This is really a war on dissenters [Canadian Naomi Klein cleaves to commies, thugs & terrorists]

Permit me to put my comments upfront to reduce flammage. I'm posting this vomitous rant because of the violent, murderous, left-wing and/or islamist insurgencies and organizations that Klien lauds, glorifies or defends. This provides the beginning of a pretty fair rundown of the main terrorist outfits the hard-left is pushing as "liberation" movements. Please feel free to add to the list

The Marriott Hotel in Jakarta was still burning when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's Security Minister, explained the implications of the day's attack: "Those who criticise about human rights being breached must understand that all the bombing victims are more important than any human rights issue."

In a sentence, we got the best summary yet of the philosophy underlying George Bush's so-called War on Terror. Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny for their human rights abuses.

Many have argued that the War on Terror is the US Government's thinly veiled excuse for constructing a classic empire, in the model of Rome or Britain. Two years into the crusade, it's clear this is a mistake: the Bush gang doesn't have the stick-to-it-ness to successfully occupy one country, let alone a dozen. Bush and the gang do, however, have the hustle of good marketers, and they know how to contract out. What Bush has created in the WoT is less a "doctrine" for world domination than an easy-to-assemble toolkit for any mini-empire looking to get rid of the opposition and expand its power.

The War on Terror was never a war in the traditional sense. It is, instead, a kind of brand, an idea that can be easily franchised by any government in the market for an all-purpose opposition cleanser. We already know that the WoT works on domestic groups that use terrorist tactics, such as Hamas or the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia. But that's only its most basic application. WoT can be used on any liberation or opposition movement. It can also be applied liberally on unwanted immigrants, pesky human rights activists and even on hard-to-get-out investigative journalists.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was the first to adopt Bush's franchise, parroting the White House's pledges to "pull up these wild plants by the root, smash their infrastructure" as he sent bulldozers into the occupied territories to uproot olive trees and tanks to raze civilian homes. It soon included human rights observers who were bearing witness to the attacks, as well as aid workers and journalists.

Another franchise soon opened in Spain with Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar extending his WoT from the Basque guerilla group ETA to the Basque separatist movement as a whole, the vast majority of which is entirely peaceful. Aznar has resisted calls to negotiate with the Basque autonomous government and banned the political party Batasuna (even though, as The New York Times noted in June, "no direct link has been established between Batasuna and terrorist acts"). He has also shut down Basque human rights groups, magazines and the only entirely Basque-language newspaper. Last February, the Spanish police raided the Association of Basque Middle Schools, accusing it of having terrorist ties.

This appears to be the true message of Bush's war franchise: why negotiate with your political opponents when you can annihilate them? In the era of WoT, concerns such as war crimes and human rights just don't register.

Among those who have taken careful note of the new rules is Georgia's President Eduard Shevardnadze. Last October, while extraditing five Chechens to Russia (without due process) for its WoT, he stated that "international human rights commitments might become pale in comparison with the importance of the anti-terrorist campaign".

Indonesia's President Megawati Soekarnoputri got the same memo. She came to power pledging to clean up Indonesia's notoriously corrupt and brutal military and bring peace to the fractious country. Instead she has called off talks with the Free Aceh Movement, and in May invaded the oil-rich province in the country's largest military offensive since the 1975 invasion of East Timor.

Why did the Indonesian Government think it could get away with the invasion after the international outrage that forced it out of East Timor? Easy: post-September 11, the Government cast Aceh's movement for national liberation as "terrorist" - which means human rights concerns no longer apply. Rizal Mallarangeng, a senior adviser to Megawati, called it the "blessing of September 11".

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo appears to feel similarly blessed. Quick to cast her battle against Islamic separatists in the southern Moro region as part of the WoT, Arroyo - like Sharon, Aznar and Megawati - abandoned peace negotiations and waged brutal civil war instead, displacing 90,000 people last year.

