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Comment by Larry Ross, January 11, 2006

William Fisher is a 30 year veteran of high level positions in U.S. public service.
He has his own blog The World According to Bill Fisher and writes with penetration and accuracy about US events.

From all the people seized and imprisoned by the Bush Administration, there have been remarkably few convictions or uncovering of serious terrorist activity.

I think it's purpose is to inspire fear among Americans that they too might be secretly imprisoned, or spied on, if they are of middle eastern origin, or critical of the Bush Administration. It is all part of the Bush Administration's plan to move American democracy toward a more fascist military state, while claiming this is necessary to protect American democracy against terrorism. The media lap it up, repeat it, and most busy people believe what their paper tells them.

What the media don't do is carry much material, like this article of William Fisher, that reveals how phoney the Bush anti-terrorist imprisonment program is.

How can this article help other people in the world?
Many countries, particularly 'coalition of the willing' countries like Australia and Britain, are introducing anti-terrorism laws and practices similar to that in the U.S. They too, are moving their democracies toward becoming de-facto fascist military states similar to that portrayed in Orwell's book '1984'. Always they use the excuse that this is necessary to protect democracy in 'the war on terrorism'. The media usually never questions that.
In Australia and Britain, they are invoking the phoney excuses and reasons put forward by the Bush Administration to justify their new fascist-type laws in their 'war on terror'..

Fisher's article gives us some of the facts to refute their claims that you are unlikely to get from your own media, which may have a very pro-Bush bias. That bias means they will colour or slant the news to favour Bush actions, lies and excuses.
Or they may completely skirt the issue by choosing not to publish important material (like the following) that exposes Bush
lies. Making a police state out of a democracy requires an ignorant and malleable public that will believe the lies of the authorities. That is the mission of the pro-Bush mass media - to keep the public uninformed and misinformed, so they will accept, perhaps reluctantly with limited protest, each step toward a new Orwellian world.
The same thing happened with the Iraq war itself. People became acclimatised toward illegal, barbaric war, with massive bombings, false imprisonments and torture. The massive anti-war protests meant little to the Bush or Blair administrations who are still carrying on their wars, more war plans and more lies. The protest has almost died away to nothing. The people carry on business as usual, resigned or just accepting whatever the authorities do or tell them.

In New Zealand we very nearly elected a party - the National party - that gives every indication it would support the US in whatever it did. This includes support and participation in any war of the Bush Administration, no matter how deceitfully-based it might be. Like Blair and Howard, it is likely New Zealand's National party will also repeat the same type of lies as their justification for supporting US-led wars. They are also likely to reverse our anti-nuclear laws in the interest of restoring and boosting the alliance with our major protector and helping in 'the war against terror'.

If informed people do nothing to help educate others, an uneducated National Party will be elected, pledged to support US wars and reverse our anti-nuclear laws. That is why we must educate both the National party politicians, so they change their policies, and all voters so they know what's really happening and why, and where a new government they may help elect, will lead New Zealand.
Everyone can help educate others in many different ways, from letters to the editor to phoning and visiting their member of parliament on key issues. Although some very heavily biased papers, in favour of Bush, his lies and wars, may not publish letters which refute the lies, we can but try.

An example of heavy bias is the Christchurch Press which did not publish my last 6 anti-war letters which revealed Bush lies. Previously they published 2 out of 3 letters I sent on similar topics. This policy and heavily favouring articles with a strong pro-Bush war bias, dramatically illustrates how a biased paper can either deny or slant information to move it's captive audience, without their awareness, to support policies that are demonstrably untrue, very deceitful and very dangerous for their country and it's citizens, including their own readers.
Yet it loves to claim it is one of New Zealand's leading unbiased papers publishing all important news. It's just not true.

Fisher's article is one example of equipping you with the facts, so you can refute the lies about the U.S. 'suspected terrorist imprisonment program'. You can refute them face-to-face, and in letters to the editor. Let's call it the 'POD' program which stands for PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY.

Larry Ross

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TERRORISM PROSECUTIONS, 2005: HOW MUCH PROGRESS?

By William Fisher, December 8, 2005

Amidst charges that President Bush and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) are inflating the number of criminal prosecutions for terrorism, five cases shed light on the administration’s mixed record of convictions during 2005.

In a Florida case, officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) falsified documents in an effort to cover repeated missteps and then retaliated against an agent who first complained about the problems.

After being held for more than three years in U.S. military custody, Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in Chicago and labelled an "enemy combatant" by the Bush administration, was charged conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals and providing “material support” to terrorists – but not with the charges he had been originally accused of: plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States and to blow up apartment buildings using natural gas lines.

The case against the so-called "Detroit sleeper cell" – once hailed as a significant Justice Department triumph in the “Global War on Terror”-- was dismissed after a jury convicted two men of supporting terrorism. Now a federal grand jury in Detroit is investigating whether the lead prosecutor, Richard Convertino, should be indicted for hiding exculpatory evidence from the defense, including altering dates on three FBI forms using correction fluid to conceal an apparent violation of federal wiretap law.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, a U.S. citizen held in a Saudi Arabian jail for 20 months allegedly at the behest of the U.S., was convicted in Virginia of conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy and contributing services to al-Qaida. He faces up to life in prison. Abu Ali claimed that he was tortured into a false confession by Saudi authorities, but the jury rejected that charge.

A former Florida professor, Sami Al-Arian, 47, accused of helping to lead a terrorist group that has carried out suicide bombings against Israel, was acquitted on nearly half the charges against him and the jury deadlocked on the rest including charges he aided terrorists. The case was seen as one of the biggest courtroom tests yet of the Patriot Act's expanded search-and-surveillance powers.

These cases provide context for assertions by President Bush, his Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, and many other senior administration officials, that "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted."

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