Category: governance

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Why do they do it? A note on the passing of Robert Barros.

I recently heard that my old friend Robert “Bob” Barros died of cancer in Buenos Aires last month. Bob was part of my graduate student cohort in Political Science at the University of Chicago in the early 1980s, and we studied under the same group of neo-Gramscian/analytic Marxist “transitologists” who helped redefine and renovate the study of comparative politics world-wide.

Bob wrote a number of influential works, particularly Constitutionalism and Dictatorship, a study of the Pinochet regime’s attempts to provide a legal mantle to its rule (and aftermath); “Personalization and Institutional Constraints,” on the tension between personalist dictators and their attempts to institutionalise their rule; “On the Outside Looking In” and “Secrecy and Dictatorships,” which addressed the methodological and substantive problems in studying (opaque) authoritarian regimes.

Bob’s work received awards and international recognition. Yet rather than seek the material comfort and security of a tenured position at a US university, he chose to follow his love of the Southern Cone by moving to Argentina to work at a small university there. He eventually found a partner and had a daughter with her. The last time I saw him was in 2017 when my family and I visited my childhood and his adopted home town.

Rather than write an obituary for Bob I thought I would share an anecdote about him and how it reflects on intellectual enterprise and scholastic endeavour. It goes like this:

While in graduate school Bob, I and other students of Latin American society would regularly get together over coffees to ruminate about life in general and politics in particular. The students came from a cross section of disciples–history, sociology, anthropology, political science–all connected by the Centre for Latin American Studies. We shared classes together and that became the basis for many personal and professional friendships that continue to this day.

(As an aside, I never saw such gathering after I arrived to teach at a university in New Zealand. Instead, grad students headed to the campus pub for piss-ups and academic staff met for tea and gossiped in the departmental common room, then retreated to their offices and later homes. There was, in the ten years that I lasted in that environment, no sense of intellectual community that I could discern of, at least in what passed for political studies those days. From what I am told, the contrast between my grad student experience and those of today’s grad students at that NZ university remains the same).

During some of those Chicago Kaffeeklatschs we debated whether the Argentine and Chilean juntas kept records on the atrocities they committed–the number, ages and gender of those detained, tortured, and murdered, the ways in which they were hunted down and disposed of, the types of barbarity to which they were subjected to, the children that were removed from them, etc. By the late 1970s and early 1980s when we got together over coffee there was enough information leaking out of both countries to suggest that the abuses were both systematic and wide-scale, which suggested that given the military bureaucracies involved, records might be kept.

We asked these questions because our collective reading under our common mentors had shown that Nazis, Stalinists and assorted others before them kept records that incriminated them clearly and recorded for all posterity their culpability in committing crimes against humanity. But why would they do so? Why would they not just erase all evidence of their crimes rather than leave a probatory trail that could be followed? Knowing that what they were doing was extreme and that the shadow of the future would determine how their actions would be read by subsequent generations, and knowing that such record-keeping would deny them any possibility of plausible deniability down the road in the event that they did not prevail for all time and thereby get to write the historical narrative as they pleased, we wondered about the authoritarian mindset, the pathological and sociopath motivations, collective versus individual madness and assorted other possible sources for meticulous record-keeping by murderous authoritarians. We then speculated if the Southern Cone dictatorships shared these traits.

As it turns out, those conversations provided me with the basis for doing my own field research on “desaparecidos” (disappeared) in Argentina during the 1976-83 dictatorship, where I worked as a part of a group of human rights organisations trying to determine the fate of hundreds of men, women and children who went missing during those years. I knew that there must be records on them, and sure enough there mostly was. Later on, the questions from those conversations provided me with the primary tools for engaging in leadership analysis work for the US security community. For Bob, it turned into a large research project on authoritarian legal frameworks that became the basis of his Ph.D. dissertation that eventually became the book on Constitutionalism and Dictatorship.

What he discovered is that, apart from grossly backwards forms of personalist rule, the majority of authoritarians feel the need to provide a legal mantle around their behaviour. This is both a way of justifying their actions as well as setting both precedent and parameters for future regimes in terms of potential judicial action as well as justifying their own rule. Whether they believe that their actions are legitimate or not, authoritarians want to give them the appearance of legality. That way, should they ever be prosecuted for, say, human rights violations, they can argue that what they did was justified by law and constitutional precept.

This may seem retrospectively obvious to the casual observer, but Bob provided meticulously-research details of the thinking that goes into creating such legal and institutional edifices.

