Danger During the 2004 Election

BY JAAN LAAMAN

With the recent news reports (mid-July) that the Bush government is considering postponing the November elections, in case of a new big attack in the U.S., it seemed necessary to run the following article again. It originally appeared in the first issue of 4strugglemag.

Conspiracy theories of history or current events, while often intriguing, primarily lead us astray. Such views get people so concentrated on the “secret schemes and cabals,” that we do not recognize or disregard the real problems and enemies in front of us. Having just said all this, let me now raise a rather paranoid possibility.

Early in this 2004 election year, the Democrats vs. the Republicans rhetoric is already loud and negative. Additionally, there are very real popular concerns, especially about the Bush government’s invasions and wars and its corresponding growing police state within the U.S. This year we will see large demonstrations and a growing opposition to George Bush and his government. This will be fuelled by the unending reality that more and more U.S. occupation troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will come home in coffins, and even more will come back crippled and maimed.

The President’s poll ratings have been dropping. Now that all the original reasons for the invasion and war in Iraq have been proven false, there is a growing mistrust of Bush and his government among more and more Americans. The government has not admitted to its mistakes or misstatements. In fact, George Bush has called for even stronger police state laws and new U.S. troops are being rotated in to occupy Iraq.

What we have witnessed, particularly this winter, is an increasing use of alarms and warnings of danger by the government. The federal color-coded alert warning level was recently elevated for several weeks. Shortly after that, many international flights were grounded, halted or banned because of new government warnings. And just recently much of the U.S. Senate was shut down because of a ricin-poisoned letter that was found in the office of Republican Leader Frist.

All of these events were given huge exposure in the media. Interestingly, each of these official warnings and alerts came on the heels of new critical revelations about the government. The U.S. body count in Iraq passed 500, new terror warnings. Former Treasury Secretary O’Neil’s book about Bush’s pre-9/11/01 plan to invade Iraq came out; the alert levels were raised. U.S. weapons hunter David Kay resigned and admitted there were no weapons in Iraq, and ricin is found in the Senate. These are just the most recent three events. They could all be coincidences, but at the least it is clear that the timing of government warnings and their release to the media is used to counteract any mounting criticism of Bush and his government.

We need to keep alert to the timing of these warnings and other ongoing news and events. More importantly, as this presidential campaign heats up and if Bush is doing poorly by this summer, the one thing that would give him this election would be a significant attack against the U.S., especially here in America. With the proven deceptive nature of this administration, on top of the murderous history of the CIA and U.S. imperialism in the past 50 years, it is not simply paranoid thinking to worry about an attack being “allowed” to happen, or even “engineered” by some secret U.S. cop or military unit.

Yes, admittedly this is a paranoid worry, but we are dealing with a government and system that easily and repeatedly lied and misled people in this country and in the world as it launched its war on Iraq. The question to ask is, do you feel there are elements in this government that would allow or create an attack against the U.S., to win this election? At the very least, this kind of question needs to be asked. Hopefully in the process of many people raising it, we would also begin to provide some measure of defense against such a despicable act.