I wrote earlier here about the
ten steps to a closed society ? what I call a 'fascist shift.' I use that term advisedly ? and conservatively ? to mean the point at which the state starts to use force against citizens in a targeted effort to close down democratic processes.
The third step in the shift to a closed society is to 'Develop a Paramilitary Force.' Without a paramilitary force that is not answerable to the people's representatives, democracy cannot be closed down; however, with such a force available to would-be despots, democracy can be drastically and quickly weakened. Every effective despot ? from Mussolini to Hitler, Stalin, the members of the Chinese Politburo, General Augusto Pinochet and the many Latin American dictators who learned from these models of controlling citizens ? has used this essential means to pressure civilians and intimidate dissent. Mussolini was the innovator in the use of thugs to intimidate what was a democracy, if a fragile one, before he actually marched on Rome; he developed the strategic deployment of blackshirts to beat up communists and opposition leaders, trash newspapers and turn on civilians, forcing ordinary Italians, for instance, to ingest emetics. Hitler studied Mussolini (just as Stalin studied Hitler and later despots studied these supreme dictators); he deployed thugs ? in the form of brownshirts ? in similar ways before he came formally to power.
In today's news, the government of Iraq has confronted the hired guns of Blackwater, the North Carolina-based mercenary force that has close ties to Halliburton. According to Iraqi witnesses, these contractors fired on civilians when a car did not obey a command to stop; a civilian couple and their baby were killed. The Iraqi government claims that this is the seventh such incident. Blackwater representatives strongly contest these eyewitness accounts and claim that insurgents opened fire on a convoy the contractors were protecting. Iraqis are distressed that Paul Bremer's 'Order 17' gives these private contractors ? of whom, at the peak of the war, there were over a hundred thousand in Iraq ? immunity from prosecution from what would otherwise be war crimes. (This tactic has strong historical precedents: the National Socialists sought laws shielding their own paramilitary from prosecution for war crimes.) Blackwater contractors in Iraq are a law, essentially, unto themselves.
Apart from the moral issue ? and the fact, little discussed in the US, that abuses of Iraqi civilians by such contractors feeds the insurgency and jeopardizes our troops ? why should this matter to us here at home? Believe it or not, if the Iraqi government does succeed in suspending Blackwater's operatives, they will have more say in reining in this paramilitary force than we do right now in the US. Blackwater's business model seeks to expand its operations on US soil.
What is Blackwater? According to reporter Jeremy Scahill, the firm has 2,300 private soldiers deployed in nine countries, and maintains a database of an additional 21,000 to call upon at any time. Blackwater has over '$500 million in government contracts ? and that does not include its secret "black" budget...' One congressman pointed out that in terms of its manpower, Blackwater can overthrow 'many of the world's governments.' Recuiters for the company seek out former military from countries that have horrific human rights abuses and use secret police and paramilitary forces to terrify their own populations: Chileans, Peruvians, Nigerians, and Salvadorans.
Blackwater is coming home to Main Street, and one of our key constitutional protections is at stake. The future for growth is directed at increased deplyment in the US in cases of natural disaster ? or in the event of a 'public emergency.' This is a very dangerous situation, of course, now that laws have been passed that let the President decide on his say-so alone what a 'public emergency' might be.
The Department of Homeland Security hired these same Blackwater contractors to patrol the streets of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina ? for a contract valued at about $73 million. Does Blackwater's reputation for careless violence against civilians in Iraq, protected by legal indemnification, matter to us? Scahill reports at least one private contractor's accounts of other contractors' abrupt shooting in the direction of American civilians in the wake of Katrina: 'After that, all I heard was moaning and screaming, and the shooting stopped.'
How protected is Blackwater from prosecution for its crimes? The company's lawyers argue that Blackwater can't be held accountable by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, because they aren't part of the US military; but they can't be sued in civil court, either ? because they are part of the US military.
Does this affect the strength of our democracy? Look at how history shows thug groups have been directed at intimidating voters. Americans need to be reminded that both Italy before Mussolini and Germany before Hitler were working, if fragile, parliamentary democracies. Thugs were used in both countries to intimidate voters exercising their rights. Mussolini's fascists stood menacingly near voting booths to make sure citizens 'voted responsibly'; William Shirer wrote that the Austrians voted 99% in favor of their country''s annexation by Germany ? not surprising, he observed, since intimidating groups of brownshirts looked through a wide slit in the voting booth where the election committee did its work. The oddly specific scene of groups of identically dressed young men ? later identified as Republican staffers ? intimidatingly crowding and shouting at the vote counters in Florida in 2000 has strong historical precedents.
The Founders knew from their own experience of standing armies, responsive only to a tyrant, how dangerous such a situation was; King George's men ? armed with blanket warrants ? invaded the colonists' homes, trashed their possessions, and even raped Colonial women. It was that bitter experience that led them to insist on the second amendment ? 'a well regulated militia' that was responsive to the people and could not be deployed against the people of the United States by would-be despots. The founders knew that American tyranny was not only possible, it was likely, in the event of weakened checks and balances; and they knew a mercenary army was the advance guard of despots.
Blackwater is available to anyone who can write the checks. If there is a need to 'restore public order' in the next Presidential election ? a power that the President now can define as he sees fit ? Blackwater can be deployed. If the President declares an emergency, Blackwater can be deployed. And history shows us how very quickly citizen dissent and democratic processes close down when physically intimidating men ? who are armed and not answerable to the people ? are abroad in the land.
The unaccountable civilian deaths in Iraq should be a wake-up call to us here at home ? to restore the constitution and the rule of law before we are too intimidated to do so.