I will not try to further summarise Bob’s richly detailed works or the many implications and avenues of future research opened by them. I simply would urge readers with an interest in how authoritarians try to legitimate and institutionalise their rule to have a look at his writing.

Que descanses en paz, querido amigo!

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Thought for the day: On terrorist entities.

Now that he has been convicted and sentenced, including on a charge of committing a terrorist act (to which he admitted guilt), the Christchurch killer has been designated a “terrorist entity” by the government, using provisions of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. Designating the killer as a terrorist entity means that his assets can be seized, his (online/other) fans can be prosecuted as terrorist supporters and creating funding platforms for his legal appeals or other reasons are now punishable offenses. No GoFundMe pages for him, it seems, and racists will need to think twice and tread carefully when they sing his praises in any forum (which should make certain NZ rightwing blogs a bit more careful when moderating comments)..

This is a smart move on the government’s part. Although the intent of the 2002 legislation was clearly directed at Islamicists and the various fronts and support networks that aided their armed campaigns, the use of the legislation in its first instance–both in successfully charging the killer with a terrorist offence and in designating him as an “entity” so that others could not easily provide support or encouragement to him or other like-minded people–is a well executed step that in principle demonstrates that the law can be applied in a balanced fashion regardless of the ideological cause being espoused.

But the test of this balance remains to be seen. Imagine if Tame Iti and his ragtag assortment of activist friends had been charged and convicted of terrorist offences because of their Urewera shenanigans (which was the original intention of the Clark government). Would they have been designated as “entities” so that others of similar mind could not legally offer them or their various causes emotional and material support? What about environmental or animal rights militants, who are often labeled as “eco-terrorists” by rightwing politicians and media and the commercial outfits that the activists oppose? What about anti-1080 activists, who have shown a penchant for intimidation and violence? Or the Sea Shepard Society, which Japan has designated as a terrorist group (and pirates) because it has used direct action tactics against whalers in the Southern Ocean and elsewhere?

The old saying “one person’s terrorist is another person’s hero” comes to mind here. The label can be applied to anyone who, under the broad definition of “national security” in New Zealand legislation, causes “harm” to the national economy, social order or reputation regardless of whether they used violence in pursuit of their objectives. Accordingly, the use of the term “terrorist” has been stretched by politicians, media mouthpieces and corporate and/or interest groups to cover a variety of non-murderous people agitating for a wide range of causes.

That is why the use of the term “terrorist” and the designation of terrorist entities must be done under strict guidelines and in the most extreme of circumstances. While international designators are helpful–say, in labelling Daesh as a terrorist entity or NZ expats clearly identified as having participated in its genocidal activities as terrorists–it remains for the Crown to rigorously scrutinise the criteria by which people and groups are placed in such categories. That must be objective, factually-based and proportionate to the harm committed. Above all, it must not be left to the government of the day, less partisan opportunism rear its ugly head in the application of justice.

The Christchurch killer made it easy on the Crown–and on the security agencies that allowed him to slip under the radar when planning and preparing the attacks–when he pleaded guilty to all charges. The sentencing was heavy on drama and pathos but the outcome was foretold and inevitable. The post-sentencing designation of the killer as an entity was an adroit touch. But one wonders if that designation should have come from the court at the time of sentencing rather than from the government after the sentence was handed down.

In any event, the first successful application of terrorism charges and terrorist entity designations is a salutary milestone in NZ jurisprudence and security affairs, but it is not without its potentially negative implications in future circumstances. That should be the guiding (or better said, self-limiting) principle in any future consideration of their use.

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The MAGA pyramid.

This is a short reflection on the what of Trump’s support in the US two months out from the national elections. For weeks now I have been saying to friends here and in the US that whatever the result, there will be bloodshed in the streets. If Trump wins, his armed supporters will celebrate with open displays of armed intimidation, which will include assaults on those who may chose to oppose them in public spaces. If he loses they will go nuts and attack those who they believe had a hand in stealing the election, especially if he calls on them to defend his stolen victory against the usurping Democrat-led coloured hordes. It will not be pretty, and it has already started in Kenosha and Portland.

Although any sane person would believe that after four years the US simply cannot sustain more of the idiocy, corruption, self-serving greed, bigotry, racism and xenophobia that marks the Trump administration, the truth is that he can get re-elected. With his polling weighed down by the pandemic and its attendant economic downturn, he is pulling out all the stops, with his racist dog-whistling now a full-throated megaphoning disguised as a defence of law and order that is starting to resonate with white audiences unfamiliar or uncaring about the realities of (often militarised) policing in the country. His fear for “suburbia” is no more than a code word for “the coloured folk and commies are coming to harm you, ” with the entire GOP falling into line behind his ugly tropes.

