All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our next guest on the show today is Stephen Salisbury.
He's a cultural writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a regular at Tom Dispatch, tomdispatch.com.
His most recent book is Mohammed's Ghosts, an American story of love and fear in the homeland.
And, uh, he's got a piece today under Tom Englehart's name at antiwar.com.
That's Tom Dispatch, Tom Englehart, you know, uh, with Nick Terse, how to fund an American police state, real money for an imaginary war and, uh, also weaponizing the body politic.
It's got two titles like that, but you'll see why when you click on it.
Uh, Stephen Salisbury today at antiwar.com.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
I'm good, Scott.
Thanks a lot for having me back.
It's great to be, be talking again.
Uh, well, good.
I'm very happy to have you here.
Um, although it's a bad news, uh, that brings us together.
It's funny.
It's already the future kind of really, you think about it, 2012, I think how much time has passed already since the terror war started, and I think we all kind of know that, well, like they say, everything changed and, uh, that the drug war was only a dress rehearsal as far as getting the local sheriff's departments and city police agencies across the country armed up to, you know, one day be merged completely with Homeland security as our national police force of tyranny and pain.
Uh, but we really have come very far.
And this article of yours, you really just chronicle, you know, 1,001 absolute, almost unbelievable outrages.
If you took them by themselves, you just say, there is just no way that this is happening in America, but it just goes on and on.
Um, I'm not complaining.
I'm just saying it's not about your writing, just the facts.
It is what it is.
Yeah.
But you know, we're a decade on from nine 11 and, and you're right.
I mean, the drug war was a, uh, it was kind of a dress rehearsal, which is not to minimize the drug war at all and the violence and, and armoring up that took place, uh, with the drug, the drug war as the, as the root cause, but, well, that's how a lot of this militarism is being used now, since there aren't any terrorists, but you got to drive your tank somewhere, if you got a tank, I guess, the big, the big.
Game changer was the, uh, was the, has been the amount of money that the federal government has, has focused on Homeland security, uh, and where that money is going and who's appropriating it.
And, and I think the largest point of this piece is that, uh, it's not just the, the police that have been militarized, but the whole, uh, government at every level is involved, you know, from the feds who, who make the appropriations to the states who, uh, sift through the grant requests to the local, uh, councils and, and, uh, mayors and executives who, uh, who make the requests in the first place to the police who, you know, who, who want to have, uh, what the police in the next County over half, uh, and you know, when you're talking the amounts of money that I lay out in this piece, uh, you're talking an awful lot of hardware, um, somewhere, no one is exactly sure.
And it's, it's almost impossible to pin it down, but somewhere between 600 and $700 billion has been funneled into Homeland security by the federal government, um, and not just through the Homeland security department, that's just a part of it.
It comes from, uh, you know, dozens, literally dozens of departments and agencies of the federal government.
And it goes, you know, it flows through the body politic and at every point along the way, people are, uh, representatives and, uh, and voters are, you know, uh, are implicated in this process.
I mean, we get what we pay for.
I think I make that point.
And, um, we, we, this is, this is us taxpayer money.
That's now been turned into, uh, into creating, uh, hundreds of, uh, military fiefdoms around the nation.
Uh, I use this as an example, money that's flowed into Tampa, uh, Florida, which, uh, is where the Republicans will be holding their convention this summer.
And there was, there was absolutely really no debate whatsoever about their desire to acquire a, a weaponized, uh, armored, uh, Linco Bearcat personnel carrier with, you know, an inch and a half thick, uh, steel, uh, armoring and blast resistant shields and turrets and all this stuff.
And, uh, and which, which will now join two other actual tanks, uh, that Tampa has to, you know, as a, as a way of beefing up, if you want to put it that way, uh, security for the, for the Republican convention and, you know, the, the thing of it is that that's not, that's not where it ends in Tampa for the convention.
They are also at the same time.
This isn't in the story, but, uh, they're also at the same time going to have on loan 12 other armored personnel carriers and tanks in order to turn back, uh, I guess, curious citizens and, and pushy homeless people and, uh, any protesters that want to come out, uh, and speak their minds.
I mean, after all, this is America.
I mean, why should they be allowed to speak their minds?
Um, you know, and I covered, I was on the ground covering the, uh, the conventions in 2004, uh, both in Boston and, and in New York city.
And there was a significant amount of, uh, of equipment and weaponry and, and highly sophisticated, uh, police tactics that were in evidence then.
But, you know, in a, in those are big places, New York city is a big place.
It kind of absorbs that kind of thing.
