The FTAA in Miami: mission creep?

[G_j]

Fragments of the Future: The FTAA in Miami

By Rebecca Solnit, tomdispatch.com
November 26, 2003


http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17267

I used to think that, as with what Chalmers Johnson calls its "empire of bases," the United States was developing a new form of militarism, unlike every past example, in which you could walk the streets of our cities forever without seeing anyone in a military uniform. That, of course, began to change after 9/11.

Now, from airports to subways, not to speak of demonstrations, it's become quite normal to spot well-armed soldiers. As Rebecca Solnit suggests in her vivid report below on the FTAA demonstrations in Miami, in the face of protest there's a creeping militarization of whole cityscapes. Along with that goes a version of the "bubble" effect of presidential visits abroad the shutting down of vast central city areas to protect our head of state. The two paradigmatic responses of our moment, in fact, seem to be "war" in metaphor and reality and this shutdown effect, which buttons up all life for "protection."

Just a day or two ago, Newsmax.com, evidently a conservative website, released quotes from an interview the magazine Cigar Aficionado was granted with former Centcom commander General Tommy Franks in which he speculated on what might happen after a nuclear, biological, or chemical attack on the United States:
"It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world - it may be in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important."

Comments the website: "He is the first high-ranking official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government." It's interesting, of course, that such extreme scenarios are running around the brain of the general who oversaw our war in Iraq. At a more mundane level, another kind of militarization of our society is taking place as the Pentagon moves slowly on a host of fronts to blur the lines between civilian and military. With its mountainous $400 billion budget, of course, it is competing to become the agency of choice for just about everything from war to peace, foreign intelligence to domestic surveillance.
...more...

[Kolesar]

1. Is General Tommy Franks still on active duty?

Then that would be a pretty irresponsible thing he said.