America under siege

The leader of the free world and supposedly the freest country – the United States of America – is now under siege. No one can blame them for this "siege mentality". The 9/11 attack was probably the worst terrorist attack ever, killing close to 3,000 people. No matter how much they try to convince us that the US is still the same, life in America has drastically changed. It appears they are slowly turning into a police state.

It would seem the US is "off-limits" to visitors and tourists, especially if the government is on "Orange" level alert, sort of like Defcon 2 – just one small step towards Defcon 1, meaning "Red Alert". Shortly after the 9/11 attack, all entry points to the US – airports and seaports – were told to reinforce strict security measures. Now, the US is going one step further – all entry and exit points must have a system to accurately identify travelers. That’s why Washington put up the US-VISIT program, a high-tech system designed to identify travelers, their destinations, and anything peculiar about them through a series of digital fingerprinting scans, digital cameras, and biometric and biographic readings. Apparently, the United States Homeland Security is spending billions of dollars to put up and develop state-of-the-art security systems. The US Congress has already allotted 330 million US dollars for the initial phase of this project, and is now allotting another 330 million dollars for operations. Even those who will leave from any American airport or seaport are required to go through the same procedure now.

Of course, the official line is that this system is being used to protect the identity of the traveler in case his documents are stolen or duplicated. But we all know the real score: American intelligence wants to track down potential terrorists and criminal elements. The system is now installed in more than 115 airports and 14 major seaports all over the United States. There’s very little chance for tourists and visitors to enter and leave the United States unnoticed and undocumented.

That’s not all. The US military is beefing up its presence in all key government installations. Stealth Commanche helicopters, armed to the teeth with three-barrel 20mm canons and Hellfire and Stinger missiles, hover over Washington DC, particularly the Pentagon and the White House.

In fact, Washington, DC is the most "watched" city in the world today. There are hidden digital cameras everywhere to monitor the movements of people. All telephone and cellular phone calls going in and out of the US are being closely monitored at random by high-tech satellite technology, going through a central monitoring system that analyzes any kind of "chatter".

Even the Internet is being monitored. An amnesty program was recently launched by the government to track down the whereabouts of more than 14 million illegal aliens in the US. The recent incident in Honolulu about the Filipino Telecom executives was nothing compared to what some Americans had to go through. Everyone who is served a subpoena by the FBI (which, by the way, is considered the most powerful institution in the United States today), and tries to leave will get tracked down for sure. There’s also a recent Executive Order from the White House stating that all foreign government officials with charges of corruption will not be allowed to enter the US. This is the reason why former president Joseph Estrada is having difficulty getting a US visa for his knee operation. In fact, the US has a bigger headache with the Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon who has been charged recently with corruption. This move is unprecedented in the history of the United States.

The threat on American lives is more real, especially after the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iraqis, however, do not like the Americans "meddling" in the private affairs of their state. According to a poll commissioned by Washington-based American Enterprise Institute where they interviewed 600 Iraqis in four key cities: over 65-percent of Iraqis want US troops to leave Iraq in less than a year while 25-percent want them to stay for two years; over 58-percent did not want US or UK’s support to set up a fair government in Iraq while 36-percent wanted it; 50-percent believe the US will hurt Iraq in the next five years, while 35-percent said the US could help. Because of this reality, American soldiers are now faced with "revenge attacks" from Iraqis who want them out of their country. This only made matters worse for Americans soldiers who are already paranoid to start with. On September 12 last year, their "siege mentality" pushed some American troops to fire thousands of bullets at a US-managed police force in Iraq. The accident killed eight Iraqi policemen. Incidents like this force Iraqis to believe that America is not there to help but to bully them to submission, even though the US was directly responsible for bringing down Saddam’s brutal regime. US presence in Iraq may only fuel more resistance, despite the billions of dollars spent by the US government in humanitarian and rebuilding efforts.

The recall of US Ambassador Frank Ricciardone to Washington, DC came as a surprise to many. The official line is that he will help in the installation of a democratic government in Iraq. But Washington insiders say this is highly unusual because the State Department has a number of experts on Iraq. In fairness to Frank Ricciardone, he is one of the best experts on Iraq. He speaks fluent Italian, Turkish, Arabic and French. His experience in the US Bureau of Intelligence and Research and as former Director of Foreign Service and many years spent in the Middle East puts him on top of the list of State Department officials who are familiar with Iraq. Whatever it is, having no US ambassador at this very critical time in the Philippines can only make people speculate that something is brewing. Frank sounded very sad when I spoke to him the night before he left. He said he’ll be back in time for the June 30 inauguration of whoever will be elected as President. But at the rate things are going in Iraq, and with the US elections coming up, it’s very unlikely he’ll be back any time soon.

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