You, you walk three blocks away from some, you know, incredible police bust of a thousand people, and it's like, it's nothing's happening, but in Tampa, you're going to be able to see, uh, just what this, uh, this beefing up and armoring up, uh, really means to, to America, to an American city, an American place.
And it's, it's, it has the potential to be really ugly.
Well, and I think, yeah, exactly.
It's all about that potential.
Cause we can all imagine what it would be like if say, for example, um, the currency lost a lot more of its value all in a very short amount of time, something like that, and there, you know, occupy protests look like nothing compared to the next wave of them, that kind of thing.
Uh, you could have a lot of people killed by these cops and all their terrible equipment.
I mean, for the most part, it's used on like SWAT raids against, you know, individual homeowners and renters at a time, that kind of thing.
But when all this very same stuff is deployed as, you know, with the riot police out there with the crowds, uh, this could become, you know, pretty, uh, Syria looking pretty quick.
Well, this disturbing thing is to me anyway, um, which is the point you just made that when all this is deployed really in a political context, um, I, I, I get really, uh, uh, empty because, you know, there's nothing, it's not illegal for people to, to speak up and, and assemble to, to express their grievances with the government.
I mean, that's, I seem to have seen that somewhere.
What were, what was the document, the founding document?
It couldn't have been anything from the history of this country.
Um, you know, so, but not to make a joke out of it, but it, it, um, it, it is a lot of the security stuff that has been funneled, um, all over the country.
And we're not, we're talking communications gear, weapons, uh, vehicles, uh, uh, massive amount of surveillance equipment and technology.
Um, all this stuff has been, uh, distributed in the name of, you know, the war on terror.
Well, you know, guess what?
There really is no, there are no terrorists, uh, to speak of.
Um, uh, and so this is equipment looking for a purpose and the purpose is now clearly become, you know, as you pointed out, uh, you know, so-called criminal raids, whether they're drug related or, or eviction related.
And, um, you know, serving warrants and, uh, and, and suppressing political activity, that's really, you know, you have one example in here.
Um, you know, I specifically tailored for the antiwar.com audience, I guess, but it's, it's pretty important no matter who you are.
Um, when you say that Florida decided to launch investigations into supporters of Ron Paul, who, you know, he's not Lyndon LaRouche or whatever, not that that would be justified at all, but he is not some crank he's been in the Congress.
He's been reelected to the Congress 12 times or something.
The house of representatives never voted to expel him or anything.
He's a member of the Republican party in good standing.
He's one of the, the surviving, uh, candidates for president after a grueling process here.
Uh, this guy is as legitimate a presidential candidate as you could have.
And yet for someone to support him is reason for them to be investigated.
It's not just those SUV burning hippies who are being targeted here.
It's good Republicans who like that constitutional guy a little bit.
Yeah.
More than a very good point.
I mean, once you deploy this stuff, it, it, it, it expands, uh, and, and becomes completely inclusive.
Yeah, that's crazy.
I, you know, we were just talking about this with Glenn Greenwald, uh, too, about how, you know, especially since it's mostly being used against Muslims, you do see examples of, well, wait, they do go after, you know, uh, earth first or types with this and they do go after, uh, you know, they keep putting out these reports about, you know, right wing extremist, uh, males with guns and the, the, the re-rise of the militia movement.
That's not really happening, but they like to pretend it is and arm up against that and whatever.
And we're all going to be crying.
And at least it ain't me all the way to the, to solitary confinement, you know?
Well, I think Glenn has pointed out, and many people have pointed out that, um, that the Patriot Act, when it was enacted, uh, can do it contained a clause defining something called domestic terrorism, uh, and which was so loosely worded that it could, uh, it could be, it could be used and applied to virtually any kind of active, uh, uh, political dissidents, uh, whether it's right, left, or just an angry citizen.
Um, and that's what's happened.
I mean, you mentioned Muslims, which is something, uh, an area that I've done a lot of, uh, reporting on.
It really, if you look back over 10 years, uh, there's been, uh, about, well, less than 200, uh, uh, American Muslims who have been convicted of some terrorist related activity.
Uh, and you know, a lot of people would, um, argue that those convictions were based on scenarios that were cooked up by law enforcement to begin with, but even nevertheless, even if they were, that's less than 200, if you, if you expand it and say, well, okay, what about all these guys financing, uh, you know, sending money out to Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda related groups, um, even if you include that, you're, you're talking about 400 people.
So in the course of the last decade, you have, uh, a federal government spending roughly $630 or $40 billion, uh, to, in order to ensnare, uh, a maximum of, uh, of say 600 people with terrorist, terrorist related, uh, uh, convictions.
