becoming law. Even citizens and legislators of other countries whose respective parliamentary systems are based on the British model watch with grave concern for their own democracies as this bill proceeds along the legislative process with apparently scarce opposition, in or out of Parliament.

The Save Parliament website provides a general overview of the bill, and includes a number of recent articles which demonstrate that those relative few in the UK who are aware of the bill are shocked and fearful of the sweeping legislative powers which such a law would hand to the ministers of Government.

Democracy would, in effect, be dead.

Below is an excerpt from the Save Parliament website:

[...] More worryingly, the minister involved can amend any existing legislation; nothing is protected. So, as was pointed out in The Times by 6 law professors from Cambridge, a minister could abolish trial by jury, suspend habeas corpus (your right not to be arbitrarily arrested), or change any of the legislation governing the legal system.

That's 700 years of democracy and the rule of law, thrown away in a heartbeat. What's left of the Magna Carta, the foundation of just about all modern democracies, would be finally gone, and our Parliament, which has influenced democratic systems all over the world, would just be a footnote in history.

Mr Johnson, Ms Hurst and I intend to work in coalition with others to raise awareness of this issue amongst the general population.

We, therefore, are writing to request a meeting with you to discuss this matter, and to ask for your advice as to how we may be able to build upon existing efforts, like that promoted by Save Parliament, to help educate the public of the dangers of this bill.

Thank you, Mr Hendry, for your consideration.

Yours sincerely,

Sean M. Madden
Rebecca L. Hurst
Simon Johnson

John Pilger sees freedom die quietly

by John Pilger
New Statesman
Monday 17th April 2006

The bill marks the end of true parliamentary democracy; it is as significant as Congress abandoning the Bill of Rights, writes John Pilger

People ask: can this be happening in Britain? Surely not. A centuries-old democratic constitution cannot be swept away. Basic human rights cannot be made abstract. Those who once comforted themselves that a Labour government would never commit such an epic crime in Iraq might now abandon a last delusion, that their freedom is inviolable. If they knew.

The dying of freedom in Britain is not news. The pirouettes of the Prime Minister and his political twin, the Chancellor, are news, though of minimal public interest. Looking back to the 1930s, when social democracies were distracted and powerful cliques imposed their totalitarian ways by stealth and silence, the warning is clear. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill has already passed its second parliamentary reading without interest to most Labour MPs and court journalists; yet it is utterly totalitarian in scope.

It is presented by the government as a simple measure for streamlining deregulation, or "getting rid of red tape", yet the only red tape it will actually remove is that of parliamentary scrutiny of government legislation, including this remarkable bill. It will mean that the government can secretly change the Parliament Act, and the constitution and laws can be struck down by decree from Downing Street. Blair has demonstrated his taste for absolute power with his abuse of the royal prerogative, which he has used to bypass parliament in going to war and in dismissing landmark high court judgments, such as that which declared illegal the expulsion of the entire population of the Chagos Islands, now the site of an American military base. The new bill marks the end of true parliamentary democracy; in its effect, it is as significant as the US Congress last year abandoning the Bill of Rights.

Those who fail to hear these steps on the road to dictatorship should look at the government's plans for ID cards, described in its manifesto as "voluntary". They will be compulsory and worse. An ID card will be different from a driving licence or passport. It will be connected to a database called the NIR (National Identity Register), where your personal details will be stored. These will include your fingerprints, a scan of your iris, your residence status and unlimited other details about your life. If you fail to keep an appointment to be photographed and fingerprinted, you can be fined up to £2,500.

Every place that sells alcohol or cigarettes, every post office, every pharmacy and every bank will have an NIR terminal where you can be asked to "prove who you are". Each time you swipe the card, a record will be made at the NIR - so, for instance, the government will know every time you withdraw more than £99 from your bank account. Restaurants and off-licences will demand that the card be swiped so that they are indemnified from prosecution. Private business will have full access to the NIR. If you apply for a job, your card will have to be swiped. If you want a London Underground Oyster card, or a supermarket loyalty card, or a telephone line or a mobile phone or an internet account, your ID card will have to be swiped.

In other words, there will be a record of your movements, your phone calls and shopping habits, even the kind of medication you take. These databases, which can be stored in a device the size of a hand, will be sold to third parties without you knowing. The ID card will not be your property and the Home Secretary will have the right to revoke or suspend it at any time without explanation. This would prevent you drawing money from a bank.

ID cards will not stop terrorists, as the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, has now admitted; the Madrid bombers all carried ID. On 26 March, the government moved to silence parliamentary opposition to the cards, announcing that a committee would investigate banning the House of Lords from blocking legislation contained in a party's manifesto. The Blair clique does not debate. Like the zealot in Downing Street, its "sincere belief" in its own veracity is quite enough. When the London School of Economics published a long study that in effect demolished the government's case for the cards, Clarke abused it for feeding a "media scare campaign".

This is the same minister who attended every cabinet meeting at which Blair's lies over his decision to invade Iraq were clear.

This government was re-elected with the support of barely a fifth of those eligible to vote: the second-lowest proportion since the franchise. Whatever respectability the famous suits in television studios try to give him, Blair is demonstrably discredited as a liar and war criminal.

Like the constitution-hijacking bill now reaching its final stages, and the criminalising of peaceful protest, ID cards are designed to control the lives of ordinary citizens (as well as enrich the new Labour-favoured companies that will build the computer systems). A small, determined and profoundly undemocratic group is killing freedom in Britain, just as it has killed literally in Iraq. That is the news. "The kaleidoscope has been shaken," said Blair at the 2001 Labour party conference. "The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us."

This article first appeared in the New Statesman.