Even though Joe Biden leads most polls and they are doing well in many congressional races, the Democrats need to be careful. Biden is a lacklustre candidate at best who along with the Democratic National Committee has turned his back on the liberal wing of the party in favour of yet more centrism (or better said, in favour of the corporate wing of the party). While a strong choice for Vice President, Kamala Harris is no socialist. The Clinton/Obama wing continues to dominate the campaign strategy, eclipsing Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and the progressives who rally behind the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Once again we are told that the election is too important to lose and that a safe pair of moderate hands palatable to middle class white folk is the best way to ensure that Drumpf is consigned to the ash bin of history.

That dynamic pushes the Democratic agenda onto two legs: Biden/Harris as the “not Trump/Pence” alternative; and identity politics. The reckoning appears to be that in a character match-up Biden/Harris win, and that the changing demographics of the US have reached the point to where appealing to non-whites (yet including white women and youth) is a key to success. It includes appeals to non-binary, liminal or non-heteronormative people. But for that to electorally resonate, the logic goes, the ticket must appear to be “reasonable,” that is, to be centrist and “unifying” in its appeal. Nothing about class can be voiced other than the usual platitudes about the hard-working working classes. Nothing that can be weaponised against it by the label “socialism” can be openly mentioned, such as universal health care and welfare reform, debt relief, etc. These unmentionables may resurface after the election in the event of a Democratic victory that includes winning back both houses of Congress (and assuming that civil war does not break out), but they are not part of the campaign platform because the corporate Democrats do not want to be painted as radicals intent on destroying the American (read: white) way of life–claims that were on ample display at the circus side show that was the Republican National Convention.

This poses dangers for the Democrats. In 2016 Steve Bannon correctly argued that all Trump had to do to win was to appeal to lower middle class and working class whites on economic and cultural grounds. It did not matter if he could not fulfil his campaign promises of economic re-birth. It did not matter if by “culture” his appeal was to retrograde sentiments about a past long gone and best forgotten. What mattered was that the Democrats would be too busy fighting amongst themselves along identity and ideological lines, and this would cause large numbers of would-be Democratic voters to abstain from doing so. Added to the fact that Hillary Clinton was successfully painted (with Russian help) as an out-of-touch elitist with murky connections to nefarious swamp figures at home and abroad (in a Trump projection if there ever was one), and Bannon was proven right. 45 percent of eligible voters did not vote in 2016, and of those most were young and/or non-whites who traditionally lean Democratic in national elections.

In 2020 the stakes are higher now that it is clear that institutions have not been able to contain or even restrain Trump in his sociopathic use of public office for private gain. But the Democratic strategy remains the same: appeal to the centre, try to be “nice,” call for unity, and pander to important interest groups that are not reducible to socio-economic class position. Trouble is, there no longer is a majority centre in the US, polarisation is a seismic fault line fracture in American life that transcends politics, and the fundamental unmentionable of socio-economic class and class inequalities fester like an undetected mestasizing malignancy within the US body politic that no amount of chest-beating mythologizing can cure.

More to the point, no matter what the contradictions of US society may be, Trump’s supporters are not interested in unity and centrist moderation. Some may not realise that they are on their economic and political deathbeds, but they all are itching for a fight and are willing to fight dirty in order to prevail even if it is for the last time. In fact, that is explicitly what the alt-Right notions of replacement and acceleration are all about: start the race war now while whites can still prevail, and accelerate extant social divisions in order to do so. The key to their success is to be organised and armed.

So who are the MAGA morons who are the reliable base that Trump can stoke with his scapegoating and fear-mongering? The answer resides in what we might call the MAGA pyramid.

At the bottom are those who are truly deplorable: racists, bigots, misogynists, xenophobes and assorted other a-holes of various stripes. They are not necessarily stupid or poor meth heads living in trailer parks. They are just evil at heart–true scumbags now encouraged and enabled by Trump to come out from under their rocks and revel in their moment in the light.

Many of them are armed.