Um, is that really what we ought to be using nearly a trillion dollars for?
Uh, it, it doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Well, I mean, that's a whole other, that's a whole other angle there.
In fact, that's one, another article that we're running at antiwar.com today is the opportunity costs, the seen and the unseen.
We don't know the kind of improvements in people's lives that could have been made with all this money, but we know that it didn't happen because this money went somewhere else, for example, slaughtering Iraqis and developing the technologies to enslave the Iraqis to such a degree that, um, and I was harping on this one earlier in the show, uh, the retina scanners, uh, this is one that's coming soon and it's been easy to see ever since they started taking our digital, uh, fingerprints just to get a driver's license, you know, 10 years ago or more, uh, 15 years ago, maybe that this is where we're headed and, uh, Raytheon just, you know, put out a commercial the other day, you know, is basically a commercial for their stock, I guess, Raytheon, we're fighting for you or whatever kind of thing, uh, protecting you and keeping you safe and it features all their drones and it shows an army soldier getting a retina scan, uh, from somebody with this handheld retina scanner and this is the kind of thing that they deployed against Fallujans back in 2004 with the, the second battle of Falluja and as, hey, maybe the first one, I don't know, but at least back then and yet sooner or later, these things are going to be cheap enough.
Raytheon is going to be pumping them out.
Ben Bernanke is going to be printing the money to buy them all with, and they're going to be passing them out to all our local sheriff's departments and now, oh, you don't really actually need your license and registration because we got it all in our database.
All we need is a picture of your eyeball.
And, uh, you know, just, uh, I don't know what's going to stop them.
What are they going to let us vote on it or something?
It's on as soon as it's cheap enough.
And that'll be a matter of a couple of years.
Well, there, there was a, uh, letting us vote on it.
The, uh, it's hilarious to even mention that, right?
You know, there are communities that have, that have banded together, uh, to oppose this kind of stuff.
And in fact, I was, I didn't get an opportunity to insert this in the story.
There just wasn't enough space, but, uh, the whole, there was a, uh, there's a little town up in New Hampshire, Keene, New Hampshire, and they got, they got about $300,000 from Homeland Security to fight off the terrorists, terrorist skiers, I guess, I don't know.
That's actually the home of this radio network, Keene, New Hampshire.
That's where the free staters hail from.
There you go.
Well, maybe that's, uh, that, that says, uh, that does it all right there anyway.
Well, then, you know, I mean, Keene, Keene, uh, citizens got together and said, uh, that they didn't think that, uh, it was, it was really an appropriate thing for the police to have a, uh, a Linco bear cat armored personnel carrier that there was really no purpose for it.
Uh, and as, as far as I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, um, they've, they've, they've fought back the, that particular acquisition by the local police department.
I actually don't know how that was resolved or if it was resolved yet.
I don't think it has been.
I know, but come on, you know, 16 years ago or so, two men used automatic rifles to rob a bank in Los Angeles.
So all deputy sheriffs need tanks.
Well, that's, that is, you know, but the logic is even, doesn't even extend to that.
The logic is that, um, 10 years ago, uh, nearly 20, uh, uh, men from the Middle East flew planes into the, uh, world trade center.
That's why the LA police need to have those tanks and cameras and whatever.
Uh, I mean, that's, that is, that has been the, the drumbeat since September 12th.
Uh, never again will this happen on in America.
We're going to do everything we can to prevent it.
And once you have that mindset, um, it, and it flowed down, I mean, I watched it as a reporter, uh, uh, here in Philadelphia, uh, uh, how federal, you know, local officials, uh, largely with the interior department, um, were absorbed that message and were afraid to do anything.
Uh, uh, because if anything, even the slightest thing happened under their watch, they were, they were, well, they were terrified of that possibility.
So, so the fear, there was real fear on September 12th in the federal government and it was communicated throughout the federal bureaucracy.
Which is funny.
Cause you would think that the lesson would be, wow, there's no accountability whatsoever.
Even when the very worst thing ever happens on our watch, nobody gets in trouble.
No, well, that that's a whole, that's a different lesson.
I would have learned if I was a bureaucrat and actually it seems like that's the lesson they learned here is we can just steal whatever we want.
We can kill whoever we want.
We can entrap whoever we want.
We can persecute whoever we want.
We can seize whatever we want.
Everything's changed.
There's no more law.
And now we're just cops going fishing.
Well, I can tell you that, uh, that, that the fear at the highest levels of the government certainly, uh, was communicated all the way down the ranks.
