Neo-Cons and the Greatest Con of All

By Farish A. Noor

There is a saying that has been attributed to Adolf Hitler: "If you want to tell a lie, then tell a big one." Granted that telling the difference between lies, half-lies, half-truths and truths deemed too truthful to be told is growing ever more difficult these days, one still needs to have the will and courage to speak the truth to power as was shown most explicitly in the exemplary life of the late Edward Said, who did so with conviction and not to mention a fair amount of eloquence to boot. But these days the lies are raining down on us thick and fast, and nowhere is this hailstorm of lies so strong as it is in the corridors of power in Washington.

For it is there that we will find Mr. Bush Junior - the man whose claim to the Presidency of the United States of America remains in question for many - and his coterie of neo-Conservatives concocting some of the most audacious red herrings that have come our way of late. Talk of 'homeland security' has blurred the distinction between democracy and a police state, and the newly introduced regulations and procedures regarding the monitoring of foreigners into that country had turned the US into the closest living model of the Big Brother state envisaged by George Orwell.

Not even in Stalin's Soviet Union or the petty banana republics and dictatorships of the Third World (many of which were sponsored and backed up by the US, mind you) have we seen the development of a state security apparatus as intrusive and obnoxious as what we see in the United States today.

The so-called 'security measures' that are designed to protect the US from suspected terrorists have underscored the belief held by some that the US itself is the biggest threat to fundamental human rights the world over. Coming at a time when US aid agencies are bold enough to tell their Iraqi clients that references to the Qur'an should be deleted from school textbooks in the 'newly liberated' Iraq, the move to fingerprint and photograph every single foreigner who comes to the country seems more in keeping with the age of the Fascist ghettos or Gulags of Siberia. One wonders what will come next: tagging foreigners or forcing them to wear badges designating their alien status throughout their stay in the so-called 'land of the free'? Why not designate Guantanamo Bay as the only resort where foreigners can pay to visit?

Repulsive and nauseating though the measures may be, most nauseating of all is the apparent lack of principle and guts on the part of other countries to protest and expose the shenanigans of the US for what they are. This is nothing short of the construction of an expansive police state apparatus that will undoubtedly be universalised and replicated in other parts of the world, including those states that have been roped into what is called the 'coalition of the willing'. Thus far the only country with the gumption to hit back is Brazil, which has imposed the same restrictions and security measures on Americans coming to their country. Portugal, Sweden and Denmark have also stated that they will not comply with America's demand to have 'air marshals' on planes bound for the US. However other states are more likely to meekly acquiesce, fearful of the prospect of losing US dollars and much needed investment should they take a stand.

But despite these measures, nobody has asked the most obvious questions of all: has America become a safer country as a result? Do Americans feel safer in their daily lives? And has the image of America improved worldwide, living up to its oft-repeated claims of being the herald and defender of democratic principles and fundamental human rights? If anything, these latest security measures have merely confirmed the suspicion of the US's detractors that the country is making a slide towards authoritarianism, with its government showing decidedly fascist proclivities. How's that for a diplomatic goal?

It is astounding, to say the least, that the country which claims to promote and defend democratic principles worldwide and in its foreign policy can think that it can get away with the things that it is doing now, all being done in the name of the struggle for freedom and justice. Since 11 September 2001 the government of the US has trampled not only on the rights and sovereignty of other nations but even its own people with impunity - and all of this done in the name of 'national security' and the 'defense of the homeland'. In the course of doing so the Bush administration has alienated itself and the American nation from the rest of the Muslim world and the developing world as well. Its treatment of foreigners - which can only be described as contemptuous, arrogant and based on the most selfish and short-sighted of motives - speaks volumes about how America sees itself and its role in the world today and in the future.

To cap it all, we are now fed the greatest lie of all: that all these measures that have curtailed the rights of foreigners and Americans alike are necessary to ward off the evil threat of the dreaded Osama bin Laden, whose appearance on the stage of global politics to date has been little more than a few random video clippings, showing the elusive pimpernel trekking across the mountains as if he was being featured in some karaoke video. Can one man threaten to destroy the entire economic, political and military apparatus of the world's greatest superpower? And can the mere existence of this one man justify the host of repressive security laws that we see being introduced in the US by Mr Bush Junior and his cohort of neo-Cold Warriors? Apparently Mr Bush and company seem to think so. And if that is not the greatest con of the twenty-first century, I don't know what is.