Above them are the ignorant. These are people who by dint of lack of intellectual capacity, education, exposure to alternative views or ways of being and other consciousness-raising aspects of social life are easily manipulated and fooled. Some of them are also racist bigots and/or sexist xenophobes. They include the gullible who think that their industrial-era jobs are coming back. They are the fools who think that Covid is a hoax or just another flu, that masks are an assault on freedom and that the Clinton ran a paedophila ring out of the basement of a pizza parlour in Northwest Washington DC. These are the QAnon crowd, now mixed in with anti-vaxers, anti-fluoride and other tin hat-wearing bozos who are easily sold the snake oil about the Deep State, Rothchild’s, Trilateral Commission and other global networks run by Soros lackeys and supplicants. It includes true religious believers who think that somehow Trump, while flawed just like Abraham, is God’s chosen vessel for restoring the US to its position back up on that crumbling hill.

Many of them are armed.

At the top of the pyramid are the opportunists. They include Trump and his entourage, but also corporate actors who have taken advantage of the window of opportunity presented to them by his de-regulatory and tax-cut policies. It includes guns and weapons manufacturers trading on his bully penchant for believing that violence is strength. It includes crony capitalists making money off of projects such as the Wall. It is blessed by Evangelical leaders likeJerry Falwell Jr., he of unzipped pants and pool boy threesome “cuck” fame. It includes rightwing ideological extremists who seek to use his administration as a vehicle for their own nativist agendas (think Stephen Miller, Seb Gorka or the departed John Bolton and Bannon himself) and the “conservative” media ecosystem that feeds off the intellectual detritus that oozes from the GOP partisan swamp. That includes a slew of Republican politicians seeking to coattail on evil and venality for their own gain, even if that turns out to be a losing proposition if you are Paul Ryan or Jeff Sessions. It includes the modern equivalent of house negros (e.g. Herman Cain, of Covid death fame) who step and fetch for the master even in the face of his long history of racist contempt for everything that they represent in humanity. Less one think that I am being unkind to these modern day Toms, remember that they are descendants from what Trump described as s***hole countries” that are not like Norway, and share skin tones with people who Drumpf has declared to be traitors and thugs because they take a knee or to the streets to protest systemic racism in the land of the free.

Trump opportunists come in many guises and are both high- and low-brow in nature, but their single commonality is that they know that their collective fortunes rest on manipulating those below them in the pyramid. So long as there are suckers, dupes and rubes to play in the great con game known as the Trump administration, then there always will be players like those surrounding and supporting him who will be there to play the MAGA morons for all its worth.

They too are often armed. And when not armed themselves, part of the con is that they enable and ensure that those below them in the pyramid maintain unfettered access to guns–and listen to directions.

Some may rebut this trichotomy by saying that there are true believers in the Trump support pyramid. That may be true of deplorables like David Duke and ignorants such as assorted old war veterans ripe for the fleecing. But the vast majority of the opportunists understand that Trump’s one belief is in benefitting himself, and if they can do so as well by toadying up to him, then the more the merrier. This project is not about what he and they can do for the country. It is about what personal and political benefit they can extract from their access to federal power while the joyride lasts.

The question of the moment is whether that the mass violence that might break out the night of the elections (November 3), will in fact start earlier. The way things are going it seems that in the measure that Trump and his minions begin to sense the real possibility of defeat, the more they will appeal to their base–the bottom two thirds of the pyramid–to take direct action in order to prevent that from happening. If violent unrest becomes wide-spread then the stage is set for the use of Executive powers to declare a state of national emergency that permits the postponement of the elections. Thus a call to “patriots” to take up arms before the election in defence of “democracy” is entirely possible, and as we have seen in recent days, rightwing militias are ready and willing to heed the call. If that happens, then basic issues of civil-military relations and constitutional principles come into play, if not the integrity of the Union itself.

We must remember that for Trump and company the stakes are deeply personal. Many of these people, not just Trump himself, face the serious possibility of criminal prosecution once they leave office. Not just for what they may have done as private citizens before or on behalf of the current president, but for using their public offices for private gain. As many have pointed out, the parallels and ties between organised crime, the Trump business empire and the Trump administration are clear and tight. The network of Trump-connected criminal opportunists may therefore be very wide, so there is strong incentive for them to collectively do everything in their power while in office to forestall and prevent liability down the road. Four more years may buy them that.

The issue is whether a shift in the political sands will bury the pyramid of support that they need for that to happen. One thing is certain: the Trump administration has already begun digging its defences.

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Research Link: the 42 Group Global Strategic Report Q1-2/2020.

I have been fortunate enough to receive regular reports from the 42 Group, a defence and security-focused collection of youngish people whose purpose is to provide independent strategic analysis to policy makers and the NZ public. Their work is very good.