And I remember reporting on, uh, on people who were picked up, uh, you know, for just doing ordinary things like, you know, taking pictures and stuff like that.
And, and, uh, they were hauled into, these are immigrants hauled into, uh, into immigration court and were absolutely.
And their hearings were sealed by federal order.
I mean, they were, they really had done nothing and, um, you couldn't find out anything about what, what had happened to them.
They just simply disappeared.
And, um, you know, there wasn't a, all, all the immigration, all immigration agents or the FBI or any other law enforcement agency had to do, or any prosecutor would say the word terrorism and judges were judges had absolutely, uh, no qualms about, you know, going along with whatever, whatever prosecutors or agents wanted them to do.
Uh, it was really, uh, it was really a remarkable period.
And don't forget also that the, the people have different views about immigration, but, uh, you know, the, the courts, immigration courts are not part of the criminal justice system.
They're, they're actually administered by the justice department itself.
And, um, and are, are essentially civil courts.
And so any, uh, strictures that come down from the, from the top justice department in those cases, it was Ashcroft.
Um, you know, they, they just went right, right down to the judges as well.
The judges, judges didn't base decision, at least in some cases did not base their decisions on, on law or, or rules, but on what, what the administrative order from the, from the attorney general was that's, that's, you know, whatever you think about immigration, that's not exactly, uh, what you want to find in an American courtroom.
Well, uh, you know, the guys in the chat room say that, uh, the latest news on free talk live is that the bearcat is coming to Keene even despite all the protests, uh, and that really kind of goes to, you know, it's a great article again, it's a weaponizing the body politic, uh, under Tom Englehart's name, uh, by Stephen Salisbury, uh, today at antiwar.com and, um, and you know, it's in pieces here.
We have all the militarization.
Then we have, as you mentioned, all the fusion centers and all the integration of the different levels.
I mean, there was a time where you could honestly say there were 18,000 separate police agencies with separate jurisdictions in this country.
Now that's very much more marble caked than it was even 10 years ago, as they say, with all those jurisdictions overlapping and the multiple jurisdictional task forces and terrorism task forces and whatever, whatever.
But then you also have, after the decade of this, you have, um, what Terry Liberty Parker used to always call the chilling effect where people now actually just sort of assume that if they Google something controversial, maybe they will draw the attention of the government and maybe they just don't want to bother with that.
They've got responsibilities.
So why, if we are moving into a real police state here, why pick a fight with, with big brother?
Maybe just go ahead and don't bother even trying to oppose it because you're already beaten.
People are already making those decisions when it comes to, I want to read this, or I want to read that.
There are people who say, I can't, I just, I'm afraid to direct my browser to something called antiwar.com.
What if one day that becomes a real liability that I ever did that, um, you know, that kind of really happens.
And like, for example, too, I wonder, and I don't know, but what do they tell the seventh graders about this?
This is all perfectly normal.
This is the homeland.
And so where, if we just have a single national police force Gestapo that, you know, connects your retina scan and your license plate to your IRS record or whatever, and we're all just enslaved completely in with real time surveillance and all this, where it all just seemed normal to them.
Now they won't even know to object that there's anything objectionable happening, I guess.
Well, you, you mentioned, um, general dynamic or Raytheon before, but, uh, uh, department of Homeland security is, has a, uh, a $12 million contract with general dynamics, um, uh, which, uh, calls for general dynamics to monitor the internet and social media, looking for information and names and so forth, uh, connected to critical comments that are critical of the government and, and, um, although the department denies this, it's actually in their, uh, guidelines for the, uh, for social media monitoring.
So any comment about, uh, department of Homeland security or, uh, you know, terrorism or anything like that, uh, is automatically swept up by, uh, by general dynamics and funneled to department of Homeland security, where it goes into a database, right?
Self-preservation is their first priority, just like the FBI, just like every other person or group of individuals you can find, but, you know, this is this, they've been very clear about, um, about where they think the, the, the key mistakes were that led to nine 11 and probably at the top of the list is there has been the fragmented nature of, of, uh, intelligence and investigations and, uh, the inability to share information.
So all this stuff goes, goes, uh, to cure.
If you want to use that term, cure that problem, uh, and they've gone a long way towards it too.
Actually, the problem was the centralization of authority.
They should calling rally should have been able to make the call to go to the judge, to search Musawi's belongings and stop the plot.
But anyway, all right.
Well, I don't have time.
Thank you so much.
It's a Stefan Salisbury from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Tom dispatch.com, antiwar.com.
Thank you, Scott.