But she didn't stop there. Last August, speaking to soldiers at a military academy, Arroyo extended the war beyond terrorists and armed separatists to include "those who terrorise factories that provide jobs" - clear code for trade unions. Labour groups in Philippine free-trade zones report that union organisers are facing increased threats, and strikes are being broken up with extreme police violence.

In Colombia, the Government's war against leftist guerillas has long been used as cover to murder anyone with leftist ties, whether union activists or indigenous farmers. But things have got worse since President Alvaro Uribe took office in August 2002 on a WoT platform. Last year, 150 union activists were murdered. Like Sharon, Uribe quickly moved to get rid of the witnesses, expelling foreign observers and playing down the importance of human rights. Only after "terrorist networks are dismantled will we see full compliance with human rights", Uribe said in March.

Sometimes WoT is not an excuse to wage war, but to keep one going. Mexican President Vincente Fox came to power in 2000 pledging to settle the Zapatista conflict "in 15 minutes" and to tackle rampant human rights abuses committed by the military and police. Now, post-September 11, Fox has abandoned both projects. The Government has made no moves to reinitiate the Zapatista peace process, and last month Fox closed the office of the under-secretary for human rights.

This is the era ushered in by September 11: war and repression unleashed, not by a single empire, but by a global franchise. In Indonesia, Israel, Spain, Colombia, the Philippines and China, governments have latched on to Bush's WoT and are using it to erase their opponents and tighten their grip on power.

Last month, another war was in the news. In Argentina, the Senate voted to repeal two laws that granted immunity to the sadistic criminals of the 1976-1983 dictatorship. At the time, the generals called their campaign of extermination a "war on terror", using a series of kidnappings and violent attacks by leftist groups as an excuse to seize power.

But the vast majority of the 30,000 people who were "disappeared" weren't terrorists; they were union leaders, artists, teachers, psychiatrists. As with all wars on terror, terrorism wasn't the target; it was the excuse to wage the real war: on people who dared to dissent.

When government abuses its power to further the means of those in charge with a particular agenda to push we should become concerned. When governments hide behind the notion of stopping terrorism as an excuse to crush the democractic process we should be concerned. When the integrity of this war becomes compromised, we should become concerned. and let's face it, ANY government with a self-interest will do what it can to further its aims.

However, one must also be able to apply to reason to this. One cannot negotiate with what we might define as a legitimate terrorist when their aims are murder and subversion of functioning society. Secondly, one cannot be so naive to simply blame the US government for the decisions of other sovereign nations. Lastly, liberals must also understand that pacifism and acquiescence will result in their and many other's deaths from the same people they defend.

I found so incrediably ironic that same people who accused Bush of being simplistic in speaking of an "axis of evil" and declaring "you're either with us or the terrorists" are themselves caged in by a stullifyingly Manichean perspective. To them, Bush can do no right, and any act of violence committed for a leftist or anti-American cause is just and worthy. Naomi Klein thinks she's the second coming of Emma Goldman, but she's really the bastard offspring of Father Coughlan and Beatrice Webb.

But the vast majority of the 30,000 people who were "disappeared" weren't terrorists; they were union leaders, artists, teachers, psychiatrists.

Have you seen what these types are doing to our society?

Union thugs regularly beat pro-recall supporters in MexiCali...and run roughshod over anyone who opposes their agendas (Don and Terri Adams ring a bell?)...

Teachers cram socialism, eco-terrorism, and pro-homosexuality down students throats at the beck and call of their NEA Masters (more unionism, btw)...

Psychiatrists trying to legitimize pedophilia, sodomy, and child-rape....proponents of releasing John Hinckley as being "no danger", after he continued to STALK WOMEN while in psychiatric care...recently they determined Conservatism was a mental disease...

I'd say they should DEFINITELY be classified correctly as "terrorists!

She knows full well there is no war on dissenters. What she fears is that the communists’s favorite tactics, the lawless use of violence, fear and force, rather than debate and persuasion, is finally being recognized for what it is- terrorism.

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