Anti-terror and other laws

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/31/2006



There’s a turnabout amongst Filipino legislators who once supported the anti-terror legislation Arroyo and the U.S. embassy has been trying to push through Congress. They say they fear that such powers will be abused by Gloria to terrorize, torture, murder and oppress innocent citizens and dissenters. I am glad they have come around to my view from the onset of the anti-terror gig in 2001, although their understanding of the dangers is still limited to shortsighted anti-Gloria posturing, not appreciating that it’s intended to kill Philippine sovereignty and democracy.

Power corrupts and the corrupted hankers for absolute power which the anti-terror laws proposed will give. Yet, even in the U.S. the popular fear of anti-terror laws such as the Patriot Act is growing and even institutions such as the CIA, Pentagon and the Defense Department are revealing serious cracks over this because they know its meant to kill democracy. The clamor for impeachment of the anti-terror Bush and Cheney have also been growing. A report by Allan Uthman lists ten signs of conflict over the impending U.S. police state:

The clampdown on the Internet, the U.S. Patriot Act, the “long war” against terrorism theory of Bush (to justify endless conflict), establishment of “prison camps” in the U.S., “touchscreen voting machines” to manipulate elections, warrantless wiretapping (recently uncovered), “free speech zones” (much like our Freedom Parks) where right to free speech is limited to, high ranking protesters (six generals calling for Rumsfeld resignation) and the CIA counter-leaks to Bush’s leaks.

The temporizing in Filipino politicians’ change of heart is dangerous as they also say it may be all right under a new and different Philippine ruler. They are in effect still going to justify tyranny so long as it’s a different face? What they miss or deliberate keep silent about is that these anti-terror gigs is all about the Global Corporate Dictatorship the world corporatocracy (or kleptocracy) wants to install, and anti-terror laws will stifle the resistance to being taken over and exploited. It’ll be a world for their profit, and damn people’s sovereign will.

Look at the centers of the anti-terror war: Afghanistan, democracy so long as former Unocal executive, now Afghan President Karzai can open the pipeline of for Central Asian oil through Afghanistan; Iraq’s chaotic democracy so long as U.S. controls its oil. The Afghans and Iraqis know they are being robbed of their birthrights and the insurgencies there are growing stronger. No anti-terror war is needed where those who in power have wisdom, humanity and vision; any community ruled by such values would not have any terror threat.

It is the corporatocratic interests’ control of American power that engendered modern world terrorism in Afghanistan’s mountains in the 80’s - to feed the industries of war and control regions of the world. Where there is no terrorism they will create it, like terrorism in U.S. soil or in Europe and in our own backyard Mindanao, to introduce the “need” for anti-terror legislation. But even before the terrorism bogey there are other means to squeeze the vise, like the RP-US defense agreement now that allows the U.S. to “help” in crimes and other none defense problems.

There are other mechanisms too like Goebellian methods. A classic case is the Ozone scare their global media and NGOs whipped up. As we said years ago, the human CO² and CFC emission-global warming thesis is a hoax but it allowed their controlled politicians to ram through laws that force us to pay for products the West seek markets for. The ozone scare is now proven to be a hoax in a scientific work by Westhead and Andersen appearing in the May issue of Nature showing how the ozone layer has been recovering by nature’s own ways.

The Philippine Land Transportation Office is enforcing a law for car air-conditioning to shift from CFC’s to expensive HFC refrigerants which needs costly retooling. As I said when they passed that Clean Air Act: we are being forced to buy expensive coolants based on misinformation! Ditto for the mining law opening us to foreign exploitation: beware of media and government panhandlers to Lafayette and giant mining interests. No African country got rich from giving foreign miners free rein to their minerals; they are impoverished to virtual genocide.

On another killer, the debt trap: the West forced Third World “automatic appropriations” legislation for debt service which keep us in perpetually growing debt. Then they feign charity with “debt relief”, but a new World Bank report finds the HIPC (Highly Indebted Poor Countries) given debt relief deeper in debt after ten years. What the World Band cannot say is that the conditions for debt relief, i.e. power, water, and even education privatization cause further indebtedness. Do we now see the connection of Western gimmicks with laws they instigate in our country that adversely impact on us?

The nation’s focus today is on the anti-terror bill today but we must see the broader connection of the corporatocratic power in the world and how they use corrupt local politicians to legislate their immoral and illegitimate methods and ends. The culmination of the Western corporatocracy’s legalization of their global corporatocratic control is the anti-terror laws which they will use to clamp down on opposition to global exploitation.

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