I asked the person who sends me their reports if it was Ok to republish the latest report here. He agreed, so here it is.

42-Group-Global-Strategic-Report-Q1-Q2-2020-v1.0-Compressed-Signed-1
Download
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An indictment by another name.

After I noticed that my name had been taken yet again in vain by my friendly antagonist Tom Hunter over at No Minister, I went over to see what the fuss was about. Nothing much, but then I discovered a post about the Operation Burnham Inquiry by Psycho Milt. I made a comment (now several comments) in response, then decided to edit the original comment, add a few things and make it a short post here that outlines what to me is the bottom line of that report. Here it is:

As the old saying goes, “the original sin was bad, but the cover up was worse.” Had the NZDF simply come out after the 2010 engagement and said that there were civilian casualties resultant from the “fog of war” in a nighttime SAS operation designed to kill or capture people responsible for attacks on NZDF patrols in Bamiyan that resulted in several NZDF deaths, I bet that the majority of the NZ public would have accepted that war sucks and bad things inadvertently happen. Then, when Jon Stephenson’s first story on Operation Burnham came out it would not have caused such a stir because there would not have been a glaring gap between his account and that of the NZDF (Nicky Hagar got involved later and took primary credit for the book “Hit and Run” although most of it was researched and written by Stephenson–-Hagar never set foot in Afghanistan).

Although the Royal Commission (RC) sugar-coated it, the report is absolutely damning of the SAS and Army leaders of the time (and not the troops on the ground that night, although issues regarding the TAC (Tactical Air Controller) and SAS mission commander’s understanding of the Rules of Engagement (ROE) were not addressed in the public version of the report). The testimony of several officers taken under oath was labeled as not credible by the Commissioners. The RC Report states that no institutional cover-up was at play, but that is laughable in light of what it says about the testimony of most of the senior officials involved. In other words, this was an institutional cover-up by another name, and the name given to the process instead of coverup or whitewash was shoddy records-keeping and miscommunication on top of bad memories. This pushes the onus of responsibility onto individuals rather than the military as an institution. And for those individuals, I guess “incompetent” is a better mark on one’s service record than “liar.”

How those records were lost or mislaid, and whether those bad memories were a product of in-group cohesion or contempt for the process is a matter of conjecture. What is not is that civilians were killed and at least one suspect handed over to Afghan forces to be tortured, both breaches that under international law must be investigated. What is now known is that the possibility of casualties and the transfer of a Taliban suspect to ADF units known for torture was known immediately by the NZDF chain of command and NZ intelligence services attached to them, yet until late in the Inquiry, the NZDF admitted to neither. There is much more by way of deceitful and devious NZDF behaviour, but let’s just come out and say that uniformed officers lied to their civilian superiors for years after the operation and then some lied under oath at the Inquiry. The National government at the time Operation Burnham took place and in the years immediately afterwards may not have wanted to hear the truth in any event and so accepted what they were (not) told by the NZDF brass at face value, but the RC was keen to hear the unvarnished details.

It took them several years and $NZ 7 million of taxpayer money to find out. It remains to be seen what the Labour government will do with the RC Report’s findings and recommendations, but one thing is certain: it going to wait until well after the election to do anything. And there is one other irony in all of this. At the same time that the NZDF was engaged in its campaign of obfuscation and deflection regarding the events of 2010, Transparency International gave it very hight marks for command integrity, transparency and accountability. These marks were the average of scores provided by a select group of specifically chosen “experts” on defense and security. I know because I was one of them and I pointedly gave low marks when it came to exactly these three criteria, so can only assume that my scores were discounted when calculating the overall average. But who gave them such high across-the-board scores if it mine were not included, and what were they thinking?

In any event I urge readers to read Chapters 2 and 12 of the Report, which address issues of civilian control of the military and ministerial accountability to Parliament in a Westminster-style democracy. The RC found that the actions of the NZDF leadership (specifically, misleading, stonewalling, whitewashing and misrepresenting what happened to the civilian political leadership and ministers of the day) wilfully undermined both fundamental democratic principles.

Everything else is gloss.

I do not expect that much will change given the delicacy of the report’s language and the fact that all of those responsible for the worst offences are retired (one only resigned three months ago when the draft report came out and his statements were found to be particularly unbelievable to the point of possible perjury). But it is now on official record that the NZDF has a culture of playing loose with the truth and disrespect for the constitutional principles underpinning its role in society. If implemented, perhaps the recommendation to create an independent Inspector General of Defense may help refocus NZDF attention on those principles. We shall see.

No matter what one may think of Hagar and Stephenson, in the end, minor errors and some hyperbole aside, they were vindicated. That is evident in the Report, which states that the book “Hit and Run” performed a valuable public service by exposing some ugly truths about how the NZDF operates, not so much in the field (although there were some issues identified there as well), but in its interaction with the political class and the larger society which it ostensibly serves.

That is the bottom line.

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Media Link: “A View from Afar” podcast series launch.

Hosted by Selwyn Manning and EveningReport.nz, ” A View from Afar” is a podcast series dedicated to exploring current affairs, international relations, political events and military-security issues from somewhat uncommon angles. In this first episode we continue the coverage of the Portland protests first offered on these pages. The conversation can be found here or here.

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A turn to darkness.

US federal agents (FPS, ICE, DEA, TSA and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP)) in camouflage uniforms without identification and carrying military weapons, serving under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security by authority of an Executive Order issued by the president, are detaining and removing unarmed and non-violent protestors from Portland streets in unmarked vans. This includes detaining and removing people well away from federal property and protest locations, which is ostensibly the reason for their deputisation and deployment. DHS says it will not only continue to use these agents in Portland but expand their use in other (Democratic governed) cities and states.

The legal justification for this unprecedented move is that the Federal Protective Service (FPS) is responsible for protecting federal property such as court houses, post offices, local branches of federal agencies (say, US Park Service) and even monuments. It can request support from other federal security agencies when needed. The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has nation-wide jurisdiction. CBP has jurisdiction within 100 miles of any border, and Portland is located approximately 80 miles from the Pacific coast. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency also has nation-wide jurisdiction. The Transportation Security Administration has nation-wide jurisdiction at transportation hubs. CBP and ICE are notorious for harbouring zealous MAGA partisans in their ranks, and the federal forces deployed to Portland are not indigenous to Oregon, so are, in their minds, operating in an “alien” hostile environment. Under the Executive Order, ICE, DEA, TSA and CBP are operating in support of the FPS in Portland. The DHS is the parent department for all of these agencies, and maintains that although the armed officers and the vehicles they are using in their operations lack overt forms of identification, they have discrete identifiers that satisfy legal requirements.

Although the Oregon governor and Portland mayor object to the deployment of federal agents in this capacity, they have no power under federal or state to stop it. What this amounts to is a federal takeover of local law enforcement duties without the agreement of the duly constituted authorities of the jurisdiction in which federal forces are deployed, and without the majority consent of the people who live in that jurisdiction.

For those of us who remember the Argentine “dirty war” and the role of unidentified men in unmarked Ford Falcons in the “disappearance” (desaparicion) of thousands of people, this is a chilling and sinister development. It is particularly so because unlike Argentina there are no armed guerrilla groups seriously challenging government authority in Portland or elsewhere, especially from the Left. For all the rightwing talk of Antifa being a threat, they are neither heavily armed or organised as effective guerrilla fighting units. Instead, what irregular militias exist in the US today are predominately rightwing supporters of the president and his political project who reject government authority because it is ostensibly part of the “Deep State” and who have histories of violence in support of their beliefs.

Here there is another parallel with the Argentine “dirty war.” In the years leading up and then during the early days of the dictatorship that came to be known as the “Process” (Proceso), rightwing death squads roamed the country with impunity, targeting “subversives” and other “undesirables” with murderous vigilante justice. The death squads were both a complement to and a justification for the official repression meted out by the unidentified men in Ford Falcons, whose uniforms were grey suits and black ties. After all, with murderous bands of unidentified armed men stalking the streets, the State needed to step in to restore order.

In Portland and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest there is a very active alt-Right/white supremacist community that is armed and has a history of street level violence. They are particularly active in Portland, and are widely believed to have sympathisers within the Portland police, who in turn have shown a disturbing propensity to resort to violent crowd control methods even when confronted wth peaceful protests. Now, the Portland police and these rightwing militias have a third arm in the guise of the unidentifiable federal security forces being deployed in that city. The federal forces and Portland police may have different legal status than the rightwing extremists, but their objectives vis a vis BLM and other peaceful protests are the same: brute intimidation and suppression by force.

Put in broader terms, the rule of law is disappearing in parts of the US because, although they cloak themselves in a legal mantle, those who enforce the law no longer believe in it and prefer to ally with violent non-state groups who share a similar ideological agenda. That mindset is now evident at the federal level.

A tipping point is rapidly approaching.